Beaumont Brides Collection (38 page)

Click. Luke’s antagonism towards her father. The remarks that she didn’t quite understand. References to the Beaumont’s lack of family values.

Click. The press cutting that Jim had given her. It wasn’t Claudia’s scathing remark about Melanie that was important. It was the reporter’s comment. I was immediately struck by her likeness to our own dear Melanie Brett. Her father had seen the likeness at once. Had seen it and remembered something, or maybe someone, that had sent him in search of a drink.

Click. None of this had been about Claudia. Oh, Luke was happy to use “Holiday Bay” to embarrass her, make her pay for an offhand remark made in those vulnerable minutes after a performance when she had still been riding high on excitement and adrenalin. But she had just been a sideshow to the main attraction.

His real reason for involving Melanie in the show was to use the plot to expose Edward Beaumont not only as an adulterer, but a man who would abandon his child.

She stuffed her fist in her mouth to stop the scream of anguish as she sank back onto the chair. “I must have misunderstood.” The words were a hollow echo in her head.

She hadn’t misunderstood. Had he meant to warn her when he told her that Melanie’s family came from the Broomhill area?

Or was it a coded message that he had assumed she would pass on to her father along with the details of their discussions about sponsorship? Did it matter?

She looked again at the paper in her hand. The name Jill Brady had been crossed through. Juliet Carey written above it.

“I shouldn’t have changed the name.” That’s what Melanie had said. She read the lines.

“Of course you knew my mother. Her stage name was Juliet Carey. And when she was pregnant you walked out and left her. Well now she’s dead and I’m here to tell you that I’m your daughter and I’m going to make sure everyone knows it.”

Art imitating life she thought as she remembered where she had heard the name. Luke’s sister had been called Juliet. Juliet Carey? What else? And with the substitution of the name it was life that had imitated art, right down to the collapse of the accused man.

And now she had to come to terms with the fact that the man she had so recently made love with, the man who had brought her back to life so that she was still agonisingly aware of every nerve-tingling touch and caress, the obliterating joy when the final breach of all her defences had made them one, the man who had taken over her mind and stolen first her heart and then her body, had quite deliberately and callously put her father in hospital.

Revenge.

It was all there when you knew what you were looking for. Claudia’s career. Her radio station. And her father’s reputation. Even now she could not believe he meant to risk her father’s life, not if he was Melanie’s father too. Even he couldn’t be that cruel. Or maybe he could, because it was plain that Melanie didn’t know. Luke had found out somehow, but he hadn’t told his niece.

Fizz wanted to weep. Her eyes were hot and painful, but she couldn’t cry, couldn’t do anything to let out the hurt. Instead she put her head on her lap and covered it with her arms and prayed. For her father, for Melanie. For some kind of answer.

‘Fizz?’ She stiffened, but didn’t move. ‘Fizz, I’m sorry. I never meant this to happen.’ Luke took a step into the room. ‘You must believe me.’

‘Must I?’ She lifted her head with difficulty; it seemed to weigh a ton as she turned to look at him. gaunt beneath the unforgiving lights. She wanted so much to believe him. But her father was lying in hospital with tubes in his veins and monitors bleeping all around him. And Luke had put him there. ‘How did you get Melanie to change the name?’ she asked.

For a moment he remained silent, then with the smallest lift of his shoulder, he said, ‘She was having trouble with the line. She said it didn’t sound convincing enough. She wanted it to be perfect.’

‘She’s supposed to be actress. Or did you put the doubt in her mind?’ She regarded him steadily. ‘It wouldn’t have been difficult. She thinks you walk on water.’

He didn’t answer. He didn’t have to. ‘I suggested a little “method” exercise, you know the kind of thing.’ The dark hollows in his cheeks seemed to deepen as he remembered. ‘I suggested she should try and imagine how she would feel if Edward Beaumont really had been the man who had abandoned her mother, had abandoned her.’

‘And so she changed the name in the script.’

‘It worked so well that Mel telephoned the scriptwriters and asked if they minded if she kept it that way.’

And of course they would have been only too pleased to help. ‘And if she hadn’t made it that easy for you?’

‘A resourceful man will always find a way, Fizz.’

‘And you are surely the most resourceful man I’ve ever met.’

‘Too damned resourceful for my own good. I didn’t mean this to happen. The recording was scheduled for tomorrow afternoon. I thought I had plenty of time to see Edward. I left a message with his secretary tell him I wanted to see him in the morning, that it was urgent. I was going to tell him everything.’

‘And that makes it all right, does it?’ she flared.

‘Nothing can ever make it right. But will you try to understand? My sister died because she decided, in the end, that she had to see your father. Confront him, I suppose. We’ll never know what she intended to say to him. She carried that with her to the grave.’ He came into the room, crouched down in front of her. ‘Will you let me tell you?’

‘Why should I listen to you?’ she said, stiffly, withdrawing against the chair, pulling away her hand as he reached for her. She couldn’t allow him to touch her. Not yet. She wasn’t strong enough for that.

‘Because I’ll do everything I can to put things right. Because I…’ He stopped himself. ‘No.’ He stood up. ‘You’re right. I won’t try to justify what I did. It isn’t possible.’

‘No, it isn’t.’ She closed her eyes, desperately, desperately tired but knowing that there could be no escape from her nightmare in sleep. ‘It was the newspaper wasn’t it?’ she said. ‘Saying how alike they were? I thought that was why you didn’t like my family, because of what Claudia said to that reporter.’

‘I didn’t like Claudia because of what Claudia said, although I have to admit that she improves with acquaintance. It wasn’t the newspaper article that gave me the link, Fizz, although afterwards it seemed to confirm what I already suspected.’

‘How?’ she demanded. ‘How can you be sure it’s true? Melanie told me that she didn’t know who her father was.’

‘She didn’t. Still doesn’t.’ He hesitated. ‘Look can we get out of here?’

She lifted her head, eased her neck. ‘I feel as if I’ve been beaten all over.’

‘I’m not surprised. It’s been quite a night, one way and another…’ He stopped as she turned to look at him, her bright eyes dimmed with reproach.

‘A triumph all round for the resourceful Mr Devlin.’

‘A triumph suggests the attainment of every desire, Fizz. This -’ He lifted his hand in a dismissive gesture. ‘This is a Pyrrhic victory. Come on, I’ll take you home.’ He reached out to her, offered her a hand. But she didn’t take it and after a moment he let it fall and stepped back to give her room. ‘You can’t stay here,’ he insisted.

‘How did you know where I was?’ she asked, getting to her feet. ‘Did Claudia tell you?’

‘No. She said you were tucked up in bed fast asleep. I didn’t believe that. And you always come here when you’re unhappy. Maybe that’s why you spend so much time working.’

‘Don’t try to psychoanalyse me, Luke. I came here to find some answers to the questions that have been bothering me ever since you came to town.’ She frowned. ‘How did you get in, anyway?’

‘The tide’s out. I went down onto the beach and climbed up the inspection ladder. That’s why I’m in such a mess.’

She looked at him then, really looked at him and saw the sand and green smears of sea slime on his hands, his jacket, wet shoes. She had climbed the safety ladder once, when she was about ten, desperate to prove that she was as tough as any boy in town. She had made it, just, but she still remembered the mouth drying terror as she had to let go with one hand and swing out into space to make a grab for the handrail.

‘Idiot!’

His mouth twisted in self-mockery. ‘I think we’ve already established that.’

Outside the night was clear and bright, the moon lighting a sea curled with tiny wisps of mist about the legs of the pier and they walked its length in silence, a clear six inches of space between them. He saw her into his car, taking pains not to touch her even though he wanted to grab her, hold her, promise that he would never do anything to hurt her ever again.

It took every shred of self-control to hold back, wait, but self-control was all he had left and didn’t speak again until she had unlocked her front door, turning to bar his way as he attempted to follow her inside.

But he wasn’t going to leave her. Not until she had heard him out.

‘We have unfinished business, Fizz,’ he reminded her, putting his hand out to stop her shutting the door. ‘Go and sit by the fire, you must be frozen. I’ll make you a cup of tea.’ She glared at him, standing her ground. ‘Or would you prefer something stronger? We never did have that drink.’

Fizz opened her mouth to argue. Then remembered boldly telling Claudia that she had stopped hiding from her emotions. ‘Tea,’ she conceded.

Ten minutes later, Luke put a mug of hot, sugar laden tea into her hands and when she had curled up in an armchair he took the one opposite. For a while neither of them spoke.

‘Luke?’ Fizz prompted after a while and was aware of him coming back from some distant place, far away inside his head as he looked up, met her gaze. ‘I think you’d better tell me the whole story.’

‘Only Juliet knows the whole story but I’ll tell you what I know, why I believe Edward is Melanie’s father.’ He paused to gather himself. ‘It began when Mel asked me to take her to see your father in The Merchant of Venice last year. When he toured Australia.’

‘That’s not much of a reason -’

‘You said you’d let me tell you. This is the beginning.’ He waited until he was sure she would listen. ‘I was happy enough to take her to the theatre,’ he continued, ‘but since it didn’t seem quite her kind of thing I teased her a bit about having secret ambitions about being a serious actress.’

‘Why?’ Fizz asked. ‘Why did you tease her?’

He shrugged. ‘Isn’t that what uncles are supposed to do? I know it was patronising, but most of her contemporaries want to be pop stars. I’m afraid she rather floored me by saying that was exactly what she wanted.’

‘To be a serious actress?’

He nodded. ‘And in her eyes the very best was Edward Beaumont, which was why she wanted to go and see him. I professed surprise that she had even heard of him and that’s when she told me.’ Fizz waited in silence for a long time.

‘What? What did she tell you, Luke?’

He stirred. ‘Apparently Juliet never missed him when he appeared on the television.’

‘Juliet? Melanie’s mother?’

‘Yes, her mother. My dear, sweet sister. Apparently she watched all his old films, had videos of that drama series he did years ago that won him every award going. Melanie told me that whenever Edward Beaumont was on the television he moved her mother to tears and if he was that good…’ He looked across at her. ‘Tell me, Fizz, is he that good? Really?’ She didn’t answer. Her father had charm, charisma and a feel for good commercial drama that filled theatres. Olivier he was not. ‘No,’ he said, apparently satisfied with her silence. ‘I didn’t think so.’

Fizz turned away, unable to meet his eyes. ‘It isn’t my opinion that matters.  It was your sister who was his biggest fan.’

‘Yes, unfortunately and after Mel had told me how much Juliet liked him I thought she might like a chance to see him performing live. She lived a couple of hours drive up country so I rang her and suggested she come down to Sydney for a few days. She could go shopping with Melanie, see the play. A treat from her little brother,’ he added, bitterly.

Fizz waited a moment before, unable to contain herself, she demanded, ‘Well? What did she say?’

‘She didn’t say much at all. Just that she’d think about it and call me back. Then after a day or two she rang and said she had a lot to do and didn’t think she could spare the time.’

‘But I thought -’

‘Then she rang again and said she’d changed her mind. I should have realised then that something was up. She sounded excited, like Mel. Like she used to be.’ He stared down at his hands, as if seeking some answer in the bottom of his mug. ‘After I bought the tickets she phoned again and said she was sorry, but she wasn’t up to the drive. I offered to drive up and fetch her if she liked, but she was adamant that she didn’t want to come and I thought that was that.’ He made a small, lost gesture, full of unspoken regret. ‘I heard the weather forecast, heavy rain, flash flood warnings, but I didn’t pay much attention, there was no reason why I should.’

‘Luke -’

He didn’t seem to hear her. ‘I had a late meeting so I changed at the office, picked up Mel and we went straight to the theatre. We met some friends there and went out to supper with them. When I finally got home the answering machine was flashing. It was Juliet. She’d changed her mind, she had to see Edward.’ He looked up. ‘Just Edward. Not the play, you understand, not Edward Beaumont. Edward. She said she’d meet us at the theatre.’ The handle snapped off his mug. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve ever seen a flash flood.’