Folly's Child (60 page)

‘We can start all over again, if you are prepared to do that.

‘Oh Mark,' she said. ‘You know I am.'

He pulled her into his arms. It was quite a long time before he spoke again.

‘I suppose it's a little late now for lunch,' he said. ‘ So how about an early supper? With champagne? I think, my love, that we have something to celebrate.'

She raised her face from the leather of his jacket. It was all too much, she had scarcely taken it in yet, but she knew she was happier already than she had ever been before.

‘Oh yes, Mark,' she said. ‘I do believe we have!'

Sally Varna replaced the telephone and turned to Harriet.

‘Well,' she said. ‘ So Paula's daughter is coming to work in New York.'

Her voice was taut, brittle, her face a beautiful mask. In the past Harriet had sometimes wondered what lay behind it when Sally wore that particular expression – now she knew. A lifetime of guilt, perhaps of regrets. It was a frightening thought.

‘She accepted the offer then,' Harriet said. ‘I'm glad.'

‘Yes.' If Sally was nervous of meeting the girl she had had adopted as a baby she did not say so, but then the time for confidences had come and gone. Her vulnerability was hidden once more, as was her grief, behind that cool manner that she had cultivated over the years. But in a way Harriet could understand that. Everyone needs a facade, she thought. Perhaps Sally needs it more than most.

It had been a nightmarish week. Harriet could still scarcely believe her father was dead. In spite of the fact that she had been there to see his coffin lowered into the ground and had tossed a single red rose down to lie like an exotic butterfly on the shining brass plate that bore his name, it still seemed unreal somehow. When the end had come she had been curiously unprepared and the suddenness of it had numbed her senses so that she had to repeat it over and over to herself before she could even begin to take it in. Dead, that powerful personality, dead, all that talent and that capacity for loving. Her heart ached with sorrow, yet at the same time she felt almost glad that he had been spared the trauma of learning the truth. There would have been no way they could keep it from him; now they would not need to.

‘When is Theresa coming?' she asked.

‘Mark is arranging to bring her over next week.' Sally hesitated, twisting the rings on her fingers. ‘I think he is in love with her, Harriet.'

‘Yes,' Harriet said. ‘I think he is.'

‘I'm not sure it's right,' Sally said vaguely. ‘After all she is his cousin …'

‘But not his sister. Poor Mark, what he must have gone through!' For an instant she saw the flash of pain on Sally's face, then it was gone again.

‘I suppose the only thing that matters is that he should be happy. That is all I have ever wanted for any of you.'

Harriet reached out and squeezed her arm.

‘I know, Sally – and so does Mark. I don't agree with what you did but I think I understand, and so will he, when he's had a little more time. It takes men longer, you know, to come to terms with things.'

‘Yes.' Sally pulled herself upright, standing there slim and beautiful in her designer black. ‘And what about you? What will you do now? Go back to London?'

‘I suppose so. It's time I got back to work.'

‘There's no need for that, you know. Not that there ever has been. But now you have money in your own right. Your father's will has left you a rich young woman.'

‘
I
need to – I need it for me,' Harriet said fiercely.

What would she have done without work this last week? Though she had been unable to do any actual photography she had been able to make plans for future features and the planning had kept her going. She had airmailed her films to Nick once she realised there would be a delay in Mark's return to London and Nick had phoned her immediately he received them, full of enthusiasm.

‘Harriet, they are wonderful! Without a doubt you've found your niche. I know this is a bad time for you, love, and I don't want to put you under any pressure but the sooner you can get a follow-up story to me the better. Once we've established you it won't matter so much. You can afford to take a few breaks and people will be looking for you rather than forgetting you.'

‘I know, I know – I've pretty well blown my chances.'

‘No, as it happens you haven't. This Australian stuff is sensational. I'm using it immediately. But I shall need something else – soon. Just keep your camera by you and snap whatever takes your fancy. You have such a good eye for those unusual angles.'

‘I'll do what I can. This week it will be out of the question, of course. You and I both know my camera is a therapy for me – it helps to keep me sane – but other people wouldn't see it like that. They'd say I was being callous and unfeeling, I dare say – a trait which seems to run in my mother's side of the family, along with madness, of course.'

‘Harriet!' he admonished. ‘Oh love, this has hit you hard, hasn't it? You sound very low.'

‘I'll survive.'

‘Come back to London soon. Let me spoil you a bit. After all you've been through in the last couple of weeks you need some spoiling.'

‘You're very sweet, Nick.' She couldn't tell him how hollow the suggestion made her feel, any more than she could tell him that grief for her father and the stress of investigations into the past were only a part of it, and there was yet another reason for her depression, something else she wanted to obliterate with work – but certainly not by a replacement shoulder to cry on.

Why couldn't I have fallen for Nick? she had asked herself, replacing the receiver. Why instead did I have to lose my heart – and my senses! – to a man like Tom O'Neill?

She had not seen him since the day of her father's death and she did not want to see him. Irrationally her first reaction had been to blame him for what had happened to Hugo, as if Tom personally had been the one to open the can of worms. It wasn't true, of course. He had only appeared on the scene doing his job after Maria had blown the whistle on Greg Martin. But that didn't alter the way she felt, so that her resentment at the way he had used her rolled along like a sticky ball collecting more and more garbage as it went.

Yet ridiculously none of this had the slightest effect on the way she felt about him. This was what obsession was, she presumed, an emotional reaction that reason could not quell. Her body remembered his touch and shrank from the prospect of intimacy with anyone but him. Sharp sweet sadness ached in her constantly and when she stopped to identify its cause the answer was always the same. Tom.

‘Is there anything I can do?' he had asked that day when she had returned from taking the telephone call telling of her father's death. And somehow the pain and the hurt and the resentment had all come bubbling up and she had flared: ‘ Don't you think you've done enough?'

He had left then – at least he had had the decency to respect their need to be alone – but he had written a note of condolence which had arrived next day. The hypocrisy of it! Harriet had stormed – and thrown the letter in the wastepaper basket.

‘Don't you think you are being a bit hard on the fellow?' Mark had asked, and she had shaken her head vehemently.

‘How would you feel if you'd been used the way he used me?'

‘You don't know he used you, Skeet.'

‘Don't tell me what I do and don't know. He was only here this morning to ask more questions about my movements.'

‘He's probably only doing his job.'

‘Exactly! But what a lousy stinking way to do it …' She broke off, remembering their love-making and knowing that no matter how used she felt nothing on earth would make her explain to Mark. Quite apart from the hurt she was idiotic enough to feel it was so downright
humiliating
!

‘Well, I dare say you have your reasons,' Mark had said to her. ‘But he didn't seem that bad a bloke to me.'

He wouldn't, Harriet thought wryly. Nothing and nobody appears that bad when you are viewing the world through rose-coloured glasses. Lucky, lucky Mark. For him things had turned out well. She was glad for him, of course. No one deserved to be happy more than Mark did. But she wished just a little of his good fortune could rub off on her all the same.

Well, if wishes were horses, beggars would ride.

The crux of the matter is, thought Harriet, that I am not in the least attracted to men who make themselves available, and the ones I find exciting are incapable of any kind of real commitment. A vicious circle – an insoluble problem. So, face it. Take yourself in hand and forget Tom O'Neill or you will end up like your mother.

It was a sobering thought.

In his hotel room across town Tom O'Neill was packing his suitcase.

For him the case was over. He had set out to discover the truth about what had happened to Greg Martin and Paula Varna and now he knew. Greg Martin was dead – albeit twenty years late – and Paula Varna …

Mark Bristow had telephoned him the day after Hugo had died.

‘I don't want Harriet worried any more than she has to be. She is very upset about her father's death – they were very close. So to save her as far as possible I'd appreciate it if you would talk to me. I think I can answer any questions you may want to ask.'

‘That's very decent of you,' Tom had said, feeling distinctly hollow.

Of course he wanted the case tied up, but once it was he would have no further legitimate excuse to see Harriet.

Mark had been extremely helpful. He had filled Tom in on the details of Paula's fate and Harriet's recent Italian trip and Tom had begun to understand just why Harriet had been so touchy about it. What a hell of a story to uncover! He wished he could do something to comfort her but he felt sure she would reject any overture. She had not forgiven him for what had happened in Australia and in his heart he could hardly blame her. Hadn't he started out with the intention of using close contact with her to help him discover the truth? That made him technically guilty – even if the game had changed along the way. No, for the moment Tom did not think there was anything he could do. Harriet had made herself only too clear. She did not want him around.

He had resigned himself to it. He had stayed on for the funeral and watched from a discreet distance as the mourners walked from their limousines to the graveside in the bitter wind and the occasional flurry of rain. There was enough money there around the graveside to pay off the entire national debt, he thought wryly, and some of the most beautiful and fashionable women in New York to boot – but none of them could hold a candle to Harriet.

If Paula had been a mesmeric figure, then Harriet was without doubt her daughter, for amongst all those wealthy well-dressed women she shone out like a candle on a dark night, incandescent even in grief, her face pale and creamy, half-hidden behind a short black veil, her hair bright against the severely sculpted collar of her suit. As he watched her toss a single rose down on the coffin he felt he was intruding on her grief and he turned away, sick at heart.

He spent a couple of days liaising with the FBI to tie up the last loose ends in the Greg Martin affair and filed his report. He didn't know whether British and Cosmopolitan would ever recover the money they had been cheated out of and guessed it would be some time and probably a long legal wrangle before the financial tangles were satisfactorily sorted out, but that was not his problem. His job was done. Now there was no longer anything to keep him in the States. It was time to head for home – and the next job.

Tom wished he could feel enthusiasm for it, but he could not. Dammit, Harriet was still under his skin as no other woman had ever been. If circumstances had been different perhaps it could have been goodbye to his footloose bachelor existence, hello to a whole new way of life. He had never given a single serious thought to settling down – the very suggestion of it had always turned him cold – but now, coupled with a vision of Harriet, it was a very different matter, for he knew if he had her now he would be determined never to let her go again.

Pure hypothesis, he thought grimly, for the whole thing had been well and truly blown. Of course there was always the chance that he could look her up in London when enough time had elapsed for her to realise he couldn't possibly still be delving into her family history, but it would probably be too late. Prejudices and resentment would be too deeply entrenched – and there was always that damned Nick Holmes. Back in London she'd probably team up with him again. At the thought of it Tom felt his stomach physically turn. He remembered the night he had spent keeping watch outside her hat and the parked car that had signified that Nick Holmes was staying with her. At the time it had meant nothing to him, now, in retrospect, it clawed at his guts and in the fury of fevered emotion, which was quite new to him, he made up his mind.

Bloody hell, he couldn't give her up without a fight! Fool that he was, he had to try again. She would probably send him packing but that was a chance he had to take.

He lifted the telephone receiver and hesitated, wondering what he was going to say to her. Where was the incisive private eye now? For one of the few times in his life, Tom O'Neill was scared to death.

One more try. Just one. If she refused to speak to you, you will just have to accept it. But don't give up without a fight. Not now – when the stakes are so high.

He called the number and the maid answered.

‘I'd like to speak to Harriet Varna. It's Tom O'Neill.'

There – done – probably blown before he'd even begun. He waited, sweating. Then he heard her voice cool but revealing just a hint, just an echo, of his own turmoil.

‘Hello?'

‘Harriet, I'm just about to leave for London. But I can't go without seeing you again. I know we've had one hell of a bad start but I'd like the chance to explain. Shit – I'm not very good at this sort of thing …'