Romance of a Lifetime (16 page)

'Beth…' the quiet authority in his voice silenced her '… tonight you met the man named as co-respondent in your divorce. Not only did you not recognise him, but he didn't recognise you either, and you called him by completely the wrong name. Beth, my nephew is Kinross Bentley, the man you're supposed to have committed adultery with, and the two of you don't even know each other. Now I want to know what the hell is going on!'

beth swallowed hard. That man, that
arrogant
young man with the knowing eyes and too much self-confidence, was the one Martin had paid to lie about her. Marcus's
nephew!

'Why don't you go and ask him that?' she dismissed scornfully, a hundred different thoughts coursing through her mind, none of them making any sense. Not yet anyway; she was too stunned for that.

'Because I'm asking you,' Marcus grated. 'I'm not interested hi anything Ross has to say.'

'You don't seem to have had any trouble listening to him before!' Because this surely had to be Marcus's informant—a man who didn't even know her!

'And now I want to hear what you have to say,' Marcus said grimly.

'How do you know I'll tell you the truth?' she derided, her head back defiantly.

He shook his head. 'I know damn well that Ross hasn't!'

Beth sighed, stepping back. 'Then you had better come in, hadn't you,' she said dully.

She didn't completely understand the situation herself. How
long
had Marcus known his nephew had been named in her divorce? Did that have something to do with their initial meeting, and the consequent ones? Was that the reason none of their meetings had been a 'coincidence'?

She turned to face Marcus across the lounge. 'Perhaps you had better tell me what you already know,' she told him flatly. 'Or think you know,' she added hardly.

Marcus breathed in deeply, his hands thrust into his trouser pockets. 'I have a feeling, having come to know you as I do, that you aren't going to like it.'

'I'm sure I won't,' she muttered. 'But it has to be said anyway.'

'Very well,' he nodded decisively. 'As you know, I've spent most of the last couple of years in America.'

'It has been mentioned,' she said drily.

'Hmm,' he grimaced. 'Well, while I was there it would seem I neglected my duties as guardian to my nephew Ross.'

Beth frowned. 'He looked young, but not that young.'

Marcus made a face. 'Ross is only twenty, for all he might wish, and act, as if he were older. That was why, when it was brought to my attention, I was horrified at the affair and subsequent naming in the divorce of a woman several years older than he, not only in age but hi experience.'

'You mean me?' Beth realised disbelievingly.

He paced the room. 'When I challenged Ross about the affair he told me that you had paid him to be named as co-respondent after your affair ended, that you were willing to do anything to get rid of the husband you had become bored with.'

'That's a He,' she gasped.

'Let me finish, Beth,' he urged gently. 'Then you can tell me what really happened.'

'How kind,' she was stung into retaliating.

'Beth, this isn't easy for me either—it never is when you realise what a fool you've been.' He looked pained.

As well he might!

'It can't be,' Beth scorned.

'Ross is a very wealthy young man——'

'Then why take the money my
ex-husband
paid him to lie about my adultery?' she accused heatedly. 'If he didn't need the money——'

'As Ross's guardian I have the power to decide whether or not he takes control of that wealth at twenty-one or twenty-five.

He's had an allowance for the last three years, since my sister and her husband, his parents, were killed hi a plane crash, but it would seem he's been living well above that allowance, that he had debts that needed repaying, the sort of debts that he daren't come to me about,' Marcus added grimly. 'He got in with a crowd that were older than him, that thought nothing of losing several thousand pounds a night in a casino——'

'Martin's crowd,' Beth realised.

'It would seem so,' he confirmed. 'He had debts that needed paying, and he admitted to me that he had accepted money from you to help you get rid of your husband.'

'I didn't divorce Martin; he divorced me—with the false evidence Ross gave him!'

Marcus shook his head self-disgustedly. 'I had no reason at that time to doubt Ross's word. Even the fact that Bradshaw had Marcus shook his head self-disgustedly. 'I had no reason at that time to doubt Ross's word. Even the fact that Bradshaw had changed his name to yours after the marriage seemed to confirm you were——'

'A spoilt little bitch,' Beth finished with a sigh. 'That wasn't my idea. As you would have found if you had ever bothered to ask
me
what happened!'

He gave a groan. I'm not proud of my part in this.'

She looked at him intently. 'Just what
was
your part in all this? Just exactly why did you go to Italy?'

'To meet the woman who was so determined to rid herself of a husband she was bored with that she was willing to pay someone to go into court and have their name blackened for her,' he admitted harshly.

Beth gasped. 'And?'

'And instead I met a very beautiful woman with an air of vulnerability about her that made me want to wrap her up and protect her from the world!' He shook his head. 'I went to Verona, after discovering that was where you had gone to amuse yourself, with the intention perhaps of intriguing you a little myself, so that you would know what it felt like. Instead I ended up totally bewildered, by the contrast in the things I had been told about you, and the ethereally lovely woman I finally met.

It didn't make sense.'

'And so you thought I was playing games,' she said bitterly. 'Repulsing you one minute, seemingly accepting your company the next.' She could see it all now, just how damning her own behaviour must have appeared ia view of what he had been told about her.

'Nothing else seemed to make sense,' Marcus admitted heavily.

'And now?' she choked.

'Now I think I had better hear the true facts from you/ he invited heavily.

Beth drew in a ragged breath. Marcus had sought her out» deliberately, with the idea of punishing her in some way for Tier selfish use of his nephew. What form had that punishment been supposed to take? Was
she
supposed to fall in love with him and then be rejected?

If so, he had succeeded f

'The truth isn't only mine to tell,' she spoke raggedly. 'There are other people involved, innocent people, who can still be hurt by the truth if it was to become public knowledge.' She was thinking most of her mother, her poor mother who was still loved by a man who ultimately tried to destroy all those who loved him.

Marcus looked grim. 'I'm not the public.'

'Even so——-'

'I
need
to know the truth, Beth,' he almost pleaded. 'I need to know that very much.'

Why? She looked at him searchingly. What possible difference would knowing all the sordid details of her divorce make to him? . 'You owe me that much, at least,' he prompted at her hesitation.

'Owe you?' she repeated forcefully, her eyes shooting sparks of displeasure at him. 'I don't owe you anything! You were the one who sought me out, remember?'

A nerve pulsed in his jaw. 'Please tell me the truth,' he requested softly.

Her cheeks were flushed. 'All right, I'll tell you.' And she did, leaving nothing out, faltering only when she came to telling him about losing her baby and not being able to ever have any more. 'So you see,' she concluded bitterly, 'I'm not the one who plays games; I leave my father and Martin to do that.'

Marcus was completely silent and still, as he had been as she told him the details, his face grey now.

His continued silence unnerved Beth, until she felt at breaking-point, wanting him to go, or stay, to at least
do
something.

"They did that to you?' he finally grated.

'Oh, yes/ she confirmed, without bitterness; there was no point in that, not any more.

'Ross too?' His gaze was compelling.

Her mouth twisted. Tor a price, it would seem, yes.'

'But what he said about—an affair—was false?'

'I've
just told you it was,' she scorned incredulously, 'Martin was the first and only man I've— known, in that way.' Her cheeks were flushed with embarrassment.
This
man was the only other man she had ever wanted in that way, and look how misguided that attraction was, even more so than she had originally imagined. 'Remember, it was the fact that your nephew misguided that attraction was, even more so than she had originally imagined. 'Remember, it was the fact that your nephew and I didn't even know each other this evening that brought you round here in the first place,'

'Right,' he acknowledged a little shakily, 'You do realise what this means?'

'Oh, yes,' she derided. 'It means my father and Martin are both despicable.'

Marcus shook his head. 'It means much more than that,'

Beth gave him a puzzled look. 'It does?'

'Don't you see, Beth?' He grasped her by the shoulders. 'The evidence given in your divorce was false; worse than that, it was fabricated for monetary gain.'

'I told them at the time of the divorce that it wasn't true,' she defended. 'No one, not even my own lawyer, I'm sure, believed me!'

'I believe you,' Marcus said harshly,

'I could have done with your support then,' she mocked, 'not a year later. Now it does little but give me the personal satisfaction of knowing someone else knows exactly what happened!'

'But, Beth, it's so much more serious than that.' His hands tightened on her arms. 'Your father, your ex-husband, my nephew, all lied to
attain the divorce. They all broke the law by giving false evidence. I doubt that your divorce is legal!'

Beth stared up at him in horror before collapsing in his arms in a dead faint.

FREE.

Beth was a free woman at last, on her own terms, with no black shadow of lies and deceit looming over her.

Marcus had proved correct about the divorce, and so Beth had had the pleasure of divorcing Martin instead of the other way round, all three men receiving the displeasure of the court for their previous deceit. Her father and Martin's subterfuge had become public knowledge, and there could be no doubting that both men had suffered personally for it as well as legally. But they would survive, and, as Beth had known she would, Brenda had stood by Martin.

Then why didn't Beth now feel happier with the truth finally out? Why did her life feel so flat and—without direction?

'This is supposed to be a celebration, not a wake, Beth,' her mother chided teasingly.

Beth looked at the champagne luncheon before her, a glass of the bubbly liquid itself standing in front of her. None of this seemed to matter either.

'Beth, it's all over now.' Her mother squeezed her hand. 'Your father finally got what he deserved and you're free of both him and Martin.

You can now do exactly what you want with your life.'

She grimaced her lethargy with that idea' 'There's nothing I want to do.' She sighed.

'Strange,' her mother murmured. 'I thought there was something—someone—you very much wanted in your life.'

Beth gave her a sharp look, turning away again at the speculation in her mother's eyes. 'I don't know what you mean——'

'Darling, the fact that you love Marcus has been blazmgly obvious for weeks,' her mother put in gently.

'To Marcus too?' she groaned, wondering if that was the reason he had left them so suddenly today once the court case was over.

For weeks he had been there, a quiet but constant support, and then today, when it was all over, he had made his excuses and left without saying whether or not she would be seeing him again.

His duty over? His responsibility as Ross's uncle—Ross having been one of the men to cause her pain—over and done with?

She admitted that over the weeks, although there had been nothing said or done, she had begun to hope he might care for her and wasn't just correcting a wrong that had been helped in its success by his ward.

But he had left them earlier, refusing to join them for lunch, despite Beth's invitation for him to do so.

'No,' her mother answered her question. 'The two of you have been hiding your feelings from each other very successfully.'

Beth moistened her lips, her heart leaping with excitement. 'What do you mean?'

'Marcus loves you,' her mother said matter-of-factly.

'No! He——'

'Yes, Beth,' her mother insisted. 'Why else do you suppose he was so supportive?'

'He felt responsible for Ross's part in it.' She shrugged.

'That responsibility was dispatched by providing you with one of the most competent lawyers in the country. I'm having dinner with James tonight, by the way,' she added coyly.

'Really?' Beth smiled. She had liked James Hawthorn from the first, a tall distinguished-looking man in his early fifties.

'Really,' her mother cajoled. 'I may even get around to divorcing your father one of these days.'

Her mother must like James very much to be considering that! Beth was glad. If anyone deserved love and happiness in her life then her mother did.

'Let's get back to you and Marcus,' her mother said firmly, not about to be distracted any further.

'There is no Marcus and me,' Beth dismissed.

'But there could be.'

'I don't——'

'Marcus is just being honourable, I'm sure,' her mother insisted. 'The last eighteen months have been hell for you, not least because of his nephew's part in it. How can Marcus now turn around and tell you how he feels about you? The poor man is in a very awkward position,'

'You don't know how he feels about me——'

'I know that he had fulfilled his obligation to you by initiating the sorting out of the legal tangle his nephew had helped get you into by providing James to help you. He didn't have to continue visiting you, spending time with you, coming with you today. He's a busy man in his own right, and yet he's spent weeks——'