Читать книгу Marriage Without Love - Пенни Джордан, Penny Jordan - Страница 6

IT was after seven when Briony stepped wearily off the bus at the end of her road. There had been a last-minute panic necessitating recall of an article and she had worked late to help Doug get the crisis sorted out. The adrenalin flow which had helped her through the day had abated, leaving her feeling drained and exhausted. Her feet dragged as she walked up the tree-lined avenue. It had been a perfect spring day, and now as long golden shadows fell across the pavement the last liquid notes of birdsong filtered sweetly through the air.

She had a long way to commute, but she had particularly wanted a house with at least some pretensions towards being rural. She knew North London wasn’t fashionable and people raised their eyebrows when they discovered how far out of town she was, but the house had a long back garden, which was enclosed with hedges and boasted half a dozen wizened apple trees, and in the spring when they were in blossom and the cherry trees flowered along the surburban pavements she could almost convince herself it was as good as the country.

She had bought the house three years ago, a necessity rather than a luxury, and as well as realising her modest investments she had had to take on a seemingly huge mortgage. House prices had soared since the sale of her parents’ old home, especially in London, and she had been desperate when she found this house. Split into two self-contained flats, it was ideal for what she needed and she occupied the lower flat, the upper being let to an Italian couple who were living in England on a temporary basis. They had a baby girl and Briony got on very well with them, especially Gina, who was her own age and very much on her wavelength.

Gina was waiting for her when she opened the front door, and her heart instantly started to pound with fear, her mouth dry with dread.

‘Has.…’

‘Everything is fine,’ Gina soothed her fondly. ‘Never have I known such an anxious mamma! It is because you cannot be with your child as you would wish. This I understand. I came down merely to get his night things, he is tired from playing in the garden.…’

Relief swept over her in a wave and she sagged against the door, her face white with strain. This was the penalty she must pay for being a working mother. Gina watched over Nicky as though he were her own child, she knew that, and yet always at the back of her mind was the consuming fear that something might happen to him through her inability to be with him; that he would need her and she would not be there. She was lucky to have Gina, she knew. The Italian couple had been desperate when they came to her, and she had let them have the flat at a very modest rent, but she had never regretted it, and in return Gina, who did not work, had looked after Nicky. When her own baby had arrived ten months after Nicky’s birth he had been fascinated by the child, and Briony bitterly regretted that he, like her, would never know the pleasure of having brothers and sisters.

They went upstairs together, Gina pushing open the door to her flat and standing aside as a small dark-haired tornado flung himself into Briony’s open arms. As she cradled the soft and infinitely precious body of her son in her arms Briony gave a tiny sigh of relief. He smelled of baby powder and clean skin, his dark, thick hair still damp from his bath, his eyes huge and reproachful as he asked where she had been.

‘I’ve been at work, earning lots of pennies,’ she told him softly.

Nicky knew that his mummy had to earn pennies, but Briony still felt an unbearable pang every time she had to tell him. She had already missed so much of his young life and he was growing up so quickly. Gina was more of a mother to him than she was.

‘He’s had his tea,’ Gina told her with a smile. Briony thanked her without taking her eyes off her son, her expression illuminated with love and pride. The people who worked with her would never have recognised Doug’s cold, withdrawn secretary in this adoring young woman. Tonight as she went over each belovedly familiar feature she found herself scrutinising them more than normal, her heart thumping betrayingly.

‘Have you been good for Gina?’ she asked him.

He nodded solemnly, eyes twinkling, and Briony’s heart contracted on a wave of love. He had wound his way so tenaciously into her heart and life, this child whom she had borne in such pain and despair, without realising that her love for him would far outweigh the circumstances of his birth.

‘Go and get your toys for Mummy,’ Gina instructed him, closing the living room door behind him as he toddled off obediently. Italian parents adored their children and spoiled them lavishly, and yet they were also wise in teaching them good manners and obedience. Briony too was firm about not giving in to the impulse to over-compensate for her absences by too much indulgence, and already Nicky knew what was and was not permissible.

He was an attractive child, with soft dimples and a roguish smile, his dark curly hair making him easily mistakable for Gina’s own child. Briony never made any attempt to hide her unmarried state. She was proud of her son and loved him dearly, but she also wanted him to grow up in truth.

‘What’s wrong?’ she asked Gina anxiously as she closed the door.

‘Nothing really. It was just that while we were in the Park today Nicky started asking about his father. He’s very intelligent, you know, Briony. He sees that Caterina has a mummy and daddy and constantly he asks me what has happened to his daddy.’ She saw the look of anguish in Briony’s eyes and mistaking its cause said gently, ‘Can it really be that his father does not want him? Surely.…’

‘His father doesn’t even know he exists,’ Briony told her harshly, taking a deep breath. ‘Oh, Gina, please don’t ask me about him. Not tonight of all nights. I just couldn’t bear it.…’

‘For Nicky’s sake you must,’ Gina said gently. ‘You cannot fob him off for ever. Soon he will be old enough for play school, and children can be so unkind.…’

‘One-parent families are nothing unusual these days,’ Briony defended, ‘and surely Nicky is better off with me than with two parents who fight continuously, or worse—–’

Watching her compassionately, Gina said softly, ‘He is a sensitive child, and when he asks about his daddy there is such a puzzled, hurt look in his eyes that my heart fails me. Today he asked me if his daddy didn’t want him.’ She spread her hands wide in a gesture of dismay. ‘What could I say? Fortunately I managed to distract his attention, but he is growing all the time. He is two; soon he will be three.… What are you going to tell him?’

‘What can I tell him?’ Briony asked bitterly. ‘He was conceived entirely by accident, and my… affair with his father was long over by the time I discovered I was expecting a child.’ Her lips twisted bitterly. ‘How do you tell a child that his father doesn’t care a row of beans for his existence, which is the truth?’ They heard the door opening and Nicky ran towards them clutching a huge teddy bear and a bag of plastic bricks.

‘Say goodnight to Gina,’ Briony instructed him.

Later, when she was tucking him up in bed, she inspected his features carefully. He showed his fathering, this child born out of what she had thought a night of perfect love and which instead had been an act of ruthless and deliberate expediency. He had nothing of her in him, unless it was his temperament. In looks he was all Kieron; his father in exact miniature from his dark blue eyes to his thick glossy hair.

When she first discovered she was pregnant she had been out of work and depressed. She had fainted twice in one week and put it down to nervous strain until, despite the fact that she had barely been eating, she discovered that her skirt wouldn’t fasten round her waist. She had known the truth then, but refused to accept it, confirmation finally coming in the shabby, impersonal interview room of a pregnancy advice bureau. They had been kind and helpful, offering to arrange for a termination of her pregnancy, despite its advanced state. They had probably considered that she wasn’t capable of bringing up a child, she thought wryly. She had been practically hysterical with all that she had endured from the Press and police, and the information that she was expecting Kieron’s child could have been the final straw which tipped her into insanity.

When it came to the point, though, she could not go through with it. As though bearing her child was some means of punishing herself for being so easily taken in by Kieron, she forced herself to accept it.

When he had been born, after a night of pain and anguish, she had not even wanted to look at him, but the midwife, experienced in the ways and mysteries of birth, had placed him in her arms, and from that moment she had been lost.

God had seen fit to grant her the gift of life, the midwife had said softly, and Briony had held to that thought in the long lonely months which followed.

Since then it had afforded her some slight satisfaction to know that Kieron had been deprived of this child, who must surely be the most perfect being ever created. It hadn’t been easy trying to bring him up single-handed, continually torn by the desire to be with him, gloating over every tiny step forward, and the need to earn sufficient money to safeguard their future.

Until recently he had accepted quite readily the fact that he only had a ‘mummy’, but as Gina had said, he was quick and intelligent, and it would not be long before he was questioning why he did not have a father.

It would not make any difference, she assured herself firmly; she would give him everything that two parents could, and never, never would he be allowed to know how callous had been his conception.

She watched him while he slept, wondering what little-boy dreams he dreamed, her forehead puckered in a faint frown as she contemplated the future.

Briony glanced at her watch and grimaced. Nicky was being unusually fractious this morning, and she wondered if he had caught her own tense mood. He had played naughtily with his breakfast, something he never normally did, his mouth sulky and pouting when she scolded him.

‘Don’t go to work, Mummy,’ he pleaded tearfully. ‘Stay with me!’

‘You know I have to go, Nicky,’ she reminded him gently, ‘but tomorrow’s Friday, and then after that Mummy will be at home with you for two whole days. Perhaps we’ll go somewhere nice, if you’re a good boy for Gina.’

‘Where nice?’ he breathed, tears forgotten. ‘To the Zoo to see the bears?’

‘Maybe. Finish your egg, there’s a good boy.’

His recalcitrance had made her late, and although she ran all the way down the bottom of the avenue, she was just in time to see her bus go sailing past. Groaning, she pressed a hand to her side to stifle the aching stitch. She was going to be late, and there was nothing she could do about it, so she might as well make up her mind to accept the fact. Although she frequently worked late, she hated being late in the morning, but Doug would understand. Not that he knew about Nicky. No one at the office had the slightest inkling that she had a child, and that was the way she wanted it to stay. Employers were wary of young women without husbands and with babies to bring up, and she had always needed her job too much to risk it. Besides, she didn’t want people talking about her behind her back, speculating about the identity of Nicky’s father, and now with Kieron Blake working on the paper she was glad she had kept silent. He hadn’t even asked her why she had changed her name, she thought bitterly—although she had not changed it entirely. Her name had been Elisabeth Briony and all she had done had been to drop her first name and change her surname for her mother’s maiden name. But then no doubt he had no need to ask. He must have followed the details in the papers—and there had been plenty. He must have known the ordéal she had endured; the shock she had sustained on learning that the man she had thought of as her tender, caring lover, ready to protect her from everything, was in fact a hardbitten journalist in search of a story, and ready to do anything to get it.

It was ten past nine when she walked into her office. She removed her jacket with a sigh.

‘So. You’ve arrived, have you?’

She swung round, eyes widening at the silky drawl, her heart jerking as though it were on strings.

‘You’re damn near ten minutes late,’ Kieron rapped out. ‘Is this morning an exception, or am I to prepare myself for your tardy arrival every day?’

He was just trying to goad her, she told herself. After Doug’s praise and recommendation he could hardly just fire her, and so he would have to find some other means of ridding himself of her. She almost laughed aloud at the irony of it. He couldn’t have been very pleased to discover that the one person in the world who knew exactly what kind of man he was would be his new secretary.

‘I’m sorry I’m late,’ she apologised coldly, picking up the post from her desk. ‘I’ll just go through this and then I’ll be right with you.’

He let her get to her chair before he spoke, his voice like a whip as he drawled sarcastically,

‘Hey, lady, just where the hell do you think you’re going with that stuff? Nobody puts me down like that. And I’m perfectly capable of going through my own mail. No doubt Doug relied heavily on you for such assistance, but I don’t need it. Get it?’

She handed him the mail with a cool, composed smile and an expressionless,

‘Yes, Mr Blake. Where is Doug, by the way?’ she enquired. It wasn’t like her boss not to be in the office early.

‘Making his goodbyes, I believe,’ Kieron told her laconically. ‘Today’s his last day.…’

‘Oh, but I thought.…’ The words rose unchecked to her lips, silenced as he perched on the end of her desk and swivelled round to study her.

‘You thought what? That I’d need him to nursemaid me for longer?’ He shook his head decisively. ‘This kitchen only needs one cook—me. Much as I like and respect Doug I don’t need him standing at my elbow overseeing everything I do. And I’m sure he would feel the same in my shoes.’

Briony knew that he would, but it didn’t stop her saying acidly, ‘It didn’t take you very long, did it? First you try to get rid of his secretary and then you want to get rid of him.’

‘Doug said to remind you that he expects you to be with the others at the pub tonight for the celebrations,’ Kieron told her casually. ‘I believe your boy-friend will be there.’

It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him that she didn’t have any boy-friends, and then she realised that he meant Matt.

‘I shan’t be going,’ she said shortly. She hadn’t come dressed for partying, although her slim cream skirt and pretty floral blouse were perfectly suitable for a comradely drink, and neither had she warned Gina that she would be late. She had assumed that Doug would postpone any celebrations until Friday, but she was totally unprepared for the icy disdain in Kieron’s eyes as he said coldly:

‘You take pleasure in spoiling other people’s fun, don’t you, Briony? Briony—what made you chose that name? I can see why you had to get rid of the “Beth”. Far too sweet and simple for such an Amazon as you’ve become. What thoughts run through that cold little brain, I wonder? Can’t you even permit yourself to become human for just as long as it takes to speed Doug cheerfully on his way?’

‘You have no right to talk to me like this!’ She was trembling with mingled fear and anger. It was as though the scales had dropped from her eyes and she was seeing him properly for the first time, not as her childish adoration had painted him. How could she ever have thought of this man as a tender lover, or a gentle protector? He was a predator; a hunter who killed and maimed, an outlaw from society’s rules.

The door opened and Doug walked in, his sharp eyes going from Kieron to herself.

‘How about a cup of coffee, love?’ he suggested to Briony, adding to Kieron, ‘Briony’s a marvel. Until she came I had to make do with the canteen rubbish, but now we have properly made, freshly brewed coffee every morning. Better treatment than you got in the States, I’ll bet.’

‘Over there they have machines—less time-wasting. What happens if Briony is ever off? Do you use the pool, or.…’

Briony stiffened instinctively forcing herself not to look at him. He was trying to discover if there was any other secretary he could replace her with. Doug raised his eyebrows.

‘Well, when Briony’s on holiday I use one of the girls from the pool. It’s not an ideal situation, but we get by. You are coming down for a drink tonight, aren’t you, Briony?’

‘I don’t know… I’m not dressed.…’

‘I wish that was true,’ Doug grinned appreciatively. ‘Of course you’re coming. I’ll go and let you two get better acquainted. Keep the coffee hot,’ he added as he strode out of the room.

‘Got them all going, haven’t you?’ Kieron commented. ‘I never thought you’d turn out to be a seductress.’

She swallowed the insult, glad that she had her back to him.

‘Leave that,’ he instructed sharply, when she went to pick up the coffee percolator. ‘We’ve got work to do.’

She accompanied him into his office, sitting down opposite him and angling her chair deliberately so that her legs were hidden by the desk. She didn’t imagine for a moment that he would want to ogle her, but she wasn’t going to give him the opportunity of suggesting that she might have wanted him to. His eyes were hard as he noted the manoeuvre, and as though in punishment he dictated at a speed far in excess of Doug’s more leisurely style. Briony wasn’t worried. She enjoyed taking shorthand and in other circumstances would have found his speed something of an enjoyable challenge. However, because it was him she concentrated grimly on making the neat outlines, her pencil poised for the next spate, as the ring of the phone interrupted them.

He listened in silence, and then drawled,

‘Offended, my dear Gail? I’m highly flattered. It isn’t every day a beautiful woman invites me out to lunch. One suit you?’

Flushing angrily at being forced to eavesdrop on his personal conversation, Briony gritted her teeth and stared coldly into space, caught off guard when he said evenly:

‘Right, read that last letter back to me, will you? I’ve forgotton where I was.’

Briony was reasonably sure that he was lying. The letter was long and complicated, but she read through it without haste or check, her diction smooth and even. When she had finished she raised her eyes to find Kieron watching her with an exceedingly sardonic expression.

‘It’s almost like having my own personal computer,’ he mocked cruelly. ‘Don’t you ever feel like coming down off your mountain and joining the rest of the human race?’

‘Not as long as it includes you,’ Briony retorted bitterly, paling too late as she saw his expression.

‘So that’s it,’ he said softly, getting up from behind his desk and coming towards her. He was wearing an expensively tailored lightweight suit in dove grey, the narrow trousers moulding his thighs, and her eyes fastened helplessly on his lean hips as he came slowly towards her.

‘Don’t blame it all on me, Briony. You.…’

‘I was a stupid fool,’ she stormed bitterly. ‘And you took full advantage of that fact, didn’t you, Kieron? God, I hate you! If you burned in hell for ever more it wouldn’t be enough to satisfy me!’

‘Is that why you’re insisting on staying here?’ he grated at her. ‘Are you looking for revenge? Is that how your warped little mind works?’

‘I’m staying here because I need a job,’ she told him coldly. ‘And I don’t think the Board would be very impressed with their new editor if I told them why he was so anxious to get rid of me. Rival papers would love it, though, I’m sure. Selling sensation life stories seems to be all the rage these days. I wonder how much my exposé would be worth?’

‘It works both ways,’ he retorted softly. ‘By working for me, you’re putting yourself within my power, and after what you’ve just admitted, doesn’t that thought frighten you?’

‘Not in the least,’ Briony lied bravely. ‘You’ve already done your worst. Anything else could only be an anticlimax.’

He gave her so much work that it was lunchtime before she could ring Gina to warn her that she might be late.

The Italian girl was delighted to hear that she was going out. ‘You took my warning about Nicky to heart, eh?’ she teased. ‘I wish you luck in your search for a papa for him.’

Briony had worked through her lunch-hour and expecting that Kieron would be detained by Gail had not thought to close her office door when she made her call. The result was that he walked in when she was right in the middle of it, and Gina was describing Nicky’s newest trick.

‘Personal call?’ Kieron said sardonically when she had finished. ‘First time I’ve seen a spark of life in you since I got here. Does Matt know about him?’

‘My private affairs are my own,’ Briony retorted, colour scorching her skin as she realised the inference he had drawn from her words. Of course he would think she meant love affairs. She turned her back on him, searching through the files for an article she needed. When she straightened up Kieron was standing right behind her. She could smell the faint tang of his aftershave. His skin was firm and tanned, the blue eyes framed with ridiculously thick dark lashes. Just like Nicky’s. Her heart pounded, and she bent down to close the cupboard drawer, trying to conceal her reaction. Kieron frowned suddenly.

‘You still use the same perfume.’

Anger flooded her at his cruelty.

‘I’m surprised you remembered,’ she said bitterly. ‘But then reporters are trained to remember every small detail, however minor, aren’t they? That’s how you managed to piece together your scoop, wasn’t it? How boring it must have been for you to have to search through all the dross of my confidences for those precious nuggets! But well worth it in the end. As Gail said, the story made you famous overnight. As it did me, although in my case the word was “infamous”. I’m surprised you didn’t tell them all yesterday exactly who I was. Or can it be that you actually felt ashamed of admitting exactly how you got your story?’

‘You weren’t exactly unwilling,’ he reminded her harshly.

‘I wasn’t unwilling to let you make love to me, but I wasn’t given the opportunity to state my views on how you intended to use my confidences, was I? I wish I could think that having me working for you would put you through hell, Kieron, but we both know that you don’t have that much compunction, don’t we?’

He reached for her, but she was ready for him, sliding behind her desk and sitting down. Anger blazed in his eyes, his skin stretched tautly across the bones of his face. He had removed his jacket and his thin silk shirt showed the smoothly muscled wall of his chest with its covering of dark hair. With a sense of shock she realised that he was intensely male; something she had never fully appreciated before. Because he had hidden that side of himself from her? Of course he had never been attracted to her. He was the sort of man who had women coming out of his ears. How he must have laughed at her naïveté!

By five o’clock her desk was clear, but her head was pounding and all she wanted to do was to go home and go to bed. The heat in the city was oppressive, beating up off the pavements and clogging the air to mingle chokingly with the petrol fumes.

When she went down to the cloakroom to freshen up several of the other girls were already there.

‘What a waste!’ a giggly blonde from Fashion moaned to her friend. They were bent over one of the basins and neither of them had seen Briony come in. ‘That gorgeous hunk of male and Ice-Cold Winters! I bet she wouldn’t know what to do with a real man. Look at that wet Matt she goes about with!’

Someone kicked her on the ankle and she turned round complaining, her mouth dropping open when she saw Briony. For a moment Briony had a savage longing to tell her that she knew exactly what to do with a man like Kieron Blake, but she suppressed it, pretending she had heard nothing, which was stupid because the girl had a particularly shrill voice.

‘Ice-Cold Winters.’ Was that what they called her? She grimaced and then shrugged dismissively. What did it matter after all?