A Thorn In Paradise

‘That’s not what I said.’ He moved towards the front door and then turned to her. ‘I’m going to fetch my case from the car,’ he said with a cold smile that didn’t contain the remotest hint of humour. ‘Don’t even think of slamming that door shut behind me.’

Corinna didn’t say anything. She was still in a state of semi-shock, brought on, she decided, by the fact that he had appeared like a ghostly materialisation on the doorstep at the very moment she had been wondering about him. In a very short while the shock would wear off and she would be able to respond to him in a more controlled manner. In her profession, self-control was instilled as part of the training process and it wouldn’t let her down.

He returned from the car with a tan leather holdall which he dumped on the ground, and she eyed it with resentment.

‘I’m not about to carry that upstairs for you, like a porter,’ she informed him, and was subjected to another of those freezing, ironic observations.

‘I don’t recall having asked. Or maybe you fancy yourself as a mind reader, as well as keeper of the house.’

‘I don’t fancy myself as anything of the sort!’ she spluttered angrily, but he had turned away and was walking in the direction from which she had just come, towards the drawing-room, looking around him on the way.

She followed him, half running to keep up, with her arms folded across her chest.

‘You can’t just waltz in here——’ she began, and he

spun around to face her.

‘And why not?’ he asked coldly.

‘Because,’ she said nervously, ‘because it’s late and you should really come back tomorrow if you want to see your father. He’s normally up and about by nine-thirty. I’ll tell him you called.’

‘You mean you’ll warn him.’ His lips stretched into an icy mimicry of a smile. ‘No, thanks.’

He had very long legs. He stretched them out in front of him and crossed them at the ankles, clasping his hands behind his head.

‘I feel as though I’ve never been away from here,’ he said to himself, flicking those sharp grey eyes around and taking in everything. There was nothing, she decided uncomfortably, that this man missed. ‘Nothing’s changed at all; even those two pictures are in precisely the same place.’

‘Nothing has to change!’ Corinna said, hovering by the door.

She could tell immediately that he had temporarily forgotten about her presence and she wished that she had not reminded him of it because she was once again subjected to the brunt of that disturbing, hostile stare. He eyed her shortly and then commanded her to sit down. With some surprise, she found herself obeying, tentatively perching on the chair furthest away from him, a fact which didn’t escape him from the look on his face.

‘I’m glad I arrived when I did,’ he surprised her by saying. ‘No one about. No one but you.’ There was something a little forbidding about the way he said that, and she shivered. ‘It gives us the opportunity to chat.’

This man was arrogant, menacing and far too good-looking. Just the sort of man, she thought uneasily, that she had spent a lifetime conscientiously avoiding. Her father had been arrogant, good-looking, a magnet for other women. Over the years she had managed to submerge her feelings about her childhood into some safe, dark corner where she had firmly closed the door and, she had thought, thrown away the key. Now, though, memories rose up from those secret depths, memories of her father accusing her mother of having affairs, wild arguments in which they made no attempt to lower their voices, her mother shouting that what could he expect when he was fooling around behind her back as well? Antonio Silver, her inner voice told her, was a dangerous man.

‘You’re very protective about my father, aren’t you?’ His voice brought her hurtling back into the present.

‘Yes, I am. I happen to be very fond of him.’

‘So I gathered.’

She gave him a guarded, bewildered look and received another of those humourless smiles.

‘I take it you’re wondering what my source of information is?’ he asked, and she didn’t answer. She was getting more nervous by the minute. Where was her training when she needed it? she wondered crossly. She had spent years masking her expression with her patients, careful never to reveal too much, and with the doctors when their opinions had not coincided with her own, always cautious, always careful, and now here she was, red-faced and ill at ease.

‘Angus McBride,’ he said shortly, as if that should have explained everything, and she continued to look at him in uneasy bewilderment.

‘Angus McBride told you…what?’ Angus McBride was one of Benjamin’s oldest friends. A lawyer who practised in the Midlands, he called in to visit whenever he was down south, which wasn’t all that often. Corinna had liked him on sight. He was a small, thin man with a cheerful, shrewd face who didn’t lack the courage to chide his friend for, as he put it, wasting his intellect away in the confines of Deanbridge House.

‘Wrote and told me about you.’

‘I had no idea that you kept in touch with anyone connected with your father.’

‘And what other sweeping observations have you got on me?’ he asked, staring at her from under his lashes.

‘It wasn’t a sweeping observation,’ Corinna defended. ‘It’s just that from the way your father spoke…’

His grey eyes narrowed to slits and another wave of colour flooded over her. She would have to get her house in order, she thought, if she weren’t to find herself completely obliterated by this man.

‘So my father and you have been having lengthy discussions about me. Cosy.’

‘That’s not what I meant!’ She stood up, agitated. ‘You’re putting words into my mouth! Your father and I haven’t discussed you! I mean, your father talks about you now and again, but I don’t respond. It’s none of my business what goes on between the two of you! But I can’t believe that Angus would write to you and tell tales.’

‘Whoever mentioned telling tales? He’s the family lawyer and we’ve kept in touch over the years. He wrote to me a few months ago telling me about you, or at any rate about a nurse who had started working for my father. Since then your name has cropped up several times, in the most glowing of terms, might I add.’

‘I don’t see what you’re getting at.’

‘Don’t you? You don’t strike me as a stupid girl. Well, to ease you out of your bewilderment, let me just put it like this. My father is a very wealthy man. This house alone is worth a small fortune and he has other properties as well, quite a few of them dotted throughout London and all carrying very respectable price tags on them.’

Corinna didn’t let him finish. She stormed towards him, her hands on her hips and looked down at that arrogant, dark head furiously.

‘So I’m after your father’s money, is that it?’ She gave him a scathing look. ‘I would be insulted by that accusation if it came from anyone else but you! As far as I’m concerned, you’re not exactly qualified to troop along here and accuse me of anything, considering you haven’t seen fit to set foot in this house for God knows how many years! You’re hardly the loving son, are you?’

She should have guessed that he wouldn’t take too kindly to insults. He had the easygoing friendliness of a python, after all, and his hand snapped out to hold her by the wrist while he stared at her disdainfully.

‘Spare me your observations on my character,’ he said through gritted teeth.

‘Why should I?’ Corinna asked with equal hostility. ‘I haven’t noticed you sparing me your observations on my character!’

He released her abruptly and she massaged her wrist, trying to get the blood circulation going again.

‘Why should I?’ he asked too, standing up and prowling round the room, his hands stuffed into his pockets. Corinna followed his movements reluctantly. He moved with the easy grace of someone who was well aware of the physical impact of his presence. He was a tall man, well over six feet, and he carried his height with a confidence that sent a shiver of alarm running through her. She couldn’t remember ever following Michael’s movements with this avidity and she tore her eyes away with a stern reminder to herself that not only was this man highly objectionable, the stuff of nightmares in fact, but he was also insulting and offensive. And she had been stupid enough to give him the benefit of the doubt by imagining that his father had exaggerated his flaws. If anything he had understated them.

He had stopped in front of the marble mantelpiece and he turned to look at her from across the room. It took enormous effort to steel herself against the scrutiny. It was like being cross-examined, she thought, and, worse, it made her feel guilty, as though she had something to hide, when in fact she didn’t.

‘I’m not the intruder,’ he said. ‘My last name is Silver.’

‘What a charming way with introductions you have,’ Corinna threw at him. ‘Are you usually such a sociable character?’

‘When it comes to women like you, I don’t see the necessity for polite exchanges. Bluntness is the only tool you types understand.’

‘Women like me? Types?’ she all but shouted. No one had ever made her so angry in her life before. She had always been a very controlled person, not given to displays of temper. In fact, she found displays of temper alarming and often unnecessary, uneasy reminders of her childhood spent on her parents’ battleground. So it amazed her that this perfect stranger had managed to antagonise her to the point where she felt very much inclined to reach for the nearest heavy object and sling it at him. She took a few steadying breaths and said carefully, ‘I don’t have to stand for this. It’s hardly my fault if you swan in here, in the middle of the night, acting as though you’ve caught me trying to steal the family silver. Anyway, as far as I’m concerned, you’re the intruder. You haven’t contacted your father in years, not even so much as a Christmas card, and——’

‘You seem to have mastered the fine art of jumping to conclusions,’ he threw at her forcefully.

‘Your father told me——’

‘I’m sick of hearing what my father told you! Do you actually have any time to do the work you’re presumably paid for in between all these riveting conversations you appear to have with him?’