by Anne Mather
Alex had sometimes wondered why Isabel hadn't just walked out when she had first wanted to do so. Chris and his father could hardly keep her at Nazeby by force. But, apparently, according to Robert, she was holding out for a marriage settlement, something his uncle was not prepared to give to someone who had used his son so cold-bloodedly.
'There's no question about it,' he said to Alex, during one of their interminable discussions on the subject. 'She only married Chris for what she hoped to get out if it. I wouldn't care, but the boy's still as besotted as ever. He's begged me not to do anything to hurt her, and God help me, I don't know what to do!'
And then, providentially, the situation had resolved itself without his uncle having to do anything about it. Remembering this now, Alex could feel again the savagery he had felt when Robert had informed him of Isabel's actions. He hadn't wanted to believe it then, but now he was quite resigned to her betrayal. All the same, the memory still had the power to scrape across his senses, grating on his nerves, like a scar that wouldn't heal. He never had met the man in question. He had only known that he was some associate of Chris's, who had spent time at Nazeby, ostensibly recuperating from an illness. In those days, he had avoided Nazeby whenever possible, making excuses for his absence in the complicated demands of his work. He had seen his uncle often enough in London, and whenever Chris was in town, they had a meal together. But he hadn't wanted to see Isabel, in case the knowledge she and Chris were having problems overcame his resolution. He was still attracted to her, he had acknowledged that. And the fact that she was unhappy was a constant aggravation. But her defection with Jarrold Palmer had proved the ultimate deterrent. The man had done him a favour. By the time she appealed to him for help, he had had no feeling left for her.
But that was then, and this was now, he reminded himself grimly, entering Diana Laurence's office with a scowl on his face. And however distasteful the truth might seem to him, seeing Isabel again today had not convinced him of his immunity. In all honesty, he had hated himself for destroying her arguments, as he had done in the boardroom, and however justifiable his case had been, he had felt an utter bastard for making her look small. And she had looked small as she had gathered the documents she had brought together, and submitted to the will of the majority. But she hadn't avoided his eyes when the meeting was concluded, and the dignity he had seen in hers had torn him to the quick. That was why he had been so angry with Chris, and his uncle for that matter, when they had been gloating over their success. He had felt like the Judas goat, used to bait the trap; the treacherous pawn in his uncle's hands, sealing the fate of the queen.
'I gather the meeting did not go well,' murmured his secretary now, taking her cue from his expression, and Alex had to bite back the angry retort that sprang to his lips.
'As a matter of fact, the meeting was extremely successful,' he replied evenly, striding towards the door to his office. 'Are you going to lunch now, Diana? You can if you like. I shan't be needing you.'
'All right.' Diana pushed back her chair and stood up, but curiosity was getting the better of her, he could see it, and he was not surprised when she added a little appendage to her earlier remark. 'So—your uncle has got control of Mattley Pharmaceuticals, after all.'
'After all,' agreed Alex ironically, opening his door and giving her a mocking glance. 'Doesn't he always?' he remarked, rhetorically, and disappeared inside before she could take him up on it.
But although he could close his office door, he could not close his mind to thoughts of Isabel. Even after swallowing a rather stiff Scotch from the supply he kept in his office for the use of clients—something he never did at lunch time—he was still tormented by her image as he had last seen her. What was she thinking of him? he wondered. She probably despised him for doing Robert's job for him. She had always chided him for being his uncle's lackey, and this latest incident would only have strengthened her belief.
So why did he care? he asked himself, angrily, walking across to the windows and staring out at the sunlit streets below him. However pathetic she had seemed today, she was still the same Isabel who had led him on and then rejected him; cheated on her husband, and then appealed to him to take her part. She was completely without scruple, and if he wanted to keep his sanity, he should banish her from his thoughts.
The sound of the phone ringing behind him interrupted his mood. He waited for a moment, expecting Diana to answer it, and then, when she didn't, he recalled he had told her to go to lunch. Evidently, she had switched the line through to his office when she went out. Why else would it be ringing? he asked himself impatiently, realising that his attention had been totally distracted.
'Yes? Seton speaking,' he said curtly, picking up the receiver, and then knew a sudden craving that it might be Isabel.
But the light tones that answered him were nothing like hers, and although they were feminine, there was no similarity. 'Alex? Alex, darling, is that you? I thought you were going to ring me. Haven't you forgiven me yet?'
Alex's disappointment was instant, and acute, but he managed to overcome the bitter disillusionment that gripped him. 'Penny,' he said, managing to infuse a trace of warmth into his voice. 'What a surprise! I expected you'd be out of the country.'
'I was,' she replied, the quickly disguised censure in her voice revealing her frustration. 'I just got back from Cairo last night, but you hadn't left a message with my answering service, and I was worried. We are going to see one another again, aren't we, Alex? You can't really intend that we go our separate ways.'
Alex took a deep breath. His initial inclination was to offer his apologies, and get off the phone as quickly as possible. He wasn't in the mood for Penny's recriminations, and getting involved with her again was not the most sensible thing to do.
But then, he anticipated the evening ahead, with nothing more demanding on his schedule than calling up some other female, with possibly less attraction for him than Penny had right now, and thought again. Maybe this was what he needed, he told himself grimly. A night spent in Penny's demanding company, and he would be fairly exhausted by the morning. One thing was sure, with her or without her, he was unlikely to get much sleep, and at least she cared for him, or said she did . . .
CHAPTER EIGHT
It rained on Saturday morning and Isabel, standing in the bay window of her living-room, drinking her morning cup of coffee, wondered what the weather was like in Madrid. No doubt hot and sunny, she reflected gloomily. Certainly warmer than it was in London, and with the added bonus of being able to go swimming in the hotel pool. She guessed Lauren and Helen, and the other two girls who were on the assignment, were having a marvellous time. Lots of sun, the chance to wear beautiful clothes, and the happy awareness that they were being paid for it as well.
She sighed. Well, it was her own fault she wasn't with them. Jason had been furious when she insisted on staying in England. She knew he had been close to firing her when she refused to change her mind. But pragmatism, and perhaps his affection for her, had won the day, and eventually, he had agreed to her absence, albeit with bad grace.
And now she was wondering why she had bothered to risk her job, and her friendship with Jason, so that Alex could make a fool of her once again. The board meeting had been a fiasco, at least so far as she was concerned. All her fine schemes to thwart Robert Seton had come to nothing. From the minute Alex began delineating the reasons why Mattley Pharmaceuticals needed this merger with Denby Industries, Isabel had known she was fighting a losing battle. The smaller company was apparently in debt; it had gambled much of its resources on the research into anew, and supposedly, miracle cure for arthritis, only to have its development arrested by the findings of a government agency, investigating drug abuse. One of the ingredients of the capsule they were developing had been found to be habit-forming, and all research using Mirafen had been halted. The company needed immediate financial assistance, or almost five hundred employees, many of them research chemists, would lose their j
obs. Ally to this the fact that Denby was in the market for a research laboratory, for its developing chemical industry, and Isabel was left with no argument. Her own unqualified contention that the smaller firm's independence was being undermined by the proposed take-over simply wasn't credible, and she forbore from voicing it. Instead, when the vote was taken, she acquiesced, and had had to suffer the ignominy of aiding in Robert Seton's undisguised triumph.
It had been a sobering experience, finding herself outflanked and outmanoeuvred, though she couldn't in all honesty say that Alex had taken any satisfaction in his victory. He had merely been stating the facts and, surrounded by the other members of the board, who had all supported the motion, she had been unable to think of any reasonable objection.
But her defeat, if that was what it was, had left her feeling totally deflated. Somehow, she had built herself up for a confrontation that had never happened, and now she had an awful feeling of anticlimax. She should have gone with Jason, she reflected glumly. She should have known that she would only be wasting her time trying to balk Robert Seton. What chance did she have against the might of a conglomerate? None at all, even had her case been genuine. But it hadn't; and she'd achieved absolutely nothing.
She turned away from the window dejectedly, surveying the room behind her without satisfaction.
What was she going to do today? What could she do? There was always housework, of course, but as she paid a daily woman to come in twice a week to keep the place tidy, there was nothing spoiling. She could go out for a walk, although the rain seemed to put a question mark on the advisability of that. So—what? The hairdresser? Shopping? She pulled a wry face. She had to eat, so probably that was the most sensible suggestion. She would go up into the West End and buy some pate at Fortnum and Masons. She deserved some compensation for giving up the trip to Madrid. And, at least, she could afford it! The income which, her solicitor had informed her, would be earned by the shares she held in Denby Industries meant she need never work again, if she didn't want to. She could live in luxury for the rest of her life. Was that what Vinnie had intended?
Thinking of Lady Denby brought her thoughts full circle and, depositing her empty cup in the kitchen, she went into her bedroom and flung herself on to the unmade bed. 'What a tangled web you've left behind, Vinnie,' she announced to the empty room, and then rolled on to her stomach to rest her head on her folded arms.
What had the old lady been thinking of, leaving the shares to her? she wondered for the umpteenth time. It wasn't as if Vinnie had nurtured any hopes that she and Chris might get back together again. On the contrary, his grandmother had helped her to leave Nazeby and had supported her financially until she could find a job and support herself. Of course, she had paid the old lady back; every penny. But that still didn't explain her generosity now.
Isabel sighed. The two years she had spent at Nazeby would have been pretty bleak without Vinnie's friendship. She had been the only real ally she had had in that household, although it had taken her some time to discover it. Robert Seton had never liked her. He had never wanted her to marry Chris, and he had made no secret of the fact. Chris himself she had thought to be her friend, as well as her husband, but he had ultimately betrayed her. And Alex . . . Alex . . .
She swallowed. Her relationship with Chris's cousin had never been a simple one. From the moment Alex had come upon her and Chris in the library, he had been an enigma to her. She never knew why he had taken such an instinctive dislike to her, but he had, and he had taken pains to avoid being in her company. The fact that he had become a dominant force in her life had troubled her a lot. She hadn't wanted to feel so conscious of him whenever he was around, particularly when his own hostility towards her was so acute. But in this her senses betrayed her, and right from the start she had been aware of an unwilling attraction towards him.
She had had no suspicion that he saw her as anything more than an annoying intruder until the afternoon he had given her a ride to Nazeby. And even then, their initial conversation had given her no clue to his real character. Oh, Chris had told her that his cousin had had dozens of girlfriends, and that he was immensely attractive to women, but in spite of her own attraction to him, Isabel had seen no evidence that Alex Seton possessed any more feelings than his Uncle Robert. She had thought him a cold man, who probably used women to satisfy his baser needs, without ever becoming emotionally involved himself. She had always found him distant and sarcastic, and she had naturally assumed that he would never relax with her.
And his manner at the start of that journey had reinforced this opinion. He had been both distant and mocking, though he had shown some compassion when she had told him about her parentage. She didn't know why she had confided in him. In all honesty, she hadn't even told Chris the whole story and, with hindsight, it seemed the height of foolishness to have exposed her possible illegitimacy to Alex. But it was done and, so far as she knew, he had never betrayed her to his uncle.
But that was a small thing compared to what had happened after. And then it had been her objections to his rudeness that had precipitated the argument. And she had had justification, she reflected, remembering what he had said to her. But, even then, she had acted totally on impulse when she ran away from him.
If she had stopped to think, she would have realised how foolhardy she was being by taking off like that. If Alex had taken her at her word and driven off and left her, she dreaded to think what might have happened, and that nameless prospect had haunted her for many nights to come.
But at the time, she had not been thinking reasonably, and remembering how Alex had forced his way through a bramble hedge to follow her brought a smile to her lips even now. It was such an unusual sight: the immaculate Alexander Seton, with his hair all tangled, and threads of mohair hanging from his jacket. If she hadn't been in such a sorry state herself, she would have burst out laughing. But at least she had discovered he was human, that he had humour. She had glimpsed the man behind the mask, and when he smiled, her heart had skipped a beat.
He had been so nice about it, she recalled, rolling on to her back and gazing blankly up at the scrolled ceiling. He hadn't lost his temper, or been scathing, as she had naturally expected. He had actually thrown down his jacket, so that she could get out of the bog, and then cleaned her shoes up for her, so that no one would ever have guessed they had once been caked with mud.
But then, when they got back to the car, everything had gone wrong. Instead of capitalising on his good humour, she had made him impatient with her again. She hadn't realised he was so eager to get going until he reached past her to slam the door. Then, when she had sat up and trapped his arm, the outcome had been inevitable.
Or that was how it had seemed. When he had touched her, when the strong hard length of his fingers had closed about her breast, she had felt powerless to stop him. Oh, she had made some preliminary protest, trying to fight him when he pulled her into his arms, clamping her lips together in an effort to repulse him. But it had all been useless. She hadn't really wanted him to stop, and somehow he had known it, and when his mouth took possession of hers, she had responded with an urgency that frightened her. Chris had never made her feel like that; he had never kissed her like that, thrusting his hot tongue into her mouth, until she had almost swooned from the pleasure he was giving her.
But still, it wasn't enough. She had wanted more. She had wanted him; and the barrier presented by their clothes had seemed an insurmountable complication. She had known he wanted to make love to her, too. The feverish invasion of his hands had been just a sensual foretaste of how it could be between them, and when they had been disturbed, Isabel could have cried with frustration.
After that, nothing was the same any more. By the time the policeman had finished his inspection, Isabel had been made to feel like some cheap tramp, only worthy of jumping in the back of a car, and Alex had reverted to the cold, detached stranger she was used to dealing with.
She had had a bad moment
, when they were on their way again, when she had wondered if what had happened had not been a deliberate set-up, devised by Robert Seton to prove to his son she was no better than she should be. But when she had asked Alex if he intended to tell Chris, he had denied it, and to her knowledge he never had.
But that weekend at Nazeby had been difficult for both of them. Until then, she had had no real doubts about her relationship with Chris, and attending the rehearsal of the wedding, she had realised it was a little late to have second thoughts. Besides, Chris had been so sweet to her in those days, and she had succeeded in convincing herself that what had happened with Alex had been a momentary aberration.
So confident was she that her feelings for Alex were purely sexual, that when he came to the flat where she was living, the night before the wedding, she had had no hesitation about turning him away. In any case, Alex himself had been drunk and abusive, and not until he tried to touch her was she in any danger of giving in to him.
But then, he had touched her, and she had been terrified that if he succeeded in kissing her, she would not be able to resist him. Once she was married, she had told herself desperately, she would not feel this weakness towards him; once she and Chris had consummated their relationship, she would no longer feel this shameful need for a man who clearly only wanted her as his mistress.
In those days, Chris's reticence about making love to her had seemed endearingly old-fashioned, and she had always felt that her own willingness to respect his wishes until after the wedding was perfectly natural.
That was why her attraction to his cousin was so contemptible, and as soon as Alex pulled her against him and she felt the exciting thrust of his arousal, she had acted purely on instinct. She had to get away from him, she had to escape him, before the prospect of surrendering to his naked passion became too desirable to resist.