The Emma Harte 7-Book Collection: A Woman of Substance, Hold the Dream, To Be the Best, Emma’s Secret, Unexpected Blessings, Just Rewards, Breaking the Rules

‘Ten to be exact. However, I don’t think my relationship with Dolly is the issue right now, is it?’

‘No, it’s not.’ Emma leaned forward intently. ‘How does she know so much about the McGills?’

‘She used to be Bruce McGill’s mistress several years ago.’

‘Philandering seems to be a family characteristic!’ Emma exclaimed contemptuously. ‘What else did she tell you? I might as well know all the details.’

‘Not much, really. Mostly Dolly talked about their wealth and their power. Actually, she didn’t seem to have much information about Paul’s wife or his son. In fact, I rather got the impression there was a bit of mystery about the wife. Dolly said something about Paul always appearing alone in public, even in Sydney before the war, and she indicated that he is a—’ Frank stopped short, and looked down at his drink.

‘A what?’

Frank cleared his throat. ‘Well, if you must know, Dolly implied he is a womanizer.’

‘I’m not surprised, Frank. Don’t be upset you told me.’

Frank tossed down the brandy. ‘I’m not upset. I’m just angry that you have been hurt.’ He rose and crossed to the console, returning with the bottles of cognac and champagne. He filled Emma’s empty glass and said, ‘I always liked Paul. I didn’t think he was such a bastard. Just goes to show you how wrong one can be in life. Why don’t you tell me about it, Emma? It sometimes helps to unburden yourself.’

Emma smiled grimly. ‘I doubt it. But I’ll tell you anything you want to know, Frank. Perhaps you can explain his behaviour to me.’

As Emma confided in Frank she slowly drank the whole bottle of champagne and for the first time in her life she deliberately got drunk. When Winston appeared in the doorway an hour later he stared at her in surprise. ‘You’re three sheets to the wind, Emma!’ he cried, moving with unusual swiftness across the floor.

Emma lifted the glass and waved it in the air, spilling half of the champagne. ‘Splishe the brashemain. I mean splishe the mainbrashe,’ she slurred, and hiccuped.

‘How could you let her get so pie-eyed, Frank!’ Winston exploded in an accusatory tone. He regarded Emma reclining languorously on the sofa, her eyes half closed, her mouth twitching with silent laughter. ‘She’ll have some head tomorrow,’ he muttered crossly.

‘So what? Don’t be so harsh, Winston,’ Frank said quietly. ‘For once in her life I think she really needed to let her hair down.’

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE (#ulink_46a843c1-31b2-5cbc-9bb2-0da4fae96341)

Edwin Fairley’s face was grim and there was a cold anger in his eyes as he said, ‘You put the noose around your neck all by yourself, Gerald. There is absolutely nothing I can do to help you.’

Gerald gaped at his brother in stupefaction. His sly black eyes, narrowing in the bloated face, appeared smaller and more evil than ever. ‘Are you telling me that Procter and Procter are really within their legal rights? That they can take over the mills just like that?’ he asked fearfully.

‘Yes, I’m afraid I am, Gerald. A noncontestable note is just that – noncontestable. And since you attached the deeds as collateral you don’t have a leg to stand on if you can’t pay off the note. That was most foolhardy. Why did you do it?’

‘I needed the money,’ Gerald muttered, unable to meet Edwin’s direct stare.

‘To pay off your blasted gambling debts! I know that. I mean, why did you hand over the deeds to the mills without seeking legal advice first? If not from me, at least from the family solicitor.’

‘There would have been no point to that. I needed the money desperately. I had nowhere else to go and those were the only terms acceptable to Proctor and Procter. My talking to the family solicitor wouldn’t have changed their minds. I had no option, and anyway I thought Alan would be reasonable. Give me time to repay the loan.’ A bitter look slid on to Gerald’s face. ‘As it is, Alan Procter has turned on me. He’s a bloody thief! He’s stolen my mills!’

‘Don’t be ridiculous, Gerald,’ Edwin countered impatiently, staggered at his brother’s lack of business acumen. ‘Alan hasn’t stolen the mills. You handed them to him on a plate. I’m appalled by your lack of foresight. Furthermore, from what you have just told me, Alan has been very understanding. The note was for six months. It’s been extended three times, for an additional period of eight months all together. I would say he has been exceptionally considerate under the circumstances. After all, it was a company loan. Alan has a board of directors to answer to.’

Gerald dropped his head in his hands, overcome as always by self-pity. After a few minutes he looked up and said in a demanding voice, ‘You have to lend me the money, Edwin.’

Edwin sat bolt upright on the Chesterfield and stared at Gerald in amazement. ‘Are you joking! I don’t have two hundred thousand pounds, plus the interest due. You must be mad to think I do.’

‘Father left you a trust, Edwin. You must have it. You don’t want to help me out of a jam,’ Gerald whined.

‘The income from my trust is meagre and you know it!’ Edwin cried, infuriated. ‘Father lived lavishly all of his life and spent lavishly, particularly after he married Aunt Olivia. What he left me was negligible compared to what you received, and you’ve thrown most of it down the drain.’ Edwin glared at Gerald with disdain. He then said, ‘Besides, as little as it is, I need the income from the trust. I have a wife and son to provide for and a household to maintain.’

‘But you’re doing well in your law practice—’

‘Yes, but not well enough to support your bad habits!’ Edwin snapped peremptorily.

‘Father left you the majority of his shares in the Yorkshire Morning Gazette. You could borrow against them,’ Gerald said, scowling at his brother.

‘I could, but I have no intentions of doing so. I promised Father I would hold on to them and take an active interest in the newspaper and I will not renege on my promise,’ Edwin responded with firmness. ‘I can’t understand how you could get yourself into such a predicament—’

‘Don’t start giving me another bloody lecture!’ Gerald shouted, lumbering out of the chair. He began to pace up and down the library, his cringing fear palpable.

He is a coward and a fool, Edwin thought, scrutinizing his brother. Gerald’s gluttony had only increased over the years and he was now elephantine and gross in his ugliness, and the dissipation of his life was revealed on his ravaged face. To Edwin, Gerald appeared obscene and he looked away in revulsion.

Gerald plodded over to the black-walnut chest and poured himself a large neat whiskey. ‘I don’t suppose you want a drink, do you?’ he mumbled without looking around.

‘No, thank you,’ Edwin snapped. ‘I have to be going.’

Seating himself opposite Edwin, Gerald pinned his crafty eyes on him. ‘You believe yourself to be the brain in the family, so you tell me what to do, brother,’ he said scornfully.

‘Listen to me, Gerald. Things could be worse for you. After all, you still own the mill here in Fairley and the brickyard. I suggest you tighten your belt, cut down on personal expenditures, stop gambling, and retrench in every way. Devote your attention to the one mill you still have. I don’t know much about the woollen business, but only a fool could fail to realize the cloth trade is booming. Actually, I don’t understand why the Fairley mill isn’t going better. Surely you can turn it around.’

Always full of self-justification, Gerald countered in a defensive tone, ‘Things are different than they were in Father’s day. You don’t know the burdens I have to carry. There’s a hell of a lot more competition now, Edwin. Thompson’s makes the same cloth as us and they’ve swiped many of my customers of late. So has your bloody Emma Harte. She owns Layton’s mill, in case you didn’t know, and she’s giving me a run for my money as well. If the truth be known, she helped to ruin me. My problems started when she stole Ben Andrews and some of the best workers away from Thompson’s in 1914.’ Gerald’s voice echoed with invective as he declared, ‘Yes, your bloody whore has been a thorn in my side for a long time. The bloody little whoring bitch. She’s—’

‘Don’t let me hear you call Emma a whore ever again! Do you hear me, you filthy bastard!’ Edwin cried, clenching his hands and leaning forward threateningly. His face had whitened and his eyes blazed.

Gerald grinned derisively. ‘Still carrying the torch for the servant girl, eh, Edwin? Whatever would the Lady Jane say if she knew you had an itch in your crotch for that bit of working-class—’

‘That’s enough, you rotten swine!’ Edwin shouted, springing up. It took all of his self-control to restrain himself from hitting Gerald in the face. ‘I drove over to Fairley with the best of intentions, hoping to help you with legal advice. I did not come to listen to your obscenities about Emma,’ he said furiously. He glowered at Gerald and his contempt was so clearly written on his face Gerald shrank back in the chair. Edwin went on, ‘I happen to be very proud of Emma. She’s made something of herself and she’s a damned sight better than you. You – you – piece of scum!’ Edwin stepped away from his brother abruptly, conscious that he was prepared to inflict bodily damage on him if further provoked. ‘Goodbye. You won’t be seeing me for a long time.’

Gerald taunted, ‘You’re too transparent, Edwin. So Emma Harte’s in your blood, is she? My, my my! She must have something sweet between her legs to hold your interest all these years. Tried to make it with her myself once when I found her living in Armley—’

‘You did what!’ Edwin, who was halfway to the door, spun around and shot across the library. He lept at Gerald, clutched his lapels, and shook him fiercely, his rage exploding. ‘If you so much as rest your eyes on Emma I will kill you! Kill you! I swear to God I will!’ Edwin’s face, so close to his brother’s, was twisted with a mixture of loathing and deadly intent, and this registered forcibly with Gerald, who flinched, suddenly afraid.

Edwin let go of Gerald’s lapels and wiped his hands on his trouser legs with the utmost distaste, his lip curling. ‘I don’t want to soil myself by touching you,’ he hissed. ‘You are a foul specimen of humanity! You are contemptible!’ He turned on his heel and walked out, his limbs shaking, his head spinning with unbridled hatred and disgust.

CHAPTER FIFTY (#ulink_5f65a96d-d116-5258-a5de-ca64b556b8d5)

Emma stepped out of her shoes, took off the tailored black dress she always wore at the store, removed her jewellery, and placed it all on the dressing table. Discarding her underwear, she slipped into the silk robe the maid had put out for her and hurried into her bathroom.

As she stood in front of the oval gilt-framed mirror tying a chiffon scarf around her recently bobbed hair, she smiled as she always did when she entered this particular room in her new mansion. It was too opulent by far, and when Blackie had shown her the original plans for its remodelling she had told him it looked like a cross between the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles and a courtesan’s boudoir. Not that she had ever seen anything like the latter – only the former, when she and Arthur Ainsley had gone to Paris on their honeymoon three years before. Over her mild protestations that it was excessively grand, Blackie had insisted on executing the design intact, exhorting her to trust his judgement. To her amazement, she had actually liked the bathroom when he had finally completed the overall décor, deriving a certain sensuous satisfaction from its luxurious appointments.

The walls were lined with shell-pink marble, intersected with wide panels of mirror running from the floor to the ceiling for an infinity of endless reflections. The domed ceiling was a pale turquoise blue across which cavorted pink dolphins and sea urchins intertwined with delicate green tendrils of seaweed and vivid pink and mauve sea anemones. The turquoise oval tub was sunk into the pink marble floor and two leaping silver dolphins, each one foot in height, stood sentinel at the top and bottom, and the taps were miniature silver dolphins. On a narrow mirrored console table reposed innumerable bottles of French perfumes and Floris bath oils and silver-topped crystal pots for her creams and lotions. Blackie had also included a chaise-longue upholstered in rose silk at one end, along with a mirror-and-glass Art Deco coffee table. At the other side of the chaise a huge garden basket painted pink overflowed with all the latest fashion and illustrated magazines and financial journals. The ambiance was feminine, and this one room in the house had become Emma’s haven, a place of repose where she could retreat to unwind after her busy days at the store.

Emma poured Floris gardenia bath oil into the water the maid had already drawn and, removing her robe, she stepped into the tub. She stretched out her long legs, luxuriating in the heavily scented water, her thoughts turning to the supper dance she was giving that evening. Since her marriage to Arthur they had entertained on an increasingly lavish scale, yet this was undoubtedly the most elaborate social event she had planned to date and she was looking forward to it. The dance was to celebrate Frank’s engagement to Natalie Stewart, the daughter of a prominent London politician, a match Emma had approved of from the beginning and which she had enthusiastically helped to foster. Apart from the fact that Natalie was a lovely young woman, Emma had been relieved to see her brother released from Dolly Mosten’s clutches. Natalie was a lady to the manner born, and if her exquisite blonde beauty seemed somewhat delicate, Emma knew it belied a stalwart heart and a backbone of steel. Increasingly she reminded Emma of her beloved Laura.

Emma had spared no expense on the dance, determined to do justice to Frank’s engagement. The house looked magnificent, each one of the spacious reception rooms resplendent with fine antiques and paintings, filled with colour and banked with masses of spring flowers. Since the elegant mansion was three times as large as the house she had formerly owned in Armley, it lent itself to entertaining in the grand manner and Emma had become a charming hostess whose spontaneous grace put her guests at ease.

The catering department of Harte’s had provided a superb supper and the dishes had been arranged on a long buffet table in the formal dining room. Emma considered the menu she had chosen. These were two soups, jellied consommé and cream of watercress served in cups, salmon mousse, smoked salmon with capers and lemon wedges, lobster patties, mayonnaise of turbot, beef Wellington, turban of chicken and tongue, quenelles of pheasant, roasted spring lamb with mint sauce, tomatoes à la tartare, French beans, and pomme soufflé. The desserts were baba au rhum, compôte of fruit, trifle, parfait, apricot snow, and almond cake, and there was an assortment of drinks, including champagne, claret cup, white and red wines, cider, fruit juices, coffee, and tea. The selection was wide enough to appeal to the most discerning or pernickety of palates, Emma decided, and made a mental note to congratulate the chefs at Harte’s, who had surpassed themselves for the occasion.