A Different Kind of Love

by Jean Saunders

  Chapter Seventeen

  Kate knew Luke wouldn’t stay away for long. When Mrs Wood brought the huge jug full of red roses to her room and told her Luke had sent them, she knew she couldn’t hide behind closed doors for ever. The roses filled her bedroom with their heady scent. They were the colour of love and passion, and she knew it was what Luke wanted from her, just as much as she longed to give it. If only there had been no Walter.

  She insisted on coming downstairs for the evening meal, even though the others hardly knew how to talk to her without embarrassment. The swelling on her cheek had gone down considerably, but the skin surrounding her bruised eye had changed from red and purple to a lovely shade of midnight blue, Faye told her.

  “Thanks for being so complimentary,” Kate retorted. “That makes me feel a whole lot better!”

  “I only meant it was a lovely colour, and it matches your eyes,” Faye said. “There’s no need to be so snappy.”

  “Leave Kate alone and get on with your food,” Mrs Wood said. “It’s bad enough for the poor girl to have the bruises without being reminded of them all the time.”

  It didn’t help, either, to listen to Faye’s nasal Yorkshire tones, with their similarity to Walter’s. It had never bothered Kate before, but every little thing seemed to be magnified in her mind now.

  Both the other girls were meeting young men that evening, and Kate and Mrs Wood were being treated to one of Thomas’s endless theatrical anecdotes when Kate’s acute hearing registered the sound of the Bentley outside. A few minutes later Luke was inside the parlour, coming to sit beside Kate and taking her cold hands in his.

  “If I knew who had done this to you, I’d kill him with my bare hands, my love,” he said roughly.

  Her eyes filled. She wasn’t sure she could cope with his kindness right now, and she tried to laugh off his words.

  “And a fat lot of good that would do, since it would only land you behind bars!”

  “I’d far rather see the villain behind bars,” he agreed. “Didn’t you get even the briefest glimpse of him?”

  “I’ve already said so a million times. Didn’t Thomas tell you?” Kate said jerkily.

  “Just the bare essentials,” Luke said, thinking that the assault had left her far more disturbed than he had imagined. She looked pinched and drawn, and he was reminded of how she had looked when he had first seen her on her balcony at the Charlton Hotel.

  “You’ve got to put it all behind you, Kate,” he went on firmly. “You musn’t let it prey on your mind.”

  Her eyes flashed at him. “That’s easy for you to say, isn’t it? But not so easy for me to do!”

  “I’ll go and make us all a nice cup of tea,” Mrs Wood said, when it looked as though they were going to get heated. Thomas got up as well, muttering something about having things to do, and Kate and Luke were left alone.

  “Do you want to talk about it?” Luke said.

  “No, I don’t want to talk about it,” she snapped at him. “I was attacked, and I just want to be left alone to get over it in my own time, that’s all!”

  “He didn’t hurt you, did he? You know what I mean.”

  Kate felt her face flame. It was one thing to ward off Doris’s salacious questions, but it was something else when it was Luke.

  “He didn’t hurt me. Now can we forget it, please? And you won’t mind if I don’t come into work for a couple of days, will you? I don’t feel I’m the best advertisement for you at the moment.”

  “Stay off for as long as you feel the need. You must take care of yourself, and Mrs W. will be sure to look after you.”

  Kate knew it wasn’t just the embarrassment of the way she looked, and the lingering bruising in her face that was filling her with misery. She and Luke were talking to one another like strangers; it was a gap that neither of them seemed able to bridge.

  She was thankful when Mrs Wood came back with a tray of tea and biscuits, calling out to Thomas that if he wanted some he’d better come downstairs pronto. Even so, the usual easy chatter between them all seemed to have temporarily deserted them. When Luke said it was probably time he left, even the adoring Mrs Wood said she thought it was best, and that Kate needed her rest. All of it was her fault, Kate thought desperately. Because of her problems, everyone was finding it hard to be themselves.

  “I think I’ll have an early night,” she said a little later, thought it was barely nine o’clock, and very early for anyone to retire in this bohemian household. “I’ve got a couple of letters I want to write.”

  It wasn’t strictly true, though she thought vaguely that she might write to Donal if she could think of anything to tell him that wasn’t too personal.

  In the end, she decided to write to her brother, because in doing so, she would feel a sense of normality again, even though the main thing she had to tell him about was the general strike. He’d want to know, and she hadn’t cared to tell her mother too many details.

  You wouldn’t believe the numbers of people crowding into the streets, Donal. It was unnerving to walk about with all the demonstrators and militants shouting and arguing the toss.

  Ordinary folk were never in any danger, though. Luke took me to a rally in one of the parks, and it just sounded like a lot of silly men behaving like children. I know it wasn’t really like that, and I felt enormous pity for the miners, and still do. But if they thought this was the way to go about getting a bit more money, it didn’t work.

  Mrs Wood thought I might have wanted to go home for a while, but for a start nobody knew how long the strike was going to last, and for another, there weren’t any trains running. Anyway, it didn’t seem quite the thing to do to run out on Luke, when we still had plenty of work we could do.

  She chewed the end of her pen, wondering what else to tell him. Not about the encounter with Walter, that was for sure. Just like Luke, Donal would be ready to tear the city apart until he found Walter and dealt with him. Jerkily, she screwed up the letter and threw it in the bin.

  She shivered. All she wanted was to forget his assault had ever happened, and to put him out of her life. She had never imagined he’d want to see his child, since he’d never struck her as having paternal tendencies. She knew it was wrong that she had never put him right about her miscarriage, but, never expecting to see him again, she had let the fact slip conveniently to the back of her mind.

  Now she knew how foolish that had been. But, praying that she wasn’t being hopelessly naive again, perhaps now that he knew the truth, he wouldn’t want anything more to do with her.

  By the end of the week, when make-up hid most of the bruises and swelling on her face, Kate felt marginally better able to put things into a more reasonable perspective, and of course Walter wouldn’t bother her again. Why should he? He would never dare, when she could produce all the witnesses she would need to denounce him for breach of promise, which would also bring to light the fact that he was already married.

  If only she had thought about that in the park, she could have threatened him with exposing his nasty little game, because now that she had had plenty of time to think about it, she knew she had all the trump cards in her hand.

  It didn’t matter that in her heart she was sure she could never do such a thing with all the publicity it would arouse, especially with her new status as what Luke teasingly called the nation’s postcard sweetheart. At least it helped her recover a little of her feeling of self-worth by remembering that Walter had done far more wrong to her than she had ever done to him. He had promised her marriage long before she had become pregnant, when he was in no position to do so.

  But by Monday she was feeling just as uneasy as ever. Luke hadn’t been to the house all weekend, and she could only assume he was taking her at her word and leaving her strictly alone while she recovered from her attack. He’d expect her to report for work today, and she knew it was the best thing she could do. She couldn’t stay moping around the house, with Mrs Wood’s sympathetic gaze following her and making her
feel even more guilty.

  “There’s a letter for you, Kate,” the landlady said cheerfully at the breakfast table. “There’s no stamp on it, so it must have been shoved through the letter box by hand. It’s from one of your adoring fans, I’ve no doubt.”

  The second Kate saw the handwriting, she knew it wasn’t from any adoring fan. She felt physically sick as she snatched it up, as if she thought Mrs Wood might see right through the envelope and the filthy words she knew would be inside.

  “I’ll read it later,” she said, her voice scratchy. “I don’t feel like breakfast, just a cup of tea, Mrs Wood.”

  And no matter how much the woman protested, Kate knew she would never be able to eat a thing. As soon as she could she went back to her room to get ready for work, and then tore open Walter’s note. There was no preamble.

  Don’t think you can get away with it, you bitch. I wonder how your new fancy man will enjoy hearing about his slut of a model. He should be willing to pay a pretty penny to keep the scandal quiet from his respectable doors.

  That was all. Kate hadn’t thought he would resort to blackmail … when was it ever going to end? If Walter went to the studio today and told Luke everything, how was she ever going to face him? She should have told him the truth first – and she still could – but her nerve simply failed her. It was too late, and he would always wonder if she had intended keeping it a secret for ever if Walter hadn’t turned up again.

  She left the house as if she was going to work, but instead she wandered around the streets for an hour, her eyes straining for a glimpse of Walter’s car. He must have been following her, stalking her. Every thought sickened her more. She couldn’t even be certain he’d really go to Luke and tell him everything, but she couldn’t take the risk. She had to get away.

  The idea was in her head before she could stop it, and once there, she thought rapidly. Mrs Wood always went to the market on Monday mornings, and the house would be empty by now. By the time the landlady returned, Kate would be gone, and no one would be any the wiser. Luke would simply assume she hadn’t turned up for work because she still needed time to recover, and she wouldn’t be missed until evening. Once she decided what she had to do, Kate didn’t waste time. She went back to Jubilee Terrace, bundled all the clothes she needed into her travelling bag, and left a short note for Mrs Wood on her pillow, saying she’d send for the rest of her things later. She didn’t say where she was going, but there was only one place, of course.

  “Paddington Station, please,” she gasped out to the cab driver who pulled up alongside her at her wild waving.

  “Got a train to catch, duck?” he said agreeably.

  “Yes, so please hurry.”

  “Right you are, lady,” he said, and drove at hair-raising speed towards the huge façade of Paddington Station.

  “One-way or return fare?” the bored clerk at the ticket counter asked.

  “Just one-way, please,” Kate said in a choked voice.

  He suddenly gave her a harder look. “Don’t I know you from somewhere? Your face looks familiar…”

  “No. You don’t know me,” Kate said, and fled down the platform to wait for the train that was scheduled an hour from now. It seemed like an endless wait, but once the train drew into the station, she sank into a corner seat in an empty carriage. And once the wheels began to move and the platform was temporarily enveloped in steam and smoke from the engine, the tears flowed, her nerves as shattered as they had ever been in her life.

  Walter Radcliffe was still undecided what to do. His note to Kate had been no more than a spiteful bluff at first, just to make the bitch squirm. But his own words had given him an idea. Why not go to this Halliday bloke and offer to tell him a juicy bit of gossip about his precious model girl, for a price? Why not? He decided to put his new plan into action, even though he’d sized up Luke Halliday by now. From his age and stance Walter guessed he had also been in the army during the war, and that he’d be able to hold his own if it came to a fight.

  But Walter wasn’t banking on anything like that. He just wanted a few quid for providing information and that would be that. By the time the bitch turned up for work again, she’d be in for a real shock when her lovey-dovey bloke turned on her, he thought viciously.

  It should all be so easy. He sat in his car in his usual vantage point from the studio on Monday morning, noting that Kate hadn’t turned up. She’d still be nursing her wounded head and pride, he thought, without a second’s compunction, and probably snivelling over the note he’d delivered late last night. But it was time he made his move.

  His heart stopped as a large black car drew up outside the studio, and two uniformed men got out. He couldn’t tell from here what the uniforms were. He only knew that the less he came into contact with uniforms, the better he liked it. He’d had enough of their bombastic bullying in the trenches. He wondered furiously if Kate had been here all the time. Maybe she’d found his note last night and come rushing over here to warn Luke. Maybe she was even shacking up with the bloke, and they’d decided to notify the police of his blackmail threat.

  Whatever the truth of it, Walter wasn’t waiting to find out. He cursed himself for ever writing the note at all; but he hadn’t signed it, and they wouldn’t know where to find him. The thought of being investigated and banged up behind bars – and even worse, the thought of his old woman finding out about Kate – was enough to make his veins fill with ice.

  His time in London was long since up, and his boss was already braying for him to get back on the road. The sooner he did so and went back up north where he belonged, the better. In a blind panic, Walter started up the engine of his car, sent the tyres squealing and headed as far away from the capital as possible.

  Luke had expected Kate to turn up for work, but he wasn’t unduly worried when she didn’t. It would need time for her bruises to settle down, and he didn’t blame her for not wanting curious eyes to wonder how she had got them. On Monday the only scheduled business was for the two officers from the Fire Brigade who were due to have their portraits done for the company records, for whom he gave a generous discount, and he could manage the details on his own.

  It was mid-afternoon when the door of the studio opened and a flustered Mrs Wood came inside. Since she had never been here before, he knew something bad had happened, even before she spoke.

  “She’s gone, Lukey,” she gasped. “She left the house sometime today without saying a bleedin’ word, and it looks as if she’s taken half her stuff with her.”

  Since it was so unlike her to swear, Luke knew how shaken she was, but his attention was caught by the last part of her garbled sentence.

  “You mean Kate, I suppose,” he said, steering her towards a chair before she collapsed, and smiling at her melodrama. “But if she’s only taken half her stuff as you say, she hasn’t gone for ever. Are you quite sure she’s gone at all?”

  “See for yourself.” She thrust Kate’s note at him. “She says she’s sorry for causing any fuss, and would I say sorry to you as well, and she’ll be in touch when she can sort herself out. The attack must have affected her more than we thought. And that letter she got this morning might have had something to do with it as well,” she added.

  “What letter?” Luke said sharply.

  “It was shoved through the letter box sometime in the night, I suppose, and she went as white as a sheet when she saw the writing on the envelope, as if she knew who it was from, but she wouldn’t read it in front of me.”

  She paused for breath, but Luke didn’t need to question her any further. Nor did he need to be a clairvoyant to guess who the letter was from, nor why Kate had become so secretive and unnerved since the attack in the park. It could only be one person. It was the swine who had jilted her, come back to try his luck with her again. He clenched his fists, wishing he had the bastard’s neck between them.

  “What do you think she’s done?” he heard Mrs Wood’s voice say fearfully. “She wouldn’t have done nothing s
tupid, like throwing herself in the river, would she?”

  “Of course she wouldn’t! She’ll have gone home to her family for a few days, that’s all. You sit there while I close up and then I’ll make you some tea and decide what to do.”

  He put up the closed sign on the studio door, took her up to his flat and brewed the tea while she hovered behind him as if unwilling to be in this strange environment alone.

  He already knew what he had to do. He was going to do what he should have done long ago. First thing tomorrow morning he was going to drive down to Somerset and find Kate Sullivan, and demand that she came to her bloody senses and marry him.

  Kate hadn’t bothered telephoning Father Mulheeny from Temple Meads Station. She couldn’t have borne his probing questions. She had money, and she had recklessly jumped into a taxi cab outside the station and asked the driver to take her all the way to Edgemoor.

  Her mother’s face was filled with shocked surprise when she rushed inside the cottage, throwing her arms around her and sobbing and shaking uncontrollably.

  “What’s happened, Katherine?” she said sharply. “What’s got into you, girl? Has someone hurt you?”

  At the innocent question, Kate saw her sisters’ small, scared faces as they clung to their mother’s skirt, and mentally thanked her lucky stars that her menfolk weren’t home at this moment. For now that she was here, how could she possibly tell them all of it? How could they understand the way their girl had believed that lust had been love, which had set her on a trail of near damnation?

  “I’m not hurt, Mother,” she mumbled into her mother’s shoulder. “I’m very tired from the travelling, that’s all, and I needed a rest away from London.”