'The last time I was in the house in Bancroft Square was when I left it with Mark to drive to Merrifields for .' Fraser was frowning but she ignored it, going on levelly, 'I was in hospital until they discharged me in time for the magistrate's hearing, and that was the last time I saw my stepfather. I was badly bruised and still in a state of shock. Besides, apparently the house in London had been besieged by reporters. So when Mark suggested sending me down to Cornwall to stay with his old nanny, Katy Bourne, until I was due to appear in the Crown Court, my stepfather thought it
was a good idea. I spoke to him on the telephone a number of times during the weeks I was with Katy and he sounded ... I had no inkling ...' Her voice faltered but under Fraser's narrowed gaze she pulled herself together.
'I expected him to come and fetch me as the day for the trial drew nearer.' She shivered. 'I—I was very frightened. But a couple of days before, Mark phoned to say I was to make my own way to Colchester by train, telling me he'd booked me into a hotel there to stay overnight, but he never said a word about his father being ill.'
Her green eyes were blank, seeing only the past. 'I still expected to see Charles the next day, but it was Mark who came to collect me from the hotel to accompany me to court. And when it was all over he told me his father had stayed away because I'd disgraced him and he wanted nothing more to do with me.' She ground to a shuddering halt because even at this distance in time she could remember the devastating shock, the sense of being cast adrift like a boat without a rudder.
'Mark told you?' Fraser said sharply.
She nodded. 'He said he'd been empowered by his father, to settle my fine and to give me a sum of money on condition I never went home or tried to contact him again.'
'And you believed him?' Fraser appeared stunned, though she couldn't think why.
'Of course.' Her throat ached and she shook with self-disgust. 'I'd killed a child in a drunken stupor, caused my stepfather's name to be splashed all over the newspapers. It was no more than I deserved to hear he was disowning me.'
'But that's arrant nonsense!' He looked angry and baffled.
'Is it?' Bethan's mouth twisted bitterly. 'You obviously thought it was reason enough to cut off all
contact with me. You—and Ishbel ' Her voice
broke on a sob.
'You thought ' He broke off, staring at her
helplessly. 'It was nothing like that. In the first place Ishbel was never told.'
'Did she have to be told when it was splashed all over the newspapers? "Diplomat's daughter on manslaughter charge".' Her voice rose and she had to fight down a feeling of hysteria. 'At least Katy Bourne wouldn't have newspapers in the house down in Cornwall.'
'It didn't reach the Australian newspapers.' His mouth tightened at her puzzlement. 'I pressured Ishbel into going to Australia with me to stay with relatives. We flew out the day after her party, before ' He cleared his throat: 'My father telephoned me with the news, but I thought it best to keep it from Ishbel.'
'Exactly. Because you no longer thought I was a suitable friend for her.' All the same, she was glad to know Ishbel hadn't deliberately severed their friendship.
'No,' he denied harshly. 'Because if I'd told her she would have insisted on coming straight back to England with me, which would have brought her back into Mark Latimer's sphere of influence again when I'd only just succeeded in getting her away. I left it to you to tell her as much or as little as you wished when you wrote to her, but you didn't answer her letters.'
'I never received any,' Bethan said dully, but she didn't dispute what he'd said.
His explanation made sense. Because she had known Bethan was in love with her brother, Ishbel at seventeen had decided she was in love with Mark, often telling Bethan how wonderful it would be if they each married the other's brother. Bethan had known Fraser disapproved of his sister seeing so much of Mark, who had a reputation for wildness and unsavoury friendships, and she'd had doubts herself about her friend getting involved with him. Whatever Ishbel's feelings—and somehow Bethan could never believe they ran very
deep—she was quite sure Mark didn't return them, in fact she'd often thought her handsome but often disagreeable stepbrother incapable of loving anyone but himself. So it came as no great surprise to learn that Fraser had gone to the length of whisking his sister off to Australia to split them up.
Fraser sighed. 'I suppose as no one knew where you'd gone, they could hardly have sent Ishbel's letters on.' 'Mark knew,' she said starkly.
His eyes narrowed. 'Mark again.'
Bethan gave a little laugh, though there was no humour in it. 'Actually he was quite kind to me, helping me to find a bedsitter, bringing some of my stuff from home, promising to keep in touch, to let me know if his father relented and was prepared to have me back.' She shivered. 'And all the time keeping back the most important thing—that his father was ill.'
Her green eyes were haunted as she bowed her head. 'And now I have two deaths on my conscience,' she whispered.
Fraser was suddenly grasping her shoulders and shaking her. 'You're not to say that.'
Something in his voice brought her head snapping up and she stared right into his angry grey eyes. 'It's true, though,' she challenged. 'You said yourself it was worry over me that caused my stepfather's stroke and so contributed to his death.'
'But then I didn't know ' His eyes searched her
face and his hands tightened on her shoulders as if he was going to draw her to him. The tension that leapt and crackled between them was a tangible thing, stopping Bethan's breath so that her lips parted involuntarily as she swayed towards him, drawn by an irresistible force.
And then as if realising he was still holding her he let her go abruptly, as if the contact burned him. 'If you're telling the truth ' he began.
She drew in a shuddering breath. 'What reason could
I have for lying?' she flung at him. That for a few seconds she had come close to revealing her feelings for him had shaken her badly, and yet it hurt and angered her that he should find her touch so repugnant. 'What reason would I have had for refusing to go home after the trial, for refusing to see him, especially if I'd known he was ill and wanting me? It just doesn't make sense. I had everything to lose and nothing to gain by going it alone.'
'I'm not accusing you of lying.' He raked both hands through his dark hair. 'In fact the more I hear of this the more convinced I am that you're not.'
Bethan drew in her breath audibly, her heartbeat accelerating. 'You mean you believe me?'
Fraser hesitated, a strange, almost tortured expression on his face. 'Just tell me one thing.' He walked to the fireplace, his thin shirt taut across his broad shoulders as he leaned both hands on the mantelpiece, staring at the unlit logs arranged in the grate, then slowly he turned and faced her. 'Was it true that you let Mark Latimer—that you and he slept together?'
It took a moment before what he was saying sank in. 'No!' She stared at him with wide, horrified eyes. 'How could you even think it? He was my brother.'
'Not by blood,' he said tersely. 'There was no reason
:There was every reason,' she contradicted him fiercely, the most cogent being that she had been fathoms deep in love with the man who was now accusing her of what in her own mind would have amounted to incest. She gave a shudder of revulsion. 'He didn't even like me, and I certainly never thought of him in that way!'
'And if I told you he'd admitted it? Had actually boasted to me that he'd had you more than once?' The skin seemed to be stretched tightly over his cheekbones and his eyes burned into her.
She lifted her chin and met his gaze unwaveringly. 'Then he was lying,' she bit out.
For several seconds longer Fraser held her gaze, then he turned and beat his clenched fist against the mantelpiece. 'Oh God, what a fool I was!' he said thickly. 'What fools we all were!'
Bethan watched him in bewilderment, not sure if this outburst meant he believed her or not.
He pushed himself away f
rom the fireplace and looked at her. 'We all forgot Mark Latimer was no great respecter of the truth. And we both forgot how much he hated you.'
She put up her hands as if to ward off what he was saying. 'I know he never liked me, but hate?'
'To have done what he did to you? Oh yes.' At her bewildered look he crossed the room quickly and took her hands. 'Don't you see, Bethan? There was no way Charles Latimer could have given Mark those instructions to send you away. For the first few days after his stroke he could barely speak. So if Mark lied to you and to me, he must have lied to his father too. The whole rotten business was one colossal lie! He took advantage of his father's illness to create an unbridgeable rift between you, to get rid of you in effect, telling you one story and his father another, embellishing that one later with lurid details of what you were supposed to be getting up to in America.'
Milan sank slowly into a chair. 'Oh, no ...' she breathed, appalled. 'Maybe I deserved his hatred, but to do that to his own father. And why would he do such an awful thing? What did he hope to gain by it?'
'I don't think we have to look far for a reason,' Fraser said sardonically. `He always regarded you as the cuckoo in the nest, taking his share of the cake.'
Bethan raised troubled eyes to his face. 'You mean he was afraid I was taking his father's love away from him? But it just isn't true! Charles loved us both.'
'I don't think it was his father's affection he was afraid of sharing,' Fraser retorted tersely. 'Charles Latimer was very comfortably off but he wasn't all that
wealthy, and we both know Mark would rather spend money than earn it.'
'Money! Oh no, I'm sure you're wrong. Everything Charles had was Mark's; I was only his stepdaughter, after all. And besides, they both knew that having left school I meant to be independent, earn my own living.' But even as she denied it she felt chilled.
And Fraser knew she hadn't even convinced herself. 'As far as Charles was concerned, you were his daughter and would be provided for. And Mark was well aware of that, even if you weren't. And he didn't like it one bit. Good lord, I can think of any number of occasions when he deliberately tried to turn his father against you, long before your—accident and Charles's illness gave him the perfect opportunity.' He smiled but there was nothing humorous about it and his voice was grim when he went on. 'And though he might have succeeded all too well in banishing you from the scene, he still didn't get what he wanted. His father still left you half his estate.' He looked down at Bethan's stunned face. 'Doesn't that prove Charles still loved you?' His voice was suddenly soft, almost caressing. 'Doesn't it prove he wasn't unforgiving as you seem to believe?'
When there was no response and her expression still remained stunned, he frowned. 'Don't tell me you didn't know about that either! It was advertised for long enough in the newspapers here and in America.'
She shook her head, at last finding her voice. 'You forget, English and American newspapers are not readily available in the African bush.' But Mark could have traced her easily enough if he'd wanted to, she thought dully. He knew which hospital had accepted her for training, and their records would have told him when she had left, a fully fledged SRN, it was to join the relief agency. The knowledge that he had made no attempt to do so weighed like a stone in her heart and finally convinced her of her stepbrother's callous deception.
Of course, you must have been working for the relief agency by then.' Fraser frowned again, as if the idea angered him. 'I'm sorry if I've given you too many shocks today, but at least one good thing has come out of it. You need never go back to such dangerous work again, Bethan. You're a comparatively wealthy young woman.'
How could he say that! She shook her head, fighting against the tears of grief that threatened to overcome her. 'I'm not interested in the money. Do you think it means anything to me when all I can think about is that Charles died believing I didn't care about him, believing I'd deserted him just like my mother.' The tears spilled over and she was powerless to stop them.
'Bethan ...' He groaned her name and she felt her hands grasped as he drew her out of the chair and folded her in his arms. 'Please don't cry. You know I never could bear it when you cried.'
Bethan hadn't allowed herself the luxury of tears for years but now the floodgates were open there was no stemming the flow. She sobbed out her grief for the stepfather who had meant so much to her, for the unnecessary pain of his end. She wept for the long years of rejection when she had carried her burden of guilt alone for the fear and pain she had suffered, and there were tears of contrition too, for the irresponsible act that had begun the mess she had made of her life on the night of .
And under all this storm of emotion, not consciously recognised but there all the same, was the feeling of rightness that it was Fraser's strong body that was supporting her, his arms that circled her offering comfort, just as he had so many times during the smaller grief’s of her adolescence. Even when the storm began to subside she felt no self-consciousness at first.
'Bethan, it does no good to break your heart over it now.' Fraser's voice was strained, and as she raised her head, one hand came up to wipe her tears away with his
fingers, an expression almost of tenderness on his face. `Just remember Charles loved-you right up to the end, and you loved him. None of Mark's manipulating changed that.'
A measure of peace settled over Bethan's heart, promoted partly from the release of years of bottled-up emotion and partly from Fraser's words.
'Thank you.' She smiled up at him, her soft mouth tremulous, the lashes fringing her luminous green eyes spiky from the tears she had shed, and because she wore no make-up, no mascara to make clown-like runnels, it gave her face an innocently childlike beauty that caught at the heart-strings of the man holding her, bringing the barriers he had erected against her, which had been severely tested during the last hour, finally crashing down.
But Bethan, aware only of a subtle change in the way he was holding her, responded to it mindlessly, letting her head fall back against his chest, her own arms stealing round his waist, her hands spread against his muscled back moving with an unknowing sensuality. Rational thought was suspended as her body surrendered to the longing to hold him with a sense of homecoming, that this was where she belonged. When his arms tightened round her, when the hard thrust of his body left her in no doubt of his arousal, she felt only a wild elation.
It was his audible gasp and his agonised, `Bethan!' as her mouth sought the tanned column of his throat that brought the alarm-bells clamouring in her head. Just so had he appeared to want her once before, that evening in the summerhouse at Merrifields when she had all but offered herself to him. Then, as now, she had dreamed of an untold happiness but had found only rejection and humiliation. The sense of belonging in his arms was an illusion. She had never belonged there for he had never loved her. He belonged to Siriol now, the girl he was engaged to marry, and
Bethan could feel only shame at having forgotten that even momentarily.
She stiffened, pushing away from him. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to embarrass you.' She endeavoured to keep her voice light.
His mouth quirked upwards and his eyes smiled while his arms seemed reluctant to let her go. `Do I look embarrassed?'
She flushed and stepped away from him firmly. 'No, but I am.' Desperately she cast around for something acceptable to say that would explain her mindless response to him without exposing her true feelings, and rushed on, 'I wouldn't want you to think I was still suffering from that childish infatuation I inflicted on you years ago. You'll have to put that little show of feminine weakness down to all the shocks I've received this morning.'
She watched the smile die out of his eyes. 'Bethan, I don't know what
But she didn't want to listen to what his excuse might be, and broke in quickly with a laugh that even in her own ears sounded hollow. You will thank Siriol, won't you, for loaning me your shoulder to cry on?'
His face was suddenly blank and remote, and into the crashing sil
ence Lorna's voice called across the hall, 'Bethan, where are you? My dear, are you all right?'
Bethan seized her opportunity to escape, dragging open the study door.
'Oh there you are. You were gone so long I thought you might be feeling ill.' Lorna sounded relieved but looked at her curiously.
'No, I'm fine. I—Fraser and I—I mean, I bumped into him when I came into the house and as I wanted to speak to him
She faltered to a stop as Fraser's voice behind her said, 'That's right, Lorna. Bethan had some silly idea that I'd be happier if she left Vine House. It's all right,' he calmed his aunt who had begun to protest. I think
SHBEL'S PARTY
I've convinced her she was wrong and she's agreed to stay. Isn't that right, Bethan?' His tone was polite, even friendly, but his eyes were steely, challenging her to deny his assertion.
And Bethan knew she couldn't meet that challenge when Lorna was looking so pleased. 'That's right,' she agreed reluctantly, and wondered how she was going to survive the next few weeks.
CHAPTER SIX
IMMEDIATELY on leaving the study, Fraser drove away in his sleek Mercedes sports car and didn't return to lunch, much to Bethan's relief. But even without his presence she found Lorna's eager conversation a strain, especially when the older woman several times declared how delighted she was Bethan and Fraser had become friends. She had to make an enormous effort to respond when her mind was seething with so many other things.
It wasn't until she had pulled the sun-loungers into the shade of a huge white lilac-tree and settled Lorna down for her afternoon rest that she had the opportunity to think about what she had learned from Fraser that morning.
The shock of learning her stepfather was dead had numbed her to the enormity of what Mark had done, and even now she found it hard to credit he could be so monstrously selfish, not only indifferent to her own feelings, but to the extra suffering he had inflicted on his father at a time when Charles had been virtually helpless.
Ishbel's Party Page 10
