A High Price To Pay. Sara Craven

      A High Price to Pay

      Sara Craven

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      Former journalist SARA CRAVEN published her first novel ‘Garden of Dreams’ for Mills & Boon in 1975. Apart from her writing (naturally!) her passions include reading, bridge, Italian cities, Greek islands, the French language and countryside, and her rescue Jack Russell/cross Button. She has appeared on several TV quiz shows and in 1997 became UK TV Mastermind champion. She lives near her family in Warwickshire – Shakespeare country.

      TABLE OF CONTENTS

       COVER

       TITLE PAGE

       ABOUT THE AUTHOR

      CHAPTER ONE

      CHAPTER TWO

      CHAPTER THREE

      CHAPTER FOUR

      CHAPTER FIVE

       CHAPTER SIX

       CHAPTER SEVEN

       CHAPTER EIGHT

       CHAPTER NINE

       CHAPTER TEN

       ENDPAGE

       COPYRIGHT

       CHAPTER ONE

      ‘THAT man—what’s he doing here?’

      Alison Mortimer hoped devoutly that her mother’s angry whisper to her had been sufficiently drowned by the organ music to prevent it reaching the ears of the other mourners in the small church.

      And particularly, she thought with embarrassment, the ears of the man in question, who was stationed only a few pews away.

      She’d been conscious of him, of course, from the moment they’d arrived. Nicholas Bristow was a distinctive figure, not easily overlooked, and Alison had noticed his tall, black-haired figure with a twinge of alarm that she’d resolutely told herself was really surprise.

      The notice in the paper had said firmly that the funeral service was to be private, and she hadn’t thought Nicholas Bristow a sufficiently close friend of her late father to ignore such a pointed hint.

      She saw gratefully that Uncle Hugh had taken her mother’s hand and given it a comforting pat, while murmuring something soothing, and registering at the same time the uneasy look he exchanged with Aunt Beth.

      She moved her shoulders restively. There it was again—that feeling, growing almost to conviction, that there was something going on—something wrong, over and above the appalling reality of her father’s sudden collapse and death, only a few days before.

      If she hadn’t been so frantically busy, trying to run the house as usual, make the arrangements for the funeral, calm her mother, who was almost hysterical with shock, grief and rage at her loss, and comfort her younger sister Melanie, summoned home from boarding school for the funeral, she would have found out what was happening—pinned Uncle Hugh down, and made him tell her why he found it so apparently difficult to meet her gaze any more, she thought grimly.

      But once the ordeal of the funeral was behind her, and the obligation of the buffet lunch waiting for them back at Ladymead had been fulfilled, she could start finding out.

      She could also, she thought, a lump rising in her throat, get a chance to mourn for her father herself.

      She glanced at her mother, ethereal in black, her thin hands nervously pulling at her handkerchief, and sighed. Catherine Mortimer had never been a strong woman, physically or emotionally. All her married life she had depended totally on her husband, and more latterly on her elder daughter as well. How she would cope with the everyday realities of widowhood, once the drama of the funeral and, later, the memorial service, was over, Alison hadn’t the faintest idea.

      Mrs Mortimer had enjoyed her position as the wife of the area’s leading industrialist. She had loved being asked to take the chair at local organisations, presiding at dinner parties, and playing the hostess for housefuls of weekend guests, although the donkey work of these occasions had always been left to Alison.

      Things would be very different from now on, she thought, although there would be no shortage of money. Anthony Mortimer had left his family well provided for from his shareholdings in the light engineering works which his grandfather had pioneered.

      Her mother might have to step down from being the locality’s First Lady, but she would be able to maintain her comfortable existence, adding to her porcelain collection, and playing bridge with her cronies. She might even take a greater interest in the day-to-day running of Ladymead, Alison told herself without a great deal of conviction.

      She knew perfectly well that the mundane details of housekeeping had never appealed to her mother. She had relied completely on the elderly and supremely efficient housekeeper, Mrs Wharton, who had been installed at Ladymead since her husband’s boyhood. And after Mrs Wharton’s death, the chores of making sure everything ran like clockwork, of engaging staff, and paying the bills had been handed over, charmingly but definitely, to Alison.

      ‘Such good practice for you, darling, when it comes to running a home of your own,’ Mrs Mortimer had said sweetly.

      But Alison hadn’t been fooled for a minute. Her mother had been a dazzlingly pretty woman when she was younger, and Melanie was blossoming into real beauty with every month that passed, but Alison herself had been born, and remained, an ugly duckling. She was small and slight with light brown hair, clear hazel eyes, and a pale skin which had a distressing tendency to flush when she was disturbed or embarrassed, and as she was a shy girl, this happened far more often than she wished.

      She had no idea why this should be so. Both her mother and Mel were miracles of self-possession, and her father had been a cheerfully ebullient man too.

      ‘You must be a changeling, darling,’ her mother had sometimes teased her.

      And sometimes she felt like it, Alison acknowledged ruefully.

      Perhaps if her school exam results had been dazzling like Mel’s promised to be, rather than respectable, she might have broken out of the mould she could see being prepared for her, and insisted on university and a career of some kind. But with no very firm idea of what she would like to do with her life, it had been difficult for her to resist the pressure from her family to stay at home and run Ladymead for her mother. But she had been determined to achieve at least a measure of independence for herself, and had managed to find herself a part-time job in a local estate agent’s office. She had been hired in the first instance under the vague heading of Girl Friday, which Alison had silently translated as ‘dogsbody’, but she had amazed herself, and her new employer, by discovering an unexpected talent for actually selling houses. In spite of her shyness, she had the knack of matching properties to potential buyers, many of whom preferred her quiet efficiency to the ‘hard sell’ they were often subjected to. Simon Thwaite, her boss, had concealed his astonishment, given her a rise, and asked if she would be prepared to work full time, an offer she had regretfully had to refuse. He had also asked her