Alison Fraser - The Mother And The Millionaire

Even then it had been Jack Esme bled for, so much so that she’d felt compelled to tell him the truth.

‘I know about you and Arabella,’ she declared, only to be fixed by one of his emotionless stares. ‘I don’t want to interfere or anything.’

‘Then don’t,’ he advised, almost curtly.

It hurt. Jack never talked to her like that. Not normally.

She couldn’t stop. She didn’t want to see him hurt in turn. ‘I just wondered if you realised,’ she ran on determinedly, ‘that she’s not serious about…well, about you and her.’

He looked annoyed, more than annoyed, although he responded in a kind of joke. ‘So don’t go buying any engagement rings, is that it?’

‘Something like that.’ She nodded.

His eyes narrowed further on her grave face, assessing her motives, before he chose to laugh back. ‘Don’t worry, I’ve still got the receipt.’

‘What?’ It took Esme a moment to understand. ‘Oh, right.’

Another joke…or was it?

‘The question is, who’s put you up to this pep talk?’ he considered aloud. ‘Your lovely sister or the family matriarch?’

‘Who?’

‘Your mother.’

‘Oh.’ Esme was made to feel dense. ‘No, nobody. I just thought… Never mind.’

She decided it would be impossible to explain why she was concerned without exposing her own feelings.

He was already looking at her in a funny way, and she could feel colour ebb and flow in her cheeks.

‘Forget I said anything,’ she urged instead.

‘OK, I will.’ He echoed her tone but a suspicion of a smile was lurking at the corners of his mouth.

No longer cross with her. Just amused. Was that better or worse?

Worse, maybe. It certainly added to her mortification and, turning, she walked away.

He called to her, ‘Midge, wait up.’ But, in response, she quickened her footsteps until she’d broken into a run, fleeing back to the house and the sanctuary of her bedroom.

After that, she couldn’t bear to face him or Arabella—she imagined him relaying the conversation to her—and became a virtual recluse, skulking in her room apart from at mealtimes.

The incident at dinner happened a week later. To Esme, it came out of the blue. Not, it seemed, to her mother or Arabella.

When Jack called at the front door—a first—the new cook was instructed to show him into the dining room.

Arabella disappeared through an interconnecting door and her mother instructed Esme, ‘Stay silent.’

So she did, silent and forgotten at one end of the table.

Jack barely glanced her way. ‘You changed the lock,’ he directed at their mother. ‘What did you think I was going to do? Smash the place up?’

‘For all I know,’ Rosalind Scott-Hamilton sniffed back, ‘you’re capable of it… Now you’ve been thwarted.’

‘Thwarted?’ Jack echoed. ‘Meaning what exactly?’

‘Meaning, young man—’ from her sitting position her mother still managed to look down her nose ‘—your attempts to compromise my daughter have come to naught.’

‘Compromise?’ A ridiculously old-fashioned word, it was clear Jack thought so, too.

‘But in case you’ve failed to get the message—’ her mother paused briefly before launching into a vituperative speech, making it crystal clear that Jack wasn’t fit to court her eldest daughter.

As Arabella was listening in the next room—and Arabella was quite capable of defying their mother and interrupting— Esme assumed this tirade had her approval.

Esme watched the anger darkening Jack’s brow, heard his intake of breath, then cheered silently as he finally retaliated to her mother’s snobbery with a few well-chosen words.

When he turned on his heel and slammed the door behind him, her mother still had her mouth hanging open.

Esme pushed back her chair to follow.

‘And where are you going?’ Her mother turned on her.

‘To my room.’ She could hardly say, After Jack.

Her mother might have insisted she stay, but when Arabella reappeared the focus of her attention shifted.

‘Yes, all right.’ She waved Esme away.

Esme knew she was already forgotten and could please herself. She hurried to the front door, imagining Jack had exited the same way he’d entered, but there was no sign of anyone in the drive. She retraced her steps, creeping past the dining room en route to the kitchen.

The new cook, Maggie, was putting the finishing touches to dessert. She glanced up at Esme, noted her expression, then gestured towards the back door.

‘He’s gone to the barn.’

‘The barn?’

Maggie nodded. ‘I gave him a bottle to keep out the chill.’

‘A bottle? A bottle of what?’

‘Whisky from the larder. I’ll replace it, of course.’

Esme wasn’t worried about that, but frowned. ‘Jack doesn’t drink.’

Maggie shook her head—over Esme’s naïveté. ‘All men drink. Trust me… He’ll need it tonight, too, if he’s to sleep in the hayloft.’

‘But why…?’ Esme was still trying to catch up with events.

‘He has nowhere else,’ Maggie relayed. ‘Your mother’s dumped his stuff and had a locksmith in. It seems she didn’t like him and your sister being so friendly.’

Esme had gathered as much but why now, so suddenly? Arabella had been hanging round Jack for weeks and her mother had done little to prevent it, being indulgent in the extreme to her elder daughter.

‘I fetched this down earlier—’ Maggie indicated a blanket draped over a chair ‘—but he’s gone off without it.’

‘I’ll take it to him.’ Esme picked it up.

‘Are you sure?’ Maggie looked a little uncertain but didn’t try to stop Esme, adding, ‘I’ll leave the door on the latch.’

‘Thanks.’ Esme went out into the night.

It was almost nine, but, being summer, it was still light as Esme crossed the stable yard to the barn at the end.

The door squeaked on rusty hinges; she called out, ‘Jack,’ faintly at first, then louder at his lack of response.

‘Up here.’ Reluctantly admitted, it came from the hayloft above.

Esme stepped fully inside. Very little light filtered into the barn but she knew her way by memory. She reached the ladder and started to climb, pushing the blanket up before her. She was hardly attired for the occasion, in a summer dress, but she stayed poised at the top while her eyes adjusted to the semi-darkness.

‘It’s me, Esme.’ She identified herself in case he’d hoped for someone different.

His voice came from the far wall and sounded gruffer than usual. ‘I know it’s you. What do you want?’

‘I—I…’ What did she want? To tell him she was sorry, she supposed. It suddenly seemed inadequate and his tone was scarcely welcoming.

‘Well, while you’re deciding,’ he mocked her stammering, ‘either come up or go down before you fall and break your neck.’

A torch was switched on and shone across the floor so she had some light to guide her. She still couldn’t see him but it was obvious he was indifferent as to whether she stayed or went.

Esme hovered for a moment longer, then scrambled all the way into the hayloft, ripping the hem of her dress. Uncaring, she edged nearer on all fours until she reached the back wall.

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