Authors: Sara Craven
least. All the memories she had evoked over the past few days had
done was to revive an ache in her heart that she thought had been
stilled for ever. 'And I'm here on business—strictly business.'
'Ah yes,' he said meditatively. 'These mythical papers from your
uncle.'
'They're far from mythical!' She looked up indignantly. 'I can fetch
them if you wish and then ...'
'No, no.' Impatiently he waved her back into her seat. 'I'm not that
interested. You can give me the gist of them, surely?'
It was an unpromising start, Davina thought ruefully. She said
slowly, 'Well, apart from anything else, Uncle Philip still has an
option on your next book. The American market is clamouring for
it, and he'd like to know when he can expect to see the manuscript.'
He said softly, 'Did he send you here to ask that? I would have
thought an approach to my agent would have been more
appropriate.'
Again she did not meet his eyes. 'Alec seemed to have no more idea
of what you were doing than anyone else.'
He shrugged. 'Then that's obviously the answer. I'm not doing
anything. Your uncle will just have to wave his option goodbye and
tell the Americans there isn't going to be another book. Right?'
Davina got to her feet. 'It's far from right! You're a writer, Gethyn,
and a good one. You can't just abandon a talent like that.'
'Watch me,' he said laconically.
'No!' She faced him her eyes blazing. 'You've created a public for
yourself—a public that's waiting eagerly for more of your work.
You can't just—betray them. It isn't ethical.'
'What an impassioned plea.' His voice was cold. 'Is your concern
really with my readers or with Hanson Greer whose profits might
show a decline without my continued services?'
'That's a foul thing to say,' she said jerkily. 'If that's what you
believe, then break your contract. Offer your book somewhere else.
Uncle Philip won't stop you.'
'I don't think he'd thank you for that suggestion. Philip Greer's a
businessman, not a dewy-eyed philanthropist. Oh, don't get me
wrong.' He lifted a silencing hand as she began an instinctive
protest. 'I like your uncle. Of all the members of your family I've
met, he's given me the least trouble,' he added cynically. 'But you'll
never convince me he's going to quietly watch me change horses in
midstream without lifting a finger to stop me. Anyway,' he gave a
brief sigh, 'the question is purely academic. There is no book.'
She stared at him, her brows drawn together perplexedly. 'But there
was,' she began. 'You were writing one in the flat—just
before—you went to America.' She had been going to say 'just
before you left me' and wondered uneasily if he was aware of her
hasty substitution of words.
'What a memory,' he said admiringly. 'I'm afraid that particular piece
of work died on me, and so did the spirit that moved it.'
She said haltingly, 'But perhaps if you looked at it again —it might
have possibilities. That does work sometimes, you know—to give
something a breathing space.'
'Is that a fact?' he mocked. 'Thus speaks the daughter of a
publishing house. I always did wonder what you had in your veins
instead of blood, Davina. It must have been printer's ink.'
The cruelty in his voice made her shrink inwardly. She forced
herself to look at him, to lift her chin. She said deliberately, 'But
what else did you expect, Gethyn? I did warn you that I was here
on business.'
'Then I'm afraid your journey has been unnecessary,' he said, and
his tone sounded bored. 'My writing career is over. I have other
interests now.'
'So I've heard.' She dropped back wearily on to her chair. 'A
woollen mill.'
'You sound disapproving. Yet the weaving of cloth is an older craft
than the weaving of words, and probably far more respectable.' He
came away from the doorway and walked across to the table, taking
the chair opposite to her. 'Besides, locally, we need the industry,
even on this small scale.'
'You said my uncle wasn't a philanthropist. It isn't exactly the role
I'd envisaged for you either,' she said coolly, and he grinned.
'Philanthropy doesn't enter into it, girl. Other mills make a profit, so
why shouldn't mine? They have a strong tourist appeal too.'
'And you really think you'll be satisfied with that?' she asked almost
contemptuously. 'Selling tweed and tapestry to holidaymakers in
this backwater?'
His brows rose. 'I'm sorry you have such a low opinion of it. I spent
a holiday here myself once when I was a kid. Compared to the
back-to-back houses and the slagheaps, it seemed like paradise on
earth, and I knew then it was the environment I wanted for my own
children.'
'Even with snakes on the mountainside,' she said with a wintry
smile.
'Every paradise has its serpent. That's inevitable,' he said curtly.
Davina was silent. His casual reference to the possibility of children
had discomfited her. It showed very clearly that he was looking
ahead, beyond their broken marriage. She felt pain lash at her. How
could he speak so casually when he knew that she had suffered all
the heartbreak of an early miscarriage? That if things had been
different and the baby had lived, it would have been walking by
now—saying the first words which make those early years of the
first-born so uniquely precious to its parents. She felt tears scalding
behind her lids and dammed them back with a sheer effort of will.
Gethyn might have been able to dismiss the conception and loss of
their child from his mind, but she could not, and she swore to
herself that she would never let him see the hurt he had dealt her.
She said tonelessly, 'I have something else to tell you. Apparently
your last American tour was such an incredible success, they would
like you to undertake another.'
For a moment he stared at her, then he began to laugh.
'Duw,
Davina. You never give up, do you? What are you going to tell me
now—that I have a duty to the television networks and the luncheon
clubs?'
She raised her eyebrows. 'You can't pretend you didn't enjoy the
last one.' She hoped the bitterness underlying her words would
escape him.
'Why should I pretend?' he shrugged. 'Being feted and lionised on
that scale is like balm to the spirit, and I was feeling pretty raw
when I arrived in New York—for reasons I'm sure you'd rather we
didn't go into.'
'In spite of that, it didn't take you long to find consolation,' she
flashed, and wished passionately that the words were unsaid.
'Beware, Davina,' he said mockingly. 'A comment like that might
make a more conceited man think you'd been jealous, and we both
know that isn't true—don't we, lovely?' His voice had dropped
almost to a whisper.
She moistened her lips desperately. 'You're being quite ridiculous.
I—I think I'll go to bed now.' She pushed her chair back scraping it
across the floor and stood up. 'I'll be leaving first thing in the
morning,'
'Will you indeed?' He smiled faintly. 'Without even giving me time
to consider your—interesting proposition? What would your uncle
say?'
She paused, her attention arrested, in some bewilderment. 'Are you
telling me that you—might be interested after all?'
'In the tour—yes.' He rocked back on his chair, his face enigmatic.
'The money would be useful for what I want to do here. Times are
hard, you know. You could give me a couple of days to think it
over, couldn't you? I'm sure your uncle would spare you for that.'
She bit her lip. In the circumstances, she knew Uncle Philip would
encourage her to stay for as long as was necessary, and Gethyn
knew it too. Besides, if she stayed, she might even be able to
achieve her primary purpose for coming here and discuss the
divorce with him.
'Or maybe you're not the businesswoman you think,' his taunting
voice went on. 'I'm sure your uncle wouldn't run out on a deal
simply because the going got rough.' His voice roughened. 'But
that's always been your way, hasn't it,
cariad?
You lack staying
power.'
'You say that—you dare to say that?' Her temper was rising
recklessly. 'It was you that ran out on me, remember?'
'I've forgotten nothing.' He was on his feet too. 'It's all filed
away—every look, every gesture, every movement.' His eyes went
over her suddenly and she gasped. She might have been naked
under his blazing glance. 'Every inch too.' He laughed savagely as
he saw her face. 'Don't look so terrified, Davina. That's one thing
two years of nothing but memories can do for you—it renders you
immune. Now get along to bed—my bed—and sleep well. You can,
for I won't be around to disturb your chaste slumbers.'
She stared at him, speechless with rage, her breasts rising and
falling under the impetus of her emotions, then she spun on her heel
and almost ran to the door. She wrenched at the handle, obsessed
with the idea that in spite of what he said, he was going to come
after her—try to stop her, but only his voice followed her.
'I advise you to stick around, Davina, in spite of everything. Who
knows? You might get everything you came here for. You're not the
only one who wants to be free— or did I forget to mention I'm
planning to get married again?'
For a moment she was motionless, rooted to the spot. Then, forcing
her suddenly nerveless limbs to action, she very quietly opened the
door and walked out into the darkened hall. Moving like an
automaton, she found her way upstairs to the empty bedroom and
went in.
There was a key in the lock, old and stiff, but her fingers forced it
to turn and when it was done, she leaned against the panels of the
door as if the effort had exhausted her, closing her eyes wearily.
But this is what you wanted, a small insistent voice inside her
reminded her. That is what you came all this way to hear. He's
going to let you have your divorce.
So there was no reason—none at all—why she should suddenly feel
so desolate.
The first thing she noticed when she awoke in the morning was that
everything looked grey. But as she lifted herself up on her elbow,
pushing her hair back from her face, she realised that this was no
reflection of her emotional state, but simply that the weather had
changed during the night and it was raining. The second thing that
occurred to her was that someone was knocking with a certain
amount of impatience on her bedroom door and rattling the handle.
'Oh.' Davina threw back the covers and slid her feet to the floor.
'Just a minute,' she called. 'I'm coming!'
She unlocked the door. Rhiannon was standing on the threshold,
holding a cup of tea. She looked furious.
'What kind of daft game d'you call that—locking your door?' she
demanded, thrusting the cup at Davina so that some of the tea
spilled into the saucer. 'Those ways may do in London, but we have
no call to lock our doors round here. We aren't thieves.'
Davina met her angry look coolly. 'I never intended to suggest any
such thing,' she said. 'Force of habit, I suppose.'
Before weariness had overcome her the previous night, she had lain
awake for nearly an hour, Gethyn's parting words beating in her
brain. She had been forced to the conclusion that in spite of what
Huw Morgan might think, Rhiannon's feelings for Gethyn were not
one-sided in the least. He had said he intended to marry again, and
if there was another woman in his life besides his young cousin,
surely local gossip would have picked up the fact by now. So all the
indications were that he meant to marry Rhiannon, and it was
essential that she conceal all traces of her confused and emotional
state in Rhiannon's presence, and especially the motives that had
driven her to lock her door the previous night.
For a long time she had listened for the sound of Gethyn coming up
to bed, but she had heard nothing. Finally it occurred to her that she
had no idea where Rhiannon's room was. If that was Gethyn's
destination, and it was on the other side of the house, then it was no
wonder she had not heard him, she thought. Certainly Rhiannon did
not look as if she had slept very much—there were shadows under
her eyes—but neither did she have the supposedly blissful look of a