LITMIR.BIZ

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even responsible for actually doing the sacking. Far more likely was that he was an errand boy of sorts, someone sent to check out the situation.

      ‘What did he say?’ Lizzy asked tentatively. She noticed that she was no longer having to shout, which meant that he wasn’t driving quite so fast now. The roads were slippery, unlit and treacherous unless you knew them.

      ‘He fancies himself in love,’ Louis said with a dry, cynical laugh; Lizzy was suffused with a wave of rampant hostility. Not that she saw love and marriage as the be all and end all of everything, but her sister did. Her sister was head over heels in love with Nicholas Talbot and she bristled at the notion that this perfect stranger saw fit to be contemptuous of a situation about which he clearly knew absolutely nothing.

      ‘Oh yes?’ she managed to say coldly.

      ‘In love with someone who’s after him for his money, I gather from reading between the lines.’ No point beating around the bush. If the boy knew anything about what was happening in the town or village, even if he was too young to be really interested one way or another, then he would report back—and the warning would be sent out that Nicholas wasn’t up for grabs.

      Louis had had his fill of gold-diggers. He had been targeted at the age of nineteen, when he’d been too young to have known better, by a woman of twenty-five with whom he had fancied himself in love. Of course, the love had come to nothing, and neither had the memories.

      When he thought back to Amber Newsome, her big blue eyes, her tears and the way she had convinced him that she was pregnant so that she could worm her way into an inheritance that was fast closing to her, he could feel every instinct for self-preservation ram into place inside him. She had captivated him with her self-assurance at a time when all the other girls at university had been playing games, and for a while he had enjoyed every second of what she had had to offer.

      But then the time had come for moving on. He hadn’t banked on the fact that she would not be prepared to let him go. He had not yet learnt that his vast inherited wealth was something that should be kept under wraps. He had paid the price: three months of stress, thinking that he would have to marry a woman he no longer loved for a child he thought she had conceived, only to accidentally discover that he had been duped by an expert.

      And then, when he thought of his younger sister Giselle—and the way she had almost been conned by someone who had been close enough to the family to know better—every inclination in him to listen to garbage about love and romance shut down with the finality of a vault door slamming closed on the crown jewels.

      Nicholas was less sceptical, and therefore all the more susceptible to anyone after him for his money.

      ‘How do you know that?’ Lizzy asked, her heart beating fast.

      ‘I’m an expert when it comes to interpreting the sub-text,’ Louis informed her. ‘Ageing actress with five daughters who desperately wants them married off; it could almost be a cliché.’ It went against the grain to confide in anyone, but in this instance it suited his purpose; he could feel from her silence that she knew the family in question, had views on them.

      ‘You must have heard of them?’ He invited coaxingly. ‘The Sharp family?’

      ‘It’s a small town,’ Lizzy muttered non-committally. In front of her, Louis allowed himself a little smile of success. ‘Has … Has Nicholas—Mr, um, Talbot—told you all of this?’

      ‘Like I said, I’m good at the sub-text.’

      ‘And at prejudging other people as well, from the sounds of it,’ she threw back without hesitation. ‘You’ve never even met this Sharp family, but you’ve already made your mind up about them.’ Up ahead she could see the first straggling houses that signified the outskirts of the town. In these parts land was not at a premium, and acres of fields could lie between the houses, but everyone still knew each other and the town was really quite vibrant, considering its size. Beyond the town lay the still, dark waters of one of the smaller lochs and to the left of the town, commanding a hill top, lay Crossfeld House.

      Lizzy had never known it to be anything other than verging on derelict, although half-hearted attempts had been made over the years to try and bring it back to life. The current owners, however, were not locals. They were wealthy businessmen from Glasgow, all ardent golfers who had, so the rumour went, bought it on the spur of the moment and then promptly relegated it to the back burner because they hadn’t reckoned on the time that would be required to fix it up. And so it had malingered, until three months ago when a buyer had been found.

      ‘You need to take the next left.’ Her voice was forced as she directed him on to Crossfeld House. ‘And you’ll have to go very slowly. The roads aren’t in the finest condition.’

      ‘And how far away do you live from the place?’

      ‘There’s no need to worry about me. I’m more than capable of finding my way home.’

      Zooming around on a bike twice his size, Louis was in no doubt of that. For the first time since he had mounted the motorbike, he became fully aware of his surroundings. There was peace, he thought, and then there was the silence of pure solitude. This place definitely fell in the latter category. Personally, he could think of nothing worse than a prolonged stay in a town where finding a mobile-phone signal could be a challenge. But he was confident that there were a lot of people for whom this sort of thing would be just what the doctor ordered, people who found it relaxing to escape the daily grind of city life.

      Golf had never been a sport that Louis found attractive; he preferred something that actually increased the heart rate. But, that said, there were vast numbers of golfers out there and he could begin to see that Crossfeld House might just turn into a gold mine. Had the ageing actress thought the same thing, and therefore set poor Nicholas within her sights for that reason? Was she aware that he wasn’t the outright buyer of the property?

      There were just one or two things that Louis felt would be advantageous to make clear before his unwitting passenger headed back with tales of the outsider.

      ‘What do the people in the town think about the buy out of Crossfeld House?’ He initiated the conversation via a circuitous route. He was genuinely curious, anyway.

      ‘That it would be nice for the place to be renovated,’ Lizzy told him coolly. ‘It’s been a bit of an eyesore for a long time. Course, there’s nothing to say that it won’t go the same way as it did before.’

      ‘Meaning …?’

      ‘Meaning that because someone has money doesn’t mean that they’re going to make a success of it.’

      ‘Someone like Nicholas, you mean?’

      ‘I don’t know where you’re going with this.’

      ‘Nicholas isn’t the buyer, as it happens,’ Louis said casually. ‘Although he does come from money. Which is doubtless why he’s been targeted as a catch. The fact is, Nicholas is the chartered surveyor up here to give the place a once-over—make sure it’s not going to collapse into a pile of rubble the second the cheque’s signed.’

      ‘Who are you?’

      ‘I’m astounded you haven’t got round to asking me that sooner.’

      Lizzy thought that she hadn’t got round to asking him that sooner because she had been too busy disliking him.

      ‘My name’s Louis Jumeau, and I’m the guy bankrolling this little venture.’

      Wrapped round his muscular body, her hands balled into little fists and her heartbeat quickened.

      ‘Nicholas happens to be a very good friend of mine,’ Louis said mildly. ‘We virtually grew up together. We may not be alike, but anyone who knows us would tell you that I’m very protective of him. I’m also much more clued up on gold-diggers than he is.’

      Just in time, the manor house was approaching; it was a majestic sight. In the light of the moon, it dominated the horizon—even if the cold

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