by Penny Jordan
Death’s door! Dee’s heart gave a frightened bound.
‘I did try to persuade him,’ she defended herself, ignoring Hugo’s comment about her non-existent husband and family in the urgency of her desire to protect herself from his criticisms. ‘You don’t understand...
Peter’s very proud. His friends, his whole life is here in Lexminster...’
‘You heard what the doctor said,’ Hugo continued inexorably. ‘He’s too old and frail to be living in a house like this. All those stairs alone, never mind—’
‘It’s his home,’ Dee repeated, and reminded him quickly, ‘And you heard what he said about wanting to stay here...’
‘I heard a frightened old man worrying that he was going to be bundled out of the way to live amongst strangers,’ Hugo agreed. ‘At least that’s one problem we don’t have to deal with in Third World countries. Their people venerate and honour their old. We can certainly learn from them in that respect.’
Third World countries. It had always been Hugo’s dream to work with and for the people in such countries, but a quick discreet look at his hands—lean, strong, but not particularly tanned, his nails immaculate—did not suggest that he had spent the last ten years digging wells and latrines, as they had both planned to do once they left university.
How idealistic they had both been then, and how furiously angry Hugo had been with her when she had told him that she had changed her mind, and that it was her duty to take over her father’s responsibilities.
‘You mean that money matters more to you than people?’ he had demanded.
Fighting to hide her tears, Dee had shaken her head. ‘No!’
‘Then prove it...come with me...’
‘I can’t. Hugo, please try to understand.’
She had pleaded with him, but he had refused to listen to her.
‘Look, if I’m going to stay here with Peter there are one or two things I need to do, including collecting my stuff from my hotel. Can you stay here?’
The sound of Hugo’s curt voice brought Dee abruptly back to the present.
‘Can you stay here with him until I get back?’
Tempted though she was to refuse—after all, why should she do anything to help Hugo Montpelier?—her concern for Peter was too strong to allow her to give in to the temptation.
‘Yes, I can stay,’ she agreed.
‘I’ll be as quick as I can,’ Hugo told her, glancing frowningly at his watch. A plain, sturdy-looking one, Dee noticed, but she also noticed that it was a rather exclusive make as well. His clothes looked expensive too, even if very discreetly so. But then there had always seemed to be money in Hugo’s background, much of it tied up in land, even if he had preferred to make his own way in his university days. His grandmother had come from a prosperous business family, and she had married into the lower levels of the aristocracy.
In Hugo’s family, as in her own, there had been a tradition of helping others, but Hugo had dismissed his grandfather’s ‘good works’ as patronage of the worst kind.
‘People should be helped to be independent, not dependent, encouraged and educated to stand free and proud...’
He had spoken so stirringly of his beliefs...his plans.
Dee longed to reiterate that he had no need to concern himself with Peter, that she would take full responsibility for his welfare, but she sensed that he would enjoy dismissing her offer of help. She had seen the dislike and the contempt darkening his eyes as he’d looked at her, and she had seen too the way his mouth had curled as he had openly studied her as she crossed Peter’s bedroom floor.
What had he seen in her to arouse that contempt? Did he perhaps think the length of her honey-blonde hair was too youthful for a woman in her thirties? Did he find her caramel-coloured trousers with their matching long coat dull and plain, perhaps, compared with the clothes of the no doubt very youthful and very attractive women he probably spent his time with? Did it amuse him to see the way the soft cream cashmere of her sweater discreetly concealed the soft swell of her breasts when he had good reason to know just how full and firm they actually were?
What did it matter what Hugo thought? Dee derided herself as he turned away from her and strode towards the door. After all, he had made it plain enough just how little he cared about her thoughts or her feelings. She shivered a little, as though the room had suddenly gone very cold.
Ten minutes after Hugo had left Dee heard Peter coughing upstairs. Anxiously she hurried up to his room, but to her relief as she opened his bedroom door she saw that he was sitting up in bed, smiling reassuringly at her, his colour much warmer and healthier than it had been when she had seen him earlier.
‘Where’s Hugo?’ he asked Dee as she returned his smile.
‘He’s gone to collect his things,’ she answered him. It hurt a little to recognise how eager he was to have the other man’s company—and, it seemed, in preference to her own.
‘How are you feeling?’ she asked him. ‘Would you like a drink...or something to eat?’
‘I’m feeling fine, and, yes, a cup of tea would be very welcome, Dee.’ He thanked her.
It didn’t take her very long to make it, and she carried the tray upstairs to Peter. In addition to his tea she had made him some delicately cut little sandwiches, as well as buttering two of the home-made scones she had brought with her for him. She knew he had a weakness for them, and couldn’t help smiling at the enthusiasm he exhibited when he saw them.
‘I didn’t realise that you and Hugo had kept in touch,’ she commented carefully when she was pouring his tea. He had insisted that he didn’t either need or want to go back to sleep.
‘Mmm... Well, to be honest, we hadn’t...didn’t. But then I happened to run into him a few months ago quite by chance. He was here in Lexminster on business and we were both guests at the same drinks do. I wasn’t sure it was him at first...but then he came over and introduced himself.’
‘Mmm...he has changed,’ Dee agreed, bending her head over the teapot as she poured her own tea and hoping that her voice wasn’t giving her away. She would have recognised Hugo anywhere—there were some things that were just too personal ever to be changed. The aura that surrounded a person’s body, which one knew instinctively once one had been permitted within their most intimate personal space, their scent, as highly individual as their fingerprints, and even the way they breathed. These were things that could not be changed.
‘What’s he actually doing these days?’ she enquired as carelessly as she could.
‘Hasn’t he told you? He’s the chief executive in charge of a very special United Nations aid programme. As I understand it, from what he’s told me, their plan is to educate and help the people they’re dealing with to become self-sufficient and to combat the ravages of the years of drought their land has suffered. He’s very enthusiastic about a new crop they’re still working on, which, if it’s successful, will help to provide nearly forty per cent of the people’s protein requirements.’
‘That is ambitious,’ Dee acknowledged.
‘Ambitious and expensive,’ Peter agreed. ‘The crop is still very much in the early experimental stages. The whole scheme involves huge amounts of international funding and support, and one of Hugo’s responsibilities is to lobby politicians for those funds. He was saying that he’d much prefer to be working in the field, but as I reminded him he always did have a first-class brain. At one time I even thought he might continue with his studies and make a career in academics himself, but he was always such a firebrand...’
A firebrand. Dee had thought of him more as a knight in shining armour, rescuing not distressed damsels but others less fortunate than himself and with far more important needs. Being romantic and idealistic herself, it had seemed to her that Hugo had met every one of her impossibly high ideals and criteria, morally...emotionally...and sexuall
y... Oh, yes, quite definitely sexually! Her virginal reluctance to commit herself physically to a man had been totally and completely swept away by the passion that Hugo had aroused in her. Utterly, totally and completely. She hadn’t so much as timidly crossed her virginal Rubicon as flung herself headlong and eagerly into its tumultuous erotic flood!
‘You should talk with him, Dee,’ Peter was continuing enthusiastically. ‘He’s got some very good ideas.’
‘Mmm... I hardly think learning to grow our own protein is a particularly urgent consideration for the residents of Rye,’ Dee couldn’t resist pointing out a little dryly.
It irked her a little to be told she should crouch eagerly at Hugo’s feet, as though he were some sort of master and she his pupil. In fact, it irked her rather more than just a little, she admitted. She might not have completed her degree course—her father’s death had put an end to that—and she had certainly not been able to go on to obtain her doctorate, but what she had learned both from her father and through her own ‘hands-on’ experience had more than equipped her to deal proficiently and, she believed, even creatively with the complexities and demands of her own work. So far as she was concerned she certainly did not need Hugo’s advice or instruction on how to manage her business.
‘You’ve got a definite flair for finance,’ her father had told her approvingly, and Dee knew without being immodest that he had been quite right.
She also knew she had a reputation locally for being not just astute but also extremely shrewd. Her father, on the other hand, had been almost too ready to trust in other people’s honesty, to believe that they were as genuine and philanthropic as he himself had been, which was why...
‘Dee, you aren’t listening to me,’ Peter was complaining tetchily.
‘Oh, Peter, I’m sorry,’ Dee apologised soothingly.
‘I was just saying about Hugo, and about how you would be well-advised to seek his advice. I know your father was very proud of you, Dee, and that he meant it for the best when he left you in charge of his business affairs, but personally I’ve always felt that it’s a very heavy burden for you to carry. If you’d married it might have been different. A woman needs a man to lean on,’ Peter opined.
Dee forced herself not to protest. Peter meant well, she reminded herself. It was just that he was so out of step with modern times. It didn’t help, of course, that he had never married, and so had never had a wife or daughter of his own.
‘By the way, did you ever find out what had happened to that Julian Cox character?’ Peter asked her.
Immediately Dee froze.
‘Julian Cox? No...why do you ask?’ Warily she waited for his response.
‘No reason; it was just that Hugo and I were talking over old times and I remembered how badly your father was taken in by Cox. That was before we knew the truth about him, of course. Your father confessed to me—’
‘My father barely knew Julian,’ Dee denied fiercely. ‘And he certainly had no need to confess anything to anyone!’
‘Maybe not, but they were on a couple of charity committees together. I remember your father being very impressed by some of Julian’s ideas for raising money,’ Peter insisted stubbornly. ‘It was such a tragedy, your father dying when he did. To lose his life like that, and in such a senseless accident...’
Dee’s mouth had gone dry. She always hated talking about her father’s death. As Peter was saying, it had been a tragic, senseless way to die.
‘Hugo said as much himself...’
Dee felt as though her heart might stop beating.
‘You were discussing my father’s death with Hugo?’
The sharp, shocked tone of her voice caused Peter to look uncertainly at her.
‘Hugo brought it up. We were talking about your father’s charity work.’
Dee tried to force herself to relax. Her heart was thudding heavily as anxiety-induced adrenalin was released into her bloodstream.
‘I’m a little bit concerned about this bee you’ve got in your bonnet about these young people, Dee,’ Peter was saying now, a little bit reprovingly. ‘I’m not sure that your father would have approved of what you’re trying to do. Being philanthropic is all very well, but these youngsters...’ He paused and cocked his head. ‘I applaud your concern for them, but, my dear, I really don’t think I can agree that we should fund the kind of thing you’ve got in mind.’
Dee’s heart started to sink. She had always known it would be difficult to convince Peter to support what she wanted to do, and the last thing she wanted to do now was to upset him by arguing with him. She had no idea how serious his condition might be, and she suspected that any attempt on her part to find out would be met with strong opposition from Dr Jane Harper. If it were Hugo, now, who wanted to know...! She was being unfair, Dee warned herself mentally—unfair and immature. But that didn’t mean that she wasn’t right!
‘What exactly is Hugo doing in Lexminster?’ she asked Peter, trying to give his thoughts a new direction.
‘It’s business,’ Peter told her vaguely.
‘Business?’ Dee raised her eyebrows. ‘I thought you said his work involved lobbying politicians for international support for his aid programme.’
‘Yes. It does,’ Peter agreed. ‘But Lexminster University has access to certain foundation funds which have been donated over the years to be used as the university sees fit.’
‘For charitable causes,’ Dee agreed. She knew all about such foundations.
‘Hugo hopes to get the university to agree to donate all or part of them to his aid programme.’
‘But I thought they were supposed to be used to benefit university scholars’ projects.’
‘Hugo was a university scholar,’ Peter reminded her simply. Yes, he had been, and Peter was on the committee that dealt with the disbursement of those funds, as Dee already knew. She started to frown. Was Hugo’s desire to move in with Peter and take care of him as altruistic as it had initially seemed? The Hugo she had known would certainly never have stooped to such tactics. But then the Hugo she had known would never have worn a Savile Row suit, nor a subtly expensive and discreet cologne that smelled of fresh mountain air just warmed by a hint of citrus.
Dee was becoming increasingly alarmed at the thought of leaving Peter on his own with Hugo, but she sensed that it wouldn’t be wise to express her doubts. From what Peter had already said to her it was obvious that for him Hugo could do no wrong.
Dee was frowning over this unpalatable knowledge when she heard someone knocking on the front door.
‘That will be Hugo!’ Peter exclaimed with evident pleasure. ‘You’d better go and let him in.’
Yes, and no doubt lie prone in the hallway so that he could wipe his boots on her, Dee decided acidly as she got up off the bed.
CHAPTER THREE
‘HOW’S PETER?’ HUGO asked Dee tersely as she opened the door to him.
‘He seems a lot better, although I’m sure that Dr Jane Harper would be delighted to give you a much more professional opinion if you wanted one,’ Dee responded wryly, forcing herself not to wince as Hugo’s glance swept her from head to foot with open dislike.
‘It’s odd how one’s memory can play tricks on one. I had a distinct memory of you being an intelligent woman, Dee.’
‘Well, I’m certainly intelligent enough to wonder what it is that makes you so anxious to help Peter.’
As Dee stressed the word ‘you’ she could see the anger flashing like lightning in Hugo’s eyes. It gave her an odd, sharp stab of pain-tipped pleasure to know that she had drawn such a reaction from him, even whilst she had to force herself to blot out of her memory the knowledge that once there had been a time when that lightning look had been born of the urgency of his desire for her, instead of the urgency of his ire against her.
‘I am anxiou
s to help him, as you put it, because it concerns me that he should so obviously be on his own,’ Hugo replied pointedly.
‘He isn’t on his own; he’s got me,’ Dee protested fiercely.
Immediately Hugo’s eyebrows rose.
‘Oh...? He told me that the last time he had seen you was over two weeks ago.’
Angrily Dee frowned.
‘I try to see him as often as I can, but—’
‘Other people have a prior claim on your time?’ Hugo suggested. ‘Be honest, Dee, you couldn’t have moved in here to take care of him, could you?’
‘He could have come to Rye with me,’ Dee protested, without answering his question. ‘And if you hadn’t been here he would have.’
‘He would? Yes, I’m sure he would. But would that have been what he really wanted? He wants to stay here, Dee. This is his home. His books, his things, his memories...his life...are all here.’
‘Maybe, but you can’t stay with him for ever, can you, Hugo? And what’s going to happen to him once you’ve gone?’
‘Since, for the foreseeable future, I’m going to be based in the UK, there’s nothing to stop me from making my home here in Lexminster if I choose to do so. It’s convenient for the airport and—’
‘You’re planning to live permanently in Lexminster...?’
Dee couldn’t help her consternation from showing in her voice, and she knew that Hugo had recognised it from the look he gave her.
‘What’s wrong?’ he taunted her. ‘Don’t you like the thought of me living here?’
‘No, I don’t,’ Dee told him truthfully, too driven by the way he was goading her and the shock of what he had just told her to be cautious or careful. ‘I don’t like it at all.’
‘Oh, and why not, I wonder? Or can I guess? Could it have something to do with this...?’