Element Of Risk

Although afraid to let any emotions other than the most superficial pleasure in their company show through, Perdita gave herself up to an exquisite heartache.

After an hour Luke intervened smoothly, and she found herself being escorted to the door. The girls wanted to come too, but when Luke refused they gave in without demur, saying their farewells with a poised charm that was so like their dead mother that Perdita had to look away in case they saw the tears in her eyes.

He walked down the path with her, waiting until they got to the car before saying abruptly, ‘I hope you’re satisfied.’

Nodding, face averted, she put out a hand to open the door.

‘And I have your promise that you won’t contact them in any way?’

Again her head moved.

He said on a steely note, ‘Look at me, Perdita,’ and his hand caught her chin and tilted her face.

Through the mist of her tears the forceful, uncompromising contours of his face were indistinct, only the pale glitter of his eyes burning clear and brilliant.

For a moment time froze. Then she gave a great sob, and he said furiously, ‘God, Perdita, don’t—’

‘I’m sorry,’ she wept. ‘It’s nothing. I’ll be all right soon.’

‘I can’t let you go like that.’ But he released her.

His reluctance enveloped her, palpable and disabling. Shivering, she tried to open the door of the car.

‘You can’t drive in that state,’ he said curtly.

She let the handle go to scrabble for a handkerchief, finally found the one that lurked in the bottom of her bag, and blew her nose. Fresh tears welled up, but she fought them back. She had to get out of here before she really lost control and started to bellow like a kid with a lost toy.

‘Goodbye,’ she said thickly, and this time she managed to drag the door open and get in. Luke said something but she shook her head and started the engine and took off along the drive, her hands gripping the wheel as though it was the only stable thing in her life. Just before the trees cut off the house her eyes flicked to the rear vision mirror; she registered that he hadn’t moved, and was still looking after her like a tall, angry god of olden times.

She held out until she got back to the motel and there, casting herself on to the green and brown and orange sunflowers of the duvet, she wept. Eventually, when her head was aching and her throat raw, the preceding almost sleepless weeks finally caught up with her; from tears she slid straight to unconsciousness.

Some time later she woke with a jolt to the sound of knocking and a voice calling her name with an urgency that had her on her feet and running across to the door.

Luke stood outside; she realised with a shock that it was getting dark, so she must have been asleep for several hours.

‘What is it?’ she demanded, her voice shaky, clutching the arm that was lifted to knock again on the door. ‘The girls—?’

‘No, they’re fine. I came to make sure you were all right.’

Slowly her hands relaxed and fell to her side. ‘Of course I’m all right,’ she said in a voice still husky from weeping.

Someone came to the motel office door and peered out at them. Instantly Luke pushed her inside and followed, looking around the room with something like distaste.

‘No, don’t put the light on,’ he commanded as her hand went towards the switch.

She understood immediately. ‘Guarding your reputation?’ she asked huskily, and went over to the windows to pull the curtains. ‘Won’t they recognise your car?’

He said shortly, ‘I’m sorry, it was a stupid thing to say.’

She knew why he’d said it. Small towns were a hotbed of gossip, especially if you were Luke Dennison, and he hadn’t wanted word to get back to the wife who had been dead for eighteen months. Like Perdita, he suffered from a guilt that could never be absolved because it could never be confessed.

If anything was needed to convince her that his heart was buried with Natalie, it was that swift, unconscious remark.

‘It’s probably wisest,’ she said, trying not to let anything but self-possession appear in her tone. Carefully avoiding his eyes, she flicked the light switch down. “The Manley gossips would have a field day.’

‘What are your plans now?’ he asked. He stood still in the middle of the small, unmemorable room, taking up most of the space.

She looked at him with studied composure. ‘I don’t really know,’ she said. The florist’s remark flashed into her mind, followed by an imp of malice that persuaded her to add, ‘I might decide to settle here.’

Although he was so big, the lean muscle on his frame stopped him from being bulky, so the swift, overwhelming sensation of being loomed over was sharp and intimidating. He wasn’t blocking any light from her, yet the room was suddenly darker and colder.

Then a straight black brow rose and something like derision glinted through his lashes. ‘Here? Out of your milieu, isn’t it? You’re too expensive, too sophisticated to settle in a one-horse town like Manley. There’s no Gerard Defarge, no Kurt Maxwell, no Whoever-he-was Albemarle here, no nightclubs or casinos or chic, expensive fashion boutiques. You’d die of boredom.’

She froze, lifting incredulous eyes to meet his sardonic gaze.

‘Somehow,’ she said, hiding the quick, unbidden flicker of fear with her most dismissive voice, ‘I didn’t see you as an avid reader of gossip columns.’

‘Natalie used to read them out to me,’ he said. ‘She thought I’d be interested.’

Natalie would have been interested. It was part of her charm, that absorption in everyone she met. When Natalie spoke to you, it was as though for her you were the only person in the world at that moment.

‘But you weren’t,’ Perdita said coolly.

His mouth hardened. ‘I wondered whether it was your abrupt introduction to sex that had set you on that path.’

She looked warily at him. For years, until Frank’s revelations of five months ago, she had thought of him as a Sir Galahad, a man who had made a mistake and would spend the rest of his life paying for it, a noble man who loved his wife beyond all reckoning.

Now she didn’t know. The missing files and great gaps in the adoption record had made her suspicious.

That first, keenly anticipated meeting with her daughters over, she could think of other things. Someone had tried to make sure she never found her children. Luke was capable of doing such a thing if he considered that it would protect his children or his wife.

Of course, that would mean that he had known all along that the girls were his. Had the biographical details of the parents made him wonder? Had he lived a lie for ten years?

‘I really don’t remember much of that first time; I was asleep during most of it.’ With the memory of his kiss still imprinted in her cells, she let her anger with herself for falling prey once more to her adolescent desires lead her into continuing acidly, ‘Sorry, I’m sure you’re an expert lover, but you didn’t register. And don’t worry about ruining my young life and directing me onto the primrose path. I didn’t blame you then, and I don’t now. I’m a perfectly normal woman with perfectly normal needs, and I satisfy them in perfectly normal ways.’

And put that in your pipe and smoke it, she thought fiercely, ashamed because she was lying to him. Oh, there had been one other man, but their affair had faded because she couldn’t return his passion.

The skin over Luke’s jaw tightened. Something savage and untamed leapt into his eyes, was almost brought under control.

‘I’m glad to hear it,’ he said brusquely. ‘But you won’t find glamorous, rich men here in Manley.’

‘And you don’t want me anywhere near the children,’ she said, not trying to hide the irony in her smile.

He shrugged. ‘Do you blame me for looking after their interests?’ Astonishingly, he put up a hand and touched the dried tear track on her cheek.

Mesmerised by the gentleness of his touch, Perdita stared at him. His eyes gleamed, slivers of pure colour beneath half-closed lids, and his mouth was set in a thin, straight line. Her heartbeat suddenly increased speed. She had to force herself to step backwards, away from the swift, sharp lance of sensation.

‘Of course I don’t,’ she said, aware that he was manipulating her, yet unable to resent it. She too would protect her children to the utmost of her ability. ‘But I don’t want to hurt them, or upset them, or even make them wonder who I am. I gather that Natalie didn’t mention me to them?’