Another shrug. "So why do an about-turn in his second letter and fill it with guarantees of noninvolvement and anonymity? I was expecting a bullish reply, saying I'd got the wrong end of the stick entirely; instead I had a rather confused apology for having written in the first place." She assumed from his suddenly worried expression that she wasn't explaining herself very well. "It suggests to me that someone put the fear of God into him between the two letters," she said, "and I'm guessing it's Leo, because he's the one James seems to be afraid of."
She was studying his face and saw the guarded look that had come into his eyes. "Let's trade information on that bench over there," she said abruptly, setting off toward a seat overlooking the valley. "Was James's description of Leo accurate?"
"Very accurate," said Mark, following her. "He's a charmer until you cross him… then he's a bastard."
"Have you crossed him?"
"I took James and Ailsa as clients two years ago."
"What's wrong with that?" she asked, rounding the bench and looking at the saturated wooden slats.
"The family affairs were managed by Leo's closest friend until I arrived on the scene."
"Interesting." She nodded toward the seat. "Do you want to lend me a flap of your Dryzabone to keep my bum dry?"
"Of course." He started to undo the metal poppers. "My pleasure."
Her eyes twinkled mischievously. "Are you always this polite, Mr. Ankerton, or do clients' granddaughters get special treatment?"
He shrugged out of his Dryzabone and threw it across the seat like Sir Walter Raleigh subduing a puddle before Queen Elizabeth. "Clients' granddaughters get special treatment, Captain Smith. I never know when… or if… I'm going to inherit them."
"Then you'll freeze to death in a lost cause," she warned, "because this is one granddaughter who won't be inherited by anyone. Doesn't that make this gesture a little OTT? All I need is a triangle… if you open out the flap, you can go on wearing it."
He lowered himself onto the middle of the seat. "I'm far too frightened of you," he murmured, stretching his legs in front of him. "Where would I put my arm?"
"I wasn't planning on getting that close," she said, perching awkwardly beside him in the small gap that remained.
"It's unavoidable when you sit on a man's coat… and he's still in it."
He had deep brown eyes that were almost black, and there was too much recognition in them. "You should go on a survival course," she said cynically. "You'd soon discover that keeping warm is more important than worrying about what you're touching."
"We're not on a survival course, Captain," he said lazily. "We're sitting in full view of my client who won't be at all amused to see his solicitor put his arm round his granddaughter."
Nancy glanced behind her. "Oh, my God, you're right!" she exclaimed, surging to her feet. "He's coming toward us."
Mark leaped up and whipped around. "Where? Oh, ha-bloody-ha!" he said sarcastically. "I suppose you think that's funny."
"Hilarious," she said, sitting down again. "Were the family affairs in order?"
Mark resumed his seat, this time pointedly putting distance between himself and her. "Yes, insofar as my predecessor followed James's instructions at the time," he said. "I replaced him when James wanted to change the instructions without Leo being given advance warning."
"How did Leo react?"
He stared thoughtfully toward the horizon. "That's the million-dollar question," he answered slowly.
She eyed him curiously. "I meant, how did he react toward you?"
"Oh… wined me and dined me until he realized I wasn't going to betray his parents' confidence, then took his revenge."
"How?"
He shook his head. "Nothing important. Just personal stuff. He can be very charismatic when he wants to be. People fall for it."
His voice sounded bitter and Nancy suspected the "personal stuff' had been very important. She leaned forward to prop her elbows on her knees. For "people" read "women," and for "it" read "Leo," she thought. Women fall for Leo… One woman? Mark's woman?
"What does Leo do? Where does he live?"
For someone who hadn't wanted to know anything about her biological family, she was suddenly extremely curious about them. "He's a playboy gambler and lives in a flat in Knightsbridge that belongs to his father." He was amused by her expression of disapproval. "More accurately, he's unemployed and unemployable because he stole from the bank he used to work for, and only avoided prison and bankruptcy because his father made good the debt. It wasn't the first time, either. Ailsa had bailed him out a couple of times before because he couldn't control his gambling."
"God!" Nancy was genuinely shocked. "How old is he?"
"Forty-eight. He spends every night in the casinos, has done for years… even when he was working. He's a con artist, pure and simple. People get taken for a ride all the time because he's good at selling himself. I don't know what his situation is at the moment-I haven't spoken to him in months-but it won't be healthy since Ailsa's will was published. He was using his projected inheritance to guarantee private loans."
It explained a lot, thought Nancy. "No wonder his parents changed their wills," she said dryly. "Presumably he'd sell this place and blow it on roulette if it was left to him?"
"Mm."
"What a fuckhead!" she said contemptuously.
"You'd probably like him if you met him," Mark warned. "Everyone else does."
"No chance," she said firmly. "I knew a man like that once and I'll never get taken in again. He was a casual laborer on the farm when I was thirteen. Everyone thought the sun shone out of his arse-including me-till he threw me onto the straw in one of the stables and pulled out his prick. He didn't get very far. I suppose he thought he was so much stronger than I was that I wouldn't fight back, so the moment he relaxed his grip I wriggled out from under him and went for him with a pitchfork. I probably ought to have run away, but I kept thinking what a fake he was… pretending one thing and doing another. I've always hated people like that."
"What happened to him?"
"Four years for sexual assault of a minor," she said, staring at the grass. "He was a right little shit… tried to pretend I'd attacked him for relieving himself against the stable wall-but I was screaming so much that two of the other laborers came piling in and found him curled up on the floor with his trousers round his ankles. If it hadn't been for that, I think he might have won. It was his word against mine and Mum said he was very convincing on the witness stand. In the end, the jury took the view that a man didn't need to expose his buttocks to urinate against a wall, particularly as the outside loo was only twenty yards away."
"Did you attend the court?"
"No. They said I was too young to be cross-examined. My version was presented in the form of a written statement."
"What was his defense?"
She glanced at him. "That I'd launched in without provocation and he refused to defend himself for fear of injuring me. His barrister argued that because the defendant was more damaged than I was, and because a thirteen-year-old couldn't have inflicted such harm on a grown man unless he allowed her to do it, I must have been the aggressor. It made me mad when I read the report of the trial. He painted me as a spoiled, rich brat with a bad temper, who didn't think twice about lamming into the hired help. You end up feeling you're the one in the dock when that kind of thing happens."
"How much damage did you do?"
"Not enough. Ten stitches in a slash across the bum and fuzzy vision after one of the prongs caught the corner of his eye. It was a lucky shot… meant he couldn't focus properly… which is why he didn't fight back. If he'd been able to see the fork, he'd have grabbed it off me, and I'd have been the one in hospital." Her expression hardened. "Or dead, like Ailsa."