Deceived

The gallery was situated on the first floor of a former Benco warehouse, sharing the premises with a popular boutique at ground level, a home bakery and various workshops occupied by woodcarvers, candlemakers and hand weavers.

They sold mainly paintings, prints and pottery by local artists and craftsmen, including Nell herself. And, although Lydie and Nell had refused to sell souvenirs, they’d made sure they stocked the kind of small, unusual but inexpensive items which tourists would want as mementoes or gifts, and these went like hot cakes.

When the bank had looked down its nose and talked about the recession, Lydie had turned instead to her stepfather for the initial loan to finance the enterprise. And, to Debra’s thinly veiled chagrin, he’d agreed to put up the money.

The gallery was managing to keep its head above water mainly because Lydie didn’t draw a full salary yet. Not that she needed to, because she lived at Greystones and Austin insisted on making her an allowance, firmly steamrollering over her objections.

Another of his decisions, Lydie thought ruefully. But she compromised by spending as frugally as possible, although the dress still abandoned in its carrier in the back of her car had been an exception to that self-imposed rule. And perhaps she’d be able to return it anyway.

Now she found herself wishing that she’d stuck to her guns, managed on whatever pittance she could have drawn from the company.

She dried herself and put on her underwear, drawing the stockings slowly over her smooth legs, remembering another time five years ago when she’d dressed for Austin’s birthday party with her heart performing strange, shaky somersaults inside.

She’d been allowed home from school specially, and had spent every penny she’d saved on a new dress that time too.

The one she’d wanted then had also been black—with spangles, she thought; sleek as a second skin. Black was the colour of sophistication; she’d wanted to show Marius that she wasn’t a child any longer but a woman, ready—eager for love.

Her hand faltered slightly with the blusher she was applying.

But the boutique owner had tactfully steered her away from that and into a much simpler model in jade-green, almost the same colour as her eyes.

Now she paid minute attention to them with shadow and liner, accentuating their shape and lustre, according the same attention to detail to the colour she painted onto her mouth. Tonight the mask had to be perfect. Impenetrable.

Five years ago, her face had been highlighted by an inner brilliance, with little need for cosmetics. The tiny bodice with its shoestring straps had flattered the sweet flare of her breasts, and the short, full skirt had swirled enticingly. She’d held it out in both hands and turned slowly in front of the mirror, imagining herself dancing in Marius’s arms. Seeing the smile in his eyes when she told him she loved him. Hearing the tenderness in his voice when he told her he felt the same...

Lydie stood up abruptly, reaching for the black dress, and zipped herself into it, smoothing it over her hips. Black, she thought; the colour of mourning. For the death of faith and innocence. The ending of a girl’s dream.

She took a long look at herself. Her hair was drawn up into a sleek topknot, with only a few random tendrils softening the line around the nape of her neck and her ears. She had disguised the real shadows around her eyes and painted on a smile. Who could ask for anything more? she wondered with irony.

She opened the door and stepped into the passage just as Marius emerged from his own room a few yards away. Lydie kept a hand behind her, holding the handle of her bedroom door, feeling the hard metal bite into her flesh, letting one pain combat another as she absorbed the bitter familiarity of him in a dinner jacket and black tie. Formal evening clothes had always suited him, accentuating the width of his shoulders and the leanness of his hips.

That other night, long ago, she’d watched, breathless with a new, secret excitement, as he’d walked towards her, wanting only to run to him, to feel his arms closing around her.

Now her mouth was dry and she felt deadly cold as she recognised the distance that hurt and betrayal had imposed between them.

‘Good evening, Madonna Lily.’ His brows lifted as his glance examined her. ‘Or should I call you Black Orchid tonight?’

‘Neither.’

‘No?’ He affected a sigh. ‘Yet there was a time...’

‘A time long past.’ She managed to control the faint tremor in her voice.

‘How strange,’ he said slowly, ‘that you should think so, when to me it feels like yesterday.’

Lydie lifted her chin. She said rawly, ‘Marius—for God’s sake—what are you doing here? Why have you come back like this?’

His mouth curled in the smile she’d always hated. The smile that mocked without amusement. That did not reach the wariness in his eyes.

He said softly, ‘Because I received an invitation. An offer I couldn’t refuse.’

‘But what do you want?’ Her voice almost cracked in desperation.

‘Ah.’ Marius was silent for a moment. ‘That, I think, remains to be seen, Madonna Lily.’ His gaze met hers in a challenge like a blow. ‘Maybe I’ve come back for you’

Her head went back with shock, and she felt her mouth frame the word no. Then she turned and headed blindly for the stairs, the jeer of his laughter following her like a shadow.

CHAPTER THREE

LYDIE didn’t wait to see if Marius was following. She headed straight for the drawing room, hesitating momentarily at the door while she dragged together the rags of her composure.

Did he really think that he could walk back into this house—back into her life—as if the past five silent years meant nothing? As if he’d never been away?

She’d been young then, and vulnerable. But now she had her future planned, her emotions under control. And Marius had no part in her life. That was the only certainty in a reeling world.

The sooner I’m out of this house, she thought grimly, the better.

She pushed open the door and went into the room.

Jon was there alone, decanter in hand.

‘His, doll.’ His smile was forced. ‘Welcome to the family reunion, and you’re more than welcome, believe me.’ He squinted at the measure of whisky he’d just poured into his glass. ‘I wonder what other grisly surprises are in store for us?’

Lydie. said with constraint, ‘I thought you liked Marius.’

‘Like the rest of us, I suspect I never knew him.’ He sounded reflective as he poured her usual dry sherry. ‘Although that’s an omission we’ll all have ample opportunity to repair from now on.’ He handed her her glass then drank some whisky. ‘Our mama is fit to be tied, of course.’

Lydie nodded. ‘I’ve seen her.’ She paused. ‘I think she’s overreacting.’

‘Or just overacting.’ Jon reached for the decanter again. ‘But you can’t blame her for being shocked. For once she looked at her hand and failed to find Austin twined round her little finger. That makes him unpredictable, and therefore dangerous.’

Lydie twisted the stern of the crystal glass in her fingers. She said, ‘She’s always blamed Marius—the quarrel—for Austin’s heart attack.’

Jon laughed derisively. ‘That’s only part of it. She and Marius were at odds from the start, ever since she started treating her marriage like a pools win.’ He waved his glass around. ‘This house, for starters. She had it completely done over—got rid of all the family stuff that had been here for generations. Marius, apparently, found this clean sweep slightly insensitive.’

‘I didn’t realise that,’ Lydie said slowly. ‘I knew there’d been changes, of course.’

‘You were too young to see what was going on. Apparently the business was having problems at the time but Mama was oblivious. And she resented the fact that Marius couldn’t also be brought to heel with a flutter of her eyelashes. Plus he was tactless enough to let her see he thought she’d exceeded her sell-by date.’

Lydie bit her lip. ‘Yes, I understood that at least.’

‘So, when Austin finally cancelled the blank cheque and made her an allowance instead, she blamed Marius.’ Jon held his glass up to the light, admiring the rich amber of the whisky. ‘Although I’d guess it was pressure from the accountants and the bank. However besotted Austin was, he wasn’t going to let her bankrupt him.’

He shook his head. ‘But with Marius banished to outer darkness Mama must have thought the gravy train would eventually be running on the old track again. Hence her distress at his return.’

‘But you’re not happy about it either.’

‘Are you?’ He gave her a searching look. ‘I recall you had it pretty bad for him at one time.’