by Penny Jordan
Re-read this classic romance by New York Times bestselling author Penny Jordan
Aged fifteen, innocent Laurel had been the victim of an attempted assault, and hard-edged Oliver Savage was the journalist who reported on the story. Laurel’s reputation ended up in tatters, leaving her devastated and slow to trust…
Years later, Oliver is determined to right his wrong…only to discover that feisty Laurel doesn’t want his help, she wants vengeance! But the chemistry between them is instant, and undeniable… Can Oliver’s expert caress tempt Laurel to put her plans for revenge aside, and succumb to desire instead?
Originally published in 1983
Savage Atonement
Penny Jordan
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ONE
LAUREL sighed as Sally, the office junior, popped her head round her office door for the umpteenth time that afternoon and enquired with breathless anticipation, ‘Has he arrived yet?’
Barely glancing up from her typewriter, Laurel shook her head, ‘And when he does, I won’t be the first to know, Frances will, and Mr Marshall won’t be too pleased if he finds you in my office again, Sally. You know he’s in a hurry for that photocopying.’
‘Oh, honestly, you haven’t a romantic bone in your body!’ Sally complained, ignoring Laurel’s warning. ‘Here we are, about to receive a visit from practically the most famous writer in the country, and all you can do is moan about old Marsh’s photocopying! Aren’t you even the tiniest bit excited?’ she probed. ‘I saw him on television the other night, on a chat show. He’s gorgeous, don’t you think so?’
‘Mr Graves is simply a prospective client as far as I’m concerned,’ Laurel replied repressively. ‘I’ve neither read his books nor seen him.’
‘Then you’re missing a real treat on both counts,’ Sally told her roundly,’ adding enthusiastically, ‘Don’t you think there’s something smoulderingly sexy about dark-haired men——?’ She broke off when she saw Laurel’s face. Although Laurel had worked for Marshall and Marshall, Chartered Accountants, just as long as she had done herself, and in spite of all her questions, Sally knew little more about the older girl than she had done the first day she took over from Mary, Mr Marshall senior’s secretary, who had retired.
She could be attractive, if only she would do something about herself, Sally decided judiciously. The single golden bar of sunshine striking across her desk revealed tinges of dark red in the tightly drawn back hair in its neat chignon. Laurel couldn’t be more than twenty-one or two, but to judge by the way she dressed—in dowdy tweed suits and matronly blouses, her shoes sensible and sturdy rather than chosen to enhance the delicacy of her narrow bones—anyone would be forgiven for thinking she was a woman in her forties at least. She never wore make-up, and yet her skin had a translucent quality that Sally frankly envied. No one had ever heard her talk about her family, or indeed about anything unconnected with the office. Did she have a boy-friend? Remembering the way she always looked when the conversation turned towards boys and sex, somehow Sally doubted it. It was her considered opinion that for some reason Laurel had a hang-up about the opposite sex, but none of her probing had been able to reveal why. And yet she liked Laurel. She was the most senior secretary in the large accountancy firm, and yet by far the most approachable. She might drive herself to achieve almost impossible perfection in her work, and yet she always had time to help her, Sally, when the wretched photocopier started to spew out erratic copies; she was never above giving her a hand with the mail or with making the tea. Quite, different from Frances on reception who was supposed to help her.
At the thought of Frances Sally grimaced a little. Trust her to have all the luck! What Laurel had said was quite true; she would be the first one to see Jonathan Graves when he walked into the office, for his appointment with Mr Marshall, and no doubt she would make the most of it. Cat, Sally thought acidly, mentally comparing her own plumb brunette ordinariness with Frances’ cool Nordic looks, to her own detriment.
‘Are you honestly not even the slightest bit curious about him?’ she questioned Laurel curiously.
A faint smile touched Laurel’s mouth. Poor Sally, she was obviously finding it hard to believe that Laurel didn’t share her interest in their latest client. Bitterness replaced her smile. None of the male sex held any interest for her; What she did feel for them was uninterest if they happened to be as dry and distant as Mr Marshall, or a combination of fear and loathing if they happened to show any personal interest in her. It was a reflex action so deeply ingrained in her now that she was unaware of it; unaware of how much she shrank from even the briefest contact.
The trainee accountants in the light, airy room they shared on the floor below often discussed her—something which would have horrified her had she known of it, but she had lived deeply embedded in her own shell for so many years now that she was unaware of their thoughts. The male sex was a completely alien race to her. There had been no men at the convent where she had been sent after… after she had found herself all alone in the world. Initially they had sent her to a home, but her nightmares, her refusal to make contact with the other teenagers there had resulted in her being removed and sent to the convent.
She had been happy there in a subdued way, had even contemplated taking the veil, but the Reverend Mother had gently but firmly dissuaded her. She did not have enough experience of life to make such a decision, she had told Laurel, and there was no true vocation.
Of course, Laurel had known that was not the real reason she was being sent away; Reverend Mother was trying to be kind, to pretend that Laurel was not being rejected; but Laurel had known differently—and why!
Her fingers clenched over her typewriter keys, her sherry brown eyes darkening with remembered pain and horror. Her whole body started to tremble inwardly and she had to fight against the betraying sickness welling up inside her, the agonising memories she had sworn never to relive.
‘Laurel, are you all right?’
Sally’s anxious voice cut through her thoughts, banishing the threat of the past.
‘I’m fine,’ she lied, glancing at her watch. ‘How about a cup of tea?’
Frightened by what she had seen in the normally calm sherry-coloured eyes, Sally willingly complied. For a moment it had been like looking at a complete stranger; a different Laurel who had known an anguish and horror too great for her to comprehend.
They drank their tea in silence—Laurel was like that, not given to chatter or confidences, and yet for all her unworldly appearance, her frumpishness, Sally was suddenly struck by the thought that nothing one could tell Laurel about the sins and omissions of the human race would truly shock her. Quite why she should think this Sally didn’t know, and she tussled mentally with the problem for several minutes before realising that it was gone three o’clock and she would have missed Jonathan Graves’ arrival in the foyer. This was confirmed when the intercom on Laurel’s desk buzzed commandingly.
Laurel reached for it, and listened in silence for several seconds.
‘Mr Marshall wants me to go in and take notes,’ she told Sally, gathering up her notebook and two pencils. ‘It could take some time, so I think you’d better make a tray of tea. I’ll take it in with me.’
Marshall and Marshall was the old-fashioned type of firm that still believed in treating its clients in a courteous and leisurely fashion. Most of them were older people; and while Laurel didn’t mind this, Sally made no secret of the fact that she wo
uld have preferred to work somewhere with a more modern image.
Having checked that all was in order on the tea-tray, Laurel paused briefly to examine her reflection in the mirror, checking for any hairs straying from her immaculate chignon. There were none. There never were. Once, when she was at secretarial college, some of the other girls had tried to persuade her to wear her hair down. They had even tried to wrest the pins from it. Laurel paled at the memory, her eyes huge in the delicate triangle of her face.
Her bone structure was as fine as a bird’s. She was almost frighteningly slender, her skin very Celtically fair—an inheritance from the father she had never known.
He had been a Scot; a born wanderer, her mother had always said, and he had been killed in Hong-Kong during a riot there. Her mother hadn’t seemed to mind and Laurel suspected the marriage had not been particularly happy, but as she couldn’t remember him she felt no personal sense of loss. For as long as she could remember there had simply been herself, her mother and her grandparents: all living together in the large old house her grandfather had bought for his bride in Hampstead, within sight of the Heath. She had been happy in those days—happy and carefree. There had been a dog, a liver and white spaniel to yap at her heels and chase imaginary rabbits over the Heath. She had gone to a small local girls’ school which she had loved.
But then first her grandmother and then her grandfather had died, and there had only been her mother and herself in the huge old house, and very little money for its upkeep. Which was why her mother had started taking in lodgers.
Her hands shook, rattling the cups on the tray. She must pull herself together. What was the matter with her? There was no going back—she knew that. She had a lot to be grateful for; her small flat in the quiet block inhabited in the main by older couples, her small car which she drove into the country whenever she could spare the time. Something about the timelessness of the country landscape, the rightness of nature’s cycles had a beneficent effect upon her tensed nerves.
She was completely alone now. Her mother had always had a weak heart, and after… after the trial she hadn’t been able to endure the shame of what had happened and had slipped quietly away from life; away from her, Laurel acknowledged with self-condemnation. There had been a time when she thought that she ought to have been the one to die, not her mother, but that would have been too easy, too kind a fate. The gods had a different punishment for her.
She knocked and pushed open the office door. Mr Marshall as the senior partner in the firm had the largest office; one that, with its solid mahogany furniture, panelled walls and hunting scenes conveyed an air of solid respectability; no bad thing for a firm specialising in accountancy.
‘Oh, Laurel, you brought us some tea, Excellent.’
Mr Marshall permitted himself a thin dry smile. Laurel was the best secretary he had ever had—quiet, self-effacing and yet unbelievably efficient. He had been doubtful at first when the head of the typing unit had suggested her as a replacement for Mary Gilmour, but it had taken less than a month for him to appreciate the excellence of her choice, and Laurel had been appointed as his secretary. He glanced at her now. Her woollen suit in a muted honey brown was efficient and neat; a pristine white blouse with a high neckline and a row of pintucks down the bodice effectively-concealed the shape of her body, as did her heavy skirt, but not even the thick tights and sensible shoes she was wearing could detract from the slender length of her legs, and as she poured the tea at her employer’s command, Laurel was bitterly aware that the man seated opposite Mr Marshall, whose profile she couldn’t see without lifting her head, which she firmly refused to do, was quite openly and appreciatively studying them.
‘Leggy’ was how her grandmother had been wont to describe her, and at five foot eight, Laurel did have a length of leg that smaller girls openly envied. Indignation flashed in her eyes as, out of the corner of her eye, she saw their new client bend towards the floor, supposedly to remove some papers form the briefcase he had placed there, but Laurel knew that she was the focus of his attention, and a dark, smouldering anger burned up inside her; her voice was icy with dislike as she asked him whether he preferred milk or lemon in his tea.
He lifted his head and turned towards her, and Laurel felt the blood draining from her face, a low buzzing sound in her ears. It couldn’t be… but it was… every single detail of that face was burned into her mind with acid; there was no way she could forget or mistake it.
From a distance she heard Mr Marshall saying her name testily, and from somewhere she found the strength of will to lift the cup and saucer, proffering it to the man who called himself Jonathan Graves, but whom she knew by the name of Oliver Savage. And he had recognised her. She had seen it momentarily in his eyes before he had concealed his shock. She was bitterly glad that he had been shocked; what had he expected, or had he simply dismissed her from his mind, after he had destroyed her and left her feeling that death would be a merciful release from the only alternative life now offered her.
‘Sit down, Laurel,’ Mr Marshall instructed her when she had passed him his tea. ‘Mr Graves, or Mr Savage, as I believe he prefers to be called, would like to take away with him some brief notes on our discussion. Mr Savage, as you may know, is a writer,’ he explained pedantically. ‘He has been living and working abroad for some time, writing under the pen-name of Jonathan Graves, but he now intends to return to this country and is seeking advice as regards tax matters.’
Jonathan Graves and Oliver Savage, one and the same man; what sort of books did he write? Laurel’s lips curled fastidiously. She could make a fair guess. They would be tainted with the same sort of sensationalism he had brought to his work as a journalist. Men like him shouldn’t be allowed to write, to condition the minds of others with their skilfully manipulative lies. Truth to them was simply something to be twisted and warped until it was a broken unrecognisable thing, just as she.…
Only the superhuman strength of will that had carried her through the last six years enabled her to sit down and make notes of the discussion that ensued between her employer and Oliver Savage. Although she refused to betray it, she was aware of every nuance of his voice, every inflection behind the words. The sickness she had experienced on first seeing him so unexpectedly had faded, leaving in its place an anguished fear. What if he should try to talk to her, to.… But no, she couldn’t bear that. All the time her pencil skimmed busily over the lined paper of her shorthand notebook her thoughts collided and entwined, writhing formlessly like snakes inside her head, confusing and bewildering her. She had deliberately angled her chair so that she wouldn’t have to look at him, and it came as a shock, when she raised her head for a momentary respite, to discover that he had shifted his and that he was searching her face, as though he wanted to lay bare the bones beneath the skin and delve into the secret recesses of her mind. He had always instilled fear in her, but now her fear was greater. It gripped her, stifling her, tensing her body, leaving her face pale and her eyes strained.
It was a relief when Mr Marshall started speaking again and she was free to bend over the notebook, blotting out the image of his face. A sexy face, Sally had called it on more than one occasion, when trying to persuade her to study his dust jackets. She hadn’t been interested enough to even glance at them—an omission she regretted now, because had she done so she would have been prepared for this meeting, would in fact have been able to avoid it. He moved, the long line of his thigh intruding on her vision. Sickness clawed at her stomach, and her fingers slackened over the pencil, so that it slid from them on to the floor.
They both bent to retrieve it together, and because his arm was the longer, expensively encased in dark suiting, a gleaming white shirt cuff circling the sinewy masculine wrist, he reached it first, his arm brushing against the exposed flesh of Laurel’s for the merest fraction of a second—but it was long enough to have her cringing away from him, her eyes dark with terror and loathing, emotions which he registered with hooded grey eyes before
handing her her pencil.
He had not changed, Laurel thought sickeningly, or if he had it was simply to become more intensely male, even more dominant and powerful. She had sensed the power in him right from the first; sensed and feared it, and because of what had gone before her rawly scraped nerves had responded badly to it, and because of that he had trapped her in the nightmare web of questions he had thrown at her. Questions which had eventually destroyed her and killed her mother, while he and.…
With an almost physical effort she wrenched her thoughts away from the past and back to the present. Why should he have changed, after all? Six years in the life of a man of twenty-seven were hardly likely to have the same cataclysmic effect as six years tacked on to the life of a girl of fifteen, for whom they represented a flowering and growing such as she would never experience again. Only Laurel had never experienced that flowering; it had withered and died. In six short months she had grown from a child to a woman, with a burden of knowledge she had found too heavy to carry. Mechanically she took down Mr Marshall’s careful speech. Sally was always complaining that working for Marshall and Marshall was dull and boring, but Laurel didn’t find it so. To her it represented security and safety, just as her old-fashioned clothes and primly repressive appearance did. Once, like Sally, she had delighted in pretty clothes and even tentative experimenting with make-up. But all her femininity had been frozen inside her and nothing could ever thaw it now.
She was glad when Mr Marshall signified that she could leave. There had been a look in Oliver Savage’s eyes when he recognised her that she remembered; a questioning, searching look that said that he wouldn’t simply leave matters where they stood. Perhaps he was no longer an investigative reporter; but he had obviously never lost the instinct of hounding people; of questioning and badgering them until they gave him what he wanted, just as she had done.… But he would never get the opportunity to question her again. He had destroyed her once, and the woman who had emerged from the ashes of that destruction was impervious to the Oliver Savages of this world.
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