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‘So you are back.’ Jago’s voice, low, sardonic, and totally unmistakable. ‘I presumed old Henry would have pushed the panic button by now.’
‘I think you have the wrong number,’ she said wildly. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about …’
‘Yes, you do, Ash, so don’t play games. According to the hints and rumours in the financial columns, Landons have a serious problem. I think we should talk.’
‘Well, I don’t.’ In spite of herself, her voice sounded ragged, his deliberate diminution of her name rousing memories she would rather have denied. ‘I don’t need your help.’
‘I thought three years might have matured you, Ash,’ he jibed at her. ‘But it seems you’re still the same prickly schoolgirl, nursing your hurt pride. And for that, you’re prepared to see Landons go down the drain. You amaze me!’
‘That isn’t true,’ she said stiffly. ‘If you have any helpful suggestions, then you should get in touch with Henry. I’m sure he’d be glad to hear from you.’
‘Although you’re not.’ Jago gave a low laugh. ‘Well, I suppose that was too much to expect under the circumstances. But you will be hearing from me, Ash, and sooner than you think. I had the greatest admiration for Silas, and I’m not prepared to see his company go to the wall for the sake of past differences between the two of us.’
‘I like “past differences”,’ Ashley said contemptuously. ‘It’s a good blanket term to cover your mercenary agreement with my father, and your flagrant infidelity!’
‘Oh, it covers a damned sight more than that,’ he said pleasantly. ‘But I’m glad you approve. It’s a start anyway. I’ll be seeing you, then.’ The line disconnected briskly.
He had never, Ashley thought, as she replaced her own receiver, been one for prolonged farewells.
She sat up, nervously hitching up her towel, as though Jago was in the room with her, his tawny hazel eyes observing her state of disarray with that overt sensuality which had so disturbed her during their brief, ill-fated relationship.
He’d called her a prickly schoolgirl, and she supposed he had a certain amount of justification, remembering how she had nervously shied away from any physical advances he’d made to her. Not even the fact that she had fallen head over heels in love with him had been able to mitigate her panic-stricken recoil from any real intimacy between them during their engagement.
And if she had been frightened by the unknown passions she had sensed were tightly leashed in his lean male body, then she had been utterly terrified by the wild unbidden reaction of her own innocent flesh to his lightest touch. And there was no one to help her understand or cope with these new and overwhelming sensations. The sex education lessons at her school had described the mechanics, but said nothing about the emotions which should accompany such experiences, and Ashley’s housemistress had given muddled, embarrassed talks about the problems inherent in ‘leading men on’, quoting current rape statistics, and advising ‘keeping oneself decent for marriage’.
And Silas’ values, she had discovered when she had nerved herself to mention the topic to him, were equally rigid. Purity was what a man looked for in his future wife, he had told her flatly, and she could learn anything she needed to know from her husband when the time came.
When Jago held her close, she felt totally confused, her body at war with her mind, which insisted that such an intensity of emotion must be wrong, even in some way abnormal.
Eventually, it seemed easier to keep Jago at arms’ length. Or at any rate simpler, she amended hastily, because it had never been easy.
She had supposed naïvely that Silas was right, and that once they were married everything would be different. That wearing Jago’s ring, having the right to call herself his wife, would bring about some fundamental sea-change in her. Only she had never had the opportunity to find out.
The wedding had only been a few weeks away when she had finally found out the truth about the kind of man she was marrying. She hadn’t seen Jago for several days, not since they’d spent an evening at the theatre together. Afterwards, he had suggested she go back to his flat with him for a nightcap, and she had shrunk immediately. It was altogether too secluded and intimate an environment for her to cope with, feeling as she did, and she’d heard herself babbling some feeble excuse. That Jago had recognised it as such was evident, although he had said nothing. But his mouth had tightened, and he had driven her home with almost exaggerated care, depositing her on her doorstep with chilly courtesy, not even bothering to bestow the most chaste of goodnight kisses.
Ashley told herself he was being unreasonable, and that she wasn’t going to be the first to make amends, but as time passed without a word from him, her need for reassurance got the better of her pride, and she tried to telephone him. When there was no reply from the flat, she told herself he was probably staying at the Manor, as Giles liked him to do from time to time.
But when she drove out to the Manor that evening, she found only Erica Marrick at home. She was sitting in the big drawing room, stitching at a piece of tapestry set up in a frame in front of her, and Ashley, who had no skill at sewing, watched in fascination as the needle pierced the canvas over and over again.
Later, when Ashley allowed herself to recall that terrible evening and its aftermath, she was to remember above all that shining needle, stabbing in and out, and feel as if it was her own flesh that it was wounding.
‘I’m sorry you’ve had a wasted journey,’ Erica said, when the usual social pleasantries had been observed. ‘It might have been wiser to ring first, and check where he was.’
Ashley forbore to mention that she’d been trying to contact Jago for two days. She said, trying to sound casual, ‘I suppose you’ve no idea where he could be?’
Erica chose another strand of thread. ‘None at all, my dear. Giles is only Jago’s cousin, not his keeper. Jago’s an adult male. He comes and goes here as he chooses, and we don’t ask any indiscreet questions. Much the best way, I assure you.’ She threaded her needle. ‘Jago doesn’t actually live here yet.’
‘I know,’ Ashley said huskily. ‘But I thought—I got the impression he was spending more time here these days—using the flat rather less.’
‘I hardly think so.’ The needle stabbed again. ‘After all, it’s the one small piece of bachelor independence which hasn’t been eroded yet, and he’ll be anxious to hang on to that as long as possible, I would imagine. He’s sacrificed quite a lot already,’ she added almost casually. ‘I hope he finds Landons is worth it.’
Ashley’s brows drew together. ‘I don’t quite understand …’
‘How wise of you,’ purred Erica. ‘It’s always so much better to respect the conventions in these matters, and pretend the marriage has been arranged—such a telling phrase, I always think—for personal rather than business reasons.’
Ashley felt as if a hand was slowly tightening round her throat. ‘Are you insinuating that Jago is marrying me only to gain a stake in Landons?’
‘Hardly a stake, my dear.’ The deadly needle went in and out, doing its work. ‘After all, you’re an only child with neither the physical nor mental capacity to become a—a captain of industry. Your father, naturally, needs someone he can trust to run the company eventually, and who better than a son-in-law and as you were—gratifyingly ready to marry him, and Jago is extremely ambitious, everyone’s satisfied.’
There was a silence. Ashley said flatly, ‘I don’t believe you.’
Erica laughed. ‘Of course not. Why should you? And you have nothing to worry about. Jago will never forget that you’re Daddy’s daughter, and be less than attentive, but you must remember to allow him—a little leeway now, before the noose tightens for ever. So why don’t you go home like a good girl, and wait for him to call you. I’m sure he will, eventually. He tends to have a fairly strict sense of duty,’ she added blandly.
Some guardian angel must have protected Ashley on that nightmare drive to his flat, because she remembered nothing about it.
All the way there, a voice in her head was whispering, ‘It can’t be true—can’t be true …’
And yet suspicion, once planted, was growing like a weed in the sun, sending out deadly tentacles to smother and choke. She had to see Jago, to confront him, and find out once and for all the real truth behind their marriage.
Because, she had to admit, the romance had been a whirlwind affair. She hadn’t seen a great deal of Jago while she was growing up, but after Silas had decided to seek a permanent home base near the company headquarters, they had begun to come into contact with each other.
At first, she had been full of shy admiration, gauche and tongue-tied whenever he was around. As he shared her father’s professional interests, it was inevitable that they should meet. Sometimes he was kind to her, at others, he teased her unmercifully. Gradually, almost in spite of herself, her admiration turned to a kind of hero-worship, and then, bewilderingly, to something much deeper.
Ashley had found she was aching for a glimpse of him, and agonising when this was denied her. She was ecstatic when he noticed her—once he gave her a lift home from the library, and she lived on it for weeks—and miserable when the passenger seat in his car was filled by one of the leggy blondes he seemed to favour. Not that he was always at home by any means. A lot of the time he was away, pursuing his career, immersed in one of the civil engineering projects for which he had trained at university.
‘He’s going straight to the top, that lad,’ Silas had remarked more than once with unveiled satisfaction.
But Jago’s ambitions and professional abilities counted for little with Ashley. For her, he was the focus of all her romantic dreams, and when, right out of the blue, he had rung and invited her to have dinner with him, she had thought she would die of delight.
But she had lived, and it was the start of an idyllic period in her life. Jago dined her, and danced with her, partnering her at tennis, taking her on picnics, and visits to the theatre and cinema.
And when, after six heady weeks, he had asked her to marry him, she had said ‘Yes’ eagerly, with no thought of dissimulation. ‘Gratifyingly ready,’ Erica had said mockingly, she recalled with a shiver of nausea. But it was no more than the truth. She’d been foolishly, blindly ready to allow herself to be handed over in exchange for the Landon empire.
As she drove, a lot of pieces seemed to be coming together in an increasingly terrifying pattern. She remembered the impatience in him, coiled like a spring, when she had drawn back from the growingly explicit demands of his mouth and hands, so different from the gentle restraint he had displayed during the early days of their courtship.
Before he was sure of her, said a small icy voice in her brain.
If he’d really cared for her, wouldn’t he have been prepared to make allowances for her inexperience? she asked herself.
And more troubling still, he had never actually said in so many words that he loved her. He wanted to make love to her, in any way she would permit, but all he had said when she agreed to be his wife, was, ‘Darling Ash, I’ll try and make you happy.’
She’d been more than content with that at the time, but now it seemed a disturbing omission.
At first when she rang the doorbell at his flat, she thought he was still out somewhere, and she was just about to turn away in defeat when she heard the sound of movement inside.
The door opened, and they faced each other. He looked terrible, was her first thought. He was pale, and his eyes were bloodshot, and he seemed to be wearing a dressing gown, and nothing else.
She said anxiously, ‘Jago, are you ill?’ She took a step forward, to be arrested by the sour reek of spirits on his breath. It was something she hadn’t encountered before with him, and it alarmed her.
In his turn, he was staring at her as if he didn’t know who she was, and then she saw a dawning horror in his eyes.
And in the same instant heard a girl’s voice saying with plaintive impatience, ‘Sweetie, aren’t you ever coming back to bed? Get rid of whoever it is and …’ She appeared from the bedroom, wearing nothing but the coverlet from the bed draped round her, none too effectively.
The hand was round Ashley’s throat again, tightening, squeezing …
The girl came forward to Jago’s side. Her eyes, blue and hard as nails, flicked over Ashley dismissively.
‘They say three’s a crowd, don’t they, darling? Or is that the way you like it?’
Jago slumped against the door jamb with a muffled groan.
Ashley wanted to stamp her feet. She wanted to kick, to lash out with her hands, and tear with her nails, and scream. She wanted to damage them, both of them, physically. Mark them as they had smashed her emotionally.
Nausea rose, hot and acrid, in her throat, and she turned and ran down the stairs, not waiting for the lift, and out into the chill of the night air. She leaned against her car, retching miserably, uncaring who might see her or what conclusions they might draw. Then, as soon as she was sufficiently in control of herself, she climbed into the driving seat, and started the engine. She didn’t go home. She drove out of town, and down to the river, parking in the very spot where Jago had proposed to her, sitting white-faced and burning-eyed until dawn.
When she finally returned home, she brushed aside her father’s reproaches and anxious queries, saying merely that she’d had some thinking to do, and needed to be alone. When she’d added that she was no longer going to marry Jago she and Silas had the worst row of their lives.
‘But you can’t throw him over for some whim!’ he’d raged at her. ‘My God, girl, only last week you thought the sun, moon, and stars all shone out of him! And I need him. I need a strong man to run Landons after I’m gone. As your husband he can become chairman after me. As soon as I met him, I knew he was the right man.’
‘Right for me?’ she wanted to ask, wincing. ‘Or merely right for Landons?’ But she’d never voiced the query.
Her magnificent solitaire diamond ring she’d sent back to Jago by company messenger, with a note stating bleakly that she never wanted to see him or hear from him again.
And nor had she, Ashley thought wearily, until now. Until that phone call, like a bolt from the blue.
Not only was her company at risk. With Jago’s return, her precarious peace of mind was threatened. And that, frighteningly, seemed a great deal worse.
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_9e960889-c57a-5c70-8a3e-30ce0dc30c4e)
AFTER a while, when she felt a little calmer, she lifted the telephone and dialled.
‘Martin Witham, please,’ she told the receptionist who answered. ‘Tell him Miss Landon is calling.’
She was put through with flattering promptness.
‘Ashley!’ Martin sounded pleased and surprised. ‘Why on earth are you back so soon?’
‘Clearly, you haven’t been reading the financial pages,’ she said lightly. ‘Let’s just say a state of emergency’s been declared and it seemed better to return.’
‘My poor sweet!’ His voice was warm and concerned. ‘Want to tell me all about it over dinner at the Country Club tonight?’
She laughed. ‘That’s exactly what I hoped you’d say,’ she teased. ‘Pick me up at eight?’
‘I’ll be counting the minutes,’ he promised.
She felt better after that. His voice had reassured her, helping to take away the sour taste the earlier call had left.
She’d been seeing Martin for a couple of months, since he’d arrived from London to join a local firm of solicitors. After Jago, Ashley had tended to steer clear of any kind of involvement, but Martin had persuaded her to think again, although he had made it clear from the first that he was in no hurry to rush into any kind of serious relationship. He’d been divorced, he told her, and was still licking his wounds, but he would be glad of some female companionship.
It was an arrangement which suited them both very well. Since Silas’ death, Ashley had been lonelier than she cared to remember, and Martin’s friendship had buoyed her up, just when she needed it most.
And she needed him now, she thought ruefully.
Martin had not told her very much about his marriage, and she was equally reticent on the subject of her broken engagement. Now, she supposed, she would have to tell Martin that her ex-fiancé was back in town, throwing fresh attention on an episode she had hoped was behind her for ever.
She felt depression closing in on her like a cloud, and gave herself a swift mental shake. Sleep was what she needed, and food. She made herself an omelette in her compact kitchen, eating every scrap, then curled up on the living room sofa, emptying her mind, and relaxing her muscles until her intrinsic weariness had its way with her.
When she woke, she felt perceptibly better, refreshed and even relaxed. Which seemed, she thought, to bode well for the evening ahead. She applied her usual light make-up, sprayed herself lavishly with Amazone, then zipped herself into a new dress she’d bought on impulse during her West Indian holiday. It was the colour which had attracted her originally—a clear, vivid emerald, enhancing her eyes.
Her one beauty, she thought critically, as she turned and twisted in front of the mirror, trying to decide whether the dress was too extreme for the sedate delights of the County Club. Certainly, the crossover bodice plunged lower than anything she had worn before, and the back of the dress bared her from the brief halter round her neck almost to the base of her spine. For a moment, she was tempted to change into something more demure, something that reflected the muted businesslike image she tried to project these days. Then she tossed her head, making her glossy hair swing challengingly.
To hell with it, she thought recklessly. Since the night of Jago’s betrayal, she’d lived a kind of half-life. Perhaps it was only right that his return should signal her emergence from her self-imposed chrysalis—proclaiming to the world at large, as well as himself, that she no longer carried even the flicker of a torch for him.
She’d been a fool to react like that to his call, she told herself angrily. She should have been civil but indifferent, instead of letting him know he could still get under her skin. Well, she would know better at their next encounter—if there was one.
Martin’s expression when she admitted him to the flat was evidence, if she needed it, that her change of image was a success. And it reminded her too of how little thought she’d given to her appearance over the past couple of years.
‘The new me,’ she explained. ‘Do you approve?’
‘I’m not sure if “approve” is the word I’m looking for,’ Martin said carefully. ‘May I kiss you, or will it spoil your make-up?’
Ashley went readily into his arms. She was accustomed to the light embraces they exchanged on meeting and parting, and when Martin deliberately prolonged and deepened the kiss, she made no demur. Perhaps it wasn’t just the outer shell she needed to change, she thought, submitting passively to the ardent pressure of his mouth on hers.
She waited for some answering surge in her own blood, but it didn’t happen. Probably she was still too tired and caught off-balance by the past twenty-four hours to be able to conjure up much of a response, she excused herself, as they left for the Club.
It was already quite crowded when they arrived. Martin had booked a corner table, away from the dance floor where a three-piece band played quietly.
‘The usual wide choice, I see,’ he said wryly, handing her a menu. ‘Steak, steak, scampi or steak.’
Ashley smiled at him. ‘And I keep telling you that’s the height of sophistication in this neck of the woods,’ she teased.
‘So you do,’ he muttered. ‘What’s it to be, then?’
‘Melon, please, followed by a fillet steak rare to medium, and a side salad.’
‘And I’ll have the same,’ Martin told the waiter. His hand reached for Ashley’s across the table. ‘We never seem to ask for anything else. Maybe we should make it a standing order.’
‘Maybe,’ Ashley returned neutrally. She returned the pressure of his fingers, but his words troubled her, seeming to signal a permanence she wasn’t ready for. She was relieved when the conversation took a less personal turn. Martin was engaged in litigation work, and he gave a droll description of some of the cases he’d been defending while she way away.
Ashley leaned back in her chair, enjoying the fragrance of the white wine she had asked for as an aperitif, her eyes idly scanning the room as she did so.
‘And when the magistrate asked if he had anything to say, the idiot came back with “But the car always stalls if I drive at less than sixty, Your Worship”,’ Martin was saying, then his voice sharpened. ‘Ashley, what is it? Are you all right?’
Her whole body had tensed, and she could feel the blood draining from her face. Standing in the doorway, looking round the room, was Jago Marrick.
Her first, instinctive thought was how little he had changed in the intervening years. The breach between them had left no mark on him as it had on her, but then why should it? she asked herself bitterly. No doubt he’d regretted the loss of Landons, but he was a success in his own right as Silas had always predicted. Ashley had been nothing more to him than a means to an end.
But it was unfair, she thought, digging her nails into the palms of her hands, that his physical appeal should not have diminished. Outwardly, he was still the man she’d fallen so helplessly in love with.
