Penny Jordan - Perfect Marriage Material

‘Tullah Richards,’ she announced softly into the receiver in the faintly husky and rather sensual voice that her friends teased her sounded far too sexy for the determined career woman she proclaimed herself to be.

‘Tullah! Wonderful. I’ve been trying to get hold of you all day. It’s still on for this weekend, isn’t it?’

Tullah smiled as she recognised the voice of Olivia. She and Olivia had worked together a few years earlier and had remained good friends even though Olivia was now married with a small daughter and living in the Cheshire countryside, whilst she had remained in London determinedly pursuing her chosen career path. But not for much longer. By an odd quirk of fate, she, too, would soon be moving to Haslewich....

‘Yes, if it’s still OK with you,’ she responded to Olivia’s question.

‘We’re looking forward to it,’ Olivia assured her. ‘What time do you expect to arrive?’

‘About five, I think. I’m supposed to be meeting the rep from the relocation people at one and we’re going to go round several properties they’ve picked out for me.’

‘Properties...that sounds very grand,’ Olivia teased.

Tullah laughed. ‘I wish,’ she agreed. ‘Actually I’ve already told them that I shan’t be able to afford anything much more expensive than a single-bedroomed flat, or preferably a small cottage, although I understand with the influx of new residents from Aarlston-Becker relocating to Haslewich, property locally is at something of a premium.’

‘Some of it is,’ Olivia agreed. ‘I think initially there was a feeling amongst the upper echelons of Aarlston-Becker that they’d be able to exchange their city semis for seven-bedroomed country mansions and ex-vicarages, complete with paddocks for ponies and Gertrude Jekyll—style gardens. However, the reality hasn’t been quite like that. Property is cheaper here, but... There are some very pretty little houses in Haslewich itself. Great-Aunt Ruth already has four new neigh-bours on Church Walk where she lives and we’ve certainly been handling a big increase in conveyances.

‘What will happen about your London flat, by the way?’

‘Oh well, I’ve been quite lucky there. Sarah, the girl I share with, is getting married and she and her new husband are buying me out, so at least I’m not having to hang fire waiting for a buyer, although part of the deal when Aarlston-Becker offered me the job was that they would cover all my moving costs, including any bridging loans I might need, plus making sure I got a mortgage.’

‘That’s my girl.’ Olivia laughed. ‘I must say I’m really looking forward to your moving up here. It will be like old times. I can’t believe sometimes that it’s over three years since I left the company. So much has happened. Caspar and I’ve married and we’ve had Amelia, the practice has really become busy this past year and Uncle Jon and I have been talking about taking on a qualified legal assistant or even possibly a full solicitor.’

‘Mmm...well, you certainly did make the right decision leaving when you did,’ Tullah assured her darkly. ‘The amount of cutbacks we’ve been having are quite frightening.’

‘They’ll be sorry to lose you, though,’ Olivia returned. ‘I must say I felt awfully proud of you when I heard that you’d been head-hunted to join Aarlston-Becker.’

‘Along with a good dozen or so other people,’ Tullah felt bound to point out, ‘and only because they’d decided to relocate to Haslewich almost at the last minute instead of going ahead with their original plans to move their European divisional headquarters to The Hague because the British incentives were so much better.’

‘Well, you’re certainly going to be working for a first-class international organisation,’ Olivia told her enthusiastically. ‘I know how impressed my cousin Saul has been since he joined them six months ago. Like you, he, too, was head-hunted by them when they first relocated and—’

‘Saul,’ Tullah interrupted her, an unusual sharpness entering her normally soft husky voice.

‘Mmm...he’s one of my cousins, well, perhaps a second or even a third on my father’s side. I’m never quite sure with our tangled family history. You may not remember him although he was at the wedding and the christening, as well. Tall, dark and—’

‘Handsome,’ Tullah supplied grittily, adding trenchantly, ‘So far as I can remember, Olivia, you have at least half a dozen second and third male cousins who could answer that description.’

‘Maybe,’ Olivia agreed and then her voice softened slightly as she continued, ‘But there’s only one Saul.’

‘If only,’ Tullah muttered sourly under her breath. Then raising her voice so that Olivia could hear her, she remarked, ‘I do remember him—vaguely. Very dark, rather autocratic and quite the gallant, as I recall. He made a big fuss about making sure everyone knew what a good father he was, but I seem to remember it was your Aunt Jenny who actually seemed to be spending the most time looking after his children.

‘I thought that his side of your family lived in Pembroke,’ she added disdainfully.

‘They did...they do. It’s just that since Uncle Hugh is virtually fully retired, he and Ann spend a good deal of their time travelling abroad. Uncle Hugh is a keen sailor and, well, to cut a long story short, Saul is divorced now and he thought it would be better for the children to grow up in an environment where they had close family ties, and in fact that was the clinching element in his taking this job with Aarlston’s. Quite a coincidence, really, both of you working for their legal department but then, of course, it is a huge multinational organisation.

‘There was quite a lot of local antagonism towards them when they first moved into the area. Aunt Ruth said it reminded her of when the Americans arrived during the Second World War, only they had the benefit of silk stockings and chocolate to ease their way into the community.

‘Aunt Jenny was saying the other day that she’d heard on the local grapevine via Guy Cooke, her business partner—his widespread family are Haslewich, you should know. They’ve been here right from the word “go”—the general consensus of opinion tends to be in favour of the influx, or at least the boost to the local economy that it brings with it.’

‘Mmm...well. it’s good to know I shan’t be facing the local eviction committee,’ Tullah told her ruefully.

Olivia laughed. ‘You? No way. It’s going to be lovely having you to stay for the weekend, Tullah. I’m really looking forward to it.’

‘So am I,’ Tullah confirmed with a smile.

Once she had replaced the receiver, though, she wasn’t smiling. Saul Crighton. She hadn’t realised that he was living in Haslewich now or, even worse, working for Aarlston-Becker. She knew, of course, that Olivia had something of a soft spot for him although she couldn’t understand why. By all accounts and from the gossip she had overheard at Olivia and Caspar’s wedding, Saul had come very close to breaking them up, cold-bloodedly trying to persuade a then very vulnerable Olivia into having an affair with him, even though he had been married at the time.

And if that wasn’t bad enough, Tullah had also overheard the same two people discussing the fact that one of Olivia’s young teenage cousins, Louise, was in all likelihood also a victim of Saul’s egotistical and grossly selfish need to boost his flagging self-esteem in the only way he apparently knew how—flattering and seducing young, immature and vulnerable girls into having affairs with him.

Tullah knew all about that kind of man and she knew, too, just what sort of devastation they could wreak, just what kind of hurt and self-loathing they could inflict on their victims. She should do. She after all...