A Little Revenge Omnibus (14 page)

Suddenly her small doubts, tiny minnows nibbling at the sure structure of her belief in his love for her, had become a swarming shoal of destructive piranha eating greedily into and devouring her confidence.

Where was Brough? Why had he gone like that? She had a vague memory of him bending over her and speaking to her, but now, when it was crucially important to do so, she just couldn’t remember what exactly it was he had said. Something about having to go...but why? Because once the immediate passion of the moment had been spent he had had second thoughts about loving her? Or had, perhaps, her declaration of love for him come too soon and, even worse, been unwanted? Had she assumed too much...loved too much?

Outside dawn was lightening the sky. Sternly she told herself that there was no point in allowing herself to think so destructively. Only Brough knew the answers to her questions. Only Brough could assuage her doubts. But where was he? She had his home telephone number; she could always ring him.

She looked at the telephone, her fingers itching to pick up the receiver and dial his number, but it was still only six o’clock in the morning. What if her worst fears were correct? What if he had regretted the intimacy they had shared? How would he react when he heard her voice, an unwanted intrusion into his privacy, and an even more unwanted reminder of something he might prefer to forget? And how would she feel, knowing that he didn’t want to speak to her?

Give it time...give him time, she urged herself.

* * *

S
IX
O
’
CLOCK
. B
ROUGH
stretched and grimaced as he turned over in the small bed in his grandmother’s spare bedroom. It was far too early to ring Kelly and too soon to leave for home. He wanted to check with the specialist that his grandmother was truly on the way to recovery before he did that, and they had told him at the hospital last night that he couldn’t see the specialist until ten o’clock in the morning.

He would ring Kelly before he left the hospital to come home, he comforted himself. God, but he missed her...wanted her. He frowned as he remembered the look of fear and revulsion on her face as Julian Cox held her. There was something that just didn’t jell, that just didn’t ring true to her character about her whole relationship with Cox—something he could sense without being able to analyse properly. It was obvious that she loathed him, but at the ball she had been actively flirting with him.

Brough frowned.

‘We’re old friends,’ she had told him dismissively when he had challenged her, her whole attitude towards him almost aggressive. In a way that an animal was aggressive when it tried to cover up its fear?

Brough knew with a gut-deep instinct that there was no way Kelly, his Kelly, could ever have done anything so directly opposed to her open, straightforward nature as to be deceitful. It simply wasn’t her. And neither would he have thought it would have been her ever to be even remotely attracted to a man like Julian Cox. It wasn’t his own male ego or vanity that made him think that. He simply knew that she was too sensitive, too aware, too intelligent to be attracted by a man who held her sex in such obvious contempt.

But maybe, just maybe, it was possible that a much younger and more impressionable and vulnerable Kelly might have been unable to see through the façade that Cox was so adept at throwing around himself. His own sister, after all, had fallen for it, but that didn’t explain why Kelly had been flirting so heavily with Cox on the night of the ball.

Wide awake now, Brough closed his eyes and tried to collect his thoughts. What was he doing? Whatever may or may not have happened in Kelly’s past, it was her past. She had no need to make any explanations or apologies for it to him. He loved her as she was and for what she was, and if she had made an error of judgement...

An error of judgement? By allowing Cox to be her lover? The vicious kick of emotion he could feel in his stomach was an all-male gut reaction, but just as immediate and even more powerful was an instinctive awareness that there was no way Kelly would ever have shared that kind of intimacy with Julian Cox. Brough had no idea how he knew that...he just knew it. And, knowing it, he owed it to her and to their love to allow her privacy over the whole issue of just what role Julian Cox had played in her life prior to their meeting.

Whatever it may or may not have been, there was one thing Brough was one hundred per cent sure of: it most certainly didn’t give Cox the right to behave towards her in the way he had been doing, half frightening the life out of her, bullying her.

Suddenly Brough was even more anxious to get back to her. Half past six... He was sorely tempted to ring her, but the things he wanted to say to her were so intensely personal that they simply could not be said over the phone.

Eve had told him that she and Harry wanted a Christmas wedding. Well, they could most certainly have it, but his own marriage to Kelly was going to take place first. Well, so far as he was concerned it was. Kelly, he suspected, might take a bit of persuading. She took her responsibilities to her partner, Beth, very seriously; that much was obvious.

Six forty-five. Brough groaned, quickly calculating how long it was going to be before he could get back to Rye-on-Averton and to Kelly.

* * *

‘A
RE
YOU
AWAKE
?’
Eve whispered softly to Harry.

Sternly he sat up in bed and looked at her. She might have been able to persuade him that he should stay overnight with her, but he had been very firmly determined that they would sleep in separate rooms, and they had. Eve was so sweetly naive that she had no idea of just what she was doing to his self-control, curling up at the bottom of his bed like that in her soft white nightdress, her long hair flowing down her back.

‘What are you doing in here?’ he demanded.

‘I came to talk to you...I couldn’t sleep,’ she answered, whispering excitedly, ‘Oh, Harry, I’m so happy...’ Her face suddenly clouded. ‘When are you going to see Julian?’

‘Nine o’clock,’ Harry responded promptly, ‘and then you and I are going out to celebrate.’

As she looked down at her bare left hand he followed her line of thought and told her gruffly, ‘I’ve got my grandmother’s ring... I’d like you to have it, but if you don’t like it...’

‘Oh, I’m sure I shall,’ Eve breathed, pink-cheeked. ‘Oh, Harry,’ she repeated, flinging herself into his arms, ‘I’m so excited. I still can’t quite believe what’s happening...’

* * *

S
EVEN
O
’
CLOCK
. D
EE
pushed back the duvet and padded over to her bedroom window. Beyond it she could see the soft rolling countryside, the fertile acres which had been tended by her ancestors for so many generations.

Once, those ancestors had been as fertile as the fields they tilled, but she and Harry were the only descendants in their generation, a poor crop yield indeed. Harry would marry, of course, and hopefully would produce sons and daughters to continue the family tradition. She would never marry nor have children since through her own experience as a motherless girl she had formed very strong views on the need of a child to have the loving support of both its parents. An old-fashioned view in this day and age, perhaps, but it was hers and she had the right to have it—just as she had the right to choose whether or not to yield to the demand of her own fast-ticking biological clock.

Yes, the future of their family was solely dependent on Harry. It needn’t have been that way. There had once been a time when... But what was the point in dwelling on that now? Unbidden she had a sharp mental image of Julian Cox. Her whole body stiffened as a surge of pain gripped her.

She had waited for such a long time for the chance to punish Julian Cox for what he had done...to punish him in a way which would ensure that he suffered just as she had suffered...but once again it seemed that he was evading that justice, escaping it. There was no point in her being angry with Kelly. Love was a powerfully potent force. No one knew that better than she, but it wasn’t over yet; there was still Anna’s role to be played. Julian still needed money and he needed it desperately now. Brough had already refused to invest any money with him, thus closing down that avenue of escape to him. But Julian could still marry Eve and thereby gain access to her money.

But Brough was his sister’s trustee, and once Kelly told him what Julian had done to Beth it was Dee’s guess that Brough would never allow Julian to marry his sister. Julian was in debt up to his neck and sinking fast...very fast...

So maybe everything wasn’t lost after all. Julian might have been clever enough technically not to break the law, but he had certainly come very close to doing so. Through the people she had hired, Dee had discovered a vast hidden tangle of false names and hideaway companies, all of which could be linked to him if, like her, you used a little creative thinking. He might deceive others but he couldn’t deceive her. There were the aliases with the same initials as his, the clever use of his mother’s maiden name and the names of people now dead.

No, legally he might be able to laugh in the faces of his victims as he challenged them to claim restitution from him, but morally— But what did Julian know of morals? What did he care about the good name of others, about their pride in it, their shame at losing it? Nothing.

A bitter smile curled her mouth as her eyes closed on a wave of sharp pain.

Her father had been such a proud man. Distant and old-fashioned towards her in many ways, perhaps, but always, always scrupulously honest in everything he did...everything. But he was dead now, and it was pointless to dwell on how much closer they might have become once they had been able to meet as adults. That chance was gone, destroyed...like her option to marry and have children; stolen from her...

Stop it, you’re getting maudlin, she warned herself sharply. It was time for her to get up. She had work to do. The markets in Hong Kong would soon be closing. She had investments there she needed to check on.

Julian enjoyed gambling on the futures market. Or at least he had done until recently, when he had begun to sustain such heavy losses, outsmarted and outbid, outbought and outsold by a shadowy rival who seemed to second-guess his every thought. Poor Julian!

When he woke up this morning it would be to find that his investments had sunk without trace, that the profit he had been so in need of making had become a loss.

Suddenly Dee began to feel better.

CHAPTER TEN

W
HITE
-
FACED
, J
ULIAN
STARED
at the screen of his computer, a sick feeling of shock and disbelief coagulating his blood.

He had woken up two hours ago, his tongue thick with yesterday’s alcohol and his head throbbing. That bitch Kelly thought she was so clever; leading him on and then dropping him, but he’d get even with her. But first that hot tip he had picked up yesterday from his informer had sounded such a sure thing. He had bought heavily into it, using all his last reserves, but this morning when he had gone to check the market he had hardly been able to believe his eyes. The stock was gone, wiped out, finished, and with it everything he owned. Everything.

He pushed the computer screen off his desk with such violence that it hit the floor. He picked up the keyboard and flung it against the wall of his office in an attempt to relieve his panic and fury. What the hell was he going to do? He had to have money by the end of this month. He had to. And it wasn’t just a matter of the banks calling in his loans and stopping him trading.

A long time ago Julian had hit on and discovered how easy it was to persuade gullible and often naively managed small private charities to accept his offer of free investment advice. Eagerly they had accepted, co-opting him onto their boards, offering him access to their monies, only too glad to have him remove from their shoulders the burden of managing their investments. Just so long as he provided them with an income which increased from year to year they were happy and didn’t enquire about their capital...

And that was exactly what he had done...until now... Never mind the fact that their capital was long since gone, used to fund his own lavish lifestyle, used to make investments so perilously on the outside of mere risky that no one else would touch them; just the excitement he had got from backing these outsiders had given him more of a buzz than sex and even drugs ever had.

Of course, the empty coffers of some of those early and rather clumsy siphoning-offs of funds had quickly come to light, but luckily he had been able to place the blame elsewhere and convince people that he was not the one responsible for the foolish investment and subsequent loss of their money, and he had even had the signatures of his co-investors to prove it. He had always been rather good at forging other people’s signatures. The first time he had put his skill to a financial advantage had been when he had stolen a ‘friend’s’ cheque book.

Those had been good days; fortune had favoured him and his investments and it had been no problem to move money from one place to another as and when it was needed. But now things were different. The markets were running against him and he had made heavy losses...too heavy... He needed money and he needed it urgently. It was all Kelly’s fault. He had gambled heavily on being able to persuade her to allow him to advise her, on how best to ‘invest’ her inheritance. But now she had dropped him—made a fool of him—and no woman did that.

It was a pity that Eve didn’t have access to her capital, and Brough certainly wasn’t going to be easy to persuade to allow her to have full control over it; but still, it was better than nothing.

The sweat of fear that had soaked his skin was beginning to disappear and, with it, his earlier panic. He was worrying too much and too soon. What he needed was something to calm him down, help him relax...a drink...

He went to find the bottle of gin he had discarded in the kitchen the previous evening and then stopped as he heard his doorbell ring.

It was just gone nine o’clock.

* * *

I
T
HAD
BEEN
well gone ten o’clock when Brough had seen the specialist, who had declared very reassuringly that his grandmother would make a full recovery, and then Brough had gone from his office to his grandmother’s bed to spend his allocated fifteen minutes with her. Kelly would be in the shop by now. Hurrying outside the hospital, he reached for his mobile phone.

Kelly had just opened the post when she heard the phone ring. As she reached for the receiver her heart started to beat very fast, her face flushing a soft pink, but to her disappointment her caller wasn’t Brough but Beth.

‘Hi... How are you?’ her friend and partner asked her.

‘I’m fine; how are you?’ Kelly returned automatically.

‘Not so good,’ Beth responded. ‘I’m still trying to fix up a visit to that factory I told you about.’

As Kelly listened to her friend’s enthusiastic voice she suddenly heard the sound that warned her that a second caller was trying to get through on her line. Was it Brough? Even if it was, she could hardly cut Beth off in mid-sentence, she acknowledged frustratedly as her friend paused for a brief breath before continuing. ‘Look, the reason I’m ringing is that I’ve decided I’m going to stay on in Prague for some more time. It could take me a while to track down this factory, and I’m determined to do it, Kelly, even if I have to learn the language to make myself understood,’ she told her friend with unusual fierceness. ‘I don’t care how much Alex tries to put me off... I want that glass. Look, I’m intending to move into a cheaper hotel for the rest of my stay, but I don’t know which one yet. I’ll give you a ring once I’ve sorted something out.’

‘Oh, Beth, you will take care, won’t you?’ Kelly begged her. ‘If your interpreter doesn’t think it’s wise—’

‘He’s just being awkward and difficult,’ Beth assured her firmly. ‘I’m an adult, Kelly, not a child,’ she added with un-Beth-like grittiness, saying before Kelly could raise any further objections, ‘Look, I have to go; I’ll be in touch. Bye...’

Frowning a little, Kelly replaced the receiver. Beth was obviously determined to track down this elusive factory, but her determination seemed so at odds with her normal gentle, almost passive behaviour that Kelly was a little puzzled by it. She certainly seemed to thoroughly dislike her interpreter, who, from what she had said, seemed to be doing his best to be extraordinarily obstructive.

Nervously Kelly dialled the numbers that would allow her to check her answering service.

Her heart started to thump as the recorded voice announced that she had one message.

‘Hear message?’ the tinny voice asked.

‘Yes,’ Kelly whispered, her throat suddenly constricted.

‘Kelly, it’s me, Brough. I need to talk to you...see you... I should be home around eleven-thirty; could you possibly call round? I’d come to the shop, but what I want to say I’d prefer to say in private... Bye now.’

‘Repeat?’ the tinny recording was demanding rather bossily. ‘Repeat?’

‘No. No...’ Kelly responded automatically.

What did Brough mean? What was it he wanted to say to her? Her mouth had gone dry and her heart was thudding heavily in a drumbeat of doom.

He had changed his mind, made a mistake... That was what he wanted to say to her and that was why he wanted privacy in order to do so. He didn’t really love her at all.

Kelly started to shiver, causing the customer who had just walked into the shop to exclaim sympathetically, ‘Oh, my, you do look poorly! It’s not this virus that’s been going round, is it? I should go straight to bed if I were you.’

If only the cause of her pain were merely a virus, Kelly reflected after her customer had gone. What time was it now? Eleven-thirty, Brough had said, his voice sounding remote and grave. He wouldn’t have asked her to go round...

She would have to close the shop; it was too late to get someone in to take over from her. It would be the earliest lunch hour in history, she decided miserably. There was no point in trying to deceive herself or give herself false hope. Brough was only confirming what she herself had been thinking. He had had second thoughts, realised that her feelings were much, much stronger than his, and now he wanted to make the situation completely clear to her. That was the way he was. He wasn’t the kind of man simply to walk away without any explanation.

He was sorry, he would tell her. He didn’t want to hurt her. What they’d had, had been good...very good...but for him it had simply been a one-off and not, as she had obviously believed, the basis, the foundation, for a lasting relationship or a permanent commitment.

Five past eleven... She would leave at eleven-fifteen... Plenty of time for her to drive to where Brough was living. She reached mechanically for a cloth so that she could pass the time in polishing some of the items they had on display, but her hands were shaking so much she put it down again. In her present state of agitation she was likely to do more harm than good.

* * *

J
ULIAN
STARED
DRUNKENLY
at the screen of his computer which he had picked up off the floor. His system had crashed...just like the whole of his life. The last thing he had expected when he’d opened the door to his caller two hours ago had been to discover Harry standing on his doorstep. The other man had asked him quietly if he could come in. Automatically, Julian had agreed.

‘There’s something I have to tell you,’ Harry began calmly as Julian led him into his untidy, dusty sitting room, shaking his head when Julian offered him a drink, saying mildly, ‘Rather too early for me...’

‘It’s never too early...’ Julian responded boastfully as he poured himself another gin.

He had no idea what Harry wanted. He only knew the other man vaguely and totally despised him. Harry represented everything that he himself loathed.

‘Eve has asked me to come and see you,’ Harry began quietly. ‘She and I are getting married...’

Julian stared at him in disbelief. Was he trying to play some kind of joke on him? He searched the other man’s face, a slow sensation of sick realisation creeping like death along his veins. This was no joke.

‘What the hell are you saying? She’s marrying me,’ Julian told him furiously.

Harry said nothing but just continued to look steadily at him.

‘No! No! I don’t believe it,’ Julian insisted, starting to shake his head, trying to dispel the clouds of panic swamping him. ‘I want to see her...talk to her...’

‘I’m sorry, but I don’t think that would be a good idea,’ Harry told him politely.

‘You don’t think...?’ Julian gave him an ugly look. ‘Eve is my girlfriend. We’re all but engaged, dammit, and—’

‘She was your girlfriend,’ Harry agreed quietly, ‘although...’ He stopped and gave Julian a steady look. ‘It seems to me that you rather took her for granted. Perhaps if you’d valued her a little more...as she deserves to be valued...’

‘Oh, my God, now I’ve heard it all—you telling me how to treat a woman...’ Julian gave him a contemptuous look and tossed back the last of his drink. ‘What the hell do you know about women? Nothing...’ he jeered. ‘She loves me; she told me so... She’s besotted with me...’ he boasted.

Harry said nothing, refusing to retaliate, simply watching him with a look in his eyes that goaded Julian into walking unsteadily across the floor and pouring himself another drink.

‘You can’t do this to me...and don’t think I don’t know who’s behind it. It’s that precious brother of hers; he never wanted—’

‘This has nothing to do with Brough,’ Harry corrected him. ‘Eve and I are in love...’

‘Eve in love...with you? Don’t make me laugh. She loves me.’

She did love him. She had told him so in a soft, nervous little voice, her eyes big with wonder and excitement. It had been so easy to trick her into believing he had fallen for her. She was so trusting... She hadn’t even questioned the fact that he hadn’t taken her to bed.

‘I respect you too much,’ he had told her untruthfully.

The truth was that his drinking and the intense pressure of his lifestyle meant that sex was the last thing on his mind, the last desire he had. It took a woman like Kelly to arouse that need in him, not a babyish innocent like Eve.

Julian knew that it was her brother who was behind her decision to drop him. Brough had guessed that Julian was after her money, of course. Julian gave a small mental shrug. So what? He didn’t give a damn what Brough had or hadn’t guessed, and as for preferring Harry to him... That was ridiculous...impossible...

‘I don’t believe you... I’m going to see Eve—talk to her,’ he announced, walking unsteadily towards the door, but oddly, when he got there, Harry was standing in front of it, barring his way.

‘No, I’m sorry, but you’re not,’ Harry told him calmly.

Julian looked drunkenly at him.

‘What is this? You can’t stop me...’

Harry stood solidly in front of the door, simply looking at him. A little to his own surprise Julian discovered that he was actually backing off. What the hell was he doing? He wasn’t afraid of Harry.

‘I think you’ll find it would be best for everyone concerned if you simply accept the situation,’ he heard Harry saying gently to him, to his utter amazement.

‘People will soon forget. After all, it isn’t as though you were actually engaged, and neither Eve nor I shall say anything. People will simply believe that the two of you drifted apart. It happens all the time.’

Julian swayed and focused vacantly on Harry’s face. What the hell was he trying to suggest? That he, Julian Cox, was in danger of being humiliated by people thinking that Eve had dropped him? No way!

‘Eve mentioned that you have business interests in Hong Kong. I’ve heard it is a fascinating part of the world, even more so these days... Have you ever been there? I haven’t myself... Farming doesn’t combine well with travelling...’

Julian continued to gape at him.

Was Harry actually daring subtly to suggest to him, to warn him, that he should leave town...? No, it was impossible. Harry simply wasn’t like that. He didn’t have the nerve...nor the subtlety. No, he was imagining it, Julian assured himself. The other man was too unworldly to know that there was no way Julian could visit Hong Kong right now, not with the money he owed out there, the enemies he had made.

‘I’ll let myself out,’ he heard Harry saying mildly. When he reached the front door, Harry turned to him and commented quietly, ‘I should keep off the drink for a while if I were you.’ Then he turned round and opened the door to leave.