The Price of Deceit Read online

  She averted her face, took a sip from her glass, unfortunately only orange juice, so there wasn’t much moral courage to be derived there, and crossed her legs.

  She knew that she looked calm. In fact, she knew that she looked exactly what she was—a schoolteacher out for the night. Her flowered dress was loose and unadventurous, she was devoid of any make-up apart from some lipstick hurriedly applied as her one concession to vanity, and her long hair had been severely plaited down her back. She pulled the plait over her shoulder and nervously toyed with the end of it, twirling the hair in between her fingers.

  David, thankfully, was maintaining some form of conversation, telling Dominic about his work, and she prayed that he wouldn’t launch into his speech about the cut-backs.

  I’ll give it fifteen minutes, she thought firmly to herself, looking at David and pretending to be interested in what he was saying, and then I’ll just stand up and leave. David would have no choice but to follow suit.

  She glanced down at her watch, and when she raised her eyes Dominic’s friend was at their table. A woman. What else had she expected?

  ‘My friend, Jack,’ Dominic said smoothly, taking his time. ‘We’ve known each other for longer than I care to remember.’ They exchanged a glance which spoke of a great deal of intimacy, and then the woman looked at them, with a slow grin and raised eyebrows.

  Katherine stretched out her hand and tried hard to smile.

  ‘My real name is Jacqueline,’ she explained, in the same excellent but accented English as Dominic, ‘but he refuses to call me anything but Jack until I grow my hair.’

  She had very short, very dark hair and a supple body, loose-limbed and very graceful. She could well have been a ballerina if it hadn’t been for her height. She was extremely tall, but her height, rather than making her look sophisticated, gave her a spectacularly appealing, gamine air.

  She slipped into her chair and announced to no one in particular that she was having a marvellous time. Paris nightclubs had become boring. Too many beautiful people all trying to compete with one another. It was so small here. Were there any village halls? she wanted to know. Any village dances? She had read all about English village dances when she was a girl. They had always intrigued her. What, she wanted to know, did one wear to a village dance? What did one do, come to that, at a village dance? Was it all checked shirts and taking your partner by the hand? Her voice was breathless and engaging.

  David appeared bemused, Dominic was looking at her, smiling with lazy indulgence, and Katherine sat back with a feeling of unbearable dowdiness.

  ‘Claire talks about you all the time,’ Jack said, smiling and turning to Katherine, then she said something very rapidly in French to Dominic and they both smiled. ‘When I say “But what about the other little girls?” she says that she would prefer to invite you to tea.’

  ‘A passing phase,’ Katherine said in a very schoolmistressy voice. ‘Once Claire settles in, she’ll forget that I even exist.’

  ‘And don’t you find that rather frustrating?’ Dominic asked in that deep, ironic voice. He reached out for his glass, drank, and then regarded her over the rim. ‘Looking after children who move into your life for a short while, only to move out?’

  ‘If I found it frustrating,’ Katherine said stiffly, ‘I wouldn’t teach.’

  Jack was looking at them, her eyes flitting between the two.

  ‘You are not married?’ she asked, and Katherine shook her head with sudden embarrassment. ‘Waiting for the right man to come along? Prince Charming, perhaps?’

  ‘I hope not,’ David said lightly. ‘Where on earth would that leave me?’

  At that, Jack launched into a confused metaphor about every Cinderella having her Prince Charming, at the end of which Dominic shook his head and murmured, amused, that she ought to steer clear of translating too many complicated idioms into English, ‘Because, my sweet, it leaves you open to appearing rather foolish. Especially,’ he added in a low drawl, ‘in the presence of our little teacher here.’ Which instantly made Katherine sound as though she spent her spare time analysing other people’s grammar and correcting them.

  ‘I think her English is rather impressive,’ David said gallantly, though still wearing that bemused expression, as though he had suddenly found himself flying through space at the speed of light.

  ‘I adore flattery,’ Jack said, pouting and grinning at the same time. ‘Come and dance with me. You don’t mind, do you?’ She looked at Katherine with an open smile. ‘I don’t want to be accused of snatching someone else’s man away from them!’

  They headed off to the dance-floor, threading their way through the crowds, and Dominic said, ‘What do you think of her?’

  ‘She seems very young and enthusiastic,’ Katherine said, hating herself for sounding so horribly prim and proper, and then deciding that if he didn’t like it he could lump it.

  During those mad months in London she had been enthusiastic herself, she had dressed in daring clothes and said daring things, and had felt alive and vibrant. It seemed a lifetime away. It was a lifetime away.

  ‘Dear me, you make that sound like a crime.’

  ‘Stop laughing at me!’ she snapped, looking at him angrily.

  ‘I’m merely trying to work out,’ he replied smoothly, ‘how six years could have changed you into the person that you seem to be now. Scared, cautious, hiding behind starchy clothes and—’ he glanced at her hair ‘—severe hair-styles.’

  ‘I am not scared! Scared of what?’

  ‘Life?’

  ‘Just who do you think you are?’ Katherine said unsteadily. ‘You don’t know me now and you didn’t know me…then.’

  ‘Didn’t I?’ He leaned forward. ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘Stop badgering me!’ She looked at the dark, clever face with alarm.

  ‘Was I?’ he asked in a bored voice, leaning back and looking around him. ‘I thought that I was making civilised conversation. I take it that this David fellow was the man you felt obliged to run back to?’ She could hear the cool dislike in his voice, although he wasn’t looking at her.

  ‘I’ve only known David for four years,’ she said flatly.

  ‘What happened to the other man? Did he decide that you weren’t worth the candle?’ He turned to look at her and, although his voice was only mildly interested, his eyes were sharp, intent.

  ‘That’s none of your business, and I refuse to discuss my private life with you.’

  ‘Do you discuss it with anyone?’ He pushed back his chair and crossed his legs, ankle resting lightly on knee.

  ‘No, I don’t,’ she told him icily, ‘and if I were to, believe me, you’d be bottom of the list as confidant.’

  ‘What a defensive creature you’ve become,’ he said, draining his glass, and she was tempted to inform him that she always had been defensive, that there were a thousand sides to her which he had not seen, and that the sides he had seen had never really existed.

  He shrugged and linked his fingers together. ‘Still, you can keep your secrets to yourself. You might like to know, however—’ he looked across to the dance-floor, his eyes narrowing until he made out Jacqueline’s figure next to David ‘—that I gave some thought to what you said about Claire, and Jack’s going to be living with me to help out.’

  ‘Is she?’ Katherine felt a certain numbness spread through her at the thought of that and she shakily laughed at her foolishness. ‘Did she not mind giving up Paris?’

  ‘She’s never been one to be averse to change.’

  ‘No,’ Katherine said stiffly. ‘I’m surprised, though… She looks very young, and this is a very different cup of tea from Paris.’

  ‘Jack is devoted to Claire.’ When he said that his features softened and she felt a twinge of jealousy that was sharp enough to make her catch her breath. ‘And she’s not that young. Twenty-four, as a matter of fact, although she doesn’t look her age.’ There was fondness in his voice.

  Katherine lo
oked away. Twenty-four, she thought, and in love with life. Was it any wonder that he was smitten with her?

  She thought of herself, and knew how she must appear to him—a laughable spinster, wrapped up in her little teaching job, finding fulfillment through other people’s children—and she felt tears come briefly to her eyes.

  ‘Claire must enjoy the company,’ she said, blinking away the tears. She hated self-pity and she wasn’t prone to it. She had taken too many knocks in life to be able to indulge in that particular trait. She had learnt from early on how to conceal her feelings and when, at night, she brought them out, they were for her eyes only.

  ‘She does,’ he said shortly. ‘We both do. Jack is like a breath of fresh air.’

  Katherine’s eyes travelled to the dance-floor, where Jack and David were laughing during a lull in the music. Less than an hour before, she thought, David had been wallowing in worry. Now he looked as though he didn’t have a care in the world.

  They strolled towards them and the girl’s face was animated. She was talking quickly, gesticulating a lot, and David was smiling and looking as though he had stumbled across some hitherto undiscovered, but delightful, alien form of being.

  She went behind Dominic, slipped her arms around his neck and hugged him. Young, enthusiastic, vibrant. A breath of fresh air.

  Katherine stood up, tugged at her flowered dress and announced that it was time to leave, forestalling any protests on David’s part with a quelling look.

  ‘So should we.’ Dominic stood up and they made their way outside. They had to barge a path through the crowds, and by the time they were out in the open a heated debate had ensued between Dominic and Jack, who wanted to move on for a night-cap. In the semi-darkness outside the club she looked incredibly beautiful, utterly free, and petulant. David was sneaking little glances across to her, even though his hand was protectively on Katherine’s arm.

  ‘But why not?’ she was protesting. ‘Claire’s safe and sound with the baby-sitter. What is the big hurry to get back to the house?’

  She turned to them for support, so Katherine muttered, ‘I’m afraid you’ll have to count me out. I have to be up early tomorrow for school. I want to prepare some papers for the girls.’

  ‘Oh.’ That deflated the other girl for precisely one second, then she turned her girlish charm to David, and said pleadingly, ‘And what about you? Don’t tell me that you have to be up early as well!’ She somehow managed to make that sound like the most unutterably dull thing anyone in the world cold choose to do.

  Dominic was standing a little apart, observing this cabaret with a hint of impatience.

  ‘Stop forcing yourself on to these people,’ he said, folding his arms. ‘Remember what I said about making a fool of yourself?’

  ‘Am I making a fool of myself?’ She looked at David, who shook his head in a dazed manner, then she turned triumphantly to Dominic and said, ‘There! Does that mean you’ll come with me for a night-cap somewhere?’ she persisted hopefully, while Dominic’s face began to darken with irritation.

  ‘I really can’t,’ David said apologetically.

  ‘Have to be up early?’

  ‘No!’ he denied a little too quickly, which made Katherine suddenly want to burst out laughing.

  ‘Come along.’ Dominic began dragging the girl along to his car.

  She said loudly, over her shoulder, ‘Why not, then?’

  ‘I have to drop Katherine back home, for one!’ he called back, and Katherine ground her teeth together in frustration. Why on earth did he have to drag her name into it as his excuse?

  ‘These people,’ Dominic said, grinding to a halt and looking at his companion as if he wanted to throttle her, ‘probably want to spend the night together. They do not want you breaking up their evening.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Jack, as if that thought hadn’t seriously crossed her mind at all. She looked at both of them and asked candidly, ‘Do you?’

  ‘Do we, what?’ David asked.

  ‘Want to spend the night together?’

  There was a heavy silence and Katherine groaned inwardly to herself. She could feel Dominic’s eyes boring through her and she remained silent. Let David talk his way out of this one, she decided.

  ‘Oh,’ he said after a while, rising to the occasion by saying the one thing she least needed him to say. ‘Katherine and I are just friends.’ He gave her arm a little squeeze and she looked at him with utter frost in her eyes.

  She realised that she had wanted Dominic to believe that she and David were an item; she wanted him to believe that there was someone, something, in her life, that things had moved on for her too.

  ‘I’m sure Dominic doesn’t want you gallivanting all over town with a strange man,’ she said. I sound as though I’m telling off a child, she thought, although the other girl didn’t appear to mind in the slightest.

  ‘Dominic will be fine without me around for a couple of hours,’ she said airily, not in the least perturbed by the hard, angry lines of his face. ‘Won’t you?’ She looked at him with a broad grin. ‘Dear friend?’ Then she spun back to Katherine. ‘He can drop you back to your house, in fact. You two can chat about Claire and the importance of early nights.’ She slipped her arm into David’s and said brightly, ‘Where’s your car?’

  ‘Over there.’ He pointed to his battered second-hand excuse for an automobile, and then looked rather ruefully at Dominic’s sleek BMW. ‘Not much by way of transport compared to this.’

  ‘It has character,’ Jack informed him, and they were both laughing as they walked towards it.

  Katherine stood precisely where she was until David had started his car, then she turned to Dominic and said awkwardly, ‘I apologise about this.’

  ‘Jack can persuade most people to do most things she wants them to,’ he said grimly, opening the passenger door for her and then slamming it.

  The car had an expensive feel, with that unmistakable aroma of leather. Katherine rested her head back and felt her body tense as he slipped into the driver’s seat and started the engine.

  Did he not mind that his girlfriend was ready to leave him behind in favour of the bright lights? she wondered, and then she decided that he probably liked that, liked bold, adventurous women who laughed a lot, dressed in seductive clothes and were drawn to nightspots like moths to a candle. It was, after all, what he had liked about her all those years ago, wasn’t it?

  ‘Where do you live?’ he asked, half turning to her, and she muttered her address, giving him directions to her house.

  They didn’t talk about Jack and she stole sidelong glances at the tight set of his face.

  He had always struck her as the sort of man who needed a challenge in a woman. He had always been highly delighted at her own forthrightness, and she had blossomed under those amused, sexy eyes. She had said things without her usual careful consideration, had voiced opinions with a sharp wit that had made him laugh. Maybe he liked the fact that his girlfriend was quite happy to defy him and do her own thing, weather he approved or not.

  The car pulled up outside the house and he switched off the engine, which she thought unnecessary, but she didn’t comment on that.

  She yanked down the handle of the door and said with a nervous laugh, ‘Thank you for driving me back and I do apologise again for David leaving you with no option. He’s normally such a sensible person, I can’t quite imagine what’s got into him.’

  He didn’t make the dismissive noises which she had expected. Instead he turned to her and said in a hard voice, ‘What was he like?’

  Katherine shot him a puzzled look. ‘Who?’ she asked.

  ‘Don’t patronise me, Katherine,’ he hissed. ‘You know who I’m talking about.’

  They stared at each other until she could feel the blood draining away from her face, and she turned away, hurriedly and clumsily trying to open the car door.

  ‘You haven’t answered me.’ His hand snaked out and twisted her around to face him.

  �
�Does it matter? It’s all in the past.’

  ‘I’ll decide what matters or not. Six years ago you walked out on me and, as far as I am concerned, there are still a few loose ends to be tied up.’

  ‘And if I refuse to oblige?’

  ‘You won’t,’ Dominic said harshly.

  The street-lamp outside her house, very reassuring on those winter nights when she arrived back at her house after dark, threw his angular face into half-shadow and gave him an alarming, devilish look.

  ‘I don’t intend to be cross-examined by you,’ she said in her firmest voice, the one which she pulled out whenever one of the girls in her class showed signs of getting a little out of hand. ‘I’m going inside now and I want you to leave me alone. Just because your girlfriend’s behaviour has put you in a foul temper it doesn’t mean that I have to sit here and suffer for that. Haven’t you got a punch-bag at your house? Or a dart-board? Or some other inanimate object you could take out your frustrations on?’

  It was a good speech. Cool, precise, with no indication of the nervous confusion raging inside her. When she had known him before, he had never seen that cool, precise side to her. It should, she decided, throw him off-course.

  She pulled her arm away from him, opened the car door and hurried out to the house.

  She was fumbling in her bag for her key when she realised that he was standing next to her, or rather looming over her, darkly menacing, and she spun round to face him with somewhat less of her self-composure.

  ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ Her voice was high and disconcerted.

  ‘Waiting for you to open the front door.’

  ‘I can see myself in, thank you,’ she informed him, pushing open the door, and he didn’t answer. He just reached out, pushed back the door and stepped inside.