Silver

by Penny Jordan

  The service itself was bad enough, but afterwards, ignoring her pleas, Charles had arranged for the most important of the mourners to return to Rothwell, and having to circulate among them, accepting their condolences, behaving as though she were at some kind of society cocktail party, was the last thing she wanted to endure.

  Her father’s doctor stopped her as she was trying to escape. He at least had been genuinely fond of her father, Geraldine Frances knew. ‘I am sorry,’ he told her quietly. ‘Not so much for your father, of course, but I know how much you will miss him…’

  Geraldine Frances stared at him.

  ‘What do you mean, not so much for my father?’

  The doctor looked uncomfortable and then said quietly, ‘I was thinking of his illness… I know how much he was dreading the inevitable physical and mental deterioration it would have caused…’ He paused and then looked directly at her. ‘He was such a good rider; I did wonder…’

  Geraldine Frances couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She saw Charles approaching her with relief… he would be able to explain what was happening, make the doctor understand that her father’s death had been an accident, and not, as he was implying, suicide. Her father had been perfectly well… perfectly healthy…

  ‘Charles…’

  Both men ignored her. The doctor looked at Charles and said curtly, ‘I thought you told me that Geraldine Frances knew about her father’s condition.’

  ‘I thought she did,’ Charles managed to lie smoothly, giving her a faked look of concern. He hadn’t known, of course, but he had managed to conceal his own shock when the doctor had revealed the facts about James’s illness earlier that day. ‘Surely James told you about his dementia, Gerry?’

  His dementia… The floor rocked beneath her. She went white, and she heard the doctor curse Charles under his breath and then say to her, ‘Geraldine Frances, it’s all right… your father wasn’t mad… he was suffering from a progressive deterioration—an acceleration of the natural ageing process, known as Altzheimer’s disease. His condition was diagnosed some time ago…’

  ‘He never said a word,’ she managed through stiff lips.

  Charles continued to look both puzzled and contrite, while hiding his cruel pleasure in her anguish.

  ‘Didn’t he? That’s odd. He was discussing it with me only minutes before… before his accident. That was why, when your father’s doctor here asked me if I’d realised how ill he was, I did wonder if… well, none of us would have blamed him if he had chosen to take the easy way out, would we?’

  The discovery that James had been ill had in fact been almost as great a shock to Charles as it had obviously been to his cousin, but for different reasons. What a pity he hadn’t known earlier about James’s illness. What a weapon it would have been against him, against them both… it might not ever have been necessary for him to arrange James’s ‘accidental’ death. The mere threat of exposure might have been sufficient to make his uncle keep his mouth shut about his own private affairs. But it was too late for that now. However, her father’s medical history, physical and mental, was something he could and would use against Geraldine Frances—and who knew? With that threat it might even be possible to drive her into mental instability herself, to take from her her inheritance, and to have her locked away in an institution.

  Geraldine Frances felt numb… numb… everywhere except for one tiny place inside her which seemed to throb with agony.

  Her father, ill… frightened… confiding in Charles and not her… taking his own life…

  ‘I think he did it for you,’ Charles was murmuring to her. ‘Better a clean end now than to become a dribbling, gaga—–’

  It was the doctor’s curt command that silenced him, while Geraldine Frances stood there trembling, white and sick, unable to believe what she was hearing. She looked at the doctor and asked painfully, ‘Is it true… would my father…?’

  Much as he wanted to lie, to soften the cruelty of Charles’s unkind description, there was nothing he could do, other than to say, ‘Ultimately, yes, but I believe your father had a good many years of excellent health still in front of him. I don’t think…’

  I don’t think he would have killed himself, he had been about to say, but checked the words, knowing they would do no good now, and patted her hand silently instead.

  In his opinion Charles Fitzcarlton was one of the most tactless young fools it had ever been his misfortune to meet. Why on earth a man as mature and wise as James had chosen to confide in him rather than his own daughter, he had no idea, unless it was because of the innate deep-rooted chauvinism that still seemed to infest certain members of the upper class.

  Charles smiled as he drew Geraldine Frances away. Of course he had had no idea of James’s illness, until the doctor had asked him if he had been aware that his uncle was ill. It had been all too easy to get the man to confide in him by pretending he had known the truth. And whata truth… How he had enjoyed taunting Geraldine Frances with it… what a weapon it would be in the future. The threat of madness… even if not exactly true, it would still be a very powerful part of his future ammunition.

  Almost immediately after the funeral Charles left for London, his absence carefully calculated to intensify Geraldine Frances’s dependence on him. He wanted to make sure she was fully aware of how much she needed him when he told her that his principles would not allow him to marry her while she was so wealthy and he so poor. She would, of course, immediately offer to transfer all her assets to him, he knew… After that it would be a simple exercise to get her to transfer the titles as well.

  He had another reason for returning to London. His affair with Thérèse would have to be brought to an end. She was not the kind of woman to remain discreetly in the background while he married someone else.

  It was a pity… In bed she was the best he had ever known, but sex, while enjoyable, wasn’t everything… it certainly fell a long, long way short of being as important to him as Rothwell.

  Telling himself that he deserved the reward of enjoying her for a few more nights before he told her it was over, he smiled his false, betraying smile into Geraldine Frances’s eyes and promised her that he would return just as soon as he possibly could.

  ‘I have my own business affairs to attend to,’ he told her, not untruthfully.

  There would be no more drug dealing. That part of his life was over. Yes, there was plenty to occupy his attention in London, before he could return to Rothwell to assume his rightful place as its master.

  In London, Peter Vincent, who had read of James’s death in the papers, pondered and considered. He was not a man who ever acted rashly, and it took him some time to make his decision.

  Geraldine Frances listened, uncaring, while Soames told her that she had a visitor. There had been so many, all of them wanting to convey their condolences, coming to see her out of curiosity or pity, but her father’s training refused to allow her to hide behind the convenient excuse of her own grief.

  ‘Who is he, Soames?’ she asked tiredly.

  ‘A Mr Peter Vincent.’

  Peter Vincent. She knew him, of course. One of her father’s very special agents…

  She saw him in the library, offering him a glass of the twenty-year-old malt she knew he favoured, surprised when he shook his head in refusal.

  ‘I—er—take it you are here alone,’ Peter asked her awkwardly. ‘That is, your cousin, Charles—–’

  ‘Charles is in London,’ Geraldine Frances interrupted, and was surprised by the look of relief that crossed his face.

  ‘What I have to tell you isn’t very pleasant. I’ve searched my conscience, wondered… but your father’s instructions to me were clear… Had he been alive, I know it was his intention… and perhaps it’s even more important that you should know now…’

  Geraldine Frances stared at him. ‘Know what, Mr Vincent?’

  ‘That your cousin Charles has been dealing in drugs… acting as a supplier… a pusher…’ He s
aid the word distastefully and, seeing her expression, added quietly, ‘I’m sorry… I know how difficult this must be for you. Were it not for the fact that your father came to me himself and asked me to check…’

  ‘My father asked you…? But when?’ Geraldine Frances asked him, frowning.

  ‘The day before he died,’ Peter Vincent told her simply. ‘He telephoned me at my home and asked if he could see me… He told me that he’d had reason to visit your cousin, and that when he’d arrived at the Rothwell Square house Charles wasn’t there, but that a young man very obviously a drug addict was, and that, moreover, he made it plain to your father that he was waiting for his supplier and that the supplier was your cousin, Charles.

  ‘Naturally your father was extremely concerned… He asked me to find out as much as I could about Charles’s activities… discreetly, of course…’

  ‘And?’ Geraldine Frances asked him tensely.

  He gave an apologetic shrug. ‘I’m afraid it’s true…’

  Charles, a drug dealer… she couldn’t believe it… wouldn’t believe it.

  ‘I wasn’t sure what to do,’ Peter Vincent was saying. ‘Whether or not your father would have wanted me to pass on to you the information he had requested…’

  ‘I’m sure he would,’ Geraldine Frances told him absently. Of course he would… but she couldn’t believe it was true. There must be some mistake… there had to be… Not until she had heard it from Charles’s own lips would she believe it. She had to see him… to talk to him…

  She got up clumsily, thanking Peter Vincent for taking the trouble to visit her, aching for him to leave so that she could think, but, once he had gone, calm, rational thinking was the last thing she could do.

  Instead she paced her bedroom, alternately trembling with shock and half distraught with pain. It couldn’t be true… she wouldn’t let it be true…

  Her whole world had turned upside-down, and the only person who could make it right again was Charles himself. She had to see him… she had to…

  For the first time in many, many years she forgot that she hadn’t eaten, that Cook would be preparing her dinner, and instead pulled on a coat over the shapeless plaid dress whose dark colours were supposed to disguise her ungainly bulk.

  Her car was in the garage alongside the Bentley. She got in and started the engine, ignoring the fact that she was really in no state to drive.

  She had to see Charles. She had to hear from his own lips that Peter Vincent was mistaken… that her father had been mistaken… There had to be a rational explanation… there must be.

  Charles was going to be her husband… they were going to be married… He was all she had in the world, and she loved him so much.

  Too much, an inner voice taunted her, but she refused to listen to it. She dared not listen to it, just as she dared not listen to the other cold, clinical little voice that told her that her father would scarcely have gone to the lengths of asking Peter Vincent to investigate Charles’s activities if he had not been firmly convinced that Charles was involved in drug dealing. Her father had never been a vindictive man. He knew how much she loved Charles. He must have known how much pain it would cause her to discover…

  Her mind sheered off, unable to cope with the enormity of the pain waiting for her. Frantically she concentrated on believing that there was an explanation, that she only had to see Charles, to talk to him for everything to be explained.

  Mercifully, London was relatively free of traffic, and as her father had done before her Geraldine Frances ignored the ban on parking in front of Charles’s house.

  She knew he must be in. Lights blazed from the downstairs windows, and to her surprise as she mounted the steps she saw that the front door was actually open.

  She stepped into the hall, frowning as she saw a woman’s coat lying on the floor. Sable… She gave a small shudder; she loathed the very idea of wearing animal pelts herself… Beside the coat was a shoe, impossibly small and equally impossibly high. She called Charles’s name, but there was no response… Her fear and panic mounting with every second, she climbed the stairs heading for the library, which was the room Charles used most.

  She opened the door and then stood staring into the room, her body seized in a sudden spasm of shock as she whispered Charles’s name.

  Charles hadn’t heard her… Charles hadn’t seen her… Charles was oblivious to everything but the fierce, thrusting ecstasy that pulsed through him as he pushed fiercely into the woman lying beneath him.

  Clothes were scattered everywhere… The woman was laughing a low, mocking sound, her arms and legs wrapped around Charles as she taunted, ‘Tired already? Surely not?’ and then, as Charles responded violently to her taunt, she screamed loudly in pleasure, a wild, mindless sound, punctuating the things Charles was saying to her, things that made Geraldine Frances’s skin burn with heat and then freeze with ice both at the same time.

  She couldn’t move. Couldn’t do anything but stare with some sort of horrible, compulsive fascination at the intimate entwining of their bodies and their savagely triumphant movements.

  It was almost as though someone was holding her, forcing her to watch… refusing to allow her to turn away… as though someone outside herself was directing her movements.

  She felt the sickness stir in her stomach, the disbelief, the pain… the shocked anguish of a knowledge she asked not to have… heard the woman whispering mindlessly… heard Charles’s guttural, primitive cry of pleasure… saw, as though it was happening at a distance from her, and in slow motion, like a film instead of real life, his flesh withdraw from the woman’s, his head turn, his eyes widen and then dilate with shock and then fury as he saw her…

  As he saw her…

  Abruptly, something inside her snapped, and with it the pressure that was keeping her where she stood.

  She heard Charles swear, ugly, savage words that hit like pieces of molten, flying metal embedding themselves into her, wounding her, as she turned to flee… She heard the woman’s voice, soft and frightened, asking something…

  She tried to escape… to run… but her weight was against her.

  Long before she reached the front door, Charles caught up with her. He had even had time to fasten his trousers, she noticed savagely.

  ‘Gerry, what the hell are you doing here?’

  His arm barred her way out. His eyes… how had she ever thought them warm and tender? They were cold… deeply, dangerously cold. Even now, after what she had seen, after what she knew was not to be ignored, she still couldn’t lie.

  ‘I wanted to see you,’ she told him unsteadily, while tears filled her eyes and flooded down her cheeks.

  She sensed rather than saw him relax slightly.

  ‘Look, it isn’t what you think,’ he told her easily.

  ‘You mean you weren’t making love to her?’ she demanded huskily, hating him for what she had seen and hating herself for standing here, howling like a child… for listening to him, when everything else inside her screamed in outraged pain and pride against what she had witnessed.

  ‘Come on, Gerry, you’re not a child. I’m a man…’ He was trying to shrug it off… to make it seem unimportant. She could almost feel him willing her to be convinced, but behind the coaxing was a coldness that chilled her.

  ‘Look, let’s be sensible about this,’ she heard him saying. ‘It doesn’t make any difference to us. It isn’t important…’

  Not important? How could he expect her to believe that, when she had seen in his face, in those unguarded seconds of agonised ecstasy, the truth?

  ‘It’s important to me,’ she told him fiercely, despising herself for wanting to be convinced… persuaded. Wanting to wipe out all that she had seen and heard.

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake!’ Charles swore savagely, no longer bothering to hide what he was feeling. ‘What the hell did you expect? That I would wait, virgin-like, pure and unsullied until we got married? Grow up and stop being so ridiculous.

  ‘Look
at yourself,’ he derided her. ‘And then tell me honestly that you believed my refusal to make love to you was for any reason other than one of revulsion. Let’s be honest with one another, Gerry. You need me because that’s the only way you’re going to get a husband and children… and I need you because that’s the only way I’m going to get Rothwell.’

  She felt as though her whole world was falling apart.

  ‘You said you loved me,’ she stammered pitifully.

  Charles laughed sadistically, and derided, ‘And you believed me? No man could ever love you, Geraldine Frances… no man could ever desire you. You’re grotesque… obscene. Do you think anyone will blame me for taking my pleasures with someone else? Once we’re married—–’

  Something inside her snapped. She had borne enough…

  ‘We aren’t going to be married,’ she told him huskily. ‘That’s what I came here to tell you.’

  Now, when it was almost too late, her pride had come to her rescue. Geraldine Frances lifted her head and looked at him, saw the mockery and contempt in his eyes.

  ‘Liar,’ he told her cruelly. ‘You came here because you wanted a fuck and I’m the only man who’s ever likely to give you one.’

  His obscenity appalled her… She had never dreamed he would treat her like this… had never dreamed there was another Charles behind the golden mask she had thought was the real man. It stung her into flinging the truth recklessly at him.

  ‘No,’ she contradicted him flatly. ‘I came here to tell you that I know the truth.’

  She was savagely pleased by the sudden look of fear in his eyes; it gave her the courage to press on and say, ‘I know all about your drug trafficking, Charles… you see, my father found out what you were up to before he died, and he instructed one of his agents to investigate you. I couldn’t marry you now, even if I wanted to,’ she told him disdainfully.

  Inside she was falling apart. She wanted to scream and rage, to tear the very flesh from her bones, to throw back her head and howl to the heavens that she had been betrayed, that she was in mortal pain.