‘Thwarted?’ Jack echoed. ‘Meaning what exactly?’
‘Meaning, young man—’ from her sitting position her mother still managed to look down her nose ‘—your attempts to compromise my daughter have come to naught.’
‘Compromise?’ A ridiculously old-fashioned word, it was clear Jack thought so, too.
‘But in case you’ve failed to get the message—’ her mother paused briefly before launching into a vituperative speech, making it crystal clear that Jack wasn’t fit to court her eldest daughter.
As Arabella was listening in the next room—and Arabella was quite capable of defying their mother and interrupting— Esme assumed this tirade had her approval.
Esme watched the anger darkening Jack’s brow, heard his intake of breath, then cheered silently as he finally retaliated to her mother’s snobbery with a few well-chosen words.
When he turned on his heel and slammed the door behind him, her mother still had her mouth hanging open.
Esme pushed back her chair to follow.
‘And where are you going?’ Her mother turned on her.
‘To my room.’ She could hardly say, After Jack.
Her mother might have insisted she stay, but when Arabella reappeared the focus of her attention shifted.
‘Yes, all right.’ She waved Esme away.
Esme knew she was already forgotten and could please herself. She hurried to the front door, imagining Jack had exited the same way he’d entered, but there was no sign of anyone in the drive. She retraced her steps, creeping past the dining room en route to the kitchen.
The new cook, Maggie, was putting the finishing touches to dessert. She glanced up at Esme, noted her expression, then gestured towards the back door.
‘He’s gone to the barn.’
‘The barn?’
Maggie nodded, ‘I gave him a bottle to keep out the chill.’
‘A bottle? A bottle of what?’
‘Whisky from the larder. I’ll replace it, of course.’ Esme wasn’t worried about that, but frowned. ‘Jack doesn’t drink.’
Maggie shook her head—over Esme’s naiveté. ‘All men drink. Trust me... He’ll need it tonight, too, if he’s to sleep in the hayloft.’
‘But why...?’ Esme was still trying to catch up with events.
‘He has nowhere else,’ Maggie relayed. ‘Your mother’s dumped his stuff and had a locksmith in. It seems she didn’t like him and your sister being so friendly.’
Esme had gathered as much but why now, so suddenly? Arabella had been hanging round Jack for weeks and her mother had done little to prevent it, being indulgent in the extreme to her elder daughter.
‘I fetched this down earlier—’ Maggie indicated a blanket draped over a chair ‘—but he’s gone off without it.’
‘I’ll take it to him.’ Esme picked it up.
‘Are you sure?’ Maggie looked a little uncertain but didn’t try to stop Esme, adding, ‘I’ll leave the door on the latch.’
‘Thanks.’ Esme went out into the night.
It was almost nine, but, being summer, it was still light as Esme crossed the stable yard to the barn at the end.
The door squeaked on rusty hinges; she called out, ‘Jack,’ faintly at first, then louder at his lack of response.
‘Up here.’ Reluctantly admitted, it came from the hayloft above.
Esme stepped fully inside. Very little light filtered into the
barn but she knew her way by memory. She reached the ladder and started to climb, pushing the blanket up before her. She was hardly attired for the occasion, in a summer dress, but she stayed poised at the top while her eyes adjusted to the semi-darkness.
‘It’s me, Esme.’ She identified herself in case he’d hoped for someone different.
His voice came from the far wall and sounded gruffer than usual, ‘I know it’s you. What do you want?’
‘I—I...’ What did she want? To tell him she was sorry, she supposed. It suddenly seemed inadequate and his tone was scarcely welcoming.
‘Well, while you’re deciding,’ he mocked her stammering, ‘either come up or go down before you fall and break your neck.’
A torch was switched on and shone across the floor so she had some light to guide her. She still couldn’t see him but it was obvious he was indifferent as to whether she stayed or went.
Esme hovered for a moment longer, then scrambled all the way into the hayloft, ripping the hem of her dress. Uncaring, she edged nearer on all fours until she reached the back wall.
She handed over the blanket but didn’t get too close to him. She sensed he wouldn’t like it.
A brief, ‘Thanks,’ was uttered.
She stole a glance in his direction but his face was in shadow and, when she was at rest, he switched off the torch, saying, ‘The batteries are almost dead.’
‘Oh, right.’ Feeling inadequate, Esme wondered what to say next.
She could make out a bulging rucksack on one side of him. All his worldly possessions were in that? She wanted to tell him how unfair she thought it all, but he clearly wasn’t inclined to talk.
She heard the rustle of a sleeve as he lifted an arm, then the sound of him drinking.
She’d never seen him drink alcohol. She wasn’t seeing him now, either, but she took Maggie’s word about the whisky.
She shivered and, in a spirit of recklessness, said, ‘Can I have some of that?’
‘I don’t think so,’ he replied. ‘You’re not legal age yet, are you?’
‘I’m eighteen,’ she claimed.
‘Seventeen, more like,’ he countered.
‘All right, seventeen.’
Esme settled for that. Sixteen would seem barely out of childhood to a man of twenty-two and she desperately wanted to be older for him.
‘I’ve drunk it before.’
‘Really.’
‘I have,’ she insisted, ‘at boarding-school. The girls are always drinking.’
‘Among other things,’ he muttered, more to himself than her. ‘Well, I’d give you a sip to stop your teeth chattering, but your bitch of a mother might accuse me of corrupting the second of her daughters.’
‘You didn’t corrupt Arabella.’ Esme was conscious of some disloyalty to her sister but it was the truth. Arabella had made no secret of the fact she’d been sleeping with boys for years.
‘I am aware of that,’ he laughed harshly.
‘But you still liked her,’ Esme observed aloud.
He assumed it was a question and he shrugged in reply. ‘I’m not sure liking came into it.’
‘Oh.’ Esme concluded from this that it was a much stronger emotion he’d felt.
They lapsed into silence. It wasn’t companionable. Esme just didn’t know what to say next. She’d come tearing after him, distressed by the way her family had treated him, wanting somehow to make up for it. But she understood that Jack would feel no better if she started leaking sympathy over him.
She began to shiver in earnest. The barn was unheated and the only window was wood-shuttered, a draught coming in through the cracks. She tried to keep warm by hugging herself.
‘Here.’ He handed her the bottle while he shrugged out of the denim jacket he was wearing and draped it over her shoulders, followed by the blanket across her legs.
‘Thanks.’ She was instantly warmer. Heat from his body was trapped in the material.
She found she was still holding the bottle and took a swig from it. By force of will she managed to avert a coughing fit as the liquid burnt the back of her throat. Till then her sole alcohol consumption had been the occasional glass of white wine. This was much more potent stuff, the taste horrible but the effects magically calming.
She handed the whisky back to him and he wiped the top of the bottle before taking another swig.
‘So where exactly was Arabella?’ he asked her.
‘I...um...’ Esme wondered whether the truth was a good idea.
‘In the next room?’ he suggested.
She started with surprise. ‘Why do you think that?’
‘I’m right, aren’t I?’ he concluded. ‘Pressing her shell-like to the door, no doubt.’
Esme stared in his direction, but it was too gloomy in here to make out his expression. His tone didn’t tell her much either. He sounded angry rather than heartbroken.
‘If you knew she was there,’ she said puzzled, ‘why didn’t you say anything?’
He shrugged. ‘Let her have her fun.’
‘I don’t understand,’ Esme admitted.
‘No,’ he agreed, but didn’t enlighten her.
She sensed he considered her too young to comprehend the complexities of adult relationships. He was wrong, however. She certainly understood her own feelings, a blend of jealousy, sympathy and passion.
It was jealousy that had her asking, ‘Is this where you used to meet, you and Arabella?’
‘To do the dirty deed, you mean?’ He didn’t spare her blushes. Not that he could see them in the gloom. ‘Hardly. Your sister would have a screaming fit if a spider so much as touched her leg.’
Esme concluded they must have used the house, but had suddenly lost her appetite for further details.
‘I don’t suppose you’d believe that we didn’t actually do anything,’ he remarked at length.
‘No.’ Esme didn’t like being taken for a fool. ‘Do we have to talk about this?’
He glanced towards her and she could imagine his brow rising. After all, she’d started the conversation.
But he let it go with a brief, ‘Not as far as I’m concerned,’ and raised the bottle back to his lips.
Esme assumed it was to anaesthetise himself from feeling.
‘Do you drink a lot?’ she asked.
He choked a little at this bold question, then laughed shortly. ‘Only on special occasions.’
And this was one? Esme didn’t see it. She took it for sarcasm.
‘Do you?’ he added.
‘Me?’
‘Drink a lot?’
He was teasing. At six years older than her, he thought he had the right. But condescension was the last thing Esme wanted from him.
‘Depends what you call a lot.’ She was studiously casual. ‘Weekends mostly. There are always bottles of something knocking around at school. The girls take them from home.’
It was true enough. Some of the girls at boarding-school were almost hardened drinkers, having started stealing their parents’ liquor from quite a young age. She tended to avoid that crowd, however.
‘And there was me,’ he drawled back, ‘thinking it was all midnight feasts and jolly hockey sticks for you rich types.’
Rich types? He’d never called her that before. But then her family had never called him a ‘common oik’ until tonight.
‘What about men?’
‘Men?’
‘Boys,’ he qualified. ‘Do they figure in these drunken orgies?’
His voice was laced with amusement. He obviously still thought her a kid, playing at being a grown-up.
With a mind to shock, she said, ‘Deering College is just a mile away. We meet their boys in our sports pavilion. That’s where we do the dirty deed.’
She quoted him, able to sound convincing because it was all true. She just wasn’t one of the ‘we’ that did it. Sure, she had kissed a few boys at school dances, even allowed a little touching over clothes, but nothing else.
A silence followed while he decided if he believed her. ‘It seems I’ve misjudged you, little Midge,’ he eventually commented.
What did that mean? He’d thought her a nice girl before, now he didn’t?
‘I’m not a slag or anything, though,’ she added, blushing in the darkness.
‘No, of course not.’ His tone was mock-serious.
Esme kind of wished she hadn’t started this either but, having embarked on her bad-girl image, felt obliged to maintain it.
‘Can I have some more?’ she asked after he took another drink.
‘Is that a good idea?’ He clearly didn’t think so. ‘I can take it,’ she claimed.
‘I’m not sure I can,’ he laughed back. ‘But as it is yours, filched from your larder...’ He extended the bottle to her.
This time she was prepared for the fire at the back of her throat and the unpleasant taste, if not the gradual lowering of inhibitions.
‘Steady on,’ he advised when she took a couple of long sips. ‘I don’t want to be carrying you home, even if it is only a couple of hundred yards to your back door.’
‘You wouldn’t manage it.’ Esme knew she was a carthorse compared to her svelte sister.
‘Probably not,’ he conceded.
‘Thanks,’ she muttered, piqued.
‘I was agreeing with you,’ he pointed out.
‘Well, I’d prefer you didn’t,’ she threw back, ‘I don’t think I understand women.’ He reclaimed the bottle from her as she raised it back to her lips. ‘Evidently not,’ Esme muttered in retaliation. ‘With reference to?’ he enquired.
She’d been thinking about herself—how he still hadn’t a clue about the way she felt.
It seemed wiser to say, ‘Arabella.’
‘Not one of my finer moments,’ he conceded. ‘I should have known what would happen. In fact, I’d have been better off if I had just slept with her.’
As opposed to what—falling in love?
Yet he didn’t seem too devastated. More exasperated with himself. Or was that the recuperative powers of the whisky?
It certainly had a strange effect on a person, as Esme answered bitchily, ‘Everyone else has.’
‘Quite,’ he agreed, laughing.
Not the reaction she’d expected at all. She was sure she didn’t understand men.
‘About the cottage—’ she switched subjects ‘—I don’t imagine my mother can just throw you out like that. There must be laws. You could find a solicitor. I have some money if—’
‘No, forget it!’ He stopped her speaking by squeezing her hand. ‘You’re a good kid, Esme, but there’s no need. I was leaving, anyway. I have a job in the States.’
‘I...I...’ Esme felt as if she’d just been kicked.
‘I assumed Arabella would have told you.’
No, nothing. But, to be fair, Esme couldn’t bear to talk about Jack with Arabella.
‘Wh-when are you coming back?’ she finally managed.
‘I’m not,’ he declared. ‘Not here, anyway. Nothing to come back for now.’
There’s me, Esme longed to say, but he would have thought her mad. Perhaps she was. She’d spent endless hours dreaming of the day Jack Doyle would suddenly notice her. Open his eyes, see beyond puppy fat and teenage gaucheness and realise she was the one. Now, in an instant, all those dreams dissolved into dust.
She struggled for words, anything to fill the silence so he couldn’t hear her heart beating in distress.
‘I have to go.’ She didn’t care if it seemed abrupt.
She pushed away from the wall on which they were both leaning.
‘Here’s your jacket.’ She shrugged out of the denim and made to get to her feet.
‘Wait up!’ He caught her arm and she lost momentum, coming back to rest on her knees.
‘That hurt!’ she complained, a cover for her real feelings.
He ignored it. ‘Look, I’m sorry if I’ve upset you—’
‘You haven’t!’ Esme denied, but her tone gave her away.
That and her distraught look as he switched on the torch once more.
‘I would have told you but...’ He searched for a reason. There was none, of course. Why should he tell her? ‘But I’m nobody,’ she said it for him. ‘Just Arabella’s little sister.’
‘No, you’re not,’ he replied gently, so gently it brought tears to her eyes.
She dashed them away with the back of her hand. ‘Let me go.’
‘Not yet.’ His eyes rested on her face. ‘You mustn’t think that, Esme. I know it migh
t seem at times that you’re in her shadow...’
‘In her shadow?’ He really had no idea. ‘I’m not even that. I’m invisible. Totally blanked out. Sometimes I wonder if I’m there at all.’
‘God, no, Esme.’ He brushed away the tears still falling with his fingers. ‘You’re more there than she’s ever going to be. Kinder. Funnier. Sweeter.’
Esme recognised he was trying to make her feel better, but it didn’t help. Right at this moment she didn’t want to be regarded as these things. She wanted to be to him what Arabella had been. Sexy and beautiful and desirable.
‘If I’m so bloody wonderful,’ she cried back, ‘why don’t you ever ask me out?’
‘I...you...’ He was clearly taken aback by the very idea of it. ‘But, Esme, you’re too young. You must understand that?’
She didn’t; nor did she try. She was old enough for this, old enough to feel the knot in her throat and the kick in her stomach just because he was near.
‘You’re such a coward!’ she accused, love not precluding anger. ‘You can’t just say: I don’t fancy you, Esme. You’re not good-looking enough or smart enough.’
‘But I don’t think that,’ he insisted.
‘Then kiss me!’ The words flew out of her mouth before she could stop them, but it was what she wanted.
‘Esme.’ His tone turned to warning. ‘Look, if this is some kind of game, it’s a rather dangerous one to play with men, whether you’re experienced or not.’
‘Oh, forget it!’ His reluctance was a slap in the face. She didn’t want a lecture to boot. Hurt and humiliated, she retaliated with the nastiest thing she could think of. ‘You’re not a man, anyway. No wonder Arabella dumped you.’
He swore for the first time. ‘You really are asking for it.’
Esme felt the hands on her bare arms begin to bruise her flesh. She wasn’t scared but exhilarated.
‘Go on, then.’
‘Fine!’
It was both expected and unexpected, a mixture of threat and lesson as he dragged her body closer and covered her mouth with his.
There was nothing loving or soft about the kiss. Lips pressed hard on hers, tongue pushed against teeth, forcing entry. She would have pulled away but a hand was suddenly in her hair, dragging her head back, keeping her there while his mouth moved on hers, tasting, invading, giving her life and breath until she moaned in unconscious pleasure.
The Mother And The Millionaire Page 5