The Sister Secret

by Jessica Steele

  Belvia looked away from him, embarrassed that her father could have gone to him with such a tale, embarrassed that Latham should know that her father cared so little for her.

  She swallowed hard when she felt Latham take her hands in his warm clasp, and she had never loved him more when he said, as though seeing her embarrassment, as if trying to ease it and her hurt, ‘His business is in sorry trouble, my darling.’

  Oh, Latham, she thought in panic, her embarrassment and pain swiftly sent on their way by that utterly unbelievable ‘my darling’. Perhaps he always calls every woman he has made love to ‘my darling’, she made herself think—anything rather than believe, because she loved him so, what her heart wanted to believe—that his ‘my darling’ meant that he had a little caring for her.

  ‘Having learned who “the woman” was, having believed my father, you told him to leave it with you—that you would stop it for him?’ Belvia questioned, as coolly as she was able.

  ‘I saw no reason to disbelieve him,’ Latham owned. ‘Though naturally I went and saw Astill and confronted him with the fact that I knew your name.’

  ‘He didn’t deny it?’ she questioned, startled.

  ‘He looked astonished when I trotted out your name—as well he might,’ Latham replied. ‘Only I thought his astonishment stemmed from the fact that I’d found out what he was trying to keep a closely guarded secret. But he recovered fast and, as quick-thinking and as devious as your father, must have realised that if I thought you were the one it would give him more freedom with the Stanley woman. And I was left in the frustrating position of being unable to lay a fist on him—because Caroline still wanted him and because of the promise I’d made to her—and, because your father had said you had money of your own, of being unable to attempt to buy you off.’

  ‘Why didn’t you come and ask me about it?’ she asked, entirely unthinkingly, then halted in her tracks. ‘You would never have believed any denial I made, anyway, would you?’

  ‘For my sins—I confess, no. Though not without cause,’ he added.

  ‘What cause...?’ she began, then remembered. ‘I confirmed it for you myself, didn’t I?—that night we met, that night when you came to dinner and...’

  ‘And you went out, tossing into the room those immortal words, “After dinner is the only time he can get away from his wife”.’

  ‘No wonder you looked furious!’

  ‘Furious, and more determined than ever to put a stop to it. By that time I’d reasoned that either you were as brazen as hell, or that Astill, rather than have you warned off, had kept it to himself that I knew you were his mistress. I realised too that, as we’d agreed, your father had said nothing to you about the fact that I knew.’

  ‘Why would he say anything?’ Belvia put in, not liking her father very much just then.

  ‘Try not to be upset,’ Latham pressed. ‘The whole thing’s a mess, a nightmare. But once we’ve got it all unravelled...’ That warm look was in his eyes again—and suddenly Belvia found herself in a state of not knowing what to believe in any more, and looked quickly away.

  ‘Why did you accept my father’s invitation to dinner that night?’ she asked, again hoping that if she went back to the beginning it might be of some help.

  ‘Your father had stressed that, while your sister would do anything he asked of her, you were as intractable as the devil. But, to my mind, while you plainly did not hold the sanctity of marriage in the same high regard that he did, I felt that, intractable or no, you must have a weak spot somewhere. I needed to see you, preferably over a meal, where you’d be forced to spend more than a few minutes in my company.’

  ‘Did you find it—my weak spot?’

  ‘Astonishingly quickly. No sooner had I seen the way you were hovering protectively over your sister while your father introduced Josy and me than I knew that there were no lengths you wouldn’t go to for her. That protection of Josy was further endorsed, should I have needed it endorsing, when each time I tried to engage her in conversation you answered for her.’

  Belvia realised that, since he was so protective of his own sister, that same trait in her must have been easily recognisable. She let go a long-drawn breath as she suddenly recalled how he had categorically stated that he had never at any time been interested in Josy. ‘You decided to try to get through to intractable me by using my sister?’ she asked.

  ‘I’d never seen anything so clear-cut, so evident,’ he replied. ‘I saw at once that I had only to make the smallest play for your shy sister—and you would be in there protecting her like a shot.’

  ‘You thought to ask me to give up your brother-in-law in exchange for not pursuing Josy?’

  ‘That was perhaps the obvious thing to do. But, discussing that solution with your father—and we’ve been in frequent touch throughout,’ he inserted, ‘he—who knew you better than me, remember—felt you would verbally agree to give up Astill but would continue with your clandestine meetings and tell Astill, who would only become more cagey than ever. Which left me deciding that, to limit your time with your lover, I would, for a start, take you on myself.’

  ‘You were so certain I would go out with you? That Josy would go out with you?’

  ‘Josy, so your father said—and, remember, I’d no idea of what little game he was playing in the background—would agree if he mentioned that it would please him if she would do so. But you, love, as I recall, I didn’t have to invite out at all those first couple of times—you just turned up.’

  ‘But—you weren’t expecting me, that first time. That time I arrived in the car you sent you were expecting Josy.’

  ‘I was expecting none other than you, believe me,’ Latham corrected her quietly. ‘I knew before I rang Josy on Monday that your father had that morning spoken with her on the subject of her being more friendly to his guests in future. Just as I knew that she would come looking for you the moment after she’d agreed to come out with me that evening.’

  ‘You probably also knew that I’d try to phone you to say she couldn’t come,’ Belvia suggested, and he smiled, and her heart fluttered crazily.

  ‘Your father rang to tip me off about ten seconds before you rang,’ he owned. ‘Just enough time for me to instruct my PA that I was out of town should any Miss Belvia Fereday ring.’

  ‘But—you say you were expecting none other than me,’ Belvia reminded him and, as she remembered, ‘You looked amazed to see me—as if you couldn’t believe...!’

  ‘If I stared at you when you got out of that car, my dear, it was not from amazement,’ he interrupted, ‘but because I was stunned.’

  ‘Stunned?’

  Latham nodded. ‘Quite simply, I thought you the most lovely creature I’d ever seen.’

  ‘You d-did?’ she croaked.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ he breathed. ‘And that was when everything started to go wrong.’

  ‘Wrong?’

  He smiled. ‘Wrong, right—I soon didn’t know where the hell I was,’ he revealed. ‘All I knew for sure was that if by any small chance Josy had turned up that evening, then I’d have taken every care of her.’

  Her heart warmed some more to him that, having seen how dreadfully shy her sister was, he would have afforded her some of the same regard he gave his own sister. ‘But it wasn’t Josy who turned up—but me.’

  ‘Indeed it was you,’ he agreed. ‘And I looked at you, sat beside you in the theatre, and life was never the same again. I had to leave you in the interval to go and try to get my head back together.’

  Belvia shot him a startled look. ‘Y-You’re saying I—um—affected you in some...? That you were aware of me during the—’

  ‘I’m saying all of that,’ Latham continued. ‘I’m saying that while I wanted you there, where photographers were, where there was every chance Astill would see a picture of you with me, I at the same time felt the stirrings of jealousy when I returned to find Rodney Phillips sitting in my seat—taking up my space with you.’

  ‘Oh,
heavens,’ she whispered shakily, any intelligence she might have been blessed with suddenly deserting her—what did he mean?

  ‘”Oh, heavens,” it was, little one,’ Latham stated gently. ‘There was I, when I’d had no such intention, taking you on to dinner—and there you were—an entirely new experience for me—walking out on me when dinner had barely got started.’

  ‘I—um—told your chauffeur that you wouldn’t need him again that night,’ she confessed, her brain-power still scattered.

  ‘I know—he told me the next morning. I knew I was in trouble when I found myself laughing at your sauce.’

  ‘You were—in trouble?’

  ‘What would you call it when the next time I saw you—you again turning up in your sister’s place—chemistry should rear its head and I should start to desire you?’

  Some of her intelligence stirred—from what she could remember, that desire had not been one-sided. ‘I’ve—never felt like that before,’ she owned shakily.

  ‘Now, I know it—then, I didn’t. Are you going to forgive me?’ he asked.

  She felt on shaky ground again. ‘Should I?’

  ‘Oh, sweet love,’ he groaned and, as if he could not take much more of her sitting even that little bit away, he put his arm about her, and she did not pull away, but went willingly. Latham held her quietly to him for several seconds, before going on to tell her, ‘Your father had worked it all out very carefully. He did not rush into it but—he told me this morning—spent several days going over his plan to put me in his debt—to owe him a favour. He believed he had all the angles covered. He’d asked me not to mention to you that I knew you were having an affair with my brother-in-law—because he knew you would deny it. He had also calculated that I might go and see Astill and give him the name of his lady-love, but, by the very nature of Astill wanting to keep his real lady-love’s name a secret, he reckoned—as in fact did happen—that Astill would let me go on believing his mistress was you—or anyone else, for that matter. Provided I didn’t come up with the name Vanessa Stanley he’d got nothing to worry about.’

  ‘Did Caroline think I was—?’

  ‘No,’ Latham answered before she could finish. ‘She knew he was having an affair, of course, but she still doesn’t know who with. And now, thank the Lord, she no longer cares. But, on the subject of caring, your father thought he had it all meticulously worked out before he came to see me.’ He paused, and then, his eyes watchful on her, he went on carefully, ‘What he had not taken into account, though, was that having met you I should start to care—about you.’

  Her eyes went huge in her face, and her throat dried again. ‘C-Care...?’ It was as much as she could manage.

  Latham looked tenderly down at her and smiled. ‘Oh, yes, sweet love, care,’ he breathed. ‘From your father’s viewpoint, once he’d got the investment he needed signed and sealed by my company, you need never have been any the wiser. He’d planned to tell me you had dropped Astill—and he could hardly be blamed if Astill subsequently took up with his secretary.’ Devious, Belvia realised, was hardly a strong enough word for her father. ‘In his opinion, whether I thought Astill would have told you of my knowing you were the one was immaterial. And you, in your ignorance of what was going on, were hardly likely to mention his name either. So far as your father was concerned, I could think you as brazen about it as I liked. But, while everything began the way he calculated it might, what he did not know was that I soon started to love your spirit, to care about your vulnerability.’ She stared at him transfixed, and was barely breathing when, cupping the side of her face with one hand, he breathed oh, so tenderly, ‘In fact, my darling, he had not calculated that I should start to fall in love with you.’

  ‘You—love me?’ she choked huskily.

  ‘So very much,’ he replied softly, and placed the tenderest of kisses on her slightly parted lips. ‘I’ve known it, even as I’ve tried to deny it, from that night you came to my apartment to explain about Josy—only never got round to it. I followed you to the kitchen and I wanted you as you wanted me, but you said you were confused. And it was then that, as I recognised your vulnerability, as I held you, I knew confusion too. Because it wasn’t just desire I felt for you—and it wasn’t supposed to be like that. You were a hard case, you weren’t supposed to be vulnerable—yet you were. But as we started to make love it was wonderful, different—head-swimmingly different—not like the time before, when I’d jeered at you for sleeping around and you nearly fractured my cheekbone for my trouble. This time you were putting a stop to our lovemaking, and daring to tell me that it wasn’t right.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘You’re apologising?’

  ‘I wanted to... That night I wanted...’ Her voice started to fracture. ‘Only, that first time, my—er—first time, I wanted it to be with someone who loved me.’

  Latham pulled back and looked deeply into her beautiful eyes. ‘Are you saying what I think you’re saying, my shy darling?’ he asked gently, yet with a hint of strain there in his voice too. ‘Are you saying what every instinct, what everything I’ve learned—not been told—about you is saying? That—that night—you were in love—with me?’

  ‘I—couldn’t believe it. But it was true,’ she replied on a low whisper.

  ‘That you love me?’ It seemed, with all the evidence there, that he still needed to hear it.

  She smiled and, when an hour ago wild horses would not have dragged that truthful confession from her, ‘I do love you,’ she shyly agreed.

  ‘Sweet love,’ he groaned, and gathered her close up to him, saying not another word for long, long minutes. Not even kissing her but, as though he had been through great, great torment and had a need to hold her—hold her knowing that she loved no one but him—just holding her close up against his heart.

  Then, gently, he kissed her and pulled back, as if hoping to see the confirmation of her words in her eyes. And it was there.

  ‘Oh, I adore you!’ he breathed, and kissed her and held her and kissed her some more—before pulling back, and, as if striving hard to get his head together, saying, ‘This can’t be, I’ve been so foul to you—I don’t deserve that you should love me.’

  ‘True,’ she laughed, for just then she was so full of emotion it was that or tears.

  ‘Oh, I love you, I love you, I love you,’ he stated throatily, and kissed her and went on, as if searching for words of comfort for any hurt she felt, ‘In your father’s favour, he told me that had he known I intended taking you away for the weekend he would have found some way of preventing you from going.’

  ‘Most likely because he felt his plan was at risk—I expect you’d have said that your brother-in-law would be there too.’ Suddenly she could not weigh that up at all, and just had to say, ‘I don’t understand why Graeme Astill accepted your invitation if he knew that I’d be th...’ Her voice faded, realisation coming to her. ‘You didn’t tell him I’d be there, did you?’

  ‘What a mess has been created!’ Latham replied. ‘But, since I want you to know absolutely everything, I have to confess that, apart from alerting Caroline to keep the weekend free and to make sure her husband was available, I’d not issued any invitation to Rose Cottage when I came to see you on Friday.’

  ‘You hadn’t? But...’ She stared at him. ‘But you said...’

  ‘Lies, all round, have been flying about like confetti,’ Latham confirmed. ‘I lied to you when I said on Friday morning that I’d invited people down to Wiltshire. But, in my defence, sweet love, I’d come to see you on Wednesday purely because I felt such a need to see you, to hear you.’

  ‘I’d asked if I could ring you...’

  ‘Exactly—but you hadn’t, and thoughts of you were driving me insane. I decided to come and see you and play it by ear. You then told me of the dreadful time Josy was going through and how she was a rare and precious person—and all I could think was that you were a rare and precious person too, and how your pain was my pain, but how I w
as going to have to hurt you and soon—because I just couldn’t take much more.’

  ‘Oh, my love!’ Belvia exclaimed, the endearment slipping out purely because she could not stop it.

  ‘Oh, that was worth waiting to hear,’ he murmured, and gently kissed her—but then manfully resumed. ‘So, there was I, falling deeper and deeper in love with you and wanting only to protect you, while at the same time determined to break this affair you were having, and soon. By Friday, after two nights of torment, I knew I couldn’t take any more.’

  ‘So you came here and told me a pack of lies,’ she teased lovingly.

  ‘Oh, God—you’re marvellous,’ he groaned, kissed her, and scraped together some more determination to continue. ‘With everything erupting in my head, all I could do was concentrate on the facts as I knew them and—in danger of losing my grip on logic too—try to think logically. I knew Astill and his mistress had discussed me, and could only calculate that, if anything, you’d have told him I was after your sister.’

  ‘Because it was Josy you had invited to the theatre and to dinner at your flat?’

  Latham nodded. ‘It also seemed safe to assume that—forgive me, love—because of the way you responded to me when I held you in my arms, you were unlikely to have told him about that.’

  ‘A fair assumption,’ she mumbled, going a little pink about the cheeks.

  ‘You’re adorable!’ Latham exclaimed, and had to kiss her once more.

  ‘And...’ she prompted.

  He gave her a loving look, but went on, ‘Which in turn gave me the idea for this weekend.’

  ‘You thought to put us all together?’

  ‘While part of me was all against the thought of having him and you together at Rose Cottage—I needed it all settled. I’ve no time whatsoever for Astill but, from what I knew of him, I just couldn’t see him taking his mistress sleeping with another man under the same roof—and not ending the affair. The result would be, I thought, that my sister would have what she wanted and, more importantly to me now, you too would be free. All I had to do was to ensure Astill didn’t hear a whisper of it from you, before I’d got you incommunicado.’