by Penny Jordan
‘Hearty country types who live and breathe horses… Hardly my scene, Gerry…’ He looked at his fingernails and said idly, ‘I ought to be attending a dinner party in London tonight…’
And Geraldine Frances, frantic to keep him with her, fell immediately into his trap and cried out, ‘Oh, no… no, please stay. You’ll be gone so quickly, and I’m going to miss you so much…’
She blushed and stammered to a halt as she saw his amused expression, feeling that she had blundered emotionally in much the same way as her ungainly body made her blunder physically.
‘My poor sweet.’ Charles’s voice caressed her. It gave him such pleasure to hurt her like this. He had lain in bed last night furiously assessing Rothwell and all its treasures, its titles and honours, the vast tracts of land and the huge secret investments that funded everything. He wanted it all, every smallest part of it. Like a refrain in his head he heard his mother saying that he should have had it all… that it was obscene that a girl should snatch it all away from him, and such a girl… He looked at her and shuddered inwardly, disgusted by the sight of her grossness. He compared her with his latest lover. She had a thick mane of glossy dark hair and a tiny, delicate face, high, firm breasts and long, long legs that twined themselves around him while she pleaded and begged for his possession.
His breathing quickened suddenly, his body going hard with triumphant arousal as he remembered the last night they had spent together before his coming down to Rothwell.
He had spent the night at her flat. She liked to use cocaine to increase her pleasure and she had tried to get him to do the same, but he was wary of using drugs and so had refused.
She had been excited, insatiable, doing things to him that had driven him out of his mind with pleasure.
Lost in his own thoughts, he wasn’t aware of Geraldine Frances’s approach. She touched his arm tentatively; beneath the thin cashmere of his sweater she could feel the silken rasp of body hair and the hardness of taut muscle.
She whispered his name uncertainly. His eyes glittered oddly. He seemed not to be looking at her, but past her, and as she touched him, unexpectedly and thrillingly he grabbed hold of her, gripping her flaccid flesh so hard that it hurt, dragging her against him and kissing her with fierce, demanding passion that made her body melt inside and her heart turn somersaults.
She cried out in pleasure and tried awkwardly to respond to his passion, but he was already releasing her… turning his back on her…
God, how he loathed her, and even loathing her he knew that he wasn’t going to let her go…
But someone was going to have to pay for the humiliation he would have to endure in marrying Geraldine Frances… and who better than Geraldine Frances herself? He looked at her, her eyes bright with stunned pleasure, her fat fingers touching the trembling outline of her mouth as she looked at him with gratitude and adoration… with all the humble worship of a bitch for its master… and he felt a fierce, savage thrill of power. Oh, yes, he would make Geraldine Frances pay… His eyes narrowed and he remembered his mother telling him how necessary it was for him to marry Geraldine Frances. How important it was that he be nice to her…
Nice to her… My God, what he really wanted to do was to take hold of her throat and choke the life out of her… to destroy her and then to forget that she had ever existed. But he mustn’t let her guess what he really felt. If she broke their engagement… if she married someone else… And there would always be someone shrewd enough and greedy enough to marry the sole heiress of the Earl of Rothwell.
His skin broke out in a cold sweat and he started to shake as the enormity of losing Rothwell hit him… No, he couldn’t afford to alienate Geraldine Frances… But there were other ways… ways of subtle, delicate torment… ways in which he could keep that blind look of adoration in her eyes and yet punish her at the same time.
Geraldine Frances saw him shiver and asked uncertainly, ‘What’s wrong?’
Had she seen that bitter look of revulsion in his eyes? Charles looked at her and knew that he stood at the most important crossroads of his life. Alienate her now and he would lose everything. He must be careful not to betray to her how he really felt.
He said to her soothingly, ‘Nothing… it’s just… You’re so very young, Gerry… and it’s going to be a long time before we can marry…’ He gave her the charming, insincere smile he had inherited from his father and shrugged disarmingly. ‘I’m only human,’ he told her, pausing meaningfully, while she blushed and looked openly stunned and delighted as his implication reached her. ‘I want you,’ he said softly. ‘But your father won’t approve if we become lovers before we’re married.’
That cold moment of clarity when he realised how easily Rothwell could still slip through his fingers touched him again, like ice against his spine, warning him of his vulnerability.
‘I wish we didn’t have to wait so long.’
It had occurred to him that his safest course might be to get her pregnant, but he feared his uncle too much to take the risk.
‘I’ll speak to him,’ Geraldine Frances told him breathlessly. ‘I’ll tell him we want to be married sooner than we planned.’
‘I only wish we could…’ A thought had occurred to him… a clever, dangerous thought. ‘But I’m afraid it isn’t possible, my darling. For one thing, I’m hardly in a position to support a wife… not yet…’ He made a wry face. ‘Of course, I’ll get a small inheritance from Ma when I’m thirty-five…’ It wasn’t exactly a he. There was a small inheritance… a very small inheritance, and he had no intention of spending it on anyone apart from himself. Of course, he could have afforded to marry had he wanted to; his earnings from his drug trafficking brought him in a very good income indeed.
‘And I suppose your father will let us have the London house…’
He knew quite well that Geraldine Frances hated the London house because of its association with his mother…
He saw her frown and then she said uncertainly, ‘But we could live on my money, couldn’t we?’
Got her. She’d taken the bait. Fighting not to appear too eager, he forced a doubtful, tender look into his eyes and said softly, ‘When I get married, I want to be able to support my wife myself… and besides…’ a hard note entered his voice, but Geraldine Frances didn’t hear it; she was too much in love… too wrapped up in her own delirious joy ‘… you don’t have any money of your own yet, do you, my pet? It all belongs to Uncle James…’
Checked, Geraldine Frances frowned. What he said was quite true, though… She wouldn’t come into any of the trust fund monies her father had established for her, to avoid death duties, until she was twenty-five.
‘Well… yes.’ She frowned, and then her face brightened. ‘But I could ask Daddy to increase my allowance. We could live here at Rothwell. I know how much you like the house.’
Did she? He gave her a hard, bitter look, quickly masked. Had she any real idea how he felt about Rothwell… his Rothwell, not hers?
Another indulgent smile… a light touch on her hand, making sure he didn’t betray his physical revulsion at the contact with her obese flesh.
‘My darling, you weren’t listening to what I said… I couldn’t live off my wife… No, I’m afraid we’ll have to wait until I’m going to earn enough to support you myself…’ He gave a theatrical sigh. ‘Heaven knows how long that will be…’
Geraldine Frances was normally very astute, but she was barely seventeen years old and very much in love. No one had ever warned her that men could and did use women and their emotional vulnerabilities… No one had ever urged her to use her head before her heart, and just as soon as she could she went to her father, excitedly begging him to find a way to boost Charles’s income so that they could be married immediately.
James looked sharply at his daughter, hiding his shock from her. He had almost given up hope of her realising the truth about her cousin, but he couldn’t let them marry yet. Charles was not fit to marry her, to take on with her
the burdens and responsibilities of her eventual inheritance.
One had to be bred for such a role, he acknowledged tiredly. He himself had been trained to do it from birth, warned repeatedly by his father of how easily all that his ancestors had garnered could slip through careless fingers; and he, once he had realised she was to be his only child, had in turn tutored Geraldine Frances. She had a quick brain… she was already beginning to grasp the complexities of the financial empire that supported Rothwell, Castle Kilrayne and all their other properties… the necessity of generating income for their preservation and protection. She already knew that her role was only one of guardian… that it was her duty to nurture and protect what they held and to pass it on to the next generation. But Charles would never have that instinctive inner knowledge…
He looked at Geraldine Frances and his heart ached for her. He wanted to warn her, to caution her, but how could he destroy the happiness in her eyes, the joy he could almost see burning in her? She needed time to come back down to earth… to accept reality… to understand that Charles was weak, and that it would always be on her shoulders that the responsibilities would rest.
If he allowed her to marry Charles now…
He was an astute man and knew well that it was Charles who was behind this sudden urgent desire for an immediate wedding. Charles was trying to force his hand. Well, Charles had a lot to learn.
Hiding his thoughts from his daughter, he took her hand and held it warmly in his own.
‘So Charles wants to take you away from me already, does he?’ he said lightly. ‘Forgive me, Geraldine Frances, but I had hoped to have at least another summer with you, just the two of us, as it used to be before you went away to school… Remember, darling, you agreed, no formal engagement until you’re eighteen.
‘I don’t want to stand in your way. It’s selfish of me to want you all to myself. But once you and Charles are married…’
She was wavering, he could see it in her eyes.
‘Let me speak to Charles and see if I can persuade him to allow us to have more time together,’ he suggested softly, watching her.
She thought of the long, lonely years at school when she had ached to be with her father.
Please God let her agree, James prayed inwardly. There was still so much she had to learn.
‘Well, if Charles doesn’t mind,’ she said uncertainly. Charles minded very much, but there was nothing he could do about it. Geraldine Frances wasn’t eighteen yet and couldn’t marry him without her father’s consent, and then there was the other problem of her inheritance. All she had until she was twenty-five was the allowance her father made her. If he forced the issue and married Gerry the moment she was eighteen, her father would retaliate by refusing to increase her allowance. Reluctantly he was forced to curb his impatience, his fear that Rothwell could still slip through his fingers. He knew he had an opponent in his uncle, but James was tied by his love for Geraldine Frances.
Two days later he left Rothwell to return to London. Geraldine Frances watched him go with sadness in her eyes, wishing they had had the privacy to exchange more than a mere kiss on the cheek as a goodbye, never dreaming that Charles had deliberately manoeuvred events so that he wouldn’t have to be alone with her.
In February, after enjoying a good fortnight’s hunting, and before he and Geraldine Frances left for Gstaad, James visited his doctor—a second visit.
His doctor had rooms in an elegant Georgian terrace in London. He was a tall, grey-haired, distinguished man who was adept at judging the temperaments of his patients.
With James he was shatteringly direct and honest.
‘The results of the tests are back,’ he confirmed. ‘The news isn’t good, I’m afraid. It’s a progressive disease.’ He named it and then interpreted briefly, ‘Senile dementia.’
‘Senile…?’ James stared at him. He was in his mid-forties and outwardly looked vigorous and healthy.
‘So far it’s only in its very early stages,’ the specialist told him. ‘That’s why it’s been necessary to re-check the tests.’ He pursed his lips and looked down at the floor.
‘I have to be honest with you. There’s no way the deterioration will regress once it starts, and no way of checking the progression of the illness. However, so far you are only in the very, very early stages, and progression, with luck, will be very slow. There are certain vitamin-based injections we can give you that may help, and new discoveries are being made every day…’
Slowly James shook his head, trying to clear his mind of the hideous fog engulfing it.
‘Senile dementia… what is it?’
‘Basically,’ the doctor told him, ‘it’s caused by the death of certain brain cells at a faster rate than the usual ageing process. Once they are dead…’
‘And its effects are physical?’ James pressed.
‘Physical and mental,’ the specialist told him. And then waited while the shock of his announcement sank in.
He was more sorry for his patient than he wanted him to know. He was a man who virtually had everything a man could want… but twice now, three times if one included the death of his wife, he had suffered tremendous blows: once in losing his ability to produce children, and now this fresh blow.
Even he, with all his experience of life, shuddered a little as he contemplated James’s future. The progression of his illness could be swift or it could be slow. There was no way of knowing… no way of knowing anything other than that, ultimately, James would be reduced to a totally dependent shell of the man he now was, suffering both mental and physical deterioration.
‘No platitudes,’ James said thickly. ‘Just tell me the truth. How long…?’
‘How long is a piece of string?’ the doctor replied drily. ‘There is no quantifiable period of time. It can be months, a rapid deterioration to the point where the patient is totally helpless, or it can be years before the deterioration becomes… noticeable.
‘In your case, you’re still only in the very early stages… Depending on what happens in the next, say, twelve months, we should have a better idea of how long…’
‘Noticeable?’ James, staring into the doctor’s unblinking, pitying eyes, knew sickly what he was saying.
Rheumatism, arthritis, some kind of muscular ageing… that was what he had assumed… Not this… not this sentence of death while he was living.
He listened to everything the doctor had to say, then got up and shook hands with him, noticing with grim bitterness that this was one of the occasions on which his muscle control did not fail him.
And then he walked out into the street. The air was raw with the bitterness of an east wind, but he ignored its coldness, hailing a cab and instructing the driver to take him to the nearest public library.
Once there, he made straight for the medical section.
When he eventually emerged from the library it was dark. He was glad. He couldn’t have borne anyone to see him… Not now, not when he was still trying to grapple with the stark truth. He had been sentenced to die… to gradually lose all physical and mental command of himself… to become a parody of all that he was… had been…
Oh, God… Why? Why? He wanted to scream the words to the sky, but they were locked inside him like the panic he refused to acknowledge.
One thought thundered in his head.
Geraldine Frances… Geraldine Frances… He must prepare Geraldine Frances… Not for his death—he couldn’t lay that burden on her—but he must speed up her preparation to take on the role that would be hers. There were things he had to do… plans he had to make.
Her marriage to Charles… Too late now to wish that he hadn’t agreed to it. She loved him, or thought she did… too late now to acknowledge what he had always known: that Charles was no husband for his daughter. No successor for him. God, if only Geraldine Frances had been a son… That sharp brain, that keen intelligence…
If only he hadn’t agreed to that unofficial engagement… if only he knew how much time he
was going to have. He prayed to God it would be enough for him to make sure she would be ready to take over from him… enough for her to grow to maturity and realise Charles’s lack of worth.
He toyed with the idea of telling her what he suspected her cousin was, but he knew he just couldn’t do it to her… She was so young… so vulnerable. It was something within her that made his daughter vulnerable, he realised tiredly. She needed to be loved… to be cherished. In so many ways she was strong and intelligent, but she was still a woman. If he told her now that he suspected Charles only wanted to marry her because he wanted Rothwell, it would destroy her.
And besides… at the back of his mind, barely acknowledged but there, his first and most important fear was not for Geraldine Frances, not for his child, much as he loved her, but for Rothwell itself and all that it represented… the lands and titles held by his family through so many vicissitudes… lands and titles now vested in him… held by him in a form of sacred trust for future generations. Without Geraldine Frances’s marriage to Charles there could well be no more generations… at least, not carrying the direct line of his blood. Another fear struck him. At all costs he must keep his illness a secret, for if Charles found out there would be nothing to stop him deserting Geraldine Frances, secure in the knowledge that ultimately, even if she should outlive him, Rothwell and all it stood for must eventually pass to his own offspring. For James was sure that if Charles destroyed his daughter’s trust now, she would never ever be able to trust herself to another man, and Geraldine Frances, for all her strengths, was still too young, too immature to contemplate marrying for the sake of Rothwell alone.
He prayed as he had never prayed before that if he was granted no other boon, he was granted the ability to resist the slow destruction of his mind and body until Geraldine Frances had the wisdom and maturity to see, as he could now see, that in the end it was not the present that was important, but the future… that it was Rothwell that must come first, above personal feelings… above personal desires; that it was Rothwell that must survive, no matter what else might have to be destroyed to enable that to happen.
