Friday's Child

by Stephanie Wyatt

  Jay didn’t appear to be listening. His eyes were riveted on her breasts, and when she glanced down she saw to her consternation the dampness had spread to the material of her shirt, moulding it lovingly to her outline. And shockingly her nipples sprang to attention beneath his gaze, proclaiming the disturbing effect he was having on her.

  ‘And what can I prove?’ He sounded barely interested, but the fact that he had after all been listening even while watching her body’s response to him was somehow even more humiliating.

  Snatching the material away from her skin with both hands, she said, ashamed of the quaver in her voice, ‘That your mother wasn’t telling the truth when she claimed your father didn’t support you. The estate records will show the properties that had to be sold, and Mr Golding can tell you exactly where the money went.’

  ‘And why should I bother?’ Jay dismissed.

  His indifference caught her on the raw, and she snapped angrily, ‘Because when you find your mother lied to you about that, you might begin to wonder if she lied about other things. Your father not wanting you, for one.’ Her chin lifted challengingly. ‘Or are you afraid?’

  ‘My God! You’re like a mosquito.’ The facade of indifference cracked to show a very angry man. ‘What does it take to shut you up? This?’ His hands snaked out to grasp her shoulders, almost lifting her off her feet and slamming her against his chest. The breath left her lungs with an audible gasp, and before she could draw another his mouth drove down on hers. He was angry and meant to hurt, and succeeded too as shock left her unresisting, her brain reeling.

  Then she was free, able to drag breath back into her starved lungs. Her shocked gaze locked with his, her shaking hand lifting to her bruised mouth. For a fleeting moment his eyes held what might have been compunction, but then it froze over as he ground out, ‘I think you’d better get out of here before I do something else I’ll regret. And if you know what’s good for you, you’ll keep out.’

  Mirry backed a couple of paces as if from a wild beast it would be dangerous to turn her back on, then, whirling, she took to her heels.

  The thud of hoofs on the grass, the jingle of harness and creak of saddle leather, and above all the unalloyed joy on the face of the little Down’s Syndrome girl perched on the pony’s back had Mirry’s spirits back to their normal level for the first time in days.

  As part of his remedial therapy, Nick had been put back on a horse. At first Mirry had been in an agony of apprehension, afraid even a minor tumble would undo all the work they had put in to rehabilitate him. But, under George Frost’s expert guidance in the beginners’ paddock at the riding stables, Nick’s confidence had slowly returned as he relearned all his old skills. And the obvious benefits had prompted George Frost into contacting a local organisation for the physically and mentally handicapped and arranging two weekly sessions for their members. Grateful to George for all he had done for Nick, Mirry had volunteered to be one of his helpers.

  Not only did it give the young riders enjoyment and a new confidence, it gave the city children a taste of the countryside, where the changing seasons always meant something new to look out for. Now the pussy willows along the stream wore their fat catkins, and across the stream in Odden Wood came the fast, vibrating drumming of a woodpecker.

  But Odden Wood reminded Mirry of her argument with Jay, his towering rage and devastating kiss. That was more than a week ago now, and she had tried hard to put it out of her mind, only to have the memory return again and again. She’d tried telling herself it had been more of an assault than a kiss, but that hadn’t stopped the blood stirring hotly in her veins. Jay had been very explicit, demonstrating his anger and his dislike, yet it was as if her body had picked up different signals and was reacting independently.

  When the lesson was over, Annabel called, ‘Hi, Mirry. Got time to help me rub down? Dad’s got to rush off to deliver a colt to his new home.’

  ‘Sure.’ Leading the pony into the stable, she began to unsaddle. ‘How’s the stud side going?’

  ‘Pretty good. We’ll never breed a Derby winner, but Dad’s got several good hunters coming along, and there’s a young horse that could make a champion show-jumper in the right hands. As a matter of fact…’ Annabel began to rub down the pony ‘…Jay was very interested in him.’

  Mirry’s head jerked up. ‘Jay was? He does ride, then?’ That would be something else Jay and Annabel would have in common.

  ‘Not for himself! He says all he knows about horses are that they have a leg at each corner.’ Her giggle invited Mirry to share the joke. ‘But he knows a girl who’s looking for a horse, the daughter of some business colleague who has ambitions in the show ring.’

  ‘Oh.’ Mirry couldn’t help being pleased Jay didn’t ride, then felt ashamed of such an unworthy reaction. To punish herself she said, ‘You’ve been seeing a fair bit of Jay. Has he told you anything of his plans?’

  Annabel shook her head. ‘He’s been pretty cagey, but I don’t think there’s much doubt that he’ll sell Wenlow.’

  ‘Sell?’ Mirry’s shock startled the pony who sidestepped.

  ‘Yes, more’s the pity. There aren’t that many attractive men around here for a girl to romance with.’ Annabel tossed her head a shade defensively, as if she knew Mirry was thinking of Andrew. ‘Oh, he hasn’t said it in as many words, but before he went back to London he let slip that when he came back he’d be bringing some businessmen to look over the place. Anyway…’ she straightened to face Mirry over the pony’s back ‘… whatever his plans, he won’t make a decision overnight, so he’ll be around for a while yet.’

  If Mirry had comforted herself that Annabel’s flirtation with Jay was merely to turn the screw on Andrew, the look of excited anticipation on the other girl’s face gave the lie to that theory. It was a look that said Annabel was savouring special memories. Jay’s kisses? Well, of course he would have kissed her. Kisses that would be nothing like the assault with which he had punished Mirry Grey! She was dismayed at the actual physical pain this caused her. Nothing remotely like it had ever happened to her before, but she had no trouble in identifying it as jealousy.

  And that was a destructive emotion. Just because she had discovered what it was like to be intensely attracted to a man, it was no justification for feeling hurt and betrayed because he was feeling a similar violent attraction for another woman. It wasn’t going to be easy, watching as Annabel and Jay fell in love, but there had been a Jayston at Wenlow for nearly five hundred years and she couldn’t see the tradition broken now, when it was possible she could do something about it. ‘Aunt Georgie was worried that Jay might not be able to afford to keep the Hall,’ she said slowly. ‘That’s why she came up with this scheme…’

  ‘Scheme? What scheme?’ Annabel demanded.

  Mirry explained Georgie’s idea of turning the wings of the house into self-contained flats in order to give Jay extra income, and about the plans Mirry herself had drawn up.

  ‘What did Jay say when you told him?’ Annabel asked, and Mirry had to admit she hadn’t told him yet.

  ‘Why ever not?’ Annabel was incredulous. ‘Oh, Mirry, you must. It could make all the difference. Look, as soon as he comes back, show them to him. Please…’

  Mirry avoided her pleading gaze. ‘It’s not as easy as that. In the first place, all the copies are up at the Hall, and in the second place… well, you must have noticed Jay and I don’t get on too well.’

  A rather odd expression crossed Annabel’s face, pleased yet curious. ‘You don’t like him?’

  ‘He doesn’t like me,’ Mirry corrected.

  ‘But this is much too important to let a clash of temperament get in the way,’ the other girl pleaded. ‘At least tell him he does have an alternative to selling. He’d be very grateful.’

  As she drove home Mirry wondered what she had let herself in for. What would Jay’s reaction be when she showed him the plans? One thing she was sure of: Jay wouldn’t fall on her neck with gratitude as Annabe
l had implied.

  Hot and sticky, she made straight for her room to strip off the jeans and shirt that smelled faintly of horse. Lingering beneath the shower, she pondered her problem, and by the time she was dressing again in a soft turquoise skirt and sweater, she had made up her mind.

  It was the coward’s way out, to find the plans and leave them where Jay couldn’t avoid seeing them, together with an explanatory letter. And what better time to do it than now, while Jay was safely in London?

  She kept the explanation to a minimum, just stating the facts: that Lady Jayston had had the plans drawn up in order to provide Jay with sufficient income to allow him to live at Wenlow, that there should be enough funds in Georgie’s personal bequest to cover the cost, but that the plans had yet to be submitted to the local council. Sealing the letter, she wrote Jay’s name clearly on the front and took it with her as she slipped out of the house, using the well-worn path between the two properties and letting herself into the Hall by the kitchen door.

  A harassed Martha turned from the kitchen table where she was rolling out pastry. ‘Less than two hours’ notice!’ she burst out. ‘I wouldn’t mind, but there’s three extra bedrooms to get ready, as well as the cooking.’

  ‘You mean Jay’s here now?’ Mirry retreated a couple of steps.

  ‘Heaven forbid! Nancy’s only just gone up to see to the bedrooms. And what I’d have done if she hadn’t been willing to drop everything and come I don’t know.’ Martha bad-temperedly folded over the flaky pastry and slapped it down again on the table. ‘Didn’t even have the courtesy to tell me himself. Left it to some secretary to phone me. No consideration.’

  ‘If there’s anything I can do…’ Mirry volunteered unthinkingly.

  ‘And have his lordship say I’m past it? Fine London folk! I’ve cooked for better quality than them, and so I told that young woman.’ For all her truculence, Mirry could see the hands wielding the rolling pin had not lost their light touch.

  ‘That’s right, Martha, you show ‘em,’ she said mischievously.

  ‘That I shall!’ But Martha’s eyes were beginning to twinkle. ‘Don’t mind me, love. Does a body good to have a good grumble. What was it you wanted?’

  ‘Nothing that need hinder you, Martha,’ she assured the housekeeper. ‘I just want to look out those conversion plans and leave them for Mr Elphick. I’ve got a letter that’ll explain.’

  ‘Well, you know where they are better than I do.’ Martha went back to rolling her pastry.

  The trouble was, Mirry didn’t know where Georgie had put them. The logical place would be the bureau in her sitting-room, but a thorough search revealed only her godmother’s correspondence. Perhaps they were in the library; Georgie had sometimes used the desk in there.

  Hurrying downstairs again, Mirry had the uneasy feeling of a trespasser, but she pushed on into the library. The desk there was much larger, with twice the number of drawers. Beginning at the top, she worked systematically downwards. Some of them were empty where Mr Golding had removed the estate books for auditing, other’s still held papers, but not the ones she was looking for.

  The last drawer was stiff, coming a little way out and then jamming. Mirry had to get down on her hands and knees to ease it, and then it finally came with a rush, tipping her backwards, the corner pecking a lump out of her shin while her head banged painfully against the metal base of the chair.

  ‘What the hell!’

  Hugging her shin and still dazed from the blow to her head, Mirry gazed up at an all too familiar figure looming over the top of the desk. ‘Oh, God!’ she said in a strangled voice and closed her eyes to shut him out.

  ‘You might well say your prayers,’ Jay said with menacing softness. ‘Going in for a bit of petty larceny, Miss Grey?’

  ‘N-no.’ Pushing the drawer and its scattered contents out of the way, Mirry scrambled groggily to her feet. That was when she saw the three very interested spectators behind Jay, two men and a young girl. Three witnesses to her humiliation.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Mirry took a deep breath and tried to summon her scattered wits sufficiently to make the explanation they were all obviously waiting for. ‘I-I’m sorry. I know this must look… but I’d hoped to find them and leave them out and be gone by the time you got here,’ she babbled.

  ‘I’m sure you did,’ Jay said coldly. ‘Mean to be gone before I got here anyway, though I doubt you meant to leave behind whatever it is you’re searching for.’

  Mirry’s face whitened. He was as good as calling her a thief! And if everyone had their rights, those plans were still her property. ‘Oh, I know in your opinion there’s nothing too low for a Grey to stoop to,’ she burst out bitterly. ‘But in fact I was trying to do you a favour. Hah! I warned Annabel you—’

  ‘Annabel?’ Jay broke in sharply. ‘What does your snooping here have to do with Annabel?’

  Snooping! It took all Mirry’s self-control to contain her rage. She managed it as she said tightly, ‘Annabel wished you to know you had an alternative to selling,’ but some of it spilled out as she went on, ‘For some odd reason, she would like you to stay on here at Wenlow. Personally I’d just as soon you sold up and went.’

  She might have known her lie would backfire on her. Jay’s left eyebrow rose sardonically. ‘Honesty at last, Miss Grey? All right, I’ll buy it. What is this alternative Annabel wishes me to know about?’

  Mirry had left her explanatory letter on top of the desk when she began her search. Now she pushed it across towards Jay. ‘It’s all in there,’ she said abruptly, taking care to avoid contact as he reached to take it.

  Reaction was beginning to set in; all she wanted to do was sit down and howl as Jay ripped open the envelope and scanned the contents, but not for anything would she display her weakness.

  As she bent to pick up the loose drawer and ram it back into place, one of the men still hovering in the doorway said, ‘Perhaps you’d prefer to sort this out in private, Jay,’ reminding Mirry of the audience she had forgotten.

  She straightened quickly saying, ‘There’s no need, I’m leaving myself now.’ But as she came out from behind the desk she began to feel most peculiar, the floor moving up and down beneath her feet. She reached for a chair, clutching the back of it while she took several deep breaths to try to steady herself. From a long way away she heard a girlish voice say, ‘Oh, you’ve hurt your leg. It’s bleeding!’ And, through the gathering darkness a male voice, ‘She’s going to faint!’ Seconds later she was being lifted into the chair, her head pushed down to her knees while the same voice demanded, ‘A drop of brandy, Jay.’

  Mirry tried to protest that she was all right, but her tongue felt too big for her mouth, then a glass was pressed to her lips. The impulse to swallow was automatic, and she gasped for breath as the fiery spirit hit the back of her throat. But though it made her gag and brought tears to her eyes, at least it cleared her head.

  ‘I think you should put a plaster on that cut.’ The girl, who could be no more than sixteen, was kneeling on the floor beside her chair, and Mirry looked down to see the jagged hole in her tights and blood oozing from the gash in her shin.

  ‘It’s all right,’ she dismissed, uncomfortable to find herself the unwilling centre of attention. ‘I’ll see to it when I get home.’

  ‘You’ll see to it now,’ Jay said in a voice that brooked no argument. ‘Do you know where there’s a first-aid box?’

  ‘There’s one in Aunt Georgie’s bathroom,’ Mirry said. ‘But really, you needn’t—’

  But he was already pulling her to her feet and saying, ‘Pour Alan a drink, Philip, and there’s ginger ale for Tricia. I won’t be long.’ And Mirry found herself being swept from the room and up the stairs. ‘Which way?’ he said as they reached the top.

  Mirry indicated with one hand. Opening the door to the sitting-room, she asked curiously, ‘Haven’t you looked round the house yet?’

  ‘Parts of it.’ Then, abruptly changing the subject, he asked,
‘So where are those architect’s plans you wanted me to know about?’

  ‘If I knew, I’d have left them with the letter and got out of here before you arrived,’ Mirry retorted. ‘I thought they’d be in there…’ she indicated the little bureau ‘… and when they weren’t I tried downstairs.’

  ‘You’d better see to your leg.’ Again the abrupt change of subject. Mirry sighed, deciding that, the sooner she did as he wanted, the sooner he’d allow her to leave.

  In the bathroom she stripped off her torn tights, bathed the wound with antiseptic and stuck an adhesive plaster over it, then returned to the sitting-room where she found Jay by the bookcase. ‘They won’t be there,’ she said. ‘They’re rolled up and—’

  ‘I do know what architect’s plans look like,’ he said curtly, his gaze falling to the pink plaster now adorning her shapely leg. ‘You’re feeling better?’

  ‘I’m fine.’ Mirry’s expressive face proclaimed her awareness that he didn’t care either way.

  ‘So if they’re not here, and not in the library, where else are they likely to be?’ Jay demanded. ‘That’s if they really exist at all.’

  Would he ever speak to her without that jeering challenge? Mirry wondered. It was on the tip of her tongue to retort that she had drawn them up herself, but she realised if Jay knew that, he would be even more prejudiced against the idea. ‘Georgie had them the day before she died,’ she said quietly. ‘She intended to post them to the local council the following morning, only she—’ Her voice wobbled as a wave of grief bowled her over. Turning away from Jay until the wave ebbed and she could trust her voice again, she eventually managed, ‘That’s why I was surprised not to find them in here. I don’t know… Perhaps Helen knows where they are!’

  ‘Helen?’ Jay asked blankly.

  ‘Helen Dutton. Aunt Georgie’s nurse. In fact, I could ring her…’ Mirry’s hand reached towards the extension phone, then hesitated. ‘With your permission?’ At his curt acquiescence she dialled the number.