Sara Craven - When The Devil Drives

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Former journalist SARA CRAVENpublished her first novel ‘Garden of Dreams’ for Mills & Boon in 1975. Apart from her writing (naturally!) her passions include reading, bridge, Italian cities, Greek islands, the French language and countryside, and her rescue Jack Russell/cross Button. She has appeared on several TV quiz shows and in 1997 became UK TV Mastermind champion. She lives near her family in Warwickshire – Shakespeare country.

Cover

Title Page When the Devil Drives Sara Craven www.millsandboon.co.uk

About the Author Former journalist SARA CRAVEN published her first novel ‘Garden of Dreams’ for Mills & Boon in 1975. Apart from her writing (naturally!) her passions include reading, bridge, Italian cities, Greek islands, the French language and countryside, and her rescue Jack Russell/cross Button. She has appeared on several TV quiz shows and in 1997 became UK TV Mastermind champion. She lives near her family in Warwickshire – Shakespeare country.

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

Endpage

Copyright

‘SIMON, YOU DON’T—you can’t mean this! It’s a joke, isn’t it—one of your appalling, tasteless bloody jokes?’

Simon Chalfont’s face reddened, and his glance shifted away from the anguished appeal in his sister’s eyes.

‘I’m totally serious, old girl.’ He sighed. ‘God, Jo, if I could change things, I would. But you weren’t here, and the bank wouldn’t lift a finger to help me. I was desperate.’

‘So you’ve mortgaged us—this house—the workshop—the little we have left—to Cal Blackstone.’ Joanna Bentham’s hands gripped the back of the chair as if it were the only reality in a suddenly tottering world. ‘I can’t believe it. I can’t credit that you’d do such a thing.’

‘And what was I supposed to do?’ Simon demanded defensively. ‘Lay the men off? Close the workshop? Try and sell this house?’

‘If you were so strapped for cash, surely there are other sources you could have borrowed from in the short term?’

‘A loan shark, perhaps,’ Simon suggested derisively. ‘For God’s sake, Jo, do you know the kind of interest those people charge?’

‘I know the kind of interest Cal Blackstone could charge.’ Joanna drew a shaky breath. ‘Simon, don’t you realise what you’ve done? You’ve sold us lock, stock and barrel to our greatest enemy!’

‘Oh, I knew that was coming.’ Simon flung himself on to the sofa, giving his sister a trenchant look. ‘Don’t you think it’s time we grew up and forgot all about this ridiculous family feud? Isn’t carrying the thing into a third generation going over the top?’

‘Ask Cal Blackstone,’ Joanna bit back at him. ‘He hasn’t forgotten a thing. Fifteen years ago, his father took the mill away from us. Now his son’s coming for the rest. And, thanks to you, he hasn’t even had to fight for it.’

There was a sullen silence.

Joanna released her grip on the chairback, rubbing almost absently the indentations the heavily carved wood had left in her flesh.

Cal Blackstone, she thought, and her skin crawled. The grandson of the man who was once glad to work for my grandfather as an overlooker at the mill. The trouble-maker, the rabble-rouser who tried to close our doors with strikes over and over again. The self-made millionaire who drove Chalfonts to the edge of bankruptcy, and died swearing he’d put us out on the street.

Even after the fierce old man had gone, there was no respite for the beleaguered mill. His son Arnold had proved just as inimical, just as determined. In the end Chalfonts had had to be sold, and there was only one bidder.

Arnold Blackstone got it for a song, Joanna thought, anger welling up inside her. Chalfonts, who’d been making quality worsteds on that site for over a hundred years. And he made it a byword for cheap rubbish, aimed at the bottom end of the market.

The only thing remaining from the old days was the name—Chalfonts Mill—kept deliberately by the Blackstones, Joanna’s father had said bitterly, as a permanent thorn in the family’s flesh—a constant and public reminder of what they’d lost.

Now, under the direction of Cal Blackstone, his grandfather’s namesake, the mill, as such, no longer existed. The looms had been sold, and the workforce dispersed, and the vast building had become a thriving complex of small industrial workshops and businesses.

Because Cal Blackstone wasn’t interested in quality or tradition. He was an entrepreneur, a developer of property and ideas. Local gossip said there was hardly a pie in a radius of two hundred miles that he didn’t have a finger in. And what he touched invariably turned to gold, Joanna reflected, wincing inwardly. He’d already more than doubled the fortune his father and grandfather had left, and at thirty-three years of age it was reckoned his career had barely even started.

To the outrage of the local landowners, he’d acquired Craigmoor House and its park, which had been derelict for years, renovated it completely, and, in the face of strenuous opposition, turned it into a country club, with an integral restaurant and casino, and a challenging nine-hole golf course in the reclaimed grounds.

Within a year, all those who’d been most vociferously outspoken against the plan were among the club’s most stalwart members.

But the Chalfonts were not among them. Since the original breach between the first Callum Blackstone and Jonas Chalfont, all those years ago, the families had never knowingly met under the same roof. The Chalfonts had let it be known that they would accept no invitations which had also been extended to any member of the Blackstone clan, and the rule had been rigorously applied by Cecilia Chalfont, Joanna’s mother, who came from an old county family and carried considerable social clout.

The two families had still been at daggers drawn when Cecilia had died from an unexpected heart condition while Joanna was in her early teens.

I’m almost glad, Joanna thought fiercely, walking to the window and staring down at the formal rose garden, glowing with summer bloom, which it overlooked. At least Mother was spared the knowledge of this—betrayal by Simon. But keeping it from Dad will be another matter.

Anthony Chalfont had his own suite of rooms on the first floor. Severely crippled by arthritis, he rarely ventured forth from them, but was looked after devotedly by his manservant Gresham, and Joanna’s own elderly nanny.

Just recently, her father’s mind had begun to wander, and he seemed to prefer to dwell very much in the past. A couple of times since her return, Joanna had found herself being addressed by him as Cecilia, although she could see little resemblance in herself to her mother’s haughty beauty. But there were other days too when his brain was as sharp and lucid as it had ever been. If Cal Blackstone turned them out of their home, the effect on her father might be disastrous.

She took a deep breath. ‘Tell me again—slowly—what happened. How you came to do this thing. After all, when I went away the workshop seemed to be doing well. The order-book was full.’

‘It was.’ Simon’s shoulders were hunched, his whole attitude despondent. ‘Then everything started to go wrong. Two of our biggest customers gave us backword. They said the recession was biting, and the property market was going into decline. They reckoned people weren’t prepared to spend that kind of money on handcrafted furniture and kitchens any more. We were left with thousands of pounds’ worth of specially designed gear on our hands.’

‘And what about our partner, Philip the super-salesman?’ Joanna asked. ‘What was he doing about all this?’

Simon shrugged. ‘Philip tried to find other markets, but the answer was always the same. Property development was being cut back, and prices kept down. They wanted mass-market stuff people could afford in their show houses.’

Joanna bit her lip hard. It was Philip who’d urged expansion, she thought angrily. Philip who’d persuaded Simon to take on more men, and buy more machinery to fulfil a demand he was confident he could create. In vain, she’d argued that small was beautiful, that they should concentrate on quality rather than quantity, and feel their way cautiously for a while until their markets were firmly established.

But Simon hadn’t wanted to listen. He’d wanted to make money fast, and restore the shaky Chalfont fortunes. He’d also wanted to marry Philip’s pretty sister Fiona, so anything Philip suggested was all right with him.

And at first their growth had been meteoric, just as Philip had predicted. Simon and Fiona had been married with all the appropriate razzmatazz, and the couple had moved into Chalfont House. The Craft Company had continued to flourish, and, although Joanna’s instincts had still warned her that they should be cautious, she was having deep problems of her own, and her involvement in the business was becoming less and less.

I should have stayed here after Martin died, she thought with a small silent sigh. I shouldn’t have run away like that. But I felt I needed time—to lick my wounds—to try and heal myself. There were too many memories here. Too much I needed to forget.

Her headlong flight, after her husband’s funeral, had taken her to her godmother’s home in the United States. Aunt Vinnie had extended the invitation in a warmly affectionate letter of condolence as soon as she’d heard about Martin’s fatal car accident. Joanna hadn’t planned on staying more than a few weeks in New Hampshire, but had become interested in spite of herself in the running of the art gallery Aunt Vinnie owned. She’d started helping out for a few hours each week, but had soon grown more deeply involved, and gradually her stay had extended into months.

If her godmother hadn’t reluctantly decided to sell up and retire to California, she had to admit she might still have been there.

Clearly, eighteen months had been a long time to absent herself. Too long, she castigated herself.

‘We had suppliers to pay, and the wages bill to meet,’ Simon went on. ‘Things were looking really black. The bank refused outright to allow us to exceed our stated overdraft. In fact, they started pressing us to repay some of it. Jo—I didn’t know where to turn.’

She didn’t look at him. She continued to stare rigidly down into the garden. ‘So you turned to Cal Blackstone. Why?’

‘It wasn’t quite like that.’ The defensiveness was back in his voice. ‘He approached me. He was the guest speaker at the Round Table dinner, and the people I was with asked him to join us afterwards for a drink. I couldn’t very well avoid him. We were left on our own, and at first he just—made conversation.’

‘But later?’ Joanna asked matter-of-factly.

‘Later—he began to talk about the Craft Company. He seemed to know we were in trouble. He said that things were generally difficult for small businesses, and mentioned a few of the problems some of them were having at Chalfont Mill. He said he’d been able to help in a lot of cases. That it would be a pity to go under, if a simple injection of cash could save the day.’

‘Cal Blackstone, philanthropist.’ Joanna gave a mirthless laugh. ‘And you fell for it!’

Simon came to stand beside her. ‘What else was I supposed to do?’ he almost hissed. ‘Things were bad and getting worse every day. Our creditors were pressing, and the bank was threatening to bounce the wages cheque. If someone offers you a lifeline, you don’t throw it back in his face, for God’s sake.’ He paused. ‘Besides, Fiona had just told me she was pregnant.’