When the Devil Drives (2 page)

she added, her mouth twisting. 'Have you warned your wife she may

shortly be homeless? Not to mention Dad, of course.'

Simon looked at her uneasily. 'Why should it come to that?'

'Because—to quote the words from his letter of today's date—Mr

Blackstone wishes to meet you to discuss the extent of your liabilities

to him.' She was silent for a moment, then said abruptly, 'He's closing

in for the kill, Si. He means to finish what his father and grandfather

began. The old man swore he'd see our family on its knees when

Grandpa fired him, and turned him out of his cottage all those years

ago. Cal Blackstone means to fulfil that pledge.' She shook her head.

'It's as well I came back when I did. I would have hated to return and

find all my clothes and other possessions dumped outside on the lawn

by the present Mrs Blackstone.' She paused again. 'I presume there is

one by now?'

'No one official,' Simon said moodily. 'He's apparently still quite

happy to play the field, lucky bastard.'

Joanna bit her lip. She had only been at home for a week, but it was

already clear to her that Fiona was not enjoying her pregnancy, and

resentment of her condition was making her querulous and

demanding. Joanna, torn between the amusement and irritation which

her blonde, brainless sister-in-law usually aroused in her, had decided

immediately that the prudent course would be to leave the couple to

paddle their own rather shaky canoe in privacy.

She had just made arrangements to view a cottage which had come on

to the market in the neighbouring valley when Simon had dropped his

bombshell about Cal Blackstone's loan.

Blind instinct told her to proceed with her own plans. To walk away

from Simon and the mess he'd created, and let him sort it out for

himself, while she began to rebuild her life at a safe distance from

Chalfont House, the mill, and everything and everyone concerned

with it.

But it wasn't as simple as that. Simon had been hard hit by Cecilia's

death, and although Joanna was four years his junior she'd learned, in

its aftermath, to mother him with almost fierce protectiveness. She

couldn't simply abandon him to his fate now.

The dizzy Fiona would be no help, she thought ruefully, totally

preoccupied as she was by nausea and vague aches and pains all over

her body. And Joanna was still a partner in the Craft Company,

although admittedly she'd taken little active part in the running of the

business since her marriage.

She had forgotten Simon's propensity for taking the easy way out of

any difficulty, she thought, with an inward sigh. 'So when are you

planning to see him?' she asked quietly.

'He's coming here tomorrow afternoon.'

'Here?' Joanna stared at him, appalled. 'Why not at the Craft

Company?'

Simon shrugged, his expression pettish. 'It wasn't my choice. When I

telephoned him, his secretary simply gave me the appointment. There

was no consultation about it. She just told me what time he'd be

arriving.'

'I can believe it,' Joanna said grimly.

It was the first time a Blackstone had ever set foot in Chalfont House,

she realised with a sense of shock. And, if there was anything she

could do, it would also be the last.

She said, 'We'll have to try and fend him off, Simon.'

'How?'

Joanna considered for a minute. 'Well—Martin left me some money,

not all that much, admittedly, but it's a start, and there's the

commission Aunt Vinnie paid me at the gallery. I saved most of it. If

we can keep him at bay for a few weeks with that, we might be able to

raise the rest of the capital elsewhere.'

'Do you think I haven't tried?' He shook his head. 'I've done

everything I can think of. I tell you, Jo, it's hopeless.'

'No!' Joanna said fiercely. 'There is hope—there's got to be. He's not

going to take everything away from us.'

'Perhaps he doesn't want to,' Simon suggested hopefully. 'You are

rather taking his intentions for granted, you know. Condemning him

without a hearing.'

Joanna gave him a level look. 'I have no illusions about Cal

Blackstone, or his intentions.' She glanced at her watch. 'Isn't it time

you were getting off to the workshop?'

'Hell, yes. But I'd better pop up and see Fiona first. She didn't have a

particularly good night.'

Poor old Si, Joanna thought as her brother left the room, his brow

furrowed with anxiety. Fiona's vagaries were just one more problem

for him to worry over. Troubles never seemed to come singly these

days.

She moved over to the sofa and plumped up the cushions which

Simon had crushed. As she straightened, she looked up at the big

portrait of Jonas Chalfont which hung over the ornate mantelpiece. A

harsh face looked down at her, its expression arrogant and

dominating, thick grey brows drawn together over his beak of a nose.

She took a breath. The portrait had been painted in her grandfather's

heyday, when the Chalfont family were a force to be reckoned with in

the Yorkshire woollen industry. Master of all he surveyed, she

thought wryly, studying the sitter's proud stance.

It had been soon after the portrait had been finished, however, that

Jonas had sacked Callum Blackstone following a violent argument,

and evicted him and his small son from their tied cottage. Holding the

frightened child in his arms, as bailiffs dumped their possessions into

the street, Callum had publicly sworn revenge.

'As you've taken from me, Jonas Chalfont, I'll take from you,' he'd

declared, standing bareheaded in the rain. 'Aye, by God, down to

every last stick and stone!'

And nothing's gone right for us since, Joanna thought wearily. Oh,

Grandfather, you didn't know what you were starting.

Know your enemy, had been one of Jonas's favourite maxims, but he

had totally underestimated his former overlooker's sheer force of will

and determination to succeed. Just as Simon had failed to assess Cal

Blackstone's deviousness of purpose in offering to help the Craft

Company financially.

But then Si had never taken the family feud too seriously anyway,

Joanna recalled.

'Isn't it time we started to live and let live?' he'd demanded angrily

when Joanna had flatly refused to attend a dinner party to which Cal

Blackstone had also been invited.

'Not as far as I'm concerned,' Joanna had returned with a toss of her

tawny hair. 'If people invite that man, they needn't bother to ask me as

well.'

But, as she'd grown up, she'd found it was well- nigh impossible to

avoid Cal completely. The Chalfonts were no longer the powerful

social mentors they'd once been, and Cal, single, wealthy and darkly

attractive, was a welcome visitor to every household in the area

except theirs.

Joanna had found to her exasperation that to keep out of Cal

Blackstone's way entirely was to risk social isolation. More and more

she'd found herself running into him at point-to-points, parties and

charity functions. To her annoyance, she'd actually been introduced

to him a number of times by a series of well- meaning people who

clearly shared Simon's view that it was time a truce was called in this

family war.

But none of these people had been hounded and cheated by the

Blackstones, Joanna thought violently. To them, Cal Blackstone was

simply a charming young man, if a trifle sardonic, who drove a series

of fast cars, dated all the most attractive girls in the West Riding, and

could always be relied on for a hefty donation to any good cause. No

one cared any more about past rights or wrongs, it seemed.

And once she and Cal Blackstone had been formally introduced, he

took pains to remind her of the fact by seeking her out to greet her at

every encounter. In fact, Joanna decided, he took an unpleasant

delight in forcing himself on her notice, engaging her in conversation,

and even inviting her to dance.

And the fact that she had ignored all his overtures and was never

anything but icily civil in return seemed only to amuse him.

If she continued to keep him rigidly at a distance, eventually he would

get tired of his cat-and-mouse games with her, she'd assured herself.

But she'd been wrong about that—totally wrong. Which was why she

knew, none better, just what Cal Blackstone's real motives were, and

exactly what he had planned for the remaining members of the

Chalfont family.

She shivered, wrapping her arms defensively across her body, as she

made herself relive once more in nerve-aching detail that rain-washed

autumn afternoon on the high moor road above Northwaite when

she'd discovered for herself how ruthless, how relentless an enemy he

was...

'Damnation!' Joanna stared down at the offside wheel of her Mini, her

heart sinking. 'Of all times to get a flat tyre!' she muttered to herself,

as she went to find the jack.

The rain was sweeping in sheets across the Northwaite valley below,

and the hills were dankly shrouded in low cloud and mist.

By the time she'd fetched the jack, and squatted uncomfortably in the

road beside the car, the rain had plastered her tawny blonde hair to her

skull, and droplets of water were running down her forehead into her

eyes, so that she had to pause every few seconds and brush them

away.

She'd never had to change a tyre before, and she realised, to her

shame, that she only had the haziest idea of how to go about it.

Watching other people was not the same as personal experience, she

decided wretchedly, as the jack stubbornly refused to cooperate with

her efforts to fix it in place.

Send me someone to help this time, she bargained silently with her

guardian angel, and I promise I'll sign on, for a course in car

maintenance this winter.

The thought had barely formed in her mind when the sleek grey

Jaguar materialised silently out of the mist and slid to a halt behind

her. She looked round eagerly, planning some self-deprecating,

humorous remark about her predicament. Then the relieved smile

died on her lips as she realised her rescuer's identity.

'Having trouble?' Cal Blackstone asked pleasantly, as he emerged

from the driver's seat, shrugging on a waterproof jacket.

'I can manage, thanlcs,' Joanna said shortly. It occurred to her that her

guardian angel must have a totally misplaced sense of humour.

'Then this must be a new method of wheel-changing of your own

devising,' he said urbanely, folding his arms across his chest, and

draping his tall, lean, elegant length against his own vehicle. 'How

fascinating! I hope you'll allow me to watch.'

Apart from striking him down with a convenient boulder, or even the

recalcitrant jack, Joanna could see no method of preventing him.

Seething, she gritted her teeth and soldiered on. It was raining harder

than ever now, and the damp was beginning to penetrate right through

her layers of clothing to her skin, making her feel clammy and

uncomfortable.

'You don't seem to be getting on very fast,' the hated voice

commented at last.

'I don't like having an audience.'

'I can believe you don't like having me as an audience.' She wasn't

looking at him, but there was something in his voice that told her he

was grinning. 'Come on, Miss Chalfont, why don't you swallow your

damned pride and say, "Help me"?'

'I didn't ask you to stop.'

'You wouldn't ask me to throw you a rope if you were drowning. As

you probably will if this rain keeps up—that, or die of pneumonia.'

He walked to her side, put his hand under her elbow and yanked her

to her feet, without ceremony.

'Leave me alone!' She wrenched herself free of his grasp.

'Willingly—once this wheel of yours is changed.' He was fitting the

jack into place with a deft competence that made her want to kill him

and dance on his grave. 'Go and sit in my car, and dry yourself off a

little,' he directed over his shoulder. 'If you look in the sports bag on

the back seat, you'll find a towel.'

Instinct prompted her to reply haughtily that she preferred to remain

where she was, but common sense intervened, reminding her that in

this weather she would simply be cutting off her nose to spite her

face, and that she was only laying herself open to further jibes.

The interior of the Jaguar smelt deliciously of leather upholstery

mixed with a faint tang of some expensively masculine cologne.

Joanna sniffed delicately, grimacing a little as she extracted the towel

from the bag, which was lying next to his squash racket on the rear