Past All Forgetting (13 page)

She thought privately that Fleur still did not look as if she was on the mend. Her cheeks were flushed in contrast to the rather sallow tinge inhabiting the rest of her skin, and her small face seemed to have shrunk.

But she smiled broadly at Janna, and gave her a thin hot hand to shake, as well as politely wishing her good afternoon. She listened with apparent interest as Janna told her what was going on at school, and the plans that were being made for the Christmas concert, but at the same time Janna had an uneasy feeling that the child's close attention was being dictated by an innate courtesy rather than any real enthusiasm. But she did seem genuinely delighted with the cards the children had made for her, and clapped her hands as Janna arranged them on top of the chest of drawers where she could see them.

She did not react as almost any one of her English classmates would have done either when Janna produced the books and work folder from her bag. Janna was used to groans, and sighs of 'Oh, Miss!' and dismayed grimaces, but Fleur's face remained impassive, and she thanked her teacher politely for all the trouble she had taken.

Janna felt curiously defeated as she rose to take her leave.

She had hoped to be able to slip away unnoticed, but Rian was waiting in the hall as she came downstairs, she saw with a stab of apprehension.

He threw open the drawing room door and stood waiting for her.

'I've made some coffee,' he said abruptly.

'Thank you, but no.' Janna stood her ground.

'Oh, don't be a fool. You've got quite a walk ahead of you, and it's damned cold outside. I'd drive you back, only I can't leave Fleur. She hates to be in bed, and I have to watch her like a hawk.'

'She seems very docile.' With obvious reluctance Janna walked forward and went past into the drawing room. It was furnished solely with a small battered-looking card table and a few folding chairs normally reserved for garden use. A pair of elderly curtains barely met across the french windows.

'As with most young females, the docility is merely a fa
ç
ade. But I don't have to tell you that, do I?' he said smoothly, handing her a large pottery beaker filled with coffee. She would have liked to have thrown it at him, but she was too conscious of the fact of the house's isolation, and that she was alone with him, except for the sick child upstairs.

'Thank you,' she said with an effort, and took a tentative sip. It was very hot, and surprisingly good.

'Yes, I can make coffee.' Apparently he could also read thoughts, Janna thought, flushing slightly as she set down the beaker on the table. 'My soup is highly recommended as well. Can I offer you some?'

'That's hardly likely, is it?' she said bitingly.

'I thought you might have accepted for Fleur's sake. She must get damned lonely here, and some female company would have been a novelty for her. However, I quite understand that even your dedication has its limits.'

'In any other circumstances, I would be happy to stay and ,have supper with Fleur,' she told him coldly. 'I wouldn't have thought you would be short of female company in any case.'

'Tut tut,' he said mockingly. 'Beware, little cat, your claws are showing. But you don't have to worry. I'm leading an entirely monastic existence at the moment. I'm too busy for anything else.'

She glanced around the room, her lip curling slightly. 'Doing housework, I suppose.'

'No.' She could tell from his tone that her attempt at needling had caused him only amusement. I'm engaged on some conversion work at the moment. I'm turning the old stable block into living accommodation.'

Janna's jaw dropped. 'But that's what…' she began, and then bit back the remaining words.

Rian surveyed her satirically. 'Go on, my sweet. You were about to say that's what your future father-in-law was intending to do. I'm quite aware of that, although I suspect that our concept of what this accommodation should consist of would differ.'

'But surely you can't just take matters into, your own hands like this?' she cried. 'The house may belong to you, but you still need planning permission.'

He drank some coffee, grinning at her over the top of the beaker.

'Thinking of reporting me to your father like a good citizen?' he enquired. 'Don't waste your time, Janna. My uncle was the first person to think of the idea, and he obtained planning permission for the work years ago. It still exists. I made sure of that before one brick was moved.'

She shrugged. 'It's none of my business,' she said stiltedly.

'Since when did that stop a woman from interfering?' he said lazily. 'You forget, you know, when you're away, how ready the tongues are to wag in a place like this.'

'I wonder you came back.'

'No, you don't, Janna,' he said softly. 'You always knew I'd be back, and you know why as well.'

'Just to give the tongues something else to wag about,' she said bitterly.

'That's almost inevitable,' he said drily. 'I know quite well that every move I make is being closely monitored.'

'Well, you have no one else but yourself to blame,' she burst out heatedly. 'Boasting to Beth Morris that you weren't married—flaunting Fleur's illegitimacy in people's faces. Can you wonder if your affairs are suddenly a matter of public interest?'

His attention seemed suddenly arrested as if he had been startled by what she had said. Then he relaxed and gave a faint grin.

'Be sure your sins will find you out,' he remarked. 'Yet what else could I have said to her? She was so obviously bursting with eagerness to be scandalised.' He gave a short laugh. 'I must have succeeded better than I knew.'

'Well, it's too late now.' She drank the cooling remainder of her coffee and stood up. 'Perhaps next time you might stop and consider the effect your thoughtless words might have on innocent people.'

She was thinking of Fleur as she spoke and was unprepared for his reaction.

'Whom did you have in mind?' he asked harshly. 'Your family—or your fiancé's sensibilities?'

She stared at him. 'I didn't mean that,' she began numbly, but he cut across her halting words.

'Last time you pleaded for yourself. Because that didn't work, you're now trying to shelter behind other people. But it won't work, Janna. People are bound to be hurt over this, and there's nothing you can do to prevent it. As you so justly remarked to me a few moments ago, you have no one but yourself to blame.'

She swallowed, fighting a sudden feeling of nausea. For a time there, he had seemed so much more human. Now he had reverted again to being her evil demon—the man who had the power to ruin her life whenever he chose.

He too had risen to his feet and she realised that he was between her and the door.  

'Let me go,' she whispered, fighting her rising panic.

He stood, his hands resting lightly on his hips, surveying her mockingly.

'What are you afraid of?' he asked. 'That I'm going to exact my vengeance here and now?' His smile widened. 'You've nothing to fear at the moment. I'm sleeping on a camp bed which only just bears my weight. I'm certain it couldn't cope with two of us, and the thought of an un-carpeted floor cools even my ardour. So you're quite safe—for the time being.'

She could only stare at him, her face white, her heart beating slowly and erratically.

'Oh, don't look so startled, sweet witch,' he drawled. 'You must have known—that woman's instinct must have told you that part of the price you would have to pay me would be the completion of our—er—unfinished business of seven years ago.'

With a speed born of desperation, she was past him and at the door. The knob slipped under her fingers, wet with perspiration, and then the door was open and she was in the hall.

But Rian was beside her, moving without apparent hurry.

'How about this on account?' he said. She was pinned remorselessly against him, and his dark face swam in front of her eyes as his mouth descended.

When at last he raised his head, his breathing was as ragged as her own and little devils danced in his eyes.

'To hell with waiting,' he said unevenly. 'I want you, Janna, and I want you now.'

Her mind was crying 'no' even as her body, deaf to all but its own clamourings, yielded against him. In spite of herself, her arms slid up around his neck, and her eyes closed while her mouth invited his possession.

Then, at first so faintly that she thought it was her imagination, and then more strongly, she heard the frightened wail of a child, followed by a small voice crying desperately, 'Ri-an! Ri-an!'

'Fleur!' His voice sounded like a groan. For a few brief seconds before he let her go, he held her head between the strength of his hands and stared down into her face as if he was memorising her every feature. Then he released her and turned to the stairs.

'Is there anything I can do?' Janna hardly recognised her own voice.

'No.' He looked back at her, suddenly an inimical stranger again. 'She's had a coughing attack and made herself sick. It happens. I can attend to her.' He smiled mirthlessly. 'I'd run if I were you—while I still had the chance.'

She stood staring after him as he went on up the stairs and disappeared. For a moment, she thought her sluggish legs would refuse to obey her, then walking jerkily, she got to the front door and tugged it open. The air outside was like a breath of ice, and she shivered as she stepped out into the darkness.

Just for a while—only a few seconds really—she had wondered what would happen if Rian were to find her there, still waiting in the hall, on his return. But that was madness, she told herself vehemently as she began to hurry down the hill, carried into a run by her own momentum on the steep slope. And as she ran, the sound of her heels on the frosty ground and the thunderous beating of .her heart seemed to echo back, 'Madness—madness!'

She found Colin was waiting for her when she arrived home.

'You're late,' he greeted her with a trace of tetchiness as she joined him in the sitting room. His eyes went disapprovingly over her, taking in her tumbled hair, and dishevelled appearance. 'Where on earth have you been?' 

'One of my children is away from school with a bad chest. I went to take her some work.' Conscience-stricken over those moments when betrayal would have been so fatally easy, she lifted a penitent face for his kiss.

'You've been running,' he said. 'You're quite out of breath. Honestly, Janna, there are times when you behave like a child yourself.

She unfastened her coat and hung it over the back of a chair.

'Running is one way we poor pedestrians can keep warm on evenings like this,' she said with assumed lightness.

'But it's hardly dignified,' he answered.

'Does
it
matter?'

'Not so much at the moment, perhaps, but you do have your future position to think of.' He frowned a little. 'You really ought to have a car. If it's a question of lessons, I'd be more than pleased to pay for them…'

'That's got nothing to do with it,' she said, her colour heightened. 'As a matter of fact, I have a licence, but I don't need a car at the moment. The distances I travel during the week simply don't warrant it. Besides, I like to walk..! like to run, come to that, and I'll worry about my "position", as you call it, when I have to.'

'Very well,' he said. His tone was stiff and she knew that she had displeased him. She went over to him and slipped her arms round his waist, leaning her cheek against him.

'Don't be cross,' she begged. 'It was such a lovely surprise to find you here, and all you've done is criticise me.'

He sighed and his arms tightened round her a shade abstractedly.

'I'm sorry, Janna. 'I've had one hell of a day at work— union problems again. No, I won't be staying for supper. Dad wants a full report on this afternoon's meeting with the shop stewards, and I must get back. He asked me to call He's giving a small dinner party next Tuesday—four or five people plus ourselves, and he would like you to act as his hostess. Will you, darling?' He smiled down at her. 'It will be good practice for you, you know.'

'And practice makes perfect, doesn't it?' she smiled back at him, wincing inside a little. Colin's attitude that she had to be coached into handling these formal occasions was sometimes irksome, and she could see his father's prompting in all this. 'Am I just to be there to look decorative, or does your father wish me to choose the food and wine and organise the flowers?'

'Certainly not' Colin sounded faintly shocked. 'Mrs Masham will do all that as usual. You just concentrate on being your own beautiful self, and I'll pick you up around seven.' He kissed her swiftly. 'Bless you, sweetness. Now I must be getting along.'

'Don't go.' She stood on tiptoe and kissed his cheek. 'The report can wait, can't it? You've told me often enough that you're in charge at the works now—that your father is simply a figurehead. Can't you tell him that you're handling this problem, whatever it is, by yourself?'

He gave rather a strained laugh. 'I'd like to hear Dad's reaction if I told
him
that! You simply have no idea of what's involved, have you, darling? We could have a full-scale strike on our hands if we're not careful. Dad has years more experience of handling these sort of negotiations than I have.'

Janna could have said more, but she decided it was wisest to keep her own counsel. Travers Engineering had a poor record in labour relations over the years, and it was openly said that Sir Robert's intransigent attitude was largely responsible for this. Janna was well aware that it was hoped locally that now Colin was in charge, the works might benefit from a more liberal approach to top management, but it seemed only too likely that Sir Robert's finger was still firmly in the pie. '

She took Colin to the front door and waved goodbye to him, then went slowly kitchenwards. For once, her father was home ahead of her, seated at the kitchen table with his pipe going comfortably and the evening paper spread out in front of him. Mrs Prentiss was busy at the cooker, but she turned with a welcoming smile as Janna came in.

'Supper won't be long, dear. Have you had a good day?'