Rival Attractions. PENNY JORDAN

by opening up I suspect that Oliver Tennant has saved me the necessity of taking on a partner.’

      ‘He’s got a very good reputation,’Adam told her earnestly, seizing her olive-branch. ‘He started up originally in London and then expanded—’

      ‘To take advantage of the current fashion for living in the country—’ Charlotte finished for him a little grimly.

      ‘Adam, where are you? I want you to sit here next to Felicity.’ Vanessa’s sharp voice broke into their conversation, as she gave Charlotte a false sweet smile and said nastily, ‘Heavens, Charlie, you’re not still boring on about poor Oliver, are you?’

      Holding on to her temper, Charlotte forced herself to smile. She was bitterly regretting having ever accepted Vanessa’s invitation.

      Most of the other guests were people she knew, but not very well. They were incomers to the area in the main, like Vanessa and Adam, most of them pleasant professional couples in their mid-to-late thirties. All of them had bought their properties via her, and, although she believed that she had given them as professional and skilled service as they would get anywhere, she had no illusions. Were they to put their properties on the market tomorrow, it would be Oliver Tennant they instructed and not her.

      Dinner was a long drawn-out affair of several minute courses. Toying with hers, Charlotte suddenly thought longingly of a bowl of home-made soup, the kind that Mrs Noakes from Little Dean Farm made, along with some of her home-made rolls, eaten across the well-scrubbed farm kitchen table, while a couple of early lambs bleated noisily in front of the Aga, and Holly, the Noakeses’ now retired sheepdog, lay across her feet.

      She was not cut out for the sophisticated pleasures of life, Charlotte recognised broodingly. She had nothing in common with any of these people here, who all seemed to live frantically busy lives. The women’s conversations were interspersed with references to the hopelessness of au pairs and the traumas of the pony club, the men’s with mysterious references to ‘insider dealing’ and the horrors of London’s traffic.

      Moodily, Charlotte sipped spartanly at her wine. It was very rich and no doubt very expensive, but she wasn’t enjoying it.

      Smiling automatically at the man on her right at the circular table Vanessa favoured, as he described his battle with the local council to get planning permission for a conservatory large enough to house his new swimming-pool complex, for no reason she could analyse Charlotte was suddenly impelled to turn her head and look across the table.

      To discover Oliver Tennant looking right back at her was so unnervingly disconcerting that she took a deep gulp of her wine and promptly choked on it, causing Vanessa to frown at her and her embarrassment to increase.

      Why had he been looking at her like that? she wondered, when her embarrassment had eased. As though he had been studying her for quite some time; as though he knew every thought passing through her head; as though he almost felt sorry for her…sorry…Anger lashed at her, making her stiffen her spine and bare her teeth in a smile that made the man sitting next to her watch her nervously and wonder what on earth he had said. He was forty years old, and found modern women very confusing—this one more than most.

      The meal seemed to drag on forever. Charlotte ached to be able to leave, but good manners forced her to stay, listening politely to the conversations going on around her, as they left the dining-room to finish the evening with coffee in the drawing-room.

      Vanessa was discussing the summer fête, an annual late summer event of the village.

      Deep in her own thoughts, Charlotte was stunned when Oliver Tennant got up and walked over to sit down beside her. The amused smile that briefly lightened his expression as he sat down puzzled her. She had no idea that it was the look of shock-cum-apprehension on her own face that had caused it. Stiffly she made room for him beside her on the small pastel sofa.

      ‘Vanessa tells me that you’ve only recently taken over your late father’s agency,’ he began questioningly.

      Grimly aware of how Vanessa had probably run her down to him, Charlotte corrected coldly, ‘Officially, yes, I took over on my father’s death, but in fact I have been running the agency for nearly six years.’She turned her head so that she could look at him and added, ‘But I should have thought you would have known this. Surely, when you plan to open up in a new area, you check up on the opposition first?’

      ‘Yes, we do, but it was my partner who was responsible for this particular expansion. I’ve historically dealt with the London side of things, but earlier on this year we decided to split the partnership. He retained the country offices, while I retained the central London one…and this one.’

      There was a look in his eyes that suggested to Charlotte that his split from his partner had not been overly amicable, and she wondered what had caused it.

      ‘I had been intending to come and see you,’he was adding. ‘While we are going to be in direct competition with one another, I thought—’

      ‘What?’ Charlotte challenged him bitterly. ‘That we could form the sort of ring which antiques dealers are notorious for? I’m sorry, Mr Tennant,’ she stood up abruptly, ‘that isn’t the way I do business. I don’t believe in appealing to the more greedy side of people’s natures. I prefer to set a realistic price on properties and not to encourage my clients to put outrageous prices on their homes. Nor do I believe in encouraging them to take on huge mortgages,’ she added repressively. ‘I don’t believe that you and I could ever work harmoniously together.’

      ‘Well, if we can’t be friends…’ he began musingly.

      ‘We must be enemies. That suits me fine,’ Charlotte told him grimly, and not entirely truthfully. There was something about him that warned her that he would be a formidable foe, but she had her principles and she did not intend to deviate from them. If that eventually meant that she lost so much business that her agency had to close, then so be it. She had her training to fall back on. She could always get a job in London, unappealing though that thought now was. She had her health, a very respectable bank balance, her own home…

      Giving him a thin smile, she said curtly, ‘I must be leaving. I’d better go and find Vanessa.’

      ‘I’ll come with you.’

      She stared at him, and then flushed uncomfortably. For a moment she had thought he was suggesting that they leave together, when of course he had meant nothing of the sort. Angry with herself for the sudden and totally unexpected sensation churning her stomach, she turned away from him and looked for Vanessa.

      Her hostess was plainly not particularly sorry to see her leave. Charlotte hated the insincere way Vanessa insisted on aiming a pouting kiss in the direction of her cheek.

      Oliver Tennant was standing directly behind her, and when she stepped back to avoid Vanessa’s embrace it was a shock to her senses to suddenly come up against the hard male warmth of him. She hadn’t realised how close to her he was standing, and, when instinctively she tensed and turned to look over her shoulder, she was stunned to discover that only centimetres separated their faces. She could see the rough male texture of his skin, darkening already with the shadow of his beard. The eyes, which at a distance seemed uniformly dark blue, on closer inspection proved to have a lighter, almost metallic outer rim.

      As she had stepped back, he had reached out automatically to steady her, and she was burningly conscious of the warm pressure of his hand on her arm, his fingers firm against her skin. She saw the way Vanessa focused on that point of contact between them, her mouth tightening, and wondered why on earth he hadn’t simply stepped back from her.

      ‘Oliver, surely you’re not leaving? I wanted to have a word with you about putting this place on the market,’ Vanessa pouted, darting a malicious glance at Charlotte.

      ‘Another time, Vanessa, if you don’t mind.’

      He was still holding on to Charlotte’s arm, and, as Vanessa started to say eagerly that perhaps he would like to call round in the morning, his grip relaxed slightly, and to Charlotte’s