LITMIR.BIZ

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wasn’t like that.

      ‘Yes,’ she said quietly.

      ‘What the hell are you doing in this house?’ He didn’t raise his voice, but his eyes were like lasers.

      ‘Lucia is here at my invitation,’ said his mother. ‘I knew she was being released this morning. I sent Jackson to fetch her. As you know, I was never happy about the court’s decision, but now it’s over and done with. She needs help getting back on her feet, and I need help with my travel plans.’

      ‘Mother, you’re out of your mind.’

      Before Mrs Calderwood could reply, a telephone on the small table beside her chair began to ring.

      ‘Excuse me,’ she said to Lucia. Then, ‘Hello? Mary…how nice to hear from you. Would you mind holding on for a minute? I’ll be right back.’ As she rose from her chair, she said to the others, ‘I’ll take this call in the study. Do help yourself to more coffee, Lucia.’ A moment later she had stepped outside and vanished.

      With the instinctive reflex of a man brought up in a family where old-fashioned courtesies were maintained, Grey Calderwood had risen while his mother was leaving the room. Now, still on his feet, he scowled down at Lucia. ‘It isn’t a year since you were sentenced. What are you doing out of prison?’

      ‘I’ve been allowed early-release.’ She leaned forward to pick up the coffee pot. ‘Would you like another cup, Mr Calderwood?’

      He shook his head. ‘Has my mother been in touch with you while you were in prison?’

      ‘No, never. This morning, before I was released, the governor told me there was someone willing to help me rebuild my life. A car was waiting outside the prison gates. I met Mrs Calderwood when I got here.’

      ‘My mother has a quixotic nature. Sometimes she allows it to overrule her common sense,’ he said coldly. ‘The governor would have done better to put you in touch with the various organisations that help released prisoners. While he’s taking you to wherever you wish to go, you can use Jackson’s mobile to call a Citizens’ Advice Bureau. They’ll put you in touch with the right people to help you.’

      It took all Lucia’s concentration to keep her hand steady as she refilled her cup. Before her arrest and imprisonment, she had been a self-confident person, a good mixer. They were characteristics, once effortless and taken for granted, that she would have to relearn. She was all right with someone friendly, like Mrs Calderwood, but the son, now that he had turned hostile, was harder for her to handle. He sapped her shaky amour propre merely by looking at her.

      ‘I would like to accept the post your mother has offered me,’ she told him.

      ‘Out of the question,’ he snapped. ‘If my mother is determined to go on these trips, it’s essential she has someone with her who has impeccable references and will be absolutely reliable. Not someone fresh out of prison for a serious offence.’ His voice had the same cold ring she remembered from the court room.

      ‘But not the kind of offence that makes me an unsafe person to be in charge of young children or elderly people.’

      ‘That depends. In my judgment you are not a suitable companion for my mother.’

      ‘Isn’t that for her to decide?’

      His mouth compressed in a hard line. The dark grey eyes flashed like steel blades.

      ‘Perhaps a hand-out will persuade you to see reason.’ He went to the chair where he had left his coat and took a cheque book from an inside pocket. As she watched he uncapped an expensive black fountain pen.

      She watched him writing the cheque, wondering what he would consider a suitable pay-off. Although she had disliked the man from the moment he stepped into the witness box and looked across the court room as if, in his opinion, she was as despicable as a drug dealer or a child abuser, a part of her mind was forced to admire the articulation of his long strong fingers.

      ‘There…that should cover your overheads until they find you a job.’ He held out the cheque.

      Lucia took it, curious to see what he was prepared to pay her. Her parents had not been well-off even when both were working, her father as a reporter on a provincial city’s evening newspaper, her mother as a public librarian. There had never been a time when Lucia hadn’t had to be careful with her own earnings. She couldn’t imagine being able to scrawl a cheque with three noughts as casually as people dropped spare change in a charity worker’s collecting tin.

      The amount he had written in figures and numbers took her breath away. Particularly as there was no element of kindness involved. Clearly, he didn’t want to help her. She felt he wouldn’t have cared if her sentence had been ten times as long.

      ‘But don’t take it into your head that there might be more where that came from,’ he said cuttingly. ‘It’s a one-off payment that will never be repeated. I’m making it on condition that you vanish from our lives and don’t reappear…ever. In the circumstances, it’s exceedingly generous of me to offer you any help. If you show up again, you’ll regret it. I can make big trouble for you—and will. You had better believe that.’

      ‘Oh, I do. You already have,’ she said dryly, folding the cheque in two and then in four.

      ‘You brought that on yourself, though I dare say you’ll never admit it. You’d rather believe the sob story cooked up by your lawyer.’

      There was no point in arguing with him. He was the type of man who, privileged from birth, could never understand the actions that had led to her arrest.

      Mrs Calderwood rejoined them. ‘I’m sorry I had to leave you.’

      ‘Ms Graham has changed her mind about the job you offered her,’ said Grey. ‘She realises it wouldn’t suit her.’

      His mother was not a fool. She obviously knew that her son liked to have his own way.

      Looking disappointed, she said, ‘Did Grey make up your mind, or is that your own decision?’

      Acting on instinct, Lucia had palmed the cheque before Mrs Calderwood saw it. Knowing that Grey would make a dangerous enemy but still impelled to defy him, she said, ‘Mr Calderwood would like it to be my decision, but it’s not. If you’re really sure I will suit you, I’d be happy to work for you.’

      ‘That’s splendid,’ said Rosemary Calderwood, ignoring her son’s silent but visible fury. ‘Now I’m sure you must be longing for a bath and a change of clothes. I’ve already sorted out some things left here by my daughters that you can wear till we have time to go shopping.’

      ‘I thought you might need some more coffee,’ said the grey-haired woman, coming back.

      ‘This is Mrs Bradley, my housekeeper,’ said Rosemary. ‘Miss Graham is joining us, Braddy. Would you show her where she can bath and change before lunch?’

      ‘One moment,’ Grey said sharply. ‘Mother, I don’t often interfere in your arrangements, but this time I must. I cannot allow you to employ this young woman.’

      He looked so stern and fierce that Lucia half expected his mother to yield to the force of his authority. She had already admitted to letting her late husband quash her youthful ambitions. It seemed unlikely she would resist her son if he chose to put his foot down.

      But it seemed that Rosemary’s will had strengthened not weakened with age. She said pleasantly, ‘I appreciate your concern for my welfare, my dear, but please don’t use that dictatorial tone to me. Your father laid down the law for fifty years. From now on I shall do as I think best.’ With a sweeping gesture of her hand she sent Mrs Bradley and Lucia on their way, before saying to her son, ‘You are staying to lunch, I hope, darling? I’m the cook today. We’re having lamb cutlets with tapenade.’

      It was a long time since Lucia had had a leisurely wallow in a bath of warm scented water. Even then her bath accessories had not been of the quality provided for her use in this luxurious

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