'Katherine,' he greeted her mother politely. "Beth…' His voice cooled noticeably.
She looked up at him reluctantly, her breath catching hi her throat at how handsome he looked in the dark evening clothes. God, he was attractive. How on earth had she managed to resist him in romantic Italy? She hadn't, not in the end!
Delicate colour darkened her cheeks. 'Marcus,' she returned in a quiet voice.
Dark brows rose. 'Are you about to leave or would you rather we ate somewhere else?'
Beth heard her mother gasp but continued to hold Marcus's gaze herself. 'We aren't about to leave—haven't been here long ourselves. And you can eat where you please.' The last came out aggressively as her temper got the better of her. Did he have to make it so obvious he would rather not even eat in the same restaurant as her?
'Katherine?'
'Feel free.' Her mother looked totally bewildered by the whole conversation.
'Very well.' He turned back to Beth. 'As longas you won't find it too embarrassing?'
Her mouth firmed. 'Why should I be embarrassed?' she dismissed flippantly.
He glanced across the room to where the younger man stood, looking slightly bored now, his hands thrust into his pockets as his gaze scanned the room for anyone who looked interesting. 'If you're sure,' Marcus drawled. 'Ross looks slightly impatient for his meal.'
'Then you had better go and feed him, hadn't you?' Beth snapped tightly.
His eyes darkened. 'I have to admire your nerve.'
'Do you?' she returned challengingly.
He nodded. 'No one mentioned that you have guts.'
Beth shrugged, inwardly shaking, but having no intention of letting Marcus see that. 'Maybe your informant wasn't as reliable as you seem to think,' she derided harshly.
'I said it wasn't mentioned, not that it was denied,' he grated.
She glanced past him to his impatient companion, the younger man starting to look very irritated now at being kept waiting in this way. 'Don't let us keep you,' she said coldly.
He gave a slight smile. 'Nice to have seen you again, Katherine.'
His omission of Beth's name was deliberate, and it showed.
The last thing Beth wanted to do now was eat in this restaurant, but there was no way she was going to leave until she had done exactly that. Even if every mouthful choked her!
Her mother looked deeply disturbed once they were alone. 'What was all that about, Beth?'
She shrugged, not quite able to meet her mother's gaze. I'm not sure. But I don't think Marcus will be following me anywhere in future!'
'Beth——'
'Could we just forget it for now, Mummy?' she cut in, holding on to her control with difficulty. 'And enjoy our meal?' She smiled up at the waiter as he brought their starters.
Relaxing and enjoying anything was out of the question for her, of course, very upset as she was by the conversation with Marcus, but she somehow had to get through this.
She didn't know what had suddenly turned nun against her, she only knew she could feel his antipathy across the restaurant, felt his gaze on her often, refusing to look in his direction herself, knowing her self-control would crumble if she did.
Because she had fallen in love with him, not just halfway, but completely!
She had sworn never to love again, had learnt the hard way how painful loving someone could be, and now she had fallen in love with someone even more unsuitable than Martin had been. Marcus actually seemed to hate her; Martin had just despised her!
But she loved Marcus, more than she had ever loved Martin, this love based on experience and suffering the like of which she had never thought to know.
It didn't seem fair that she should love so unwisely a second time, but Marcus had persisted hi her life until she could ignore him no longer. And now he didn't even want to know her.
'Are you sure you're all right, darling.' Her mother looked at her worriedly as they came, thankfully, to the end of their meal, Beth's crumbling control noticeable now despite all her efforts to the contrary.
'Shall we go?' Beth gave a strained smile, crushing her linen napkin and placing it on the table.
Her mother frowned. 'Do you want me to have a word with Marcus——-'
'No! No,' she repeated less audibly, noticing several heads in the restaurant turning in their direction, Marcus's one of them; he probably thought she was just having a temper tantrum. After all, that was what 'spoilt little bitches' did— wasn't it? 'The less either of us speak to Marcus Craven the better,' she assured her mother with a shudder.
Unfortunately they had to pass the table the two men occupied on their way out of the restaurant. To have left by any other route would have looked as if they were deliberately avoiding going near them, and Beth didn't intend giving Marcus that satisfaction.
Marcus looked at her coldly as they drew level with his table, and it was left to the younger man to give her an admiring glance, the invitation in his eyes leaving nothing to the imagination. Perhaps Marcus had told the other man she might welcome the attention! Although the glare he shot in the younger man's direction didn't seem to imply he approved of the attention he was paying Beth.
His reaction brought out a streak of defiance in her, and she deliberately stopped beside the table, her smile seductive as she looked at the younger man while directing her remark to Marcus. 'You didn't introduce your friend earlier.' Her voice was deliberately provocative.
Marcus looked taken aback. 'This is my nephew,'
'Really?' she pretended surprise, although the family resemblance had been obvious from the first. 'I never would have guessed.' She bestowed a warm smile on the younger man. 'You don't seem at all alike,' she flashed hardly at Marcus, her eyes gleaming cat-like in her slightly flushed face. 'Nice to have met you, Mr Craven,' she told the younger man, her tone implying she didn't feel the same way about his uncle, before she swept haughtily out of the restaurant, her mother at her side.
'That was very good, darling'' her mother murmured. 'Very impressive. But it won't keep you warm at night.'
'Neither will Marcus!' she said abruptly, feeling emotionally drained now, something her mother respected on the drive back to her apartment.
'Do you want me to come in?' her mother offered gently after parking the car.
'No,' she refused heavily, knowing a deep need to be alone.
And yet once she was alone in her apartment it was the last thing she wanted, feeling closed in, unfairly judged, frustrated with that judgement, wanting to know the reason for it, angry with Marcus for so easily accepting whatever it was he had been told about her.
It was the latter emotion that was predominant when the doorbell rang seconds later, and she answered it to find Marcus standing on the doorstep. 'What do you want?' she scorned. 'Have you come to throw more insults at me?' She stood defensively in the doorway, barring his entrance.
'I have to talk to you,' he rasped.
Her brows rose. 'That wasn't the impression you gave earlier.'
'Earlier I was…' He shook his head. 'I have to talk to you, Beth. Now.'
'I don't think I want to talk to you——'
'Beth…' the quiet authority in his voice silenced her '… tonight you met the man named as co-respondent in your divorce. Not only did you not recognise him, but he didn't recognise you either, and you called him by completely the wrong name. Beth, my nephew is Kinross Bentley, the man you're supposed to have committed adultery with, and the two of you don't even know each other. Now I want to know what the hell is going on!'
CHAPTER TEN
beth swallowed hard. That man, that arrogant young man with the knowing eyes and too much self-confidence, was the one Martin had paid to lie about her. Marcus's nephew!
'Why don't you go and ask him that?' she dismissed scornfully, a hundred different thoughts coursing through her mind, none of them making any sense. Not yet anyway; she was too stunned for that.
'Because I'm asking you,' Marcus grated. 'I'm not intereste
d hi anything Ross has to say.'
'You don't seem to have had any trouble listening to him before!' Because this surely had to be Marcus's informant—a man who didn't even know her!
'And now I want to hear what you have to say,' Marcus said grimly.
'How do you know I'll tell you the truth?' she derided, her head back defiantly.
He shook his head. 'I know damn well that Ross hasn't!'
Beth sighed, stepping back. 'Then you had better come in, hadn't you,' she said dully.
She didn't completely understand the situation herself. How long had Marcus known his nephew had been named in her divorce? Did that have something to do with their initial meeting, and the consequent ones? Was that the reason none of their meetings had been a 'coincidence'?
She turned to face Marcus across the lounge. 'Perhaps you had better tell me what you already know,' she told him flatly. 'Or think you know,' she added hardly.
Marcus breathed in deeply, his hands thrust into his trouser pockets. 'I have a feeling, having come to know you as I do, that you aren't going to like it.'
'I'm sure I won't,' she muttered. 'But it has to be said anyway.'
'Very well,' he nodded decisively. 'As you know, I've spent most of the last couple of years in America.'
'It has been mentioned,' she said drily.
'Hmm,' he grimaced. 'Well, while I was there it would seem I neglected my duties as guardian to my nephew Ross.'
Beth frowned. 'He looked young, but not that young.'
Marcus made a face. 'Ross is only twenty, for all he might wish, and act, as if he were older. That was why, when it was brought to my attention, I was horrified at the affair and subsequent naming in the divorce of a woman several years older than he, not only in age but hi experience.'
'You mean me?' Beth realised disbelievingly.
He paced the room. 'When I challenged Ross about the affair he told me that you had paid him to be named as co-respondent after your affair ended, that you were willing to do anything to get rid of the husband you had become bored with.'
'That's a He,' she gasped.
'Let me finish, Beth,' he urged gently. 'Then you can tell me what really happened.'
'How kind,' she was stung into retaliating.
'Beth, this isn't easy for me either—it never is when you realise what a fool you've been.' He looked pained.
As well he might!
'It can't be,' Beth scorned.
'Ross is a very wealthy young man——'
'Then why take the money my ex-husband paid him to lie about my adultery?' she accused heatedly. 'If he didn't need the money——'
'As Ross's guardian I have the power to decide whether or not he takes control of that wealth at twenty-one or twenty-five. He's had an allowance for the last three years, since my sister and her husband, his parents, were killed hi a plane crash, but it would seem he's been living well above that allowance, that he had debts that needed repaying, the sort of debts that he daren't come to me about,' Marcus added grimly. 'He got in with a crowd that were older than him, that thought nothing of losing several thousand pounds a night in a casino——'
'Martin's crowd,' Beth realised.
'It would seem so,' he confirmed. 'He had debts that needed paying, and he admitted to me that he had accepted money from you to help you get rid of your husband.'
'I didn't divorce Martin; he divorced me—with the false evidence Ross gave him!'
Marcus shook his head self-disgustedly. 'I had no reason at that time to doubt Ross's word. Even the fact that Bradshaw had changed his name to yours after the marriage seemed to confirm you were——'
'A spoilt little bitch,' Beth finished with a sigh. 'That wasn't my idea. As you would have found if you had ever bothered to ask me what happened!'
He gave a groan. I'm not proud of my part in this.'
She looked at him intently. 'Just what was your part in all this? Just exactly why did you go to Italy?'
'To meet the woman who was so determined to rid herself of a husband she was bored with that she was willing to pay someone to go into court and have their name blackened for her,' he admitted harshly.
Beth gasped. 'And?'
'And instead I met a very beautiful woman with an air of vulnerability about her that made me want to wrap her up and protect her from the world!' He shook his head. 'I went to Verona, after discovering that was where you had gone to amuse yourself, with the intention perhaps of intriguing you a little myself, so that you would know what it felt like. Instead I ended up totally bewildered, by the contrast in the things I had been told about you, and the ethereally lovely woman I finally met. It didn't make sense.'
'And so you thought I was playing games,' she said bitterly. 'Repulsing you one minute, seemingly accepting your company the next.' She could see it all now, just how damning her own behaviour must have appeared ia view of what he had been told about her.
'Nothing else seemed to make sense,' Marcus admitted heavily.
'And now?' she choked.
'Now I think I had better hear the true facts from you/ he invited heavily.
Beth drew in a ragged breath. Marcus had sought her out» deliberately, with the idea of punishing her in some way for Tier selfish use of his nephew. What form had that punishment been supposed to take? Was she supposed to fall in love with him and then be rejected?
If so, he had succeeded f
'The truth isn't only mine to tell,' she spoke raggedly. 'There are other people involved, innocent people, who can still be hurt by the truth if it was to become public knowledge.' She was thinking most of her mother, her poor mother who was still loved by a man who ultimately tried to destroy all those who loved him.
Marcus looked grim. 'I'm not the public.'
'Even so——-'
'I need to know the truth, Beth,' he almost pleaded. 'I need to know that very much.'
Why? She looked at him searchingly. What possible difference would knowing all the sordid details of her divorce make to him? . 'You owe me that much, at least,' he prompted at her hesitation.
'Owe you?' she repeated forcefully, her eyes shooting sparks of displeasure at him. 'I don't owe you anything! You were the one who sought me out, remember?'
A nerve pulsed in his jaw. 'Please tell me the truth,' he requested softly.
Her cheeks were flushed. 'All right, I'll tell you.' And she did, leaving nothing out, faltering only when she came to telling him about losing her baby and not being able to ever have any more. 'So you see,' she concluded bitterly, 'I'm not the one who plays games; I leave my father and Martin to do that.'
Marcus was completely silent and still, as he had been as she told him the details, his face grey now.
His continued silence unnerved Beth, until she felt at breaking-point, wanting him to go, or stay, to at least do something.
"They did that to you?' he finally grated.
'Oh, yes/ she confirmed, without bitterness; there was no point in that, not any more.
'Ross too?' His gaze was compelling.
Her mouth twisted. Tor a price, it would seem, yes.'
'But what he said about—an affair—was false?'
'I've just told you it was,' she scorned incredulously, 'Martin was the first and only man I've— known, in that way.' Her cheeks were flushed with embarrassment. This man was the only other man she had ever wanted in that way, and look how misguided that attraction was, even more so than she had originally imagined. 'Remember, it was the fact that your nephew and I didn't even know each other this evening that brought you round here in the first place,'
'Right,' he acknowledged a little shakily, 'You do realise what this means?'
'Oh, yes,' she derided. 'It means my father and Martin are both despicable.'
Marcus shook his head. 'It means much more than that,'
Beth gave him a puzzled look. 'It does?'
'Don't you see, Beth?' He grasped her by the shoulders. 'The evidence given in your divorce was false; worse
than that, it was fabricated for monetary gain.'
'I told them at the time of the divorce that it wasn't true,' she defended. 'No one, not even my own lawyer, I'm sure, believed me!'
'I believe you,' Marcus said harshly,
'I could have done with your support then,' she mocked, 'not a year later. Now it does little but give me the personal satisfaction of knowing someone else knows exactly what happened!'
'But, Beth, it's so much more serious than that.' His hands tightened on her arms. 'Your father, your ex-husband, my nephew, all lied to attain the divorce. They all broke the law by giving false evidence. I doubt that your divorce is legal!'
Beth stared up at him in horror before collapsing in his arms in a dead faint.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
FREE.
Beth was a free woman at last, on her own terms, with no black shadow of lies and deceit looming over her.
Marcus had proved correct about the divorce, and so Beth had had the pleasure of divorcing Martin instead of the other way round, all three men receiving the displeasure of the court for their previous deceit. Her father and Martin's subterfuge had become public knowledge, and there could be no doubting that both men had suffered personally for it as well as legally. But they would survive, and, as Beth had known she would, Brenda had stood by Martin.
Then why didn't Beth now feel happier with the truth finally out? Why did her life feel so flat and—without direction?
'This is supposed to be a celebration, not a wake, Beth,' her mother chided teasingly.
Beth looked at the champagne luncheon before her, a glass of the bubbly liquid itself standing in front of her. None of this seemed to matter either.
'Beth, it's all over now.' Her mother squeezed her hand. 'Your father finally got what he deserved and you're free of both him and Martin.
You can now do exactly what you want with your life.'
She grimaced her lethargy with that idea' 'There's nothing I want to do.' She sighed.
'Strange,' her mother murmured. 'I thought there was something—someone—you very much wanted in your life.'
Beth gave her a sharp look, turning away again at the speculation in her mother's eyes. 'I don't know what you mean——'
Carole Mortimer - Romance of A Lifetime Page 12
