Stormy Rapture

by Margaret Pargeter

  Liza continued to stare at him with a sinking heart. Long tense moments dissolving away and the silence felt heavy and choking. She felt trapped, melodramatic though it might seem, and she knew that he knew it. There was no bearing the thought of being responsible for turfing her mother out of house and home. Cleverly he had placed the onus in her camp. The decision appeared to be hers alone. On the face of it his proposition seemed more than generous, and his veiled threats might only amount to a little light teasing. Perhaps it was her own reactions which caused her such uneasiness, her own vulnerability where Simon Red-ford was concerned.

  "Why do you so want me to stay?" she asked, seeking a reassurance which she sensed he wouldn't give. Which she did not really want him to give in case it was something she didn't want to hear.—

  Surprisingly she saw his mouth tilt for a moment in a wry smile. "Let's say, for the time being, just fancy, my dear cousin. I always play my hunches, and this one seems to have hit me hard. I'm a stranger in a strange town, if you like. What more natural than to surround myself with one or two people whom I feel I can trust?"

  She was far from convinced. "Surely most employees are to be trusted?"

  He leant towards her, watching her keenly. "The firm is doing well but needs building up. Small things, hindering the general upward trend of business, have been going wrong. Or didn't you know?" Observing her small start of dismay, he added smoothly, "It appears you do."

  Liza thought quickly of the one or two isolated incidents Bill had mentioned, and said so. "But it's bound to happen occasionally, in any firm."

  "Well, let me just say that it won't continue to happen, even occasionally, with us. And you, dear cousin, will be one of those who will personally help to see that it doesn't."

  For one brief moment, as his eyes flicked over her lightly, she almost decided he was sincere in what he said. Almost, but not quite. In the next instant she knew instinctively that this wasn't the whole of it, but for the moment it would have to suffice. This man used devious ways, and she had no chance to think clearly. "Don't you ever intend living at Hollows End yourself?" she asked, trying to bring the conversation back to that which concerned her most at the present.

  "Not immediately, as I think I've told you before." He glanced away from her around the deserted lounge. "I have a service flat in London. I may get one here, but I haven't as yet decided. I suggest your mother continues to live at Hollows End as a sort of resident caretaker—what you will. She can tell people what she likes."

  That's very magnanimous of you, Mr. Redford, Liza felt like saying, but thought better of it. But neither could she find a word of thanks as she sat staring at her hands, her small face sullen.

  "What, no proper gratitude!" His eyes swinging back to her indignant face, read her thoughts mockingly. "I've been wondering, dear Liza, over the past few hours, why Silas chose not to leave you a thing?"

  Startled beyond coherent thought, Liza glanced swiftly upwards and, meeting his dark gaze, was mortified to feel her already hot cheeks growing warmer. How dared he question her in this way? He had been doing it all evening, but she hadn't expected him to go as far as this. Yet guilt held her fixed to her seat when every instinct urged her to get up and walk away. She couldn't afford to indulge in hurt pride. To dwell on the easy way out—a simple confession that to Silas she had been in no way related. Such a statement would be rash, would easily affect her mother. Enough, one step at a time. For the time being Simon must be allowed to think what he would. "He died very suddenly," she said, her lips scarcely moving. "And his will was made a long time ago."

  "That could be it…" Contemplatively his eyes moved across her tense face. "All the more reason," he added enigmatically, "why I should wait and see."

  Suddenly Liza was tired. It had been a long day, and wasn't ending as it might have done. Her eyes sparkled angrily with resentment, and she fought a bitter sense of humiliation when she realised that whichever way she might turn he could always manage to stay one jump ahead. It didn't help that a strong, irresistible aura of masculinity made her aware of him as she had never been of any other man, and she tried to consider coolly why this should be so. The white silk shirt he wore with his suit was conventional yet seemed to emphasise his height, making him look darker and somehow more ominous. He was a tall, powerful-looking man and, as her eyes clung to him, she felt her heart beginning to thud. The hard strength of his jaw, the sensual fullness of his well-shaped bottom lip did not escape her. One would control the other, she fancied, but only so much.

  She stirred, trying to rid herself of a curious inertia, not wishing that he should even sense how much he disturbed her. "Will that be all?" she asked softly, not aware of how cool her voice could be.

  "All for the moment," Simon agreed smoothly, his dark eyes holding hers steadily, while the tiny lines at the corner of his mouth deepened with mocking amusement.

  "Then we can go." Hastily she jumped to her feet, only to find his hand hard on her arm, pulling her down again. Through the thin material of her blouse she could feel his fine, strong fingers biting like steel, and a flicker of flame ran up her arm to the base of her throat, threatening to choke her.

  "Not exactly," he said, his fingers relaxing, even caressing, but holding her firmly while his eyes explored that tiny racing pulse in her throat. "You're in too great a hurry. I always like to sum up. We appear, after a great deal of haggling, to have reached an agreement, you and I. Your mother is to remain at Hollows End, and you will continue to work for me at the office."

  "As you say." Stung, she sat enduring his tentative hand, her whole body taut yet trembling. One day, she vowed fervently, childishly, she would make him repent that he had ever tried to hold her!

  Simon's eyes narrowed as he assessed her almost reckless defiance, and it seemed ironically fitting that he should have the last word. Words which were to ring in Liza's ear all the way back to Birmingham. "I would just like to make it quite clear," he smiled grimly, "that I'm not running a charity. I expect to be fully rewarded for what I do, and don't you forget it, my dear Liza."

  CHAPTER FOUR

  When they returned to Hollows End that evening Monica Lawson was still up. From the light which was burning in the drawing room window Liza knew this was so. She stood politely, a slim figure, just under average height, the light from the window illuminating the gravel in front of it, wrapping her in shadows as she waited against the wall until Simon drove away. Then, turning, she ran into the house.

  Almost before she had closed the door Monica was out of the lounge. "Bill called and told me you'd gone out with Simon." Monica's brow was fixed in anxious lines. "Where have you been? You didn't ask him in?"

  "Yes," Liza answered her last question first. "But he refused. We went to Stratford, and we talked." With a slight smile she returned with her mother to the still bright fire, slipping out of her light coat, warming her hands. The late May night seemed to have turned suddenly chill.

  "Really, darling? What did you talk about? Or would you rather not tell me? Did he say…" There was a small silence.

  Glancing over her shoulder, Liza saw her mother's face filled with apprehension, saw the tired, nervous droop of her lips, read her thoughts, as with obvious painfulness she tried to frame the query. "It's okay, Mums." Tonelessly Liza put her out of her misery. "He said you can stay here if you want to."

  Mrs. Lawson's rather faded features lit up, and her colour returned with a surge of intensity. "He really said that!" Liza thought she might well burst into tears, and wondered if her approach to Simon had been wise after all. To her mother, Hollows End was becoming to mean too much. A clean break now might have been wiser.

  "For the time being," Liza replied cautiously. Discreetly she didn't mention the pact she and Simon had formed. She still thought it sounded too dramatic, and Monica did go on so on occasion.

  "How do you mean—for the time being?" Monica's happier expression faded as she stared at Liza suspiciously.

&nbs
p; "Well, just what he said, Mums." Rather wearily Liza was aware that her voice was short. "He didn't give me any written agreement, if that's what you had in mind. He did say you could continue as a sort of caretaker. He didn't exactly specify, but it was probably another way of saying you need pay no rent."

  "Good gracious!" Monica's delight now changed to indignation—a line on which she usually balanced very finely. "Doesn't he think Silas owes me something? If he were to gift me the house outright, I don't think I'd be overpaid. How can he talk about rent?"

  "Mums!" Now thoroughly exasperated, Liza's patience dwindled rapidly. "This is something you must negotiate yourself. Simon Redford isn't the sort of man, I'm afraid, who ever feels he owes anyone anything. I only managed this concession, I think, because he believes I'm a sort of cousin. I dare not risk telling him the truth, but I'm not proud of myself for not doing so."

  "I'm sorry." Glancing at Liza's pink face, Monica had the grace to look slightly ashamed, if not mollified. "At least I'm glad you had the good sense not to tell him that. But it does seem rather ridiculous that you had to go all the way to Stratford to talk things over. When he called this morning he was quite charming, and I made him welcome. I should have thought he could quite easily have come to me."

  "Well, I'll certainly see that he does so in future," murmured Liza, as, too tired to argue further, she escaped to her bed.

  Miss Brown returned from Majorca the following Mon-day, and, during the intervening days Liza kept busy, filling her time with every possible task. This way she was too tired of an evening to even think straight, but even so, keeping her mind off Simon Redford needed more concentrated effort than she seemed capable of. During working hours, of course, there was no way of avoiding him, and every time she saw him she was aware of a disturbing sensation in her stomach, a tightening of her already taut nerves. And when he came near her, she felt a peculiar softening of her wide, curved lips, a tingling sensation to make her wonder longingly what it would be like to be held and kissed by such a man, and a growing horror that he should so much as guess at her thoughts.

  Considering that they hadn't parted on exactly the best of terms after their one evening out together, Liza found this new influx of feeling bewildering and, while deciding to ignore it, was continually aware of its persistent clamour. How much easier it might have been if she could have worked in another department where it wouldn't have been necessary to see him at all. She was almost grateful when an unexpected spate of new contracts kept him busy and away from the office for a greater part of each day. And she prayed almost fervently that by the time Miss Brown returned he would have forgotten all about his plans for an office nearer the city centre.

  Miss Brown returned full of bounce and enthusiasm, by comparison making Liza feel more than a little jaded. Even so, she was more than glad to see her, in spite of the fact that after only a short while she was loud in her praise of Simon Redford. She admired him, and, like Bill Bright, didn't believe in keeping silent about it.

  "The firm has needed someone like him for a long time," she said, nodding her greying head in approval. "He intends to employ or train a manager, as he'll have to be in London a lot eventually. Someone able to take charge while he's gone. You should mention it on the quiet to that young man of yours. It would certainly be a well paid job."

  "Young man?" For a moment Liza stared at her uncomprehending.

  "Don't be dense," snorted Miss Brown. "I'm talking about Bill Bright."

  If Liza was annoyed by Miss Brown's assumption she retaliated gently that far from going to London Simon had mentioned setting up another office somewhere in the middle of town. Such information, she was gratified to note, had the desired effect. Within minutes, on some vague pretext, Miss Brown disappeared into Simon's inner sanctuary, thus giving Liza time to sort out her thoughts before she came back.

  Why should Miss Brown assume that she and Bill were more than just friendly? She certainly didn't intend to be instrumental in securing him promotion. He must manage that by his own endeavours, not hers. Suddenly alarmed, she glanced towards Simon's closed door, hoping uneasily that Miss Brown wasn't already trying to forward Bill's case, based on some probable future relationship.

  Whatever the outcome, when Miss Brown returned she looked far from pleased. It looked, she said, as if Liza was being promoted over her head, instead of stepping into her shoes as one day she might have hoped to have done—if she had waited. While Liza attempted to sort this bit out and gather her defences, she was subject to a rigorous cross-questioning concerning her activities during Miss Brown's absence, and, just before she could be accused outright of underhand methods, she thought it better to appease Miss Brown with some inconsequential remark about Simon Redford looking after his own.

  To her relief, Miss Brown did seem faintly appeased. "I suppose, dear," she said, her brow clearing slightly, "that does account for it. If you hadn't been related I doubt that he would have looked at you twice."

  All of which only served to convince Liza that she was daily getting deeper into a black pond of deception. And that a broadside such as Miss Brown had just delivered was fully deserved, everything considered.

  In a mood of despairing uncertainty, however, she did agree to go out one evening with Bill, but it didn't seem to solve anything, or make her feel better as she had thought it might. Before the first hour was out she realised she had made a mistake, but like all such mistakes it couldn't be rectified, so must be endured.

  Bill was too full of a curiosity which she couldn't alleviate—all seeming to stem from the time when she had asked him to call with a message for her mother, on the evening when Simon had taken her to Stratford. Before then, when Silas had been alive, Bill hadn't been to the house, not in a social sense. And now, she supposed, their life at Hollows End naturally interested him. He was positively bubbling over with questions, put so politely as to make the refusal of an answer amount almost to rudeness. Combined with this there was also a gentleness which seemed almost to invite confidences—a trap, Liza realised uncomfortably, which was always set for the unwary.

  Surprisingly Bill chose one of the most fashionable hotels in Birmingham for dinner. A bit stuffy, Liza decided, not quite Bill's style. Nor hers for that matter, this evening. Rather ruefully she thought of a lively discotheque which might have helped her to avoid his studied concentration. It soon became apparent that through the office grapevine he had heard a rumour about the management vacancy, and was curious about this as well. And, in this direction, his ambition as well as his interest was aroused. She supposed he was trying to combine business with pleasure, and had chosen his surroundings accordingly.

  "Don't look now," he said swiftly, just after they'd sat down. "But our S.R. is seated some twenty paces to your left—and getting VIP treatment from same."

  Helplessly Liza's eyes swung, even when every instinct warned her to look elsewhere. Simon Redford was there all right, seated at one of the tables in the middle of the restaurant with a party of local big business men and their wives, some of whom she had seen before. Some, in fact, who had dined fairly regularly at Hollows End when Silas was alive.

  "Obviously carrying on where the old man left off," Bill whispered, almost as if he read Liza's thoughts as she stared. "One better, if you ask me. Sir Ronald and his wife didn't often grace Silas's table, I bet."

  Flushing unhappily, Liza shook her head, not caring for Bill's flippant talk, yet unable to deny the truth of it. Sir Ronald Tenson had only, so far as she could remember, dined twice at Hollows End, but at the same time she didn't think Silas and he had ever been particularly friendly. Certainly Sir Ronald's line wasn't construction, but even so he could be a useful business contact, and… he did have a very beautiful daughter. Liza didn't need to look to closely to see that Simon was giving her much of his attention.

  Of a sudden, for no reason she could think of, she had a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. This evening, she observed, Simon wore a dinner jacket,
and the severeness of black and white made him look more striking than ever. It wasn't just his looks which made the men beside him seem pale by comparison. In a strictly aesthetical sense, Liza, conceded, he probably wasn't actually good-looking at all. It was his air of virility, of supreme strength and fitness, which caught and held the imagination, played havoc with one's senses. Even from this distance the flickering glances he was receiving from the other women in his company were quite obvious.

  "I shouldn't mind a night out with one or two of those ladies myself," Bill muttered disrespectfully under his breath, "if I got the chance."

  Coming swiftly back to earth, Liza smiled slightly. "What a fine thing is chance," she murmured mischievously, making a determined effort to lighten her mood. If Bill had gone to all the trouble of arranging this evening, then at least she must owe him a smile or two.

  "If you would care to put in a good word for me with your dear cousin, I don't see why not." Then, as Liza's eyebrows rose, he grabbed her hand ruefully. "I'm not talking about the girls, silly. They've got nothing on you, especially if you were to lower your neckline a bit. That little lot over there could make or break a man like me. What we're looking at, Liza, is all in the interests of business. And that's how it's done."

  "You mean, around the dinner table?" She decided to ignore his apparently well-meant criticism of her dress.

  "I can think of less comfortable ways." Bill, in between courses, was caressing her hand softly, her palm between his fingers and thumb.

  "Well, I suppose it's not illegal," she observed. "I didn't imply that it was."

  "But you said…" Liza hesitated, frowning. What exactly had Bill said?

  Bill corrected with mock patience, "You're too ready to jump to the wrong conclusions. I wasn't trying to criticise Simon. Somehow I don't think he'd approve of anything which wasn't strictly honest. I merely said that that's all part of the job." Again he inclined his head towards the party across the room.