The Hidden Years

by Penny Jordan

  They had quarrelled about that, and bitterly, Scott insisting that before they could marry he had to return to Australia and explain the situation to his father. He had wanted her to go with him but she had refused. Why should she subject herself to his father's inspection when they both knew that he would reject her? Why couldn't Scott see that there was no need for them to bow to his father's will, that they could make a comfortable life for themselves away from his father's vast acres, that they did not need either his father or her mother?

  'But can't you see,' he had asked her, 'they need us?'

  She had lost her temper then… They had quarrelled angrily, almost violently on her part. When Scott had slowed down the car, she had reached for the door, surely never really intending to open it and jump out; but in the heat of the moment… her unforgivable, relentless temper had driven her so hard. Ridden her so hard.

  Anyway, now she would never know what she might or might not have done, because Scott had reached across her to grab the door-handle and in doing so had failed to see the oncoming car.

  Ironically it had been his arm across her body that had protected her from greater injury and prevented him from saving himself, so that he took the full brunt of the collision, so that he suffered the fate which should by rights have been hers…

  Oh, God, she couldn't start thinking about that now… Not now. Hadn't she paid enough, suffered enough, endured enough guilt to wash away even the blackest sin?

  Downstairs the grandfather clock chimed the quarter-hour. Thankfully she abandoned the painful introspection of her thoughts and hurried downstairs.

  'We've put you next to the man from the construction company,' Anne Henderson told Sage once their mutual introductions were over. 'I don't seem to have a note of his name… Our secretary's little boy has been rushed into hospital for an emergency appendix operation… quite the worst possible time for something like that to happen but what can you do…? Fortunately I do have records of the names of the two people from the Ministry. They're a Mr Stephen Simmonds and a Ms Helen Ordman. They're all due to arrive together. I hope they won't be late. The meeting's due to start at seven forty-five.'

  The village hall had been a gift to the village from her mother, or rather from the mill. It was originally an old barn which had been in danger of falling down, and her mother had had it rescued and remodelled to provide the villagers with a meeting place and somewhere to hold village jumble sales and dances.

  Meticulous in everything she undertook, her mother had seen to it that the half-gallery of the original building had been retained, and whenever a dance was held the band was usually placed up on this gallery. Tonight it was empty, the stairs leading to it closed off. Glancing round the familiar beamed interior, Sage reflected that a stranger entering it would never guess that behind the traditional wattle and daub lay a modern purpose-built kitchen area, or that one third of the floor space could be elevated to provide a good-sized stage, much prized by the local drama group. Her mother had thought of everything; even the chairs now placed in neat rows were specially made, in solid wood, with comfortable, practical seats.

  'People are starting to arrive already,' Anne Henderson told her. 'The vicar's wife rang to warn me that the vicar might be a few minutes late. He's on the committee as well. Your mother had hoped to persuade our local MP to join us tonight, but I haven't heard anything from him.'

  The other committee members were a local solicitor and a local GP, both of whom had very strong views about the proposed road, and both of whom were extremely articulate.

  They would need to be to make up for her deficiencies in that direction, Sage reflected, as they came in and she was introduced to them.

  For tonight at least the most she could hope for was to act as a figurehead, representing her mother's stand against the new road, rather than contributing any viable arguments to the proceedings.

  Her role was rather like that of a regimental standard: there simply to show that the regiment's strength existed, rather than to take any part in the fight. She was there simply as a representative of her mother…a focal point.

  The hall was beginning to fill up, and from the look on the faces of the people coming in it was obvious that they were taking the threat to their rural peace very seriously indeed. Feelings were going to run high, but whenever had emotion been enough to batter down logic? If it had, why had she not been the victor in so many arguments rather than the vanquished?

  There was a flurry of activity over by the door and Anne Henderson excused herself, saying, 'I think that must be the opposition. I'd better go over and introduce myself.'

  Sage watched them walk in: A man and a woman: the woman a slender elegant brunette in her early twenties who had dressed in the kind of suit which the glossy magazines and upmarket newspapers were continually pushing as a working wardrobe for the modern woman. Yes, Sage thought drily, provided she could afford to buy the simple and so expensive designer garments they lauded. And this woman, despite the businesslike clothes she was wearing, came across to Sage not as a dedicated career type, but as a sensual, almost predatory female who to Sage's eyes had dressed herself not so much with the meeting in mind, but for a man. The plain silk shirt that was seemingly so carelessly unfastened just enough to hint at a provocative tempting cleavage. The flannel skirt, short and straight to reveal slender silk-clad legs, the hair and make-up, both elegant and discreet, but both very definitely sensual rather than businesslike. A woman, of course, could recognise such things immediately—men were rather different, and Sage wondered in amusement what on earth it was about the rather nondescript, jeans-and-windcheater-clad man at her side that had aroused such predatory instincts.

  At first sight he seemed ordinary enough: average height, mid-brown hair, wearing, rather surprisingly for a Ministry man, the kind of casual clothes that made him seem more like one of the villagers than anything else. He was talking earnestly to his companion as Anne shepherded them towards the raised stage.

  Sage stood up as they reached her, shaking hands with both of them and introducing herself. She could see the younger woman assessing her, and hid her own amusement. She really had nothing to worry about— Sage was not in the least interested in her quarry.

  The man from the Ministry attempted to take the next seat to her own, but Anne stopped him, informing him, 'I thought we'd let the chairman of the construction company sit there…'

  'Oh, yes, I ought to have mentioned,' his companion chipped in, 'I'm afraid he's going to be a few minutes late. He suggested that we start without him, as he's attending the meeting primarily to answer people's questions about the actual effect of the construction of the road.'

  'Isn't that rather premature?' Sage heard herself intervening coolly. Helen Ordman looked coldly at her and waited. 'You are rather presuming that the road will go ahead, which is by no means certain as yet.'

  Stephen Simmonds looked uncomfortable and shuffled his feet, and Sage was surprised to discover how much satisfaction it gave her to see the brunette's immaculately made-up face darken to a rather unbecoming red.

  Sage rather suspected that she was the kind of woman who traded very heavily on her looks, using them to bludgeon those members of her own sex who were less well-favoured into a state of insecurity and those of the opposite sex into helpless submission.

  'Well, the feasibility of the proposed new road is what we have come here to discuss,' Stephen Simmonds interrupted quickly. 'Naturally we can understand the fears of the local residents, and, of course, it's our job to assure them that full consideration has been given to their situation and that the work will be undertaken with as little disruption as possible to their lives.'

  'And after it's been completed?' Sage asked drily. 'Or don't you consider that having a six-lane motorway virtually cutting the village in half is a disruption to people's lives? I suppose you could always provide us with a nice concrete bridge or perhaps even a tunnel so that one half of the village can keep in touch with the
other without having to drive from here to London and back to reach it—'

  'Don't be ridiculous! Naturally, provision will be made to allow for normal daily traffic,' Helen Ordman interrupted acidly, treating Sage to the sort of look that suggested that she thought she was mentally defective.

  'I think we'd better start,' Anne Henderson whispered on Sage's left. 'People are beginning to get restless.'

  Sage opened the meeting, introducing the guests and then handing over to Anne Henderson, as she was naturally more familiar with the committee's running of the affair. From her mother's meticulous research and the minutes of the earlier meeting, Sage did, however, have a very good idea of what to expect.

  This one followed much the same pattern: a calm speech from the man from the Ministry aimed at soothing people's fears and making the construction of the road appear to be a reasonable and unalterable course of vital importance to the continuing existence of the country.

  Anne Henderson gave a far less analytical and logical speech against the road's construction, and it was plain from the audience's reaction where their feelings lay.

  The questions followed thick and fast, and Sage noted cynically how carefully things were stage-managed so that Helen Ordman always answered the questions from the men in the audience, turning the full wattage of her charm on them, as she skilfully deflected often very viable points with the warmth of her smile and a carefully objective response which never quite answered the question posed.

  These were early days, the first of a series of skirmishes to be gone through before real battle was joined, Sage recognised. Having studied her mother's flies, she was well aware of how much help could be gained in such cases from the ability to lobby powerful figures for support.

  Was that why her mother had been in London? There had been a time when it had been suggested that she might stand for Parliament, but she had declined, saying that she felt she wasn't able to give enough time to a political career. Even so, her mother had a wide variety of contacts, some of them extremely influential.

  Engrossed in her own thoughts, Sage frowned as the hall door opened and a man walked in.

  Tall, dark-haired, wearing the kind of immaculate business suit she had rather expected to see on the man from the Ministry, he nevertheless had an air of latent strength about him that marked him out as someone more used to physical activity than a deskbound lifestyle.

  One could almost feel the ripple of feminine interest that followed him, Sage recognised, knowing now why Helen Ordman had dressed so enticingly. Not for her companion but for this man walking towards the stage, this man who had lifted his head and looked not at Helen Ordman but at her. And looked at her with recognition.

  Daniel Cavanagh. The room started to spin wildly around her. Sage groped for the support of the desk, gripping it with her fingers as shock ran through her like electricity.

  Daniel Cavanagh… How long was it since she had allowed herself to think about him, to remember even that he existed? How long was it since she had even allowed herself to whisper his name?

  She felt cold with shock; she was shaking with the force of it, the reality of the reasons for his presence immediately overwhelmed by the churning maelstrom of memories that seeing him again had invoked.

  Memories it had taken her years to suppress, to ignore, to deny… memories which even now had the power to make her body move restlessly as she fought to obliterate her own culpability, to ignore her guilt and pain— and yet after that one brief hard look of recognition he seemed so completely oblivious to her that they might have never met.

  She heard Anne introducing him, was aware of the low-voiced conversation passing between him and Helen Ordman and, with it, the undercurrent of sexual possessiveness in the other woman's voice, and bewilderingly a sharp pang of something so unexpected, so shockingly unwanted, so ridiculously unnecessary, stirred inside her that for a moment her whole body tensed with the implausibility of it.

  Jealous…jealous of another woman's relationship with a man she herself had never wanted, had never liked even… a man she had used callously and selfishly in anger and bitterness, and who had then turned those feelings, that selfishness against her so remorselessly that her memories of him were a part of her life she preferred to forget.

  So many mistakes… her life was littered with them— she was that kind of person—but Daniel Cavanagh had been more than a mistake… he had been a near-fatal error, showing a dangerous lack of judgement both of herself and of him, a turning-point which had become the axis on which her present life revolved.

  He was taking his seat next to her, the economical movements of his body well co-ordinated and efficient, indicative of a man at ease with himself and with his life.

  Now, without the softening influence of youth, the bones of his face had hardened, the outline of his body matured. He was three years older than she, which made him about thirty-seven.

  A faint ripple of polite applause broke into her thoughts. She watched him stand up and recognised almost resentfully that his suit was hand-tailored, as no doubt were his shirts. He had always been powerfully built, well over six feet and very broad.

  She tried to concentrate on what he was saying, but could hear only the crisp cadences of his voice, stirring echoes of another time, another place, when he had been equally concise, equally controlled, equally clinically detached as he had stripped her pride to the bone, ripped her soul into shreds, destroyed the very fabric of her being and then handed the pieces back to her with a cool politeness which had somehow been even more demeaning than all the rest put together.

  'I pity you,' he had told her, and he had meant it. He, more than anyone else, more than Scott even, had been responsible for the destruction of the hot-headed, headstrong, self-absorbed girl she had been and the creation of the cautious, careful, self-reliant woman she had made herself become.

  Perhaps she ought to be grateful to him… Grateful… that was what he had said to her, flinging the words at her like knives.

  'I suppose you think I should be grateful…'

  And then he had turned them against her, using them to destroy her.

  All these years, and she had never allowed herself to remember, to think, cutting herself off from the past as sharply as though she had burned a line of fire between her old life and the new.

  She was still cold, desperate now to escape from the hall, to be alone, but she couldn't escape, not yet—people were clamouring to ask questions. Whatever Daniel Cavanagh had said, he had stirred up a good deal of reaction.

  She ought to have been listening. She ought to have been able to forget the past, to forget that she knew him… she ought to have been concentrating on what he was saying. That after all was why she was here. Sage closed the meeting without being aware of quite what she had said and the world came back into focus as Anne was saying something about the vicar having suggested that they all went back to the vicarage for an informal chat and a cup of tea. She shook her head, fighting to hold on to her self-control, to appear calm.

  'I'm sorry, I can't.'

  'No, of course, you'll be wanting to get back… Has there been any more news from the hospital?'

  Sage shook her head again. It was beginning to ache dreadfully, a warning that she was about to have the kind of migraine attack she had long ago thought she had learned to control.

  All she wanted to do was to shut herself away somewhere safe and dark, somewhere where she wouldn't have to think, to pretend, somewhere where there was no tall, dark man standing at her side making her remember, making her feel.

  She was the first to leave the hall after the meeting had broken up, her footsteps quick and tense, her nostrils flaring slightly as she got outside and was able to breathe in the cool fresh air.

  Her Porsche was parked only yards away, but she doubted her ability to drive it with the necessary degree of safety. Her stomach was churning sickly, her head pounding… It wasn't unheard of for her to actually black out during these m
igraine attacks.

  If she had any sense she would telephone the house and ask Jenny if someone could come and collect her, she recognised, but to do that would mean lingering here, and inviting the possibility of having to face Daniel.

  Already she could hear his voice behind her, and the softer, almost caressing one of his companion.

  Had the woman no pride? she asked herself savagely. Didn't she realise how obvious she was being, or didn't she care? Daniel was not your ordinary straightforward male… Daniel knew all there was to know about the female psyche. Daniel…

  'Sage… I hear that, like me, you aren't able to join the others at the vicarage…'

  He was standing next to her—good manners, good sense, demanded that she turn round and acknowledge him, but she couldn't move, couldn't even turn her head, couldn't even open her mouth to respond.

  'Daniel, must you go? There's so much we need to discuss…'

  Thank goodness for predatory women, Sage thought in relief as Helen Ordman came between them, possessively taking hold of his arm.

  'Yes, I'm afraid I must. I've got a board meeting in the morning, and a mountain of papers to read through… Sage, I suspect that scarlet monstrosity must be yours. You always were an advocate of conspicuous consumption… in all things…'

  He left her as he had found her, speechless and immobile, staring after him with, as she discovered with sick chagrin, eyes that were stupidly filmed with angry tears.

  She deliberately waited until Daniel Cavanagh had driven off, in a steel-grey vintage Aston Martin, which she knew quite well had cost far more than her new-model Porsche, before walking away from her own car in the direction of Cottingdean.

  The house was only a couple of miles from the village, not far at all, and a pleasant walk on such a warm spring evening. As a teenager, before she had learned to drive, she had travelled those two miles sometimes several times a day and thought nothing of doing so.