No More Lonely Nights (19 page)

She went out and Sian stared at the window, watching the green sway of ivy on the wall, the dance of the wind through a maple tree at the edge of the lawns. Cass stood watching her, and she was very conscious of his nearness.

‘I’m afraid Magda was spoilt,’ he said. ‘The only girl, and she was delicate as a child—we all spoiled her, from my father down. Robert adores her, too, he never denies her anything. She has grown up thinking she can do just as she likes.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me before?’ Sian asked, still bewildered. She had said such terrible things to him; why hadn’t he made her believe it wasn’t him who had driven the white car?

‘I did,’ he said flatly. ‘You didn’t believe me.’

‘You didn’t really try to make me!’ She thought back over the scene in the little wood, flushed and appalled by what she had said to him. ‘You looked guilty!’

‘Maybe that was because I felt guilty,’ he said, his voice weary.

‘Why should you, if it wasn’t you?’

‘She’s my sister.’ He prowled up and down, his hands in his pockets, his dark head bent. ‘I suppose I felt responsible for what she’d done.’ She saw his sombre face from an odd angle and watched him gravely. What was he thinking? There was a silence which lengthened, making her uneasy; she breathed carefully, afraid of breaking the mood. It was so quiet in the room.

‘Magda was spoilt too early. She’s always been unstable, given to these outbursts. She’s possessive and jealous—she was jealous of Annette when they were both small, because my father made rather a pet of Annette, who was born just before Magda. My father wanted a little girl badly, and Annette was pretty and rather shy; even after Magda arrived, Dad went on giving Annette presents now and then, and as Magda grew up she resented that. She once got hold of a big doll Dad had bought for Annette. Magda smashed its head into a wall and stamped on the pieces.’

Sian drew a shocked breath. ‘My God! That’s crazy…’

Cass frowned. ‘No, she isn’t crazy—Dad thought she might be sick. He took her to a psychiatrist, but the specialist said she was just very spoilt and self-obsessed. He said it was perfectly normal for a child to be jealous if a parent showed fondness for another child, and it can be very hard if the other child is a sibling, let alone someone who isn’t part of the family.’

‘I’m sure that’s true, but children grow out of it!’

He sighed, his grey eyes intent on her. ‘Yes, exactly—but Magda has never learnt discipline, she doesn’t hide what she feels, the way most of us learn to do. That’s one of the differences between children and adults, isn’t it? That when we’re small we can’t hide our feelings, but when we grow up we cover up all the time.’

He was looking into her eyes and she felt her colour rising, a hot pulse beating in her neck. Was he still talking about Magda, or was he talking on two levels at once? There was a mocking irony in his stare and he was smiling crookedly—or was she imagining that?

‘Forcing another car off the road isn’t a piece of childish bad behaviour!’ Sian protested, hurriedly walking to the window to keep her back to him.

‘No.’ His voice was hard. ‘Don’t worry, Magda isn’t going to get away with it. Why do you think she confessed just now? We’ve all made it very clear that she has gone beyond the limit and that she has got to take some treatment again. The trouble is, she’s perfectly OK except for this one area, this almost paranoid jealousy.’

‘But why me? Why should she be jealous of me?’ Sian kept her eyes on the garden; watching the people moving about on the green lawns. The green canvas marquee was up, the stalls were being hung with flags and women were hurrying about with boxes of things to be put out for sale. Large tubs and troughs of summer flowers had been placed here and there, to give the right festive air, and Sian tried to be interested, but was only really aware of Cass behind her.

‘She thought you were bringing Annette here!’ he said brusquely.

Sian spun, green eyes wide. ‘Why should she think that?’

‘Nobody had told her that my aunt had invited you, and when she spotted you in the car ahead, for some reason she decided you had Annette with you, you were bringing her back. She said she was afraid the wedding was on again, and so…’

‘And you say she isn’t crazy?’ Sian broke out, and he winced, his eyes a frozen wasteland.

‘I’ve said, she must see a psychiatrist. She does have a problem.’

‘You say that far too casually,’ Sian said with an incredulous stare. ‘Don’t you realise that if I’d reported the accident to the police, she could be facing a serious charge today?’

‘Of course I realise it!’ he said with impatience, catching her eye and looking hurriedly away.

Suspicion hit Sian. She watched him, frowning, her mind working like an overheated engine. ‘Is that why you didn’t tell me that it wasn’t you?’

It was a shot in the dark, but it hit its target. His face tightened, a dark flush rose in his cheeks.

‘It was…’ she whispered, shaken. He had let her go on believing that it had been him in the white car because he hoped she wouldn’t go to the police and inform on
him
. And that meant only one thing—Cass had been gambling that he meant something to her.

And he won, hadn’t he? Sian stood there rigidly, white-faced, hating him. It was humiliating to know that he was so sure of her feelings for him.

‘Sian,’ he said, catching her arms and bending to kiss her, but she pushed him away.

‘Don’t you come near me again, not ever!’

‘I’m sorry, Sian. I didn’t want to hurt you!’

‘Sorry?’ The word was an insult; her voice shook. ‘You don’t know the meaning of the word!’

‘Do you think I wanted you to believe I could do a thing like that?’ He was getting angry, too, his voice vibrating with harsh feeling. ‘I tried to tell you the truth, but you wouldn’t believe me.’

‘You didn’t try very hard, though, did you?’

‘If you knew anything about me, you would have known I wasn’t capable of a thing like that!’ He turned icy eyes on her, his mouth curling.

‘But you were capable of using what I thought to get your sister off the hook!’ she spat out, and saw his eyes flash. ‘You could have convinced me if you really tried, but you didn’t care what I thought!’

‘I cared,’ he said through his teeth, and tried to take hold of her again.

‘Oh, sure you did!’ Sian muttered, slapping his hands away. ‘Don’t try to touch me, or I’ll hit you so hard you won’t get up for a week!’

He eyed her ominously. ‘Don’t threaten me, Sian.’

‘Then stay away from me!’

‘I just want to tell you the truth!’

‘The truth? You?’ She laughed and his brows twitched together, black and heavy.

‘Yes, damn you! The truth! Do you think I was flattered when I realised you thought I was a hit-and-run driver?’ His voice seared her, harsh and burning with sudden rage. She flinched away, frowning.

‘You had an option! You could have told me I’d made a mistake!’

‘At first I was too shaken. Insulted, incredulous—not to mention as angry as hell. It all happened too fast, then you went off to hospital with Piers and I talked to Magda and realised she’d deliberately run you off the road. I didn’t know what to do, but I was afraid of the police coming into it because that might push her right over the edge. Her grasp on reality isn’t too strong.’ He paused, hesitating. ‘And she’s my little sister,’ he added flatly. ‘I have to take care of her, whatever she’s done.’

Sian understood that, and couldn’t think of anything to say in response. After all, he hardly knew her—but Magda
was
his sister! Of course he had chosen to defend Magda, however much he hurt
her
.

‘Then why have you told me now?’ she asked. ‘Why not let me go on thinking it was you?’

‘Magda has to face up to what she did; she has to admit it and take the blame, or else she’ll do something like that again—even worse, maybe! She can’t be allowed to think she has some sort of immunity, can do as she likes.’ He sounded stern, remote, and Sian shivered. His reason for telling the truth, then, had nothing to do with
her;
he was still concerned only with his sister.

‘I still don’t think you realise what might have happened!’ she accused, and he looked down at her, his eyes brilliant with anger.

‘Of course I realise! Whenever I think that you could have been killed I feel sick…’

She wished she could believe the feeling in his eyes, but she dared not trust him any more. There was too much hidden between them; too many question marks in her mind.

‘And it wasn’t even me she wanted to kill!’ She met his eyes and saw them flick away, as they always did at the mention of Annette—the biggest question mark of all. Something else occurred to Sian then, and she frowned, watching him closely.

‘If you knew she hated Annette, why were you going to marry… ?’ She broke off the question because she didn’t think she could stand hearing him talking about Annette; she didn’t want to know any more. He must have been deeply in love with her, or he wouldn’t have risked marrying someone his sister hated that much. Or hadn’t he realised until too late that Magda still hated Annette like poison?

He wasn’t answering her, anyway; he was staring at nothing, his face in hard profile.

Sian made for the door suddenly. ‘I’m going for a walk in the garden!’

He followed. ‘I’ll show you the roses and the croquet lawn—can you play? We could have a game. They’ve set it up so that people can play this afternoon. They’re charging them, of course—it’s all for charity, everything is being done to make money.’

Sian didn’t look round at him. ‘I’d rather be alone,’ she said in a stiff, cold voice, then began to run, and this time he didn’t follow.

It was a relief to be out of the house, in the sunlight, although she found herself surrounded by people at first. Workmen, ladies with armfuls of books, junk, plants which they were heaping up on the stalls, children setting up a crazy golf course on one lawn, while in another corner some boys were arranging coconuts on battered wooden cups for a coconut shy. She felt people looking at her, curious eyes following her. No doubt they wondered who she was—but she ignored them all, making for the distant part of the garden she could see: a wilder area of trees, rough grass, shrubs. At least there she could be alone to think.

One group of women discussed her so loudly that she could hear every word, and maybe was meant to! ‘Is it her?’ one asked.

Another said, ‘No, she isn’t old enough. The pictures in the papers made her look thirty, at least, and this one can’t be more than twenty-five.’

Sian wanted to run, to get away from the speculative eyes, the faintly malicious voices, but she made herself walk steadily, her eyes fixed on nothing.

‘I think it is her,’ someone else said.

‘Well, I don’t think much of his taste! The other one was better-looking.’

‘Men like blondes, though, don’t they?’

Sian was almost out of earshot; the last words floated to her on the summer air, making her grind her teeth. What made people think that blonde hair meant there was nothing underneath the scalp? Why did people think in stereotypes?

The stuff of my trade, she thought cynically as she slowed down among the trees. Among them she saw a white ironwork seat against a swag of rich pink clematis, the flowers spilling down behind it from an old half-dead apple tree which looked as if it had been struck by lightning and no longer fruited.

Sian made for it and sat down sideways, her knees clasped by her two hands and her feet on the end of the seat, propped on the elegant curled ironwork armrest.

Cass was a ruthless man. He had used her without scruple whenever he felt it necessary—to distract the media from Annette, or in covering up what his sister had done. It didn’t bother him that she might have been badly hurt by believing that it had been he who had forced her off the road and then driven on without stopping.

Did that mean he had no idea she was falling in love with him? Or merely that he knew, yet was still prepared to use her feelings for his own purposes without caring what that did to her?

She closed her eyes, then angrily opened them again and pulled a swathe of clematis towards her; she fingered one flower, played with the petals unthinkingly, shredding them and letting them fall lightly on the long grass—soft, velvety, pink drifts among the whiskery stems.

He was a mystery, a shadowed maze into which she had wandered, in which she was lost. She didn’t understand him at all, nor did she think he wanted her to!

She ought to leave now, right away, without seeing him again. Why had he been going to marry Annette? Sian found it increasingly difficult to believe he had ever been in love. He didn’t act like a man in love; he had made passes at her ever since they had met; and when he talked about Annette he didn’t sound like a man in love. Sian heard more genuine excitement in his voice when he talked to her. In fact, he spoke about Annette kindly, patiently, as if she were a child he was responsible for—even his fury over her flight had not been quite in keeping with the way a jilted bridegroom would feel. It had been more the exasperation of someone who has been made to look a fool in public, and he had pursued her to bring her back only for her father’s sake. Had he seen her since the day he’d driven Sian back to London from the hospital? Had he tried to see her? If he had, he hadn’t mentioned it, but then, he was a secretive man who never mentioned anything if he could avoid it.

A movement among the trees made her stiffen and look round, expecting to see Cass and steeling herself to send him away.

It was a man hovering there, watching her among the leafy branches, but it wasn’t Cass. For an instant Sian had a primitive flash of terror. She was alone and the unknown seemed sinister.

Then he came out into the sunlight of the little glade, and with a start of incredulity she recognised him.

‘Louis?’

‘Hello,’ he said, strolling over, very London-dressed in a smooth pale grey suit with a pink shirt and a grey tie slashed with pink stripes. He looked totally out of place, totally wrong.

‘What on earth are you doing here?’ Sian asked.