Whisper Of Darkness

by Anne Mather

  Joanna wished she’d never started this. ‘Mr Sheldon——’

  ‘I was an engineer, you know,’ he remarked, almost as if he was talking to himself. ‘In electronics, the career of the future. That is where the future lies, you know, in electronics. Silicon chips!’ His lips twisted. ‘But I won’t be a part of it.’

  Joanna shifted nervously beneath his numbing grasp. She had the feeling that by her reckless behaviour she had triggered off some morbid introspection, that could only bring pain and bitterness to him, but she didn’t know how to reverse the process.

  ‘Why?’ she asked now, searching for a means to reassure him, and the harsh mouth twisted in unwilling recollection.

  ‘It was the accident, you see,’ he went on, in that flat monotone. ‘Afterwards, I couldn’t concentrate on anything, not without getting this God-awful pain in my head. It was hopeless. When I tried to work, I couldn’t. The simplest calculations were beyond me. Resistors, transistors, micro-processors; my brain just couldn’t absorb the information. I’d lost the ability to work effectively.’ He shook his head. ‘I guess you could say these scars were a godsend. At least they gave me an excuse to get out of London, to lick my wounds in private.’

  ‘So you bought Ravengarth?’

  Joanna wondered if he was really aware of how painful his grip on her shoulder was, but her words were more honestly an attempt to divert his anger until she could wriggle out of his grasp.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, his thumb probing the narrow bones of her shoulder through the thickness of her jacket. ‘I’d always enjoyed painting as a hobby, and I thought I might enjoy the rustic life. I knew I had to do something or go mad, and a smallholding like Ravengarth seemed the most sensible idea. Unfortunately, it hasn’t worked out as I expected.’ His brows descended, and she realised he was remembering her behaviour again. ‘Not as I expected at all.’

  ‘Don’t you think we ought to be going back?’ she ventured, hoping that now he had unburdened himself he might be more willing to respond to her suggestion, but all it brought was a deepening of his brooding gaze.

  ‘That was not what you had in mind earlier,’ he pointed out tormentingly. ‘Surely I’m not scaring you, Miss Seton? Surely, after all you’ve said about this face, it hasn’t suddenly begun to frighten you.’

  Joanna pressed her lips together. ‘Your face has nothing to do with it,’ she exclaimed tautly. ‘I’ve told you before, you’ve lived with it too long. It’s not repulsive—not repulsive at all.’

  ‘So if I put it close to yours—like this,’ he came nearer until she could see every pore of his dark flesh, every ridge of scar tissue, every betraying spasm as the muscles tightened in his jaw, ‘you wouldn’t draw back from me?’

  ‘No!’

  But she did. Not through any revulsion against his appearance, rather because his nearness frightened her in other ways, ways she hardly understood, but which left her weak with the awareness that she had to restrain herself from touching him.

  ‘Liar!’ Clearly he had misunderstood her involuntary withdrawal, and his face contorted with contempt. ‘You can’t bear to be this close to me, can you? It screws you up. Well, let’s see how you react to a more physical demonstration …’ and lowering his head, he found her mouth with his.

  Joanna’s lips were already parted in protest, and his unexpected assault found no opposition. At the touch of those firm lips, her resistance faltered, and he only needed that involuntary submission to succeed in his intent. She was already far too aware of the muscled strength of his body, and his weight crushing her back against the seat was itself a potent intoxicant. She had unbuttoned her coat in the warmth of the car, and his chest was hard against the thinly protected fullness of her breasts. It didn’t help to know that they were swollen and hardened against his broad chest, responding without her consent to the demanding pressure of his body.

  But it was his mouth which wrought the most damage, invading and possessing the moist sweetness of hers. What had begun as an attempt to discourage her deepened into a passionate possession, and his hands which only minutes before had been bruising the bones of her shoulders were now probing the small of her back, gripping her narrow waist, sliding under the hem of her shirt to find the pointed nipples eager for his exploration.

  Her half-hearted attempts to deter him were met with resistance, and besides, she was invaded by an unfamiliar weakness in her thighs as his hard fingers continued the sinuous massage. She was glad she was not wearing a bra that afternoon, and she surged against him inviting his unrestrained caress.

  His mouth descended in a burning trail of kisses from her lips to her nape, and her hands groped for him, for the lapels of his jacket, like a drowning man groping for a lifeline. It was an instinctive response to his sensuous violation, and almost unaware her fingers probed the taut muscles of his thigh.

  His withdrawal was as unexpected as the devastating effect he had had on her. One minute his mouth was stroking hers, moving sensually upon it, teaching her how little she had known of her own emotions, and the next she was thrust away from him, her tentative fingers arrested in their search, his breath expelling from his lips in a mutter of self-revulsion. With a savage oath he rested his elbows on the steering wheel, pushing back the thickness of his hair with both hands, his dark face twisted into an expression of self disgust.

  ‘My God!’ The words were wrung from him, harsh and contemptuous in that charged atmosphere. ‘What the hell am I doing? Letting you provoke me like this! I must be out of mind!’

  Joanna didn’t know what to say, what to do. She felt helpless against the storm of emotion he had aroused inside her, and dazed by her response to the ruthless arrogance of his assault. It was both troubling and humiliating to know that he had tom down every defence she raised against him, leaving her shocked and exposed to the raw brutality of his verbal attack.

  ‘I don’t think there’s any point in conducting a postmortem,’ she got out at last, unsteadily, smoothing her hair with shaking fingers, and he turned violent eyes in her direction.

  ‘You don’t?’ There was cold sarcasm in his tone.

  ‘No.’ Joanna endeavoured to compose her defence. ‘It—I—what happened—happened. It’s not something——’

  ‘You invited it, is that it?’ he demanded savagely, and she caught her breath.

  ‘No——’

  ‘But you did, Miss Seton. You’re a provoking person. I knew that the first time I laid eyes on you.’

  ‘So why did you keep me, then?’ she cried, stung by his coldness after the interlude they had just shared. ‘Why didn’t you just tell me I wasn’t suitable, instead of letting me stay under false pretences?’

  ‘Beggars can’t be choosers, Miss Seton,’ he responded, bleakly. ‘A trite saying, but true. And now, I think, we ought to be getting back. Until other arrangements can be made, you will continue as Anya’s governess, but that’s all. You’ll be happy to know, I’m sure,’ the sarcasm was back now, ‘that I was successful at last in finding a housekeeper——’

  ‘Did Paul——’ she began, her face brightening slightly, but he killed her anticipation with a hard smile.

  ‘On my own merits, Miss Seton. From the agency in Penrith. I told you, I didn’t need anyone’s assistance. Mrs Parrish arrives tomorrow. Perhaps that will help to scotch any rumours about our relationship which your friends the Trevors may have promoted, and also terminate your amateur attempts at housekeeping!’

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  IT was easy to sustain her anger against him, but not so easy to dispel the urgent awakening of feelings he had incited. Her resentment at his arrogance was genuine enough, but it hurt to know that while she had been overwhelmed by emotions stronger than any she had ever known, Jake had been merely expunging his frustration. Since his wife’s death, he had been denied any physical relationship with a woman, and for a brief moment she had supplied a need. But it was not a need he welcomed or enjoyed. His reactions afterwards had made tha
t plain enough, and she found herself wondering about the kind of relationship he had had with his wife, and how she would have reacted to this harsh, embittered individual who must bear little resemblance to the man he had once been.

  Mrs Parrish arrived, as expected, the following afternoon. She came from Penrith, driving her own small car, and Joanna watched from the library window as Jake went to greet her. She was a small woman, brown-haired and dark-eyed, and Anya, who had been free to question her father, had told her that she was a widow with a grown-up family. Certainly her appearance alone was a far cry from Mrs Harris’s slovenly ways, and in the following days Joanna’s respect for her abilities increased. She was obviously quite capable of running the house single-handed, and although she missed the sense of satisfaction she had gained organising the household, Joanna much appreciated the good food she was served, and the absence of the neglect which had so characterised Ravengarth on her arrival.

  Mrs Parrish was not a gossip either. If she found the situation at Ravengarth intriguing, she refrained from saying so, merely confining her comments to a sincere sympathy for someone who had lost so much so quickly. To Joanna, these remarks had a double-edged sting, and although she conceded that Jake bore his burden well, she found her own sympathies much divided. Jake’s attitude was not one of a man bereft, and she suspected his belief in his own incapacity had never been put to the test. With Anya’s increasing interest in her school work, he was often called upon to examine her efforts, and his reactions were not those of someone unable to grasp the problems she showed him. Joanna wished she knew more about these matters, but she was beginning to believe that Jake’s disabilities had been temporary, a consequence of the accident, no more, and given the opportunity, his brain would respond to any kind of stimulus.

  Not that she could say such a thing to him. Since that scene in the Range Rover he had avoided her like the plague, and every exchange they had had, had been in the company of either Anya or Mrs Parrish. There had been no more talk of her leaving, and she guessed that so long as she kept her place and Anya appeared happy, there would not be, and at times she was tempted to try a little brinkmanship on her own account. But the idea of leaving Ravengarth had become so abhorrent to her that she remained in that state of limbo he had created, and determinedly ignored the ambiguity of the situation.

  She managed to persuade Anya that some new clothes would not come amiss, particularly as with the advent of October the weather had turned much colder. Mrs Parrish had succeeded in turning on the ancient heating system without blowing up the boiler, but the radiators were few and hardly adequate, and until the fires were lit it was necessary to wear something warm. In consequence, Joanna approached Jake one morning with the request that she might borrow the Range Rover and take Anya into Penrith.

  Jake was in the barn when she found him, forking fresh hay into the stall where Gertrude came for milking, and for once Matt wasn’t with him. Between them the two men did all the jobs about the holding, which included looking after the score or so of sheep, feeding the chickens, milking the cow, and all the other duties necessary to the efficient running of the place. Joanna had not yet discovered how Jake found the time to do any painting, and certainly in the three weeks since her arrival he had avoided spending long periods in the house.

  Now he looked up warily at her approach, and his mouth took on a downward slant when he saw that she was alone. ‘Yes?’

  The enquiry was short, and Joanna couldn’t deny the twinge of disappointment his abruptness gave her. It was as if he was determined that no further familiarity between them should ever be conceived, and it was impossible to recall those moments in the car without a feeling of incredulity.

  ‘I—er—I wanted to ask if it would be all right if I took Anya to Penrith,’ she said now, adopting a politeness she was far from feeling. ‘There—well, there are things she needs. Shoes, clothes, underwear. Have I your permission to buy her a winter wardrobe? It’s something she badly needs. The garments she’s wearing at present are rapidly falling to pieces, and——’

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t have the time to take you into Penrith today, Miss Seton,’ he interrupted her brusquely. ‘I appreciate your concern on Anya’s behalf, but unfortunately it’s not possible for me to take time out for shopping in the middle of a working day.’

  ‘I didn’t ask you to take time out for shopping,’ Joanna replied evenly. ‘I merely wanted your permission to borrow the Range Rover and to buy the things Anya needs. I’m quite capable of driving myself to Penrith.’

  Jake stared at her broodingly. ‘You want to borrow the Range Rover?’

  ‘If you don’t mind.’

  ‘Have you ever driven one before?’

  ‘No. But I don’t suppose it’s any different from a car.’

  ‘I’m afraid it is.’ His tone was not encouraging. ‘Range Rovers have a four-wheel drive system, the same as Land Rovers.’

  Joanna squared her slim shoulders. ‘Are you saying that I can’t borrow it, then?’

  He sighed. ‘Miss Seton——’

  ‘We can always take the bus. That is how I came here, after all.’

  ‘You persist in wanting your own way, don’t you, Miss Seton? Is it unreasonable that you might accept that although I’m too busy today to pander to your whims, there’s every possibility that I shall have to go into Penrith myself before the week is out to get supplies?’

  Joanna gasped. ‘Is that how you see it? Pandering to my whims? Don’t you care that your daughter is running around in clothes only fit for a jumble sale!’

  ‘That’s an exaggeration, Miss Seton!’

  It was, and she knew it. But she hated that look of smug satisfaction on his lean dark face, and she longed to say something to shatter his air of controlled indifference.

  ‘You don’t care, do you?’ she stormed, saying the first thing that came into her head. ‘You really don’t care about anyone but yourself. You come up here, cut yourself off from any contact with that hard, cold world that only exists in your imagination, immerse yourself in self-pity …’

  ‘I think you’ve said enough, Miss Seton.’ With great deliberation he leaned the fork he had been using against the wall of the barn and thrust his hands into the pockets of his dark pants. ‘Now, if you’ll leave me to get on with my work——’

  ‘Am I to take it you refuse?’ she persisted, aware of the tension he was doing his utmost to disguise. ‘Is Anya not to have any new clothes?’

  His mouth tightened. ‘You may make whatever arrangements you like, Miss Seton,’ he replied, in a controlled voice. ‘However, I think it would be most unwise to use the bus. They’re infrequent at best, and it would be unfortunate if you were stranded in Penrith.’

  ‘So, in other words, we can’t go!’ Joanna’s indignation was tinged with disappointment. ‘Why? What are you afraid of? Just because you’re afraid to meet people, does that condemn us all to the same fate?’

  It was an unforgivable thing to say, and as soon as the words were uttered she wished she could retract them. But it was too late; they had been said. And the sudden contortion of his features had a fleeting vulnerability that tore at her heart. But it didn’t last long. His fury at her provoking tongue erupted into violent speech, and his response was as destructive as hers.

  ‘What do you know of me—of my feelings?’ he grated. ‘Do you think because I was once foolish enough to caress that promiscuous body of yours that you know all there is to know about me? What do you know of the world—the real world, I mean, my world? Have you ever suffered the torment of knowing you’re no good for anything any more? Useless, both to yourself and the people around you? Of course you haven’t. You say I don’t care about anybody but myself—well, perhaps it’s true. But perhaps that’s because it’s easier on other people that way. Do you think I want anybody’s pity? Do you think I want to hear people telling their friends not to mind me, that I’m harmless enough, just a vegetable, left to rot in some round hole I d
on’t fit any more!’

  ‘You don’t know that,’ she protested urgently, disturbed in spite of herself. ‘How do you know how people would react? You haven’t given them a chance. How do you honestly know you can’t work any more? You don’t know something like that until you try.’

  ‘Ever the optimist, aren’t you?’ he jeered grimly. ‘Are you sure Marcia hadn’t other plans for you than Anya’s education?’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean.’ Joanna felt helpless in the face of his implacability. ‘But if it helps you to rail at me, then go ahead. I don’t care. Anything’s better than apathy. Just because you lost your wife—because she’s dead, and nothing you can do——’

  ‘What?’ He lunged towards her, grasping her arm just above the elbow and glaring angrily down at her from their consequent nearness. ‘What do you mean? What crazy ideas are you nurturing now?’ He shook his head impatiently. ‘You poor romantic fool, do you imagine I’m harbouring some hopeless passion for Elizabeth? Do you think it was my grief at losing her that unhinged my mind?’

  ‘It’s natural that——’

  ‘Natural rubbish,’ he retorted bleakly. ‘Obviously, Marcia left out the more salient points of our relationship. Did she not explain that Elizabeth was suing for a divorce? That any affection we’d had for one another died soon after Anya was born.’

  Joanna gazed up at him. ‘But you have a son as well. A—a nineteen-year-old son. At—at university.’

  ‘Victor is my stepson, Miss Seton. Elizabeth had already been married and divorced before we met. The boy was seven years old when we—became husband and wife. He now lives with his father’s family.’

  Joanna felt totally perplexed. Aunt Lydia had not always been accurate in her revelations, and in this instance it appeared she had been completely misled. It explained so many things, of course—the fact that the boy’s name was never mentioned, his prolonged absence from the household, and Aunt Lydia’s mistaken ideas about Jake’s own age.