by Penny Jordan
‘Oh, it’s all right, Marcus,’ Maggie told him coolly. ‘I quite agree with Isobel. Teenage girls can be terrifyingly dangerous when they develop an intense crush on someone. Luckily most of us grow out of that phase,’ she added pointedly, and then watched the hard colour burn in Isobel’s face. ‘Obviously you two must want to be on your own,’ she added thoughtfully. ‘I’ll go upstairs and unpack. I take it my old room is still empty?’
She saw from the look on Marcus’s face that he hadn’t anticipated her question, and moreover that he was shocked by her decision to stay. Well, let him be. Everything she had just heard in this room confirmed her feeling that Susie would never have written so desperately to her if she had not genuinely felt she needed help.
At Isobel’s mention of a boarding-school, warning signs ten feet high had sprung up in Maggie’s brain. In the old days, the housekeeper had kept a motherly eye on Susie and Sara, and Marcus himself had taken on the role of parenting them. A deep bond had always existed between the two little girls.
Maggie had had the opportunity to get to know Ruth, Marcus’s mother, very well, after her own parents died. She had married very young for the first time, and Marcus had been born when she was just eighteen.
By all accounts she had been very much in love with her older husband, a major in the army. He had been killed in action when Marcus was ten and, after all those years of being alone with his mother, it must have been very difficult for him to adjust when she eventually married again, especially when the two girls were born. He had been an adult when Susie arrived; there was a twenty-one-year gap between them, and Maggie wondered if he had ever felt any resentment. If so, she had never seen any evidence of it.
In those early days of her uncle’s second marriage, she and her parents had only been infrequent visitors at Deveril House, and Marcus himself had been away at university. It was only when her parents died that she had come to be more familiar with her uncle and his family, and certainly in those days she had discerned no resentment of his two half-sisters in Marcus’s manner towards them; rather, he had been very much the indulgent older brother. As he had been to her…only their relationship had been very different. She had clung to Marcus after she had overcome the shock of her parents’ death, seeing him as someone she could rely on…someone who wouldn’t abandon her… someone who cared for her. If only things had stayed that way. If only she had continued to look upon him as an older brother-cum-father instead of as a man.
It made her uncomfortable even now to think of the adolescent fantasies she had woven around him, fantasies she had pushed to the back of her mind until Isobel’s catty tongue had recalled them.
Fantasies which had eventually led to the destruction of her whole world. Fantasies which had caused scars she bore even now. Fantasies which had caused her such pain…such guilt…and not just her. Marcus, too, had suffered. She could never allow herself to forget that. She wondered if Isobel knew that he had been engaged before…that he had contemplated marrying someone else. She realised with a slight sense of shock that she hadn’t even known the name of her rival…hadn’t even allowed Marcus to tell them exactly who it was he was getting engaged to; she had been too shocked, too hurt to do any more than protest that he couldn’t, he mustn’t mean what he was saying—not when he loved her!
CHAPTER THREE
THE bedroom, originally chosen for Maggie by Marcus’s mother when she was first orphaned, was on the first floor of the house and overlooked the rear of the property.
As Maggie pushed open the door and stood motionlessly on the threshold, she realised with a pang of nostalgia how much she had always missed this room, and how much thought and care must have gone into preparing it for her.
Her emotions dulled by the sharp grief of losing her parents, she had barely noticed the soft sheen on the antique four-poster bed, nor the expensive luxury of its prettily faded curtains, their chinoiserie design very much in keeping with the early nineteenth-century bed.
Now a film of dust covered the polished boards of the floor and the antique dresser, but simply by closing her eyes Maggie could recall with vivid clarity the day she had first seen this room, realising now how much of its ambience her senses must have recorded and retained even though she herself had not been aware of it.
Now, coming back, she could only humbly marvel at the time and effort Marcus’s mother must have put into preparing this room for her. Then the furniture had shone with polish, its scent permeating the room, mingling with the elusive delicacy of the pot-pourri mixture which perfumed every room in the house. Then the curtains had been crisply fresh on both the bed and the pretty dressing-table beneath the window.
Her aunt had helped her unpack, talking calmly and gently to her as she did so, her fingers deft where Maggie’s own were clumsy. She had shown her which bathroom she was to use, half-way down the corridor, and then she had quietly and tactfully left Maggie alone in her new surroundings, whisking herself out of the door.
A huge sense of loss engulfed Maggie as she stood there caught up in the time-warp of the past, as she grieved for the grace and kindness of her long-dead aunt. She had known her for such a short spell of time and, while loving her, had not truly appreciated all that she was…had taken for granted the comfort and kindness which she had created within the old house. And now suddenly she was aware that all that was gone; that her daughters and her son had been cruelly deprived of her cherishing warmth.
Maggie crossed the faded carpet and stared out of the window, noticing dimly the faint blurring of the landscape as her emotions caused tears to fill her eyes.
She had not expected to feel like this, but now that she did she was filled with an even firmer resolve to find out what was bothering Susie and, if she could, to put matters to rights.
She strongly suspected she would learn that it was the threat of being sent away to boarding-school that was distressing her young cousins, and she could only sympathise with them.
She put her weekend case on the bed and opened it, and then turned to unlock the old-fashioned wardrobe doors. To her shock, the wardrobe still held her old clothes, and the sight of them hanging there caused a frisson of sensation to run down her spine.
The dress she had worn for her seventeenth-birthday party swung gently in its plastic cover. She reached out and touched it tentatively, and then the past and its ghosts vanished as she was suddenly struck by an idea to complete an illustration she had been commissioned to do, and she reached eagerly into her case to extract the sketch-book she took everywhere with her.
Within minutes she was so deeply immersed in her work that she was oblivious to everything else, even the opening of her bedroom door.
‘So you’re still up here. What…?’
Maggie’s pencil snapped as Marcus’s voice broke her concentration and threw her shockingly into a pose of frozen tension. She hadn’t expected him to invade her privacy like this, but rather to keep his distance, and it worried her that she should feel so disturbed by his presence.
It was because of the memories he evoked, that was all; memories of those times when she had welcomed his presence here with her.
In her frozen state of shock, it seemed almost possible that if she turned her head and looked at the bed she might see the ghost of her childhood self, sitting there cross-legged and straight-backed in the shadow of its hangings, begging Marcus to stay just a little longer, the whiteness of her cotton cambric nightdress a pale blur as she pleaded with him to stay just until she had gone to sleep.
That had been in the early days of her coming here…when her nights had been tormented by the nightmares which only Marcus seemed to have the power to hold at bay.
How often had he sat in the armchair beneath the window in response to her pleadings, reassuring her, soothing her…allowing a bond to form between them which surely in his maturity he must have realised would one day hold the elements of disaster?
‘What the devil are you doing?’ Marcus demanded, th
e abrasively harsh tones banishing her ghosts from the past and bringing her back to reality. She and Marcus might once have been close, but those days were gone, destroyed by…destroyed by her own folly, her stupidity, her lies…her love.
‘Earning my living,’ she told him crisply, tucking her hand beneath the pad so that he wouldn’t see its betraying shake.
She saw the surprise leap into his eyes before he shuttered his expression from her, and had a moment’s savage satisfaction that for once she had caught him off guard.
‘You’re an artist?’
She remembered how he had encouraged her interest in art in those early days, and wondered bitterly if he had known even then that she did not have the ability which would make her work outstandingly significant. Very possibly, if the look of surprise was anything to go by, and her earlier euphoria vanished, leaving her feeling drained and tense.
‘Of sorts,’ she told him calmly, determined not to let him see how much his comment had hurt. She had come to accept years ago that her skill would never be more than merely a very good second-rate; that was partly why she had chosen illustrating as her career. ‘I’m an illustrator, and I work with a variety of writers.’
She toyed with the idea of telling him that that was how Susie had found her, and then cautiously decided against it.
‘Why have you never come home?’
The abrupt question made her freeze with shock. He knew the answer to that as well as she did herself.
‘Perhaps because there’s never been any need until now,’ she told him as lightly as she could. ‘The girls’ need, by the way, and not mine,’ she added pointedly, putting down her pad and standing up. ‘When will they be back?’
‘Soon. Tell me something…is Susie expecting you?’
‘She asked for my help,’ Maggie told him evasively.
‘And on the strength of that you dropped everything and came haring up here?’ He looked quite deliberately at her left hand and then said softly, ‘And what about the current man in your life? Doesn’t he…?’
‘There is no man!’ she cried out, interrupting him, her face flushed and hot, her eyes bright with pain. ‘Do you really think that after…’
She saw the way he was looked at her and stopped abruptly, painfully aware of how much she had been about to give away, and said shakily instead, ‘And even if there were, I’m a free agent and perfectly entitled to make my own arrangements.’
‘And that’s the way you like it, is it? Your freedom means more to you than commitment? You prefer having a lover to a husband?’
He was looking at her ringless finger, and a wave of hot, corrosive bitterness swept through her.
‘Just because you’re about to get married, Marcus, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the rest of the world must follow suit. I haven’t congratulated you yet, by the way,’ she added, turning away from him and picking up her pencils, desperately striving for the right note of casual indifference. ‘I’m sure you’ll be very happy together. Next June, you’re getting married? It’s a pity you can’t bring the date forward, or am I right in thinking that Isobel would still insist on sending the girls to boarding-school? I take it the pair of you do intend to live here.’
She turned to look at him then and told herself that she was pleased to see the look of grim anger darkening his eyes. He didn’t like her questioning him about his plans. Well, she was an adult herself now, and as fully entitled to question him as he was her.
‘Why?’ he asked her shortly.
She shrugged delicately, chewing on her bottom lip before giving him an acid smile.
‘Well, this house was left to the three of us, Susie, Sara and myself, by our grandfather, wasn’t it?’ she asked, deliberately stressing the possessive ‘our’ which openly excluded him for that relationship.
‘Are you trying to accusing me of stealing your inheritance, by any chance?’ he demanded bitingly, taking her off guard by the directness of his question. The light slanting in through the window seemed to emphasise the hard, jutting angle of his cheekbones, lending his features a dangerous male cruelty. She badly wished she had never introduced such a dangerous subject, but it was too late to back down now.
‘Hardly that,’ she told him quietly, ‘but this is the girls’ home.’
‘And yours?’ he questioned, and an unwelcome hard lump rose in her throat at the words, because what he said was no longer true. This wasn’t her home. She reached out blindly and curled her fingers round the polished wood of one of the bedposts. It felt reassuringly warm and soothing, making her aware of how cold her hands were. A sure warning of increasing tension, if she actually needed one. She had known from the moment Marcus walked into her room that her frail stock of resilience would all too easily be drained by his presence.
‘No,’ she told him sombrely, without looking at him. ‘Not my home…’ And then she looked up at him and surprised such a look of pain in his eyes that for a moment she was blinded by it, held in thrall to it and unable to drag her gaze away.
‘Maggie, for heaven’s sake,’ he said harshly, crossing the room and circling her arm with his good hand.
Through the silk of her blouse she could feel the rough calluses on his fingers. Calluses caused by hard outdoor work, by riding…by the life he lived. His touch was so overwhelmingly familiar that for a moment she thought she was going to faint with the intensity of emotion it aroused inside her.
‘Let me go,’ she demanded thickly, gritting her teeth to stop them chattering together as she fought to suppress the welling sensation of aching delight wrought by his touch.
He released her as though her skin was fire, stepping back from her awkwardly, hard spots of dark colour burning his cheekbones.
‘Once you wouldn’t have said that,’ he taunted her angrily.
Before she could gather her resources to defend herself, a car drew up outside. Marcus limped over to the window and said over his shoulder, ‘It’s the girls.’
‘I’d like to have the opportunity to talk to Susie on my own,’ she told him shakily, thankful that he had his back to her and could not see the effect he had had on her.
‘I’m their guardian, not their gaoler, but remember one thing, Maggie, they’re in my care. Not yours.’
Was he warning her that he wasn’t going to allow her to interfere in his decisions? Well, he had that right. She couldn’t deny it, but apart from that one occasion he had never been an unkind man, and she could not honestly think he would want his half-sisters to be unhappy. Manlike, he had probably allowed Isobel to convince him that boarding-school was the best solution because it removed the problem of their care from his shoulders.
Maggie gave a faint sigh as he moved over to the door and held it open for her. It was pointless making any assumptions until she had had the opportunity to talk properly to Susie.
* * *
‘AND SO YOU SEE, we can’t possibly go to boarding-school. It would be horrid there, and Sara couldn’t do her riding, and…’
Maggie held up her hand to stem the hot tide of protests and jumbled explanations which had been falling from her young cousin’s lips for the last half-hour.
Susie had recovered from the shock of discovering that Maggie had responded in person to her plea with an aplomb that Maggie could only envy. It was plain to her that neither Susie nor Sara stood in the slightest fear of Marcus, because it seemed to have occurred to neither of them that he might punish them for contacting her behind his back, nor that he might resent her interference.
After a snatched high tea which Maggie had prepared herself from the very limited provisions she had found in the cupboards, she and Susie had retired to the old school-room on the second floor so that they could have their talk.
‘So what are you trying to tell me?’ she asked gently now. ‘That you don’t want to go to boarding-school?’
‘Well, would you?’ Susie asked indignantly. ‘And besides, it isn’t fair. Just because Isobel doesn’t want to be bother
ed with us… I wish she and Marcus had never got engaged. I hate her. She just wants to get us out of the way so that she can be on her own with him.’
Maggie looked at her thoughtfully and then said quietly, ‘People in love often feel like that.’
Susie scowled and kicked the leg of the battered chair. The school-room had originally been furnished over forty years ago, and its furniture bore the scars of the generations of young Deverils who had inhabited it.
Her own father had carved his initials inside one of the heavy wooden desk-lids, and when she had wanted to do the same thing, after he had died, Marcus had gently suggested instead that she make up a scrap-book of anecdotes and photographs of the generations of young Deverils who had worked in the room.
The task, at first a chore, had quickly become an absorbing hobby. Her grandfather had supplied the photographs, and the original book had soon expanded to include sketches and notes of things she had discovered and been fascinated by. Her glance roamed the packed bookshelves and stopped automatically at the spot where the book had been kept.
Her heart gave a tiny leap as she realised it was still there, and Susie, conscious of her lack of attention, followed her gaze and then said knowingly, ‘You made that book, didn’t you? Marcus told us about it. He used to be such fun,’ she added with another scowl. ‘But he isn’t any more, and it’s all because of Isobel.’
‘Now that he’s engaged, I expect he has other things on his mind.’
‘They don’t sleep together, you know,’ Susie told her, shocking her with her forthrightness. ‘At least, not here. I supposed it’s because Marcus doesn’t want to set us a bad example.’ She pulled a face, and Maggie had to remind herself that at sixteen Susie could hardly be ignorant of the realities of life. ‘I don’t think he loves Isobel at all. He never touches her or anything.’
‘Susie, I don’t think you should be telling me any of this,’ Maggie protested weakly, trying to deny the sensations burgeoning inside her at the thought of Marcus making love to Isobel…at the thought of him touching her…running his fingers through her dark hair and then spreading it on his pillow while he buried his face in it and… She swallowed hard, forcefully dismissing the teenage fantasies with which she had tormented herself as a young girl. Once she had dreamed of Marcus making love to her in just such a way…had dreamed of it, and ached for it, until she had almost been able to feel the solid weight of him pressing her down against the mattress of her virginal bed.