Kitabı oku: «Satan's Contract»

CHAPTER ONE

‘MORNING Miss Pippa. Riding out on that young piece o’yourn, are you? You be careful—he’s a mite frisky this morning. Want a hand to saddle ’im up?’

Pippa responded to the gruff offer with a warm smile. ‘No, thanks, Miller—I can manage.’

The stables were at the side of the house. Half of them had been converted into garages long ago, and the only equine occupants now were Fury, her beautiful chestnut gelding, and an elderly grey mare who had retired from active service some years ago, and now lived out a peaceful existence between her warm stable and the meadow on the other side of the lane.

Miller, who did most of the heavy work in the stables as well as taking care of the gardens, had already put the two horses out into the paddock, and Pippa leaned over the gate, calling to them softly. With a whicker of joy they gambolled over, eager to see if she had brought them a titbit.

‘You greedy thing,’ she murmured fondly, stroking Fury’s sleek neck as he snaffled the apple she had brought him. ‘Why can’t you be polite about it, like Lady here?’

The magnificent horse nuzzled at her shoulder, as if in apology for his lapse of manners. She took his head-collar and brought him through the gate into the stable-yard, saddling him up quickly and leading him over to the mounting-block, pausing only briefly to fasten the strap of her hard hat before slipping lightly up on to his back.

He was full of frisk this morning, but she let him dance—she too was feeling restless. Not bothering to open the five-barred gate into the lane, she set him at it, and, sensing her mood, he soared over it with ease, lengthening his stride as she leaned low over his withers, feeling his powerful motion beneath her.

So what if people might think she was being disrespectful, riding on the day of Gramps’s funeral? It was a pity her parents hadn’t shown him a little more respect while he was alive, she reflected bitterly. True, he had been a little difficult to cope with these past few years, suffering increasingly from the dementia that had gradually robbed him of most of his mental faculties. But if you just took the trouble to be a little patient with him, instead of constantly scolding him for being so forgetful, it had still been possible to manage some kind of conversation with him.

It had been the cause of many of the rows between her and her parents, the way they treated her grandfather; she had always thought of him as that, even though he wasn’t really a blood relation—just her father’s stepfather. She had never known him in his prime, of course, but he must have been quite a man to have built up the small family company he had inherited from his own father into the huge corporation it now was. It was sad that his private life hadn’t been so successful.

Everyone always said that Pippa took after her grandmother; they probably thought it was a compliment—she had been quite a beauty when she was young, to judge by the portraits that still graced the walls of the house. She had certainly inherited her delicate features and fine porcelain skin, as well as eyes of so deep a blue that they were almost violet. And she had inherited that fiery red-gold hair that warned of a similarly fiery temperament.

But she hoped she hadn’t inherited her grandmother’s selfish, demanding nature. Lady Elizabeth Corbett Morgan, as she had never tired of reminding the world, had been the daughter of an earl; and her first husband, though not quite of the highest ranks of the aristocracy, had been a baronet of the most respectable lineage. Unfortunately, both these fine gentlemen having been inconsiderate enough to die without leaving her a farthing, she had been obliged to marry a common industrialist in order to ensure that she could be maintained in the style she considered her due.

She had led poor Gramps a dog’s life. He might have hoped that after her death, six years ago, he would have been allowed a little peace to live out the last years of his life. But his stepson had seen to it that that was never to be...

The sound of a powerful car, approaching fast, startled her out of her thoughts. She pulled Fury up sharply as it appeared, and he reared up in alarm. Pippa struggled to retain her seat, but the horse’s hoofs were slithering on the grassy bank that lined the lane, and with a small scream she felt herself slipping from the saddle.

She landed in an undignified heap, her hair tumbling from its neat coil at the nape of her neck to fall in a tangle around her shoulders. But at least Fury was all right—she had kept an instinctive grip on his rein, and the car had braked out of his way. Cursing furiously at her own dangerous folly in galloping in the lane, she struggled to sit up—and found herself confronted by a pair of tan cowboy boots, placed firmly apart.

‘Just what the goddamn hell did you think you were doing?’ an angry voice demanded. ‘You could have killed your horse, careering down the middle of the road like that.’

Her eyes flashed in sparkling anger—she didn’t need him to tell her that! ‘I wasn’t expecting anyone to be driving up here like a bat out of hell,’ she retorted hotly. ‘Apart from anything else, it’s a private road—and you’re trespassing.’

‘So throw me off,’ he challenged, his voice a laconic drawl.

She lifted her eyes to glare up at him—and up; over long, lean legs clad in tight denim jeans, a thick leather belt buckled with half a pound of silver, to appreciate—in spite of herself—a pair of powerful shoulders under a casual blue-checked shirt. Maybe it was just the angle at which she was looking at him that made him seem so big—but she certainly wasn’t going to let herself be intimidated.

‘I’ll let my father do that,’ she returned with frosty disdain. ‘Or possibly the gardener.’

Unfortunately the dignity of her response was somewhat marred by the realisation that the wicked thorns in the hedge had snagged in the silk of her blouse, and pulled apart the buttons. She was affording this large stranger a very interesting display of the soft curves of her breasts, daintily cupped in white lace. With an exclamation of impatience she tugged at the fabric, but she was still caught up.

‘Allow me.’ Those hard eyes were glinting with lazy mockery as he bent over her, taking full advantage of her predicament to subject her to the most insolent survey before he deftly freed her from the thorns, and offered her his hand to help her rise to her feet.

Even drawn up to her full height, she found that she still stood at a considerable disadvantage to him—he must have been a good three or four inches above six feet tall. His light brown hair was streaked with blond from the sun—and his lean, hard-boned face bore such a striking resemblance to her grandfather that she stared at him in blank surprise.

She hadn’t known that Gramps had had any relatives—certainly none who had bothered to visit him while he was alive. Maybe it was inevitable that now he was dead anyone who thought they might have the least claim on a share of his fortune would come crawling out of the woodwork. But at least he could have had the decency to let the poor old man rest in peace for a few days!

He was still regarding her with that mocking gaze, taking an arrogant appraisal of her slender figure in the torn silk shirt and slim-fitting jodhpurs. She returned him a look of icy contempt, but that only seemed to tickle his sense of humour.

‘Well, I guess you must be little Pippa,’ he drawled in that lazy voice; she had assumed at the first that the accent was American, but she guessed now that it could be Canadian. But how did he know who she was?

‘That’s right,’ she confirmed, sharply suspicious. ‘But I don’t recall that we were ever introduced.’

‘Nor do I—I’m quite sure it’s an experience I wouldn’t have forgotten in a hurry. But you’re an absolute ringer for your grandmother.’

It was evident from his tone that he intended no compliment, but Pippa accepted it as if it was, smiling with all the old lady’s high-nosed condescension. ‘Thank you.’ She had managed to refasten most of her buttons, which made her feel a little better. ‘Might I ask who you are?’

‘Don’t you know?’

‘Obviously I don’t,’ she retorted with a snap. ‘Or I wouldn’t be asking.’

He laughed. ‘Quite a little hornet, aren’t you?’ he remarked with casual interest. ‘Hasn’t anyone ever tried to draw your sting?’

‘Several people,’ she retorted tartly. ‘But no one’s ever succeeded.’

‘Yet.’

That single word was both a threat and a promise, and she had to turn away quickly, her heartbeat oddly disrupted by the mocking look he had given her. To hide the deep tinge of pink that had coloured her cheeks she bent to examine Fury’s hocks. How dared he speak to her like that, look at her like that? She had never met anyone so downright arrogant in all her life!

‘Your horse appears to have escaped injury—no thanks to you,’ he commented drily. ‘How about you? No bumps or bruises?’

She flashed him an icy blue glare. ‘None at all, thank you.’

His sardonic smile never wavered. ‘I’m glad to hear it. If you’re proposing to remount, I’d better give you a hand.’

Pippa hesitated, caught in an uncomfortable dilemma. She would have dearly liked to disdain his offer, but with nothing convenient to use as a mounting-block she wouldn’t be able to get up on to Fury’s back by herself, and the only alternative was to walk back to the stables. And after all, he would only be touching the sole of her boot, she reflected with acid humour; there seemed to be something quite appropriate in that!

‘Thank you,’ she conceded, at her most haughty.

The provocative glint in his eyes taunted her as he bent and cupped his hands. For a moment she found herself gazing down at those wide, powerful shoulders, that crisp sun-bleached hair, and her mouth felt strangely dry. No one quite like this had ever come into her orbit before. And he was all man...

With an impatient shake of her head she dismissed the uncharacteristic reaction—there was no way she was going to let this...this cowboy think he could have any effect on her. But she had to put her hand on his shoulder to steady herself as he tossed her up into the saddle, and the sensation of powerful male muscle moving beneath her fingers made her feel suddenly hot all over.

‘Nice horse,’ he approved, running his hand down over Fury’s sleek neck. ‘Isn’t he a bit powerful for you?’

‘Not at all,’ she retorted. ‘I can manage him perfectly well. And he jumps beautifully—he’s descended from one of the finest hunters in the county.’

‘A hunter, eh?’ His expression of distaste made his opinion patently clear. ‘I guess I might have expected that you’d enjoy a barbaric pastime like that— “The unspeakable in full pursuit of the uneatable”.’

It was on the tip of her tongue to retort hotly that he was mistaken; she loathed hunting—it had been one of the first and longest-running quarrels she had had with her parents when she had told them exactly what she thought of them for indulging in such a cruel ‘sport’. But obstinately she wanted no point of agreement with this irritating man, so she merely shrugged her shoulders. ‘I don’t give a damn for your opinion.’

He chuckled with cynical laughter. ‘I wouldn’t expect you to,’ he countered. ‘After all, you’re a Corbett, aren’t you? I don’t suppose you give a damn for anyone’s opinion.’

She returned him a look of frosty disdain. ‘What would you know about my family?’ she enquired haughtily.

‘Oh, rather a lot,’ he responded with a strange, enigmatic smile. ‘You’d be surprised.’

‘Would I?’ She had deliberately infused a measure of indifference into her voice; if he wasn’t going to volunteer any information about his identity, she was quite sure she wasn’t going to gratify him by appearing curious.

‘Tell me,’ he went on in a conversational tone, ‘is your dislike of me personal, or do you just despise anyone who didn’t go to the right school or have the right accent?’

She slanted him a cool glance from beneath her lashes; evidently he was so arrogant that he assumed her lack of interest was due to snobbery. ‘Why should that concern you?’ she returned, seeing a chance to score a point.

His eyes glinted in sardonic amusement. ‘Oh, I just wouldn’t like to think I was losing my touch.’

‘I’m sure that would be a very novel experience for you,’ she countered, her voice laced with sarcasm. ‘I dare say every other woman you meet falls at your feet on sight.’

‘Oh, not always on sight,’ he drawled. ‘But I can usually get ’em where I want ’em within a little while.’ He was holding Fury’s bridle, preventing her from escaping, and the dark glint in his hazel-brown eyes was having a very peculiar effect on the beat of her heart. ‘I wonder how long it’d take with you?’

‘I...I shouldn’t waste your time, if I were you,’ she forced out, struggling to keep her voice steady. ‘You’re really not my type.’

He smiled slowly. ‘You know, a good-looking chick like you ought to know better than to issue a man with a challenge like that,’ he remarked. ‘It could turn out to be well-nigh irresistible.’

Her agitation was sending Fury skittering around, and she was having trouble controlling him. ‘Don’t call me a chick,’ she snapped hotly. ‘And let go of my bridle.’

‘It seems to me that’s just what you need—a hand on your bridle,’ he commented provocatively.

‘Well, it won’t be yours!’

‘We’ll see.’ But to her relief he let her go, the flicker of cynical amusement in his eyes infuriating her, so that she snatched a little at the reins as she turned Fury away, making him jib. Swiftly controlling her rising temper, she eased her grip, and urged the horse into a smart trot, sitting very straight in the saddle, her chin tilted up at a haughty angle.

‘See you later, then,’ he called after her.

‘Not if I see you first,’ she was betrayed into retorting.

He shouted with laughter. ‘Hornet! But I would have thought you could have come up with something a little more original than that.’

Ignoring the provocation, she rode on.

It was some minutes later before she had calmed down sufficiently to remember that he hadn’t actually told her who he was. So far as she knew, Gramps had had only one brother, who had been killed in the First World War, leaving no children. So he must be a pretty distant relative. How many more like him would be descending now, like vultures, to pick over the spoils?

Well, she wasn’t going to let him ruin her ride, she vowed decisively. Turning off the lane into the fields, she gave Fury his head, urging him into a full gallop. The weather had been glorious for the past few weeks, and the ground was firm—just the way he liked it. The countryside was green and open, rolling farmland with hedges that were perfect for the magnificent horse to jump. Only a few sheep and cattle were there to take any notice, and they didn’t care what she did.

She stayed out for over an hour; it was just what she needed to ease the lingering sadness in her heart and help her face Gramps’s funeral. She rubbed Fury down, and then let him out into the paddock again, where he could romp around with Lady for the rest of the day. Then she strode briskly up to the house—she had plenty of time to have a bath and get dressed before they would have to set off for the funeral.

But as she passed the open french windows that led into what had once been Gramps’s study but had been taken over in recent years by her father, the sound of her father’s raised voice caught her attention.

‘No will?’ Major Sir Charles Edmund St John Corbett, Bt, was glaring indignantly at Mr Gibbons, the elderly local solicitor whom Gramps had always preferred to any “fancy city suit.” ‘Don’t be preposterous. He must have made a will.’

Pippa paused, having no compunction about eavesdropping on her father. The solicitor was shaking his head. ‘I’m very much regret, Sir Charles, that he didn’t. I assure you that I did my utmost to persuade him—while he could still be considered to be of sound mind, of course—but he would only fob me off. To be on the safe side, I have checked with the Probate Registry, in case he may have employed the services of another solicitor for the purpose—though I have no idea why he should. But there is no trace of any will. I’m afraid it appears that your stepfather died intestate.’

‘The damned old fool!’ the major exploded. ‘Trust him to leave everything in such an awkward mess. Did it out of spite, I’ll bet! Well, so what happens now, eh? I suppose it’s all going to take much longer than it needed to sort it all out—which will make a nice bit of extra work for you. It doesn’t all go to the Crown, does it?’ he added with a forced jocularity, realising that he had perhaps allowed his natural irritation at this most unfortunate situation to lead him to appear unduly grasping.

‘No...’ The solicitor hesitated, clearing his throat with evident embarrassment. ‘The estate will be disposed of according to the rules of intestacy,’ he went on carefully. ‘The order of distribution is laid down in statute, in quite precise terms.’

As Pippa drew closer, intrigued, she suddenly noticed a familiar pair of tan cowboy boots, negligently crossed at the ankle, protruding from the armchair behind the curtain. How had he managed to force his way into this discussion? She was surprised her father had even admitted him into the house. Holding back so that he wouldn’t see her, she listened carefully to what was being said.

‘You see, where there is no surviving spouse, the estate passes to the children,’ Mr Gibbons was expounding solemnly. ‘As would apply in this case—’

‘Yes? Well?’ demanded Sir Charles impatiently.

‘You see...I’m afraid that, in this context, the word “children” is not taken to include stepchildren, unless there has been a formal order of adoption. But it does include illegitimate children—’

‘What?’ Sir Charles exploded. ‘But that’s ridiculous! I never heard anything so outrageous in all my life!’

Pippa’s eyes widened as she swiftly put two and two together. So that was who the mysterious stranger was—no wonder she had thought he bore a striking resemblance to Gramps! Well, whoever would have thought it of the old man? Had his wife known about it? It served her right if she had! It was probably her spiteful temper that had driven him into the arms of another woman in the first place.

Sir Charles had turned furiously on the man in the armchair. ‘If you think you’re getting one stick of this place, you’ve got another think coming,’ he blustered, dangerously red in the face. ‘I’ll see you in hell first.’

‘You really think it’ll be necessary to go as far as that?’ That mocking voice was implaccably cool. ‘I thought these matters were usually settled in Chancery, but I bow to your superior knowledge of English law.’

Pippa stifled a giggle, but her father was on a very short fuse. ‘Oh, yes—very funny,’ he growled. ‘But you’ll be laughing on the other side of your face before I’ve finished with you. You wait till you try to stake your claim. You’ll have to prove in open court that you’re the old man’s by-blow—and that might not be as easy as you think.’

‘My father acknowledged me from the moment I was born,’ came the icy response. ‘He registered my birth himself—it says so on my birth certificate. He gave me his name.’

‘You think that means anything?’ Sir Charles raged, forgetting every consideration of decency in his spluttering anger. ‘He wouldn’t have been the first man to have been made a fool of by some scheming little tramp—’

He got no further; his voice was choked off as the stranger moved swiftly from his chair, and gripped the front of his shirt in one iron fist. ‘I could knock you through the wall for that,’ he stated, his voice quiet with menace. ‘But it’s my wall now, and I don’t want to damage it. And if you don’t want me to damage you, I suggest you pack up what legally belongs to you as soon as possible, and get out of my house.’

Pippa started forward in horror. She was appalled by what her father had said—but she couldn’t let this much younger, much stronger man actually strangle him! But he had already let him go, brushing off his hands in a gesture of pure contempt.

‘Mr Gibbons—I’m sorry,’ he apologised, underlining the insult to her father by his meticulous politeness to the solicitor. ‘I think I’d better get out of here before I do something permanent.’

Pippa barely had enough time to step back out of the way as he strode through the open french window, almost colliding with her. He stalled briefly, casting her just one look of cold dislike, and then stalked away, leaving the air behind him crackling with the tension of his last warning.

Sir Charles had collapsed into a chair, mopping his face with a handkerchief. ‘I’ll contest this,’ he vowed, still raging. ‘There must be something we can do. Surely no court of law would uphold a situation like this?’

‘I’m afraid any challenge would be difficult to sustain,’ the solicitor advised in arid tones. ‘Under the terms of the relevant act, there is no intention for the court to reform the dispositions of statute unless it can be established that the applicant is in need of reasonable financial provision, and even then the amount would be only such as is deemed sufficient to meet everyday living expenses...’

‘Yes, yes—spare me all that legalistic clap-trap. Well, he needn’t think it’s going to be as easy as that. Possession is nine-tenths of the law. We’ll see what my solicitor in London has to say about the matter.’

Mr Gibbons bridled, plainly affronted. ‘I can assure you, Sir Charles, that I—’

There was a nervous little tap on the door, and it opened tentatively to admit a lady in her middle years who, in spite of the severity of her very correct black twin-set, still managed to look fluffy and pretty. Her fair, curly hair was untidy, as usual, and the flush of pink in her cheeks betrayed the fact that Helena, Lady Corbett had already been making inroads on the gin and tonic, though it was not yet mid-morning.

‘May I...? I just wondered if... Oh, Mr Gibbons, you’re still here?’ she twittered. ‘I heard raised voices, and I—’

‘He’s gone,’ growled Sir Charles to his wife. ‘Come on in. You might as well know the worst. He gets it all.’

‘All?’ Lady Corbett put her hand to her mouth, going slightly pale. ‘You mean...he didn’t leave you anything?’

‘He didn’t even leave a will! And according to some damned archaic law, that means he gets the lot.’

‘But... Whatever will we do...?’ She sat down weakly. ‘Surely... That can’t have been what he intended? Why, we’ve cared for him all these years—and heaven knows it hasn’t always been easy. Many were the times I’ve wondered if he might perhaps be better off in a home.’ She had turned her soft, appealing eyes on the solicitor. ‘But he was as close as our own flesh and blood. I never begrudged a moment of it.’

Pippa rolled her eyes heavenwards. Sometimes her mother’s capacity to alter the truth amazed her—and the incredible thing was that she really seemed to believe her own version. She had already surmised that both her parents had known the identity of their unexpected visitor; she had long suspected the existence of a skeleton in the family cupboard, something alluded to but never referred to openly. Well, he had certainly picked his moment to pop out!

Her father was still fuming. ‘You can bet your life that was exactly what the old fool did intend,’ he declared belligerently. ‘The ingratitude! But of course, it’s just what I might have expected of him. I’m only glad that my poor dear mother isn’t here to see it. God knows, she suffered enough, the way he used to flaunt that...that woman and her bastard brat right under her nose...!’

‘Hah!’ Pippa was betrayed into a snort of derision. ‘I wish I could have seen it! He would never have dared do any such thing.’

Her parents looked up in surprise, neither of them having been aware of her presence until now. ‘I thought you were out riding,’ her father grunted irritably.

‘I got back a while ago.’ She strolled in through the french windows, not troubling to pretend any trace of filial affection. It had been a long time since she had got on with either of her parents—sometimes it seemed that the only thing she had in common with either of them was that she had the same temper as her father; she was as unlike her mother as it was possible to be. ‘So, who is he, anyway?’ she enquired. ‘I’d never even heard of him before.’

Her mother looked embarrassed, but her father was blunt. ‘If you were listening, you know who he is. His mother was the old man’s secretary. How long their affair was going on, I don’t know. He was fifty when the boy was born—disgusting.’

‘What happened to the woman?’ Pippa asked, curious.

‘Oh, he took care of her well enough, while she was alive,’ Sir Charles responded dismissively. ‘She died about fifteen years ago, and Shaun went off to Canada. Thought we’d seen the last of him—I might have known he’d be back, like a bad penny.’

Shaun, mused Pippa. So that was his name—Shaun Morgan. If Gramps had been fifty when he was born, that would make him...about thirty-five now. And he had inherited everything—the house, the land, the company...

She smiled softly to herself. Good old Gramps! He’d contrived to do what he must have wanted to do all along—leave everything to his son, and nothing at all to his stepson. She could almost hear that secret chuckle of his, whenever he’d managed to get one over on his dictatorial wife—‘the Witch’, he’d used to call her behind her back.

Of course, she would be sorry to leave Claremont, the house where she had grown up. Set in the wide green countryside of the Heart of England, it was a lovely old house, with its ivy-clad walls and mullioned windows, and its spacious wooded parkland.

But it would almost be worth it, just to see her father’s nose put out of joint! He didn’t deserve a penny of Gramps’s money, not after the shabby way he had treated him. It was a shame her first meeting with Shaun had set them off on the wrong foot with each other, but it wasn’t too late to remedy that. The next time she saw him, she would go out of her way to be friendly, she decided grimly—just to spite her father!