by Penny Jordan
It was too late now to wish he had handled things differently, and he had enough of his parents' Celtic inheritance to believe beneath the logic of education that there were perhaps some things which were decreed by fate and which no amount of human endeavour could change.
The moment he reached the motorway he put his foot down; God—and the traffic police—willing, he wasn't going to be late after all, and suddenly it was important to him that he shouldn't be.
Half-past eight; Sage was .starting to panic. Not outwardly. Outwardly she had long ago learned to control any visible sign of her inner emotions, but inside her stomach was a turmoil of terrified, fluttering butterflies, her muscles already tensing, closing, the strain of the ordeal ahead beginning to break through her outer control.
It didn't help reminding herself that this confrontation with Daniel was at her own instigation… her hands, she discovered, were damp with the perspiration of tension. What if Daniel refused to give in to her threats? What good would it do anyway if he did? To have their main contractor pull out of the deal would cause the Government some problems in finding an alternative, but the road would eventually still go ahead.
Eventually… If she did manage to blackmail Daniel into pulling out of the contract then at least she would have bought them some time. Enough time perhaps for her mother to recover, to take charge…
If she ever recovered. Sage shivered, hugging her arms around her body, rubbing tense fingers up and down the goose-flesh of her upper arms.
What if her mother didn't recover? What if…? She bit down hard on her bottom lip and started to savage it with her teeth. Her mother had to get well, she had to… and the doctors were optimistic. She was very strong, they had said… but not yet strong enough to undergo the necessary surgery to remove the pressure on her brain…
Alaric Ferguson had been brutally explicit to her in describing her mother's chances of survival. A blood clot caused by the accident had lodged in her brain; they had hoped to disperse the clot without surgery but this had not proved possible… Now they had to wait until her mother was stronger, until they need no longer sedate her to help her body through the shock of the accident, before they could operate to remove the clot. It was time here that was all important, Sage had been told; a fine balancing of time and opportunity, a judgement to be made by the surgeon in charge. A judgement which would mean life for her mother—or death… She shivered again, wondering if her mother could know how much she was in her thoughts, in her prayers—how much she wanted her to recover. Not just out of guilt, out of remorse or even out of love. There was a great need in her now, a great thirst to know more of this woman whom she was coming to know so well through her diaries—a great need to talk with her, to find out why she had never known her before, a great need to tell her how much she admired her, how much she wished they might have been peers and close friends, instead of being separated by the enforced chasm of their difficult relationship.
She heard a car outside and started up, hurrying into the hall, relief and a tiny unexpected stab of disappointment panicking the butterflies into fresh flight as she realised it wasn't Daniel but Faye.
'Sorry I'm so late,' Faye apologised tensely as she came in. 'It wasn't intentional… if it hadn't been for that stupid man…' She broke off and Sage focused on her, frowning as she realised that Faye looked different, that there was something almost approaching a wildness about her, that there was a vivid, strong colour burning along her cheekbones, that she looked animated and alive in a way that was totally different.
Even the way she moved had changed, Sage recognised, her eyes following the quick, almost savage movements Faye made as she paced the hall, finally whirling round to demand bitterly, 'Do I look like someone who can't control her own life, who has to be treated like a child? I'm over forty years old, dammit…'
Sage blinked, as stunned to hear Faye swear as she was to witness her rage.
Sage merely said mildly, ignoring the first part of her tirade, 'I'm glad you're back, we were worried about you.'
'There you are!' Faye exploded. 'You were worried. Why? I'm a fully functioning adult, not a child. Would you expect me to say I'd been worried about you if you came in late?'
'Perhaps if I'd disappeared for a full day without letting anyone know where I was going,' Sage told her drily, and then added, before Faye could explode a second time, 'I'm not prying, Faye. What you do with your life is your own affair, but Cam was upset. This is a very difficult time for her—her exams coming up, Mother so ill… I think she feels her whole life has been thrown into turmoil. Girls of her age expect life to go on in the same way for ever; they expect the people they love to be around for ever—and when they realise they might not be…'
'Yes. I know,' Faye agreed. 'I miss your mother too…'
'I suspect that Camilla's a little bit miffed that you didn't tell her where you were going. She said something about you and Mother taking off one Tuesday a month to some WI meeting or other.'
'And you didn't believe her,' Faye challenged. 'Is that it?'
'It isn't a matter of what I believe, it's what Camilla believes,' Sage pointed out.
'So what is it you're trying to say—that you think that your mother and I sneak off once a month to pick up a couple of men? You would think that, Sage. Well, for your information—'
'I don't want to know what you do. I don't even care what you do, Faye,' Sage told her irritably. This meeting with Daniel was getting to her. She was so on edge, so screwed up inside at the thought of seeing him, being with him. It was all so ridiculous to keep remembering now something that happened over fifteen years ago, something she had little doubt that Daniel himself had completely forgotten—at least she hoped he had.
'No… You don't care what anyone does, do you?' Faye threw back at her, her soft features suddenly almost hardening. 'You don't care about anyone or anything, do you, Sage? Not even yourself. Well, for your information, you may sleep around with every man who takes your fancy, but I don't… If I want to keep that part of my life private then perhaps it's because it's necessary that I do so, not just for my own sake but for Camilla's as well, but that would never occur to you, would it? Because you've never, ever put anyone else before yourself…'
Faye broke off, her eyes suddenly swimming with tears. Dear God, what was she doing… what was she saying? But she had been so angry when that man, that interfering, busybodying doctor had dared to imply that— what? That she was incapable of a simple task like driving herself home, that she was weak and stupid? Hadn't he after all only been underlining everything she had been thinking about herself? Maybe, but she was only human and resented someone else pointing out her weaknesses as much as the next person. That was why she had loved David so much. He had never made her feel stupid or weak. He had never made her confront the evil ghosts which haunted her. He had never pushed or prodded her into doing anything she hadn't wanted to do. And yet perhaps he should have done. No…perhaps she should have done. Why should it have been necessary for someone else to do her thinking for her? Why couldn't she have seen for herself that her best way to fight free of the past was to confront it, to face up to it?
It was the diaries that were making her feel like this; the knowledge she was gaining from them that others had their own ghosts, their own fears and dreads, that she was not after all alone with her burden of guilt and hatred.
'I've finished another of the diaries. I've put it up in your room,' Sage told her, ignoring her outburst. 'I've also arranged for Daniel Cavanagh to come here tonight. There's something I want to discuss with him…'
'Daniel Cavanagh… Isn't he the head of the construction company building our section of the road?' Faye looked confused. 'Is that wise? I mean…' She shook her head. 'I'm sorry, Sage. I'm afraid I'm not being much help to you over any of this. I'd better go and make my peace with Camilla. Where is she?'
'She's gone out. She said something about going to see a school friend. She asked Jenny to drive
her. She did say you wouldn't mind,' Sage added when she saw Faye frowning.
'Well, no, I suppose not… It's just that she knows I like to know exactly where she is and with whom. You can't be too careful these days…'
'She is almost eighteen,' Sage reminded her. 'You can't keep her wrapped in cotton wool for the rest of her life, Faye.'
She had never seen Faye so temperamental before, she reflected curiously as her sister-in-law gave her a tight smile and headed for the stairs. She wondered what had happened to her to provoke such an outburst, and then put Faye and her potential problems out of her mind when she heard the sound of another car crunching over the gravel.
She had purposely asked Jenny to open the door to him when Daniel did arrive, hoping that such a show of formality would add to her own power base—which was one of the reasons she had invited him to come to Cottingdean, instead of meeting him somewhere more neutral.
She certainly needed every advantage she could snatch, she admitted as she heard the opening of a car door; Daniel had a formidable reputation in the City…not just as an astute and shrewd businessman but also, surprisingly, as a man of honour and very high moral ethics. That had surprised her, and yet why should it? That night when he had rejected her, when he had turned his back on her and made her feel like something that had just crawled out of the gutter, she had seen that formidable will-power and moral code in action. She could have sworn that he'd wanted her, had sensed it all the time she and Scott had known him, had been so sure he would take her… so sure that if he did so somehow she would be able to lose herself and her anguish in the fierce heat of the mutual passion she had known they would generate. What had she wanted? To burn away her hopeless love for Scott in the fires of Daniel's desire?
The sound of the car door closing brought her abruptly back to reality. She hurried towards the study door, and yet she was unable to stop herself pausing briefly in front of the seventeenth-century giltwood mirror which had been one of her mother's many auction bargains.
This one had originally hung in the drawing-room of a house in Ireland and contained the symbolic arms of the noble family who had originally commissioned it in its frame. It was a beautiful piece of workmanship, each detail of the fruitwood frame lovingly carved, but Sage barely glanced at the frame, concentrating instead on her own perfectly made-up face, wondering what Daniel would see when he looked at her. Would he transpose on these features she could now see—the firmly bowed mouth discreetly coloured with soft rose lipstick—the trembling swollen mouth of that girl who had stood and cried out his name in mortal anguish and need?
Would he look into the veiled and exquisitely made-up green eyes and see, not the control and knowledge which coloured them now, but the need and pain of her nineteen-year-old self? Would he look at her hair and see not its carefully tamed artful sleekness but the wild disarray of curls which had tangled round her tear-stained face, as she hurled her insults at him, driven into a mad, frenzied need to hurt him the way he had hurt her?
It had been bad enough to live with the knowledge that Scott was not driven by the same wild hunger to consummate their love that drove her; she had told herself that Scott was right, that in saying that he wanted to wait he was saying only how much he loved and respected her, that in saying that they must establish their relationship with their parents before becoming physical lovers he was showing only the concern that made her love him so much… but when Daniel had rejected her, Daniel, whom she had often and scornfully witnessed watching her with hot eyes whose message had needed no translation, when Daniel had removed himself from her and told her explicitly and brutally that he didn't want her, then she had suffered in a way she had never suffered before. Then she had endured her first painful doubt about herself and her sexuality, about her entire psyche as a female being… If she was not desired and desirable, then why was she suffering this pulsing, aching need to be part of another human being, why was she forced to undergo this humiliating surge of physical awareness, of physical wanting?
What was she, then—a woman without sexuality, without true femininity, without the ability to arouse and be aroused in turn?
Outside, their visitor rapped on the ancient knocker. Swiftly Sage turned away from the mirror and hurried into the study, quickly checking the room to ensure that the stage was set as she wished it to be.
Jenny had been in earlier and lit the fire, giving the room an air of warmth and intimacy which she hoped would deceive Daniel into relaxing his guard, into making him feel welcome and wanted…
A silver tray holding a bottle of sherry and some crystal glasses winked in the firelight. The sherry had come from the small stock laid down by her great-grandfather, and which had mercifully escaped the attention of Kit. The glasses were Waterford and antique, the silver tray merely plated and of no particular material worth at all, but it had been presented to her mother by the children from the local junior school, which she had fought to keep open and operational, donating several very large sums of money both personally and via the mill to ensure that its facilities were among the most modern in the country.
This tray had been the children's way of thanking their benefactress. It had her mother's name engraved on it and the date of its presentation, and Sage, who had often wondered cynically why her mother, who loved and needed to have things of beauty and value about her, seemed to cherish it so assiduously, now felt she knew exactly why. That knowledge was humbling and painful… like all knowledge gained through hard work and endeavour.
She heard footsteps in the hall outside… voices… Jenny's bright and cheerful, Daniel's deeper, muted and very male.
She felt her stomach muscles tense in protest as Jenny knocked on the study door, and discovered to her chagrin as it opened that she was actually curling her toes in her shoes, like a terrified child.
That was not the impression she wanted to give at all. She flicked a glance downwards, frowning, removing a small piece of fluff from her immaculately tailored suit. It was an outfit she thoroughly detested; she normally kept it for clients or meetings she didn't particularly like because she knew it gave her a polished, sophisticated image. The short, straight skirt subtly emphasised her sexuality, the long double-breasted jacket adding a sharper, disconcerting touch of hard-edged masculinity.
The fabric was a fine woollen Prince of Wales check, which she had been cynically amused to discover had been woven here at her mother's mills.
Beneath it she was wearing a tailored off-white silk shirt, and beneath that… beneath that she was wearing the equally plain and even more expensive silk underwear that was one of her few material indulgences. She bought it from Rigby and Peller in London, but over it when she was working—which was most of the time-she normally wore jeans and an oversized man's shirt. When she wasn't working she wore virtually the same thing, except when she was attending the odd and unwanted formal "do" or when she was coming down here to visit her mother, who expected certain standards to be observed.
Previously Sage had always thought her insistence on these standards petty-minded and yet another indication of her mother's refusal to move with the times, but now, after reading her diaries, she saw things differently, realised how difficult it might be for a woman raised as her mother had been raised, married so young to a man like her father, a woman who had known such financial and material hardships, to let herself go and dress in the casual classless uniform of which Sage herself was so fond.
If she in turn ever produced a daughter, would she find it as difficult to understand her—would she in turn not be able to bridge the chasms between them?
A daughter… Strange that when she had not thought of herself in the context of motherhood for so long, when she had not allowed to think of herself in that context since losing Scott, she should think of it now, no matter how obliquely.
She had told herself that she was more than ready for her confrontation with Daniel, that the physical reality of him held no traumas or fears for her, that
once over the shock of seeing him walk into the hall that night she was finally free of the past… but as he walked into her mother's study she knew that it wasn't true.
Why, when she was a relatively tall woman herself, did the sheer physical presence of him make her feel so breathless and nervous? He was tall, but not overly so, broad without the almost ape-like torso of so many large men, which she personally found repellent rather than attractive.
As he came towards her she looked for signs of grey in the thick darkness of his hair, and, finding none, wondered idly if he had it tinted before dismissing the notion as totally implausible. Daniel simply wasn't that kind of man.
Even now, with his hair expensively cut and shaped, his nails well-manicured and buffed, his hands and wrists were still sinewy and brown as though he still spent long hours physically working alongside his men. She remembered how much Scott had admired him for that, cataloguing his virtues for her, when she had sneered at her beloved's new friend, claiming that she didn't like him.
Scott… What was he doing now? Did he ever think about her? She knew that he was married… Someone, she didn't know who, since the magazine had arrived anonymously, had taken the trouble to send her a copy of an Australian magazine describing his marriage to the daughter of a successful entrepreneur as the 'Wedding of the Year'.
That had been six years ago, and certainly he had looked happy enough. The letters she had sent to him in the first frantic throes of her grief had all been re-turned to her unopened. Her telephone calls remained unanswered. Only once had she heard from Scott's father, a brief note telling her that Scott was recovering and that he didn't want to hear from her again.
The years between Scott's accident and his marriage were ones she preferred not to remember now. Years in which she had drunk deep of the rich, heady wine of life, and had sometimes found that such drinking had brought her a miserable sickness of the soul which refused to go away.