Prisoner Of The Heart

by Liz Fielding

  She didn’t want it to be ridiculous. She wanted to bury her face in the warmth of his neck and let him hold her and never let her go. But she resisted the urge, held herself away from him. ‘Is it? You were the one who insisted upon playing the gentleman.’

  ‘I had to.’

  ‘Even if it was what I wanted?’

  ‘Even then,’ he said.

  She took a little heart from the hoarseness of his voice, and peeped up at him from beneath long lashes. ‘Maybe I could persuade you to change your mind.’ He caught his breath as a delicate flush coloured her cheekbones.

  ‘Sophie…’ he warned her. ‘What on earth am I going to do with you?’

  Her blush deepened. ‘I was rather hoping you knew, Chay,’ she whispered into his neck. ‘I’ve done the theory, but I never could…quite get through the practical.’

  There was a pause. ‘And you carry a packet of condoms with you in case the opportunity…er… arises to take a re-test?’

  CHAPTER TEN

  FOR a moment his words didn’t quite penetrate the warm, comfortable haze generated by Chay’s arms wrapped about her. When it did, when the implication of what he had said finally broke through the rosy glow, cruelly shredding it, Sophie erupted from his arms, and he made no move to hold her.

  They had come a long way in a few short days, but this was the most brutal reminder of the true status of their relationship. That when he had first brought her to the tower he had searched her bags to find out who she was, knew things about her that no other man had ever come close to touching. And because of that he thought she was lying to him.

  When her shaky legs had put ten feet between them she finally managed to speak. ‘I might be a twenty-three-year-old virgin, Chay Buchanan, but that doesn’t make me stupid. My sister—’ her voice almost cracked with the hurt of his disbelief ‘–my twin sister, was an unmarried mother by the time she was seventeen. It was like looking into a mirror… The resulting mess left a lasting impression on me. I have no intention…’ She saw the beginning of a smile across his lips. ‘It’s not funny!’ she said angrily.

  He was beside her in a stride, his strong arms around her preventing further retreat. ‘I agree, my love. It’s not in the least bit funny. It’s just…’ He tilted her face up to his, forced her to look at him. ‘Tell me, how long have you been carrying that packet about with you?’

  ‘Ever since…’ She flushed crimson and her hands flew to her hot cheeks. ‘Do you think they’ve passed their “sell by” date?’

  ‘I really don’t think I’d be prepared to risk it,’ he said, with the utmost seriousness.

  ‘I… I didn’t think.’

  He finally allowed himself to smile. ‘Do you know, Sophie, that is one of the things I most love about you? You just jump in with both feet. I begin to believe that you are congenitally incapable of deception.’ He drew her against his chest briefly, and buried his face in her hair.

  You’d better tell him, Sophie, her little voice prompted. Right now. But she ignored it. There was plenty of time for explanations. She needed this moment, just to be held by him.

  After a while, when she didn’t say anything, he held her away from him and looked down into her face. ‘Sophie Nash, do you know that you could break a man’s heart? Just by looking at him like that?’

  ‘I…I would never want to break yours, Chay. I would never want to hurt you in any way.’ For a brief dizzy moment he kissed her, then he tore himself away.

  ‘I’ll go and open a bottle of champagne,’ he said, a little raggedly. ‘We’ve got a few things to discuss.’

  ‘No, don’t go…’ she murmured, reaching for him in a sudden panic at the thought of him leaving her on her own. ‘I must tell you…’

  He drew in a sharp breath. ‘If you don’t let me go right now, Sophie, I swear you’ll suffer the same fate as your sister.’

  ‘I…I’m not seventeen any more, Chay.’

  He swore softly. ‘You’re playing with fire, Sophie. I’m not made of wood.’

  ‘Chay…’ she protested–but to an empty doorway. ‘This is ridiculous,’ she finished, but talking to herself. But wonderfully ridiculous. She curled up in an armchair and laid her cheek against its broad arm, and hugged the thought to herself.

  As she lay against the old worn leather, a bright packet of prints on a low table in the direct line of her sight intruded on her thoughts. They had been brought over by Gian and left for them to look at. She reached almost automatically for it and began to flip through the pictures. Quite ordinary snapshots in the main part, of their day on the beach, until she came to the photograph of Chay and Tom grinning over a bright red apple. She smiled. It was a real winner; she had known it would be the moment she had taken it. Then, as if a goose had walked over her grave, she shivered. If he saw it he would think she had done it deliberately. That she had planned it… She pushed it into her shorts-pocket as she heard him coming back.

  She turned, forcing a smile to her lips, certain her guilt must be written clear for him to see. Then the photograph was wiped from her mind as she saw the second man, grinning broadly in ghastly contrast to the hard-edged danger of Chay’s expression, as they crossed the endless expanse of the room and came towards her. Nigel. For a moment the room swam. It couldn’t be him. It was Saturday, she wanted to scream. She had another day before Nigel came to demand her happiness in exchange for Jennie’s. Time to explain, time to tell Chay everything. But there was no more time.

  She saw the anger glitter in Chay’s eyes and knew that nothing she could say would ever put things right. ‘You have a visitor, Sophie.’ Chay’s voice was like a splinter in her heart. The cavalry has arrived to rescue you, apparently.’ He stared at her as if he was seeing a stranger. ‘Just a fraction too soon.’

  ‘I didn’t hear the door…’ she said stupidly.

  ‘That’s because your friend was flashing his headlights across the road in the expectation that you would notice him. That was the signal you arranged when he called?’ he asked, with deadly scorn.

  She leapt to her feet. ‘Chay, this isn’t… I didn’t—’

  But Nigel interrupted, making a liar of her. ‘Sorry if I interrupted something special, sweetheart, but my deadline has been moved up. I couldn’t wait until tomorrow.’

  ‘I’ve nothing for you, Nigel,’ she said dully.

  ‘We had a deal…’ Nigel warned. ‘Remember Jennie…’

  ‘A deal?’ Chay regarded the man with distaste. ‘I’m afraid if you want the photographs, they have already been destroyed.’

  But Nigel didn’t care what Chay thought of him. He was used to people looking at him as if he was something nasty they had trodden in. ‘I know,’ he said smugly, and ran his hand up her arm. ‘She told me when I called.’

  ‘No…’ Sophie moaned softly at the innuendo he had managed to insinuate into those innocent words.

  ‘But after a few days tucked up with you she guaranteed that she could provide me with something far more interesting.’

  Chay’s eyes were flint, all the colour gone from them. ‘That was your deal? How unfortunate for you both that I didn’t seize the many opportunities thrown in my path.’ He stared at Sophie. ‘Don’t be too hard on her. She really did try.’ Chay, his face all black and white shadows in the lamplight, took a step towards him. ‘But you had better take the…lady…home now. I’m sure she has more than enough to excite your readers.’

  Nigel, edging back towards the door, was no longer smiling quite so confidently.

  Sophie swung back to Chay, determined to convince him that this was none of her doing. ‘Chay, listen to me…’

  His eyes were riveted to her face. Leaden eyes, in which contempt for them both was written clear. ‘I think,’ he said, ignoring her plea, his voice hard and cold as black marble, ‘that the sooner you both leave my home, the better.’

  ‘Come on, Sophie,’ Nigel coaxed.

  ‘Are you still here?’ Chay’s eyes finally released her as
he made a sudden move in Nigel’s direction.

  Realising that he was in imminent danger of being pitched bodily through the door, Nigel hastily backed off. ‘I’ll wait in the car while you get your things,’ he threw at Sophie. Then he fled.

  She tried to move–to go to Chay, tell him, make him understand that she hadn’t wanted to be a part of Nigel’s sordid little plot to uncover his secrets. But nothing seemed to work. Her legs, her arms, her tongue were all made of wood. And her brain seized up beneath the glacial expression that forbade any attempt at explanation. Was it only fifteen minutes since he had held her? Kissed her?

  ‘I’m truly sorry that I didn’t understand how badly you wanted me to take you to bed, Sophie, to put the final touch to your…story.’ His voice sliced through her heart like a knife. ‘Especially when you offered yourself with such flattering frequency, even to the point of tempting me with the special prize of your virginity. I really must try to be less…’

  ‘Noble?’ she said quietly.

  ‘Gullible.’

  A sob broke from her lips and she turned and ran, passing the abandoned champagne and glasses standing on the hall table, up the stairs to her room. She flung her clothes into the case, bundling them up with no attempt to fold them. He had said she could break his heart. Well, he had just broken hers, not trusting her, not giving her a chance to explain. And why on earth should he believe her? Trust her? She had, after all, been part of a plot… But she hadn’t realised… How could she have known that she would fall in love?

  She banged the case shut and took one last look around. It felt like the end of something, but how could that be so? Nothing had started. Only love, and that apparently didn’t need time. She fought back the longing to take a last glance at Tom. Instead she walked down the stairs and through the hall, eyes straight ahead, to where Chay was waiting grey-faced at the front door. He caught her arm and she stopped, but refused to look at him. ‘Why?’ he demanded.

  For a moment, for just a moment, she thought she had a chance, that she could explain why. But deep down she knew it wouldn’t make any difference. Nothing could. It would simply prolong the agony of parting. ‘It was just a job,’ she said.

  He abruptly released her, and as she stepped through the door and out into the night it was slammed behind her and the lock was turned.

  The sound of rain woke her. It was days since she had returned to London. Days in which the rain had sounded a constant background to the ringing of the telephone that she left unanswered. She jumped as it began again, and she glanced at the clock. Seven-thirty. He knew she would be gone by eight. Work. Any sort of work, to keep her mind busy so she wouldn’t have to think. She lifted the receiver, cut off the call and left it off the hook, then swung her feet out of bed, shivering in the chill of a spring that in London refused to blossom.

  She made tea and poured cereal into a bowl, though she knew she couldn’t eat. The doorbell rang. It would be Sarah from next door, checking up on her. Worrying about her. But it wasn’t Sarah, it was Nigel, his foot in the door before she could slam it. He pushed his way in.

  ‘Go away. I have nothing to say to you.’

  He took an envelope from his pocket, holding it under her eyes so that she was forced to look at it. ‘I went to see Jennie last night,’ he said. ‘She’s got this flu that’s going round. Looks pretty poorly. They go through these places like… Well, you know. I expect the kid will get it soon.’

  ‘How can you?’ she demanded bitterly. ‘How can you be so…evil?’

  ‘Evil? That’s a bit strong, Sophie. All I want in return for her address is everything you know about Chay Buchanan. He said you knew plenty.’

  ‘Nothing that I’m prepared to talk to you about.’

  ‘Pity. Your sister—’

  ‘My sister is a grown woman, Nigel. She can come home any time she wants. It’s taken this for me to realise that.’ She took a step towards him. ‘But the truth is, Nigel, that I don’t believe you know where my sister is. I poured my heart out to you because it was my birthday and hers, and I had had a glass too much wine at a party. And miraculously, it seemed, through your contacts, you found her. Just a little too miraculously. Because there was just a little favour you wanted for the information. Since I was going to Malta anyway. Something else I had mentioned at the party.’ She took another step towards him. ‘And I so much wanted to believe you that I would have done anything. You knew that, didn’t you? It’s the stock-in-trade of people like you.’

  His eyes hardened and he gripped the envelope between his fingers, holding it out as he tore it to shreds. ‘You’ll never know now, will you?’

  The pieces fluttered to the carpet. She knew. Until that moment she hadn’t truly been certain. But while there had been a chance he could have used the information he would never have thrown it away.

  ‘You don’t understand, do you, Nigel?’ She looked him in the face. ‘Even if I had believed you, it would have made no difference.’ Then she picked up the pieces, all quite blank, walked into the kitchen and dropped them in the bin.

  But she had been right, and for a moment a mixture of pain and relief flooded through her, making her weak. She had promised Chay. In the quiet darkness of the tower, when he had told her about Maria and Matt, she had promised that she would never betray him. Even for her sister.

  And the agony of letting Jennie go had somehow cleared her mind. The more she thought, the more she had been sure. She wiped away a tear, suddenly feeling a little better. Chay had said, with some justification, that she jumped in with both feet. That was what had got her into this mess in the first place. But not this time. This time she had done the right thing.

  She went back into the living-room and looked around, but Nigel had gone. She walked across to the door and closed it behind him, thankful that she need never see or speak to him again.

  Sophie walked across to the bedside table to replace the receiver on the telephone and glanced at her clock. There was plenty of time for a shower to wash the stench of the man away. Then she frowned, and knelt on the floor to look beneath the bed in case it had fallen. But it hadn’t fallen. It wasn’t there. Her beautiful photograph of Chay and Tom. The photograph that she had found in the pocket of her shorts after the nightmare journey home. The photograph that she had stood beside her bed in a little silver frame. It was gone.

  Nigel.

  She flew to the phone to call the police. The frame was antique. She would have him arrested for theft. Then she stopped. There was no time for that. She had to warn Chay, and there was only one way to do it.

  The tower stood as she had seen it that first morning when she had come looking for him, the butter-coloured stone a little more dusty, the flush of spring flowers already past their best. It was time for the hardier geraniums and oleanders to soften its stark lines.

  As she stood before the great front door her headlong rush back to the island to warn Chay seemed foolhardy in the extreme. He might shut the door in her face, refuse to speak to her. But she had to try.

  She raised her hand to the antique dolphin knocker, but before she could announce her presence the door was flung open and Theresa, white-faced, gave a little scream.

  ‘Miss Sophie! Dio grazzi!’ Then she looked around. ‘Where is Mr Chay?’

  ‘Isn’t he here?’

  Theresa’s eyes rolled. ‘No, he is—’ She stopped. ‘You must come. Help me,’ she said breathlessly. Then retreated into her own language.

  ‘Theresa!’ The sharp tone in Sophie’s voice shocked the woman into silence. ‘Tell me! What is the matter?’ The woman pointed to the cliff, then buried her face in her apron. Sophie followed the gesture, a slight frown creasing her forehead. Then, with a sudden unease that fastened itself around her heart and wouldn’t let go, she grabbed Theresa’s arm. ‘Is it Chay? Is he on the cliff?’ Theresa began to wail pitifully, shaking her head, and suddenly Sophie knew. ‘Oh, no. Please, God, no.’ The words were wrenched from her. ‘Where is Chay?�
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  ‘Gone… He’s gone…’ Her eyes were rolling, and it was obvious the woman was beyond sense. Kicking off her high-heeled shoes, Sophie began to run. Down the path to the beach, along by the cave and then over the rocks, taking care not to slip. The thought that Tom needed her help, that there was no one else, made her slow when all she wanted to do was race.

  She caught her breath as she saw him. About thirty feet up and very still, his face chalk-white. He looked so small.

  ‘Tom’ she called, very gently, very evenly. ‘I’m coming up to you. Just hold on.’

  He didn’t move, didn’t speak. He was clearly too frightened even to move his head. She looked for a way to get to him and then, with a swift prayer to whatever saint looked after fools and little children, she grasped the handhold that offered itself so invitingly. But she was not a dare-devil boy. Nothing would have tempted her on to the cliff-face again. Only love.

  It was a slow and painful climb for unaccustomed limbs, but she had learned her lesson the last time. If she tried to rush she would never make it. And, for Tom’s sake, she had to make it. Foot by foot she moved towards him. It wasn’t a difficult climb if you didn’t look down or think about the drop. Or Matt Buchanan falling to his death as his brother tried to reach him.

  Tom began to wail just before she reached him. A long thin sound that cut her to the heart and lent a desperate speed to her hands and feet. Then she was beside him. ‘Hi, pardner,’ she said softly. His face began to crack, but she didn’t want him to cry. He would have to participate in his own rescue or they were both in trouble, and she quickly moved her body over Tom’s, so that he would feel her at his back, protecting him, and almost at once he seemed to relax a little. ‘Shall we see if we can get on to the ledge?’ she suggested, and after a long moment he nodded, once.

  Her first thought had been to take him back down. At least the drop reduced with every step. But, havin climbed so far, she was certain that neither of them would make it, and the ledge was only a few feet further on. For a moment she glanced up, half hoping to see Chay’s familiar face, the strong hand extended to help. Then she gritted her teeth. No one was going to help them.