Blackmail

There was a small silence when it would have been possible to hear a pin drop, had such an elegant room contained so homely an object; a time when Lee was acutely conscious of Gilles’ cold regard, and then, as the silence stretched on unnervingly, she held her breath, frightened, in spite of her determination not to be, by the hard implacability in Gilles’ face.

‘I will forget that you made that last remark. As to the other—’ he shrugged in a way that was totally Gallic, ‘because you were there, because we are known to one another; because you were already wearing a betrothal ring which made things so much easier.’

‘Well, as of now,’ Lee told him through gritted teeth, as she listened in appalled disbelief to his arrogant speech, ‘our betrothal is at an end!’

‘It will end tomorrow,’ Gilles told her arrogantly, as though she had no say in the matter. ‘When we marry.’

‘Marry?’ Lee stared at him. ‘Have you gone mad? I wouldn’t marry you if you were the last man on earth! Have you forgotten that I’m engaged to another man? A man whom I love, and who loves me …’

‘But who does not trust you,’ Gilles drawled succinctly. ‘Otherwise he would not have telephoned here this morning to ask if you had arrived, and if you were to share a room with Michael Roberts. I confess I was intrigued to meet you again; you must have changed considerably, I told myself, to arouse such jealousy.’

Lee ignored the subtle insult. He had known she was coming, then. Had that scene with Louise all been planned? She didn’t want to think so, but knowing Gilles, it was just the sort of Machiavellian action he would delight in.

‘Sit down,’ he instructed her coolly, grasping her shoulders with cool hands, tanned, with clean, well cared for nails. Hands which held a strength that bruised as he forced her into a brocade-covered chair, which alone was probably worth more than the entire contents of her small flat. ‘Before you lay any more hysterical charges at my feet, allow me to explain a few facts to you.

‘Louise’s father is a close friend of mine, and a neighbour, whom I greatly respect. Louise has completely blinded him as to her true personality, and out of charity his friends keep silent as to her real nature. He owns lands which borders mine, fine, vine-growing land, which will eventually form Louise’s dot should she remarry, but Bernard is growing frail and can no longer tend this land himself. I should like to buy it from him …’

‘Why don’t you simply marry Louise?’ Lee butted in, too furious to stay silent any longer. ‘Then you’ll get it for free.’

‘On the contrary,’ Gilles said smoothly, ‘I shall have to pay a very heavy price indeed. The price of knowing that my wife is known intimately to every other man in the neighbourhood who has glanced her way; the price of not knowing whether I have fathered any children she may bear. However, I now discover that our names have been linked by local gossip—gossip deliberately fed by Louise, I am sure, for she would stop at nothing to become my wife.’

Again his arrogance took Lee’s breath away, but before she could protest, Gilles was continuing emotionlessly.

‘I had two choices open to me. Either I must give in to Louise’s blackmail, or cause great pain to an old friend.’

‘And thereby lose his rich land,’ Lee commented sotto voce, but Gilles ignored her.

‘However, on this occasion I was presented with a third, and infinitely preferable choice—marriage to someone else, a marriage which will calm Bernard’s suspicions, silence Louise’s malicious tongue, and far more important, a marriage which can be set aside when its purpose has been achieved. In short, my dear Lee, a temporary marriage to you.’

Lee was lost for words. She stared at him, her green eyes wide with disbelief.

‘I won’t do it,’ she said positively, when she had found her voice. ‘You can’t make me, Gilles.’

‘Oh, but I can,’ he said silkily.

He walked across the room, removing a small key from several on a key ring which he returned to his pocket, then unlocked a beautifully carved eighteenth-century desk.

‘Remember this, Lee?’ His voice was light, almost devoid of all emotion, but Lee’s sensitive ears caught the faint note of triumph, her eyes fastening despairingly on the giveaway rose pink notepaper. It had been a present from her godmother on her sixteenth birthday. She had been thrilled with it at the time, but less than six weeks later the entire box had been consigned to the fire.—All but for two single sheets of the paper and one envelope.

‘I wonder what that jealous fiancé of yours would have to say about this?’ Gilles taunted. ‘Even in today’s more lax atmosphere, it still has a certain … something, would you not agree? Or perhaps you would care to refresh your memory?’

Lee shuddered deeply, averting her face, unable to even contemplate looking at the letter, never mind touching it.

‘Alas, your modesty comes too late. Indeed, after reading this I doubt anyone would believe you ever possessed any. I read it again myself this morning, and while the vocabulary and style might leave a certain something to be desired, no one could fault the clarity of the sentiments. I believe I would be right in thinking that not even your beloved fiancé has a letter such as this to treasure from you …’

‘Do you think I’d ever …’ Lee burst out, goaded into answering. But Gilles stopped her.

‘Perhaps not. Indeed I find it hard to equate the cool front you present to the world with the undeniable passion of this letter. Perhaps you would care for me to read you a passage or two, to refresh your mind …’

‘No!’ The word was a low moan, Lee’s hands going up to cover her ears. She was shaking as though held deep in the grip of some fever, her eyes as dark as jade, and empty of everything but the agony she was experiencing.

‘So,’ Gilles murmured, apparently not in the slightest affected by her bowed shoulders and white face. ‘It is agreed. Either you will marry me—temporarily—or I shall send a copy of this delightful love-letter to your fiancé. You have the night to think it over,’ he added coolly. ‘And, Lee, do not try to leave here, for that will surely guarantee your fiancé’s sight of this charming epistle.’

Somehow she managed to get to her feet, to walk past Gilles on legs that trembled convulsively with every step. He stopped her at the door, his eyes raking her pale face without mercy.

‘Strangely enough, you do have a certain air of breeding; a beauty that speaks of cloistered walls and untouched innocence. Be thankful that I know you for what you are and do not seek to take more from you than merely your time. Were you as cool and innocent as you appear, it would be … intriguing, awakening you to love.’

‘To lust, don’t you mean?’ Lee said sharply in disgust. ‘A man like you doesn’t begin to know the meaning of the word love, Gilles.’

‘Then we should make an excellent pair, shouldn’t we?’ he murmured insultingly as he held wide the door.

In her room Lee did not undress. She sat before the window, staring out into the moon-swept gardens, her eyes blinded by the tears cascading down her face as the present ceased to exist and she was once again that sixteen-year-old, trembling on the brink of life, and love.

It had all started as a joke. Aunt Caroline had a neighbour who had a daughter several months older than Lee, and when Lee stayed with her godmother, the two girls normally spent some time together.

With the benefit of hindsight, Lee wondered if Sally too had not had a crush on Gilles, just as she had done herself, but it was far too late now to query the whys and wherefores. The truth was that she had fallen deeply and intensely in love with Gilles, seeing him as a god to be worshipped adoringly from a distance, and Sally had discovered her secret and teased her with it.

That fatal day had been particularly hot. They had been lying in the uncut grass at the end of Aunt Caroline’s long garden. Earlier Gilles had been cutting the lawn, muscles rippling under the smooth brown skin of his back, tanned in far sunnier climes than England’s. Lee had watched him with her heart in her eyes. Soon he would be going back to France, his brief stay over, and she felt as though her heart would break.

As though she had read her mind, Sally had tempted as cunningly as Eve with her apple, ‘I dare you to tell him how you feel.’

Lee had been horrified. She could think of nothing worse than that Gilles, so supercilious and unattainable, should know of her foolhardy impertinence.

‘If you won’t tell him, then I shall,’ Sally had threatened with relish.

Lee had, of course, pleaded with her not to do—a foolish action, she now realised, and at length Sally had reluctantly agreed.

As she had claimed later, with a pert toss of her head, writing a letter was not telling, because she had not actually spoken to Gilles.

She had used her artistic talent to copy Lee’s handwriting, and had signed the letter in Lee’s name, using the very notepaper which Aunt Caroline had given Lee for her birthday. With so much evidence against her, it was small wonder that she had not been able to convince Gilles of her innocence, Lee reflected soberly, but his cruelty and callous disregard of how she had felt was something she would never forget.

Lee had been in her bedroom when Gilles found her. She had blushed the colour of a summer rose when he walked in. He looked so tall and handsome in his white shirt and tapering black trousers. The dark shadow of his tanned, muscular chest beneath the thin silk had triggered off an awareness of him she had not experienced previously, tiny tendrils of fear-cum-excitement curling along her spine; the first innocent awareness of sexual magnetism, but before Gilles left her room the veil of innocence had been torn aside for ever.

His presence in her room momentarily robbed her of speech, but her heart had been in her eyes as she looked up at him.

‘Very appropriate,’ he had sneered, his eyes on her cross-legged pose on her bed, where she had been doing some studying. ‘But I regret, mademoiselle, I have not come here to satisfy your nymphomaniac desires, but to warn you of the outcome were you to express the same sentiments to a man who is not honour bound to protect you from yourself.’

‘I …’

‘Save your breath,’ he had warned her. ‘These prurient outpourings say it all.’

The letter had fluttered down from contemptuous fingers to blur in front of the green eyes that read it with growing disbelief. Some of the words, some of the desires expressed were unfamiliar to her, but those which she did understand were of such a nature as to bring a flush of shame to her cheeks.

‘Oh, but you can’t think … I didn’t write this!’ she had pleaded with him, but his face had remained coldly blank.

‘It is your handwriting, is it not?’ he had demanded imperiously. ‘I have seen it on your schoolbooks—schoolbooks! What would they say, those good nuns who educate you, if they were to read this … this lewd filth?’

‘I didn’t write it!’ Lee protested yet again, but it was no use, he wouldn’t even listen to her, and a schoolgirlish sense of honour prevented her from naming the real culprit. She felt as though she had suddenly slipped into some miry, foul pool, from whose taint she would never be clean again. The way Gilles was looking at her made her shudder with revulsion. She forgot that she had adored him, and felt only fear as she looked up into his condemning face.