Nicola Cornick Collection

by Nicola Cornick

  ‘Of course,’ Mr Churchward was saying, in his precise manner, ‘we must consider the possibility that Miss Constance Bowes was indeed the injured party in both of these instances—’

  He broke off as Jack slammed one fist into the palm of his other hand. ‘I think,’ Jack said, ‘that is as likely as hell freezing over.’

  ‘Sir?’ Churchward looked confused.

  ‘Apologies, Churchward—’ Jack straightened up, casting the papers aside ‘—but I do not for one moment think that is likely. Miss Constance’s attempt to blackmail my uncle fits too neatly with the pattern for it to be a coincidence.’ He strode over to mantelpiece and rested an arm along the top whilst he tried to think coolly and calculatedly about Sally Bowes’s deception. She had told him that she knew nothing of Connie’s extortion threats and that she would do all she could to return the letters.

  And he had believed her.

  Fool that he was—he had been taken in by her apparent frankness, intrigued by her intelligent mind, led astray by his lust for the luscious body she hid beneath those deliciously silky gowns. There was evidence here, chapter and verse, of two occasions on which the Bowes sisters together had entrapped a young man and walked away with a fortune, but in his hunger for Sally Bowes he had almost fallen for her lies. He had exonerated the elder sister from the greed and cupidity of the younger, when in fact she was probably the one who arranged all the details of these unscrupulous affairs. Sally provided the brains, Connie the looks, to fleece the gentlemen of their choosing.

  Something twisted inside him that felt almost like pain. Jack was not accustomed to feeling pain in any of his love affairs. It was something that had not happened to him for ten years. Then he felt anger, so intense and searing that for a moment his mind went blank.

  ‘Mr Kestrel?’ He became aware that Churchward was addressing him. ‘What would you like me to do now, sir?’

  ‘Churchward,’ Jack said slowly, ‘thank you for gathering this information for me. What I would like you to do now is to find out who the investors are in Miss Sally Bowes’s club, the Blue Parrot. Find out, and then approach them to see if any would be prepared to sell their stake.’

  Churchward’s brows shot up. ‘Are you looking to invest in a nightclub, sir?’

  ‘No,’ Jack said grimly. ‘I am looking to ruin Miss Sally Bowes’s business, Churchward. Find the investors and buy them up. I want that club. I want Miss Bowes in my power.’

  ‘Mr Kestrel is here to see you, ma’am—’ Sally’s secretary had barely managed to get the words out when Jack Kestrel shouldered through the doorway into the office.

  ‘I’ll announce myself,’ he said. ‘Miss Bowes …’ He gave her an unsmiling nod.

  Sally had been unable to concentrate all morning, a fact that she knew her secretary had noticed with curiosity. She had made half a dozen errors in her arithmetic and had started and abandoned three letters to the club’s suppliers. Her attention had been torn in half between worrying about Nell’s situation and thinking about Jack, and neither had been conducive to work. When Jack’s name was announced she had felt her heart do a little flip and the heat had rushed through her body in an irresistible tide, but then she had seen his face, his hard, uncompromising expression, and the smile had faded from her eyes as she had known at once that something was dreadfully wrong. Her superstitious dread had been well founded.

  He did not look in the least glad to see her. In fact, he looked thunderous.

  ‘Thank you, Mary,’ Sally said, rising to her feet and nodding to the secretary to close the door behind her. Her heart was beating uncomfortably fast now. Already the abruptness of Jack’s tone and the dislike that she could see in his eyes reminded her all too clearly of their first meeting, before they had taken dinner together, before he had kissed her, before that tempestuous and passionate lovemaking that even now stole her breath to remember it. She felt confused, as though time had slipped back and all the things that she knew had happened between them over the past few days had never been.

  ‘This,’ she said, as calmly as she was able, mindful of the staff in the outer office, ‘is distressingly similar to your arrival two days ago, Mr Kestrel.’

  Jack slapped a pile of papers down on the desk in front of her. ‘Do you deny that you supported your sister in a claim for damages after an elopement and also in a breach of promise case in 1906, Miss Bowes?’ he demanded.

  Sally’s stomach lurched. She felt a little sick. So Jack had been digging into Connie’s past affairs. She might have guessed that he would. He must have started his enquiries before they had met, but even so she felt horribly betrayed. She remembered the previous night, the things she had done, the heated, intimate, perfect things she had allowed him to do to her, and she could not bear to think that all the time he’d had no trust in her. Even now the memories could make her melt with longing and she hated the fact that he could still do that to her when he was standing there like a cold-faced stranger. That was humiliating. But what was blisteringly painful was the fact that she had loved him then and, despite everything, loved him still.

  ‘You have been quick to make enquiries into our business, sir,’ she said stiffly.

  ‘Naturally,’ Jack said. His expression was stony. ‘Did you think I would simply trust your word, Miss Bowes? How surprisingly naïve for a woman like you!’

  He allowed his gaze to appraise her insolently from her plain brown shoes to her neatly pinned hair. ‘I have to say that you have been very convincing over the past couple of days. I almost believed you honest. You are evidently both practised and clever.’

  The pain of his contempt sliced through Sally like a knife. ‘You have this utterly wrong!’ she said. ‘Yes, I was involved in supporting Connie through the breach of promise case two years ago, but she had been cruelly let down and I wanted to help her—’

  ‘Oh, spare me the false protestations of innocence.’ The derision in Jack’s voice was searing. ‘Your sister’s attempt to extort money from my uncle is part of a pattern of blackmail that both of you have perpetrated for years.’

  Sally’s outrage swamped all other emotions. ‘How dare you? It is not!’

  Jack tapped the sheaf of papers. ‘The detail is all here, Miss Bowes.’ He straightened up. ‘Chavenage, Pettifer, and now you seek to add my cousin to the list.’

  Sally’s mind was spinning. She knew that the cases looked damning, but her heart was sore that Jack had come to accuse, not to ask her for the truth. They had only known each other a brief time but even so, she had hoped that it would have been enough for him to trust her. Evidently not. He could make love to her with no emotional commitment whatsoever. He had no respect for her. She felt despair at the contrast with her own feelings.

  ‘I know that the breach of promise suit looks bad,’ she said desperately, ‘but if you would only let me explain! Connie loved John Pettifer. His desertion caused her immense distress.’ She stopped at the look of utter disbelief on Jack’s face.

  ‘You are breaking my heart, Miss Bowes,’ he said cynically. ‘The truth is that your sister is nothing but a gold-digger and you are as good as a procuress!’ He looked at her thoughtfully and under his scrutiny the colour burned into her face because she knew he was thinking about their nights together.

  ‘I am surprised,’ he drawled, ‘that you held on to your virginity for as long as you did when it was something that you could sell for money. Did you see me, Miss Bowes, and think that I was rich enough to be made to pay? How long before I receive a visit from your lawyer bringing a court case for deflowering an innocent girl?’ He laughed, and the contempt in it shrivelled Sally’s soul. ‘Damn it, even if I have to pay up, it was almost worth it. You tasted very sweet.’

  The fury and misery swamped Sally. She found she was shaking. She thought of Nell struggling to find two hundred pounds to save her own children and buy medicine and food and she thought of Jack’s hateful callousness. If he already had such a low opinion of her, what did it mat
ter what else he thought about her? She would never be able to change his opinion. Their sweet affair was over before it had barely begun and her love with it.

  She took a deep breath.

  ‘I would settle for two hundred pounds,’ she said.

  As soon as the words were out she thought she was going to faint at her own audacity. She felt sick and shaky. Jack had turned away for a moment and now he spun around to look at her and his eyes widened as though, even with the poor opinion he held of her, she had surprised him. Perhaps she had. Perhaps he had not expected her to be so shameless. Sally concentrated fiercely on thinking of her family and waited.

  His gaze was hard and appraising as it scoured her from head to toe and left her trembling. Then he smiled, a cynical smile. His put his hand, very slowly, into his pocket and withdrew a leather wallet.

  ‘My advice,’ he drawled, ‘would be to negotiate your fee in advance in future, Miss Bowes.’

  Sally swallowed hard. Her throat was dry and her heart was beating so hard she thought he would be able to see how she shook.

  ‘Two hundred pounds for two nights,’ Jack said, extracting some fifty-pound notes from his wallet. ‘You could have asked for much more.’ He came up to her and put a hand against her cheek. His touch was gentle, but the expression in his eyes was hard. ‘How much do you want to be my mistress?’

  Sally closed her eyes. She knew that with her demand for money she had confirmed every belief he had about her mercenary soul. And yet despite the hostility between them he still wanted to sleep with her because the searing, sensual passion between them had not yet been sated. Having purchased her virginity, he thought he could buy her to be his mistress.

  She had sold her virginity for two hundred pounds.

  The reality hit her like a rip tide, making her tremble with despair and self-disgust. And straight on the heels of that thought she felt Jack lean down and his mouth take hers with ruthless intensity.

  The kiss was a statement of possession and though it was over almost before it began, it shook Sally to the core. He let her go and she rocked back on her heels, catching her breath. Once again his gaze appraised her with insolent thoroughness, as though stripping every one of her clothes from her.

  ‘How much?’ he repeated. He put the banknotes in her hand.

  ‘Nothing,’ Sally said. She cleared her throat. ‘That is … I have no interest in being your mistress, Mr Kestrel.’

  A cynical smile tugged at Jack’s lips. ‘I am sure you could be persuaded, Miss Bowes, for the right price.’ He straightened. ‘We will discuss this later. In the meantime I want to talk to your sister. She is here?’

  ‘I … Yes …’ Sally tried to pull herself together. ‘Connie is indeed here—I spoke with her this morning.’ She glanced ostentatiously at the clock. ‘Connie will still be abed, Mr Kestrel. You are somewhat early this morning, and I am afraid that my sister seldom rises before midday.’

  ‘Then we will go and wake her,’ Jack said grimly.

  ‘Very well.’ Sally stalked towards the door. She was still shaking. She needed some time alone. The banknotes seemed to burn her palm. ‘Please would you wait here?’ she said.

  ‘I am hardly going to sit idly by whilst Miss Constance escapes out of a back window,’ Jack drawled. He raised a brow. ‘Surely you are not concerned about a gentleman entering her bedroom? There must have been plenty over the years, judging by the detail in these papers.’

  Sally gritted her teeth. Having just proved herself perfidious and money-grabbing in his eyes, she was not in a particularly good position to defend anyone else. She tried to focus on Nell’s children. Now they could have a roof over their heads and the medicines they needed. And Nell would be able to help the other families too …

  ‘Constance,’ Jack was saying thoughtfully. ‘What a damnably inappropriate name for your sister, Miss Bowes. Unless it is constancy in the pursuit of a fortune, of course.’

  Sally ignored him. She thrust open the office door and stormed into the outer office, where Mary and the girl who did the typing were sitting trying to pretend that they had not been eavesdropping on every word. This time Jack had to hurry to keep up with Sally as she marched up the two flights of stairs and charged down the corridor to Connie’s room, flinging the door open.

  The room was in darkness.

  Sally picked her way across to the window and flung back the curtains so that the daylight flooded into the room.

  It looked as though a tornado had swept through, or a very untidy burglar had ransacked the place. The bed was empty and unmade, the sheets and blankets in a tangle at the bottom. The wardrobe door was open and there were piles of clothes strewn on the floor with random shoes littered amongst them.

  ‘What on earth—?’ Jack began.

  ‘Connie is very untidy,’ Sally said abruptly, picking her way through the puddles of clothes to the dressing table.

  ‘She is also very absent,’ Jack pointed out.

  Sally picked up the single sheet of paper that was on the dresser. It was only four hours since she had left Connie to sleep off her excesses, but now a cast-iron certainty hit Sally hard in the stomach. Her sister had never intended to stay. She had sneaked in to get some clothes and then she had run away. With Bertie Basset. She looked at the note.

  Darling Sally, by the time you read this I shall be gone! Bertie and I are to be married and we went away secretly, immediately after I saw you this morning.

  Sally sat down very suddenly on the dressing-table stool. In the mirror she could see her shocked, pale reflection staring back at her. She thought of Connie and Bertie Basset and a lifetime of misery and infidelity and the divorce courts. Connie had never loved anyone but John Pettifer and Sally knew she did not love Bertie in the all-consuming way that a woman should love the man she chose to marry. Connie was using Bertie, and it could only end in heartache.

  We knew that Bertie’s father would never accept our love and would make poor Bertie give me up, so the only way for us to be together was to elope. We had resolved on it even before we heard that Bertie’s horrid cousin Jack was on the warpath. I am sorry to have deceived you, but I love Bertie so much that the fact he now has no money simply cannot be allowed to weigh with me and I must be united with him …

  Little liar, Sally thought. She knew her sister’s feelings were as shallow as a puddle. She could see the whole swindle now: Bertie, immature and easily led, genuinely wanted to marry Connie and she wanted his title, money and status. They had cooked up an elopement together but Connie had also hatched a daring plan to have her cake and eat it. They had guessed, quite rightly, that Lord Basset would cut Bertie off without a penny, so Connie had tried to both blackmail Lord Basset and trick him into thinking the affair was all over. Had he paid up to keep her quiet, she would have got both the money and the man …

  Emotion dried Sally’s throat to cardboard. There was no denying that her sister was a cunning little piece. When Connie had heard of Jack’s involvement she had realised that the money would not be forthcoming and had decided to cut her losses and run away with Bertie anyway. No doubt they would hope that, given time, the family would accept their nuptials.

  Jack came across and took the piece of paper from Sally’s hand. ‘Not some new piece of fiction from your sister, Miss Bowes?’ he said. A frown darkened his brow as he scanned the letter. ‘In love with Bertie? What utter sentimental nonsense! I will say this for you and your sister—you are very inventive! I hardly need ask if you were party to this!’

  ‘Of course I was not,’ Sally said. She slewed around on the seat in order to glare at him. ‘Can you not read, Mr Kestrel? Connie apologises for deceiving me. Or are you so suspicious by nature that you think that we are in this together and that she put that in the letter merely to mislead you?’

  Jack’s eyes narrowed as he reread the lines. ‘It matters little one way or the other, I suppose,’ he said dismissively, ‘since you are both as greedy and materialistic as each other.’
He gave a short laugh. ‘So your sister thought to get my uncle to pay her off and thus finance her to run away with my cousin? A cunning plan!’

  Sally got slowly to her feet.

  ‘It’s a damnable disaster,’ she said.

  Jack stared at her. ‘But surely you must be pleased, Miss Bowes?’ he said sarcastically. ‘Your sister has managed to catch herself a baron’s heir this time, no mere gentleman like Geoffrey Chavenage or John Pettifer. And even though my uncle may cut Bertie off without a penny, he cannot cancel the entail, and of course, my uncle is very sick and might die at any moment …’ Once again Sally felt the stinging contempt in his gaze. ‘It is a neatly executed swindle, I will give you that.’

  ‘It’s nothing of the sort,’ Sally said. ‘It is madness. My own experience teaches me that no one should marry unless they truly love one another—’ She broke off at the look of bored cynicism in Jack’s eyes.

  ‘You really are a piece of work, are you not, Miss Bowes?’ he said. ‘Such high-flown sentiments, such grasping avarice!’

  ‘Neither Mr Basset nor my sister should be contemplating matrimony with anyone,’ Sally snapped. ‘He is weak, immature and easily led and she is not in love with him, whatever she says! Your uncle will probably recover his health and live to be one hundred and in the meantime they will have no money and will fight like cat and dog and the whole marriage will be a complete fiasco and end in misery or the divorce courts within six months!’ She looked at him. ‘I suggest that you take yourself off to Gretna Green to try to prevent the marriage, Mr Kestrel, and let us hope you are not too late! They can only have had a few hours’ start.’