The Hidden Years

by Penny Jordan

  Daniel felt the room spin round him. He must have made a sound because Robert's hand gripped his shoulder, his voice raw with emotion as he offered, 'I'm sorry, son…it's a shock for you, I know…it was a shock for me as well, to learn that your mother had suffered years of desperate unhappiness to protect me, that she had married John Ryan because she was carrying my child… Because she knew the scandal would destroy me… I like to think that if I had known I'd have done the right thing, divorced Nora and married your mother. I'd certainly have wanted to, but, as your mother says, how could I have deserted poor Nora? And yet when I think of how much your mother has suffered, how much you've suffered… but you are my son, Daniel. There's nothing of John Ryan in you… you're my son…'

  Robert's son. He was still trying to assimilate the shock of it, but strangely he felt no urge to deny it, no desperate inability to believe what he had been told—rather it was as though another burden was sliding from his shoulders with the knowledge that he need never fear he would become a man in John Ryan's image of violence and cruelty. And yet there was pain and confusion as well, the pain of knowing that it had been for his sake that his mother had suffered her marriage, the pain of realising that assumptions he had made about himself and his heritage were totally false, that he was not a Ryan…he was a Cavanagh and…a stranger to himself.

  'Don't think too badly of me, son. All of us at some times in our lives do things we regret, act without thought or caution. My deepest regret is the pain I've brought on your mother—that she has had to carry the burden of my sin. The fact that I fathered her child I consider to be one of the greatest achievements of my life, and that that child is you, Danny, one of its greatest gifts. I don't ask that you love me as your father—why should you? It's much easier for me to love you as my son, but I am your father, and I swear to you now that there is nothing I wouldn't do to spare your mother the slightest hurt, nothing…'

  He was Robert's son…not John Ryan's but Robert's. Not a Ryan but a Cavanagh… not half Irish and half Welsh but entirely Welsh… As he lay in bed Daniel closed his eyes, trying to come to terms with what he had learned, wondering bleakly if he ever would.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  It had been while Daniel was at university, doing a postgraduate course in civil engineering, that he'd first met Scott McLaren and, through him, Sage.

  He had already obtained his economics degree, a commendable first, but several long summers spent working with Robert had brought him to realise that, like it or not, and no matter how much he might have fought against it initially, there was something about the construction business that appealed to him.

  'Must be in the blood,' was all Robert said when Daniel told him that he had changed his mind and that he would like to go into the business after all. They were closer now, not perhaps as father and son in the way that Gareth and the twins were close, but certainly as two men whose personalities melded well, and who had respect for one another.

  His decision to take the extra civil engineering course was something he had discussed with Robert; Robert had recently been expanding his business first into the commercial and from there into the civil engineering sphere, and his plan was that ultimately Daniel would take over the control of this arm of the business.

  Now Daniel was in the first year of this extra course— the only year he would actually spend at Alcester before two more years of work experience combined with training. He was a few years older than the majority of the students, with a maturity of mind that skilfully allowed him to hide his deep inner vulnerabilities and insecurities.

  Although he could never regret that he was Robert's son and not John Ryan's, there was still a small sore place inside him that wouldn't heal, an illogical sense of betrayal and anger which he could not rationalise away.

  Because acknowledging its presence made him feel guilty and uncomfortable he preferred to ignore it, to bury it very deeply beneath the complex layers of knowledge and experience that went to make up his personality.

  During his first year at university he had had a very intense and passionate relationship with a fellow student, but when she had pressed for a long-term commitment he had found himself withdrawing from her, unable to give it. Much as he desired her, he was, he discovered, afraid of committing himself to her in case that commitment made him vulnerable, in case he discovered that it was not him she wanted after all but someone else.

  Logically he knew that this fear sprang from knowing that his mother had married John Ryan without loving him… and while he could quite easily understand her motives, and even in many ways admire her for what she had done, it had still left him with the vague distrust of the female sex, an awareness of their duplicity and man's inability to see it.

  He and Scott belonged to the same debating society. It was Scott's first term at university; the first time he had been away from his home and family for any length of time, and he was, Daniel sensed, homesick.

  Very quickly Daniel heard all about the vast sheep station run by Scott's father; the unexpected opportunity to take part in an exchange scheme between his home university and this British one. How he had been given the opportunity to take advantage of the scheme and how his father had objected at first, but had eventually given way.

  'I miss the old man, you know… There's only the two of us—Mum died shortly after I was born. She was English. Dad married her when he was over here doing a year's travelling.'

  While Daniel rented a small terraced house in Alcester, Scott was still living in one of the university halls.

  Daniel never discovered exactly how Scott had first come across Sage, and had always assumed that it must have been somewhere on the campus. What he did know was that within a very short space of time every single sentence Scott uttered seemed to contain the name 'Sage'.

  He was three years older than Scott, and just cynical and worldly enough to be slightly amused by the younger man's very obvious devotion.

  He hadn't met her yet, but when he did he suspected that he would discover that this paragon of all the virtues would be just another immature first-year female student, clad in the shrouding uniform of long, droopy garments favoured by the majority of the female student population. She would be thin and waiflike; Scott constantly spoke of her in terms that suggested he considered her vulnerable and fragile. She would have pale skin and kohl-rimmed eyes, and she would be studying something arty and potentially useless.

  When he actually did meet her it came as a shock to discover how wrong he had been.

  For a start, there was that wild banner of dark red hair vibrantly flaunting itself in the still breeze of Alcester's High Street, as Scott spotted him and dragged his obviously reluctant companion over to introduce her.

  When he shook her hand he discovered that her grip was surprisingly strong, her fingers long and thin, her wrist supple. She was taller than he had expected, too, only about four or five inches shorter than Scott, who was an inch or so short of his own six feet two, and she was not wearing droopy clothes.

  Nor, he realised with some amusement, did she like him. What he suspected was normally the feral stare of her extraordinary eyes had been tamed to return his scrutiny, but quite obviously only with a supreme effort, and it occurred to him to wonder what on earth it was that ordered human fallibilities so disastrously, in causing Scott, who was so placid, so organised, so insistent on order in all he did, to fall in love with this obvious termagant of a girl, whose nature, he suspected, was as unruly as her hair. Even her teeth were sharp and challenging, the apparent softness of her full mouth deceptive perhaps to the inexperienced eye which might see in it compliance and gentleness. He knew better. She was no mate for Scott and yet she plainly adored him.

  Because he could see in her eyes that she wanted Scott to herself, that she didn't want his company making up a threesome, he said casually to Scott, 'I'm just on my way to the Crown. Why don't you join me…?'

  He could feel the anger she was directing to him withou
t having to look at her.

  Scott, completely oblivious to it, responded eagerly, 'Great… Sage was just saying that she fancied a drink…'

  Sage… Daniel wondered how he managed not to laugh. Whoever had thought up that name for her must have had good cause to regret it over the years, or had they perhaps been hoping against hope that the bestowal of such a name might go some way to alleviate the burden of temperament fate had bestowed upon her?

  She was certainly not to his taste, and he could only marvel at Scott's blindness to what she really was.

  He preferred his women smooth and sleek, blonde preferably, with more than a hint of the cool refinement that came from protected upper-middle-class backgrounds. The typical choice of the street-wise kid from a working-class background, he frequently taunted himself with derision, and yet to all intents and purposes he wasn't that kid. He was the only son of a man whom even the serious heavy papers were beginning to mention in their financial pages as one of the decade's most successful and innovative developers. Robert was now a millionaire, on paper at least, and outwardly if nothing else he, Daniel, had all the trappings and advantages the son of such a man could expect.

  What had been left of his Liverpool accent had been completely extinguished during his last two years at school; Robert paid him well for the work he did for him during the summer, as well as sending him abroad for several weeks at a time, ostensibly to see how things were being done in other countries.

  He had visited Germany and France, Spain, Italy, and, most recently, America and Canada.

  In addition to his grant Robert paid him a generous allowance, and provided him with a car; the British racing green Morgan Robert had given him for his twenty-first birthday to replace the one he'd given him at seventeen was garaged safely at home and only used during the summer months. Now, with them well into the autumn term, Daniel was driving the small BMW which had originally been his mother's, but which had been passed on to him when Robert had bought her a new one.

  All in all he was in a very fortunate position, but no more fortunate than many of his fellow graduates. Alcester had a growing reputation as a small but good university, not of Oxford's standard, of course, and not for those destined to grace the computer industry—for them there was Cambridge—but Alcester was spoken of in academic circles as a university with more than its fair share of upper- and upper-middle-class students.

  No, there was no reason at all for him to feel either guilty or uncomfortable about his financial security. Scott received a very generous allowance from his father, and he expected that this girl did too, for all that she was looking at him with all the contempt of a newly converted communist for a dyed-in-the-wool capitalist.

  'I really wanted a cup of coffee,' she was saying to Scott now, holding on to his arm, and staring defiantly at Daniel.

  Possessive as well as passionate, he reflected idly, smiling back at her.

  'The Crown serves coffee,' he assured her dulcetly, pretending to be unaware of the real reason she had chosen to object to his suggestion.

  He could see that she was half inclined to argue, and was cynically amused that she should have so little understanding of her lover's temperament. Didn't she realise how much Scott liked peace and harmony in his life? Of all men, he was the least likely to appreciate the tantrums and fireworks which he guessed she was more than capable of exhibiting.

  He marvelled inwardly at her ignorance and self-conceit that she should think that it was simply enough for her to love Scott and for him to love her in return.

  She was so arrogant, this untamed, tempestuous child who looked at him with her angry defiant eyes that told him she wanted Scott to herself. So arrogant and so potentially vulnerable. Couldn't she see that ultimately Scott would turn away from her, that he would tire, not of her, but of her restless moods and her emotional highs and lows?

  When she eventually became a woman she would need a man who challenged her; led her, matched her and evoked the deepest intensity of her passion.

  She would find none of those things with Scott, and when she eventually made that discovery she would be the one to be the more badly hurt, he recognised. Scott's very temperament would protect him always from the highs and lows of emotions which would torment her.

  He stepped back to allow her to precede him as they changed direction and headed for the pub, Scott apparently sublimely unaware of the tension crackling between them as he talked enthusiastically to Daniel about a lecture he had recently attended.

  Though he listened to Scott, it was Sage on whom his attention was fixed. She moved like a young colt, he thought wryly, all jerky, uncoordinated movements which curiously had their own peculiar grace. As they passed people turned their heads to look at them. To look at her.

  She was not beautiful in the strictest sense, but there was something about her: a clear message composed of sensuality, vulnerability, danger and that air of wildness that had first struck him. Temptation to any man, a dangerous temptation arousing his instinctive need to stalk and hunt, to capture and tame… He had never seen a woman who aroused his most basic male instincts as this one did, he acknowledged, finding the knowledge both amusing and enlightening.

  He wondered what she was like in bed, and didn't even apologise to Scott in his mind for doing so. This was a woman whom no man could look at without asking himself that question. And yet there was nothing about her that was overtly sexual. No contrived come-ons, or deliberate underlining of her sexuality. Rather she almost seemed ashamed of it, and angered by it. Was that why she had chosen Scott—was she perhaps secretly afraid of what might happen to her if she allowed herself to want a man who matched her passion for passion, need for need, desire for desire…?

  With Scott, all that was wanton and reckless within her would be safely damped down, cooled and controlled, because Scott's was not a nature that would ever reach those haunting and tormenting heights and depths of intensity. Scott would never know the almost divine sensation, the almost too painfully heightened state of awareness of self and oneness that came from such passion, and neither, mercifully, would he ever know the depths of degradation it could drag its victims down into.

  But she would know those things, maybe already did, for all that she looked so clean and scrubbed, so fresh, and in some odd way almost innocent. Until one looked into those Lilith-given eyes and at that violently passionate mouth.

  He wanted her, Daniel recognised. He had seen her, known her for only five minutes and yet it was more than long enough for him to recognise what was causing the deep gut-ache burning his body.

  That wanting both amused and amazed him. She was not his type—too turbulent, too troublesome, too much like hard work. He liked his women sleek and complaisant, and he made no apology for doing so.

  When the time eventually came for him to find a wife and settle down, it wouldn't be passion that motivated him. That was something he had already decided. He had seen what passion brought, how it destroyed and maimed. John Ryan must have loved his mother once, must perhaps also have sensed that she did not love him, must have found himself caught in a trap that constantly chafed at him. It had made him violent… abusive… He might not be John Ryan's natural son, but he was deeply conscious of the effects of witnessing such behaviour, of the seeds of destruction it might have sown within himself… Given the same kind of circumstances, put in a situation where he loved too much and was not loved in return, might not he too resort to violence, to the social conditioning of his early years? It wasn't a risk he was prepared to take. He would marry—he had no roving bachelor instincts; he enjoyed sex but he also enjoyed cerebral foreplay just as much as physical. When he married it would be to a woman he could respect and who would respect him in return. Perhaps there would always be between them the kind of distance that came when two people married for reasons that were sensible rather than passionate, but they would have a good life together; a home, children, security… and in the meantime he satisfied the sexual hunger
of his body with relationships designed to give both him and his partner pleasure without any emotional pain.

  This woman would never in a thousand years understand any of that. She would be as rapacious as a famine and twice as deadly. She would want everything a man had to give and then some more. She would demand his exclusive attention, his total concentration, and she would probably drive him out of his mind into the bargain.

  And despite knowing all that, Daniel recognised as he held open the pub door for her, right now, standing within two feet of her, breathing in the female scents of her skin and hair, he would take every risk there was simply out of his need to take her to his bed, and make love to her until those feral green eyes no longer glowered at him, but grew huge and soft with satiation, until her body tensed in sexual ecstasy beneath his, until she cried out his name in anger and passion, until he had made her want him with the same intensity with which he wanted her.

  Luckily, he was experienced enough to conceal what he was thinking from her and from Scott.

  It shocked him a little that he should so easily and so casually dismiss the claims of loyalty to his younger friend. He had never been the type to take pleasure or find a thrill in poaching on other men's preserves, especially when those men were his friends. Besides, there had never been any need. Daniel was the kind of man to whom women were instinctively attracted. So much so, that he had long ago developed a method of deflecting them without hurting or damaging them.

  He liked women, but not this one… He didn't like her, and she most certainly did not like him. Sardonically he wondered how long it would take her to recognise that beneath her antipathy towards him ran this sexual awareness and need. And, when she did, whether she would admit it even to herself.

  He was not an unkind man; she couldn't be much over eighteen, but he doubted that Scott was her first lover.

  A girl like that would have matured early, become aware of her own potent sexuality early. Unless she had been immured in a convent for the last four years, he doubted that she could have been an innocent untried virgin when she came to Scott's bed, and yet curiously she seemed not to recognise, as he would have thought a woman with any sexual experience would have recognised, that beneath the surface of her antagonism and his bland response to it lay this deeper, darker vein of emotion.