Читать книгу Time Fuse - Пенни Джордан, PENNY JORDAN - Страница 5

SELINA glanced tensely at her watch, forcing herself to appear calm and relaxed as she linked her hands together in her lap and sat well back in her chair. It was irrational that now, when she had already expended so much mental anguish on what lay ahead, she should be suffering these second thoughts. The pros and cons had already been weighed and having been weighed had been again, and in the end, there could have been no other decision. Not to accept the opportunity fate had handed her would be tantamount to running away, and she had learned long ago during the traumatic days of her childhood that that was simply to court further pain and humiliation. No, when she had first heard about this vacancy from her present employer she had had to resist a strong compulsion to tell him that she had no desire to apply for it, but would he have understood? Might he not have started to ask questions she could not answer, and anyway, hadn’t there been a stronger compulsion; a need she had thought conquered but which flourished inside her still…a desire to see and know for herself?

She trembled slightly, a tall girl with sleek blonde hair; she took after her mother in looks and her father in build. The hint of sensuality in the arrangement of her features that she had inherited from her mother often caused the freezing disdain with which she des-patched her would-be lovers to come as something of a shock. They couldn’t know that she used that disdain to cloak fear and pain. ‘Baked Alaska’ one wit had called her when she was up at Oxford; all melting sweetness on the outside and cold as ice on the inside.

Better by far to be considered cold than easy game. Her grey eyes hardened slightly, her muscles clenching. She must not think of the past now. But wasn’t now exactly the time she should be thinking of it? Easy game; she could still vividly remember one of her mother’s lovers describing her thus, and she herself had lived too long with the soul-searing agonies of such a label—albeit at second-hand—to be in any doubts about that.

They had not got on well, she and her mother. She was her father’s child, she had once told her and ironically she had known herself unloved because of that. Doubly ironic really when one…

‘Miss Thorn?’ The pleasant voice of the secretary interrupted her thoughts. ‘Sir Gerald is ready for you now. Won’t you please come in?’

His office was everything one would expect from an eminent QC, the very air redolent almost with the smell of respectability and wealth. The palms of her hands were sweating slightly, and she wished more than anything else, at this particular moment in time that she could simply turn tail and run. Fool, fool, she derided herself… What was she doing here?

She was here because she wanted a job as Sir Gerald’s PA she reminded herself as she faced her prospective employer. Tall, with a shock of white hair, the photographs she had seen of him had not done him justice. There were lines on his face that had not been put there merely by time, a warmth in his smile she had not anticipated and which left her unbalanced.

‘Miss Thorn.’ He reached across his desk to shake her hand and Selina had to quell a ridiculous urge to touch him. As though he sensed her hesitancy he looked at her. Forcing a smile she extended her hand. His grip was firm without dominating.

‘Please sit down.’

Breathe deeply, keep calm, she admonished herself doing as he bid. It had been hard-won the elegance and grace with which she now moved. She had been a tall gangly girl, ill at ease with her own body, who had had to force herself to accept that the grooming of the mind alone was not sufficient.

Oxford had done much to change her, but some things could never be lost. She still possessed a residue of antipathy towards the male sex which could sometimes reassert itself, often at life’s most awkward moments, and when it did she told herself that it was a combination of fear and pain. At university she had once been asked by a rejected lover what her hang-up was; why she insisted on remaining a virgin. She could have told him; by then she had learned enough about herself and others to analyse and study herself objectively with cool distance, but knowing herself was easier than implementing a change.

Once long ago she had dreamed of possessing an office like this for herself, of earning praise and recognition for her legal skills, but like all other daydreams it had been destroyed by reality. Foster children did not come from backgrounds wealthy enough to provide the financial backing for a legal training. It had been a hard blow to accept, but she had accepted it, and now she was here applying for a post that at least would bring her into contact with that side of the law she found most stimulating.

Her prospective employer was talking; his initial questions were simple to answer, designed to put her at her ease she suspected, and they also gave her the opportunity to study him. She did so almost dispassionately, forcing herself not to give in to the tide of emotion threatening to surge through her. What had she expected? Instant recognition? Her lips compressed. Instant rejection would have been more likely. She should not have come here; she should have obeyed her first instincts and refused even to apply for the position. Working here could only cause her the utmost anguish. How many years had she spent training and controlling the more emotional side of her nature? And here she was on the point of throwing all that effort away, and for what? She was here, she reminded herself firmly, and it was too late to go back. To drag her thoughts away from the pain she concentrated on the first thing in her line of vision. It was a large family photograph depicting Sir Gerald, his wife, and a collection of other adults and children.

He saw her looking at it and picked it up smiling. ‘My wife gave me that as a Ruby Wedding gift.’

She thought she was going to be sick but somehow she had managed a smile, inwardly berating herself for ever laying herself open to this pain.

‘No doubt if you eventually come to work for me you will meet my family. I normally work from home during the summer recess. I have a place in Dorset.’

She nodded her head, fighting to stay calm. She knew all about Sir Gerald’s Dorsetshire home and his family.

‘So you heard of the post through my old friend Judge Seaton?’ he was saying. ‘Well, you certainly come very highly qualified… Never thought of trying for the bar yourself?’

It was a natural enough question, but it was still one that brought pain, thin colour touching delicate cheekbones as she said quietly, ‘I should have loved nothing more, but there was a question of finance.’

‘Of course…quite…’ There was a moment’s pause and then Sir Gerald was smiling again. ‘We have a very busy set of chambers here, with the bulk of the work being handled by my nephew Piers Gresham—a QC like myself—one of the youngest in the country.’ He said it with pride and she had an irrational surge of dislike against his unknown nephew. He went on to describe the type of work she would be involved in and asked several more questions all of which Selina was able to answer. He had not exaggerated when he said she was highly qualified—almost excessively so for the post she was applying for, but even so she knew she ought to be flattered when he said frankly, ‘Well my dear, I think I’d be a fool not to snap you up straightaway, if you are in agreement?’

For a moment caution warred with emotion. She ought to refuse; it was the only sane thing to do. She had already experienced first hand the anguish that would be a part of her everyday life if she stayed but the old compulsion was too strong to resist and almost as though it was someone else speaking for her, she heard herself accepting.

‘Excellent.’ His smile was genuinely warm. Who looking at him could doubt that he was exactly what he seemed; a strong, compassionate man dedicated to the cause of justice?

‘Marvellous. Now if you could just check through a few personal details? Your parents are dead?’

Her nails bit deeply into her palms but she barely felt the pain.

‘Yes,’ she agreed briefly, ‘a car accident when I was eleven.’

‘And after that you were brought up by foster parents?’

‘I was too old for adoption.’ How coolly she said it, her grey eyes calm and unshadowed. ‘And you have no other family?’

How she hated the compassion thickening his voice. She wanted to strike out at him physically but she curbed the emotion.

‘None at all.’ She wouldn’t allow herself to think of the grandparents who might have done so much to ease the misery of her life, but who had repudiated their only daughter, too ashamed and bitter to give her and her illegitimate child any support. They were simply another link in the long chain of betrayals that began with the man who had fathered her and who had then callously and publicly spurned her mother in a blaze of publicity that had burned scars into Selina’s soul that could never be erased. This man, she thought emotionlessly, watching him; this man who sat opposite her with a photograph of his family placed cosily on his desk; this man who represented the law of the land in its highest state; this man who had promised her foolish, greedy mother everything and who had given her nothing bar a child she did not want. No, that last was not strictly true. Her mother had wanted her initially when she had hoped to use her as her weapon in the war she was waging against her lover’s wife; but it had all backfired on her and in order to get her revenge on her lover she had proclaimed their affair to the press.

Selina couldn’t remember when she first realised how different she was from other children; perhaps it was when she started nursery school and men were always waiting to take her photograph, asking her to smile, but she had been about seven before the nightmare really began, when she began to learn what all the curiosity and muted whispers were about. Sometimes it seemed as though there wasn’t a single person in the world who didn’t know who she was. Her mother had never made any secret of it, she remembered bitterly. In those years her mother was still able to excite press interest. After all it had been the scandal of the year; the successful barrister, who had promised to leave his wife and family for his mistress and who had then reneged on the bargain, leaving said mistress pregnant.

It had been said in the press at the time that her pregnancy had been a deliberate ploy to break up his marriage; her mother would have been capable of that, Selina reflected, but it still took two. Even now she still bore the scars of those early years when it seemed that everyone knew her as Gerald Harvey’s bastard. The illegitimacy in itself was no big deal; there were many other single-parent children at school with her. No, what had caused the bitterness to take seed and root inside her had been the inescapable knowledge that she had been rejected; that her father had chosen his other children over and above her; that even her conception had been no more than another move in a power game. If she hated her father then she despised her mother; loathed the way in those early years she herself had been paraded about as though she were some sort of freak. She could still vividly remember the headlines she had stolen into the local library to read; the sick sense of betrayal that reading them had brought her.

Financially her mother had done extremely well out of her relationship. There had been a generous lump sum payment but, as she had complained to Selina on more than one occasion, it hadn’t been the same as being Gerald’s wife; of enjoying the security and prestige such a role would have brought.

Her father hadn’t been her mother’s only lover; as an ambitious social climber, who had seen an opportunity and taken it, there had been men before him and men after. The man she had died with in the wreck of his car had just been the latest in a long list. Selina had grown up in the knowledge that sex between men and women was a bargaining counter; a weapon that both sides wielded without thought or guilt.

She had been a pawn, used ruthlessly by her mother in her campaign to reinforce her claim on her father. He had promised her mother marriage—that much had been made clear in the press, and then had rescinded that promise. She had been her mother’s last-ditch attempt to sway that decision.

All her life until her mother’s death she had been an object of curiosity and pity. Other children knew her story and repeated it to her with various embellishments; her progress at school had been compared with that of her father’s legitimate children at the same age. Her mother’s death and the consequent muddle when the overworked social worker had mistakenly given her surname as that of her mother’s current lover had brought a welcome release from all the publicity.

By that time she had craved anonymity with such intensity that her foster parents had a long struggle to even converse with her in the initial stages. They had been a kind couple and with them she had found a sort of peace, but all the time she had been tense and wary, waiting for the knowing smile, the mocking words.

They had never come and she had been free to pursue her own life as her own person. Deep inside her had grown an intense need to know this man who had fathered her; a feeling that until she did so the past would continue to trap her. She had had her life all mapped out. She intended to enter the legal arena—to enter it and conquer it, she admitted. None of her father’s legitimate children had followed him into the law and not even to herself was she really prepared to admit that her fierce thirst for success owed its being to a deep-rooted need to show her father and the rest of the world what she could do.

The information that her father was looking for a new PA had been a gift from fate she could not refuse, giving her as it did the opportunity she had craved for since childhood; that of observing first-hand the man who had given her life. Did he ever think of her, she wondered bitterly; when he looked at the photograph of his wife and family, did his mind stray to her? Or did he simply consider that the money he had paid her mother had absolved him from all responsibility?

She knew quite well that it was a common fantasy of illegitimate children to crave their absent father’s approval and attention just as she had done, but now, confronted for the first time with the reality of that father she was surprised at how little emotion she felt. No, she amended mentally, it wasn’t that she didn’t feel, it was simply that as yet she was too frozen and tense to be able to analyse her feelings. He was the same as she had imagined and yet different…a human being with whom she had one of the closest blood ties that existed and yet who did not even know who she was. For one moment she was afraid she might actually break down and cry. So much for the man-friend who had once derided her as an emotional cripple. At the time she had flinched from the words, confirming as they had seemed to do the fear that had haunted her childhood; that her father had rejected her through some fault of her own; some defect in her. Now she knew enough to realise that this was a common feeling in children, but even so some of the guilt and pain still remained.

The job was hers; and from now on she would have the time and the opportunity to study him at close quarters. And when she had done so? She frowned slightly. She had not thought that far ahead. What was she expecting, she derided herself; that somehow coming to know her father would be the answer to all the deficiencies she saw in herself? Would knowing him enable her to cast aside her dread of emotional commitment in order that she could take a lover, for instance? One step at a time she told herself. One step at a time.

‘Just before you leave my dear, there’s someone I should like you to meet.’

For one dreadful moment Selina thought he must mean his wife; that was something she wasn’t ready for—not yet—but she realised almost instantly that that was hardly likely. He reached out and pressed his intercom. ‘Would you ask Mr Gresham if he could spare us a moment please, Sue?’ he instructed his secretary.

‘I’d like you to meet Piers before you leave,’ he told Selina with a smile, ‘you and he will be working quite closely together at times—as well as his own briefs, he does a great deal of work for me.’ He broke off as the door was thrust open, Selina turning automatically to witness the entrance of the man he was talking about. Tall, even taller than her father, he combined an intensely powerful sexual aura with an air of cool hauteur that Selina found instantly intimidating. It was all too easy to imagine his effect on a jury—or on a witness—and Selina shuddered finely without realising she was doing so.

Heavy eyelids lifted to reveal eyes of a startlingly deep shade of blue, which studied and dissected her with a scrutiny as powerfully honed and as icy cold as polished steel. Just the effort of holding that penetrating stare made her muscles ache with tension.

‘Piers, come in and meet my new assistant.’

Sir Gerald put a friendly hand on the younger man’s arm as he went forward to meet him. The family resemblance was slight, but there none the less, although Selina suspected that even in his youth her father could never have possessed the cold demeanour that was so evident in his nephew.

‘Miss Thorn.’ His voice was cool too, cool and deep, and just hearing it brought a rash of goosebumps up under her skin. He obviously knew about her already since he knew her name, and Selina was annoyed to find herself almost reluctant to accept the hand he held out towards her. The touch of his fingers was warm, the sensation of his skin against her own so acute that she badly wanted to pull away. He emanated a raw sexuality that made Selina feel uncomfortable. She had come across it before, but had always shied away from such men fearing them instinctively, although she had learned to disguise her fear as contempt. She did so now, without realising what she was doing. Her eyes and mouth cold, her chin tilted at a defiant angle. The swing of her blonde hair revealed the slender length of her throat, her formal business suit emphasising the slender seductiveness of her body.

‘Have we met somewhere before?’

His question over-balanced her, her eyes unknowingly widening and turning a dark smouldering grey as she was forced to look back at him.

‘No…no I don’t think so.’ They had never met before, and he must know it so why…

Sir Gerald’s laughter interrupted her worried thoughts. ‘Not a very original line, Piers, although I must say I don’t blame you for trying.’

Selina was pretty sure that nothing had been further from Piers Gresham’s mind than making a pass at her. She didn’t normally appeal to men of his type and she had always taken care that she should not do so. It was on the tip of her tongue to suggest that what her cousin saw in her was a family likeness, but to do so would be the utmost folly. That she should consider the risk almost worthwhile simply to see the expression on his face warned her that she was reacting far too much to him.

After a few minutes brief conversation Piers Gresham left them, and once he had gone Selina found it a good deal easier to relax. Before her interview her sole worry had been that her father might somehow recognise her and she had not really thought beyond that. Now she had been made uncomfortably aware of the fact that her emotional response to her father was not going to be her only problem. Would she be able to work with Piers Gresham without allowing her sexual fear of him to surface? Men like Piers Gresham possessed a masculinity they couldn’t resist reinforcing, just as her father hadn’t been able to resist the temptation of her mother. It would have been easier to bear if her mother had been merely a victim in the whole shabby affair rather than a participant, but her mother herself had admitted to her that she had been determined that her lover should marry her; and that he should desert his children and divorce his wife in order to do so.

‘Why not?’ she had demanded of Selina, sensing her distaste. ‘It’s no more than many other men have done.’

Her mother had been a very selfish woman, Selina acknowledged inwardly, attractive enough to use her looks to get what she wanted from life, but on that occasion she had gambled too high and lost, and she had never let Selina forget that had she known her lover would abandon her, his child would never have been conceived. Once that had hurt, but like all the other pains she had learned to bury it; to deny it life, just as her mother would have denied her life.

She had taken the morning off from her job to go for the interview. There was no secret about it. The judge for whom she worked had encouraged her to apply for the job and had even told her about it. Judge Seaton and his wife were the only two real friends she had, Selina acknowledged as she made her way back to his house. Now semi-retired, he was collating his memoirs and Selina had been helping him. He and his wife had been married fifty years and still found pleasure in one another’s company. Tonight she was going out to dinner with them to celebrate the Judge’s birthday. She wasn’t particularly looking forward to it. Susan Seaton was a motherly woman who couldn’t understand why an attractive girl like her husband’s assistant should so consistently shun the male sex, and Selina had long ago lost the habit of confiding in anyone and was, therefore, unable to tell her.

The Seaton’s house was in a quiet Chelsea mews; elegant and comfortable; a true home Selina reflected as the housekeeper let her in.

‘Good, you’re just in time for lunch,’ her employer exclaimed when he saw her. ‘Come and tell us all about it.’

She did so with the quiet self-control that marked her behaviour. Susan Seaton smiled warmly at her, marvelling at her lack of excitement. At Selina’s age she had already been a mother, but she had never possessed this girl’s cool control. Sometimes it worried her. It was almost unnatural for a girl of her age to be so contained. She had rarely heard her laugh or seen her cry, and she had worked for her husband for three years, living almost as closely as a member of the family.

‘I never thought for a moment that Gerald would turn you down,’ the Judge told her. ‘He’ll make use of your mind,’ he warned her; ‘I know he’s talking about retirement, but he’s still a powerhouse of activity; he’s one of our foremost QCs, with young Piers looking likely to follow in his footsteps. Now there’s a man to reckon with; an excellent defence counsel, but positively lethal in prosecution. He seems to possess an intuition that leads him right to a person’s Achilles heel. He’s as close to Sir Gerald as a son—perhaps closer; in fact I’d say after his mother his uncle is the only other person he’s fond enough of to allow him to sway his judgment. Gerald stepped in and took over the role of surrogate father when his own died. His sister Dulcie was widowed very young. Piers will be taking over from his uncle when Gerald finally retires.’

‘Wait until you meet him,’ Susan Seaton enthused, her eyes sparkling. ‘He is quite devastatingly attractive.’

‘I met him today.’ Selina said it quietly, her head bent over her soup plate. Over her head the older couple exchanged glances.

‘You don’t sound very impressed. He’s a very able, almost an inspired barrister.’

‘He struck me as being rather conceited and sexually domineering,’ Selina said coolly, ‘but it hardly matters what I think. After all we’re not likely to come into much contact with one another.’

‘Don’t be so sure,’ the Judge cautioned her. ‘Gerald relies a good deal on Piers, and since he’s training him to take over from him, I suspect you might find you see quite a lot of him.’

The thought was extremely unpalatable. She had disliked the man on sight, Selina admitted; something about him was as abrasive to her personality as being rubbed with sandpaper; something over and above the fact that he belonged to a type of male animal she most disliked. There had been an instant awareness between them that she couldn’t deny, a look in his eyes that cautioned her to tread carefully, causing her to seethe with resentment that it should be so.

TO celebrate his birthday the Judge had booked a table at one of London’s more exclusive restaurants. Selina left her own small flat in plenty of time to reach the Seaton’s house at the appointed time. Her dress was a plain slip of cream silk she had bought in Brown’s sale. High-necked and long-sleeved, she considered it a suitable addition to her wardrobe, without realising that the silk moved with her as she walked, caressing her elegant body with a sensuality that very few men could remain unaware of. She simply saw it as the right sort of dress to wear out to dinner. She liked good clothes and wore them well; choosing them for elegance and wearability rather than sexual appeal, not knowing that the body they clothed was sexual enticement all by itself. Having taught herself to clamp down on any sexual urges she might feel almost from childhood, Selina was blind to them in others. If she ever happened to catch a man looking at her, studying her, she would look back in an icy disdain that normally made him retreat. The first attempt any male escort made to touch her was always the last. Sex was a weapon that could inflict terrible wounds on the innocent as well as the guilty and it was one she herself would never descend to using. She might be her mother’s daughter, but she would never be branded as she had been. She would succeed without using her body; without betraying her principles. She had to.

The restaurant was busy; a sea of unfamiliar faces; the table to which the Seatons and Selina were shown was slightly secluded from the others.

Susan Seaton ordered her food with relish. In many ways Selina almost envied Susan. She was a happy, contented woman who had devoted her life to her husband and family and who had been repaid in turn by their love and protection.

Beyond the tables and diners there was a small dance floor. Music was provided by an immaculately dinner-suited pianist.

‘My, it quite takes me back,’ Susan sighed nostalgically as they waited for their food. ‘Do you remember, Henry, when we used to go to the Savoy? You took me there for our first wedding anniversary.’

‘And you were sick,’ the Judge smiled.

‘And we both thought it must have been something I’d eaten, until we discovered that I was carrying John.’

The Seatons had three children and several grandchildren. At the weekend they would be driving down to their eldest daughter’s for a family celebration. Selina closed her mind against the thought of it. Family occasions were something that belonged to other people. They had no place in her life.

They were halfway through their meal when the Judge put down his knife and fork and said mildly, ‘Good heavens, talk about coincidences. There’s Piers Gresham.’

‘Where?’ His wife craned her head to look. ‘Who’s that with him?’ she asked. ‘Do you recognise her?’

The Judge shook his head. ‘I’ve no idea who she is.’

Selina glanced up from her food and glanced briefly at the other couple—Piers Gresham was seated several tables away facing her. All she could see of his female companion was her back view, but that was enough for Selina to grimace slightly. The other woman was wearing a dress that revealed most of her tanned back; a dark fall of hair brushing her neck. She was dressed in a way designed to catch a man’s eye, and as always Selina felt her muscles tighten at the sight of such open sexuality. It offended her and she shrank from it, unaware that her distaste was mirrored in her face or that she was being observed. Her reactions to other people’s sexuality always distressed Selina; she knew deep down inside herself they were a legacy from what she had endured as a child; from knowing that she was the fruit of a union that had been motivated on one side by sexual greed and on the other by social avarice but knowing the reason for her reactions did not help her to come to terms with them.

Piers Gresham had obviously seen them. When they had finished eating he came across to their table, urbane and charming as he chatted to the Judge and his wife, but his eyes were constantly assessing Selina, his scrutiny of her making her tense and uneasy.

‘You and Selina met this morning, I believe,’ the Judge said turning to draw her into the conversation. ‘Your uncle is gaining a very valuable aide in her.’

‘I’m sure he is. Perhaps you’d care to dance with me, Selina, and we could get to know one another a little better?’

Other couples were already dancing and the Seatons obviously saw nothing untoward in the invitation because they were both smiling expectantly at her. Across the room her eyes slid to the dark-haired girl waiting at the table and a fierce surge of anger swept over her. Who did he think he was? Some sort of irresistible God who had merely to speak to have women worshipping at his feet? It didn’t strike her that her reaction was wildly illogical; she was possessed by some elemental surge of emotion that warned her that this man was dangerous and to be repudiated at all costs. Without stopping to weigh her words, she said coldly, ‘I’d rather not if you don’t mind.’ Her eyes flicked over to the girl waiting for him, and so she missed the glint of cold anger in his eyes, ‘After all, our relationship is going to be professional rather than social, and I prefer to have things plain from the start. It makes for a much less complicated life.’ She looked straight at him as she delivered her cool words, caught off-guard by the depth of anger she saw in his eyes.

‘That was rather over the top wasn’t it?’ her employer remarked when Piers had gone.

Trying not to flush at the faint criticism in his voice Selina shrugged. ‘He only asked me out of politeness. He already had someone to dance with.’

‘Even so, you rejected him extremely pointedly,’ the Judge told her. ‘No man likes being rejected, Selina,’ he told her gently, ‘especially not in public. Be very careful, my dear. He could make an extremely powerful enemy.’

‘Because I refused to dance with him?’ Selina injected a note of acid scorn into her voice. ‘Wouldn’t that be rather small-minded?’

‘He’s a man, my dear,’ the Judge told her wryly, ‘and we males are notoriously vulnerable where our egos are concerned. We weren’t the only ones to hear you refuse him,’ he added gently, ‘and you must admit that as a put down it was decidedly strong.’

Not wanting to admit even to herself that she had been betrayed into hasty speech because of her own response to his sexuality, Selina shrugged slim shoulders. ‘The odd rejection does none of us any harm from time to time.’ She glanced over to where Piers was now dancing with his companion, and added cynically, ‘I doubt he’ll lose any sleep over it. He seems more than happy with the dancing companion he’s got.’

‘Umm, well tread carefully,’ the Judge warned her. ‘He’s not a man I’d like to get on the wrong side of.’

Instinct had already told Selina that and she couldn’t understand why she had been so rude to him. There had been other men before whom she had disliked equally as much and yet she had managed to conceal it from them. Not so with this man. He had recognised her rejection for what it was; she had seen the realisation flare and burn in his eyes and she shivered sensing that there would be some form of retribution…

Whatever it was she could cope with it. She had coped with similar situations before and emerged unscathed. What she had to do now was to concentrate on getting to know her father so that she could at last free herself from the guilts of the past, because until she did they would continue to poison the present and the future.