A Dark and Distant Shore (55 page)

She didn’t believe she had heard him aright. And then he added, ‘Was that why you wouldn’t let me come to Edinburgh? Your last taste of freedom before you submitted to the restraints of matrimony again?’

And then she thought – jealousy. The instinctive, irrational jealousy that had afflicted him as a child, and that she had thought he must have grown out of. It wasn’t a very attractive characteristic, but she couldn’t think that there would be much scope for it once they were married. Certainly she wouldn’t allow it to wreck her plans, overturn the decision she had reached after seven months of heart-searching.

She breathed incredulously, ‘You’re jealous? Oh no, I promise you there’s no one to be jealous of. I swear to you that no man has touched me since my husband died. No man but you.’ And except for a kiss, it was true. Under God, it was true. There were tears in her eyes as she returned his gaze.

‘That’s very good,’ he said approvingly. ‘You couldn’t manage a sob or two as well?’

With all the strength in her, she struck him across his insolent face.

Shocked out of his sick defiance, he knew he had overdone it. He didn’t really believe anything he had said or implied. It was just that, ever since his uncle had left, he had been torturing himself. Perry and Vilia. It was so obvious, so right, once one thought about it. He wouldn’t have thought about it if he hadn’t had the past fresh in his mind from the family chronicle, and if his uncle hadn’t let something slip.

But there was one thing that nullified it all. Vilia’s inexperience. Her body had been so innocent when he had made love to her on the hill; however she might deceive him, however she might twist him, intellectually, round her finger, there were some things it was impossible to simulate, and innocence was one of them. Luke could still remember honey-sweet, virginal Antoinette, in Lyon, who had fooled him not for a moment. There were touches, caresses, that a woman accustomed to men resorted to almost without realizing. From what Vilia had said that last night in October about Andrew Lauriston
using
her, Luke knew he could have taught her none of them. But if Luke’s charming, handsome, devil-may-care Uncle Perry had ever taken her to bed, Vilia must have learned everything there was to know; or more, much more, than she did.

In the end, Luke had succeeded in convincing himself that, if Vilia and Perry had ever been in love, there had been nothing physical in it. But he was still sure there had been
something
between them, even if they had been strong enough to deny the flesh. In a way, that had made it worse for him.

One palm to his flaming cheek, he looked at her doubtfully, and it was as if she could read his feelings. The rage in her eyes faded, and she looked at him in a sad, understanding way. Vilia Cameron, the passion of his life, who loved him too little and knew him too well.

She sighed. ‘Don’t torture yourself so. Won’t you believe me? I’ve spent all these months in Edinburgh, longing to be here with you. If you must be jealous, be jealous of James Moultrie and Wally Richards. Be jealous of the foundry. But of nothing and no one else.’

She could still, as she had always done, make him feel childish and uncertain. Was that why his conquest had been so sweet? He knew that, if it hadn’t been for Perry Randall’s visit, underlining possibilities that he had half seen and wholly ignored in the family chronicle, he would never really have doubted her, but recognized the jealousy that plagued him for what it was, a weakness that he had learned to identify but would never learn to control.

There were wheels on the gravel and he seized on the diversion. ‘A carriage? Who can
that
be?’ He went to one of the windows overlooking the causeway, and after a moment Vilia joined him.

It was her own carriage, from Edinburgh. Graham the footman, laughter on his face, was letting down the steps to allow three blonde-haired boys to tumble out, one after the other. Theo first, and then Gideon, and then Drew. She could see that they were bubbling over with high spirits and mischief, and knew instantly that there was nothing wrong; the foundry hadn’t burned down, or the house. They had simply taken the law into their own hands, objecting to being left behind, and had no doubt raced the carriage all the way here to arrive almost as soon as she did, and surprise her. A game. A delightful game. Theo, she suspected, had been at the root of it; Theo, who never did anything for frivolous reasons, but always had his eye on the main chance. What main chance, she wondered, did he have his eye on this time? Silly Theo. He wasn’t anywhere near to being as clever as he thought he was. He couldn’t know about his mother and Luke Telfer.

She hadn’t brought the boys, although they had been disappointed and more than a little vocal about, because she didn’t want to remind Luke that she had three adolescent sons. He had never shown any concern about the difference in age between himself and Vilia, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t conscious of it. Irritating Theo.

Fair, slim, tall for his age, Theo looked up and saw them at the window and smiled and waved. Gideon, too. And then Drew, thirteen years old and vivid as the sun striking on glass. He said something to his brothers, and they all laughed and looked up again, and then Drew scampered blithely across the causeway, followed more sedately by the other two, and disappeared from view. To be clutched, Vilia reflected ruefully, to the collective bosom of Jessie Graham and Betty Fraser and every other female in the castle.

‘Oh, dear!’ she said, in an undervoice. ‘What impossible children they are! What
shall
I do with them?’

She turned away, mentally framing an apology for their lawless behaviour.

And then, from behind her, a voice she scarcely recognized breathed, ‘You bitch!’ She spun round. ‘You whore! How dare you bring your brats to this house? No wonder you’ve kept them away from us! How long did you think it would be before one of us here recognized Perry Randall’s bastard?’

The blood fled from her face, leaving it stark and white as a cerecloth, with all the fine, beautifully wrought bones stripped bare and the slanted brows flying over eyes that were garish as emeralds. After an eternity, she said, ‘What do you mean?’

If, seeing Drew so soon after Perry, any doubts had remained to him, her face would have dispelled them. In the anguished days since Perry had left, he had worked out all the possibilities, although in his mind’s eye he couldn’t see any resemblance between the nine-year-old Drew he remembered and the powerful man Perry had become. But seeing the boy in the flesh again, and knowing that it
could
be, he knew without any possibility of doubt that it
was.

‘You know what I mean. Perry Randall was here a few days ago. I know what happened between you. How could I not?’

She had no more colour left to lose; ‘Here?
Here
?
’

He came towards her, stalking her, and she backed away. ‘Here?’ she said again, her voice rising.

‘Why not? Should he have rushed to Edinburgh, to you? Don’t be so vain, my pretty bitch! Do you think he cares any more? There are whores by the thousand in America. Why should he want you?’

One hand settled round her throat, soft and suffocating, and the other pulled her to him in a travesty of an embrace. ‘You’ve been too clever, my dear. I’ve had time to think since Perry left, and I know why you wanted to marry me. Oh, yes,
wanted
to marry me. “What if I should have a child?”’ he mimicked viciously. ‘It’s Kinveil you want, not me. You’ve never wanted anything else. Do you remember that very first day at St James’s Square, when you screamed at me, “Kinveil is
mine!”
And then you began to work very hard indeed at bewitching the old man. And then you took Perry away from Charlotte, in case they should have a son who might be in line to inherit the place. Edward was no problem; you knew my grandfather would never leave Kinveil to him. But a son of Charlotte and Perry... That was another matter and you settled it very neatly. Don’t think I don’t give you credit for being clever, my dear. Had you thought even then that some day you might marry
me
?
’
He laughed unpleasantly. ‘It must have been a very nasty shock for you when you heard that Charlotte was in the family way again. But it turned out to be Shona. No wonder you were so kind to her last year. You can afford to be!’

Choking, she said, ‘You’re wrong. Quite wrong.’

In one appalling surge, all Luke’s maturity had fallen away, all the amused, airy veneer he had built up so carefully that even he believed in it. Now he was down to the shell, to the real Luke who cared nothing about others except as they affected himself. Who wouldn’t be crossed. Whose only interests were his own. Vilia, deep in shock, realized that he hadn’t changed at all. She hadn’t taken the trouble to study him deeply enough. She
wanted
him to have changed into the urbane adult he had appeared to be, because it was convenient for her to have him so. It had allowed her to justify herself – to herself.

‘You’re wrong,’ she gasped again. ‘Wrong about everything. I can’t tell you how wrong you are!’

‘I hope you won’t try, my dear. It would be such a waste of energy.’ Malevolently, his hand caressed her throat. ‘You’ve lied to me, to all of us, ever since we knew you. You don’t know how to be truthful, even in bed.’ And that rankled more than anything. If she had managed to deceive even him, she must be clever and calculating beyond redemption. ‘It seems a pity. I’ve always found the really mature harlot so rewarding. But perhaps, now that the truth is out, you’ll be prepared to demonstrate some of your more esoteric talents.’

His hands pressing ruthlessly on her shoulders, he began to force her down to her knees. ‘Come along now, my dear. I am in need.’ He thrust his hips towards her. ‘Some of your whore’s tricks. A little mouth music, perhaps?’

She didn’t understand the words, but she guessed at everything else, and somehow, in a wild flurry of movement when he wasn’t expecting it, she tore herself away from him, out from under the bruising hands. She had thrown him off balance, so that despite her hampering skirts she succeeded in reaching the fireplace where the ancient swords and daggers hung on display. When she turned, there was a short, bright dirk in her hand.

For a heavy-breathing moment, neither of them moved or spoke. Then Luke lunged forward, and she responded, and when he jerked back again with a cry there was blood welling from a deep, ragged slash across the back of his wrist. He clasped his other hand round it, his eyes wide and his mouth open with shock, and the blood began to seep through his fingers and trickle sluggishly back down the injured wrist to turn the white shirt-cuff scarlet.

Still holding the dirk levelled against him, she said through clenched teeth, ‘Don’t come near me, you
animal!
If I have lied to you, it was on one matter only, and not for my own sake but to save others from the consequences of my foolishness.’

It was clear, then, that he wasn’t going to make any other move. He was a child again, terrified of being hurt. She straightened up a little, and the fury began to fade slowly from her eyes. After a long silence, when they did no more than stare at each other, their expressions unchanging, she spoke, a dozen generations of arrogant forebears ranked invisibly behind her. ‘Your behaviour has been unforgivable. You haven’t grown up yet, and I doubt if you ever will. Your mind, it seems, is as coarse and corrupt as your tongue. But I will make allowances for you, that you were not prepared to make for me. I know you have always been jealous and possessive, and it seems that you have allowed your imagination to become overheated. Your parents have been very good to me, and I should dislike hurting them, so I will mention this episode to no one. But don’t dare – ever – to lay hands on me again.’

He scarcely felt the pain in his wrist yet, but he was almost crying with rage and frustration. His face crumpled, his voice trembling, he said, ‘Don’t flatter yourself that I want to. And don’t condescend to me. Do you think I care whether you mention this “episode”, as you call it? Because
I
will mention it, by God I will! As soon as my parents return, I’ll tell them everything about you. And once I’ve done that, my pure, unsullied, uncompromised little trollop, you’ll never be allowed to cross the threshold of Kinveil again!’

It seemed as good an exit line as his tongue was ever likely to encompass, and, turning, his eyes half-blind with self-indulgent tears, he made his way towards the door. He didn’t even see Sorley McClure just outside it until he cannoned into him.

‘Sorry, sir,’ the fellow said, holding something out in his hand. ‘Here iss a note chust come for you from Glenbraddan. Robert Fraser wass busy, so I said I would bring it up to you.’

Wordlessly, Luke accepted it and went on his way. It seemed a long time before he reached his room, at last, and was able to let the storm engulf him.

In spite of everything, the rules of hospitality prevailed. Bathed, changed, and unobtrusively bandaged, Luke went down to dinner at the appointed hour, presenting an appearance of calm normality except for faintly swollen eyelids and a heart that was cold and numb. Vilia was equally calm in a ruffled, high-necked gown that hid the marks on her throat and shoulders.

Only Gideon, his eye caught by the flickering reflections from his mother’s wineglass, saw that her hands were shaking. He glanced at Theo, but Theo was too busy showing off to have a thought for anyone else. Gideon groaned inside and wondered what he was up to.

The three boys’ escapade had been Drew’s idea. None of them had been near Kinveil since they were small, and Drew was quite incensed that Mama hadn’t offered to bring them. He wanted to see the place again, now that he was old enough to appreciate it; an unrelieved diet of the
Waverley
novels had done wonders for his romantic streak, and he knew that Kinveil was straight out of the Middle Ages. ‘Why
shouldn’t
we go, and give them all a surprise? We could race Mama by road. Why not? It would be an adventure!’ He was the most disgustingly persuasive child, and couldn’t believe that anyone would ever be annoyed with him. Although Theo could have squashed the idea flat, he hadn’t; he hadn’t even ticked Gideon off for letting Drew talk him into playing truant from Perth Academy.