by Lucy Gordon
‘I’m not sure. Some things take longer to decide than others.’ She stretched out luxuriously. ‘But we have plenty of time.’
‘Yes, all the time in the world,’ he said with relish.
As he spoke he was drawing his fingers down her, touching lightly so she took a long breath as her desire rose.
‘I’ve thought about nothing but this since last time,’ he murmured. ‘And the time before.’
‘Neither have I. You’re here now, and I’m going to enjoy every moment.’
‘I intend to make sure you do-what the blazes is that?’
A shrill noise had rent the air, then again, and again and again.
‘Oh, no,’ Harriet groaned. ‘That’s my pager. I’m needed on the lifeboat. I’ve got to dash.’
‘You’re going to run away now?’
‘I don’t have any choice,’ she cried, shoving him aside and making a grab for her clothes.
For a moment he was too stunned to speak, but lay on the bed, his heart pounding as he fought to bring himself under control. This couldn’t be happening. It mustn’t happen. To have the prize snatched from him as the climax mounted-to be defeated at the last moment and told to put up with it. His head was spinning.
‘Bye,’ she cried and headed for the door.
‘Wait!’ he cried, getting command of himself at the last minute, ‘I’ll drive you there.’
‘I can’t wait for you. I’m on my way.’
She was gone. A moment later, he heard her car start up.
Dazed, he wrenched on his clothes and went out into the corridor, to find his children already there.
‘Dad, what’s happened?’ Mark demanded. ‘There was a funny noise and Harry dashed off. She hasn’t been called, has she?’
‘That’s right, she’s on her way to the lifeboat station now.’
‘Oh, wow!’ Both children began to leap about. ‘Let’s go too, please, Dad.’
‘They won’t let us in. They’re doing a serious job and we’d be in the way.’
‘But we can watch from the shore and see the boat go out. Please, Dad, please, please, please.’
They were bouncing up and down, looking up at him beseechingly.
‘All right,’ he said, relenting. ‘Get dressed fast.’
In ten minutes they were sweeping out of the drive. On the journey he switched on the car radio, tuned to the local station, that was carrying news about a small party out on a jaunt who’d sent a frantic radio message that their boat had sprung a leak.
By the time they arrived they were several minutes behind Harriet, who had completely vanished, but the station was buzzing with life. A crowd had gathered just outside, and they quickly joined it. A cheer rose as the lifeboat went down the slipway, hitting the water so that spray rose up high.
‘Was it like this for you, Dad?’ Mark breathed.
‘I don’t exactly know,’ he said wryly. ‘I wasn’t here. I was a few miles out, going down for the third time.’
That was roughly how he felt right now. His mind told him that she’d had no choice but to leave and save others as she had saved him. He had no reasonable complaint.
But that was only his mind. The rest of him was complaining bitterly at losing the prize at the crucial moment. She had laid in his arms, tender and sweet, giving him the look he loved, the one that said he could bring her a pleasure and happiness she’d never dreamed of before. That look had the power to open his heart, inviting her to reach out to him, as he reached out to her more with every day that passed.
Until now he’d shown his growing feelings through touch, waiting until he was sure of the right words. Since the night she’d confided in him he’d felt his defences collapse. The barrier of her husband’s memory, once looming so high between them, no longer existed. She’d trusted and confided in a way he hadn’t expected, filling him with happiness but also with a slight sense of guilt that he hadn’t matched her openness with his own.
Honesty demanded that he admit he already knew the secret she was finally revealing, but he hadn’t been able to bring himself to do it. It would involve telling her about his father’s spies, and in her anger and dismay she might have laid some of the blame on himself. Not for the world would he risk damaging the bond between them. At least, not yet.
Soon he would be able to tell her of his feelings. It might even have been that night. But then-
He groaned. There were two Harriets-the passionate loving one, and the brave efficient one who put duty before everything. Tonight, the second one had taken over, leaving him stranded. Life with her would be more complex than he’d ever dreamed. Also more intriguing. That suggested an interesting future.
But tonight he was aching with frustration and thwarted feelings.
Hours passed. Occasionally someone would come out of the station to brief the watchers on how things were going. So they knew that the lifeboat had reached its destination, rescued everyone safely, and was on its way back.
At last it appeared on the horizon, just visible in the faint gleam of the dawn. The children watched, thrilled, as it came closer and was hauled back up the slipway. When Harriet appeared they ran to greet her and be introduced to the rest of the crew. They were in seventh heaven.
‘Gosh,’ Mark exclaimed. ‘Wasn’t that the most wonderful thing that ever happened?’
‘Oh, yes,’ Darius said wryly. ‘Wonderful.’
But his personal feelings vanished when he saw Harriet on the edge of total exhaustion.
‘Let’s get you home fast,’ he said. ‘Leave your car here; you’re too tired to drive. I’ll fetch it later. Let her have the back seat, kids, so that she can stretch out.’
She did manage to stretch out, falling asleep almost at once, and waking to find her head resting in Frankie’s arms.
‘We’re home now,’ the little girl said kindly. ‘I’ll help you to bed.’
With Kate’s assistance, she did, finally emerging to where Mark and her father were waiting in the corridor.
‘All right for me to go in?’ Darius asked.
‘Just for a moment,’ she told him sternly. ‘She needs to sleep.’
Darius gave her a comic salute. ‘Yes, ma’am. Anything you say, ma’am.’
He vanished into Harriet’s room too quickly to see his children stare at each other with an unmistakable message; Dad said that?
Going quietly to the bed, Darius whispered, ‘Hello.’
Silence.
Leaning closer, he heard her faint breathing and realised that she was asleep.
‘I guess Frankie was right to protect you,’ he murmured. ‘You need it sometimes. It’s a pity about tonight because I was going to say…all sorts of things. Now they’ll have to wait until the time is right.’ He touched her face with gentle fingers. ‘Let’s hope that day comes soon.’
He kissed her softly, and left the room without her knowing that he’d been there.
The last few days of the holiday built on the success of the first week. Darius’s relationship with his children was becoming everything he had hoped, and his manner towards Harriet was full of affection and gratitude.
‘Without you, this would never work,’ he told her. ‘However much I want to, I can’t spend all my time with them. I have to keep an eye on what’s happening out there.’
‘I know. You were up almost until dawn last night,’ she said. ‘I don’t know how you manage to stay awake.’
‘I don’t always,’ he said ruefully. ‘Thank goodness for you distracting them. I swear if I nod off they barely notice.’
The end of the holiday was near. The four of them would fly to London, where the children would be reunited with Mary. After that, she hoped she and Darius would have a little time together before returning to Herringdean.
But the day before they were due to leave the financial world began to call to Darius more urgently. Hardly a minute passed without a text, an email or a call on his cellphone.
‘Is it bad news?’ she ask
ed him urgently.
‘Not bad, just interesting. It could go either way, depending on how I handle it. I think we need to change our plans. It’s best if you don’t come to London after all. I’ll have to stay there a few days, sort some things out. So I’ll take the kids back to Mary and stay out of your hair for a while.’ He grinned. ‘You’ll be glad to have a rest from me.’
‘Of course I will,’ she said in a dead voice. ‘Who could think otherwise?’
The children complained bitterly about her not coming with them.
‘I’ve got work to do,’ she said cheerfully. ‘It’s time I took over the shop and I have to go to training sessions for the lifeboat.’
‘But we will see you again?’ Frankie urged.
‘I’m sure you will. Who knows what’s around the corner?’
She spoke brightly, but she couldn’t help being glad Darius wasn’t there to hear. She couldn’t have helped watching for his reaction, and now something in her was warning her to expect the worst.
On the day she saw them off and stood looking up into the sky as the helicopter rose higher and higher, then swung away until it disappeared completely and the sky was empty but for a few seagulls.
How lonely it was now. After the pleasures of the last week, the quiet and emptiness were almost unbearable. Worse still was the fear that what had gone was gone for ever. He had said the news could be good, depending on how he handled it, and she guessed he would handle it with skill, perhaps ruthlessness. The ‘no mercy’ side of him would rise and take over again.
He would leave Herringdean, having no further use for it, or for her. He’d learned how to reach out to his children and he could carry those lessons forward without her help. He’d settle back in London, find a wife who suited him better, sell Herringdean and forget she existed.
And I should have known it would happen, she thought. All this time the truth has been staring me in the face, but I wouldn’t let myself see it.
It was time to be sensible. She was good at that, she reminded herself. She had a shop to see to, and Phantom to look after. He was showing signs of depression now his two adoring young friends had gone.
‘People always go off and leave you, don’t they?’ she said, caressing him. ‘Well, not me. I’ll always be here for you. That’s a promise.’
Moving back into her home, she filled up the time by cleaning it. More time was occupied at the lifeboat station, but mostly in training sessions. For some reason, very few boats got into trouble.
Now she began to understand Mark and Frankie’s frustration at the lack of action. Why couldn’t people obligingly get into danger so that she could have the satisfaction of saving them? Not that she wanted anyone to suffer. She just wanted to feel needed, and that was becoming hard.
For the first few days Darius called her regularly, but the calls were always brief. Then they were replaced by texts, friendly, cheerful but unrevealing. Exactly the kind of message a man might send if he was easing his way out of a relationship.
One evening she and Phantom went out for a long walk. As she strolled back home a car passed her going in the other direction, and slowed down. It was Walter.
‘I just drove past your place,’ he called, ‘and there’s a fellow standing there.’
‘Did you see who it was?’ she asked eagerly.
‘No, I wasn’t that close, but he looked as if he was waiting for you.’
‘Thanks, Walter.’
Her heart soaring, she sped away, racing Phantom until her shop came in sight and she dashed around the corner, to where a man was walking impatiently up and down.
It was Amos Falcon.
CHAPTER TWELVE
‘G OOD evening, Mrs Connor.’
Harriet wondered if she’d only imagined that he stressed ‘Mrs’ very slightly.
‘Good evening, Mr Falcon. What a surprise. You didn’t tell me you were coming.’
‘It was a sudden decision. Aren’t you going to invite me in?’
‘Of course.’
She led him up to her apartment over the shop, keeping her hand on Phantom’s collar, dreading that he might give one of his displays of friendliness. But she need not have feared. When they were inside, Phantom moved as far away from Amos as possible and sat huddled in a corner, eyeing him distrustfully.
When the door had shut, Harriet said, ‘If you were hoping to see Darius-’
‘I wasn’t. I know he’s in London. I’ve seen him several times in the last few days.’ He was watching her face carefully, easily seeing that this disconcerted her. ‘Did he not tell you that? Strange.’
On first finding him there she had remembered how pleasantly he’d spoken to her when they danced at the wedding. But now she saw that his smile was cold, and she remembered how Darius had described his father-ruthless, scheming, implacable; a man who was determined to make others do his will. She recalled too that Amos had chosen a wife for his son, and wondered uneasily what had brought him such a distance to see her.
‘So you don’t know what’s been happening to him?’ Amos said in a genial voice that struck a false note to her ears.
‘I don’t ask Darius about his business,’ Harriet said. ‘I doubt if I’d understand it, anyway.’
‘Possibly, but when a man is taking hold of his problems and dealing with them successfully it’s not hard to understand. Anyway, never mind that. You and I have things to discuss.’
‘Coffee?’ she asked politely.
‘Thank you, I will. You know, I really took to you when we met before. You’re an admirable young woman, not just because you helped save my son’s life, but also because of the way you’ve built up this shop. It’s worth a lot more than you’d think by just looking at the outside.’
‘How do you know what it’s worth?’ she asked.
He shrugged. ‘That kind of information isn’t hard to come by. It belonged to your husband but he had very little time for it so the running of it fell to you. It was you who arranged the loans and made sure they were paid on time.’
‘So you’ve been looking at my bank records?’ she asked in outrage.
She knew that a man like this, who stood at the summit of the financial universe, would have no difficulty in accessing any figures that he wanted, yet the discovery that he’d had her investigated was a nasty shock that made her seethe.
‘And I’ve been very impressed by what I found. You’ve turned this place into twice what it was before. I’m prepared to pay a high price for it.’
‘It’s not for sale.’
He gave a harsh chuckle. ‘Of course it isn’t. That’s exactly what I expected you to say.’
‘And I meant it.’
‘Naturally. But you and I don’t need to waste any time. We both know what the score is. You’ve gained a real influence over my son, but now that he’s returning to his old life I don’t want him harking back to you. The fight isn’t over yet and he’s going to need all his faculties to come out on top.’
Then Harriet did something that she did very rarely. She lost her temper, turning on him with such a look that he nearly backed away.
‘Understand me,’ she said. ‘I will not discuss Darius with you. If he wants to consign me to the past then he can tell me himself, and I’ll open my hands and let him go. I will not try to keep a stranglehold on him, and you don’t have to buy me off. Is that clear?’
Amos Falcon’s response was a genial smile that made her want to murder him.
‘Perfectly clear and I respect your strength of mind, but you should allow me to show that respect by purchasing your shop at twice its value. You won’t get such an offer again.’
‘You’re crazy,’ she breathed. ‘You think everyone’s for sale.’
‘No, I simply think you should be considering the long-term implications. After the appalling way your husband treated you, you should be protecting yourself.’
His words were like a douche of ice.
‘The appalling way-? Darius told you abo
ut that?’
‘Not at all. I told him.’
Suddenly the world had turned into a nightmare through which she could only stumble.
‘You told-? When?’
‘At the wedding. I discovered I knew rather more about you than he did, so I brought him up to date.’
Now she couldn’t speak at all, only look at him from wide, horrified eyes.
‘He was very chivalrous,’ Amos went on. ‘He said it was entirely a matter for you if you wanted to keep your secrets, which, of course, is right. But I think he was a little disturbed to discover that you’d been holding him off while pretending to be close to him.’
Harriet’s head swam. There in her mind was the sweet moment when she’d confided in Darius what she’d told nobody else, meaning in this way to prove her trust in him.
But he’d known all the time, and never told her.
‘Get out,’ she breathed. ‘Get out now, if you know what’s good for you.’
‘He doesn’t,’ said a voice from the door. ‘He’s never known what was good for him.’
Shocked, they both turned to see Darius standing there, a look of dark fury on his face.
‘You heard her,’ he told his father. ‘Get out. Get off this island and don’t ever come back.’
‘What are you doing here?’ Amos shouted.
‘When I found out where you’d gone I came after you as fast as I could. I knew you’d try something like this. Luckily, I arrived in time to spike your guns.’
‘I was only trying to do my best for you,’ Amos growled. ‘You’ve done so well these past few days.’
‘Yes, I’ve put a lot of things right, not everything but enough to survive. And now I’m coming back here to stay. For good. I’m moving my centre of operations here permanently. From now on I’ll operate out of Giant’s Beacon, with the help of my wife.’
‘Your wife!’ Amos snapped. ‘You mean you’ve asked her? Of all the damn fool-’
‘No, I haven’t asked her,’ Darius said with a glance at Harriet. ‘And after what you’ve told her I wouldn’t give much for my chances. But I’m a man who doesn’t give up. When I want something I keep on and on until I get it. You taught me that, and I was never more glad of a lesson in my life.