When the Devil Drives (15 page)

able to before. As she'd never allowed herself to do before.

She was shaken by sobs, torn apart by wretchedness and remorse,

rocking backwards and forwards on her knees, as the storm possessed

her, then passed.

She had done a wicked thing in marrying Martin, and now retribution

had overtaken her. Could there be a worse fate than being made to

face the unendurable fact that she was in love with a man who

regarded her only as an instrument for revenge? What had he called

it? 'A dish best eaten cold.'

She drew a deep, quivering sigh, and looked down at the grave,

wiping the tears from her face.

I wronged you, Martin, she told him silently. I've never been able to

admit that before, even to myself. But now I'm going to be made to

suffer for it, so I can ask you, at last, to forgive me.

Maybe, one day, I'll even be able to forgive myself.

She got slowly to her feet, and turned away.

'I'd like a word with you, Joanna.'

Joanna hesitated with one foot on the bottom stair. She glanced at

Simon over her shoulder. 'Can't it wait? I was planning to have an

early night.'

Dinner had been a frankly awful meal. She was still so traumatised by

the self-knowledge which had come to her that she'd hardly been able

to swallow a thing. For the most part, she'd pushed the food round her

plate in a pretence of eating, while her mind ran in crazy circles,

rejecting the unpalatable truths still battering at her consciousness,

desperately seeking a refutal—an escape, yet finding none.

Simon too had seemed abstracted, but Fiona, who'd arrived

downstairs in a pink quilted housecoat that did nothing for her

increasing girth, had more than made up for him. She'd sat through

the meal like an aggrieved blob, complaining about her heartburn and

revelling in her mother's gushing sympathy and endless

reminiscences about the trials of her own pregnancies.

'I can imagine you might need an early night,' Simon said grimly. 'But

I'd prefer us to talk now, please.' He opened the study door, and stood

waiting for her to join him.

After a palpable hesitation, Joanna walked back across the hall, and

preceded him into the room. 'Yes?' She sounded defensive and knew

it.

'Paul Robertshaw called at the Craft Company this afternoon. It was

his wedding anniversary last night, and he took his wife for dinner at

the country club.'

'Oh.' Joanna's heart began to thump. 'I'm really not that interested in

the Robertshaws' domestic arrangements, Si, and --'

'Nor was I,' he interrupted. 'But it seems they saw you there, dining

tete-a-tete with Cal Blackstone. Paul and Marian couldn't believe

their eyes, particularly when you apparently left with him.' He

paused. 'Well, what have you got to say?'

'Very little.' Joanna shrugged. 'That seems a fair resume of the

evening. What of it?'

'You can ask that?' Simon's face reddened angrily. 'My God, Joanna!

You've never had a good word to say about him or any of the

Blackstones, even when I wanted to try and heal the breach. You

were the one who said he couldn't be trusted, who insisted on keeping

that bloody feud going. And now you're seen in public with him,

smooching in corners and worse!'

It was Joanna's turn to flush. 'I did nothing of the kind!'

'Oh, no? You forget I saw your return to this house this

morning—that we all did. Where the hell did you spend last night?'

There was no point in lies or evasion. Anyway, wasn't it time Simon

saw the limits to which his criminal recklessness had brought them?

Joanna asked herself, as her hands clamped into fists at her sides.

She lifted her chin. 'I slept with Cal,' she said baldly.

There was a moment of silence, total, terrible, then he exploded. A

torrent of furious words poured from him, violent, abusive, vile.

'Slag!' she heard as she pressed her hands over her ears, and 'Whore!'

'Simon!' She cut across the tirade, her voice cracking. 'For God's

sake—
don't --'

'You say that to me, you dare to say that, you bitch, when you've just

degraded yourself—when you've dragged our name through slime!

What the hell were you thinking about, or do you keep your brains in

your knickers these days?'

The crudity made her shudder. 'I was thinking of you.' Her face was

white now. 'You wanted my help— you needed him kept at a

distance—off your back while you tried to put things right.'

'But not like that!' he yelled. 'Never like that. I didn't mean you to

prostitute yourself to him!'

'Did it never occur to you that those might be his terms?' she shouted

back. 'Everything has a price, Simon. In this case, it was me.'

'But you didn't have to pay it, for God's sake! Only twenty-four hours

ago, you were his mortal enemy. Surely you could have made some

excuse—fended him off, instead of throwing yourself into his arms

like some sex-starved --'

'It wasn't like that!'

'I don't want to hear about it.' He sat down heavily, covering his face

with his hands. 'It's incredible.' His voice was hoarse. 'You, a

Chalfont, rolling round in bed with Cal Blackstone!' He gave a

strained, grating laugh. 'And they say history never repeats itself!'

'What do you mean?' Joanna stared at him, wearily pushing her hair

back from her face.

'You've allowed Cal Blackstone to execute the perfect revenge.'

Simon shook his head wonderingly. 'If the whole thing wasn't so

bloody nauseating, I could almost admire the bastard.'

'I don't understand.' Her heart missed a beat.

'It's quite simple.' His voice sounded dead. 'His grandfather, also

Callum, if you recall, tried to rape our grandmother, the first Joanna

Chalfont. She managed to fight him off, and get away from him, but

that's really why he was booted out of his job, and his cottage.'

'Rape?' Joanna repeated blankly. 'But I've never heard any mention --'

'Of course not. You don't think Grandfather would have let the story

get out, do you? There were plenty of other explanations for his

dismissal. Old Blackstone was a born troublemaker as well as a

lecher, so an excuse for getting rid of him wasn't hard to find.'

He looked at her. 'And that, sister dear, is how the famous family feud

really began. Not out of industrial unrest, or local politics or even

ambition, but because of an aggressive, womanising upstart who

couldn't keep his hands off our grandmother.'

He snorted. 'If old Cal had possessed even the slightest decency, he'd

have cleared out altogether, once he'd been sacked and evicted, and

we'd have been rid Of Him. He might even have thought himself

lucky he wasn't lynched. But of course he stayed, claiming that he

was the one who'd been wronged. Every day he remained was an

insult to Grandmother, and a threat as well. It wasn't that long

afterwards she had the miscarriage that killed her—probably brought

on by the stress of all she'd been through.'

Joanna swallowed. 'How—how do you know all this?' Her mind

winced away from the ugliness of the story, and its even nastier

implications where she was concerned.

'I found out while you were in America,' he told her. 'It was when Dad

first started rambling on about the past. He talked about Joanna one

night, going on and on about her. The whole thing was pretty

disjointed and incoherent, and at first I thought he meant you. But

eventually I sorted out that he was referring to his mother. I asked a

few pointed questions, and finally got the whole story out of him. He

was only a young kid when she died, and the whole awful business

obviously had one hell of an effect on him. It made me feel sick to my

stomach as well.'

'I can imagine.' Joanna was trembling. 'Why didn't you tell me

before?'

'I didn't see any necessity. God, Jo, you hated all the Blackstones even

more than I did! It never occurred to me that he'd try and get back at

us by involving you sexually, let alone that he'd succeed.' He sighed.

'Frankly, I thought it was this house he wanted, not you. I totally

underestimated his will to win—the lengths he was prepared to go to.'

She could hear Cal's voice, quiet, gloating, inside her head. 'The

wheel come full circle.'

Something within her was dying, strangling in pain and bitter hurt.

'I—I can't blame you for that,' she said tightly. 'I— I underestimated

him too.'

On her way back from the churchyard that afternoon, she had vowed

she would make good flower from bad. That somehow she would

make Cal love her in return, transmuting the harshness of his desire

for her into tenderness and a caring, abiding passion.

Now it seemed that he had never really wanted her at all. It explained

a great deal, of course, beginning with the miniature of her

grandmother in his sitting- room. It was there to remind him of his

purpose— feed his fixation. To urge him on to achieve the ultimate

retaliation.

Her mouth tightened as she remembered the way he'd spoken of her

grandmother, using words like 'love' and 'respect'. She supposed he

was being deliberately ironical, or was he testing her? Finding out

how much of their joint family history she was actually aware of?

She could understand too why he'd left her untouched the previous

night. It wasn't from any kind of consideration, she thought,

flinching. Merely lack of interest.

The only lust he felt was to succeed where his grandfather had failed.

To wipe out that past humiliation by taking the present-day Joanna

Chalfont and flaunting her before their small mutual world as the

possession—the plaything of Cal Blackstone.

That was worlds away from desire, she thought numbly. It was

something deeper, darker and infinitely more calculating, and she

shuddered away from it as if she'd ventured too closely to the edge of

some abyss and peeked into its void.

'You should have said something, Jo.' Simon spoke sombrely. 'Told

me the kind of pressure he was putting on you.'

She spread her hands. 'You were so worried—about Fiona—about

everything. I—I thought I could handle him.' Besides, she thought but

did not say, I was afraid of how you'd react—afraid of your weakness

and your anger combining into some kind of violence.

She wondered why she didn't tell him all of it. Why she didn't admit

that so far Cal's conquest of her had been only cerebral. That maybe

all he required for his own purpose was to appear to be her lover,

rather than to become so in any physical sense.

She shivered as she remembered the sweet burn of his mouth on her

body.

He'd intended her to want him, of course. Perhaps, in some twisted

way, he'd even meant her to plead- to beg for his lovemaking so that

he could reject her and make his triumph doubly sweet.

No, she couldn't tell Simon that. Because to confess it would be to

recognise once again her own failure as a woman—a failure she'd

already had to come to terms with in her marriage.

She drew a quick painful breath. In spite of all his calculations, she

thought, Cal Blackstone had never fathomed that he possessed the

power to destroy her totally. She had at least been spared that.

'From now on you keep away from him, do you hear?' ordered Simon.

'I hear,' she said quietly. 'And if he moves against you over the money

you—owe, what then?'

'That's no longer your problem.' Simon squared his shoulders tiredly.

'I should never have involved you in the first place. I—I blame myself

for what's happened to you, Jo. It's all my fault.'

'No,' she said. 'No, you mustn't say that.' You didn't make me love

him. That was my own private insanity. 'I'm just as culpable, and I

wanted to be so strong—so clever.' She sighed faintly. 'I wanted to

outwit him single-handed. But we never have—any of us against any

of them. We've lost over and over again, and now we stand to lose

everything.'

'I'll see him damned first.' Simon spoke with swift, bitter energy.

'He'll take nothing else—I'll make sure of that.'

'How? What are you going to do?'

He stared past her into space. 'Whatever I have to.' He got to his feet

and patted her awkwardly on the. shoulder. 'Maybe it's best you don't

know.' His smile was forced. 'Now go on to bed, and don't worry

about another thing.'

And that, Joanna thought, hours later, as she watched the first dawn

light streaking the eastern sky—that was almost funny.

JOANNA spent the following day half expecting, half dreading that Cal

would telephone her with details about other cottage properties. Or