by Penny Jordan
His mouth on hers was moist and hot, his hands hard through the protective barrier of her clothes.
‘Not yet,’ he told her thickly as his hand found her breast. His body moved against her, aroused and insistent. Fear and disgust formed a twin spear that pierced her self-control. She shook, and was amazed that he couldn’t tell the difference between desire and distaste.
The door opened and the butler came in. Charles released her, cursing under his breath.
‘Cook wanted to have a word with you about the arrangements for tonight…’
Discreetly Silver turned her back on them and walked over to the window.
‘Oh, and there was a call for you… A Helen Cartwright…’
Silver waited until the butler had gone before saying lightly, ‘Helen Cartwright—isn’t that the photographer who was at the reception the other night?’
She wondered if Charles would deny knowing her again or pick up on the fact that she knew the woman’s name, and met his wary look with an open smile.
‘Yes,’ he agreed tersely. ‘She’s been pestering me to let her photograph Rothwell for one of her rags… To get her off my back I’ve invited her here tonight…’
Silver allowed her eyebrows to lift slightly. ‘That’s very generous of you.’
He seemed not to hear the irony in her voice. ‘She’s been hounding me for weeks and it seemed a good way to get rid of her.’
‘Who else is coming to dinner?’ she asked him. ‘Anyone I’m likely to know?’
He mentioned several names, some of them familiar to her. Charles appeared to have no really close friends, but instead a large circle of acquaintances.
The small scar on her lip throbbed from the roughness of his kiss.
‘I’d better go,’ he told her. ‘But I won’t be long.’ He raised her hand to his mouth, making her skin crawl.
‘I shall enjoy making love to you for the first time, here at Rothwell. The master bedroom has a wonderful Gothic ceiling…’
Her stomach twisted, resisting her control. She pulled away from him and walked over to the window.
‘What a pity your grounds are so neglected…’ She was gabbling, saying the first thing that came into her head, and inadvertently she had angered him.
‘It isn’t my fault,’ he told her bitterly. ‘My damned cousin…’
‘Your cousin?’ She turned towards him, wondering what he would say or do if she revealed herself to him now, but Charles hated discussing the fact that until Geraldine Frances was officially declared dead he could not legally call himself Rothwell’s master, nor its earl, and he changed the subject hastily, drawing her attention to the gaps in the avenue of limes, telling her about the damage caused by the storm.
The first of Charles’s guests arrived while he was conducting her through the portrait gallery.
The butler came to inform him of their arrival, and, following Charles back downstairs, Silver let out a shaky sigh of relief. Tonight she and Charles would be lovers, nothing was going to stop that. It was an inescapable fact… If she failed her father now…
Charles had invited ten other couples for dinner; when he entertained at Rothwell it was always people whom he had selected carefully. None of them ever included any of those members of society to whom he was supplying drugs; in the main they were older, sophisticated couples with cosmopolitan backgrounds, wealthy and reasonably respectable; guests who helped to preserve the illusion that he was a fitting successor to Rothwell.
Silver was talking with a group of them when the last pair arrived.
She saw them walk in through the double doors which had been designed by Robert Adam and which were as flawlessly impressive now as they had been the day they were installed.
The shock of seeing Jake framed in those doors drove everything else from her mind, even the fact that he was with another woman.
Fiercely, for one second, she hated him. He had followed her here… he was tormenting her… persecuting her… And then she focused on his companion and a dark, searing tide of emotion engulfed her, so intense and unsuspected that it took her breath away.
She was jealous, she acknowledged painfully, jealous of the fact that someone else was with Jake. Jealous… but how could that be? Jake meant nothing to her…
She saw Charles break away from his companions and walk to greet the newcomers.
And as she tried desperately to focus on something and hide the shock seeing Jake had given her, she realised that Jake’s companion was Helen Cartwright.
Jake and Helen Cartwright… She frowned, not knowing why the sight of them together should disturb her so much. She had no right to feel jealous… no reason, either…
Watching him, half of her marvelled at the ease with which he moved, the confidence that allowed him to treat his blindness as though it didn’t exist.
Helen Cartwright was not so confident, though; she was fussing round him, drawing first Charles and then everyone else’s attention to his infirmity.
Knowing how much Jake would hate that, Silver waited for him to react. When he didn’t, the ache inside her body intensified. How long had he known Helen Cartwright? Why hadn’t he said anything about knowing her when she had mentioned her? But why should he… why should he tell her anything about his private life… his private thoughts?
Dinner was the worst kind of ordeal, a nightmare of shrill voices, of forcing herself to concentrate on Charles, on the others, when all the time her mind had only one focus. And Jake hadn’t even spoken to her… But he must know she was there.
She was wearing his perfume and she wished violently and bitterly that she were not. Out of all the regrets she had in her life, she resented it deeply that her sharpest regret should be that he was here tonight to witness her ordeal.
After dinner the guests circulated, while Charles kept her by his side, one arm locked possessively around her waist. When he could, he touched her intimately and whispered to her that he couldn’t wait for them to be alone.
She only escaped him when Helen Cartwright demanded an escorted tour of the house.
Free of him, she wandered into the library. This room had been so much a part of her father… If she sat here in his chair and closed her eyes she could almost imagine…
The touch of hands on her shoulders made her freeze and wrench herself away, unable to stop the denial bursting from her lips as she demanded rawly, ‘Charles, please don’t touch me.’
‘I’m not Charles.’
She opened her eyes and whirled round. Jake was standing behind her.
‘What are you doing in here?’ she demanded huskily.
‘I followed you.’
‘Liar. How could you follow me? You can’t…’
‘See you…’ he said mirthlessly. ‘Maybe not, but I can smell you, my dear; you’re wearing my scent…’
His scent… My God, if only he knew… She lay in bed at night, tormented by the pervasive muskiness that seemed to linger on her own skin… a scent that belonged to him alone and which seemed to have infiltrated her body and her bed, no matter what she did to try and rid herself of them.
‘What are you doing here at Rothwell?’ she demanded fiercely. ‘If you’re following me…’
‘It wasn’t you that brought me to Rothwell, Silver.’
She couldn’t hide her shock and confusion from him.
‘But—–’
‘I came with Helen Cartwright, as her—partner…’ He felt the shock jolt through her, and added smoothly, ‘At the dinner table, and not in bed…’
‘Helen Cartwright.’ Silver swallowed, hating herself for the relief she felt at discovering that Jake and Helen were not lovers. ‘I didn’t realise you knew her…’
‘I didn’t until quite recently, but it seems we have some mutual acquaintances.’ Silver heard the irony in his voice, but couldn’t understand the reason for it. ‘We were both invited to the same party… we got talking… she mentioned that she was coming here, and asked me if I’d like to
accompany her.’
There was something about his expression that jarred, something that rang warning bells in her mind, but she dismissed the feeling as irrational jealousy. She had no rights over Jake, if he wanted to be with someone else!
Jake, who could feel the emotions emanating from her, wondered how she would react if he told her the truth: that he suspected Helen Cartwright had deliberately fostered an acquaintance with him not because of any desire for him as a man, but for a different reason altogether.
He had never deceived himself. He had always known that the organisation would quickly discover his presence in London and the reason for it. Charles was involved with them—he knew it—and Helen Cartwright? He knew that he was probably placing himself in danger, but if that was the only way he was going to get closer to discovering Beth’s murderer, then it was a risk he had to take.
Now, when he needed every ounce of self-control he possessed, finding Silver here at Rothwell was a complication he could do without.
Sensing that his thoughts were on something else, Silver bit her lip in vexation, and then made a small sound of pain as her teeth broke the skin Charles had savaged.
‘What is it… what’s wrong?’
He was too quick… too clever…
She winced and tried to jerk back as his hands framed her face, his thumb tracing her lips, finding the bruised flesh.
‘You’re playing with fire,’ he warned her. ‘Do you really know the kind of pleasures your cousin likes from his lovers?’
His words were savage… angry… beating down on her like blows.
‘Let me go…’
She tried to twist free of him, but he wouldn’t let her escape.
‘I don’t tell you how to run your life…’
‘You little fool,’ he told her mercilessly, ignoring her demand. ‘Do you really think you’re going to be able to go through with it? Is your pride really so important to you that you’ll sacrifice yourself… your feelings… your body…?’
‘It isn’t for me…’ Silver cried out despairingly, and then tensed, but it was too late.
‘No… then who is it for?’
It was too late now to lie to him. She could sense the purposefulness in him… the determination… the danger…
‘My father—it’s for my father…’
Unconsciously she had balled her hands into small fists as she made the tormented admission, and now she beat them against Jake’s chest, as though she were drumming the words into him.
‘Charles killed my father… I know he did… and I have to punish him for it… I have to.’
He caught hold of her hands and bound them easily behind her back, holding on to her when she struggled impotently against his imprisonment.
‘Stop it,’ he ordered pithily. ‘What do you mean, he killed your father?’
She sagged in his hold, all the fight draining out of her. Until this moment she had not known how much she ached to share the burden of her knowledge with someone else.
‘My father realized that Charles was involved with drugs… He… he told one of his agents to find out all he could about what Charles was doing. Charles discovered somehow or other that my father knew and that he would tell me. He killed him somehow while they were hunting. An accident, they said, but my father was a first-class rider… I know it wasn’t an accident… I know that Charles killed him…’
She turned her head away from him and said in a low voice, ‘I know that he destroyed my father, and he would have destroyed me too if I’d married him. And then he would have had Rothwell, just as he’d always wanted.’
There was silence and then Jake said emotionlessly, ‘So it isn’t because you still love him that you are pursuing this vendetta against him.’
‘Love him?’ She laughed wildly. ‘Oh, God… I don’t love him… I loathe him.’ She gave a deep shudder. ‘If it weren’t for my father, do you think I’d be here like this… with him?’ She was beyond caring what she gave away now, driven by pain and fear into the trap of giving way to the relief of sharing her anguish with someone else.
She turned back to him and said huskily, ‘I have to do it… you of all people must understand that. For the sake of my father… for the sake of Rothwell…’
‘You don’t have to go to bed with him to avenge your father.’
The words echoed hollowly through her.
Suddenly she felt light and empty, oddly dizzy… weightless and floating… She stared bemusedly up at him. His face seemed to be carved out of stone, all angles and planes, shadows on it she had not noticed before. She lifted her hand to touch the hard line of his lips and then let it drop as though she had been burned.
What was it about this man that bemused her so much… that destroyed her determination and her will-power?
She didn’t have to go to bed with Charles… The words seemed to reverberate through her. It was as though a huge weight had been lifted from her. Dimly she recognised the truth of what Jake was saying, and with it she recognised something else. Her determination to make herself suffer the ordeal of giving herself to Charles had been somehow connected with her own deep feeling of guilt over her father’s death. It was as though she wanted to punish, not just Charles, but herself as well…
Confused and uncertain, she looked up at Jake, but he wasn’t looking at her. He was frowning, his head turned towards the study door.
‘They’re coming back,’ he told her abruptly, releasing her and stepping away from her so that when the door opened and Charles and Helen Cartwright came in they were standing yards apart.
Even so, Charles frowned suspiciously, while Helen Cartwright walked over to Jake and slipped her arm through his, saying chidingly, ‘Jake, darling, how in the world did you find your way here? You really must be careful, you know. I’d hate anything to happen to you.’
Didn’t she realise that Jake was a man and not a child? Silver wondered fiercely, stunned by Jake’s acceptance of her chiding, fussing words.
‘Silver… what on earth…?’
Charles was coming towards her. She looked at him and couldn’t repress the shudder of distaste that convulsed her.
‘I’m sorry, Charles,’ she heard herself saying, her mind suddenly made up. ‘But I’m afraid I can’t stay after all; I must get back to London. I’ll arrange for a taxi to pick me up, unless one of your other guests can give me a lift.’ And without giving him the opportunity to argue with her she walked out of the room.
She didn’t need to go to bed with Charles… Jake was right, she didn’t need to. It was enough that she could simply reveal herself as who she really was. It was enough that she could deny him Rothwell. The rest… the rest was unimportant. To her father Rothwell and all that it stood for had mattered more than anything else. Rothwell was her sacred trust from him, and she had so nearly forgotten that in her desire to hurt Charles as he had hurt her. Charles was unimportant… that was what her father would have said. It was Rothwell that mattered. For too long she had allowed Rothwell to suffer at Charles’s hands… it was time that Geraldine Frances came back to life and claimed what was rightfully her own.
From across the room she saw Charles watching her with baffled, angry eyes.
When he tried to persuade her to stay she refused to listen to him. All she wanted to do was to escape… from Rothwell, from Charles… and most of all from Jake and the way that seeing him with Helen Cartwright made her feel. She needed to be alone. To think… to plan…
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
IT TOOK Silver less than twenty-four hours to co-ordinate all the formalities that would enable her to reveal herself to the world as the person she really was, to be able to revert to her real identity as Geraldine Frances.
She intended to confront Charles with the information first. She wondered how he would react. With disbelief… with anger? Odd how she no longer really cared what his reaction was.
Resuming her own identity was simply something she had to do to protect Rothwe
ll. Emotionally she felt nothing for Charles as a man; he was still her father’s killer and she still had to make him pay for that killing, but the deep-seated need to make him suffer as she herself had once suffered had gone, burned away perhaps by its own intensity, even though she herself hadn’t been able to see that until Jake…
Jake… She moved impatiently, angered by his possession of so many of her thoughts.
Without knowing why, she was anxious about him, a nagging, annoying feeling that wouldn’t go away and which had nothing to do with the very different ache she experienced when she thought about how easily he had let her walk away from Rothwell, without making any attempt to get in touch with her.
What had she expected him to do? Follow her? Perhaps it was not what she had expected him to do, but she had to admit that it would have been wonderful to have him at her side as she left Charles.
No, this ache was not caused so much by the fact that she wanted him and missed him as by anxiety for him; it was a deep-rooted, instinctive feminine ache she could neither analyse nor dismiss.
Where was he? What was he doing? Who was he with? Helen Cartwright?
Suddenly she wanted to be free of the past… of her obligations to it; she wanted to confront Charles with the truth to see justice done to her father’s memory, so that she would be free to… to what? Run after Jake? She swallowed a mirthless laugh. Was she never going to learn… to break the pattern of loving hopelessly and impossibly?
Jake, Jake, Jake; he was all she could think of when by rights she ought to be thinking of Charles, concentrating on what she was going to tell him.
Irritated with herself, she picked up the telephone, and dialled the number of the Rothwell Square house. It was in the back of her mind that somehow or other she might be able to discover from Charles where Jake was. She was presuming that he had left the party with Helen Cartwright, and Helen Cartwright, if not precisely a friend of Charles’s, was someone he knew. Inwardly she mocked herself for her own folly… for the lengths to which she was prepared to go. Stronger even than her need to confront Charles with the truth was her need to be with Jake… That was at least half the reason why she was telephoning Charles.