Sara Craven - King Of Swords

Julia felt immensely weary. ‘Why didn’t you tell me—call me back from Aunt Miriam’s?’

‘We wanted you to have a good time. And there was nothing you could have done.’

‘There must be something. I’m not going to let Ambermere go like this.’ Julia tried to smile. ‘Perhaps no one will want to buy the Albatross. No one we know has that kind of money.’

There was a long silence, then Lydia said quietly, ‘These days, darling, estates like this tend to look for buyers from abroad. And Mr Poulton has found one for us.’

‘Abroad?’ Julia echoed dazedly. She shook her head. ‘Not some Arab prince? I don’t believe it…’

‘Not quite. In fact—’ there were bright spots of colour burning in her mother’s cheeks ‘—I would almost prefer it. This man is Greek—a so-called tycoon. His name is Alexandros Constantis.’

‘Constantis?’ Julia’s brows snapped together. ‘That’s familiar. Does he have a relative called Paul?’

‘I wouldn’t know,’ Lady Kendrick said with distaste. ‘What I’ve heard of his antecedents is bad enough. I have no wish to enquire into his immediate family. Not that they have very much to do with him,’ she added with unaccustomed waspishness.

‘Then it must be the same man,’ Julia said slowly, thinking, remembering. ‘I had dinner with Paul Constantis a few times—he was charming. He had a post at the Greek Embassy—something fairly junior, I gathered, but he used to joke about nature having intended him to be a millionaire until fate, in the shape of his cousin Alex, had prevented it.’

‘Poor boy,’ Lydia Kendrick said, almost fiercely. ‘I imagine that’s only too true. You’re too young to remember the scandal, of course, but George Constantis was an immensely wealthy man, with a fortune in banking and property all over the Mediterranean. He was a widower, and childless, and his estate was expected to go to his sister and her children. Then lo and behold, on his deathbed, he suddenly revealed that he had an illegitimate son and had left his entire business empire to this child.’ She shook her head. ‘The family wouldn’t have objected to some kind of provision, naturally, but to have this person no one had ever known existed foisted on to them—over them—was appalling. He wasn’t a child, of course. He was already a grown man—but it was said he’d been dragged up in total poverty in some slum, and could barely read or write. There was some mystery about the mother, apparently. It seems she was some little peasant girl Constantis had seduced.

‘They fought, of course. They tried to prove he wasn’t Constantis’s son at all, insisted on blood tests, but they were inconclusive, so then they tried to overturn the will in the courts, saying this Alex had exerted undue influence on the old man while he was ill. It was quite a cause célèbre . But they lost—and he took everything.’

And now, Julia thought, rage rising inside her, now he’s trying to take Ambermere from me. But he won’t. Not someone like that.

‘An uncouth barbarian,’ Paul Constantis had called him, she remembered. Well he wasn’t going to lay his vandal’s hands on her home, if she could prevent it!

She got to her feet, ‘I’m going down to talk to Daddy,’ she said, trying to keep her voice level. ‘There must be something we can do. And surely this Constantis creature can’t be the only prospective buyer we can find?’

‘Apparently he’s made an excellent offer,’ her mother returned. ‘He does a great deal of business over here, and wants a permanent residence where he can entertain.’

‘Bouzouki nights with plate smashing, no doubt,’ Julia said grimly, moving to the door. ‘We’ll see about that!’ She ran along the gallery and down the wide curve of the big staircase, letting her hand slide down the highly polished balustrade as she had always done. As she always would do, she told herself. Ambermere had to be saved somehow.

As she reached the foot of the stairs, the study door opened and her father emerged with Gordon Poulton at his side. He looked tired and haggard, and in spite of her bitterness Julia felt a wrench of her heart at his obvious distress.

He looked up and saw her, and tried to smile. ‘Jools, sweetheart, no one told me you were home. ‘How marvellous!’

She ran to him. ‘Daddy, tell me it’s not true. Promise me you haven’t sold Ambermere to this appalling Greek peasant!’

She heard Gordon Poulton make a shocked noise, and saw her father’s brows snap together in sudden quelling anger. From the shadowy doorway behind them, a third figure detached itself and stepped forward.

Julia felt as if a hand had closed round her throat. She knew him at once, of course. It was the man she’d seen in the lower paddock and taken for a tinker.

No wonder he’d laughed at her! she thought dazedly.

Only this time he wasn’t laughing at all. As the hooded dark gaze swept her from head to foot, she felt as if the flesh had been scorched from her bones by some swift and terrifying flame.

It was all she could do not to fling up her hands to defend herself.

The Tower struck by lightning, she thought, from some whirling corner of her mind, and the King of Swords, coming to cut down her pride and separate her from everything she loved.

THE SAPPHIRE dress looked superb. Julia regarded herself critically in the full-length mirror, making a minute adjustment to the seams of her stockings, and tucking an errant strand of hair into place in her carefully casual topknot.

She looked elegant, poised and sophisticated—just as the daughter of the house should, she thought bitterly. But she was only attending the party under protest, and after the most thunderous row she’d ever had with her father. Even the thought of it now could still make her shudder.

‘How dare you, Julia!’ Sir Philip’s voice had been glacial, when they were finally alone together. ‘I’d hoped your time with Miriam might have cured you of your tendency to impulsive and inopportune reactions. You realise nothing is signed yet between Constantis and myself, and you could have jeopardised the negotiations by your insolence?’

‘Then I’m glad,’ she had answered defiantly. ‘Daddy, you can’t sell Ambermere to a man like that! There must be some other way.’

‘If there was, then I’d have found it.’ His tone sharpened. ‘You’re a child, Julia—a spoiled child. I’ve done you no favours by sheltering you from life’s realities.’

‘Is that how you categorise Alex Constantis?’ Julia’s laugh broke in the middle. ‘Then I’m glad you did—shelter me. He can’t have Ambermere—he can’t!’

‘He can—and I desperately hope he will.’ She had never seen her father look so stern. ‘And you, madam, will do and say nothing else to put the sale at risk.’

‘Well, you have no need to worry about that.’ Julia glared back at him. ‘I’ll make very sure our paths don’t cross again!’

‘In fact you’ll meet him again this evening,’ Sir Philip told her grimly. ‘He’s dining with us, and staying on for the party.’

Julia’s lips parted in a despairing gasp. ‘You can’t have invited him!’ she wailed. ‘Not someone like that. Our friends will think we approve of him—that we’re endorsing him in some way.’

‘And why shouldn’t we?’ Sir Philip slammed his desk with a clenched fist. ‘My God, Julia. Where did you learn to be such an appalling little snob? Alex Constantis may have inherited money initially, but he’s made another fortune on his own account since he became head of the Constantis empire. And in today’s world, it’s money that counts, my dear, as I’m afraid you’re going to find out. So far, he’s been reasonably accommodating. I just pray you haven’t ruined everything with your muddle-headed stupidity. He has a reputation for being a tough operator.’

‘For being a bastard!’ Julia flung back at him. ‘Which is, of course, exactly what he is.’

‘And what have we, precisely, to be so stately and moral about?’ Sir Philip demanded. ‘If the first Julia Kendrick hadn’t caught the Prince Regent’s eye, then we would never have owned Ambermere in the first place. Perhaps you should remember that.’ He paused, surveying her defiant, tight-lipped face. ‘And remember this too, Jools. Tonight I expect you to be civil to Alex Constantis—beginning, perhaps, with an apology.’

‘Will a plain “sorry I spoke” do, or would you like me to grovel—lick his shoes even?’

And so it had gone on, covering the same wretched ground, the same recriminations, until finally they had reached a kind of armed truce. Julia did not have to apologise in so many words, but she wouldn’t be allowed to feign a headache and miss the party either. And she would be polite to Alex Constantis.

‘I know it’s a terrible situation for you, darling,’ her father had said more gently, just before she went up, reluctantly, to change. ‘But we’re still a family, and that’s what matters in the end. Bricks and mortar, however historic, aren’t that important.’

The trouble was, Julia thought dispiritedly, her father had right on his side. She had been abysmally rude about Alex Constantis. But how could she have known he was lurking about in the study doorway like the Demon King, ready to pop up at just the wrong moment? And if she had known would she honestly have behaved differently? Somehow, she doubted it.

And where rudeness was concerned, honours were about even, she thought. He had snubbed her totally and succinctly, after her father had awkwardly attempted to introduce them, reminding Sir Philip coolly that they were due to visit the Home Farm, and walking off with him without deigning Julia a second look.