One Reckless Night (18 page)

 
Susan's mouth twisted wryly. 'She used to address me as "Mummy" and I hated her. Gerald insisted I gave up breastfeeding-too time-consuming, he said, and it would interfere with the nanny's routine. I had to take my place at his side again. You had your compartment. I had mine. And they were totally-totally separate.'

 
Zanna threw back her head. She said huskily, 'Was that why you found it so easy to leave me behind-when you left?'

 
'Easy?' Susan echoed, almost wonderingly. 'What are you talking about?' She got to her feet. 'You think it was easy!’ Her voice rose.

 
Jake went swiftly over to her and put his arms round her. 'It's all right, Sue. Everything's going to be fine. We won't talk any more right now. I'll take Suzannah up to her room, get her settled in.'

 
'Thank you, Jake.' Susan made an effort to compose herself. 'Thank you for finding her. For bringing her to me.'

 
As they went up the stairs Zanna said savagely, 'Do you expect me to thank you too?'

 
'Maybe one day. But not now. You're in shock.'

 
'What is there to be shocked about? I've just discovered my father's been lying to me all my life and that if he'd had his way I'd probably never have been born at all. And, if that isn't enough, I also find that my mother, who was supposed to be dead, walked out on me and has been living in the lap of luxury in the South of France. Nothing to upset me at all.'

 
He said slowly, 'I know how you must be feeling...'

 
'No,' she said. 'No, you don't. I feel as if I've stepped through the looking glass into some nightmare.' She stopped. 'I-I can't stay here.'

 
'Just for tonight.' He opened a door, showed her into a room with apricot walls and a wide, low bed with an old-fashioned carved wooden headboard and a creamy coverlet embroidered with tiny roses. 'Don't judge until you've heard it all. Let her talk to you-tell you what happened.'

 
'I might do some talking of my own,' she said raggedly. 'Tell me something. At what point during my visit to Emplesham did you realize who I was?'

 
He hesitated. 'I wasn't sure at first, in spite of the similarity in coloring. But when you said your name...'

 
'Ah, yes,' she said. 'Big mistake. If I'd called myself "Jane" or "Vanessa" I'd probably have been allowed to go on my way unmolested.' She paused. 'Have you told your stepmother about all your sterling work on her behalf-checking me out to the nth degree? How you threw yourself into it-body and soul?'

 
He said wearily, 'It wasn't like that.'

 
'Shall we let her be the judge as to whether or not you could have found some way to tell me-to break the news-without the great seduction scene?'

 
'I was going to tell you,' he said. 'In the morning. But you left.'

 
She whistled. 'So it's my fault?' she exclaimed. 'Let me apologize for spoiling your cunning plan.'

 
'No,' he said quietly. 'The fault was entirely mine. I had no right to touch you. As I've already said, it was a wrong thing to have done and I've regretted it ever since.'

 
'Not,' she said, 'as much as I have. And now perhaps you'd go and let me have a rest. I have a feeling I'm going to need all my strength for the next thrilling installment.'

 
He stood for a long moment, looking at her-a searing, contemptuous examination, which traveled from the top of her head down to her feet.

 
He said softly, 'While we're on the subject of regrets, Zanna, please don't give me cause to curse the day I ever saw you, let alone brought you here.'

 
He went out, closing the door behind him. Zanna stood rigidly for a moment. Then her face crumpled, she sank down onto the edge of the bed and began to cry.

 
CHAPTER TEN

 
A SHOWER in the small tiled bathroom which opened off her bedroom and a change of clothing made Zanna feel marginally better. At least on a physical level, she amended unhappily. Nothing could alleviate the emotional bruising she had undergone in the last few hours.

 
The part Jake had played she relegated to some locked, frozen compartment in her brain. She would deal with it when she was capable, she thought, flinching. But that was not yet.

 
She pulled a chair up to the window and sat down, resting her folded arms on the windowsill and staring out at the sunlit landscape.

 
Her first priority had to be her mother, of course. And what a ghastly irony it was that they should meet now, of all times, when it was impossible for her to maintain the relationship longer than a few weeks.

 
She'd examined her body intently in the long bathroom mirror, looking for tell-tale signs. Her waist hadn't thickened, as far as she could see, but already her breasts seemed marginally larger. Or was she imagining it? Whatever, pregnancy was not a secret anyone could keep for long.

 
Yet it was essential that no one in this house-no one-should guess what was happening to her. It would cause untold damage if the truth ever came out, Zanna told herself vehemently as she zipped herself into an ivory shift dress which managed to be chic and concealing at the same time.

 
Jake was clearly loved and trusted by Susan Lantrell, whose own emotional fragility was obvious. What would it do to her if she discovered her long-lost daughter had been deliberately seduced by her stepson, whatever his , motive might have been?

 
This was supposed to be a happy reunion, she thought, with a wry twist of her lips. The last thing she needed to do was blow an essentially close family relationship out of the water.

 
In a little while she'd be gone from all their lives. She'd already decided she had no choice about that. She would simply have to disappear, just as her mother had done all those years before. And Susan would need Jake's continuing affection and support in the wake of her departure. She couldn't say or do anything that would harm that.

 
The essential thing now was to find some realistic reason for distancing herself, without causing too much pain.

 
As for her own sense of loneliness and isolation, well, she would have to find a way of coming to terms with that, she thought, biting her lip.

 
She got restlessly to her feet. The room was spacious, but suddenly the walls seemed to be closing in on her. She needed the open air to breathe.

 
Quietly, she let herself out of her room and went downstairs. The house was very still. The doors to the salon stood open but the room was empty, and no one challenged her as she left the house.

 
She stood for a moment at the top of the steps, getting her bearings. -From the window of her room, she'd seen formal gardens, and a glint of turquoise water which proclaimed a swimming pool. Common sense suggested that was where the family might congregate on such a glorious day, so she deliberately turned in the opposite direction.

 
Her route led her round the side of the house and under an archway into a cobbled yard, lined on three sides by ancient stone buildings, heavily timbered. Some of them had been turned into garaging for cars, but there was also a tall dovecote, busy with the flutter of white wings, and a row of loose boxes. As Zanna hesitated she could hear the sounds of movement and a soft whinny as a long muzzle and a pair of liquid dark eyes came into view.

 
'Oh, you beauty.' Gently Zanna stroked the velvety nose as the horse blew softly at her, questing hopefully for a titbit. It was a long time since she'd been near a horse. Not since Solomon, she thought with a pang, her beloved pony and inseparable companion until she'd gone to boarding school. She would never forget the dreadful start to the holidays when she'd come home and found the stable empty.

 
'Well, you'd outgrown him.' Her father had dismissed her sobbing protests. 'And he's gone to a good home,' he'd added unconvincingly.

 
Child though she was, Zanna had known that could not be true, that gentle, affectionate Solomon had been too elderly to find a ready sale.

 
 
'He could have stayed with us,' she'd wept. 'I'd have looked after him. He loved me. He wouldn't have been any trouble.'

 
'Absolute rubbish. You're away at school for most of the year, and you've got far more important things to concern you now than a geriatric pony.' Sir Gerald had been brusque. 'Anyway, animals should earn their keep. It's time you grew up, my dear.'

 
So she'd wept out her grief and then, with a resolution beyond her years, put Solomon out of her mind. And animals had become a taboo subject. She'd never asked for another horse, or even a dog or cat. There was less pain that way.

 
It was a lesson I should have remembered, she thought, feeling the horse's soft sweet breath on her face and neck. That anything or anyone is expendable once they've outlived their usefulness to my father. Was that something my mother discovered too?

 
The horse stirred restlessly under her caressing hand at the sound of approaching hooves, and Zanna realised someone had ridden under the archway into the courtyard.

 
The breath caught in her throat as she prayed it would not be Jake. She couldn't stand another confrontation, having to face him, having to pretend...

 
But as she turned slowly she saw that this was one prayer that hadn't been answered.

 
Jake swung himself lithely out of the saddle and came towards her, leading his handsome bay gelding.

 
'Looking for an escape route, Suzannah?' His smile mocked her. 'I wouldn't choose Celestine. Two kilometres from her stable and she turns and heads for home.'

 
"Thanks to your machinations, I'm going nowhere for the time being.' She kept her voice level.

 
He frowned. 'Is that all you can find to say? Does it mean nothing to have found your mother after all this time?'

 
'Of course it does,' she admitted reluctantly. 'But I still can't understand how anyone so apparently caring could just have turned her back on her own baby and walked away, whatever the problems. How she could have stayed away all these years without trying to get in touch-without giving me a thought.'

 
'My God,' he said softly. 'How little you know.'

 
For a moment Zanna felt seared by the contempt in his dark eyes, then he turned from her abruptly, calling, 'Gustave,' and a short, bow-legged man promptly appeared from the tack room to take charge of the gelding.

 
Jake came towards her. Zanna stood her ground, determined not to flinch from the cold anger in his face.

 
'Come with me, my dear stepsister,' he said bitingly. 'I have something to show you.'

 
'No.' She hung back. 'This-this is a private matter- something for my mother and I to sort out on our own.'

 
'Oh, I think it's gone beyond that,' he shot back at her. 'Besides, I'm heavily involved already, remember?'

 
His hand was on her arm, harsh and implacable, urging her on towards the haystore in the corner of the yard.

 
'Where are we going?' Zanna tried to wrestle herself free.

 
'Not for a roll in the hay, anyway,' Jake returned tersely. 'That's a basic error I won't repeat.'

 
She said grittily, 'Well, at least we agree on one thing.'

 
She was being guided towards a flight of wooden steps, leading to an upper floor. As they climbed Zanna felt the familiar smells of oil paint and turpentine tangle in her throat.

 
They emerged into a massive L-shaped loft. It had been floored in immaculately varnished planking, and, beneath the high, raftered roof, whole sections of the wall had been removed and replaced with glass, flooding the entire space with clear, bright light.

 
Unframed canvases stood against the wall, and a half-finished local landscape waited on an easel.

 
Zanna drew a breath as she looked around her. 'Does your father provide my mother with a studio in every house they occupy?'

 
'Yes,' he said, with unsmiling curtness.

 
'Well, that explains it. She obviously left me to find herself-no sacrifice too great for her art?' Under the bitterness there was a tremor in her voice.

 
Jake swore under his breath. 'I'm not a violent man,' he said, too quietly. 'I've never hit anyone in my life, or particularly wanted to. But in your case, Ms Westcott, I'm sorely tempted to make an exception-to put you across my knee and paddle you till you squirm.'