THE MIDSUMMER AUCTION.

Pia Tremayne.

DEDICATION.

This book is for those who long to be in dangerous territory-that state of belonging utterly and completely to one person only, and from which you can never chart your way out again without losing yourself.

Chapter One.

Almost two weeks had gone by since the crash and it still hadn't really sunk in yet. Mum and Dad were gone forever, both killed when their car veered off the road and down the side of a steep hill. They had gone to visit friends in Montego Bay for a few days and were returning home when it happened. Nicola leaned on the veranda railing, wondering if she would ever come to terms with the suddenness, the finality of losing both her parents, without even a chance to say that last goodbye, Both she and her older sister Emma were orphans now, in their twenties but still orphans, she thought sadly. They would never see their parents again, never hear the sound of their voices. Before, the house had been filled with laughter, with their parents' gentle murmurings, with the sound of Mum humming s.n.a.t.c.hes of songs she couldn't be bothered learning all the words to. Now there was a hushed quality to the air, as though the house itself was grieving the loss.

Hearing Emma's footsteps, she turned to see her sister coming out onto the veranda with two mugs.

"Here," Emma said, handing her one of the mugs. "Have some tea. I just made a fresh pot. Let's sit out here for a while. We have to talk."

"Thanks, Em, I know."

They walked over to the wicker settee and sat, sipping their tea in companionable silence. After the turmoil of the last two weeks it was good to have this moment of tranquility, just the two of them alone. Mum and Dad had been cremated and Nicola and Emma had scattered their ashes to the winds in the Blue Mountains. Her parents had said once that when the time came, that was how they would like to go, borne aloft to soar through the universe. Together.

The stream of visitors coming to the house to express their condolences and to offer help had gradually slowed to a trickle and finally stopped. The relatives who had come from abroad, some of whom had stayed with them, had returned home. Nicola and Emma had been grateful for the many kindnesses that had been showered upon them, proof that their parents had been held in high regard by so many people. But life must go on and it was time for them to make plans, figure out how they were going to manage.

"I know this will be hard for you and you don't want to hear it, but we have to think about selling, Nicki," Emma said presently. "With the size of the debt I don't see how we can keep the estate going. You saw the numbers. Mr. Farnsworth is right. There isn't even enough money to pay the workers. We have to let them go."

Nicola sipped her tea, her face betraying stubborn thoughts. Em knew how she felt about the estate. Nicola had made that clear the day before yesterday in the lawyer's chambers.

The day after their parents' funeral service, Mr. Farnsworth, their father's lawyer, had revealed that the Edgerton coffee estate had been losing money for years. The reality was that their parents had lived lavishly, beyond their means. Their dad had talked the finance company into lending him large sums of money and the estate was mired in debt. To the girls' dismay, their parents' insurance policy had lapsed months earlier because of unpaid premiums. To make matters worse, last year the estate had suffered enormous damage from a hurricane. Most of the workers had seen the writing on the wall and had already gone, many of them to the Torres estate, which adjoined the Edgerton lands.

The lawyer hinted that their best option might be to sell. Nicola was horrified. She jumped to her feet precipitately, thanked him for his advice, and fled his chambers before she forgot herself and shouted in anger at this man who had known them since they were children.

"I will never give up our land," she told Emma pa.s.sionately as soon as his door closed behind them. "And someday the Edgerton estate will be famous for its coffee."

"But we don't even have enough money to keep paying the interest on the loans, much less repaying the capital. And we don't really know enough about growing coffee. Where will we get the money to pay an overseer, not to mention the workers? I have no real marketable skills that would bring in some income to tide us over even for one year, and neither do you," Emma pointed out.

"Don't worry, Em," Nicola said stoutly. "Just give me a few months. I swear I'll find a way to get the money we need. This is our land, our birthright. I will never let it go, no matter what it takes. We may not know all that much about growing coffee now, but we can learn. We can do it, Em."

She was the one who shared her father's dream, his pa.s.sion for the land. She had taken it for granted that it would always be there, waiting for her to come home to once she had gotten the youthful need for adventure out of her system and was ready to buckle down to taking care of her birthright. Now that birthright seemed about to slip through her fingers and she knew only one thing. She couldn't let that happen. Somehow, she would fix it, because it was up to her to carry on Dad's legacy and fulfill the dream.

Nicola hadn't had the chance to tell Emma yet, but yesterday on the pretext of going into the city to do some personal banking, she had visited the loan officer at the finance company, hoping to persuade him not to call in the loan just yet. Now she had to break the news to Emma.

"I didn't get a chance to tell you because it was so late when I got back from the city, but I dropped in to see the loan officer at the finance company yesterday, just to have a chat with him. He offered to extend the loan for three months," she announced.

"He did! How did you manage that?"

"I don't know. Maybe he was in a good mood," Nicola replied.

"Well, that's all well and good, Nicki. I wish I had your optimism but I can't imagine what will change for us in three months. It's just putting off the inevitable."

Nicola took another sip of tea. No sense telling Em what had really happened. She would just worry that Nicola was getting herself into trouble.

The truth was that the loan officer had been polite but clearly skeptical about Nicola's confident a.s.sertion that she and her sister were up to the challenge of turning things around and making a profit. He had hemmed and hawed when Nicola pleaded with him to extend the loan, but the look in his eyes, coupled with her woman's intuition, alerted her that he wanted her, would give her anything if he could have her. It was written all over him.

Desperate times call for desperate measures. She got up and walked around the desk to take a closer look at the figures on the sheet of paper in front of him. When she bent down, her hair showered down close to his face and her breast grazed his arm. The pen he was holding fell out of his fingers and clattered to the desk. He made no attempt to retrieve it. She was standing so close to him that one more step would have landed her in his lap. She allowed her knee to brush his leg and sensed he was this close to grabbing her. When she looked down, the bulge in his trousers was unmistakable. She went back to her chair and sat down, looking at him calmly.

"I was hoping that perhaps you could see your way to extending the loan just for a few more months," she told him.

He pulled out a handkerchief and mopped his brow, then leaned forward, clasping his hands together on the desk.

"Of course, nothing is ever cast in stone," he said in a strangled tone. "An arrangement to extend the loan can always be worked out. We are prepared to make exceptions for our...ah...preferred clients." His eyes held hers, moist with meaning.

"It is so kind of you to offer to extend the loan," she said earnestly, fixing him with a limpid green gaze. "As you know, I left London quite suddenly because of the tragedy of my parents' death. I will be returning there shortly to tie up a few loose ends, but as soon as I am back here I intend to begin taking care of all my obligations. Knowing I can count on your support means a great deal to me."

He fixed his eyes briefly on her parted lips before returning to the doc.u.ment in front of him. "Well, then," he said, picking up his pen with a flourish of efficiency, "in view of the circ.u.mstances, I think I can give you three months." He made some notes on the doc.u.ment. "This will be a new loan with you and your sister co-signing as borrowers. Once it's drawn up, copies will be mailed to you for your signatures. Please return them to us as soon as possible."

Un.o.btrusively, Nicola let out the breath she had been holding. For now at least, she would get her way, until he became tired of waiting for her to deliver on what he obviously a.s.sumed was her unspoken promise. But by then, with luck and perseverance, she was sure she would have found some way of getting the money to pay off the debt.

"Look on the bright side, Em," she begged her sister now. You never know what might happen in three months. We have to take the chance. The finance company will be sending the new loan doc.u.ment in the mail. Promise you'll sign it, Em?"

Resigned, Emma shook her head with the air of someone bowing to the inevitable and took Nicola's hand in hers. "You and Dad are so alike," she said with a fond smile. "n.o.body could ever say no to either of you."

Nicola didn't have the heart to point out to Em that she had said "are", as though Dad were still here, because she herself still had that feeling sometimes.

With the most immediate threat staved off and Emma on side, Nicola spent the next few days racking her brains to come up with ways to find the money they needed to save their estate. Selling it was out of the question. Even if the owners of the larger estates were interested, they would know the Edgertons were in dire straits and would try to capitalize on their desperation. They would offer them next to nothing, barely enough to cover the debt, and then what? She and Emma would be left with nothing. That was what.

And suddenly, literally in the middle of the night-because the nightmarish prospect of ending up a landless person had been keeping her awake-she sat bolt upright as her brain delivered the solution it had been frantically searching for. Investors! People with real money who, unlike the Jamaican loan officer, didn't automatically a.s.sume that two young women couldn't possibly manage a coffee estate. People who didn't shy away from risk, who would take a chance and invest in them, in their estate. Somehow, she would persuade them that their investment would pay off. And she could be persuasive. Hadn't she just learned an important lesson in how to get her way? She was prepared to do anything, whatever it took, to hold on to her inheritance. Nothing, nothing at all was more important than that.

And hard on the heels of that epiphany came the thought that the obvious place to start looking was London. It was the place where old money and the nouveau riche coexisted, if you knew how and where to find them. She knew her way around the city. It was where she had been living after several months b.u.mming around Europe with friends-a graduation present from her parents. They had paid her rent for a year without a murmur while she looked for her dream job in her spare time. It was a fantastic flat in a great location, but there was no way she could manage the rent on her own. She had to find a cheaper place to live and a job. The rug had been pulled out from under her, and for the first time in her life she was on her own without parents to fall back on and it was scary.

Two weeks later Nicola was on a plane to London. Time was of the essence because, first things first, she had to find a job to support herself while she looked for investors.

Leaving Em alone to handle things had been hard.

"I'll be back before you know it, Em, and everything will work out," Nicola said stoutly. But in her heart, she was scared. What if it didn't?

Chapter Two.

Two days after arriving in London, Nicola began job-hunting in earnest. She had taken a bed-sit in central London for one week to start. It was a dump, but she could no longer afford to be choosy. Day two found her in a tiny tea shop around the corner, perusing the help wanted columns over a cup of tea. One of the ads sprang out at her and she drew a circle around it.

Businesswoman requires full-time, live-in personal a.s.sistant. Compet.i.tive salary and beautifully furnished flat in large Victorian town house in Kensington available at nominal rent. Impeccable background and qualifications a must. Appearance important. Female only.

It sounded promising, especially with a flat thrown in. Whatever business this woman was in, perhaps it might lead to the right contacts. Business was business, as long as it wasn't completely illegal. Besides, as Em had rightly pointed out, her bachelor's degree had not endowed her with any specific skill except the ability to regurgitate what she had memorized, which was good enough to secure a first but would probably only land her a job that involved working her way up from the bottom in some organization. Unfortunately, that would take too much time, a commodity she was very short of at the moment because if the estate was to be saved, time was of the essence.

She received a telephone call two days after mailing her handwritten letter to the postal box as instructed. Could she come 'round at half past ten on Thursday for an interview?

The businesswoman introduced herself as Henrietta Colefax. She appeared to be in her early thirties and was quite attractive. She was approximately Nicola's height, about five feet four inches, with brown eyes and shoulder-length medium brown hair held in check by a tortoisesh.e.l.l barrette. She wore a cream shirt tucked into brown slacks and brown loafers. Her only jewelry was a man's wrist.w.a.tch and pearl b.u.t.ton earrings. Nicola thought with relief that her black trouser suit and black pumps had been the right choice to meet this casually sophisticated woman.

The two of them hit it off immediately. At the end of the interview Nicola had been offered a job that paid twenty thousand pounds a year with a nice flat in trendy Kensington thrown in. The job involved helping to coordinate the Midsummer Auction, which Henrietta had been doing single-handedly for the past five years. But the workload had been growing steadily, forcing her to concede that she needed help.

While helping to make the nine copies of the videos for the upcoming auction, Nicola had quickly realized that being a candidate in the auction could potentially be extremely lucrative. By then it had already become apparent to Henrietta that her new a.s.sistant had the potential to be much more than that. Noticing Nicola's obvious interest in the videos, Henrietta eyed her thoughtfully.

"I gather this does not shock you," she remarked dryly.

"No. Why should it?" Nicola replied calmly.

Henrietta chuckled, and they continued to work in harmonious silence for a few more minutes.

"If you're really serious about making real money quickly, perhaps you might want to consider being a candidate," Henrietta said.

Nicola had been completely frank with her employer about her reasons for wanting the job. "I already have, and I would love to do it," Nicola replied, "except I have already committed to working for you, and I really need this job."

"I appreciate that. But perhaps there is a way out. The thing is I do need an a.s.sistant, but the job is only really busy for about six months of the year, and the pace really picks up in the weeks leading to the Midsummer Auction. After that, things settle down again. If you were bid for, you would only be contracted to be available to your bidder for the next six months. Even during that time there will undoubtedly be periods when you will be at liberty to do whatever you wish. It is unlikely that you will be tied up twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. You could come in to work part-time when you do not have other engagements. All told, you stand a good chance of gaining much more than if you only worked for me full-time."

"So if no one bids for me, I would still be able to work for you full-time?"

"Of course. You have a contract with me, but I would be prepared to employ you on a part-time basis for six months if you are bid for. In any event, the months immediately following the auction are slow. I use that time to travel and socialize, keeping an eye out for potential candidates. So ultimately, employing you part-time during those months makes perfect sense for both of us. And trust me, Nicola," she added, "you may put the notion out of your head completely that no one might bid for you. Such a thing has never happened to any of the women I have screened, and it is far less likely to happen to you."

Nicola bit her lip as a panicky sensation gripped her.

"Ah," said Henrietta, ever observant. "You are wondering what happens exactly, after the auction."

Nicola nodded.

"My understanding is that most of the time, much of the thrill of it for the men lies in the bidding process. They simply enjoy winning, beating out the compet.i.tion. To them it is a sophisticated game they can afford to play. The prize itself almost seems secondary. These are worldly, intelligent young men who can have their pick of women. They do not have to force a woman to do anything she does not want to do. Even without this process, any of the women would be thrilled to be the companion of any of these men. Doing it this way just gives the men that compet.i.tive edge they need, and the women enjoy the game as well. My impression is that when they do meet, the parties usually get along quite well, and in addition to receiving seventy percent of the bid in monthly installments, the women frequently receive generous gifts from the men. All I really do is introduce them to each other. The rest is up to them."

"Like an exclusive dating service, then," Nicola suggested, her eyes fixed on Henrietta.

"Precisely. So, are you still interested?"

"Yes, I am," Nicola said decisively. Then she began to smile. "I have just one more question."

"Which is?"

"Why is it called the Midsummer Auction, when it's happening in November?"

Henrietta gave a little laugh. "It does seem slightly off, doesn't it? The English have a terrible reputation for resisting change. For example, the traditional university May b.a.l.l.s take place in June, after exams, but it would never occur to anyone to change the name to June Ball, G.o.d forbid! Similarly, the auction used to be held in the middle of the summer, hence the name. But after a decision was taken not to hold any meetings in the summer, it got pushed back to November. But the name had stuck by then. In any event, I don't know that I'd want to change the name. It has a certain ring to it, don't you think?"

Nicola had agreed entirely. The more she thought about it the more it felt as though fate had dropped this dream job in her lap and put her within orbit of exactly the kind of people she had hoped to meet-people with more money than they knew what to do with. Maybe her ship had come in. If so, all she had to do was get on board before it sailed.

Chapter Three.

Hampshire, England Sir Anthony Astonville had just left the conference room and was heading briskly down the long corridor to his private suite in the west wing of his Hampshire manor, carrying a briefcase of doc.u.ments. He was in a hurry. The meeting had gone on longer than antic.i.p.ated, but he was free for the remainder of the day. It was ten minutes to four. He had just enough time to do his usual thirty laps in the pool before his regularly scheduled ma.s.seur arrived. Dinner would be served promptly at six thirty, and at eight o'clock, the Midsummer Auction videos would be delivered for viewing.

His senses hummed with heightened antic.i.p.ation. He and eight of Europe's wealthiest bachelors had just concluded an all-day meeting held monthly to discuss a number of international issues that could potentially affect their business interests in the short and long term. But the Midsummer Auction was the most eagerly awaited event of the year. Over their working lunch, he had felt the suppressed excitement around the table, so intense it seemed to permeate the very air in the conference room.

On the last Friday of each month, the group met privately at the manor to communicate with each other away from the prying eyes of the media. At the end of the day, they would leave as un.o.btrusively as they had arrived. But this weekend was special. They wouldn't be flying out tonight. They would be staying overnight, each in a beautifully appointed room. Today they had taken care of business, but tonight, at the Midsummer Auction, they would be bidding against one another for women. Not just any women, but beautiful women who possessed intelligence and an acceptable social standing. All had been carefully screened before being approached by the coordinator of the auction, whose job was to determine at the outset whether they would be receptive to the idea, that they possessed the required attributes and were socially adept. Above all, they had to be discreet. Discretion was crucial in this game, and women of social standing could be counted on to be discreet because they had the most to lose. Paradoxically, they also had the most to gain. Many of them were long on pedigree and short on cash, so it was an opportunity to make a considerable amount of money in return for spending six months as the companion of their highest bidder. Consequently, the Midsummer Auction was one of London's best-kept secrets.

Tonight, they would be bidding on five new women, all carefully vetted by Lady Henrietta Colefax, a woman of impeccable taste and judgment who had coordinated the auction for the past five years. She had produced the videos of each woman, which the men would view tonight in the privacy of their rooms and forward their bids to her by computer. It was a lucrative business. The bid floor was thirty thousand pounds, with Henrietta receiving thirty percent of the final bid for each woman and the balance paid to the woman in six consecutive installments. Then all the woman had to do was wait for Henrietta's call notifying her when and where to meet her bidder. After that, they were on their own. The whole process was designed to ensure complete confidentiality.

As Anthony knew from experience, the inevitable bidding wars could result in some bids reaching astronomical proportions. The fact that there were never enough women to go around upped the ante and the excitement. It was the law of supply and demand. When a commodity is scarce, it costs more. These men could afford to play this unconventional game, to gratify not only their compet.i.tive streak but their fantasies and their whims as well, or even their need for companionship, if that was what they were really seeking.

Mostly it was an efficient solution to a tiresome problem. They had grown weary of repeating the rituals of courtship and of dealing with disappointed women who considered that they had been courted and had developed expectations of permanence. This way, the parameters were defined at the outset. But except for the woman herself and her bidder, only Henrietta Colefax would know who had paid what for whom, and that information would go with her to her grave. Anthony was sure of it. She was the most discreet woman he had ever met.

He entered his suite, went straight to his bedroom closet, opened the cleverly concealed safe, and transferred the papers from his briefcase into it. He closed and locked the safe, clicked his briefcase shut, and set it down on the floor next to the safe. Whistling, he went out again, using his private entrance, and made his way to the new wing at the rear of the manor, where he had installed a squash court, an indoor pool, a sauna, and a change room. He went into the change room and came back out in minutes, naked. Two of his colleagues were already in the pool. Gesturing in greeting to his ma.s.seur who had just arrived, he dove into the deep end and began his laps.

Dinner was served promptly at six-thirty and took less than an hour. The men were obviously eager to get on with the highlight of the evening. At twenty minutes to eight, he was back in his suite. After divesting himself of his dinner jacket and tie, he unb.u.t.toned his collar, poured himself a scotch, and settled down in an armchair to wait. Promptly at eight o'clock, the videos were delivered. They would be allowed fifty minutes to view them before the bidding opened.

He reviewed the first three critically. They were all attractive, but he was still undecided as to whether he would bid on any of them. He didn't always. He inserted video number four into the VCR and as the woman's face filled the screen, he sat bolt upright in shock. Nicola Edgerton! What the f.u.c.k! The last time he saw her she had been a child of about seven or eight, but he would have known her anywhere, that face, that hair, her, period. The eyes looking back at him were still that unusual jade green, and he knew that if she were standing in front of him, they still would be dancing mischievously like the Caribbean Sea on a hot and breezy day. He couldn't believe that in a few minutes time she would be auctioned off to the highest bidder. The very thought of it gave him a sudden hollow feeling, as though he had been gutted by an inexplicable sorrow. But why the f.u.c.k should he mind? Hadn't the memory of her always been a thorn in his side, until he had decided to bury the past and get on with the life that destiny had apparently mapped out for him? He hadn't thought of her for the better part of twenty years, and now, here she was, right in his face and up for rent.

As he stared at her image, offering herself up by video to the highest bidder, an emotion akin to anger replaced the hollowness inside him. He couldn't let it happen. Capricious fate had delivered her to him. All he had to do was reach out. If necessary, if that was what it would take, he would spend a fortune to ensure that when the bidding was over, he would own Nicola Edgerton, even if only for the next six months. His mind made up, and video number five now irrelevant, he settled down in front of his laptop and waited for the bidding on number four to be opened.

It took nearly an hour. Apparently every single one of his colleagues had decided to bid on her. He watched the screen, topping every bid in each round and knowing it was simply a question of time. In the end, only two of them were left in the contest, almost like a duel to the death. But at last, as the bidding rose to unparalleled heights, his rival conceded. He had won, as he knew he would. Number four sold to the highest bidder at ninety thousand pounds!

He let out a breath, releasing the tension that had held him in its grip for the last hour and feeling like a runner who has just completed a grueling race. He got up abruptly and went to the window, gazing out into the darkness, pondering the capriciousness of fate that, having brought him from rags to riches, had now delivered Nicola Edgerton to him.

Seeing Nicola resurrected memories he thought he had successfully buried in the deepest recesses of his mind. One look at her and it had all come flooding back, erasing the years that had since intervened and filling his mind with a vision of himself, an unhappy little boy growing up on his father's estate, his heart burning at the injustice of it all.

How bitterly he had envied the Edgerton girls, wondering why his life should be so different from theirs. His father owned a coffee estate too, but while he wandered around looking like an orphan in clothes that were faded and ill-fitting, his feet bare save for alphagats the field workers' footwear of odd bits of leather held together by string Nicola and her sister were always beautifully dressed. He would watch them secretly every day as they were driven to the private school they attended by their father's chauffeur in a shiny black Wolseley, identical to the one that now sat gleaming in his own garage.

Self-mockingly, he thought about the impulse that had driven him to buy an old-fashioned Wolseley which he never even drove. After all those years, even though he possessed more wealth than he could ever have dreamed of, had he been trying to become Nicola Edgerton's equal?

Was it possible, he wondered now, that he had never gotten over his childhood fixation with her, a fixation that had actually driven him to spy on her, to climb high up in trees or hide in dense bushes on their property to watch her as she laughed and played with her sister Emma and with her parents, who seemed as gay and carefree as she was? Once, hidden in some dense undergrowth, he had been so close to her he could have touched her merely by reaching out his hand. The sight of her merry green eyes and laughing mouth had left him with a strange burning in the center of his ten-year-old gut. Until that fateful day when something happened that changed his fixation to something darker, angrier.

Monday to Friday he attended the local school with the children of the field workers. He was used to walking to school by himself, having persuaded his mother after he turned eight that he was too old for her to walk him there. There was barely any traffic. Now and then the car from the neighboring estate would drive by, taking the Edgerton girls to their private school.