by Liz Fielding
‘Luke -’
He didn’t seem to hear her. ‘I had a late meeting so I changed at the office, picked up Mel and we went straight to the theatre. We met some friends there and went out to supper with them. When I finally got home the answering machine was flashing. It was Juliet. She’d changed her mind, she had to see Edward.’ He looked up. ‘Just Edward. Not the play, you understand, not Edward Beaumont. Edward. She said she’d meet us at the theatre.’ The handle snapped off his mug. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve ever seen a flash flood.’
Fizz didn’t think an answer was required, but she shook her head. ‘No,’ she said.
‘It can be dry where you are. But upcountry the rain will be pouring off the hills, the ground too hard to absorb it quickly. It fills up the dry stream beds and they funnel it into the rivers. Hundreds of thousands of gallons of water channelled between steep banks, with nowhere to go but in a great tidal wave downstream taking anything in its path with it. The branches of trees, old tyres, sheep, cattle. Inside the car with the radio on you wouldn’t hear the noise. The river might just be a little bit higher than usual at the ford, but you’re driving a good four wheel drive motor, no worries. Then the steering goes soft and you turn and look, but by then it’s too late. All you see is the wall of thick brown water as it hits the side of the car. And there is nothing you can do. Nothing.’
‘I’m so sorry.’
‘She didn’t drown. When they found her next day she was still alive. Just.’ All the time we were sitting in the theatre watching your father and sister, Shylock and Portia, fencing with words in that witty, clever, appallingly racist play, she was sitting battered, semi-conscious, up to her waist in filthy water…’
Luke,’ she protested, going to him, kneeling in front of him and taking his hands, unable to bear to see him in such pain. ‘Don’t torture yourself. It wasn’t your fault.’
‘No.’
She remembered herself, pulled back, rose to her feet. ‘It wasn’t my father’s fault either,’ she said. ‘It wasn’t anyone’s fault, it was an accident.’
‘If I hadn’t asked her…’ He dropped the broken handle into the mug and put it on the table beside him. ‘Perhaps I just needed someone to blame.’
‘And my father was handy. There isn’t a scrap of evidence to prove you are right, you know. Without DNA it’s all circumstantial.’
‘Your father collapsed when he was confronted with the truth. That puts it beyond doubt in my book.’
‘Beyond doubt? Oh, come on, Luke, is it really enough to prove that Melanie is…’ She stopped, suddenly comprehending what proof would actually mean.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
‘MELANIE is my sister,’ she said, staring at him. ‘If it’s true, Melanie is my sister.’ She gave a little gasp of joy. Then, ‘And you’d be -’
‘Nothing,’ he cut in, rapidly. ‘We’re not related in any way.’
For a moment she stared at him while she tried to work it out. ‘But, surely...’ One dark brow kinked upward, pointedly and she suddenly got the point. ‘Oh!’ she said, her hands flying to her face as the colour flooded along her cheekbones. ‘Oh, no. No, of course not.’
‘I’m glad we’ve got that straight.’
‘But Mel ... I can’t believe it. It’s so wonderful.’
‘You’re happy about it?’ he demanded, shaken to the core by her obvious delight. ‘Don’t you care that your father had an affair with a young woman and then callously abandoned her and his child?’
His angry reaction brought her crashing back to reality. ‘No,’ she protested, swiftly. ‘Dad would never have abandoned her.’ His expression suggested that she was fooling herself. ‘No,’ she repeated, staunchly, defending her father. ‘You might not think much of his morals, Luke, and I’m not making excuses for him. He’s an attractive man with more opportunities to stray than most and God knows no one had more cause to seek comfort elsewhere, but he has never walked away from his responsibilities.’
‘You know that for a fact do you? How old were you at the time, Fizz? Four? Five at the most. I realise that you feel obliged to defend Edward. He’s your father and I wouldn’t expect you to do anything else, but you know nothing about this,’ he said, fiercely. ‘I was fifteen, Fizz, quite old enough to understand what Juliet was going through. After what he did to her she never formed another relationship, never had the kind of normal, loving family existence that she was made for. She just lived for Melanie.’
‘But I thought she continued with her career? She did a lot of radio work, surely? Mel was telling me she preferred it because she valued her anonymity.’
‘That’s ridiculous.’ He was dismissive. ‘She still had a beautiful voice but she had lost that wonderful sparkle, that special confidence that every actress needs. You’ve seen Claudia put it on like a dress the moment she’s got an audience. Juliet didn’t want an audience, it was almost as if she was hiding.’
Fizz gasped and his voice died away as he realised what he was saying.
‘She was hiding, but not because she lacked confidence. If what you’re saying is true, she didn’t want my father to find her.’
He was by her side in an instant, lowering over her, his fingers biting into her arm. ‘And why wouldn’t she want him to find her?’
His voice had a dangerous edge, but she wasn’t afraid of him. She put her hand over his and he immediately loosened his grip, tried to move back, embarrassed by the violence of his reaction. But she didn’t let him go, taking his hand, holding it between hers.
She had to make him see.
‘Can’t you see what happened, Luke? She was the one who ran away. She never told him about the baby.’
‘But that’s ridiculous ... she needed all the help she could get. There was just our mother and she was never strong. It was struggle enough for us without the added burden.’ He made an oddly awkward gesture. ‘She helped where she could but it wasn’t much and I was still at school. Juliet knew that, so why would she make things difficult by depriving herself of the support she needed and Melanie of her father?’
‘Why indeed?’ Fizz asked, gently. ‘If the great, the glamorous Edward Beaumont with a squeaky clean reputation to protect was her lover, why didn’t she demand it? She could have done. Oodles of support for herself and the baby. He would surely have paid up if it had been money she wanted.’
She saw him pause to reflect on the oddity of his sister’s actions. But she didn’t need to reflect, she knew why Juliet had hidden herself away, kept her secret. She had no doubts now that it was true, all of it. He wanted to know the truth? Well, she could tell him that.
‘Juliet didn’t demand help, Luke, because she loved my father so much that she wanted him to believe he was the one who was deserted. She let him go rather than put him through the agony of making an impossible choice.’ He moved to interject, but she stopped him. ‘Luke, nineteen years ago my mother was badly injured in a car accident.’
The time scale was not lost upon him. ‘Nineteen years?’ he repeated, but she was barely aware of his voice as it all came flooding back.
‘Elaine French. My beautiful, talented mother. I’ve been told that her walk was so graceful, so sensuous that she could turn the head of a monk. After the accident she never walked again. Not because she couldn’t, but because she refused to submit to the shambling limp that was all she could manage. And she hid herself away from all those adoring fans, the men who had danced attendance on her, feted her with flowers and presents. She couldn’t bear anyone to see her. The only person she would allow near her was my father and she made him pay for that every day for the rest of her life.’
Luke was clearly shocked. ‘I thought she just retired?’
Fizz closed her eyes briefly. ‘No, Luke, she never retired. She never stopped performing. Drama was her life, the very air she breathed. She never, for one minute, stopped being the leading lady, the centre of attraction, the star. There are albums and albums of press cuttings up in the
attic at home. Beautiful pictures of her with Claudia and me, taken before the accident of course, with the touching declaration that she was leaving the stage to devote her life to her family. Leaving the stage while they still wanted more. She was right about that. She received fan letters until the day she died. There are always fresh flowers on her grave and someone still puts a message in the memoriam column of The Times every year on the anniversary of her death.’
‘I had no idea.’
‘No one did. And until she died she had to be content with Dad and Claudia and me as her audience. Some days she would be the dying Marguerite, pale, self-sacrificing. Some days she planned a triumphant comeback. Norma Desmond in a wheelchair. Some days she was Cleopatra, betrayed and noble. They were bearable. The terrible days were when she was just herself, unhappy, bitter, vindictive.’ She drew a deep breath. ‘There has been a lot of rubbish written about Dad’s career sliding after she retired, about him never being quite as good without her. It was true that they were wonderful on stage together but the fact is my father gave up some of the best offers he ever had to stay at home and nurse her. I never once heard him complain.’
He pulled away from her. ‘She was his wife for God’s sake! For better, for worse, isn’t that the way it goes?’
‘Is that what you think? Well, Dad would agree with you I suppose. He may not have been the most faithful husband in the world, Luke, but he stuck to the spirit of that vow when most men would have walked away. The truth of the matter is that my mother was with her lover when they crashed.’
‘Oh, God.’
‘No, he just thought he was. He was a politician, a pillar of the community, a very publicly married man. He was driving my mother when the car overturned on a bend. He’d been drinking of course, they both had. He escaped with barely a scratch to his body and as for his reputation, well, I suppose he had powerful friends to hush things up.’ She raised a rueful smile. ‘I doubt he’d get away with it these days.’ Then, ‘He never went to see her in hospital. Never even sent her flowers in case he should be found out. The story was that she had fallen asleep at the wheel. Minor injuries.’
‘And your father let him get away with that?’
‘You wouldn’t have, would you Luke? Not your style at all. But Dad knew how much she would have hated the world to know that the superwoman image of loving wife, devoted mother, shimmering star, had all been a sham. That her children were simply a prop, to be paraded on appropriate occasions for the press, consigned to nannies for the rest of time. That her marriage was a hollow farce. He always protected her, before the accident and even more so afterwards. No one ever knew about the terrible injuries she suffered. It wasn’t just the wheelchair. She was dreadfully scarred. Mentally as well as physically.’ She looked up at him. ‘He was offered a knighthood that year. It gave him the utmost pleasure to turn it down. That way they could never say they had bought his silence. My mother never forgave him for that either.’ She shrugged. ‘It’s the truth, Luke, but I can’t make you believe it.’
Luke, remembering the photograph of Elaine French with her children in the snow, and his own instinctive feeling that it was a stage-managed media event, believed it.
‘So that’s why Juliet went to Australia after giving birth. She said she wanted a new start. I always assumed it was because she felt she was a drain on Mum and on me.’
‘And you felt guilty.’
‘Guilty for driving her away. And utterly helpless to do anything about it,’ he said, flaring briefly. ‘But it wasn’t anything to do with me, was it? She knew if she’d stayed in England, in the small world of the theatre she could never have kept Melanie a secret.’ He dragged his hand over his face. ‘Lord, how she must have loved him.’
‘Luke,’ she said, urgently. ‘He suffered too. It’s too late to put things right for Juliet but he’d want to know about Melanie. And she has a right to know who her father is. Straight away. Now.’ She drew back a little. ‘Just in case...’
Just in case the nurse had been wrong. Just in case her father didn’t make it.
‘I always intended Edward to know that Melanie is his daughter, Fizz. But first I wanted him to work with her, get to know her, love her I suppose. It’s difficult not to.’
‘And once you’d exposed him publicly, ruined his reputation, then what?’
‘I wasn’t going to expose him publicly. Financial ruin was all I had in mind, but first I wanted him to know what he had lost. I wanted him to suffer as my sister suffered.’
She drew in a sharp breath at the sheer arrogance of the man. ‘Don’t you think Melanie might have wanted a say in that? Or were you so bound up in revenge that you didn’t care about hurting her, too?’
‘I wasn’t going to tell her.’ He looked down at her, then away, unable to face the accusation in her clear bright eyes. ‘I was going to take his life away from him, piece by piece. His money. His radio station. His daughter’s career on the stage.’
His radio station? Of course, Luke hadn’t known that Pavilion Radio belonged to her. ‘And me?’ she demanded, hoarsely. ‘What were you going to do to me?’ But she already knew the answer. He was going to make her fall in love with him and break her heart, treat her just as he believed her father had treated his sister. And in that one single intent he had achieved success beyond his wildest dreams.
‘You trembled the first time I touched you. God help me I thought it was going to be so easy. But you defeated me, Fizz.’ He extended his hand. ‘See? I’m the one trembling now.’
She lifted her face to look up into his. ‘When you plan revenge, Luke, you don’t do it by halves do you?’
‘I’ve never done anything by halves. Even falling in love with you. But perhaps that kind of love runs in the family.’
‘No,’ she said, urgently. He had no right to talk of love. She couldn’t bear it. ‘I want you to go. Now.’
For a moment he looked at her, searched her face. Then he nodded, once. ‘Yes, it’s late and Melanie will be anxious for news of Edward.’
She was unprepared for his acquiescence, expecting something more. A fresh attempt to justify what he had done. An apology. Even an ardent declaration of love, although the idea terrified her because she would never know whether it was true, or some other devious game.
She should have been relieved, but she wasn’t.
‘Are you going to tell her the whole story, Luke?’ she asked. ‘If you don’t, I will.’
He leaned forward, touched her cheek with his hand. ‘Leave it to me, Fizz. I’ll clean up my own mess. I owe you that much.’
That was all? He’d come into her life, turned it upside down so that it would never be the same again and now he intended to simply tidy up and walk away.
‘Owe me!’ she exclaimed, suddenly angrier than she had been throughout the entire revelation of his plans to revenge his sister. ‘You don’t owe me anything, Luke Devlin.’ She looked around her, fit to throw something, anything and saw on her desk the forgotten bank draft, the hated agreement. She seized them and thrust them at him. ‘And you have no claim on me, either.’ He made no move to relieve her of the papers. ‘Take them!’ she demanded. ‘I want an end to it.’
He took the draft, looked at it for a moment. Then he raised his eyes to meet hers. ‘You couldn’t raise this kind of money a week ago. Where did it come from?’
‘I took the advice of the most ruthless man I have ever met,’ she declared.
His mouth tightened, recognizing the intention to wound. ‘And what advice was that?’ he asked, softly.
‘To let someone else take the risk. You were right of course, I should never have gone into the restaurant business. I’ve sold the lease on the Pavilion Restaurant and paid off the bank loan.’
His eyes narrowed. ‘If you had done that I would have been told.’
‘Would you?’ Well, yes, of course he would have been told. She had anticipated that, which was why she had persuaded Julian to mislay the papers for a few days
so that he wouldn’t be able to interfere with her plans. ‘If you don’t believe me, I suggest you check with your sources at the bank.’
‘But you worked so hard for this. Is it too late to stop it?’ he asked. When she didn’t answer, he swore, softly. ‘Fizz, I’m sorry.’
‘Are you? Well I suppose it’s just as well to get all your apologies over with in one day. But don’t be too sad. John Moore, my chef as I’m sure you’ll remember, has been given family help to raise the finance for the lease. And he’s negotiating for the spare space in the Winter Gardens, he wants to use it for an old fashioned ice-cream parlour, as well. You’ve actually done me a favour, Luke, because now I’ve got the best of both worlds,’ she said, with just a touch of defiance, daring him to contradict her.
‘Don’t be kind, Fizz. I know what I’ve done.’ He handed the draft back to her. ‘And I’m afraid you have your sponsorship whether you want it or not.’ And as he pressed it into her hand he leaned forward and for just a moment his mouth brushed hers before she gathered sufficient strength of will to step back. ‘No strings attached,’ he said.
Then turning swiftly, he headed down the stairs and out into the street.
She stared after him for a long time, then shivering as the cold from the street door reached her landing, shivering with shock and anxiety and a cold, hollow feeling that chilled her to the bone, she rubbed at her arms and closed the door.
