DISHONEST WOMAN by Jessica Steele
`Marriage or nothing,' Kimberley Adams had told Slade Darville uncompromisingly — so marriage it was. But what Slade didn't know was that Kimberley wasn't just being moral, and she wasn't marrying him for love — but because, under the terms of her father's will, she would lose her beloved home if she wasn't married. And furthermore, whatever Slade might have in mind, Kimberley had no intention of making the marriage a real one. She had been dishonest with Slade — so perhaps it was only poetic justice when he promptly turned the tables on her!
Made and printed in Great Britain
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INNOCENT ABROAD
To get her sister out of a terrible jam, Reggie had gone to Uruguay where she was pretending, for a short while, to be the fiancée of the overwhelming Severo Cardenosa—only to discover that Severo intended to go the whole way -and make her marry him, within a very short time. But Reggie, apart from anything else, was in love with another man. How on earth could she get out of this mess?
All the characters in this book have no existence out-side the imagination of the Author, and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the Author, and all the incidents are pure invention. The text of this publication or any part thereof may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photo-copying, recording, storage in an information retrieval system, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the prior consent of the publisher in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
First published 1982
Australian copyright 1982 Philippine copyright 1982, This edition 1982
© Jessica Steele 1982
ISBN 0263 73762 4
CHAPTER ONE
SUMMER came late that year. Kimberley Adams stood at the french windows of the living room that sunny September day, and sighed. She supposed she had better get a move on, otherwise she was going to be late for her appointment.
But she felt no urgency to leave Bramcote, the home she so loved. It was a long time since she had felt any urgency to do anything. She was alone now. Thank God she had Bramcote. Bramcote couldn't be taken away from her like everything else she loved.
It was maybe because she was so attached to her home, so used to it, that Kimberley did not see that there was a good deal not right with it. Her father had mentioned in February, when the roof had shown signs of deterioration after the heavy weight of snow had cleared, that they should put their heads together to think up a way to get some repairs done. But that had been just before his illness had struck. After that she was too concerned for him to worry whether the roof was sound or not.
She couldn't bear to live anywhere else, she thought, loving the isolation of Bramcote too, which only by virtue of the fact it was linked by a long lane did it manage to be included in the village of Amberton.
She gazed out at the long lawns that fronted the house, resenting that she had to leave for the, in her view, unnecessary trip into the nearby town of Thaxly.
Looking to the right of the lawns she saw the orchard where as a child she had whiled away many a happy hour—and wanted that happiness back with her. She sighed again as without effort the memory was with her that it had been there in the orchard that David had proposed. There that day he had sworn his undy-
ing love. She had been excited then, she remembered. She had laughed as they raced indoors to tell her father they were engaged.
Her thoughts back with her father, tears came to her eyes, tears that were no stranger to her. She controlled the feeling of wanting to collapse in a bout of weeping. She had better get going. Charles Forester, her father's solicitor, had telephoned three times for her to go and see him. Though why he couldn't tell her over the phone why he wanted to see her she couldn't imagine—or why he couldn't put in a letter what it was all about without her having to traipse all the way into Thaxly.
Kimberley couldn't think that anything he had to say could be that important anyway. Bramcote, the house she had been born in, loved almost as much as she loved her father and David, was hers now her father had gone. It was the only thing that kept her sane, she had thought in her most despairing moments, the knowledge that she was secure, safe, within the walls of Bramcote. Whatever happened Bramcote was hers, and if Charles Forester, who was old enough to have retired years ago, wanted her to trail into see him just to tell her that her father had left her very little in the way of money, then she could save herself a trip, because she already knew that. But money didn't matter—Bramcote was all that mattered.
Two hours later Kimberley was back in the living room of the home she loved—back, but not staring out from the french windows as she had been before. She was sitting in the chair into which she had half collapsed half an hour before, still stunned by what the solicitor had told her, his words going round and round in her head. And still she couldn't believe them.
She had been in shock when after the preliminaries he had got down to telling her the contents of her father's will—so shocked she had been deaf to his expressions of regret. She had seen his mouth moving
without properly hearing him saying that the will was so tightly sewn up that she hadn't an earthly of contesting its contents.
Would—would you repeat that again—the relevant parts?' she had interrupted him, coming out of her dazed condition to be certain he must have made a mistake.
`The money your father left you . . .' he began to oblige.
`No, not that—I know it's only sufficient to keep me ticking over. That part isn't important. It's Bramcote. Tell me again my father's instructions about the house.'
The elderly solicitor had coughed twice, a sure sign that he felt uncomfortable. Had he heard that she had at one time been near to a nervous breakdown? she wondered. Did he think she was going to throw a screaming fit in his office?
There was compassion in his voice when he said, `There's only one way in which you're able to inherit Bramcote.' And he had then repeated what he had said before, only she hadn't believed her ears then, and didn't want to believe them now, as he told her, 'And that way is if, on the date six months from the date of your father's death, your status is that of a married woman.'
The sound of the telephone ringing intruded on that phrase of Charles Forester's that was spinning round in her head. She didn't want to answer the telephone, didn't want to talk to anyone.
&
nbsp; But the caller was persistent. Whoever it was was determined to get her to answer it. Shut up, shut up! she wanted to scream at it, the sound shrieking at her nerve ends. But common sense prevailed. There was only one way she was going to quieten it.
She left her chair and picked up the offending instrument. Her voice lifeless, she gave the Amberton number.
`I've brought you in from the garden?' The voice was one she knew—Doreen Gilbert, known in the village .as a helping hand to waifs and strays, a young-forty lady whom Kimberley had known for years, and liked.
`It's nice out,' she said, going along with Doreen's assumption that her call had brought her in from the bottom of the garden.
`How are you?' was Doreen's next question.
`Fine,' Kimberley responded automatically—and wanting her to think she thought 'her enquiry was just a courtesy, and not because she might think she spent all her time sitting brooding, she offered the courtesy back. 'How are you and Edward?' she enquired.
`The same as we were two days ago when I last spoke with you over the phone,' Doreen _replied, then got down to the point of her call. 'You know I told you then that I'd managed to persuade that spouse of mine to take an extended holiday.'
Vaguely Kimberley remembered. 'You're going to the Canaries, aren't you? Er—a week on Saturday.'
`Close,' said Doreen, a chuckle in her voice. 'Bahamas, actually, though you've got the date right. But it wasn't until last night that Edward reminded me it was my birthday the day before we leave—sadistic pig!—I told him I wasn't having another one after I'd clocked up forty. Anyway, why I'm ringing is that we've decided to have a party—nothing formal—I'll have my best dresses packed anyway.'
At one time this comment would have amused Kimberley, for Doreen's wardrobe was full to overflowing, adored as she was by her banker husband, what she spent on clothes never was quibbled at.
`I'm sure it will be a lovely party,' she offered, having attended one of the Gilberts' parties over a year ago with David, the party, with its unlikely mixture of Doreen's waifs and strays and a smattering of Edward's banking friends, going with a bang.
`I hope so. Now you will come, won't you?' said Doreen, going quickly on just as though she knew Kimberley was ready to back away from any such invite. 'Please, Kim, do come! It will spoil my evening if you don't. I worry about you rattling around
in that old house all by yourself.'
`There's nothing the matter with Bramcote.' Kimberley came back straight away in defence of the house she loved, though without the heat with which she would once have defended it. Perhaps a lick of paint here and there wouldn't hurt, but .
`Now don't take offence. It was just a figure of speech,' Doreen came in promptly. 'I swear Bramcote is the love of your life, no man ... Oh hell,' she broke off, obviously remembering Kimberley had once been engaged to David Bennet and the effect it had had on her when he had broken the engagement. 'Look, Kim, I'm going. All I'm doing here is putting my foot in it. The party is a week on Friday just remember I shall expect you to be there.'
Kimberley came away from the phone feeling slightly peeved. Certainly not in the banking class, she wondered if she came under the heading of waif and stray. She didn't want to be one of Doreen, Gilbert's good causes. She hadn't been to a party since she had received that letter from David .. .
`Oh, Dad!' she cried out loud, and sank down into his favourite chair again, wishing with all her heart he hadn't thought it necessary to do what he had. She couldn't bear to lose Bramcote. It was her home, her haven.
She knew why he had done what he had, of course. Up until ten months ago she had been the happiest of engaged girls, eagerly looking forward to her marriage in a month's time. Then that letter had come from David—a letter so out of the blue when his letter only a week previously had been full of words of love and how he was looking forward to their wedding.
The look on her face as she read his letter, the colour draining from her face before the tears had started, had alerted her father to the fact that this wasn't one of the usual letters from her Army captain fiancé.
`What . . .?' he had started to question, seeing the pain in her eyes.
Wordlessly she had handed him her letter for him to read for himself that David had met and fallen in love with someone else.
Her father had done his best to comfort her, but she had been too distraught to be comforted. Selwyn Adams, a mild-tempered academic, had then turned bitterly against David, had shown the anger she had been too devastated to feel.
`An officer and a gentleman!' he had snorted furiously. 'A gentleman would have come and told you personally, not written rubbish like this!'
'He—he probably couldn't get leave,' Kimberley had put in; loving David still as she did, it was second nature to defend him.
Weeks she didn't want to remember had followed. Weeks where nothing mattered any more. Weeks of her not eating, growing thin and listless. Weeks that had ended up with her father calling in a doctor to see her.
Not that Dr Ellis had been able to do much other than prescribe a load of tablets she didn't want, but which, seeing how distressed her father had become at her refusal to take them, she had downed, more to please him than for any good he or Dr Ellis thought they would do her.
How good her father had been to her in those early days of her having her love thrown back unwanted! He had talked to her for hours on end—though those talks had always ended the same way; with her vowing and declaring she would never marry. Her heart still belonged to David, and for all her father saying she would fall in love again, she knew she wouldn't. She didn't want to. Never did she want to feel this same emotion for another man—to sit anxiously waiting for him to arrive, to sit by the phone waiting for it to ring, to get as far as arranging the wedding only to find that there was something about her that made it easy for a man to fall out of love with her.
Kimberley left her chair and went to stand by the french windows. She couldn't give Bramcote up, she couldn't, she inwardly cried against the fact that she must if she didn't comply with the terms of her father's will.
Oh, how wrong he was to have made such a stipulation! Hadn't he understood that she could make a life for herself living here on her own? It was his way of trying to protect her, the way he always had, she saw that. He had known he was dying. Must have thought for her to have a husband would be a way of that protection continuing even after his death.
Bitterly disappointed, but loving her father too much to blame him for what he had done, Kimberley recalled one of their conversations shortly after she had left school, when after much debate it had been decided she should stay at home and run the house.
She had been in the village store when some chance remark about how like her mother she was, with her corn-blonde hair and hazel eyes, had brought forward the comment that she was less highly strung than her mother.
`Was my mother highly strung?' she asked when she had got home and put her shopping basket down.
`Talk in the village?' her father had asked.
And when she had told him what had taken place, he had told her what had led up to her mother's death, and the weight that had been on his conscience ever since. She had known her mother had accidentally drowned, and she still believed it was accidental when he had finished. But she saw then that it had been since her mother's death that her father had grown so over-protective with their ten-year-old offspring.
`Your mother and I seldom quarrelled,' he had told her. 'She was a beautiful woman, in ways as well as looks. But yes, she was highly strung. We were happy, Kim, don't ever doubt that. But ' he paused, then went away for the moment from the hazel-eyed girl with her corn-coloured hair flowing down her back.
`But you quarrelled about something?' Kimberley asked, sensitive to his every nuance.
`Yes, we quarrelled.'
`What about?'
He hesitated, looked at her, then told her, 'About you.'
`About me?'
`You were su
ch a gentle little thing—cried if you so much as stepped on a spider. I thought it best for you to be sent away to boarding school. I thought it would—toughen you up a bit.'
Had he thought she resembled her mother in temperament as, according to that lady in the village, she resembled her in looks? she could remember thinking. Had he thought that she too was highly strung? Was that why he thought she should be sent away to be toughened up?
Kimberley remembered her unhappiness at the boarding school she had been sent away to. But that particular unhappiness had not lasted long. After a week she was back home again—home to stay. She had never returned to that school, for during her absence her mother had died.
`Your mother was most unhappy after you left. Not one smile could I get out of her the whole of those first dreadful days. Then one day she said she was going for a walk. Nothing unusual about that, she often went for a walk. But it was while she was away that I decided if you, who were so like your mother, were as unhappy as she was, then, having made my stand, I should bring you home again. I made up my mind to tell Rosemary this when she came in—only . .
Kimberley saw there were tears in his eyes that he was manfully trying to hold back. 'Only she didn't come in,' she said huskily. And tears were in her eyes too as she left her chair and put her arms around him. And, knowing him so well, knowing what was in his mind, 'She didn't commit suicide because she was so
unhappy, Dad, I know she didn't. She loved you too much for that, loved us both.'
Kimberley still believed her mother's death was the accident it was said to be, but when David had thrown her over she had caught her father's eyes on her several times, just as though he was wondering if she too in her unhappiness would one day soon tell him she was going for a walk—and not come back.
But as unhappy as she was at that time, ending her life deliberately or accidentally was not in Kimberley's mind. Though it was to take several months before something happened that made her alert to the fact that not only had she lost the one man she loved, but that soon she was to lose the only other man she cared about.
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