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  Stormy Encounter

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  Tags: Romance - Harlequin

  Janet was naturally worried when she heard from her mother, who had gone to live in sunny Ibiza, that someone was trying to make life difficult for her by, apparently, trying to cheat her out of her rights, and she went post-haste to the little island to see if she could sort things out.

  Her mother, she found, being a sunny-natured lady, was not as worried about the situation as Janet was -- and Janet was even more worried and annoyed when she met the cause of all the trouble, the odious Bruce Walbrook. Just who did he think he was? He might be an authority in the legal world, but she would show him that his words certainly cut no ice with her.

  On her mother's behalf, Janet was going to get the better of him -- or was it only on her mother's behalf?

  Stormy Encounter

  by Roumelia Lane

  CHAPTER ONE

  The March winds had finally blown themselves out, and the beech trees lining the square stretched themselves tentatively in the pale April dawn.

  The whine of an electrically powered milk cart broke the sleepy silence, cutting into it delicately as it came round the corner, then rattling over the cobblestones energetically as though to give an extra prod to those tucked up in their beds who might be tempted to ignore it.

  Janet allowed herself enough time to pull the curtains back on the scene and muse over what to wear, then she scurried round to get ready for work.

  In the cluttered bathroom, with nylons and smalls strung across a line near the immersion heater, and sheets and towels overflowing in the linen basket, waiting for the launderette, she washed and dressed from the bundle of clothes she had brought in with her—tweedspeckled suit, leafgreen blouse, stockings, and glossy mediumheeled shoes.

  At the mirror she applied a speedy touch of makeup. With her redbrown hair swept back from her forehead to fall in a soft wave on cither side of her face, wideset goldenbrown eyes and a sparkling smile, she knew she was attractive, but she had no time to gloat over it. With her living to earn and half the rent of the fiat to find each week she was fully occupied with the business of making enough money to fill her needs.

  Of course her job with the secretarial agency paid well, but after everything had been carefully budgeted for, with very little to spare, it didn't allow for much slacking on her part.

  She dropped her comb into her handbag after applying the finishing touches to her hair and went along to the kitchen. On her way there she ran into a sleepy dishevelled figure stumbling towards the bathroom. From the midst of towel, toilet bag, and bright yellow curlers, she heard a mumbled, 'Sorry, old girl. I didn't hear the alarm.'

  Janet smiled after her flatmate. 'Don't worry, I'll put the kettle on,' she said comfortingly.

  Nona, with dark hair and darkfringed serious blue eyes, was twenty-two, the same age as herself. They had known each other from schooldays, and had gravitated to London together. There had been five of them at first and they had taken a big flat over in Clapham, but with half the girls not taking their share in the chores, and general dissatisfaction reigning for most of the time, the five had gradually split up.

  Janet and Nona had moved into this flat in Fulham. They found they got on well together, neither one being content to sit back and let the other do all the work.

  The flat was nothing fabulous, if anything it was rather shabby, but they had their own front door, and it was handy for the buses and tubes. It consisted of a long hall leading from a flight of stone steps outside, with two small rooms used as bedrooms, plus a bathroom at the end, on one side, and a kitchen and a living room on the other side.

  From the bathroom now came the sound of tuneful humming as Nona gradually woke up to the day. Filling the kettle and lighting the gas stove, Janet mused good-naturedly on her friend's elated spirits these days. She hadn't missed the dreamy look in Nona's eyes over the past fewweeks, and she knew she was keeping company with one of the young managers at the store where she worked.

  Though Janet envied her starry-eyed look, she wasn't greatly put out by the lack of romance in her own life. She had been on the occasional dine, and gone to the usual parties, but as yet she had met no man who had made an earthshattering impact on her. Nor was she in any great hurry to.

  It was true she had to work hard to support herself in London, but she did it from choice. She had two sisters married and living in the same town on the Suffolk coast, and a brother and his family settled in Cambridge. With her widowed mother living abroad she would have been welcomed by any one of them to stay as long as she wished. However, she liked the independence of looking after herself and at least there was always plenty of work in London.

  She set out cups and saucers and plates, and while she was waiting for the kettle to boil she went out along the hall to the letterbox behind the front door.

  There were the usual bills. The quarterly demand for the telephone. The reminder that the gas payment was due, and the milkman's bill which he had dropped in through the letterbox. Flicking through this depressing lot, Janet found a bright spot in the picturesque Spanish stamp and an envelope addressed in her mother's sprawling handwriting. There was also a letter for Nona from her brother who was serving with the Air Force in Canada.

  With the sheaf of mail in her hand, her mother's letter uppermost, Janet opened the door to pick up the bottle of milk standing outside. She didn't feel the cold blast of air on her cheek, nor did she see the row of sombre dark houses opposite, the windows of the other early risers lit here and there in the semilight of early morning. In her mind's eye she saw vivid blue skies and a small white house pulsing in the heat of Ibiza.

  Her mother, loving the sun, and with nothing to keep her in England, had yearned to make the island her permanent home. The whole family had encouraged her and when she had found the house she could afford out of what their father had managed to provide for her before he died, Janet and Nona had gone out the summer before last to help her to settle in.

  But for an adjoining villa which was closed up most of the rime, she lived in the heart of the countryside. She managed on a slender income, but she was supremely happy, and as she had a telephone on which she could get in direct contact with the flat, Janet was content. The memory of that fortnight's holiday of two years ago always fresh in her mind, she loved to hear about the island in her mother's letters.

  The kettle was boiling when she got back to the kitchen. She made the tea, and dropped four slices of bread in the toaster, buttering it hot when it popped up. Nona came into the kitchen arid poured the lea, and cut the toast. Then when they were settled she pounced on her brother's letter, reading it avidly as she munched.

  Janet smiled on her indulgently. The young man whose photograph stood on the oldfashioned sideboard in the front room was all the family Nona had. She knew brother and sister were very close.

  She didn't open her mother's letter beside her plate. She preferred to anticipate its contents and read it later at her leisure. It was only when she had finished breakfast, and found that she had a good ten minutes to spare, that she decided to have a quick peep.

  Nona had consumed the contents of her own letter greedily and was refolding it, exclaiming happily, 'Oh, good! Peter says he thinks he'll be back in England by May.'

  'Lovely,' Janet smiled absently, her eyes caught by her mother's large scrawly writing.

  Her smile lingered as she started to read. Then gradually it became set. On the second page it disappeared, leaving the full soft lips tightened in a thin line. At the end of the letter her mouth was damped solidly over a rising anger. 'Well, what a nerve!' The words burst out hotly as her brown eyes grew stormy.

  'What's wrong?'
Nona asked, taking a gulp of tea and keeping one eye on the clock

  'The villa next to Mother's has been sold,' Janet explained gloweringly. 'The new people are a rich socialising couple who seem tobe entertaining half the island.'

  Nona looked sympathetic 'Poor Mrs. Kendall. Is it very noisy?' she asked.

  It's not that.' Janet drooped a lame smile over the letter. 'Being Mother she likes a bit of action. And isn't it just like her,' she tapped the scrawled pages with affectionate exasperation, 'to mention only in passing the worst part about the disused railway track !'

  'The old track? You mean the length that runs up past the front of her house?' Nona's blue eyes widened with suspense.

  'That's right, and alongside the villa,' Janet nodded. 'Well apparently, just lately it's been overrun with cars, and the villa people have said they intend to make it their own.'

  'What!' Nona sat up. 'Well, they can't do that, can they? I mean, isn't it your mother's only entrance?'

  'It is. And I know for a fact that she was told when she bought the house that the strip of track would be hers for a few hundred pesetas as soon as the legal details were sorted out.'

  'Wasn't that some time ago?' Nona pointed out dubiously.

  'Two years. But nothing moves with any great haste over there,' Janet shrugged. 'Apart from the odd farm cart going by along the track now and again, no one has bothered, and Mother has always considered the strip as her own drive.'

  Nona looked concerned. 'Can these new people step in and buy it over her head, do you think?' she asked.

  'If money's anything to do with it, they can,' Janet fumed. 'And as they have a perfectly good entrance on the road at the front, it would be downright unfair.'

  'But surely, if your mother was there first, she should have first claim to it?' Nona offered.

  'You would think so, wouldn't you?' Janet said wryly, a bitter light in her brown eyes. Her glance strayed to the clock and she jumped up. 'Heavens, look at the time! I'll miss my bus!'

  She grabbed up her coat and handbag and stuffing her mother's letter in her pocket she dashed for the door to the cheerful cries from Nona, who having another ten minutes to spare was rinsing off the breakfast crockery, 'Run girl! You'll catch it.'

  Breathless and on the crowded bus, Janet entered into the whirl of the working day. Throughout it the contents of her mother's letter stayed with her to rankle. After a morning's typing, she ate her lunch in a modest restaurant, over a lump of resentment in her chest. It was the injustice of it that galled her.

  On her way home across the city in the evening, in the blustering rain, she nursed her vexation behind set features, oblivious to the crush and push of people around her.

  She was always the first to arrive back at the flat. By the rime Nona's footsteps sounded on the steps outside she had the gas fire burning cheerily in the living room and a tray with coffee and biscuits all ready.

  Nona fell in on a gust of wind and rain and a breathless, 'Phew, it's pouring, and I didn't take my brolly.'

  'Get your wet things off and come and have some hot coffee,' Janet said from the front room. 'I've got the potatoes on.'

  'Oh, good! And I've got the steak and a tin of peas.' Nona disrobed on her way to her bedroom across the hall. Discarding wet stockings and shoes for slacks and slippers, and pulling into a comfortable woolly, she charted on, 'The apples looked rather nice, so I bought a couple for afters.'

  'Lovely.' Janet smiled across to her, though there was a certain gravity in her brown eyes.

  Not slow to sense a mood, Nona scuffed in and took her small stool beside the fire. When Janet was settled and they were sipping steaming coffee companionably and munching on sweet biscuits, Nona said practically, 'Well, come on, out with it. You've got something on your mind, I can tell.'

  Janet placed her cup down and grimaced lightly. 'Is it that obvious?' She pulled in a deep breath as though wondering where to start. Then with a straight look at her friend she said purposefully, 'I'm going to Ibiza.'

  Nona's face showed no surprise. 'Because of that letter you got this morning?' She nodded.

  Incensed at the thought of it, Janet explained with quiet fury, 'I can't sit back and let these people walk over Mother.'

  'Of course you can't. If it was me I should want to do exactly the same,' said Nona.

  Janet looked at her friend. Then she breathed a grateful sigh. 'I guessed you'd understand, Nona, but it's a relief to know you don't mind.' She drew a slip of paper towards her which had been lying beside the coffee pot. 'I've put everything down that you'll need for my half share of the bills. Trouble is...' she bit on her lower lip, 'I shan't feel tight in coming back until I know that Mother is going to get what belongs to her, and that creates the problem of keeping up the rent of the flat.'

  'It shouldn't affect us,' Nona said helpfully. 'Angela will be up here by the end of next week.'

  Janet brightened. 'Is it as soon as that?' she said reflectively.

  Their mutual friend was coming up to London to do a summer modelling assignment for her firm. She had tried frantically to get somewhere to live within reasonable distance of her work without success, and in the end Janet and Nona had offered to take her in with them.

  'I don't know how we expected to put her up with only two beds,' Nona said humorously. 'Anyway, now she'll be able to use your room, and she's always insisted on paying half the rent.'

  'That's right.' Janet nodded, relaxing gradually as one by one the domestic cares fell away from her. She went on trailing her pencil down the figures on the list and watching it Nona asked, her practical side asserting itself, 'There's just one tiling. What are you going to use for money? The air fare to Ibiza will cost a bit, won't it?'

  Janet looked up and frowned apologetically at her flatmate. 'That's the worst part of it, I'm afraid,' she sighed. Tm going to have to dig in quite deep to my holiday savings, and unless a miracle happens when I get back, I don't see how I'm going to afford to go on our trip to Greece.'

  'Don't worry about it!' Nona urged her out of her despondency and patted her shoulder reassuringly. 'I know several girls at work who would be willing to take your place. Besides ...the dreamy look came into her eyes, I'm not certain to go myself yet...'

  Silence descended while each girl followed the line of their own thoughts. Then above the hiss of the gas fire Nona asked,

  'Have you told your mother you're going over?'

  'No.' Janet got up and gathered together the coffee cups on the tray. 'I'm waiting until after seven o'clock. The telephone rate will be cheaper then.'

  When the evening dinner dishes had been washed and replaced on their shelves, and the cooking odours had dispersed along the alley that the kitchen window opened on to, Janet went along the hall to the phone on the wall.

  It never ceased to be a source of wonder to her that, since the laying of the new cables off the Spanish coast, she was able to ring her mother direct in her lbizan cottage.

  She dialled her number and almost before she had time to flick her glance over the oldfashioned barometer on the wall, the signal that she was through came in the soft whirring tones. In a moment that familiar sprightly voice was on the line.

  'Mother, this is Janet,' she said, wasting no time. 'I'm just making a quick call.'

  'Why, dear, how nice!' Mrs. Kendall's voice was highpitched with delight. 'Did you get my letter?'

  'I did. And I think it's scandalous the way these villa people are trying to take your drive away from you.' Before her mother could take up precious time prattling over the subject, she went on, 'That's why I'm ringing. I'm coming out there.'

  'But, dear,' Mrs. Kendall chirped dubiously, 'do you have to? I mean ... well, what can we do?'

  'We'll talk about that when I get there,' Janet said, partly to save time and expense on the phone, said partly because she really didn't know yet herself. But it seemed to her that, as all the rest of the family had domestic ties, and as her m
other had no one to stand up for her, it was up to her as the unattached daughter to go out there and see that no one took advantage of a defenseless widow. 'Now don't worry about my arrival,' she said soothingly. 'I'llget a taxi from the airport. 'There should be a plane seat available tomorrow, and I'll probably land late afternoon or early evening.'

  'All right, Jan dear,' Mrs. Kendall agreed obediently. She managed to sing in gaily over the line in between their quick goodbyes and ringing off, 'It will be wonderful seeing you!'

  Janet boarded the airport coach the next afternoon with a certain feeling of accomplishment. She had packed two suitcases the night before and spent this morning getting leave from her job, going to thebank, and settling up with Nona in the form of an envelope with money in it, placed under the clock in the kitchen. Taking a tube with her luggage, to the West End, she had been able to book a seat on a plane to Ibiza with a travel agency. As the holiday season wasn't yet under way there were only two direct flights a week. Luckily one of them left that afternoon at three o'clock.