Kitabı oku: «The Valentine Child»

CHAPTER ONE

HIS lips were warm on the tender skin of her throat. Somewhere along the way Nigel had removed his T-shirt and she could feel the heat of his body through her fine silk blouse. She closed her eyes tight and told herself that she was enjoying his kisses. It was Nigel—her friend, her colleague and soon to be her lover.

They were sprawled across the sofa in Zoë’s London apartment, the only sound Nigel’s heavy breathing. She felt his fingers at the buttons of her blouse and tensed, then forced herself to relax. Hadn’t she planned this? She was twenty, and still a virgin! And now she was finally going to be a woman! So why did she feel sick?

The thought stopped her cold, and, shoving at Nigel’s chest, she said, ‘No, Nigel. Get off.’ The ensuing tussle was undignified and bordering on the ridiculous. Zoë struggled from beneath his sprawling body but her elbow caught him in the eye, and his yelp of pain was drowned out by the ringing of the doorbell, followed by loud and rapid knocking.

‘Saved by the bell!’ Zoë murmured, and dashed across the room. Whoever was calling after midnight was in danger of waking the whole house. Her apartment was one of six in a converted Victorian town house.

She flung open the door, about to demand what all the urgency was for, and stopped. Her mouth fell open and she brushed a small hand through the tumbled mass of her silver-blonde hair, sweeping it out of her eyes to get a better view. It couldn’t be…But it was… Justin Gifford.

For a second she saw the old Justin, as he had been before the fatal night of her eighteenth birthday. He was smiling tenderly down at her, his dark eyes filled with some emotion she could not guess at.

‘Justin.’ She said his name, and raised her hand as though to touch him, but he brushed past her and into the room. She closed the door and turned around. Obviously she had been mistaken about his tender glance, she thought dryly.

‘So that’s what stopped you.’ Nigel’s voice broke the tense silence. ‘You heard the bell.’

Zoë glanced at Nigel, who was sitting on the sofa, struggling to pull his shirt back on, and then back at Justin.

The comparison was inevitable. Nigel looked like a flushed, frustrated twenty-one-year-old—which he was. Whereas Justin, at thirty-five, and touching six feet tall, exuded an aura of sophisticated, arrogant masculinity that was undeniable. Certain of his place and power in the world as a top barrister with a glittering future, tipped to be one of the youngest judges ever appointed, he dominated those around him without even trying.

He was doing it now! Standing in the centre of the room, a long cashmere overcoat draped casually over his broad shoulders. Beneath it a black wool roll-neck sweater moulded the muscular contours of his broad chest, and black denim jeans did the same for his long legs. His night-black hair was, unusually for him, rumpled in disarray and the contempt in his eyes, as he recognised at a glance what had been going on, was unmistakable.

His gaze swept over her small, dishevelled form and the furious glitter in his deep brown eyes would have made a saint quake…

‘Does your lover live with you?’ he demanded harshly.

Zoë tensed, and wiped her damp palms nervously down her jean-clad thighs. She wriggled her bare toes in the deep-pile carpet and straightened her shoulders in a vain attempt to add inches to her diminutive stature. She tilted back her head and looked a long way up into angry eyes.

‘I don’t think that is any of your business, Justin. More to the point, what are you doing here at this hour?’ She was proud—her voice sounded firm when inside she was trembling. Nigel was not helping any by pulling his shirt down with one hand and knuckling his eye with the other, looking like a drowsy, sated male.

‘I’m making it my business, Zoë.’ Justin stepped towards her, his massive frame looming over her. She had nowhere to go; her back was at the door. ‘Is that the kind of pipsqueak you prefer?’ he demanded scathingly. ‘I can’t say I admire your taste. Get rid of him. Now.’

‘Nigel is my guest—she spluttered.

‘So he doesn’t live here?’ Justin cut in, and simply grabbed her arm and swung her behind him while roaring at Nigel, ‘You—whatever your name is—get out.’

Nigel got to his feet. ‘Wait just a minute. Who the hell do you think you are? Zoë and I—’

‘There is no Zoë, not for you. Now out, before I throw you out.’

Zoë had seen Justin angry before, but never like this. ‘You’d better go, Nigel,’ she said quietly. Justin’s hand around her wrist relaxed slightly at her surrender to his request…

‘It’s OK. Justin is my uncle’s partner; I’ll be all right,’ she assured him, and she was free. Involuntarily she rubbed her wrist as she stepped away from Justin’s towering presence, looking, if she did but know it, as if she was wringing her hands in agitation.

After a token objection Nigel left, and Zoë didn’t blame him. She had first met Justin Gifford as a sad and frightened fourteen-year-old who had just lost her actor parents in an air disaster in California. She had been swept from her boarding-school in Portland, Maine, to be deposited on her only relative, Uncle Bertie Brown, in England.

She remembered as if it were yesterday. Born and brought up in the States, with an American mother and an English father, she had arrived in what to her had been an alien country, to live in a huge old house, “Black Gables”, with an uncle she had never met before.

She had been curled up on the window-seat in the garden-room, quietly crying, when a deep voice had said softly, ‘Are you all right, little girl?’ She had looked up into the darkest brown eyes she had ever seen, set in the tanned, attractive face of Justin Gifford. Tall and built like a quarter-back, with the broken nose to prove it, he had swung her on to his lap and comforted her and she had been smitten with her first ever crush on a member of the opposite sex.

She glanced warily at him; he was positively bristling with rage and Justin in this mood was dangerous. The only other time she had seen him as mad had been the terrible night of her eighteenth birthday party. Justin had arrived at the party with a red-haired woman in tow-Janet Ord—and Zoë had been consumed by jealousy.

Ever since moving in with her uncle and first seeing Justin she had adored him, even though at twenty-eight he’d been twice her age. Justin had spent many a weekend at the house in Surrey and had always treated Zoë with the greatest kindness. They had talked, laughed and played tennis together.

Every year a valentine card had arrived at Black Gables for her with the simple message “Thinking of you, from your tall, dark, handsome friend”. The postmark had been from London and, as Justin was the only man she’d known in the city, she had hoarded the cards as tokens of his love. In her girlish heart she’d honestly believed that he loved her as she loved him.

Her birthday party had changed all that. Furious that he had brought a woman with him, Zoë had stayed up until four in the morning waiting for Justin to return from driving Janet home, and then had tried to seduce him.

A grim smile twisted her full lips at the memory. It hadn’t worked. Justin had taken one penetrating look at her, dressed in only a flimsy nightie, and had laughed out loud.

‘Run along to bed, little girl, before you get more than you bargained for,’ he had drawled with mocking amusement.

Instead she had thrown her arms around his neck and pressed her slender body against him, and demanded that he kiss her. She had known he wanted to…What followed was engraved in her mind forever.

‘Maybe I will at that,’ he had growled as his strong arms had closed around her. His dark head had swooped down, and he’d proceeded to ravage her mouth with hard, passionate kisses.

At first she’d exulted in his fierce passion but he’d made no concession to her youth or innocence and when his large, strong hands had swept all over her trembling body, and she’d felt the full force of his masculine aggression, she’d been suddenly terrified by the savagery she had unleashed and had cried for him to stop.

They had not been friends since. Zoë made a point of not being at Black Gables when she knew Justin was arriving for the weekend. It hadn’t been difficult—what with studying at art college and moving to her own apartment, she had rarely seen him over the past couple of years.

‘Fasten your blouse, for God’s sake!’ A deep, grating voice broke into her troubled reminiscences.

‘What…?’ She glanced down at herself, and felt a tell-tale tide of colour flood her pale face. ‘Oh!’ she gasped. Her blouse was open to the waist, revealing her firm, high breasts hardly covered by a wisp of white lace. Head bent, with trembling fingers she fastened her blouse. She might not have seen Justin for ages, but she was horrified to realise that he still had the power to make her blush like a lovesick schoolgirl.

Taking a deep breath, she bravely raised her head, her blue eyes clashing with furious brown ones. ‘Is it possible you have some explanation for bursting into my apartment in the middle of the night? Or perhaps you’ve been drinking?’ she prompted with all the hauteur she could muster.

In the blink of an eye a shutter seemed to fall over his hard face, masking all expression. ‘Sorry, Zoë, you’re right of course. You’re a grown woman; your private life is none of my business.’

‘Big of you to recognise that,’ she drawled sarcastically.

‘Cut the sarcasm and sit down. I have some bad news.’

‘News?’ And suddenly she was filled with a dreadful foreboding. She should have realised immediately that nothing short of a major catastrophe would have bought Justin to her apartment in the middle of the night.

She moved towards him; her small hand clasped his forearm. ‘What has happened?’ Her beautiful face paled; her eyes searched his rugged features. ‘Not…?’

‘There’s no easy way to say this. Bertie has had a massive heart attack and is in Intensive Care at the local hospital. I’ll take you to him.’

‘Will he be OK, Justin?’ Zoë asked the question for the hundredth time of the brooding figure sitting beside her on the banquette in the cold waiting-room of the hospital. He turned his dark head, compassion in his steady gaze. ‘Of course he will be, little one. Your uncle Bertie is a fighter.’ And, curving a long arm around her slender shoulders, he drew her into his side. ‘Snuggle up and try to rest, hmm?’ With his other hand he brushed the tumble of blonde hair from her brow. ‘I’ll look after you; after all, that’s what friends are for.’ He smiled softly, giving her shoulder a brief squeeze.

Comforted by his reassuring words and held against the warmth of his hard body, she forgot the humiliation, the embarrassment that had made her avoid him for the past two years. Instead she lifted her sapphire-blue eyes to his harshly handsome face and said, ‘Are we friends again?’ And they were.

Two weeks later, when Bertie was released from hospital a month before Christmas, Zoëe willingly gave up her apartment and returned with her uncle to Black Gables, quite happy to commute every day to her job as a graphic artist at Magnum Advertising in London if it meant spending her free time with her uncle.

Zoë positively danced into the breakfast-room. ‘Good morning, Uncle Bertie.’ She pressed a swift kiss on the parchment-like cheek of the old man sitting at the pine table. ‘You’re looking better today,’ she said, with a quick smile, though in reality she was worried about him. His once tall, raw-boned figure seemed to be shrinking by the day. His fine head of silver hair appeared lank and somehow lifeless. But she did not betray her worry as she asked, ‘Any post for me today?’

‘Yes, two, minx.’ He smiled fondly back at her. ‘And thank you.’ He waved a card, with a big red rabbit sitting in a heart on the front, in her face. ‘It was kind of you to think of me.’

Chuckling, she took the two envelopes he held out to her and, plonking down on the nearest chair, ripped them open. One was obviously from Bertie. ‘You’re not supposed to sign them, you know, Uncle,’ she admonished, and then went dreamy-eyed over the next valentine card: ‘Thinking of you, from your tall, dark, handsome friend.’

She just knew it was Justin and tonight she was going to tell him she had known all along. Finally she was confident enough in herself and her new-found adult relationship with him.

Over the past months he had been a tower of strength, visiting most weekends, and the rapport he shared with Uncle Bertie had naturally spread to include her again. They had shared the occasional dinner date; Justin had taken her to the theatre, and the ballet and, most important of all, at the end of their evenings out he had always kissed her goodnight, and always left Zoë aching for something more. But tonight Justin was taking her to the Law Society’s Valentine’s Ball at a top London hotel, and she just knew that tonight would be special.

‘Not going to work today, young lady?’ Uncle Bertie’s question broke into her happy reverie.

‘No, I have the day off, and I’m going to pamper myself shamelessly because Justin’s taking me to the ball.’

‘I see…’ His watery blue eyes crinkled at the corners.

‘Good. He’s a fine young man. You couldn’t do better.’

‘I know,’ she agreed, with a cheeky grin.

A dozen hours later Zoë heard Justin arrive as she blotted her lipstick for the final time. She seldom bothered much with make-up, having a fine clear skin, but tonight she had gone to town and she was delighted with the result.

Her eyes were huge, her brows and lashes subtly darkened, and a faint touch of colour on her eyelids served to enhance the sparkling blue of her eyes. She had used a light foundation that seemed to make her skin gleam almost translucently. And, daringly, she had coloured her wide, full-lipped mouth in a bright cerise lip-gloss that exactly matched her gown.

The dress was a romantic dream, she thought happily, floating out of her room and down the grand staircase to where Justin and her uncle waited. Designed in cerise satin, demure cap sleeves set off the plunging, heartshaped, fitted bodice that nipped her waist and ended in black embroidered points over her hips, then flared out into a wide skirt with an underskirt of frothy layers of black net.

The assistant in Harvey Nichols had assured her that the nineteenth-century romantic look was all the rage and, when she stopped halfway down the stairs to glance down at Justin, and saw the flare of admiration in his eyes, she knew she had made the right choice.

Justin—tall, dark and incredibly impressive in a conservative black dinner-suit—moved to the stairs and held out his hand to her. She felt like a princess as he led her down the last few steps.

‘You have grown into an amazingly beautiful woman, Zoë. You look absolutely stunning.’ His dark eyes gleamed with admiration and some other emotion that Zoë hoped was love.

‘Thank you, kind sir,’ she said prettily.

A wry smile curved Justin’s firm mouth. ‘But I knew I should have asked. I’m no good at all at this romance thing.’ And, handing her a clear cellophane box, with a shrug of his broad shoulders he added, ‘For you. And before you say anything even I know a corsage of red roses will clash with your dress. Sorry…’

‘I love them, but you shouldn’t have; your valentine card has always been enough for me,’ she declared openly, her eyes sparkling with happiness. ‘Wait till I get my cape; the corsage will look great on it.’

Dashing back upstairs, she didn’t see Justin’s dark scowl or hear his muttered, ‘What card?’

‘Right, I’m ready.’ She returned, holding out her velvet cloak for Justin to place around her shoulders. She shivered with delicious anticipation when his strong fingers caressed her flesh as he fastened the cap and solemnly pinned the red roses on the velvet above her breast.

With Uncle Bertie’s good wishes, and his admonition to stay in town for the night ringing in her ears, Justin led her out to the car—a sleek black BMW—and slid in beside her.

Justin was the perfect partner; he insisted on dancing every dance with her, and the evening took on a magic all of its own. She could not help but observe the respect and esteem he attracted from his fellow professionals. She overheard in the powder-room that it was rumoured that he was definitely going to be on the next list of judges, and, on returning to the ballroom, she could not resist teasing him unmercifully.

‘Such exalted company. Why, m’lud, I fear you give me the vapours.’ She fluttered her thick lashes unashamedly.

‘I’d like to give you a lot more,’ he drawled mockingly, his brown eyes smiling down into hers. ‘You little tease.’

‘Who—moi? Your honour! No, your honour!’ She camped it up, pressing a hand to her heart.

‘You’re asking for trouble, little one,’ Justin opined, and swept her into his arms and on to the dance-floor.

‘If…or…when…’ he spaced the words out as they moved slowly and lazily around the floor to the haunting strains of ‘Unchained Melody’ ‘…I…am…made… a…judge…’ he curled her small hand in his and held it against his chest while his other hand stroked up her back to bury beneath the silken fall of her pale blonde hair and curve around her nape ‘…it won’t be “Unchained Melody” we dance to, my love.’

He tilted her face up to his and murmured against her ear, ‘I’ll sentence you to be chained to me for life.’ And then his mouth moved over hers in a kiss as light as the brush of a butterfly’s wing.

She clung to him, her eyes shining like stars; her breasts, hard against his chest, throbbed with burgeoning arousal while her heart drummed to an erratic beat. ‘If only,’ she breathed, licking her suddenly too dry lips.

His dark eyes followed the movement of her tongue. ‘Not if—when,’ he rasped, his arms tightening around her until even through the many layers of her gown Zoë could feel his hardening need, and she finally admitted to herself that nothing had changed—her schoolgirl crush had turned into a woman’s love for a man.

‘Let’s get out of here,’ he said urgently.

‘But it’s only eleven.’

‘The way I feel right now, I won’t live to midnight.’ Their eyes met and clung—no more teasing, no amusement, just a basic primeval need.

‘Yes,’ she agreed softly.

Back in Justin’s apartment, she barely noticed the décor; she had eyes only for Justin.

He stripped off her velvet evening cloak and dropped it to the floor, then, catching her hand, hurried her down a hall through a door and into a large room—his bedroom! She hesitated, eyeing the king-size bed warily. Was she ready for this? But the question was answered by Justin.

‘Zoë.’ He cupped her small face in his large hands and tilted her head back, his deep brown eyes darkened to almost black. ‘Don’t be afraid. You know I would never do anything to hurt you. But I feel as though I’ve waited aeons for you. I can’t wait any longer.’ His mouth brushed gently over hers. ‘I promised myself I would do this properly,’ he breathed against her lips.

She reached her slender arms around his neck, her heart melting with love, and felt anything but proper… She gazed up into his dark eyes, and was surprised to see a hint of uncertainty, a touching vulnerability in their black depths. ‘Do what?’ she encouraged with a dreamy smile.

His hands lowered, one to curve around her waist, the other to go to his jacket pocket. ‘Ask you to be my valentine tonight and always. Be my wife,’ he husked, and, putting a little space between them, he showed her the velvet ring-box.

Zoë, her eyes misted with tears of joy, took the box and opened it. A gasp of delight escaped her at the sight of the diamond and sapphire ring. ‘Put it on for me.’ She held it out with a hand that trembled.

Justin slipped the ring on the appropriate finger. ‘I take it that’s a yes?’ he queried huskily before he enfolded her once more in his arms; his dark head bent and he kissed her, long and tenderly.

She parted her lips at his urging; his tongue seductively traced the inside of her mouth and she was lost. She would be anything he wanted her to be.

‘Now, do I get to unwrap my valentine? You, my heart,’ he mouthed against her cheek as he spread small kisses all over her face, her eyelids, the slender arch of her throat, while his hands deftly found the zip of her dress.

It was no good; she could stand it no longer; she had to get away for a while. Her head was pounding, and if she had to listen to one more stilted condolence on the death of her uncle Bertie she would break down completely.

‘Are you all right, Zoë?’

She glanced up into concerned deep brown eyes and tried to smile. ‘I will be when this is over.’ A supporting arm closed around her tiny waist and she relaxed against the hard, muscled, masculine frame of her husband of two months—Justin. She still had to pinch herself sometimes to believe that she and Justin were actually man and wife.

‘Zoë.’ Justin’s voice snapped her back to the present.

She raised misty blue eyes to his. ‘I’m OK.’

‘You’re not,’ he contradicted her bluntly. His hand tightened fractionally on her waist. ‘Slope off to your secret seat, and I’ll make sure you’re not disturbed for a while’ His hand moved to her back and turned her to the door. His dark head bent, she felt the feather-light brush of his mouth against the top of her head and she was out in the large oak-panelled hall.

Justin knew her so well, she thought, slipping quickly through the door opposite and making straight for the window-seat. Curled up behind the curtain, she stared out of the window. The clear, bright light of a mid-May day glinted over the long lush green lawns and on down to the river, which wound like a sinuous silver snake along the bottom of the garden.

Too nice a day for a funeral! She sighed deeply, and a tear rolled slowly down the curve of her cheek. Uncle Bertie—dead…

She wiped away the moisture with the back of her hand. She couldn’t have any tears left. She had done her crying for her uncle over the past few months when it had become obvious that it was simply a matter of time before his ruined heart gave out. The funeral today was the last act for a man who had led an exemplary life. The guests across the hall numbered among some of the greatest names in the land, here to pay their respects.

Uncle Bertie had been an eminent judge destined for one of the highest positions in the English judiciary, until he had suffered his heart attack last November.

Zoë closed her eyes and lay back against the wall, her feet tucked beneath her. She was going to miss him, she knew. But—thank God!—she had Justin; she was not alone, and Uncle Bertie had been delighted when she’d married his protégé. So she at least had the solace of knowing that her uncle’s last weeks had been happy.

Smiling softly to herself, she glanced at her sparkling engagement ring and the pale gold band beside it. Then she breathed on the window, misting the glass, and, in a childish gesture, drew a heart with her forefinger and inserted the initials ZG and JG with a rather wobbly arrow, remembering the Valentine’s ball.

No girl had ever had a more tender, intoxicating initiation into womanhood. Justin was the perfect lover; slowly and carefully he had kissed and caressed, urged and cajoled her through the intricacies of love, and at the final moment had protected her from any untoward consequences.

The next morning, when he had taken her back to Black Gables, he had formally asked Uncle Bertie for her hand in marriage, informed her arrogantly that as his wife-to-be she no longer needed to work, and, of course, she had agreed. Then, a month later, on the arm of her uncle Bertie, she had walked down the aisle of the village church to wed Justin.

She sighed. Who would have thought that two months later Bertie would be dead? Then she heard the voice of Mrs Sara Blacket, the wife of one of the partners in Justin’s law firm, speaking.

‘It’s a magnificent house. Gifford has done very well for himself, even if he did have to marry the old man’s niece to get it.’

Why, the cheeky old bat! Zoë thought, and would have moved, but then she recognised another voice—that of Mary Master, the wife of a High Court judge.

‘Oh, I don’t think Justin married for any mercenary reason. They make a lovely couple, and it’s obvious she adores him.’

‘I don’t dispute the girl loves him, but my Harold told me he’d heard that Bertie Brown, when he realised he was dying, offered Justin his place as the head of chambers on condition that he married the niece. He wanted her settled before he died.’

‘I find that hard to believe. In any case, the other partners would have had some say in the matter,’ Mary Master argued.

‘Bertie was well liked, and which one of them would refuse a dying man’s last wish? As Harold said, the girl is exquisitely beautiful, tiny—like a rare Dresden china doll—but young and hardly a match for an aggressively virile male like Gifford.

‘His taste in the past was for large, bosomy ladies more his own age. Remember the Christmas dinner two years ago and Justin’s redhead partner? Harold told me they were taking bets on whether her boobs would stay covered through to the sweet course.’

‘Oh, really, Sara!’ Mary exclaimed. ‘That’s a bit much, and in any case Justin was not dating Zoë at the time. He was a free agent.’

Zoë cringed behind the curtain, her face flaming; she could not believe what the Blacket woman was saying. Didn’t want to.

‘Believe me or not, Mary, but I wouldn’t mind being a fly on the wall when the will is read. Bertie befriended Justin Gifford when he was a teenager and his father died—apparently they were old friends. I’ll bet Gifford gets at least half the old boy’s estate, if not more. Hardly fair on Zoë, his only living relative.’

‘Surely it’s not important? They are married—everything they have is divided equally anyway.’

Zoë heard Mary Master reply. The woman’s voice was fading—they were obviously leaving the room—but Zoë could not move; she was frozen in shock.

‘Exactly my point.’ Sara Blacket’s piercing voice echoed in the room as she closed the door. ‘Gifford is a very ambitious man and by doing what the old man wanted and marrying the American girl he has made doubly sure of getting control of virtually everything. I can’t see young Zoë being involved in finance at allshe’s the arty type.’

Zoë stared at the heart she had drawn on the glass; the mist was fading, the shape disappearing—a bad omen! Don’t be stupid! she told herself, and quickly raised her hand and rubbed the window clean. But she could not clean the doubt in her mind away so easily. Could it be true? Had Uncle Bertie insisted that Justin marry her? No, of course not, her common sense told her. Justin loved her, didn’t he?

She slid off the seat and stood up. She was overreacting. Sara Blacket was a nosy, overbearing old gossip whose husband, as the most senior in chambers, had wanted to be head himself. Justin had told her as much. Obviously it was pure sour grapes on Sara’s part.

‘Zoë? Zoë?’ Justin’s voice broke into her uncomfortable thoughts, and, smoothing the plain black jersey shift down over her hips, she moved towards the door. It was flung open and Justin walked in, his dark eyes full of concern.

‘Ah! There you are. I saw Mary and Sara leave. I take it you didn’t get the peace you were looking for,’ he said lightly, casually slipping an arm around her shoulders. ‘Judge Master is waiting in the study, darling. It’s time to say goodbye to the guests, and then the will will be read. Are you up to it or would your rather wait? There’s no hurry.’

‘Why? Because you know what’s in it?’ The curt words had left her mouth before she could stop them…

‘No. No, I don’t.’ Justin turned her around to face him, his arms encircling her waist, holding her loosely, his dark eyes scrutinising her pale face. ‘I was thinking of you; you look tired. It’s been a long day.’

Held in his arms, conscious of his warmth and the tender care in his expression, Zoë hated herself for doubting him for a minute, but she could not control her wayward tongue. She loved Justin, and she needed his reassurance.