Книга - Fugitive Wife

Fugitive Wife
Sara Craven


Mills & Boon proudly presents THE SARA CRAVEN COLLECTION. Sara’s powerful and passionate romances have captivated and thrilled readers all over the world for five decades making her an international bestseller.Running away had accomplished nothing!Briony Adair fled to her aunt's Yorkshire cottage as a refuge. Away from the pressures of her father's plans and the unexpected return of her estranged husband, Logan – missing for a year, presumed dead, on a foreign assignment – she hoped to sort out the muddle of her life.But it was more than painful memories she had to face.Logan himself turned up there – different from the man she'd married, as she was changed from the young girl bride. And Logan was determined not to let her escape again!









Fugitive Wife

Sara Craven







www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)


Former journalist SARA CRAVEN published her first novel ‘Garden of Dreams’ for Mills & Boon in 1975. Apart from her writing (naturally!) her passions include reading, bridge, Italian cities, Greek islands, the French language and countryside, and her rescue Jack Russell/cross Button. She has appeared on several TV quiz shows and in 1997 became UK TV Mastermind champion. She lives near her family in Warwickshire – Shakespeare country.




TABLE OF CONTENTS


COVER (#u3af8cf0c-ff8b-5180-832a-4991b8915490)

TITLE PAGE (#uc20eafc0-ea54-5cdd-8ea5-af7e0da69dac)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR (#uf1525290-62ff-5c59-9b26-dabab9d41cf0)

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

ENDPAGE (#litres_trial_promo)

COPYRIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)




CHAPTER ONE (#ud8f25b06-4952-5c56-bc2f-0c87273644de)


THE track was too steep and stony for the car, so she parked it at the bottom, just off the village road, and walked the rest of the way, the heels of her elegant boots sliding a little on the uneven surface.

She was hurrying, almost running, and deliberately she made herself slow down because the last thing she wanted to risk in this isolated spot was a sprained ankle.

She rounded the slight bend in the track, pausing to catch her breath and shift her suitcase to her other hand, and saw the cottage up ahead of her looking small and rather squat. The full force of the wind caught her, penetrating the thickness of her sheepskin coat as easily as if it was a chiffon veil. ‘A lazy wind,’ Aunt Hes had always called it. ‘Too idle to go round, so it goes straight through you instead.’

It was degrees colder here. It had been quite a pleasant late autumn day when she had left London, with a misty sun shining through the bare branches of the trees, and an invigorating nip in the air. But the further north she had driven, the greyer the skies had become. And here they were slate-dark and threatening over Kirkby Fell, and almost close enough to touch, she thought with a shiver.

It would be good to get inside and get warm. That was, if there was any fuel in the cottage. She wished she had been able to contact Mrs Barnes in the village who kept a friendly eye on the unoccupied house for Aunt Hes. She made sure there was fuel, and usually a stock of provisions for when Aunt Hes wanted to use the cottage. Or to lend it for a holiday retreat or a honeymoon …

But she wouldn’t think about that now. That was what she had come here to escape from. To forget about, if she could. Suddenly there had been this desperate need to evade all the pressures, both subtle and overt, which were being exerted.

And so she’d flung a few things into a case and driven away north without telling a soul where she was going. She’d not even been able to contact Aunt Hes and make sure she had no objections to her using the cottage, because this was the time of year that her aunt always visited friends in the South of France. And who could blame her? she thought as she mounted the last few yards of the track. No one in their right mind faced with a choice between November in the South of France or on the side of a North Yorkshire fell would choose the fell.

She had left a note at the London house stating simply that she was going away to think things out, and would everyone please leave her alone, and not try to find her or contact her. Seen in retrospect, it had been a melodramatic thing to do, an overreaction, she supposed, to the events of the past week. But wasn’t she entitled to that, under the circumstances?

And no one would guess that she had come here—of all places. That was what had kept her going when other destinations had beckoned her from the road signs on the motorway. Destinations with no painful associations, where there would be people to talk to and things to see. Not an isolated cottage at the top of a cart track with only sheep for company.

She pushed open the small white gate in the low grey stone wall, and went in. The flower borders on each side of the narrow path were lank and overgrown with weeds which brushed her legs as she moved between them. The gate needed painting, she noticed, and so did the whole of the outside of the cottage. If the weather had been warmer, she might have tackled it; the physical effort of stripping down the woodwork and applying undercoat and gloss might have been just what she needed.

She’d said she’d come away to think, but wasn’t it nearer the truth to say that she’d come to escape from her thoughts?

All that remained now was to find the key to the front door. She mentally crossed her fingers that Mrs Barnes had not removed it for safe-keeping, or Aunt Hes found a new and safer hidey-hole for it. But it was still there, where it had always been left, under the piece of broken paving stone to the right of the front door.

The door yielded under her hand with a slight protesting squeak, and she went in, closing it behind her and leaning against it while her breathing steadied, feeling oddly like a small animal which had reached its refuge just ahead of the hunters.

She closed her eyes and let the silence surround her, and gradually the small sounds of the cottage and its environs began to impinge on her consciousness—the rustling and stirrings of the ancient fabric of the building itself, the whine of the rising wind in the eaves, the harsh calling of rooks from the fields behind, the distant bleat of a sheep, and nearer at hand the slow reassuring beat of the bracket clock which occupied pride of place on the overmantel of the room Aunt Hes always insisted on calling the parlour. The air smelt faintly musty, but it was only the inevitable odour of a house which had been shut up and untenanted. There was no tell-tale smell of damp or dry rot. Mrs Barnes did her job well, she thought. The place was regularly aired and warmed.

Briony opened her eyes and glanced round. There was a small flurry of envelopes just inside the door and she bent and picked them up. Mostly circulars by the look of things, she thought, tossing them negligently on to the hallstand. She left her case at the foot of the narrow stairs and walked into the living room.

Mrs Barnes did her job not just well, but superlatively, she thought appreciatively as her eyes fell on the fire laid ready in the grate, with the filled coal bucket, and the wicker basket full of sweet-smelling logs all to hand. It was almost as if she was expected. But that was silly. The impulse which had driven her here had not permitted any advance warning. No one knew where she was. No one at all.

No one, she repeated soundlessly, and her hands met in front of her, gripping each other with an odd painful intensity so that her rings bit into her flesh. She looked down wincing, and saw the flat gleam of the plain gold band on her left hand. She dragged it over her knuckle and threw it across the room with all her might. She heard the tinkle as it landed and rolled on the flagged floor. But she did not see where it went, and she did not want to see.

‘I’m Briony Trevor,’ she told herself fiercely. ‘Briony Adair never existed. Never. And nothing that’s happened makes the slightest difference to that.’

A tiny lean-to scullery opened off the living room, and she went through to make sure there was water, and that the electricity supply was switched on. Even if it wasn’t, she could manage for one night, she thought. She knew where Aunt Hes kept the candles, and a small camping stove. But everything seemed to be in working order, and she filled the kettle, and set it to boil while she looked about her. There was a jar of instant coffee, which she sniffed dubiously, and some rather dusty-looking tea-bags in a brightly coloured caddy. Beggars could not be choosers, she thought, opting for probably nasty coffee, drunk black. Tomorrow she would go to the shop in the village and see about milk, and other provisions. But she would make do for tonight.

When she’d made her drink, she would light the fire, and see about airing some bedding.

The fire had been laid in the old-fashioned way, with spills of tightly rolled newspaper and kindling. It caught as soon as she put a match to it, and she knelt placing lumps of coal on the blazing edifice and watching the greedy tongues of flame licking round them.

She fetched her mug of coffee and sat on the high-backed wooden rocker close by the hearth to drink it.

She felt tired suddenly and drained as if this last small effort had finally exhausted her resources. She knew she ought to go upstairs to lie down, but it all seemed too much trouble. Presently she would find the bedding she needed. Presently. But for the moment it was enough to sit quietly with her hands clamped round the comforting warmth of the mug and feel the first tentative heat from the fire reaching out to her. She needed very badly to feel warm. There was a chill deep inside her.

But was this really the right place to come to dispel it? The coffee tasted suddenly bitter in her mouth and she set the mug down with a faint grimace. It had seemed a good idea. The ideal place to exorcise all her demons, to lay her ghosts to rest, she had thought. The only place, in fact. But now as darkness came crowding outside the small windows and the shadows gathered about her, she was not so sure any more.

She should get up and draw the curtains, and light the lamps—one on the square table by the window and the other in the book-lined recess beside the fireplace. But there was no hurry for that.

She was no longer a child to be frightened of the dark, she thought wryly. Her fears and hang-ups were all tangible now, and all to do with reality. Shadows could not hurt her, but people could, and had, and still might.

Sighing, she stretched her legs out in front of her. Slim-fitting trousers in grey cord covered her to her ankles, and a cream-coloured lambswool sweater with a high roll collar reached almost to her pointed chin. A broad-faced watch, its bracelet made of fine gold mesh, encircled her wrist. On her right hand a moonstone ring gleamed. Her left hand looked strangely bare without her wedding ring. Logan’s ring.

She touched the mark on her marriage finger which showed where it had rested, her lips twisting slightly. Throwing it away had been a gesture, that was all. It had altered nothing. Legally, she was still Logan’s wife, even though for months she had believed she was Logan’s widow.

She lifted her hands and removed the two tortoiseshell combs which confined her shoulder-length copper hair behind her ears, shaking it loose around her face. She pressed her fingertips against her temples in an effort to relieve the slight tense ache which was beginning to build up there.

She bent forward and added another shovel of coal to the now brightly glowing fire, then leaned back, her eyes closed, trying to shut out the thoughts, the tantalising memories which buzzed and vibrated in her brain.

Logan standing in this very room, the usually cynical lines of his mouth relaxing into unexpected tenderness. His voice husky as he said ‘Hello, wife,’ and his arms reached for her.

At the time, she’d reckoned that to be the happiest moment of her life, happier than the actual wedding ceremony only a few hours before in London, because, then, in the register office, she’d been aware of her father’s absence and of his continuing resentment of her marriage. But here in this room, alone with Logan, nothing else had seemed to matter. Her father’s disapproval had seemed a long way away, and almost immaterial.

As Logan’s arms had closed around her, and her lips had parted eagerly beneath his kiss, it had seemed that they would share this closeness for ever, that nothing or no one could ever separate them.

A mirthless smile curved her mouth. In retrospect, that conviction had a terrible irony.

She didn’t want to look back now, to remember everything that had happened. Tomorrow, she thought, tomorrow when I’m less tired—more able to cope. But even as the thought formulated itself, she knew it was self-deception. So far she had signally failed to manage any aspect of her life. Wasn’t that why she was here? Why she had fled to this little retreat in the wilds of Yorkshire, just to escape from a situation which she could neither control nor understand. She had come, telling herself that she had to think things out. This was the reason for her presence here. She could not, must not allow herself to escape again.

Besides, memories were pressing on her brain, presenting her with images, that she believed she had safely shut away for ever. No, her mind cried out in rebellion. I don’t want to look back. I don’t want the pain of it. In the past year she had made herself a tight safe cocoon where troubling memories could not pursue her. She had thought it was impregnable, but now she recognised that for the illusion it was. Where emotions were concerned, was anyone ever totally invulnerable, she wondered?

She passed a weary hand across her eyes. Was it really only eighteen months ago that she had accompanied her father to her first really adult party since leaving school—the annual presentation of awards within the United Publishing Group in the penthouse suite of their towering City building? The girl who had arrived at the party on Sir Charles Trevor’s arm, in a secret flutter of excitement, seemed to have come from a different world. Not long past eighteen, with three good ‘A’ levels under her belt, and the world her oyster, it had seemed. Or, at least, the world as delineated by her father. It had disappointed her to discover that her dreams of university were to remain dreams for the time being. Sir Charles, it seemed, needed her to act as his hostess, and he had informed her that it would do her no harm to learn how to run the London house, and Branthwaite, his home in Berkshire. Briony had been frankly unenthusiastic at the prospect. For one thing, she could imagine the reaction from Mrs Lambert, their briskly efficient housekeeper, if she attempted to interfere in the clockwork running of either establishment. For another, she had always planned on having a career of some sort, and she told her father so.

Sir Charles had raised his eyebrows. ‘I’ve no objection to you finding yourself a job of sorts in time, Briony,’ he said. ‘But I do hope you’re not intending to turn yourself into one of these strident females, always demanding equal opportunities, and other nonsense. Besides, I did think you might wish to give me some of your time now that your full-time education has been completed. I’ve been very lonely since your mother died, and I was looking forward to your companionship.’

Which was emotional blackmail at the very least, Briony thought gloomily as she murmured reluctant acquiescence. She was neither blind nor stupid, and she was quite aware that her father had consoled himself during the latter years of his widowhood with a succession of attractive ladies, many of whom had been only too willing to act as his hostess. She wondered rather acidly whether the subtle pressures on her father to remarry had proved rather overwhelming of late, and if that was why she was being dragged kicking and screaming into the picture.

But she consoled herself with the thought that the next year or so could be fun. There would be dinners and receptions, and even trips abroad, and a greater contrast to the boarding school life of past years could scarcely be envisaged. Her father had been too busy controlling the publishing empire of which he was chairman to have paid her a great deal of attention up to now.

The dinner which had preceded the awards party had been rather a disappointment to her. She had been introduced to a number of young executives, who had paid her flattering attention, but she was realistic to know that this was what she could expect as the chairman’s daughter, even if she’d had two heads. She was not unaware of her own attractions—her slender figure, the sheen of her coppery hair, and the charm of her wide-set grey-green eyes with their heavy fringing of lashes—and was becoming used to the glances which tended to follow her these days. But at the same time she knew there had to be a happy medium between the overt flattery of the younger men at U.P.G. and the almost paternal deference of the older ones. She guessed that her father’s reputation of being a hard man to cross was responsible for the respectful distance which seemed to be maintained from them for most of the evening.

When the actual moment for the awards came, Briony quite enjoyed handing over the small silver replicas of quill pens, and the accompanying cheques, and uttering a few shy words of congratulation to writers, photographers and artists who had been merely names to her up to now.

She was just beginning to shed some of her inhibitions and enjoy being the centre of the stage, when she became aware of a man watching her across the room. For a moment their eyes met and locked, and Briony was teased by an odd sense of familiarity. But she knew he was not one of those she had met at the dinner.

And in the same moment she realised that the expression in the aquamarine-pale eyes, looking her over from head to foot, was neither paternal nor deferential. It was coolly challenging, even faintly amused, and it told Briony quite clearly and unequivocally that wherever the sex war was waged, this man would expect to emerge as a victor. Nor did she have to wonder how anyone of her age and inexperience, only recently released from the shelter of school, could have known this. It was pure instinct, and she recognised it as such.

But all the same, she turned away hurriedly, aware that embarrassment mingled with indignation was heightening the colour in her face, and was annoyed to find that her mind still retained an image of him, tall and lean, his tawny hair bleached into blond streaks, and his eyes startlingly pale against the deep tan of his face.

All she had to do, of course, was wait until her father, deep in conversation with Hal Mackenzie, the editor of the Courier, the group’s leading and influential daily paper, was free, and then ask the man’s name. But she was reluctant to do this, for reasons she only dimly perceived herself. Something told her that if her father wished her to know this man, then he would have arranged for there to be an introduction earlier in the evening.

In the event, she did not have to wait to be told who he was. When the time came for the prestigious ‘Journalist of the Year’ award to be made, and the name Logan Adair was called, he walked forward. As she picked up the award, Briony discovered crossly that the palms of her hands were damp, but she managed to present a calm exterior as Logan Adair shook hands, first with her father, who was murmuring a few conventional phrases of congratulation, and then turned to her.

She said politely, ‘Well done, Mr Adair,’ in a small, cool voice, and held out his award and envelope. Everyone else had taken their award, thanked her, shaken hands and walked away, usually back to the bar with ill-concealed relief. But not Logan Adair.

He said with elaborate courtesy, ‘On the contrary, thank you, my dear Miss Trevor,’ and his hand reached out to clasp not her fingers as she expected, but her wrist, pulling her forward towards him slightly off balance, so that she looked up in quick alarm and saw the amused glint in his eyes before he deliberately lowered his mouth to hers. The pressure was quick and light, and casual in the extreme, so there was no reason on earth why Briony should jerk back as if she had been branded, only to find the little incident had been witnessed in the loudest silence she had ever heard.

Logan Adair said smilingly, ‘A pleasure to have met you, Miss Trevor,’ and turned away.

Briony’s cheeks were stained with bright colour and her fragile poise was shaken to its core. The chatter round the room had broken out again, but too loudly, and out of the corner of her eye she saw Sir Charles, frowning thunderously, wheel on Hal Mackenzie. She wished with all her heart, in spite of her embarrassment, that her father would treat it as the joke it had undoubtedly been, or else forget it altogether, but she knew this could never happen.

Sir Charles was well known for his ambivalent attitude to the empire he controlled, she thought unhappily. He was proud of his newspapers and magazines and the influence they wielded, yet he had little time for the rank and file journalists and photographers who provided the words and pictures for his millions of readers to pore over. United Publishing had had its fair share of industrial troubles in the past, and Briony was aware that many people in the organisation believed that their chairman’s intransigent attitude towards his workforce was at least partly to blame.

‘What Charles would really like to see would be complete automation in the industry, complete with robots to press the right buttons,’ an old friend had remarked recently at a private dinner party, and though Briony had joined in the laughter which followed, the comment had troubled her slightly. It occurred to her that a newspaper’s quality was largely dictated by the people who wrote for it. People like Logan Adair, whose byline appeared above hard-hitting eye-witness reports from the trouble spots of the globe.

Briony had seen his name often in the Courier, and had looked out for his stories, relishing his laconic style and the dry humour with which he often laced the bitter truth he had to tell. She knew from comments she had heard that he was regarded as one of the feathers in the Courier’s cap, and that there were plenty of rival newspapers who would have paid over the odds to obtain his services, but she was also aware that her father did not share these sentiments.

She heard Hal Mackenzie say placatingly, ‘Sir Charles, isn’t this all rather a storm in a tea-cup?’ and walked away hastily. The presentations were over, fortunately, and someone had opened the french doors at the end of the room which led out on to the rooftop terrace. She was glad to be able to escape there, and glad too to find herself alone. If indeed she was alone. She’d only taken one long steadying breath of the crisp night air when she was aware that she was being watched, and turned quickly. When she saw just who it was standing between her and the door, she stepped back involuntarily, her heart missing a beat.

Logan Adair said acidly, ‘There’s no need to panic, Miss Trevor. Our brief encounter just now didn’t drive me so mad with desire that I’ve rushed out here to ravish you.’

‘Then why precisely did you—rush out here, Mr Adair? To insult me again?’

The pale eyes held a wry gleam as he looked at her. He said, ‘My God, that has the authentic Trevor stamp on it! As a matter of fact, I think I had some vague idea of making amends, but I’m sure your father’s daughter would regard that as a sign of weakness, so I think I’ll return to the more congenial atmosphere at the bar.’

He was already turning away as she said, ‘I’m sorry if I overreacted. You—startled me, that’s all.’

‘And not for the first time this evening.’ He shook his head slightly. ‘I always understood that sweet sixteen was the limit for never having been kissed. You’re two years out of date.’

‘How do you know how old I am?’ she demanded.

‘Elementary, my sweet. The Courier too has its gossip column, and your eighteenth birthday was featured with photographs—remember? “The lovely Briony Trevor comes of age” it said, rather predictably. Claridges, wasn’t it? My invitation must have been mislaid somewhere.’

She tried to match his own light tone. ‘You mean you would have accepted one?’

‘Probably not,’ he said drily. ‘But I think I’d make a point of being around the day you really come of age.’

There was a sudden stillness between them, a tension that was almost tangible. He hadn’t really retreated at all, Briony realised. He was still firmly entrenched between her and the door that led back to the party and safety. She felt herself becoming flustered and knew it was important to conceal the fact.

She said rather hurriedly, ‘Why did you do it? Kiss me, I mean?’

‘Call it an irresistible urge.’

‘Do you often have them?’

‘Not as often as I seem to be having them this evening,’ he said mockingly, and grinned at her. ‘I must admit the original urge was more to test the depth of that immaculate boarding school poise rather than to arouse wanton desires in your undoubtedly virginal breast. I also wanted to annoy your father.’

‘Well, you’ve succeeded in that,’ she said coldly, oddly disappointed that he apparently had seen her as a schoolgirl to be teased.

‘So I noticed. I think poor old Mac is being ordered to carpet me first thing on Monday morning—or fire me at the earliest opportunity. Probably both. And if your father realised I was alone with you now, he wouldn’t even wait for Monday morning.’

‘I think you’re exaggerating,’ she said. ‘You don’t fire the Journalist of the Year simply because he annoys you at a party.’

‘You might do,’ he said. ‘If you were Sir Charles Trevor, and if the journalist in question had been a thorn in your flesh for some considerable time.’ His lips curled slightly. ‘And as it looks as if I’m going to be hanged anyway, it may as well be for a sheep as a lamb …’

He took an unhurried step forward and his arms reached for her, drawing her effortlessly against him. ‘You should have been kissed before, Briony,’ he said huskily, and then his mouth came down on hers.

His lips were warm and seeking and very enticing. Her arms slid up around his neck, almost of their own volition, holding him closer still as the kiss deepened from the gently exploratory to the frankly demanding. In the end, it was Logan who pulled away, his breathing a little ragged, his eyes narrowing speculatively as he looked down at her.

‘I don’t know what you have in mind for the remainder of the evening,’ he said with a touch of grimness. ‘But I sure as hell know it won’t be what I’m thinking of right now, so I think you’d better return to the safety of your father’s side, Miss Trevor. Believe me, it will be better for both of us.’

‘Scared, Mr Adair?’ Briony’s heart was pounding suffocatingly as she looked up at him through her lashes. She was being deliberately provocative and she knew it, enjoying the first heady taste of a woman’s power over the man who finds her desirable.

‘Hardly, Miss Trevor,’ he drawled. ‘But I guarantee you would be, if I decided to continue this romantic moment to its obvious conclusion. Don’t play with fire, darling, because it’s a very good way of ending up scorched, and I imagine Daddy would prefer to hand you over to the bridegroom of his choice not even slightly singed.’

She felt destroyed by his cynicism. She said angrily, ‘You’re not irresistible, you know. And I’ll choose my own husband!’

‘Brave words.’ He smiled faintly. ‘But you’ll need more than that to stand up against your father. Believe me, I know.’

She was just going to ask him how he knew—to demand the information if necessary, when a woman’s voice said impatiently, ‘Logan, so this is where you’ve got to!’

Briony recognised her instantly. It was Karen Wellesley, the Courier’s women’s editor, a slim shapely blonde in her late twenties, with one broken marriage already behind her. Karen moved forward to Logan’s side, sliding an openly possessive hand through his arm.

‘Good God,’ she remarked rather blankly as her exotic-ally made-up eyes fell on Briony. ‘I do hope I’m not interrupting anything.’

‘Nothing at all,’ Logan assured her coolly. ‘Miss Trevor and I were just having an interesting discussion on the nature of choice, but we’d reached stalemate.’

‘That’s all right, then.’ Karen smiled blindingly up at him. ‘The party’s beginning to break up, and I thought you might like to take me somewhere to celebrate your award.’

He said lightly, ‘I’d be more than delighted, my love, if Miss Trevor will excuse us.’

Briony said, ‘Of course.’ She gave them both a taut little smile. ‘If the party’s breaking up, then my father will be ready to leave.’

She walked past them, her chin in the air, and made for the lighted doorway. She was thankful to see her father absorbed in conversation with some of the members of the Board, his bad humour apparently forgotten for the moment.

‘Hello, sweetheart.’ His glance smilingly embraced her as she joined him. ‘Where have you been?’

‘I—I went out to get some air,’ she said. ‘I think I have a headache starting. Do you think we could leave soon?’

He was all concern, immediately getting someone to ring down and have his car brought round to the main entrance of the building, fussing protectively as one of the maids hired for the evening went to fetch Briony’s wrap. They were standing waiting for the lift to come up, surrounded by a small group of her father’s colleagues from the upper echelons of management, when Logan came out of the penthouse suite into the corridor, with Karen moulded so closely to his side that a casual spectator might have assumed she was welded there. And Briony discovered to her acute vexation that she was far from being a casual observer.

She transferred her attention almost painfully to the row of lights which indicated the floor that the lift had reached, and saw with relief that it was almost at the top.

She heard Logan say, ‘Come on, love. We’ll walk down two floors. There’s something I want to fetch from my desk.’

She felt them move away. She wouldn’t let herself turn and look, because she knew it would cause her pain.

As the lift descended Sir Charles said abruptly, ‘You behaved very well this evening, Briony. I was pleased with you.’ His brow darkened. ‘I’m sorry that Adair fellow couldn’t behave himself.’

Briony said with difficulty, ‘It—it really doesn’t matter, Daddy. It wasn’t important.’

Her father snorted, but made no further comment, to her relief. In the car the inevitable briefcase was produced, and he became immersed in his papers while Briony sat quietly, a prey to her thoughts.

There had been a lot of first times that evening, she told herself. Her first really adult party, her first kiss, and now the realisation that one’s first awakening to the demands that passion might impose was not necessarily a happy one, because where passion went, jealousy and loneliness trod on his heels.

And lying in bed that night, Briony thought of Logan and Karen together, and was both jealous and lonely.

Briony roused herself with a start, becoming aware of her surroundings again, dragging herself back half-unwillingly to the present.

Jealousy, loneliness and pain, she thought unhappily, as she knelt to tend the fire which had burned low during her reverie. Those ugly words seemed to encompass the whole miserable history of her brief marriage. Why hadn’t she realised that first night what would happen, and held aloof? But she knew the answer to that—because she was already in the thrall of an attraction which she was not experienced enough to resist. And besides the undoubted glamour of Logan Adair’s personality, there had also been the beguiling prospect of living dangerously, of rebelling against her father’s plans and prejudices. It was a situation fraught with pitfalls, but quite irresistible to the child she had been.

If her marriage to Logan had taught her nothing else, she thought detachedly, it had taught her to put away childish things.

But, if this was true, why had she run away? That was the act of a child, not the woman she believed she had become.

It had been the shattering shock of Logan’s return which had forced her into flight, she thought. For months she had lived with the knowledge that he was dead—executed in the Middle Eastern oil state of Azabia where he had been covering a revolutionary coup by the new government. ‘A spy for the Western powers’, the brief communiqué had stated. No further details had been given, and his body had not been returned. The Embassy could do nothing because they were themselves enduring a state of siege for some weeks following the coup, and were later evacuated.

But the report of Logan’s death had seemed more like an epilogue than the finale to the tragic farce that had been their marriage. The news had shattered her, yet their relationship had finished long before Logan ever left for Azabia. Over, she thought, her lips twisting painfully, almost before it had begun, in disillusionment on her side and contempt on his.

But even if things had been different, could such an ill-matched marriage ever have stood a chance? she wondered sadly.

Even on the first evening they had met, she had been aware of the gulf which yawned between them. Logan at thirty-four was a man of the world, cynical, knowledgeable and experienced. She had been a naïve schoolgirl, looking for a hero to Worship. Only Logan had no wish to be cast in the heroic mould. He’d made that clear from the beginning, but she wouldn’t listen. She’d been deaf to every hint, every warning except the clamouring of her own instincts, and they had played her false.

She had found it difficult to sleep that night after the party—the first of many sleepless nights. And she was being a fool, she told herself, as she viewed the shadows that sleeplessness had left under her eyes. So she had been kissed. So what? A lot of girls her age were already married, and mothers, not necessarily in that order. Just because she had spent the last few years at a school where even the most casual relationships with the opposite sex were frowned on it didn’t mean she had to make a big emotional deal out of one kiss.

She found herself wondering if she would have been doing all this heart-searching if she had been kissed by one of the young executives who had been discreetly clustering round prior to the awards presentation.

She sighed as she picked up a brush and began rather listlessly to stroke it down the length of her dark copper hair. The only way she could find out, it seemed, would be to allow herself to be taken out by one of U.P.G.’s bright young men and kissed so that she could compare notes. It was not a prospect that held any appeal for her at all.

What she really wanted, she thought quite calmly, was for Logan to kiss her again. She leaned forward, peering at herself intently in the dressing-table mirror, touching her fingers to the softness of her lips, and wondering why a girl’s mouth should be so vulnerable when a man’s was hard and bruising. She began to wish she had emulated many of her contemporaries at school, and had secret romances concealed at peril of expulsion from the staff. At least now, she would not feel so totally confused and at a loss. She knew all about her body’s biological processes, but very little about its emotional needs, which, she had begun to suspect, were far more complex.

She was quiet at breakfast, causing her father to enquire anxiously whether her headache was still persisting.

‘No, I’m fine,’ she assured him, pushing aside her boiled egg, untasted. ‘Daddy, I’ve been thinking. It’s time I started work—got myself a job.’

Sir Charles touched his table napkin to his lips and laid it to one side.

He said with a hint of impatience, ‘My dear Briony, I thought we agreed that you should spend this year at least working for me—learning how to run this house, and how to act as my hostess.’

‘That’s hardly a fulltime occupation,’ she protested. ‘And I have to find something to do.’ She picked up the silver pot and added more coffee to her cup. She said too casually, ‘My English marks were always good. I was wondering if I couldn’t become a journalist.’

She stole a swift glance at her father and saw his brows had drawn together in a thunderous frown.

‘You can’t be serious,’ he said at last.

‘Why not?’

‘If you need to be enlightened on the point, then I will do so. A newspaper office is no place for any woman, and particularly not for my daughter.’

‘But lots of women work on newspapers,’ she said. ‘Many of them work on your newspapers.’

‘Not at my wish,’ he said coldly. ‘But in these days of sex equality, it’s impossible to exercise any proper discrimination.’

‘Oh, Daddy!’ Briony suddenly didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. ‘You really are appallingly prejudiced!’

‘Am I? Perhaps so, but I stand by every word I’ve said. Newspaper reporters are hard—the nature of the job they do makes them so, and whereas a degree of toughness and cynicism is acceptable and excusable in a man, it cannot be so in a girl.’ He folded his newspaper and rose to his feet. ‘I would not wish to see you losing your essential sensitivity, my dear, becoming coarse and uncaring in your attitude. I …’

‘Daddy,’ Briony cut in impatiently, ‘I can’t believe what I’m hearing! You’ve been in the newspaper business all your life, yet you give the impression that you hate it.’

‘Sometimes I do,’ her father said quietly. ‘Particularly I hate what it does to people. I’d hate what it might do to you.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘I must be going now. I have a full day ahead of me.’

And I have an empty one, she thought soberly, as the door closed behind him. She had not been altogether serious in her suggestion that she should become a journalist. It had been more of a passing thought, than a burning ambition, but the idea seemed to gain in attraction as she considered it. Besides, it was time she began to think for herself and plan her life. Many girls whose examination results had not nearly been as good as hers were starting at university, and in some ways she wished she had insisted on going too, but Sir Charles had been so emphatic that he wanted her at home, that it had seemed ungracious to persist. And at that time, the prospect of several more years in academic pursuits had not seemed very alluring.

But her father surely couldn’t expect her to spend all her time sitting round the house twiddling her thumbs. He knew perfectly well that all the real work was done by Mrs Lambert, with the assistance of a daily help, and that Briony’s place in the scheme of things was a supernumary one. Or did he think she was going to get married almost at once?

Unwillingly she found herself recalling what Logan Adair had said about her choice of a husband, and a sudden image rose in her mind of herself, white-gowned and bridal-veiled, walking up an aisle of a church to where a faceless man awaited her by the altar, waited for her to be handed over to him by her father—untouched by human hand or by life itself.

She felt an hysterical giggle rising in her throat at the thought. Could it be possible to allow oneself to be bored into matrimony—to exchange the dullness of one safe existence for another without even being tempted to taste the danger and adventure of real life?

She pushed her chair back abruptly and stood up. University would have been her first encounter with an unsheltered world, and she had been baulked of that. She could not afford to let another opportunity pass her by.

She would go round to the U.P.G. building and ask Hal Mackenzie of the Courier for a job. He had been very pleasant when she had met him the previous evening, she tried to bolster her confidence, and she had all the requisite qualifications on paper.

Besides, she thought not too hopefully, if she was successful in obtaining a job, however junior, on the most serious and influential paper in the group, perhaps her father would become resigned or even sympathetic to her aspirations. At least she would make him see she was not merely a cipher with no mind of her own. She had nothing to lose by trying.

But she was already on her way to the U.P.G. offices when the disturbing thought struck her that she might have a great deal to lose. That by deliberately seeking to place herself in close proximity to Logan Adair, she could well end up by losing her heart.

‘And I did,’ Briony thought in anguish, staring sightlessly into the fire. ‘Oh, God, I did!’

And her tears, slow and heavy, tasted salt upon her trembling mouth.




CHAPTER TWO (#ud8f25b06-4952-5c56-bc2f-0c87273644de)


SHE cried for some time, sitting hunched in her high-backed chair, her hands pressed to her face. She was crying primarily, she knew, because she was tired and emotionally confused, but some of her tears were for the hopeful, vulnerable child who had thought all she needed to do was stretch out her hand for what she wanted.

She could even smile at the innocent arrogance which had taken her straight to the editor of one of Fleet Street’s leading dailies to ask for a job.

Looking back, she had to admit that Hal Mackenzie had let her down lightly. He had listened quite seriously to her stumbling exposition of why she thought a career in journalism would suit her, and had even made a few notes on the pad in front of him as she talked. He had asked courteously what her shorthand speed was, and had made no comment when she confessed she had never done any. He had lifted a number of closely printed sheets from his in-tray and handed them to her, asking her to go into his secretary’s office next door and produce a news-story from the handout, no more than six paragraphs long. Briony’s heart sank as she sat before the gleaming electric typewriter and read the mass of words and statistics the handout contained. She was miserably conscious as she handed her finished story to Hal Mackenzie that it would fall far short of the standard required, and saw his brows rise slightly as he read it through.

He put it down on his desk, removed the heavy hornrimmed glasses he wore and wiped them carefully on a spotless white handkerchief while an unnerving silence lengthened.

He said at last, ‘Miss Trevor, I’ve a friend in the Midlands who runs a small group of weekly papers. It’s a good training ground, and if I recommended you to him he would give you a chance.’

Briony said, ‘But I thought …’ and paused.

Hal Mackenzie said drily, ‘You hoped your relationship with the Chairman would open doors for you at U.P.G. Well, I’m afraid not, even if you’d been incredibly talented, which you’re not. But you could probably learn to be reasonably competent in time, with a sound provincial training behind you. Well, shall I write to my friend on your behalf?’ He waited, watching as the embarrassed flush deepened in her cheeks, then sighed. ‘Miss Trevor, I’m old enough to be your father, so may I give you some sound advice? Don’t read too much into a few moonlight kisses.’

Briony said lamely, ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘No?’ His brows rose. ‘I saw Logan follow you, you know. Fortunately your father didn’t. He’d already made his views on what had happened earlier quite clear.’

‘Mr Mackenzie,’ Briony made a belated grab for the remnants of her poise, ‘it really isn’t what you think …’

‘Isn’t it?’ His tone was sceptical. ‘You’re a very lovely girl, Miss Trevor. Believe me, I’m not trying to censure either Logan or yourself. Good God, if I was twenty years younger, I’d probably have tried to beat him to it, no matter who or what your father was. Does he know you’ve come here to ask for a job, incidentally?’

Briony bit her lip. ‘We’ve—discussed it, naturally …’

‘In other words, no.’ Mackenzie sighed again. ‘It won’t do, Miss Trevor. I can’t imagine Sir Charles tamely accepting a life in journalism for you. I shall speak frankly to you. He’s a good chairman, but his heart is not in newspapers, the way your grandfather’s was. I often think your father would have been just as happy—happier even—making cars, or sewing machines. Something that couldn’t talk back. Sometimes he acts as if journalism was a dirty word.’ He gave her a wry look. ‘And even if he didn’t, I wouldn’t consider passing over some of the good people who apply to me for work in order to give a start to an untrained girl with no particular flair. As it is, I’m afraid your father’s known views would have to weigh with me—plus my own misgivings about your possible motivation.’

‘I hardly think that’s any of your business.’ She felt hot with humiliation.

‘That’s where you’re wrong.’ He gave her a shrewd look. ‘I like my newspaper to operate efficiently, with my staff giving me their best efforts. That’s why I don’t encourage—personal situations, shall we say? They tend to get in the way in office hours. Sometimes, of course, relationships become established, and I have to accept them. All my staff are adults, after all.’

Briony said coolly, ‘If you’re trying to bestow a paternal warning that Logan Adair has a—relationship with Miss Wellesley, then please don’t bother. I already know. I’m sorry to have taken up so much of your time. And there’s no need to write to your friend. I’m sure they need someone with flair—even in the provinces.’

He rose, as she did. ‘You make me sound an insensitive brute, Miss Trevor, and I’m sorry. But it wouldn’t work, believe me—oh, for all sorts of reasons. It may seem a glamorous life from the outside, but it’s hard work and pain with very little room for idealism, whatever pious platitudes we editors may utter from time to time. I think you’re still young enough to have ideals, so why not find yourself a star to hitch your wagon to? And please forgive me for having spoken so frankly on matters which were—not my concern.’

There were tears stinging Briony’s eyes as she hurried across the outer office and out into the corridor, ignoring the embarrassed secretary. She paused for a moment to snatch a pair of dark glasses from her handbag and cram them on to her nose to hide the most visible signs of her discomfiture. There were people waiting at the lift, so she took the stairs down to the ground floor. There was a women’s cloakroom there, and she slipped inside for a few moments, to effect a few repairs to her make-up. When she was sure she was in complete control once more, she walked out into the reception area and towards the massive glass doors which guarded the main entrance to the building.

And Logan Adair crossed the reception area just in front of her and went out into the street, pausing to hold open the doors for a group of women who were entering.

Briony stood stock still for a minute, hardly able to believe her eyes. To see him so suddenly, and unexpectedly, seemed like a sign, a good omen. If she’d taken the lift, if she hadn’t waited to fix her make-up, then she would have missed him. She hurried to the door and out on to the pavement. He was just ahead of her waiting to cross the road, flicking the folded newspaper he carried against his leg in slight impatience as he watched the stream of traffic. There was no reason in the world why she shouldn’t approach him, say something light and laughing about coincidences, and it being a small world, but she couldn’t do it, so she held back slightly, and then followed him as he crossed the road. She’d no idea, of course, where he was going. He might even be working on a story, but she didn’t think so. After all, he was in the foreign news department, not the City desk. Far more likely, she thought, glancing at her watch, that he was taking an early lunch. He did not seem to be in any particular hurry, strolling along in the pale sunshine, and Briony had little difficulty in keeping him in sight. Meanwhile a couple of disquieting thoughts occurred to her. What would she do if he turned and saw her skulking after him, and—which was infinitely worse—what if he was going to keep some lunchtime appointment with Karen Wellesley?

Her heart sank, but her spirits revived miraculously a moment later when Logan turned quite casually into the entrance of a large street-corner pub. After only a moment’s hesitation she followed him. After the brightness of the street, the interior seemed dim. Although it was still relatively early, many of the tables and velvet-covered benches along the walls were already occupied, and an appetisingly savoury smell hung in the air. Briony took a deep breath, then walked up to the bar.

Logan was just turning away, drink in hand, as she reached it. He saw her at once, and recognised her immediately in spite of the dark glasses, and his brows rose with amazed incredulity.

‘Slumming, Miss Trevor?’

‘It hardly looks like a slum to me, Mr Adair.’ Her voice sounded cool and composed, and she even managed a smile to match.

‘But hardly your usual stamping ground, I would have thought.’ He smiled too, but the cool eyes held a puzzled, almost reflective expression as he studied her. ‘Will you let me buy you a drink?’

‘Thank you.’ She hastily suppressed a feeling of glee. ‘You—you’re not expecting anyone?’

‘No one,’ he said, a touch drily. ‘The house wine is good here, and so is the food—unless you’re going on somewhere for lunch.’ His eyes wandered over the simple chic of the cream wool suit, and the dark green blouse she wore beneath it, all designed to convince Hal Mackenzie of her mature efficiency.

‘I’d heard the food was marvellous,’ she fibbed hastily. ‘That’s why I thought I’d try it.’

‘How word does get around!’ He did not bother to disguise his scepticism. ‘But it isn’t patronised much at Board room level. They have their own dining room, I believe.’ He handed her a menu. ‘I can recommend the shepherd’s pie.’

‘That will be fine.’ She would have sampled boiled Wellington boots on his recommendation, she thought dazedly. Logan gave the order to the barmaid, then ushered her to a couple of vacant seats on one of the benches under a long window. The sun poured through the glass, and she was glad to unbutton her jacket and slip it from her shoulders, arching her body slightly. As she did so, Logan’s eyes flickered momentarily over the rounded outline of her breasts, revealed through the fragile silky texture of her blouse.

‘Allow me.’ He helped her with the jacket, and for a second his hand rested on her shoulder and she felt its warmth on her flesh as if she had been naked. She stole a glance at him under her lashes, and saw that his face looked rather grim as he put her glass of white wine in front of her. She had to stifle the feeling of excited triumph that was beginning to build up inside her. The sophisticated Mr Adair was as aware of her, as she was of him, she told herself in delirious unbelief. Almost imperceptibly she edged nearer to him on the bench.

‘Do you smoke?’ He produced a packet of Gauloises and a lighter from the pocket of his brown cord jacket and held them out to her. She shook her head silently.

‘Good girl.’ He sounded lazily amused. ‘All the virtues and none of the vices, which is just as it should be at eighteen. Do you object if I smoke?’

‘Not at all.’ Suddenly tongue-tied, she picked up her wine-glass and sipped, enjoying the cool fragrance of the wine in her dry mouth. She searched around nervously for something to say. ‘Did—did you enjoy the awards party.’

‘Parts of it—very much.’ The amusement was open now, and she felt herself blush. ‘But the awards themselves are pretty meaningless.’

‘Why do you say that?’

‘I don’t need an ornament for my mantelpiece,’ he said. ‘I’m rarely at the flat long enough at a stretch to appreciate the fact that I have a mantelpiece anyway. And while the money is welcome, it’s not exactly essential. U.P.G. are quite generous in the matter of salaries, whatever your father’s personal feelings about his staff. I suspect that many awards presentations do more for the self-esteem of the donors than the recipients.’

‘But doesn’t it mean anything to you to be Journalist of the Year?’ she persisted.

He shrugged slightly. ‘Most of these titles are meaningless,’ he said. ‘It pleases me far more to know that Mac appreciates me and likes my work. He’s a good bloke to work for.’

‘Unfortunately I’ll never be in a position to judge the truth of that statement.’ Briony stared down at the polished surface of their table.

‘Meaning?’

‘Meaning I asked Mr Mackenzie for a job, and he turned me down flat—not half an hour ago, as a matter of fact.’

‘You wanted to work on the Courier?’ Logan set down his glass so sharply that some of the liquid splashed out of it.

‘Is it so surprising?’ she enquired defensively.

‘Amazing would be a better word.’ He gave her a long speculative look. ‘Now what could have put such an unlikely idea into your decorative head, Miss Trevor?’

‘Kindly don’t patronise me,’ she said unevenly. ‘And don’t reduce me to the level of another mantelpiece ornament either.’

‘Is that what I was doing?’ He smiled drily. ‘I can assure you it’s a very different item of furniture which suggests itself when I look at you.’

‘Oh!’ A faint flush rose in her cheeks as she absorbed the implication of what he had said, and she hated herself for blushing like a fool at his teasing. She said hastily, ‘Nevertheless I did apply for a job on the Courier, but Mr Mackenzie unfortunately seemed to share your incredulity.’

Logan said coolly, ‘He also possesses a well-developed sense of self-preservation—an excellent asset for anyone hoping to make progress on one of your father’s newspapers. Apart from your youth, and your total inexperience, I imagine that went a long way towards your rejection by him.’

‘I really don’t see what my father has to do with it,’ Briony said, nettled.

‘Oh, come on, love.’ His eyebrows rose. ‘You’re surely not trying to make me believe you’re that naive? Your father tends to shed his newspaper personnel like autumn leaves, and you know it, or you should do. Besides, if Mac had given you a job, he’d probably have had trouble with the union to face, as well as your father. The Courier isn’t a training school for beginners.’

She said in a stifled tone, ‘Well, he didn’t give me a job, so there’s very little point in discussing it.’

‘Yet it still rankles.’ He shot her a look. ‘Was it this job that was so important to you, or any job?’

‘I wanted to work—to be of some use.’ She shrugged. ‘I thought journalism would suit me, that’s all.’

He gave her an amused glance. ‘And to start at the top would suit you even better? Nice try, sweetheart. But if you really wanted a job, why didn’t you apply to Vic Hargreaves in Personnel? There are usually vacancies of sorts somewhere in the group.’

‘I didn’t think of it,’ she admitted. ‘You see, I’d met Mr Mackenzie, and he seemed kind, so I thought I’d take a chance …’ Her voice tailed off a little as she saw he was laughing quite openly now. ‘What have I said?’

‘Your reference to Mac’s apparent kindness. I doubt if it’s the image he has of himself. Anyway, here comes the food. I hope you’re hungry.’

At that particular moment, Briony felt as if she could not have forced a morsel past the tightness in her throat, but it was odd when the steaming plate was placed in front of her, how her appetite suddenly returned. The shepherd’s pie was deliciously savoury, flanked by lavish spoonfuls of carrots and peas, and she finished every forkful with real appreciation.

‘Would you like something to follow?’ asked Logan.

‘I couldn’t eat another thing.’ She leaned back with a little sigh of satisfaction. ‘Some coffee, maybe, that’s all. I don’t want to get fat.’

‘I don’t think there’s much danger of that.’ His cool gaze wandered over her, lingering deliberately on her slender waist and the flatness of her stomach. ‘A few pounds wouldn’t hurt you.’

She laughed, finishing off the wine left in her glass. ‘This must be my day for being put down! I hoped you’d say I was perfect as I was.’

‘But perfection doesn’t appeal to me,’ he said. ‘A few failings add humanity.’ He signalled to the waitress and ordered the coffee, while Briony sat beside him in silence, her thoughts whirling. Once the coffee was drunk, then this all too brief lunch would be over, and how was she ever going to see him again? She couldn’t hang about outside the U.P.G. offices every day on the offchance of meeting him. And this meal hadn’t gone quite as she’d hoped. Last night he had made no secret of her attraction for him. Today he had teased her a little, but his manner had generally been wary, even a little aloof at rimes. There had been moments when his mouth had looked almost grim, and it was difficult to remember how it had felt when it had touched hers. All that she knew was that she longed for him to remind her what it had been like.

She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. ‘Where did you work before you joined the Courier?’

‘I was on a provincial daily in the North, doing mostly investigative work. But I’d always wanted to work abroad and when I heard there was a vacancy on the Courier’s foreign news department, I applied for it.’ He lifted an eyebrow. ‘Does that satisfy your curiosity, or do you want the story of my life? It isn’t very interesting.’

‘Well, it can’t possibly be as dull as mine,’ she said rather ruefully. ‘And of course it interests me. I’d hardly …’ She paused.

‘You’d hardly be here with me now, if you weren’t—interested,’ he finished for her.

She hunched a shoulder. ‘If you don’t want to tell me—–’ she began, but he cut across her impatiently.

‘It isn’t that, Briony. I’ll tell you anything you want to know, but I must admit you puzzle me.’

‘Do I?’ She sent him a dazzling smile. ‘Well, that’s a good start.’

‘I wasn’t aware that we were starting anything!’ He paused to pay the waitress as she brought their coffee and the bill. When she had gone, he said quietly, ‘Now let’s have the truth. Just why are you here—and please don’t feed me any more nonsense about having heard rave reports of the food.’

She said blandly, ‘I saw you coming in here, and I didn’t want to have lunch alone. Satisfied?’

‘Not entirely. I could name at random at least half a dozen young executives that you met last night who would give a large proportion of their handsome salaries to take you somewhere fashionable to eat for a couple of hours. Why me?’

She shrugged. ‘Perhaps none of them forced themselves on my attention in quite the same way, Mr Adair.’

‘So you decided to employ the same tactics?’ That reflective, considering look was back.

‘Why not? Last night I got the impression you found me attractive. If I’m wrong, you can always claim this lunch back off your expenses.’

‘Attractive isn’t quite the appropriate word,’ he said slowly. ‘I find you both desirable and exasperating—not always in equal or even the same proportions.’

‘How very odd,’ Briony said sweetly. ‘I find you exectly the same. But you were going to tell me about your early life.’

‘Yes, I was, wasn’t I?’ he said pleasantly. ‘It’s perfectly simple. I’m thirty-four, unmarried, and my parents are both dead. I was educated at a grammar school, and from there I went on to Oxford where I read politics, philosophy and economics. I came into journalism as a graduate entrant, which isn’t a bad way to start. In my time, I’ve covered every type of story from funerals and flower shows to murder hunts and corruption. Is that what you wanted to know?’

‘You know it wasn’t,’ she said in a low voice, and for a moment there was silence between them. When she looked up at him again, she was smiling, and her eyes under the deep sweep of lashes were deliberately provocative. ‘Your past wasn’t very productive,’ she murmured. ‘Perhaps I’ll have better luck with your future.’ She reached out and took his hand, turning it palm upwards for her inspection. ‘Hmm.’ She bent over it, pretending absorption, one pink-tipped finger tracing the various lines on his hand as she spoke. ‘A strong headline, but then I’d expect that. A long lifeline, and quite steady too, except for your middle years which could hold some danger for you …’

‘Never more than at this moment, I suspect.’ His tone was dry. ‘Briony, what are you trying to do.’

‘Tell your fortune,’ she said with mock innocence. ‘Now your heartline is really fascinating. I would say you could get any woman you wanted, merely by asking.’

‘Now that is fascinating,’ he said gravely. ‘Your coffee’s getting cold.’

‘You don’t think I know what I’m talking about,’ she accused.

‘I think I know exactly what you’re talking about,’ he said. ‘And it has nothing to do with palmistry. Tell me something, Briony. When we leave here, what are your plans for the rest of the afternoon?’

Her heart suddenly seemed to miss a beat at the question. ‘I—I don’t have anything planned.’

‘No?’ His hand closed round hers, opening it palm upwards. ‘Now it’s my turn, and I’ll tell you what I see. I see the heartline dominating the head. I see a mixed-up girl who doesn’t know what she wants. I see a dangerous craving for excitement in the lifeline, but this evens out before too long into steadiness and security and a suitable marriage.’

Briony snatched her hand away. ‘But that isn’t what I want,’ she said unevenly. ‘And you know it. What—what are your plans for the rest of the afternoon?’ She died all kinds of small deaths while she waited for him to answer.

‘I think they could best be described as fluid,’ Logan said slowly at last. ‘But they certainly begin with more coffee—at my flat, I think. Shall we go and find a taxi?’

She had thought that he would kiss her in the taxi, but he didn’t, and she felt dashed by this. He hardly spoke either, and his face was suddenly remote as if his thoughts had travelled a long way from her, and she did not dare make any attempt to recall them. But by the time the taxi drew up in front of the small block of flats where Logan lived, she was feeling thoroughly nervous and on edge.

He didn’t put his arm around her either as they went up the stairs to the first floor, and she felt oddly chilled as he fitted the key into the lock and admitted her to a small cramped hall. There were a couple of letters lying just inside the door and he bent to retrieve them, slitting them open carelessly with his thumbnail and running his eye over the contents while she stood, waiting. He was being so casual, she thought, as though this happened all the time, as maybe it did with him, but not with her as he surely must realise.

She wasn’t just nervous any more either. She was definitely panicky, and suddenly and paralysingly shy at the thought of what she was doing. She had never dreamed she could behave in this way, but she’d thought that Logan would somehow make it easy for her. After all, it was last night’s kisses which had set off the chain reaction which had brought her to the flat today, she thought.

‘Do you live here alone?’ She tried to sound casual in her turn, but there was a tell-tale quiver in her voice, she realised with vexation.

‘I share with Tony Ericson, but he’s in Zambia at the moment,’ he returned laconically.

So although he might have a relationship with Karen Wellesley, they weren’t actually living together. Briony experienced a spasm of relief at the realisation. She followed Logan into the living room. It wasn’t large, and it was furnished in a spartan manner which suggested that its occupants spent little time there. The main items of furniture were a rather battered sofa drawn up in front of the fireplace and a large office desk in the window, supporting a litter of papers and two sturdy portable typewriters.

‘Yes, I work here as well as at the office.’ Logan deftly forestalled her next question. ‘The kitchen is through the door opposite.’ He pointed. ‘Perhaps you’d like to make that coffee I mentioned while I have a shower.’

She was glad to have something to do. Filling the kettle and setting it to boil, and finding mugs and the jar of coffee occupied her hands, but did nothing to ease the mounting uncertainty within her. And she had no one to blame but herself for the current situation, she told herself, her shaking hands spilling coffee granules on to the worktop as she attempted to spoon them into the mugs. It was entirely of her own making. She’d followed Logan and thrown herself at his head, and if she turned and ran now, she would only be making an even bigger fool of herself. Yet if she stayed…. Briony’s imagination refused to consider the implications of the next hour or two. She made the coffee and carried the mugs into the living room, but it was deserted. He was still in the shower, and now, if ever, was the time to beat an ignoble retreat. She set the mugs down on the corner of the desk and looked round for her bag. She’d put it down on the sofa as she’d come in, but it wasn’t there. Nor was it on the desk, or on the floor, or on any of the shelves of the fitment which covered one wall, and housed books and a complicated-looking stereo player. It had vanished.

Or had she simply left it on the small table in the hall, she wondered desperately. She opened the living room door and peered out, but the table was bare except for the discarded envelopes from Logan’s letters.

There was only one other explanation. Logan had taken her bag with him when he went off to have his shower, in order to prevent her from running out on him. The realisation set the match to her temper, relegating her fears and forebodings to a poor second. How dared he? she raged inwardly. She had taken several impetuous steps along the hall when one of the doors opened and Logan emerged, and the sight of him halted her dead in her tracks. He was wearing a damp towel hitched loosely round his hips, and his tawny hair was darkly streaked with water. His eyes, as they encountered Briony’s openly hostile gaze, were enigmatic.

He said smoothly, ‘Coming to meet me halfway, sweetheart?’

‘I was coming to find my handbag.’

He gestured towards the door opposite him. ‘It’s in there.’

After only a second’s hesitation, she turned and walked into the room he had indicated. She had guessed it was his bedroom and she was right. Her bag was there, lying in the middle of the bed—a double bed, she registered in silence. There was little other furniture. Like the living room, it suggested that its occupant was someone constantly in transit, living out of suitcases, and there were few personal touches.

She picked her bag up from the bed, and turned. Logan was lounging in the doorway watching her, and she could read nothing from his expression, but his presence there meant that her retreat was effectively cut off.

‘You didn’t bring the coffee.’ His tone was almost conversational.

‘I—I didn’t want any.’ Damn! she thought in vexation. Why hadn’t she said it was waiting in the living room, and thus made good her escape?

‘Then I won’t bother either,’ he said affably, and walked forward. ‘After all, why waste time when we have more important things to do?’

She took a step backwards. ‘No,’ she got out. ‘I—I can’t!’

‘Can’t you?’ He didn’t hurry as he covered the distance between them. He didn’t have to. It wasn’t a large room, and she was standing with her back against one wall. There was simply nowhere else to retreat to. ‘You can,’ he said. ‘It’s easy—I’ll show you.’

He detached the bag from her suddenly nerveless fingers and tossed it on to a nearby chest of drawers, following it with her suit jacket which he slipped expertly from her shoulders, almost before she realised what he was doing, and then he was unfastening her shirt—as casually as if he was changing a dummy in a shop window, and with about as much feeling, she realised, a sense of hysteria rising deep within her. Her hands came up to push him away, her fingers fumbling as she sought to thrust the buttons he had undone back into their buttonholes.

‘What’s the matter?’ He made no attempt to stop her. He was even smiling faintly.

‘How dare you?’ she choked.

‘I wasn’t aware that daring entered into it,’ he said, his voice cool. ‘You made it quite clear what you wanted, and I’m more than willing to provide it. So what’s the problem?’

‘The problem?’ She stared at him helplessly. ‘You’re behaving as if—treating me like …’

‘Like the spoiled brat you are?’ he cut across her stumbling words with merciless harshness. ‘What’s the matter, darling! Isn’t it all romantic enough for you? But what did you expect? It’s ladies who are being seduced who get the flowers and champagne treatment. Little girls who throw themselves at men merely get laid. It may not be the lesson you expected to be taught this afternoon, but I hope it will prove a salutory one all the same. Now I suggest you get out of here before I forget you’re your father’s daughter and give you the beating you so richly deserve.’

For a minute she stared at him, then with a little inarticulate cry, she struck him across the face and ran past him out of the room and down the hall. She was struggling with the stiff catch on the front door when he caught her.

‘You forgot your handbag.’ His tone was soft and jeering. ‘And your jacket.’

‘Thank you.’ She snatched at them, her face crimson with humiliation, suppressed tears stinging her eyelids.

Logan swore under his breath. ‘Oh God, Briony!’ He turned her to face him. ‘You got off lightly,’ he told her harshly. ‘Just be thankful that I didn’t take advantage of you, and for God’s sake don’t go round offering yourself to any other man who happens to take your schoolgirl fancy unless you want to end up as yet another unpleasant statistic for the sociologists to mull over.’

‘Suddenly everyone feels they have a right to lecture me—to feel responsible for me,’ she said stonily. ‘Now please take your hands off me. I’d like to go home.’

He released her immediately. ‘That’s the best idea you’ve had yet.’ He sounded weary. ‘Go and play in your own league, sweetheart, and leave the adult games until such time as you’ve learned the rules.’

And the flat door slammed behind her.

The remembered sound seemed to strike an echo closer at hand, and Briony stirred in her chair, dragging herself almost reluctantly back from the pain of the past to the reality of the present. She soon saw what had roused her—the noise of a piece of coal falling out on to the hearth—and she knelt down to replace it on the fire and sweep up the resultant ash.

She was shocked when she glanced at her watch and saw how long she had been sitting there, remembering. A pointless exercise if ever there was one, she thought ironically. As she’d told Logan all those months ago, the past wasn’t very productive. Only no one had warned her that the future could be even less so.

She got to her feet, stretching wearily. Now was the time to go and see about her room, otherwise she could well end up spending a cramped night in that very chair. But there was a surprise in store for her when she reached the top of the stairs and turned into the main bedroom at the front of the house. The bed was already made up and waiting, with crisply ironed sheets, and an old-fashioned eiderdown covered in flowered cotton.

Briony frowned as she set down her case and looked around her. Could it be possible that Aunt Hes was expected after all? But that was ridiculous, she knew. Aunt Hes rarely visited the cottage after the beginning of November, because she said frankly that the cold of North Yorkshire seemed to eat into her bones these days, apart from the fact that Kirkby Scar was often cut off by snow for days on end.

On the other hand, could she have let the cottage, perhaps? If so, when the tenant arrived, Briony would simply have to apologise and withdraw. She could spend a couple of days in York, she thought. Now that the tourist season was over, she would enjoy a leisurely tour of the Minster and the museums. It wasn’t what she had planned, but was that necessarily a bad thing when most of the things she planned went so utterly and disastrously wrong?

She took a nightdress from her case and threw it across the bed, then walked to the window to draw the curtains. The second surprise was more in the nature of a shock. The darkness outside was full of the wild swirl of snowflakes, and the ground beneath as well as the kitchen roof and the neighbouring trees were already crusted in white. A swift sigh of exasperation escaped Briony’s lips. She remembered now the forbidding leaden sky which had greeted her arrival, and realised she should have guessed its significance. She could still leave, of course. She could repack her case and find the car and drive to a slightly more accessible hotel. She glanced at her watch again, imagining the reaction if she turned up at this time of night without a booking. She might even end up spending the night in the car. No, she would stay where she was for tonight at least and risk being able to get out in the morning. It was surely too early in the winter for a really heavy fall, she argued to herself without a great deal of conviction. The real trouble was the isolation of the cottage from the village, and the difficulty of stocking up with fresh food if the weather was really turning nasty. She couldn’t subsist for ever on a diet of black coffee.

They said everything came in threes, and the evening’s surprises proved to be no exception. When she returned downstairs, the room was occupied. A large black cat with enormous green eyes was sitting in the middle of the hearthrug washing itself as if it had every right to be there. It turned its head gracefully as Briony came in and gave her a long speculative look before returning to its toilet.

Briony paused and watched it, her mouth curving upwards in amusement. Aunt Hes didn’t own a cat, but she was probably notorious to the neighbouring feline population as a soft touch who could always be relied on for a saucer of milk, and this handsome beast had obviously realised the cottage was occupied again and drawn its own conclusions.

The only thing was—how had he got in? Briony went out into the hall again, but the front door was securely shut. She had opened no windows, so the cat must have got in via the kitchen. But how? Puzzled, she walked out into the kitchen and looked around. The back door was shut and the place was deserted, but someone had been in, presumably while she was upstairs, because a large cardboard box full of groceries now reposed in the centre of the kitchen table. A piece of folded notepaper was stuck in one side of the box and Briony unfolded it.

‘Saw the car and thought I would bring these things up before the weather got worse,’ she read. ‘Hope all is satisfactory. Yours truly, N. Barnes.’

She looked into the box, her spirits lifting. Bread, butter, cartons of long-life milk, bacon and a couple of boxes of eggs. She wouldn’t starve even if the blizzard outside raged for a week. But how had Mrs Barnes known? Perhaps she had simply seen the car parked at the foot of the track and decided to bring up some supplies. It could all be as simple as that, and Briony would take it for granted that was what had happened until she knew differently. Perhaps Mrs Barnes was naturally psychic, she thought grinning slightly to herself, as she unpacked the provisions and put them away. There was even a frozen chicken and a small joint of beef at the bottom of the box, so whoever was expected was apparently planning to stay.

The cat stalked into the kitchen and pushed itself against her legs, purring vociferously.

‘Cupboard love,’ Briony accused as she bent to fondle the glossy head. ‘But we’ll both have a drink in a minute.’

A hot milk drink for herself, she thought, and one of those tablets the doctor had prescribed for when she could not sleep, as something told her she would not do tonight. All this time she had survived by shutting out the past, refusing to admit its existence. Now she had allowed it back to torment her with a vengeance, and it was not done with her yet.

‘Go and play in your own league,’ Logan had said to her, she thought as she stood waiting for the milk to heat, and it was sound advice, although she had not realised it then. Christopher had been far more suitable in every way. Christopher who would be now telephoning vainly round all her friends in an effort to find out where she had gone. Christopher whom she had seriously been considering marrying until that unbelievable evening almost a week ago when she had gone to the head of the stairs, drawn there by the sound of her father’s voice raised in anger, and seen Logan standing there. Logan who was dead—who’d been shot as a spy by Arab guerrillas. A much thinner Logan, his deeply tanned skin fine-drawn over his bones, lines of weariness etched around the grimness of his mouth as he stood quite immobile, his hands resting on his hips, his head bent slightly listening as her father raged at him.





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