Rachel Lindsay - Business Affair Read online

  Rachel Lindsay - Business Affair

  Warwick was abruptly brought back to Holiday to face bad news: her father's illness, and some unaccountable difficulties in the family business, a huge luxury store.

  Marcus Brent offered to help her pull through; but Kate, mistrustful and resentful, was determined to do without him, even to oppose him.

  This is the story of their struggle for power and its strange yet inevitable ending.

  CHAPTER I

  THE narrow strip of golden sand was deserted and the blue sky was slowly darkening to purple as Kate Warwick walked along the shore at Bandol towards the hotel. It was the time of day she liked best: when the sun-worshippers could sunbathe no longer and the sea reflected the silver shimmer of the moon. She paused to look at a boat on the horizon, unaware of the picture she made silhouetted against the cliffs that rose behind her. Taller than average, she made no concession to her height and her sheath dress was moulded to her body by the wind. Her eyes, a curiously dark grey, were set beneath a wide forehead and above it her hair gleamed black against the whiteness of her skin. Without any parting it fell round her head to the nape of her neck, so thick and heavy that it seemed to have a vitality of its own.

  Turning, she started to walk again and reaching the steps at the base of the cliff, climbed to the top and crossed the road to the hotel.

  "A telegram has just arrived for you, Miss Warwick," the receptionist called.

  Kate accepted the envelope and slit it open.

  "Phoned twice but unable contact you. Call immediately on receipt. Urgent. Love. Dad."

  She crumpled the paper in her hand, walked to the telephone desk and gave them the number of her home. Impatiently she waited as the operator tried to contact London, but the line was bad and after a moment the girl looked up from the switchboard.

  "There's a storm somewhere, I'm afraid, and a two hour delay. Shall I keep the call in hand for you?"

  "Yes, please. I'll dine in tonight." Wondering what could have happened to precipitate her father's telegram, Kate walked up the stairs to her room.

  Overlooking the cliffs and the water, it was the best suite in the hotel, but Kate, daughter of the head of Warwicks, one of England's largest department stores, accepted it as her due. From the time she was seven she had been used to money, leaving her kindergarten for an exclusive boarding-school, first in England, then in Switzerland. Returning home at eighteen, polished, sophisticated, she had astounded her father by announcing that she was going to enter his business. Even now she could not help smiling at the look on John Warwick's face.

  "No business for you, my girl. You're to enjoy yourself—go to parties and meet lots of young men."

  "Young men bore me," Kate had said defiantly. "I want to learn about the store. You haven't got a son to follow in your footsteps, so I must."

  More shaken than he cared to admit by this pronouncement, John Warwick finally agreed to let his daughter work for him. And work she did! Starting as check girl in the parcels department, she graduated through every branch of the business until, at twenty- five, she knew almost as much about running it as he did.

  "You're wasting your life, Kate," John Warwick said one evening as they left the office together. "You're not eighteen any more and it's time you thought of getting married."

  "Anyone in mind?" she asked lightly, knowing even as she did so that his answer would be Charles Collier.

  Kind, attentive Charles who, in the five years he had been at Warwicks, had made himself indispensable. He had come from South Africa with a formidable list of introductions and patiently sat in the outer office day after day until John Warwick had agreed to see him.

  Liking the tall, impeccably dressed young man, he had given him a job as messenger boy—one more example of an ironic humour that could either make or break its recipients. Charles Collier had been made by it and, like Kate herself, was now in a position of importance, controlling not only the merchandise bought, but all the people they employed.

  At the beginning of the year a group of American buyers had come to England to discuss merging with a British store to facilitate the exchange of goods. Kate had been detailed to the social side and together she and Charles had shown the buyers round London. Thrown together outside the office as well as inside, their friendship had deepened and, after leaving the Americans at their hotel on the last night of their visit, Charles had taken her home and come in for a drink.

  The Warwick house was in a quiet square off Kensington. The rooms were dark and high-ceilinged, but the furniture was warm brown mahogany and rich brocade, the curtains at the narrow windows of jewel- toned velvets.

  Kate crossed the marble hall and switched on the lights in the drawing-room. The crystal chandelier reflected prismatic colours, echoed in the diamonds round her throat and in the lobes of her ears, where her dark hair sprang upwards. Charles' eyes rested on her mouth and, afraid of the desire she sensed in him, she walked to the sideboard and lifted a whisky decanter. She poured him a drink, added the right amount of soda and passed him the glass.

  "Aren't you having one?"

  "No, thanks." She sat down and reached for a cigarette. "I'm exhausted. Thank heavens these people are going home."

  "They have been a handful," he conceded. "But it's unlike you, to be tired. You've been looking paler than usual too. Anything wrong?"

  "I shouldn't .think so. I'll go and see the doctor over the weekend." She eased off her shoes and rubbed one leg against the other. Her feet were beautifully shaped, long and narrow like her hands which, finger-nails unvarnished, were clasped in her lap.

  Charles sipped his whisky, his thin body reflected in the mirror behind his head. Even when she was wearing her shoes, he was one of the few men who topped Kate by several inches, and this was one thing she liked about him. There were other things she liked about him too: the fastidious way he dressed, his courteous manner, his deliberate way of speaking. He fitted well into the business, never quarrelling with her father-rand there were times when everybody quarrelled with old John Warwick—and always showing the right amount of deference. She sighed. They were lucky to have found Charles. Warwicks needed a man in charge, for no matter that she herself knew the business completely, a woman could never command the same respect.

  As if sensing that she was watching him, Charles moved and she looked into his eyes, feeling a sense of warmth at sight of his narrow face with its long nose and heavy-lidded eyes.

  "These few weeks have been wonderful ones for me," he said quietly, "I'm sure you know that."

  "It's been fun," she agreed cautiously. "But now I don't mind sitting back and relaxing."

  "I hope that isn't a hint to me not to see you any more."

  "You know it's not!"

  "I don't know anything of the sort. In the past fortnight I've seen you ten times. After next week I'll be lucky if you come out with me once." He set his glass on the mantelpiece and came over to her. "For three years I've seen you every day. I've talked to you and lunched with you and looked into those big grey eyes of yours, yet known that you've only seen me as a piece of Warwicks—part of the office furniture."

  She sat up straight. "I've always liked you, Charles. Dad and I—"

  "I'm not interested in what your father thinks! It's you. Oh, Kate—" He pulled her up from the chair, his hands unexpectedly firm on her shoulders. "I love you. You don't know how much I love you." Without warning he pressed his mouth on hers, his kiss so passionate and unlike him that she was too surprised to respond. After a moment he released her and stepped back. "I'm sorry, Kate. I shouldn't have done that."

  "Don't apologise," she said quietly. "We've both had too much to dri
nk."

  ""I haven't. And neither have you." He picked up his glass and sipped. "Perhaps that's your trouble. You're too controlled. I've told you I love you, yet you stand there looking at me as if we're discussing the price of blankets."

  Unable to stop herself, she burst out laughing and the tension between them dissolved. "Charles, I'm sorry, but you must admit it's your own fault We've known each other all this time and without any warning you tell me you love me and—and—"

  "That I want to marry you? Don't be afraid to say it, Kate. You've never been afraid before." He moved closer. "Will you marry me?"

  She did not look at him but stared at the painting behind his shoulder, counting the sheep that strayed across the pastoral scene. "I don't know what to say, Charles. I'm terribly fond of you, but I—I don't think I love you enough to be your wife."

  "As long as you're pot certain about it, I feel there's hope. Oh, darling, it would make your father so happy "

  Tears filled her eyes and she closed them, her lashes glistening wet. "I can't many you just because it would please him. It wouldn't be fair to either of us." A feeling of nausea suddenly gripped her and she caught the back of the chair.

  "What is it?" he said sharply. "Kate, you're ill!"

  "I'm all right. I'm overtired, that's all."

  "Then go to bed." He led her to the door. "I'll turn off the lights and find my own way out. We'll talk about this some other time."

  In her bedroom Kate dropped her ear-rings on to the dressing-table and slowly let the diamond necklace slide through her hands. A king's ransom, almost; a twenty-first birthday gift from her father, signifying not only love but the years of work that had gone towards turning a small draper's shop into a vast empire.

  She moved to the window and looked out in the direction of the store. She could visualise the tall building, the neon name flashing across its front: one day it would belong to her. To her and the man she married..

  Frowning, she let the curtains fall into place. She and Charles would make an ideal couple. Their lives ran on parallel lines and he understood her interest completely. Was she being too romantic to expect something more?

  'Be your age,' she thought humorously. 'Stop waiting for a prince on a white horse.'

  She bent to take her nightdress from the bed and a sharp pain stabbed her side. She collapsed to the floor and lay there, nauseated, sweating. The. room darkened, then grew so bright that it hurt her eyes. She moaned and rested her head on the side of the bed, relaxing suddenly as the pain abated. Cautiously she stood up and was half-way across the room when it returned, but this time she fought against it and staggering the last few steps, flung open the door and called her father.

  The rest was a nightmare that she only dimly remembered: the arrival of the doctor and the ambulance; the white ceilings above her as she was wheeled on a trolley, and the sharp prick in her arm that sent her into oblivion.

  The return to reality was a painful one. Peritonitis developed and through long days and dark nights Kate fought for her life. It was a fortnight after her entry into hospital that she awoke one morning well enough to talk.

  "How long have I been here?" she asked, surprised that her voice, so strong inside her, was a weak whisper of sound. She cleared her throat and began again. "Am I better now?"

  "Almost," the nurse said. "And for the first time I can say it and mean it."

  "Have you said it many times before?"

  "Practically every hour. You kept telling me you had to get well because of the January sales."

  Kate smiled and tears of weakness filled her eyes.

  "Now then," the nurse said. "You've nothing to cry about. Another month and you'll be up and about again."

  "A month! But I can't stay here as long as that!"

  "You're lucky it isn't longer. And even when you go out you'll have to take it easy."

  The door opened and Kate turned her head as her father came in. Seeing her awake and smiling at him, he hurried across and gripped her hand in his large, veined one.

  "What a fright you gave me," he said brusquely, and dropped a bunch of roses on the bed. "There are bundles of telegrams and the hospital's filled with the flowers that came for you. Now you're better I'll get some more brought to your room."

  "I don't want any brought to my room. I want to go home."

  "You can't." John Warwick's voice boomed and as the nurse frowned, he reddened and lowered it. "You're staying here till the doctors say you can leave."

  "Why can't I go home with a nurse?"

  Her father grinned. "Once you start arguing I really know you're better. You're aptly named, my girl Always knew you'd be a Kate from the minute I set eyes on you as a baby." He pushed the flowers further up the bed. "Look at these till I come back. I'm on my way to the store."

  "How are things going there?"

  "It's not your concern yet," he replied, and waving his hand, walked out.

  John Warwick had spoken the truth: the store was not Kate's business for many months to come. Never having known illness before she was dismayed when she found she could not make her body obey her mind. A conversation longer than ten minutes exhausted her. To walk from one end of the room to the other was an effort that required all her strength and not even the nourishing food that she forced herself to eat could put any fat on a body thin to the point of emaciation.

  "You can't go on like this much longer," her father said one night, two months after her return home. "I've been talking things over with the doctor and he thinks you should go away on a cruise. A nice slow trip to South America and back. I've always wanted to see Rio de Janeiro."

  Kate's protest dissolved in the surprise of hearing her father say that he would be going with her. "I can't believe you'll stay away from the office for six weeks!"

  "Well, I will. I need a rest almost as much as you do."

  John Warwick picked up the brightly coloured folder that lay before him on the table, and watching him, Kate noticed how lined his face was, how sparse the grey hair that covered his head. She reached out and touched his hand, a rare gesture of affection, for neither of them were given to displaying their emotion.

  "My Kate," he said huskily, and patted her arm. "You mean more to me than anything in the world. When I watched you in hospital these past few weeks I vowed that if you got better I'd take you away. We haven't been alone together since you were a child and your mother died. And now it's time we were."

  "I can't believe it," she reiterated. "After two weeks on board ship you'll fly back home."

  "Not me. Charles can manage well enough in my absence and it'll be a good opportunity for me to judge him. He's turned out better than any of us could have expected." He glanced at her from beneath shaggy eyebrows. "He was worried sick when you were ill. Sat up that first night with me and paced the corridor."

  "He's asked me to marry him," she blurted out.

  "I know. He told me. But I'm not telling you what to do. It's your life."

  "But you'd like it if I married Charles, wouldn't you?"

  "It's your life," her father repeated, and deliberately changed the conversation.

  It was a trick that Kate knew well and she smiled inwardly. Obstinate like herself, John Warwick realised that to press a point might antagonise her into arguing against it. Tell her she must marry Charles and it was almost a certainty she would refuse. Pretend that he was indifferent to what she did and it was equally certain that she would do as he wanted.

  At the end of April, Kate and her father left England, and for nearly two months cruised in tropical waters. At the end of May their ship dropped anchor at Marseilles and she learned that for the next three months she would be staying at a hotel in Bandol, a seaside resort on the Riviera.

  "You're still as thin as a rake," John Warwick said, "and you're not coming back to London till the autumn."

  "You've no right to do this to me," she protested furiously. "I'll go mad here. I took it for granted we'd go home together."
/>
  "Well, we're not," he said bluntly. "You're still far from fit. Why, you can't even walk more than a hundred yards without having to stop for breath. No, Kate, I mean it," he said as she started to protest again. "Be a sensible girl and stay here till the autumn. I'll have a surprise for you when you come back."

  "What sort of surprise? If it's something to do with Warwicks, I want to know now."

  "You'll have to wait," he said obstinately, and recognising the set of his mouth, she reluctantly gave in.

  Though rebelling against the enforced rest, Kate gradually fell under the spell of the little French town. She grew to love the heavily wooded hills and the cliffs that teetered above the edge of the Mediterranean. She explored the narrow lanes and eyed with wonder the pink and lemon stucco villas, with their shutters of vermilion and emerald green, and the vivid flowers that bloomed in the gardens. And superseding it all was the blue sky and the bluer sea, shimmering lapis lazuli that stretched out to the edge of the horizon.

  Charles wrote to her each week, his letters affectionate but controlled; letters of a loving friend rather than a lover. Yet underlying them was a sense of impatience that made her nerves tingle. Many times she wrote and asked him what her father was planning on her return. But he never answered her and she knew with exasperation that she would have to bide her patience till September.

  Infrequently her father sent her a postcard, the large writing allowing no room for more than the most perfunctory enquiry after her health. Kate was amused by them, for each one held the same message: "Be a good girl, eat a lot and go to bed early." 'As if I'm a child,' she thought, and knew that to him she always would be.

  Her father's cable asking her to call him had come as a surprise, for she knew that only something urgent would make him intrude business on her recuperation.

  During dinner she was impatient for' her telephone call, but when she had finished it had still not come through and she strolled on to the terrace to sip her coffee. The night was starless, the sea black velvet against the sand. A warm breeze, moist with spray, damped her cheek and she brushed her hand against it, tilting her head as a bell boy came towards her.