THE house was stunning.
Amy drove Joss and Bertram out to Millionaire’s Row and turned her car off the road into a driveway leading to a mansion. As she had said, it was the most ostentatious house on Millionaire’s Row. Which left him more confused than ever. Amy’s car looked as if her next date was with the wrecker. Her dress was faded and shabby. She looked as if she hadn’t a penny to bless herself with, yet the house she lived in was extraordinary.
Or maybe extraordinary was an understatement.
It was set back from the beach but it had maybe a quarter of a mile of beachfront all of its own. The house was two storeys high and huge. It was built of something like white marble and the entire edifice glistened in the rain like some sort of miniature palace.
Or maybe not so miniature…
‘Wow,’ he said, stunned, and Amy looked across at him and smiled.
‘Welcome to my humble abode.’ Her smile was mocking.
‘It’s…’
‘Ostentatious? Over the top? Don’t I know it.’ She pulled into one bay of what appeared to be an eight-or ten- car garage and switched off the engine. The car spluttered to a halt, and a puff of black smoke spat out from under the bonnet.
‘Um…about your priorities…’
‘Yes?’
‘You don’t think you might do with one bedroom less and get yourself a new car?’
She appeared offended. ‘What’s wrong with my car?’
‘Er…nothing.’ He hesitated and then decided on honesty. ‘Well, actually-everything.’
‘Bertram likes it.’ She swung herself out of the car and opened the rear door for Bertram. She ran a hand under the silky velvet of his ears as he nosed his way out of his comfortable back seat, and the big dog shivered with pleasure. Amy grinned. ‘If your dog likes it, who are you to quibble? He’s a gentleman of taste if ever I saw one.’
Joss smiled in return. Her grin was infectious. Gorgeous! ‘Bertram likes smells and there’d be enough smells in your car to last a dog a lifetime. I reckon there are four or five generations of smells in that back seat.’
But she wasn’t listening to criticisms of her ancient car. She was intent on Bertram’s wonderful ears. ‘He’s lovely.’
‘You don’t have ten dogs of your own?’
‘No.’ Her voice clipped off short at that, as if collecting herself, and Joss gave her a strange look. There were so many things here that he didn’t understand.
‘Come through.’ She flicked a switch and the garage doors slid shut behind them, and then she walked up the wide steps into the house. ‘Welcome to my world.’
It grew more astonishing by the minute.
The house was vast but it contained barely a scrap of furniture. Joss walked through a wide passage leading to room after room, and each door led to a barren space. ‘What the…?’
‘I only live in the back section of the house,’ she told him over her shoulder as she walked. ‘Don’t worry. There’s a spare bed.’
He was staring around him and he was stunned. ‘You own this whole house?’
‘Sort of.’ She was leading the way into a vast kitchen-living area. Here was a simple table and two chairs, two armchairs which had seen better days and a television set. Black and white. Nothing else.
It grew curiouser and curiouser.
‘You’ll have to explain.’
‘Why?’
Why? Of course she didn’t need to explain anything. He was her guest. She was doing him a favour by putting him up. But…
‘I’m intrigued,’ he admitted, and she grinned.
‘Good. I like my men intrigued.’
He was more intrigued by the minute, he thought faintly. She was a total enigma. And when she smiled… Whew!
‘Will you tell me?’
‘It’s a long story.’
‘By the look of the weather I have forty days and forty nights to listen.’
‘I need to go back to work.’
‘I thought you were off duty.’
‘I have paperwork to do, and I don’t want to leave our new mother for too long. Mary’s there now but I don’t like to leave her on her own. I’ll stay for an hour but…’
‘Then we have an hour. Tell me.’
Amy made a cup of tea first. Hell, she really did have nothing, he thought as he watched her spoon tea leaves into a battered teapot and pour the tea into two chipped mugs. Nothing.
Poor little rich girl…
‘This house was my stepfather’s,’ she told him.
Joss took his mug of tea and sat, and Bertram flopped down beside him. It seemed almost ridiculous to sit in this vast room. Somewhere there should be a closet where this furniture should fit.
It wouldn’t need to be a very big closet.
‘Was?’
She sank into the opposite chair and by the look on her face he knew she was very glad to sit. Once more there was the impression of exhaustion. She looked like someone who had driven herself hard, for a very long time.
‘Was?’ he said again, and she nodded.
‘Yes.’
‘And now?’
‘It’s mine-on the condition that I live in it for ten years.’
He stared around in distaste. ‘He didn’t leave you any furniture?’
‘No.’
‘Then…’ He hesitated. ‘You haven’t thought of maybe selling the place and buying something smaller?’
‘Didn’t you listen? I said I had to live in it for ten years.’
He thought that over. ‘So you’re broke.’
‘Yes. Absolutely. It costs a fortune to keep this place.’
‘Maybe you could take in lodgers.’
‘Lodgers don’t come to live in Iluka.’ She hesitated and then sighed. She sat leaning forward, cradling her mug as if she was gaining warmth from its contents. As indeed she was. The house was damp and chill. It needed heating…
‘Don’t even think about it,’ Amy told him, seeing where he was looking. The central-heating panels almost mocked them. ‘Have you any idea of what it costs to heat this place?’
‘Why don’t lodgers come to live in Iluka?’
‘The same reason no one comes to live in Iluka. Except for retirees.’
‘You’ll have to explain.’
‘The town has nothing.’
‘Now, that’s something else I don’t understand,’ he complained. ‘My father’s married Daisy and seems delighted with the idea of coming to live here. There’s a solid residential population…’
‘On half-acre blocks which are zoned residential. We have a general store, a post office and nothing else. No one else has ever been allowed to build here.’
‘Why?’
‘My stepfather owned the whole bluff and he put caveats on everything.’
‘So?’
