Old Desires/A Stranger's Kiss (2-in-1 edition) (15 page)

‘Mrs Graham took me on when she was first married. I’d just left school. Then they took on Austin for the garden and to drive and me and him hit it off. We lived in the cottage then. Miss Mary left it to me, you know.’

‘Yes, I know.’

Mrs Austin turned another page. ‘Oh, now this is Mr Joshua’s father. He and Mr Graham were both magistrates.’ She looked up from the picture. ‘You and Miss Mary could have been twins if you’d been the same age.’

It was the sort of photograph taken by the hundred at major functions. It was a dinner. Mr Graham was clearly making an effort to look happy. Mr Kent, perhaps twenty years younger than she had seen him in France a few days before, his hair thicker, slightly darker, looked totally at ease, smiling across at Mary. And Mrs Austin had been right. The likeness was too striking to miss. She touched her hair. Maybe she ought to darken it a little.

‘Were the two families friendly?’ she asked, to redirect Mrs Austin’s attention.

‘I don’t know about friends.’ She shrugged. ‘In the last couple of years Mr Joshua has been a great help to your cousin, but I don’t think Mr Alexander Kent ever was much of a friend to Mr Graham. They were very different sorts of men. He came to the house, of course. They had town business.’

‘Alexander? Is that his name?’ Her voice sounded the same. But nothing would ever be quite the same again.

She laid the tip of her finger on the photograph of Joshua’s father and remembered a half-imagined tear as he had turned away from her. Had he suspected?

‘Yes. He’s living in France now. A very good-looking man, like Mr Joshua.’ She nodded in the direction of the door and raised a knowing eyebrow. ‘Mrs Kent was a very forbearing lady.’

‘Alexander?’ she repeated.

‘Yes, dear.’

‘You’re sure?’ Mrs Austin glanced at her a little oddly and Holly let it go. Of course she was sure. The woman went on and on, turning the pages of the album, chattering on, full of small-town gossip, but Holly had stopped listening. She responded automatically when there was a gap in the monologue that seemed to demand it, but she had no idea what was actually being said.

Eventually Holly’s silence must have seeped through. ‘Well, I mustn’t stay here taking up all your day. I’ll see you on Monday, Miss Carpenter.’

‘What?’

‘Monday. I’ve got a key. If you’re not here I’ll just get on.’ There was a seemingly endless list of instructions about what to do with laundry and shopping lists but finally she left and Holly found herself standing on the back doorstep watching the woman wobble down the drive on her bicycle.

After a while she made herself close the door. Her limbs still worked, but there was a numbness in her head. Not even a pain. Nothing. She knew she should be grateful. As she climbed up the stairs, each step a mountain to be overcome by sheer willpower, she knew without doubt that the pain would come.

She opened the bedside drawer, where the Chinese notebook lay. She knew the words by heart. Read it constantly to comfort herself that Mary had borne her out of a deep and lasting love. It had been no quick fumble, regretted and furtively dealt with. Now the comfort turned to ash in her heart.

She picked up the book, but she had no need to open the cover to read that first damning sentence.
‘“A came to the house today and made me a woman.”
‘ She had scarcely wondered who the mysterious ‘A’ might be, too wrapped up in her concerns about Mary. It had been stupid. She had had a father as well as a mother, but she had thought that the unknown man did not matter, that he was unimportant. She opened the book. But there was no mistake.

“A came to the house today and made me a woman. I knew he would come.

“After that kiss, that glorious, wonderful kiss, I knew he had to come. But he was so clever, so cool!
‘
Is your father at home?’ he asked, nothing in his eyes to show that he knew father was at a committee meeting that was going to last forever. He went on endlessly about it last night at the dinner, until I thought he would drive us all mad with boredom. Now I can only hope that he will always announce his plans with such glorious forethought
.”

The bed was rumpled where their bodies had lain an hour before. Had it looked like that when Mary had lain with Alexander Kent? Holly wondered, and a cold, clammy hand clutched at her heart as she realised the horror of what had so nearly happened.

She straightened the quilt with shaking fingers, obliterating the evidence but it wasn’t enough and in a second she was tearing at the bedclothes, taking off the sheets, the cover, the pillowcase and pushing them out of sight into the bathroom. Then she stood for a moment, her chest hurting with the effort of breathing, and in the silence she thought she could hear the sound of her heart breaking.

It was a while before she could think straight. She found some linen in the airing cupboard and remade the bed.

Packed her bag. Tidied everything carefully so that no one would ever know she had been at Highfield. Then, when she had rehearsed what she would say, she went to the telephone to call Joshua. The phone rang twice and then was picked up.

‘Joshua —’ She started to speak, then realised with a sickening jolt that there was no one there.

‘This is Joshua Kent,’ the recording announced. ‘I’m
not available at the moment, but leave your name and number and I’ll get back to you.’ There was a short tone and then the tape began to run. A sob caught her voice and she put the phone down quickly. It was a long time before she could speak again and she didn’t try the telephone.

If she phoned and cancelled their dinner arrangement he would simply come around and find out what was wrong. Even if she could put him off for this evening, there was no guarantee that he wouldn’t come after her.

She would have to convince him, face to face, that she had changed her mind. It wouldn’t be easy. It would be the hardest thing she had ever done. But it was the only way. She would die rather than tell him the truth, not after this morning, when she had encouraged him so wantonly that her body now burned for shame. He must never know that he was her half-brother.

* * *

He arrived at seven, prompt to the minute, and when, white-faced under the extra blusher she had applied to give herself some colour, Holly opened the door, he stood for a moment and just looked at her.

She had forced herself to dress up, put on the soft black chiffon dress that she loved. She wanted him to see her at her best. And she had made herself up for him. When she had finished, he might hate her, but this way he would never suspect her misery.

He was holding a single red rose and after a moment he offered it to her. She took it, her fingers trembling so much that the leaves quivered like aspen.

He put down a bottle of champagne on the hall table and held her hands between his. ‘Am I causing that?’ he asked.

‘You?’ Her voice came out as a squeak. ‘Good gracious, no. I think I’m getting a cold.’ And she shivered convulsively in apparent confirmation.

His forehead creased in the slightest frown. ‘Did you get so cold last night?’

‘I ...I suppose I must have.’ He had dressed for the occasion, gloriously formal in a dinner-jacket, the black broadcloth moulded to his shoulders in perfection, the white shirt-front plain, as she would have expected.

‘Well, champagne is the perfect cure. Shall we open it now?’ He led the way to the dining-room and bent to extract two glasses from the cupboard.

‘How wonderful!’ She swallowed hard, then put on the brightest smile she could, before he straightened and saw the betraying misery in her eyes. ‘I’ve had some wonderful news, so a celebration is quite in order.’

‘Oh?’ He discarded the foil and glanced up at her, catching the oddness in her manner. ‘And what is that? Sold a painting?’ The pulse in her temple was hammering quite dreadfully and she put up her fingers to try to steady it.

‘I’ll tell you over dinner. Are you going to open that champagne before it gets warm?’ He twisted the bottle sharply and the cork erupted from the neck of the bottle. The wine spilled over into the glasses and he handed one to her.

She was not making a good job of this. She would have to try much harder. ‘Dinner is almost ready,’ she said quickly, putting the wine down untasted. I’d better check the kitchen.’

‘Holly.’ His voice stopped her. ‘If you’ve had second thoughts, I’d rather you just said so now. Things got a bit out of hand this morning, but there’s no rush.’ Seeing the stricken look on her face, he swore softly and then pulled her into his arms. She stiffened instantly, remained rigid as he placed a kiss on her forehead.

He let her go and stepped back, leaving a clear foot between them. But he wasn’t angry. In fact his face was so full of sympathy that for a moment she thought he understood, had worked it out for himself. But he didn’t, hadn’t.

Instead he reached into his pocket and took out a small velvet box that lay between them in the palm of his hand.

‘What is it?’

He flipped it open to reveal a solitaire diamond that caught the light and sparked with fire. ‘It occurred to me that after what happened to Mary I should make my own commitment one hundred percent clear.’ He took the diamond from its velvet nest and took her left hand. ‘I thought perhaps we should get this over with first,’ he said, ‘because I’ve always thought it to be the height of bad taste to ask a girl to marry you when you’re in bed with her.’ The room seemed to shift and she thought she might faint. Her mouth opened to stop him, but her throat wouldn’t work. ‘Will you marry me, Holly Carpenter?’

It was so much worse than anything she could have imagined when she was rehearsing what she would say all the long afternoon. The silence stretched out between them, the circle of the ring an inch from the tip of her finger. Then he tossed it up, caught it, dropped it back in his pocket and said, ‘You don’t have to answer straight away. But I thought you should know what my intentions are.’

Now. She must do it now. ‘I can’t marry you, Joshua.’ She saw the brief shaft of pain cross his eyes and moved to touch his arm, without realising what she was doing.

‘Brutal, but honest,’ he said, withdrawing his arm from her touch.

Honest! Oh Joshua, her heart wept. I don’t want to hurt you; I love you, can’t you see that?

‘I’m sorry. You are the only man in the world I would ever consider…’ This wasn’t right. She had to be brutal, although hardly honest. ‘But I can’t. I’m not going to marry anyone. Just like my mother.’ She tried a small laugh, as if this were somehow amusing. It stayed on her lips, quite unable to cover the distance to her eyes.

Joshua did not, apparently, find it funny. His eyes narrowed as he took in the hectic flush of her cheeks, her determined gaiety. ‘Will you at least tell me why?’ he asked.

‘I told you I had some good news. Wonderful news.’ He flinched, but she had to convince him. If he thought she was so stupidly heartless, he would be able to forget her all the more easily. ‘Do you remember,’ she began, ‘when I told you I had visited a sculptor in Florence? That I was thinking of trying something new?’

‘I remember.’ His voice fell stony hard into her heart, but she had to continue. Had to destroy every vestige of feeling he might have for her.

‘Well, I had a phone call from him today. This afternoon. He wants me to go to Italy for a year and study with him.’ Joshua said nothing. ‘It’s the most amazing opportunity. I can hardly believe my luck.’

Dark brows drew together in a frown. ‘He phoned you?’

‘Yes,’ she said, chattering foolishly. ‘That’s why I’m so glad you’re here, because, you see, I’ve changed my mind about Highfield. I’m going to sell it after all.’ Did her voice shake a little? She forced the words out. ‘It needs a family, don’t you think? It’s far too big for me and who knows when I’ll come back to England? If ever.’ His face remained impassive. ‘But not the land,’ she said quickly. ‘I want to give the land to the Foundation. Can you handle all that for me?’

‘You’re really going?’ He was finding it hard to believe and she couldn’t blame him.

‘Oh, yes,’ she said, with forced brightness. ‘I know you’ll understand. I would be an absolute fool to miss this opportunity. You have to seize the moment and I’ll never get a chance like this again.’ She tried to ignore the puzzled expression in his eyes.

‘I’m beginning to understand,’ he said, his voice sleety now, and she began to relax. If he despised her, so much the better. ‘And when did this — sculptor call?’

‘This afternoon,’ she said quickly. ‘About four o’clock.’

‘I see. Then we must celebrate your good fortune.’ He handed her the discarded glass of champagne and watched as she gulped at the wine, her throat parched, aching with the strain of lying and tears that she could not shed until he had gone. ‘Tell me, Holly,’ he said, topping it up. ‘This Italian, how did he know where to get in touch with you?’

Lies were hateful things. They always caught you out, especially with someone as clever as Joshua. ‘David told him,’ she said.

‘David?’ She expected him to be upset, but now his jaw tightened and the pulse at his temple was hammering angrily. ‘I see. You must have given him David’s number?’

‘At his office,’ she said, quickly, desperate to get this over with.

‘And good old David gave him your number. Well, my dear Holly, to fortune.’ He drained his glass and set it down rather hard on the sideboard. He glanced at the table, laid for two with fine china and cutlery, a bowl of flowers filling the room with the heart breaking scent of early roses. ‘You will excuse me if I don’t, after all, stay for dinner? I’m going to get drunk now and I prefer to fall into my own bed.’ His eyes held hers for a moment. ‘Yours, I take it, is no longer on offer?’