.

Anyone would think she was enjoying having a slanging match with him.

      ‘Since it looks a certainty that I’m going to be two thousand pounds out of pocket, I’d say it has everything to do with me!’ he answered crisply.

      Merren stared at him, totally perplexed. ‘You’re going to be two thousand pounds out of pocket?’

      He clearly had no belief in her puzzlement, but astonished her when he replied mockingly, ‘I just know it’s going to cost me that much to keep my word to my brother that I’d look after you.’

      ‘You’re suggesting you’d lend me the money?’ she questioned, more to check that she’d got it right, that her brain wasn’t so addled she was beginning to believe.

      ‘I’m stating, not suggesting,’ he began, but, waking up fast, Merren was butting in.

      ‘Why should you?’ she asked, starting to realise she must have landed in either a most generous or most crackpot family.

      ‘Why wouldn’t I?’ he questioned back, his steady grey glance on her improved colour. ‘Piers, whom I promise you has cost me more than forty pounds a week just lately with his lost causes, is about to leave the country to work abroad for a year. I think I’ll be getting off lightly by making a final two-thousand-pound contribution to his waifs and strays fund.’

      Insults she didn’t need. Merren got to her feet, glad to find her legs were steady and that her dizzy spell was a thing of the past. ‘Thank you for your hospitality,’ she told him proudly, and, taking a few steps away from him, ‘As for your money, I wouldn’t dream of touching a penny of it.’

      Grey eyes locked with deeply blue eyes. ‘Fine,’ he said, and, his glance flicking over her, ‘You won’t want to go through the streets looking like that.’ And then, a decision made, ‘I’ll drive you home.’

      Had she any other choice, Merren would have taken it. But, aside from the fact she knew she looked a wreck, she didn’t so much as have the price of a twopenny bus ticket—if there was such a thing—and she certainly wasn’t going to borrow from him. ‘I live in Surrey,’ she stated.

      He didn’t bat an eyelid, but escorted her out to where his beautiful-looking black Jaguar was parked.

      They were silent for most of the drive. What was there to say? She didn’t want to talk to him—she certainly had no intention of answering any of his questions—and he, likewise, didn’t seem to want to talk to her.

      In any case, she had a lot on her mind. Robert would be in despair when she told him she’d had the money but had lost it. She tried to think what else she could sell. There was her car, which was in good working order, but it was so old she’d be lucky if they got five hundred for it. Besides which, they seemed to need that car. In the six weeks since Robert and his family had moved in there had been countless visits en masse to the supermarket, and she’d taken her nieces, eight-year-old Queenie and six-year-old Kitty, out several times when Carol had been particularly edgy with them.

      Merren wished her father would reply to Robert’s letter. She knew her father didn’t have a lot in the bank, but occasionally in the past, when her mother had hit hard times, she’d overcome her pride and accepted money he’d sent to tide them over.

      Merren was just deciding that she would write to her father herself that night, when the man Jarad pulled up outside the detached house her father owned.

      Jarad turned to her. ‘You’re looking better.’

      ‘I’m a good actress,’ she returned airily.

      ‘So, I may have been wrong, and you may have been mugged.’

      ‘Don’t strain yourself!’ she tossed at him, but belatedly remembering her manners, added politely, ‘Thank you very much for bringing me home.’

      ‘I’ll bet that hurt!’ Merren made to get out of the car. ‘Will there be someone in to look after you? You’re probably still in shock.’

      She was more likely to have to look after them than they look after her. ‘I live with my family,’ she replied, and again made to get out of the car, when he stopped her.

      He took out his wallet and extracted a business card. ‘If you change your mind about the money—give me a ring.’

      She took the card from him, but, knowing she wouldn’t be phoning him, she didn’t so much as look at it. ‘Goodbye,’ she said. His car was purring away before she was halfway up the garden path.

      Ignoring the general clutter of family life when she went in, Merren picked up a note from the kitchen table. ‘Gone to supermarket,’ she read. Heartily glad that she had the chance to make herself more presentable before her brother and his family arrived home, Merren had a quick shower and changed into a cotton frock. The weather was sunny—she wished she felt the same.

      She mourned the loss of her mother’s ring—it had been so difficult to part with, and she felt quite dreadful that she had. Despite all her trials and tribulations her mother had always hung on to the ring, and had kept it safe for Merren, telling her that one day it would be hers.

      And what had Merren done? Not only had she sold it but she’d lost the money she had received for it. Merren just didn’t know how she was going to face her brother and confess what had happened.

      Knowing she should go downstairs and try to restore some order into the chaos of school bags, odd plimsolls, socks and a half-eaten sandwich she’d seen lying about, for once Merren squashed down her tidy soul and instead got out her writing pad. It was an age since she had last written to her father, and, much though she disliked asking him for money, she just didn’t know what else she could do. And he was family.

      Having penned a very difficult letter—which had started along the lines of ‘as you know, Robert and his family have, in straitened circumstances, come to live with me here in your house’—she had gone on to tell him of his lovely grandchildren, which she thought might interest him, and ended with the crunch line, which had been the most difficult of all to pen—if he could see his way clear to send something to help pay off some outstanding bills. She signed her letter ‘With love, Merren’, and went downstairs to tidy the cluttered sitting room and kitchen.

      Most probably they had all eaten dinner, but in case they hadn’t she began to peel a large panful of potatoes. If they had eaten, the potatoes would do for tomorrow. Now what was she going to tell Robert?

      Merren knew she could only tell him the truth, but she was feeling all stewed up inside about having to confess when she heard her car on the drive.

      She looked up as first her two nieces charged in. ‘Hello, Aunty Merren.’ They raced each other to the bathroom, followed by her depressed-looking sister-in-law, who was carrying a grizzling seven-month-old Samuel. Robert, laden with shopping, followed on behind.

      ‘Shall I have the baby?’ Merren asked, drying her hands and, while wanting to have what she had to tell her brother said and done with, found she also wanted to delay that dreadful moment when the expectant look on his face would die.

      ‘He needs changing,’ Carol answered, finding a smile, and disappeared to leave her alone with Robert.

      ‘How did your job interview go?’ Merren asked. Oh, how could she tell him?

      ‘I didn’t get it,’ he said glumly, and, dropping the shopping down on the kitchen table, ‘How about you—did you get it?’

      He meant the money, she knew. ‘N-no, actually, I…’

      ‘Merren!’ he exclaimed hoarsely. ‘You couldn’t sell Mother’s ring? Oh Lord, this is the end!’ He collapsed on to a kitchen chair, his head in his hands, his despair total. ‘That’s it—I’ll go to prison, Carol will divorce me, I…’

      ‘Robert!’ Merren cried. Prison! This was the first she’d heard of the mention of prison! ‘You’re just being dramatic.’

      ‘You