Beaumont Brides Collection (122 page)

‘We could go to-’

He placed a hand over her mouth. ‘Don’t say another word. Don’t even mention which continent it’s on. Surprise parties and family gatherings in the dead of night are all very well, but I’m not looking for company on our honeymoon.’ And this time when Jack Wolfe kissed his wife, he didn’t care who was looking.

Author note:

Well, that’s it. Almost. I had intended to write Heather’s story for Scarlet but it never happened and due to contractual constraints I couldn’t continue writing the same characters for another publisher. However, with the names changed, you will find Heather’s story in my Harlequin Romance “HIS PERSONAL AGENDA” – which is also available as an eBook.

Here’s a taste:

Bonus Read

HIS PERSONAL AGENDA

by

LIZ FIELDING

Chapter One

MATT CROSBY considered the man sitting behind the vast mahogany desk with a certain detachment. Charles Parker was not an easy man to warm to, but he would pay well and Matt had a lot of expenses.

‘I don’t have to explain the problem to you, Crosby,’ he said, sliding a file across the polished acres of mahogany. ‘This woman is a troublemaker. She’s holding up an important development, something badly needed and she’s got to be stopped.’

Matt wasn’t taken in by protestations of concern for the public interest, Charles Parker’s only concern was for profit. But he picked up the file and contemplated the photograph of a young woman clipped to the inside cover.

Nyssa Blake. The face that launched a thousand planning appeals.

She headed the wish list of every property developer in Britain. And they all wished the same thing. That she would go away.

According to the brief biography attached she was a few months shy of her twenty-third birthday but she was already capable of making Charles Parker reach for the panic button. With good reason. Her track record for forcing develops to ‘think again’ was impressive.

‘She can’t be allowed to get away with it,’ Parker insisted, impatiently.

‘No, I suppose not.’ After all, if she wasn’t stopped soon, she might get the crazy idea that she could do anything. He’d been twenty-two himself once, and just about remembered having ideals and a burning desire to put the world to rights, remembered that youthful sense of invincibility that didn’t know when it was beaten. He’d learned the hard way.

Parker glanced at him sharply. ‘There’s no suppose about it.’ Then, ‘That file contains just about everything that anyone has ever written about her and my secretary will give video tapes ... news coverage of her last campaign

‘An out of town shopping park, wasn’t it?’

Parker shuddered. ‘She brought in a botanist who is supposed to have found some rare species no one had ever heard of and cared even less about.’

‘Out of town shopping is very un-PC. The local authority was probably glad of an excuse to stop it.’ Parker glared at him and he shrugged. ‘What do want me to do?’

‘Don’t tempt me.’ Parker laughed, shortly. He was seriously rattled, seriously worried, Matt decided. Well, he’d heard rumours that Parker was having cash-flow problems. Any delay would hurt him badly. ‘What I’d really like is for someone to shut her up in some deep, dark dungeon and throw away the key.’ When Matt was unresponsive to this suggestion Parker shrugged. ‘No, well, maybe not,’ he said and then added a little laugh, just to show that he hadn’t really meant it.

Matt was not entirely convinced. ‘I won’t be involved in anything like that,’ he said.

‘Who would? As well as being the darling of the media, a myth in her own lifetime, she also has some powerful family connections.’ He nodded towards the file. ‘It’s all there, see what you can do with it.’

The file was certainly a hefty one, but Matt Crosby put it back on the desk. ‘I’m sure she’s a serious pain in the backside but I just don’t see what you expect me to do about it. I know some of her hangers-on can get a bit out of hand, but she’s a perfect Miss Goody Toe Shoes from all accounts. Never puts a foot wrong.’

‘Well, if she’s looking for evidence that the Gaumont Cinema at Delvering is worth saving she’ll have to break in to find it.’

‘Maybe you should just give her a guided tour, show her that she’s wasting her time? Maybe you should just bulldoze the place down?’ Parker didn’t respond to any of those suggestions. Matt shrugged. ‘Well, I suppose a court appearance would tarnish her halo…’

‘If you think I’m paying your kind of fees just to see her get a fifty-pound fine and a ticking off at the local magistrates court, you can think again.’

‘Faced with a brick wall,’ Matt pointed out, ‘you have two choices - bang your head against it, or take it down brick by brick.’

Parker snorted. ‘I haven’t got time for games. This is urgent.’ He leaned forward. ‘You come highly recommended as a trouble-shooter, Crosby. This girl is trouble and I want her ...’ He hesitated.

‘Shot?’ Matt offered, helpfully.

Parker glared at him. ‘Out of my hair. You’re supposed to be some kind of genius at digging up those nasty little secrets people would rather keep buried-’

‘You make a lot of enemies that way.’ Matt looked at the solemn-faced young woman in the photograph. He’d rather make a friend…

The man behind the desk wasn’t interested in his problems. ‘If you dig deep enough there’s got to be something and once the fawning masses discover that their heroine has feet of clay she’ll find the world is a very lonely place.’

Matt did not find the prospect of digging around in Nyssa Blake’s life looking for dirt in the least bit appealing. ‘This girl is twenty-two years old, Parker and ever since she dropped out of university she’s spent her time stopping people like you riding roughshod over planning regulations. What the devil do you think I’m going to find?’

‘What about drugs? All those hippie types smoke pot, don’t they?’

‘Do they?’ He shrugged. ‘She’s no hippie, Parker. Besides I doubt that she smokes anything.’ He regarded Parker steadily, keeping his features expressionless. ‘I’m sure she’d tell you that smoke is bad for the ozone layer?’

The man scowled back at him. ‘Sex, then.’

‘Sex?’  Matt unclipped Nyssa Blake’s photograph from the file and stared at it for a moment. She gazed back at him with frank, speedwell blue eyes that looked out from a small oval face framed by a tiny page boy bob of bright red hair. Her skin was clear and fresh, her mouth full but without a hint of a smile. She had the earnest look of a crusader about her.

There was nothing conventionally beautiful about Miss Nyssa Blake, but he didn’t doubt that when she entered a room every eye in the place would swivel in her direction.

‘I wouldn’t rely on sex to put people off,’ he said. On the contrary, he was sure that any suggestion that the lady was freely available would have every red-blooded male in the country clamouring to join her action group. ‘I should think money is your best bet. Who’s putting up the money for her campaign. Quality PR doesn’t come cheap. And the kind of coverage she attracts suggests there’s someone behind it who knows what they’re doing.’

‘Donations from well-wishers according to the lady.’

‘That’s a lot of good wishes.’

‘We seem to be working on the same wave length at last, Crosby.’ Parker sat back, a small, satisfied smile momentarily straightening his thin lips. ‘And if you draw a blank on the money side of things maybe you should take a look at her family. Her father was a soldier, killed in the Gulf War and posthumously decorated for bravery. I’m sure his daughter would do anything to protect his good name. And the dead can’t sue for libel.’

‘You can make up your own lies, Parker, you don’t need me for that.’

‘Lies won’t do. Even rumours need a little fuel to feed on if they’re going to do any damage; I need something with at least a grain of truth to glue it together. If you come across any suggestion of other women, money problems in her father’s life, I want to know. Do you understand?’  Parker didn’t wait for a reply, taking his understanding for granted. And Matt Crosby understood. He didn’t much like it, but he understood. ‘Her mother remarried three or four years ago,’  he continued, then paused. ‘Her new husband is James Lambert. He’s a property developer, too,’ he said, thoughtfully tapping the file. ‘Nyssa Blake dropped out of university at about the same time. That might be an angle worth pursuing. You’ve got plenty of material to work with-’

‘It’s quality that counts, not quantity.’

‘Everyone has something to hide, Crosby. Something that wouldn’t look too good on the front page of the tabloids. If you can’t find anything on the girl, maybe you can dig up some dirt on her family. There are a couple of stepsisters. One is an actress… I just need a lever, I can apply the pressure myself.’

‘If she doesn’t like the man her mother married she’s hardly likely to back off to protect him or his daughters. Why don’t you just ask her what she wants, Parker? It would save time and probably money in the long term.’

‘Wants?’

‘Well, she knows that she’s not going to win in the end. You’re going to tear down a past-its-sell-by-date cinema and replace it with a supermarket. Maybe a few locals have gone all dewy-eyed with nostalgia, remembering their lost youth spent in the back seats of the stalls, but most of the town would rather have the supermarket. All she can do is delay you.’

‘All? Every day that passes is costing me-’  He stopped abruptly but Matt didn’t need to be drawn a picture. The rumours were true; if Parker didn’t get the redevelopment of the site through the local planning committee quickly, he was going to be in serious trouble.

‘So why not ask her what she wants? You never know, keeping the original facade might do it. Try reason, be accommodating. And if you can smile while you’re doing it you might discover that you’ve become the hero and Miss Nyssa Blake will be the one who has to convince her supporters that she hasn’t sold out.’

‘That’s an excellent idea, Crosby. Unfortunately the supermarket has a corporate image; art deco Gaumont style doesn’t even come close. Besides, Nyssa Blake wants the whole thing restored to its former glory. She believes town needs an entertainment centre more than it needs a new supermarket.’

‘Is it? Needed?’  Parker gave him a sharp look, but since Matt hadn’t expected a straight answer he carried on. ‘Look, this isn’t six-lane highway being bulldozed through a site of scientific interest. It’s just a local battle with the planners. Small stuff. The media will soon lose interest. ‘

‘You think so?’  Parker, for the first time since Matt had entered the room, smiled with genuine amusement. ‘I wish I shared your confidence. It might be small stuff, Crosby, but Miss Blake is small in the manner of a mosquito - annoying as hell and quite capable of administering a lethal bite.’

‘Maybe you should call the local pest exterminator.’

‘I have. You.’

‘You’ve been misinformed. I’m considered something of a pest myself-’

‘Even pests have to eat, and since I’m reliably informed that no one in the City is going to employ you within the foreseeable future…’ He shrugged. ‘I’m no so fussy, and if you find something on the girl that I can use there’ll be a bonus on top of your fee.’ The fee he mentioned was substantial but nowhere near enough.

‘Your informants are out of date, Parker. You’ll have to double that,’ he countered, then smiled briefly. ‘Inflation,’ he offered. Parker said nothing and Matt had the uncomfortable feeling that he could have asked for more and still have got it. ‘I’ll want ten days payment in advance before I start, non-refundable and my expenses will be what I need to do the job, no more, no less, no quibble.’ He might not particularly relish this job, but right now he couldn’t afford to be picky; he had research of his own to finance. ‘And no dirty business,’ he added, just to reinforce what he’d said earlier about Nyssa Blake being locked in a dungeon with the key thrown away.

‘You think a lot of yourself, Crosby.’ Not true. What he did think was that the chance of finding dirt that would stick to Miss Nyssa Blake rated alongside winning the National Lottery, or the discovery of a hoard of Celtic gold jewellery beneath the concrete yard at the rear of his flat, or even a credit balance in his bank account. All things were possible ... but the odds were against it. ‘Cash isn’t a problem, is it. I’d prefer to keep this unofficial.’ Parker took a pack of banknotes from a small concealed safe. 

‘So long as the ink’s dry,’ he replied, wryly, taking one of the notes and flicking it through his fingers as if testing its veracity. ‘It all goes through my books-’ his enemies would enjoy seeing him on the wrong side of the Inland Revenue audit - ‘...but what you do this end is no concern of mine.’ He stowed the money about the pockets of his suit, picked up the file and nodded. ‘You’ll be hearing from me.’

*****

Image is everything. Nyssa had learned that at her first press conference. Eighteen years old, her hair had been cropped punk-short then, henna-bright against the hastily applied ivory pale make-up, the black dress borrowed for the occasion from one of step-sisters.