Innocent abroard

by Jessica Steele

  Innocent abroard by Jessica Steele

  To get her sister out of a terrible jam, Reggie had gone to Uruguay where she had agreed to take Bella's place and pose as the fiancee of the overwhelming Severo Cardenosa, just for a short time. But to her horror she discovered that Severo fully intended to take the pretence to its logical conclusion, and make her marry him very soon. Of course he didn't love her; his reason was that his beloved grandmother had set her heart on his marrying and he was not going to disappoint her. But, apart from all that, Reggie was deeply in love with another man. How on earth could she get out of this mess?

  printed in Great Britain

  Books you will enjoy by JESSICA STEELE

  DISTRUST HER SHADOW

  What Darcy had at first thought of as just another innocuous temp job had turned into a kind of nightmare when she found herself kidnapped by a perfect stranger—just call me Neve'—who made it clear he thought she was the worst kind of criminal. He eventually let her go, but that was by no means the end of the story!

  BUT KNOW NOT WHY

  It was a bit of a nuisance that Laurie had not managed to finish helping her boss sort out his personal problems before she set off on her holiday in Hong Kong and China, but it would all have to wait until later. And then Laurie found she had problems of her own—and they all centred on the disturbing Tyler Gray!

  DISHONEST WOMAN

  `Marriage or nothing', Kimberley had told Slade Darville bluntly—so marriage it was. But what Slade didn't know was that Kimberley had only married him because if she didn't she would lose her beloved home. She had been dishonest with him—so perhaps it was only poetic justice when he promptly turned the tables on her!

  THE OTHER BROTHER

  Rex Kingersby's behaviour had been so abominable that Kathryn hadn't had any option but to break off their engagement—but his brother Nate, who knew nothing whatsoever about it, chose to blame Kathryn. And Kathryn had just been coerced into acting as his secretary for the next three months. How could she stand it!

  All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the Author, and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the Author; and all the incidents are pure invention.

  The text of this publication or any part thereof may not be , reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, storage in an information retrieval system, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out,or otherwise circulated without the prior consent of the publisher in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition includi'ng this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  First published 1981

  This edition 1983

  © Jessica Steele 1981

  ISBN o o263 74172 9

  CHAPTER ONE

  TIGHTLY controlled, Reggie Barrington let herself into the flat she shared with her sister. She closed the door behind her; then, the world shut out, her face crumpled, a deep shuddering breath, and she burst into tears.

  The evening she had been so keyed up about, had looked forward to with growing excitement since Clive's telephone call that morning, had not turned out at all as she had anticipated.

  They had been dating each other for two months and though she never saw him on Mondays, since yesterday had been such a wonderful day, a day when they had confessed their love for each other, a day that had a dreamlike quality about it, she hadn't been too surprised that he should ring her at the office this morning.

  Clive worked on the technical side of an electronics company, and her heart had sunk when after the joy of hearing his eager, 'Do you still feel the same way about me?' her own voice taking on a softness as she'd replied, `Yes,' he had gone on to tell her he had bad news. His firm had pulled off a terrific deal in the States for some equipment, but one of the technicians who had gone with the team ready to have the equipment working by the new year had fallen ill, and Clive was flying out tomorrow as a replacement. He would be away a whole month, returning on the first of January.

  `But you'll be away for Christmas!' The protest had left her that in big business small things like a man wanting to spend the festive season with his loved ones didn't seem to matter. 'You'll miss Bella's wedding!'

  `I know, darling.' Clive had sounded pulled two ways, and she had felt pangs of guilt that she was being unreasonable, especially when he added, 'But it will give my career a terrific boost.'

  And then he had said something that had sent her disappointment flying, had set her heart thumping so she could hardly answer.

  `I know we don't usually see each other on Mondays—but could we make an exception tonight?' She would have been agreeable for no other reason than that if she wasn't going to see him for another month then she just had to see him that night, but when he'd said, 'There's something I want to ask you. Something I want you to think seriously about while I'm away,' she had just known he was going to ask her to marry him.

  She had wanted to say straight away that she didn't have to think about it for a month, for a day or even a minute. She could give him his answer now. Of course she would marry him.

  It was her old-fashioned upbringing that had held her back from rushing into impulsive speech. Had Gran been alive she would have said, 'Wait till you're asked, girl.'

  A loud sob echoing round the tiny flat intruded on her grief, bringing her back to the present, making her aware by the inanimate objects around her that life went on. The hands on the clock on top of the small bookcase were telling her it had gone midnight and that any minute now Bella would be home.

  Hastily Reggie dabbed at her eyes and blew her nose. She didn't want Bella to know she had been crying. Not that she would be able to keep from her that she was upset. They had always been close, had drawn closer together when their parents had died and they had gone to live with their grandparents. They confided everything to each other—but oh, how she wished now she had kept

  back the certainty that was in her that Clive was going to ask her to marry him.

  Bella had been busy dressing to go out with James Usher, the man she was to marry on Boxing Day, but she had paused in her preparations on seeing her sister donning her very best dress.

  `Hello—what's this?' she had queried, bubbling over with her own happiness after what could only be called a fraught on-off courtship, James' possessiveness being the cause of many an argument when at variance with the streak of independence both girls shared.

  `Oh, Bella!' Reggie hadn't been able to hold back, having previously explained that she was seeing Clive tonight because tomorrow he would be going away for a whole month. 'I think Clive is going to propose tonight!'

  Bella's shriek of pleasure had only added to her excitement, and now, Reggie thought, going to the minute bathroom to sluice her face, she would have to tell Bella that marriage wasn't what Clive had proposed at all.

  She was in bed when she heard Bella's key in the door. She had left the light on knowing she would be eager to know everything. She was. Reggie sat up, her hands clenched as her beautiful blonde sister burst into the room, rendering a loud version of the Wedding March.

  Her singing broke off abruptly, one look at Reggie's face speaking volumes. 'Oh, love,' she cried, hurrying over to sit on her bed, 'what happened?'

  `Bella! Oh, Bella!' Tears spurted from Reggie's eyes again. `H-he's—Clive's already—married!'

  Bella was so sweet to her after that Reggie was sure no one had a better sister. Sh
e insisted on making her a warm drink, then bit by tiny bit got everything out of her. And some twenty minutes later, with a hard look in her eyes that would have boded no good at all for Clive Walker had he been anywhere near, she neatly summed

  up everything Reggie had told her.

  `So this something special he had to ask you was not to marry him, but to go and live with him.'

  `He wants to marry me,' Reggie whispered, having heard one or two short sharp things Bella had to say on the subject of the man she had given her heart to, and now feeling she had to defend him, 'he said so. But—but his wife won't give him a divorce.'

  Bella's hard look fixed on her sister. Reggie was three years younger than her in years, but so much younger in terms of experience of life. Her look softened as she questioned gently, 'You've told him "no", of course?'

  Reggie's cheeks, pale till now, went pink. `I—I couldn't.' And at her sister's sharp look, she said quickly, `I didn't tell him "yes" either. It's—well, when I was with him it didn't seem such an awful thing to do. Clive made it sound the obvious solution. It was only when he'd dropped me off, when I was by myself, while I was getting over the shock—this is the first I knew he'd got a wife—and just now telling you about it, that it—that it began to feel all—all—well, not very nice somehow.'

  `So you're actually going to give consideration to going to live with him?'

  `I know it sounds awful. I know the grandparents would turn in their grave, but—but I love him. When I'm with him nothing else matters very much.' Even as she said it Reggie knew that it did matter. If she did go to live with Clive would she be able to take other people knowing about it? Word was bound to get out. Friends, people at work, they would all learn that she and Clive shared a flat, and that she was still Miss Barrington. Yet what was the alternative? She couldn't give him up.

  `Tell me,' Bella asked, her look severe now after the way she had been, 'I know we've never discussed such intimate things before, but I don't think in the circum-

  stances such a question is so far out of line— Have you and Clive ever been to bed together?'

  `No, of course not,' Reggie came back promptly.

  `He's tried to get you there, of course?' Bella asked shrewdly, Reggie's high colour telling her the answer to that one. 'Then don't you see, love, that it just wouldn't be right for you? You were nine when we went to live with the grandparents, and they've instilled in you a lot of their values. Where at twelve I was already on the way to knowing what I wanted, starting to know for myself my own set of values, you were wide open. What I'm trying to say, love, is where such an arrangement might work for me, the inner you will find it difficult to live with your conscience during the times you're alone. And since you'll both be working, that will be often. I can't see you getting any happiness out of it.'

  Bella might be right, Reggie was thinking as she lay awake hours later, nowhere near to making any sort of decision. Yet she loved Clive; had she not done so his suggestion might have sounded outrageous. But she hadn't been outraged. Perhaps she'd been in shock on hearing something so entirely different from what she had been expecting to hear, but looking back, she had felt no sense of outrage. Oh, if only sleep would come! That she had to be up for work in the morning didn't seem of prior s importance. She wanted sleep more so, for a brief while anyway, it would stop the same thoughts from going around and around in her brain.

  Her problem was still with her when she got out of bed the next morning. She looked across at Bella still sound asleep in the other bed, and, careful not to wake her, went quietly from the room. Bella didn't have to go to work. She had given up her dancing career when she had returned home suddenly from South America last month, and with her and James being married so soon it hadn't

  seemed worthwhile looking for anything in the meantime.

  Funny thing that, she mused, leaving her own problems for the moment and avoiding her tired eyes in the mirror. James and Bella had had a blazing row when Bella had signed a contract that was to have kept her in South America up until some time in March. She had told her of his 'South America or me' ultimatum. But by then it was too late, her contract was signed, so Bella had gone. It just showed, though, how much she loved James, for within a month she was back, having somehow wriggled her way out of her contract. When James had heard she had done it for him he had straightaway popped the question, and not losing any time had put down a deposit on a house in Wellesbourne, a village near to StratforDoña von where he worked as an architect.

  Reggie and Clive had gone with them to the house one day. She and Clive had gone to Stratford afterwards. They had walked alongside the river .. .

  Reggie brought her thoughts back abruptly. Clive was flying off to the States today. To be fair to her, he had said, he wouldn't write; he knew by now that she had some high principles and intended to leave her alone to come to her decision.

  That Tuesday proved to be a long day. But eventually she was able to cover her typewriter and head her battered Mini, that was essential although it drained her resources, through the London suburbs.

  Bella had gone to Wellesbourne today, to take some measurements, she said, an unneeded smoke-screen in her desire to snatch every moment she could with James, for the house couldn't need that much measuring, Reggie thought.

  It had been an unusually warm day for December and had it been a summer's day, Reggie would have been

  wary of a thunderstorm. But whoever heard of thunder in December? And besides, she had too much else on her mind. Clive would be landing about now. She had hoped, for all he said he wouldn't, that he might ring, but he hadn't. Oh, how could she say no, she wouldn't go to live with him, when just to see him again would have her wanting to say yes?

  Someone at her door bell had her going down to answer it. A mousy, neatly dressed woman about a couple of years older than herself stood there. She was studying her, making no attempt to state why she had called.

  `What .?' Reggie began, only to find the stranger had at the same time found her tongue.

  `Are you Regina Barrington?'

  `Yes,' she agreed, puzzled why the woman should appear to sag at the word as though that confirmation defeated her.

  `I just knew you'd be beautiful.'

  Even more puzzled why her unknown visitor should pass comment on her blonde hair, blue eyes and passable features, Reggie thought it about time she found out what the woman wanted.

  `I'm sorry,' she said, 'but I don't think I know you, do I?'

  `Clive would hate it if he knew I was coming to see you,' said the woman, and just the mention of Clive's name had ominous warning signals flashing in Reggie's head, 'but I had to come. My name is Irene Walker—I'm Clive's wife.'

  Reggie felt hot all over half an hour later when Irene Walker had left the apartment. It had very little to do with the warm evening, she thought, that her hands felt moist, or that her clothes felt as though they were sticking to her.

  Never had she imagined herself in such a situation.

  Never had she felt so embarrassed in her life. And yet, though her love for Clive was still unwavering, the shock of learning from Irene Walker that Clive had called to see her before going to the airport to once more ask her to divorce him, and her subsequent revelation that there were two children from the marriage, could not help but weaken the respect she had for him that he had not told her.

  `Clive rang before breakfast this morning,' Irene Walker had told her. 'He said he was off to the States and wanted to come round before he went. He was just checking that I wouldn't be out and so saving himself from having a wasted journey. With him not being here for Christmas I thought he was coming to say cheerio to the children ...'

  `Children?' Reggie had gasped, her shock so evident, Irene Walker had immediately seen she had known nothing about them.

  `He didn't tell you about them, did he?' she said slowly, then, But he's not ashamed of them. He takes them out every Saturday.'

  This explanation of why she never sa
w Clive on Saturdays either went right over Reggie's head as she struggled against the news she had just heard.

  `Tommy's six, Dawn is five,' Irene went on to inform her, when she could have done without knowing the children's names. Guilt was growing in her fast enough, for all she had been innocent of their existence, without their names endorsing the established fact that they were flesh and blood little human beings, a product of the love Clive and this woman must once have shared.

  Too numbed at the news she had just received to say anything, she had listened while Irene told her that Clive's visit had not been primarily to tell the children that Daddy wouldn't be there to see them at Christmas-

  the word 'Daddy' being another knife-thrust to Reggie—but to again try and get her to agree to a divorce.

  `I said no,' she carried on. 'Then Clive told me about you. He said he wanted to marry you, that he loved you ...' Her voice broke, making it clear she still loved her husband, causing a feeling something akin to shame to wash over Reggie. Then Irene Walker had pulled herself together and was continuing, 'He wasn't very pleased that I said no, but I refused to discuss it, so we then got round to talking of other matters—money mainly,' she added, without going into detail. 'The children's financial security is important to me, so I asked what provision had been made should he have an accident or anything while abroad—these things can take ages to sort out and children's feet don't stop growing while insurances are being settled.'

  Every word she said about Clive's children, the fact that they seemed constantly in need of new shoes, was a hammer blow to Reggie; the only thing she could do was hope to keep the emotion she was feeling from showing in her face.

  `Clive said he'd seen to all that, that I was still down as his next of kin, and that his company would see we were looked after. I think I must have got used to looking on the black side,' Irene said, a self conscious smile breaking briefly on her sad mouth. 'Anyway, since Clive seemed to think such a lot of you, I asked for your address in case something dreadful, happened to him—you read such terrible things in the paper, don't you?' she put in, not expecting a reply. 'I said to him that if he did have an accident you would want to know. straight away rather than be kept in ignorance. I could see Clive would want you to go to him in that event, so after some hesitation he told me where you lived, though first making me promise not to use it unless anything awful happened to him.'