by Sara Craven
But how could there be, Lydie asked herself wretchedly, with so much left unsaid? With so many lies and half-truths still hanging over them all? Could it all be simply swept aside and out of sight, as Austin seemed to think?
And, more importantly, could she and Marius build a relationship, or any kind of happiness, on such dangerous foundations?
But Marius didn’t want a relationship, she reminded herself desolately. He was taking her in revenge. To punish her for a crime she had not committed.
‘We thought a quiet wedding,’ Marius was saying, and she forced herself to focus on his words. ‘At the register office in Thornshaugh, as soon as they can slot us in.’
Austin looked pugnacious. ‘It’ll be properly arranged all the same. No hole-and-corner job.’
‘Naturally,’ Marius agreed. ‘But there’s far too much to be done at the mill to permit a full dress affair. We’ll even have to postpone a proper honeymoon until work eases a little. It’s fortunate that Lydie’s so understanding.’ The smile he sent her did not reach his eyes.
‘Well, I can’t say I’m sorry,’ Austin admitted. ‘I’ve never fancied parading around in that damned monkey suit, and that’s the truth.’
‘Besides,’ Marius added silkily, ‘I can’t wait for months of wrangling over invitations and vol-au-vents and bridesmaids’ dresses to claim my wife. Can I, darling?’
His glance was a challenge, his words a gauntlet flung down between them, daring her to speak, to throw them back in his face.
‘No.’ Her voice was like a thread. The ring on her hand felt clumsy, alien in its magnificence. It burned like a cold flame.
Like passion, she thought detachedly, without love. The icy fire that would consume her until she was totally destroyed.
Unless she could find some means of escape in the brief time still left to her. A way out which would not bring the world of those she loved crashing down around them.
She thought, her heart like stone, I’ll find it somehow. I have to...
CHAPTER TEN
LYDIE’S primary instinct was to go to her car and simply drive away, put as many miles as she could between herself and the lies, the betrayals and the inevitable heartbreak.
But common sense told her that it could never be as easy as that to disentangle herself from her life at Thornshaugh.
For one thing, how could she simply walk out on Nell and the gallery? she asked herself in a kind of despair. Or leave Austin without a word? It wasn’t possible.
‘Well, I’ve got some letters to write.’ Austin was getting to his feet. ‘I’m sure you two have plenty to talk about between now and dinner.’ He gave them both a ponderous wink and left the room.
Lydie suppressed a gasp of dismay.
She said hurriedly, ‘Actually, I have things to do myself, if you’ll excuse me.’
‘Not so fast, Madonna Lily.’ Marius’s voice was cool but implacable. ‘We do need to get a few things settled.’
‘I thought you’d already done that.’ Lydie lifted her chin. ‘I seem to be a puppet in all this—made to dance to any tune of your choosing.’
‘You sound a little bitter, my love,’ he said mockingly.
‘I hope it isn’t the loss of our honeymoon that’s irking you. I promise it’s only a postponement, not a cancellation.’
‘That’s the last thing on my mind,’ she returned curtly.
‘Actually, I’m wondering just how far you’re prepared to carry on with this—farce.’
‘A strange word,’ he said, ‘to describe my honourable proposal of marriage—and your acceptance of it.’
‘Acceptance?’ Lydie’s laugh cracked in the middle. ‘My coercion into it, you mean.’ She rose, restlessly, and went over to the French windows. ‘The whole thing’s surreal. That ghastly ritual over choosing the ring, Austin’s pretending to be pleased—’
‘Austin is pleased,’ Marius cut in abruptly. ‘He’s a deeply conventional man. To him, our engagement—our marriage—is a way of wiping the slate clean. Of putting the past firmly behind us, where it belongs.’ He added lightly, ‘His only error is in assuming my motivation is the same as his.’
She shivered uncontrollably, folding her arms in defence across her body.
‘Marius—don’t do this—please. End it now.’ Her voice broke. ‘I beg you.’
‘How can I end it, Madonna Lily,’ he asked softly, ‘when it’s only just begun?’
She released the catch on the window and stepped out into the garden.
‘Running away, Lydie?’ His jibe followed her. ‘A pointless exercise, darling, because I should certainly come after you.’
‘I need to breathe clean air,’ she flung back at him over her shoulder. ‘I’m sure you understand. And, as I said, I have things to do.’
It wasn’t true, she acknowledged as she walked across the grass. She had no plans of any kind. It was simply that there was no way she could spend the rest of the afternoon in virtual seclusion with Marius.
The situation was altogether too dangerous, and she was too vulnerable to cope with the frank temptation it offered. Or even, she thought, with Marius’s own distinctive brand of sexual teasing—the cat-and-mouse game he was playing with her feelings—her emotions.
But she mustn’t think about that. Must learn to ignore the insidious voices in her head telling her that, in spite of everything, to separate herself from him for ever would tear her apart. Leave her bleeding to death for all eternity.
That was not what she wanted to hear, she thought raggedly. Because she could not allow herself to love him. Could not allow herself to accept the sham relationship that he was trying to force on her. There had been enough bitterness—enough ruin already. Somehow she had to make him see that. Persuade him that there was nothing to be gained from allowing the old sins of the past to cast their long shadow over the future.
The breeze struck a chill through her thin dress and she shivered again, reluctant to return to the house, before remembering that there was a jacket in her car.
The poor thing looked as if it had been abandoned, she thought, wrinkling her nose, as she rounded the side of the house and saw it standing forlornly on the drive.
In different circumstances, she would have driven into Thornshaugh and poured her heart out to Nell. But if she and Jon were finally making some sense of their own tortuous relationship Lydie could not intrude there.
No, the gallery was out of bounds today, she decided. But thinking about it had jogged her memory about an almost-forgotten errand she had undertaken to run.
The money for the Corbin watercolours, she thought, sliding in behind the wheel and checking that the slip of paper was still in her bag. She could deliver that and make one person’s day at least.
Quarry Row, as its name indicated, had originally been built to accommodate workers taking stone out of the nearby hillside. But the quarry company had been closed for some years and she’d thought most of the houses were empty, if not actually falling into disrepair.
It was a lonely spot, anyway, Lydie thought as she parked in the lay-by at the bottom of the track. Few people would choose to live at such a distance from the nearest town or without immediate neighbours. Yet perhaps it suited the artistic temperament, she decided with a mental shrug.
The gate of the end house opened with a creak of rusty hinges. As she walked up the cracked concrete path, Lydie noticed a swing on a metal frame standing in the middle of a sparse patch of lawn, and some children’s clothes turning briskly on a rotary dryer in the fresh wind.
She was also aware that the cottage door had opened and a girl was standing watching her approach.
She was of medium height with fair hair cut in an unassuming bob and blue eyes that studied Lydie warily and without welcome. In her jeans and sweatshirt she looked tough, capable and even slightly aggressive.
Lydie halted, trying a smile which was not returned.
‘You’re—Darrell Corbin?’ she asked with a trace of uncertai
nty. ‘Have I come to the right place?’
‘That depends what you’ve come for, Miss Hatton.’ The voice was unfriendly, the local accent transmuted by something else.
‘Oh.’ Lydie was taken aback. ‘Then you know who I am, why I’m here?’
‘You could say that,’ the other girl said curtly.
Lydie was frankly nettled by her reception, but decided to persevere. ‘I’ve got some good news for you.’
‘I doubt that,’ Darrell Corbin responded brusquely.
‘Although I suppose I should have expected a visit. What is it—another pay-off?’
Lydie, feeling in her bag for the cheque, halted in astonishment. This girl might be a brilliant artist but she seemed to have an outsize chip on her shoulder. Either that or she was deranged, she thought, swallowing. She said temperately, ‘I wouldn’t put it quite like that.’
‘Well, I would.’ Darrell Corbin took a step forward, her eyes fierce. ‘So, go back where you came from, Miss Hatton—’ she spat the name out as if it were an obscenity ‘—and take your dirty money with you. I don’t want it and I never did.’
‘Dirty money?’ Lydie repeated bemusedly. ‘What on earth are you talking about? I came here in good faith...’
‘Good faith?’ The contempt in the other girl’s voice was almost searing. ‘You wouldn’t know the meaning of the word, Miss Hatton. Neither you nor anyone from your family.’
‘Now just a minute, please.’ Lydie was getting angry now. ‘You have no right to make statements like that.’
‘Well, that’s where we differ, Miss Hatton. I think I have every right—under the circumstances.’ Darrell Corbin lifted her chin. ‘But, contrary to what you might think, I didn’t come back to make trouble. There’s been too much of that already. I came because Dad was ill and needed me.’ A muscle moved beside her mouth. ‘Well, he’s gone now, so there’s nothing to keep me here. I realise that. And I want nothing more from any of you, and that’s final.’
‘I think there must be some mistake.’ Lydie fought to make sense of the torrent of bitter words.
‘There was,’ Darrell Corbin said harshly. ‘And I made it. But I never wanted the money—any of it. And I’d never have touched a penny if I’d known how it was come by.’
She flung her head back, staring past Lydie. ‘It was him that I wanted, more fool me, although I knew from the start that it would never work. That he—didn’t feel like that. I was never more than a bit on the side—a lay.’
The words seemed to be torn out of her.
Lydie felt as if she was listening and watching from some great distance, caught in a dream from which she could not wake.
She didn’t want to hear any more. She wanted to put her hands over her ears, close her eyes, blot out everything that was happening. Yet, at the same time, she knew that wild horses wouldn’t have dragged her from the spot; that she had to know everything.
‘All the same,’ said Darrell Corbin, ‘I didn’t have to have his baby. That was my choice. I didn’t even want him to know. That was all Dad’s doing.’ Her voice cracked slightly. ‘He wasn’t a bad man, you see, just weak. And he could never manage money, especially after Mum died. Every penny went into the pub or the betting shop. And when he found out about the baby he said I’d to be taken care of and he was going to Mr Benedict.’
‘Oh, God.’ Lydie couldn’t even be sure if she’d spoken the words aloud. Suddenly, it was difficult to breathe.
‘When he told me what he’d done, I was so ashamed. I felt it was—blood money. And the worst of it was I’d used some—to buy things I needed for the baby.’ The look she sent Lydie was filled with scorn. ‘But I never touched any more, and I never will. Tell him that. And don’t think you can come here and buy me off, Miss Hatton, because I’m not for sale, and I never was. And I’m going soon—back south, so you needn’t fear you’ll hear from me again. I can manage without handouts from the likes of you.’
A child’s voice called, ‘Mam,’ and a small boy came trotting round the corner of the house, slowing, suddenly shy, when he saw Lydie.
‘Come here, love.’ Darrell Corbin’s voice gentled reassuringly as she pulled the child against her, her face inimical as she registered Lydie’s fixed, stunned gaze.
‘Looking for a resemblance, Miss Hatton?’ she demanded scornfully. ‘Well, you won’t find one. He takes after me, thank God.’
She stepped back, and the cottage door closed in Lydie’s rigid face.
For a moment she stood as if rooted to the spot, incapable of movement, then she was running, stumbling down the incline towards her car. Once inside it, she sat, gripping the wheel, making no attempt to start the engine as she stared through the windscreen.
Just when she’d least expected it, the last piece in the monstrous jigsaw had been completed, and the picture it revealed filled her with sadness and horror.
So that was her rival. That was the girl who’d lived in her thoughts and haunted her sleep all these years. A girl whose only mistake had been to fall in love. A girl who’d been paid to go away and keep her mouth shut about the consequences of that love. A girl still harbouring a deep residue of pain and bitterness.
And who could blame her? Lydie thought as she drew a deep, shuddering breath.
And, following Marius’s return to Thornshaugh, like some black sheep to the fold, Darrell Corbin had naturally assumed that she was being bribed to keep her distance once again. And that, of course, Lydie knew who she was and all about her. That she was in on the whole ugly conspiracy.
But I wasn’t, she thought wretchedly. And I wish it had stayed that way—that she’d just remained part of my imagination, without a name—or a face. That I’d never set eyes on her—or her child. Marius’s son.
She flinched from the unwilling acknowledgement as if a whip had been laid across her senses.
Oh, why did I have to come here—to meet her? she asked herself, wincing. Why couldn’t she just have taken the money five years ago and gone for good?
Even as she hated herself for allowing the wish, she realised that it could never have been that simple. That, for Darrell Corbin, it had never been a matter of money at all.
‘It was him that I wanted’. The words were seared into her brain. Because, in spite of the other girl’s anger and scorn, there’d been an underlying note of desolation too. Marius had left a legacy of passion behind him in the ruins of their brief affair and its aftermath.
She could sense, too, how Darrell Corbin must have suffered from Marius’s indifference to herself and his child. How it must have hurt to know that she was being bought off, that she wasn’t good enough for the Benedicts.
And her stepfather had provided the money for the pay-off, she realised with a pang of disillusion; had made sure the girl had been hustled away somewhere to avoid open scandal.
Oh, Austin, she thought sorrowfully. Austin, how could you?
She looked bleakly down at the glitter of diamonds on her hand, wondering if Darrell Corbin had guessed their significance and been hurt by it.
We have a great deal in common, she thought as pain ripped through her. We both loved Marius. We love him still. And he never cared about either of us, which is something she’s learned to live with. Something I have, in turn, to endure somehow.
Because love alone was not enough, and never could be. It had to go hand in hand with trust and mutual respect for a relationship to work.
And, on those grounds, she and Marius had never had a chance at all.
She drew a deep, quivering breath.
She would have to confront him now. That went without saying. Use his treatment of Darrell Corbin as the lever to free herself from him. Put an end to the intrigue and the cruel games once and for all. Maybe even force him to acknowledge that he had a son, so that some good could come at last from the entire unholy mess.
She’s luckier than I am, she told herself, gripping the wheel until her knuckles turned white. Because at least she has his child. Whe
reas I—I have nothing at all. Not even hope.
She let go of the wheel, lifted her shaking hands to her face, and began to weep.
All the way home she silently rehearsed what she would say. Tried to assemble the words and phrases that would gain her freedom, without betraying her inner agony.
He expected her to act a part, she thought. This time she would have to give the performance of a lifetime.
On the way back to Greystones she stopped at the local service station to fill her petrol tank, as usual, for the working week ahead. Life had to go on with at least a semblance of normality, she thought, until she could make a reasoned decision about where she would go and what she would do.
She went into the ladies’ room to wash away the tear stains and hide the strain in her pale face with a faint dusting of blusher and a fresh touch of lipstick. It might only be a façade, she thought, eyeing herself judiciously in the spotted mirror, but it seemed to work. Last of all, she removed Marius’s ring from her finger and stowed it safely in the inside pocket of her bag.
I can never wear it again, she thought.
As she returned to her car, a Range Rover swung into the forecourt of the garage and Hugh Wingate jumped out of the driving seat.
Lydie groaned inwardly as he strode towards her, but stood her ground, forcing a smile.
‘Hello, Hugh.’
‘Lydie.’ There was a heated flush along his cheekbones. ‘I’m amazed you have the gall to face me.’
‘A chance meeting by the petrol pumps is barely a confrontation,’ she returned evenly. ‘And we were bound to run into each other sooner or later.’
‘You took care to avoid me last night.’
‘I’m sorry.’ She bit her lip. ‘But the invitation wasn’t mine.’
‘Is that all you have to say? After you led me on—made a complete fool of me?’
She bent her head. ‘That was unforgivable, I know,’ she said in a low voice. ‘But it wasn’t intentional, you must believe that.’
