Gypsy

by Carole Mortimer

  ‘Grandy, I want you to call the local police, explain who you are, and ask them to get someone to this address as soon as possible,’ she told him breathlessly, writing down Derrick’s address on a piece of paper and handing it to him. ‘Neil, you’re coming with me,’ she told him firmly.

  ‘What—? I—Shay, let go of my arm!’ he protested irritably as she tried to pull him up out of his chair.

  ‘Someone is going to be hurt if we don’t get up to London straight away,’ she told him desperately. ‘And it could be Lyon.’

  Neil woke up completely at that. ‘Lyon? But—’

  ‘Neil, will you move yourself!’ she ordered in a coldly threatening voice. ‘Marilyn,’ she greeted the other woman with some relief as she appeared fully dressed in the doorway. ‘Let’s go. Neil is going to drive us up to London.’

  ‘Am I?’ he blinked. ‘I mean, I am?’ he amended at Shay’s fierce look.

  ‘Grandy, please call the police,’ she repeated as she dragged Marilyn and Neil towards the door. ‘And take care of Richard for me,’ she added shakily.

  ‘Shay, I don’t understand—’

  ‘Just drive, Neil,’ she instructed as she pushed him in behind the wheel of the Porsche, getting in beside him as Marilyn climbed in the back. ‘I’ll explain as we go along.’

  ‘I certainly hope so,’ he said grimly.

  ‘Forget the speed limits, Neil,’ she ordered as he drove carefully from the driveway out on to the road. ‘If we pick up a couple of police cars on the way, all the better!’

  ‘Shay—’

  ‘Put your foot down, Neil,’ she said flatly. ‘Lyon is the one who could die!’

  She finally knew who had been the cause of all those dreadful accidents. She was also sure she knew why!

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  IT would have been like a scene from a farcical film if it weren’t so real!

  But it was real, Derrick and Lyon out on the balcony of Derrick’s eighth-floor apartment, Lyon bent back precariously as the other man tried to force him over the railing. It was worse than Shay had expected, more than she had hoped for; Lyon still alive even if his life was threatened. She knew she had no time to lose!

  ‘Lyon!’ she cried out to him. ‘Lyon, don’t let him do it. Lyon—darling, I love you!’ she choked. ‘Don’t let him take away our chance of happiness together.’

  For a moment the scene remained frozen as Derrick realised he had an audience, and then everything changed. Lyon was suddenly the aggressor, forcing the other man’s hands from his throat as he threw him back against the wall.

  But Derrick, placid, innocuous Derrick, seemed to have the strength of ten men, grasping Lyon in a death-grip once again.

  ‘Don’t!’ he grated harshly as Neil would have stepped forward. ‘Unless you want me to toss your brother over this balcony like a piece of bad meat!’ he snarled.

  ‘Derrick …?’ Marilyn gasped faintly, disbelievingly.

  With a growl of fury Lyon thrust the other man away from him again. But suddenly Derrick had wrestled him to the floor, his knee against his windpipe.

  ‘Lyon, you can’t die,’ Shay groaned, tears in her eyes as she heard the life begin to choke out of him. ‘Lyon, please don’t leave me like your child did. Yes, Lyon, we had a child,’ she encouraged desperately as she gave a strangulated cry. ‘I can give you other children, half a dozen if you like. Lyon, please, please don’t let him take you from me!’ She fell to her knees, too weak to stand any more, knowing she loved this man more than life itself, no matter what the truth was about the past. ‘Neil, go to him,’ she begged brokenly. ‘Help him!’

  ‘Come any further and I’ll snap his neck in half,’ Derrick told them coldly. ‘And don’t think I can’t do it; I’ve been training in martial arts.’

  Shay looked pleadingly at Marilyn, biting her lip to stop herself from crying out, her face white, as Marilyn could only nod confirmation.

  ‘You shouldn’t lie to a man just before he’s about to die, Shay,’ Derrick taunted. ‘I’m sure it can’t be good for his soul.’

  ‘Derrick, it will do no good to kill him now,’ she choked, the tears streaming down her face. ‘Not unless you mean to kill us all, and that would be defeating the object.’

  ‘My object has already been defeated,’ he spat out, glaring at Marilyn with hatred in his eyes. ‘She decided not to marry me, after all,’ he snarled. ‘Decided I couldn’t measure up to Lyon.’ He looked down at the other man scornfully. ‘Well, who’s the victor now?’ he jeered.

  ‘Derrick, we just had a disagreement,’ Marilyn spoke to him soothingly. ‘It has nothing to do with Lyon. We can still get married. Darling, let him go, and we can—’

  ‘You stupid bitch,’ he said with contempt. ‘You still don’t realise, do you?’

  ‘Derrick—’

  ‘Marilyn, it’s no good.’ Shay put a hand on the other woman’s arm. ‘Derrick is the person responsible for all the “accidents" that occurred to the family. But he wasn’t after all of us as it seemed he was, only one of us. Lyon,’ she said flatly.

  ‘That’s very clever, Shay,’ he sneered, increasing the pressure on Lyon’s neck so that he groaned weakly. ‘What else do you think you know?’

  ‘That at first it wasn’t so urgent, but as you continued to be unsuccessful you became more desperate.’ She held his gaze. ‘That you only had a few weeks left before Marilyn’s divorce from Lyon became final and she would no longer be a rich widow, just an ex-wife.’

  For that was what she had learnt from Scarlet Lover, where Leon de Coursey was almost killed by his wife’s lover in an effort to marry her himself and so claim her fortune for his own. The answer to the whole puzzle had been in her own book!

  * * *

  LYON HAD DECIDED he was going to give the bastard above him just enough ‘rope to hang himself’ and then he was going to pulverise him into the ground!

  Shay, Marilyn, and Neil obviously weren’t aware of the fact that the police had come in the opened door shortly after them, that they were even now listening to the conversation as they stood hidden outside the room! Derrick was going to confess to it all before he showed him that he was far from beaten, as Derrick thought he was, that he was merely biding his time.

  He had almost lost control and taken the other man when Shay spoke of her having a baby. But he knew it was a lie as much as Derrick did, as much as they all did. But she did love him, she wouldn’t have lied about that, and as soon as this mess was over he was going to make sure she married him.

  He had been getting ready to subdue Derrick when the other three arrived, closely followed by the police. He didn’t know how they came to be there, but he was glad that they were, that it was all going to be over soon.

  ‘The esteemed Falconer family,’ Derrick sneered above him, not seeming to notice the slacking of pressure on Lyon’s windpipe. ‘You were all so damned self-satisfied,’ he scorned. ‘So self-righteous, so damned sure you were invincible. You weren’t so invincible after all, were you?’ he said with pleasure. ‘And the potential in having Lyon dead was enormous,’ he told them conversationally. ‘The settlement Marilyn was asking off him wouldn’t have kept me in shirts for a year,’ he derided.

  ‘Silk, aren’t they?’ Neil asked interestedly.

  ‘Hand-made,’ the other man confirmed with pride.

  Clever Neil, he had caught on to the waiting game he was playing! Neil knew Lyon was capable of taking this man any time he felt like it, and was now trying to draw him out. He hated what this was doing to Shay, could see her anguish as she continued to cry, but he was determined Derrick would be known for all his crimes, that he wouldn’t try to claim today as a fit of jealousy because Marilyn had decided not to marry him.

  ‘They’re very nice,’ Neil enthused. ‘You’ll have to give me the name of your tailor.’

  Too far, Neil, Lyon groaned inwardly. Too far!

  ‘Don’t take me for a fool, Falconer,’ Derrick predictably blew up. ‘
I know exactly what you’re trying to do, and it won’t work. It’s a pity you weren’t a little higher off the ground when your hang-glider went down,’ he scorned angrily.

  ‘You did that?’ Neil said admiringly. ‘I’d be interested to know how?’

  That’s it, Neil, Lyon silently encouraged, draw him out slowly. He just hoped he could stay down here long enough for Neil to get the whole confession out of him; Derrick seemed to have realised he hadn’t been pressing down hard enough, the pressure on his windpipe now unbearable!

  ‘You surely aren’t expecting me to go into methods and means?’ Derrick derided mockingly, shaking his head. ‘I never could understand why the villain in old films always confessed and explained his crimes just before the hero managed to escape and tell the police everything!’

  ‘Derrick, we’ve all heard you,’ Marilyn reasoned.

  ‘Heard me what?’ he scoffed. ‘I only said it was a pity Neil wasn’t higher when his hang-glider went down, I didn’t say I had anything to do with it.’

  ‘You said the potential of Lyon being dead before our divorce was enormous—My God, you haven’t admitted a thing, have you!’ Marilyn realised dazedly.

  ‘Not a thing,’ he acknowledged conceitedly. ‘And that’s why I’m a better lawyer than you are, why you’ll never be any damned good.’

  ‘Why you—!’ Marilyn lunged for him, her fingers like talons in his hair.

  ‘Let go of me, you bitch.’ He was momentarily diverted from pinning Lyon to the ground as he tried to fight Marilyn off, giving Lyon a chance to breathe again.

  ‘Maybe you should have killed me yesterday when you hit me instead of trying to kill members of the Falconer family all these months,’ Marilyn taunted. ‘But I suppose you would have been as inefficient at that as you were with them!’

  ‘I wasn’t trying to kill them,’ Derrick snarled. ‘Only Lyon. Although if one of them had died too I wouldn’t have been too upset. Even Shay. And I liked her. But she proved to be a problem once it became obvious she wouldn’t sell Ricky’s shares to Lyon now that she was pregnant with Ricky’s child. Getting rid of the baby seemed to be the best way to deal with that.’

  ‘But you didn’t, did you?’ Marilyn sneered. ‘Even though you pushed her down an escalator.’

  ‘She turned out to be as indestructible as the rest of them,’ he said with disgust. ‘I—’

  ‘All right, sir.’ A plainclothes policeman stepped into the room, followed by another officer. ‘We’ve heard enough to arrest you for attempted murder on Mrs Shay Falconer and Mr Lyon Falconer. We—’

  Lyon didn’t hear any more, realising that at last his chance had come, throwing a stunned Derrick to the floor, blow after blow landing on the other man’s face.

  ‘Sir! Mr Falconer—’

  He paid no attention to the two policemen as they tried to pull him off Derrick.

  ‘Lyon, please.’

  The gentle voice was enough to stop him, to bring him to his senses, to see the mess he had made of the other man’s face.

  ‘Lyon, it’s over,’ Shay continued to soothe. ‘Lyon, I love you,’ she told him for everyone to hear. ‘Darling, it’s all over.’ Her voice broke emotionally.

  He looked at her with pained eyes, the nightmare of the past year still with him. But it was over, and he was going to have Shay. ‘Shay!’ He gathered her close against his chest as he rested his head on hers.

  * * *

  ‘I OUGHT TO BE very angry with you.’ Shay looked up at him sternly. ‘I really thought Derrick was killing you.’

  He put a hand up to the plaster over his eye. ‘I didn’t get this cut at a tea-party!’

  ‘No,’ she acknowledged shakily.

  They were back at Falconer House, Derrick safely arrested, all the statements given, all the explanations made, Matthew and Patty annoyed that they had missed all the action, her grandfather just grateful it was all over and they were all back safely.

  Now that they knew the truth it was so easy to see that Derrick had believed he could hide his real objective behind a number of unrelated accidents to the family, when Marilyn, still legally Lyon’s wife—and consequently his widow—would inherit all his wealth. Shay had also offered him a temptation he couldn’t resist when it became obvious only her unborn child prevented her from selling her shares to Lyon. As each planned ‘accident’ failed, Derrick had become more and more desperate, and consequently more inept.

  He was insane, of course, and would probably undergo psychiatric treatment rather than imprisonment, but that didn’t make his crimes any less frightening.

  ‘It’s Marilyn I feel sorry for,’ she frowned. ‘She has no one now.’

  ‘I think she may have gained a friend,’ Lyon looked at her admiringly.

  Shay shrugged. ‘I know she’s a bitch most of the time, but she isn’t as hard and uncaring as she likes to make out she is.’

  ‘No,’ he agreed softly.

  They were in Shay’s suite, sitting side by side on the sofa as they stared at the glowing fire, the lights dimmed, the Christmas tree still glittering in the corner. It all looked so normal—and yet it was far from that.

  As she had seen Lyon’s life threatened, envisaged a life without him, she had known she couldn’t live without him, that she loved him. It had taken her a long time to admit it, but now that she had she was determined to try and salvage something from the mess they had made of things, to make them into a happy family if she could. But first they had a lot of misunderstandings to talk out.

  ‘I shouldn’t worry about Marilyn if I were you,’ Lyon mused. ‘not from the way the police inspector was looking at her, and she was looking right back!’

  Shay’s eyes widened. Then she remembered the darkly handsome policeman, and the way he had been so considerate of Marilyn at the police station. ‘Do you think—’

  ‘Too soon to tell,’ Lyon shrugged. ‘But I have a feeling she isn’t going to be alone for long.’

  ‘She’ll probably be furious with you once she realises she risked herself like that for nothing,’ Shay chided. ‘That there was no risk to you at all.’

  ‘Marilyn knew it all along,’ Lyon said confidently. ‘She was just trying to get a confession out of Derrick.’ His arms tightened about her. ‘Isn’t it time you told me you love me?’ he encouraged throatily. ‘Or did you just say that in the heat of the moment?’ He looked down at her with narrowed eyes.

  ‘Of course I didn’t,’ she blushed.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Lyon, we have to talk.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Well—Because—I told you something else today.’ She looked at him frowningly. ‘Something you’ve made no comment about at all.’

  He frowned. ‘What—? Oh. Yes,’ he nodded. ‘Well, I realise why you did that Shay; you thought it would make me fight back. It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘What do you mean, it doesn’t matter?’ She stared at him incredulously. ‘Of course it matters!’

  ‘I’m not angry, if that’s what you think,’ he dismissed. ‘I’ll try never to be angry with you again.’ He looked at her indulgently.

  ‘Why should you be angry?’ she asked dazedly. ‘It wasn’t intentional. I would have done anything to stop it.’

  ‘It was wonderful of you to try, darling—’

  ‘Lyon, what are you talking about?’ she demanded impatiently, sure they had to be talking at cross purposes.

  ‘I’ve just told you, the fact that you tried to make me fight back, even by taunting me with the children we can never have.’

  ‘But—Lyon, when you had your tests what did the doctor tell you about them?’ she probed anxiously.

  ‘Do we have to talk about this now?’ he bit out.

  ‘Yes.’

  He sighed, obviously not liking the subject at all. ‘Because of a deficiency in my sperm the chances of any woman ever conceiving from me are about a million to one,’ he rasped. ‘Satisfied?’ He was slightly resentful of her probing into som
ething he was still so sensitive about.

  ‘A million to one,’ she repeated thoughtfully. ‘Well, we’ve done it once, I’m sure we can do it again.’

  ‘I would like to bring Richard up as much mine as you’ll let me—’

  ‘Lyon, will you listen to what I’m telling you,’ she interrupted reprovingly. ‘We, you and I, conceived a baby, six years ago. I lost it in the fourth month, but—’

  ‘Shay …?’ Lyon grated, very pale, his eyes like pools of gold.

  ‘It’s true.’ She looked deep into his eyes, all of her love for him in hers. ‘I carried your baby, Lyon,’ she told him softly.

  ‘He swallowed hard, the breath ragged in his throat. ‘My baby?’ he repeated breathlessly.

  ‘Yes. Lyon, I didn’t know you believe yourself to be sterile, not then. I—’

  ‘Tell me about it,’ he pleaded gruffly.

  She did tell him, all of it, about their baby, about Ricky, everything. He grew greyer and greyer, more and more still, his hands icily cold despite the heat in the room.

  ‘I hated Ricky at times,’ Lyon finally said dully. ‘I had no idea how much I had to be grateful to him for.’

  She couldn’t dispute that, knew that if it weren’t for Ricky that she would have been dead. ‘Don’t reproach yourself, Lyon,’ she pleaded. ‘If I had only told you about the baby at the time none of this would have happened.’

  ‘How could you tell me after I had just told you I only wanted to continue my affair with you?’ he said self-disgustedly. ‘Dear God, so many years wasted, so much pain. When Ricky brought you back home as his wife I thought I was going to die from the agony of knowing you belonged to him and not me.’

  ‘Matthew said you used to take Wildfire out and ride all night.’ She knew now that was exactly what he had done, that there had been no woman involved in those all-night rides. Lyon had always loved her, she was sure of it. Finally.

  ‘Yes. Shay, I never meant to hurt you, you have to believe that. I just didn’t feel I could marry another woman and put her through the same torment as I did Marilyn. She may act as if she dislikes children, but really she’s very good with them.’