by Penny Jordan
‘Susie wrote to me and begged me to come,’ she told him quietly.
She saw his expression darken with quick, growing anger, his muscles tensing as he fought to control it.
So something had changed, after all. How many times in the past had she been infuriated, baffled and, yes, frustrated by Marcus’s ability to hide his feelings from her? She had always been aware of his strength of will, or course, but, apart from the night she had run away, she had never seen him so quickly aroused to betraying what he felt.
Quite a unique distinction, she reflected grimly: to be one of the very few people he disliked strongly enough to betray an emotional reaction to.
That was another thing which had always infuriated her about Marcus: the fact that he always seemed to distance himself from others…to set himself apart and sort of look on in almost contemptuous amusement at the follies of the rest of the human race.
She had seen and met people in London who displayed the same skill, although with nothing like Marcus’s finesse. They, she had learned, used it as a protective shield against the world and the hurts it could inflict; she had even learned to adopt a little of that camouflage for herself, and now, unexpectedly, beneath her firmly controlled apprehension, ran a fine thread of speculation. What was it in Marcus’s life that had made him decide he needed the benefit of such camouflage?
As she observed his angry reception to her arrival, she was aware that, perhaps for the first time, she and Marcus were meeting on the same level. The ten-year gap which as a teenager had made her feel so awestruck and tongue-tied in his presence, especially when she started to suffer from that crippling crush on him, was now of no importance at all.
Yes, the disadvantage she had suffered because of their age difference had gone, but the hostility remained. And small wonder that he should resent her. He had never married—because of what she had done? It was an uncomfortable thought, and one which awoke old guilts.
‘How long have you been in contact with Susie?’ he asked her harshly, trying to swing round in his chair so that he could face her properly.
It gave her a tiny, savage thrill of satisfaction to realise that for once he was the one at a disadvantage, both from the surprise of her arrival, and from the fact that his heavy plaster cast made it virtually impossible for him to stand up, so that she was in the enviable position of looking down on him. It was a strange sensation when she was more used to him towering above her.
She was a fairly tall girl, somewhere around five foot seven or eight, but she had always found Marcus’s powerful six foot two male frame a little intimidating.
Probably because vulnerable teenage girls were, by their very natures, inclined to be over-impressed by such physically masculine attractions as those Marcus possessed, she reflected cynically.
He wasn’t perhaps a strictly handsome man, but he had something more compelling than intense good looks. He had a magnetism…a maleness that no woman could fail to be aware of.
By the time she had come to live at Deveril House he had been over his teenage years of dating a different girl every month, and for a long time there had been no serious girlfriend in his life, but it had still been very obvious even to her that the half-dozen or so girls who almost continuously called round on some pretext or other whenever he was at home were the ones doing the running in whatever relationship he had with them.
He had told her once that he didn’t intend to marry until he found someone he knew he wanted to spend the rest of his life with; she, at fifteen and already desperately in love with him, had breathed safely again. If he hadn’t found that women yet, then there was time for her to grow up and convince him that she was that woman.
After that she had prayed fervently every night that he would not find someone until she had grown up.
Her birthday fell in July, and the year before she left school, she thought that moment had actually come and that Marcus no longer saw her as a child, but as a woman.
Marcus and her grandfather between them had arranged a party to celebrate her attaining her seventeenth birthday. Her grandfather had given her some small items of jewellery which had once been her mother’s: a string of pearls, the diamond pendant which had marked her own birth, and various other gifts from her father to her mother, some of which had been in the Deveril family for very many years.
As the second son, her father had always known that eventually the small estate and the house would pass to his elder brother, but that had never worried him. He enjoyed teaching, loved his quiet, calm way of life and his small family, and his father, being a wise and caring parent, had made sure that there was no rivalry between his two sons by allowing both of them to give their wives gifts of jewellery from the small number of pieces that still belonged to the family.
Maggie had also received a charmingly delicate Victorian bow brooch in diamonds and pearls for her birthday, and she had left both that and the diamond ear-rings Marcus had given her behind her when she had left. When she had realised that, far from loving her, in reality Marcus thought of her as nothing more than a difficult child…a child whom he now hated and loathed. When, as the angry lash of his acid words had flayed her tender nerves raw, she had realised that she could no longer live under the same roof as him.
He had looked at her once after he had finished castigating her, and had demanded bitterly, ‘Why? Just tell me why?’
And she had turned her head in stubborn silence, too shocked and numb with the reality of what she had unleashed to defend herself.
‘You’d better go,’ he had told her quietly. ‘Before I do something I’ll only regret.’
And then, as she walked towards the door, sick with shame, trembling with the shock of his angry words, he had added rawly, ‘You just don’t care, do you? You just don’t give a damn…’
She had managed to speak then, fighting back the nervous tremors that racked her to say huskily, ‘Would it make any difference if I did?’
He had looked at her for a long, long time before saying stonily, ‘No… I don’t think it would. I wish you’d never come into my life. Do you realise that, I wonder? Do you realise how much I wish I never had to set eyes on you again?’ he had added viciously, and she had taken those words to bed with her and had known, as she lay there sleepless and cold with shock and reaction, that there was only one course open to her.
One of them must leave, and it couldn’t be Marcus. Her grandfather needed him too much, and so it must be her…
She came out of the past with a start.
Deveril House was in reality more her home than it was Marcus’s, but right from the first moment she had come to live here, after her parents’ death, she had associated the house with him, and therefore she had always felt that he had more claim on it than she had herself.
It was because of that conviction that she had not allowed herself to grieve over it…to miss it. Because of Marcus, she had striven so hard to remain independent of it.
Surely she had achieved that, if nothing else? she reflected with grim satisfaction, refusing to remember her seventeenth birthday party or the kiss that Marcus had given her then…her first truly adult kiss, or so she had thought it at the time. A tame thing perhaps, by modern standards… If she closed her eyes, though, even now she could call back the rough/smooth sensation of his mouth on hers, the tension that had gripped her for that heart-stopping second of time when the pressure of his mouth had changed and she had known, gloriously and triumphantly, that he wanted her.
So much for the folly of youth.
‘I said, how long have you been in contact with Susie?’
She took refuge in feminine vagueness, shrugging her shoulders and saying carelessly, ‘I don’t really know. Does it matter? Quite some time. Long enough for her to feel that she can trust me, obviously,’ she pointed out with delicate unkindness, watching the colour touch his cheekbones as her thrust went home.
‘Where is she, by the way?’ she asked idly, as though unaware of
his anger.
‘She’s out with a friend,’ he told her grimly. ‘What exactly was it she told you that made you come rushing back here, Maggie? Quite a miracle for her to perform. I seem to remember that, when your grandfather died, I put notices in every newspaper and magazine I could find, begging you to return.’
‘That was different,’ Maggie defended herself huskily. ‘Gramps was gone. There was no point,’ she added, unwittingly betraying the fact that she had read his pleas for her to come home. ‘There was nothing I could do…but this is different.’ I’m different, she wanted to add, but the words remained unsaid. To utter them was to court danger, since he might reasonably demand to know in what way she had changed, and she would be forced to admit that it was only now, after ten years, that she felt confident enough of her self-control to be able to return to the scene of her agony.
‘So…you still haven’t answered my question. What did Susie tell you to bring you rushing back here?’
‘I think that’s between me and Susie, don’t you?’ Maggie taunted him, adding, ‘Where’s Mrs Nesbitt, by the way?’
Before he could reply, the door burst open and a stunning brunette burst in. Older than Maggie herself, she had the polished perfection which Maggie automatically associated with someone very much in the public eye and very much aware of herself and her attractions.
It was idiotic to take such an instant and strong dislike to the other woman. Maggie normally liked other members of her own sex, enjoying their company and their conversation, but this woman…perhaps it was something to do with the very hostile way in which she was regarding her, she reflected as the brunette demanded, ‘How is my poor fiancé today, and, Marcus darling, who does that car outside belong to? Don’t tell me you’ve actually found someone to take Mrs Nesbitt’s place? I only hope this one lasts a little longer than the last replacement. You’ll really have to learn to control that temper of yours if…’
‘Sorry, Isobel. Not a housekeeper, I’m afraid.’
‘Oh.’ She turned in Maggie’s direction and studied her coolly, her hand resting on Marcus’s shoulder as she stood beside him.
‘Then who…?’ She paused delicately, eyebrows slightly raised, glossed mouth faintly pursed.
‘My stepcousin, Maggie Deveril. I presume it is still Deveril?’ he asked Maggie in an unexpectedly harsh tone.
His question caught her off guard, shocking her. Did he really think she would have married after what… Abruptly she caught herself up just in time, sensing the traitorous ground lurking beneath her feet. Of course, it was only natural that he might think her married…just as it was equally natural that he should be engaged.
Engaged… She told herself that the sick feeling gripping her insides owed its existence to the past and not the present.
‘Ah, yes, I think I remember you,’ Isobel commented thoughtfully, her eyes narrowing. ‘You left the area rather unexpectedly, didn’t you? You know, darling, you’ve never told me all about that. I do think family skeletons are so exciting, don’t you?’ she asked Maggie, focusing on her again, and then adding with a light laugh, ‘Although when a young unmarried girl leaves home unexpectedly, there is normally only one conclusion one comes to, isn’t there?’
There was a tense pause, and then her own cold, ‘Is there?’ and Marcus’s hard, ‘Isobel, that’s enough,’ both came at the same time.
‘Teenage girls leave home for a wide variety of reasons which have nothing to do with your unwarranted implication,’ Marcus continued. ‘In Maggie’s case it was because…’
‘…I wanted to go to art school in London, whereas my grandfather would…have preferred me to attend college in York,’ Maggie lied, quietly intervening.
She had no idea what Marcus had intended to say, but, if he wished to reveal her sins in full to his fiancée, then he could do so without her looking on.
‘Is there no one at all in charge of the house at the moment?’ she challenged him, changing the subject.
‘Not as such, no,’ he responded curtly.
‘Poor darling. It’s the pain that’s making you so irritable, isn’t it?’ Isobel cooed sickeningly. ‘Never mind. Daddy says you’ll probably be able to have the plaster off in another six to eight weeks.’
Marcus made a sound that sounded more like a growl of irritation than anything else, and Maggie was hard pressed not to smile a little. How very vulnerable he seemed now, with both his hair and his temper ruffled, and relief flooded through her, releasing her inner tension. There was nothing she had to be afraid of. Marcus was engaged to be married, and she was not a child any longer, living in a world of fantasy and make-believe. The shadows which had dogged her footsteps for so long shortened a little, suddenly far less menacing.
‘And what the hell do you think is so funny?’ Marcus challenged her, bringing home to her the fact that he was far from being a helpless child.
She might not like his fiancée, but she certainly didn’t envy Isobel the task of soothing him, she reflected wryly, as she told him sweetly, ‘What happened, Marcus? Did you fall off that high horse of yours?’
The anger that arced between them shut out Isobel completely, and for a second the present dropped away and she was conscious of him with all her senses, both awed and intimidated by him, held in thrall to her childish dreams; then Isobel said something and the spell was broken, freeing her from its cruel bond.
She stepped back from him, feeling a need to put an actual physical distance between them, shivering a little as she did so, and Isobel, seeing it, remarked with mock solicitude, ‘Oh, dear, Marcus, Maggie is cold. Of course, you’ve been living in London. I do envy you.’ She pulled a pretty face. ‘I do manage to get down for the odd break, and I have chums down there from school and we all meet up pretty regularly, but since Daddy insisted on my helping out by acting as his receptionist at the surgery…I simply haven’t had the chance. And Marcus, of course…hates me being away, don’t you, darling? I take it this is just a fleeting visit?’ she added with apparent casualness, but Maggie wasn’t deceived. She could see how little the other woman relished her presence.
‘I don’t know yet,’ she told her calmly. ‘It all depends.’
‘On what?’ Marcus demanded bluntly.
Later she would have time to investigate more thoroughly that dull little pain which attacked her at his obvious desire to be rid of her; for now she had to marshal all her resources in order to be able to tell him calmly, ‘On why Susie felt it necessary to write and ask for my help.’
‘Susie wrote to you…’ It was Isobel who responded to her, her expression changing to one of anger. ‘Oh, really, Marcus, that child is getting too much,’ she told him furiously. ‘I keep telling you. Both of them should be at boarding-school. You must see how good it would be for them, darling,’ she added in a more wheedling tone as she saw his frown. ‘And for us. When we get married. And anyway, now that Mrs Nesbitt’s gone, what alternative do you have, especially when you’re immobilised like this? I mean, it’s all very well relying on friends to take the girls to and from school… You know I’d be pleased to help out myself, but Daddy needs me too much, and frankly, darling, the girls are getting the teeniest bit spoiled. I promise you a few years at school will do them oodles of good…and it will give us the privacy we both need. Such a shame we can’t bring the wedding forward from next June, but you know that Mummy has set her heart on a June wedding, and, as I said, Daddy needs me to help out at the surgery…’
And wasn’t she just thrilled about that, since it meant that she was released from having to do anything about the girls, other than insist that they went to boarding-school? Maggie reflected wryly. She had met many women like Isobel in London: selfish, self-absorbed, completely insensitive women who projected an image of frail femininity while in reality being as hard as the diamonds of which they were often so very fond.
‘You can’t possibly manage with them at home, anyway. You know that it’s going to be at least another three mont
hs before you’re properly back on your feet.’ She gave a small trill of laughter. ‘I feel so guilty about the whole thing.’
‘You can hardly be held responsible for a bolting horse,’ Marcus interrupted her grimly, and Maggie, who knew quite well that Marcus rode superbly, wondered what on earth had happened to cause him to be thrown, and so violently that he had apparently broken both his shoulder and his leg.
‘Well, it’s just like you to be so sweet about it, but I’m terribly conscious of how many problems being immobile is causing you. What about the business?’
‘My partner’s taking over for the time being. I can keep up with most of the paperwork from here. My secretary has agreed to come out three afternoons a week, so that we can keep on top of it.’
‘What a treasure she is,’ Isobel cooed, but Marcus could see the betraying narrowing of the hard blue eyes. ‘But if I could give you a little word of warning, darling. Her husband’s away so much, and I suspect she’s a little in love with you. It wouldn’t do to let her get the wrong idea. Look at the problems it caused you before…’ She gave Maggie an acidly sweet smile, and added, unforgivably, ‘I’m sure, now that Maggie herself is an adult, she won’t mind my saying how worried you were at the time. I mean, girls of that age don’t always realise what they’re doing, do they? And they can be so very, very determined. I mean, we’re always reading about schoolmasters whose lives have been ruined because of the importunings of some oversexed little schoolgirl…’
‘Isobel,’ Marcus warned harshly, interrupting her, but Maggie had no need of his interruption. After all, Isobel wasn’t saying anything about her that she hadn’t already said herself; and she had long ago become inured to the pain of knowing how stupidly she had behaved. While it wasn’t true that she had actually physically opportuned Marcus, she had certainly done everything she could to make him aware of her sexually, albeit within the limits of her very scanty knowledge and even more scanty experience.