by Penny Jordan
‘Have I?’ she demanded wearily. ‘Very well, then, Luke. Tell me that you aren’t John Burrows’s second cousin.’
There was a brief silence, and then he spoke huskily.
‘I can’t.’
‘No,’ Melanie agreed softly, her mouth curling into a bitter little smile. ‘You can’t, can you, Luke?’
‘Melanie, my relationship with John is a fact. I can’t deny that, but as for the rest—’
‘You’re wasting your time, Luke,’ she told him dully. ‘I really don’t want to hear any more.’
‘Did what happened between us today mean so little to you that you won’t even give me a chance to explain?’
Her throat ached as she drew in a sharp breath. Even now he still wanted to torment her. She looked at him, unable to hide the pain and the disillusionment in her eyes. ‘As far as I’m concerned, today is a day I intend to wipe completely from my memory. I never want to see or hear from you again, Luke. Oh, and by the way, I intend to make very, very sure that you never get your hands on the cottage. Your second cousin must have had a good reason for not leaving it to you, for choosing to leave it to a complete stranger, someone whose name he could only have picked out at random from some telephone directory, I suspect. Doesn’t it tell you anything, Luke, that he would rather leave his home, a home he obviously cherished and loved, to a stranger, than to his only living relative?
‘Poor man. No children of his own, only a second cousin, who apparently cared so little for him that he left him to live out the last years of his life unhappy and alone.’
She heard Luke give an exasperated sigh.
‘Melanie, it wasn’t like that,’ he told her roughly. ‘If John was alone it was because he chose to be. He damn near quarrelled with everyone he knew. Why, he even—’ He broke off suddenly and frowned. He was looking directly at her, but Melanie had the distinct impression that he was not really seeing her at all. No doubt he was plotting some further underhand way to get the cottage off her. Well, with a bit of luck, soon it would be sold to someone else, and she would be free to leave here, to go away and get on with her own life.
‘I want you to leave, Luke. Now. Or do I have to repeat the threat I had to make to your fiancée to call the police?’
‘What?’ He focused on her for a second. ‘Yes, all right, I’ll go, but this isn’t the end of things. When you’ve had time to calm down and reflect… I can’t deny that I did deceive you, but not in the way you seem to think.’
He had made no effort to move towards the door, and in fact looked as though he was not about to move at all.
‘And as for Lucinda Hewitson being my fiancée…’ He paused, while Melanie looked at him with shocked eyes.
‘But she told me—’
‘I don’t care what she told you. She and I are not engaged, never have been engaged and never will be engaged,’ he told her flatly. ‘Neither do I have any kind of involvement with her father, nor…’
‘Don’t say any more, Luke,’ Melanie advised him shakily when he paused for breath. ‘I really don’t think I want to hear any more lies from you.’
‘I haven’t told you any lies,’ he told her bluntly. ‘Oh, yes, there may have been certain omissions of various facts, but—’
‘You told me you were a private detective up here to work on a case,’ Melanie interrupted him with a passionate bitterness. ‘Was that the truth?’
The scorn in her voice brought an angry surge of colour up under his skin.
‘No, not entirely,’ he admitted curtly. ‘It’s true that I’m not a private detective. In fact, my partner and I run a company which provides advanced security of a variety of types for those who need it. And as for the case on which I was working…’
He paused and looked at her.
Enlightenment came slowly, but once it had come, Melanie stared at him, anger and indignation colouring her too-pale face.
‘You mean, you were investigating me?’ she demanded. ‘I don’t want to hear any more, Luke! I—’
‘Maybe you don’t but you’re going to,’ he told her dangerously, taking hold of her before she could stop him, and virtually propelling her back towards the fireplace.
Melanie couldn’t stop him; she had neither the physical nor the emotional resources with which to do so. Physically he could overpower her any time he chose, and if his grip on her was firmly determined, rather than in any way threatening or intimidating, it was still enough to make her wary.
And as for physically trying to push him away, the mere thought of actually having to touch him was sufficient to bring back her earlier churning nausea. Luke must have read what she was feeling in her eyes, because, as he pushed her down into one of the armchairs, she said cynically. ‘What’s wrong? Can’t bring yourself to soil your hands by touching me, is that it? My God, you don’t believe in giving anyone much of a chance to defend themselves, do you?’
‘What defence could you possibly have?’ Melanie had intended the words to sound cold and hard, but instead her voice had a dangerous wobble to it, almost a hidden plea to him that he would actually explain away the whole unbelievably hurtful affair. But logic told her that this was impossible.
‘Yes, it’s true that it did originally cross my mind, when I heard that a very young and pretty woman had inherited Uncle John’s assets, that this same young woman might well be scheming and manipulative; and yes, I did decide to carry out some investigations of my own into exactly why he should have made her his heiress; and yes, I freely admit that I did, in a much regretted moment of weakness, say as much to Lucinda Hewitson, but not because there was or ever has been any intimacy between us. Lucinda isn’t my type—she’s a selfish, spoiled, amoral parasite who leaves me completely cold, both emotionally and physically,’ he said bluntly. ‘No, the sole reason I ever mentioned the matter to Lucinda was that she was trying to enveigle me into trying to persuade you to sell up to her father. If she got the idea that had I inherited from John I would have sold out to Hewitsons, then she certainly did not get it from me. As it happens, I suspect that the land wouldn’t be of much use to them anyway, since I’ve heard a whisper that the Committee intends to opt for the second choice of route for the motorway extension, but that isn’t common knowledge as yet.
‘As for the rest, I admit that my initial assessment of the situation was totally wrong and totally unforgivable, and, if I’m honest with you, I think it was prompted more by my own guilt than anything else.
‘Of course, once I’d met you… Well, let’s just say my emotions had a very hard time accepting what my brain was trying to tell them. None of the facts seemed to add up. I couldn’t reconcile the kind of woman I was discovering you to be with the shrewd little gold-digger of my imagination, and the more I got to know you the harder it became to retain that image.
‘But then of course there was my own guilt and its demand that I at least made some attempt to find out why John had made you his heiress—not because I resented what he had done; I didn’t. But you were right about one thing: I had neglected him. I had let pride, if you like, come between us.
‘After my father died, John was very good to me. My mother and I lived quite near to here until she remarried. I suppose in many ways John became my substitute father, just as I…’ He paused and then continued heavily. ‘It was when I made my decision to leave the army that we first quarrelled. There had always been a tradition in the Burrows family that the men went into that service. John himself fought during the Second World War, and was later invalided out of the army. He grew up here, of course.
‘When I refused to change my mind about leaving the army, he told me he never wanted to see me again. He was prone to be very quick-tempered, very unforgiving and intolerant of the views of others. I tried to make him understand, but he just wouldn’t listen to me, and so I did as he had demanded and left him strictly alone. I was younger then and probably far too stubborn myself.
‘It was my mother who pointed out to me how lon
ely he was and how much he was probably missing me, even though nothing would ever make him admit it.
‘I came down to see him several times; my business was based in London then and, like all new businesses, demanded a very large slice of my time. He always let me in, but once I was in he would sit in that chair you’re sitting in and simply not say a word. You see, he had told me that he wouldn’t speak to me again unless I went back into the army, and since I couldn’t do that…
‘While my mother was still living locally there was a point of contact between us, but once she left… Perhaps I should have tried harder to make him understand, but he could be unbelievably stubborn, unbelievably unforgiving. When he died—well, he was a good age, of course, but I just hadn’t expected it. It came as such a shock; made me realise that suddenly he wasn’t going to be there any more. I suppose I’d always had the idea at the back of my mind, that somehow or other I’d get him to accept that the army just was not for me, that we’d make up our differences. To realise that that just wasn’t going to happen was hard, very hard, but what was even harder to accept was the loneliness of the last years of his life; a loneliness I could have, should have done something about.
‘It was my guilt, because I hadn’t done that, that made me want to know more about you, Melanie; not any resentment because he’d left everything to you. I suppose in a way I was hoping that there would be some valid connection between you, not so that I could overset the will as you seem to think—that had never even crossed my mind—’
‘But Lucinda said—’ Melanie began, but Luke cut her short, telling her harshly,
‘I don’t give a damn what Lucinda told you. She was lying. Condemn me if you must, but at least condemn me for the sins I have committed, and not those I haven’t. Greed was never my motivation.’ He gave her a tight smile. ‘In fact, it might surprise you to learn that these days I’m a rather wealthy man in my own right. Our business venture has proved unexpectedly successful.’
‘But you obviously thought that greed had motivated me,’ Melanie pointed out tightly.
Luke looked at her consideringly and then asked gently, ‘Not greed necessarily. Once I knew about your background, once I understood how hard and deprived your childhood was, I could understand why you might feel a need to be cautiously careful with money. I knew for instance that you must have inherited some money from John, and yet when I suggested buying a new carpet for the bedroom you immediately balked as though you could not afford one.’
Melanie went white with anguish. ‘Because I don’t consider that money mine to spend,’ she told him fiercely. ‘Just as I don’t consider this cottage mine—’ She broke off, flushing darkly as she realised how much she had betrayed.
Luke was frowning at her.
‘What on earth do you mean? Of course they’re yours. John left them to you.’
Melanie shook her head.
‘Not, not to me,’ she told him. ‘Not to me the individual, the person; he left them to a stranger, any stranger; a stranger picked at random for no reason other than that he must have just chanced across my name somehow or other.’ Tears filled her eyes as she continued huskily, ‘At first I kept on thinking that there’d been some mistake; that his solicitors must have confused me with another Melanie Foden, that he could not possibly have intended to leave everything—this cottage, his money—to a stranger, and then when I discovered how alone he had been it was as though I had found a link which tied us together, and I knew then what I had to do.
‘I intend to sell the cottage. Oh, not to someone like David Hewitson, but to someone who will care for it and turn it into a proper home, and the money that I get for it, plus the money your cousin left me, I intend to donate to a charity in his name.’ She stopped abruptly. Why was she telling him all this? It was almost as though secretly she wanted to vindicate herself to him. Why should she want that when he was the one in the wrong, the one who had cruelly and deliberately deceived her?
‘Just as soon as I find a suitable buyer for the cottage I intend to sell it and leave here,’ she told him flatly.
‘I don’t think your cousin did me any favours in naming me as his sole beneficiary.’ She gave a bitter laugh. ‘If he hadn’t done so, at least I’d have been spared the discovery that the man I—’ She stopped again, biting her lip angrily as she realised how close she had just come to admitting her love for him, and amended her sentence to carry on unevenly, ‘The discovery of just how much you’ve lied to me, and exactly what you think of me. You know, you really have surprised me, Luke. Thinking what you think about me in this day and age, when none of us can escape from knowing the consequences of having sex with partners with a history of previous lovers, I shouldn’t have thought you’d want to take the risk involved in being intimate with a woman whom you believed went around seducing old men in order to inherit their money—’
‘Oh, for God’s sake!’ Luke interrupted her brusquely. ‘I never thought any such thing. Not once I’d met you, talked to you; and even if I had,’ he added quietly, ‘I’m hardly likely to go on thinking so, am I? Unless of course you’ve perfected a from of seduction that somehow or other leaves your virginity intact.’
Melanie half rose from her chair and then froze.
‘This afternoon,’ Luke continued softly, ‘what we shared together was so special to me that I had hoped, believed—’
‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ Melanie told him abruptly. The truth was that she dared not let him talk about it. She was terrified that if she did she would weaken completely, and she could not afford to do that…she could not afford to allow herself to be vulnerable to him again. He had deceived her once; she shuddered as she remembered how much, and even though his explanation had been logical, acceptable in many ways, she was still being driven by her emotions, emotions which told her bitterly that she had accepted him, loved him without question or doubt, whereas he…
She drew a deep shaky breath.
‘Melanie, I think you know what I’m trying to say to you. All right, so maybe what happened this afternoon was a trifle precipitate, a case, perhaps, of putting the cart before the horse, but when I saw you falling on to that piece of glass…’ He stopped speaking, a muscle working in his throat, his eyes shadowed with pain.
‘That degree of shock has a way of undermining a man’s self-control, and from the moment I met you mine has been subjected to some pretty tough harassment.’
‘If you’re trying to tell me that you wanted to have sex with me—’ Melanie began bravely, but he cut right through her challenging sentence and told her furiously,
‘No, I am damn well not trying to tell you that I ‘‘wanted to have sex’’ with you. What I wanted was to make love with you and, although I have the feeling that right now you’d rather walk to hell and back barefoot than admit it, I got the impression that you wanted it as well. I’m not the kind of man who thinks of sex as a physical appetite to be appeased. That way of living has never had any appeal for me.
‘What I am trying to say is that I love you, and that I’d hoped you were coming to love me too. OK, I haven’t been as honest with you as perhaps I should, but, whether you choose to believe it or not, I was coming back here tonight to tell you everything. God knows why Lucinda Hewitson took it upon herself to come round here and give you that cock and bull story about our being engaged. As I told her father when I went to see him earlier, I completely support you in your decision not to sell out to him—’ He broke off, his face clearing. ‘My God, I wonder if that’s it?’ He gave her a direct look. ‘In normal circumstances this wouldn’t be something I’d ever think worth mentioning, but Lucinda, being the type of woman she is, is rather prone to making her desires plain and unfortunately some time ago she did let it be known that she wouldn’t be averse to a relationship developing between the two of us. Of course, I told her as tactfully as I could that it just wasn’t on. I wonder if this is her way of paying me back? She was there today when I saw her father and I
made it pretty plain to them both, I suspect, just how I feel about you.’
‘She was wearing an engagement ring,’ Melanie told him shakily.
‘Mm. This engagement ring—it wouldn’t have been a particularly vulgar and unattractive sapphire surrounded by diamonds, would it?’
When Melanie nodded, he grinned.
‘A birthday present from her doting father, or so she told me when she was showing it off to me this afternoon. Only then she was wearing it on her right hand.’
It was Melanie’s turn to frown as she remembered that she had noticed that the ring was a little loose on the other woman’s finger.
He loved her, Luke had said. Loved her. But how could she believe him, and, even if she believed him, how could she trust him? How could she be sure that he would go on loving her? She couldn’t, and it was too much of a risk to take, too great a step into the unknown.
She looked up and froze. Luke was coming towards her. If he touched her now, held her, kissed her… She was shaking inside at the intensity of her own vulnerability, her own need. She stood up, warding him off instinctively, telling him shakily, ‘Don’t touch me, Luke—not now. I don’t think I could bear it.’
In any other circumstances, the look in his eyes could have made her weep. As it was she shuddered visibly, tensing under the strain of holding on to her self-control and her pride, of not allowing herself to fall into his arms and tell him that she loved him and that nothing else mattered. But once she did that, once she allowed her heart to rule her head… He had lied to her once, even if it was only by omission. She had never dreamed, never guessed that he was John Burrows’s second cousin, never contemplated that he might be deliberately cultivating her friendship for any other reason than that he was attracted to her, and that knowledge hurt her unbearably. She had been so naïve, so trusting, while Luke…
‘I know you need time,’ she heard Luke saying. ‘I think I can understand a little of what you’re going through, but, believe me, Melanie, my need to find out what kind of woman you are and why John had named you as his beneficiary never had a thing to do with any desire to have his will overset. It was prompted only by my guilt…never by greed.’