Web Of Darkness

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‘Three years?’ She stared at him in surprise. Three years; she would have said at least ten. He read her face accurately.

‘I’m thirty-four years old, Miss Gordon,’ he said tightly, ‘and my brother died last year. Can we leave the subject now?’

‘Of course.’ She nodded quickly as her cheeks burnt hotly. How was she supposed to know his brother was dead? And she would have put Kane Steel at least eight or nine years older, although the lean, hard body was ageless. It was that devastatingly attractive face that had fooled her. What had happened to put those lines round his mouth and eyes? It must have been something catastrophic to have made such a difference in three years? His brother’s death maybe? Or was there something else?

The dinner was excellent, but the huge ornate room in which it was served was daunting, to say the least. When Kane first led her into it she took a deep breath and prayed for aplomb; the massive dark wood dining-table, thick white carpet and cream-textured walls, combined with the heavy velvet drapes in a dark rich burgundy, were grandly intimidating, and it was colossal.

‘Do you always eat in here?’ she asked him quietly as June cleared the dinner-plates from the table preparatory to dessert. The whole meal had been conducted in tight, painful silence.

‘When I have guests.’ He looked at her closely. ‘Don’t you like this room?’

‘Where do you eat when you don’t have guests?’ she prevaricated quickly.

‘In my study,’ he said shortly. ‘In fact I spend most of my time in this house in there. Do you want to eat dessert in the study?’ he asked suddenly.

‘Yes, please,’ she said instantly.

He blinked and looked round the dining-room bewilderedly. ‘What’s wrong with it?’

‘Nothing, it’s beautiful,’ she said quickly, ‘but it’s just so big! Well, let’s face it, it’s gigantic.’

‘Is it?’ He glanced round the room again. ‘Yes, I suppose it is really. I never think about it.’

How the other half live, she thought wryly as she followed him across the vast hall into a much smaller room than the others, but one which could still have swallowed her tiny flat whole. It was cosy, though. A crackling fire was burning in the hearth, one wall was lined with books that shone dully in the subdued glow from the copper wall-lights and thick, heavy gold drapes at the window had been pulled against the cold night, giving a homely feel to the room that was accentuated by the large tabby cat curled up on the leather settee by the fire.

‘You own a cat?’ She hadn’t put him down as an animal lover.

‘Cats. This one’s Juniper—there’s another one, Cosmos, around somewhere,’ he said vaguely. As Mrs Langton and June set the small table that was tucked away in one corner of the room, Janie stroked the soft fur of the large tabby and watched Kane Steel from under her eyelashes. In spite of all her efforts to the contrary, she couldn’t help remembering how it had felt to be held close to that magnificent chest. He really did have a superb body. The thought made her blush as hotly as if she had voiced it and she lowered her eyes quickly. The sooner she was out of here the better, and she had better remember that the kiss had been a male punishment, an offering to his damaged ego after the scene at the Press conference. Typical of the sort of man he was, she thought tightly. It must have hit him hard to have his dirty washing laundered in public.

The peaches in brandy, heavily doused with thick double cream, were delicious, but the sense of un-reality that had been steadily growing all night intensified as they finished the dessert. ‘Coffee?’ He looked very big and very dark in the smaller room, the piercing blueness of his eyes at odds with the tanned skin, and again the enigmatic appeal of the man reached out to her, strong and fierce, until she found her heart was pounding out of control.

‘No.’ She stood up abruptly and walked over to the log fire. ‘No, thank you, I really must go.’

‘Why?’ His voice was caustic. ‘I thought we were having a wonderful time.’ The sarcasm was bitingly cold.

‘I don’t see what you’re so het up about,’ she said furiously as her temper reached boiling-point. ‘Now Joe Flanders knows what I’ve done, I’ve probably lost my job and my flat, not to mention my credibility. You’re sitting pretty with virtue intact, aren’t you? I’m the one who will be made the scapegoat.’

‘Made the scapegoat?’ he repeated incredulously as his eyes raked over her hot face. ‘I don’t believe I’m hearing this! Do you have any idea of what you did tonight, young woman? In the middle of a Press conference, a Press conference,’ he repeated furiously, ‘you accused me of being a murderer and a swindler and goodness knows what else. There isn’t a journalist in London who will miss a scoop like that and I wouldn’t wonder a couple of them got a nice juicy picture of your hand connecting with my face as the icing on the cake. Anything you get from Joe Flanders you deserve. To have planned something like that——’

‘I didn’t plan it,’ she said indignantly, her brown eyes flashing black sparks. ‘I was with Joe in the coffee-lounge—we had an appointment with the manager about some advertising work—when I saw you come in. It was an impulse thing.’

He swore, softly and fluently, as he shut his eyes for a splitsecond. ‘I don’t know if that makes it worse or better. Didn’t you stop for a moment to think about the repercussions that were bound to follow?’

‘No.’ She stared straight into the blue eyes. ‘But if I had I’d still have done exactly the same.’

‘Would you indeed?’ His face was black with rage. ‘You really want a good whipping to bring you to heel, young lady.’

‘You touch me again, in any way, and I’ll be the one bringing an assault charge,’ she said angrily. ‘Got it?’

He shook his head slowly. ‘You’re eaten up with this.’

‘What do you expect?’ she said fiercely as her hands clenched into fists at her side. ‘He was my father, not some vague acquaintance. How would you feel if someone treated your father like that?’

‘Like murder,’ he said without a trace of amusement in his face, ‘but it’s all supposition at the moment, isn’t it? I haven’t had anything confirmed and it seems to me that you’ve put your own interpretation on events, in any case. You don’t know for sure exactly what happened on the business side and, I repeat, your behaviour is inexcusable.’

‘I know enough.’ She faced him stiffly. ‘More than enough, and I want to go now.’

‘OK, OK.’ He stood up slowly, almost carefully, and again she got the impression that the movement was deliberate, thought out in advance. ‘I’m expecting a call in half an hour; you don’t want to hang around for the outcome?’

‘No, I don’t,’ she said coldly. ‘I know my facts are accurate, Mr Steel, and I also know what your supposed enquiries will reveal.’

‘Then you’re way in front of me.’ He stared at her, his face tight and mordant. ‘To be honest, I’ve had more than my fill of your particular brand of charm for one evening.’

‘Why break the habit of a lifetime by being honest now?’ she asked bitingly, her eyes flashing sparks.

‘I think I probably asked for that.’ The harsh grooves in his face deepened as he turned abruptly away. ‘You don’t miss an opportunity, do you? I’ll have to remember that for the future.’

‘Future?’ she asked with icy contempt. ‘I doubt if our paths will ever cross again. Your lifestyle and mine are hardly on a par, are they?’

‘Oh, you don’t get off as lightly as that,’ he said coldly, his eyes lethal. ‘You’re wrong, Miss Gordon, and I’ll prove it to you, and when it’s confirmed that you’ve made a grave error——’

‘It won’t be,’ she said firmly. ‘I told you what happened in the past and I’m still far from sure you aren’t fully aware of it all anyway. I don’t need to have what I’ve told you confirmed or otherwise. I know what happened. I’d like to go now.’

‘As you wish.’ He pressed a tiny gold button at the side of the fireplace and within seconds the little maid had popped her head round the door.

Didn’t he ever do anything himself? Janie thought cynically as she watched him giving orders to the small girl. Buttons for this, orders here and there, everyone jumping to attention. Her face was cryptic as he glanced back to her and the piercing gaze had swept over her features before she could school them into a more acceptable mask.

‘So much hate in one small package.’ His voice was deep and soft and, for some reason, tiny flickers of fire shivered down her spine as he walked over to her, lifting a lock of silky black hair and rubbing it in his fingers as he looked hard into her dark brown eyes. ‘It’s very bad for you, you know,’ he said mockingly, his eyes glittering coldly.

‘So you said before.’ She flicked her head away sharply. ‘Did I understand that you’ve asked for the car to take me home? I’m quite capable of phoning for a taxi.’

‘I think you’re quite capable of anything.’ There was a note in his voice she couldn’t quite place, but it made the goose-bumps rise all over her body. ‘However, I would prefer to take you home myself, having brought you here in the first place.’

‘You’re coming too?’ Her voice was frankly dismayed and a glimmer of a smile touched the frosty face for a fleeting moment.

‘I was only saying the other day to a colleague that it would be a pleasant change to meet a girl whose head wasn’t turned by the Steel name,’ he said sardonically as he moved back to his place in front of the fire. ‘I forgot that little law that says we should be careful what we ask for in case we get it.’

She eyed him without speaking—there was nothing she could say after all—and within sixty seconds June had returned to announce that the car was waiting at the main entrance.

As they left the beautifully warm house and stepped into the cold night, the wind blew against Janie’s face with tiny chips of sleet in its arctic depths and, once in the car, she drew her coat off the seat where it was lying with her handbag and pulled it round herself gratefully.

‘Cold?’ He had seated himself opposite her, like before, the blue eyes watchful.

‘A little.’ She glanced out of the dark window quickly and searched for something impersonal to say. ‘Where are we?’

‘Middlesex,’ he said coldly. ‘The Mother of London, near enough to make travelling easy and yet still retaining country lanes with working farms and thatched cottages that would grace any village in Yorkshire.’

‘You’re a country boy at heart?’ she asked cynically as she pulled the coat still closer round her shape.

‘You find that hard to believe?’ he said expressionlessly. ‘You have me set in the North Circular Road with its attendant miles of buildings and Tube stations and so on? Or maybe in the heart of London, the West End or Chelsea?’

‘I would say the latter would suit you better.’ She made no attempt to soften her words. ‘I should think the only interest you would display in villages and suchlike is in their market value.’

‘That is what you would say, is it?’ The blue eyes were diamond-hard. ‘It is a pity that such attractiveness goes hand in hand with such ignorance.’

‘How dare you?’ She reared up like a small black kitten when confronted by a sleek, full-grown panther.

‘How dare I?’ His voice was deceptively mild in comparison to the steel-hard set of his jaw. ‘Your terminology is all wrong, Miss Gordon. It is I who should be asking you that. You know nothing about me, nothing at all, beyond the rather vague notion that I was responsible for causing your father some grief——’

‘Vague?’ Her voice was so shrill, he winced slightly before continuing as though she hadn’t spoken.

‘And you continue to be obnoxious at every turn, refusing to listen to common sense and altogether behaving in a manner more suited to an infant than a grown woman of…?’ She held his glance, her mouth obstinately shut. ‘Twenty-three, twenty-four?’ he persisted with inflexible tenacity.

‘Twenty-four, not that it’s any of your business,’ she returned sharply, ‘and what about your behaviour anyway?’

‘My behaviour?’ He lifted dark eyebrows with such haughtiness that Janie could have hit him—again. ‘As far as I recall, I merely gave you a lift in my car when you were coatless and hatless, so to speak, and provided you with an adequate meal. That constitutes a felony in your book?’

‘I don’t mean that,’ she said angrily, her rage flooding her system with such warmth that the coat was quite unnecessary. ‘I mean when you——’ She stopped abruptly. ‘When you manhandled me,’ she finished tightly.

‘I manhandled you?’ The amazed outrage was genuine. ‘My head is still ringing from the contact with your hand, young lady; when the hell did I manhandle you?’

‘In your drawing-room,’ she said flatly, ‘when you kissed me.’

‘Ah…’ The word was full of meaning and her head snapped up to find the dark face was surveying her with mocking intentness. ‘Now you are going to try and tell me you didn’t enjoy it?’

‘No, I didn’t!’ She glared at him, almost inco-herent with temper. ‘It was sickening, absolutely sickening. I’ve never been treated like that in my life.’

‘Really?’ He settled further back in his seat, crossing his arms across his chest as the piercing eyes narrowed into blue slits of light and she realised, quite suddenly, that he was playing with her, like a sleek black cat with a tiny mouse. ‘The male population in general is sensible enough to have nothing to do with you? There’s hope for the universe yet.’

‘I don’t mean I’ve never been kissed,’ she said furiously, ‘and you know it. I mean——’ She broke off. What did she mean? ‘To be forced——’

‘Oh, come, come.’ He actually had the nerve to smile. ‘Maybe for the first moment or two, but after that?’ The hard male face was maddeningly cool. ‘I was there, remember.’

‘You’re a pig,’ she said weakly, ‘and I’m not discussing this with you. In fact I’m not discussing anything with you.’ She shut her eyes determinedly, drawing the coat more tightly round her shoulders.

‘I’m glad I was there,’ the deep voice said reflectively after a long minute had passed in silence. ‘I, at least, found the experience most…rewarding.’ She didn’t open her eyes and several miles flashed by before he spoke again. ‘I’d appreciate some indication of where we are going?’

‘Oh, you can drop me anywhere.’ She opened her eyes quickly and glanced out of the car window into the steady downpour that had materialised outside. Cocooned in the luxurious interior of the Bentley, the world outside seemed a million miles away.

‘Well, you are consistent, I’ll give you that,’ he said coldly. ‘That comment matches the rest of the rubbish you’ve spoken all night. Have you noticed it’s throwing everything down out there and you are in a thin wool dress and coat that wouldn’t last a minute? Now, an address, please.’

‘Aberdeen Gardens,’ she said after a long pause.

‘And the number?’

‘Sixty-two.’ Aberdeen Gardens was two streets away from where her flat was situated, but she didn’t want him to know where she lived. She hadn’t worked out why yet, she just knew with deep conviction that the less he knew about her the better. He was a threat, a definite threat to her peace of mind, and not just because of past history. She was used to dealing with all sorts of men in her job as Joe Flanders’ personal secretary and could keep the most obstreperous individuals at bay with a few well-chosen, crushing remarks or careful diplomacy, but this man…She glanced at him again in the dim light from the passing street-lamps, contemplating the hard square jaw and lethal body. This man was a whole new ball game.

After he had given Baines the address, he slid the glass partition back firmly into place, shutting them once again in their own disturbingly intimate atmosphere. ‘Do you live alone?’ The question threw her for a brief moment and she hoped he hadn’t noticed.

‘Yes.’ The one word was abrasive and curt.

‘One-bedroomed flat?’ He was pertinacious, she had to give him that.