- -
- 100%
- +
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 ONE
THE seat Kay Napier sat on so uncomfortably stood in the immaculately kept gardens of a quiet London square. Her large, troubled green eyes rested on the building opposite. Having come this far, it would be foolish not to go on, but the doubts which had been her disagreeable companions these last few weeks had risen up to hold her back. Did she really want to go in there and make a fool of herself? Yet wasn’t it better to find out the truth? She sighed. What truth? The truth was that she was Kay Napier, a twenty-four-year-old actuary, and she shouldn’t let one unpleasant incident make her doubt the beliefs of a lifetime.
Yet it had, and did, because sensible advice was very rarely taken. She needed to have her life put back into its proper perspective. She had believed there was nowhere she could go to achieve that, now her mother was dead, but a week ago the solution had hit her; there was somebody she could ask. The Endacotts themselves. The family lived in Northumbria, but Sir Charles Endacott was head of the family’s merchant bank here in London. The very bank, in fact, that she sat across from now, trying to convince herself that she wasn’t totally crazy.
When fate had produced a cancelled appointment, giving her some free hours in which to deal with her problem, her course of action had been clear. It still was, she thought with a wry smile, and recalled what Macbeth had said, ‘If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well it were done quickly’. She would go in, get her answer, and then get on with the rest of her life.
With which bracing advice she climbed to her feet and headed for the gate set in the wrought-iron railings. The door to the elegant Regency building swished open almost soundlessly, which reminded Kay, although it was hardly necessary, that a great deal of money changed hands inside these portals.
The receptionist looked up with a friendly smile as Kay approached her desk. ‘Can I help you?’ she asked pleasantly.
Kay assumed her most businesslike expression. She might be in a quandary, but it wouldn’t do to let anyone else know it. ‘Yes. I would like to see Sir Charles Endacott, please.’
‘Do you have an appointment?’
Mentally kicking herself for forgetting something so basic, Kay saw her spur-of-the-moment project being scuttled before it reached first base. This now required some delicate handling, not to say outright bluff. Her smile was confident. ‘No, I don’t, but I’m sure you’ll find he will see me.’
The young woman returned the smile with a polite one of her own. ‘I’m sorry, but without an appointment Sir Charles doesn’t see anyone,’ she said firmly.
At any other time Kay would have admired her efficiency, but not today. ‘I’m sure exceptions can be made?’ Her glance said, surely, as one woman to another: we can come to some sort of arrangement.
‘If you’d care to make an appointment, I’m sure Sir Charles will be only too happy to see you, on that day.’
Kay straightened her spine. She wasn’t prepared to give in, now that she was here, and if it took a downright lie to get her past this female Cerberus, she’d use it. ‘I’m sure he would, but he might not be too happy about missing me today!’ she countered sweetly.
The receptionist was no fool, but at that implication she hesitated. ‘I see.’ She clearly wasn’t too sure if she was hearing the truth but didn’t want to take the risk of insulting a friend of her employer. ‘You’ll appreciate that Sir Charles is a very busy man. It may not be convenient. However, if you’ll take a seat for a moment, I’ll have a word with his secretary.’
Kay sank into a seat by the window, marvelling at her own temerity. She watched as the receptionist held a low-voiced conversation on the telephone. Was she being described? she wondered, and shivered. It could be from nerves, or the building’s air-conditioning, which was working flat out because this was one of the hottest summers on record. The heat troubled her, for her skin was so fair that it simply burned instead of tanning. It was a legacy of her rich copper-coloured hair, which, when free of its confining French pleat, fell in lush waves to her shoulders.
She had wanted to look smart, yet cool, and she knew the grey linen pencil skirt with matching jacket suited her tall, slim figure. There had been times when she had described her figure as boyish, but that was no longer true. Her hips might be narrow, but her legs were long and shapely. Her breasts were undoubtedly small, but they were in perfect proportion to the rest of her. There could be no doubting her femininity.
A slight frown marred the perfection of her finely boned face as she dropped her gaze to the manila folder she held on her lap. Even white teeth chewed uneasily at lips that usually described a perfect, if slightly full bow. The source of all her recent uncertainty lay inside.
As if to reassure herself that she hadn’t dreamed it all, she reached inside and withdrew a folded paper. It was her birth certificate, and although she virtually knew the details by heart she still opened it. Sarah Jane Napier, born twenty-four years ago to Ronald and Jean Napier.
Nobody called her Sarah, of course, but she had always known the reason for that—or thought she had. Kay had been a pet name, a fancy of her mother’s which had stuck. There was nothing unusual in that. But then she hadn’t been in possession of her mother’s diary. Or that letter, which she had destroyed but somehow couldn’t forget.
Just then she heard the receptionist put the receiver down, and, quickly tucking the paper away, Kay rose and approached the desk once more. The young woman was extremely polite.
‘Sorry to keep you waiting. If you take the lift to the top floor, Mrs Rivers will meet you.’
Kay saved her smile until she was inside the lift. So far so good. However, it was only a small success. She was to be met, which meant they weren’t giving her the chance to go anywhere they didn’t want her to. She’d have to think fast. This Mrs Rivers sounded a very different kettle of fish. All the same she found herself quite looking forward to the encounter.
She laughed. Lance would have a fit at her behaviour! That brought her up short. Lance Young was the man she expected to marry one day, yet she hadn’t even discussed this visit with him. She hadn’t wanted to bother him. Now it occurred to her to question why not.
She realised she’d said nothing because he’d only call her foolish. Lance was a very meticulous, private man in his late thirties. He respected her sensible outlook, her career-mindedness. This—sudden insecurity—he would think frivolous. Instinctively she had kept her own counsel. And, if the fact that she couldn’t confide in him her personal worries hurt, the disappointment was small, for in everything else they were like-minded. Neither believed in a ‘grand passion’. Their marriage would be one of mutual respect. It had always given Kay a sense of well-being to know where her life was going.
Seconds after that warming thought raised her spirits, the lift doors opened again to reveal Sir Charles’s doughty secretary. Mrs Rivers was a compact, grey-haired woman who was friendly enough in an impersonal way. She led Kay to her office before opening the attack.
‘I understand that you wish to see Sir Charles, but there seems to be some confusion as to whether you have an appointment or not.’ The secretary consulted an open diary on her desk briefly.
Kay assumed a cajoling smile. ‘I don’t have one, but...’
‘But apparently that isn’t necessary because Sir Charles is an old acquaintance,’ the sentence was finished for her.
With her bluff called, Kay was left in a difficult position. To say yes and get caught out in the lie would, she suspected, earn her short shrift, whereas the truth... Yet what choice did she have? ‘Actually, he isn’t,’ she admitted wryly. ‘I know it was wrong to lie, but I only did it because it really is so vitally important that I see him.’
Mrs Rivers resumed her seat. ‘That’s as may be. As a statement it’s hardly unique. The fact remains that Sir Charles is a very busy man.’
‘I appreciate that, I really do, but I only need to see him for five minutes, ten at the most,’ she insisted pleadingly.
The older woman sighed and pursed her lips. ‘Well...perhaps if you were to tell me what your business is?’ she offered reluctantly.
Kay had no wish to reveal anything unless she had to. ‘It’s a personal matter.’
Sir Charles’s secretary regarded her askance. ‘Can’t you be more specific?’
Shaking her head, Kay squared up. ‘The only person I can explain it to is Sir Charles. Can he fit me in, do you think?’
Mrs Rivers looked at her squarely for almost a minute, then sighed again. ‘You’re very persistent. I’ll see what I can do. All I can promise you is a long wait with no guarantee.’
That was all Kay wanted—a chance. ‘I’ll wait.’
The secretary smiled wryly. ‘You may live to regret saying that. Why don’t you make yourself comfortable over there?’ She indicated a low couch nestling behind a coffee-table on which lay several magazines. ‘I’ll let you know if Sir Charles will see you.’
Kay flashed her a smile and once more took a seat. She picked up a magazine and began to flip through it, but, having come so close to her goal, it was impossible to think of anything but the reason she was there. That, of course, was the diary.
Kay sighed at the memories that brought. There had only been the two of them since her father left them when she was only a baby, and her mother’s tragically early death from cancer had been a blow, so suddenly had it happened. It had left Kay with the sad task of clearing her mother’s house, and she had come across the diary at the bottom of a case containing various other personal items. These she had taken home with her to go through at another time. Only the diary had called for her attention. She had read it in the expectation of finding out more about her mother’s early life—a subject she had been reticent about—but the entries had been spasmodic, covering no more than a few years at most, the pages crossed in a small neat hand.
They had begun with her daughter’s birth. The entry was simple: ‘K came today. She’s so beautiful’. The wording had not struck her then, nor the singularity of her name only being referred to by the initial. But even that wasn’t so very unusual for someone keeping a diary, and Kay had forgotten about it until, several weeks later, her interest had been piqued by a television documentary on kidnapped children who had never been returned after the ransom had been paid. One case which had featured prominently was that of Kimberley Endacott.
A passing interest it might have remained, but for the anonymous letter. Addressed to her mother and redirected from her house to Kay’s flat, it had demanded money, said the writer would be in touch, and had contained clippings of the very same Kimberley Endacott case.
She had assumed it was the work of a crank, and torn it up angrily, refusing to give it credence, until one evening she had answered the telephone. The caller had asked for Jean, and when she had told him her mother had died, he had demanded to know if Jean had read the clippings.
‘No,’ Kay had told him with satisfaction. ‘I tore them up. Mother died several weeks ago, so you’re too late with your sleazy attempt to blackmail her!’ she had declared coldly and slammed the receiver down.
Only the call had added substance to the letter and somehow she couldn’t stop thinking about it. In the end she had had to go to the library and get photocopies of the clippings and then read the diary again.
Things had started to click in her mind. At first she had laughed it off as preposterous. It was only a coincidence that the first entry was on the same day as little Kimberley had disappeared. That the ransom had been paid and collected on the day her father had left them. That Kay was an odd name to call a child christened Sarah, and that the initial ‘K’ could refer to Kimberley as much as it did Kay.
All coincidences, and yet they had preyed on her mind. Because if, by the wildest stretch of the imagination, it should be true, then that could make her gentle, hard-working mother a kidnapper. For that was what the anonymous letter had surely been implying.
A thought that made her feel as if a gaping hole had opened up beneath her feet. A thought so alarming that she had dismissed it as ludicrous. This had happened in the north of England, and she had lived in London all her life. No! She was Kay Napier, an actuary, aged twenty-four. Her birth certificate said so. It also, dismayingly, gave an address in Alnwick.
Then the doubts had resurged. ‘What if?’ nagged at her day and night. Questions crowded in, but there were no answers, and no one to ask. Disloyalty and guilt at what she was allowing herself to suspect of someone who had shown her nothing but love warred with an increasing need to know. Which was why she had screwed her courage to the sticking place and come here today. Because a university degree and a down-to-earth job as an actuary in a highly reputable firm in the city couldn’t allay her primal fear. She knew it wouldn’t go from her mind until she had a definite ‘no’.
At which point she dragged her thoughts back to the present. Time passed slowly, and she had drunk a cup of coffee and flipped through two magazines before the secretary, who had slipped discreetly through a door, reappeared and beckoned her over.
‘Sir Charles has agreed to give you five minutes. Go on through.’ She nodded to the open door. With a fast-beating heart, Kay stepped into the inner sanctum.
Sir Charles Endacott was sitting at a large desk by the window. Now in his seventies, he still possessed a full head of hair, although it was silvery grey, like his moustache. Puffing on a pipe, he watched Kay approach him through sharp grey eyes.
Kay stared at him as he rose to his feet and waved a hand in the direction of a chair. It struck her then, that the question she was about to ask had far-reaching implications. This man, this stranger, could be her grandfather! And that really was absurd, because she felt nothing. There was nothing in his distinguished face that reminded her of herself.
It was enough to clear her vision and to tell her that coming here was totally preposterous. She wasn’t an Endacott, she knew it in her bones. Realising her foolishness in allowing one malicious person to manipulate her, she hesitated with her hand on the back of the chair. It would take some doing now, to extricate herself from this with her dignity intact.
‘Well, young woman?’ Sir Charles prompted in a brisk voice. ‘My secretary tells me you insisted on seeing me. Did you think I would be flattered that such a lovely young thing should seek my advice on something personal? Unfortunately I can’t say I approve of your methods. Do you make a habit of thrusting your way into people’s offices?’
Kay wished the floor could open up, and horrified colour washed into her cheeks because, after all her wangling, she knew she was wasting his time. ‘I’m most terribly sorry, but I’m afraid I’ve made a mistake.’
Grey eyes narrowed. ‘Have you indeed? Am I to take it you didn’t wish to see me?’
‘No! That is, I thought...’ she began disjointedly, only to be halted by his abruptly raised hand.
Sir Charles began by frowning, then a look of dawning comprehension swept across his features. ‘Ah,’ he said, and reached for the telephone, punching out a number. ‘Ben? Get in here, would you?’ he ordered down the line before replacing the receiver and eyeing her unwaveringly.
Perplexed by this seemingly illogical action, and not sure if it was a dismissal or not, Kay began a diplomatic retreat. ‘You’re busy. I’m sorry. I’ll just...’ The sound of the door opening behind her halted the flow, and she turned.
‘What’s this all about, Charles?’ a smooth male voice queried, punctuating the question with the closing of the door.
The man advancing into the room was in his mid-thirties, tall, six feet at least, and slim of hip. Even the most conservative of suits couldn’t hide the lean muscularity of his frame, nor the almost cat-like quality of his movements. Kay suffered an unfamiliar tightening of her stomach muscles. Out of the blue, her senses were bombarded with messages that set her nerves tingling and her heart thumping. She raised her eyes to his handsome face. He had the bluest eyes she had ever seen, and his mouth was a criminal temptation. Set in a strong face, surrounded by thick waves of black hair, they were an attraction she recognised with a shock. Potent and heady as the finest wine.
But there was more to come. Because for a moment their eyes met, and clashed, and something like a bolt of lightning shot through her. The shock she knew to be on her face was duplicated on his. She could see the fine tension in him suddenly. It had been total recognition. Elemental and instant.
Yet while she was trying to assimilate it, his eyes lifted to her bright copper hair, where they lingered. The change in him was instantaneous. For a second he sent her a fulminating glare which was doused by the appearance of a cynical smile on his lips. Automatically she braced herself, without knowing why.
‘Now then, young woman,’ Sir Charles reclaimed her attention. ‘This is Ben Radford. I expect he’s the man you expected to see, isn’t he?’ Clearly he found it amusing, although the man who stopped beside him, arms crossed, wasn’t laughing.
His, ‘I hardly think so, Charles,’ mingled with her,
‘I beg your pardon?’
From the name she recognised the younger man as the other partner in the bank. He was well-known and respected in the City, and was widely suspected to be the real motivator behind the bank’s continued success. Which was well enough, but she was at a loss to understand why Sir Charles should imagine she wanted to see him.
There followed a brief pause when they all looked at each other. Sir Charles frowned and Ben Radford’s eyes were cold. Kay found herself stiffening defensively.
The older man cleared his throat. ‘You mean she isn’t one of your damn flirtations?’
Kay was far from amused to find herself lumped in with a host of women who apparently chased after Ben Radford, even though, after her own response, she could understand why they did it. No wonder he was looking down his elegant nose at her. ‘There seems to be some mistake,’ she said frostily, dispelling the idea immediately.
‘And you made it,’ Ben Radford cut in swiftly, making her gasp. Who did he think he was? Handsome is as handsome does, she thought, and he falls a long way short. Of all the conceit!
Sir Charles was none too pleased either, but for apparently different reasons. ‘Ben!’ he remonstrated, but the younger man remained unperturbed.
‘What does she want?’ he asked shortly, and in a tone guaranteed to put her back up. Even if she weren’t a redhead, with all the temper that implied.
Kay focused narrowed eyes on him, angry for herself and Sir Charles, who was a true gentleman. ‘Nothing. I’ve already said I made a mistake. I was about to leave.’
That cynical smile deepened. ‘Yet you obviously came here with some purpose in mind.’
On her mettle, Kay raised her chin, refusing to be browbeaten by his look or tone of voice. ‘Yes, I did. There was a question I intended to ask Sir Charles, but I changed my mind.’ Let him make what he liked of that, she thought. Clearly his character wasn’t as attractive as his looks.
‘Really?’ he scoffed.
Her anger, hinted at by her hair, but usually kept under wraps, boiled up. ‘Yes, really!’ she snapped back.
Sir Charles banged his pipe down. ‘Stop harassing the girl, Ben!’ he ordered, and the younger man took his eyes from her briefly. Kay experienced a shaky kind of relief, only now aware of the quality of tension that had crackled between them. It was to be short-lived.
‘Charles, the girl is a redhead. A strawberry blonde, if I’m not mistaken,’ he said incisively.
There was a tangible change in atmosphere. Something new and disquieting had entered the lists against her. Automatically Kay raised a hand to her glittering locks as two pairs of eyes speared her. ‘I fail to see what that has to do with it,’ she argued, very aware of a pronounced chill in the air.
‘Do you, Miss...? Do you have a name, I wonder, or should I guess?’ Ben Radford probed scathingly.
Kay wondered how she could, even for a second, have found that cynical face attractive. ‘My name is Kay Napier,’ she replied with seething dignity.
‘What was the question you wanted to ask me, Miss Napier?’ There was a reserve in Sir Charles’s voice now, and she found that strangely upsetting. His innate courtesy remained, but Ben Radford’s insidious cynicism had poisoned his mind against her—and for no good reason that she could see. Her emergent dislike of him intensified.
She shook her head, unable to blame Sir Charles. ‘It’s not important,’ she temporised, and she should have known she wouldn’t be allowed to get away with it.
‘It was important enough to bring you here. Why don’t you ask it and let us be the judges?’ Ben Radford commanded in a tone that brooked no argument.
She produced a smile that was every bit as cynical as his. As a judge he had already shown that his impartiality was seriously compromised. The tension now filling the room was awesome, and Kay had no idea what it was she had done to produce such a reaction. Surely not just the fact of having red hair? There was more here than met the eye, and she wouldn’t have been human if she hadn’t wanted to know what it was. The way to find out was to ask the question she had come here for.
‘Very well, though it’s a waste of your time because I already know I was a fool,’ she declared pointedly. ‘You’ll think so too.’
‘Oh, I doubt very much if that will be our reaction, Miss Napier,’ her antagonist drawled with heavy irony.
She bluntly ignored him, turning instead to the older man, who had sunk down into his seat. However, voicing the question was no easier now than it would have been five minutes ago. ‘Sir Charles, my name is Kay Napier—well, it’s Sarah really, but everyone calls me Kay. I’m twenty-four years old. I have my birth certificate here telling me all this. But...’ She really didn’t want to mention the letter in the other man’s hearing, especially as she had destroyed it. ‘My mother died not long ago, and in among her things I found her diary. This is the crazy part. In the diary she used “K”, you see, just the initial. I thought it stood for Kay, but what if...?’ Helplessly she floundered to a halt, then, with eyes as much angry as unconsciously confused, added, ‘Oh, this is ridiculous. Just tell me this—could I be Kimberley Endacott?’
CHAPTER TWO
WHATEVER reaction she had expected to receive, the total silence that followed wasn’t it. She would have anticipated anger, or even dismay, at her intrusion on a subject so personally tragic. It was Ben Radford whose deep blue eyes registered withering contempt.
‘Who sent you, Miss Napier?’ he demanded in a voice that could cut through three-quarter-inch steel.
Already made uncomfortable by her own sense of betrayal and confusion, she found his insinuation doubly distasteful. Consequently her voice dripped ice. ‘Nobody sent me. I came here because...’ Her hesitation was fractional as she veered once more from the full truth. ‘Ever since I saw that programme I’ve been unable to think of anything else.’ She answered him, but her eyes were on the still silent older man, who now appeared lost in thought.