by Penny Jordan
Unaware of what she was doing, she moved closer to him. Tiredness was deeply ingrained in his features. As she moved something clinked against her shoe and she glanced downward to see a half-empty bottle of whisky and a glass. Slater had been drinking? She frowned, and then reminded herself that he was a man whose wife had only recently committed suicide, and that whatever his feelings for Natalie, there must be some feelings of pain and guilt inside him. He moved, frowning in his sleep and the cushion on which he was resting his head slipped on to the floor.
Chris bent automatically to retrieve it, balancing herself against the edge of the settee. Her fingers brushed accidentally against Slater’s wrist and he jerked away as though the light contact stung. His shirt was open at the throat, and she could see the dark hair shadowing his skin, thicker now than she remembered, or was it simply that at nineteen she had been less attuned to sheer masculine sexuality than she was now.
Her heart started to jump heavily and she began to draw away, grasping with shock as Slater’s fingers suddenly closed round her wrist. His eyes were still closed, a deep frown scoring his forehead. His thumb stroked urgently over the pulse in her wrist, and Chris didn’t know what shocked her the most; his caress or her response to it. He was still deeply asleep and she dropped to her knees at his side, gently trying to prise his fingers away without waking him. Anger and tension brought a hectic flush of colour to her skin. Seven years when she had learned to defend herself against every awkward situation there was, and yet here she was reduced to the status of an embarrassed adolescent, simply because a man held her wrist in his sleep.
But Slater wasn’t simply any man, she acknowledged bitterly and her combined embarrassment and pain sprang not so much from the fact that he was touching her, startling though her reaction to that touch was, as from the knowledge that he undoubtedly believed she was someone else; perhaps Natalie, perhaps not. She couldn’t release his fingers. She would have to wake him up. Inwardly fuming, outwardly composed, she leaned over him, trying not to admit her awareness of the smooth firmness of his flesh beneath his shirt-sleeve as she touched his arm.
The moment she shook him his eyes flew open. She had forgotten how mesmeric they could be, topaz one moment, gold the next. They stared straight into hers.
“Chrissie…” He started to smile, the fingers of his free hand sliding into her hair and cupping the back of her head. Too startled to resist, Chris felt him propel her towards him. Her eyes closed automatically, her lips parting in anticipation of his kiss. She might almost never have been away. His kiss was tender and powerful; she was nineteen again quivering on the brink of womanhood, wanted him and yet frightened of that wanting and his kiss told her that he knew all this and understood it.
She barely had time to register these facts before his hold suddenly tightened, his eyes blazing burnt gold into hers as he withdrew from her. Chris blinked, slower than he was to make the transition from past to present, until she saw the biting contempt in his eyes and recognised that when he had kissed her he had not been fully awake; not fully aware of what he was doing.
“So you finally came.” He released her and was on his feet, whilst she still knelt numbly on the floor. “I suppose we ought to be honoured, but I’m sure you’ll forgive us if we don’t bring out the fatted calf. What brought you back, Chrissie? Guilt? Curiosity?”
Just about to tell him that she had only just learned of Natalie’s death, Chris stumbled to her feet as she heard sounds outside. The sitting-room door opened and a smiling plump woman in her fifties walked in holding the hand of a small child.
Chris breathed in sharply. So this was her niece…Natalie’s child. Slater’s child. She couldn’t endure to look at him as she studied the little girl, and knew instinctively why Natalie had named her as guardian, just as she knew that her cousin’s decision had not been motivated by any of the gentler emotions. Natalie had not changed, she decided helplessly, studying the small face so like her own; the untidy honey-blonde hair, and the general air of dismal hopelessness about the child. By some unkind quirk of fate Sophie could more easily have passed for her daughter than Natalie’s although unlike Chris she had brown eyes.
Chris frowned. Natalie had had blue eyes, and Slater’s were amber-gold. No one as far as she knew in either family had possessed that striking combination of blonde hair and velvet-brown eyes, and yet it was familiar to her, so much so that it tugged elusively at her memory.
“There you are, Sophie,” her companion said brightly, “I told you you were going to have a visitor didn’t I?”
The child made no response, not even to the extent of looking at her, Chris realised sadly.
“I have to go and get some shopping now Mr James,” she added to Slater.
“That’s fine, Mrs Lancaster. You’ve made up a room for our visitor, I take it?”
“The large guest room,” Mrs Lancaster told Chris with a smile, adding reassuringly to Sophie. “I’ll be back in time for tea, Sophie, and then perhaps tonight your aunt will read your story to you.”
Once again there was no response. Chris ached to pick the child up and hug her. She looked so pitifully vulnerable, so lost, and hurt somehow, and yet she sensed that it would be best not to approach her. She frowned as she remembered what Slater had said about a room for her. She must tell him that she would be staying at the cottage. She glanced at her watch, remembering that she still had to collect the keys.
“Bored with us already?” Slater drawled sardonically.
Chris saw Sophie conceal a betraying wince at her father’s tone and she frowned, wondering what had caused the child’s reaction. Had Slater perhaps often spoken to Natalie in that sarcastic voice? Children saw and felt more than their parents gave them credit for, but she could hardly question Slater on his relationship with her cousin. Did he know why Natalie had appointed her as Sophie’s co-guardian?
She glanced at him bitterly. Perhaps he had shared Natalie’s resentment that their child should so much favour her. She shuddered to think of the small unkindnesses Sophie could have suffered at Natalie’s hands; torments remembered from her own childhood, and then reminded herself that Sophie was Natalie’s child, and that as usual she was letting her imagination run away with her.
Chris looked up to find Sophie studying her warily, as she crept closer to her father. His hand reached out to enfold her smaller one, the smile he gave her was reassuring. A huge lump closed off Chris’s throat. She had been wrong about one thing at last. Patently Slater did love his small daughter—very much. There was pain as well as love in the gold eyes as they studied the small pale face.
“I can’t think why Natalie specified that I was to be her guardian,” Chris murmured unguardedly.
Almost at once Slater’s expression hardened. “Can’t you?” he said curtly. Sophie tensed, and as though he sensed her distress, he stopped speaking, smiling warmly at the child before continuing, “I’d better show you to your room.”
“That won’t be necessary.” Chris was cool and very much in control now. She gave him the same cold brief smile she reserved for too-eager males. It normally had an extremely dampening effect, but Slater seemed quite unimpressed. “I’ll be staying at the cottage,” she continued. “In fact I’d better get round to Reads and collect the keys. They’ve been keeping the place aired and cleaned for me.”
“Chris!” There was anger and bitterness reverberating in his voice, and Chris saw Sophie tauten again. Slater must have been aware of her tension too, because he broke off to say soothingly, “It’s all right Sophie, I’m not cross. We have to talk,” he told Chris levelly, “and it would be much easier to do so if you stayed here, but I remember enough about you to realise that you’ll go your own way now, just as you did in the past. I’ll walk out to your car with you.”
No doubt so that he could say the things to her he wanted to without upsetting Sophie. It was strange, Chris reflected painfully. All these years she had deliberately refused to think about Slater’s ch
ild, and yet now that she had seen her, she felt none of the resentment or pain she had expected. Sophie was simply a very unhappy, vulnerable child whom she ached to comfort and help, but she was sensible enough to know that the first approach would have to come from Sophie herself.
“I don’t have a car,” she told Slater coolly. “If I can leave my case here for an hour I’ll come back and collect it once I’ve got the keys for the cottage. I can use my aunt’s Mini to drive back in.”
Slater’s smile was derisive. “Please yourself Chris,” he drawled mockingly. “I’d offer to take you, but I can’t leave Sophie, and she isn’t too keen on riding in the car.”
Chris frowned, but Sophie’s face bore out her father’s statement, she looked tense and frightened.
* * *
IT TOOK HER longer than she had anticipated to walk to the village—she had forgotten that she was no longer a teenager and accustomed to the almost daily walk. The estate agent expressed concern when she told him her intentions.
“But my dear Chris, the place has been empty for nearly two years…”
“I arranged for it to be kept cleaned and aired,” Chris reminded him frowningly.
“Which we have done, but the roof developed a leak during the winter, it needs completely rethatching. I have written to tell you,” he told her half apologetically, and Chris sighed, hearing the faintly accusatory note in his voice. “Using your aunt’s Mini is completely out of the question. I doubt you could even get it started. I’ve got a better idea. My sister has a small car which I know she won’t mind you borrowing. She’s in Greece at the moment on holiday, and won’t be back for several weeks. How long are you intending to stay in Little Martin?”
“I’m not sure yet,” Chris told him accepting his offer of the loan of a car, but refusing to allow him to book a room at the village inn for her. However bad the cottage was, she could stay there one night, surely? She was already befuddled with all the decisions she had had to make recently. Tomorrow she could decide where she was going to stay. It would have to be somewhere close to Sophie otherwise there would be no point in her visit.
After she had collected Susan Bagshaw’s small Ford and thanked Harold Davies for the loan of it, Chris drove straight back to Slater’s house. She had been longer then she expected and her heart thumped anxiously as she approached the house. Unbidden the memory of Slater’s warmly persuasive kiss made her mouth soften and her pulses race.
Stop it, she warned herself angrily. He had kissed her almost as a reflex action, his true feelings towards her more then clearly revealed in his attitude to her once he was properly awake. What was the matter with her anyway? She had been kissed by dozens of men since she left Little Martin. But their touch had never affected her as Slater’s had done, she admitted tiredly. Perhaps now that she was back in Little Martin, it was time for her to face up to the fact that she had never really overcome Slater’s rejection of her; that her feeling for him had never properly died; principally because she had never allowed herself a true mourning period. She had rushed straight from the discovery of his infidelity into the hectic world of modelling, refusing to even allow herself to think about what had happened. Had she really come back simply for Sophie’s sake, or had some instinct, deeper and more powerful than logic drawn her back, forcing her to face the past and to come to terms with it, because until she did, she would never really be free to love another man?
She could admit that now, just as she could admit how barren and empty her life was. All the things she had really wanted from life had been torn from her and so she had been forced to set herself alternative goals, but career success had never really attracted her; the values instilled in her by her aunt still held good. At heart she was still that same nineteen-year-old. She wanted a husband and children, Chris admitted, surprised to discover how deep this need was, but Slater stood firmly in the way of her ever forming a permanent relationship with any other man; as did her life-style. The men she met were not marriage material. Disturbed by the ghosts she had let loose inside herself, Chris parked the car and walked towards the front door.
It was several minutes after she had rung the bell when Slater appeared. He had changed his clothes and in the checked shirt and jeans he could almost have been the Slater of seven years ago. Chris felt her muscles tense as he invited her in. As he stepped back her body brushed briefly against his in the close confines of the half-opened door. Her nerve endings reacted wildly, shivering spasms of awareness flickering over her skin, whilst she schooled her face to betray nothing.
“What happened to the Mini?” he asked once she was inside.
“Harold didn’t think it would start. He’s loaned me his sister’s car in the interim.”
“What did you do? Flash those sea-green eyes at him? You’ll have to be careful, Chris, this isn’t New York. Husband-stealing isn’t acceptable practice down here.”
Anger burned chokingly inside her. Who was he to dare to criticise what he assumed to be her way of life? After what he had done to her, how dare he… She bit back the angry retort trembling on the tip of her tongue. Tom Smith had warned her that should he wish, Slater could protest against and possibly overrule Natalie’s will. If she wanted to fulfil the role Natalie had cast for her she must try to maintain some semblance of normality between Slater and herself.
“Where’s Sophie?” she asked hesitantly, trying to fill the bitter silence stretching between them.
“In bed,” Slater told her, adding sardonically, “Children often are at this time of night. It’s gone eight, and she’s had a particularly tiring day. Meeting strangers always seems to have a bad effect on her.”
He had no need to remind her of her status, Chris thought tiredly. No one was more aware of it than she; it made her feel very guilty. There was something about Sophie that touched her almost painfully. Perhaps it was the physical resemblance to herself; the memories of the pain and loneliness of her own childhood, once her parents had died and before she realised the depth of the bond that could exist between her aunt and herself.
“I don’t know exactly why you’ve come here Chris,” he added tautly, “But Sophie isn’t a toy to be picked up, played with for a while, and then put down when you’re bored. She’s a very vulnerable, unhappy little girl.”
“She’s also my only living relative,” Chris said unsteadily, “and I feel I owe it to Natalie to do whatever I can for her.”
“Is that how you see her?” he jeered unkindly. “As a responsibility? She’s a responsibility it’s taken you damn near six weeks to acknowledge, Chris. Sophie doesn’t need that sort of half-hearted, guilt-induced interest.”
“I’ve only just received Tom Smith’s letter,” Chris protested angrily.
“Why? Or is it that you only return to your own address at six weekly intervals, just to check that it’s still there?”
His inference was plain and dark colour scorched Chris’s face. Let him think what he wished, she thought bitterly. Let him imagine she had a score of lovers if that was what he wanted. Why not? It was far better than him knowing the truth. That there hadn’t been a single lover, because in her heart she was still aching for his lovemaking…still grieving for what she had lost.
“I didn’t want you here,” she heard him saying curtly to her, “but Natalie did appoint you as Sophie’s joint guardian, although I think we both know that can’t have sprung from any altruistic impulse.”
Hard eyes impaled her as she swung a startled face towards him. But then why should she be so surprised? Naturally Natalie would have told him how much she hated her. After all in the early days at least they had been deeply in love; in love enough for him to have discarded her in the cruellest and most painful way he could. “I suppose Natalie did resent the fact that she looks like me,” Chris agreed bleakly.
Slater’s face was grim. “In the circumstances it hardly endeared the child to her,” he agreed, and Chris frowned a little. At times he had a manner of speaking about Sophie
that seemed to distance her from him, almost as though the little girl were not his daughter, and yet there was such an obvious bond of affection between them. Before she could question him further about his remark he went on to say, “Tom Smith seems to think you might be able to reach Sophie, and so does John Killigrew, the doctor in charge of her case at the hospital. Sarah and I aren’t so sure.”
Sarah? Chris’s heart pounded. Was this the explanation for Natalie’s suicide. Did Slater have another woman?
“Sarah?” she questioned lightly, avoiding his eyes, in case he read in them what she was thinking. Much as she had cause to resent her cousin, she could only feel sympathy with her, if she too had suffered the pain of being rejected by Slater. At least in her case all he had destroyed was her ability to love and trust, while in Natalie’s…
“Sarah is the psychotherapist in charge of Sophie’s case. Such behaviour isn’t entirely unknown in children and generally springs from a deep-seated trauma. Until we discover what that trauma is it is unlikely that she will speak, although there are various ways in which we can encourage her, but if you do intend to stay and help, Sarah will brief you on these herself.”
Chris stared at him nonplussed. “I thought the trauma was obvious,” she said unsteadily. “Sophie has lost her mother in the most distressing way… Surely that…”
“Sarah doesn’t believe that is the cause and neither do I.” He was almost brusque, turning slightly away from her so that his face was in the shadows. “Sophie and Natalie did not get on. Natalie spent very little time with the child.”
Chris was not entirely convinced.
“Why did Nat commit suicide?” she asked him abruptly.
He swung round, the shadows etching the bones forming his face, stealing from it every trace of colour. His eyes glittered febrilely over her as he studied her, his body tense with an emotion she could not define.