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Rachel was controlled again, and she glanced briefly into his face. “Will you take me back?” she asked again.
“Not yet,” said Joel tautly. “Not yet.” He forced his mind to go back over what had been said, trying to find the key to open the locked door. What had he said to arouse her to the extent that she had almost betrayed herself? What words had he used to create such an upheaval? What had they been talking about? Her husband? Gilmour? Yes. And — and the child … He tried to remember what he had said about the child. Was it his suggestion that she was marrying his father for the child’s sake which had triggered her outburst? He had to try again.
Reaching for another cheroot, he said quietly: “And when do you plan to get married?”
Rachel sighed impatiently. “I don’t know exactly. In a few weeks.”
“And until then you’re going to go on living here?”
“I — perhaps.”
Joel controlled his irritation. “And Sara? Will Sara live with you once you’re married?”
She stared angrily at him. “Of course she will. Where else would she live? Oh, stop this, Joel, stop it now! I want to go back. I’ve been away long enough. Sara might waken —”
“I’m sure Hanson will be more than pleased to look after her for a while,” returned Joel coldly. “She’s not a baby, is she? What is she — three? Four? Old enough to understand when her mother isn’t available.”
Rachel drew an unsteady breath. “Are you going to take me back?” she repeated tremulously.
“And if I say no?”
“I can walk. I’m not helpless.”
Her hand went to the door handle, but he forestalled her, reaching across her to prevent her from opening it. His arm was pressed against her breasts, and although she shrank away from his touch, he deliberately moved closer.
“What’s the matter, Rachel?” he demanded mockingly, suddenly realising he had a far more potent weapon than force to arouse her. “If you’re going to be my stepmama, what’s wrong with us getting better acquainted? As I recall it, you used to like me to touch you.”
She struggled to free herself, her breath coming in shallow gasps, and while mentally he could stand back and be appalled at the way he was behaving, something stronger than his self-respect was driving him on. Indeed, her nearness was having a most disturbing effect on him, and while love did not enter into his thoughts, lust was beginning to rear its ugly head. In spite of her slenderness, in spite of the severe hairstyle and unfashionable clothes, Rachel was still a very beautiful woman, and she had always had the power to disrupt his sensual processes, a power which he had once resented.
“Let go of me!” she stormed at him, her face twisted with contempt and bitterness. “I might have known it would come to this! This is all you’re good for, isn’t it, Joel!”
“What the hell do you mean by that?”
“It’s the truth!” she choked. “You want everything and nothing, don’t you? The body, without the mind. The pleasure without the pain?”
“What are you talking about?”
He was gripping her shoulders now, and while his brain told him he was achieving what he wanted to achieve, cold logic warned him that he might not like what he was about to hear. He shook her violently, and her hair came loose from the knot and fell in a silken curtain about her shoulders. She had never looked more abandoned, more desirable, and emotions, long dormant, returned to torment him. He was remembering the last time he had seen her like this, and then her needs had matched his own…
“Rachel …” he muttered hoarsely, but with a desperate effort she evaded his urgent mouth.
“Let me go, you brute!” she gasped. “Don’t you dare to touch me!”
“Rachel, Rachel!” His fingers on her shoulders tightened. “You don’t have to be afraid of me. My God, I loved you once. I’d never hurt you —”
“Wouldn’t you?” She strained away from him, her face hectically flushed. “You don’t expect me to believe that, do you?”
“Why, for God’s sake?” Temper was hardening his voice. “What have I ever done to you? Tell me that. You walked out on me, remember? You’re the one who split, who ran away without telling anyone where you were going! My God, I nearly went out of my mind! You’re the one who quickly found some other man to take my place, so don’t talk to me about hurting people!”
Rachel’s lips curled. “You don’t understand, do you, Joel? Even now, you haven’t the first idea what I’m talking about.” She shook her head almost pityingly. “Joel, Sara is not two or three years old. She’s five. Five! Do you realise what that means?”
Joel’s hands on her shoulders slackened, and his brows drew together causing deep lines to etch his forehead. An awful sick feeling was invading his stomach, and he was hardly aware of her staring at him, gauging his reactions, enjoying his shattering sense of horror and disbelief. Then his thoughts found coherence in denial.
“What are you saying?” he demanded thickly.
Rachel’s triumph was short-lived, and she moved her shoulders helplessly. “I shouldn’t have told you,” she murmured dully.
“Shouldn’t have told me? Shouldn’t have told me what?” Joel was recovering fast. “Are you saying this child — this Sara — is my daughter?”
Rachel looked up at him almost defeatedly. “Whose else would she be?”
He moved his head confusedly. “Gilmour’s, your husband’s!”
“I had no husband, Joel. I’ve worked for Colonel Frenshaw for the past five years.”
Joel almost flung her away from him, reaching grimly for the ignition key. “What are you doing?” Her white face was startled.
“What do you think I’m doing?” he retorted, breathing unevenly. “I’m taking you back to the Hall. I’m going to see my daughter — if she is my daughter!”
Rachel stayed his hand, gripping his arm tightly for a moment. “Oh, no,” she said. “You can’t do that—”
“Try and stop me!”
“I will. I’ll do everything in my power to stop you,” she declared. “I’ll even go to the papers if I have to.”
That momentarily stalled him, and he turned to look at her scornfully. “Why? Why shouldn’t I see my daughter? Are you afraid for me to see her? Are you afraid I might find you out in your lie?”
“It’s no lie.” Rachel sighed, “Let me explain, Joel, just let me explain.”
“What can you explain?”
Rachel shook her head. “Why do you want to see her? You don’t like children, Joel. You always said so.”
“But it seems I have one, doesn’t it?”
“And you think that entitles you to call Sara your daughter?” Rachel was incredulous now. “My God, Joel, you’ve got a nerve!”
Joel raked his hands through his hair. He couldn’t take in all this. He couldn’t believe what had been said. It was some trick, some ploy on Rachel’s part to make him squirm. It had to be.
Trying to remain calm, he said tautly: “All right. So I admit — children don’t play any part in my life style. I’m a painter, Rachel, not a nursemaid!”
“Exactly.”
“And do you think that opinion entitled you to keep my daughter’s existence a secret all these years?”
Rachel plucked nervously at a strand of her hair. “Think back, Joel,” she said jerkily. “Think back. Can you imagine what your reaction would have been six years ago, if I’d come to you then and told you I was expecting your child?”
Joel shifted restlessly. Six years ago he had still been making his way, six years ago ambition had been a driving force within him. It still was — but in a different way. And in any case…
“It should never have happened,” he muttered. “You should have taken precautions —”
“I should have taken precautions? Oh, that’s rich, Joel, that’s really rich! I should have taken precautions. I should have made sure that because of your carelessness, nothing happened! Not you! Nothing should mar your pleasure! My God, Joel, you’re a selfish swine! You are and always will be! Might I remind you that I had no way of knowing what you intended to do? I trusted you, Joel. I thought you loved me. I didn’t know that sex was all you wanted all along —”
“That’s not true, Rachel!” Joel was grim. “I loved you. I really loved you. And what happened — what happened — happened because we both wanted it to happen.”
“No!” She put her hands over her ears again.
“Yes!” he muttered savagely. “I wanted to share my life with you, Rachel —”
“Share your life? Live with you, you mean!”
“Perhaps I did mean that initially,” he conceded harshly. “But sooner or later —”
“— you’d have found someone else!”
“No, damn you. Sooner or later, I should have married you.”
“How gallant of you!”
“Rachel, marriage wasn’t among my plans at that time!”
“And children were among your plans at no time!”
Joel ran a hand round the back of his neck. He felt disorientated, confused. He didn’t know what to think right now.
“Situations alter cases,” he muttered.
“What does that mean?”
“It means that if — and I still say if — Sara is my daughter, I shall have to change my plans.”
Her eyes widened incredulously. “What are you talking about?”
“We must get married, of course.”
“Get married! Get married!” Rachel almost laughed in his face. “I wouldn’t marry you if you were the last man on earth. My God, how conceited can any man be! Do you honestly suppose I’d marry you now?”
Joel grasped her forearms in a vice-like grip. “You don’t have a lot of say in the matter,” he snarled.
“Don’t I? And what is your father going to say about this?”
For a second Joel had forgotten his reasons for being here. “I don’t care what my father says,” he retorted. “If the child is mine, she’s mine.”
“She’s not a possession, you know, Joel. She’s a person. A very special person in her own right. And those rights do not owe anything to you.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that Sara is my child. You may have played some subsidiary role in her conception, but you can’t prove that.”
“Doesn’t she look like me?”
Rachel’s lips twisted. “Very much, as a matter of fact.”
Joel’s stomach muscles tightened in a most peculiar way. He found he desperately wanted to see this child — Sara.
“Then I should have quite a case,” he said.
Rachel shook her head. “I’d deny it. I could always say she — she was — James’s child.”
Joel almost struck her then. The temptation was so great he had to thrust open the car door, and get out in the rain, taking great breaths of the cool, damp moorland air. That she should dare to taunt him with pretending the child was his own father’s! It was some minutes before he dared to trust himself to get inside with her again.
When he did so, he was immeasurably calmer, but still as determined.
“I want to see my daughter,” he stated steadily. “And one way or the other I intend to. Nothing you can say or do will stop me, Rachel.”
Rachel was silent for several minutes, and then she said quietly: “What good will it do, Joel?”
Joel closed his eyes in agony for a moment, torn by emotions that threatened to overwhelm him. The past fifteen minutes had been the most subtle kind of mental torture, and his head ached abominably. What was she trying to do to him?
“You’re a hard woman, Rachel,” he muttered. “What happened to change you?”
“I think you know the answer to that!” she replied coldly. “Now, if you must — take me back!”
CHAPTER THREE
RACHEL got out of the car almost before it had stopped. She had been away from the Hall for over an hour and the thought that Sara might be awake and calling for her sent her hurrying anxiously towards the door.
“Wait!” Joel came striding after her, putting on his blue suede jacket, his face dark and withdrawn. “I’m coming with you.”
Rachel halted awkwardly. “This is Colonel Frenshaw’s house, Joel,” she protested. “I can’t invite you in without his permission.”
“Oh, no?” Joel regarded her coldly. “Did you tell my father that, too?”
Rachel sighed. “Your father — knows Colonel Frenshaw.”
“Ah, I see.” Joel’s mouth was sardonic. “A fellow-conspirator.”
“Oh, don’t be so ridiculous, Joel!” Rachel’s nerves were stretched to screaming pitch. “I’ll go — go and tell the Colonel you’re here. I’ll — ask him —”
“Don’t bother.” Joel passed her and opened the porch door. “Come on. You’re not stalling me any longer.”
Rachel gave him an angry look as she passed him, and then they were standing in the shadowy hall of the building, and the door was closed behind them. She didn’t know what to do. The house seemed quiet, dead. She knew Colonel Frenshaw rested in the afternoons. Dared she risk taking Joel up to her suite of rooms without first telling him?
“Let’s go!”
Joel was impatient and with reluctance she removed her coat and dropping it on to the chest in the hall, began to mount the staircase. Her rooms were on the first floor. This had been a major concession on the Colonel’s part when it was first discovered that Sara had a tendency to run high fevers with what seemed to be only minor complaints. Before that, they had occupied rooms on the second floor, as did Hanson, the Colonel’s secretary. She knew that initially Andrew Hanson had resented what appeared to him to be a show of favouritism, but when he realised the logic behind it, he had soon recovered. Rachel understood the jealousy he felt for his privileged position in the household, but she was not about to usurp that position. He had no cause for alarm. At that time nothing would have induced Rachel to consider marrying anyone. Now, it was different. It had to be different.
She was conscious of Joel following her, looking about him with interest. She felt she would never be able to repay the Colonel’s kindness towards her, and that was why bringing a man, any man, into his house without his permission seemed a betrayal of his confidence in her.
She turned left at the first landing and walked to a door at the end of a hall. She entered an attractively furnished living room. Opening from this room were four other doors — her bedroom, Sara’s, a small kitchenette and the bathroom.
Joel halted in the doorway to the living room, supporting himself against the jamb. “Cosy,” he commented harshly. “Where is she?”
“She may still be sleeping!” retorted Rachel defensively, tense and distraught, dreading the moment when he must see the child for the first time. Sara was not a pretty little girl. She was too pale and angular, and if she took a dislike to someone as she had to Andrew Hanson, she could be most disagreeable.
But even as Rachel stood there, putting off the inevitable, Sara’s bedroom door opened and Sara herself stood blinking in the aperture, her small jeans crumpled, her tee-shirt bearing evidence of the egg she had had at breakfast. Straight dark hair, painfully like Joel’s own, hung to her thin shoulders, and her sallow cheeks and curiously dark eyes were unmistakably Kingdom in origin.
“Mummy?” she complained, looking frowningly towards the tall stranger lounging in the opposite doorway. “Mummy — you woke me!”
Rachel gathered herself, hardly daring to look at Joel. She had heard his swiftly indrawn breath when he first caught sight of his daughter, and his frown was a facsimile of Sara’s. “I — I’m sorry, darling,” she managed, going towards the child. “I — er — well, someone’s come to see you.”
“Who?” Sara’s long lashes flickered. She sounded mutinous, and there was no welcoming smile to soften her sulky features.
Joel moved then. “Me,” he stated ungrammatically, advancing into the room and closing the door behind him. “Me, your — er —” He halted as he glimpsed Rachel’s horrified expression, and she had the feeling he was deliberately baiting her. “A friend of yours,” he amended.
Sara looked suspiciously up at him. “I don’t have any friends,” she muttered uncompromisingly.
“Don’t you?” Joel came down on his haunches beside her. “I’m sure you do.” His face was almost on a level with her own. “What about — the Colonel — and Mr. Hanson?”
“I don’t like Andrew!” retorted Sara rudely. “And the Colonel’s too old!”
“Andrew?” probed Joel, and Rachel said: “Andrew Hanson,” with some reluctance. “Ah, yes, I know.” He didn’t sound surprised. “And of course, there’s no one else for you to play with, is there?”
“I don’t play many games,” stated Sara with childish candour. “I get tired. I’m a cripple, you see.”
“What!” Joel straightened then, his eyes blazing in his dark angry face. “What does she mean?” he demanded. “What have you kept from me?”
Rachel shifted from one foot to the other. “N-Nothing. Nothing.” She sighed. “I — Sara has a minor blood deficiency, that’s all.” Oh, God forgive me, she prayed silently. “It’s being treated.”
Joel looked unconvinced. “What’s wrong with her blood?”
“I’ve told you, it’s not important.” Rachel looked down at Sara pointedly, and Joel compressed his lips. “Please, Joel, not now!”
“And who called you a cripple, Sara?” he asked at last, and the little girl looked anxious.
“Mummy?” she said questioningly.
“I expect it was the Colonel, Joel,” interposed Rachel hastily. “Old people tend to say things…”
“No, it wasn’t the Colonel,” said Sara thoughtfully. “I heard them talking at the hospital. This man said: Where is she? and a woman said: Who? and this man said: The little cripple. I heard them.”
“Oh, Sara, they might not have been talking about you,” exclaimed Rachel, and Joel said: “What hospital, Sara?”
“The hospital in Whitstone,” she answered. “I go every —”
“That will do, Sara,” Rachel interrupted her, her face burning now. “Joel, don’t you think you’ve said enough —”
“I want to know more about this!” he muttered, scowling, but she spread her hands.
“Joel, please. Don’t make trouble, I beg of you!”
“What’s the matter, Mummy?” Sara had sensed that the two adults were not sympathetic to one another and she scowled at Joel. “Why are you looking at Mummy like that?” she demanded fiercely. “Why did you come here? You’re not my friend. You’re only pretending. I don’t even like you!”
“Sara!” Rachel was forced to put a restraining hand on the little girl’s shoulder. “Sara, that was rude. Tell — tell Mr. Kingdom you’re sorry at once.”
“I don’t have to!”
Shrugging off her mother’s hand, Sara went across the room to where several dolls were upended in a small metal pram. Joel watched the child closely and Rachel found herself watching Joel, gauging his reactions. What did he think of her, this child who until today he had not even known existed? Did he find her unattractive? Was he disappointed that she was not a chubby pink and white creature, with doll-like eyes and curling hair? Yet Sara had so much more to offer — her loyalty and affection, her agile mind and undoubted intelligence, and most of all — that wealth of love which until now had been directed solely towards Rachel herself. For a moment Rachel allowed herself to wonder how Sara might react if she ever learned that Joel Kingdom was the father she believed dead. A grown-up Sara might find it unacceptable that Rachel had kept this fact from her over the years. Would she understand that because of what Joel had done, because of his irresponsibility her mother had found herself in the ignominious position of carrying a child inside her which its father would hate if he found out? Could she be expected to appreciate Rachel’s fears at that time, or would the mature Sara feel sympathy in another direction? The idea was so unpalatable that Rachel could barely suppress the sob that rose inside her. She allowed her thoughts to go no further. She wanted nothing from Joel Kingdom, nothing at all. Not even for Sara’s sake.
There was silence for several minutes and then Joel spoke. “This blood deficiency — how serious is it?”
Rachel turned away, rubbing her palms together. “I — I’ve told you. She’ll get better.”
“Has she seen a specialist?”
“She’s seen several, as a matter of fact.” She forced a shrug. “She’s not unique. There will be other children exactly like her.” That at least was the truth.
“But they’re not my children!” Joel muttered harshly.
“Nor is Sara your child!” retorted Rachel huskily. “She’s mine, and don’t you forget it!”
“I don’t forget anything.” His voice was cold. “I have never forgotten anything to do with you!”
“Forgive me if I find that very hard to believe.”
His jaw hardened. “Rachel, Sara is my child just as much as she is yours, and that’s an inescapable fact! Your motives for keeping her identity a secret are your own, of course, but I doubt they’d stand a deal of questioning in a court of law!”
“A court of law!” Rachel turned on him then. “You dare to talk to me of courts of law! A great deal Sara has meant to you, hasn’t she?” she hissed, and then glanced apprehensively at the child in case her words had carried across the space between them. But thankfully, Sara was engrossed with her toys.
“What was I supposed to do?” he asked grimly. “I’m not a mind-reader, Rachel.” He glared at her. “I’ve told you already — how the hell was I supposed to guess that you might be pregnant?”
“You didn’t care one way or the other!”
“You don’t know that!”
“But you didn’t want to marry me after — afterwards, did you, Joel?” she accused.
Joel’s face darkened then as the warm colour rushed beneath the tan. “Rachel, if I had known —”
“Oh, yes. If you had known I was pregnant, things would have been different then, wouldn’t they? What would you have suggested, I wonder? Adoption — or an abortion?”
Joel was taking a step towards her when the door of the living room suddenly opened and Andrew Hanson stood on the threshold.
“Rachel? I thought I heard voices — oh!” He saw Joel.
Rachel managed a faint smile. “Th-that’s all right, Andrew,” she assured him awkwardly. “I — er — Mr. Kingdom was just — going. He — he wanted to meet Sara, didn’t you, Joel?”
Joel thrust his hands into his trousers pockets, his expression hostile. “I didn’t know I was just going, Rachel. We haven’t finished our — er — business yet, have we?”
Rachel’s eyes implored his acquiescence, but Joel was not in a mood to accept it. Andrew Hanson’s face mirrored his curiosity, but he manfully concealed it as he said: “I just thought I’d let you know, Rachel, the Colonel’s awake and waiting for his tea.”
“Oh, thank you.” Rachel nodded her head jerkily. For the past few minutes she had almost forgotten the present in the disturbing reality of the past. She forced herself to look at Joel. “You’ll have to go now, Joel. I — er — I have my work to attend to.”
Joel looked at her, then at Andrew Hanson, and then round at Sara who was regarding all of them with the same degree of opposition. “I — er — I think I’ll stay here with Sara,” he said, much to her dismay. “You go ahead. Attend to your duties. I’ll look after Sara.”
“No, Mummy.” Sara ran across the room to hide her face against Rachel’s legs. “I don’t want to stay here with him. I want to come with you.”
Andrew Hanson frowned. “Don’t distress yourself, Sara. No one’s going to make you do anything you don’t want to. Naturally Mr. Kingdom won’t stay —”
“I suggest you mind your own business, Hanson,” said Joel coldly. “This has nothing to do with you.”
“Oh, Joel, please!”
Rachel tried to appeal to him, but Joel ignored her. “Will you leave us, Hanson, or do you want to be forcibly ejected?” he asked offensively, and the younger man turned and walked away, calling over his shoulder that he would see what the Colonel had to say about this.
“Oh, Joel!” Rachel stared at him across Sara’s little body. “What are you trying to prove? Go away. Go away now before you do any more damage.”
“It’s time you realised you can’t bury your head in the sand any more, Rachel!” he bit out savagely. “My God, do you really think I’m going to leave it here? You still haven’t told me why you’re marrying my father. And I mean to know. There’s more to this than convenience.”