Jessica Steele - Dishonest Woman (Harlequin Romance)

CHAPTER ONE

SUMMER came late that year. Kimberley Adams stood at the french windows of the living room that sunny September day, and sighed. She supposed she had better get a move on, otherwise she was going to be late for her appointment.

But she felt no urgency to leave Bramcote, the home she so loved. It was a long time since she had felt any urgency to do anything. She was alone now. Thank God she had Bramcote. Bramcote couldn't be taken away from her like everything else she loved.

It was maybe because she was so attached to her home, so used to it, that Kimberley did not see that there was a good deal not right with it. Her father had mentioned in February, when the roof had shown signs of deterioration after the heavy weight of snow had cleared, that they should put their heads together to think up a way to get some repairs done. But that had been just before his illness had struck. After that she was too concerned for him to worry whether the roof was sound or not.

She couldn't bear to live anywhere else, she thought, loving the isolation of Bramcote too, which only by virtue of the fact it was linked by a long lane did it manage to be included in the village of Amberton.

She gazed out at the long lawns that fronted the house, resenting that she had to leave for the, in her view, unnecessary trip into the nearby town of Thaxly.

Looking to the right of the lawns she saw the orchard where as a child she had whiled away many a happy hourand wanted that happiness back with her. She sighed again as without effort the memory was with her that it had been there in the orchard that David had proposed. There that day he had sworn his undy-

ing love. She had been excited then, she remembered. She had laughed as they raced indoors to tell her father they were engaged.

Her thoughts back with her father, tears came to her eyes, tears that were no stranger to her. She controlled the feeling of wanting to collapse in a bout of weeping. She had better get going. Charles Forester, her father's solicitor, had telephoned three times for her to go and see him. Though why he couldn't tell her over the phone why he wanted to see her she couldn't imagineor why he couldn't put in a letter what it was all about without her having to traipse all the way into Thaxly.

Kimberley couldn't think that anything he had to say could be that important anyway. Bramcote, the house she had been born in, loved almost as much as she loved her father and David, was hers now her father had gone. It was the only thing that kept her sane, she had thought in her most despairing moments, the knowledge that she was secure, safe, within the walls of Bramcote. Whatever happened Bramcote was hers, and if Charles Forester, who was old enough to have retired years ago, wanted her to trail into see him just to tell her that her father had left her very little in the way of money, then she could save herself a trip, because she already knew that. But money didn't matterBramcote was all that mattered.

Two hours later Kimberley was back in the living room of the home she lovedback, but not staring out from the french windows as she had been before. She was sitting in the chair into which she had half collapsed half an hour before, still stunned by what the solicitor had told her, his words going round and round in her head. And still she couldn't believe them.

She had been in shock when after the preliminaries he had got down to telling her the contents of her father's willso shocked she had been deaf to his expressions of regret. She had seen his mouth moving

without properly hearing him saying that the will was so tightly sewn up that she hadn't an earthly of contesting its contents.

Wouldwould you repeat that againthe relevant parts?' she had interrupted him, coming out of her dazed condition to be certain he must have made a mistake.

`The money your father left you...' he began to oblige.

`No, not thatI know it's only sufficient to keep me ticking over. That part isn't important. It's Bramcote. Tell me again my father's instructions about the house.'

The elderly solicitor had coughed twice, a sure sign that he felt uncomfortable. Had he heard that she had at one time been near to a nervous breakdown? she wondered. Did he think she was going to throw a screaming fit in his office?

There was compassion in his voice when he said, `There's only one way in which you're able to inherit Bramcote.' And he had then repeated what he had said before, only she hadn't believed her ears then, and didn't want to believe them now, as he told her, 'And that way is if, on the date six months from the date of your father's death, your status is that of a married woman.'

The sound of the telephone ringing intruded on that phrase of Charles Forester's that was spinning round in her head. She didn't want to answer the telephone, didn't want to talk to anyone.

But the caller was persistent. Whoever it was was determined to get her to answer it. Shut up, shut up! she wanted to scream at it, the sound shrieking at her nerve ends. But common sense prevailed. There was only one way she was going to quieten it.