Tangled Destinies

‘You tried a little too hard to see the best side of each and every one of us and I admired that,’ he told her idly. ‘Though you gave up on me.’

‘Hardly surprising,’ she said coldly. Her curiosity got the better of her, though. ‘What—what faults did everyone else have—yours being glaringly obvious?’

‘Well, despite all your gentle hints, you never managed to modify your mother’s odd obsession with me, or to change the fact that your father favoured John far more than you three girls. As for Sue, well, you never curbed her passion for cutting up any clothes left lying around and returning them with every inch re-designed and embroidered. I had a bit of explaining to do at boarding-school when the under-matrons unpacked two shirts with smocking on the front!’

Tanya laughed and then felt guilty that she’d done so. ‘Mariann?’ she prompted.

He smiled. ‘You worried unnecessarily over the fact that she sent out totally unconscious signals to every male within a radius of a hundred miles. You worried that she’d become a fallen woman if you didn’t protect her and form a human barrier against the young men who hung around her. I don’t suppose it ever occurred to you that they were rather taken with you, too.’

‘Of course they weren’t!’ she said hotly. ‘Mariann’s got the looks, not me. And yes, it did worry me for her sake, but she seems to take men’s admiration in her stride and isn’t vain or promiscuous at all.’

Tanya thought that it was extraordinary that he should have noticed so much, because he’d always seemed quite indifferent to family life. Those thumbnail sketches of them all made her feel rather uncomfortable. It was as though he’d watched them from a stranger’s viewpoint and judged them with clinical detachment. Your mother, he’d said; your father. Had that been deliberate or unconscious? All at once, she was beginning to entertain serious doubts about his relationship to her.

‘You—you were joking about not being my brother, weren’t you?’ she asked shakily.

‘No.’ The word vibrated through her body.

Suddenly she was too scared to believe him. Scared of the way she was beginning to respond, scared of the churning emotions working away inside her, destroying all caution. ‘It can’t be true! Mother would have told us when she knew she was dying,’ she said huskily. ‘You’re up to something! Why are you here, István?’ she asked with passionate intensity. ‘Tell me!’

‘In time. This is not the moment.’ His eyes gleamed. ‘When you’ve been parted from someone and you’ve both gone your separate ways, you don’t rush the reunion. It’s too volatile a situation and calls for a more delicate, less impulsive touch.’

She gulped in dismay at the husky threat in his tone. He was admitting that he was playing a cat-and-mouse game and meant slyly to work his way into Lisa’s affections again. However, her intended protest was shelved when she realised that John had returned.

‘All done?’ She smiled wanly. Not long now, perhaps a sharp show-down with István in a moment, and then she could be alone to gather herself together. She put a hand on John’s arm affectionately. ‘Don’t bother to show me my room. Let me have the key. You spend time with Lisa,’ she continued, a meaningful look in her eyes, ‘while this reprobate with the designer muscles makes himself useful by carrying my case.’

If she did anything, she decided, she’d make sure the bride and groom-to-be sorted out their differences. Meanwhile, once she and István were less in the public eye, she’d insist on knowing what he was doing here. And how soon he was going. Perhaps she could help him on his way, she thought grimly, contemplating the toe of her shoe with malicious intent.

‘So, the fun begins,’ murmured István, swinging the key backwards and forwards.

‘With bells on!’ she agreed tightly, planning plans.

He picked up her case, and the piece of hand-luggage that she’d nursed throughout the journey, double-stacked them porter-style and imperiously grabbed Tanya’s hand. ‘Let’s go upstairs and ring a few of those bells, then,’ he smiled, hauling her across the vast expanse of black and white chequer-board tiles so fast that she had to cling on to him like mad or slip on the glassy surface.

‘Let me go, you brute!’ she cried, afraid. Afraid of falling. Afraid of the contact. Her skin prickled.

Her hair was coming down in thick chestnut hanks over her shoulders and she was in danger of ricking an ankle if she didn’t wrench free. On an impulse, she scooped up a delicate porcelain vase from a glossy fruitwood table and prepared to aim it at István’s head.

‘You want bells, now hear them ringing!’ she fumed.

‘Mistake,’ he murmured. Because she’d given him time to drop her luggage straight to the floor with not an atom of regard for their contents, grab the vase and unwrap her fingers from it. ‘A little over the top, wasn’t it?’ he enquired smoothly.

She flushed, horrified at what she’d intended. ‘A girl has to defend herself from rogue bell-ringers,’ she muttered in excuse.

‘Sure. But do it some way that doesn’t involve one of Napoleon’s favourite bits of porcelain,’ he said drily.

‘His what?’ she scoffed. ‘Stop this endless make-believe! You can’t possibly know anything about the contents of this building! You’ve only been here…how long is it now?’

‘Long enough to know my way around,’ he answered, dodging her sly question. ‘Hope I haven’t broken anything in your cases.’ He lifted them and jiggled them around a little. ‘Chastity belt, is it?’ he asked wickedly, at a rattling sound. ‘Dear, oh, dear! What are you going to do if it’s broken?’ And he sauntered on up the stairs, leaving her steaming at his outrageous behaviour.

Since he had her luggage and the key to her room, and—she sighed—since it was up to her to get rid of him somehow she had no alternative but to follow. With the distinct impression that she was dancing to every tune he called, she stomped up the stairs so fast that she managed to draw level with him before he reached the top landing.

‘I’ve got Lisa’s present in there!’ she said angrily. ‘If you’ve ruined it, you can get a replacement. It cost——’ She bit her lip. Far too much, more than she could afford, but she was so thrilled for John and her dear friend. Distressed by his carelessness, she felt crosser than ever. ‘You’re like a hurricane!’ she bit. ‘Blasting your way through people’s lives, destroying anything in your path. You ruin everything you lay your hands on——’

‘I’ve lain hands on you a few times, heaving you out of the danger you got yourself into, and you look OK,’ he observed, giving her a rather insulting once-over. A shiver curled, unbidden, right the way through her body at the smouldering in his dark, bottomless eyes. ‘You’re all in one piece,’ he said in a soft, husky growl, ‘all the appropriate bumps in the right places——’

‘István!’ she protested, knowing she must be pillar-box red by now. Her blushes had even heated through to her loins and that had never happened before. But then no other man had ever shaken her out of her comfortable, ordered world. ‘Don’t talk like that!’ she said crossly.

‘I’m trying to wake you up to the truth as gently as possible,’ he said mildly.

‘No,’ she said stubbornly. ‘You’ve got to be my brother. Stop tormenting me like this——’

They turned down the long landing and István put an arm around her shoulders. As she shrugged it off irritably, she saw a flutter of a guest’s white skirt as a door ahead shut abruptly.

‘You’re looking a little flushed,’ he crooned.

‘I’m angry,’ she seethed.

‘Anger, is it? I thought I might have reached some…soft centre, some responsive core of that gorgeous body.’

She gasped. ‘Stop it!’ she grated.

‘When I do,’ he said softly, ‘you’ll wish I were still talking.’

She stumbled. The evidence was increasingly stacked against the fact that István was her brother. ‘Don’t touch me!’ she snapped, when his warm hand steadied her. Her pulses had started a riot all of their own. Some of them had decided to throb in her throat, where he could see them. So she clenched her jaw together and tried desperately not to think of István’s beautiful, wicked mouth.

‘You’ll grind down to the gums if you don’t give your feelings some release,’ he murmured.

Her almond eyes slanted viciously at his laughing face and away again, hastily. He was too darn handsome! Too arrogant. Too…impossible! ‘I don’t think so,’ she said frostily, determined to stop him trying to dent her armour with sly insinuations and outrageous teasing. ‘For your information, there’s a core of steel all the way through me.’

‘Malleable stuff, steel,’ he ruminated, nodding towards a medieval breast-plate on the tapestry-hung wall to illustrate his words. ‘It’s strong and cold to the touch, of course. But build up a fire hot enough underneath it, and when it reaches melting point…’ His eyes glimmered. ‘Now there’s a thought!’ he exclaimed. ‘Some man could come along and mould you to any shape he wants!’

Irritated by the way he twisted things to his own purpose, she gave a derisive laugh. ‘I’m well aware that’s what you’re trying to do to all of us,’ she snapped. ‘But this time we’re wise to you. If you’ve come——’

‘Maybe I’m a reformed character, come to make my peace,’ he said quietly, with a sideways glance at her grim profile.

Her astonished glance caught his and was momentarily trapped before she summoned up enough willpower to look.away, unable to withstand the alarmingly intense message of warmth there.

She gave her head a little shake, frantic to dispel the terrible thoughts that crowded her head. Her eyes skimmed the dauntingly broad shoulders, the swell of his chest with its bunched muscles, the narrow hips

‘I ride,’ he said suddenly.

Tanya jumped, startled. ‘Should I be interested?’ she retorted guiltily.

‘You were staring at my body,’ he said, deceptively as mild as milk. ‘I thought you were wondering how I kept fit. Am I mistaken? Were you staring because you feel attracted to me?’ he suggested wickedly.

‘Of course not!’ she cried, hot and bothered by the mere idea. Questions hovered on her lips—were almost blurted out. But a fear held her back. She was afraid to learn that her parents had lived a lie, that her father in particular had betrayed his strict adherence to truth and honesty.

‘Well, then.’ He smiled and paused, still smiling. If he were a woman, she thought in exasperation, she’d call it a full Mona Lisa effort. An ‘I have plans for you’ smile. ‘As my clothes aren’t special enough to fascinate you for the prolonged assessment you were giving me, and since you strenuously deny a sexual interest, your…intent scrutiny,’ he said insolently, ‘must be because you’re wondering if I’m a fitness freak. The answer is that I indulge myself in almost every sport I can,’ he told her in a conversational tone. ‘I like to keep supple because I need strength and stamina. Perhaps I’d better not tell you what for.’