CHAPTER ONE
CALLIE added jam to her buttered toast, knowing she would have to start getting ready soon, but lingering reluctantly over her breakfast, making herself another cup of coffee. After all, it wasn’t a long drive from London to Berkshire.
She wished she didn’t have to go, that Jeff hadn’t put her in this position. Hadn’t she gone through enough the last six months—her mother’s death, Jeff’s own death in a car accident, and now she had to meet his family, a family who hadn’t even wanted to speak to her themselves but had contacted her through a lawyer. She had disliked James Seymour on sight.
He had sat in that dusty-looking office, surrounded by rows and rows of huge official-looking books, the whole room looking like a mausoleum. And James Seymour had been totally in keeping with the room, fusty and old, looking down his nose at her as he informed her she was the sole beneficiary of Jeff’s will.
‘I am?’ she gasped. ‘Oh, but surely there must be some mistake,’ she protested.
James Seymour looked as if he thought so too, and that Jeff, dear kind, loving Jeff, had made it! ‘I can assure you there is no mistake,’ he said in his haughty voice. ‘I was Mr Spencer’s lawyer for many years, did in fact draw up this will for him. Caroline Day, 28, Hill Apartments, London. That is you, isn’t it?’
‘Well…yes. But I don’t want any of—of that,’ she pointed wildly at the will laid out in front of the lawyer.
He looked at her as if she were slightly deranged. ‘Three-quarters of a million pounds, seven hundred and sixty-three thousand pounds, to be exact—’
‘Oh, let’s be exact,’ she said shrilly, sure this man didn’t know what he was talking about. Jeff hadn’t been rich, not that rich anyway. Three-quarters of a million pounds! It was unthinkable, unimaginable.
James Seymour looked at her over the top of his glasses. ‘I was being exact,’ he said stiffly. ‘There is also the matter of thirty-seven and a half per cent of the shares of Spencer Plastics—’
‘Spencer Plastics?’ she questioned sharply.
His mouth tightened. ‘We would get on a lot quicker, Miss Day, if you would refrain from constantly interrupting me.’
‘Yes, but Spencer Plastics? Sorry,’ she mumbled at his quelling look, the eyes behind the gold-rimmed glasses the cold grey of the sea on a winter’s day.
Had she gone mad? She had looked warily at the letter when it had arrived last week, should have guessed there was something wrong when she had telephoned the office of Seymour, Seymour, Seymour, and Brown, and they had refused to divulge the reason for requesting to see her over the telephone.
‘If we could continue?’ James Seymour said woodenly.
‘Go ahead. I mean—please do,’ she blushed at his condescending look.
‘Mr Spencer, Mr Jeffrey Spencer, that is, left you his shares in the family company—’
‘You mean Jeff—I mean Jeffrey, was related to the Spencers of Spencer Plastics?’ Even she had heard of the powerful Spencer family, Sir Charles and Lady Spencer, and Sir Charles’ sister Cicely. But surely the Charles and Cissy Jeff had sometimes spoken of couldn’t be them…?
‘Jeffrey Spencer was Sir Charles’ younger brother,’ she was informed distantly.
It was what she had already guessed, what she had dreaded him confirming. Jeff had never said, never given any indication—Dear God, that family would eat her alive if she dared to claim those shares!
‘I—Do they know about me?’ she asked nervously.
‘I believe Mr Spencer told them of your relationship, yes.’
‘No, not that. I mean, do they know about Jeff’s will?’
‘Yes, they know.’
Oh, lord! They were probably ready to lynch her from the highest tree by now. The Spencer family was one of the most powerful in the world of plastics, and they would hardly welcome a little nobody like her into their midst. If only Jeff had told her who his family was, explained to her what he meant to do!
‘Sir Charles has expressed a wish to see you,’ the lawyer told her now.
She would just bet he had, and she could guess what about. ‘When?’ she asked dully.
‘This weekend, if that’s possible.’
It didn’t sound as if she had much choice. ‘I—Well, yes, I suppose so.’
‘Good. Sir Charles is expecting you.’ He handed her a piece of his official-looking notepaper with Sir Charles’ address on. ‘For the weekend,’ he added firmly.
Callie’s eyes widened, deep brown eyes with golden flecks in their depths. Her hair was the colour of corn, straw-coloured she called it, straight and thick to just below her shoulders, the full fringe shaped about her small heart-shaped face, making her eyes the dominant feature, her nose small and short, her mouth wide and smiling—usually—her figure petite, even boyish, and at twenty-two years of age she had given up the idea of growing any taller than her five feet two inches in height.
‘For the weekend…?’ she echoed weakly.
‘Yes. Sir Charles feels it would be advisable for you to meet the family. I understand the nephew will not be there,’ James Seymour’s voice cooled perceptively, giving Callie the impression that he disliked the absent nephew even more than he apparently disliked her—if that were possible. His disdain for her had been obvious from the moment she had entered the office half an hour earlier. ‘I believe business matters have taken him out of the country,’ he explained abruptly.
Callie could understand his reluctance to talk to her—after all, she had no real claim on the Spencer family, and James Seymour obviously thought so too, revealing the family movements as if pressured to.
Well she had had enough, she didn’t want to hear any more. ‘Please tell Sir Charles I accept his invitation. I have to leave now—’
‘We haven’t finished, Miss Day—’
‘I’m sorry,’ she stood up, ‘but I really do have to go. Perhaps you could send me a letter explaining everything in more detail?’ she added to soften the blow.
He looked as if she had insulted him, sitting ramrod-straight in the leather desk-chair. ‘That isn’t the way I like to do business, Miss Day—’
‘Well, I’m sorry, but I have to go. I’ll call you,’ she told him before disappearing out of the door.
It all seemed like a bad dream, the money, the thirty-seven and a half per cent shares in Spencer Plastics. She felt sure she would wake up soon and just be ordinary Callie Day with none of the responsibility of money and shares.
She told her friend Marilyn so; Marilyn and her husband Bill lived in the flat next door. ‘I’m sure the haughty Mr Seymour will find there’s been some mistake. He has to,’ sh
e groaned.