She sounded so serious, he looked at her swiftly, his gaze intense. But she was smiling and seemed perfectly normal.
Nodding, taking hold of her arm, he led her into the library. She immediately sat down in the chair facing his desk, so he went behind his desk, sat opposite her.
A frown settled on his face. He asked, “Why this sudden formality? What is this about?”
Alicia reached into her handbag and took out two red Cartier boxes. Placing them on the desk in front of him, she said in a steady voice, “Adam, I’m so sorry to have to tell you this, but I cannot marry you. I am returning your ring and the diamond earrings you gave me at Christmas.”
He gaped at her, scowling, rendered totally speechless as he attempted to digest her words.
She said, “I’m so sorry to break off our engagement, but I can’t marry you, Adam. You see, I know it won’t work, it really won’t. It’s best this way—to part on friendly terms.”
Fury rushed through him as her words sank in, and he jumped up, went around his desk, and stood over her, glaring down into her face.
“You cannot break off our engagement! I won’t let you humiliate me, make a fool of me in front of the whole world. Everyone knows we’re engaged. We’re the couple, and you know it. I won’t let you do this to me.”
He was shouting now, and she saw the cold look in his translucent gray eyes, the hardness on his face, the tight set of his jaw, and she recognized that anger was bubbling up inside him. She knew she had to get away.
Somehow she managed to slide off the chair, clutching her bag, and stepped away from him before he could stop her. She felt better on her feet. Safer. There was a deadly look in his eyes now, and she noticed he was shaking with rage.
“I must go now, Adam,” she said, trying to edge past him into the foyer. But he blocked her, grabbed her arm very tightly, and hissed, “If you leave me, I will break you. I will ruin your career. Ruin your life. Nothing will ever be the same again for you.”
Alicia was in complete control of herself, and she answered in a stern tone, “You cannot do either. I am an Ingham, so don’t attempt to frighten me. Ingham women are fearless.”
“Ingham. Always the bloody Inghams. Who the hell do you all think you are? You are the daughter of a whore. Yet, a well-known whore.”
A sardonic smile slipped onto his face. “Hugo Stanton is not your father. Nobody knows who your father is, Miss Alicia hoity-toity Ingham. Wait until I give this story to the newspapers. I can just see the headlines. Here’s one of them … Alicia Stanton is the daughter of a tart.”
He laughed in her face. “I’m going to teach you a lesson you’ll never forget, you fucking bitch. You’re not going to do this to me, shame me, make me a laughingstock.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. It’s all nonsense. Of course Hugo Stanton is my father.”
“No, no, he isn’t! Ask your mother. And in the meantime, if you want me to keep your scandalous secret a secret, you have to pay me. Pay me a lot. But first I am going to have a huge taste of you.” He laughed. “You know you love it. Just like your mother.”
Before she could dodge out of his way, he grabbed her arm, dragged her out of the library and across the foyer to his bedroom.
He pushed her down on the bed, threw himself on top of her, endeavoring to kiss her, one hand pulling up her skirt.
Alicia struggled desperately, managed to slap him hard on the face. Instantly he pulled away, startled. She pushed her knee into his crotch, and he shouted out in anger and sudden pain. He leaned over her, a steely look in his eyes. Swiftly she brought up her right arm and her clenched fist and hit him on the jaw, stunning him. In her haste to get off the bed, she slipped and fell onto the floor. Alicia was in good shape; she picked herself up and rushed out into the foyer. Only to be caught by him a moment later.
Standing facing her, holding her by both arms, his grip strong, Adam said in a cold, controlled voice, “I have your secret. I can release it to the world. Or I can forget it. But you have to pay me. I want twenty thousand pounds. Yes or no? It’s your call.”
Alicia looked into his face, her eyes narrowing, and she knew at once that her suspicions about his backers disappearing had been correct. He was out of money. Needed it badly.
Taking a deep breath, she said, “I don’t have a lot of money. But perhaps Charlie could help me out.”
Adam began to laugh, suddenly enjoying this negotiation. “Then let’s give him a ring, shall we? I’m sure he’s in London. Little brother is never far away from you. I’ve often wondered about that strange relationship you have with him.”
Ignoring the ridiculous taunt, Alicia replied, “You’re correct about being not far from me. He’s outside, actually. If you open the door, you’ll see him.”
Adam, knowing there was no way she could leave his flat, let go of her, walked over to the front door. She had spoken the truth. There was Charlie, leaning against a car, smoking a cigarette.
“Come in, Charlie,” Adam called. “Your big sister needs your help.”
As Charlie walked in and closed the door behind him, every journalistic instinct was at the forefront of his mind. He took in everything in one sweeping glance around the foyer.
They both looked rather ruffled, as if there had been a struggle. But he was filled with relief that Alicia was obviously unharmed, leaning against the door frame of the library. But she was very pale, looked scared.
He noticed that Adam was controlled but he sensed that fury was brewing inside him. Charlie saw it in those icy gray eyes and the set of his mouth. Rigidity was pronounced.
“So why does my sister need my help, Adam? Alicia wishes to break off the engagement. Accept that, be a gentleman about this situation.” Charlie walked forward as he spoke.
“Oh, I will. I will indeed. But I’ve just informed your sister that I will ruin your family for what she’s just done to me. You see, I know a secret … the big secret of Cavendon.”
“Really? Do you wish to share it with me?” Charlie looked from Adam to Alicia, who raised a brow and shook her head.
“It’s all nonsense, Charlie,” she said. “He’s mad, crazy.”
Ignoring her comment, Adam continued, “I not only wish to share it with you. I will share it with the world. You won’t like the headlines, that I do know.”
“And the big secret is?”
Adam told him.
Charlie laughed, shaking his head, and laughed again.
Adam said, “Your mother got pregnant in the spring of nineteen thirteen. She never told anyone who the father was. She was just seventeen and very promiscuous. So she probably didn’t know which man it was. Then onto the Cavendon stage walks Hugo Stanton, the long-lost cousin come home. The cousin who wants to be back in the fold. A sudden, very quick marriage to the Lady Daphne within a few weeks of his arrival, surprising many Inghams. Baby born in January of nineteen fourteen, supposedly premature. They called the baby Alicia.”
“None of this is true! Where did you get this stupid story from?” Charlie demanded, his anger apparent.
“Bryan Mellor. He said one of the family told him in confidence about Alicia’s birth when he was courting her.”
“This is ridiculous, Adam. And do you honestly think any newspaper in Fleet Street is going to print this outrageous story? I’m one of them, for God’s sake, and well liked by my colleagues. Furthermore, they’ll know it’s a load of rubbish.”
“There’s always a scandal sheet and a reporter with his hand out. I’ll get it printed. And the whole world will know what trash the Inghams really are.”
Charlie remained silent, his mind working. He was suddenly recalling odd bits of gossip he had heard amongst family members over the years. His father’s sudden arrival at Cavendon. His parents’ swift marriage after only a few weeks of knowing each other. The so-called premature birth.
He knew his mother was not promiscuous, and that his parents had truly fallen in love. Still, could she ha
ve been accosted or raped? He knew the world was a dangerous place. Did he dare take a chance and walk away with Alicia safely on his arm? Blackmail, he thought. Adam’s out to blackmail us, and he might not stop. But can I take a chance with our reputation? Mud slung sticks a bit, that he knew for sure.
“How much do you want for your silence?” Charlie now asked in a steady tone. He was furious inside. Not only with Adam but with himself for succumbing to this hideous man’s request. Nonetheless, he felt he had no choice.
“Twenty thousand pounds,” Adam said, a triumphant note in his voice.
“I don’t think we ought to do this, Charlie,” Alicia exclaimed, staring across at her brother. “It’s blackmail. And the story’s not true.”
“What you’re saying is correct, Alicia,” Charlie answered. “On the other hand, he’s also correct in that there will be a scandal sheet which will run with it. And mud sticks. It’s important for us to protect the family name. Are you with me on this?”
She simply nodded. “I must get my handbag.” She ran into the bedroom where she’d dropped it and returned a moment later.
Looking at Adam, Charlie said, “I won’t pay twenty thousand. Anyway, I don’t have it. I’ll give you four thousand.”
Alicia said, “I can write a check for half of that, Charlie.”
“Thank you, Alicia.” He looked at Fennell. “It’s take it or leave it, and we’ll take our chances if you don’t agree, Fennell.”
Adam said, “Give me the two checks. Make them out to cash. And don’t even think of canceling them on Monday. If you do, I’ll go to the newspapers. And you’ll face the headlines.”
* * *
Alicia was still shaking when they left Fennell’s flat. She had been frightened of him, but had somehow managed to be brave.
“We struggled, Charlie. I fought him off. He tried to rape me,” Alicia said, and leaned against her brother in the back of the chauffeur-driven car, feeling safe again. “Actually, you would have been proud of me, I landed a good right hook on his jaw.”
“I am proud of you and relieved that we’d agreed I would be waiting for you outside. And that you’re all right,” Charlie answered.
“I’m a bit bedraggled and shaky, but happy that we got that over with. Unfortunately, we’ve made ourselves a bad deal, you know. He’s a blackmailer.”
“And a mentally sick man, in my opinion,” Charlie said and held her closer. “Thank God you came to your senses about him, saw him for what he really was. I’m afraid we were all fooled.”
“I was beginning to understand that he was running out of backers. Especially Carole in New York. I’m absolutely sure he needs money. He’s been putting up a front.”
“Let’s forget him for now. I managed to get us two tickets on the last flight to Zurich. We’ll be landing late, so we’ll have to stay at the Baur au Lac Hotel tonight, and visit our parents tomorrow morning. I booked us two rooms.”
“I understand, and what a coincidence that we’d planned to fly to Zurich tonight anyway. As Aunt Charlotte used to say: it was meant to be.”
“God winked,” Charlie said.
* * *
Later that evening, on the flight to Zurich, Charlie suddenly said, “If Fennell does need money desperately, four thousand isn’t going to get him far.”
“I know. But I gave him back the diamond engagement ring, and the diamond ear clips. They’re very valuable. From Cartier. He’ll sell them, and he’ll also attempt to get new backers for Dangerous, and the other film, Revenge.”
“So you think he’ll stick around London?” Charlie asked.
Alicia nodded. “More than likely, he’s created quite a front for himself.” An involuntary shiver swept over her, and she said, “I just want him to stay away from me.”
Charlie leaned closer to his sister and murmured, “That’s why I paid the blackmail money. I knew he would go to the newspapers, find one scandal sheet who’d use it. He’s that bad. And a desperate man will do anything to survive. I couldn’t take a chance by walking away, Alicia. I just had to get us safely out of his flat.”
“I know. I also know blackmailers always come back, Charlie. Be prepared.”
Forty-one
“I know the original reason we were coming to Zurich was to discover the truth about our mother’s health, because you believed she was ill last year, trembling and vague,” Charlie said. “And you know how weird Father is talking about that. We have a really good reason now, and that is to ask them about your biological father. Is it Hugo or not?”
“Charlie, what are you saying? You don’t believe that the hateful Fennell stumbled onto something genuine, do you?” Alicia asked, alarm making her voice rise. “Surely it can’t be so.” She gazed at her brother, her eyes widening. “You don’t think it could be the truth, do you?”
Charlie did not answer for a moment. The two of them sat in the beautiful dining room of the Baur au Lac Hotel, overlooking the gardens and the lake. Finally, he turned to his sister and said, “No, I don’t believe it’s true, but to be honest with you, I’ve heard bits of odd family gossip over the years.”
Sitting up straighter in the chair, looking extremely alert and questioning, Alicia took a deep breath and asked, “Do you mean about our mother? Our father? Or me?”
“Not you, never. And the gossip hasn’t been about who your father is, rather it’s been about the quickness of it all, those many years ago.”
“Could you please fill me in, Charlie? Please.”
“There’s not much to tell, other than this. Hugo Stanton came back to Cavendon in nineteen thirteen. He had been living in America, where he worked with an important real estate tycoon, Benjamin Silver, and made his fortune. He also married the boss’s daughter, so to speak, Loretta, his first wife—”
“You mean our father was married before?” Alicia sounded aghast, gazed at Charlie in disbelief.
“Yes. But I was told by Aunt Charlotte never to mention it. Apparently our mother didn’t like it to be known there had been a wife before her.”
“So what happened to Loretta?”
“After her father’s death, Hugo and Loretta moved to Switzerland. She was very ill with tuberculosis, and she died. Hugo inherited her fortune, bequeathed to her by her father, and the villa. Our father became very wealthy indeed.”
“You mean our Villa Fleurir was Loretta’s villa first?”
“I believe so, yes.”
“Phew!” Alicia shook her head. “Why did a first wife have to be kept a secret?”
“God only knows, and he won’t split,” Charlie answered. “Anyway, let’s go back to Hugo’s arrival at Cavendon. Apparently, he took one look at Lady Daphne the day he arrived and that was it. A coup de foudre, the French call it … struck by a flash of lightning, I believe we would say. Apparently he asked our grandfather’s permission to court her, and the sixth earl talked to Daphne, and she agreed to a courtship. And wham, they discovered true love, and let’s face it, their union has endured.”
“But what’s so wrong about that? Why would anyone gossip about that?” Alicia asked, sounding mystified.
“They got married very quickly. In a big rush really. Some family members, especially the women, wondered why it was such a hasty marriage. It would look like a shotgun marriage, they said.”
“Perhaps they thought she’d been a naughty girl and slept with Hugo and was pregnant.”
“That is a possibility, yes, especially since you were called a premature baby.”
“I was?” She frowned. “Why haven’t you told me any of this before?”
“Because none of it mattered. It only came up because of something I’d said about the Villa Fleurir here in Zurich, and Aunt Charlotte corrected me. Then the story about Loretta came out. It was nothing specific. Honestly.”
“And I’ve never been called a bastard?”
“Don’t be so silly, of course not. And I honestly believe you and I have the same biological father.”
&nb
sp; “You will let me bring it up, won’t you, Charlie? I really do have to hear it from their lips.”
“I know you do, and you certainly will.”
* * *
“I’ve hired a car and driver,” Charlie told Alicia as they walked through the lobby of the Baur au Lac. “I don’t want to be dependent on our parents, and their getting a car for us and all that organizing they’re prone to do.”
“I’m glad you did. Now, before we go outside and get into that car, let’s go over our modus operandi once again.”
“Good idea,” Charlie agreed. “I am going to be the one who says we’ve come to Zurich to ask them some questions, because of certain rumors you’ve heard about your birth. Okay?”
Alicia nodded. “Then you stop there, and I ask my father if he is my father. Or am I a bastard?”
“You don’t actually mean to say exactly that, do you? Use that awful word.”
“Not really, but I may. It might be necessary, to shock them. You know they live in their own dream world. They exist for each other. I’m surprised they ever had children.”
Charlie burst out laughing. “That’s what happens when you spend most of your life making love.”
Alicia grinned. “Do you remember when we were little and we couldn’t understand why they were always in bed? You told me you thought they needed a lot of sleep because they were older than us.”
“I do, yes. So come on, let’s go and face the lions in their den.”
* * *
When Charlie and Alicia arrived at the Villa Fleurir, it was Anna, the housekeeper, who opened the front door to them. She exclaimed in surprise and shook their hands, started to speak.
Before she could say anything, Charlie brought a finger to his lips. “Shush. They don’t know we’re coming.”
Anna nodded, still smiling, and opened the door wider. To Charlie, she said in a low tone, “Your parents are sitting outside. It’s such a nice day.”
A moment later, when they walked out onto the loggia to greet Hugo and Daphne, their parents were totally astonished.
So much so Lady Daphne, absolutely speechless, remained seated. Hugo jumped up at once, hurried forward. He hugged Alicia and Charlie, and asked, “Why didn’t you let us know you were coming?”
Secrets of Cavendon Page 31