by Penny Jordan
There! Finally he had admitted it, allowed himself to acknowledge it…to face it…
No matter how much guilt or anguish it cost him to accept it, his desire for Faith, his love for her, was no different now than it had been before her cruelly heartless attack on Philip.
Conscience, logic, pride might insist that he should feel differently, that he should loathe her for what she had done and despise himself for wishing he could find some way of excusing her, but they all weighed as feathers in the scales that tipped so heavily in favour of his love for her. A love that might be weighted with sorrow and guilt, but a love he couldn’t ignore or defy.
In his bed, holding her, responding to the sweet sensuality of her, he had seen the woman he’d always believed the girl he had known would become. All sweet, wanton allure laced with uninhibited passion, and yet somehow, at the same time, touched with an innocence and an honesty that made him ache with love for her.
She was a mystery, a conundrum, a question he could find no logical answer for. It was as though in hurting his godfather she had somehow stepped totally outside her own character and behaved in a way that was alien to her true nature.
Grimly he mocked himself for his own thoughts as he got into his car and started the engine.
Philip was buried near Oxford, in the peace and tranquillity of the small graveyard of the church where his parents had been married, and where they were also buried. As he drove there Nash remembered how he had half-hoped, half-dreaded that Faith would come to Philip’s funeral, only learning later that her mother had died virtually at the same time as Philip.
He remembered too how that first year he had missed the anniversary of Philip’s death, returning from New York several days later to find that someone else had visited the grave ahead of him, that that someone had planted it with Philip’s favourite flowers and left a bunch of scented roses which had just begun to fade.
He had known who they were from even before he had read Faith’s message.
To Philip in remembrance.
Dearly loved and dearly missed. Your faith in me has lightened my darkness and your inspiration will guide me all my life.
Faith.
Nash rubbed his hand across his eyes as he remembered the tears he had shed. Tears of anger and self-denial, tears that had burned his eyes like acid rather than washing them free of pain.
Her duplicity had infuriated him, and he had been sorely tempted to seek her out and tell her just who was paying for her precious education, just who she had to thank for the second chance at life she had been given. But of course he had done no such thing.
An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and a heart for a heart? Did Faith have a heart? Nash wished he knew.
A little nervously Faith emerged from her own bedroom and headed for the stairs. She had woken up an hour ago, her body so sensually relaxed that she had immediately blushed with self-consciousness as she’d remembered just why it felt that way.
At first she had assumed that Nash was in his bathroom, but when he had not emerged she had managed to pluck up the courage to leave his bed and check for herself.
She had no idea just why he was allowing her the privacy to come to terms with what she had done, but she was supremely grateful that he was. Faith was not going to try to deceive herself. She had been the one to institute their…intimacy. She had been the one to turn to Nash, to touch him, to kiss him…to…to…
Her face was well and truly on fire now. She tried desperately to think rationally. But what was reason or logic when her body was still languorous and hedonistically relaxed with pleasure and her heart was overflowing with the most intense kind of emotion?
She and Nash had made love. Made love. Not merely had sex. They had made love as they had surely been destined to do, and just as soon as she could Faith was going to sit him down and make him listen to her whilst she explained to him just what had happened that fateful night. This time somehow she would have to find a way to make him accept. Because…A little self-consciously her hand covered her stomach, but there was delight and joy in the smile that curled her mouth as she drew in and then expelled a shaky breath of awareness.
This wasn’t just something she was doing for herself because she was finally prepared to admit that she still loved Nash, she told herself determinedly. It was something she had to do for the sake of the child she was so sure they had conceived. They owed it to their child to give him or her not just their individual love but also their shared love.
Their shared love? Strong-mindedly Faith refused to allow herself to even suspect that Nash didn’t share her feelings. Surely after what they had experienced together he must.
Instinctively she felt for her rings and then frowned. She was wearing her wedding ring but where was her ‘engagement’ ring? Had she taken it off last night during the storm without realising what she was doing?
She was halfway down the stairs when she heard the front doorbell. The sight of Nash’s solicitor standing outside momentarily disconcerted her, but she made him comfortable in Philip’s office before going in search of Nash—only realising when she did so that Nash’s car was missing.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ David Lincoln assured her. ‘I just wanted to return some papers to him. He forgot them last night.’ He smiled at Faith. ‘He was very anxious to get back to you.’
His skin pinkened a little. ‘So very romantic, and what one might describe as a perfect ending. I have to confess when he first told me what he intended to do all those years ago I was a trifle uncertain—but, Nash being Nash, he was insistent. ‘It was Philip’s wish that Faith should complete her education,’ Nash told me, and he fully intended to make that possible despite the fact that there just wasn’t the money in Philip’s estate to allow for such a bequest.
‘Of course you’ll know all about that now,’ he told Faith warmly. ‘I must confess I was never really sure just why Nash was so insistent that his involvement was to be kept a secret, or why he wanted you to believe that several trustees were administering your bequest when in fact Nash was the only one—paying for your education out of his own pocket.’
Stunned, Faith let him continue to sing Nash’s praises.
Nash had paid for her to go to university, not Philip. Nash had supported her during the years she had been studying, learning. Nash…
A horrid feeling of nauseous light-headedness engulfed her, a sense of shock and disbelief; a sharp coldness was replacing the delicious warmth she had woken up with. Nash owned her. Nash had bought her…and last night he had no doubt simply been claiming his repayment.
An icy wave of desolation and loss swept over her. She felt as though something infinitely precious had been taken away from her, although it took her several minutes to analyse what it was.
What had made Philip’s gift so very special to her had been her belief that it proved he had known her innocence. But now…Had Philip even wanted to help her, or had that too simply been another lie created by Nash?
As he parked his car outside Hatton’s front door Nash took a deep breath. Had the hard-won peace and purposefulness he had felt as he knelt beside Philip’s grave deserted him or was it still there? Had he finally laid the past to rest and accepted that if he wanted to move on he must draw a line under the events leading up to Philip’s death?
He loved Faith, no matter what she was. He knew that. He knew too that as a girl she had loved him. And, earlier, in his arms he had felt…she had felt…But in order to give those feelings a chance he had to put aside his own bitterness and guilt.
Today, kneeling on the soft earth in the churchyard, he had felt somehow that Philip was giving him his blessing, urging him to build a new life for himself and for Faith as well. And for the first time since it had happened Nash actually felt able to admit to his own feelings of guilt at not being there when Philip had most needed him—guilt he had previously offloaded onto Faith. Whether or not they could turn their relationship around he didn’t know, but w
hat he did know was that they needed to talk.
Faith had seen him arrive, and she was waiting for him when he walked into the hallway.
‘I want to talk to you—’
‘We need to talk—’
Both of them spoke at once, and then both of them stopped.
‘Will Philip’s study be all right?’
Faith heard and recognised the unexpected, almost tender tone to Nash’s voice, and just for a second her resolve wavered. Perhaps she had misunderstood.
Nash was already ushering her into Philip’s study, his hand remaining in the small of her waist as he paused to close the door, almost as though he couldn’t bear to totally relinquish his physical contact with her.
She didn’t wait for Nash to finish closing the door before she burst into speech, demanding sharply, ‘Is it true that you financed me through university, Nash? That there was no bequest from Philip?’
Nash frowned as she hurled her angry questions at him like missiles flung heedlessly in a furious attack. Her anger was as mystifying to him as the cause of her questions.
‘What makes you think—?’ he began, but Faith cut him short.
‘Your solicitor was here. He told me. He seemed to think that this—’ she held up her left hand, showing him her ring finger, her voice filling with contempt ‘—is the culmination of some romantic fantasy between us. If only he knew the truth. The only reason you would ever pursue me is for revenge.
‘Is that why you did it, Nash? Out of some perverted desire to exert control over me, to buy my future so that you could hold the power to destroy both it and me if you chose?’
Faith knew that her voice was becoming wilder and wilder, like her claims, as her imagination tormented her with increasingly shocking motives for what Nash had done.
‘It was Philip’s wish that you were given the chance to fulfil your ambitions,’ Nash told her quietly, once he had had time to realise what had happened.
‘He told you that, did he?’ Faith demanded bitterly. ‘He said he wanted you to pay for me to—?’
‘No,’ Nash was forced to admit. ‘He wanted to do something to help you. He had it written into his will…’ Nash stopped and looked away. ‘Unfortunately in the end he wasn’t able…either physically or financially…to make the provisions he wished to make.’
‘So you made them for him,’ Faith persisted fiercely. ‘Why?’ she demanded sharply. ‘Why did you do it, Nash? Was it because you wanted to have some kind of hold over me? To be in a position to go on punishing me for Philip’s death?’
The accuracy of the accusations she was hurling at him startled Nash, and shocked him too. Hearing his own emotions put into words gave them a rawness, a blind cruelty and lack of charity that left a bitter taste in his mouth. Was it too late for him to plead with her for understanding and clemency, or would she respond to him in the same way he had once responded to her when she had pleaded with him for those very same things?
How often through the years had that knowledge haunted him…that regret? But how could he explain to her now and expect her to understand that he had refused to see her simply because he had been so afraid that he might weaken, because he had believed so passionately that he owed it to his godfather not to do so.
As she waited for his response Faith twisted her wedding ring round her finger.
Broodingly Nash focused on it, and as she recognised what he was doing Faith went still. Nash was looking at her hands, her rings. Only she wasn’t wearing her engagement ring because she hadn’t been able to find it as yet. Her engagement ring—with its uncanny similarity to the earrings Philip’s ‘trustees’ had given to her to mark her twenty-first birthday…the earrings she had valued and treasured with such joy and love.
Anger and betrayal flooded her in equal measure.
‘You bought my earrings,’ she told Nash. ‘You…’
Nash winced as he heard the bitterness and loathing in her voice.
‘It was what Philip would have wanted me to do,’ he told her, just as he had always told himself.
‘How could you?’ Faith demanded in a raw whisper. ‘How could you do something like that and yet at the same time still believe that I was responsible for Philip’s death? Can you even begin to imagine how it makes me feel? Knowing that everything I am I owe to you. My education, my qualifications, Florence, my job!’
‘You got your job on your own merits, Faith.’
‘No,’ she denied. ‘I got it on your money. Your money and the education it bought for me. Have you any idea how much I hate knowing that, Nash? How much I hate knowing that everything I am I owe to your charity? Is that what you wanted? To be able to stand and gloat? How much you must enjoy knowing how easily you could destroy me! Was that why you took me to bed, Nash, because you felt you owned me?’
Nash could see the tears of fury and shame in her eyes and he closed his own, mentally cursing the appalling timing of his solicitor’s innocent disclosures.
Whatever he tried to say now Faith was going to misinterpret it, and she was certainly in no mood to listen to what he had wanted to say to her. As for that new beginning he had so wanted to ask her to make…
‘I wasn’t the one who instigated what happened between us,’ he tried to remind her, and knew that he had said the wrong thing as he saw the look on her face.
‘I hate you, Nash. I hate you,’ she told him furiously, before whirling round and running up the stairs, away from him.
CHAPTER TEN
FAITH walked tensely across the hallway. Robert should be arriving soon. He had telephoned her the previous evening to say that he was going to make a flying visit to see her.
‘Just to touch base, really,’ he had told her, adding ruefully, ‘Unfortunately there won’t be time for anything else.’
‘How is your cousin?’ Faith had asked him.
‘He’s fine,’ Robert had responded. ‘He’s nearly ninety, and he’s determined to make it to his centenary.’
He had had to ring off to take another call before Faith could say any more.
What was she going to tell him about the problems she could see confronting them with the conversion of Hatton? She desperately wanted to be able to give him some good news, but she was becoming increasingly concerned about the suitability of Hatton for the Foundation’s purposes.
The success of this project was so important to Robert, and Faith wanted it to succeed for his sake. Perhaps another more experienced architect might be able to see an answer that was hidden from her?
As she heard a car pulling up outside she hurried towards the front door, pausing as the sunlight caught the gold of her wedding ring.
That was something else she was going to have to tell Robert. But tell him what? Certainly not that she was trapped in a marriage that was no marriage at all and never would be, nor that she prayed passionately at night in bed—the bed she slept in alone—that she had been wrong about that spark of life she had felt ignite when she and Nash had made love. Made love! Who was she kidding? She might have thought they were making love, but what Nash had been doing was collecting an interest payment on his investment.
They had barely spoken to one another since her outburst on discovering the hidden role he had played in her life. Or rather she had made it virtually impossible for Nash to speak to her, either by avoiding him or simply walking away from him when he did try to approach her.
Only this morning he had walked into the kitchen whilst she was there, and she had seen from the look on his face that he fully intended to make her listen to him. She, though, had been equally determined not to do so, and as she had stormed past him he had taken hold of her arm—not in a painful grip, exactly, but there had been enough force there to ignite her own still smouldering fury.
Fortunately for her Mrs Jenson had arrived before Nash could say anything, giving her the opportunity to escape. But Faith had seen the look in his eyes as she had done so, and she knew she was pushing his self-control into its danger
zone.
But why should she care?
The sunlight glinting on her wedding ring as she opened the door for Robert reminded her that she had still not found her missing engagement ring.
‘Mmm…it’s good to breathe clean air instead of city fume-choked stuff,’ Robert commented appreciatively as he followed her into Philip’s study.
The look he was giving her was even more appreciative, Faith recognised as he smiled at her.
‘How are the plans coming along?’ Robert asked her eagerly.
Faith paused, going over to the desk instead of closing the study door as she had been about to do.
‘I’m having rather a few problems,’ she admitted. ‘The kitchen…’
She lifted her hand to show Robert the kitchen area on the plans on the desk, and went silent as she saw he was looking at her wedding ring.
‘Nash and I are married,’ she told him uncomfortably. ‘It was…We didn’t…I don’t…’
Her voice trailed away as she saw how shocked Robert was.
‘I knew the two of you had a…history,’ he responded manfully, ‘but I didn’t…’
He shook his head whilst Faith watched him with a mixture of anxiety and guilt. There had been nothing serious between them, and she had no reason to feel guilty, but nevertheless she was aware that her news wasn’t something he had expected or wanted to hear.
To her relief he immediately rallied and told her ruefully, ‘When I asked you to use your influence to persuade Nash to finalise the Foundation’s acquisition of Hatton I didn’t expect you to go to those lengths, you know!’
Gratitude towards him for the way he was trying to ease the situation for her filled Faith, but outside in the hallway, where he had been on his way to speak to Robert, Nash froze.
His immediate instinctive interpretation of Robert’s comment filled him with bitter anger. Faith had used him—used his love for her for her own ends.