Nobody’s Darling

  Their sweat mingled, dripping from his face onto hers. His mouth was over hers, then it was teasing her breasts, then his tongue was in her mouth, filling her with unbearable pleasure. They fell to the ground. They couldn’t stop. Not now. Not when the tidal wave was engulfing them. He hardened inside her, throbbing now, spending the last of his energy. She cried out. The pain was delicious, taking her breath away. She broke over him, crying out like a wild animal. He groaned and rolled away. He hated her. He hated himself. It was Ruby. Always Ruby!

  ‘I’ll be back,’ she threatened, slipping the robe over her bruised limbs.

  ‘No!’ he told her in a harsh voice.

  She laughed, a hard coarse sound. ‘Surely you don’t think I can let you go now?’ She had come into his arms a virgin. Now she was a woman. He had made her a woman. She would not forget that glorious experience. Neither could she let him forget it.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘but don’t ever come back.’ He had done her a great wrong, and for the second time that night, he was ashamed.

  ‘Oh, I’m not sorry,’ she replied, her narrowed satisfied eyes raking his face. ‘And I meant what I said. After all, you wouldn’t want Daddy to know what took place here, would you?’ The thought of her father discovering what she had done sent a tremor through her. What she had threatened just now was a daring bluff. But Johnny wasn’t to know that.

  He was shocked. ‘Are you saying you’d risk your own well-being by telling him?’

  Her answer was coolly to button her mantle and saunter towards the doors where she turned again, peering into the darkness with a slow and deliberate smile. She could not see him. But he could see her, and cursed himself for the fool he was. ‘I’ll be back,’ she promised. Then, like a fleeting shadow, she went into the night.

  Just for a moment, in the dark and quiet, it seemed to Johnny that she had never been here at all. But then her presence was all over him. He still burned from the wild insane passion that had taken his reason. His loins throbbed. Rivulets of sweat trickled down his back like a small waterfall. She had been here all right, and he knew she would be back. With great sadness, he realised that he might have to leave this place, leave Thomas and the horses. His anger had turned inward.

  ‘You bloody fool, Ackroyd!’ he cursed, sinking on to the bed and bending his head into his hands. ‘You hot-headed bloody fool!’

  Crippled with remorse, and still naked, he went out to the pump where he washed himself head to toe, scrubbing at his skin as though it was so much filth. Afterwards he dressed and strode out into the night. There was no sleep in him. Only anguish. And a sense of deep regret.

  At first Thomas had imagined himself to be dreaming when he heard a noise from below. Dragging himself out of bed, he rubbed the grime from his bedroom window and directed his gaze to the stables beneath. It was too dark. He couldn’t see anything.

  Shuffling to the door, he came out on to the platform. He heard Teresa’s threats from the doorway and he shook his greying head. ‘So you’ve cornered him at last, you little trollop!’ he murmured in disgust.

  He watched her go, and heard Johnny reproach himself before going out to the pump. He listened while Johnny called himself all kinds of a fool, and guessed how that young man was feeling. Teresa Arnold was a beautiful creature but it was common knowledge that Johnny wanted only one sweetheart, and that was Ruby. All the same, he was only a man, and what man could refuse when a woman such as that offered herself to him? Yet Thomas knew Johnny well enough to know that now he would consider leaving here for good.

  ‘I can’t let that happen, Johnny lad,’ he whispered, ‘I’ll not let you leave me, not because of a little witch like that, I won’t!’ He searched his mind for an answer to this awful dilemma, but he was tired and ill.

  What had taken place here tonight was madness. Tomorrow he must think of a way to keep Johnny here with him, and safe from that one’s clutches.

  Chapter Seven

  Luke Arnold didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. In the end he stared at her, then dropped his head to his chest and said in a flat voice, ‘He’ll kill you when he finds out.’

  ‘What am I going to do, Luke?’ Teresa was frantic. ‘You’ve got to help me.’

  He swung round, eyes blazing. ‘You can forget that, little sister,’ he said sarcastically. ‘You’ve had your fun, and now you can bloody well pay for it, because I’m not getting involved. Do you hear that?’ He strode across the room and thrust his face close to hers. ‘I AM NOT GETTING INVOLVED!’

  Grabbing his coat cuff, she hung on. ‘You’ve got to help me, Luke. There’s no one else I can turn to. I’m afraid I’ll be turned out without a penny. Oh, I couldn’t bear it, Luke. I couldn’t bear to be disowned and have to live from hand to mouth. Father would do that to me if he found out. I know he would.’ She was sobbing. ‘I can’t live without fine things and servants, you know that, Luke. I’d die if he shamed me by turning me out. I would just die.’

  Viciously shaking her loose, he snapped, ‘You should have thought of all that, shouldn’t you, eh? When you were writhing beneath him, with him poking at you like one of the stallions with a mare, you should have thought of the consequences.’ His expression was one of disgust. ‘How could you, Teresa?’ he demanded. ‘How could you lie with a stable-hand?’ He turned and spat into the fire, as though ridding himself of a nasty taste.

  She had been desperate, coming to him against her better judgement and pleading for his help. She should have known better than to expect anything from her hard-hearted brother. In that moment, she recalled something he had confided in her some time back. Now, incensed by his condemnation of her, she told him angrily, ‘My fascination with a stable-hand is no more disgusting than your obsession with this lady’s maid!’

  ‘Shut up, you little fool!’ He lifted his hand to strike her, but then thought better of it. ‘I must have been mad to tell you about her.’ Thank God he hadn’t revealed Ruby’s name or her place of employment.

  ‘You were drunk.’ She laughed in his face, savouring the moment. ‘There’s no difference between us. Oh, the things you told me that night,’ she goaded. ‘How you thought she was the devil, come to bewitch you… the way she smiled, and how you fell head over heels in love the first time you saw her.’ A thought suddenly occurred to her. ‘When did you first meet her? And who is she, this dark-eyed beauty? You never told me that?’

  ‘It’s none of your business!’ Luke had never revealed Ruby’s little deceit on the night of the party, three months ago. Besides costing him an opportunity to use Cicely, he suspected that to betray their little charade would have closed the door with Ruby forever, and he couldn’t bear that. Even now, after all this time, he longed for her, dreamed of her. But she wouldn’t bend towards him, and though he still secretly, frantically, wanted her, there were times when he loathed her. The more she ignored him the more he needed to hurt her. He had discovered a way. Cicely. He had that foolish, pathetic woman dancing from a string, and he meant to tighten the knot. She was the route to the foundry, and she was the means by which he might yet win the elusive Ruby.

  ‘And there is a difference,’ he replied to his sister’s earlier comment. ‘The difference being that I have not slept with the maid.’

  More’s the pity, he thought bitterly.

  ‘Ah! But you would if only she’d let you,’ taunted Teresa. ‘Perhaps the maid thinks herself above you? Probably seen the badness in you, I shouldn’t wonder.’ She flinched at the hatred in his eyes, and realised she had gone too far. He could be merciless when the mood took him. ‘Please, Luke. Tell me what to do.’

  He couldn’t forgive her. ‘You’ll have to marry him. Go and live in a stable somewhere.’ Suddenly the thought of it was too much. He collapsed into a chair, laughing helplessly. ‘I hope the two of you will be very happy amongst the horse-muck,’ he spluttered.

  ‘You bastard!’ She lunged at him, clawing at his face with her long nails.

  He struck he
r then, a short hard blow across the face which sent her reeling. ‘Don’t ever do that again,’ he warned. Springing out of the chair, he glared at her, feeling a sense of power as she curled into the chair, holding her face and softly weeping. ‘You’ve got yourself into this mess, and you must get yourself out of it. One thing’s for sure – you’re not bringing his bastard into this house, I can promise you that.’

  His fists were hard clenched and his eyes were like black slits in his white angry face. ‘When Father finds out, he’ll no doubt whip him all the way down the road and you with him. And I for one won’t be sorry! To hell with you both. You deserve each other.’

  She looked up and their eyes met. She searched for a little compassion, but there was only loathing. For as long as she lived, she would never forgive him. ‘He won’t whip him all the way down the road,’ she remarked coolly, ‘because he will never know the name of this child’s father.’

  ‘He will when I tell him.’

  ‘I wouldn’t advise you to do that, Luke. If you tell Father about Johnny Ackroyd, I’ll have to tell him that you’re only courting Cicely Banks to get the foundry. That you deliberately set out to entrap her… that you don’t love her one bit, but that you’ll marry her just so you can get your hands on her father’s business. At first, you wanted the foundry to give to Father as a peace-offering, a prize, to show him what a splendid fellow you are.’ She was growing braver by the minute. ‘But all that has changed, hasn’t it? Now that Cicely Banks is eating out of your hand, and you can see yourself as the owner of Banks’s, you want it for yourself, don’t you? You see yourself as the big man, and you intend to cause a little mischief and make life difficult for Father. Isn’t that right? In the end, you want it all! But along the way, you mean to make Father pay for what he’s done to you over the years. Isn’t that what you have in your evil, warped mind?’

  ‘Your guesses are a little wild, aren’t they?’ He tried to laugh, but it stuck in his throat. She was right. Everything she had said was right, and he could easily have strangled her for it.

  ‘Not guesses. Dear me, no. All of it is what you yourself have told me. You’d be surprised how the drink loosens your tongue.’ She sat in the chair opposite and crossed her legs, looking up at him with irritating sweetness. They were two devils, one as weak and wicked as the other. ‘Oh, yes. Father would be most interested to hear what I’ve got to say. He might also be interested to know that once you’ve got the foundry, you’ll discard that gentle kind woman just as fast as you can… perhaps even setting up home with your precious lady’s maid. There’s no doubt that your reputation, which you have cunningly retrieved these past months, will be irrevocably tarnished in his eyes. If there’s one thing we both know about our father, it’s his sense of duty and his tiresome principles.’

  She paused in her tirade, before going on with a vindictive smile that made him realise she would do anything to put him out of favour with their father. ‘I promise you, Luke, those same principles that would put me out on the street, will damage you every bit as much.’ She said something then that made his blood run cold. ‘You’re a bad one, Luke. You’ve always been a bad one. You may have begun to fool Father, but you can’t fool me. It wouldn’t surprise me if you were up to no good with the small amount of responsibility Father’s already entrusted to you. After all, I do believe you have a considerable say in how the money is spent with regard to safety at the main foundry.’

  She watched his face for signs of guilt, but he was clever. He merely stared at her in disbelief. ‘To this day, I don’t believe he realises how much you hate him.’

  ‘Not as much as I hate you, I think.’

  ‘So you won’t help me?’

  ‘No. Even if I could see a way, I would not want to help you. You’re a fool. I have no time for fools.’

  The tears ran unheeded down her face. If Johnny Ackroyd had money or prospects, she would have seen to it that he was made to marry her. As it was, she had no intention of coupling her name with that of a penniless young man. ‘You’re right, I am a fool. But let me tell you this: if the day ever comes when I can make you suffer, I will,’ she vowed.

  ‘Oh, I’m not altogether cruel, sister dear.’ He smirked, ‘You have only yourself to blame when I end up with all Father’s money. But I won’t see you destitute. I think I could manage a small allowance. Perhaps enough to buy you a decent meal now and then. After all, I wouldn’t want it to get about that I let my sister and her bastard starve to death, now would I? But as for keeping you in finery and feathered hats, you can forget that, my dear. Low-bred women have to do without these things, and you must learn to do the same.’ He smiled and bowed from the waist making a little click with his heels, ‘Forgive me, but I really must leave you now. I’m sure you have a great deal to think about.’ He straightened his back and the smile fell from his face. Without another word he strode from the room, leaving her staring after him with murderous eyes.

  Coming out of the drawing-room, Luke almost collided with his father. ‘What the devil are you two arguing about? I could hear you from the other end of the hall?’ Oliver demanded. Lately, his children were a real trial, and there were times when he thought they would be the death of him.

  Luke was all charm. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, Father,’ he said. ‘I thought you were still resting in your room.’ He was never one to miss an opportunity. ‘If you’re still unwell tomorrow, you know I can be trusted to attend to things in your absence. I hope I’ve proven my ability these past months?’

  Oliver nodded. ‘I’m pleased with you, son, I won’t deny that. You’ve shown yourself to be very capable, and it won’t be long before you and I will be having a little talk.’ he promised.

  Luke feigned surprise. ‘But that’s wonderful, Father,’ he exclaimed. ‘Have you thought any more about putting me in full charge of the men’s safety? Legislation is demanding more and more along these lines,’ he pointed out.

  ‘I’m well aware of it,’ Oliver reminded him sharply, ‘I don’t need you to tell me these things.’ Only last week an employer had been heavily fined and one of his factories closed down, when two of his workers had been killed because of out-dated and rusting machinery. Already Luke was showing admirable concern and considerable talent for matters of safety. The time was nearing when he would be trusted with the overseeing of these matters. ‘As I say, you and I have things to discuss.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Soon.’

  ‘I shall look forward to it, Father.’

  Oliver inclined his head towards the drawing-room door. ‘Is my daughter still in there?’

  ‘She is.’

  ‘You were arguing.’

  ‘I’m sorry if we disturbed you, Father. It won’t happen again.’

  ‘What were you arguing about?’

  ‘Something and nothing.’ He so much wanted to betray Teresa. He felt she deserved it. But he was a coward at heart, and was afraid of the explosion that would follow if he was to tell his father that his eldest daughter was carrying the groom’s child. Besides, his sister’s threat was still ringing in his ears, heightening his fears. Teresa must confess to her own mistakes. She was the one who had brought it all about. ‘I have to go now, Father,’ he said swiftly. ‘The new machinery’s being installed, and your own orders are that I have to be there.’

  ‘I asked… what were you arguing about?’

  ‘Teresa will tell you.’

  ‘You tell me!’

  It had been on the tip of his tongue, and now when his father spoke to him in that formidable voice, it spilled out. ‘She’s with child.’ Astonished by his own outburst, he was instantly mortified, consoling himself only with the fact that he had not revealed the name of the father.

  Oliver had been standing tall and straight, a proud man, even in the onset of illness. He faltered, his gaze fixed on Luke’s face and his lips quivering – with rage or shock, it was hard to tell. Presently in a strong hard voice he told his son, ‘Get to your
work.’ And the cowardly man lost no time in departing the house, leaving his sister to face their father alone.

  * * *

  The manager was expecting him. ‘I’ve instructed the gangers and they’re installing the new platforms now.’ He sat at his desk, his shifty eyes levelled at Luke and his great spade-like hands spread across the desk surface. ‘Do you want to talk?’ he asked meaningfully.

  He rose from his seat and went across the room where he slyly closed the door. Going to the cupboard, he collected a bottle and two glasses. ‘I’ve closed off the main area, but we shouldn’t lose too much production while the machinery’s being put in.’ He poured a measure of whisky into each glass, and after handing one to Luke, was about to take a sip of the other when it was viciously snatched from his hand.

  ‘I’ve told you before, Marshall, leave the booze alone when you’re working.’ Luke had already learned to his cost that it loosened a man’s tongue, making him spill out too many secrets. Grabbing the half-filled bottle, he tipped it upside down over the sink and drained it dry. Then he threw that and the glasses into the rubbish bin, ‘No more booze. Understand?’

  The fellow nervously wiped his greasy hands on the front of his overalls. ‘Whatever you say,’ he agreed. ‘You’re the boss.’

  ‘I’m glad you remembered that.’ Luke glanced down to the foundry floor, where the men seemed like tiny ants scurrying about. ‘Have you done what I told you?’ He didn’t look at the fellow but kept his gaze downwards, watching the men at their work, thinking how dispensable these lowly creatures were. The heat from below reached up and almost suffocated him.

  At once the fellow went to the cabinet. ‘It’s all done. Do you want to check it?’ he asked, drawing out a thick leatherbound ledger which he thrust in front of the other man.