CHAPTER EIGHT

      ‘YOU travel in luxury: a private helicopter for your sole use and a limo and driver to deliver you right to our door?’ Donald Hamilton awarded Gwenna an admiring smile across the depth of his spacious book-lined study. ‘I’m impressed. Obviously, Angelo Riccardi thinks very highly of you.’

      ‘I don’t know about that. I just missed my train.’ Gwenna was already wondering if Penelope had exaggerated the family crisis because her father did not seem unduly concerned. Indeed he seemed quite relaxed. ‘Penelope made the situation here sound grave and she was very mysterious. I’ve been really worried.’

      ‘Then you’ll be relieved to learn that my current problem is only what you might call a footnote to that other business at Furnridge.’ The older man grimaced. ‘There I was in a hell of a bind and I did what most people in a financial crisis do—I borrowed just a little from Peter to pay Paul.’

      Gwenna tensed again. ‘Meaning…er, sorry, I don’t quite understand.’

      ‘I’m afraid that certain irregularities in the garden committee’s accounts have been uncovered. Of course, given time I could make all good.’ Donald shrugged. ‘Unfortunately the stuffy old worrywarts on the committee are demanding instant repayment.’

      ‘You took money from the Massey Garden Fund…as well?’ Gwenna was appalled when she finally grasped the gravity of what she was being told. ‘What on earth were you thinking of?’

      ‘I don’t care for your tone, Gwenna,’ her father censured with a lofty look of reproof.

      ‘I just can’t believe that after all that fund-raising and all those speeches you actually helped yourself to the donations of the people who trusted you,’ she whispered painfully, shame weighing her down like a giant piece of concrete. ‘Why didn’t you mention this last month?’

      ‘Obviously because I hoped to be in a position to replace the money. But that’s since proved impossible. I’m unemployed, and Eva and I can barely afford to live in this house. Two members of the garden committee called yesterday. They’re threatening to call in the police.’

      Her brow felt as though a tension band was tightening round it. ‘How much money are we talking about?’

      Donald winced and mentioned a sum that shook her rigid.

      ‘Oh, my word…what are we going to do?’ she exclaimed.

      ‘Well, possibly you could sell a diamond necklace or something to save our skins,’ a female voice interposed with very female venom.

      Gwenna looked up in dismay to see her stepsisters and her stepmother coming into the room.

      ‘Or, you could simply ask your fabulously rich lover to bail your father out,’ Penelope continued in the same sarcastic tone.

      ‘I can’t do that,’ Gwenna whispered sickly, not knowing how to explain that she did not consider herself the owner of any of the diamond jewellery that Angelo had insisted she wear.

      ‘Sadly, you’re the only person who can help me now,’ her father told her heavily. ‘We have no money and no hope of getting a loan.’

      And with that final comment, Donald Hamilton left the room.

      ‘I can’t do anything,’ Gwenna said again. ‘I don’t have any money either.’

      Eva spoke up for the first time. ‘If you don’t find the means to sort this out discreetly, I assure you that I will divorce your father and then he won’t even have anywhere to live. I’ve had enough. I won’t tolerate any more.’

      Gwenna sighed heavily. ‘I can understand how you feel—’

      ‘I don’t think you do. While our lives have been crashing and burning as we struggled to pay our bills, you’ve been swanning down red carpets to film premières!’ Penelope condemned furiously. ‘I see your picture in all the top magazines and your name in the gossip columns. You’re shacked up with a Category-A billionaire!’

      ‘It would have been crude to present Angelo with a shopping list of demands in your very first week,’ Wanda opined, ‘but it’s time you stopped being selfish and shared your amazing good fortune with your family.’

      ‘That’s enough, girls,’ their mother, Eva, murmured. ‘I’m quite sure that Gwenna has got the message.’

      In shock from that combined verbal attack, Gwenna was hit even harder by the pure injustice of the allegations of selfishness.

      ‘I don’t believe that finding the money will be a problem for you,’ Penelope remarked sweetly. ‘After all, you’re wearing a fortune on your back. That handbag alone must be worth fifteen hundred pounds!’

      Gwenna stared down at her bag in horror. Did bags come that expensive? She had not a clue what any of her clothing or accessories had cost, for the simple reason that she had not shopped for them personally and they had not been delivered with price tags attached. She now deeply regretted raiding her designer wardrobe in an effort to boost her confidence in advance of an encounter with her sharp-tongued stepsisters.

      ‘I don’t have any money of my own and I can’t ask Angelo for it,’ she argued tautly, her mind in turmoil.

      ‘How can you be such a mean, selfish cow?’ Wanda demanded shrilly.

      Real bitterness flooded Gwenna at that denunciation. ‘I’m not a prostitute…I won’t ask him for money.’

      Her stepmother wrinkled her nose with distaste. ‘Let’s not overdo the melodrama, Gwenna. From what I’ve seen, Angelo Riccardi needs very little encouragement to spoil you rotten.’

      Angry, frustrated tears blinding her, Gwenna leapt to her feet. ‘Stop talking like I’m with Angelo out of choice! Or like it was some big treat for me! I was in love with someone else, for goodness’ sake. Angelo offered me a deal—if I slept with him, he would drop the charges against Dad!’

      No sooner had the words left Gwenna’s lips than she regretted an admission that she would never have made had she not been so upset and desperate to defend herself. Silence had fallen. All three women were now viewing her with dropped jaws of disbelief and she was totally mortified.

      ‘I had no idea,’ Eva retorted frigidly. ‘It sounds absolutely immoral and I hope you’re not blaming us for your decision. Do we need the sordid details?’

      ‘Angelo Riccardi had to blackmail you into bed with him?’ Wanda gasped wide-eyed. ‘I’d have knocked him flat in the rush. What’s the matter with you?’

      ‘That is so, so sexy.’ Penelope could not conceal her envy. ‘You are really sad, Gwenna. No normal woman would be moaning about it!’

      Dumbfounded by those reactions, Gwenna walked out of the room. She was taken aback to see Toby waiting in the hall. Just as quickly she appreciated that Toby, as a member of the garden committee, would already have