Sup With The Devil

But there had been no clues that he wanted Hunters Court, she thought bitterly. That had been a well-kept secret, even though he must have had architects and surveyors working on the project even before the estate had been put on the market if the volume of material they had produced was anything to go by. She had sat up the greater part of the previous night reading it, trying and failing to come to terms with what was planned. The house itself would survive, in spite of internal alterations to extend the dining room, and provide at least two bars. But the stables and outbuildings would vanish, to be rebuilt as mews-style cottages to be offered for sale on a time-share basis. The sunken garden would disappear too, and be replaced by a swimming pool. The small park would be transformed into a nine-hole golf course, and the walled rose garden would turn into tennis courts.

On paper, it did not sound so bad, but Courtney had seen glossy brochures advertising other projects in which Monty Pallister had been involved. A quick financial return rather than quality seemed to be the underlying principle, and Courtney could not bear to think of the house which had been her home for seventeen years being sacrificed to that. It was a foolish thought—as if stones and mortar could bleed—but last night as she’d read the reports and looked at the plans and sketches, she hadn’t felt foolish at all, just blazingly angry.

This morning, she’d tried to explain to Robin how she felt, but she’d known from the start that it was useless. He didn’t want to understand.

All he knew was that at tomorrow’s auction he would be bidding for Hunters Court on behalf of the consortium, and just for a while he could pretend that he was buying it back for himself, his birthright. The reality, Courtney thought, would be very different, but then a sense of reality was not Robin’s strong point, and never had been.

He’d complained that his job at Carteret’s was a dead end, but Courtney felt that if he’d settled down to it, Philip Carteret would have seen that he was properly rewarded. As it was, over the past weeks Robin had hardly been there, and she had no idea what excuses he made for his absences, if he even bothered.

Now, she said quietly, ‘Rob, why did you never tell me what was going on?’

He shrugged, ‘I was going to tell you today, as a matter of fact, only old FitzHugh beat me to it. How the hell did he find out, I’d like to know?’

She shook her head. ‘This is a small place. A rumour doesn’t take long to get round. And he’s a friend of Frank Mottram the auctioneer. He probably mentioned that you were interested. Anyway, what does it matter? They don’t know the truth.’

She’d been on her way home from the office early yesterday because the man she worked for was going away to a conference, and had offered her a few days off while he was away to compensate for a lot of extra work she’d done recently. She had agreed with pleasure. She wanted to decorate her bedroom, and she’d bought the paper and paint several weeks before. She had stopped at the village store to buy some bread, and Colonel FitzHugh had just been coming out. He had paused smilingly.

‘Well, my dear, this is great news! The Lincolns belong at Hunters Court, and I wish Rob every success at the auction. I don’t imagine he’ll have much competition—certainly not from local people anyway.’

Courtney had said something in reply, and driven straight home, the bread forgotten. Just for a while, she had enjoyed her fantasies too. Rob was going to buy Hunters Court. They would be home again. Father could leave the nursing home at last, and come to live with them again. But the euphoria was only momentary. Then the questions began. Where was Rob getting the money? She knew that, through Monty Pallister, he had been dabbling in the Stock Market, but surely he hadn’t made enough through his transactions to meet even the quite modest reserve the Hallorans had placed on Hunters Court. Or had Uncle Philip by some miracle offered to lend him the money? It didn’t seem likely. Philip Carteret was a shrewd financier, who had once described Hunters Court and houses like it as ‘albatrosses’. He and James Lincoln had almost quarrelled over it.

She had intended to phone Rob at Carteret’s, but she didn’t have to, because he was there at home. He’d been telephoning, as it happened. He was just replacing the receiver as she walked in, and looking incredibly pleased with himself.

Courtney had stood for a long moment looking at him. She felt frightened suddenly, although she didn’t know why.

She said, ‘Colonel FitzHugh tells me you’re going to bid for Hunters Court at the auction on Friday. It can’t be true. We—we can’t afford it. You know that.’

Rob said, ‘We don’t have to.’ There was a kind of triumph in his voice. ‘Sister dear, we’re going to have all the comforts of home—and none of the expense. It’s all fixed.’

He had told her the whole story there and then, going out to the car and bringing in the briefcase full of files and plans that she had never seen before.

She had listened to him numbly, wondering how he could bear to refer to Hunters Court in such terms, her emotions in shock, rejecting every persuasive phrase as it fell from his lips.

‘A country club—leisure facilities—sauna and gym—a first class restaurant.’ His voice had risen with excitement, his hands gesticulating as he sketched out the fate Monty Pallister had designed for Hunters Court.

Her immediate reaction had been, ‘It will never work. Local people don’t go in for that sort of thing.’

He looked impatient. ‘It won’t just be for locals. Haven’t you been listening? The people who buy the cottages will use it mainly, although it will be open to outsiders. Monty opened a similar place in the southwest two years ago. It’s been incredibly successful, and this will be too. He has all the right contacts.’

Courtney’s mouth moved stiffly. ‘And he has you.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ He had glared at her.

‘So this is what he wanted. You—to act as front man for him. I suppose he thought if the word got out that he wanted the estate, the price would go sky-high.’

‘Well, naturally. And he has business rivals. He doesn’t want any of them getting ahead of him.’

‘Oh, naturally,’ Courtney said bitterly.

They had argued all evening, and she’d sat up for most of the night going through the file over and over again, trying to derive some crumb of comfort, but in vain.

And it looked no better in the pallid sunlight of a February morning.

She said, ‘What are you going to tell Daddy?’

‘I’ve already told him.’ Another flash of triumph.

She looked at him helplessly. ‘And how did he react.’

Robin shrugged. ‘Generally in favour. He knows what it will mean for all of us. And he’ll get out of that damned nursing home. On the salary I’ll be getting for managing the country club, I can afford a live-in nurse for him.’

Courtney said drily, ‘It all sounds too good to be true.’ And it did. What did Rob know about managing anything that could justify the kind of salary he was talking about? ‘And when you say “all of us”, please don’t include me. I don’t want any part of this, or anything else that Monty Pallister has dreamed up.’

He gave her an impatient look. ‘Don’t be a fool! Of course you’re included. There’ll be plenty of secretarial work once it gets started—reception too, if you fancy it.’

‘The hostess with the mostest,’ Courtney said ironically. ‘But I don’t fancy it, Rob. I don’t want any of it. I like my job, and I’ll stick to that, thanks.’

He stared at her. ‘You can’t be serious!’

‘What makes you think that?’ She gave him a straight glance. ‘I’d have been against this scheme if a complete stranger had been involved, and the fact that it’s you makes no difference at all. When the news gets out locally, everyone will be against you. Don’t you realise that?’

He said savagely, ‘If you think I’m going to stay a loser all my life just to please the neighbours, then you can think again. Where were they when we needed them?’

‘That’s not fair,’ said Courtney in a low voice. ‘We’ve received a lot of kindness—this cottage, for example. And although he’s not a neighbour, Uncle Philip …’

‘Uncle Philip!’ Robin was derisive. ‘You sound like a child! I suppose if Geoffrey Devereux were to walk in through that door now, you’d call him “Uncle” too.’

Courtney sighed. ‘I probably would at that. I can’t just shake off the habit of a lifetime. And he always was like an uncle to us, after all.’

There was a trace of malice in Robin’s smile. ‘And his nephew who was such a constant visitor in the old days. How would you greet him? As Cousin Blair?’

For a long bleak moment a disturbing image rose in Courtney’s mind—a lean, tanned face cast in bitter lines, hard hazel eyes, glittering with anger and contempt, and on one high cheekbone, a trickle of blood. Just for that moment it was as if Robin’s words had evoked him, and he was there in the room, a physical presence rather than a figment of her imagination. And just for that moment she was back in the study at Hunters Court, her father slumped greyfaced in the chair beside her, while she screamed, ‘Get out of here! Get out! Leave us alone. Haven’t you done enough harm? Can’t you see he’s ill?’

And his voice—not the faintly amused drawl she had always hated, but harsh and raw. ‘He deserves to be ill—and more.’

It had sounded like a curse, as if he was predicting some future vengeance, and it had frightened her. And when James Lincoln had collapsed with his first stroke not long afterwards, she had always remembered.

She controlled a shiver. Why had Robin had to remind her of him now? It was a long time since she’d allowed herself to think of Blair Devereux.

Aloud she said coolly, ‘I think not. I was never prepared to go to those lengths, even in the old days. I dislike Blair Devereux more than I do your friend Mr Pallister, and that’s saying something.’

It had always been there, she thought, ever since Blair had come into their lives. Not so much dislike at first as a bewildered resentment. Geoffrey Devereux had been a childless widower, and over the years he had become a close part of the family. He came and went at Hunters Court as if it was his own home, and Courtney in particular saw him as a surrogate uncle.

Blair’s arrival on the scene had been a shock and a disappointment. She’d been used to thinking of Uncle Geoffrey as being alone in the world, and now it seemed he had a nephew with a prior claim on his time and attention, because Blair’s parents were dead.

If he’d been a child like herself, she could have understood, perhaps, but he was already a man, ten years older than herself, seven years older than Robin. An attractive man, she had come unwillingly to realise as time passed, tall and slim with thick tawny hair which curled slightly, and hazel eyes mocking under heavy lids.

When Blair was at Hunters Court, together with her father and Geoffrey Devereux, he seemed to complete a charmed circle from which she and Robin were excluded as children. Courtney didn’t want to feel excluded. Because she and her brother were at boarding school, their time at Hunters Court was limited, and Blair’s visits during the holidays always seemed to cast a shadow over her happiness.