The Other Brother

by Jessica Steele

  Nate motioned her to the chair she normally used to take dictation, saying not a word as his eyes took in her appearance, her neat cap of dark brown hair shining healthily, his eyes flicking to the contours outlined beneath her fitting jacket. And for all his inspection of her was cursory, Kathing felt the warm pink colour in her cheeks as his eyes rested on her breasts.

  Of course he had to catch her blush, and she could have hit him at the sardonic look that came over his face—a look that clearly told her that when it came to his fancying women she wouldn't get a look in.

  'Whatever is going through your sweet little mind,' his hard words endorsed his look, 'forget it. I'm here to work. Just remember—so are you.' And just as though he thought she had him next in line on her list of suitable males, he infuriated her by adding, 'If it's in your mind to try and add me to your collection of wounded suitors, perhaps you'll take note that I regard one broken member in any family as more than sufficient. Added to which, I like my women with some semblance of a heart.'

  'Why, you egotistical swine!' shot from her without thought, without the slightest regard for his position in the company. 'I'd as soon fancy a gorilla as fancy you! And for your information, the only reason I blushed just now is because I'm not used to men mentally stripping me.' It was an exaggeration, she knew it, for his eyes hadn't

  lingered that long, but she was too worked up to pick and choose her words.

  'Of course,' he drawled coolly, insufferably unaffected by her accusation, 'You're more used to men physically stripping you. aren't you?'

  'You . . .' she started to explode, only to find he had chopped her off by reaching for his briefcase, extracting some files and saying:

  'See what sense you can make of that little lot.'

  That little lot took her up to eleven. He must have worked well into the night, she thought, trying to make sense out of his rapid scrawl, for all his figures were neatly compiled. She typed back the several letters he had drafted in his abbreviated longhand while the context of the correspondence was fresh in his mind, but was still fuming when she took her work through to him and had to sit while he dictated more.

  It was during the afternoon that it came to her, as she considered how the time had flown, that either she was enjoying working for Nate or her anger with him had got her through a tremendous amount that day. Her back gave a twinge from sitting in the same position for so long, and she leaned back in her chair, her jacket long since dispensed with, and caught Nate's eyes on her. For the briefest of moments those blue eyes were so without hostility, admiring almost—though whether because she had kept up with him throughout the day or from the view he had of her from where he was sitting she couldn't have said—but that hostility for the first time had gone, and her own fury with him suddenly disappeared.

  Without thinking, a friendly smile winged from her, the sort of smile she would have sent his uncle in their moments of coming up for air. Instantly she regretted it. Nate's dark brow came down, and she couldn't doubt that hostility was back in full force.

  'Have you finished that report?' he grated, when he knew full well she hadn't since it was still in her typewriter, she thought, wondering how good her aim would be if she dared hurl her stapler at him.

  'Miracles take a little longer,' she flung instead, and crashed into her typewriter again.

  Thank God for Friday, she thought as she dragged herself out of bed on Friday morning. For she had come round to thinking that Nate Kingersby must sleep plugged into an electric charger. Not once this week had he let up, but had kept her shoulder pressed firmly to the wheel—so firmly she had begun to think he was looking for work to try and wear her down. For George had left things more or less up to date when he had departed, and though new problems cropped up ever day, never had there been a week like this one.

  Still, Kathryn thought, determined not to go under, she had Saturday and Sunday to look forward to. She'd have a lie in tomorrow, then start doing something about getting back into circulation again. Perhaps she'd ring up one of her girl friends and see if anyone fancied going to the cinema.

  But any ideas on how she was going to spend her weekend were doomed to failure when at four that afternoon, when she happened to be in Nate's office, the phone on her desk rang.

  'Take it in here,' he ordered without looking up from the typed matter she had put in front of him.

  It wouldn't have taken a couple of seconds for her to nip to her desk, but thinking it would be someone asking to be put through to him anyway, Kathryn did as she was instructed. And on hearing her sister's distraught voice promptly she forgot everything save that Sandra sounded in deep distress and needed her.

  'Calm down, love, do,' she urged, her suspicion that

  Victor was up to his old tricks again proving to be only too true.

  'How can I calm down?' Sandra wailed. 'Vic's just been home and packed a bag saying his firm are holding a weekend seminar in Birmingham!'

  'Well, they could be,' she said, not believing it for a moment, not with Victor Smith anyway.

  'They do sometimes, I know,' Sandra admitted, and then bursting into tears, 'But I followed him upstairs when he went to change and there was—was lipstick on his shirt!'

  The rotter! Kathryn thought, oblivious to the fact Nate Kingersby had finished with the paper work she had given him and wasn't above tuning into her end of the conversation.

  'Are you sure?' she questioned. Her heart went out to Sandra, but there was a coldness gripping her that there were such men around. 'It might not have been lipstick.'

  She knew she was saying all the things Sandra wanted to hear, things she herself knew to be false. But Sandra wouldn't throw him out anyway, and if it eased things for her she loved her enough to stamp down on the urge to tell her to kick him out.

  'He works in an office, doesn't he? I'm always going home smothered in red felt tip.' It was a lie, but Sandra was desperate for consolation.

  'Oh, Kathryn,' she wept, 'I don't know what I'll do if he leaves me!'

  Kathryn had to fight hard not to tell her sister she was ten times too good for the rat of a man she had married, that she was the one who should leave him.

  'Don't cry, Sandy,' she said, feeling helpless. 'Look, there's only another hour to go before I leave work. You can fix me up with some gear if I drive to you straight from the office, can't you?'

  'Would you?' Already Sandra was beginning to sound more stable. 'You'll stay the weekend? If—if Vic doesn't . . .' she started to cry again. 'If he doesn't come home on S-Sunday . . .'

  'Of course he'll come home on Sunday,' Kathryn said bracingly, sure of it. He knew which side his bread was buttered, didn't he?

  In the process of making more soothing noises, she became aware suddenly of where she was. Her eyes flew to where Nate Kingersby should have been checking over the typed fist of figures she had brought it. Only he wasn't. His eyes were fixed on her, her conversation apparently of the greatest interest. Trust him, she thought, to take this precise moment to decide a couple of minutes' rest wouldn't come amiss.

  'I'll have to go now, Sandra,' she said, not wanting to cut her sister short but now aware of an unwanted pair of ears, her feelings of being natural deserting her. 'I'll get to you the minute I can.'

  Emotionally out of her stride as she was by the repugnance she felt at this latest escapade of her sister's husband, it helped not at all to know that Nate Kingersby had had an ear cocked to her call. But she tried to look ready to resume work.

  Assuming he had finished checking the figures she had placed in front of him, she leaned across to retrieve them. Then was halted by hearing him address her for the first time since Tuesday with a remark that had nothing to do with work.

  'If memory serves,' he said, with the attitude of a man trying to dredge up some half listened to information from somewhere, 'your sister's name is Sandra, isn't it?'

  "That's right,' she acknowledged briefly, having to pull her hand away from the papers and stand ba
ck when he leaned forward his arm clipping them down so she couldn't

  catch hold of her neat piece of work without ripping it.

  'Does one gather from the, lipstick-stroke-red felt tip-festooned garment that your sister has a philandering husband?'

  You can gather what the devil you" like, Kathryn wanted to tell him. But that word 'philandering' hit at the very heart of her. And, her emotions already out of hand, her face paled, her eyes taking a wounded look.

  'It's sick,' she said, trying to get back on an even keel but not making a very good job of it as she exclaimed bitterly, 'How Sandra can live with such a man . . .!' She broke off. She didn't want Nate knowing any of her private business. 'I—I'm sorry,' she apologised, more for bringing something other than business into the office than anything else, for all it was he who had carried on where her phone call had left off by asking his questions. 'It's just. . .' How to explain the bitterness in her that must have come across? 'It's just that if there's one thing that gets through to me,' she had to continue, thoughts of her father joining on her sister's husband, 'it's infidelity.'

  'Infidelity!'

  It was his turn to exclaim, and there was a touch of bitterness in his voice too. A bitterness Kathryn was too involved in the suffering of her female relative to understand as meaning he was bitter on account of the infidelity served to his male kin.

  'Yes,' she said, 'infidelity. Just the word makes me curl up inside.'

  The words had barely left her before his, 'Like hell it does!' rudely assaulted her ears.

  Shaken out of her thoughts, still desperately trying to get back to being the cool secretary she had been before Sandra's phone call had thrown her, Kathryn just looked at him.

  'What do you mean?' she asked.

  And that was too much for Nate and his anger. He was on his feet, towering over her, a cynical disbelieving look there in his eyes blazing as he rammed home:

  'So much do you prize fidelity that while still engaged to my brother you had arrangements made for an illicit weekend!' Kathryn's brown eyes went enormous, but while still dazed from his thundering attack, he was going on, 'How long was it after you broke with Rex before you slipped away with your next conquest to a place where no one could find you? Ten minutes—an hour? Or was . . .'

  'I didn't go away with anyone,' she defended hotly, swiftly coming round.

  'So you say,' he bit at her, the scornful look in his eyes telling her he thought every word she uttered was suspect.

  But she had grown angry enough not to be bothered by his cynical disbelieving look anyway. 'I didn't,' she repeated stormily. 'For your information, I went by myself to stay with Sandra in Reading.'

  'Why?' The question came promptly. 'Was her husband away philandering that time too?'

  His sarcasm grated. 'No,' she answered, seething. 'For once he was at home.' Anger suddenly vanished as that remembered weekend, that time when all her emotions had seemed frozen solid, came back to her. 'It wasn't Sandra who was upset. It was me.'

  Her words had left her quietly, her eyes clouded with memories of those numbed hours after she had discovered Rex's deception. And all at once in the taut silence that followed she had the oddest notion that now she wasn't charging full pelt to vindicate herself, but by admitting in the quiet way she had that she was upset, Nate Kingersby looked more as if he gave credence to anything she had to say than he had ever done.

  'You were upset?' he queried, his eyes narrowing.

  'Yes, I was,' she said, still quietly.

  Then she saw it was only for a brief while that he had looked ready to give credit that she might be speaking the truth. For in seconds he had come up with his own reckoning of why she had been disturbed in any way.

  'You would be upset, wouldn't you?' he agreed, and there was nothing pleasant in the way he said it. 'With fidelity ranking so highly with you it had come to you after you'd broken your engagement that you'd just said goodbye to the one man you could count on never abusing your trust.'

  'Count on!' she echoed, staggered, knowing she could floor him in one go if she . . . 'How do you know I could count so wholeheartedly on Rex's faithfulness?' she couldn't resist demanding.

  She received a look of fury that she should dare to challenge his brother's integrity. Nate controlled his fury— just. And it was then that Kathryn found herself on the receiving end of his high and mighty arrogance.

  ' I know,' he told her, looking down from his lofty height, 'because there's a trait common to all Kingersby men, a trait that while it extends to some of them being a bit wild beforehand, means that once a Kingersby has given his heart, other women cease to exist.'

  She couldn't help the jeering laugh that left her. Rex must be a throwback, then—or he had never loved her as much as he had claimed.

  'You dare to doubt it?' The hold Nate had had on his fury was leaving, she could see it by the way his jaw jutted, and she didn't need many guesses to know her jeering laugh had been instrumental in giving it a hand. Then he was in charge of his temper, arrogant again as he sneered, 'Of course you doubt it,' and contemptuously, 'Never having given your heart to my brother in the first place you would have no idea of the feeling, would you?'

  Anger beset her again that he could make so light of the feeling she had had for Rex before his actions had killed it.

  T did give my heart,' she flared.

  'Oh, sure. You gave it so unreservedly that even when I told you he was going demented wanting to see you, you laughed as you threw my plea to go and see him back in my face.' She knew it galled him that he had ever been ready to beg her to do anything as he snarled, 'And now you're trying to tell me you love him?'

  'Since you don't intend to believe anything I say it's pointiess telling you anything, isn't it?' she said coldly— then found, having no clear idea why, because Nate was so dead set against her and careless of any explanation she made anyway, that she wanted him to understand why she hadn't been able to go and visit his brother. 'Don't you see,' she tried, 'that in all honesty I couldn't go and see him? Not if—not if, as you seem to think, Rex still believes he cares for me.'

  'You're still afraid you might find yourself tied up to a cripple?'

  'You said he wouldn't be a permanent invalid,' she retorted, knowing she was wasting her time arguing since he only ever interpreted anything she said the wrong way. 'What I'm trying to make you see is that having broken with him I might—I was afraid I might find myself engaged to him again.'

  'Your soft little heart,' he jibed sarcastically, making her want to hit out at him.

  Then all at once his face darkened, and suddenly she was experiencing fear. For a dreadful cold light had come to his eyes, and Kathryn knew then that for all he continued in that same hateful sarcastic way, Nate Kingersby wanted his revenge for what she had done to his brother.

  'You've had practice in breaking your engagement before,' he continued to jibe. 'Practice in breaking my brother's heart.' A muscle moved near his temple as his eyes pierced her. 'Surely that practice would have stood you in

  good stead had your tenderhearted feelings at seeing him temporarily helpless had you wearing his ring once more.'

  That hellbent revengeful look was still there in his cold, hating face. It made her afraid to move, to speak, chilled her to the marrow. Nate had said he meant to get even with her, and suddenly she knew without him repeating that threat that most of this conversation was designed to get whatever information he could from her. Information he would use against her at a later date.

  'Why did you jilt my brother a week before the wedding?' he asked while she was trying frantically hard not to believe he intended to do her the greatest harm he could. "That is if you're to be believed and there was no other man.'

  Kathryn looked into eyes that didn't try to hide their merciless light. She knew then if she so much as dared to tell the truth it would augur ill for her, that he would add what she said to the list of lies he thought she had already told him. Add that to every
thing he had against her—all to be harvested on the day he had his reckoning with her. She remembered bis hands around her throat. . .

  'Hasn't Rex told you?' She backed away from telling him the truth.

  'He's still believing you're the sweetest woman ever to have been created,' he told her icily—then let her know he considered Rex to be fairer than lilywhite in the broken engagement. 'He's not likely to blacken your name by giving details of your last meeting, is he? You might think about that the next time you start to get uptight at that word fidelity.' Her nerves ragged, she flinched at that word 'fidelity', and saw the light that suddenly came to his eyes. 'My brother's—fidelity—to you is without question,' he said, deliberately using that word a second time, she thought, involuntarily flinching again. And she had the strangest notion then that that word had sealed an idea that

  had been forming in Nate Kingersby's mind ever since this conversation had got started.

  Trying to get on top of her fear, the wild hallucinating of her mind that he was plotting anything in any way evil for her, Kathryn brought up her reserves of courage and decided then and there that if he was still waiting to hear why, as he termed it, she had jilted his brother, then he could jolly well wait. She had had enough of bis sarcasm, his jibes, his downright disbelief of anything she told him, without inviting any more of all three by telling him the truth.

  She looked past him to the document on his desk he had checked through, then without saying another word she leaned across, picked it up and went smartly back to her desk. And there she tried for actions that had come to her naturally before those words 'fidelity' and 'infidelity' had been bandied about in the other room. Calmer now, she realised she had let her imagination go almost hysterically wild in there. Nate Kingersby didn't seem nearly so threatening now she was back in her own office.

  Her mind turned to Sandra with her faithless husband and she checked her watch. Half past four. Poor Sandra! Only another half an hour and she could leave the office, leave despicable Nate Kingersby, and be on her way to be of what comfort she could to her sister. With luck Sandra would feel better tomorrow. And the idea took root, for dismissing her fears that her boss might still have plans to finish what had seemed likely in her flat and maybe strangle her as being all part of her overwrought imagination at the time, that she didn't know how much more of him she could take, so perhaps some time this weekend she might have a few moments when she could get to grips with the thought that was looming large—could she live with her conscience if she broke her promise to George Kingersby and gave in her notice on Monday?