The Trouble with Trent!. Jessica Steele

know, but who had cheated his company?

      She glanced at her watch. It was half past nine. She went and had a shower, and was still mentally protesting against what she was doing when she applied powder and lipstick and stepped into the plain mustard-coloured dress she had worn the last time she had seen Trent.

      Was it only last Tuesday? It seemed ages ago. With luck she might make it to his home before eleven. Oh, grief, she didn’t want to go.

      She had her car keys in her hand and was halfway down the stairs when it all at once dawned on her that Maxine could have said nothing to their mother of what she was going to ask Alethea to do. Alethea could quite see why. For, regardless of any stigma Maxine believed would attach itself to the children if their father was sent to prison, his mother-in-law would take only delight from the fact he was having to pay for his misdeeds. Prison, in her mother’s opinion, would be the best place for him.

      In view of her mother’s lack of sympathy, Alethea was positive that Maxine would want her to keep their discussion to herself. That being so, her mother was going to raise the roof when she went into the sitting room to mention she had changed her mind and was just off to Trent de Havilland’s party.

      The thought of her parent’s wrath gave Alethea some moments of unease. But then, perhaps in relation to that word ‘sympathy’, she recalled thinking that sympathy on its own would not be much help to Maxine.

      Time to suit her actions to her sympathy. Alethea took a brave breath and continued down the stairs. ‘Where on earth are you going?’ her mother demanded the moment she walked through the sitting-room door, spotting at once that her younger daughter no longer wore jeans and a T-shirt, but looked to be on her way out to a party.

      ‘I—er—changed my mind about going to that party,’ Alethea dared, not looking at Maxine in case her mother did a two-and-two addition and came up with a correct four.

      ‘You’re going to Trenton de Havilland’s party?’ her mother questioned incredulously.

      ‘I thought I would.’

      ‘Well, I...’ Her mother started to give full voiceonly for once her elder daughter interrupted her.

      ‘Alethea has a right to a life of her own, Mother.’ She willingly drew Eleanor Pemberton’s fire on herself, and Alethea didn’t hang about.

      ‘And a fine mess you’ve made of yours!’ she heard her mother rally as she got over her shock. By then Alethea was negotiating the chest in the hall.

      She found the exclusive area where Trent de Havilland, lived without any trouble. But she was already brimful of nerves as she parked the car outside, went up stone steps and rang his doorbell.

      Oh, how she wanted to run away as she waited. Oh, it would be so easy! But she could not take that way out. For all she had barely glanced at Maxine before leaving, her sister would know that the only reason she had changed her mind about attending this get-together was to do as she had wanted. To ask Trent de Havilland not to prosecute her crooked brother-in-law. Grief, what on earth had ever made her think Trent would listen, much less agree?

      Alethea, though her feet were glued to the doorstep, was mentally all set to run away when she heard the sound of someone coming to answer the door. Oh, help her, somebody! Oh, if only she hadn’t come.

      ‘Alethea!’ Trent, casually dressed, opened the door to her. He was as she remembered him: tall, dark-eyed, dark-haired. ‘Come in,’ he invited, stepping back to allow her to come by him.

      ‘I—er—didn’t bring a boyfriend. Is that all right?’ she blurted out in her nervousness.

      ‘Of course,’ he replied evenly, and, closing the door, he continued, ‘I’m glad you could make it.’ And so saying he led the way into a vast, high-ceilinged drawing room.

      The floor was thickly carpeted, with a low table separating a couple of matching sofas which flanked a massive stone fireplace. But, having anticipated being shown into a room full of people, or with at least half a dozen other guests, Alethea saw there were none.

      ‘Oh, no, I got the wrong night!’ she exclaimed, appalled.

      ‘The fault is all mine,’ Trent replied urbanely, his tall length between her and the door as if he read in her eyes that she was ready to bolt.

      ‘Fault?’ she echoed.

      ‘My other guests rang from Paris. They flew over for the day,’ he explained. ‘Unfortunately, their plane is fog-bound, making it impossible for them to get back tonight.’ Flew over for the day! This was another world—but Alethea had no time to dwell on it; she was too busy coming to terms with the fact that, by the sound of it, she was Trent’s only guest! ‘I should have phoned you,’ he went on. ‘Forgive me that I didn’t,’ he apologised. ‘I was somehow certain you’d no intention of accepting my invitation.’

      Was there a question in his voice? Alethea was too embarrassed to be able to tell for sure. ‘Hey-ho!’ She tried to make light of it, and, skirting round him, she mumbled, ‘I’ll—er—see you,’ and was at the door.

      Trent de Havilland, however, was there before her. ‘You’re not going?’ he asked, making it sound as though he sincerely wanted her to stay a little while.

      ‘I—It’s gone eleven, and—and...’

      ‘And you don’t have to be up early for work in the morning,’ he teased, which reminded her of her mother—who on Tuesday had said the reverse of that—which in turn reminded her of her sister.

      Oh, Lord! ‘That’s true,’ she agreed while she tried to sort out the conflict going on in her head. She must have had a brainstorm to think for a moment that she could get upright Trent de Havilland to give the order not to prosecute her brother-in-law! Yet, at the same time, what better opportunity to ask him than now? She didn’t even have to try and get him alone to have a quiet word with him. There was no one else there! Perhaps within the next few minutes...

      ‘You don’t sound very sure,’ Trent cut through her thoughts.