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But then Si had never taken the family feud too seriously anyway, Joanna recalled.
‘Isn’t it time we started to live and let live?’ he’d demanded angrily when Joanna had flatly refused to attend a dinner party to which Cal Blackstone had also been invited.
‘Not as far as I’m concerned,’ Joanna had returned with a toss of her tawny hair. ‘If people invite that man, they needn’t bother to ask me as well.’
But, as she’d grown up, she’d found it was well-nigh impossible to avoid Cal completely. The Chalfonts were no longer the powerful social mentors they’d once been, and Cal, single, wealthy and darkly attractive, was a welcome visitor to every household in the area except theirs.
Joanna had found to her exasperation that to keep out of Cal Blackstone’s way entirely was to risk social isolation. More and more she’d found herself running into him at point-to-points, parties and charity functions. To her annoyance, she’d actually been introduced to him a number of times by a series of well-meaning people who clearly shared Simon’s view that it was time a truce was called in this family war.
But none of these people had been hounded and cheated by the Blackstones, Joanna thought violently. To them, Cal Blackstone was simply a charming young man, if a trifle sardonic, who drove a series of fast cars, dated all the most attractive girls in the West Riding, and could always be relied on for a hefty donation to any good cause. No one cared any more about past rights or wrongs, it seemed.
And once she and Cal Blackstone had been formally introduced, he took pains to remind her of the fact by seeking her out to greet her at every encounter. In fact, Joanna decided, he took an unpleasant delight in forcing himself on her notice, engaging her in conversation, and even inviting her to dance.
And the fact that she had ignored all his overtures and was never anything but icily civil in return seemed only to amuse him.
If she continued to keep him rigidly at a distance, eventually he would get tired of his cat-and-mouse games with her, she’d assured herself.
But she’d been wrong about that—totally wrong. Which was why she knew, none better, just what Cal Blackstone’s real motives were, and exactly what he had planned for the remaining members of the Chalfont family.
She shivered, wrapping her arms defensively across her body, as she made herself relive once more in nerve-aching detail that rain-washed autumn afternoon on the high moor road above Northwaite when she’d discovered for herself how ruthless, how relentless an enemy he was …
‘Damnation!’ Joanna stared down at the offside wheel of her Mini, her heart sinking. ‘Of all times to get a flat tyre!’ she muttered to herself, as she went to find the jack.
The rain was sweeping in sheets across the Northwaite valley below, and the hills were dankly shrouded in low cloud and mist.
By the time she’d fetched the jack, and squatted uncomfortably in the road beside the car, the rain had plastered her tawny blonde hair to her skull, and droplets of water were running down her forehead into her eyes, so that she had to pause every few seconds and brush them away.
She’d never had to change a tyre before, and she realised, to her shame, that she only had the haziest idea of how to go about it. Watching other people was not the same as personal experience, she decided wretchedly, as the jack stubbornly refused to co-operate with her efforts to fix it in place.
Send me someone to help this time, she bargained silently with her guardian angel, and I promise I’ll sign on for a course in car maintenance this winter.
The thought had barely formed in her mind when the sleek grey Jaguar materialised silently out of the mist and slid to a halt behind her. She looked round eagerly, planning some self-deprecating, humorous remark about her predicament. Then the relieved smile died on her lips as she realised her rescuer’s identity.
‘Having trouble?’ Cal Blackstone asked pleasantly, as he emerged from the driver’s seat, shrugging on a waterproof jacket.
‘I can manage, thanks,’ Joanna said shortly. It occurred to her that her guardian angel must have a totally misplaced sense of humour.
‘Then this must be a new method of wheel-changing of your own devising,’ he said urbanely, folding his arms across his chest, and draping his tall, lean, elegant length against his own vehicle. ‘How fascinating! I hope you’ll allow me to watch.’
Apart from striking him down with a convenient boulder, or even the recalcitrant jack, Joanna could see no method of preventing him. Seething, she gritted her teeth and soldiered on. It was raining harder than ever now, and the damp was beginning to penetrate right through her layers of clothing to her skin, making her feel clammy and uncomfortable.
‘You don’t seem to be getting on very fast,’ the hated voice commented at last.
‘I don’t like having an audience.’
‘I can believe you don’t like having me as an audience.’ She wasn’t looking at him, but there was something in his voice that told her he was grinning. ‘Come on, Miss Chalfont, why don’t you swallow your damned pride and say, “Help me”?’
‘I didn’t ask you to stop.’
‘You wouldn’t ask me to throw you a rope if you were drowning. As you probably will if this rain keeps up—that, or die of pneumonia.’ He walked to her side, put his hand under her elbow and yanked her to her feet, without ceremony.
‘Leave me alone!’ She wrenched herself free of his grasp.
‘Willingly—once this wheel of yours is changed.’ He was fitting the jack into place with a deft competence that made her want to kill him and dance on his grave. ‘Go and sit in my car, and dry yourself off a little,’ he directed over his shoulder. ‘If you look in the sports bag on the back seat, you’ll find a towel.’
Instinct prompted her to reply haughtily that she preferred to remain where she was, but common sense intervened, reminding her that in this weather she would simply be cutting off her nose to spite her face, and that she was only laying herself open to further jibes.
The interior of the Jaguar smelt deliciously of leather upholstery mixed with a faint tang of some expensively masculine cologne.
Joanna sniffed delicately, grimacing a little as she extracted the towel from the bag, which was lying next to his squash racket on the rear seat. The towel, and the rest of the gear in the bag, was unused, so he must be on his way to the country club, but if so what was he doing on the high road, when there were other, more direct routes?
In spite of the towel’s pristine condition, it was still his property, and she was deeply reluctant to use so personal an item. The idea of having to be beholden to him in any way affronted and revolted her. But she couldn’t escape the fact that water was dripping dismally from her hair on to her face, and, after a brief internal tussle, she unfolded the towel and began to blot away the worst of the moisture.
With any luck, he would be the one to catch pneumonia, she thought, glaring through the windscreen at him as he worked. And, as if aware of her scrutiny, Cal Blackstone looked round from his task, and waved.
With a snort of temper Joanna tossed the towel back into the bag and leaned back, savouring the undeniable comfort of her seat. Her father had driven a Jaguar when she was a small child, she remembered, and she’d always loved riding in it. She began to examine the dashboard and internal fittings, trying to remember what they’d been like in her father’s day.
She’d been sitting with her father in the back of the Jaguar the first time she’d seen Cal Blackstone, she remembered with a shiver of pure distaste.
With regrettable promptitude, he appeared at the side of the car. ‘Your wheel is duly changed, madam. Don’t forget to have your damaged tyre mended.’
‘I’m quite capable of working that out for myself,’ she snapped.
‘Of course.’ He got into the driver’s seat, and gave her a long look. His eyes were grey, she found herself noticing for the first time. Grey eyes, hard as steel, and cold as the skies above them. ‘Please don’t overwhelm me with gratitude.’
Joanna flushed at the sarcasm in his tone. ‘Thank you,’ she said stiffly. ‘It was—fortunate that you were passing.’
‘I often use this road,’ he returned. ‘I like the view of the Northwaite valley from up here.’
‘If you can see it today, you must have X-ray vision.’
‘I don’t need to see it,’ he said softly. ‘I know what’s there by heart. I’ve always known.’ He pointed out into the mist and cloud. ‘Away to your right is the country club. As you come down the valley, there are the chimneys of the Blackstone engineering works. They’re generally what people notice first, just as my grandfather intended when he built the place. Then there’s the Mill, relegated to second place these days, I’m afraid.’ He paused for a moment as if expecting some response, some denial, and when there was none he continued, ‘And finally, down to the left, well away from the pollution of the workers’ houses in Northwaite, tucked away as if it’s trying to hide, is Chalfont House.’
When he smiled, his teeth were very white. A predator’s smile, Joanna thought, and her heart began to thump suddenly, harshly. ‘Everything I own,’ he said. ‘And everything I intend to own before I’ve finished. Including you, Joanna Chalfont, you beautiful, hostile little bitch.’
For a moment she sat gaping at him, hardly able to credit what she’d just heard. Then,
‘How dare you?’ She could barely squeeze the words out of the frightening, painful tightness in her throat.
Cal Blackstone threw back his head and laughed. ‘Said to the manner born,’ he mocked. ‘The well-born young lady rebuking the upstart pleb. It’s wonderful what they teach you at those fancy Harrogate schools!’
‘I think you must be insane,’ said Joanna, fumbling for the handle of the door. ‘I refuse to listen to any more of this.’
‘You don’t have to.’ He was infuriatingly at his ease. ‘I want you, and I’m going to have you. There’s nothing more to be said.’
‘Well, you couldn’t be more wrong!’ Joanna flung at him. She was trembling all over, fighting to keep her voice steady. ‘I have a few things to say myself, and the first is that I wouldn’t have you, Callum Blackstone, if you came gift-wrapped.’
He was still smiling. ‘And what do you know about it?’ he asked softly. ‘What do you know about anything, Miss Chalfont, except pride and your own version of the past?’ He shook his head slowly, his gaze locked with hers. ‘It’s time you began to think of the future, so let’s start your thoughts in the right direction.’
The car door refused to budge under her frantic fingers. It was clearly linked to some central locking system outside her control, trapping her there alone with him.
Shrinking into the corner of her seat, Joanna saw Cal Blackstone reach for her, felt her shoulders grasped without gentleness, and her whole body drawn inexorably forward towards him. The smile had been wiped from his face, and his grey eyes glittered with something far removed from amusement. Something she barely understood, but, strangely, feared just the same.
She said, on a little sob, ‘No—ah—no,’ then his mouth was on hers and all further protest was stifled.
Nothing in her limited experience had prepared her for Cal’s kiss and nothing could have done. He held her ruthlessly, crushing her soft breasts against the hard muscular wall of his chest, twining his hand in her still-damp hair to hold her still, while his lips plundered hers, relentlessly, hungrily—and endlessly.
She couldn’t breathe. The scent of his skin filled her nostrils with a sudden and desperate familiarity. Tiny coloured lights danced frenetically behind her closed lids. She felt physically overpowered, totally at his mercy. She thought she might be going to faint, and with the thought came a surge of anger, and contempt for her own weakness.
He muttered against her lips, ‘Open your mouth,’ and in a flash she saw her salvation. Pliantly she obeyed. She felt his sigh of satisfaction, was aware of his clasp slackening slightly so that he could turn her in his arms, to hold her more easily against his body, and as he relaxed she bit him hard, sinking her teeth into his lower lip.
Cal jerked his head away, swearing, lifting a hand almost unbelievingly to his bleeding mouth.
‘You little shrew!’
‘Try explaining that to your latest woman!’ Joanna flung at him. ‘And, from now on, keep your distance from me.’
He took a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed at the blood. To her fury he was grinning again.
‘Not now I’ve had a taste of delights to come, sweetheart.’
‘You’ll get nothing more from me as long as you live! You might have been able to take advantage of the situation today, but I’ll make sure it never happens again.’
‘Ah, but it will,’ he said softly. ‘I may have lost the first skirmish, Joanna, but the war’s only just beginning. And, I warn you, nothing but your complete surrender will do.’
She drew a swift, blazing breath, glaring at him. ‘You’re nothing but an animal, Cal Blackstone!’
He held out the bloodstained handkerchief, staring grimly back at her. ‘Then I’ve certainly picked the right mate.’
‘You’ve picked nothing and no one. From now on, keep out of my way!’ She turned to wrestle with the door-handle, and to her chagrin it worked instantly.
‘Our paths were made to cross.’ His voice followed her as she stumbled out of the car. ‘If you didn’t know it before, you know it now. So drive carefully, my hot-tempered vixen. When I finally get to unwrap my gift, I want it to be perfect.’
She got to her car somehow, and sat, shaking, in the driving seat, waiting until the Jaguar slid past, and was swallowed up in the mist and rain.
She put up a cautious finger and touched the swollen contours of her mouth. Her lips felt bruised, but the greatest wound she’d suffered was humiliation.
She stared at the grey-soaked landscape, and thought, I’m afraid of him.
Now, in the drawing-room of Chalfont House, Joanna found the same words rising to her lips. I’m afraid of him.
She shook herself irritably. That was what came of letting herself remember—relive things best banished from her mind for good. But oh, God, it had been so real. She could swear she’d almost felt the pressure of Cal’s mouth ravaging hers once more, tasted his blood …
Two years ago she had escaped him, but at what a price. She couldn’t run away again. This time she had to stand her ground and fight him. She squared her shoulders, glancing up again at her grandfather’s portrait.
‘The war’s on again, Grandpa,’ she said. ‘And this time I mean to win—for all our sakes.’
She had to. Because surrender on Cal Blackstone’s terms was unthinkable.
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_ebb4ea9f-b2f6-5c10-acf9-1b1c29ee5b60)
THE MIST SWIRLED thickly above the high road. Joanna was lost in the depths of it, the damp tendrils wreathing about her, stifling her, confining her so that her limbs felt heavy and incapable of movement.
Yet she had to move—to run, because somewhere in the fog Cal Blackstone was waiting, his predator’s hands reaching to stop her—to take her. She took one sluggish step, then another—and screamed aloud as a hand closed purposefully on her shoulder.
‘Why, Miss Joanna, whatever’s the matter with you?’
Perspiring, Joanna opened her eyes and found Nanny, comforting as the daylight pouring through the window, standing at her bedside with a cup of tea.
She managed a weak smile. ‘Sorry, Nan, I must have been dreaming. Did I startle you?’
‘It looks more as if you startled yourself, lass.’ Nanny scrutinised her austerely. ‘You’re white as a sheet! Drink your tea while it’s hot.’
A cup of tea, Joanna thought. Nanny’s panacea for all ills from a headache to bereavement. She sat up, punching her tumbled pillows into shape. ‘You’re spoiling me.’
‘Well, make the most of it. It won’t happen so soon again,’ Nanny said severely. ‘And I’ve a message from Mr Simon.’
‘Let me guess.’ Joanna looked up at the ceiling. ‘He’s won a million pounds on the football pools and all our problems are solved.’
Nanny snorted. ‘Since when has Mr Simon done the pools?’ she demanded. ‘I’m to tell you that Mrs Chalfont was taken badly in the night, and he’s gone with her to the nursing home.’
‘You mean Fiona’s started labour?’ Joanna sat bolt upright. ‘But the baby’s not due for another couple of months. Oh, that’s awful!’
‘Don’t waste your sympathy,’ Nanny advised tartly. ‘That baby won’t be born until the right time, take my word for it. Madam’s got indigestion, as I told her.’ She snorted. ‘What can she expect—sending Mr Simon into Northwaite at all hours for that tandoori chicken stuff?’
‘Oh, is that all?’ Joanna relaxed.
‘Anyway, Mr Simon said to tell you if he’s not back in time for the meeting this afternoon, you’ve to hold the fort. He said you’d understand.’
Joanna choked on a mouthful of tea. ‘He said what?’
‘You’re not deaf. And don’t spill that tea on your quilt.’
‘But he can’t do this,’ Joanna said, half to herself. ‘He’s got to be back here in time—he’s got to …’ She looked up beseechingly at Nanny. ‘The nursing home—they’ll send Fiona home straight away if it’s just indigestion, won’t they?’
Nanny sniffed. ‘The lord only knows. She might have discovered a few more symptoms by the time the doctor comes round. Madam’s not averse to a few days in bed being waited on.’
Nanny could never be described as the young Mrs Chalfont’s greatest fan, but Joanna had to admit she spoke with a certain amount of justice. Once in the luxury of the nursing home, with attentive nurses answering her every bell, Fiona might well be reluctant to return to Chalfont House where people were more likely to tell her to pull herself together and stop making a fuss about nothing. And she would certainly insist on Simon dancing attendance on her.
‘After all,’ Fiona had often pouted to him, ‘it’s your fault I’m feeling so ghastly. It’s your baby.’
Joanna groaned inwardly. Her plan to put several miles between herself and Chalfont House prior to Cal Blackstone’s arrival was now plainly inoperable.
I could always ask him to postpone his visit, she thought, but dismissed the idea almost as soon as it had formed. The last thing she wanted, after all, was Cal Blackstone to guess her deep reluctance to face him. And at a wider, less personal level, any attempt to put him off might be unwise at this juncture.
If Simon doesn’t come back in time, I’ll talk to him myself, she decided grimly. And I’ll let him know that though he may have conned Si into thinking he’s Mister Nice Guy, he’s got a fight on his hands with me.
‘Why, Miss Jo, you look really fierce. Whatever are you thinking about?’ queried Nanny.
