by Susan Napier
She tailed off nervously at the look in his narrowed eyes, a hard, predatory, sinister look that seemed to strip-mine her soul. When he nodded slowly, conceding her victory, she heard the hollow ring.
A slithering coil of excitement tightened in her stomach as she shakily escaped back to her own half of the bungalow. She had a feeling that she hadn’t even begun to pay the price of her folly—and the awful thing was that she was actually looking forward to it!
CHAPTER NINE
THE St Clair estate was as magnificent as rumour and hearsay had led her to expect, but for Elizabeth it wasn’t the beauty of the extensively landscaped grounds or the elegance of the French architecture that captured her imagination—it was the library.
It had taken her nearly an hour of wandering through the procession of exquisitely furnished rooms on the ground floor to find it: two rooms packed floor to ceiling with books, some in temperature-controlled cases, others in meticulously arranged shelves and at least a third of the superb collection in a shambolic stack which suggested that the cataloguer had lost interest in the job halfway through.
Elizabeth's hands tightened on the strap of her heavy bag. She could slip the books out and back on a shelf now and no one would be any the wiser. If they had been missed it would be thought they had merely been misplaced. At least then she would only have the necklace to worry about.
She looked around the cavernous room nervously, touching the necklace beneath her prim floral blouse. Wearing it had taken on the nature of a penance that she was fated to perform. Whenever she took it off—even when she watched it go straight into the huge hotel safe—she suffered severe anxiety verging on physical pain about the possibility of it being lost or stolen. She had been braced to keep Jack at arm's length this morning, or at least from around her neck, but to her chagrin he had been blandly circumspect, collecting her from her doorstep for all the world as if they were teenagers going out on an innocent first date rather than a man and woman who had made passionate love together only a few hours before. The drive to the estate had taken little over twenty minutes in the small hotel buggy and all the way Jack had chatted easily about the island's history and entertained her with stories about the tradition-bound St Clair family's more eccentric members, who apparently included his grandfather. Gradually his casualness had the desired effect, and Elizabeth was able to push the vivid memory of her embarrassingly fierce response to his lovemaking aside in favour of the simple pleasure of enjoying his company.
Seeing the smooth, high concrete wall and barred iron gates that had to be opened by a guard before they could enter the tree-lined avenue to the flamboyant St Clair residence and the impressive alarm system, Elizabeth had come to the rueful conclusion that she would never have got into the place on her own. The only practical way in was the way she had come, by personal invitation.
If only her acceptance had been as innocent as the invitation. Glancing over the locked toughened-glass cases and spotting a rare fifteenth-century thirty-six-line Bible, of which she knew that there were only fifteen in existence—the latest having been auctioned at Christie's for 1.1 million pounds—Elizabeth felt faint with relief that something like that hadn’t been involved. No wonder the place was well protected and casual callers discouraged. She opened her bag and was reaching inside when someone spoke behind her.
‘I thought I might find you in here.'
'Jack!' She whirled around, snapping the bag closed, her hand pressed against her frantically beating heart. 'W—why did you think that?' she managed to ask lightly. He had told her that she was free to explore while he sought his grandfather's room to inform him of their presence.
'With your fascination for books, where else would you gravitate but towards the library?' he answered smoothly.
‘It's magnificent,' she murmured, bringing her ragged breathing under control. 'How's your grandfather?'
‘Isn’t it?' He ignored her question and waved a hand at the shelves. 'And all these have been acquired since the war. Most of Grandpère's original collection went up in smoke when the chateau was bombed. Some of these are bulk-lots bought from other collectors trying to make good their own war losses... or, more recently, their stock market ones. However, Grandpère knows that Jean-Jules and I don’t share his abiding passion for old books, so he's decided to sell off all except a core of his treasured favourites while he's still capable of doing it himself... only to carefully selected, personally approved buyers, of course.'
Elizabeth smiled involuntarily. 'He sounds just like my uncles...' She hesitated, wondering how much he knew.
In deference to his grandfather's old-fashioned ideas of proper dress, Jack was wearing a pale grey suit and tie, and yet he still looked coolly casual as he thrust one hand into his pockets and regarded her with a whimsical smile.
'Probably why they all got on so well. Over the past few months my grandfather has invited quite a number of prospective buyers here to express their interest in his collection. I didn’t realise until he recognised your name that your uncles had been among them. Why didn’t you tell me? I would have better understood your interest in the estate...'
Elizabeth's face pinkened. ‘I—I didn’t realise you were even related until yesterday and then, well... I didn’t want to presume on what was after all a very brief acquaintanceship,' she finished lamely.
He strolled over and took her hand, politely not commenting on the pounding pulse as he raised her wrist to his mouth. 'Are you talking about us or our elders? In future, feel free to presume, ma chère,' he murmured. 'My grandfather remembers your uncles well.'
'Oh, really?' Her pulse erupted even more furiously and she struggled to keep him at arm's length. Why 'well'? Because he suspected them of being ageing con men?
'Yes. They talked quite a bit about you. They're very proud of their clever niece, perhaps even a tiny bit intimidated by your managing ways.' He let her go and idly circled the room, forcing her to turn to keep him in her sight.
How she hated that word—intimidated. 'Someone has to be practical. Most of the time they exist in a world of their own,' she said stiffly.
‘I think I used the wrong word,' he murmured, alert to the flicker of pain that crossed her face. ‘I should have said they're a little in awe of you. They know without you to take charge their business would have gone to rack and ruin some time ago, but they also told my grandfather that they were worried that your devotion to them was jeopardising your chances of marrying and having a family of our own.'
Elizabeth looked at him, shocked. 'They've never said anything like that to me,' she said defensively.
Jack grinned. ‘I think they were well into Grandpère's fine stock of brandy at the time, and talk was fast and loose. I don’t doubt that Grandpère responded by bemoaning the fact that I haven’t yet done my duty and married a nice girl who will bear Hawkwood heirs and curtail my regrettable independence of spirit.'
'But surely your brother's children are the Hawkwood heirs...' Elizabeth was relieved that the conversation had moved off the subject of herself.
‘In the strict sense yes, although not as far as this place is concerned. This he intends to leave to us jointly, but
Jules and Marie-Clare—that's Jules wife—' with a little sidelong glance that mocked her puzzled ignorance '—prefer not to reside permanently in a "sub-tropical backwater". As you might guess, the distance in that marriage is not only in kilometres. I don’t approve, but neither can I condemn. Being the younger, I was never pressured to make a dynastic marriage. If our positions had been reversed—' he shrugged '—who knows?
Perhaps I too would have settled for a civilised "arrangement".'
‘I can’t quite see you "settling" for anything,' Elizabeth blurted, and he bowed teasingly.
‘I shall accept that as a compliment. To continue: therefore I will be the one to actually live here, as master of our joint inheritance...'
'You'll move out of the hotel? Live here, all by you
rself?' It was a strangely distasteful vision to think of him alone here, living in the solitary splendour. Even though Jack gave the impression of being sufficient unto himself he enjoyed himself so richly in his role of autocratic and gregarious hotelier that Elizabeth could not imagine him being happy with the kind of isolation that obviously suited his grandfather. He had too much energy, too intense an enjoyment of life to want to retreat from it, either physically or mentally.
He gave her a heavy-lidded smile. ‘I hope not entirely alone, chérie. Grandpère is only seventy-five. With reasonable care for his delicate health, I hope he will live a number of years yet. He is a fighter and he'll not let go of life easily. By that time—who is to say?—I may be deep in the blissful toils of domesticity, father to a brood of children who will fill these echoing halls with their life and laughter...'
It was an almost poetically beautiful vision. 'You want children?' Elizabeth asked.
‘I almost had one, once,' he said quietly, looking out of the window over the immaculately rolled lawn that sloped down to a perfect slice of beach. 'Zenobia was pregnant with my child when she was killed.'
'Oh, Jack. I'm so sorry.' She moved over to touch his straight back tentatively. The impulse to wrap herself around him and cry took her by surprise. Her own life crises seemed petty and unimportant in comparison with all that he had endured.
‘I would have loved the child,' he continued, without acknowledging her touch, 'whatever I had discovered the mother to be. I don’t subscribe to the theory of visiting the sins of the parents on their offspring.'
Or the sins of the uncles? Elizabeth was appalled at the callous opportunism of the thought that bubbled to the surface of her mind. If she confided in him now he would think that she was using his deeply personal grief for her own gain. And perhaps he would be right...
He turned and caught her in the midst of mental self-disgust.
'Don’t look so tragic, Eliza-Beth, I did my mourning long ago. Now I look to the future. And you, do you wish for the loving husband and children that your uncles are anxious that you are depriving yourself of?'
The wish that did rise instantly in her mind was so far beyond her reach that it was foolish in the extreme. Her eyes shuttered against the pain of it. 'Some day, I suppose...'
'Some day?' His tone mused on her feeble attempt at indifference. 'That is very vague from a woman who seems to pride herself on independence and decisiveness. Should I assume, therefore, that your experience of love was as bitter in its way as mine, and that it has made you wary of being hurt again?'
‘It wasn’t love,' she said jerkily, unable to stop the words of denial bubbling out. ‘I was very young— nineteen. I only thought I was in love but it was an infatuation. A physical infatuation,' she stressed with a pointed look in his direction.
'So it was your first affair. And he was a hot-blooded young student?'
'No, as matter of fact he was in his late thirties... one of my professors...'
'Ah, a father-figure.' He nodded gravely.
'Definitely not. He was very good-looking, very sexy,' she snapped. 'A good lover?'
She blushed and frowned at his boldness. ‘It was a long time ago.'
He smiled wickedly. 'Not a memorable one, then—I have no need to worry that you're making unflattering comparisons. Was he a modern Casanova, cutting a swath through his students and ducking any threat of commitment?'
From the perspective of maturity she could laugh. Strangely enough, it no longer hurt to remember. 'No, definitely not a Casanova...he wanted commitment but with someone less—er—physically exuberant...'
Realisation kindled in the silver eyes. They glowed with a savage condemnation—but not of her.
'Ah....now I see... So he was the one responsible for this excruciating self-consciousness about your body. You were too much a woman, even as a girl, for him to handle. So to salve his wounded ego he made you feel uncomfortable with your sexuality, made you doubt the honesty of your emotions? And you believed this?'
She stirred uneasily. He made it all sound so simple, but it wasn’t. ‘I was rather embarrassingly intense at that age—'
'But surely your other lovers—'
'Not everyone bounces from bed to bed as light-heartedly as you do!' she cut him off furiously.
There was a tiny silence as he digested the implications of her remark. Then, 'Light-hearted? Now you use the wrong word, I think. Jealous, chérie?'
She glared at him. 'Yes.'
For a moment he was taken aback by her reckless honesty. Then his shock melted into a creamy satisfaction. 'You have no need to be. I'm not my brother. I enjoy sex but I have never been indiscriminate, and pain and betrayal evidently have an extremely depressive effect on my libido because last night was my first with a woman for a long time...'
He took a step towards her and Elizabeth backed away, so he stopped. ‘I don’t want to talk about last night,' she choked.
‘I rather gathered that,' he murmured wryly, referring to the aloofness with which she had greeted him that morning. 'But some time soon we must settle this thing between us. Just let me say this: I am very proud to be your lover. I have never in my life so thoroughly enjoyed making love to a woman as much as I did last night, with you.
'Now...' He strode briskly to the door, as if he hadn’t just pierced her heart with the most graceful and erotic compliment she had ever received. Even if it wasn’t true, he made her believe that he believed it so...
'Why don’t I show you around some of the upstairs galleries?' he continued. ‘If you're interested in French Impressionists we have quite an array—'
‘I haven’t had a chance to really look around here yet...' Elizabeth faltered, hanging back.
He held the door open, giving her a hard stare that transferred itself around the room. 'What is it you want to see?'
'Nothing special,' she said, joining him hurriedly. ‘I just thought I'd browse. Perhaps I can come back by myself while you're having lunch, now that I know the way...'
'We're having lunch on the north terrace after I've shown you upstairs and then, if you've brought your suit as I suggested, we can have a swim...'
'Are—am I joining you and your grandfather for lunch, then?' Elizabeth murmured faintly, as he ushered her away from the library's myriad temptations. 'How is he? You didn’t say...'
'Didn’t I? Not well, I'm afraid. He won’t be able to lunch with me after all.'
'Oh, I'm sorry. I hope he'll be all right,' said Elizabeth anxiously, her concern more for the man striding up the stairs beside her than for her own dilemma. Every time he mentioned his grandfather it was with a respect that was touchingly reverent in such a tough, cynical man.
He explained why during their leisurely lunch on the terrace overlooking the sea, having taken an almost boyish delight in impressing her with the breathtaking splendour of his home.
Alain St Clair had been a member of the French Resistance and had been captured and tortured by the Gestapo. Although there had been no outward scarring, the long-term effects had been debilitating, his weakened heart curtailing the drive and determination with which he had reconstructed his heritage. His young son having died in a concentration camp along with his mother, Alain had pinned his hopes for a new dynasty on his only son-in-law, Jack's father, who had proved not only a supremely successful businessman, but also a successful breeder of sons. Jack freely admitted that he was glad to be the second son. Although as a youth he had been somewhat jealous of the attention showered on Jean-Jules, as an adult he had deeply appreciated the freedom to forge his own life.
At the information that his grandfather had a weak heart Elizabeth's own sank miserably, weighed down by the guilty millstone around her neck. No wonder Jack was so protective. Even if she did manage to escape his vigilant attention long enough to see Alain St Clair alone, what if the shock was too great for the old man's frail constitution?
She pushed away a delicious concoction of tropical f
ruits chilled in liqueur that an unobtrusive servant had placed in front of her and picked up her cup of coffee, staring into its black and bitter depths.
What was she to do?
She knew what she should do.
Tell him. Trust him. Take the risk that Jack's sense of fairness would override his fury and disgust. Hope that he had meant what he said about last night, and that the memory would soften any thoughts of punishment or revenge. Surely by now he must know her well enough to realise that she was innocent of malicious intent.
How? She had lied to him, actively and by omission, again and again.
The only time she had told him the truth was when she had run out of lies to serve her purpose. And she had seduced him. Deliberately. And pretended to herself that it was in the line of duty. Another lie. She had fallen in love with him, but he wouldn’t believe that either. Not now.
He had been betrayed once before by a woman who had been his lover.
But he had loved her. Perhaps he would be more lenient on a woman he could only have intended having a brief affair with...
She touched her throat, as if the precious metal there was a talisman against the wrath of its owner. 'Jack—'
'You're not on the contraceptive pill for medical reasons, are you, chérie?'
She stared across the table at him, wide-eyed with shock, her coffee-cup clattering in its saucer.
‘I merely ask because lovers should be frank about such things,' he said calmly, biting into a piece of juicy gold pineapple. 'You have been celibate for some years, therefore I presume you haven’t needed to take any precautions about having your "some day" family arrive unexpectedly soon.'
Elizabeth sucked in a ragged breath as the true recklessness of her behaviour the previous night hit her between the eyes. Everything blurred but the dark face with its unexpectedly gentle expression.
‘I don’t—I wouldn’t—I didn’t—'
'Fortunately I did,' he interrupted kindly, selecting another segment of fruit. 'What?'