Kitabı oku: «Passion in Secret»

“You must hate me,” Sally insisted.

“I could never hate you,” he muttered. “You were my first love…my best love.”

“Don’t!” she cried. “You’re in denial over Penelope. You don’t want to accept that she betrayed you. You just need someone to hold on to, and I happen to be here.”

He wished it were so. It would make everything so much easier. But he was tired of pretending. Tired of trying to preserve a charade that had played itself out years ago.

“Not just anyone, Sally. Only you. You make me feel again. You make me want to live.”

She melted against him, her protests dying on a sigh. Who knew what might have happened next, if a too-bright light hadn’t splashed against the window from outside?

“What the devil…” Jake swung her behind him. But whoever had come sneaking up to the house had found what they’d been seeking, and he doubted they’d keep it to themselves. “I’m sorry, Sally. I’m afraid whatever problems you thought you had before I showed up here tonight have just multiplied a thousand times over.”

CATHERINE SPENCER, once an English teacher, fell into writing through eavesdropping on a conversation about Harlequin^® romances. Within two months she changed careers, and she sold her first book to Harlequin^® in 1984. She moved to Canada from England thirty years ago and now lives in Vancouver. She is married to a Canadian and has four grown children—two daughters and two sons—plus a dog and a cat. In her spare time she plays the piano, collects antiques and grows tropical shrubs.

Passion in Secret
Catherine Spencer

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

EPILOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

EVEN without the bitter wind howling in from the Atlantic, the hostile glances directed at her as she joined the other mourners at the graveside were enough to chill Sally to the bone. Not that anyone said anything. The well-bred residents of Bayview Heights, Eastridge Bay’s most prestigious neighborhood, would have considered it sacrilege to voice their disapproval openly, before the body of one the town’s most socially prominent daughters had been properly laid to rest.

No, they’d save their recriminations for later, over tea, sherry and sympathy at the Burton mansion. Except that Sally wouldn’t be there to hear them. The blatant omission of her name from the list of guests invited to celebrate a life cut tragically short, was an indictment in itself, and never mind that her name had been officially cleared of blame.

“Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust….” The minister, his robes flapping around him, intoned the final burial prayers.

Penelope’s mother, Colette, gave a stifled sob and reached out to the flower-draped casket. Watching from beneath lowered lashes, Sally saw Fletcher Burton clasp his wife’s arm in mute comfort. Flanking her other side and leaning heavily on his cane, Jake stood with his head bowed. His hair, though prematurely flecked with a hint of silver, was as thick as when Sally had last touched it, eight years before.

Seeming to sense he was being observed, he suddenly glanced up and caught her covert scrutiny. For all that she knew she was encouraging further censure from those busy watching her, she couldn’t tear her gaze away. Even worse, she found herself telegraphing a message.

It wasn’t my fault, Jake!

But even if he understood what she was trying to convey, he clearly didn’t believe her. Like everyone else, he held her responsible. He was a widower at twenty-eight, and all because of her. She could see the condemnation in his summer-blue eyes, coated now with the same frost which touched his hair; in the unyielding line of his mouth which, once, had kissed her with all the heat and raging urgency perhaps only a nineteen-year-old could know.

A gust of wind tossed the bare, black boughs of the elm trees and caused the ribbon attached to the Burtons’ elaborate wreath to flutter up from the casket, as if Penelope were trying to push open the lid from within. Which, if she could have, she’d have done. And laughed in the face of so much funereal solemnity.

Life’s a merry-go-round, she’d always claimed, and I intend to ride it to the end, and be a good-looking corpse!

Remembering the words and the careless laugh which had accompanied them, Sally wondered if the stinging cold caused her eyes to glaze with tears or if, at last, the curious flattening of emotion which had held her captive ever since the accident, was finally releasing its unholy grip and allowing her to feel again.

A blurred ripple of movement caught her attention. Wiping a gloved hand across her eyes, she saw that the service was over. Colette Burton pressed her fingertips first to her lips and then to the edge of the casket in a last farewell. Other mourners followed suit—all except the widower and his immediate family. He remained immobile, his face unreadable, his shoulders squared beneath his navy pilot’s uniform. His relatives closed ranks around him, as if by doing so, they could shield him from the enormity of his loss.

Averting her gaze, Sally stepped aside as, openly shunning her, Penelope’s parents trekked over the frozen ground to the fleet of limousines waiting at the curb. She had attended the funeral out of respect for a former friend and because she knew her absence would fuel the gossip mills even more than her presence had. But the Burtons’ message set the tone for the rest of the mourners following close behind: Sally Winslow was trouble, just as she’d always been, and undeserving of compassion or courtesy.

That being so obviously the case, she was shocked to hear footsteps crunching unevenly over the snow to where she stood, and Jake’s voice at her ear saying, “I was hoping you’d be here. How are you holding up, Sally?”

“About as well as can be expected,” she said, her breath catching in her throat. “And you?”

He shrugged. “The same. Are you coming back to the Burtons’ for the reception?”

“No. I’m not invited.”

He regarded her soberly a moment. “You are now. As Penelope’s husband, I’m inviting you. Your friendship with her goes back a long way. She’d want you there.”

She couldn’t look at him. Couldn’t bear the cool neutrality in his voice. “I’m not sure that’s so,” she said, turning away. “Our lives had gone in separate directions. We didn’t always see eye to eye anymore.” Especially not about you or the sanctity of your marriage.

Unmindful of the buzz of speculation such a gesture would surely give rise to, he gripped her arm to prevent her leaving. “It would mean a lot to me if you’d change your mind.”

“Why, Jake?” she felt bound to ask. “You and I haven’t been close in years, either, and under the circumstances, I can’t imagine why you’d want to seek me out now.”

“You were the last person to see my wife alive. The last one to speak to her. I’d like to talk to you about it.”

“Why?” she said again, stifling a moment of panic. “The police report spells out the events of that night pretty clearly.”

“I’ve read the police report and also heard my in-laws’ account of what took place. It’s what you have to say that interests me. They know that an accident occurred, but you’re the only one who knows how or why.”

The panic stole over her again. “I’ve already told everything there is to tell, at least a dozen times.”

“Humor me, Sally, and tell it once more.” He indicated the cane in his left hand. “They released me from the military hospital in Germany less than twenty-four hours ago. I got home early this morning, just in time for the funeral. Everything I’ve learned so far has come to me secondhand. Surely you can understand why I’d like to hear it from the only person who was actually there when Penelope died.”

“What do you expect to accomplish by doing that?”

“It’s possible you might remember something that didn’t seem important at the time that you gave your statement. Something which would fill in what strike me as gaping holes in the accounts I’ve so far received.”

In other words, he suspected there was more to the story than the nicely laundered official version. She’d been afraid of that. Afraid not of what he might ask, but that he’d discern the painful truth behind the lies she’d told to spare his and the Burtons’ feelings.

“Sally?” Margaret, her older sister, bore down on them, her slight frown the only indication that she found Sally’s fraternizing with the widower, in full sight of the bereaved family, to be totally inappropriate. “We need to leave. Now.”

“Yes.” For once glad of her older sister’s interference, Sally put a respectable distance between herself and Jake. “I was just explaining that I can’t make it to the reception.”

“Well, of course you can’t!” Margaret’s expression softened as she turned to Jake. “I’m very sorry about your loss, Jake, as are we all. What a dreadful homecoming for you. But I’m afraid we really do have to go. I need to get home to the children.”

“You and Sally came here together?”

“Yes. She hasn’t been too keen on driving since the accident. It shook her up more than most people seem to realize.”

“Did it?” His glance swung from Margaret and zeroed in again on Sally with altogether too much perception for her peace of mind. “At least, you escaped serious injury.”

“I was lucky.”

“Indeed you were. A great deal more than my wife.”

A trembling cold took hold as memories washed over her: of the protesting scream of the brakes, the smell of burning rubber as the tires left tracks on the road. And most of all, of Penelope, flung out of the car and lying all broken in the ditch, mumbling with a spectral smile on her face, Silly me. I fell off the merry-go-round before it stopped, Sal.

With an effort, Sally shook off the painful recollection and, aware that Jake continued to scrutinize her, said, “Yes, I was lucky. But not all injuries appear on the outside. Watching a friend die isn’t something a person easily gets over.”

“Not as a rule.”

Although polite enough on the surface, his words rang with such searing contempt that, ignoring her better judgment, she burst out, “Do you think I’m lying?”

“Are you?”

“Good grief, Jake, even allowing for your understandable heartache, that question is uncalled-for!” Margaret seldom approved of anything Sally did, but when it came to outside criticism, she was all mother hen protecting her young. “My sister was—is!—devastated by Penelope’s death.”

Something shifted in his expression. Not a softening, exactly, but a sort of resignation. “Yes,” he said. “Of course she is. I apologize, Sally, for implying otherwise.”

Sally nodded, but her sigh of relief was cut short when he continued, “And I’ll be glad to arrange a ride home for you after the reception.”

“Thank you, Jake, but no. I’ve already inconvenienced Margaret. I wouldn’t dream of imposing on you as well, especially not today.”

“You’d be doing me a favor. And if you’re afraid—”

“Why should she be?” Margaret interjected sharply. “Penelope’s death was ruled an accident.”

“I’m aware of that, just as I’m equally aware that not everyone accepts the verdict at face value.”

“Then perhaps you’re right. Perhaps taking her to the reception isn’t such a bad idea.” Margaret pursed her lips in thought, then gave Sally an encouraging poke in the ribs. “Yes. Go with him after all, Sally. Face the lot of them and prove you’ve got nothing to be ashamed of.”

Rendered speechless by Margaret’s sudden about-face, Sally groped for an answer which would put a definitive end to the whole subject. She had enough to cope with; she wasn’t up to dealing with the unwarranted antagonism she’d face by agreeing to Jake’s request.

“No!” she finally spluttered. “I don’t have to prove anything to anyone!”

But the only person paying the slightest attention was Jake. Having issued her decree, Margaret had cut a brisk path among the graves to that section of the road where she’d parked her car a discreet distance away from any other vehicles, and was already climbing behind the wheel.

“It would seem,” Jake murmured, clamping his free hand around Sally’s elbow before she bolted also, and steering her toward the sole remaining limousine, “that you have no choice but to prove it. Let’s not keep the driver waiting. I can’t speak for you, but I’m in no shape to hike the four miles back to my in-laws’, especially not under these conditions.” He glanced up at the leaden sky pressing coldly down on the treetops. “We’re lucky the snow held off this long.”

Thankfully the last car was empty except for a couple from out of town who didn’t seem to know that the passenger accompanying Jake was the woman whom popular opinion held responsible for rendering him a widower. Grateful that they showed no inclination to talk beyond a subdued greeting, Sally huddled in the corner of the soft leather seat and welcomed the blast of heat fanning around her ankles.

She’d be facing another round of chilly displeasure soon enough. In the meantime, she might as well take comfort wherever she could find it.

Lovely Sally Winslow was lying through her teeth. It might have been years since he’d last seen her, but Jake remembered enough about her to know when she was covering up. The question buzzing through his sleep-deprived mind was, for what purpose?

She’d been formally cleared of blame in the accident. So why couldn’t she look him straight in the eye? Why was she instead staring fixedly out of the window beside her so that all he could see of her was the back of her head and the dark, shining cap of her hair. What was with her sitting as far away from him as she could get, as if she feared grief might prompt him to grab her by the throat and try to choke the truth out of her?

The chauffeur drove sedately along the broad, tree-lined avenues of Bayview Heights, turned onto The Crescent and past various stately homes sitting on five acre lots, then hung a left through the iron gates guarding the Burton property. Except for the gleam of lamplight shining from the main floor windows and casting a soft yellow glow over the snow piled up outside, the massive house, built nearly a hundred years before from blocks of granite hewn from the quarry just outside town, rose black and brooding in the early dusk.

The limo barely whispered to a stop under the porte-cochère before Morton, the butler, flung open the double front doors. At the sight of Sally climbing the steps, a flicker of surprise crossed his face. “Ahem,” he said, extending one arm as if to bar her entry.

“Miss Winslow is here as my guest,” Jake informed him, taken aback at the surge of protectiveness he felt toward her. Whatever else she might not be, Sally had always been able to fend for herself. She hardly needed him playing knight errant.

With fastidious distaste, Morton relieved her of her coat. “The family is receiving in the drawing room, Captain Harrington,” he said. “Shall I announce you?”

“No need. I know the way.” Jake handed the manservant his cap, brushed a few snowflakes from his shoulders and cocked his head at Sally. “Ready to face the fray?”

“As much as I’ll ever be.”

He thought of offering her his arm, and decided she’d have to make do with his moral support. No point in rubbing salt into his in-laws’ wounds. They were suffering enough.

The drawing room, a masterpiece of late nineteenth-century craftsmanship with its intricate moldings and ornately coffered ceiling, hummed with the low buzz of conversation. Every spare inch of surface on the highly polished furniture was filled with photographs of Penelope framed by huge, heavily scented flower arrangements.

Under the tall Arcadian windows overlooking the rear gardens, a table held an assortment of fancy sandwiches, hot canapés and French pastries. A fat woman whom he didn’t recognize presided over the heirloom sterling tea service and priceless translucent china. At the other end of the room, a Chippendale desk served as a temporary bar with his father-in-law in charge. Colette, an empty brandy snifter at her elbow, perched on the edge of a silk-upholstered chair, accepting condolences.

Fletcher Burton saw him and Sally first. At six foot one—only an inch shorter than Jake himself—he stood taller than most of the rest grouped about the room. About to pour sherry for the weepy-eyed woman at his side, he thumped the heavy cut-glass decanter back on its silver tray and cut a swath through the crowd. “I don’t know how this young woman managed to get past Morton—!”

“I brought her here, Fletcher.”

“What the devil for?”

“She and Penelope had known each other from childhood. They were friends. Sally was the last person to see your daughter alive. I’d say that gives her as much right to be here as anyone.”

“For God’s sake, Jake! You know Colette’s feelings on this. We’re trying to put the past behind us.”

“With altogether more speed than decency, if you ask me.”

“Nevertheless, under the circumstances, I hardly think—”

“I agreed to your taking charge of all the funeral arrangements because I couldn’t be here in time to handle them myself,” Jake cut in. “But may I remind you, Fletcher, that although you were Penelope’s parents, I was her husband. I believe that entitles me to invite whom I please to this reception honoring her memory.”

“No, it doesn’t. Not if it adds to anyone’s grief.” Sally, who’d been edging back toward the foyer, spoke up. “I came to pay my respects, Mr. Burton, and now that I have, I’ll leave.”

“Thank you.” Poor old Fletcher, henpecked to within an inch of his life, cast an anxious glance across the room to where Colette held court. “Look, I don’t mean to be offensive, but I’m afraid you’re no longer welcome in our home, Sally. If my wife should see you, she’d—”

But the warning came too late. Colette had seen them and her outraged gasp had everyone looking her way. Handkerchief fluttering, she fairly flew across the room. “How dare you show your face in our home, Sally Winslow? Have you no sense of decency at all?”

“She came with me.” Not only was he beginning to sound like a broken record, Jake was growing thoroughly tired of repeating the same old refrain. It was his own fault, though. He should have stood his ground and insisted on postponing the funeral until he could have taken over. A few more days wouldn’t have made any difference to Penelope, but if he’d hosted her wake in the house they’d shared as a couple, he might have been able to circumvent the present scene.

“How could you do that, Jake?” Colette wailed, her baby blues swimming in tears. “How could you hurt me by desecrating Penelope’s memory this way? I’ve suffered enough. I need some closure.”

“We all do, Colette,” he said gently, moved despite himself by her anguish. Colette Burton might be a diva of the first order, but she’d truly adored her daughter.

“And you expect to find it by bringing that woman here?” She let out a tortured sob. “What kind of son-in-law are you?”

Fletcher would have caved at that line of attack, but Jake wasn’t about to. “One trying to put back together the pieces of his life.”

“With the help of your wife’s murderer?”

The shocked reaction brought on by that remark—because there wasn’t a soul in the room who hadn’t heard it, including his parents—bounced back from the walls in a throttling silence broken only by a faint whimper of despair from Sally.

Caught again in the urge to leap to her defense, he said, “Perhaps you’d like to retract that accusation, Colette, before it lands you in more trouble than you’re able to handle right now.”

“No!” Sally overrode him, her voice thick with emotion barely held in check. “Don’t blame her.” She turned to Colette, and touched her hand contritely. “Please forgive me, Mrs. Burton. I shouldn’t have come. I just wanted to tell you again how very sorry I am that Penelope’s life ended so tragically. I truly feel your pain.”

Colette snatched her hand away as if she’d been singed by a naked flame. “Do you really, Sally Winslow! Are you trying to tell me you’ve walked the floor every night since she was killed, wondering what that strange noise is and realizing it’s the sound of your own heart breaking, over and over again?”

“No, but I’ve—”

“Of course you haven’t! You’re probably glad Penelope’s dead, if truth be known, because you always resented her for being prettier and smarter than you. But now, you don’t have to live in her shadow anymore, do you?”

“Colette, that’s enough.” Fletcher tried steering her away, to no effect.

“Leave me alone! I’m not finished with her yet.” Like a wild thing, she flung him off and rounded on Sally again. “Do you have any idea how it feels to see your child lying dead in her box? Do you know what it’s like to finally fall asleep from sheer emotional exhaustion, and do so praying that you’ll never wake up again? Do you?”

Sally, pale enough to begin with, blanched alarmingly and pressed her lips together to stop their trembling. Perspiration gleamed on her brow. Her eyes, normally dark as forest-green pools, turned almost black with distress.

“That’s what you’ve done to me, Sally Winslow.” Colette’s voice rose shrilly. “I’ll never know another moment’s peace, and I hope you never do, either! I hope what you’ve done haunts you for the rest of your miserable days!”

Again, Fletcher moved to intervene. “Hush now, Colette, my darling. You’re overwrought.”

She’d also fortified herself with more than one brandy and was three sheets to the wind, Jake belatedly realized. Her breath was enough to knock a man over. But it was Sally who suddenly fell limply against him and, before he could catch her, crumpled to the floor at his feet.

Drowning out the chorus of shocked exclamations, Colette teetered in Fletcher’s hold and shrieked, “I hope she’s dead! It’s what she deserves!”

“Sorry to disappoint you,” Jake said, stooping to feel the pulse, strong and steady, below Sally’s jaw. “I’m afraid she’s only fainted.” Then, although he shouldn’t have, he couldn’t help adding, “Probably too much hot air in here. Where can we put her until she comes to?”

“The library,” Fletcher said, handing a sobbing Colette over to one of her hangers-on. “She can lie down in there.”

“I’ll take her, Jake.” His father materialized at his side. “You’ll never make it with that injured leg.”

“I’ll manage somehow,” he muttered, wishing his parents hadn’t had to witness the scene just past. There’d never been much love lost between his family and the Burtons, and he knew they’d be upset by Colette’s attack on him.

“You don’t always have to be the iron hero, you know. It’s okay to lean on someone else once in a while.”

“Can the advice for another time, Dad,” he said, a lot more abruptly than the man deserved. But cripes, his leg was giving him hell, and that alone was enough to leave him a bit short on tact. “It’s my fault Sally’s here at all. The least I can do is finish what I started. If you want to help, get Mom out of here. She looks as if she’s seen and heard enough.”

Clamping down on the pain shooting up this thigh, he scooped Sally into his arms and made his way through the crowd, which parted like the Red Sea before Moses. There might be some there who felt sorry for her, but no one except possibly his relatives dared show it. Colette had cornered the market on any spare sympathy that might be floating around.

The library was a man’s room. Paneled in oak, with big, comfortable leather chairs and a matching sofa flanking the wide fireplace, some very good paintings, a Turkish rug and enough books to keep a person reading well into the next century, it was Fletcher’s haven; the place to which he retreated when things became too histrionic with the women in his household. Jake had joined him there many a time, to escape or to enjoy an after-dinner drink, and knew he kept a private supply of cognac stashed in the bureau bookcase next to the hearth.

Just as well. Sally needed something strong to bring the color back to her face. Come to that, he could use a stiff belt himself.

Depositing her on the couch, he covered her with a mo-hair lap rug draped over one of the chairs. She looked very young in repose; very vulnerable. Much the way she’d looked when they’d started dating during her high school sophomore year. He’d been a senior at the time, and so crazy in love with her that he hadn’t been able to think straight.

Even as he watched, she stirred and, opening her eyes, regarded him with dazed suspicion. “What are you doing?”

“Looking at you,” he said, using the back of the sofa for support and wondering how she’d respond if he told her she had the longest damned eyelashes he’d ever seen, and a mouth so delectable that he knew an indecent urge to lean down and kiss it.

Get a grip, Harrington! You’ve been a widower less than a week, and should be too swamped with memories of your wife to notice the way another woman’s put together—even if the woman in question does happen to have been your first love.

Her glance shied away from him and darted around the room. “How did I wind up in here?”

“I carried you in, after you fainted.”

“I fainted?” She covered her eyes with the back of one hand and groaned in horror. “In front of all those people?”

“It was the best thing you could have done,” he said, limping to the bureau and taking out a three-quarter-full bottle of Courvoisier cognac and two snifters. “You upstaged Colette beautifully. Without you to lambaste, she was left speechless.” He poured them each a healthy shot of the liquor and offered one to her. “This should put you back on your feet.”

“I don’t know about that,” she said doubtfully. “I haven’t eaten a thing today.”

“I wondered what made you pass out.”

“I haven’t had much of an appetite at all since…the accident.”

“Feel up to talking about that night?”

She sat up and pushed her hair away from her face. “I don’t know what else I can say that you haven’t already heard.”

Cautiously lowering himself into the nearest chair, he knocked back half the contents of his glass and, as the warmth of the brandy penetrated the outer limits of his pain, said, “You could try telling me what really happened, Sally.”

The shutters rolled down her face, cloaking her expression. “What makes you so sure there’s more to tell?”

“You and I were once close enough that we learned to read each other’s minds pretty well. I always knew when you were trying to hide something from me, and I haven’t forgotten the signs.”

She swirled her drink but did not, he noticed, taste it. Why was she being so cagey? Could it be that she was afraid the booze might loosen her tongue too much and she’d let something slip? “That was a long time ago, Jake. We were just kids. People grow up and change.”

“No, they don’t,” he said flatly. “They just become better at covering up. But although you might have fooled everyone else, including the police, you’ve never been able to fool me. There’s more to this whole business than anyone else but you knows, and I’m asking you, for old times’ sake, to tell me what it is.”

Just for a moment, she looked him straight in the eye and he thought she was going to come clean. But then the door opened and Fletcher appeared. “I expect you might need this, Jake,” he said, brandishing the cane. “And I wondered if Sally felt well enough for one of the chauffeurs to drive her home, before the cars fill up with other people.”

Masking his annoyance at the interruption, Jake said, “Can’t it wait another five minutes? We’re in the middle of something, Fletcher, if you don’t mind.”

“No, we’re not,” Sally said, throwing off the blanket and swinging her legs to the floor. “If you can spare a car, I’d be very grateful, Mr. Burton. I’m more than ready to leave.”

Frustrated, Jake watched as she tottered to her feet and wove her way to the door. Short of resorting to physical force, there was nothing he could do to detain her. This time.

But he’d see to it there was a next time. And when it happened, he’d make damn good and sure she didn’t escape him until he was satisfied he knew the precise circumstances which had finally freed him from the hell his marriage had become.