by Penny Jordan
Charles was looking at her. She was aware of his scrutiny without looking at him, just as she was aware of the pouting resentment of his companion.
Their relationship was already in its final stages; Charles was growing bored and impatient. He had almost cancelled today’s lunch; now, as he looked speculatively across at the single table where Silver sat, he was glad he hadn’t.
It was unusual to see such an outstandingly beautiful woman dining alone. She intrigued him.
Silver, well aware of Charles’s interest, summoned a waiter and asked for a telephone to be brought to her table. She was not going to make it difficult for Charles to make contact with her. Why should she, when that was exactly what she wanted? But the lessons Jake had taught her had gone home. Subtlety was the key word here… the all-important word.
A waiter brought the telephone. She quickly dialled the number of her own apartment, and spoke to the answering machine as though holding a conversation, giving both her name and room number and allowing it to be made plain through her one-sided conversation that she was a woman of considerable wealth. Nothing obvious… just a small, delicate hint.
She knew Charles was listening. When the waiter removed the telephone she thanked him, her manner shaded to remain on the right side of slipping into flirtatiousness. One did not flirt with waiters, but one could, and did, massage their egos just sufficiently for one to obtain first-class service. No male was ever above responding to flattery.
Well, almost none. Against her will she remembered Jake. She doubted that he had ever responded to flattery in his life. She frowned, annoyed that she should have so suddenly and unnecessarily thought of him, and that her breasts should have inexplicably hardened, pulsing against the soft silk of her camisole as though seeking a more rough, male embrace.
Deliberately she turned her mind away from him, and with a practised motion, that she knew quite well looked artlessly natural and impulsive, she raised her hands and removed her hat so that her hair cascaded down on to her shoulders.
There were several audible gasps, more than one of them outraged. She hid her amusement. It was a shocking piece of play-acting, the sort of thing no well-brought-up English girl would ever do; and the women sitting at the other tables were, in the main, well-brought-up English girls.
She placed the hat on an adjacent chair and flicked back her hair in a gesture which she knew was deliberately preening. A man sitting several tables away caught her eye admiringly. She lowered her lashes and gave him a soft half-smile.
She wasn’t Geraldine Frances any more. She was Silver, all soft smiles and teasing promises. A woman married young to an old, old man… a woman who was in a hurry to catch up on all that she had missed; a woman wealthy enough to be indiscreet and forgiven for it if she so chose; a woman freed from the conventions of the society she was about to enter by her ‘foreign-ness’. She had it all well thought out and planned.
The worst was now behind her, and the game could really begin.
Some late lunchers arrived, and she tensed instinctively, recognising a couple who had been close friends of her father. The man trained racehorses and ran a large stud out at Newmarket.
When he turned to look at her, she stiffened, her heartbeat suddenly accelerating until she realised that the look he was giving her held no recognition at all, and was simply the look of a man for a beautiful woman.
With a relief came a heavy sense of euphoria. She almost wanted to laugh out loud. She could even almost imagine Jake’s acerbic response to her tension and then its relief.
She frowned. What was the matter with her? Why was she thinking about Jake? He no longer existed for her… had never really existed other than as a means to an end. Those odd moments when she had felt so in tune with him that she had half believed he could actually read her thoughts were something she ought to have forgotten by now.
But she couldn’t forget, just as she couldn’t forget how it had felt to…
Stop it… stop it! She dragged at her runaway thoughts in fierce panic, not wanting to go where they were wanting to lead.
Her euphoria had vanished and in its place was a feeling of melancholy tinged with an emotion which she reluctantly recognised as loneliness.
She banished them both.
She had far more important things to think about, like Charles, for instance.
All through lunch she was conscious of the way he was watching her, almost blatantly willing her to return his regard.
But she didn’t… she was too skilled for that. Instead she ate her lunch as coolly and unselfconsciously as if she were the only diner in the room.
Only as she left the table did she allow herself to be obvious in leaving behind her on the spare chair the small, exclusive carrier bag imprinted with the name of one of London’s premier jewellers.
Inside it was a box containing the earrings she had specifically bought herself for this exact purpose… Expensive little trinkets of fashionable nothingness.
Charles’s eyes gleamed when he saw the small parcel. Intercepting the waiter, he picked it up, assuring the other that he knew Silver and that he would return it to her.
His companion was furious.
‘Can’t you see she left it deliberately?’ she demanded scornfully, and Charles, vulnerable always through his vanity, smirked tauntingly and retorted,
‘Can’t you see, my dear, that you are being extremely boring?’
During the ensuing altercation he was callously amused to hear her claiming that she loved him… Love had never had any role in their relationship, and she was deceiving herself if she thought she meant anything more to him than a good lay.
Once she had gone he didn’t immediately go up to Silver’s room. Instead he went to the foyer to use the phone to book a table for two for dinner at a small, intimate restaurant he favoured.
Upstairs in her room Silver wondered if Charles had taken the bait. If he hadn’t, there would be other opportunities… He was interested in her; curious about her. She frowned as she caught sight of a small gift-wrapped box on the table. The wrapping paper was silver foil and the ribbon that wrapped it the same glittering metallic colour.
A frisson of sensation raced down her spine. She stared at the box, unwilling to touch it without knowing what had caused her fear.
Where had it come from? How had it appeared in her room? No one knew she was here… apart from Annie, who had insisted on having details of her London addresses because, as she had said firmly to her, if anything should happen to her, however unlikely such an accident might be, she was still very much her patient and her records would be essential. The only other people who had her London addresses were her lawyers.
Shrugging aside the prickly sensation that made her feel almost as though there was someone in the room beside her, she reached out for the box.
The metallic wrapping glittered in the late afternoon sun. The package, although small, felt surprisingly heavy, the wrapping paper warm to her touch, almost like touching someone’s skin.
She shuddered finely, tiny waves of sensation pulsing through her, the temptation to simply throw the thing away almost overpowering. She refused to give in to it, unwrapping it quickly.
There was a box inside; a small, perfectly anonymous box, which opened to reveal a small phial of perfume.
She stared at it for a moment, on the verge of relieved hysteria. It was obviously nothing more than some kind of publicity hype. Probably every bedroom in the hotel had received one of these packages. It was only her own emotions and tensions that made her believe that the silver wrapping paper had been chosen with deliberate intent… that it held a message that was meant solely for her.
She was just about to drop the phial into the waste-paper bin when she saw the small card inside the box.
She stared at it, transfixed. The writing was sharp and clear, and the message read, quite simply, ‘This, I think, will become you better.’
She couldn’t look away from the harsh
initial, the sharp lines of the boldly drawn ‘J’, her hands trembling so wildly that she had to grip them together.
Jake had sent her this… Jake had known she was here… Jake had reached out into this new part of her life which should have contained nothing of him in it, and was in some subtle way threatening her.
Why was he doing this? What was he trying to tell her? That he knew where she was and who she was… oh, yes… undoubtedly that, she thought bitterly. But why? Blackmail? It seemed the most logical solution, yet instinctively she dismissed it, knowing that it didn’t fit in with what she knew of the man.
Then why? To remind her… to torment her… or simply to warn her? She shivered a little and, without knowing what she did, broke the seal on the small bottle.
The perfume was rich and subtle, sharp and yet delicately erotic. She suspected that it had been specially blended. Why had he gone to such trouble? She replaced the stopper with hands that still trembled. If she had any sense at all, she would pour the damn stuff away. She got up to do so, then stopped.
She had worn Charles’s tuberose for Jake. Perhaps she would wear Jake’s perfume for Charles. The thought pleased her, freeing her in some way from the subtle domination Jake seemed to have established over her, making her stronger than either of them.
She wondered if there was any point in trying to discover how the perfume had arrived in her room, and then dismissed the notion.
The harm was done; trying to discover how it had been done would probably only multiply its aggravation.
Jake could not betray her without revealing his own part in her metamorphosis, and Jake had reasons of his own for wanting to keep a low profile.
She frowned as she studied the perfume. Had he put it here in her room himself? Her spine tingled with an odd, unfamiliar sensation… she looked round the room, trying not to imagine him in it, moving with that sure, catlike tread she had come to know so well… A blind man… he couldn’t have done… he must have sent it via someone else. But the packaging, that had been chosen by him… which meant, surely, that he must be in London.
Why? Had he decided that the money she had paid him had not been enough? Had he discovered who she was… did he think he could get more money out of her… or was he simply playing some complex nerve-racking game of his own? And if so, for what purpose?
He had warned her against pursuing her vendetta against Charles, but if this perfume was meant to frighten her into dropping her plans… into making her think…
Think what? she demanded mentally, exasperated with herself. Think that Jake knew her far better than she had guessed? His choice of perfume had shown that… And she suspected he must have known how much its unheralded appearance in her room would disturb her.
What if he had followed her to London deliberately? Silver’s heart started thumping with an emotion that wasn’t entirely anger. She suppressed it immediately, wheeling round, impatient with herself.
Whatever game Jake was playing, she wanted no part in it. If he tried to get in touch with her she would make it plain to him that she had paid him every penny he was going to get out of her. If he threatened to betray her to Charles… But how could he? He had no idea who she really was… No one knew, other than a very, very small number of people, and each one of those would keep her secret. But what if he did know…? He couldn’t know, she reassured herself. It was impossible.
She picked up the perfume, ready to throw it in the waste-paper bin, and then hesitated.
Whatever his motive in sending it to her, there was no doubt about it: the perfume might have been made exclusively for her, a gift from a man who knew her so intimately that he could unerringly choose a scent for her that immediately flowered on her skin as though she herself had produced it.
Downstairs in the foyer, his arrangements completed, Charles straightened his tie and headed for the lift.
Unlike Silver, he could not see the evidence of deterioration in his face and body. Always vain, always self-confident, always supremely conscious of his good looks, he had never thought that there might come a time when, through abuse, those good looks might desert him.
He never touched the drugs he supplied so generously to others, but there were other addictions; he drank heavily, seldom exercised other than in bed, and over the years there had been one or two minor inconveniences healthwise caused by his predilection for enjoying a wide variety of sexual partners.
Silver opened the door to his knock. She had changed out of her Chanel suit and into a sleek, body-shaping, contoured jersey outfit in soft cream.
She saw the way Charles’s eyes went first to her breasts and then to the rest of her body. She didn’t invite him in, but the smile she gave him was not the coldly discouraging one she had previously favoured.
He proffered the small parcel and introduced himself, giving her the smile he already knew worked to excellent effect.
‘You left this in the dining-room…’
She managed an effective start of surprise, thanking him and apologising to him for putting him to the trouble of returning it personally.
His smile matched her own, both smiles saying that they were expert in a very enjoyable game.
‘I was thinking of your husband’s bank balance,’ Charles told her suavely, looking at her rings.
Silver picked up the cue.
‘Thoughtful of you, but unnecessary; my husband is dead,’ she told him openly. ‘That’s why I came to London. I love this country so much and I thought being here would help me overcome my sorrow at becoming a widow… No matter how much money one has, there is always loneliness when one is left alone…’
‘A woman as beautiful as you should never be allowed to be lonely. Have dinner with me tonight…’
He was so supremely confident… so sure of himself… so sure of her…
‘It’s very kind of you,’ she told him softly. ‘But I’m afraid I have an engagement for tonight. The reception given by the American Ambassador… some friends have been kind enough to include me in their invitation.’
Now she was testing him, wondering how interested he was… interested enough to find a way of attending a reception she knew full well he had not been invited to…? She would see… if he did not put in an appearance—well, there were other ways of picking up the acquaintanceship now that it was begun. She was over the first hurdle.
Charles was angry; he wasn’t used to having his invitations refused. Women, at least the women he chose, were normally only too flattered and delighted to go out with him.
As he walked out of Blake’s he was telling himself that he wasn’t really that interested in her, but before the end of the day he was calling in favours, trying to find a way to ensure that he would be present at the Ambassador’s reception.
He had discovered certain interesting facts about Silver.
He already knew that she was an extremely beautiful woman; now he knew she was a very wealthy one as well.
Wealthy… beautiful… and with no father controlling the purse-strings. Never far away from Charles’s mind was the knowledge that he needed an heir… a son… a guarantee for the future, that he would not see Rothwell slip away from him as it had slipped away from James.
Only after she was sure that Charles had gone did Silver allow herself to relax. She was physically trembling as she sat down.
For the first time since her faked death she had been face to face with her cousin, with the man she had loved so desperately and so intensely, and only now could she acknowledge the fear that had stalked her all through the months she had been planning and waiting.
She had dreaded confronting Charles and discovering that she still loved him, and even while she had dreaded it half of her had been psyched up, almost high on the anticipation of seeing him again, remembering the powerful mingling of longing and excitement each meeting with him had once brought.
That feeling had almost been like a drug, and she had half feared she might experience it again, that she mig
ht, against all logic and common sense, discover that, while she hated Charles with her mind and that part of her heart that loved her father, she still desired him, still ached for him with that part of her that was still Geraldine Frances.
Only she hadn’t… She had looked at him in the dining-room and seen only a petulant, immature man whose good looks were becoming tarnished by self-indulgence and conceit. She had felt no familiar upsurge of panicky excitement and desire, no melting aching, yearning to reach out and touch… no compulsion to beg and plead…
All that had remained of the feelings she had once known were the deep-rooted anger and bitterness she still felt at knowing that Charles was responsible for her father’s death… That he had killed her father and was still walking free.
Even the hatred and agony of pain she had experienced on discovering how much he had betrayed her was gone. She had looked at him and seen, not a man she had once ached for, had once loved beyond everything else, but a man whose weaknesses and vices were stamped so clearly on his face that she could only marvel that she had never seen them before.
What a fool she had been… idolising him… And in doing so, she had unwittingly been partially responsible for her father’s death.
She stood up, trying to control the physical reaction of her own flesh to what she was thinking and feeling.
All these months she had been haunted by the fear that once she saw Charles, once she looked at him, all that she had learned, all that she had become would be forgotten in a familiar surge of love and pain… that she would be unable to stop herself reaching out to him, begging him…
Instead, all she had felt had been contempt and a mild physical revulsion. Looking at him, listening to his heavy-handed gallantry, observing the way his glance slid eagerly over her body, she had found it easy to hold herself aloof… but not easy to stop her mind from drawing sharp and dangerous contrasts between the man she had once wanted above all others as her lover, and the man who had finally, clinically and factually, taken on that role.