Mistresses: Bound with Gold / Bought with Emeralds
Page 16
Joshua was tight-lipped and broodingly morose on the way back to the house, and Regan made a coward of herself by pretending that she had a headache and ducking dinner. She had no wish to sit across the table from Carolyn and listen to her talk about her latest wedding dress fitting, or speculate feverishly on where Joshua might take her on their honeymoon.
But there was no avoiding the other woman early the next morning when she crashed into Regan’s room just as she was finally managing to doze off after tossing and turning sleeplessly all night.
‘What’s the matter?’ Regan asked blearily, struggling to sit up as Carolyn threw herself dramatically into the chair by the bed.
‘I’m bleeding,’ she moaned, and Regan’s eyes snapped wide, noticing the tear-tracks on Carolyn’s normally flawless cheeks and her unnaturally pasty expression.
‘My God, do you think you’re having a miscarriage?’ she said, leaping out of bed.
‘No—I’m bleeding—I’ve got my period.’ Carolyn wrung her slender hands and rocked to and fro in the chair. ‘Oh, God, Regan—what am I going to do?’
‘But—but—you’re pregnant…’ Regan squawked, and Carolyn shook her head.
‘No—no, I’m not. It was a mistake—’
Regan collapsed on the side of the bed. ‘A mistake? But you had a test…’
‘It was wrong. It happens—not often, the doctor says, but it happens. I never went back for a physical examination, you see. But I started feeling some cramps yesterday afternoon, and so I drove over to Granny’s GP and…’ her big golden-brown eyes filled with tears ‘…and she said she couldn’t feel anything when she palpated me, so she sent me for another test and it came back negative…’
Regan’s brain was reeling. ‘But, how could that be…surely you had all the symptoms?’
‘The doctor said sometimes a woman’s body can mimic the early physical signs if she really believes that she’s pregnant, and I did believe it—I did!’ Carolyn’s light contralto rose sharply, as if to convince herself of her own sincerity. ‘My period didn’t come and then I felt nauseous nearly all the time, and my breasts started to feel sore and I put on weight…of course I thought I was pregnant!’ she shrilled.
‘The doctor said part of it was probably only fluid retention because my cycle was disturbed. I couldn’t believe it—I didn’t dare tell anyone in case it turned out to be another ghastly mistake. And then, when I woke up this morning…I found I had my period! There is no baby—there never was!’ Her exultation held more than a hint of hysteria, and a volatile mixture of joy, misery, relief and despair. ‘I need never have had that fight with Chris. Oh, God, he’s never going to want me now. He’ll hate me even more than he does already. I put us all through this torture for nothing!’ She buried her head in her hands, her hair falling around her body like a golden veil. Then she wrenched her tragic face up again. ‘And Granny—the wedding! Regan—please help me…what do you think I should do?’
Regan forced herself to be calm, not to choke on the throttling hope that threatened to close off her air supply. ’The first thing you have to do,’ she said carefully, ‘is tell Joshua.’
Carolyn looked white-eyed with panic. ‘Oh, no, I can’t tell Jay!’
‘Why can’t you?’ asked Regan hollowly. Was Carolyn now going to proclaim she’d fallen out of love with Chris and in love with Joshua?
‘I just can’t,’ she babbled, clutching the arms of the chair. ‘Not after all he’s done for me. He and Chris had never had a serious argument in their lives until I came along, and now, because Jay stood up for me and tried to help me, even knowing how much I love Chris—Oh, God, neither of them are going to forgive me…it’s all going to be so humiliating…you just don’t understand!’
Better a little humiliation now than a lifetime of unhappiness ahead, thought Regan acidly. How in the world had Carolyn thought she could be happy in a marriage that would have made her a sister to the man she still truly loved? How could even Joshua have been so arrogant as to believe he could make Carolyn content with such a situation? It was a recipe for emotional disaster whether or not the estrangement between the brothers remained permanent.
‘No, I don’t understand,’ she said steadily. ‘But I do know that you can’t go through with the wedding with Joshua still thinking that you’re going to have his brother’s baby. You must know how he feels about honesty. Remember what happened last time he married a woman who tried to use a pregnancy to manipulate him? As a matter of honour—his and yours—you have to tell him.’
‘He’ll think I’m a moron—so will Chris!’
‘Chris is a doctor, for goodness’ sake—he should have considered the possibility of something like this and insisted you both reserve any decisions until you’d had a proper examination. Of course, that would have been the rational thing to do, and people in love aren’t always rational.’
Carolyn’s eyes suddenly went dreamy. ‘No…that’s true…I know I sprung it on him badly, when we were in the middle of a fight about something else, and he felt cornered—but so did I! Maybe I should tell Chris first. After all, it was supposed to be his baby—and he could tell Jay…’
Regan eyed her cynically. ‘I don’t think it’s the sort of thing Joshua would appreciate hearing second-hand.’
All Regan’s advice seemed to fall on deaf ears, and by the time she went downstairs she had a real headache, which suddenly got worse when Sir Frank greeted her in the breakfast room with cheerful congratulations on her excellent timing—because Joshua had just arrived and was waiting to see her in the library.
‘I put him in there because he said it was business and he wanted somewhere you wouldn’t be disturbed. I hope he’s not going to try and poach you away from Harriman’s before the takeover—but then, that would sort of be like poaching you away from himself, wouldn’t it?’
His chuckle followed her down the hall, but Regan didn’t feel at all like laughing. As soon as she walked into the library and saw Ryan standing slouched beside the desk, nervously pushing his glasses up his nose, her heart sank.
Joshua, standing behind the desk, threw a sheaf of computer printouts on the desk, scattering them like confetti.
‘Perhaps you’d like to explain these?’ Icicles dripped from every syllable.
Out of the corner of her eye Regan could see Ryan wince. Whatever he had done, against her express instructions, she knew she couldn’t let him take any of the blame. ‘I—what are they?’
Joshua’s fist crashed down on top of the papers, the ice melting to reveal the molten volcano of temper beneath.
‘Don’t compound your lies by pretending innocence!’ he roared. ‘No wonder you were so eager to join me on the boat yesterday. It provided you with the perfect alibi!’ He raked her with a look of searing contempt. ‘You had my son back at the office doing your dirty work for you, while you kept me safely out of the way. I compliment you on your technique—suborn the son and seduce the father.’
Regan had done neither, but she could see he was in no mood to listen. She tentatively picked up one of the pieces of paper. ‘But, surely, you must be able to see—’
He lunged forward and dashed it from her hands. ‘I see, all right!’ he erupted. ‘I see that you used him…you used my son—’ in his ungovernable outrage, his passionate protectiveness towards his family had never been more apparent ‘—to cover up a crime! You used his feelings for you to make him an accessory to fraud. When I found these in his room this morning I knew that I was the fool being taken for a ride yesterday.’
‘But, Dad, I told you—Regan said she didn’t want me to—’
‘Be quiet, son, you’re in deep enough trouble as it is! What Regan says and what she means are two different things.’ He swung his attention back to her guilty white face. ‘Was this a set-up right from the beginning—from that first night in my apartment?’
Regan rallied, as outraged as he by the notion. ‘No! You know it couldn’t have been!’
; ‘And you expect me to believe you?’ he slashed sardonically, but seemed to accept that his accusation was incompatible with subsequent events as he went on, ‘Serendipity, then, when you were given the chance to come to Palm Cove and realised that you might use our former…liaison to help create a smokescreen for your actions. Were those sexual tricks you performed on me yesterday supposed to be your version of a personal insurance policy? Designed to make me reluctant to summon the police in the event of your being found out—’
‘Joshua!’ she gasped in agonised protest, glancing meaningfully at Ryan, who was following the conversation back and forth with a deep, and noticeably unrepentant fascination.
Her concern seemed only to trigger an even greater fury. ‘What? Do you think we might be corrupting his innocence? It’s a little late to worry about that, isn’t it? I think, for his own future protection, it’s about time he learned the difference between an honest woman and a conniving little whore!’
Chapter Ten
‘LEAVE? But you don’t have to leave!’
Sir Frank’s bluff response to her miserable confession made Regan feel marginally better. Her coruscating encounter with Joshua had ended shortly after his ugly outburst, when he had seemed to recognise that his inability to control his rising fury at her brave defence of her character rendered him unacceptably vulnerable in his son’s eyes—and his own. He had stormed out of the house leaving a dozen menacing threats hanging in the air, with a stunned Ryan mouthing silent apologies and flapping cryptic hand-signals to Regan that she presumed were meant to be reassuring as he was frog-marched to the door.
It had all happened so fast that Regan had felt as if she had been the victim of a lightning razor attack—there had been no pain, only a numb shock as she’d contemplated her numerous slicing wounds. She had limped back to the dining room and summoned the presence of mind to make a clean breast about Michael’s theft, and her failed efforts to replace the money, to an astonished Sir Frank and Hazel.
She hadn’t mentioned Ryan, merely saying that Joshua had discovered what she was doing, and she had been staggered when, instead of accusing her of aiding and abetting her husband’s crime, or condemning her stupidity, the Harrimans had rallied round with shocked support.
At her implacable insistence, Sir Frank had reluctantly accepted her resignation, but he was baulking at her proposal to immediately return to Auckland.
‘Of course I do,’ she said proudly. ‘You trusted me and I’ve let you down.’
‘Not you—that wretched bounder Michael!’ Sir Frank growled in his quaintly old-fashioned terminology. ‘If it’s a matter of the money, don’t you worry about it, lass. You know I’ll see things right.’
She clung to the wreckage of her pride, devastated by the unexpected expression of faith. ‘No…I have the bank cheque for the full repayment upstairs; I’ll give it to you before I leave—’
‘Now, Regan, you know we won’t turn away from you just because you made a wrong choice under stress,’ said Hazel gently. ‘It’s your intentions that count, and we understand that you were just trying to do what you thought was best. You’ve paid much too dearly for Michael’s sins as it is, so you don’t have to go on covering yourself in shame…’
Regan swallowed hard, overwhelmed by her kindness. She had thought that the Harrimans would be glad to see the back of her. And no doubt they would if they knew the true extent of her shame! As for the wedding—Regan didn’t know what was going to happen on that score and was desperate not to care.
‘I’m sorry…but I know Joshua won’t agree with you. I realise I’m letting you down double-fold, but—’
‘But nothing!’ said Sir Frank. ‘I’m sure Wade will come round once he cools down and hears all the mitigating factors.’
‘He knows them already,’ said Regan tightly, afraid she was going to burst into tears.
‘Well, you’ve admitted everything and done everything in your power to put things right—that puts you on the side of the angels as far as I’m concerned, and I’ll tell him so,’ he gruffed.
‘It’s not just that.’ She knew she was going to have to come up with a definitive argument. ‘I’m afraid I’ve also fallen in love with Joshua,’ she said flatly. ‘It’s very awkward and embarrassing, and I’m sorry to complicate matters, but I really think it would be better all round if I went home…’
Her honesty paid off. Sir Frank continued to bluster in a muted kind of way, but Hazel instantly empathised with the horror of an unrequited love. She hugged Regan, delivering a blizzard of sympathetic assurances that of course she understood her urgent desire to leave, and of course she could manage without her, especially now that she had discarded her crutch and was hobbling about on her rapidly improving ankle.
Regan packed and was gone within the hour, driven back to Auckland by Alice Beatson’s lanky, monosyllabic husband Steve.
Fortunately, Lisa and Saleena were at work when he dropped her off at the flat, for, once inside, her fragile facçde of dignity shattered and Regan indulged herself in a storm of weeping, the bitter culmination of months of pain and strain to which had now been added this wrenching new loss, greater than all the others added together.
When the fit of anguish was over her throat was raw, her face looked like soggy puff pastry and her bones ached as if she had been beaten all over with a baseball bat. Her throat was soothed with lemon and honey, and her face marginally improved with a cool wash, but she knew the ache wasn’t really physical. Until the psychological bruising came out she knew she wouldn’t feel much better, however much she cried, and there was no way that she knew to hurry the healing.
If she could have despised Joshua it would have been so much easier, but she understood him far too well. From his perspective he was perfectly justified in questioning her morals and suspecting her motives, and the fact that her actions had placed his son in jeopardy would be impossible for him to forgive. As he had once told her so forcefully, no one got a second chance to breach his trust.
The odds had been impossibly stacked against her from the very beginning. She had known that loving him was a one-way ticket to heartbreak…but, oh, the joy that she had experienced along the way was almost worth the price of arrival!
The next few days were spent compulsively trying not to think about anything or anyone connected with Palm Cove, which was next to impossible when she half expected a policeman to come knocking at the door…or for Joshua to come bursting in, a one-man posse on a quest for the modern version of frontier justice. He hadn’t exactly ordered her not to leave town, but that had been the gist of his final threat as he had left the house. And when she had arrived home she had been horrified to realise that she was still wearing his expensive platinum watch—another crime for him to lay at her door! And this time he would be right, for she had deliberately done nothing about returning it. By now Sir Frank would have arranged for her cheque to be repaid into the company accounts, but she was afraid to hope that that would be the end of it, not if Joshua felt it incumbent on his honour to exact personal retribution.
Desperate to avoid having to deal with reality, she impressed on Lisa and Saleena she wasn’t in to phone calls—from anyone—and whenever they went out she switched off the answer-machine and took the phone off the hook. She did, however, make one stilted call to Cindy, to tell her that the money had been repaid, and that whatever repercussions there might be from now on would stop with Regan. She had hung up on Cindy’s hysterical thanks in the certain knowledge that she had finally closed the book on her failed marriage.
The following afternoon, on the fourth day of her emotional exile, her brittle shell was cracked by the last person she would have expected to bother to seek her out—Carolyn Harriman, floating on air after her final wedding gown fitting.
‘Hi—you don’t mind I got your address from Granny, do you?’ she chirped to Regan, who did mind. She had refused to wonder if Carolyn had yet plucked up the courage to break the news of her phantom pregna
ncy, guiltily aware that she had fled without even saying goodbye—unwilling to risk any additional emotional trauma.
‘I couldn’t get through on the phone, but I figured you wouldn’t have another job yet and thought you could probably do with some cheering up,’ breezed Carolyn. ‘Look—I bought Danish pastries to go with our afternoon coffee! Granny told me why you left—about the rotten thing your husband did to you. God, men can be utter pigs, can’t they?’
Regan could detect no hint of falsity in her friendly attitude, and was forced to conclude that Chris must not have blabbed about what he had seen on board the Sara Wade.
It struck her that she had never seen the young woman looking more relaxed as she leant on the stove while Regan put the jug on to boil.
‘You’re still going ahead with it, then?’ she said warily, when she learned where Carolyn had been.
Only Carolyn could simper without looking silly. ‘Well, yes—sort of…Haven’t you got a percolator?’
‘No, we haven’t. What do you mean, sort of?’ Regan forced herself to ask.
‘Uh…with a different groom.’
Regan’s teaspoonful of instant coffee spilled all over the bench.
‘Chris?’
‘Of course Chris.’ Carolyn sounded ludicrously offended that she should ask. At Regan’s expression she offered up a sheepish smile and waggled the new ruby and diamond ring on her finger, ‘Luckily he kept this when I threw it back in his face. We got re-engaged a couple of days ago.’
‘And J-Joshua raised no objections?’ Regan stuttered.
‘Why should he?’ said Carolyn smugly. ‘It’s what he expected all along. Why do you think he bribed the printer to muck up the invitations? He told me when he proposed that he doubted we’d have to actually marry each other. He said he knew that when it came to the crunch Chris loved me too much to let me marry anyone else!’
‘How omniscient of him,’ said Regan, shards of anger thrusting jaggedly up through a smothering blanket of pain. And he had had the nerve to rage at her for being conniving! She hadn’t been the only one with a secret agenda!