The Hidden Years (50 page)

It didn't help reminding herself that this confrontation
with Daniel was at her own instigation… her hands, she
discovered, were damp with the perspiration of tension. What if Daniel
refused to give in to her threats? What good would it do anyway if he
did? To have their main contractor pull out of the deal would cause the
Government some problems in finding an alternative, but the road would
eventually still go ahead.

Eventually… If she did manage to blackmail
Daniel into pulling out of the contract then at least she would have
bought them some time. Enough time perhaps for her mother to recover,
to take charge…

If she ever recovered. Sage shivered, hugging her arms
around her body, rubbing tense fingers up and down the goose-flesh of
her upper arms.

What if her mother didn't recover? What if…?
She bit down hard on her bottom lip and started to savage it with her
teeth. Her mother
had
to get well, she had
to… and the doctors were optimistic. She was very strong,
they had said… but not yet strong enough to undergo the
necessary surgery to remove the pressure on her brain…

Alaric Ferguson had been brutally explicit to her in
describing her mother's chances of survival. A blood clot caused by the
accident had lodged in her brain; they had hoped to disperse the clot
without surgery but this had not proved possible… Now they
had to wait until her mother was stronger, until they need no longer
sedate her to help her body through the shock of the accident, before
they could operate to remove the clot. It was time here that was all
important, Sage had been told; a fine balancing of time and
opportunity, a judgement to be made by the surgeon in charge. A
judgement which would mean life for her mother—or
death… She shivered again, wondering if her mother could
know how much she was in her thoughts, in her prayers—how
much she wanted her to recover. Not just out of guilt, out of remorse
or even out of love. There was a great need in her now, a great thirst
to know more of this woman whom she was coming to know so well through
her diaries—a great need to talk with her, to find out why
she had never known her before, a great need to tell her how much she
admired her, how much she wished they might have been peers and close
friends, instead of being separated by the enforced chasm of their
difficult relationship.

She heard a car outside and started up, hurrying into the
hall, relief and a tiny unexpected stab of disappointment panicking the
butterflies into fresh flight as she realised it wasn't Daniel but Faye.

'Sorry I'm so late,' Faye apologised tensely as she came
in. 'It wasn't intentional… if it hadn't been for that
stupid man…' She broke off and Sage focused on her, frowning
as she realised that Faye looked different, that there was something
almost approaching a wildness about her, that there was a vivid, strong
colour burning along her cheekbones, that she looked animated and alive
in a way that was totally different.

Even the way she moved had changed, Sage recognised, her
eyes following the quick, almost savage movements Faye made as she
paced the hall, finally whirling round to demand bitterly, 'Do I look
like someone who can't control her own life, who has to be treated like
a child? I'm over forty years old, dammit…'

Sage blinked, as stunned to hear Faye swear as she was to
witness her rage.

Sage merely said mildly, ignoring the first part of her
tirade, 'I'm glad you're back, we were worried about you.'

'There you are!' Faye exploded. 'You were worried. Why?
I'm a fully functioning adult, not a child. Would you expect me to say
I'd been worried about you if you came in late?'

'Perhaps if I'd disappeared for a full day without letting
anyone know where I was going,' Sage told her drily, and then added,
before Faye could explode a second time, 'I'm not prying, Faye. What
you do with your life is your own affair, but Cam was upset. This is a
very difficult time for her—her exams coming up, Mother so
ill… I think she feels her whole life has been thrown into
turmoil. Girls of her age expect life to go on in the same way for
ever; they expect the people they love to be around for
ever—and when they realise they might not be…'

'Yes. I know,' Faye agreed. 'I miss your mother
too…'

'I suspect that Camilla's a little bit miffed that you
didn't tell her where you were going. She said something about you and
Mother taking off one Tuesday a month to some WI meeting or other.'

'And you didn't believe her,' Faye challenged. 'Is that
it?'

'It isn't a matter of what I believe, it's what Camilla
believes,' Sage pointed out.

'So what is it you're trying to say—that you
think that your mother and I sneak off once a month to pick up a couple
of men? You would think that, Sage. Well, for your
information—'

'I don't want to know what you do. I don't even care what
you do, Faye,' Sage told her irritably. This meeting with Daniel was
getting to her. She was so on edge, so screwed up inside at the thought
of seeing him, being with him. It was all so ridiculous to keep
remembering now something that happened over fifteen years ago,
something she had little doubt that Daniel himself had completely
forgotten—at least she hoped he had.

'No… You don't care what anyone does, do you?'
Faye threw back at her, her soft features suddenly almost hardening.
'You don't care about anyone or anything, do you, Sage? Not even
yourself. Well, for your information, you may sleep around with every
man who takes your fancy, but I don't… If I want to keep
that part of my life private then perhaps it's because it's necessary
that I do so, not just for my own sake but for Camilla's as well, but
that would never occur to you, would it?
Because you've never, ever put anyone else before
yourself…'

Faye broke off, her eyes suddenly swimming with tears.
Dear God, what was she doing… what was she saying? But she
had been so angry when that man, that interfering, busybodying doctor
had dared to imply that— what? That she was incapable of a
simple task like driving herself home, that she was weak and stupid?
Hadn't he after all only been underlining everything she had been
thinking about herself? Maybe, but she was only human and resented
someone else pointing out her weaknesses as much as the next person.
That was why she had loved David so much. He had never made her feel
stupid or weak. He had never made her confront the evil ghosts which
haunted her. He had never pushed or prodded her into doing anything she
hadn't wanted to do. And yet perhaps he should have done.
No…perhaps
she
should have done. Why
should it have been necessary for someone else to do her thinking for
her? Why couldn't she have seen for herself that her best way to fight
free of the past was to confront it, to face up to it?

It was the diaries that were making her feel like this;
the knowledge she was gaining from them that others had their own
ghosts, their own fears and dreads, that she was not after all alone
with her burden of guilt and hatred.

'I've finished another of the diaries. I've put it up in
your room,' Sage told her, ignoring her outburst. 'I've also arranged
for Daniel Cavanagh to come here tonight. There's something I want to
discuss with him…'

'Daniel Cavanagh… Isn't he the head of the
construction company building our section of the road?' Faye looked
confused. 'Is that wise? I mean…' She shook her head. 'I'm
sorry, Sage. I'm afraid I'm not being much help to you over any of
this. I'd better go and make my peace with Camilla. Where is she?'

'She's gone out. She said something about going to see a
school friend. She asked Jenny to drive her. She did say you wouldn't
mind,' Sage added when she saw Faye frowning.

'Well, no, I suppose not… It's just that she
knows I like to know exactly where she is and with whom. You can't be
too careful these days…'

'She is almost eighteen,' Sage reminded her. 'You can't
keep her wrapped in cotton wool for the rest of her life, Faye.'

She had never seen Faye so temperamental before, she
reflected curiously as her sister-in-law gave her a tight smile and
headed for the stairs. She wondered what had happened to her to provoke
such an outburst, and then put Faye and her potential problems out of
her mind when she heard the sound of another car crunching over the
gravel.

She had purposely asked Jenny to open the door to him when
Daniel did arrive, hoping that such a show of formality would add to
her own power base—which was one of the reasons she had
invited him to come to Cottingdean, instead of meeting him somewhere
more neutral.

She certainly needed every advantage she could snatch, she
admitted as she heard the opening of a car door; Daniel had a
formidable reputation in the City…not just as an astute and
shrewd businessman but also, surprisingly, as a man of honour and very
high moral ethics. That had surprised her, and yet why should it? That
night when he had rejected her, when he had turned his back on her and
made her feel like something that had just crawled out of the gutter,
she had seen that formidable will-power and moral code in action. She
could have sworn that he'd wanted her, had sensed it all the time she
and Scott had known him, had been so sure he would take her…
so sure that if he did so somehow she would be able to lose herself and
her anguish in the fierce heat of the mutual passion she had known they
would generate. What had she wanted? To burn away her hopeless love for
Scott in the fires of Daniel's desire?

The sound of the car door closing brought her abruptly
back to reality. She hurried towards the study door, and yet she was
unable to stop herself pausing briefly in front of the
seventeenth-century giltwood mirror which had been one of her mother's
many auction bargains.

This one had originally hung in the drawing-room of a
house in Ireland and contained the symbolic arms of the noble family
who had originally commissioned it in its frame. It was a beautiful
piece of workmanship, each detail of the fruitwood frame lovingly
carved, but Sage barely glanced at the frame, concentrating instead on
her own perfectly made-up face, wondering what Daniel would see when he
looked at her. Would he transpose on these features she could now
see—the firmly bowed mouth discreetly coloured with soft rose
lipstick—the trembling swollen mouth of that girl who had
stood and cried out his name in mortal anguish and need?

Would he look into the veiled and exquisitely made-up
green eyes and see, not the control and knowledge which coloured them
now, but the need and pain of her nineteen-year-old self? Would he look
at her hair and see not its carefully tamed artful sleekness but the
wild disarray of curls which had tangled round her tear-stained face,
as she hurled her insults at him, driven into a mad, frenzied need to
hurt him the way he had hurt her?

It had been bad enough to live with the knowledge that
Scott was not driven by the same wild hunger to consummate their love
that drove her; she had told herself that Scott was right, that in
saying that he wanted to wait he was saying only how much he loved and
respected her, that in saying that they must establish their
relationship with their parents before becoming physical lovers he was
showing only the concern that made her love him so much… but
when Daniel had rejected her, Daniel, whom she had often and scornfully
witnessed watching her with hot eyes whose message had needed no
translation, when Daniel had removed himself from her and told her
explicitly and brutally that he didn't want her, then she had suffered
in a way she had never suffered before. Then she had endured her first
painful doubt about herself and her sexuality, about her entire psyche
as a female being… If she was not desired and desirable,
then why was she suffering this pulsing, aching need to be part of
another human being, why was she forced to undergo this humiliating
surge of physical awareness, of physical wanting?

What was she, then—a woman without sexuality,
without true femininity, without the ability to arouse and be aroused
in turn?

Outside, their visitor rapped on the ancient knocker.
Swiftly Sage turned away from the mirror and hurried into the study,
quickly checking the room to ensure that the stage was set as she
wished it to be.

Jenny had been in earlier and lit the fire, giving the
room an air of warmth and intimacy which she hoped would deceive Daniel
into relaxing his guard, into making him feel welcome and
wanted…

A silver tray holding a bottle of sherry and some crystal
glasses winked in the firelight. The sherry had come from the small
stock laid down by her great-grandfather, and which had mercifully
escaped the attention of Kit. The glasses were Waterford and antique,
the silver tray merely plated and of no particular material worth at
all, but it had been presented to her mother by the children from the
local junior school, which she had fought to keep open and operational,
donating several very large sums of money both personally and via the
mill to ensure that its facilities were among the most modern in the
country.

This tray had been the children's way of thanking their
benefactress. It had her mother's name engraved on it and the date of
its presentation, and Sage, who had often wondered cynically why her
mother, who loved and needed to have things of beauty and value about
her, seemed to cherish it so assiduously, now felt she knew exactly
why. That knowledge was humbling and painful… like all
knowledge gained through hard work and endeavour.

She heard footsteps in the hall outside…
voices… Jenny's bright and cheerful, Daniel's deeper, muted
and very male.

She felt her stomach muscles tense in protest as Jenny
knocked on the study door, and discovered to her chagrin as it opened
that she was actually curling her toes in her shoes, like a terrified
child.