Sweet Betrayal

Sweet Betrayal
HELEN BROOKS

Once bitten, twice shyNothing could fade the bitter memories Candy had of Cameron Strythe. How could he have been so callous, abandoning her pregnant sister all those years ago? He'd disrupted their lives, and he was stilldisturbing Candy's peace of mind with his dynamic presence and all too charming manner….But this man had betrayed her sister and, Candy vowed, it was her absolute duty to exact a full and meaningful revenge–at any cost!"Helen Brooks pens a superb story with rich characters, sparkling interplay and a riveting emotional conflict."–Romantic Times

“You can’t deny what’s between us—” (#u98b606c7-7fe6-5f70-b2eb-28cab4570f47)About the Author (#ue905d2f6-4d77-5dae-87ed-a115bf25c299)Title Page (#u32ab6370-3c05-511b-bf92-38674d5718d2)CHAPTER ONE (#u66f52fba-7ac7-5f1e-bd11-dbf9b3e0c4ec)CHAPTER TWO (#u934eef27-70d0-51d7-87ee-6699510c8120)CHAPTER THREE (#ua76b271d-98c8-58d7-9aac-fb10a329ca96)CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

“You can’t deny what’s between us—”

“There’s nothing between us, Cameron,” Candy hissed savagely. “Nothing except years of betrayal and hate and misery. Do you really think I would be so insanely foolish as to let myself be persuaded to be another Michelle?”

“By that you mean...?” Cameron asked slowly, his voice expressionless.

“Pregnant and abandoned.”

“Was that Michelle’s version of the story?”

“You used her, Cameron, and then walked away when things got too hot. I shall never forgive you. Never.”

Helen Brooks lives in Northamptonshire, England, and is married with three children. As she is a committed Christian, busy housewife and mother, her spare time is at a premium but her hobbies include reading and walking her two energetic and very endearing young dogs. Her long-cherished aspiration to write became a reality when she put pen to paper on reaching the age of forty, and sent the result off to Harlequin Mills & Boon.

Sweet Betrayal

Helen Brooks

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

CHAPTER ONE

‘IF THAT crazy animal isn’t off my property in the next thirty seconds I’ll shoot it!’

Candy couldn’t stop a startled gasp escaping her lips as she swung round so sharply that she almost overbalanced off the crumbling stone wall where she had been sitting in the weak March sunshine that had no warmth. The man behind her matched the voice: big, hard and uncompromisingly severe.

‘I beg your pardon?’ Indignation swamped the fear and her brown eyes narrowed furiously. ‘I have every right to be here! Just who do you think——?’

‘I am?’ The tall figure clicked his fingers to his own two black Labradors, who sat immediately by his side like two well trained statues. ‘I know who I am; the point is—who are you? And the statement stands: you have exactly four seconds left to call that thing to order.’

She looked from the dark brown, bearded face to the heavy shotgun in his gloved hands and her stomach turned over. He meant it! He really would shoot Jasper.

‘Jasper!’ Her voice held a note of terror, and immediately Jasper stopped his gambolling to look towards his beloved mistress, leaping up the grassy slope in two bounds and jumping effortlessly over the wall to land by her side, his brown eyes enquiring and his long tongue lolling in its usual ridiculous manner. The two black Labradors didn’t even flick an eyelid as he sniffed interestedly in their direction.

She bent to fasten the lead round his neck and he looked up reproachfully as the heavy chain slipped over his golden head. It had been years since he had suffered such an indignity, and in front of two other dogs too!

‘Don’t you realise that there are sheep about to lamb in that pasture?’ The deep, gravelly voice was familiar somehow, but she couldn’t place it, and now was not the time to reflect. ‘I suppose you’re a townie out for the day?’ The last was said with such contempt that she reared up furiously with a muttered oath, causing Jasper to growl deep in his throat. He wasn’t sure what was happening, but, if there was any defending to do, those two black sentinels had better know he meant business! No one was touching his mistress while he was around.

‘I have lived in Downdale all my life, as it happens.’ Her voice was shaking with suppressed anger and hurt. ‘I know exactly what is in that field and all the others round here. Jasper has been brought up with farm animals and would no more chase a sheep than...’ She couldn’t think of an appropriate simile and floundered helplessly. ‘And we have permission to be on this land!’ The last was said with such conviction that the icy blue eyes watching her so coldly narrowed into two chips of glittering glass.

‘Really?’ His voice was mockingly arrogant. ‘I think not. I would have known if I had given permission for someone so obviously irresponsible to walk my fields.’

‘They aren’t your fields!’ She pushed back the hood of the heavy, thick duffel coat that was protection against the biting wind that scoured the hillside and immediately her hair was whipped into a mad scramble of tangled red silk. ‘They belong to Colonel Strythe and he——’

‘Colonel Strythe is dead.’ The statement was completely without feeling.

‘I know that,’ she snapped back abruptly, furious that this obnoxious stranger could talk about her father’s old friend, who had been like a member of her own family, so coldly. ‘I was at the funeral last Wednesday, but until they can contact the son the Colonel’s old rules apply...’ Her voice trailed off in horrified realisation as she stared into the only recognisable feature in that dark, bearded face. His eyes. She should have recognised his eyes! Only Cameron Strythe had eyes that were as piercing as a razor-sharp sword and as cold as ice. She remembered those eyes! How could she have forgotten? And the voice, distinct with its strange, gravelly texture that in the throes of adolescence she had thought so attractive.

‘I see I need not introduce myself, but, nevertheless, Cameron Strythe at your service . . . Miss . . . ?’

She ignored the implied question and stared at him as though he were the devil himself. He was so different! She remembered a tall, smiling young man with the charm of a thousand Irish tongues and fair, cleanshaven skin. This man’s face was as dark as an Arab’s with long hair bleached almost blond at the ends. He resembled a wild gypsy rather than the cool, university-educated young man she recalled.

‘When did you get back?’ Her voice was a horrified whisper and immediately lost in the wind as it swirled round them with increasing force, the sunlight racing dark shadows across the valley below. She repeated the question more loudly and he looked at her intently, searching her face with those deadly eyes.

‘Do I know you?’ Did he know her? She could have laughed if the circumstances had been different. She remembered the last time he had visited the house to see Michelle, her sister. They had been engaged to be married and the wedding date was only weeks away. Candy already had her bridesmaid’s dress, a frothy pink creation in tulle and taffeta. The dress was suddenly there before her, clear in detail to the last tiny rosebud on the hem. Her twelve-year-old heart had been thrilled with such finery, but then there had been a terrible scene that night and Cameron had gone away. And later, a few weeks later, Michelle’s shape had begun to change too drastically to disguise any more, and six months later Jamie was born. The whole affair had broken Michelle’s heart and made her parents old before their time... and this man was responsible for all the misery!

‘What’s the matter?’ The perpetrator of all the heartbreak, which had dulled over the passage of time, but was awakened as new as if it had all happened yesterday, took a step towards her, alarmed at the pallor of her face and the wide, staring eyes.

‘Get away from me!’ It was a snarl of hate and he recognised it as such, stopping in his tracks with an expression of almost comical amazement stretching his chiselled features. ‘You aren’t fit to be called your father’s son.’

As the words registered his expression froze, but she was gone before he could form a reply, running down the hillside on legs that flew over the rough, coarse grass, her long hair streaming behind her like dancing red ribbons, and Jasper bounding by her side, enthralled by the new game.

She didn’t stop till she reached home, bursting into the drawing-room, where her parents were sitting in front of a roaring log fire, enjoying a Sunday afternoon snooze with just the cat for company.

‘Candy!’ Her mother had almost leapt from the chair in her fright. ‘What on earth is the matter? You’ve frightened me half to death!’

‘Sorry.’ She stood panting in the middle of the room with such a hunted expression on her face that her parents both rose as one and reached her side in the same instant.

‘What’s the matter?’ It was her father speaking now, his voice worried. ‘Has there been an accident? Are you all right?’

‘I saw him.’ She wouldn’t have believed she could feel like this about something that had happened so long ago. It must be ten years since that terrible time, and Michelle was happily married now, with two more children to keep Jamie company and a husband who was crazy about her, but every so often she caught a glimpse of that old haunted expression in her sister’s eyes and knew she was thinking about Cameron Strythe, the man who had taken her innocence and then let her down so badly. She didn’t know if Michelle still hated him, but she knew she did, more than ever!

‘Him?’ Her father shook her slightly in his concern. ‘Who, for crying out loud?’

‘Cameron Strythe.’ Her voice was flat now and she felt the rage seep out of her as the urge to cry became paramount. ‘And he was so awful about Uncle Charles, Dad; he spoke as though he didn’t care.’

‘Perhaps he doesn’t.’ Her mother sighed deeply and shook her grey head slowly. ‘Ten years is a long time to be away, Candy; people change. But it’s no concern of ours one way or the other, is it?’

‘How can you say that?’ She stared into her mother’s gentle blue eyes in horrified denial. ‘After what he did to Michelle?’

‘What happened between your sister and Cameron Strythe was a long time ago and only they know the real facts,’ her father said stiffly as he left her side and returned to his chair by the fire. ‘It hurt us all, especially Charles, but the past is the past and I don’t want old wounds reopened now. Michelle is happy—you know that for yourself—and if Cameron chooses to come back here to live that is his prerogative. He has inherited a vast estate, you know—Uncle Charles was very wealthy.’

‘I’m surprised he left it all to him,’ Candy said bitterly as she flung her heavy duffel coat, scarf and mittens on a nearby chair, emerging as a slender, tall young woman with a cascade of wavy, silky hair almost to her waist.

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ her father said sharply. ‘Charles loved his son; he was all he had. Don’t let old memories sour you, puss; you’re too sweet for that.’

‘Huh!’ She eyed her father balefully as she bent down to remove some tiny sticky balls that had got embedded in Jasper’s coat from the dense undergrowth on the hillside. ‘That was said tongue in cheek.’

‘Maybe.’ Her father allowed himself a small smile as he surveyed his volatile younger daughter. ‘But Cameron may well be here to stay, and, in a small village like this, open war will make life very difficult for a number of people. You must let the past stay in the past, Candy. I mean it.’

‘Dad, I’m a matronly schoolteacher of twenty-two,’ she answered drily. ‘I think I can decide for myself how I treat Cameron Strythe if I happen to see him again.’

‘Oh, you’ll see him again.’ Her mother’s voice was resigned. ‘We all will. You might as well get used to the idea. He now owns most of the village, remember, and, like it or not, both your father’s job and this house are under his control.’