One Reckless Night (17 page)

 
'Because of what happened?' She made her tone derisive. 'We were both consenting adults. And I can't be the first one-night stand you've enjoyed.'

 
'It isn't something I make a habit of.' His voice had an edge to it.

 
'Should I feel honored?'

 
'No,' he said. 'Although I suppose your feeling anything at all could be a major step forward.'

 
She winced inwardly, but rallied. 'If that's what you think, I'm surprised you didn't leave me to my own devices.'

 
'Sometimes I surprise myself too,' he said grimly. 'Never mind,' Zanna said lightly. 'Tomorrow you'll be able to lay down your burden with a clear conscience.' 'Perhaps.'

 
'No,' she said. 'Definitely. Your stepmother may have all the charm in the world, but I'm out of here. You stick to controlling your galleries, Mr Lantrell, and leave me in peace. After all, if I'd wanted to be dominated and manipulated, I'd have stayed at Westcott Holdings.' 'You had a choice?' He sounded surprised. 'Doesn't everyone?'

 
'Not always,' Jake said slowly. 'And not from what I've heard of your father.'

 
'Well, now you know differently.' Zanna turned back to stare determinedly out of the car window. The scenery was spectacular, she had to admit. Tiny wisps of cloud swirled against the deep blue of the sky and the hills were an amalgam of bleached rock and purple shadow. On their lower slopes cypresses cast black shadows across the parched grass. It couldn't have been a greater contrast to the sophisticated bustle of the coast.

 
So wild, she thought. So isolated. And not somewhere you could leave in a hurry. A shiver ran through her. 'Are you cold? Is the air-conditioning too much?' 'No,' she said hurriedly. 'How much further is it?' 'About another kilometre.'

 
'And the house is called Les Etoiles-The Stars. Isn't that rather a strange name?'

 
Jake smiled faintly. 'You won't think so when you've spent a night there. When there are no clouds the stars look the size of a man's fist, and close enough to touch.'

 
Like at Emplesham. Repressing another shiver, Zanna said coolly, 'I doubt if I'll be there long enough to notice.'

 
The car swung onto a dusty track with a downward gradient. Ahead of her Zanna could see a wall, and a pair of wrought-iron gates. As the car approached the gates swept open in obedience to a remote control device operated by Maurice, and closed behind them. It seemed there was no turning back.

 
There were more cypresses here, a whole avenue of them standing like silent sentinels, guarding the way down to the house. It lay in a hollow, a rambling cream-colored building, two-storeyed, with a faded terracotta roof and green shutters masking the windows. It was big, but by no means as grand as Zanna had expected, and this was oddly reassuring.

 
As the car stopped in front of a short flight of shallow steps she turned to Jake to make some polite comment and saw that he was frowning, the firm mouth fixed and almost grim.

 
A woman in a dark dress had emerged from the main door of the house and was waiting for them.

 
'Madame Cordet,' Jake said quietly in response to Zanna's enquiring glance. 'I told you she existed.'

 
He put a hand firmly under her arm and escorted her up the steps.

 
The housekeeper's greeting was polite, but formal, and though her dark eyes were alive with curiosity she seemed ill at ease as she shook hands with Zanna.

 
'Et madame?' Jake asked abruptly, after he too had been greeted.

 
Madame Cordet's plump face looked anxious as she turned and led the way into the house.

 
After the radiance of the afternoon sun, the house was cool and full of shadows. Zanna was staring round her, trying to adjust to the change in light, when she became aware of a new and almost tangible tension in her companions. She saw that they were looking towards the wide sweep of staircase which dominated the hall.

 
At the bend of the stairs someone else was standing. A woman, Zanna saw, tall, with fair hair, and wearing a crimson blouse above a white skirt. In the dimness her face was a blur-apart from her eyes, which seemed to burn with a green flame as she looked down at them.

 
A stranger, but somehow as familiar as her own reflection. As familiar as the portrait that used to hang on her father's wall. Zanna felt suddenly as if she'd been turned to stone.

 
Her hand closed on Jake's arm. Her voice sounded hoarse, almost unrecognizable.

 
'Who-is that?'

 
'I think you know.'

 
His arm was behind her, urging her forward, gently but inexorably.

 
'No.' She tried to free herself, to run away, out into the sunshine. She wanted to escape from the shadows in this house. To turn her back on this incredible, this monstrous possibility. To recover her reeling sanity.

 
'It's all right.' He spoke softly, reassuringly. 'Darling, I swear to you everything will be all right.' He looked up at the woman on the stairs. 'Susan, my love, I've brought her to you at last.'

 
The woman put out shaking hands. 'Susie-my baby-my little blessed girl.' Her voice was deep and husky, cracking with emotion. Zanna was close enough now to see the tears glistening on her face.

 
Zanna turned on Jake. 'What is this? Another of your sick games? How dare you pretend that this is my mother? My mother's dead-she's been dead since I was a baby. Who is this woman? What's going on here?'

 
Jake put his hands on her shoulders and looked down into her eyes. 'Listen to me, sweetheart.' His voice was gentle, but very firm. 'Your mother didn't die. That was a story your father invented to cover up the fact that she'd left him. To soothe his damned ego, he preferred to pretend she was dead rather than happy somewhere else without him.'

 
He added quietly, 'But she could never be completely happy, Susie. Not without you. All these years she's been waiting-praying for a chance to make contact with you.'

 
'No.' Zanna's voice broke. 'This can't be true-it can't. No one could do such a thing.'

 
'He wanted it to be true.' Susan Lantrell drew a deep, shuddering breath. 'Perhaps, eventually, he even came to believe it.'

 
'But all this time you let me believe it too,' Zanna cried out in anguish. 'How could you do that?'

 
'Because I was a coward,' the other woman said, with deep sadness.

 
Jake turned his head and spoke to the housekeeper, who was hovering, her face a mask of concern.

 
'Sylvie, make some tea, please, and bring it to the salon. I think we need to sit down calmly and talk this thing through.'

 
'Blame me if you want. Hate me if you must-but please, please listen to me,' Susan Lantrell added, with passionate intensity.

 
There was a long, troubled silence. So many thoughts were battling for supremacy in Zanna's tired brain. So many painful images, tumbling into her mind one after the other. So much that she now understood with anguished clarity.

 
She wanted to shut them off. To turn and walk away from it all. To wipe out all that had happened and revert to the single-minded, power-orientated girl she'd been only a couple of months ago. Before one reckless night had changed her life for ever.

 
But that, she knew, was impossible. That girl no longer existed. And, however much it might hurt, she realized she had to listen to what her mother had to say. Otherwise all the unanswered questions would remain with her for the rest of her life, like a wound that wouldn't heal.

 
Quietly she released herself from Jake's hands.

 
'Very well,' she agreed tonelessly. 'I'll listen.'

 
'I should never have married him,' said Susan Lantrell. Her eyes looked past Zanna, heavy with remembered suffering. 'I don't even know if I ever loved him. My mother was all for it, of course, because my father had left us rather badly off and Gerald had money.

 
'There was someone I wanted. His name was Peter, but he'd just started his own small engineering company and we couldn't even afford to get engaged. I was trying to establish myself as a painter, so I said I'd wait for him.'

 
'What happened?' Zanna asked. The salon was a large, high-ceilinged room, with long windows opening out on to a lawned garden. Above them a ceiling fan whirred languidly, providing a welcome breath of air.

 
She was seated on a deeply cushioned sofa. Jake was beside her and her mother sat opposite in a high-backed chair, her hands gripping its curved wooden arms as if she needed the support.

 
The tea had been placed on a table between them. It was hot and strong and it had stopped Zanna shaking inside.

 
'The company failed-was forced into receivership. It seemed to happen overnight. My mother said it was inevitable, that Peter didn't have what it took to make a go of anything. Afterwards he had a kind of breakdown. I used to go and see him in hospital, but half the time he didn't seem to know who I was. And I was under this constant pressure-from my mother-from Gerald.' She shook her head. 'It's no excuse, I know, but you can't imagine what it was like.'

 
'Yes,' Zanna said quietly. 'Yes, I can.'

 
'I found myself married without quite knowing how it had happened. In the end it seemed easier to give in rather than keep fighting. We went to Jamaica for our honeymoon. While we were there Gerald told me that Peter was dead. That he'd killed himself. He told me as if he was drawing a line under a balance sheet-writing off some disappointing transaction.'

 
She looked soberly at Zanna. 'And it was then I knew that the receivership had been his fault. That he'd used his power, his contacts, to destroy Peter. I realized then how far he was prepared to go to get what he wanted.'

 
She shuddered. 'I should have left him then, but perhaps I didn't want to admit that he could really be so morally bankrupt. So-we came home, and I started learning to be Lady Westcott. Everything-every aspect of our lives-had to be subjugated to the success of Westcott Holdings. He paraded me like a trophy-his beautiful, talented young wife.

 
'Except that I didn't paint any more. Gerald resented the time it took-the concentration that should have been devoted to him. In private he began sneering at my work, calling it "Sue's daubs". Publicly he referred to it as if it was some pathetic little hobby, instead of an essential part of me.

 
'Slowly I realized how completely he wanted to change me. That everything that made me the person- the woman-I was had to be erased from my memory banks. He wanted a shell-a facade. Someone in a designer dress who'd run his home like clockwork and never argue.'

 
'Was that when you painted that portrait of yourself?' Zanna asked quietly. 'The one without a face?'

 
Her mother nodded. 'It was a cry for help, but he couldn't see it. That was just before I found I was pregnant. He was furious about that too. He was just about to embark on a big Far Eastern trip, and the doctors said I couldn't go with him. He went on and on about the inconvenience, how stupid-how selfish I was.

 
'And then he started being very kind about it. Telling me that the doctors were worried about my general health-my emotional stability. That maybe this wasn't the right time to start a family. That perhaps we should think again.'

 
'Oh, God,' Zanna whispered, putting a hand to her mouth. 'Oh, dear God.' She felt Jake stir restively beside her.

 
Susan Lantrell looked down at her hands, clasped tensely in her lap. 'Perhaps I was stupid, but at first I really didn't see what he was getting at. When I realised, I was horrified. I waited till he'd gone to London, then I left the house and went to stay with my old nanny. I wrote to Gerald, saying I needed a break-a change of air-and that I'd see him when he came back from his trip.'

 
'Why didn't you leave him altogether?' Zanna asked. She was trembling again, and she felt Jake reach over and close a hand over hers.

 
'I intended to,' Susan said, with a sigh. 'I was going to ask him for a divorce. But when he returned he genuinely seemed to have changed. He was full of plans for when the baby was born-had rooms at the house turned into a nursery suite. I thought perhaps it was a turning point.'

 
Zanna said harshly, 'No one ever changes. Least of all my father.'

 
'When you were born, he was elated. On top of the world. I felt I had to give the marriage a second chance. But when I brought you home everything was different. I'd wanted my old nanny to be there to help me over the first weeks. Instead, Gerald had engaged a young woman I'd never met from one of the top agencies-all starch and timetables.'