The Mirror Bride

Not now! she thought. He had gone through the ‘terrible twos’ with no sign of tantrums, but since his hearing had deteriorated they came frequently.

He thought better of it this time, though. ‘We had a concert and then they sent us home,’ he said, directing sideways looks at the man who was watching him impassively.

Later she’d make sure Simon hadn’t bunked school, but at that moment all she could say was, ‘This is Mr Arundell, Simon.’

‘Hello,’ Simon said, suddenly wary as a half-grown wolf cub. ‘I’m Simon Harley.’ He advanced into the room and looked uncertainly at Olivia.

Drake said, ‘How do you do, Simon?’ and held out his hand.

Cautiously Simon shook it. ‘How do you do?’ he replied, staring up in awe. ‘Is that your car down there?’

Olivia looked from the smooth childish features to the guarded face of the man who had just repudiated his son, and wondered whether she could see some resemblance.

No, none. Like her, Simon bore Elizabeth’s stamp.

And yet... An elusive tingle of memory teased her mind before escaping into oblivion.

‘It is,’ Drake Arundell said, all grey leached from eyes that were now pure green.

Olivia said quietly, ‘Darling, go and wash your hands—they’re filthy.’

‘What?’

She repeated the command in the clear, slightly nasal tone that seemed to get through best to him.

‘OK.’

He gave a respectful smile to Drake Arundell, who waited until the door into the bathroom had closed firmly behind him before saying in a low, level voice, ‘You can’t even claim he looks like me. He’s—’

In an equally muted voice Olivia interrupted, ‘We can’t talk now.’

His head came up as though she had struck him on the jaw. Inwardly quailing at the icy lack of emotion in his eyes, Olivia refused to back down; she stared him directly in the face, silently forbidding him to upset the child who was noisily splashing water over his hands in the bathroom.

‘We aren’t going to talk at all,’ he said curtly. ‘I fight dirty, Olivia. If you annoy me any more I’ll find a painful way to clip your claws.’ He swung around and strode out, long legs moving fast, the set of his broad shoulders and the way he held his head expressing anger and contempt.

Olivia’s breath hissed through her lips. She stood listening to the sounds of the neighbourhood, so familiar that for years she had barely heard them. Cars changed gear and swung around the corner, impatient brakes screeching on the wet tarseal. A siren wailed down the motorway, its imperative command only slightly muted by the houses between.

Her stomach felt as though it had been kicked by a rugby forward. Even though she had rehearsed their meeting ever since posting the letter, she hadn’t been prepared.

But then, nothing would have prepared her for this version of Drake Arundell.

He’s not going to get away with it, she thought fiercely. I’ll find a way...

‘Oh, he’s gone?’ Simon appeared at the bathroom door. Somehow the statement came out as a question heavily underlined with disappointment.

‘Yes.’ Olivia walked across to the sink, drew a glass of water and drank it down.

‘Who is he?’

Although she’d also rehearsed a couple of answers to that question, now that it had been asked neither seemed appropriate. ‘Someone I knew when I was seventeen,’ she said lightly, hoping that it didn’t sound too evasive.

Simon nodded, but she hadn’t stifled his curiosity. They had very few visitors, and none who drove Jaguar cars. ‘Is he coming back?’

‘Possibly,’ she said vaguely, setting the glass down. ‘Make yourself a sandwich, darling, and then I’ll hear you read.’

He pulled a face, but he knew the rules. At least, she thought wearily, she didn’t have to worry about television’s influence on him; they didn’t have a set. As he was beginning to point out more and more frequently.

Simon was clever and quick, but in spite of all her efforts he was rapidly losing ground. Olivia was determined that he should have his chance; he wasn’t going to be sentenced to a life like hers, held back by circumstances.

Facing down Drake Arundell was a small price to pay, and why should he refuse to accept his responsibilities when so far he’d got off scot-free?

Later, as she prepared dinner, she tried to work out another plan of campaign for dealing with the man. She hadn’t expected him to be so—so intimidating, she decided after searching for the word. However, it was too late to worry about that now. If he refused to take a DNA test she’d simply raise such a fuss that he’d have to.

After they’d eaten and done the dishes she dragged out the cheap writing pad and a pen.

‘What are you doing?’

‘Writing a letter,’ she said casually.

Simon’s eyes rounded. They never wrote letters—or got them for that matter. ‘Who to?’ he asked with a guarded curiosity that hurt. A year ago he’d have been filled with eager interest.

‘A man,’ she said, narrowing her eyes mysteriously as she dropped her voice to a significant whisper. ‘And I’m not going to tell you who he is—you’ll just have to wait.’

Grinning, he left her to it, sitting on the sofa which was also her bed to ‘read’ a school library book. Listening to him stumble over words, she thought wearily that these first years at school were vital. If he lost too much ground it could take him years to catch up. And he might become so convinced of his inferiority that he’d never make up the gap.

She finished the letter. But although she had made it much more emphatic, she read it with a furrowed brow. There was nothing in it to stop Drake dismissing it with a flick of those lean, strong fingers.

Absently she touched the place on one wrist where he’d held her fast. He hadn’t hurt her, but she’d known she wasn’t going to be able to escape that grip. A frisson of sensation shivered across her nerves, heating them with a forbidden fire.

What would he be like as a lover?

Immediately the dreamy sensuality was replaced by shocked indignation. No doubt her mother had shivered to the same deliciously sinful sensation, asked herself the same wicked question. But Elizabeth Harley had found the answer—and the knowledge had cost her happiness and peace of mind, and ultimately her life.

Look at it whichever way you liked, Drake owed Simon, and it was time that he did something about it.

Setting her jaw, Olivia tore up the letter and wrote another.

Dear Drake,

I’m sure you wouldn’t like to appear on the cover of something like this. I’ll contact this one if that’s the only way I can find the money for Simon’s operation.

Tomorrow she’d buy an old copy of one of those magazines from the secondhand book shop at the end of the row opposite. Drake would discover that she could fight dirty too, when it was necessary.

The next morning she and Simon went off to school, where she discovered that he had been telling the truth about his early arrival home. Only then admitting to herself how afraid she had been that he’d bunked, she returned home with a marginally lighter heart.

On the way, still inflamed with fury and righteousness, she bought a magazine with the most outrageous and embarrassing headline she could find, tore off the cover, folded it into four and stuffed it into the envelope with her letter, then posted it.

Scarcely two hours after the mailman had collected the mail from the box outside the dairy she realised that Drake could quite easily contact her stepfather and tell him where she was.