Satan's Contract

‘Each to their own taste,’ he responded drily. ‘I trust you’ve fully recovered from your fall this morning?’

Her smile wavered slightly, but she managed to keep it in place. ‘Yes, thank you,’ she responded lightly. ‘It was such a stupid thing to do, riding like that in the lane. I was lucky it was no worse.’

Now there was no mistaking the mockery. ‘The luck was all mine,’ he taunted, letting his eyes slide deliberately down over the ripe swell of her breasts beneath the silk of her blouse.

She caught her breath, her cheeks flushing a deep pink—she hadn’t expected him to be so blunt as to remind her of that. She turned to the solicitor, struggling to maintain her composure. ‘Mr Gibbons—some sherry?’

A heavy tread warned of her father’s approach. ‘Couldn’t wait five minutes to get your feet under the table, could you, Morgan?’ he grated belligerently. ‘Come to take inventory, to see we don’t remove anything we’re not entitled to, have you?’

Shaun turned slowly, his level brows lifted in sardonic question. ‘I’m quite sure you wouldn’t do anything like that,’ he responded, those hazel-brown eyes—the living image of Gramps’s—glinting with mocking humour. ‘I imagine it would constitute theft.’ He slanted an enquiring glance at the solicitor. ‘Isn’t that right?’

‘Oh...quite,’ that embarrassed gentleman confirmed quickly.

‘You’d better not start counting your chickens,’ Sir Charles advised in a blustering tone. ‘The battle’s not over yet.’

‘On the contrary—Mr Gibbons advises me that there should be no difficulty in obtaining letters of administration. It shouldn’t take more than a few weeks. And if you have any ideas of attempting to intervene,’ he added, his voice menacingly soft, ‘I really would advise you to think again.’

Sir Charles had turned an ominous shade of purple, ready to explode. Pippa was acutely conscious that everyone in the room was listening to the conversation with undisguised interest—everyone except her mother, whose attention was focused solely on the remaining sherry in her bottle. Her plaintive voice cut inconsequentially into the taut silence.

‘Charles, you really will have to bring up some more of this Oloroso,’ she declared, her careful diction not quite concealing the slur in her voice. ‘I really can’t think where it all goes.’

Someone tittered with embarrassed laughter, and Pippa closed her eyes for a brief moment, wishing devoutly that the ground could just open up and swallow her. With a snort of rage, Sir Charles turned on his heel, and stalked out of the room, slamming the door viciously behind him.

‘Oh...’ Lady Corbett blinked, startled. It had finally impinged on her blurred consciousness that something was amiss, but she wasn’t at all sure what it was. She glanced around rather anxiously, afraid that she might have committed some faux pas. ‘I...I didn’t necessarily mean right now...’ she protested vaguely.

Shaun’s eyes still held a faintly mocking smile. He handed his glass back to Pippa. ‘I guess I’ve already overstayed my welcome,’ he drawled, an inflexion of sardonic humour in his voice. ‘Mr Gibbons, if you happen to be going my way, I’d sure appreciate a lift.’

‘Of...of course.’ The solicitor looked as if his tie was too tight.

‘Thank you. Well, good afternoon, Miss Corbett.’ The smile was blandly polite. ‘Thank you for your hospitality. I look forward to meeting you again.’

For a moment Pippa could only stand rooted to the spot, staring after him as he left the room. But then suddenly it seemed as if she had been released from some strange spell, and, putting down the tray of sherry glasses on a convenient table, she ran out after him.

‘Shaun—wait!’

Halfway across the panelled hall he paused, glancing back, one eyebrow lifted in mocking enquiry.

She hesitated, awkwardly wondering how to follow up on her impulsive action. ‘I just...I wanted to apologise for what my father said to you this morning,’ she stammered. ‘It was quite abominable of him.’

The hard glint in his eyes as he subjected her to a lazy appraisal seemed to turn her blood to ice. ‘Well, Miss Corbett—this sudden change in your attitude towards me is very interesting,’ he taunted in that soft, laconic drawl. ‘What brought it on, I wonder? Trying to play your grandmother’s game?’

She stared up at him, bewildered. ‘I...I don’t know what you mean?’

‘Don’t you?’ His eyes hardened perceptibly. ‘The Corbetts never have had any time for anyone whose breeding didn’t match their own—unless they found themselves in need of funds. Your grandmother was more than willing to prostitute herself by marrying my father for his money—maybe it’s occurred to you to do the same.’

His words struck her like a slap in the face. ‘How dare you speak to me like that?’ she protested, furious. ‘I wouldn’t touch you with a barge-pole!’

He laughed softly, taking her chin between his fingers and turning her face up to study it from several angles, as if she were one of the chattels of the estate he had just inherited. ‘Not bad,’ he murmured with an air of cool detachment. ‘The pedigree is unmistakable, of course—every inch a Corbett. It could be quite interesting to break you to bridle.’

She slapped his hand away. ‘You won’t get the chance!’

‘No?’ Those hazel-brown eyes were regarding her in amused speculation. ‘We’ll see. It would be good to take a little revenge on your family.’ A hard edge had crept into his voice. ‘Your grandmother’s behaviour prevented my father from ever supporting my mother properly—she had to struggle by on a pittance until the day she died. That’s something I won’t ever forget or forgive. And I’ve never been allowed to get to know him, either—the last time I saw him was more than fifteen years ago, at my mother’s funeral.’

‘Well, whose fault was that?’ Pippa retorted, refusing to let herself be swayed. ‘You chose to go off to Canada—’

‘Because it was more than obvious that I was a constant thorn in the old witch’s side—for which she made my father pay with every breath he drew.’

‘My grandmother died six years ago,’ she pointed out, cool blue eyes regarding him with disdain. ‘You could have visited after that.’

His eyes glinted dangerously. ‘I tried,’ he said. ‘I came to England two years ago with just that intention, but Charles wouldn’t let me into the house.’

She laughed in scorn. ‘If you’re trying to tell me you couldn’t have got past my father...!’

He lifted his eyebrows in faint surprise. ‘What do you suggest I should have done? Knocked him down? I must admit I considered it, very seriously.’

Silently reserving that she would have enjoyed seeing it, she shrugged one slim shoulder in a gesture of unconcern. ‘Well, you couldn’t wait to get here as soon as he was dead,’ she tossed at him coldly.

‘Of course,’ he returned, immune to her poison darts. ‘Wouldn’t you have expected me to come to my own father’s funeral?’

‘And to throw us out of our home,’ she added hotly. ‘Don’t tell me you’re not gloating over that.’

‘I don’t suppose you’re likely to believe that I had no idea of the way things stood—I hadn’t even given it any thought. But I have to admit, the situation does have a certain pleasant irony.’

She glared at him in impotent fury. ‘Well, I shouldn’t get too excited about it,’ she advised him, gritting her teeth. ‘Half of it will probably go in inheritance tax.’ And turning him an aloof shoulder, she stalked away.

* * *

Inevitably there could be no other topic of conversation at the Corbett dinner table that evening—it wasn’t exactly an aid to digestion. ‘Walking in here like that, as if he already owned the place,’ fumed Sir Charles, spearing a lump of kidney with his fork as if it had been freshly cut from the body of his enemy. ‘Looking around in that sly way, pricing everything up. It wouldn’t surprise me if he was planning to sell off the lot!’

‘What I simply can’t understand,’ his wife remarked for the fortieth time, ‘is how the law can even recognise a...a natural child in that way, let alone favour them. I mean, it’s virtually condoning...that sort of thing. I wonder if the Government is aware of it? I think perhaps I shall write a letter to the local party agent, just to draw it to his attention.’

‘Well, he’s going to find out that it isn’t going to be as easy as he seems to think,’ Sir Charles rambled on, ignoring his wife’s contribution. ‘Possession is nine-tenths of the law. That damned stupid old fool of a solicitor—I don’t trust a word he said. Good God, bringing the man here like that, quite openly—it’s easy to see whose side he’s on! Well, he’s burned his boats with me. We’ll see what a decent solicitor makes of the matter!’

Pippa ate in silence, the acrid taste on her tongue ruining her appetite. Shaun’s words were still bouncing around inside her head. How dared he interpret her simple gesture of friendliness as an attempt to make a play for him? As if she would lower herself even to consider marrying a man for his money! And least of all him! She had never met such an insufferably arrogant man in all her life, and if she did ever meet him again—which she sincerely hoped she wouldn’t—she would tell him exactly what she thought of him.

Although it would be disappointing if she never had the chance to respond to that...that outrageous insult he had handed her. At the time she had been too stunned to be able to think of a suitably cutting retort, but since then her mind had been occupied with nothing but honing and refining a few extremely choice words that would wither him into the ground.

‘He’ll know he’s got a fight on his hands,’ her father was still pontificating. ‘I’ll take it all the way to the House of Lords if I have to. You mark my words...’

‘Oh, can’t you leave it alone for five minutes?’ Pippa burst out irritably. ‘Even if you do manage to stop Shaun getting the money, that doesn’t automatically mean it’ll come to you. It’ll go to the Crown instead—so you won’t be any better off, and you’ll just have wasted a fortune on legal fees.’

They both stared at her, startled by her heated intervention. ‘And what would you know about it?’ her father demanded crossly. ‘You’d just better hope it does get sorted out right, my girl. It would have all come to you eventually, and if you’re telling me you’re happy to see a fortune whistled down the wind you’re a bigger fool than I ever took you for.’

Pippa rose to her feet. ‘I really couldn’t give a damn about a fortune,’ she snapped, her patience strained beyond endurance. ‘I’d just as soon be poor. And you’d better take that glass off her,’ she added with a wry nod towards her mother. ‘That’s her fourth brandy already this evening, on top of all that sherry this afternoon. She’ll be under the table by ten o’clock at this rate.’

‘Philippa! How dare you speak of your mother like that?’

‘Oh, come off it, Dad. You know she drinks, I know she drinks, everyone knows she drinks. Why don’t you try to get her to do something about it, instead of closing your eyes to it all the time?’