Rules Of The Game. PENNY JORDAN

Jay Courtland’s concerned? It can’t be because you harboured a youthful adoration for him—you were never a football fan, so what is it?’

      ‘Nothing,’ Vanessa lied shortly. How could she explain to her down to earth brother that everything she had read in the national press about Jay Courtland before he announced his return to Clarewell irritated her? He was a rich tycoon, a man who lived and played hard; who made no secret of his orphanage upbringing; or the fact that he had had to fight hard for all that he now owned. She had visualised him as something of a rough diamond; a man who carried his game-playing from the football field to the boardroom and who was worlds removed from the sort of man who would appeal to her. Her tastes ran to men who shared her love of music; the theatre and the other arts; men whose idea of enjoyment was a day spent at the National Gallery as opposed to Wembley Football Stadium; a man who did not make sport and being ‘one of the boys’ his Gods. In short, a man as far removed from Jay Courtland as it was possible to get. If she had to visualise a career for this mythical man it would be as a doctor, or a solicitor, something that demanded exercise of the intellect rather than the body. If she explained any of this to Gavin he would doubtless accuse her of being silly, even perhaps of being faintly snobbish, but there was nothing of this in her feelings, it was simply that men like Jay Courtland were not her type. She did not believe for one moment that his generosity to his home town was purely philanthropic. How could it be when one took into account his reputation?

      ‘Look Van,’ Gavin began with brotherly impatience. ‘You’ve got it all wrong. Jay intends to keep the team a local one; in fact he’s determined on that; he wants others to have the chance he had; the chance to use their skill on the football field to escape the near poverty he had to endure as a child. That’s why he’s financing the new sports and leisure complex; that’s why he’s re-equipping the local team to such a high standard.’

      ‘And of course his generosity has nothing to do with Supersport, I suppose?’ Vanessa asked sardonically. ‘Honestly Gavin you must think I’m a real dunce.’

      ‘I’m not denying that he will want to make Supersport as successful as all his other companies, but you can’t use that to detract from what he is doing for the town. If you discount everything else there are still the jobs that Supersport will bring to the town when he expands it as he intends to do.’

      ‘By fermenting a good deal of national public interest in his ex-local football team? By kitting out them and all other local would-be athletes for free?’

      ‘Okay, so there is something in it for him, and he can be a hard man, but he’s got reason to be Van. Abandoned by his mother when he was five years old; never knowing his real father, because his mother never married him and she died before he was old enough to talk to him about him; living in an institution … He got a place at university, he could have gone to Oxford you know, but he couldn’t afford to support himself while he was there, even with his scholarship so—–’

      ‘He became a footballer instead, swopping graceful spires for the adulation of his fans? You’re breaking my heart …’

      ‘As you’ll break mine, if I lose the promise of this contract. You will go and see him won’t you Van?’

      ‘Do I have much option?’ she asked her brother dryly, adding, ‘Yes I’ll go, and if I were you I’d check up on the whereabouts of our real model.’

      There was no point in putting off the evil hour unnecessarily. Gavin told her that Jay’s aide had said he could be found at Supersport, but just as she opened the studio door Gavin yelled after her, ‘Van, go home and get changed first. If you go dressed like that they’ll never let you in the place …’

      Suppressing an angry grimace Vanessa stepped out into the sunlit street, heading for the battered Volvo estate both she and Gavin shared.

      It didn’t take her long to drive to Clare Lodge, the home her parents had bought shortly after their marriage. Set in the rolling countryside of the Cheviots the lodge commanded almost idyllic views of the hills. The approach road was unmade up and pot holed, but the Volvo was too used to it to do more than protest mildly, unlike the expensive foreign make sportscar which she only narrowly managed to avoid as it came racing down the lane towards her. Only by swerving almost into the ditch was there room for its driver to get past, and Vanessa had a blurred impression of dark hair before her attention was concentrated on maintaining control of her own vehicle.

      The lane led only to Clare Lodge and the Manor House beyond, and she frowned wondering if the driver of the other car had merely lost his way or had had a definite mission down the muddy narrow track. The Manor House had been up for sale for over twelve months and before that had fallen into decay, occupied only by General Adaire, an eccentric, ex-army man who lived there alone after the death of his wife.

      More out of curiosity than anything else, Vanessa drove past the gates of the lodge and headed towards the Manor House proper coming to an abrupt stop as she saw the padlocked gate and the ‘No trespassers’ signs. Where the old, faded ‘for sale’ notice had hung a new notice now stood, a bold ‘sold’ sticker plastered across it. Someone had bought the Manor.

      Musing on who it could be and hoping it would not, as had been rumoured at one time, be a property developer intent on turning what had once been a gracious country house into a multitude of small flatlets, Vanessa reversed down the lane to the lodge. As its name implied it had once been the lodge to the Manor House, but had been modernised and extended from its original Tudor framework during the Edwardian era, when it had been occupied by the mother of the then incumbent of the Manor. Having known no other home Vanessa was fiercely devoted to the lodge. How much longer would they be able to keep it though if Gavin did not get the contract he was hoping for from Supersport? Yet another reason for her to tender her apologies to Jay Courtland. Surely her love for her home outweighed her discomfort at the thought of facing the man who had mocked her so sardonically in her brother’s studio?

      Less than an hour later, showered and wearing a simple pale yellow linen suit she had bought on impulse in a boutique several weeks ago, she was driving the Volvo in through the gates of Supersport. She had visited the factory once before and as then she was struck by its general air of neglect and decay, hardly the image of a go-ahead competitive firm, she thought as she eyed the untidy loading bay and the rather decrepit vans waiting there.

      The only space to park the Volvo was right next to … Her heart missed a beat as she studied the unmistakable lines of the exotic sportscar she had last seen coming down the road from the Manor. A brief glance at the personalised numberplate told its own story and her face flamed as she remembered their brief contretemps in the lane; JAC 1, the numberplate read and she wondered idly what the ‘A’ stood for as she forced herself to breathe evenly and deeply, summoning all her courage and composure for the interview ahead.

      As she locked the car and walked towards the reception area she heard voices gradually coming nearer, and recognised Jay Courtland’s, much sharper and more authoritative than she remembered it. ‘All deliveries will be tendered out—at least until we get the factory working reasonably efficiently.’ Vanessa heard someone else objecting, but Jay Courtland cut ruthlessly through the objections announcing crisply that he had made up his mind and that he was not prepared to waste valuable time on discussing the matter further.

      She had just reached the main door when the small party of men rounded the corner. There were five men altogether, Jay Courtland easily discernible; easily the most arresting, his lean, tall frame standing out from those of his fellows; tired-looking, business-suited individuals whom she recognised as the directors of the once family-run firm. Jay Courtland saw her first, and saying something to his companions left them to walk towards her.

      ‘Ah ha, it’s the lady who wants to photograph me in the nude,’ he mocked her with a taunting smile. ‘You’re nothing if not persistent, but you can hardly expect me to strip to the buff here, or was it bribery you had in mind this time?’ His glance rested provocatively on her breasts as he spoke, and the suit which had seemed eminently respectable and suitable when she put it on suddenly seemed to cling far too seductively to the curves of her body, the silk shirt she was wearing beneath it, far too revealing.