The Other Brother

by Jessica Steele

  Guilt attacked again as she fought against the weakness of going to his side to give what comfort she could. But the scene in his flat, Maxine Vernon in bed beside him, so obviously without a stitch on, had guilt being chased away, had her hunting up the hospital's phone number before guilt could attack again.

  She was through to the private ward, speaking with the Sister-in-charge before she got round to wondering if they would tell her anything anyway or just fob her off with 'As well as can be expected.'

  But she had reckoned without her name being so much spoken of that weekend that everyone attending Rex knew that if Miss Kathryn Randle appeared she was to be shown into his room without delay.

  So on telling the efficient-sounding Sister her name, explaining that she had only just heard from Mr George Kingersby of the accident, she discovered the Sister was prepared to tell her everything to put her mind at rest.

  'I think we can safely say he's out of the wood now,' Sister said optimistically. 'Of course it will take a long time for his broken bones to mend and for us to have him walking again. But his condition is no longer critical.'

  Relief swooped in as Kathryn realised Rex was going to recover without the need for her to go to him, to perjure the honesty in her soul by pretending she still wanted to be engaged to him.

  'He's—he's not likely to have a relapse, is he?' A softness in her she didn't want forced the question.

  'I shouldn't think so for a moment,' she was informed briskly, as if that was something Sister just would not allow. 'Not now he's turned the danger corner. He's fully con-

  scious and has the greatest will to live of any man his age that I've seen.'

  Thank you, Sister,' Kathryn said quietly, and put down the phone.

  So that was that. Rex would get better without her help. Nothing was unchanged save that instead of Rex telling his family the wedding was off, it very much looked as though she was going to have to do it.

  Not that he was in any position to put in an appearance at the church next Saturday anyway. But the straight and uncomplicated way she ran her life wouldn't put up with the Kingersbys not knowing. And for all she couldn't see her telling George just why she had broken her engagement—stood a very big risk of losing her job that she'd dared to throw a Kingersby over—she knew that tomorrow she would be telling George, and through him the rest of the family, she had dared to do exactly that.

  Feeling in the need of that cup of coffee, she got up to go to re-heat the kettle. But barely had she set her coffee cup down on the small table in her sitting room when a hard no-nonsense banging on the door of her flat thundered through the panelling.

  For a moment she stood rooted, the sound was so unexpected with most of the other tenants at work. Not that any of her fellow flat dwellers ever banged on her door like that anyway. Somebody must have left the front door open, she realised, something that often happened, otherwise whoever was out there selling something would have had to ring the outside doorbell.

  But when she opened the door to the tall, good-looking man who stood there, something in his features familiar, though not in the ice-cold blue eyes that roved over her and took her apart without bothering to put her back together again, she knew at once this was no door-to-door salesman.

  'Are you Kathryn Ran die?' he questioned abruptly, and ignited an instant anger in her by the way he looked at her as if he had seen much better things swimming about in a stagnant pool, as by the sheer unadulterated aggression emanating from him.

  'And what if I am?' she challenged, trying to remember where she had met him before while wondering how it was possible she had ever forgotten meeting such a mentally and physically alive-looking person.

  'If you are Kathryn Randle you can start by telling me where the hell you've been this weekend.'

  She had it then. She never had met him before—but he was a Kingersby, that was for sure. They all looked like each other. Though this one had got far more aggression, far more an air of knowing what he wanted, of going after it and getting it, than any of them. And she knew in that moment of recognising him as one of the "gang together" Kingersby men that one would have to stand one's ground with this one or run the risk of being trampled on.

  'What's it to do with you where I've been?' she asked sharply, having no intention of letting him into her flat with his mammoth aggression looking for an outlet.

  'Every damn thing,' he told her roughly. 'Had you been in any of the places you were supposed to be, my brother would have been very much less stressed than he was.'

  So this was Nate! And because he was Rex's closest living relative she had been looking forward to meeting— him!

  'You'd better come in,' she said. And she began at that moment to dislike Nate Kingersby so much as he closed the door once he was inside, that when she was fully determined not to let him in there was something in him that had her doing the opposite from what she intended.

  She turned when he was a few steps into the room, catching the way his eyes flicked round what must seem to

  him to be a cold and cheerless place without so much a vase or an ornament to brighten it up.

  'Exactly where were you this weekend?' he demanded more than asked, his hands thrust deep into his pockets adding to the aggressive look of him. 'And don't give me the cock and bull story you gave my uncle on Friday that you were visiting your sister in Reading. The job you had to do there wouldn't have taken until this morning.'

  'Why should I tell you anything?' Never had Kathryn known a man who could so instantly have her standing up to him. 'It's obvious that whatever I tell you you're not going to believe me.'

  His eyes glinted at that. But she wasn't afraid of him. 'It must have been something very important to have you ignoring the arrangements that had been made for the church rehearsal on Saturday,' he fired, and without waiting for her to say anything, was demanding, 'What was it that had you breaking that appointment?'

  'If. ..' Kathryn found she was angry enough to tell him. But she just didn't get the chance.

  'You had to have your last-minute fling, didn't you?' Nate Kingersby rapped. 'Or wasn't it last-minute?' His hands came out of his pockets and she didn't like at all the way they were so ominously clenched. But he took her mind completely off them by shocking her with, 'Were you hoping to keep your lover and a husband?'

  'L-lover?' she spluttered, astounded, barely able to credit that this vile man was accusing her of not being around this weekend because she had been . . . 'How—how dare you!' she started furiously, then found her outrage ignored as he lost patience with what he must think of as her act of innocence.

  'Are you aware,' he said furiously, 'that while you were having a high old time wherever it was you disappeared to, your fiance has met with a serious accident?'

  The heat went out of her. She had known all along about the closeness of the Kingersbys. Rex's pain would be Nate's pain—pain he found release from by turning it into anger against her. She was, he thought, the one who could have eased his brother's suffering.

  'Yes, I know,' she answered quietly. T telephoned the hospital a short while ago.'

  'You know? You telephoned . . .?' he exclaimed, taken aback, and Kathryn saw in him then the dark clouds that were gathering before the storm that was about to break over her head. "Then why in the name of thunder haven't you visited him?' His voice was barely controlled as he grated, 'What by all that's holy are you doing sitting here drinking coffee?' His eyes had missed nothing, she saw. 'Why are you still here when you should be over at that hospital by my brother's bedside?'

  He was right, of course—from the view he had of their engagement. And so strongly did the dominating force of the man come across, she almost said she would go and visit Rex. But her feeling of having been so terribly let down by what she saw as Rex's betrayal of her, not counting her views on fidelity inside and outside marriage, her heartbroken mother, Sandra going the same way unless she soon saw sense, had her finding sufficient will to hold out agains
t him.

  'I won't be going to see him,' she said woodenly—and had to harden her heart further when he looked at her incredulously the moment before he barked:

  'My God, what has my brother got himself engaged to? Talk about being blinded by love . . .' And then it seemed he had finished playing. 'Get your coat,' he commanded. 'I'm taking you to see him right now.'

  Stubbornly Kathryn refused to move. 'I'm not going,' she defied him, and only just managed not to flinch when she saw his firm chin square meaningfully as he came a step

  nearer, his hands looking as though any minute they would come up around her throat and begin to throttle her.

  'Don't play games with me, Miss Randle,' he bit at her, 'I warn you now I'm in no mood for them. My brother has been going out of his mind calling for you these last two days. If you have any intention of becoming his wife—though God help him, for we're powerless to interfere if it's you he wants—then you'll find some small scrap of decency in you and come with me now.'

  Kathryn knew then that she was fighting for her future peace of mind by sticking fast to her determination not to go with him. He was strong, was Nate Kingersby, forceful, with a will of iron. Give into him once and she might find she was forgiving Rex, and even though feeling nothing for him, marrying him. So even while his talk of Rex going out of his mind calling for her stirred her sympathy, she was heartily glad she had phoned the hospital and learned that his condition was improving. Nate's dig about her sense of decency didn't dent her.

  Stonily she faced the man who looked ready to drag her by the hair to his brother's bedside. And she knew then that the information she had been going to impart to George Kingersby tomorrow was going to find its way to the family through another source. There was no other way Nate was going to leave her flat without her.

  'I think I'd better tell you,' she said, emotion well out of her voice, 'that—that I no longer consider myself engaged to Rex.'

  'You're . . .'

  For a moment what she had said stopped him dead in his tracks. Then she saw the quick intelligence in that high forehead do some rapid mental arithmetic. But she nearly dropped when he brought out the sum total of his additions.

  'I see,' he said, and his voice was coldly sneering as he brought out, 'So you've telephoned the hospital, learned

  only half the information, and from what you've heard have decided for yourself just how bad things are with my

  brother.'

  'They said. . .' she began, nowhere near to knowing what thoughts were going through his head.

  'They've told you,' he cut in, 'about his broken bones, and from that you've decided he's going to be a cripple for

  life.'

  'No!' Her reply was prompt. But she found Nate was either too angry with her, or just wasn't interested in any denials she had to make.

  He took that stride nearer. It was all he needed to have him dose enough to grab hold of her arms in a brutish hold.

  'Are you afraid he'll be so crippled he won't be good in bed any more?' he jibed, his hands biting into her.

  'In bed!' she gasped. And, astonished, 'Any more?' Her arms where he held her were hurting like crazy, but she was too staggered by what he was suggesting had gone on between her and Rex to think of doing anything about getting free.

  'Between brothers little is sacred,' he went on, his lip curling as he. looked down his straight arrogant nose as though wondering what any Kingersby should see in her that he should want to take her to bed. 'Rex told me the last time I was home that he was going short of—nothing.'

  Kathryn felt her colour leave her, nausea striking as she wrenched out of his hold. She presented him with her back, nowhere near to coming to terms with the fact that Rex had been so ready to boast about his sexual prowess to his brother, it hadn't bothered him one tiny bit that he had given him the impression that as well as being betrothed, they were lovers.

  'Would you please go,' she told Nate Kingersby over her shoulder.

  And not trusting herself not to play the same character

  blackening game as Rex. Afraid suddenly, pricked by his careless boasting that she might forget herself and tell his brother that the 'nothing' Rex was going short of was being taken care of by his secretary, that Maxine Vernon had been his bed partner, not her, Kathryn went quickly across the room intending to shut herself in her bedroom until he had gone.

  The sight of her wedding dress hanging on the outside of her wardrobe so as not to crush it pulled her up short as she opened the door. And the tears she had known would have to come soon started to her eyes, and the ice in her swiftly melted.

  'You'd have worn white too,' said a cynical voice by her right shoulder, doing more than she ever could to stem her tears.

  'It doesn't matter now what I would have worn, does it?' she said, fighting hard not to break down until he had gone. 'The wedding is off—permanently.'

  'Rex isn't going to be a cripple,' that hateful sneering voice came back rapidly.

  'I know that,' she answered, and found pride had to be heard. 'I gave him his ring back on Friday.'

  She wished pride had stayed down when strong, savagely hard masculine hands clamped down on her shoulders and twisted her to face him,

  'You bitch!' he snarled. 'So that's why he went out and got so roaring drunk he smashed himself up.' His blue eyes glinted white flame. 'Who the hell do you think you are, that you can jilt a Kingersby a week before the wedding.'

  Having not so far been afraid of him, Kathryn knew real fear then as those hands left her shoulders and closed round her throat. She couldn't even manage a squeak, she was so frightened. Wide terrified brown eyes stared into his, her colour gone as those hands gripped. Then suddenly she was

  free, pushed away to stagger backwards into her bedroom.

  'You're not worth serving a prison sentence for,' Nate Kingersby reviled her. 'But just remember this, Miss Kathryn Randle—nobody, and I mean nobody, does the dirty on a Kingersby without living to regret it—ever. You're going to regret the day you ever jilted one of us— believe it.'

  He had been gone all of ten seconds before she started to breathe anywhere near normally again. And then she turned—turned and saw once more her white wedding dress, a dress bought when her dreams had been many. And a dry sob left her, followed by another. And suddenly there was no ice. She was weeping as though her heart would break.

  The rest of that day found Kathryn cleaning and polishing an already immaculate flat, making several trips to her car and returning her belongings to their usual places. But try to keep busy as she did, again and again her thoughts would return to that beast of a man, Nate Kingersby.

  She'd handled it all wrong, she thought too late. Yet how else could she have handled it? He had looked angry enough to strangle the life out of her. And although it sounded ridiculous now his threatening presence wasn't around, she had an awful feeling had she told him the truth of her broken engagement, those fingers around her throat would have tightened to choke the life out of her at what he would have considered her attempt to blacken his brother's name.

  No, she thought, putting the last of her clothes away, it was much better to let him go on his way thinking, as he must, that she had jilted his brother because she thought more of the man she was supposed to have shared her weekend with than she did of Rex.

  But she felt more confused then, even when her thoughts centred on Rex, as they were bound to on and off throughout that day. On Friday she had been so in love with him—

  or so she had thought. Yet here it was Monday and it wouldn't bother her if she never saw him again. Her tears, her heartbreak, she realised hours later, must have been on account of dashed dreams. Dashed dreams, plus coming out of the shock that had gripped her on seeing the man she had so wholeheartedly trusted in bed with his secretary. And while she couldn't help but feel sorry for him that he probably had months of lying in hospital to look forward to, she couldn't help that that sorrow was tinged with disgust that Rex could have
allowed his brother to think she was his mistress as well as his fiancee.

  She could see now too why he had told Nate what he had. But the tremendous respect she had had for Rex took another dip that having his share of the Kingersby pride, he had felt his masculinity impaired that he couldn't get her into his bed, had had to boast about his prowess knowing full well that Nate would think it was she who was withholding 'nothing'.

  By the time Tuesday morning came around, after hours spent in soul-searching thought, Kathryn had come to one very certain conviction. She could never have loved Rex Kingersby so completely as she had thought. She had, after tearing herself apart in self-analysis, come to the conclusion that because he had appeared to have all the fine qualities she was looking for in her future mate, she had let herself believe it was love she felt for him.

  She got out of bed knowing that now she had things clear in her mind, all ends were not nearly as neatly tied up as she would like them to be. She still had to go in to work, still had to face George Kingersby. There was no knowing what Nate had told him, but as she bathed, dressed and left her flat, the thought returned that she wouldn't be at all surprised to find she would shortly be back at her flat and out of a job.

  Knowing she was too proud to sit at her desk and wait to

  be called into George's office to receive her dismissal, Kathryn stopped by her desk only to compose herself. And still carrying her handbag, still in her topcoat against a sharp frosty April morning, she crossed the carpet, tapped briefly on his door, and went in.

  'Good morning, Kathryn,' George greeted her mildly, and for all his face was serious as she answered his greeting, she felt some of her tension leaving that he was looking less severe than she had expected.

  'D-did Nate tell you he called to see me yesterday?' came blurting from her, revealing that some of her tension was still around.

  'He tells me you and Rex are no longer engaged,' he said by way of confirmation that Nate must have filled him in on everything.