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  The member of staff who had been told to pack some buffet remains for a small boy had arranged cakes and savouries attractively. It could have been a window centrepiece, and Ruth gasped, and in the connecting doorway that led to his bedroom William asked, 'Is it for me? Can I see it?'

  He was yawning and bleary-eyed, but he had heard the bit about 'William's take-home party,' so he was allowed one sausage roll and then tucked firmly back into bed. Ruth switched off her light as Carly went and Carly went out like a light the moment her head touched the pillow.

  She woke a few minutes before she had to get up, and lay there reliving the party. There was plenty more to tell Ruth: that Madame Corbe thought she looked like Antoinette, that Roland had a brother.

  Where had Carly seen Liam Sherrard? He was familiar, in a nightmarish way. She felt she should know him, but she couldn't put a background to him. It was only the face she remembered, and she concentrated on that so fiercely that her head started to ache.

  She got up and went to the bathroom and washed her face in cold water and thought, I don't need to be scared of him, he can't do anything that can really hurt me. If he puts Roland off me it won't break my heart, because my heart isn't involved with Roland. I just like him, and anyway, he's away before the end of the week.

  This morning she was confident that Roland would come tonight, and she would put Liam right out of her mind. The bruises on her shoulder were lighter than she'd expected, they would soon fade, so there was no reason for this pounding surge of panic that rose up in her every time she 'saw' Liam Sherrard's face.

  She didn't mention him to Ruth. During their usual rush at breakfast time Ruth asked, gulping her coffee, 'Was it really like you said last night?'

  'Just like I said,' said Carly.

  'Wow!' said Ruth. 'Well, I can't wait to meet the millionaire.'

  The day was busy, there wasn't much chance for chatting, and when Ruth left Carly, to collect William from school, they had had no further discussion about last night. Carly was looking forward to seeing Roland again. She was also prepared to tell him about Gerald, although she wasn't looking forward to it. It was a long time since she had had to dwell on it, and it was of course no business whatever of Roland's; except to set the record straight if brother Liam had come out with a biased version.

  The shop was empty a few minutes before closing time, and Carly was wondering whether to shut and go home and wash her hair in the extra ten minutes, when the phone rang. It was Ruth, and her voice sounded odd, a sort of hissing whisper, 'He's here?

  'Who is?'

  'Your date.' Half past seven, he'd said, and it wasn't yet half past-five. This was more than over-eager, it was very inconvenient. Or perhaps he'd come to explain why he couldn't manage their dinner after all. 'Give him a cup of tea,' said Carly, 'and I'll be right with you.'

  Ruth giggled, and that sounded nervous too, 'You'd better hurry, because William's just asked him if he's the milanare you met last night.'

  'The what?'

  'Millionaire. He must have heard us talking.'

  'Well, it was only a joke,' said Carly, and Ruth said,

  'I know that, but it didn't make him laugh. I tried to explain, but he didn't seem amused.' Her voice quickened until she was gabbling, 'He's been asking me about you. And I've been telling him how popular you are and how well you get on with folk, the customers and everybody, and how you like Madame Corbe. But he doesn't look happy about it.'

  There was a tightness in Carly's throat so that she had to swallow before she could say, 'I think you might have the wrong one.'

  'What do you mean? He said his name was Sherrard.'

  'Dark hair? A lot? Tall and thin and hatchet-faced?'

  'Very good-looking, though, very aristocratic.'

  Carly swallowed again. 'That's Liam, Roland's brother. Keep William away from him, and don't you say anything about anything except the weather.'

  'Hurry up,' begged Ruth. 'He's got me so nervous I can't stop babbling!'

  'That's Liam,' said Carly. 'He's a lawyer. I bet he's lethal at grilling the suspects.' She put down the phone as she spoke and rushed around, switching off, then grabbed her coat and was dashing out of the door as a woman almost bumped into her.

  'Are you shutting?' snapped the woman, sounding aggrieved, and Carly said,

  'Yes—sorry. Please come back tomorrow, and raced down off the road so fast that the woman wasted no time in moving away herself. You never knew these days, there could have been a bomb in there.

  The Mercedes outside the house had to be Liam Sherrard's and Carly resisted an impulse to kick the tyres. How dared he come here and bother Ruth? How dared he come here at all? The house door was on the latch and she hurried along the little hall to the living room where Ruth was sitting on the settee, an arm protectively around William, and Liam Sherrard stood up as Carly swept in.

  He was wearing a beautifully tailored grey suit, grey silk shirt and tie. A man that tall and thin would look elegant in anything, but his suit must have cost a fortune. Thin-lipped and hooded-eyed, he surveyed her with distaste, this was not going to be a friendly meeting, and she said shrilly, 'I don't remember asking you around.'

  She was wishing now that she had walked from the shop instead of running, then she might not have been breathless and her hair wouldn't be flopping into her eyes. She tossed back her hair and he said, 'I apologise—obviously I should have phoned for an appointment,' making her sound a conceited idiot.

  'What do you want?' The angry colour was burning in her cheeks, and Ruth and William were staring, they had never seen Carly like this, and Ruth got up, stammering, 'I—er ‑'

  'Don't you go,' said Carly, and to Liam, with edgy politeness, 'Perhaps you'd, like to come into the workroom.'

  Her sewing room was the front room. The only furniture was a large table and one chair, a big old-fashioned chest of drawers and a full-length mirror. Her sewing machine was on the table, and a half completed dress. Other garments hung on hangers from a wall rail.

  'Right,' said Carly, almost before he was in the room, 'now what?'

  She shouldn't be carrying on like this. She didn't need an enemy. Whatever he had come to say she should have stayed calm, but somehow Liam Sherrard managed to get under her skin and trigger a gut reaction, although she didn't know whether it was fear or fury churning inside her. As he closed the door behind him she said, 'We have met before, of course.'

  'No.' He was looking around as though the room interested him more than she did, and while she was blinking with surprise at his denial he added, 'A friend of mine defended Gerald Collett.'

  'Nice friends,' she drawled. She could remember that friend. He had been large and florid-faced, looking like everybody's favourite uncle, and had pleaded Gerald's case so fervently that Carly had half expected a verdict of Not Guilty. That would have been something of a record, as Gerald had admitted breaking into half a dozen houses that winter and stealing money and goods.

  It had been terrible, seeing Gerald in the dock, with all the promise of his future in ruins. He had had promise or he wouldn't have been up at university. He and Carly had met at a rag-week dance, and the attraction had been instant and mutual. She was working as a salesgirl in one of the multiple stores, but a lot of her friends were students—she was as bright as most of them, brighter than many—and she fell in love with Gerald.

  She wouldn't have cared if he had had no more than his grant, it had just seemed a lovely bonus that he had money. He spent freely, and assured her that was what money was for, bought her presents, and said she was the most exciting girl he had ever come across. He asked her to marry him. Not yet, when he finished with college, and brought her a ring—a sparkling diamond cluster—and she was packing, because a crowd of them were going to Spain for Christmas, when the knock came on the door.

  It would have been her first holiday abroad, and ever since the plan got under way she had hardly slept nights for excitement. She thought it was Gerald, come a little
early to collect her and her case. But it was the police, a man and a girl, and that was when the nights mare began.

  Carly changed during the next half hour, growing older, more worldly. She had been completely unprepared for the news that the money Gerald had spent so freely—and not only on her, he had expensive tastes all round—belonged to somebody else. Like the ring on her finger. He was a thief, and caught, he had admitted it, and Carly, he had said, was the reason.

  He denied that she knew the gifts she had received were stolen goods, but when she was called in evidence in the Crown Court his counsel made it clear that in his. opinion she should have been standing in the dock beside Gerald. She was the gold-digger, the grabber, the girl who had infatuated an impressionable young man. He had turned to crime to give her a good time, because he had known that if he didn't she would soon find someone else who would.

  Carly had felt guilty enough about the money she had helped him spend. She blamed herself, although she had never for a moment suspected how he was acquiring it. She had wanted to repay, and would have been prepared to hand over wages, but nobody seemed to take that seriously for a minute, and although Gerald was the guilty one the mud was flung at her until she felt she could never be clean of it. That was when she had seen Liam Sherrard. She had looked up into the public gallery while Liam Sherrard's friend, Gerald's counsel, was hammering away at her and seen him. There had been others come to watch, people she knew, but she remembered his dark face, sitting up there in judgment on her.

  'I was in court,' he said. 'I'd been on another case and I was staying with the Morrisons.' Gerald's barrister was Morrison. 'I presume you weren't waiting for Gerald Collett when he came out of prison?'

  'No,' she said.

  Gerald had been jailed for twelve months, and outside the court his father had told her to keep away. He was a thin balding man, Gerald's father, his mother was small and might have been pretty, and they both looked at Carly as though they wished she would drop dead—and who could blame them when they believed she had ruined their son? His father handed over a letter from Gerald, and although she tore it up, as soon as she was alone, she would always remember every word of it. It was bitter and cruel, hitting out at her, blaming her, and she had never completely trusted a man since.

  'I'd have expected you to have done rather better than this for yourself,' said Liam Sherrard. The work-room didn't look very impressive, come to that, neither did the house. 'Would you?' she said shortly. 'Well, I'm satisfied, thank you.'

  'You surprise me.' His voice was a little like Roland's, but Liam drawled his words. 'I'd have put you down as one who was never satisfied.'

  She was glaring, so of course she didn't look content and serene, and she demanded, 'Do you know Gerald?'

  'No.'

  'Then why have you got it in for me? What I said was true. I had no idea where the money was coming from.'

  'You don't need to protest your innocence. You weren't on trial.' The words sounded reassuring, but the tone of the voice and the slight twist of the lips were cynical, and she thought, Oh yes, I was on trial. You judged me, for one. That's why you're here: 'My aunt's taken a fancy to you,' Liam continued, and Madame Corbe was not his aunt, but this was not the time to argue small details, and Carly said quietly,

  'I've taken a fancy to her, I like her very much, she's a charming lady. There's something about her.' She hesitated. Madame Corbe had a host of attractive qualities, and Liam Sherrard suggested,

  'Money?'

  Her hand lifted of its own volition, outstretched to strike, and he said, 'If you do I shall have no hesitation at all in knocking you down.'

  Carly locked her fingers together, gripping them because she couldn't trust that right hand, and sneered, 'You must be a lousy barrister if that's all the self-control you've got!'

  'It wouldn't be lack of control hitting you back,' he informed her. 'It would be entirely premeditated.'

  She believed him, and she believed he would do it. 'Isn't that nice?' she muttered through gritted teeth. 'Well, go on, there must be more. Have you come along to tell me Roland's remembered a previous engagement? I'm sure you told him all about Gerald.'

  'No.' He shrugged. 'If I did I'm sure that your version would be more convincing. No, it's Aunt Aimee I'm concerned with. She's got this idea that you look like Antoinette.'

  'Do I?' she asked impulsively, and wished she hadn't asked.

  'Your hair's the same colour.' He looked at her and she felt naked, worse than naked, as though he could get inside her and read her mind, and she stiffened, trying to keep him out. 'Under the skin there is no similarity,' he said, 'but she wants to take you back with her on Friday, or failing that she wants you to follow as soon as you can.'

  'You mean for a holiday?' That was very sweet of Madame Corbe, and a complete surprise. It would be lovely, but apart from her responsibilities here—she couldn't leave Ruth right now—she was not Antoinette, and the slight resemblance would only cause pain, because the dead grandchild could never be replaced. She was about to say, 'That's kind, but I couldn't,' when Liam. demanded, 'How much do you want to tell Roland tonight that you can't go?'

  He really believed she was for sale. He thought she was opportunist all through, always with an eye to the main chance, and the blood roared in her ears and she smiled a slow and feline smile. 'Scared she might decide to adopt me, are you? Suppose I change my name to Antoinette, do you think that might help?'

  'You're not Antoinette,' he said, and now his voice was clipped, 'and if you do go out there I'll see to it that you don't make a penny piece out of Madame Corbe. But if you turn down the invitation I'll meet any reasonable offer.'

  'Ah, but what's reasonable?' Now Carly put on an expression like a cat with the cream. 'Do you think she might be changing her will?' She hardly knew what she was saying, she was so furious. 'Cutting you out and naming me?'

  That was ridiculous, but flinging taunting Words at him was the next best thing to hitting him, and he was turning white as though he was nearly as angry as she was. 'If I thought that pretending you were Antoinette would make her happy I'd wish you luck,' he said harshly, 'but I don't. I think you could cause her a lot of grief, and if that happened I promise you I'd see it came home to roost.'

  They had .been standing near each other, he by the door, she with her back to the table. She moved away to the window now. 'And Roland's going to pass on the invitation tonight, is he?' she said slowly. 'Then you'll have to wait, because I'll give him my answer. If it's no you can phone me and we'll discuss my terms, but if it's yes please, then that means I'm playing for higher stakes, and for all your bluster, Mr Sherrard, I don't think there'll be. a blind thing you can do about it!'

  Their gazes locked. Again Carly felt the shock wave, jerking her head back a fraction. Then Liam turned and went, leaving this door open, closing the front door behind him. She watched him get into his car. She could see his hands on the wheel as he sat for a moment or two motionless, and she knew he was steadying himself before he drove off.

  He half turned his head, looking back at the window and she jumped away, but when she heard the car start up she craned forward again and watched it go down the road. Oh God, she hated him! His attitude was so brutally unfair. Of course, he was the face in the public gallery. She had looked up there while Gerald's counsel was cataloguing the gifts Gerald had given her. 'Yes,' she was saying', 'yes,' to each of them. And the diamond cluster ring . . . yes. She had looked up and in the sea of faces she had seen Liam Sherrard, handsome and arrogant and cruel, and thought, he could be a Ceasar up there, about to give the thumbs-down that would mean a knife in my heart.

  The knives were out for her that day. The sympathy was for Gerald. He was the one facing the prison sentence. She had enjoyed the spoils and taken none of the risks. That was what Liam Sherrard had believed and still believed, and now he was convinced she was wondering what she could get out of Madame Corbe.

  She couldn't go to Brittany. She would tel
l Roland tonight, but when Liam phoned to discuss the 'payoff' she would tell him, 'You don't have anything I want,' and let him wonder if she was still going to turn up.

  'Carly?' said Ruth, sounding as though she had spoken before and Carly hadn't heard. 'All right?'

  'Oh yes,' said Carly.

  'He's gone, then?'

  'Uh-huh.' Ruth waited, and Carly told her, 'Tonight Roland's bringing an invitation from Madame Corbe for me to go out there for a holiday. To Brittany. Liam doesn't think it's a good idea.'

  'Why ever not?' Ruth knew about Gerald, but it had happened before she met Carly and she had no doubts that Carly had been misled. They never talked about it, and while Carly was steeling herself to start explaining why Liam disliked her Ruth said, 'Well, I think it's a terrific idea. You could do with a holiday, and I could get one of the mothers to give me a hand in the shop for a few weeks. Don't you want to go?'

  Just for a week, perhaps? A few days with Roland and Madame Corbe, not pretending to be Antoinette, being herself. It would be rather splendid, holidaying in a chateau, and it would show Liam Sherrard that he could neither bribe nor frighten her. He had looked down at her in that courtroom as though she was beneath contempt. For that she would like to disturb his well-ordered life.

  He lived in England, worked here too, presumably, so he might not be able to get over to Brittany. He wouldn't know what Carly was up to, which would give him plenty to worry about, and she heard herself telling Ruth, 'Yes, I think I would like to go. If you could manage here I think I might enjoy myself very much.'

  CHAPTER THREE

  Roland was so different from Liam. For one thing, he was pleased to see her. When Carly opened the front door he beamed appreciatively and told her, 'You look absolutely stunning.'

  She was quite pleased with her appearance. She had spent the last hour and a half slowly and soothingly glamorising herself, because that scene with Liam had left her feeling as though she had been dragged through a hedge backwards. She had gone to her bedroom and paced around like an angry cat, then caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror, glinting eyes and dishevelled hair, and remembered Roland and thought, I'll frighten him off if he sees me like this. It won't need brother Liam to warn him against me.