His Blackmail Marriage Bargain

by Penny Jordan

  ‘You weren’t wearing that dress this morning. Don’t try to tell me that Alan did the gentlemanly thing while you put on a strip show for him.’

  The savagery with which he spoke filled the silence between them, and Autumn stared at him, her own anger growing until she could no longer control it.

  ‘How dare you!’ she breathed. ‘How dare you suggest firstly that I would do such a thing, and secondly imply that you have any right to be concerned if I do…’

  ‘I have every right, damn you,’ Yorke swore hoarsely. ‘You’re my wife, in case you’d forgotten.’

  ‘I’d forgotten?’ Her eyes glittered fiercely. ‘What about your lunchtime activities, or don’t they count? You’re so ready to accuse me of infidelity, Yorke, it makes me wonder exactly how you spent the afternoon. Did she beg you to make love to her,’ she asked him sweetly, ‘or doesn’t she know how much you like that?’ She watched the livid anger burning in his face with detached awareness. She was beyond feeling fear, beyond feeling anything but the taut satisfaction of goading him beyond endurance as he had so often goaded her.

  ‘You do like it, don’t you, Yorke? It really turns you on, doesn’t it?’ she asked with a twisted smile.

  He reached for her, his eyes darkening and she closed her own in mute surrender, pierced by a fierce sweet pain as she anticipated the hard pressure of his mouth.

  It never came. Yorke flung her away from him, swearing violently, and when Autumn opened her eyes he was gone, the slamming of his bedroom door the only evidence that he had ever left it.

  She picked up her parcels in a silence fragile with tension. Had it been at the back of her mind all along that by going out with Alan she might drive Yorke into something like this? Not like this, she corrected bitterly. What her subconscious had had in mind had not been this savage rejection, but something of a very different order indeed. Her fingers brushed against the small jewellers’ box containing the cuff-links and she was seized with an urge to destroy the frail precious metal, as Yorke had just destroyed her.

  * * *

  The party had got off to a good start. Autumn was wearing the tuxedo suit, and it had attracted more than one appreciative glance.

  ‘I suppose I’m not the first to tell you how fantastically sexy you look tonight?’ Richard asked gloomily, cornering her. ‘Yorke’s going to have a hard time fending off the wolves after this.’

  ‘Perhaps that’s the idea,’ Autumn said lightly. ‘Keeping him so busy that he won’t have time to stray.’

  Richard looked surprised. ‘Did you think he might? You must know that he’s nuts about you.’

  ‘So “nuts” that he takes other women out to lunch?’ It was too late to wish the betraying words unsaid. Richard was staring at her curiously.

  ‘You mean Lorraine Edwards? She’s from our advertising agency—and very happily married, as I have good reason to know,’ he added ruefully. ‘No, Yorke’s a one-woman man, Autumn, and that woman is most definitely you.’

  Yorke was certainly a good actor, Autumn reflected later in the evening. His hand was curved possessively round her waist, pulling her back against him as he talked to some of their guests. She moved restlessly away and instantly his fingers tightened, biting into her flesh before moving upwards under the soft swell of her breast. No one could have seen what he was doing—his hand was beneath her jacket—but she was burningly aware of it, colour burning up under her skin, her eyes darting him angry looks.

  ‘Excellent party,’ Sir Giles approved. ‘Your husband will do very well, my dear.’ He smiled at Yorke. ‘Perhaps I shouldn’t tell you this, but Charles was most impressed with you both.’ His expression spoke volumes and Autumn sensed that he was trying to tell Yorke that he would get his knighthood. And she would get her freedom. The thought was searingly painful.

  ‘Where is Annette?’ she asked Sir Giles, in an effort to dispel her thoughts. She had invited the younger girl with reluctance, surprised when she did not arrive.

  ‘In Austria. Some friends were making up a skiing party over Christmas and she wanted to go along.’

  Leaving her father all alone over Christmas in that great barracks of a house! Autumn thought indignantly.

  ‘Why don’t you spend Christmas with us?’ she began impulsively, but Sir Giles shook his head, glancing at Yorke’s shuttered face with wry acceptance.

  ‘Thank you, my dear, but no. I suspect your husband wants you all to himself. Such times are very precious,’ he added with a smile. ‘Treasure them well.’

  By the time the last guest had departed Autumn knew that she had been accepted locally. They had received several invitations to ‘drop in for drinks’ over the Christmas period, but she doubted that they would take any of them up. There seemed little point in cultivating friendships when she would be leaving so soon. Yorke was outside saying goodbye to their departing visitors. The waiters they had hired had cleared away all the debris and Autumn wandered into the kitchen, filling the dishwasher. She had told Mrs Jacobs to have an early night. The housekeeper was leaving early in the morning on holiday, and before the party started Autumn had given her the leather handbag she had bought for her.

  Her mouth felt dry and slightly sour, and she decided to make herself a hot drink. She was just pouring the milk into a pan when Yorke walked in. His presence unnerved her, making her feel clumsy.

  ‘Do you want one?’ she asked, gesturing to the pan. To her surprise he nodded brusquely.

  ‘It might help me sleep.’

  Autumn looked at him, noticing for the first time the lines of strain round his eyes and mouth. Wasn’t he sleeping properly? Why? Had he been worrying about the knighthood?

  ‘You’ve nothing to worry about now,’ she comforted him, spooning powder into two mugs. ‘Sir Giles seemed pretty sure that you’d got the knighthood.’

  The milk started to rise and she poured it into the mugs, rinsing out the pan and handing him his drink.

  ‘You go up if you want to,’ she suggested. ‘I’ll…’

  She started as he slammed the mug down on the table, slopping the content on to it.

  ‘For God’s sake stop treating me like a dimwitted child!’ he said harshly. ‘I don’t want your pity. I don’t need it.’

  He was gone before she could retaliate, the milky drink still on the table. She mopped up the spillage, wondering whether or not to go after him, and then the memory of the aching tiredness in his eyes overcame her reluctance to intrude where she wasn’t wanted.

  He wasn’t in bed. He was sitting in front of the window, still fully dressed, his tie half off and his shirt unfastened to reveal the beginnings of his body hair. His head was in his hands, his thick dark hair tousled as though he had been running his hands through it.

  At first he seemed to be unaware of her, and then he lifted his head, his eyes blank and unfocusing. He stared at her and she proffered the mug uncertainly. His expression was incredulous, his lips curling back in vulpine fury as the mug and its contents were hurled at the wall.

  In the long, thick silence that followed they stared at one another, then at last he said softly.

  ‘Now get out of here, before I do something we’ll both regret.’

  CHAPTER NINE

  ON Christmas Eve it snowed, fine, frail flakes against a steel-grey sky which spoke of more to come. Autumn watched their slow, inexorable descent from the drawing room window. Yorke had gone to get them a Christmas tree. He had been incredulous at first when she told him that she wanted one.

  ‘What the hell for?’ he demanded. ‘Or are you hoping to inject a little festivity into this mausoleum? If so, you’re wasting your time,’ he said harshly, ‘and besides, we don’t have anything to put on a damned tree.’

  ‘Yes, we do. I bought things when I was in London,’ Autumn retorted, sticking to her guns. She could not have said why it was so important for them to have the tree; it just was.

  She was in the kitchen when Yorke returned. She had been baking mince pies
, and he frowned as he walked in, as though surprised to see her so engaged.

  ‘Want one?’ she asked, motioning to the wire cooling tray.

  She could have laughed at the way he picked it up, eating it gingerly as though he suspected that she might be trying to poison him.

  ‘It’s good.’ He looked so surprised that she burst out laughing. ‘Thank you very much! Did you get a tree?’

  ‘In the hall,’ he said in a voice that made her look at him curiously.

  She understood why when she saw it. The tree was huge, far larger than she had anticipated, and she stared helplessly at it, wondering how she was going to fill its dense green boughs.

  ‘There’s some stuff over there to hang on it,’ he added, indicating the paper bags on the floor beside it. ‘Where do you want me to put it?’

  ‘The drawing room. We’ll open our presents there after breakfast.’

  She could have bitten out her tongue when she saw his openly sardonic expression. She had spoken without thinking. She and Aunt Emma had always had a tree and there had always been a multitude of small, gaily wrapped presents, saved for and purchased all through the year, to entice and excite on Christmas morning. She had done much the same thing for Yorke, without even thinking about it, but now she realised that he had thought she was implying that he had bought her something.

  ‘Presents?’ he queried succinctly. ‘From whom?’

  She refused to meet his eyes.

  ‘Oh, Father Christmas…’

  She spent the evening dressing the tree, thinking that in different circumstances it was a chore they could have shared pleasurably, perhaps even with their child sleeping peacefully upstairs. Curtailing her rogue thoughts, she stepped down from the ladder, then started when Yorke’s fingers curled round one slender ankle, her eyes anxious and alarmed as she stared down at him.

  ‘Now what are you going to do?’ he asked silkily, his fingers curling upwards.

  ‘Let me go, Yorke,’ she implored huskily. He didn’t respond at once, his hand moving over her knee up to her thigh, his eyes mocking her to do anything about his intrusion.

  The ring of the phone broke the silence. At first Autumn thought he wasn’t going to move, and then he did, trailing his ringers against her silk-covered skin in a slow caress until she was aching with yearning, her eyes filming with tears as she watched his dark head disappearing to the study.

  By the time he had returned she had finished the tree. During the afternoon she had prepared a light supper because she wanted to attend Midnight Mass at the local church.

  When she looked outside it was still snowing. Yorke barely touched his food, pushing it away with impatience.

  ‘What’s the matter? Isn’t it up to Mrs Jacobs’ standard?’ she asked belligerently.

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake!’ he swore angrily, standing up and walking away. ‘I wish to heaven Christmas had never been invented!’

  He was gone before Autumn could query his statement, but when he had gone and she had had time to reflect, over the washing up she realised that his Christmases as a child could not have been such as to leave many pleasant memories.

  She didn’t bother asking him if he wanted to go to church with her. The snow carpeted the drive crisply. Knowing that she would be walking, she had dressed warmly in a brown suede coat and matching boots, and there was something exhilarating about walking through the snow, in the crisp clearness of the winter evening, her imagination re-enacting that first ever Christmas.

  The service was simple and uplifting, the old familiar carols sweet music on the ear, and as she emerged from the church into the night Autumn’s one regret was that Yorke was not with her.

  When she returned the house was in darkness. She went straight to her room, undressing quickly, unearthing the small pile of presents she had wrapped the night before, before sliding into bed.

  She slept deeply and woke to an unfamiliar stillness and clarity of light. It was nine o’clock, and she jumped quickly out of bed, thinking that Yorke must have been up for hours.

  Outside snow mantled the garden thickly, a clear, pale blue winter sky reflecting the purity of the day.

  Thank goodness for central heating! she thought as she went downstairs. She went first to the drawing room, setting a match to the apple logs, and sniffing appreciatively as they caught fire. There was no sign of Yorke in the kitchen, and Samson struggled out of his basket to greet her enthusiastically. She let him out, and set about her preparations for Christmas dinner.

  Samson didn’t come back the first time she called and she went outside, laughing to see him thickly coated with snow as he burrowed excitedly into the unfamiliar whiteness. There was a stick by the door and she threw it for him. He abandoned his burrowing to chase after it, barking excitedly and then laying it triumphantly at her feet, his brown eyes pleading for a repeat performance. Autumn played with him for several minutes, before returning to the silence of the house. And it was silent, she thought uneasily. Where was Yorke?

  It struck her all of a sudden that he might have gone out, leaving her to have her Christmas alone—a final subtle torture—and she flew to the garage, wrenching open the heavy doors. Both cars were still there. Breathing heavily, she leaned over the bonnet of the Rolls, sobbing with relief, admitting properly for the first time that without Yorke her life would be meaningless—his presence, his company, even when it was cold and disapproving—was as essential to her as oxygen. She could not live without him. She whimpered protestingly, but the knowledge would not go away.

  She returned to the kitchen, moving like an automaton, unaware of Samson’s whimpered sympathy. She put the turkey in the oven and glanced at her watch. Yorke was normally an early riser. Surely he would not still be asleep? Torn by indecision, she chewed on her lip, and then resolutely filled the coffee percolator. If there was no sign of him when it was ready, then she would go up with a cup of coffee. She remembered what had happened to the Horlicks the night before and moved uneasily about the kitchen. He had been in a dangerously volatile mood lately, ever since she went out with Alan, and with hindsight she saw that the cold calm which had preceded that mood had been one of smouldering threat. It couldn’t be easy for him having her live here, constantly forced to endure her unwanted presence. Well, it would soon be over. Pain surged over her. She reached blindly for the percolator, switched it on and turned to feed Samson, her hands moving automatically while her heart was slowly dying.

  The coffee was ready and there was no sign of Yorke. The dog whined softly as she stared at the closed kitchen door, as though he too were wondering about his master.

  Autumn heated the milk and poured it into a large breakfast cup, carrying it carefully upstairs.

  Outside Yorke’s room she knocked. There was no reply. Grasping her courage in both hands, she opened the door. The curtains were still closed, and she put the cup down, going to fling them open and let in the morning. Yorke was lying on his side, his face flushed and his breathing harsh. The moment she looked at him Autumn realised that he was ill. She called his name, touching his shoulder, but his eyes remained firmly closed. His skin was damp and yet despite his heated flush, his lips were cracked and dry.

  Autumn rested the back of his hand against his forehead. She was sure he had a temperature. She took his pulse, feeling its jerky, erratic race. When she was in church she had heard someone mention the virulent forty-eight-hour ‘flu which had swept the village, and she suspected that somehow Yorke had contracted it. The hours he worked, the way he drove himself would all contrive to lower his resistance. She sat with him for several minutes, but he seemed deeply unconscious. What if it wasn’t just ‘flu? She chewed worriedly on her lower lip, her eyes going to the phone. There was bound to be a doctor on duty somewhere locally. Before she could change her mind she dialled directory enquiries for the number of the local hospital. The hospital were helpful and soothing.

  ‘Yes, this particular brand of ‘flu is very nasty,’ a warm male voice
assured. ‘Dr Meadows is on call, I’ll pass a message on to him to call round. He won’t be able to do much, but you’ll probably feel less anxious once he’s seen your husband.’

  Her husband! Autumn replaced the receiver and stared into Yorke’s flushed face, noting the dark shadow along his jaw where his beard had grown overnight. During the brief months of their marriage he had always shaved in the evening—the curse of all married men, he had once called it. She bit her lip, looking away.

  Dr Meadows was kind and reassuring. A genial man in his late forties, he examined Yorke’s prone body clinically and straightened up with a smile.

  ‘That’s it all right. Has he been like this long?’

  Autumn’s eyes flickered over her husband. ‘Er… I don’t know. Several hours, I think,’ she hedged, hoping the doctor would not think it strange that she did not know exactly how long her husband had been ill. ‘He seemed off his food last night,’ she added quickly, remembering how Yorke had pushed his plate away.

  ‘Oh yes, that’s a classic symptom. Well, I doubt food will be much on his mind for the next few days. Are you all alone here?’ he asked.

  Autumn licked her dry lips. ‘Yes… Doctor, he…’

  ‘He’s going to be fine,’ he assured her. ‘But as I said, this type of ‘flu is particularly virulent. When the fever breaks he’ll need sponging down hourly and he’ll probably resent it like hell, all these big businessmen do. You might find he becomes delirious and rambles—it’s a common symptom. Plenty of fluid once he starts to sweat. Keep the room nice and warm and keep him well covered. If he isn’t showing any signs of improvement in a couple of days call me again.’ He extracted a bottle from his bag. ‘These are antibiotics. Follow the instructions on the bottle.’ He looked at her and added, ‘I’ll call round in a couple of days anyway. You’re a bit remote out here, and you could well catch it yourself. When it strikes it’s very quick, and you could be in the same state as your husband before you know it.’

  After he had gone Autumn turned off the oven, wandering into the drawing room and glancing at the tree. Christmas was not the time to be alone. The bright gaudy trimmings seemed to mock her loneliness.