A Little Revenge Omnibus (16 page)

‘You don’t have to tell me anything about your past,’ Brough told her quietly. ‘You are the person you are, Kelly, and that includes everything and everyone in your past that has gone to make up that person, that Kelly—my Kelly. Without those experiences you wouldn’t be the Kelly I love so much... You didn’t really think I’d place any credence on those ridiculous lies that Cox was telling, did you?’ he asked her, obviously pained that she might have done.

‘I...I...I thought, after the way you left me, that you’d had second thoughts about...about us. And then, when I got your telephone message, I thought you wanted to see me to tell me that...that it was...that I was...that there wasn’t any future for us...’

Kelly bit her lip as she heard the incredulous sound he made, but she was determined to finish what she had to say.

‘I...’ She raised her head and looked him firmly in the eye. ‘When you and I met at that ball, I was flirting with Julian, and it was because of that that I thought you might think...’

‘What I thought that night was that even though I knew nothing at all about you there was something odd about your behaviour, something that somehow didn’t ring quite true, something alien and quite patently uncomfortable for you in your behaviour towards Cox.’

‘You felt all that but...but you kissed me as though—’ Kelly began, but Brough stopped her.

‘That was an experiment,’ he told her boldly. ‘I was curious about you, about the...er...discrepancies in your behaviour and the person I sensed you were, and I was curious about... I felt that if I kissed you I would immediately be able to tell—’

‘You’re fibbing,’ Kelly interrupted him. ‘How could you tell anything from just one kiss?’

‘I could tell that I was falling in love with you,’ Brough told her wryly, silencing her before continuing, ‘It did puzzle me that you should be acting in a way that was quite plainly out of character for you,’ he admitted quietly. ‘But I decided that whatever your reasons for doing so, they were your reasons. You are a woman, adult, mature, perfectly capable of making your own decisions and doing whatever you decide is right for you. I have no right nor reason to question those decisions, nor would I want to do so,’ he told her gravely. ‘As I’ve already told you, Kelly, I love the person you are, and whatever you choose to do or not to do...’

‘I did it for Beth,’ Kelly told him quickly. ‘It was Dee’s idea...’

Briefly she explained what they had planned to do.

‘Beth... So that was the girl Cox was seeing before he met Eve. Cox told Eve that she was obsessed with him and that—’

‘No way...’ Kelly told him indignantly. ‘He was on the verge of getting engaged to Beth when he met Eve and then he told poor Beth that she had imagined everything...that he had never said he wanted to marry her. But Beth’s not like that. She’s gentle and sweet, a passive, loving...’

‘Rather like my sister, in fact,’ Brough concluded grimly.

‘A little like that,’ Kelly agreed. ‘But of course Beth didn’t have any money...’ She sighed. ‘I’m sorry if I sounded unkind...’

‘No, you’re only corroborating my own thoughts,’ Brough told her. ‘However, fortunately that’s not a problem we need to worry about any more, since Eve has informed me that she is in love with Harry and that they intend to get married at Christmas. Christmas, apparently, is a perfect time for a marriage in the farming community...’

‘Harry...? I knew he was attracted to her,’ Kelly admitted. ‘He’s Dee’s cousin. That was why he was escorting me at the ball.

‘Brough, what are you doing?’ she demanded as Brough turned her round and, tucking her into his side, proceeded to walk briskly back in the direction they had just come.

‘I’m taking you home with me,’ he told her firmly, and then added huskily, ‘Do you realise it’s almost twenty-four hours since I made love with you?’

‘Brough,’ Kelly protested as he took her back in his arms and proceeded to show her just how long a time he felt those hours had been.

‘Kelly...’ he teased her softly as he nibbled at her bottom lip and felt the sweet response of her body and herself to his caresses.

‘I’ve got to go back and re-open the shop,’ she told him.

‘Why?’ Brough demanded. ‘There’s no point; all its stock has just been sold.’

‘What...what are you talking about?’ Kelly demanded in bemusement. ‘Who...? What...?’

‘I’m talking about the fact that if the only way I can get you to myself is to buy every piece of stock in your precious shop, then that’s exactly what I shall do,’ Brough told her rawly.

‘You can’t do that,’ Kelly protested. ‘It will cost you a fortune...’

‘Yes, I can. I’m a very rich man,’ Brough assured her sweetly, adding huskily, ‘The richest and happiest man in the world now I’ve got you, my love, my precious only one true love.

‘My grandmother’s already nagging me about a white wedding.’

‘Cream...’ Kelly murmured, nuzzling closer to the promising intoxication of his mouth. ‘Cream suits me better...’

‘Mmm... Well, there’s no way I intend to wait until Eve gets married...’

Kelly’s heart gave a funny little jump.

‘It takes at least three weeks for the banns to be read, and my family will have to come back from South Africa...’

‘Mmm... Well, that certainly won’t take three weeks, but I hear what you’re saying. How about we make it the same time as Nan’s wedding anniversary, which is several weeks away? I know it would mean a lot to her if you and I chose the same wedding day...’

‘It sounds perfect,’ Kelly told him happily.

‘It is perfect...like you...perfect in every way...and don’t you ever forget it,’ Brough told her huskily as he drew her even more deeply into his arms.

EPILOGUE

‘T
RY
NOT
TO
feel too bad that things didn't work out,' Anna tried to console Dee gently. ‘We may not have been able to reveal Julian in his true colours, but at least Beth seems to be getting over him. She never mentioned him once the last time she rang me, and in fact she seemed far more concerned about the problems this interpreter's causing her than her broken engagement. And just think, if it hadn't been for you, Kelly and Brough might never have met...'

Dee gave her a rueful look.

They were sitting in the pretty conservatory at the back of Anna's house, Anna's cat purring loudly on her knee whilst her little dog begged hopefully for crumbs of the home-made biscuit Dee was eating.

‘I wish I could be more like you, Anna,' Dee told her in a rare admission of self-criticism. ‘You have such a peaceful acceptance of life...'

‘Maybe now,' Anna agreed with her gentle smile, ‘but not always. When I first lost Ralph, my husband...' She paused and shook her head. ‘But that's all in the past now.' She looked thoughtfully at Dee before continuing quietly, ‘Have you ever thought, Dee, that it might be time for you to put Julian and whatever...?' She stopped and bit her lip as she saw the storm clouds beginning to darken Dee's magnificent eyes.

‘No. Never. There's no way I can put Julian in the past until—'

Abruptly Dee stopped. Close though she had become to both Kelly and Anna these last few weeks, there were still some things she just couldn't bring herself to discuss with them, some confidences she couldn't even make to gentle, understanding Anna.

‘It isn't over yet,' she said fiercely instead, reminding Anna, ‘At least he's taking the bait in our trap.'

Their trap? Wisely Anna said nothing. Something that went far, far deeper into Dee's past than her relatively recent friendship with her own goddaughter, Beth, was motivating Dee in her need to see Julian get his just deserts.

‘Julian's already made overtures to you, hinting that he could put you in the way of a highly profitable investment opportunity, hasn't he?'

‘Yes, he has,' Anna agreed.

‘Excellent. We'll get him yet, and when we do...'

‘When we do, what?' Anna pressed her gently.

Dee turned to her, her eyes bleak with an anguished pain that touched Anna's tender heart as she told her grimly, ‘When we do, we'll expose him for the liar and the cheat that he is! The liar, the cheat and the murderer,' Dee emphasised.

The murderer? Anna was too shocked to say anything, and Dee was already getting up, pausing only to give the waiting dog the titbit she had saved for him before turning to hug Anna and tell her, ‘I'll be in touch. There are a few arrangements I need to make to ensure that you'll have sufficient cash available to properly tempt Julian. I think probably that fifty thousand pounds should do it...'

‘Fifty thousand pounds!' Anna gasped in protest. ‘Oh, Dee, so much. But...'

‘It's nothing,' Dee told her quietly. ‘Nothing compared with the cost of a man's life.

‘Don't worry,' she reassured Anna as she saw her anxious face. ‘You won't be in any danger.'

No, maybe she wouldn't, Anna acknowledged as she watched Dee drive away ten minutes later, but what about Dee? Ridiculous though she knew other people would find it, in view of Dee's uncompromisingly self-assured attitude, Anna actually felt very protective towards her. No one could look into those tortoiseshell-coloured eyes and see, as she, Anna, had so briefly seen, the pain and anger that sometimes lurked there, without doing so.

And Anna knew all about pain and anger and, yes, there was guilt too. Emotions these women shared, but both chose to hide their pain from those around them.

* * * * *

Lover by Deception

Contents

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

EPILOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

P
AIN
,
ANGER
AND
guilt—right now, looking at his twenty-two-year-old half-brother, Ritchie, Ward felt them all.

‘Why on earth didn’t you come to me if you needed money?’ he demanded tersely.

The sunlight through the narrow, almost monastic window of Ward’s study touched Ritchie’s hair, turning it to bright gold.

Ward already knew that when Ritchie raised his head to look at him his blue eyes would be full of remorse.

‘You’ve already done so much, given me so much,’ Ritchie told him in the quiet, well-modulated voice that was so very much his own father’s, Ward’s stepfather’s.

‘I didn’t want to bother you, to ask you for any more, but this postgraduate year in America would just be so valuable,’ he told Ward earnestly, and then he was off, completely absorbed as his enthusiasm for his subject, his studies, overwhelmed his earlier guilt.

As he listened to him Ward looked at him steadily, his eyes not blue like Ritchie’s and his stepfather’s, but instead a dark iron-grey, the same colour as those of the tough young apprentice who had fathered him forty-two years ago and who had then lost his life before he, Ward, was out of nappies. He’d been killed in an industrial accident which had had more to do with him being the victim of a greedy employer’s refusal to make sure that he was operating proper safety standards for his workforce than any genuine ‘accident.’ That had been in the days before such incidents were fully monitored, when any compensation for the loss of a life, a husband, a father, was at the discretion of the employer rather than a matter for the law.

Ward’s mother had received nothing—less than nothing since; following her young husband’s death she had had to leave the company-owned terraced property they had lived in and she and her baby son had had to move to another part of the northern town where they lived to make their home with her own parents. Baby Ward had been left with his grandmother whilst his mother earned what little she could cleaning.

It had been through her job cleaning the local school where Ward went that she had ultimately met her second husband, Ritchie’s father.

She had spent a long time discussing with Ward her hopes and plans and the changes they would make to both their lives before she had accepted the proposal of the gentle English teacher who had fallen in love with her.

Neither of them had expected that their marriage would result in the birth of their own child and Ward could well understand why both of them should have been so besotted with their unexpected and precious son.

Ritchie was his father all over again. Gentle, mild-
mannered, a scholar, unworldly and easily duped by others, not through any lack of intelligence but more because neither of them could conceive of the extent of other people’s greed and selfishness, since these were vices they simply did not possess.

It had been thanks to his stepfather and his care, his love, his fatherliness, that Ward had been persuaded to stay on at school and then, later, to start out and found his own business.

He was, as others were very fond of saying, very much a self-made man. A millionaire now, able to command whatever luxuries he wished since the communications business he had built up had been bought out by a large American corporation, but Ward preferred to live simply, almost monastically.

A big lion of a man, with broad shoulders and the tough-hewn body and bone structure he had inherited from his own father and through him from generations of working men, gave him a physical appearance of commanding strength and presence. Other men feared him—and their women...

His dark eyebrows snapped together angrily, causing his silently watching half-brother to wince inwardly and wish that he had not been so foolish.

Only the other week Ward had had to make it sharply plain to the wife of a business colleague that despite her obvious sensuality and availability he was not interested in what she had to offer.

Ward had grown up with a mother who was everything that a woman should be—tender, loving, gentle, loyal and trustworthy.

It had come as an unpleasant awakening to discover how rare her type of woman actually was.

His wife, the girl he had fallen in love with and married at twenty-two, had shown him that. She had left him before their marriage was a year old, declaring that she preferred a man who knew how to have fun, a man who had time and money to spend on her.

By that time Ward had been as disillusioned by marriage as she, tired of coming home to an empty house, tired of having to search through empty cupboards to throw himself a meal together, but tired most of all of a woman who gave nothing to their relationship or to him but who took everything.

Even so, it had given him very little pleasure five years later to have her feckless husband come begging him for a job.

More out of disgust than anything else he had not just given him one but had made the couple a private, non-repayable ‘loan.’ He could still remember the avaricious look he had seen in his ex-wife’s eyes as she’d looked around the new house he had just moved into, assessing the worth of the property, of the man who could have been hers.

Small wonder, perhaps, that she had had the gall to dare to come on to Ward behind her new husband’s back, claiming that she had loved him all along and that their divorce, her desertion of him, had been an aberration, a silly mistake. Even if he’d had the misfortune to still love her, which fortunately he did not, Ward would not have taken her back. It was in his genes, his tough northern upbringing and inheritance, to prize loyalty and honesty above all else.

Their marriage was dead, he had told her starkly, and so too was whatever emotion he had once felt for her.

He hadn’t seen her since, nor had he wished to do so, and since then he had opted for a woman-free lifestyle, but that of course did not mean that he didn’t have his problems, and he was being confronted with one of them right now.

When Ritchie had won a place at Oxford, Ward had proudly and willingly offered to finance him. Ritchie was, after all, his half-brother, his family, and Ward himself could never forget the help and support his stepfather had given him when he was first getting started.

His parents, their parents, were retired now, his stepfather, older than their mother by nearly fifteen years, in poor health, suffering from a heart condition, which meant that he had to live as quietly as possible, without any stress. Which was why...

‘Why the hell didn’t you tell me you needed more money?’ he reiterated to Ritchie explosively now.

‘You’d already given me so much,’ Ritchie repeated. ‘I just couldn’t—didn’t...’

‘But for God’s sake, Ritchie, surely your intelligence, your common sense must have told you that the whole thing was a scam? No one, but no one, pays that kind of interest or gets that kind of return. Why the hell do you think they were using the small ads?’

‘It just seemed to be the answer to my problem,’ Ritchie told him. ‘I had the five thousand that you’d given me in the bank, and if it could be turned into virtually ten in a matter of months and I could get a holiday job as well...’ He stopped uncomfortably as he saw the way Ward was shaking his head and looking skyward in obvious angry disbelief.

‘It seemed such a good idea,’ he insisted defensively. ‘I had no idea...’

‘You’re dead right you didn’t,’ Ward agreed grimly. ‘No idea whatsoever. You should have come to me instead... Tell me again just what happened,’ he instructed his half-brother.

Ritchie took a deep breath.

‘There was an ad in one of those free news sheet things. I just happened to pick it up. I forget where. It said that anyone interested in seeing real growth and profit on their capital should apply to a box number they quoted for more details.’

‘A box number.’ Ward raised his eyes skyward a second time. ‘So you, with the common sense of a lemming, applied.’

‘It seemed such a good idea,’ Ritchie protested again, a hurt look in his eyes. ‘And I just thought... Well, Dad’s always going on about how lucky I am to have you behind me, helping me, financing me. How he and Mum couldn’t have afforded to give me any help to go up to Oxford and the fact that I don’t have to finance myself with part-time work means that I’m free to study properly, and sometimes that makes me feel... Well, I hate thinking that Dad’s comparing me to you and finding me wanting and that my classmates reckon I’m spoiled rotten because I’ve got you to bankroll me.’

Ritchie found wanting? Ward’s frown deepened. He admired and respected his stepfather, yes, and loved him too, but he had always been sensitively conscious of how far short he must fall of the kind of ideals on which his gentle, unmaterialistic stepfather had founded his life.

‘Anyway,’ Ritchie continued, ‘eventually I had a phone call from this chap and he told me what to do—said that I should send him a cheque for five thousand pounds and that he’d send me a receipt and a monthly statement showing the value of my investment. He also said he’d send me a portfolio listing where my money had been invested.’

‘And did he, by any chance, also tell you just how he was able to offer such a reality-defying rate of growth and profit on this investment?’ Ward enquired with awful ominous calm.

‘He said it was because he cut out the middle man and that due to all the changes going on in certain overseas markets there were good opportunities there for those who knew the markets to make a real killing...’

‘Indeed, and he, out of sheer generosity, intended to share that knowledge with anyone who happened to respond to his ad. Was that it...?’

‘I...I didn’t enquire into his motivation,’ Ritchie responded with desperate dignity and a betrayingly flushed face.

‘Oh, I know I ought to have done, but Professor Cummins had just told me that if I took this extra year out to get an additional qualification in the US, then I’d have a much better chance of success if I ever decided I wanted to apply for a fellowship over here, and he had just asked me to do some research for him for a series of lectures he was giving in America. God knows why he chose me. My grades...’

‘He chose you for very much the same reason that our enterprising entrepreneur and financial crook chose you, Ritchie,’ Ward told him with cool sarcasm before prodding his half-brother.

‘So, to continue, you paid over the five thousand pounds you had in your bank account, and then what?’

‘Well, for the first two months everything went well. I got statements showing an excellent return on the investment, but then the third month I didn’t receive a statement, and when I eventually rang the number I’d been given I was told that it was unobtainable.’

He looked so perplexed that in any other circumstances Ward, who had a good sense of humour, would have been tempted to laugh a little at his naivety, but this was no laughing matter. This was a young man who had been deliberately and cold-bloodedly relieved of five thousand pounds by as shrewd a fraudulent operator as Ward had ever come across, and he had met his fair share of the breed in his time, although needless to say none of them had ever taken him in.

‘How surprising,’ was the only comment he allowed himself to make.

Ritchie raised stricken eyes to his and muttered, ‘I know. I know what you’re thinking but... Well, at first I just thought it was a mistake. I wrote to the address on the statements but my letter came back “address unknown” and since then...’

‘Since then your friendly investment manager has proved that it isn’t just money he can magic away into thin air?’ Ward suggested dryly.

‘I really am sorry, Ward, but I...I had to tell you...I haven’t even got enough money left to cover myself this term now, never mind next, and...’

‘How much is it going to cost you to pay for the rest of your year’s living and studying expenses?’ Ward asked him point-blank.

Reluctantly Ritchie told him.

‘And how much for your year in the US? And I want the full cost of it, please, Ritchie, not some ridiculous guestimate because you’re too proud to tell me the full amount.’

Again, this time even more reluctantly, Ritchie gave Ward the figure he wanted.

‘Right,’ Ward announced, opening a drawer to his desk and removing his cheque book, which he promptly opened, writing across the top cheque an amount which not only covered the sum Ritchie had disclosed but included a very generous allowance over it as well.

So much so that when he handed Ritchie the cheque the younger man gasped and coloured up to the roots of his fair hair, protesting, ‘No, Ward, I can’t. That’s far too much... I...’

‘Take it...’ Ward overrode him firmly and then glanced at his watch before adding casually, ‘Oh, and by the way, I’ve decided it’s time you had a new car. I’ve got the keys for you so you can leave the old one here; I’ll dispose of it for you.’

‘A new car? But I don’t need one; the Mini is fine for my needs,’ Ritchie protested.

‘For yours, yes, but your father isn’t getting any younger. I know how much he looks forward to your visits home and how much he worries, and we both know that that isn’t good for him. He’ll feel much happier if he knows you’re driving something that’s safe...’

Shaking his head, Ritchie accepted the set of keys his elder brother was extending to him. There was no point in arguing with Ward. No point whatsoever. As he smiled his thanks into his brother’s austerely handsome face he wished, not for the first time, that he could be more like him.

Only the previous term, when Ward had come down to visit him, one of the other students in his year, a girl—the prettiest and most sought after girl on the campus—had commented breathlessly to him that Ward was just so-o-o hunkily sexy, and Ritchie had known exactly what she meant.

There was an energy, a power, and maleness about Ward that somehow or other set him apart from other men. He was a born leader and he possessed that magical spark inherited from his forebears which Ritchie knew he could never, ever possess, no matter how many academic qualifications he obtained.

After his half-brother had left, Ward picked up the small folder he had brought with him. In it were the statements Ritchie had referred to. Frowningly Ward studied them. He would check out the stock they cited, of course, but he knew already that they would either be completely fictitious or, if real, never actually bought. That was how this kind of scum worked.