The Price of Deceit Read online

  ‘That’s easy for you to say,’ Katherine told him sharply. ‘You’ve always had wealth to cushion you.’

  ‘Was there ever a man, Katherine?’ he asked softly, his voice cool and only mildly curious. ‘Or did you walk out because you felt inadequate?’

  She felt her heart speed up, the way it always did whenever the past was mentioned.

  ‘I never felt inadequate,’ she answered truthfully. Many things, she thought, but not inadequate. Ashamed, deceitful, despairing, but never inadequate.

  ‘And what are you going to do for the Christmas holidays?’ he asked politely. She looked at him staring out of the window, his jaw clenched. It was as though the past stood savagely between them, raising its grinning head whenever they spent too long interacting like civilised adults. She wished that she could stretch out her hand and tell him everything, unburden herself of her secret, have him accept the reasons why she had done what she did, go back in time and make everything all right. She shook herself free of that wild daydream.

  ‘I have no idea,’ she said lightly.

  ‘What do you usually do?’

  ‘Spend it with David and his mother. She does a wonderful Christmas lunch.’ She tried to make her voice happy and carefree.

  ‘And why not this year?’

  ‘Oh, I shall probably do the same,’ she said vaguely. ‘Cooking a turkey for one isn’t such a good idea, is it? It would take me weeks to eat the leftovers!’ There was an uneasy tension in the air. ‘Claire told me that you’ve got a wonderful Christmas tree, which she decorated all by herself. She’s very proud. Have you bought her presents yet?’ If she could keep the conversation on a light basis, she thought, they might yet end the evening on a reasonably calm note, and by keeping it light she meant avoiding all mention of David and all mention of any relationship they had had in the past.

  ‘I sent my secretary out to get them yesterday,’ he told her, ‘and before I get a lecture on lack of parental participation, I was merely following what Claire wrote out on her list.’

  ‘I wasn’t about to give you a lecture!’ Katherine said, stung, because it reminded her too clearly of what David had said about her being an old woman. Was she really like that? ‘What did she ask for?’

  ‘An A4 list of toys, basically,’ Dominic said, his dark face breaking into an amused smile. ‘Television advertising has an awful lot to answer for.’

  ‘And peer pressure,’ Katherine said, relaxing.

  ‘At that age?’ he asked with a laugh.

  ‘You’d be surprised.’

  The car was drawing up the little lane to her cottage and she thought, for once, how dark and uninviting it looked. She wondered with a pang what it would be like to spend the rest of her life coming back to a house where there was no shared warmth and laughter, and she immediately told herself not to be foolish, that she was very lucky compared with a great many people who didn’t have what she had.

  Your greatest sorrow, a little voice said, is that you know what you could have had, isn’t it? You had your glimpse of what it could have been like, but you were powerless to accept it.

  ‘It was a lovely evening,’ she said, gathering up her little bag and turning to him in the car. ‘I hope you have a wonderful Christmas with Claire. She’s just at that special age, when it’s all so magical.’

  The car stopped and she turned away.

  ‘I’ll see you inside,’ Dominic said, opening his door and slipping out and, much as she would have liked to tell him that she was quite capable of seeing herself inside, she kept silent and shrugged.

  The place was in complete darkness. She should have left a light on; it was what she usually did if she went out at night, but she must have forgotten. It had all been so sudden and nerve-racking.

  She would have missed it, she realised later, if Dominic hadn’t turned and switched on the main light in the hall. Normally Katherine turned on the little lamp on the table just by the door, where the telephone was. It gave off a much gentler glow.

  With the bright hall light on, though, she couldn’t miss the little white envelope lying just on the doormat. In fact, she almost stepped on it.

  ‘Love-letter, perhaps?’ Dominic’s deep voice said from behind her.

  ‘Circular, more likely,’ Katherine replied, moving away and slitting open the envelope. There was no writing on the outside and she had no idea who it could be from, apart from an advertising company telling her about some new wondrous product or other, just the thing for Christmas, or else a charity asking for a donation of some sort or another.

  It was from neither. Her eyes scanned the few lines, reread them more carefully, then she looked up at Dominic with a shocked expression on her face.

  ‘What is it?’ His voice was like a whip and he moved across to her and grasped both her arms. ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘Read it,’ she said in a low, shaky voice and he took the note from her and turned away.

  It felt as though she stood there, in the cold hall, for hours, looking at that averted back, fearing the reaction to come, but it could have only been a few seconds, then Dominic was staring at her, his green eyes blazingly angry.

  ‘The bastard,’ he said, with a control in his voice which was far more frightening than if he had exploded in rage and started throwing things about.

  ‘Dominic,’ she said hesitantly, ‘please…’ She took a step towards him, and his hand snapped around her wrist.

  ‘You are coming with me,’ he said grimly. ‘I will not allow this!’

  Oh, David, she thought with a wave of anger, how could you?

  Dominic was pulling her back towards the door, taking the key from her, locking the house behind him, and she allowed herself to be led to the car, her mind a mass of whirling thoughts that bumped into each other, then whirled away again before sense could be made.

  She should have foreseen something like this, she thought with confused worry. When she had last spoken to David, there had been something odd about his behaviour, something reckless, and, thinking back, she could see that it was the recklessness of a deed anticipated.

  She glanced up into the rear-view mirror and the chauffeur’s eyes quickly moved back to the road. What must he be thinking? she wondered. Me, white and shaken, and Dominic, barely containing a rage so powerful that it was frightening. She didn’t dare look at him but she could feel the threat exuding from his body as though it was tangible.

  They didn’t say a word for the whole drive to his house.

  What on earth could have possessed David, she thought, sensible, easygoing David, to do something as dramatic as this? Running off with Jack so that they could get married.

  She recalled the note.

  You weren’t in, and I wanted you to know that Jack and I have decided to get married. We’re sneaking off like thieves in the night because she’s so damned afraid that her brother will do everything in his power to stop us if we make this all public. Should I be sorry? I don’t feel sorry. I feel as though I’m in the clouds! Can you imagine what old Peck at the school will say? I will be in touch, of course, my dear Katherine!

  Stunned, she thought. I feel utterly stunned. She controlled the desire to giggle hysterically.

  ‘Come on,’ said Dominic tightly, as soon as they had reached his house.

  Once they were inside, the baby-sitter was dispatched with such speed that she looked quite bewildered, then he turned to her and said briefly, ‘I’m going to have a whisky. Do you want one?’

  Katherine shook her head and followed him into the kitchen, where, propped up against one of the counters, was a white envelope remarkably similar to the one that had been awaiting her on the doormat. Dominic ripped it open, read the contents and threw it into the bin.

  ‘What does she say?’ Katherine asked, not really seeing how she could avoid the question.

  “‘Darling brother,”—’ his lips twisted crookedly as he quoted this ‘—“running away at my great age! Isn’t it exciting? I
shall be a married woman when next we meet and I hope that you’ll have calmed down in the meanwhile. See you soon!” Dammit! Exciting! Running away on a little adventure and feeling as though she’s a heroine in a children’s book! Now can you see what I mean when I say that she’s totally irresponsible?’

  She watched in silence as he drank the contents of the glass in one gulp, then she followed him into the sitting-room, wishing desperately that she wasn’t caught up in the middle of this drama, wishing that David had not run off and unwittingly left her embroiled in this mess.

  ‘Now,’ he said, standing by the Victorian fireplace and looking at her, ‘you know him—where do you think they’ve gone? Back to his place? Where does he live?’

  ‘If they’ve made up their minds,’ Katherine said carefully, ‘then I don’t think that it’s a good idea for you to race around behind them so that you can try and stop it.’

  It wasn’t what he wanted to hear. His face was thunderous and she had to steel herself not to cringe back. This wasn’t her fault, she told herself, and she wasn’t going to act as though she had anything to hide or be ashamed of.

  ‘Oh, you don’t?’ he asked sarcastically. ‘And what do you suggest I do? Prepare a little banner saying “Congratulations” and hang it up outside for when they decide to return? What’s his telephone number?’

  Katherine gave it to him, knowing that she had no choice because he would simply force it out of her, and, as she expected, there was no reply.

  He slammed down the receiver and scowled.

  ‘Well,’ she said, ‘they’re not going to run to the first place they know you’d check, are they?’

  ‘Which is why you’re here. You know his haunts. Where would he be likely to go? They’re probably planning to get married in some obscure place in the morning.’

  Katherine took a deep breath. ‘Let them.’

  ‘I will not let my sister’s life be ruined by an opportunist.’

  ‘David is not an opportunist! You would know that if you spoke to him for ten minutes! Why are you so suspicious?’

  ‘Why do you think?’

  ‘All right,’ she said with a weary sigh, ‘I understand that you’re protective of your sister, that you don’t want her to be taken advantage of, but don’t you see there’s nothing you can do?’

  He thrust his hands into his pockets and began pacing through the room, his face harsh. He didn’t like what she was saying. Perhaps he had thought that she would be as eager as he was to stop it. After all, as far as he was concerned, she and David were lovers.

  ‘I just don’t want her to be hurt,’ he said heavily, stopping to look at her. ‘She may have been brought up with a great deal of money, but it has never spoiled her. If this man is exploiting her, then I don’t know how she’ll cope with it.’

  ‘He’s not exploiting her,’ Katherine repeated in a tired voice. ‘You seem to believe that the whole world is out to get their hands on money, at whatever cost, but you’re wrong. True, there are a lot of opportunists out there, but there are also a lot of good people, people with principles. David and your sister are in love, and to be honest, seeing you now, I can understand why they did what they did.’

  ‘And what is that supposed to mean?’

  ‘Well, look at you!’ she threw at him. ‘Storming through the house, racking your brain for a way to lay your hands on them before mean, exploitative, callous David, who’s probably concealing a history of crime as far as you’re concerned, does the unthinkable and drags your sister kicking and screaming up the aisle just so that he can get his greedy hands on her money. They’re in love, and the spectre of you doing your utmost to break it to pieces was too much for them to bear.’

  ‘I’m not that bloody unfair,’ Dominic said, but there was a certain amount of discomfort in his voice. ‘And why, might I ask, are you defending this, when your lover has walked out on you?’

  ‘Because David is not my lover, and he has never been my lover.’ She looked at him steadily.

  ‘You lied, in other words.’

  ‘You jumped to the wrong conclusions and I didn’t try and correct you. Firstly because it was none of your business anyway, and secondly because he asked me to pretend that we were closer than we were, so that he and Jack could see each other in relative peace and privacy.’

  Dominic moved towards her. ‘You mean you knew all about this?’ His voice was as sharp as a knife but she refused to be browbeaten into cowering submission.

  ‘I knew nothing of any of this,’ she said calmly. ‘But if I had known how violently you would react to their relationship, then I certainly wouldn’t have tried to stand in their way. People,’ she said bitterly, ‘deserve to try for some happiness, don’t they?’

  There was a thick silence between them, then he sat down next to her, his weight depressing the cushions on the sofa.

  ‘It’s a damn cowardly thing, eloping,’ he said, but his voice wasn’t as suffused with anger as it had been.

  ‘Perhaps they thought that it was the only way their love would survive you.’

  ‘I’m not an ogre,’ he said, sliding his eyes across to her face.

  ‘You could have fooled me.’

  ‘Do I frighten you? Would you have done what they did?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Katherine said, realising for the first time how quiet the room was, how dark and still. ‘You would have had to have given her her freedom at some point,’ she said, to break the silence. ‘You would never have been able to run her life for her, choose her husband, and even if you had, there’s no telling that your choice would have been the right one.’

  ‘So, in other words, you’re saying that I should accept this.’

  ‘With grace.’

  He raised his eyebrows as though that was stretching it a bit, but he didn’t say anything.

  ‘Now,’ she said, standing up, ‘perhaps you wouldn’t mind dropping me back to my house, now that my usefulness is at an end? Or else I could get a taxi.’ She looked at her watch and saw that it was after one. Heaven only knew how easy it would be to find a taxi at this time in the morning.

  ‘I can’t drop you back,’ Dominic pointed out mildly. ‘Claire is asleep upstairs. Spend what remains of the night in one of the guest bedrooms. I’ll lend you a shirt to sleep in.’

  It was a sensible suggestion, and still she felt as alarmed by it as if he had asked her to strip and do a dance on the low marble table in the middle of the sitting-room.

  ‘It’s a lot of trouble,’ she said, while the muscles in her face seized up in frozen horror. ‘The beds are probably all unmade. It really would be easier if you called a taxi.’

  ‘There are eight bedrooms,’ Dominic drawled, ‘and the beds are all made.’

  ‘Oh.’ She tried a thankful smile. ‘In that case, of course.’ What else, she asked herself, could she say?

  She stood up and followed him to one of the guest bedrooms on the third floor, then he vanished and reappeared a few minutes later with a towel and a shirt.

  ‘Claire is being collected by a school-friend’s mother. I don’t suppose you want to avail yourself of the lift, so I’ll drop you when I go in to work in the morning.’

  ‘That’s very kind,’ Katherine replied faintly, clutching the towel and shirt tightly. She waited until he disappeared back down to the second floor, then she changed quickly and quietly into his white shirt, rolling up the sleeves. It dwarfed her. It reached down nearly to her knees, and when she looked at herself in the mirror she saw that she resembled a thin little waif.

  She had worn his shirts before. When they had been lovers and she had walked around his London flat, fixing their breakfast, smiling when he had reached out for her and drawn her close to him.

  She blinked away the image of the past and lay down, thinking that she would never be able to sleep, knowing that he was one floor down, but sleep she did, soundly and comfortably.

  When she next opened her eyes there was a bleak, grey light trying i
ts best to fill the room, and Dominic was sitting on the side of her bed, watching her.

  ‘I brought you some tea,’ he said, and she sat up hurriedly, feeling exposed.

  ‘What time is it?’

  ‘A little after nine.’

  ‘Oh, no,’ she groaned.

  ‘I looked in on you about an hour and a half ago but you were so fast asleep that I didn’t have the heart to get you up.’

  The curtains were still drawn tightly, and she wished that they weren’t, because they filtered out the light and gave the room an unreal, unsettling shadowy feel.

  ‘You’ll be late for work,’ she said illogically.

  He didn’t answer that. Instead he said, ‘I apologise about last night. I never even thought that amid all that was happening you might have been terribly upset at David’s actions. You may not have been lovers, but your hope for a relationship with him must have died with that note on your doorstep.’

  His words were so unexpected that for some reason she felt herself on the verge of tears.

  My hopes for happiness, she could have told him, died the day you threw that ring into the pond in Regent’s Park.

  She found it difficult to speak, and she looked down at her hands, entwined on the quilt.

  ‘You look like a child in that,’ he said softly, and when she raised her eyes to his she felt suddenly disorientated. There was something there on his face, an expression which she couldn’t quite define, an intent which she struggled to understand.

  She stared, mesmerised, waiting for him, waiting for the kiss which she knew would happen.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  HIS mouth touched hers with gentle, persuasive force. He didn’t push her back against the pillows but pulled her towards him, cradling her head with his hands, while he explored her soft lips with his tongue, groaning as the kiss deepened and she reached out to entwine her fingers behind his dark head, bent towards her own.

  The dividing line between right and wrong, between sense and madness, seemed to have blurred. She knew that this deep, desperate yearning could be satisfied, but that satisfaction would demand its price. She drew back and he looked at her and said seriously, ‘I still want you. It’s not something I’ve wanted to admit to myself, and it defies all the laws of common sense, but I still want you.’