Daughter of Riches (42 page)

He pulled a clean handkerchief out of his own pocket. ‘ Is this what you're looking for?'

‘Yes. Thanks.' She took it gratefully. ‘I'm sorry. I'm being very silly.'

He dropped to his haunches beside her, covering her hands with his. ‘Come on, cheer up. Nothing is that bad. It's all very old history, remember.'

‘Not to me.'

‘No, I suppose not.' He put his arm around her more by instinct than design and after a moment she looked up at him. Her eyes were still slightly muzzy with tears which lent a soft focus to the outlines of his face, blurring them a little so that she was reminded of the way he had looked in the Underground Hospital, still strong, but with the edges knocked off somehow so that she could glimpse the man underneath. She laid her face against his shoulder and at the touch something sharp and sweet stirred within her, something so powerful and surprising it took her breath away. For a moment she remained motionless, afraid of the surge of feeling that was setting her on fire, more aware than she had ever been before of the nearness of another human being. It was so little, that contact, just her head against his shoulder and his arm lying lightly around her, yet it was as if she could feel him with every nerve ending in her body, as if the whole of her being was alive suddenly with desire and expectation.

Very gently he took her chin in his hand, tipping her face up towards his. Mesmerised she watched his face come closer, closer, until she could no longer see those outlines, even muzzily, and his lips were on hers. A shudder ran through her then, as every bit of the tension in her body was jarred by the contact and after a moment's hesitation she was kissing him back with a fervour that made her senses swim. Oh God, she wanted him, she wanted him! But as the thought edged her consciousness it seemed somehow to trip a switch deep within her and shock her back into reality.

‘For heaven's sake …' She pushed him away, laughing shakily.

‘What's wrong?' His voice was rough, grating.

‘Well, you're quite a man, aren't you? Two women in one night …' She didn't really know why she'd said it, the moment it was out she knew that she had somehow betrayed the jealousy she had felt, but to her surprise he only tried to pull her close again.

‘What are you talking about?'

She wriggled away. ‘Your lady friend – the one who was here when I arrived. What would she say if she knew that you …'

He released her. She saw his eyes darken.

‘That wasn't a lady friend. That was my wife's sister.'

She went cold. ‘Your
wife
! I didn't know you had a wife!'

He swallowed, turning away. ‘I haven't. She's dead. Fran comes to see me sometimes, just keeps in touch …' He didn't add that seeing Fran hurt him sometimes more than helped. She was so much like an older, more sophisticated version of Marianne that it drove daggers into his heart.

‘Dead! Oh dear. I had no idea …' Juliet said. She should be sorry for him she knew – she
was
sorry – and embarrassed too at her gaffe. But neither regret could erase the soaring relief. Oh, for one horrible moment to have thought he had a
wife
!

He was pouring himself another drink, tossing it back.

‘Is it …? Was it …?' She faltered, not sure whether she ought to pursue the subject.

‘It was a motor cycle accident,' Dan said without turning round. ‘A drunken driver hit us on Christmas Eve three years ago. She was in a coma for almost a month before she died. I used to go and sit with her, looking at her lying there – it was just as if she was asleep. I expected her to wake up at any minute. But she didn't. She died. And I was driving the damned bloody motor cycle and I'm here.' He put down his whisky tumbler with exaggerated care then balled his fists and drove them into the table top.

Juliet's stomach contracted. ‘Oh, I'm so sorry! But you mustn't blame yourself. It wasn't your fault, I'm sure …' Instinctively she went to him, putting her arms around him, but this time there was no response. He stood bowed, seemingly oblivious to her being there even and suddenly she felt foolish and awkward again. ‘Dan … I'd better go …' She turned away.

‘Don't go.' He said it so softly she wasn't sure she'd heard him right.

She hesitated. ‘I must. They'll be wondering where I am.'

He straightened as if trying to throw off his mood of despair. ‘Yes, I suppose they will.' His voice was almost normal now, matter-of-fact. Only the slight note of uncertainty betrayed the emotions that had been tearing him apart moments before. ‘I'm sorry about all this.'

‘Don't be silly. There's nothing to be sorry about. I'm the one who should be sorry for reminding you.'

‘You didn't remind me. I never bloody forget. But perhaps I should try to. Perhaps it's time to stop looking back. It's just not that easy, that's all.'

‘No. Dan. I must go.'

‘OK.' He was looking at her, his brows drawn together so that his eyes were almost shadowed. ‘Juliet, I want to see you again.'

A pulse jumped in her throat. ‘I thought I'd explained – I can't go on with it,' she said, deliberately misunderstanding him because she did not know how else to deal with the sudden rush of conflicting emotions. ‘If you can prove someone else was responsible I'd be over the moon. But I'm not playing detective any more if it means taking advantage of my family's hospitality.'

‘I know. I wasn't talking about that. Forget your grandmother, forget this whole damned business. I want to see
you
.'

The pulse jumped again, again she experienced something close to panic. She hadn't expected such intensity of emotion, especially on his side. He had seemed so cool, cold almost, and self-contained, it was disturbing to see what went on under the surface. She wasn't sure she could cope. And besides …

What about Sean? Dear Sean, waiting for her at home in Australia, trusting her, expecting her to get engaged as soon as she got back. How could she have forgotten him so easily? One kiss and she was ready to turn her back on the years of loving. Was this what they meant by holiday romance? Swept off one's feet by a different man in a different place?

‘I'm sorry,' she said, ‘ but I really do think it would be better if we just left it. I don't know if I mentioned it but I have a fiancé back home. I suppose I should have said but it didn't really seem relevant.'

His eyes narrowed. All emotion was hidden again.

‘Oh I see. Well in that case I suppose there's no more to be said.'

‘Not really.' But she felt like crying again and in the privacy of her car, driving home in the soft darkness she let the tears come, sliding down her cheek though she did not make a sound.

Oh Sean, why don't I feel that way about you? What the hell is wrong with me? But I won't be unfaithful to you, don't worry. I wouldn't do that to you. I couldn't … however much I might want to.

When Juliet had gone Dan Deffains poured himself yet another whisky. He was drinking too much, he knew, but what the hell? He needed it!

What a night, he thought ruefully. First Fran, doing her duty call, then Juliet with her double bombshell – no more investigation into the death of Louis Langlois, and ‘no thanks, I don't want to see you again'. It was difficult to decide which was worse. No – he knew that all right. There would be other jobs. Something always turned up. But Juliet was the first girl since Marianne died to stir him at all. He had thought his emotions had been embalmed along with her. Tonight, for the first time in three years he had wanted a woman, and on more than a physical level too. Yes, it was a mixed emotion. Yes, it made him feel faintly guilty, as if he was somehow cheating on Marianne. In spite of that he had still wanted Juliet – and he had thought briefly that she wanted him. But his judgement was way off key. She had a fiancé back home, blast his eyes, so that, presumably, was the end of that.

Dan drained the last of the whisky from the tumbler and hurled it across the room. He had the feeling it was going to be a long night.

‘What a bloody life!' Viv said vehemently. ‘What a bloody, bloody life!'

It was an hour since Juliet had left and Viv had now worked her way through all the stages which inevitably followed one after the other when she drank too much. The desire to shock had gone now and the feeling of invincibility and the euphoria. Now she was merely maudlin – and very wide awake.

Paul, on the other hand, was ready for bed and did not relish the thought of one of Viv's long discourses just now.

‘Oh I don't think you can say we've done so badly,' he said placatingly, but Viv was not to be sidetracked.

‘You really think that?'

‘Yes, I do. Things were a little dicey for a while twenty years ago, I admit, but that all sorted itself out after Louis died. We have everything we could wish for now.'

‘Have we.'

‘Yes, Viv, we have, and we should count our blessings. We have a decent home, enough money to live in the style to which you have always been accustomed and I am looked on as an elder statesman in the company. What more could you want?'

Viv was silent. A family, she wanted to cry. I wanted a family. But she could not bring herself to say it. On most subjects she was outspoken, garrulous even, but this one she hugged to herself, a terrible emptiness within her that sometimes erupted to a pain too sharp almost to bear.

Once, long ago, when they had first realised there would be no children for them there had been the shared sadness and the recriminations. Blame had been bandied about between them as a weapon whenever they had a row, although they had never dared to seek a final and definitive answer to the question – which of them was actually unable to deliver? Was it Paul who was infertile? Or had Viv been somehow damaged in that long ago abortion? Each shrank from discovering a truth about themselves which they could not face, each pretended, for the most part, indifference. Viv never knew how inferior Paul was made to feel by the knowledge that she had once been pregnant by his brother. Paul never saw Viv in the extremities of grief which sometimes overcame her so that she doubled up against the excruciating pain as the sobs wrenched her guts and she stretched out her arms in an agony of longing for the child she had lost. Those spasms came less often now. Old age had muted them. But somehow, strangely, the past seemed very close these days. The distant past, when they had been young, and the more recent past too, when Viv had watched her nephew Louis grow into a man and thought that if she had had the courage and conviction of Sophia she, too, would have a son or a daughter of similar age. How the bitterness had rankled in her then! Jealousy of Sophia and a hatred of Louis that had grown, unseen, to almost manic proportions.

When he had been a child she had looked at his beauty and wept silently for her own child, denied the chance of life; when he grew into a thoroughly dislikeable young man the unfairness of it made her evil. Louis was a German's brat, no wonder he was such a pig. Her child would have been a young Nicky. She always saw him in her mind's eye as Nicky had been before the war had robbed him of his manhood – young, strong, handsome, with the power to reduce her to a jelly of wanting. No one else had ever done that. Now no one else ever would. But by some monstrous trick of fate the despicable Louis was alive and her own child, Nicky's child, was dead. Viv had been consumed by rage every time she thought of it, so much so that for a time, when he was destroying their lives with his ruthlessness, she had been obsessed with hatred for him.

Even now, twenty years later, the echo of that hatred remained and she could feel nothing but triumph when she remembered that he, too, like her child, was dead. Because of her extrovert nature few people realised the depth of emotion Viv was capable of. Only Paul had had an insight from time to time into the recesses of her soul and he, copying the ostrich traits of his father, had chosen not to acknowledge it.

There was one thing, however, that he could not ignore. The older Viv grew the more, it seemed, she harked back to Nicky. Paul found it hurtful in the extreme but there was little he could do about it. When Viv wanted to talk about Nicky there was no way to stop her – and she wanted to talk about him now.

‘Perhaps it hasn't been so bad for us,' Viv was saying, plucking at her lips with scarlet painted nails, ‘ but what about Nicky? Life wasn't very fair to him, was it? Maimed as he was, dead before his twenty-fifth birthday – Christ, Paul, what did he do to deserve that?'

Paul got up. He really had had enough for one day.

‘Come on, Viv, time for bed.' He took the glass from her hand and eased her to her feet. She let him, too sunk in depression to protest. On the stairs she stumbled and he supported her. At least we're still together, he thought. In spite of everything, after all these years, still together.

‘Can you undress yourself?' he asked her. She nodded. ‘ I'll be back in a minute,' he said. ‘I'm going down to turn off the lights.'

When he came back Viv was standing in the middle of the room. She had undone her dress and stepped out of it. In her silk underslip she looked curiously vulnerable.

‘I killed him,' she said.

‘Killed who, Viv?'

‘Nicky, of course.' She laughed shortly. ‘Who did you think I meant?'

‘Come on, Viv. Into bed.'

‘Oh Paul, why is it all so bloody?'

‘It's not, Viv. We've been over all this. Go to sleep now.'

‘I can't. They are there. All of them …'

‘Go to sleep. I tell you. I don't want to dwell on the past if you do.'

But as he left her, pulling the door closed behind him and making for his own room, Paul thought that it was not so easy to leave the past behind even if one wanted to. Viv was right. There were some things it was impossible to forget.