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‘An American who unexpectedly inherited not just this estate but also a much larger one in another part of the country. He’s been very specific about how he wants the sale to be handled. In fact originally he planned to attend the auction himself, but it seems that some unforeseen circumstances have cropped up that prevent him from doing so. I am sorry,’ he commiserated when he saw Maggie’s face. ‘I can see how much you want the house.’
Maggie shook her head at his misconception. ‘I don’t want it for myself,’ she told him. ‘It’s for my grandmother.’ Briefly she explained her grandparents’ connection with the property.
He was immediately even more sympathetic. ‘I wish I could do more to help you,’ he told her, ‘but I have to follow our client’s instructions. Perhaps I shouldn’t tell you this, but we haven’t had an awful lot of interest in the properties, so I don’t think you need to worry about too much competition from other bidders.’
Thanking him for his time, Maggie made to leave. She knew she should have found his reassurances comforting, but she would far rather have preferred to know that the Dower House was going to be hers now rather than have to wait until after the auction.
Aspects of her life over which she was not in full control did not appeal to her one little bit, and besides…
As she hurried back to her car, huddled into her coat, she admitted reluctantly that she was anxious to leave Shropshire as quickly as she could—just in case. Just in case what? Just in case she should see Finn again, and he should have come to his senses and realised how wrong he had been; he’d tell her that he had had to find her to admit as much, declaring undying love for her, apologising to her and pleading with her to give him a second chance…
Just for a moment she allowed herself to dwell on this gratifying scenario—not because she wanted to see him again. No, of course not. No, it was simply a matter of knowing that she was in the right and feeling that he should concede as much. That was all. Nothing more. In fact so far as she was concerned it was actually a relief knowing that she was not going to see him again. Yes, quite definitely. Very definitely, in fact, she decided as she drove back to the hotel.
As she turned off the main road and into the long tree-lined drive that led to the Georgian mansion house of the estate, where the auction was to take place, Maggie reluctantly acknowledged the impressive grandeur of her surroundings. The trees were at the full height of their autumn glory, and the parkland stretching to either side of them was warmed by the morning sunshine. The house itself, which she could see ahead of her, was everything that was best about Georgian architecture, neither institutionally large, nor spoiled by any later unworthy additions.
She had a girlfriend in London, newly married and in her mid-thirties, who was desperate for just such a house—and desperate too, Maggie suspected, to remove her very wealthy and notoriously very susceptible new husband from the London scene and the attentions of other women. When Maggie had expressed her doubts about the wisdom of her friend turning her back on the successful career she had built up in the City, she had been told, smugly, that her friend had already made plans to work from the country, and that all she now needed to complete her happiness was the right house. And the right house apparently would have to be Georgian. Just like the one in front of her.
Undeniably it was beautiful, Maggie admitted as she parked her car at the end of a row of three other cars on the gravel forecourt to the house and got out.
The front door to the house was open, a notice there directing potential bidders to the room where the auction was to be held, and inside the hall on a dusty table was a pile of brochures the same as the one already in Maggie’s possession, which listed the items to be auctioned.
The main house itself, along with its gardens, the farmland and estate buildings, were of no interest to Maggie—even if she had been able to afford them, which she most certainly could not. It would take a very, very wealthy person to be able to buy in full such an estate, she knew. No, her interest lay exclusively in the Dower House, which was listed as Lot 4 in the brochure, Lots 1, 2 and 3 being, respectively, the Georgian House she was now standing in, along with the stables and garages attached to it and its garden; the farmland; and the estate buildings which comprised barns and a pair of cottages. The Dower House was over a mile away from the main house, set in its own pretty garden and with its own private drive to the main road. Maggie could see as she walked into the large and once elegant, now slightly shabby drawing room, that Philip Crabtree had been correct when he had told her that there would be very few other bidders. Apart from the agent himself, and a young woman who was obviously working with him, there were only another six people in the room.
Gratifyingly, as soon as he saw her, Philip came hurrying over to greet her, introducing his assistant to her as he did so and explaining that the heavily built be-suited man standing studying the faded yellow silk covering the drawing room walls was a builder, and the man with him his accountant, and that he was hoping to buy the main house and the stables and garages for development purposes. The older man standing staring out of the window was, as Maggie had guessed for herself, a farmer who wanted to buy the farmland, the younger man with him being his son, and the young couple standing a little nervously side by side were hoping to bid successfully for one of the cottages.
‘Normally when we hold auctions in town we get a lot of interested spectators who are there simply for the entertainment value an auction provides, and if we’d been auctioning off household goods we would undoubtedly have had far more people here, but the furniture, such as it is, goes with the house, and is not of any particular value.’
Philip stopped speaking and looked at his watch, whilst Maggie waited. The auction was almost due to start, and she could tell that the agent was slightly on edge and preoccupied. Thanking him for the information he had given her, she moved away.
The drawing room’s yellow silk was faded where the sun had touched it, and despite the existence of some heavy old fashioned radiators the room felt cold and smelled old and musty. Even so, to her own surprise, Maggie found that something about it was giving her an unfamiliar feeling of concern and compassion, almost as though in some odd way the house itself was reaching out to her, to tell her how much it wanted to be loved and cherished and brought back to life.
Such unexpectedly intense and emotional thoughts made her frown, engrossing her so much that it caught her off guard to hear the agent announce that the auction was about to begin.
As she went to join the small semicircle forming in front of him, Maggie was suddenly conscious of the way Philip was looking over her head and past her, as though…
Automatically she looked round, and then froze in disbelief as she saw Finn standing just inside the door. Her heart gave a fierce jolt and lurched against her ribs as emotions she couldn’t control escaped from the captivity of her will-power. How had he found her? How had he known…? Fiercely she fought for self-control, sternly telling herself what she ought to be feeling and how she ought to be reacting, and it certainly wasn’t with that dangerous mixture of sweetly painful anguish and joy she had now thankfully managed to subdue. How dared he seek her out like this? Here…now, when he knew she would be forced to acknowledge him. Yes, t
hat was better. That was more the reaction she ought to be feeling.
But underneath her anger she could still feel all too keenly that sharp frisson of excitement and pleasure her body had given as it registered his presence. She wasn’t going to speak to him now. He must wait until after the auction, until she was ready, prepared, her defences firmly in place…
‘Ah, Finn, good. I was just beginning to think you weren’t going to make it.’
The warmth and relief with which the agent was greeting Finn, the recognition his arrival produced, startled Maggie, putting a brake on her own thoughts. It was unpleasantly obvious that Philip had been expecting Finn to arrive—had been waiting for him to arrive, she recognised with sudden stark insight.
‘Sorry I’m late,’ Finn was apologising easily, switching his gaze from Maggie to the agent. But as soon as he had finished speaking to him he switched it back to her again, and any delusions she might have been foolish enough to entertain that he had come to the auction to see her would very quickly have been banished by the look of frowning wariness he was giving her, Maggie recognised.
The agent’s assistant, obviously desperately anxious to make contact with Finn, all but knocked Maggie over as she hurried towards him, smiling up at him and standing so close that had she got any closer she would have been in actual bodily contact with him, Maggie reflected sourly as she monitored the other girl’s openly awed and flirtatious manner.
And Finn, of course was enjoying every minute of her attention. What man wouldn’t?
As she glowered at them both—a glower that was caused by distaste and her relief that she was far too in control of herself and had far too much self-respect to ever behave so needily to any man, Maggie quickly assured herself—Finn looked up and towards her, his gaze trapping hers before she had time to look away.
Just what was it she could see in those winter-blue eyes? Mockery, conceit, contempt, anger—all of those, plus a hostility and suspicion that infused her own gaze with a reciprocal hot resentment and pride. Yet, despite that, she still could not bring herself to drag her gaze from him, leaving it to him to be the one to end their fiercely silent visual engagement.
The auction had started, and Maggie concentrated determinedly on what was happening. The builder had started the bidding for the main house at a figure that made Maggie’s eyes water a little, but her shock at realising the value of the property was nowhere near the shock she got when she saw the auctioneer looking past her and, unable to stop herself from turning round, realised that Finn was bidding for the house against the builder. Finn, a property-less farmer, bidding for a house which a nod of the builder’s square-shaped head was already taking swiftly to the two million pound mark.
As the battle between Finn and the builder pushed the house up even further, Maggie could only look on in disbelief whilst Finn, a man whom she had assumed had to struggle financially, continued to bid for a property which was climbing inexorably towards three million.
