The Devil's Pawn

by Yvonne Whittal

  Cara thrust him forcibly from her mind and concentrated on the pile of books in front of her. She sorted them carefully and stacked them in the shelf, but some minutes later she had a curious sensation that someone was watching her.

  'John!' she exclaimed in delight and surprise when she turned her head and found herself looking down into John Curtis' lean face. His dark brown hair lay in its usual unruly fashion across his forehead, but his green eyes lacked that sparkling warmth she was accustomed to.

  'Was that Vince Steiner I saw leaving the building a few minutes ago?' he questioned her in his smooth, pleasant voice when she had climbed down the ladder to plant a friendly, welcoming kiss on his cheek, and she realised at once the reason for his disturbed, almost stern expression.

  'Yes, it was,' she answered quietly, and she was tense suddenly in the company of this man with whom she had never had reason to be anything but herself.

  'It's true, then?' He thrust his hands into his pockets, hunching his lanky body, and peering intently down into her eyes. 'You're married to him?'

  News had a way of travelling fast in Murrayville, she realised cynically, and she steeled herself for what was to follow. 'Yes, it's true.'

  John's wide mouth was drawn into a thin, angry line. 'Don't tell me he swept you off your feet in a whirlwind romance, Cara, because I refuse to believe that.'

  She winced inwardly at the bitterness in his voice. Had Vince been correct in his assumption that John felt more for her than simply friendship? Cara shut her mind hastily to this disquieting thought. John, I…'

  'Have you been forced into this marriage?' he demanded when words failed her, and it required a strenuous effort from her to adopt an outraged expression.

  'No, of course not!'

  'Look at me, Cara.' Slender-fingered hands gripped her shoulders and forced her to face him when she would have turned away, and the determined set of his jaw filled her with alarm. 'I happen to know there has been some deal on the go between Steiner and your father these past eighteen months. Does Steiner have some sort of hold on your father? Did he use it to blackmail you into marrying him?'

  He had hit on the truth so accurately that she was momentarily speechless. How did John know of her father's dealings with Vince, when she, who had lived in the same house with her father, had had no idea of what was going on?

  'My decision to marry Vince was a personal one.' There was some truth in that, she consoled herself, but to elaborate would prove her statement a lie.

  'You're not in love with him. Don't expect me to believe that, Cara.'

  It hurt to see the pain in his eyes, and she lowered her gaze to the knot in his striped tie. 'John, dear, I can't talk to you now, and I'm really very busy.'

  His hands fell away from her, and his shoulders seemed to sag beneath the cut of his jacket. They had always been completely truthful with each other; that was what had strengthened their friendship, and having to lie to him made Cara feel like a traitor.

  'You don't want to answer my questions for some reason,' he accused darkly. 'You're trying to fob me off with subterfuge.'

  'She's trying to tell you to mind your own business,' Vince's harsh voice sliced into the awkward silence unexpectedly, and both John and Cara spun round to face him.

  Anxiety and tension clutched with vice-like fingers at Cara's chest and throat when she studied the two men who stood facing each other like snarling opponents in an arena. John was tall and strong, but Vince was a head taller, and physically John's superior. They were unevenly matched, but John was not easily intimidated.

  'You forced Cara into this marriage, Steiner, and I know it,' he accused without preamble, and Cara felt her stomach lurch with sickening fear when she saw the expression on Vince's face.

  The muscles jutted out for an instant like boulders along the side of his jaw, but just as suddenly his features relaxed, and his steel-grey eyes actually glittered with mockery and humour when they met Cara's. 'When I proposed marriage, liebchen, was I holding a knife to your throat?' Vince questioned her smoothly.

  How suave, how confident, and how despicably arrogant he was in his assumption that she would not let him down. He knew, damn him, that if she let him down she would also be humiliating herself. Was I holding a knife to your throat? he had asked. He had spoken figuratively, and the only way she could answer him truthfully was to do so literally.

  'No,' she said, her voice admirably convincing. 'There was no knife held to my throat.'

  'There you have your answer, Curtis,' Vince smiled coldly, turning back to John, and gesturing expressively as if the matter was settled.

  John's scowling, questioning glance met Cara's, and she pleaded with him silently, her eyes begging him to accept the situation and to leave before something happened she would regret for the rest of her life. He looked a little stunned, almost as if he had understood, then he turned on his heel and walked out of the library without a backward glance.

  Cara's eyes followed him out of the building, and a deep sadness settled like a sombre cloak about her. 'I hate what I've just done to John,' she murmured unhappily. 'He has been a good and loyal friend for many years, and I have repaid his loyalty and his friendship with subterfuge and lies.'

  'I warn you, Cara,' Vince spoke threateningly beside her. 'Tell Curtis the truth about our marriage, and I cancel my agreement with your father at once,' He thrust a carton of sandwiches into her hands. 'Enjoy your lunch.'

  Vince had almost reached the door before she found her voice. 'What about you?'

  He did no hear her, or perhaps he had not wanted to hear her. He walked out and slammed the door behind him with a force that reverberated throughout the silent library.

  Cara stared at her desk calendar. She had been married to Vince for almost three weeks, and during this time she had discovered more about the Steiner empire than about the man who had founded it. His temporary offices in Murrayville contained a bevy of staff that leapt to his command, and two or more days each week were spent at his headquarters in Johannesburg, or elsewhere. Cara never questioned him, and neither did he take her into his confidence where the nature of his work was concerned.

  Their level of communication had, in fact, dropped almost to zero since that day he had walked into the library to find her with John Curtis, and their lives had settled into a pattern which was becoming more depressing with each passing day. There was never again a repetition of that night he had slept in the room across the passage from her own. When he was home they occupied the same bed, and Cara was driven to take the necessary precautions. If there was one thing she did not want, then it was to discover herself pregnant with his child. She suffered enough because of their loveless nights of passion, and to have his child would merely increase her suffering to an unbearable level.

  Tears stung her eyes, and she blinked them away hastily. She could not understand herself. All she wanted to do lately was cry, and it was most confusing. She had always lived such an orderly and serene life, but there was nothing orderly about her chaotic existence these days, and the mere thought of Vince was enough to shatter her serenity. It was incredible. He had only to walk into a room and her nerves would react like the strings of a harp that had been plucked. She had tried to ignore him, but nearly always she had found herself observing him more closely, and instead of dreading those nights when he would come to her, she found that she was actually listening for his footsteps. Was she going crazy?

  Cara had seen her parents quite often during the past three weeks, but there had never been the opportunity to speak to her father privately. Her mother was always there, making it impossible to speak confidentially, and Cara decided eventually that the only way to see him alone would be to ask him to come to her office at the library.

  It had become imperative that she should confront him with the knowledge she had acquired from Vince, and she reached for the telephone on her desk. She dialled the familiar number, and David Lloyd answered almost at once, an unusual gruffnes
s in his voice which tension and tiredness had put there.

  'Please call in at the library some time today,' she said without wasting time on the usual pleasantries, and for several seconds there was a strained silence on the line.

  'Is it urgent?' he asked eventually, and she detected a wariness in his voice which she was not accustomed to.

  'I need to talk to you, Dad.'

  Again there was that strained silence, but a faint sigh finally reached her ears. 'I'll see what I can do.'

  Cara put down the receiver and leaned back in her chair. It had been easier than she had imagined, but the difficult part still lay ahead of her. There was so much she wanted to know, and she did not think that her father would part with his knowledge willingly.

  David Lloyd did not come to the library until that afternoon. Cara was helping Nancy attend to the people at the counter when she saw her father walk in, and her heart gave a nervous little leap when she saw that now familiar tightness about his mouth.

  'I'll be back in a few minutes, Nancy,' she apologised to the girl beside her and, lifting the counter, flap, she let herself out of the enclosure to walk towards her father. 'Come this way, Dad,' she said, taking his arm and leading him towards her office. 'Are you well, Cara?' he asked anxiously when he sat facing her in her small office. 'Steiner hasn't been ill-treating you, has he?'

  Ill-treated! The words clattered through her mind, and stirred a feeling of hysteria. Her emotions had run the full scale from shocked fury to numbed acceptance during the past three weeks, but she could not accuse Vince of ill-treatment. She felt deeply hurt more than anything else, but the reason for it remained elusive, and this was not exactly the moment for a self-analysis.

  'His name is Vince and, considering that he is my husband, it wouldn't sound nice if people should hear you speak of him as Steiner,' she reprimanded her father gently.

  'It isn't easy thinking of him as my son-in-law.'

  'How do you think of him, then?' she almost laughed when she met his sombre, grey-green glance.

  'How I think of him is irrelevant,' he brushed aside the matter with a wave of his hand. 'What did you want to discuss with me?'

  Cara took a moment to sort out the queries in her mind. She would have to handle the situation with extreme tact and care, and her mouth went dry with nervous anxiety.

  'You borrowed money from Vince,' she began tentatively. 'Is that all there is between you, or is there something else which I don't know about?'

  She saw her father start. 'What do you mean?'

  'Is there something you haven't told me, Dad?'

  'Are you suggesting that I am hiding things from you?'

  His voice was indignant, but his hands were shaking, and a sheen of perspiration stood out on his forehead despite the coolness in her office. Tell me, she pleaded silently. Tell me what you did to Siegfried Steiner and his family that has made Vince indulge in this terrible desire for revenge?

  'I'm not suggesting anything, Dad,' she said instead in a deliberately calm voice. 'I'm merely asking if there is something else between you and Vince other than the loan; something that happened in the past, perhaps.'

  David Lloyd stood up abruptly and turned towards the door 'I don't think I want to continue this discussion.'

  'I'd hate this to sound like emotional blackmail,' she stopped him before he could leave, 'but I think I have earned the right to know everything there is to know about your association with Vince.'

  'What makes you think that there is something you don't know?' he asked, turning slowly to face her, and his cheeks had gone strangely ashen.

  'You're playing verbal hide and seek with me, Dad,' she accused with a hint of impatience in her husky voice. 'Vince is burning up inside with the desire for revenge, and you cringe every time his name is mentioned. There is more to this than simply the loan which you couldn't pay back at the stipulated time, and I think it's only fair that I know about it.'

  David Lloyd reached for the chair with a hand that shook and sat down heavily. He looked mentally and physically defeated, and Cara felt her concern for him spiralling. He wiped the perspiration off his forehead with his handkerchief and lit a cigarette, but he puffed at it furiously as if he was afraid he would not get enough smoke into his lungs.

  'I made a grave error of judgment once, and it is not something I'm very proud of,' he confessed grimly. 'More than that I'm not prepared to say at the moment.'

  Tell me! her mind screamed at him. Tell me it's not true that you ruined Vince's father!

  'Did you know Siegfried Steiner?' she asked at length, her jaw tight, and her insides considerably tighter.

  'Yes, I knew him.'

  Did she imagine it, or had her father gone a shade paler with that admission? 'If you knew Vince's father, then you must also know that he is no longer alive.'

  'Siegfried Steiner died almost eighteen years ago.' He puffed agitatedly on his cigarette and finally crushed the remainder into the ashtray on her desk. 'Look, Cara, I can't discuss this at the moment. It's all very complicated and involved and painful, and… and every man has to pay for his sins one way or the other.'

  Incredulity washed over her like a thousand pin pricks. 'Vince wants revenge, and you're letting him have it?'

  'I suppose you could say so, yes.'

  Cara felt a surge of uncontrollable anger rising within her. 'So I have been sacrificed on the altar of your guilt.'

  'Don't say that!'

  'But it's the truth!' she argued as he leapt to his feet in protest. 'Oh, I know I more or less sealed my own fate by walking into your study that evening, and I know I have only myself to blame, but you let it all happen without actually lifting a finger to prevent it.'

  David Lloyd sat down heavily once again and lit another cigarette with nicotine-stained fingers that shook. 'I had no choice. Your mother—'

  'Yes, I know,' she interrupted coldly. She was seeing her father for the first time as he really was, and she could barely conceal her disappointment. She had thought him strong, but he was weak; she had imagined that she could rely on him, but when it came to saving his own skin he had not objected overmuch at making use of his own daughter. 'You have always wanted to protect Mother from the unpleasant things in life, but I'm beginning to think that you have been totally unfair in your judgment of her character,' Cara accused, suddenly immensely tired, but restless to a degree that drove her to her feet to stand at the window watching the municipal workers raking up the leaves which had fallen on to the lawns and pavements. She was raking just as they were, but she was raking into her father's personality as well as the past, and it was not particularly pleasant. 'I often wonder how Mother would have reacted if you had confronted her with all the problems you have so carefully hidden from her. Would she have cracked under the strain, or would she have proved that she is a woman of strength and character?' Cara spoke without turning.

  The chair behind her creaked, and the next moment her father's heavy hand rested on her shoulder. 'Cara…'

  'Do you know something, Dad?' she forestalled him. 'I think it was wrong of you not to give her the opportunity to demonstrate exactly what she's made of, and I think if you had you would have been pleasantly surprised.'

  'Lilian is a fiercely loyal and a very just woman.' He turned Cara to face him, and she was shocked at the bleak despair she saw in his eyes. 'You take after your mother, Cara, and I'm not proud of myself for what I have done to you. I would have protected you from this marriage if it had been at all possible, but I confess to thinking selfishly only of myself and, short of committing murder, there was really nothing I could do. I needed time and, God knows, I need this new contract more than I've ever needed anything before in my life.'

  This last statement lingered in Cara's mind long after her father had gone. He had needed the time her marriage to Vince would give him, and he needed this new contract for the new steel plant even more desperately. What if he did not get it? She went cold at the thought, but it was a poss
ibility she had to face.

  A red Porsche stood parked in the driveway when Cara arrived at the house late that afternoon, and she glanced at it curiously when she had parked her grey Mini in the garage alongside Vince's Mercedes. Did they have guests for the weekend, or was Vince entertaining a business associate? The latter did not seem quite possible. Vince had once informed her that he never dealt with business matters outside his office. This was, however, a rule he had bent a little where it concerned his dealings with her father.

  Jackson opened the door for Cara and wished her a pleasant 'good-evening' when she stepped into the hall. Short, stocky, and black as coal dust, Cara had nicknamed him Jack-of-all-trades. He acted as butler, chauffeur, and steward at their stable, and on occasion she had actually seen him pottering around in the garden.

  'The master is in the living-room, Madam,' he announced when he had relieved her of her coat, and she hastily checked her appearance in the mirror of the antique hallstand.

  Laughter, clear as a bell and very feminine, drew Cara towards the door which stood slightly ajar, and she pushed it open farther to enter the spacious room where a welcoming fire burned in the grate of the fireplace. In the chair facing Vince sat a woman who could have stepped out of the pages of a Vogue magazine. She wore a wide-sleeved, grey striped dress and, to relieve the severity of the colour, she had tied a crimson scarf about her throat. Her chestnut-coloured hair had a touch of fire in it that matched the fire in her green eyes, and the crimson mouth was curved in a smile that suggested she was fully aware of the elegant and sophisticated image she projected.

  'Ah, liebchen, I would like you to meet Chantal Webber,' Vince did the necessary introductions in his deep-throated, suave manner. 'Chantal, this is my wife, Cara.'

  Vince had risen to his feet, but Chantal Webber had remained seated, her slender, carefully manicured hand extended politely towards Cara. 'How nice to meet you, my dear.' Her voice was warm as honey taken that moment from the hive, but her limp hand was cool when Cara clasped it briefly. 'I can't tell you how surprised I was when I heard that Vince was married, but now I can see why he wasted no time in securing you to his side.'