A Haunting Compulsion

by Anne Mather

  In the warmth of greetings that ensued, Rachel looked down at Jaime’s niece, sleeping peacefully between the folds of a woollen blanket. The tranquil features were Liz’s in miniature, but the fairer skin was evidently Nancy’s. Robin’s wife was a natural blonde, with the plump good looks that often followed a pregnancy. That she was also used to occupying centre stage was evident, too, and Rachel suspected she resented anyone else usurping her position as the Shards’ daughter-in-law.

  When a hand descended on Rachel’s shoulder she started nervously, turning her head indignantly away from Jaime’s. ‘It suits you,’ he remarked. ‘You—and a baby.’ His mouth thinned. ‘Perhaps I should have made you pregnant, too.’

  Rachel’s mouth trembled. ‘As you did Betsy?’ she whispered coldly, and winced as his fingers bit into her fine bones.

  ‘Contrary to your sordid little speculations, I was not responsible for Betsy’s pregnancy,’ he snarled in an undertone. ‘And if you had half a brain in your head, you’d know it!’

  Rachel pressed her lips together tightly. ‘Poor Betsy!’

  Jaime said an obscene word that only she could hear, and moved stiffly away, as his mother came to take the baby from Rachel.

  ‘Have you been looking at your niece, darling?’ she asked her son playfully. ‘Isn’t she just the most beautiful baby you ever saw?’

  ‘She’s female,’ remarked Jaime flatly, his rigid features eloquent of some inner torment he was suffering, and Liz looked troubled. ‘I guess I’m no judge of females,’ he added mockingly, and Robin conferred a knowing stare on Rachel before she could look away.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  IT WAS the early hours of Christmas morning before Rachel got to bed. As always, Jaime’s parents wanted to attend the midnight service at the village church, and Rachel, Robin and Nancy accompanied them. Jaime was excused on grounds of his injury, but Rachel doubted he would have come in any case. He had retired to the library with Robin and his father after dinner, and when Robin reappeared to beg a sandwich for supper, he announced that Jaime had gone to bed.

  ‘He said something about working,’ he remarked dejectedly, seating himself beside his wife on one of the sofas in the sitting room. ‘I tried to persuade him that it was Christmas, and people didn’t work on Christmas Eve, but he only said it depended on the kind of work you did.’

  ‘Well, that’s true, Robin,’ said his mother gently, appreciating her younger son’s disappointment. ‘You’ll have plenty of time to talk to him tomorrow. I personally shall insist he doesn’t work on Christmas Day.’

  ‘I don’t think he looks at all well,’ declared Nancy, looking up from the matinee coat she was crocheting for her daughter. She subjected Rachel to a cool appraisal. ‘Are you sure he’s looking after himself the way he should?’

  Liz chuckled. ‘I shouldn’t mention that to Jaime, if I were you, Nancy,’ she remarked dryly. ‘Looking after himself is not one of Jaime’s virtues.’

  ‘In any case, I think he looks okay,’ declared Robin. ‘He’s as hard as nails, and he wouldn’t thank you for your sympathy.’ He grinned then, and lifted one leg to rest his ankle across his knee. ‘I’d hazard a guess there’s nothing wrong with him that a night with a woman wouldn’t put right, what do you say, young Rachel?’

  ‘Robin!’

  His wife and his mother both spoke together, and although she was not as scandalised as they were, Rachel herself could have wished he had more discretion. ‘I wouldn’t know anything about that, Robin,’ she replied composedly, but she could tell from the wicked glint in his eyes that he for one didn’t believe her. Nevertheless, she had no intention of entering into an argument with him, and when Liz got up to make his sandwich, as Maisie had been given the night off, Rachel offered to help her.

  Having left the young couple alone, Rachel would not have been surprised to find them in one another’s arms when she returned fifteen minutes later with the tray. Instead, she found them in the middle of a heated argument, and as Nancy allotted her a hostile glare when she sat down, she guessed that somehow she had been responsible for the upset.

  Going to church soothed her mind at least, and the simple service left her feeling calm and reassured. Back at Clere Heights, they were joined by the Armstrongs, who had looked after the baby in their absence, and they all indulged in a Christmas drink and a customary salute under the mistletoe. Fortunately, Nancy was a little more mellow by this time, and only Rachel protested when Robin attempted to prolong his privilege.

  ‘Please!’ she exclaimed, struggling free of him with difficulty, but Robin was seemingly unrepentant.

  ‘Whatever Jaime says, you’re more beautiful than ever,’ he mumbled, half under his breath, ‘and if he doesn’t want you, then what’s wrong with me?’

  ‘You’re drunk!’ said Rachel impatiently, smelling the whisky on his breath, then changing her look of tightlipped irritation to a reluctant smile as Nancy looked their way. ‘Pull yourself together, for goodness’ sake, Robin. Your wife’s got her eye on you, and I don’t intend to spend the holiday as a bone of contention between you two!’

  ‘Just remember what I said,’ said Robin, closing one eye deliberately, and Rachel turned away, disgusted, as Nancy came to claim him.

  It was a relief to go to bed, to close her door, and know that she had at least seven hours before she need face any of them again. She refused to worry about her door tonight despite what Jaime had said, and although she did not sleep any more soundly than she had done the night before, she did lose consciousness the minute her head touched the pillow.

  Yet, in spite of her late night, she was awake early on Christmas morning, almost before it was light, and lay for a while listening to the cock crowing from the farmyard across the field. It was a homely sound, a reassuring sound, and feeling a restlessness that would not let her linger, she decided to take a bath.

  It was only a little after eight by the time she was dressed and brushing her hair at the dressing table. In wine-coloured corded pants and a matching shirt, a maroon velvet waistcoat added for warmth, she gazed at her reflection disconsolately, feeling suddenly isolated on this essentially family festival. She ought not to have come, she thought unhappily, tugging impatiently at an errant strand of chestnut silk. It would have been easier if she had stayed in London and accepted a friend’s invitation, instead of coming all this way to stay with people she hardly knew.

  She pulled out a tissue and blew her nose, regarding herself critically over the scrap of pink paper. She could hardly blame Jaime for the way she felt, she conceded, although his presence here had thrown her completely off balance. Nevertheless, she was the interloper, not him, whatever Liz and Robert said, and Nancy had every reason to feel aggrieved at her intrusion.

  Robin was a nuisance, but she thought she could handle him. It was Jaime who really troubled her, Jaime, who had the ability to make her despise him one minute and herself the next; and if she was feeling lonely now, it was because she was remembering what might have been.

  She sighed, cupping her chin on one hand and gazing blankly into space. She had been so gullible when they met. Looking back now, she could hardly credit the girl she had once been…

  * * *

  She had started at London Westward Television just before Christmas, one of a number of girls working in a pool of secretaries, called upon by various members of the executive staff. She was happy in her job. It was interesting work. And it meant she could supplement the rather low salary her father received as curator of a small museum in Kensington.

  Three months later she met Jaime Shard face to face for the first time.

  She was late for work one morning, and just managed to squeeze through the lift doors as they were closing, to find herself sharing the cubicle with one of LWTV’s youngest reporters. She recognised him at once, having watched the reports he had brought back from Vietnam on the network’s news programmes, but he didn’t know her from any one of the other secretaries who gazed at him adm
iringly from a distance. Rachel had already heard him spoken about in tones of envy, and her best friend in the typing pool, Kerry Richards, thought he was the ‘dishiest’ male she had ever seen.

  Rachel remembered how breathless she had been after her sprint from the bus stop, and how she had struggled to control her breathing as she pressed the button for her floor. She guessed her hair must be a mess, and the woollen overcoat she was wearing over her navy skirt and blouse had seen better days, and she thought how amused Kerry would be when she relayed her experiences to her.

  Jaime, for his part, looked as calm and self-confident as he did on the television screen. He was very tanned, due no doubt to the time he spent in Eastern and Far Eastern countries, and although his leather jerkin and denim jeans were not new, he exuded an aura of sexual sophistication that girls seemed to find irresistible. Not that he cultivated his reputation. On the contrary, in spite of his following, he seemed totally indifferent to the many longing glances cast in his direction, and Kerry had confided that she thought he had a woman tucked away somewhere, who satisfied all his masculine needs. Glancing at him now, Rachel decided it was most likely, and knew a moment’s impatience at the involuntary quickening of her own pulse.

  ‘I gather you work here.’

  For a moment Rachel thought she had imagined he was speaking to her, but then, when the statement was repeated, she looked up at him questioningly.

  ‘I—why, yes.’ Her cool composed features belied the sudden flutter in her stomach. ‘I work in the typing pool, Mr Shard. And—I’m late.’

  He did not remark on her use of his name. It was unlikely that she would not have identified him if she did work here, and instead he asked: ‘How long have you worked for LWTV?’

  Rachel hesitated. ‘Almost three months,’ she replied, wondering why he wanted to know. Then, with relief: ‘This is my floor.’

  He inclined his head as she got out, and her legs felt suddenly weak as she walked along the rubber-tiled corridor. It was the first inkling she had that her relationship with Jaime Shard was not going to be easy, and instead of mentioning what had happened to Kerry, she kept it to herself.

  She did not see him again for almost six weeks. She heard, through the inevitable grapevine, that he had been sent to one of the small republics in Central America, to cover the siege of a university there by a group of students, and later, that he was in Jamaica, covering a conference of heads of state, and she watched his reports with added interest. But, when Kerry hinted that she had heard he had been seen dining with a certain American lady reporter in Kingston, Rachel had been dismayed by her own reactions to it. Until then she had regarded Kerry’s fervent interest with a certain amount of amusement, and to find herself doing the same, and worse, filled her with disgust.

  Consequently, when she was sent for by one of the executives to take some dictation, she was more than a little perturbed to find Jaime in the office, lounging in one of the soft black leather armchairs, his leg draped lazily over the arm.

  ‘Hello,’ he said, getting up at her entrance, and she glanced round doubtfully for Mr Morrison, the producer who had sent for her. She had worked for him several times in the absence of his secretary, who had had appendicitis, but right now only Jaime Shard faced her across the room.

  He was wearing a lounge suit today, dark and expensive, that fitted his shoulders and the muscled length of his legs with loving closeness. The white collar of his shirt accentuated the deeper tan he had acquired, and his dark hair was combed smoothly, to lie thickly against his head. He looked sleek and handsome, like a well-groomed male animal, and Rachel was aware of him with every fibre of her being.

  ‘Jack won’t be long,’ he remarked now, indicating the chair at the opposite side of the desk. ‘Sit down. There’s no charge.’

  Rachel moved slowly across the room and sat down stiffly, crossing her legs. Then, realising he might think she was trying to draw his attention to their slender shapeliness, she uncrossed them again, pressing her knees together and gripping the pad tightly in her lap.

  Jaime studied her evident constraint for several minutes, and then, surprising her, came round the desk to prop himself on its edge beside her. ‘Is something wrong?’ he enquired, with gently irony. ‘You’re not afraid of Jack, are you? He’s a nice guy, believe me!’

  ‘I’m not afraid of anyone,’ Rachel retorted aloofly, wishing he would go back round the desk. ‘I know Mr Morrison. I’ve worked for him before. I—I just didn’t expect to find you here, Mr Shard. Mr Morrison isn’t connected with current affairs, is he?’

  ‘Oh, I see.’ Jaime’s mouth compressed in comprehension. ‘It’s me you don’t like, not Jack. I’m sorry.’ He grimaced. ‘What did I do to earn your disapproval?’

  Rachel sighed. ‘I think you’re making fun of me, Mr Shard,’ she said at length, determined not to let him see how he had disconcerted her, and he straightened away from the desk to regard her curiously.

  ‘What’s your name?’ he asked, disrupting her still further, and she looked up at him apprehensively, wondering if he intended to report her for insolence.

  ‘Williams,’ she answered in a low voice. ‘Rachel Williams,’ and then looked down at her hands in her lap, feeling like a disobedient schoolgirl.

  ‘Well, Rachel Williams, as it happens, Jack Morrison is an old friend of mine,’ said Jaime flatly. ‘That’s why I’m here, waiting for him. Does that answer your question?’

  ‘I—I didn’t—’

  ‘—ask the question? No. But you implied the enquiry.’

  Rachel moved her shoulders helplessly. ‘I—shouldn’t have. I’m sorry.’

  ‘That’s all right.’ With a likewise shrug, Jaime left her, walking round the desk to take up his previous position, regarding her across the array of metal trays and telephones, and scattered files and papers, with narrow-eyed appraisal.

  When Mr Morrison appeared, he greeted Jaime warmly, and they both disappeared outside the office again, to exchange a few words in private. Rachel breathed more freely now she no longer felt herself being scrutinised, but although she told herself she was glad he had gone, she couldn’t help wishing she had been less reticent and taken advantage of her opportunities. Not that she imagined a man like him might be interested in a girl of eighteen, but she had probably given him the impression that she was sullen and totally lacking in personality, not a good opinion for anyone to have of her.

  Once again she forbore to tell Kerry about the encounter, unwilling to involve herself in a detailed résumé of what had happened. Somehow she was loath to discuss Jaime Shard with anyone, and although she felt a bit mean, she couldn’t help it.

  The weather was getting warmer, and Rachel took to walking home some evenings, enjoying the sunlit saunter across the park. Her father was never home before seven-thirty, after the museum had closed, so she had plenty of time to walk the distance and still have a meal prepared for him.

  One evening, after working later than usual, she decided she had better take the bus, and was propped against the post, flicking over the pages of a magazine, when a sleek green sports saloon pulled alongside her.

  She stepped back instinctively, used to parrying the proffered lifts of strangers who were attracted by the sight of a girl alone, then felt her lips part in astonishment when the driver leant across the passenger seat to push open the door.

  ‘Can I give you a lift?’ Jaime Shard’s mouth twisted in wry self-derision. ‘It’s hackneyed, I know, but it’s the best I can do.’

  ‘But—why?’ Rachel gazed down at him helplessly, and he moved his shoulders in an offhand gesture.

  ‘Because I saw you. Because I feel like it. Because you’re a very attractive girl, and you—interest me.’

  Rachel caught her breath. ‘But I can’t! I mean—you don’t live near where I do.’

  Jaime sighed. ‘Is that a refusal?’ He glanced round. ‘Because I’m on double yellow lines, and I’d prefer not to have to pay another fine.’
>
  Rachel looped her bag over her shoulder and rolled the hapless magazine between her fingers. She ought to refuse, she knew that, and had it been anyone else she would have done so without hesitation. But, although she had always considered herself capable of controlling every situation, Jaime Shard disturbed her as none of the young men she had dated had done. And it wasn’t as if he was dating her, after all. He was offering her a lift, nothing more. But if, as he had stated she interested him, what else might the lift entail?

  ‘Make up your mind!’ he exclaimed impatiently, and she cast caution to the wind.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, and climbed into the low bucket seat, and he pressed hard on the accelerator as the bus appeared behind them.

  ‘I’m not in the habit of doing this sort of thing,’ she admitted stiffly, after he had asked her address, and he gave her a hard sidelong glance.

  ‘Believe it or not, nor am I,’ he retorted curtly, and she realised she had annoyed him by hesitating so long.

  ‘Have—have you been away again?’ she ventured, as they turned into Kensington Road, realising it was several weeks since she had seen him in Mr Morrison’s office, and after a few moments Jaime nodded.

  ‘I’ve been on holiday,’ he conceded without expression. ‘You did say Latimer Square, didn’t you?’

  ‘That’s right.’ Rachel cast a doubtful smile in his direction. ‘This—this is very kind of you, you know. I—I was late leaving the office tonight.’

  ‘I know.’ Jaime made no attempt to elucidate on this proposition, and Rachel felt a helpless sense of bewilderment. How did he know these things about her? Had it just been chance that brought him along at this particular time of day? And if not, why had he chosen her to be the object of his attentions?

  In no time at all, it seemed, they were pulling up outside her home, a small terraced house in a quiet street in North Kensington. She had never been more conscious of its Victorian inelegance or the shabby state of its paintwork, but apparently such considerations did not occur to Jaime.