Delia could feel the rage. It was engulfing her. Starting at her toes and rushing to her head. Her body was being consumed by it. Her skin felt as if it was on fire and inside there was that awful pounding feeling swirling around, about to burst forth at any moment.
“Why the hell are you poking your nose in,” she shrieked. “What the hell has it got to do with you who is the estate manager at Canleigh?”
Philip swallowed and stared out of the French windows at the horses. He would give anything to just walk out, mount Miranda and gallop away. What a bloody mess but he had to come clean and tell her the truth. It was obviously going to be damned unpleasant, just as it was when he had fallen in love with Sue and ditched Delia all those years ago but there was no way out. He had to tell her. He drew in a deep breath and clenched his hands.
“A fair bit, actually, seeing as my future wife cares for it and my soon to be stepson is the legal owner.”
Delia looked at him, shock written all over her face. She caught a glance of herself in the mirror over the fireplace. The scar stood out, red and angry, the thick layer of foundation she had applied earlier not doing the brilliant job it should. She looked almost deranged, with the terrible wound on her face, her eyes wild with fury and her tousled dark hair. Philip had loved seeing it like that when they made love. He often commented on it and that was why she had messed it up a bit before she came downstairs. What a bloody waste of time that had been as yet again he was breaking her heart. Why did he always fall in love with other women? Why wasn’t it her?
“It’s this, isn’t it?” she screamed, pointing at her face, pulling her hair back so that he could see it clearly. “You think I’m ugly and repulsive.”
Philip put up his hands. “No, Delia. Of course not. Don’t be ridiculous. That doesn’t make any difference whatsoever.”
“So, what is it, then?” She paused, trying to calm herself and thinking hard. Philip possessed pretty strict morals so it must be Lucy. It had to be Lucy. She was an illegitimate child … a bastard … and the father was Vicky’s husband.”
Philip moved across the room, towards the door, ready to make his escape. “I’m so sorry, Delia but it’s nothing you’ve done … really … or what you are or what you look like. I like you … I enjoy being with you, especially the riding, but I don’t love you as you want me to. I never have and I never will. I told you all those years ago and now I’m telling you again.”
“No, no, no, no,” Delia screamed, tears streaming down her face as she threw herself at him, beating his chest hard with her hands. “I won’t let you do this to me … not again. How could you, Philip? How could you … I love you so much … it’s you and only you … you know it is. You have to marry me. I can’t live without you … you know I can’t” she sobbed piteously, her tears splashing onto his shirt.
“Don’t Delia,” he uttered desperately. “Please don’t. I am sorry but it won’t do any good. I love Ruth … I asked her to marry me last night and we’re intending to have a spring wedding. You’ll have to accept it. You have a good life here … with Lucy.”
Delia sprang away from him, her eyes wide with hate. “You won’t marry that scheming little bitch. Christ, how I hate her. She tried it on with Richard, then seduced my poor, deluded father and now you … bloody hell, I hate her more than I’ve hated anyone … and I hate you too, Philip,” she yelled as he tried to restrain her from attacking him by holding her hands. She struggled to get free, resorting to thrusting a knee into his groin and grabbing the heavy brass poker from the fireplace as he doubled up in pain.
“I’m going to kill you, you bastard. If I can’t have you, she certainly won’t,” she shrieked, smashing the poker onto Philip’s head and as he fell to the floor with a thud, continued to bring it crashing down, raining blow after blow on his body, the blood spurting up from his face and obscenely splashing the innocent whiteness of the negligee.
“And I’m going to finish her off too,” she whispered hoarsely. “She won’t get away with thwarting me any longer.”
Dropping the poker on the floor beside Philip’s inert, red stained body, she dashed upstairs, threw off the bloodied negligee, and pulled on the jeans and blouse she had been wearing earlier. She hurtled back downstairs, hauled on her riding boots at the front door, grabbed a whip, and tore towards Demon who, startled and sensing immediately something was badly wrong, reared and whinnied, making it difficult for Delia to mount. She pulled him sharply to an old tree stump on the drive, stepped up and clambered onto his back, pushing her feet quickly into the stirrups and urging him to gallop full speed towards the lake.
All Delia could think of was Ruth. That bloody, bloody woman. She was always standing in her way. She had all the power and everything Delia had ever wanted … and Philip was the final straw … and pretending she was going to allow her to run Canleigh. Why was she so devious? Why hadn’t she told her straight out that she wasn’t going to appoint her? She was a first-class bitch and she was going to pay for it. This was Armageddon.
Delia dug her heels into Demon, making the powerful animal surge ahead. They were nearing the lake, and in the distance, Delia could see Ruth laying out the picnic on the grass beside the water. Tina and the children were feeding the ducks but Delia only had eyes for Ruth. Forcing Demon to gallop along the tiny lakeside path, his hooves thudding hard on the firm ground, Delia didn’t notice one of the gamekeepers walking through the trees with a shotgun under his arm.
“Mummy!” yelled Lucy as Demon, rolling his eyes and frothing at the mouth, thundered towards the small party. Ruth looked up at Delia’s distorted face and stood up quickly, her face as white as a sheet when Delia raised the whip above her head and slashed it at Ruth. The picnic things were scattered for yards as Demon, pulled up sharply by Delia, skidded to a halt.
“You’ve been in my way long enough, you bloody bitch ... you’ll not do me any more harm. I’m going to kill you,” screamed Delia, striking Demon hard, making him rear. His legs beat the air and lashed out and as Ruth tried to duck out of the way, her head was caught on the side by a glancing blow from his left hoof and she slid unconscious onto the grass.
Determined Demon was going to trample Ruth to death, Delia ignored the yells and cries from Tina, Lucy, and Stephen, and whipped him once more. The maddened horse, frothing at the mouth, reared again but time seemed to stand still as the sound of a single shot rang out and the bullet hit him between the eyes. Instead of smashing down onto Ruth, he toppled backwards, crashing to the ground with Delia in great difficulty trying to scramble clear. The silence was deafening, as Delia lay winded on the grass beside him. The shot had killed him instantly. Tina and the children were all silent with the horror at what they had witnessed. Ruth lay inert a few yards away, still breathing but deathly white.
Delia struggled to sit up, crawled towards Demon and tried to lift his head. “No, darling, no. I’m so, so sorry. I should never have hit you. Darling boy. Please, please not you,” she cried. “I can’t lose you too. I can’t,”
“You’ve hurt my mummy,” yelled Stephen accusingly, tearing himself from Tina’s arms and running towards Ruth. Tina, still standing by the water, was gripping Lucy tightly. Crying hysterically, Lucy was desperate to get to Delia.
“Let me go,” she cried. “I want to be with my mummy.”
“Oh God,” uttered Delia, looking across at her daughter’s distressed face. “What the hell have I done?”
In a daze, Delia turned and left her dead horse, her unconscious stepmother, the badly shocked nanny, the two screaming children and emerging from the shrubbery, the grim-faced gamekeeper with his gun over his arm. She stumbled slowly along the twisty path she knew so well, stopping for a few moments at the stables and looking up at the Hall. She wanted to go inside. Pretend none of what had occurred in the last hour had happened. She wanted to be a child again, leaving Star in the stables with Perkins, going back to the Hall for a bath and dinner. She didn’t want to think about Philip, lying d
ead by the fireplace at the Dower House or Demon, with a small hole in his head. She didn’t care about Ruth and couldn’t bring herself to think about the damage she had just done to her daughter.
Breathing hard and fitfully, her body feeling like a lead weight, she moved towards the Hall, dragging herself up the front steps and into the entrance hall. No-one was about and she made her way up the grand staircase and along the corridor to her old room. It was completely different. Redecorated, with a new bed and furnishings, it was now just another guest room with no trace of Delia ever having been there. Never having slept there, studied there, plotted there. She might never have existed.
She walked along the corridor, opening every door, remembering how it had been when they were all children; her, Vicky and Richard. Nothing was the same. Richard’s room had also been turned into a guest room with nothing personal of his remaining. Vicky’s was much the same with all her childhood bits and pieces taken away. The three of them might never have been. They had been erased.
Delia went back downstairs, going from state room after state room, nostalgia for the past and what might have been sweeping over her in enormous waves of hopelessness. The portrait of her grandmother over the fireplace in the library reduced her to tears. Delia had let her down so badly. Granny would be so ashamed.
Outside rain was threatening. As Delia crossed the entrance hall and stood on the front steps, a massive black cloud swirled ominously overhead. She looked across the lawns to the church, thinking of Granny … her father … Richard … all buried in the churchyard. Then there was her mother … ashes scattered in a Caribbean sea. How did it go … ashes to ashes …dust to dust? The very thought was soothing and she was suddenly very tired and couldn’t think any longer. Her head was heavy and a terrible headache was threatening. Her left leg ached painfully where Demon had partially crashed onto it and she was surprised it wasn’t broken but the pain was getting worse and she could only hobble now.
She turned from the house and limped back to the stables, exhausted and hardly able to put one foot in front of the other. But it would soon be over, all this agonising. Lucy would be okay. Ruth would no doubt take her under her wing when she recovered from the blow Demon had dealt her. She wasn’t dead. Delia had seen her breathing.
She reached the stables and went straight to the tack room, where she knew Perkins had stored a long rope. She found it quickly and grabbed a bucket standing by the outside tap. She entered Demon’s old stall and looked at the brick on the wall where she and Richard had stashed the document that had meant so much to her for years. She pushed it gently. It moved and there was the piece of paper Richard had signed. “I, Richard Canleigh, Marquess of Keighton,” she read. She tore it up. She didn’t want to read all of it. It was too painful.
She turned to the task at hand, knowing she had to be quick as someone would have called the police by now and she would be made to pay for what she had done. Having killed Philip in the heat of the moment would be her downfall. She couldn’t wriggle out of it this time, not having planned and thought it through meticulously as she had with her brother … and that idiot, Rocky. No. They would be after her now for Philip’s murder. The pain in her heart was agonising. She hadn’t wanted to kill him. He was the one and only person she had ever truly loved and wanted to spend the rest of her life with. Only a short while ago they had been tearing about the fields on the horses and now, he and Demon were dead. It was unbelievable.
She looked out into the yard but couldn’t see or hear anyone but it wouldn’t be long before the police were here, wanting to arrest her and take her away and she would end up in prison, probably for a hell of a long time. The thought was unbearable. Not being able to be out in the fresh air, being cooped up, day in, day out, with other murderers, prostitutes, and junkies. Oh God, no. She couldn’t do it. She wouldn’t do it. She pulled the stable door nearly shut so that there was just a chink of light so she could see what she was doing but no-one could see her from outside.
It was easy to throw the rope over the beam above her head. She knotted it expertly, remembering how Richard had taught her when they had been discussing forms of death one day after their mother gave him his skeleton to practice on. She pulled on the rope. It was firm. She stood on the bucket, placed the rope around her neck, and with a mighty shove of her boot, she kicked the bucket away.
THE END
LAST WORD
Thank you for reading Rejection Runs Deep, which I do hope you have enjoyed and if you have, please could you find a few moments to leave a short REVIEW on Amazon - just a sentence or two and a star rating will be fantastic. I can’t emphasise how important this is for authors as it keeps our books visible when so many are being released every day. Reviews can also be left on Goodreads or my Facebook page - Carole Williams Author. If you aren’t sure how to do this on Amazon, just follow the link below which returns to the page where you bought the book, scroll down to the reviews and just add yours. Easy peasy and I should be immensely grateful!
Rejection Runs Deep:
UK: www.amazon.com/dp/B076YZQW57/
US: www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B076YZQW57/
NOW FOR THE NEXT TWO EXPLOSIVE BOOKS IN THE CANLEIGH SERIES AND THE BIG QUESTION – IS LADY DELIA STILL ALIVE?
DELIA’S DAUGHTER
THE CANLEIGH SERIES – BOOK 2
I’ll never forget seeing my mother, Lady Delia Canleigh, trying to kill Granny Ruth. I was only four years old at the time and have grown up knowing my mother is evil. Thank goodness I had good people to care for me and help me trust again.
I’m an adult now and in love with Jeremy but he’s behaving a little oddly now we are married. I have inherited Canleigh Hall and a fortune to go with it, which was a total shock and a massive responsibility for both of us but I really don’t like the way Jeremy is behaving. I can’t quite put my finger on it but something isn’t right, especially when that friend of his, Matthew, is around … or when he is near Felix, our butler. Both men make me very uncomfortable and even a little scared and I don’t know why.
And now I have seen a dangerous glint in Jeremy’s eye, just like my mother’s, which is highly unnerving. Surely I shouldn’t be frightened of my own husband. Or should I?
UK: www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07G847ZD3/
US: www.amazon.com/dp/B07G847ZD3/
KATRINA
THE CANLEIGH SERIES - BOOK 3
Ever since I was a child I have been fascinated by my evil, stunning beautiful Aunt Delia, who went to jail for attempted murder and was rumoured to have committed actual murder. My mother, Lady Victoria, is very scared of her sister, is appalled by my fascination with her and is terrified I will turn out the same way. It’s true. I do get very angry, very quickly and hate it if anyone thwarts me so does Mother have reason to worry? I’m really not sure. At least she isn’t worried about my other obsession with famous actresses, whom I want so very much to emulate.
I did my very best to learn about acting while at school and was extremely lucky to have discovered my drama teacher was a stupid woman and how terrifically easy it was to blackmail her into giving me the best parts in all the plays. Then at eighteen years old, I went to Radley, the best acting school in the country and my life changed dramatically and I had to take a different path to the one I had always wanted.
Now, thanks to my actions, I am in a real predicament and am furious with myself. I have no sparkling career, no money, and no stately home to float around in,or even a decent man to pander to my wishes, although my family have everything. My parents own a sumptuous hotel and are loaded with income from their various businesses but I can’t get my hands on any of it until they die, which is far in the future, unless something unforeseen happens … like an accident … and then they tell me that I have to share it with my blasted foster sister, Suzanne and her brat, which is totally galling but we will see about that! Then there is cousin Lucy … who has turned Canleigh into a thriving hotel and is rolling in dough … and she has a gorgeous man d
oting on her. I’ve always been jealous of her. She inherited Canleigh and the huge fortune that went with it at a very young age. It’s just not fair!
So, what do I have? My looks. I am beautiful … everyone tells me so … and I am going to have to use what I have to get what I want … fame and fortune. It might take me time and people might get in my way but I will get there. I am determined to. Just watch me!
US: www.amazon.com/dp/B07QBXWR7F/
UK: www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07QBXWR7F/
Now, a real treat for you! THE SECRET, the shocking, dramatic prequel to THE CANLEIGH SERIES is now available to purchase OR FREE for you to download on sign-up for my occasional newsletter.
Margaret, the young, vibrant Duchess of Canleigh, has a dark and dreadful secret which could result in her losing her husband, her family but more importantly, the freedom and funds she has to enjoy a glittering lifestyle travelling the world with her friends. She will do everything in her power to retain the status quo but if anyone discovers she has tainted the family blood line, she will take drastic action. Two people have found out. They have no idea they are in terrible danger!
UK: www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08WRJ44H8
US: www.amazon.com/dp/B08WRJ44H8
OR FREE ON SIGN-UP:
www.carolewilliamsbooks.com/sign-up
On joining my mailing list, not only will you receive THE SECRET, but you can also download my FREE thriller short story. entitled YES DEAR, and will be informed of when further book releases, competitions and further freebies are available. I only send out emails when I have real news so you won’t be bombarded with them, just an occasional one every couple of months or so
Rejection Runs Deep (The Canleigh Series, book 1: A chilling psychological family drama) Page 67