The Daughter of Night
By
Jeneth Murrey
Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
THE DAUGHTER OF NIGHT
Since her mother had abandoned her at birth and had since married a very rich man, and since her beloved foster-mother needed money, Hester hadn't had any compunction in demanding that money from her mother. But the formidable Demetrios Thalassis took a very different view of the situation and he proceeded to act accordingly…
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First published 1983
Australian copyright 1983
Philippine copyright 1983
This edition 1983
© Jeneth Murrey 1983
ISBN 0 263 74319 5
CHAPTER ONE
Over the noise of the hissing water of the shower and the patter of it as it fell into the tiled basin, Hester heard the ring of the doorbell and tried to ignore it. If it was a friend or an acquaintance, there would be three rings and then silence because, if she didn't answer, whoever it was would either drop a note through the letterbox or go away and come back later. That was the code she had with people she knew—just three rings.
She turned on the taps a little more so that the needle jets became fierce and stung the skin of her back as she stood luxuriating. She'd had a busy day and this was a good and pleasant way of getting some life back into her tired body—but the bell continued to ring, and no longer in short bursts. It was now a continuous, high-pitched buzz which demanded attention, something nobody could ignore.
Whoever was outside the door must be leaning on the button, it was a stiff little bell push and a single finger would have become tired long before now. Reluctantly, Hester switched off the shower and considered what to do. She couldn't let the ringing go on and on, the batteries in the bell would run down and she had no spares, so the bell wouldn't work in the morning when her neighbour, a hardworking secretary, gave her the usual call at seven.
Her normally soft mouth thinned to a hard line as she stepped out of the shower, rubbed herself roughly dry and struggled her still damp body into a towelling robe, and there was a fighting gleam in her brown eyes as, halfway across her living room, she caught sight of herself in the mirror. With a vexed scowl she tightened the sash of the robe more securely and pulled off the bulky shower cap, shaking her hair loose so that it fell about her shoulders.
It was good, thick hair, the shade of old mahogany with a natural wave which made it easy to style—just the sort of hair a hairdresser needed—an advertisement for any salon, and the salon for which she worked was very high class. Within its hallowed and expensive portals, each assistant had been chosen not only for qualifications and ability but also for hair quality and the correct deferential approach.
She pattered on bare feet down the mini-hallway and yelled, 'Who's there?' as her fingers struggled with the lock of the door.
There wasn't any answer to her demand, the bell went on ringing and nothing, it seemed, would stop it until she opened the door and gave whoever was there a piece of her mind. Not only was she being disturbed, but so were all the other tenants on the floor, and she'd get a nasty look from her landlady in the morning.
'Can't you take a hint?' she demanded angrily as at last her still wet fingers managed to turn the knob of the Yale lock. She opened the door a few inches and held it there while her other hand reached for the safety chain to push it into the slot—but she didn't get that opportunity. The man outside raised his shoulder from where it had been leaning on the bell push and put a hand on the door, shoving it inwards so that the chain and its little brass knob dangled impotently, several inches too short to bridge the gap.
'Miss Hester Marsh?'
She leaned all her weight against the door and glared at him through the narrow gap. The man was a complete stranger, and her nostrils thinned with temper.
'Whatever you're selling, I don't want any!'
'I'm not selling.'
'You aren't?' she snapped it off sharply. 'Then go away and don't bother me. I'm not interested in opinion polls, and market research leaves me cold. Go and bother somebody else!'
'They don't interest me either.' The man continued to push against the door, forcing it open against her restraining hand and body as though he had some God-given right to intrude where he wasn't wanted. 'I want to talk to you, and I'd prefer to do that in private.'
Hester's patience, never very long-suffering except with the clientele of the salon, snapped—rage welled up in her, drowning the little fear which had been growing at his attempts to force the door against her.
'You can't come in here.' She pushed back with all her might. 'I don't care what you want, you don't force your way in here, not without an invitation, and if you're the police, show me your warrant card.'
'So you're expecting the police.' He sounded satisfied.
'You're not one of them,' she panted as she struggled to prevent the door opening any further. 'Your manners aren't good enough. I advise you to go before I start screaming!'
The pressure against her increased, the bottom of the door caught against her bare foot and she yelped with pain, jumping backwards quickly—and then the man was inside, pushing her away and closing the door firmly behind him.
'Start screaming,' he advised nastily. 'If somebody is stupid enough to come to your rescue, I shall simply tell them I'm here at your invitation.'
'Oh, very clever!' Hester grabbed at errant folds of her towelling wrap, and retied the sash, belting it more firmly about her. Then she drew herself upright, took a deep breath and regained a little of the dignity she had lost in her humiliating struggle. The man had bested her, he was inside, and her impotent rage was giving way to a nameless fear.
'Since you're already in,' she spat, 'perhaps you'll explain just why you're forcing yourself on me!' She crushed the fear down under a chilly exterior and faced him defiantly.
'I told you—I want to talk to you, it's as simple as that.' She thought she detected a very faint foreign intonation in his voice but couldn't be sure, and she wrinkled her eyebrows in puzzlement. 'I'm not going to attack you,' he continued
smoothly.
No—her glance flickered over him—this man wouldn't need to attack a woman. At a guess, she thought he could probably have any girl he fancied. Things about him started to register with her. He was far too well dressed to be any sort of a salesman—her eyes appreciated the quality and cut of his clothes. There was solid value there—a conservative value— nothing out of the way or even ultra-fashionable. She judged him to be well off and used to giving orders— used to having his own way.
All the same—her nose wrinkled like a cat which smelled danger—here he was, a complete stranger, an intruder, yet he knew her name and where she lived. She couldn't place him in the scheme of things.
'Were you expecting the police?' He repeated the question.
'Are you out of your mind?' Hester gave a snort of exasperation. She disliked mysteries. 'Since you're this far in, you'd better come the whole way. The light's better in my living room and I want to be able to describe you properly when I file a complaint. As for the police, I should think you've a damn sight more reason to be scared of them than I have—I don't force my way in where I'm not wanted,' and with a shrug, she turned and led the way into the bedsitting room. 'And your explanation had better be a good one,' she snapped, 'or I will make a complaint.'
'Oh, I don't think you'll do that.' He was imperturbable and he stood quietly, making her cosy room look somehow small and tawdry. 'But if you did, you'd need my name. It's Demetrios Thalassis. Does that ring a bell?'
'It tolls a knell!' she corrected him. 'Did Vilma—my mother send you?' And she caught the gleam of very white, very even teeth as his mouth curved into a half-moon smile. Now she could place him, and the faint trace of accent. Greek, like Vilma's husband.
'Nobody sends me anywhere, my dear Hester,' he murmured. 'Vilma came to me—she was in trouble, money trouble, and she told me all about it. I don't like members of my family being blackmailed.' He reached into his pocket and came out with a cigarette case. Hester's eyes noted the gleam of gold and the deeply cut monogram before he produced a matching lighter, lit a cigarette and restored his valuables to his pocket.
'So,' he continued smoothly, 'I came to see for myself. And speaking of the police, I suppose you're aware you face an extremely serious charge— demanding money with menaces?'
'Do smoke, if you want to,' Hester said wearily, wondering if this was her mother's idea of a bully boy or had they some other sort of relationship. 'Have you brought the money?'
'Do I look that mad?' Without asking, he hitched a chair towards him with his foot and sat down as though he owned the place.
'And please make yourself comfortable.' Her eyes narrowed, glittering between their thick fringes of lashes. 'If you haven't brought the money, why have you come at all?'
'To size up the opposition, of course.' He blew a perfect smoke ring, his very dark eyes never leaving her face. 'In the course of my life, I've encountered villains of all shapes and sizes, but this is the first time I've ever met a female blackmailer. I was curious about you before, and now I've met you, I'm even more curious. You aren't what I expected.'
'There's a pattern for female blackmailers?' Hester was beginning to find her feet and she had decided that any show of fear would be taken as weakness. Instead, she raised a cool eyebrow. 'You must really tell me what it is so that I can dress the part next time.'
'You certainly don't look like a girl with criminal tendencies.' His eyes slid over her from the crown of her head to the soles of her bare feet. 'Given the right clothes and a short course in mannerly behaviour…'
'Mannerly behaviour!' Her voice rose indignantly. 'Look who's talking about manners—forcing your way into my flat…'
'… As I said,' he interrupted her interruption without blinking an eyelid, 'some good clothes and a few lessons in behaviour and you could be quite something. Is that why you want Vilma to give you twenty thousand pounds? But tell me, please, why do you think she should give it to you?'
Hester smiled at him wolfishly. She had ignored the bit about clothes but the remark about her manners had hit hard and to cover it, she became crude.
'Oh lord! Vilma's picked herself a right one this time, but you can't be her husband, although you do have the same name—she wouldn't have told him about this—not about me, so I suppose you're some sort of minor relation. A very minor one, I'd guess—a little dog she's sent out to bark for her.'
'And I bite as well.'
'You may bite,' she pointed out curtly, 'but you haven't brought the money!'
'And you're a very cool customer.' He blew another smoke ring. 'Are your demands always so blunt, and don't you ever worry about prosecution?'
'Oh,' she gestured largely, 'it's my first try at the business—you can't expect a professional approach, not at this stage, and as for prosecution, why should I worry about that? I didn't put anything in writing and there weren't any witnesses. It was all strictly between Vilma and me—until you butted in,' she added angrily.
'And you don't count me as a witness?'
'No,' she gave him a tight smile with no mirth in it. 'Remember, I didn't ask you for money, merely whether you'd brought it. As you haven't, you've made a needless journey, so you'd better run back to Vilma and tell her she's pushing it. The deadline's the end of this week, which gives her just four clear days. After that, the balloon goes up!'
'And the penalty if she doesn't meet your deadline?'
Hester's mirthless grin widened almost as though she could savour triumph. 'I have a friend who's in the newspaper business. He works for a rather pink publication, a widely read weekly, and he's dedicated himself to printing the lowdown on those who live the high life. He loves his work—I suppose you could call him a compulsive stirrer up of mud and I should imagine that after his first instalment on the present Mrs Sandros Thalassis, her husband, reported as being a strict and devoted family man, will retire to a lonely villa somewhere with egg on his face.'
'Your friend's going to write all this in four days?' Demetrios Thalassis ground out his half smoked cigarette.
Hester laughed in his face. 'What do you take me for—a fool? No, the first instalment's nearly ready, but the bit I can add is a bombshell—it's such a well kept secret, not common knowledge like the rest. That'll make it that much spicier, don't you think, and Vilma won't have an invitation to the next Garden Party. In fact, I think some of her high-placed friends will cool off rapidly.'
'I was wrong about you.' He remained calm, but there were white patches of temper at the corners of his nostrils, though the emotion was controlled perfectly; his voice was still calm and almost lazy. 'I thought you were a young girl who'd been led astray, who wanted her name in the papers, but you're more than that, you're a bitch of the first water.'
'So I'm a bitch!' she flared. 'Who cares? I don't, it doesn't worry me. I want that money and Vilma can afford it. It's not as if I was mugging an O.A.P. for the few coins in her purse. If Vilma's reluctant to have her husband know—if she can't raise the cash—you can tell her to sell a few of those diamonds she wears to parties. Just as long as it adds up to twenty thousand pounds!'
'Which is rather a large sum to keep you quiet about a piffling little indiscretion which took place when she was very young.' Demetrios Thalassis' face was a mask of distaste, and Hester watched him warily as she estimated the strength of the opposition.
He wasn't as tall as she'd first thought, slightly under six foot, but his breadth of shoulder had misled her—powerfully built men often looked bigger than they really were. He was also extremely good-looking—his black, glossy hair clung in short curls to a well shaped skull—his eyes were large and well spaced, although half their beauty was hidden by long, curling, almost feminine lashes and the heavy eyelids. His nose, she decided, was arrogant and his mouth had a sensual curve that sent a small shiver down her spine but at his chin, she stopped. It was like granite—this wasn't a man she wanted to tangle with, but she had no choice, apparently, and she wasn't giving up now or being
frightened off, there was too much at stake.
She tried to imagine the scene between him and Vilma—Vilma, small, blonde, looking far younger than her years and weeping softly all over that wide chest—but not so much as to damage her make-up or make her mascara run. Maybe she had confessed to a tiny indiscretion—almost nothing really—Hester could almost hear the words dropping reluctantly, interspersed with tiny sobs. 'It had all happened so many, many years ago'—when Vilma was little more than a child.
Hester's thoughts took another direction. This man, whoever he was—whatever the connection between him and Vilma—he wasn't a nobody. Vilma would never waste her time buttering up a mere nonentity. She felt her temper slipping from the hard control she was putting on it and she made no further attempt to keep it in check.
'A little indiscretion!' She almost shouted it at him.
'Do I look that "little"? Yes,' as she saw his mouth tighten, the sensual curve straightening out into a hard, straight line, 'don't tell me Vilma's only given you half a tale, and don't look so surprised. I'm five foot five inches, and that's rather large to be called a "little indiscretion" any longer!'
'You're implying that you're Vilma's daughter?'
Hester steeled herself to speak normally and not yell 'Yes!' in his face. She waved a hand airily instead. 'You don't catch on very quickly, do you?' She made it sound as sarcastic as possible and gave it a smile to match. 'Or has my mother been telling lies about her age again? The last quote in the gossip columns put her at thirty-eight, although she prefers to say thirty-six. Since you're part of her new husband's family and not exactly blind, I would have thought you'd know that was an understatement. Her little indiscretion took place all of twenty-five years ago and she was well over the age of consent at the time. I'm twenty-four and a bit—work it out for yourself!'
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