When the Devil Drives

WHEN THE DEVIL

DRIVES

Sara Craven

Dare she dream of the devil?

The dreaded day of reckoning had come. It was time for Joanna to

stop running and face Callum Blackstone.

If she had only herself to consider...But refusing to submit to Cals'

impossible demands meant financial disaster for her father and

brother.

Fate has dealt Cal all the best cards, yet the price he wanted Joanna to

pay seemed far too high. Could he possibly have a motive other than

revenge? Dare she dream....?

'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 Ml tp meet,' Simon went on.

'Things were looking really filack. 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.'

With her usual immaculate sense of timing, Joanna thought

resignedly. 'So how much did you borrow from him?'

'Twenty thousand to begin with. The rest, later.'

'Using your power of attorney from Dad to put this house up as

collateral, I suppose.'

'We had to do something,' Simon said stiffly. 'And Phil's flat is only

rented.'

'Lucky Philip! I hope he's got a spare room. You and Fiona are

probably going to need it. And the baby when it arrives, of course,'