Simon's personal obligations to me, and his bookie friend.'
Joanna stood rigidly, feeling the colour drain out of her face. It was
like standing in the dock, she thought dazedly, knowing you were
innocent, but hearing a life sentence pronounced just the same. She
wanted to scream aloud, to hit out in anger and revulsion, but a small,
cold inner voice warned her to keep cool—keep talking—keep
bargaining.
She lifted her chin. 'What about this house—our home? Do you
intend to take that too?'
'Originally,
yes,'
he
said.
'But
if
you
behave
with
sufficient—er—generosity to me, I might be prepared to match it,
and leave it in Chalfont hands for your father's lifetime at least.' He
smiled at her sardonically. 'Its fate rests entirely with you, beauty.'
She bit her lip, her whole being cringing from the implications in his
words. 'And the Craft Company? Will you leave that alone too?'
'I think you're beginning to overestimate the price of your charms,'
Cal Blackstone said drily. 'No, my investment in the Craft Company
stays—as insurance, if you like, for your continuing good behaviour.'
Joanna closed her eyes for a moment. She said evenly, 'I suppose
there's no point in appealing to your better nature. Reminding you
that there are normal standards of decency.'
'Tell me about it,' he said laconically. He glanced up at the portrait
over the fireplace and his expression hardened. 'At least I'm not
evicting you without notice, throwing you on to the street.'
'And if I tell you that I do have standards—that I have my pride and
my self-respect? And that I'd rather starve in the gutter than accept
any part of your revolting terms?'
He shrugged again. 'Then that can be quite easily arranged,' he
returned. 'The choice is yours. But I strongly advise you to think my
offer over. You've got twenty-four hours.'
'I don't need twenty-four seconds,' she said bitingly. 'You can do your
worst, Mr Blackstone, and go to hell!'
'I shall probably end there, Mrs Bentham,' he said too courteously.
'But first I mean to order that independent audit I mentioned into the
Craft Company's accounts.' He paused. 'Simon may well find himself
facing more than a bankruptcy court. How will the Chalfont pride
cope with that, I wonder?'
'I don't believe you. He wouldn't do such a thing.' Her voice shook
with the force of her conviction.
'Ask him,' he said. 'Some time' during the next twenty-four hours.
Then call me with your final answer.'
'You've had all the answer you're getting, you bastard!' she said. 'I'll
see you damned before I do what you want!'
He gave her a sardonic look, as he retrieved the papers from the
coffee-table and slipped them back into his pocket. 'Don't count on it,
beauty. I promise one thing—when you do call, I won't say that I told
you so.'
Knuckles pressed to her mouth, Joanna stood like a statue as he made
his way across the room to the door. As it closed behind him, she bent
and snatched up a cut glass posy bowl, hurling it with all the force of
her arm at the solid panels.
'The swine!' she sobbed, as it shattered. 'Oh, God, the unutterable
bloody swine!'
She was like a cat on hot bricks for the rest of the day waiting for
Simon to return. It took all her self- control not to drive over to the
nursing home and confront him there. She was sorely tempted, too, to
drive over to the Craft Company and do her own spot check of the
books.
But she discarded the idea. Such action would be bound to provoke
just the kind of comment she wanted to avoid. And if, by the remotest
chance, there was something even slightly amiss... She caught at
herself. That was the kind of poisonous reptile Cal Blackstone was,
she raged inwardly. Sowing discord and distrust wherever he went.
She couldn't deny that Simon had been all kinds of a fool, but she
couldn't believe he was also a thief. She wouldn't believe it.
'There's got to be some way out of this mess,' she said aloud, through
gritted teeth, as she paced the length and breadth of the
drawing-room. 'There's got to be. Together we'll think of something.
We have to!'
She swallowed convulsively as that same small voice in her head
reminded her of the sheer magnitude of what was threatening them
all. The loss of their home, the destruction of their remaining business
venture, and personal disgrace for Simon—and all at the worst
possible time, if there was ever a good time for such things to happen,
she acknowledged wryly.
It was no good telling herself that it was all Simon's own fault, and
he'd have to find some remedy himself. She couldn't leave him to sink
if she could help him to swim. But she couldn't sacrifice herself
either.
Cal Blackstone's words rang like hammer blows inside her brain. 'I
want you. Come to me...'
He's just offered me the ultimate insult, she told herself, by
presuming I'd even consider such a degrading suggestion. He's
misjudged me completely.
Yet he'd summed up some of her past reactions with disturbing
accuracy, she recalled unwillingly. His comments about her marriage
to Martin had been too close to the mark for comfort.
She shivered. What was she saying? She'd loved Martin, of course
she had. He'd been sweet and safe and
there,
and she'd thought that
was enough. She'd convinced herself that it was.
Only it wasn't, she thought wretchedly. How could it be? And it was
disaster for both of us.
On the day of his funeral, she'd stood in the small bleak churchyard in
the conventional black dress of the widow, feeling drained of
emotion, totally objective, as if all this tragedy were happening to
some other person. She could even remember being thankful that the
demure veiling on her equally conventional hat concealed the fact
that she was completely tearless.
Then she'd looked up and seen Cal Blackstone staring at her. He'd
been standing on the edge of thesmall crowd of mourners, but his
head wasn't bent in grief or common respect. There had been
bitterness i'a the look he sent her, and condemnation, and overlying
all a kind of grim triumph.
Don't think I've given up, his glance had told her. This marriage of
yours was just an obstacle which has now been removed. And now
I'm coming after you again.
The knowledge of it had been like a blow, knocking all the breath out
of her body. Involuntarily, instinctively, she'd taken a step backwards
in instant negation, her foot stumbling on a tussock of earth.
'Be careful, my dear!' Her father had insisted on attending the
ceremony with her, standing bareheaded at her side in the windswept
graveyard, and she'd snatched at his arm for comfort and support as
she'd done when she was a small girl, and a crowd of jeering boys had
thrown earth and stones at their car.
Oh, I will, she'd promised herself silently. I'll take more care than I've
ever done in my whole life.
Aunt Vinnie's letter offering her sanctuary had been, like Martin's
proposal of marriage, a godsend, a lifeline, and she'd snatched at that
too, telling herself that Cal Blackstone would eventually resign
himself to the fact that she was gone, and abandon his crazy obsession
about her.
He wasn't really serious about it, she'd assured herself over and over
again. For heaven's sake, he was never short of female
companionship, so he wasn't exactly single-minded about his pursuit
of her, if she could call it that. He didn't chase her, yet he always
seemed to be there, like a dark shadow on the edge of her world, a
winter storm threatening the brightness of her horizon.
If she went away, and stayed away, with luck he'd forget her, and get
safely married to one of the many willing ladies he escorted. Time
and distance would solve everything. That was what she'd thought.
That was how she'd reassured herself.
But how wrong was it possible to be? Joanna thought broodingly, as
she paced restlessly up and down. Cal Blackstone hadn't just been
making mischief and trying to alarm her, as she'd secretly hoped and
prayed. He'd meant every word, and that warning look he'd sent her at
Martin's funeral had been nothing less than a stark declaration of
intent.
And typical of his appallingly tasteless behaviour, she thought with a
fastidious shudder, then paused, a hysterical bubble of laughter
welling up inside her.
Why the hell was she worrying about something as trivial as the way
he'd treated her as a widow in mourning, when he was now
threatening her and her entire family with total humiliation and ruin?
While she'd thought herself safe in the States, Cal Blackstone had
been busy ensnaring Simon in a web of financial dependency, both
personal and professional. Then he'd sat back and waited, like the
spider, for the unsuspecting fly to return...
But that was defeatist talk, she told herself in self- reproach. After all,
if the fly struggled hard enough, even the strongest web could be
broken.
She was halfway through a dinner she had no interest in eating when
Simon eventually came in. He looked tired and anxious, and for a
moment she was tempted to leave him in the peace he so clearly
needed at least until the morning.
She let him talk for a while about Fiona and the labour pains which
had so unaccountably subsided while he ate his meal.
Then she said quietly, 'Don't you want to know what happened this
afternoon?'
He shrugged, his face adopting a faintly martyred expression. 'I
suppose so. To be honest, Jo, although his letter threw me when it
arrived, I've been thinking about it while I've been hanging around at
the nursing home, and, frankly, I don't know what all the fuss is
about. Things at work are picking up slowly. He'll get his money
back, and he'll just have to be patient, that's all. I hope you told him
so.'
She picked up the coffee-pot and filled two cups with infinite care.
'I didn't actually get the chance,' she said. 'He didn't come here to talk
about work. It was your other debts he was concerned with. The ones
you ran up at the casino, and the race-track.'
She watched him go white. There was a long, painful silence. Then he
said very rapidly, 'He told you that, but he had no right. He said there
was no hurry. He knew I'd pay it all off if he just gave me time.'
'How?' She looked at Simon's guilty, miserable face and knew that
the question was unanswerable.
She nerved herself to go on. 'He—he did mention the Craft Company
in one context. He talked about the books—the accounts…'
'What about them?' Simon's gaze was fixed on the polished dining
table.
'He said something about an independent audit,' Joanna said, and
stopped appalled as Simon's cup dropped from his hand, spilling
coffee everywhere.
'Can he do that?' The blue eyes were scared, imploring. 'Can he, Jo?'
'Is there some reason why he shouldn't?' She tried to speak evenly, but
her voice trembled as she realised she had to face, to come to terms
with the unthinkable.
He didn't reply, just picked up his table napkin and began blotting up
the coffee as if it were the most important thing in the world.
She said, 'It's true, then. There's money missing, and you're
responsible.'
'Whose bloody company is it anyway?' he said, his tone mutinous,
defensive.
'Not yours to that extent. Simon, are you crazy?'
'I had to do something. Fiona was miserable, and needed a break. She
had her heart set on St Lucia. She's never known what it is to be short
of cash—she doesn't understand.'
Joanna closed her eyes for a moment, trying to visualise Fiona's
reaction to the news that her husband had made them bankrupt and
homeless. But her imagination balked at the very idea.
'Go on,' she said, with infinite weariness. 'So you embezzled money
from the Craft Company to take Fiona on an expensive holiday.'
'I did not embezzle it!' Simon's face was flushed now with anger. 'I
borrowed it.'
'With Philip's knowledge and permission?'
'I didn't think it was necessary to mention it to him. After all, it was
only a couple of thousand or so on temporary loan. I fully intended to
pay it back. One damned good win at blackjack was all I needed.'
'But you didn't win.'
'No, I started losing really badly. I kept telling myself my luck would
change, but it didn't. It just kept getting worse.'