Inherit the Skies (41 page)

Sarah's eyes widened. ‘Your
husband
? You mean … Adam?'

‘Of course. I made up my mind to have him, Sarah, a long while ago. And I would have won him by now if you had not stood in the way.'

‘You are mad, Alicia,' Sarah said furiously. ‘You have been spoiled, I know. You have always had everything you ever wanted. But even you should know you cannot buy love.'

Alicia's lips curved. ‘Everything and everyone has a price, my dear. Adam wants to succeed with his flying machine very much.'

‘Adam would never … You've got the wrong man. He is upright and honourable. And perhaps I should tell you that he and I …'

Alicia waved her to silence with an imperious gesture.

‘Oh yes, I know all about you and Adam,' she said dismissively. ‘I know he has eyes only for you – at present. But if you were not here I'd like to see how quickly he would change his tune.'

Suddenly, unaccountably, Sarah felt frightened.

‘What are you saying, Alicia?'

Alicia was very still and in that stillness her power was more apparent than it had ever been.

‘Go away, Sarah. You did it once before – you can do it again. No-one would be in the least surprised. Go away and leave Adam to me and I will see that his future is assured with all the scope and backing he needs to build a dozen aeroplanes and a position in his own company – our company – commensurate with his ability. I've even thought of a name for it – Morse Bailey. It sounds good, doesn't it? Adam will never regret it if he does as Father wishes and marries me. He is a generous man – you know that – and how much more generous would he be to his own daughter's husband? No matter how many expensive failures there may be along the way he will stand them. And eventually Adam will have all the success he has ever dreamed of. More probably. So you see, Sarah, it is not only my way you stand in by remaining here. It is Adam's.'

She smiled and the cold certainty of that smile infuriated Sarah.

‘You bitch!' she said.

Alicia raised an eyebrow. ‘My goodness, Sarah, wherever did you learn such language? Of course on reflection it is probably true but I don't mind you calling me names. Not when I hold all the cards.'

‘You do not hold all the cards. Adam loves me.'

‘And you love him. Which is why you will do as I say.'

Sarah was shivering in spite of the heat of the room, her blood like rivers of ice in her veins.

‘And if I don't?'

‘Then I will ruin him,' Alicia said calmly. ‘I will make certain he does not get a single penny of Father's money. I can do that, make no mistake. However interested Father may appear to be now I assure you by the time I have finished he would not be prepared to allow Adam house room, never mind backing and accommodation, soft deals for engine building and a nice secure future. He and that crippled friend of his would be out of here so fast their feet would not touch the ground – and they would be lucky to find suitable work anywhere ever again. Father is very influential, you know.'

‘Alicia you wouldn't!' Sarah cried, aghast.

‘Don't try me, my dear. I think you know me well enough to be quite sure that I certainly would. And there is something else, too, just for good measure. Father never did hear the truth of what happened between you and Hugh, did he?'

Sarah was white now except for high spots of colour flaming in her cheeks.

‘The truth of that matter is very far from what your stepmother made it out to be,' she said furiously. ‘Perhaps it is time I told
my
version of it.'

Alicia smiled. As she had said, she held the winning hand – and she knew it.

‘Who would believe you?' she asked. ‘You attempted to seduce Hugh – succeeded for all I know – and you were packed off in disgrace. The truth was kept from Father to spare the pain of knowing that a girl he had befriended and treated with kindness and generosity could behave in such a despicable manner. Perhaps now it is time he learned exactly what a little viper he nursed in his bosom.'

‘It is my word against Hugh's and Hugh is not here,' Sarah said. ‘I was a child then but I am not a child any longer. Gilbert would know the truth when he heard it.'

‘That his son was a rapist? That would make him very happy, Sarah. A nice way to repay him for all he has done for you.'

‘Alicia, you are despicable,' Sarah said, her voice low and trembling. ‘I always knew it but I never thought even you would stoop to this.'

Alicia's mouth quirked but her eyes had a faraway expression in them.

‘Father gave you my doll once, do you remember? My lovely Sleeping Beauty. I vowed then, Sarah, that never again would I lose what I wanted to you. I intend to keep that vow.'

‘Adam is no doll to be passed from hand to hand, Alicia.'

‘Perhaps not. But if you care about him you will think about what I have said. You know what will happen if you do not.' She cocked her head. ‘Listen! I believe the gentlemen are returning. You don't need to give me an answer, Sarah. I shall know by your actions what you decide.'

The door opened and the men came in. Max and Adam looked pleased, Leo was scowling.

‘Well,' Gilbert said expansively, ‘we have had a most fruitful discussion. I hope you young ladies have enjoyed one another's company.'

‘Oh yes,' Alicia said smoothly, ‘Sarah and I have had a fruitful discussion too. Isn't that true, Sarah?'

For a moment Sarah was unable to reply. The bright hope that was shining out of the faces of Adam and Max seemed like the final nail in the coffin of her own dreams. Somehow she summoned a tight smile.

‘We have had a long talk, yes,' she said.

The night seemed endless, sleep refused to come. At last Sarah rose from her bed and crossed to the window, looking out at the fields and hills that had been drained of all colour by the cold moonlight.

She had no choice. She had known it from the moment Alicia had laid down her ultimatum. She would do as she had threatened, Sarah had no doubts, if she was thwarted, for Alicia was totally ruthless. There would be no money for Adam and Max to build their aeroplane, no company to give them security, no future for any of them. Perhaps she and Adam could be happy together without those things but she knew she could not risk robbing him of all he had worked for. If she did she would never forgive herself. And there was Annie to think of too. Remembering her own childhood Sarah knew she could not sentence Annie's baby to a life of insecurity. It deserved a better start than that.

‘I'll see they never work again,' Alicia had said and it was a threat Sarah dared not take lightly. There was nothing for it but to do as Alicia demanded, though how she could bring herself to say goodbye to Adam, and where she would go or what she would do she could not even begin to imagine.

In the trees below her window a gust of wind brought down a shower of leaves, a portent of coming winter, and the bare branches seemed to echo the bleakness of Sarah's heart.

She ran to the only haven she could think of, the only person in the world who could give her an excuse that would satisfy both Adam and Gilbert. And he welcomed her back with open arms just as she had known that he would.

‘I know I treated you badly, Eric,' she said, ‘ but I promise I won't hurt you ever again.'

And happy only to have her back he asked no questions, made no demands, beyond asking if her return meant she would, after all, marry him.

‘Oh yes, Eric, of course it does,' she whispered, and although she felt her heart was breaking, Sarah vowed that she would keep her promise. Eric must never know that there was someone she loved as she could never love him, never have the slightest inkling that she had come to him because it was the only way she knew to secure the future for Adam and for Annie and Max. She would be a good wife, make a home for him, bear his children. And she would do it with a smile on her face that would hide the pain inside. It was not the future she had hoped for but it would be – must be – enough.

‘You flew, Adam! Sweet heaven you flew!' Max came running across the field at Chewton Leigh as fast as his short legs would carry him, tearing his cap from his head as he ran and tossing it high into the air. His face was alight with excitement and when he reached the box kite he capered around it like an animated puppet, almost beside himself in his moment of triumph. ‘ You were a good foot off the ground for at least forty yards. I was lying flat on the grass and when you went past me you were airborne, not a doubt of it!'

Adam eased himself out of the basket seat and climbed onto the field. He felt relieved but not elated; he had waited for this moment for so long that now it had come it brought with it almost a sense of anticlimax. He was tired from the long days and weeks he and Max had spent rebuilding and modifying and curiously joyless. The light had gone out of his life when Sarah had left and even progress with the aeroplane had almost ceased to matter. It had sustained him, it was true, and working on it to the point of exhaustion had kept some measure of sanity in his life. But the dedication had gone and the driving sense of purpose. He still wanted to fly, still wanted to be a pioneer in this new and demanding field, but the wanting was dull habit now not fiery obsession, and the setbacks had made him bad-tempered and depressed instead of grimly determined as they had done before.

Adam gave little thought to his changed attitude for he could never be accused of being introspective. His was a simple personality, painted in bold primaries, not with a palette of subtly blended shades. Now an uncharacteristic greyness had descended on him and though he refused to think of Sarah when he was working, yet she had a habit of creeping up on him unawares so that suddenly he would seem to see her face or hear her laugh and the pain of knowing that she was no longer his would overwhelm him, all the more potent for having taken him by surprise.

It hit him now as he climbed down from the aeroplane, the sudden treacherous failing away of his stomach at the realisation that his triumph was almost unimportant with Sarah not here to witness it. Max was clapping him on the back and he smiled briefly at his friend's delight, but it was as if he stood back from the scene somehow, a spectator rather than one of the chief participants, and he kicked at a turf torn up by the wheels of the aircraft with a sudden flash of impatience.

Damn it, how could she do this to him? Before he had met her he had been his own man, sure of his ambitions and untouched by anything but the most transient of affections for any of the women who had come his way. Then Sarah had come into his life and everything had changed. He had wanted her with a ferocity that had shocked him, he had wooed her, and he had thought he had won her. But all the time she had still been hankering after Eric Dare – and now she was married to him. He had heard the news from Annie, who corresponded regularly with Sarah, and again from Gilbert. Second-hand news of a second-hand love, he thought bitterly – and hated himself for caring so much.

‘Are you going to give her another run?' Max asked.

Adam glanced towards the shed where Gilbert and Alicia stood watching, huddled up in overcoats and stamping their feet against the sharp clear cold of the December morning.

‘Might as well give the audience something to make their visit worth their while,' Adam said and was surprised at the bitterness in his tone. Gilbert had every right to come to the field to watch – it was his money which had made this possible. And Alicia was an even more frequent visitor than he had been, her beauty and her expensive and fashionable wardrobe lending glamour to the proceedings.

‘Now?'

‘Why not?' He climbed into the basket seat while Max swung the propeller then taxied back up the field. Over the last weeks the feel of the rebuilt aeroplane had become familiar to him, he was beginning to know the sound of the engine in all its moods and the responses of the stick and rudder bar were now second nature to him. At the top of the rise he turned the aeroplane. The air was still with no threat of the sudden gust of wind which could prove disastrous; the scene laid out before him was rural England at its most peaceful – the trees, bare now for winter, stretching bony fingers towards the ice blue of the sky, a flock of sheep white woolly dots on the neighbouring hillside.

He thought again of Sarah who had first introduced him to this place and wished with all his heart that she was here now. Then with a stab of impatience he dismissed her from his mind, concentrating on the job in hand. He had taken the aeroplane off the ground once – for a good forty yards, Max had said. Now he must do it again, a little higher and for a little further. Sixty yards, maybe? Seventy? That would be about the limit he could safely achieve until he could get enough height to clear the hedge and take in the next field. He could get the height he was sure. It was simply a matter of easing back the stick gently and easily not with a jerk as he had on his first attempt at flying which had upset the balance and put too great a strain on the flimsy frame. But the more height he had, the more difficult landing would be. None of the hours of taxiing practice had equipped him for that tricky manoeuvre. He knew what he had to do, of course – reduce the propeller revolutions and pull back on the stick until just the right angle was reached, then stall the engine a foot or so above the ground. This was the theory he had evolved and he was sure it was the right one. But putting it into practice would be a difficult matter with only his own judgement to rely upon for both speed and height. Stall too high and disaster would follow, with the machine crashing down as she had done on the first flight trial, stall too late, touch down with the engine still running and she would bounce and buck like a bronco in Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show causing untold damage. No, landing after a flight of any height and distance was going to be tricky; he was glad there was no question of attempting it today with Gilbert and Alicia there to watch. Time enough for that when he and Max were alone and the aeroplane had proved herself skimming just above the ground.