Chapter 13: CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 13

GILL walked down the corridor with her new driver Jimmy. He was quite chatty, talking about Gerald sharing what is now her car. 

He was telling Gill that one of the two guys appointed to look after Wayne in Istanbul was a Turkish Cypriot who had served as an NCO with the British Army and was married to a Nicholls cousin, spoke the local lingo well and knew his way around the Middle East like the back of his hand, while his partner, although not family, yet, was ‘well experienced’, he said, in foiling kidnap attempts.

But Gill wasn’t really listening; she had so much running through her head.

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Sir Michael watched Gill and Jimmy disappear through the door and down the corridor before turning to Gertie.

“Well, I think that went quite well, ma’am, all things considered. She seems a sweet girl.”

“She is Michael. Anyway, when we are on our own, why don’t you call me Gertie like you do when you’re my guest, be it in London or Derbyshire?”

“Because here you are in my environment and my rules apply, I can’t allow myself to call you anything other than Ma’am or Your Lady, ma’am.”

“Tosh! You’re just miffed because I’ve taken one of your hospital beds —”

“I don’t mind the bed, but I draw the line at bringing your personal chef to my kitchen, I had a full-grown revolt on my hands just now.”

“Sorry, Pierre is so impulsive, but I’ve gotten used to his cooking. Have you thrown him out on his ear?”

“No, he’s now got the rest of the staff eating out of his hand and getting them to follow his recipes and food preparation methods for today’s lunch and dinner. They’ll never be the same down there after this!”

“Ha! Pierre has a full measure of Gallic charm,” Gertie grinned, “so, you’re not sore about me using this ward —”

“Ma’am, I’m well aware that your family founded this hospital for the poor of East London, 150 years ago, and you have been our leading benefactor over the years, but the Lady Standhope Wing has much better appointed rooms than this old wing.”

“Well, I could hardly dupe my love-sick grandson into a meeting with the love of his life, to either shock them by my imminent demise into getting back together or fall back on banging their bloody heads together, in a wing of the hospital with my name plastered all over it, could I?”

“I suppose not.... Anyway, the funny thing is, you didn’t need to do any of this because it looks like His Lordship was going to propose to her at the bank this morning anyway!”

“Yes, he’d had the ring refurbished and in his pocket all ready to present. I should have known better than try and second-guess my grandson!”

“Lord Standhope has certainly been a stubborn and determined character ever since I’ve known him as a child, but I couldn’t help notice that several of his shirt buttons were undone today, which I think is a first. I believe Lady Gill is going to be the making of him.”

“Me too. I like her a lot. It’s going to be fun seeing her children blossom under our care too.”

“I know I signed both those papers Barrington brought here before they arrived, ma’am, but I thought you were only going to give her the proxy today and hold back the share transfer?”

“I was, but Jake’s marriage proposal and Gill’s acceptance to the engagement, has changed all that. Those shares are merely a token, just a drop in the ocean, but once she has accepted that the money is meaningless figures, she can remove that from the equation and put her trust in the immeasurable community of family. I received my gift of those very same shares in the bank from Johnny’s grandmother the same day I was engaged to him, and engagements in those days had to be at for at least eighteen months to prevent tongues wagging. Hopefully, Belinda will persuade Jake and Gill to marry before this spring is out. I will give Belinda a call in a moment.

“In the meantime, Barrington tells me my retirement fund has exceeded all expectations and therefore we can look again at those maternity wing plans you broached last year.”

You are reading story Jake and Gill at novel35.com

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“Hi honey!” Jake’s voice boomed out of her mobile speaker, “Have you left Gran yet?”

“Yes, Jake, we left about ten minutes ago, Jimmy’s taking me back to the bank now. How’s everything at Winstone’s? And, more to the point, how did your meeting with Wayne go?”

“Sweet. He went down like a leaky balloon when he found out we knew everything. I had to work every single trick in the book to build him back up again, so he’d toe the line rather than storm off in a huff. He has got one hell of an ego that man, I will give him that!”

“He can sell sand to camels, fridge magnets to Eskimos, and smile along with you while he robs you. He smiled while he robbed me of my dignity.... Jake, you had me worried last week, I really thought I’d lost you.”

“Sorry sweetheart, but once Jarvis closed down the print room at Winstone’s and locked out Sally and her assistant Chrissie, I lost my eyes and ears on what he was doing outside of his computer input. I really didn’t see the bank takeover bid coming and I had limited time to find an effective strategy to counter. With Jarvis moving back in with you and the kids, well, I wasn’t exactly sure of what his motives were, and how much he knew.”

“So you kept away from us.... I can understand that, but why go to stay with Izote at Dartmoor? You must have known that I would think the worst —”

“Sorry, I didn’t know that Chrissie was going to tell you I was down there. It was just a business deal going on in the background. I only drove down to set up a line of credit with their bank in Okehampton and sign the agreements with the sisters at their lawyers’ offices. Jamieson was with me the whole time. I was in Dartmoor for maybe an hour or ninety minutes. The rest of the week I was in Peru and Chile realising assets and negotiating buying back the shares that were held by a branch of the family that moved there a couple of generations ago. While I was over there I turned off the phone’s roaming facility, to remove distractions. The Winter-Perez family are notoriously tricky negotiators, I was wishing you were there with me all the time.”

“You still had me worried, hon.”

“It was thoughtless of me and I will make it up to you, darling, even if it takes me half a century.”

“You better!” she laughed, “So, what have you done with the father of the first two of my children?”

“Now he’s become quite enthused about spending two years in Istanbul and he has a folio of projects that we’ve designed for him to study before he goes. He’ll still be around for a few days, to possibly patch things up with Cheryl and to see the kids.... Wait a minute, what was that about first two children?”

“Well, hotshot tycoon, ex-copy boy, and my all-round heartthrob, how do you feel about becoming a father in the next year or so, maybe a couple of times while I still can?”

“I feel really good about it, darling ... really, that would be fantastic, a couple of kids like Jen and Clay would be awesome.”

“Good, because I’m telling Uncle Gerry, and that’s the first time I can bring myself to calling him by that name, that he’s still doing three days a week for the foreseeable future and I’m going home early tonight and most nights for a while. How about your end?”

“Jamieson’s got things buttoned up tight here, my IT guys are double checking they’ve replaced all the dummy accounts for the Jarvis Sting, and ensuring that all the real accounts are squared up. I think I can get away just after lunch.”

“Good. Before the kids get home would be ideal.... Look, Jake honey, I’ve got an unrecognised number coming in, I better take it in case it’s Gertie or maybe something to do with the kids being picked up from school. I’ll see you soon then, bye sweetheart! I love you!”

“I love you too. We must sit down and talk tonight, there’s a lot of things we need to go through, like family obligations that you really need to know about at the earliest. Until then, bye, sweetheart, love you!”

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From her car, The Honourable Belinda Wheatier, also known among the county set as Lady Dorset, hung up after speaking to her Aunt Gertie and rang Gill’s number from her stored directory.

She was so excited she could barely contain herself and the damn phone rang and rang and rang before Gill picked up.“Congratulations, Gill, ... It’s Belinda, sweetie.... Yes.... I just heard the wonderful news.... Do you have any wedding dates in mind yet? ... Never mind, I’ll be seeing you round Aunt Gertie’s London house on Saturday, we’ll talk then.... I love organising weddings, but I believe in working from the end backwards.... That’s right.... We are going to have soooo much fun with this. Where do you want to have your honeymoon? ... The foothills of the Himalayas? ... A hiking holiday? ... Not my idea of a honeymoon, too far from the beach for me, but for you two, well it’s perfect and the King of Nepal will be absolutely delighted.... Why? He loves crosswords and texts Jake all the time.... No, of course the King’s not a cousin, really Gill! ... No, Great Aunt Mildred turned the King’s grandfather down twice, besides mountaineering was only a passing phase for her before she took up flying solo biplanes around the world. Now, do you want the wedding reception in Nepal or England? Gertie says we can have the wedding in the pretty little Standhope Parish Church of All Saints and hold the reception in the main ballroom at the Standhope ‘Palace’ in Derbyshire? … Of course it’s not really a palace, it’s Standhope Manor, but we’ve always joked about it being so ostentatious because it has more than a hundred bedrooms and three ballrooms ... Gill? ... You still there? ... Gill?”

The End.

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