His Blackmail Marriage Bargain

by Penny Jordan

  ‘Oh, aren’t they always. I suppose he told you he wouldn’t have time for you. Oh, don’t look so surprised. It’s an old Yorke ploy. The Heyer Corporation people will be laying out the red carpet treatment for him, you can be sure of that, and the reason he won’t have time for you is that he’ll be too busy fighting off all the other females. Oh, it’s quite true, my dear. You forget that I’ve known Yorke for a long time, and I know all about these little trips.’

  Autumn felt sick. She tried to turn away, but Julia’s hand was on her arm.

  ‘Oh, now I’ve upset you,’ she said mock sorrowfully. ‘But, my dear, what did you expect? Surely you didn’t think you could actually hold the interest of a man like Yorke? Far better women than you have tried that—and failed.’

  ‘Including you?’ Autumn asked, white-faced.

  ‘Oh, so we’ve got claws, have we? My dear, I feel for you, I really do. People are beginning to talk, you know. Some even wonder if he has a wife. You know why he married you, don’t you? If he hadn’t been caught like that with you, you would just have been another little affair, but with the take-over hanging over him he didn’t have time to hang about smoothing over all the ruffled feathers. The gutter press would have had a field day if they’d got hold of the story, you must realise that. “Tycoon seduces schoolgirl"—that sort of thing. Yorke would have been a laughing stock. My father tried to talk him out of it—we all did. But Yorke can be so stubborn. I hear he works late most nights…?’ She gave Autumn a speculative stare and the younger girl wondered where she had got that piece of information from. Her father? Or Yorke himself?

  ‘Our marriage is no concern of yours,’ she said as coolly as she could.

  ‘What marriage?’ the other taunted. ‘Yorke wants you as a bedmate, that’s all. What other part of his life do you share? If you hadn’t been such a naïve idiot he never would have married you.’

  ‘Or if you hadn’t burst in on us when you did,’ Autumn retorted coldly. ‘But we are married.’

  Julia laughed.

  ‘For how long?’

  On that parting note she turned on her heel, leaving Autumn feeling as though tiny, sharp claws had ripped delicately through all her innermost private thoughts.

  Scarcely knowing what she was doing, she walked back to the apartment. As always its immaculate, artificial atmosphere chilled her. She walked over to one of the white leather settees, thinking for the first time how unsuited the apartment was to family life. It wasn’t a home, it was a showcase, she thought bitterly, and yet surely eventually Yorke would want children. A son to carry on the family business? She knew about his father. Richard had told her, and her heart had ached for the rejection he must have experienced, but it was something they never talked about. Like so many other things, she reflected. Julia had been right. Yorke wanted her only as a bedmate and nothing else.

  Pain pierced her. She stared helplessly out of the windows at the crowded London skyline and suddenly a longing for the Yorkshire Moors, so intense that it overwhelmed, swept over her.

  Like a sleepwalker she packed a case, choosing instinctively the clothes she had brought with her. With no firm plan in mind she hailed a taxi and asked the driver to take her to Euston.

  The station was busy, full of bustling people all seeming to know exactly what they were doing. The next train to York did not leave for an hour. Autumn thought about going to the buffet and then discarded the idea, sitting instead on one of the benches in the large concourse, her eyes blinded by the tears that had suddenly sprung up from nowhere.

  The hand on her shoulder startled her and she stared upwards, blenching as her eyes met the furiously angry ones of her husband. He swung her case up in one hand, grasping her arm with the other and pulling her after him.

  ‘Yorke! But… You were going to New York…’

  ‘And so you decided to leave me? The first moment I turn my back on you you go running back to Yorkshire? To what?’ he asked savagely.

  Autumn was trembling as though she had the palsy. She could not tell Yorke about that interview with Julia.

  ‘I can’t stay with you any longer, Yorke,’ she protested miserably. ‘I can’t live with you without love.’

  He laughed harshly, his face paler than usual.

  ‘Why not?’ he demanded. ‘You have been doing for the last ten months.’ Or had you conveniently forgotten that? How like a woman,’ he sneered, ‘and how like you! You find it impossible to face the truth, don’t you?’

  Numbly she reflected that Euston Station was an odd place to learn that one’s husband did not love one, and then because she had no option, and anyway she was past feeling anything, she allowed Yorke to bundle her into a taxi, hearing, like someone in a dream, the address of their apartment. The words broke through her icy calm.

  ‘I don’t want to go back there,’ she cried in a panic. ‘Don’t make me, Yorke. I can’t bear it!’

  His face was white with anger, his fingers biting into her wrist. ‘Well, you’re damned well going to have to try!’

  In the apartment he flung her case into the bedroom, pouring himself a glass of whisky.

  ‘You realise that right now I should be on Concorde flying across the Atlantic?’

  His tone fired her anger.

  ‘I’m not a child, Yorke! I…’

  ‘That’s exactly what you are,’ he cut in bitterly, slamming down his glass. ‘A bloody immature child! What the hell were you trying to prove?’

  ‘Nothing. I was just sick of this life, we lead—you discuss nothing with me, you don’t share your life with me at all. All you want is a responsive body in bed.’

  ‘And you’re definitely that,’ he said softly. ‘What do you want? A seat on the board? Or perhaps you’d like my job?’

  Autumn repressed a sigh. He wasn’t making any attempt to understand. He didn’t want to understand. He wanted only to ridicule her.

  ‘We should never have got married,’ she threw at him.

  ‘Agreed. But since we are, I might as well make the most of the few privileges it affords me.’ He grasped her arms, half dragging her through the door to their bedroom, ignoring her angry protests to be free.

  ‘Don’t touch me!’ she hurled at him as his hands slid under her sweater. ‘I hate you, Yorke. I hate you!’

  ‘So you say,’ he mocked, ‘but your body is telling a different story.’ His fingers stroked tauntingly over her firm nipple as though to emphasise the point and Autumn shivered betrayingly under the embrace, her body melting against him, and he lifted her in his arms.

  She tried to fight it, but it was as hopeless as trying to command the tide to turn.

  He meant to leave her nothing, she thought at one point when his harsh breathing was suspended as his mouth closed on hers, dark colour running up under his cheekbones as he cupped her face and stared down into the eyes she knew were already glazing with passion.

  ‘Forget love,’ he told her. ‘However much you try to deny it you want me, Autumn, and I want you.’

  ‘But not like this,’ she protested wildly. ‘Can’t you see that you’re destroying me?’

  She shivered as his hands moved determinedly on her flesh, knowing that she was fighting a losing battle. Where his hands lingered her skin burned, pulsing frantically. She made one last desperate attempt to sway him.

  ‘Please don’t do this,’ she begged. ‘Please…’ but she knew from the implacable look in his eyes that it was useless. And then seconds later she was incapable of coherent thought; incapable of anything but responding feverishly to Yorke’s touch.

  She hated herself afterwards, turning away as he rolled off the bed and wishing that he would just go and leave her.

  ‘Sulking?’ he asked succinctly as he sat down to pull on his shoes.

  His attitude of calm satisfaction infuriated her. That had not been lovemaking they had been engaged upon; it had been war. And he had won.

  She raised herself up on one arm to watch him, her eyes dark with p
ain.

  ‘I hate you, Yorke,’ she said coldly. ‘I’ll never sleep in your bed again.’

  ‘You won’t get to,’ Yorke responded grittily. ‘Not unless you get down on your knees and beg me. Grow up and face facts. Your mind might hate me, but your body feels something far, far different, and no amount of words can alter that.’

  The door slammed behind him and she turned her face into the pillow, shaken by a violent storm of weeping. When it was over she felt curiously calm and empty. She showered slowly, then returned to the bedroom to dress, her movements those of a mechanical doll.

  Yorke had destroyed her, she thought tiredly. She could not fight him any longer. His savage rending of her pride had annihilated her self-respect and she knew that she could not continue to live with him and survive.

  She had to get away, she thought feverishly, panic breaking through the false calm. It didn’t matter where as long as it was somewhere where Yorke could never find her. Not that he would want to. He cared nothing for her; she was just a possession, something he had been forced to acquire through expediency.

  When she left the apartment she had no clear idea of where she was going. The bitterness of the last nine months welled up inside her, until she felt as though her body was weeping tears of blood.

  Yorke had never loved her. No wonder she had continually sensed within him a resentment to their marriage; a desire to subjugate her that overrode even their most intimate moments and which had sown the seeds of the bitterness she was now reaping.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  THE past was past, Autumn told herself firmly, thrusting aside the painful memories. She was no longer the girl who had fled so desperately from the London apartment rather than face up to the truth. And that Yorke did not love her was the truth had been made bitterly clear. He had made no attempt to find her, and that had hurt very badly for a long time.

  She slept fitfully, tossing and turning, telling herself that it was the tropical heat, but knowing very well that it was something else that tormented her body; memories she had thought long submerged rising like ghosts from the past to taunt her.

  She was up early, enjoying the cool freshness of the new day, the sand washed clean by the tide. If only pain could be obliterated so neatly, she reflected wryly as she walked towards the hotel.

  For the sailing trip she had dressed in a towelling jumpsuit in apple green worn over a bikini, a large canvas tote-bag holding all her bits and pieces.

  The foyer was relatively empty. Collecting the clipboard and list of names, Autumn sat down to check through them, smiling in surprise when Sally and Alan walked in.

  ‘Hey, why aren’t you packing?’ Sally exclaimed.

  ‘We’re not leaving until tomorrow.’ Autumn glanced at Alan. He looked away, flushing faintly, no doubt feeling guilty over his part in Yorke’s deception.

  ‘Yorke wants to leave today,’ Alan told her uncomfortably. ‘Sally will take over for you.’

  She turned away, her mouth compressing. Typical Yorke, steamrollering his own way over everyone else! She could think of no valid objection to leaving a day early, and yet illogically she resented Yorke’s assumption that she would placidly fall in with his plans.

  ‘Look, thanks for… for everything,’ Alan said awkwardly. ‘Yorke’s going to invest in Travel Mates and—–’

  ‘Don’t thank me, Alan,’ Autumn said dryly. ‘Yorke wouldn’t be giving you anything if he didn’t think he was going to get a good return on it. He’s a businessman first and last.’

  ‘Even so… Look, I’m really sorry about not telling you, but…’

  Autumn relented.

  ‘I do understand.’

  He hugged her briefly, his lips touching hers lightly for a second, and when he released her Yorke was standing there, his expression sardonic.

  ‘Don’t forget that’s my wife you’re kissing, and I hold the purse strings.’

  Hypocrite, Autumn thought as Alan made some response. As if he cared who kissed her! Over Sally’s head Yorke’s eyes met hers.

  ‘You’ve heard that we’re leaving ahead of schedule?’

  She nodded without speaking, handing her clipboard over to Sally.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Yorke’s voice halted her at the door.

  ‘To pack,’ she told him quietly. Where did he think she was going? On a tiny island in the middle of nowhere the possibilities for running away were somewhat limited. But she didn’t want to run away, she reminded herself as Yorke thrust open the door for her and she stepped out into the fierce sunshine.

  ‘I don’t need an armed guard, you know,’ she told him acidly when he fell into step beside her.

  ‘Is there anything between you and Alan?’ he asked her, catching her off guard. ‘Is that why you’re so anxious to get your divorce, so that you can marry him?’

  The hot tropical sun burned through her thin towelling covering, and yet for a moment Autumn felt ice cold.

  ‘Do you think I’d ever marry anyone again,’ she asked him bitterly, ‘after what marriage to you has done to me?’

  ‘You weren’t the only one to suffer,’ Yorke told her harshly. ‘It wasn’t exactly a picnic for me either.’

  Autumn eyed him coldly.

  ‘I don’t want to know, Yorke,’ she told him. ‘As far as I’m concerned we’re two strangers who have to live together in order for me to be free.’

  ‘So what’s different?’ Yorke asked bitterly. ‘That’s what we always were, isn’t it—strangers?

  Without another word he turned on his heel, striding down the sunlit path, leaving her feeling shaken and raw.

  They left shortly after lunch, Autumn forced to sit unbearably close to Yorke in the small aqua-plane which had come from St Lucia to collect them. At the airport they were ushered through Customs with deferential speed and out on to the sunlit tarmac where a streamlined jet in Laing Airways colours stood waiting for them.

  The captain smiled at Yorke,

  ‘We’ve got take-off clearance, sir. E.T.A. London approximately three a.m.’

  ‘Radio on ahead and have my chauffeur pick us up,’ Yorke told him. ‘Any messages for me?’

  It seemed that there had been several, and Autumn let the cabin steward fuss over her luggage and seat-belt while the captain relayed them to Yorke.

  The Lear jet was a possession which had succeeded their marriage, and Autumn tried not to be impressed by its luxurious interior.

  A bank of computer equipment lined one wall, a well-stocked bar and two comfortable settees against the other. Several chairs were grouped round a table, and Autumn guessed that Yorke used the jet for high level business meetings.

  As soon as they were airborne Yorke disappeared to the rear of the aircraft, returning several minutes later dressed in dark thigh-hugging trousers and a thin sweater.

  ‘There’s a shower and dressing room available if you want to change,’ he told Autumn. She was wearing a thin blouse and skirt, more than adequate covering for the tropics, but in the air-conditioned cabin she was already beginning to feel cold.’

  ‘There’s no point,’ she told Yorke distantly. ‘The clothes I have with me are all geared for the Caribbean.’

  He said nothing, but moved away from her, and Autumn thought he had gone to pour himself a drink until he suddenly reappeared, a soft cashmere sweater in his hand, which he dropped on to her lap.

  ‘Don’t bother telling me that you don’t want it,’ he advised her grimly. ‘You’ll need it later on, unless you want to freeze.’

  She thanked him huskily, surprised by his thoughtfulness. The cashmere was soft and retained a faint masculine tang, the feel of the soft wool beneath her fingers unlocking the door to a torrent of memories of the feel of his hard chest under just such a covering.

  Her hands trembled as she pulled the sweater over her blouse. Its warmth enveloped her instantly, and she turned to thank him, but Yorke was already engrossed in some papers he had spread out on his lap.

 
The flight was going to be a long one, she reminded herself, wishing she had thought to bring a paperback with her to occupy herself. There were newspapers on the table and she picked them up, soon deeply engrossed in an article on the effects of civil unrest in the Arabian Gulf.

  When she had finished it she looked up to find Yorke watching her, an odd expression in his eyes.

  Did he find it strange that she took an interest in world affairs? His head bent over his work and she dismissed the thought. What did it matter whether he did or not? Not for the world would she admit to anyone how she had scoured the papers for any mention of Laing Airways during those first agonising weeks of their separation, and how from that had sprung her interest in politics and finance.

  When the cabin steward came to serve their meal, Autumn wondered anew at the luxury of the jet. The delicious salmon steak on its bed of salad was mouth-wateringly tempting and although she had not been particularly hungry she found herself eating every morsel and still having room for the thinly sliced rare beef which followed.

  Shaking her head when the steward came to refill her wine glass, she congratulated him on the meal.

  ‘It’s exactly the same as those served to our first class passengers,’ Yorke told her, surprising her. ‘In my experience travellers want tempting, plain meals served attractively, and that’s what we try to give them.’

  Autumn refused cheese and biscuits, her eyes drawn against her will to Yorke’s hands as he buttered a cracker. They were so sure in everything they did, and her face flushed guiltily as she realised that she had been remembering the pleasure they had once brought her.

  Her seat reclined fully to allow her to sleep in it, Yorke told her when the steward had cleared away the remains of their meal, and if she wished they could dim the cabin lights.

  The words evoked a sense of intimacy that she found disturbing and turning away from him she said she was not tired. Nevertheless her eyes closed involuntarily several times, consciousness slipping away from her and sleep claimed her as she watched Yorke bent over his work.

  When she awoke the dull throbbing of the engines alerted her immediately to her surroundings, and she stretched, expecting the familiar stiffness and chill one normally experienced in flight. Instead she felt deliriously warm and comfortable. Her head was resting on something solidly familiar and she turned it slightly, her heart thudding protestingly as she realised that she was lying in Yorke’s arms.