A Paper Marriage. Jessica Steele

great-aunt, her parents and a man who appeared to enjoy escorting sophisticated blondes to the theatre. Had he taken the blonde with him to Paris?

      She awoke on Monday in a state of anxiety. ‘Couldn’t sleep?’ her father asked when she went down to an early breakfast.

      She didn’t know about couldn’t sleep—he did not look as if he had slept at all! She looked at his weary face and knew she should tell him that she was going to see Jonah Marriott, but somehow she could not. ‘I thought, with Mother wanting Aunt Alice to look smart on Saturday, that I’d better make an effort and get myself a new outfit,’ Lydie announced. And, seeing that her father looked about to remind her of a very important phone call they had to make, ‘I thought,’ she hurried on, ‘that while I’m in London I’d call in at the Marriott building and make an appointment for us to see Jonah. He was abroad somewhere last week, so I suppose he’s still got a lot of catching up to do and will be too busy to see me today.’ She was lying to her father again, and hated doing so, but this, seeing Jonah, she felt most strongly, was something she had to do on her own.

      But her father was nobody’s fool. ‘How did you manage to get an appointment with him last Friday? He would have been catching up then too.’

      ‘On Friday I thought he owed you money. I didn’t bother to make an appointment. I just sort of barged my way in.

      Her father looked appalled. ‘You…’ he began.

      ‘Please, Dad,’ she butted in. ‘I was wrong. I know it. Which is why I feel I have to do it the right way this time.’

      ‘I can ring from here. He…’

      ‘I know I’ve embarrassed you by going to see him at all. But please try to understand—I need to be involved here. I can’t let you take over from me.’

      Her father grunted. But, muttering something about being determined to see Jonah at the first possible opportunity, he agreed to allow her to make the appointment.

      Lydie was walking into the Marriott Electronics head office building when she started to half wish her father was with her. She felt sick, shaky, and she heartily wished this imminent interview were all over and done with.

      She rode up in the same lift, walked shakily along the same corridor and turned round the corner without an earthly idea of what she would say to the man. Eating humble pie did not come easy.

      Outside his door, she paused to take a deep breath. She knew she was ten minutes earlier than she had been on Friday, but she was too wound up to wait for ten minutes of torturous seconds to tick by.

      She put her right hand on the door handle and took a deep breath, and then, tilting her chin a proud fraction, she turned the handle and with her heart pounding went in.

      Jonah Marriott was not alone, but was mid-instruction to the woman Lydie had seen step out of the lift last Friday. He looked up and got to his feet to greet her. ‘Lydie,’ he said and, turning to his PA, introduced them to each other.

      ‘We’ve spoken on the phone,’ Elaine Edwards commented with a smile, and obviously aware of this appointment, even if Lydie was early for it, she picked up her papers, said, ‘I’ll come back later,’ and went through into her own office and closed the door.

      ‘Enjoy the play?’ Jonah asked, taking Lydie out of her stride—she had intended to pitch straight in there with some “The debt is mine but I can’t pay”-type dialogue.

      ‘Very much,’ she answered, with barely an idea just then what the play had been about.

      ‘Take a seat,’ he offered. ‘Was that your steady boyfriend?’

      ‘Er—what? No. Um—I see him sometimes,’ she replied, wondering what that had got to do with anything, though she would not have minded asking if the blonde were his steady. Not that she was terribly interested, of course.

      She took the seat he indicated and opened her mouth, ready to put this conversation along the lines it was to go, when, ‘Coffee?’ he asked, and she knew then that she was not the one in charge of how the conversation went—he was. He was playing with her!

      ‘No, thank you,’ she refused, her tone perhaps a little less civil than it should be in the circumstances. ‘When I came here last Friday I was under the impression you had not honoured the debt you owed my father. I…’

      ‘So I gathered,’ Jonah replied, having retaken his seat behind his desk, leaning back to study her.

      She did not care to be studied; it rattled her. ‘You should have told me!’ she flared. ‘You knew you had repaid that loan!

      He smiled—it was a phoney smile. ‘I knew I would end up getting the blame.’

      Just then guilt, embarrassment, and every other emotion she had experienced since seeing him again last Friday after seven years, all rose up inside her, causing her control to fracture. ‘And so you should!’ she snapped. ‘You set me up!’ she accused hotly.

      The phoney smile abruptly disappeared. He cared not for her tone; she could tell. ‘I set you up?’ he challenged. ‘My memory is usually so good, but correct me if I’m wrong—did I ask you to come here, dunning me for money?’

      Dunning! Put like that it sounded awful. Her fury all at once fizzled out. ‘I trusted you,’ she said quietly. ‘Yet you, the way you hinted that I should pay the cheque into my father’s bank straight away, made sure I did just that.’

      Jonah Marriott eyed her uncompromisingly. ‘Would you rather I had not given you that cheque?’ he questioned toughly. ‘Would you prefer that your father was still in hock to his bank?’

      She blanched. It was becoming more and more clear to her that Jonah Marriott was much too smart for her. He knew, as she had just accepted, that by taking the money from him she had allowed her father some respite. At least there wasn’t a “For Sale” notice being posted in their grounds that morning. ‘Why did you give me that money?’ she asked. ‘And why make it pretty certain that I’d bank it first and tell my father afterwards?’

      Jonah shrugged. ‘Seven years ago your father’s faith in me, his generosity, made it possible for me to successfully carry out my ideas. From what you told me on Friday, Wilmot was in a desperate fix with no way out. Without a hope of repaying any financial assistance, I knew there was no way he would accept my help.’

      That was true. Lydie sighed. She felt defeated suddenly. ‘My father wanted to see you as soon as possible. I said, since I was coming to London today, that I’d make an appointment and that we would both come and see you.’

      Jonah eyed her solemnly. ‘You lied to him?’

      ‘I’m not proud of it. Until last week, when I told him I was going to see a great-aunt but came here instead, I had never lied to my father in my life.’

      Jonah nodded. ‘I can see reason for you lying to him about coming here the first time—obviously either your brother or your mother has been bending your ear with falsehoods too—but why lie to your father about coming here today?’

      ‘Because—because he’s been a very worried man for long enough. It’s time somebody else in the family took some of the load.’

      ‘Namely you?’

      ‘It was I who asked you for that money. I who—er—um—borrowed it, not him. The debt is mine.’

      Jonah stared at her for some long moments. ‘It’s yours?’ he queried finally.

      ‘My father didn’t ask for the money. Nor would he. As you so rightly said, he wouldn’t—not for something he couldn’t see his way to pay back.’ She broke off and looked into a pair of fantastic blue eyes that now seemed more academically interested than annoyed. ‘The debt is mine,’ she resumed firmly, ‘and no one else’s. I’ve come today to…’ her firm tone began to slip ‘…t-to try and make arrangements to repay you.’

      He looked a tinge surprised.