Marjorie Lewty - A Girl Bewitched (1982) Read online

  Marjorie Lewty - A Girl Bewitched

  Loving him meant heartbreak for sure!

  Lisa's letters to her cousin Emma were full of glowing details about the new man in her life, Trent Marston. Then Lisa suddenly decided to marry Richard Southall. What had happened?

  All Emma had to do was meet Trent Marston to know. He was the callous, self-centered type who merely amused himself with women's affections. And her dear uncle had hired this man to manage the family firm!

  How was Emma going to cope with working for him…and loving him?

  CHAPTER ONE

  'I'm still not awfully happy about letting you fly back to Heathrow on your own, Emma love.' Joe Kent, marketing manager of Fairley Brothers, of Poole, Dorset, England, shook his grey head worriedly. 'You're sure you'll be O.K.?'

  Emma Fairley smiled across the yellow-topped table at him reassuringly. 'Of course I'll be O.K., Joe. Haven't you been training me for the last six weeks, all the way down from Toronto, in the art of Air Travel Without Tears? Airports are home-from-home for me now. Well—almost.'

  She waved a hand airily towards the glass partition of the coffee-shop where they were sitting, beyond which the concourse of the vast international airport of Houston, Texas, U.S.A. seethed and chattered and sweltered in the warmth of early April. 'Look,' she giggled, 'what could possibly be homelier than that?'

  Joe grinned back, appreciating the joke. In the last six weeks of travelling together he had come to admire Emma Fairley as well as love her—which he had done since she was born, twenty years ago. She had been a tower of strength to him when he got depressed about the business. She could always manage to find a funny side to the worst of setbacks. She was happy to take much of the paper work off his hands, which he admitted was a great relief.

  But not least important, she had grown into a beautiful young woman, with her dark gold hair that was always smooth and well cared for, her slender body and long legs, and the way she had of looking at you with a calm seriousness that could change in a moment into that quirky little smile that wrinkled her small, straight nose. Oh yes, Emma Fairley was going to be a great credit to the firm. If, Joe added dismally to himself, there was going to be any firm to be a credit to.

  Emma was smiling her quirky little smile now, and looking, perhaps, a little more confident than she was feeling, but she wasn't going to admit that to Joe. He had enough on his mind with the business—or lack of it—without having to bother about her.

  She said, 'And anyway, look how easy it's all been made for me! You being a darling and taking most of my luggage on to Mexico with you, so that I'll only have my hand baggage to cope with. And Uncle Edward promising to have someone meet me at Heathrow! So you see—no problem!'

  Her tawny brown eyes rested affectionately on Joe's slightly stooping shoulders and thinning sandy hair, and she thought what a dear he was and how she was going to miss him. She said, 'I just wish I could have finished the trip and come with you to Mexico City. I'd been looking forward to that. Nothing but this crazy idea of Lisa's that she wanted to get married all in a wild rush would have dragged me back home before our trip ended. I don't know why she couldn't have waited a week or two longer.'

  'Lisa never had to wait for anything she wanted, did she?' Joe's tolerant grin removed any sting of criticism from the words.

  Emma sighed. 'I suppose we have spoiled her. She's so very spoilable.'

  Lisa, her young cousin—so delicately lovely, like a flower. Lisa, with her lint-fair hair and her dreamy, deep blue eyes. Lisa, so sweet, so loving, so delightfully grateful for anything you did for her. Had she been spoiled? No, thought Emma, loving never spoiled anyone.

  'I'm glad it's young Richard Southall she's decided on finally, though,' Joe was saying. 'He's a sound lad. I was always a bit afraid Lisa might land herself in some foolish love affair that would come unstuck.'

  Emma nodded soberly, marvelling not for the first time at Joe's perception. What would he say if he knew how dangerously close his fears had come to the truth? Her hand rested for a moment on her shoulder-bag, lying beside her on the table. In it were Lisa's letters to prove it.

  She changed the subject quickly. 'Joe, I've had an idea. Why don't I persuade Uncle Edward to let me come back after the wedding? If I could manage to get a flight the day after, then I could join you in Mexico City for when the trade fair opens next week.'

  Joe shook his sandy head firmly. 'Put that right out of your mind, love. All that travelling—you'd be completely whacked and no use to me at all,' he teased gently. 'And there's no need, my child. I've handled many a trade fair, I can cope with one more.'

  'Of course you can,' Emma said, a little too quickly. Not for the world would she let him know that she had noticed how weary he had looked on the flight from New York, and while they had been not very successfully pursuing customers here in Houston. 'But I could help with the letters and the paper work. I have helped, haven't I?'

  Joe grinned at her. 'Fishing, are we? You know darned well you've helped. You've been invaluable, and it's been a treat having you with me to cheer me up now and again.'

  Their eyes met in understanding. Emma said, 'The order book isn't exactly bulging, is it? But everyone says Mexico is the up and coming place. I'm sure the luck will change and we'll get lots of new contacts there.'

  'Well, you can bet I'll be chasing 'em up.' Joe lifted his thumbs.

  She grinned back at him, reflecting the gesture. Whistling in the dark, that was what they were doing. They both knew the score—that the family firm had been slowly going downhill for years and that now nothing less than a miracle could save it. Perhaps, she thought, they were the only two people who did know. Uncle Edward, engrossed in his electronic wizardry, seemed to know little about the business side—and care even less. Or perhaps it was that he was, in some ways, still a child. Geniuses, they said, often were. Lisa took after him in that way; at eighteen she still seemed to live in a world of dreams and imagination.

  The tannoy echoed through the room '—passengers for Flight P.A. 317, destination Mexico City, please————- '

  Joe stood up and tucked his shabby briefcase firmly under his arm. 'That's my final call, I'd better be moving.' He bent to kiss her. 'Take care, my dear, I'll be thinking of you. Wish Lisa all the best for me on Wednesday—and Richard too. Tell her how sorry I am to miss her wedding.'

  Emma nodded. 'She'll be sorry too.' But Lisa wouldn't. She'd never even notice that Joe wasn't there. Her lovely young cousin could never understand or share Emma's devotion to Joe Kent, who had worked so loyally for the family firm most of his life. To Lisa, in her dreamy, romantic youthfulness, anyone over the age of forty was already in their dotage.

  'Goodbye, Joe, and good luck.' She watched him weave his way between the crowded tables—a thin man, his feet dragging tiredly, and she felt a sudden catch in her throat.

  It was difficult to think of Joe as getting old, but she supposed he must be nearly sixty now. He had been part of the family firm, and part of her life, for as long as she could remember and she was very, very fond of him.

  When the light aircraft carrying both Emma's parents and Lisa's beautiful young mother to a conference in Italy had crashed over the Alps in a freak storm, ten years ago, it was Joe who had held Emma tightly in his arms, letting her sob out her shock and agony.

  Lisa, three years younger, and only just turned seven then, had been almost too young to understand what had happened. Uncle Edward had tried to comfort the two girls, but his own bewildered grief at the loss of his young wife had stunned him, and he had shut himself up in his workroom for days at a time, apparently losing himself among his charts and
blueprints and his array of delicate instruments.

  But Joe had understood. Had understood, too, that when the first numbing shock had passed Emma wanted to talk about her parents—about her mother, so lively and full of fun, and about her father, who was the dynamo that had kept the family firm throbbing along.

  'We'll never replace him.' Joe had shaken his head sadly. 'He had a way with people. He was building up Fairley Brothers into something really big.'

  'But you can do it too, Joe. You can go on where Daddy left off.' Emma had felt an odd need to encourage him.

  'I'll just have to try my best,' Joe said simply.

  Heaven knows he had tried his best, Emma thought now, but it looked as if his best hadn't been enough. She wondered what would happen if the firm really did go bust. Would they lose everything? Their home on the cliff overlooking the sea, in the Dorset village where she had grown up? Would that go too? Thank goodness, she thought fervently, that Lisa had made up her mind to marry Richard at long last—Richard, the boy-next-door, steady, safe. He had loved Lisa since childhood, and he would look after her and protect her from the chill winds that looked like blowing up around the family fortunes.

  Emma's face softened as she sat sipping her coffee. Lisa needed someone like Richard. What a mercy she had come to her senses in time about the wild, hectic romance that had started with the Trent Marston man, soon after Emma and Joe had left on their trip! Emma hadn't liked the sound of him at all. From Lisa's letters she recognised the type only too well, and she would be eternally glad that Lisa had cut short that little romance.

  She glanced up at the clock. Her flight wasn't likely to be called yet, so she took out Lisa's letters from her bag. She would read them through once again and then burn them when she reached home. Once she was a married woman Lisa wouldn't want to be reminded of that foolish little fantasy.

  The first letter had come soon after Emma and Joe reached Toronto, at the beginning of their trip.

  'Darling, darling Emma,' Lisa had written in her schoolgirl scrawl, 'It's happened as I always told you it would! The most wonderful, heavenly man! We met yesterday when he came to see Daddy on some business or other and we only had to look at each other! Oh, Em, wait until you see him, he's absolutely sensational—tall and dark with the most marvellous dark eyes that make my knees go all wobbly when he looks at me. I've dreamed about my man for so long that as soon as I saw him I just knew. The blissful thing is that he feels the same about me. Oh, gosh, it's unbelievable to be really in love, I'm just so glad I waited until he came. I want to give him everything and hold nothing back—when you fall in love you'll know what I mean. You've always laughed at me for being such a soppy, romantic idiot, haven't you, Em darling, but you see I was right—it does happen! I'm sitting in my room looking out over the sea and the sun's setting and I'm waiting for him to come and I'm sort of excited and scared both at once. I guess that's what love means. Goodness, there's the front door bell now and I can hear Jessie coming from the kitchen to open it. I'm all of a shake. Will write again very soon and tell you all the news, Your deliriously happy, Lisa.'

  The second letter arrived four days later, as they were leaving Toronto. It was shorter and even more ecstatic.

  'Em darling, Just two lines to let you know I'm over the moon, swinging on a star, sliding down a rainbow. All the corny old things, and they're true! Trent's taking me out to dinner tonight and I'll post this on the way. Trent Marston—even his name's romantic, don't you think? Will write again to reach you in Chicago and tell you all the latest news. Trent's been here every single day. He makes a pretext that it's to see Daddy on business, but of course we both just know. Daddy hasn't seen what's going on between us, but he never does notice things. He's working all the time on some new gadget or other and I think Trent means to wait for a bit before we tell him about us, in case Daddy thinks it's all been too quick and I'm too young to know my own mind, but very soon it will have to come out. Must dash now and wash my hair. All my love, Your Lisa.

  P.S. It sounds prissy in this day and age, but now I'm so glad I saved myself just for Trent.'

  Emma folded the letters and put them back in her bag thoughtfully. The second letter was dated nearly four weeks ago. After that—nothing. She hadn't worried because she and Joe had been moving around and letters could so easily have missed them. Uncle Edward phoned once or twice, but she thought it better not to mention this new man of Lisa's. Lisa had imagined herself in love before, but the man had always turned out to have some flaw—real or imagined. Lisa had always been the romantic, the perfectionist. Everything had to be the very best for Lisa, and Emma hoped (when she went to bed at night and had time to think about it) that this man would turn out to be the right one. But she was inclined to doubt it. She didn't altogether like the sound of Trent Marston, with his expressive dark eyes that made your knees go wobbly. She had met men with that sort of look, and she steered very clear of them.

  Then, a week ago, the phone call had come through from Uncle Edward, when Joe and Emma had arrived in New York.

  'Splendid news, my dear,' he had told her. 'Lisa's getting herself married. They've made up their minds very suddenly, and I must say I'm very pleased about it. She says to tell you that you must come home to be her bridesmaid. The wedding's fixed for Wednesday April the fourth, that won't be giving you much time, I'm afraid, but see what you can do. It's a pity about your not being able to finish your trip with Joe, but we can't let even business spoil little Lisa's day, can we?'

  Emma had been dumbfounded. Uncle Edward sounding so pleased and placid about Lisa marrying an almost complete stranger at a few weeks' notice!

  'But—but——' she had gasped into the phone, 'it's such a surprise—I'd no idea. There'll be all the arrangements to make and Jessie won't be up to that. Couldn't they put it off for a week or two to give me time when I come home? There'll be so much——'

  Her head had been spinning.

  Uncle Edward laughed. 'Lisa's made up her mind on the date and when Lisa makes up her mind nothing will stop her, as you well know. You needn't worry about the arrangements, my dear. Richard's mother has taken on that chore and she's in her element. Lisa spends all her time with her at the store, talking about clothes and so on. I leave 'em to it. She's there now.'

  'Richard's mother?' Emma said faintly. 'She's marrying Richard?'

  'Yes, of course—who else would she be marrying? And I must say I'm delighted, and between you and me, Emma dear, I'll admit to a certain relief. You know what a dreamer the child's always been, it'll be good for her to settle down early with a sensible young fellow. Now, Emma, will you put me on to Joe. There are one or two things——-'

  Emma folded the letters thoughtfully and put them back in her bag. She was glad, too, that Lisa was marrying Richard Southall. But a doubt nagged at her and wouldn't be silenced. Why hadn't Lisa written, and why had she let Uncle Edward do the explaining and break the news? It wouldn't be a happy thing if Lisa had decided to marry Richard on the rebound— that was never a good start to a marriage.

  Oh dear, she thought, why was everything going so wrong? The near-failure of this trip with Joe, and now the worrying mystery of Lisa's sudden decision to marry Richard, when she had never before shown the least inclination to fall in love with him, as he had always been with her.

  Still, she mustn't let herself get negative. Perhaps Lisa would be blissfully happy and perhaps Joe would fill up his order book in Mexico. Perhaps.

  Emma put down her coffee beaker and stood up, straightening her slim shoulders, and as she made her way to the news-stand to buy magazines for the journey nobody would have guessed that the long-legged girl in the green suit, her tawny eyes clear and alert, was feeling curiously uneasy about the two most important things in her life.

  'England seems so small after America,' Emma observed, settling back in the passenger seat as Malcolm, the Fairleys' chauffeur, gardener and odd- job-man steered the family saloon car through London's suburbs in the gat
hering dusk. 'But I do think it's nice of you to come all this way to meet me.'

  The big Scot grinned briefly. 'Och, Miss Emma, it's a pleasure.' Malcolm was a man of few words; his wife Jessie had plenty to spare for both of them. Malcolm and Jessie had been with the family for as long as Emma could remember, coming south reluctantly when they had been persuaded by their doctor that a warmer climate than Aberdeen's would be essential to Malcolm's recovery from a chest injury at work. The young couple had arrived in Dorset with every kind of misgiving and had stayed, all those years, to be happily part of the family.

  But Malcolm remained a taciturn Scot and it was quite a speech for him when he glanced aside under bushy brows now and added, 'A man's only in the way at these times, ye know.'

  'These times—oh, you mean the wedding tomorrow?'

  'Aye, I do that.'

  'I suppose Lisa's all excitement? And Jessie too?'

  'Aye,' said Malcolm, keeping his gaze fixed ahead.

  Emma settled back in her seat and closed her eyes as they joined the motorway. No use trying to find out anything from Malcolm. She would have to wait until she got home to discover exactly how things were.

  As the big, powerful car swept steadily and monotonously along the fast lane Emma drifted into a half- sleep full of memories and inevitably they were all about Lisa and their growing up together. Lisa (who was delicate and missed school often) sitting up in their playroom in the tower, scribbling wild romantic stories about knights on great white horses, and noble ladies locked up in castles; Lisa, spending hour upon hour with her dressing-up box, tugging at Emma's hand— 'Come on, Em, I've written a lovely play—I'm the princess and you must be the prince who comes to court me, and Teddy will have to be my grumpy old father.' Later on, Lisa at fourteen, when Emma had been working on Spanish and French for her A levels, had been deep in Wuthering Heights, living in that story of passionate love, her enormous blue eyes rapt, her lovely small face ecstatic.

  'There must be a perfect lover for every woman,' she had assured Emma in a hushed voice. 'Two people who are fated to meet and be together all their lives. I shall wait for my perfect lover to come along.'