by Margaret Way
He had the definite feeling he shouldn’t be leaving Mallory. Bad things were hovering around her. He was even starting to consider auras, once a huge point of contention. Robert James had spent his life keeping Mallory safe. Robert was gone. But Blaine was still there.
Chapter Six
Her father had not gone to bed as Mallory had supposed or, closer to the mark, hoped. Her father’s lack of love for her had worn her down. She found him sitting in Uncle Robert’s favourite wingback chair, which she resented. He was nursing a crystal brandy snifter overfilled with the finest cognac.
“Ah, there you are my dear.” Nigel James turned his handsome, silver-streaked dark head towards her. He couldn’t and wouldn’t tell her she looked beautiful, so much acrimony and bitter resentment was in him. She looked flushed. He might even say, enraptured. Ah, Forrester, the local king of the heap! She was wearing her dark golden mane loose, increasing her stunning resemblance to her mother. Mallory was a very stylish creature. Just like his treacherous Claudia. “Lover boy gone?” he asked in his bitingly mocking voice.
Don’t let him upset you. You’re used to him by now.
Only tonight Mallory found her father’s manner appallingly offensive. “I thought you’d be in bed,” she murmured. He wouldn’t find Rachael cuddled up waiting for him. She now had a clear sense of his vengeful, frustrated, angry mood.
“I daresay Rachael confided we had a little tiff.” A sharp dismissive flip of the hand signalled his current feelings for Rachael, who had actually dared to remonstrate him. “Sanctimonious old bag took exception to the way I behaved today. Bloody cheek of the woman. What would she know? I should never have brought her.”
“So why did you?”
“What?” He reared back in his chair as though she had asked a highly impertinent question.
“It had a good outcome at least,” Mallory said. “Rachael saw you in your true colours, Father.”
Affront altered the composition of his hard, handsome face. “You bloody well amaze me, Mallory! Who are you to talk about seeing people in their true colours? When did you ever see through my dear brother?”
Mallory remained standing, though little tremors were running down her legs. Was there no end to this awful day? “All I ever saw from Uncle Robert was love and endless kindness.”
Two brothers.
Polar opposites.
Nigel James almost choked getting his words out. “Are you going to shut up so I can tell you the truth?”
Mallory remained outwardly calm and collected. “Please don’t shout at me, Father. This isn’t your house. This is my house, you understand? Anyway, you wouldn’t know the truth if it fell out of the sky and bounced off your arrogant head. When have you ever tackled your fatherly duties? You abandoned me almost from the day my mother died. How does that make you feel about yourself? You have no heart. There’s no direct line between your heart and your brain. The only person who matters to you is yourself. You can’t abide the slightest criticism without flying into a rage. You demand constant admiration. No, make that adulation. Rachael is a smart woman. I believe she has broken free. My mother didn’t. You crushed the life out of her before she was ever hit by that car.”
Enraged, Nigel James took a last swig, then pitched the crystal goblet towards the marble fireplace now filled with ferns, not caring it shattered, seeping brandy into the Persian rug. “I know how your mother died, damn you! I don’t need you to tell me. You, always carrying the big chip on your shoulder; you, wallowing in self-pity. You thrive off it. Self-pity drives you. Lost your mummy, did you? Can’t speak about it? Do you think you’re the only one to know grief? You’ve never considered my feelings. I’ve found no consolation anywhere. As for you! You’re a woman going to waste. You’ll never get a man. You’ll never have a child. You’re cold and you’ve got too much of a mouth on you.”
Mallory’s heart shrank. “Really? Then I’ve no idea why it’s taken me this long to get it open. I can deal with your accusations. I haven’t been able to deal with my mother’s death and the manner of it, that’s true. The trauma has never left me. I adored her. But I didn’t have a dad who was there for me, which made my grief so much worse. I don’t believe I wallow in self-pity, as you so compassionately put it. It was your criticism of Uncle Robert that did it. On the very day he was buried. He must have done something to make you hate him. You did hate him, didn’t you?”
Nigel James’s fine dark eyes appeared sunk in his skull. “You started this, Mallory,” he glowered. “Don’t ever forget that.” There was a tremor in his voice. “My so honourable older brother was screwing my wife. No need to cringe like the little puritan you are. Rutting like animals. You thought your mother was a saint. She wasn’t. There was no halo around her head.”
Mallory felt the air whoosh out of her lungs. She stared at the man she called father while he stared back. Shock was overwhelming her. She moved quickly to the sofa, feeling as though she had been pierced by a poisoned dart. When she finally spoke, it was with steady denial. “I’m not going to allow you to despoil my love for my mother and my uncle. I know my mother loved Uncle Robert long before you seduced her with your power. They could well have been lovers. I do not believe she would have betrayed you after she became your wife.” Knowing her father as well as she did, she had picked up on his motive. “You want me to believe Uncle Robert might have been my father, don’t you? You’re just that twisted. Not that you believe a word of it yourself. I know you and your long history of tormenting. I was only a child, but I recognised how you constantly taunted my mother. You would have taunted me, only she put herself between us. You couldn’t go a day without taking a swipe at her, could you? You seethed with jealousy. Uncle Robert was my uncle. Only it seems important to you to upset me.”
“Damn it, you think I’m lying?”
Nigel James’s face was so distorted he looked like a complete stranger to Mallory. She too was in such a state of distress she hardly knew what she was saying. “Of course you’re lying. What makes you livid is the fact you don’t know what happened between them in the last year or two when your marriage was failing. You’re tortured by doubts.”
There was no need to tell him about her doubts. Images were catapulting to mind of her mother and Uncle Robert together. There was no question they had a deeply loving relationship. They might have been lovers when they had been together, but her paranoid father would have had an eagle eye trained on them once he and her mother were married. Besides, her mother had made her own fatal choice. Robert or Nigel. She had chosen Nigel.
“What you can’t abide is my mother and Uncle Robert had the sort of loving relationship you were never able to achieve. You bitterly resented that. You had to have sole sway. You’re not in control of yourself anymore, Father,” she said with heavy emphasis.
Nigel James did indeed present a grim figure, a man on the edge of violence. “How dare you!” he thundered.
“Oh, I dare. Your colossal ego has always been a problem.” All the years of hurt, now she felt utter indifference.
“Stop your bloody crackpot analysing,” Nigel said with great coldness.
Utterly sickened, Mallory made to rise to her feet, only he reached out, shoving her back roughly. “How dare you speak to me like that anyway?”
“I’m sure it’s hard getting used to. What are you going to do, hit me?” There was no trace of fear about her. “I’ve faced up to much worse human beings than you, Father.”
“And don’t you glory in your little bit of fame,” he sneered. “Whatever bit of brain you’ve got, you got from me.” Arrogance was in his every word. He staggered, struggling for balance, when a man’s steely voice startled them both.
“This has to stop!”
Relief blazed through Mallory. One thing she knew for certain, Blaine was there when she needed him. She ran to him, finding comfort in the powerfully reassuring arm he flung around her. “You’ve come back?”
“I had a hunch your father
might not have gone to bed.” Blaine gave Nigel James a grim look. “I thought he might be waiting to take his mood out on you. Seems I was right.”
Nigel James made a considerable effort to confront the newcomer. His expression, at first blank with shock at Forrester’s unexpected appearance, had altered radically. “I’m not the monster here.” He glared at Blaine, lurching back to the armchair and plonking down in an ungainly fashion, foreign to such an elegant man. “The fact of the matter is, Forrester, seeing you’re making it your business, my dear dead brother Robert betrayed me with my own wife, the Blessed Claudia who fell just short of being canonised. I never ever thought he would have the bloody nerve, though God knows I knew he wanted her to distraction. I took her from him, you know. Couldn’t have been easier. He was nothing compared to me. So why don’t you pity me for all the misery he caused? I’m the real victim here.”
“Perhaps you brought it all on yourself, Professor,” Blaine suggested. He knew his father D’Arcy and Robert had been close. Robert had confided in his father, telling him Claudia had been planning on leaving her husband. She had found him too controlling. She didn’t want her daughter growing up with such a father. D’Arcy had never breached his friend’s confidence until years after Claudia’s death. The exact extent of Robert and Claudia’s relationship in the declining years of the marriage had never been a subject for discussion. Lives could be built on well-kept secrets. The truth could do serious damage. Robert and Claudia could easily have resumed their relationship as lovers at some point along the way. If they did, that was their business. No one should look into the corners of someone else’s life.
Mallory’s mouth was so dry she could hardly speak. She was remembering how close Uncle Robert had been to D’Arcy Forrester. What might her uncle have told him that he passed on to his son? Blaine had never told her a thing, though he could well be in possession of many secrets.
Nigel James heaved up again, using the arms of the chair for leverage. “If Claudia had it in her traitorous head she might leave me, it would never have happened. I would never have let her go. I would have killed her first. She married me. I had her for life. How good it is to know my bastard brother is dead!”
Mallory put out a hand to her father as he staggered past her. Despite what he was saying, pity swept her for his diminished state. For such a supremely arrogant man to appear so pathetic!
Her father scorned her gesture, smacking her hand away violently. His teeth were clenched so tight it was a wonder his jaw didn’t crack. “Since the day your mother was killed I’ve never been able to bear the sight of you,” he said with appalling cruelty.
“Perhaps the problem is you’re halfway insane.” Blaine was just barely controlling his temper.
Nigel stared back at the younger man, the imposing height, the build, the level of fitness. Moreover, the readiness about him. He tried hard to draw his own body up. “Maybe you’re right,” he grunted. “I don’t need you to drive me to the airport in the morning. Thank you so much. I’ll call a taxi. Sister Mary Rachael can fend for herself.”
“She won’t have to.” Blaine’s voice was cold. “I’ll arrange the taxi for you, Professor James. I’ll book it for eight sharp in the morning. I know you’ll be ready.”
Nigel James hesitated for a moment, pulling and scratching at his beard as though a wasp had made its nest in it. “I’ll never enter this house again, I promise you.” As he bore past them, such was his humiliation and rage focused on both, he turned to snarl at Blaine, “What’s she like in bed, eh? As bloody frigid as her mother, I bet.”
For Blaine there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell of controlling his anger.
As the bitter words spewed from Nigel James’s mouth, Mallory watched in astonishment as the Blaine she had always known, so very much in control, turned into another Blaine. One she had never seen. His eyes, levelled at her father, were glittering like diamonds. He looked dangerous. Her father was sneering in his habitual contemptuous way.
She had never thought to witness such a thing, but Nigel James’s long legs went out from under him as he crashed to the floor. He curled up foetus-fashion, one hand cradling his jaw. “How dare you!” he howled in utter disbelief. “This is monstrous! How dare you attack me?”
Blaine was busy massaging his hand, so he took a moment to answer. He gave the man on the floor a long, disgusted look. “Normally I’m not a violent man, Professor James, but one has to draw the line.”
Nigel James appeared half stupefied by recent events. “I’ll bring charges,” he threatened. “Let me make that clear. I’m an influential man.”
“Go right ahead.” Blaine moved to get an arm under the crazily hostile man, hoisting him to his feet. “Goodnight, sir. And you’re wrong. You do have a devil inside you.”
“If I do, it’s a she-devil,” Nigel James snarled. Using up what remained of his energy he stalked away, his tall figure listing pathetically to one side.
Mallory stood stricken for several minutes after her father had gone. “That was my father, wasn’t it?” she asked, wondering if there was anything at all left to salvage from their relationship.
“I’m afraid so. I’m sorry I hit him. Then again, I’m not.”
“He did bring it on himself. Such a strange thing for a man to be so handsome and brilliant, yet so deformed.”
“I was almost at the gate, but I had this feeling your father was waiting for another moment to torment you. He wanted to cause pain as he feels pain. He wanted to sully your love and respect for Robert. He does appear to have a bent nature.”
“No arguing with that,” she sighed.
“Come and sit down, Mallory,” he said. “This has been a dreadful day for you.”
“You too. Did Uncle Robert ever confide something about his relationship with my mother you’ve never passed on to me? I know he and your father were close friends. Did your father ever say anything to you?”
Blaine’s heart gave a painful jerk. He could see Nigel James’s tirade had shaken her to the core. He felt shaken himself. “Mallory, your father was making a sick attempt to break your heart. Of course I knew Robb loved your mother passionately, but discussing their relationship with me was strictly off limits. I don’t know everything your father said to you, but don’t follow up a dead end. Your father was extremely jealous of his brother. Jealousy makes people crazy. And cruel.”
“Is it possible Uncle Robert could have been my father?” She didn’t even recognise her own voice, it sounded so unsure.
“Use your head, Mallory. How likely is that? You weren’t a premature baby. You’re Nigel’s child. You can’t brush aside the fact your mother chose Nigel. She was in thrall to him. Not to Robert. Your father falls into the Svengali category. He was out to torment you, throwing up any old wild accusation. Nothing is as good to sick minds as tormenting people. Robb could never have kept the fact he was your biological father from you. He wouldn’t have been able to help himself. I’m equally sure you would have felt it deep in your psyche that Robert was your father. You didn’t, did you?”
Mallory shook her head. “No, I didn’t. There was a great bond between us, but it’s true I’ve always missed a father. At seven, one is totally unprepared to lose a mother, but I lost a father too. The attachment wasn’t anywhere near what I felt for my mother, but there were times he made me feel worthy, I suppose, of being his daughter. It was terrifying when he cut me off, a wrenching psychic separation to any child. I was his unlovable daughter.”
Blaine was appalled. “When he couldn’t have had a more beautiful, more sweet-tempered, more intelligent child!”
“I changed radically though, didn’t I?”
“Facing grief without a mother and father would change anyone, Mallory. You didn’t lose your mother after a long illness. You lost her suddenly, violently, one terrible afternoon. What you had to deal with as a seven-year-old must have been unbearable. Robert was there for you. In a way you saved Robert’s life. He had direc
ted a lot of guilt about the quality of your parents’ marriage and your mother’s death on himself. I know Robert believed he could have protected her. He believed he would have made a much better husband and father.”
“Of course he would have, but it didn’t happen. My father would have marked my mother at once, young, beautiful, impressionable; easy to separate from his less brilliant brother. My mother was brainwashed.”
Blaine shrugged. “Happens all the time. Sometimes it takes years for someone to fight free. Your father couldn’t resist the sick temptation to cause a flicker of doubt in your mind. His deep jealousy of Robert—even your love for your uncle—provoked that disgusting tirade tonight. It’s not a pleasant thing to be forced to see yourself as you are. His argument with Rachael might have set him off.”
“Just think of it! My own father with all his rage bottled up, ready to unleash it on me, the survivor. Of course I was the one who should have died.”
“Mallory, you’re in shock and you’re grieving. Don’t let your father win.”
Mallory gave a melancholy sigh. “I wonder if he knew my mother intended to leave him?”
“According to Robb, your mother hadn’t breathed a word. Had she told him, your father could well have descended into a kind of madness.”
She shuddered. She could see it happening.
“I think I’ll pour you a brandy,” Blaine said, his eyes on her white face. “I’ll have one too. We can skip the ice.”
Two weeks later
It was ten o’clock in the morning. The sun had been up since 4.30, blazing out of a cobalt sky. Mallory sat on the sand staring out over a turquoise sea. The surface was shattered by a million needle points of light. Shearwaters were tipping the water, gliding and banking, almost in slow motion. To her utter delight, a pair of reef herons, one smaller than the other, landed near the sculptural rocks off to her left. She sat very quietly so as not to disturb them, but it was for naught. They saw her and gave out raucous croaks. She watched as they took to the air, tucking their wings closely against their bodies.