The house of my enemy Read online

  The House of My Enemy by NORREY FORD

  There's no feud like a family feud, and Capulets and Montagues thought highly of each other compared with the -shipping Bramhalls and the -spice- Bramhalls. So that when John William Bramhall's son fell in love with Robert Bramhall's adopted daughter, there was very stormy weather ahead of them.

  Printed in Canada

  OTHER Harlequin Romances by NORREY FORD

  1115—THE ROMANTIC HEART 1139—THE HOUSE OF MY ENEMY 1172—LET LOVE ABIDE 1248—WHERE LOVE IS 1818—ONE HOT SUMMER

  Many of these titles are available at your local bookseller, or through the Harlequin Reader Service.

  For a free catalogue listing all available Harlequin Romances, send your name and address to:HARLEQUIN READER SERVICE,M.P.O. Box 707, Niagara Falls, N.Y. 14302 Canadian address: Stratford, Ontario, Canada. or use coupon at back of book.

  Original hard cover edition published in 1959by Mills & Boon Limited.

  ISBN 373-01139-9

  Harlequin edition published September 1967

  Reprinted 1971Reprinted 1972Reprinted 1975

  Copyright © Norrey Ford 1959. All rights reserved.

  Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the permission of the publisher.

  All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the Author, and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the Author, and all the incidents are pure invention The Harlequin trade mark, consisting of the word HARLEQUIN and the portrayal of a Harlequin, is registered in the United States Patent Office and in the Canada Trade Marks Office.

  CHAPTER ONE

  ON a sunny afternoon in spring, a scarlet sports car turned into the drive of Nutmeg House, and a good-looking young man in immaculate white shorts and an open-necked shirt opened the door to allow Verity Bramhall to get out. Verity was in white too, a pleated tennis dress of the inimitable simplicity that costs money.

  "Thanks for greeting me home in time, Tom." She patted the new car appreciatively. "She's a honey. May I drive her sometime?"

  "She's a man's girl really, but she might like being driven by you." Tom Cooper knew he wouldn't hesitate to entrust his treasure to Verity. She had good hands for driving, fine judgement, quick responses. Her own car was a more sedate job than his, but she extracted every ounce from it. "How about to-morrow?"

  "Laurie will be home and Sally's people are coming—sort of state dinner. Another time, Tom—I can't wait to get my hands on that wheel. I must go now. Daddy hates me to be late and Laurie said they'd be here by seven."

  "They?"

  "He's bringing Sally. She met him in London this morning. The wedding will be quite soon, before Laurie moves in to the farm."

  "Good old Laurie! Doesn't this romance give you ideas?"

  "About marriage? No, I intend to stay at home and take care of Daddy for ever and ever."

  "Want to bet?"

  Verity was a feast to the masculine eye and Tom wasn't missing any of it. In the late afternoon sun, her short hair had the tawny-bronze tints of chrysanthemum, and her skin was of that perfect milk and roses hue which comes to perfection in the moist English climate. She had a short, enchanting nose and her mouth, he thought, would be sweet to kiss.

  So far, she hadn't given him the opportunity, but in time she would. He felt almost sure he was in love with Verity Bramhall. She'd be a perfect wife for him in his position—charming, decorative and gay, and he could afford her. It was lucky his family were in industry and not a snooty county lot who might be difficult about her parentage. His mother approved of Verity. So—for what it was worth—did his father.

  She leaned towards him, laughing. Her eyes were like the green depths of a lake, tantalizing with secrets.

  "Don't be silly, Tom. Run away like a good boy."

  She waved him goodbye and turned towards the house.

  Nutmeg House was built in the great days, when Victoria was Queen and the merchant princes drove to Earlton wharves behind high-stepping horses to see tall-masted ships unload the wealth of the world into their warehouses. The docks were like a forest with masts then, and on a blowy day the singing of the wind in the rigging could be heard as far as grey St. Mary's Church, the Custom House, and in the Lanes off Monksgate where the spice merchants traded and made fortunes in dim mahogany-lined offices.

  John Robert Bramhall drove to business in a high dog-cart with yellow wheels, spanking along over the cobblestones. He made his pile and expanded his warehouses, and when the architect brought him drawings for his new house out at Darfleet, which was in the country then, he sent them back asking more for his money. He got it. A touch of Gothic, a touch of Renaissance, a hint of the Scottish Baronial style which had become the fashion when the Queen took to Balmoral.

  When the builder finished, John Robert called the hideous pile Nutmeg House. His wife and daughter-in-law, young William's wife, were shocked. They wanted something imposing, like The Towers. John Robert said it was Nutmeg or nothing, unless they wanted to call it The Pepperpots. Mrs. John Robert cried, but his word was law.

  In due time young William moved into Nutmeg House and became Old William, and put his twin sons John

  William and Robert into the spice trade. He was, if possible, quicker tempered and more self-willed than his father.

  When Robert was fifteen he defied his father and ran away to sea. It was the first time any of William's family had rebelled, and naturally he, blamed his wife, who was a gentle soul and a famous cook. Robert was cut out of his father's will, although later he relented to the extent of leaving him Nutmeg House. The spice business went to John William, the younger twin.

  Robert Bramhall was furious. He had loved the family business, and his running away to sea had been merely a challenge to his father's high-handedness and violent temper. He thought John William out to have halves in the business with him, but John William dug his heels in and refused. The row after Old William's funeral took Earlton's mind off the Charleston, the Eton crop, the General Strike.

  Robert went into shipping and eventually made more money than John William because he was a better business man, but the loss of his birthright rankled. He never forgave John William—and John William never forgave him for having Nutmeg House which, he argued, was the proper home for the head of the biggest spice business in the north of England.

  Verity had lived in Nutmeg House as long as she could remember, and though some of her friends assured her it was hideous, she thought it lovely. She didn't mind its name, she liked to think of old John Robert remembering the source of his riches. Inside, the house was surprisingly light, airy and comfortable.

  Following her usual custom, she looked into the library to see if Robert Bramhall was at home. He was reading, in a leather chair by the fire which he demanded on even the hottest day. She dropped a kiss on top of his polished bald head.

  "I'm home, Daddy. Tom drove like the wind to get me back in time to pretty up." She knew she could never make up to him for the loss of his lovely wife, whom she hardly remembered except as a soft voice, a sweetly-

  scented presence. She tried in all the ways she knew, for she loved him dearly.

  Robert Bramhall had a head like an old Roman senator; hooked nose, moulded lips and deeply cleft chin. His years at sea had coloured his skin mahogany red. He would have been handsome but for the ears which stuck out like bat-wings, and the slight twist to the Roman nose
acquired in a fight during his sea-going days.

  Punctuality was a fetish with him "They'll be here in an hour. Did you have a good time with Tom Cooper?"

  "I did. His new car is gorgeous, and he didn't go too fast, so don't ask. Tom takes care of me."

  "He'd better! Do you like him?"

  She leaned over his chair and slid her arms round his neck, her eyes dancing. "You want me to say yes, don't you,"

  "And what if I do? Tom Cooper is virtually the head of that business now. His poor father's no use, never was. A fine business, good social position, money behind him —just the husband a fond old father might wish for a silly young daughter."

  "She might not love him."

  "No, she might not. I'm only saying—if it should become love on both sides I'd be delighted. So would poor John Cooper, I'll be bound. Robert Bramhall's daughter is no mean catch."

  "I hope I'll please you when I'm ready to get married, Daddy." If there was the faintest emphasis on the word hope he did not notice it. "I can't honestly say I love Tom —yet; nor do I think he loves me. We like being together, that's all. Someday it may happen in a flash, like Laurie and Sally. But up to now you and Laurie are the men in my young life. I've lots of 'boy friends, but I like Bramhalls best; they make all the others seem so insignificant." She giggled softly. "It must be the powerful Bramhall personality. I'm accustomed to strong meat, and other men are tasteless. I must admit Tom's got more than the others, but even he doesn't measure up to you or Laurie."

  He patted her hand on his shoulder affectionately. "I'm flattered you should prefer me, lassie. But that won't last much longer. However, you're not quite twenty and I don't want to lose you yet. I'm losing my son, and that's enough for any father at the moment."

  "You're gaining a daughter, darling."

  "H'm! I'd like Sally Dane better if she didn't show the whites of her eyes and run like a rabbit whenever she sees me."

  Verity laughed. "That's because we're all so afraid of you. You bellow, darling, and I believe you waggle your eyebrows at the poor girl on purpose to scare her."

  "Me? Nonsense, I'm the mildest man alive."

  Verity added that to the thousand-and-one funny things she would tell Laurie. She knew Robert honestly believed himself to he a mild and sunny-tempered man and was dismayed when people found him alarming. the same he had rigid ideas about ruling his business and his home, and no one crossed him if they could help it. Laurie at twenty-seven still kept a cautious eve on his father's temper, and even Verity dared not abuse her privileges as an adored and only daughter.

  "Daddy, tell me something. Did you mind awfully about Laurie wanting to be a farmer?"

  "At first it hurt me. But the boy is not a Bramhall, Verity. He takes after his mother's people, big and gentle like the land." He rumbled with amusement. "Laurie told me the one thing he couldn't say about the Bramhall Shipping Line was that there was plenty of room at the top. He's right, of course. I'm not ready to abdicate. After me, who knows? The great days of shipping are done, we operate almost at a loss. Sometimes I've thought of selling to one of the bigger Mies and getting out."

  "You'd be lost without your ships."

  "My heart was never entirely in them, lassie. That's why I couldn't he too angry with Laurie. I know I'm an old fool, but I never got over my disappointment at losing the real Bramhall business." He moved across to the chimneypiece over which hung two fine portraits in oil,

  in heavy gilt frames. One was of his wife Elfrida. The other was his grandfather John Robert. "I remember him vaguely, Verity. Mother used to bring us to play on the lawn here and he always gave us sixpence each before we left. It was a fortune then. Not that vie ever saw any of it. Mother took the sixpences away and put them in the bank for us. If the old man had given us a penny, we might have had some good of it. I wonder what he'd say if he knew I was out of the business altogether. I had an idea he liked me best, for some reason."

  "You always say you did better with ships than your brother did by importing spices."

  "That's because I'm a business man and he's a grasping old fool. It's not money, child, it's the principle of the thing."

  He had his hobby horse by the bridle, but Verity interrupted before he could get fairly into the saddle. "I know, love. The John William Bramhalls are a gang of lowdown, thieving, unprincipled rascals, but Laurie is coming home and dinner is cooking to a turn, and you mustn't get into a temper or you'll scowl and terrify poor Sally. I'm going upstairs now, to make myself pretty for you."

  He smiled indulgently. "That's a nice thing about you, child. You'll take trouble to look nice for an old man. I piped John William there, having a daughter when he has none."

  Verity hurried away before Robert remembered that John William had had three sons to his one. True, two of the sons had been killed fighting, but as Robert pointed out so often, it was the principle that mattered. She blew him a kiss from the door.

  Aunt Emily Fidget was coming downstairs, ready dressed for the returning travellers. Laurie always said Aunt Fidget was originally intended for a grand piano and would have been one, but for a slight misunderstanding of the fairy godmothers at her birth; he declared she upholstered rather than dressed. Luckily for both Laurie and Verity her heart was of a size to match her body, and she had mothered them both, and her brother-in-law,

  ever since her sister Elfrida died. She wore a good deal of black satin and made a splendid widow, though her right to that status had been questioned at the end of the First World War. The family had never met her young husband Matt, nor had anyone the courage to ask to see her marriage lines. The youthful Emily had carried off the undoubted fact of a fine seven-pound baby with the same aplomb with which she'd conducted the rest of her life.

  "It was hard luck on our Emily," Elfrida had summed up the family feeling in the privacy of the Nutmeg House best bedroom. "She'd just worked Matt into the front line when the war ended. She's got him off to Australia now, and plenty of accidents can happen in Australia."

  Robert suggested that Emily might have chosen a more becoming name than Fidget, at which naive suggestion Elfrida carolled like a peal of bells.

  "Trust Emily A name like Fidget makes it more convincing. Any fool can invent a husband called Vere de Vere."

  But when Emily appeared in a deep mourning they loyally gave her the benefit of the doubt and sympathized as only a big, united family can.

  Young Matthew, cause of all the suspicion, was of an age to die at Dunkirk. The Second World War claimed John William's two older sons also, and oddly enough, his wife, who said she wasn't going into any nasty shelter and Hitler could kill her in her bed if he liked. Unhappily, Hitler took her at her word. John William was fire-watching that night and was unhurt.

  "You're late, love," said Aunt Fidget. "Look sharp and change. Have a good game?"

  "So-so. Tom's not an outdoor type at heart, Auntie. He's more a theatre and continental film number, with an art gallery and a hi-fi session thrown in. I'm sometimes that type myself, but in spring"—she stretched slim brown arms above her head and blew out a deep, happy sigh—"I'm definitely the outdoor girl. Auntie, I wish I hadn't gone away to school. The club's nice, but sometimes I feel an outsider there."

  Aunt Fidget said sharply, "Nay, Robert Bramhall's girl is no outsider i' Earlton, and if there's hanky-panky we'll have to talk to your father. He'll soon settle any nonsense. I never reckoned much to the idea of boarding-school. Young people want to grow up together, but there, I reckon there'll be others in t'same boat."

  "One or two. Most of the girls went to the Convent or the High School and know each other." She swung on one foot, shy as a schoolgirl suddenly. "Auntie, it isn't because of—you know?"

  "Nonsense! You're Robert's daughter and that's good enough. Enough Bramhall money has gone into Earlton pockets this last hundred years to make the name known and respected. Get off with you, and don't put your fingers on the banisters. Meg's polished them."

  "I've news for yo
u, Auntie. I'm grown up. I don't have sticky fingers anymore."

  At seven precisely Robert moved into the hall with his watch in his hand. "What's keeping them, Emily?" "They're not due yet."

  Robert's idea of promptness was ten minutes before the stated time. By his standards Laurie was late.

  Impatient for a sight of her adored Laurie, Verity was outside. She turned and waved, "They're here!"

  Then Laurie was in the midst of them, happy to be home after six months, shaking his father's hand, kissing Verity, hugging Aunt Fidget till her best stays creaked.

  Sally hung behind in an agony of shyness. As Verity's best friend she had visited Nutmeg House often, but this time she could not scuttle away into school girlish obscurity with Verity, keeping out of the master's way. She was newly engaged to Robert Bramhall's only son and one day might be mistress of this house. She had to greet the ogre as his future daughter-in-law.

  "So you're going to wed our Laurie?" Robert shook her hand and obviously expected her to kiss him, which she

  did nervously. "That's right. And if he doesn't treat you right, come and tell me. Now, Emily, is there anything to eat?"

  Aunt Fidget had been cooking for the best part of two days for the event and chose to be offended. This cut no ice with Robert and Laurie was too excited to notice, so she gave it up and shooed them into the dining-room without delay.

  Sally, in the dignity of her new position, was placed on Robert's right hand and almost fainted with fright when she saw Laurie's chair was so far away from hers that she could not reach across for an encouraging squeeze of hands beneath the stiff double-damask cloth. She knew she'd die if Robert spoke to her direct.

  "You're thinner, "Aunt Fidget accused Laurie. "What did those heathens feed you on? Handfuls of rice, and goat's milk?" She thought it a crime to be thin or small. Sally was small.

  "We did our own catering. Mostly I was the cook."

  "No wonder you look poorly. Heaven help the others, poor lads."

  "You do look a bit pale under that tan," Verity told him quietly.