by Helen Brooks
‘I’m fine.’ Fine. The word mocked her. Would she ever be fine again for the length of time that man was in her life?
CHAPTER THREE
RAFE STEED watched the car drive away without responding to Tom’s chatter at the side of him. In truth he didn’t hear the other man, his mind and senses still tied up with the young woman who was the product of the marriage between his father’s old love and his rival.
He had, quite unjustly, he admitted to himself, pictured a different kind of female from the one Marianne presented when his father had first told him about this love for Diane Carr. The fact that everyone had told him the daughter was the spitting image of her mother, both physically and in temperament, had prepared him for a cold, calculating, beautiful woman with her eye to the main chance. The sort of woman who didn’t mind trampling over anyone who got in her way. He hadn’t been too sure of Marianne’s sincerity at the funeral—it was difficult to gauge the depth of someone at such an occasion, when emotions were naturally running high—but today she had surprised him.
‘…hearing from your solicitor in the next day or two?’
Too late, Rafe realised Tom was waiting for an answer to a question he hadn’t heard. ‘Sorry?’ He forced a smile. ‘I was miles away, Tom.’
‘I said I’ll get things moving at my end straight away and I’ll assume I’ll be hearing from your solicitor soon.’
‘Of course.’ He nodded, wanting only to get away. ‘Look, I’ve an appointment…’
‘You go, Rafe.’ Tom held out his hand and Rafe shook it. ‘We’ll talk soon.’
Rafe watched Tom drive out of the car park, raising his hand in farewell, but once the dust from the other man’s car had settled he made no attempt to turn on the ignition of his hire car. He frowned and folded his arms, leaning back in the leather seat and shutting his eyes for a moment or two. He had been racing around like a headless chicken for the last week but it wasn’t tiredness that was claiming his mind. He was used to living life in the fast lane; in fact, he thrived on it. He couldn’t quite place what the feeling was that had him at sixes and sevens but it was all tied up with a certain woman with hair the colour of ripe corn and eyes like black velvet.
Damn it. He sat up straight, his eyes snapping open and his mouth hardening. What was the matter with him? He was too old and cynical to be taken in by a pretty face.
He watched as a young family came back to their aged saloon, the parents slightly harrassed as they ushered their three young children into the back of the car, settling the youngest one into a baby seat and making sure the seat belts were securely fastened round the other two. Those three children had no more than a fifty-fifty chance of their parents staying together long enough for the oldest to reach his teens, and maybe fifty-fifty was on the generous side. Monogamy, marriage, the promise till death us do part was a joke. As he knew only too well. But, having learnt the lesson, he wouldn’t forget it. One venture down the aisle and a divorce which had been public and messy had ensured that.
Shifting irritably in his seat, he started the engine. Funny, but the kick in the teeth his failed marriage had given him hadn’t seemed so bad as the recent revelations about his parents. He supposed that in a small part of his mind he had held them up as the perfect couple—proof that love could endure all things and remain constant to the end. Would he have preferred to remain in ignorance about Diane Carr and his father’s feelings for another woman?
Damn right, he would. He drove out of the car park onto the Cornish lane beyond, the narrow road and high hedgerows limiting the speed of the sleek sports car. Ignorance really could be bliss after all.
Of course, thinking about it, he’d forced the issue with his father, by objecting to his move to England. It had been a mixture of desperation and exasperation which had prompted his father to tell him about his roots and his hankering for his homeland, along with the story of why he had left Cornwall and travelled halfway round the world in search of peace of mind.
And his father had found that with his mother—he knew that—but peace of mind wasn’t enough. Rafe scowled to himself as he drove. However his father tried to explain it away by saying he wanted to end his days in the place where he had been born, close to his ancestors, it had been the memory of his first love which had driven him to come back. He knew it, whatever his father said to the contrary. Look how he’d been when he had first mentioned the girl being turned out of her home because of vast debts. Instead of his father taking hidden satisfaction in the turn around in his old rival’s finances, he had been horrified for Diane’s daughter.
His scowl deepening, Rafe changed gear with enough venom for the car to growl a protest. Well, one thing was for sure, once he’d got his father settled into the Haywards’ place and the alterations to Seacrest were underway, he’d limit his visits to England to the bare minimum. His father had chosen the path he wanted the rest of his life to take and that was fine. Just fine. He didn’t need his father any more than his father apparently needed him.
He reached a crossroads and waited for a pair of cyclists to pass in front of him, refusing to acknowledge the little voice in the back of his mind that was telling him he was acting like a spoilt brat. Once the cyclists had vanished in a jumble of long brown legs and brightly coloured shorts and trainers he continued to sit, the hot sunshine bouncing off the bonnet of the car and the haze of summer drifting through the open car window.
What was it about Marianne Carr that sent bolts of desire sizzling through his body every time he laid eyes on the woman? He didn’t like it, he didn’t want it and yet that day at the funeral—totally inappropriately, he admitted wryly—he’d been as hard as a rock from the moment he had first seen her. It was the last thing he had expected and it had knocked him for six.
A brightly coloured butterfly drifted in through one window and out through another as he continued to stare grimly ahead.
He was thirty-five years old, for crying out loud, and nothing if not a man of the world. He couldn’t remember the last occasion a woman had affected him so primitively but it had been a long time ago, probably in his teens. There had been a cute little redhead in his last year of high school and she’d had every guy weak at the knees and uncomfortable in a certain part of their anatomy for an hour after she’d looked their way. Candy Price, that had been her name, and she had been built like one of the old Hollywood film stars, with curves in all the right places and eyes that promised paradise. Not that he’d found out whether that was true or not. Wealthy as his parents had been, she’d reserved her favours for Chuck Martin, the local millionaire’s son, who had spots and braces but who drove a sports car and flashed the dollars around like money had gone out of fashion.
A toot behind him reminded him he wasn’t the only car on the road and he pulled into the lane ahead, gathering speed as he drove.
But Candy Price wasn’t at all like Marianne Carr. One was brazen voluptuousness and the other a cool-as-cucumber English miss who had a way of looking at you that indicated she thought you’d just crawled out from under a stone. Mind, she’d lost a little of that coolness today. His hand touched his cheek and he smiled darkly. He hadn’t seen that slap coming but she sure packed a punch for such a slender young thing.
It had been his fault. He nodded to the thought. He could have put things more sensitively but somehow she had got under his skin.
No, be honest, he checked himself in the next breath. It had been the fact that he couldn’t control the way his body reacted to her that had got under his skin, which wasn’t the same thing. And, damn it, he didn’t get it. He liked his women to be built on the lines of Candy Price rather than fragile and slender; women who were game for a lusty good time with no strings attached and who would remain friends once the affair was over. He was always honest, he always explained he wasn’t the marrying kind—once bitten, twice shy—and that he would run a mile from commitment and everything that went with it. He’d found the world was full of beautiful, unattache
d women who saw life the same way he did. He had no complaints.
A bird suddenly flew from one side of the hedgerow to the other, narrowly missing the windscreen, and it was enough to jolt him into the realisation that the speedometer had crept up past seventy, which was far too fast for a Cornish country lane. Reducing his speed quickly, he told himself to concentrate. Ruthlessly wiping his mind clear, he continued to drive at a moderate speed, even humming quietly to himself after a while.
By the time he arrived at the little hotel where he was staying he felt calmer. It wasn’t until he was in the shower later that evening that he realised he had come to some sort of a decision on the drive home that afternoon. He would give Victoria Blackthorn a ring, ask her out. She had made it plain she wanted to see him again when he had driven her home that day after the funeral and he had the feeling she would be on his wavelength completely. She was a very attractive young woman, feminine but independent and career-motivated. Just what he wanted, in fact. You knew where you stood with someone like Victoria, who had embraced equality between the sexes and had no compunction about letting a man know she liked him.
Towelling himself dry, he glanced at his reflection in the mirror. As though it had argued with him, he muttered, ‘OK, so there’s something to be said for a man doing the pursuing, too, but not right now. Right now, Victoria is what I need.’
Even to himself he didn’t sound convincing. Scowling, he flung the towel in a corner of the room and strode stark naked through to the bedroom, flinging himself on the bed and reaching for the TV remote. He would call Victoria but not tonight. Maybe when he took the architect’s plans and ideas up to London he’d ring Tom’s daughter and suggest dinner. For now he’d get room service to send up a bottle of Scotch and a steak; he couldn’t be bothered to get dressed and go down to the restaurant. And his restlessness and irritability was nothing to do with the fact that he had behaved so appallingly to Marianne Carr and that she must hate his guts.
Flicking through the channels he settled on a twenty-four-hour news programme but almost immediately his mind went back to the matter in hand.
The last thing he would contemplate was getting involved with the daughter of his father’s old flame; the woman was poison like her mother. She just hid it better. Whatever it was that had enticed the men in Diane Carr’s day had been passed down in the genes, that much was clear.
He turned on his elbow and picked up the telephone. A few glasses of whisky and he’d reclaim his equilibrium. End of problem.
CHAPTER FOUR
‘HE SAIDwhat?’ Crystal stared at Marianne, shaking her head. ‘Look, I promise you it wasn’t like that.’
‘You know about it, then?’ Marianne was beginning to feel as confused as Alice in Wonderland. Nothing was as it seemed. They were sitting in the drawing room at Seacrest with a tray of coffee in front of them, but she had succumbed to pressure from Crystal and related all that had passed between her and Rafe before she’d even had a sip of coffee. Now she reached forward and took a hefty gulp of the scalding-hot liquid before saying, ‘Am I the only person in the world who doesn’t know about Andrew Steed and my mother?’
‘It was all so long ago, Annie. Of course I knew Andrew, having been born in the village about the same time as him, and when I first came to live with your mother she confided in me what had happened, but it wasn’t general knowledge. She felt awful about hurting Andrew but the truth of it was, once she met your father she realised what she felt for Andrew was a pale reflection of the real thing. But Diane would never have been influenced by what either beau had materially. You must believe that.’
‘I do. Of course I do.’ But it didn’t stop her feeling a little hurt that her mother had never told her about Rafe’s father. Just for a moment Marianne understood a glimmer of what Rafe must have gone through when he’d found out. It was obvious he’d loved his mother and considered his father had short-changed her in some way, although from what she knew she didn’t think that was fair. From all accounts, Andrew Steed had been completely honest with his American wife.
‘I’m sorry Andrew’s son is so hostile. I wondered why he was acting strangely, but it seems to me he needs to sort this out with his father first and foremost,’ Crystal said firmly. ‘He can’t take it out on you just because his father loved your mother.’
‘That’s what I told him.’
‘Good.’ Crystal paused. ‘He’s rather dishy though, isn’t he?’
‘I hadn’t noticed.’ Liar, liar, pants on fire. ‘Look, I’ve signed everything I can for the time being and I really think I ought to get back to London tomorrow and explain things to my boss and my landlord. Will you be all right here by yourself?’
‘Of course. I’m used to holding the fort while your parents went on holiday or popped up to see you for the weekend, after all.’
‘This is different, though,’ Marianne said soberly.
‘I’ll be fine.’ Crystal took a deep breath. ‘I can begin sorting out the rooms and so on. We’ll need to get organised if we’re going to have builders tramping everywhere.’
‘I’ll come down again at the weekends but I feel duty bound to work out my notice.’
‘Of course and you must.’
It was much later that night when sleep was far from her and she had tossed and turned and her bed was a tangle of sheets and duvet, that Marianne admitted she had been battling to keep Rafe out of her thoughts all day. It was humiliating—deeply so, in view of all he had said—but for some reason he had forced himself into her psyche and she couldn’t get rid of him.
When the alarm clock on her bedside cabinet showed two o’clock Marianne gave up all thought of sleep and decided to go for a walk in the garden. She was hot and sticky and it would be cooler out there; it always was, with the sea breeze making itself felt even on the hottest summer night. Pulling her robe over her thin silk pyjamas, she thrust her feet into old flip-flops and left the bedroom, treading carefully so as not to wake Crystal, who was a light sleeper at the best of times.
Once outside, the cool night air was wonderfully fresh after the humid stickiness of the house. She breathed in its sweetness, scented with the rich perfume of roses and stock. Walking across the smooth green lawn which bordered the house, she wandered into the more dense blackness beyond, right down to the old gnarled seat which nestled in one corner of the large grounds close to the drystone wall. The trees which surrounded the gardens made the shadows pitch-dark but she felt no fear. This was her home, her sanctuary and she could never be frightened within its bounds.
Once seated, she felt for the little initials carved in the back of the seat. Her father had made the bench for her mother just after they were married and put their entwined initials in a love knot. It was too dark to see them but the feel of the little letters under her fingertips was comforting.
And then the tears came. In the house she had always tried to cry quietly, not wanting to upset Crystal, but tonight in the garden all restraint disappeared and she howled out her grief and pain and loss in a way she hadn’t before. She was going to miss them so much and they had gone much too soon. It wasn’t fair; none of this was fair.
She was in full flow when a sudden scrambling and disturbance on the other side of the seven-foot wall brought her heart into her mouth. She didn’t have time to move before a voice said, ‘Marianne, is that you? Don’t be frightened. It’s me, Rafe Steed.’
Rafe? Shuddering sobs were still shaking her frame as she desperately tried to recall what she had been moaning out loud. ‘Mum’ and ‘Dad’ had featured, she knew that, and she had been railing against fate.
The next moment a dark figure was on top of the wall. ‘Can I come down?’
She couldn’t believe this was happening. Her voice choked, she said, ‘What are you doing here?’
‘I couldn’t sleep so I went for a walk on the beach. Then I decided to come back via the cliff path and I heard…’ He paused. ‘I thought about pretending I wasn’t here but I c
ouldn’t. I’ll go if you want.’
His voice was different; less cold, more…human. Marianne sniffed and inelegantly rubbed her nose on the sleeve of her robe in the darkness. She didn’t know what to say.
The next moment he had settled the decision for her by dropping down into the garden. ‘I can just see the gleam of your hair,’ he began to say before going headlong.
She knew what he had tripped over. Her father had bought her mother a little stone statue of a cherub one Christmas and positioned it near their bench. She heard him swear; the statue was shin height and, remarkably, considering the depth of her grief the moment before, she wanted to smile. She bet not many women had had the privilege of seeing Rafe Steed prostrate before them. Actually, neither had she. The darkness was too complete. ‘Are you all right?’ she managed after a second.
‘I’ll live.’
A moment later a solid shape plonked alongside her. She squeaked a little, she couldn’t help it, before covering the involuntary admission of fright by saying quickly, ‘You shouldn’t be here.’
‘Tell me about it.’
‘I still don’t see how you came to be outside Seacrest.’
‘I told you, I couldn’t sleep.’
Marianne’s nostrils twitched. She could smell whisky on his breath. ‘You’ve been drinking,’ she accused. ‘No wonder you couldn’t sleep. Alcohol is a stimulant.’
‘Spare me the biology lesson.’
Her nose was taking in something else, too—the clean, citrusy aroma that was part of him. Refusing to acknowledge how her stomach muscles had clenched, she said self-righteously, ‘You shouldn’t be walking on the cliff path if you’re intoxicated, or the beach, come to that. And in the dark, too. That’s foolhardy and dangerous.’ Even to herself she sounded like someone treble her age.
Ignoring this, Rafe said, ‘Are you feeling better now?’