A Thorn In Paradise

Cover Page

Excerpt

About the Author

Title Page

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Copyright

“You’re not going anywhere until I’m through with you.”

“Until you’re through with me?” Corinna asked, glaring up at Antonio. “Just who do you think you are?”

“Someone you should be afraid of, someone who isn’t about to be taken in by those big eyes and reassuring bedside manner which, I suspect, you’ve been laying on thick ever since you set foot into this house!”

CATHY WILLIAMS is Trinidadian and was brought up on the twin islands of Trinidad and Tobago. She was awarded a scholarship to study in Britain, and went to Exeter University in 1975 to continue her studies into the great loves of her life: languages and literature. It was there that Cathy met her husband, Richard. Since they married Cathy has lived in England, originally in the Thames Valley but now in the Midlands. Cathy and Richard have two small daughters.

A Thorn In Paradise

Cathy Williams

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CHAPTER ONE

THE grounds of Deanbridge House were magnificent. They stretched in front of Corinna, well groomed, tended as they were by countless gardeners and, in the bloom of summer, ablaze with flowers, yellow, purple, red, perfectly manicured splashes of colour which were the backdrop to the rows of trees on either side, and beyond which lay yet more grounds, all similarly impeccable, and interspersed with stone benches and fountains.

After nine months, she still continued to be amazed and delighted by the sheer magnificence of the place. It wasn’t simply the size of the house and estate, but the fact that absolutely nothing about either jarred. Everything contained within those acres of land was pleasing to the eye.

Benjamin Silver, though, was not so enamoured of the vista and Corinna had long concluded that a lifetime surrounded by such beauty had jaded his palate.

Right now he was ranting on about his son, from whom he had unexpectedly received a letter, and she half listened to what he was saying, not taking in a great deal because, after all this time working for him, she knew almost as much about his son as she did about herself, and none of it was very pleasant.

‘Who the hell does he think he is?’ the old man was grumbling from his wheelchair. ‘Nothing from him in years, not a letter, not so much as a Christmas card, then all of a sudden he’s writing to inform me—inform me, mind!—that he’s thinking of coming across! Who does he think he is? Answer me that!’

Corinna smiled down at the silver head, and he roared from his wheelchair, ‘And you can wipe that smile off your face!’

‘How did you know I was smiling?’ she asked and, if he was capable of turning around to glare at her, she knew that he would have, but age had rusted his limbs, even though he was only seventy.

‘Stop trying to change the subject!’

‘I wasn’t,’ she protested, pushing along the wheelchair to their favourite spot by one of the fountains. ‘It’s such a beautiful morning, though; why spoil it by being annoyed?’ She reached the bench by the fountain and stopped, sitting down and lifting her face to the sun.

She was a tall, slender girl with the sort of fair complexion that didn’t tan at all. Usually she wore a wide brimmed straw hat for these mid-morning walks, but today she had forgotten and it was lovely to feel the warmth on her face, even though she might go pink from it. Her waist-length fair hair had been braided into a single plait which hung over the back of the bench.

‘And spin me round to face you. I don’t care to be talking to a damned fountain!’

She obeyed and eyed him with amusement. When she had first come to work for Benjamin Silver, she had been warned by the agency that there was a good chance that she wouldn’t last a week.

‘None of our nurses has stayed on,’ she had been informed. ‘They might like the surroundings, Deanbridge House is a spectacular place, but old Ben Silver is a can-tankerous so-and-so. He can be downright rude when it suits him, which is most of the time, and they can’t put up with it.’

Corinna had very quickly sized up the situation. Benjamin Silver was a lonely old man. His only child, a son, had fallen out with him years ago, and most of his relatives were dead.

‘The rest,’ he had told her, ‘might just as well be.’

It had only been her sympathy for him, and her sense of humour, which had allowed her to survive his blasts of temper, and now they had become accustomed to each other. She loved him and she knew that he was fond of her, for all his occasional rages.

‘I won’t see him!’ he was telling her, his blue eyes fierce. ‘I won’t let him so much as set one foot through that door. I’ll set the dogs on him.’

‘I’m sure he’ll be scared stiff,’ she said from her reclining position on the bench. ‘Being confronted by two toothless, watery-eyed Labradors will really make him quake with fear.’

‘I should have got rid of those good-for-nothing hounds years ago,’ he muttered. ‘I was a sentimental old fool, and now that I need a couple of vicious animals, I’m paying for that bit of short-sightedness. Well, I’ll set Edna on him.’

‘That’s more like it,’ Corinna said, her full lips curving into a smile. Edna was the chief housekeeper and could be a dragon when it suited her. She was far more ferocious than the dogs.

He grinned reluctantly. ‘You’re not taking me seriously. We should be getting back. This sun’s no good for you. You’ll end up looking like a lobster.’

‘You’re such a charmer,’ she said, standing up and pushing him back towards the house. ‘Are you sure your son doesn’t take after you more than you’d like to think?’

‘Don’t be impertinent, young lady,’ Benjamin roared. ‘He’s nothing like me! Not that I can remember anyway. It’s been so long since I last clapped eyes on him that anybody could walk off the street and call himself my son and I’d be none the wiser.’

This, Corinna realised, was nearer the truth than might be expected.

Whatever had caused the feud between father and son, and in all his rantings Benjamin had never disclosed, it was a bitter one. There were no pictures of his son anywhere that she had ever seen. She had no idea whether he was short, tall, fat, thin, fair-haired or dark-haired. She had built her own mental picture of him, though. A man in his mid-forties, fattish because he was successful and successful men never seemed able to resist the lure of good food and fine wine. Possibly he was arrogant—that at any rate was what she had been told in great detail—but equally possible was that he was now no more than a tired, overworked businessman who had been too proud to revisit the family home. Who knew? He might even be married with twelve children. Benjamin had never volunteered the information and she had not pried. She knew from her own experience how irritating and uncomfortable other people’s curiosity could be. She could remember, from all those years ago, the greedy nosiness of some of her so-called friends as they tried to elicit the details of her private misfortune. They had called it concern, but she had recognised it for what it was, the feeding of vultures on someone else’s grief.

He was still venting his anger when she settled him into bed at nine that night.

He had carried the letter around with him for the entire day, and the last thing he had done before she had left his bedroom was to pull it out and wave it in her face, with a scowl.

‘I shouldn’t be subjected to this at my age!’ he told her. ‘I should be taking things easy, not getting worked up like this. You know that. You nag me often enough about my blood-pressure.’

‘Yes,’ Corinna said, perching on the side of his bed and watching while he took his capsules. He had a mild heart condition and the tablets were necessary for his health. He hated taking them though, and she had got into the habit of waiting till he did just in case he got it into that stubborn head of his to dispose of them after she had left the room.

‘Yes what? Yes what? Don’t just sit there and say yest!’

‘You’re not doing yourself any good with all this ranting and raving,’ she said soothingly, removing the glass from him and handing him a mug of cocoa, which he stared at in loathing.

‘Take that away from me,’ he muttered ferociously. ‘Bring me a proper drink. A gin and tonic! A whisky! Some brandy!’

‘He may not even come,’ she said, ignoring that request. ‘Did he tell you when he’d be arriving?’

‘Not in so many words. Knew I’d make sure the house was locked and bolted, probably.’

‘Then if he hasn’t told you definitely when he’s coming, he probably won’t turn up. Why is he planning on visiting after all this time, anyway?’

The old man shrugged and took the mug from her. ‘Didn’t say. Just said some rubbish about wanting to discuss a few things with me. What’s there to discuss after all this time? Twelve years to be precise? What’s there to discuss?’

Corinna gave that some thought and frowned. ‘Who knows? Anyway, don’t worry so much about it. Even if he does come, I’m sure you’ll find that he’s nothing like you remember. People change, after all. Life mellows them.’

‘Stop philosophising. I hate it when people philosophise.’

She laughed and patted his hand affectionately. ‘Go to sleep and wake up in a better temper.’

‘You’re going red from that sun.’

She laughed again and said drily from the door, ‘Goodnight. Sweet dreams and don’t forget the blood-pressure.’

As soon as she was in the downstairs drawing-room, she closed her eyes and settled comfortably in one of the chairs with her book.

This, like much else, had become a pleasant habit. Her girlfriends, whom she saw regularly at weekends, invariably asked her how she could stifle herself in the Surrey countryside when she had spent years working and living in London. They couldn’t understand how peaceful it was at Deanbridge House, for all Benjamin Silver and his tempers. It suited her. She loved waking up to an absence of traffic, she loved the clean air, and she saw a great deal of London anyway, when she visited her friends. Most of them worked in busy London teaching hospitals and she constantly saw first-hand what she had left behind. True, there wasn’t the constant rush of adrenalin as casualty cases were brought in day and night, needing urgent treatment, and maybe one day she would really miss all that and long to return to it, but right now this was just what she needed.

She had originally decided to do private nursing because she had become over-exhausted in her work, and for emotional reasons she needed to get out of London as well.

She stared down at the pages of her book but she wasn’t seeing the fine black print. She was seeing Michael’s face. Dear, sweet Michael to whom marriage had seemed almost inevitable. They had known each other from children and it had become accepted, over the years, that they were meant for each other. It had been a tacit understanding and it was only last year, at the age of twenty-two, when she had looked at him, with his good-natured smile, his undemanding amiability that she’d realised, quite suddenly, that she couldn’t possibly marry him, however much a part of her craved that placid, undemanding security that he could offer.

She tried not to remember how upset he had been. It had not been an easy time. Her mother had been aggrieved. ‘Darling,’ she had said in that vaguely theatrical voice of hers, ‘but you’re so well suited.’ Both so dull, Corinna had read behind the words. Her mother had a knack of insinuating an insult. Corinna had become accustomed to that, but at the time it had still hurt. She had grown up in the shadow of her mother’s tempestuous, flamboyant personality. It had had the effect of making her overly cautious, mature beyond her years, practical, down-to-earth, and a part of her knew that that was just how her mother liked it. That way, her daughter could never be a threat to her.

Beyond coping with her mother’s disappointment, though, she had had to cope with herself, with her own gut-wrenching suspicions that she was not built for love if she could not bring herself to love a man who was as kind and caring as Michael had been. Was something wrong with her? she had wondered.

She snapped shut the book and began prowling round the room, her eyes skimming over the tasteful drawing-room with its eighteenth-century wood panelling, its ivory, floor-length silk curtains, its marble mantelpiece. Very soothing colours. The furniture was fairly worn, but the warm, mellowed upholstery gave the room a pleasant glow, as did the small tables, dotted around the room, which were sprinkled with books of all kinds. It was one of Edna’s bugbears that she liked neatness while Benjamin insisted on leaving a trail of books behind him wherever he went.

‘My eyes,’ he was fond of telling her, ‘are about the only useful things I have left. I might as well use them.’

In fact, her own position in the household, which was technically that of private nurse, was really more of a secretary-companion. Benjamin’s health was poor, but not so poor that he really required any real nursing treatment, apart from ensuring that he took his tablets as prescribed and his blood-pressure was kept down. What he really wanted was someone who would take him for walks, talk to him, and help him with a historical piece of writing which he was doing on the house. With anyone else, Corinna acknowledged, it might have become boring, but Benjamin was too demanding and too intelligent for that ever to have been a problem.

Her thoughts turned to his son. Antonio Silver was the invisible presence that still filled Deanbridge House after all these years, although Benjamin would have been outraged if she had ever suggested as much. He liked to think that his son was little more than an aggravating memory, but it had been clear to Corinna from the very start that the old man ranted with the rage of a wounded bear.

Sometimes she thought that Antonio Silver couldn’t possibly be as black as Benjamin portrayed him, but other times she felt an odd, protective anger against this unknown man who still had the power to hurt his own father. What kind of son was it who could cut the strings and leave without a backward glance?

In a strange way she could empathise with Benjamin. She, too, had been the victim of desertion. She only had dim memories of her father. He had left, after all, when she was still a child, left without a backward glance. For years she had wondered whether it was something she had said, something she had done. Maybe she had disappointed him. He had been so dramatic, so much larger than life, just like her mother, two people born to thrust daggers into each other until the effort of removing them had become too great—she had never been like that, passionate and extrovert. Had her own timid nature driven him away? Later, she knew that she had been a fool to have imagined any such thing, but a child’s dark worries lingered far beyond the limits of sensible reason. She couldn’t comprehend anyone who could relinquish their family ties the way Benjamin Silver’s son had done. She knew from the occasional remark tossed in by Benjamin that he had divorced his wife somewhere along the way, and Antonio had left England to live with his mother in her native Italy, but would that have caused such a deep rift?

For the first time, she felt a deep, burning curiosity about this mysterious son. Previously, she had listened to Benjamin when he got on his soap box with her mind somewhere else, but now she wondered what his son really was like.

She was startled to discover when she next glanced at her watch that it had gone eleven, and she got up hurriedly, snapping shut her book and wondering whether she would ever finish it.

Early evenings were a luxury which she thoroughly enjoyed, after having spent years working crazy shifts at the hospital. Towards the end, she could remember being half dead on her feet, battling on in the wards despite an attack of flu which had kept her bed-ridden for a week and then tenaciously clung on, preying on her exhaustion. When, one morning, she had found herself physically incapable of getting out of bed, and no longer really caring whether she did or not, she realised that it was time for a much-needed break.

At this hour the house was totally silent. Edna and her husband, who was responsible for the gardens, were the only two people who lived in. The remainder of the staff were employed locally and they were invariably gone by eight-thirty, some much earlier.

She was walking past the front door when there was an almighty bang on it, followed by another.

Corinna wasn’t a coward but she remained where she was, uncertainly wondering whether she should fetch Edna’s husband Tom or else open the door herself. It was damned late for callers, or at least for those interested in socialising with Benjamin, but then burglars would hardly bang on the front door and expect entry. Or would they? She stood there, biting her lips in frustrated indecision, and only walked across to the door when the third heavy bang threatened to raise the household.

She carefully pulled open the door and then tried to shut it as her eyes took in the man standing outside, tall, powerful and with an aura of menace surrounding him.

It was a useless attempt, though. He pushed against it and her strength was no match for his. She fell back, and it was only when he was inside the hall that she realised that she had been holding her breath with fear.

Seeing him at close quarters and in the full glare of the overhead light did nothing to dispel the sensation of threat. She was a tall girl but he towered over her and the lean, hard build of his body spoke of a latent power. Her immediate impression was that this was not a man who took kindly to being crossed, which brought her back to the disturbing question: what if he was a burglar?

She folded her arms to stop herself from shivering and looked at him, her pupils dilated with fear.

‘If you’ve come here to steal, then I’m afraid you’ve chosen the wrong house,’ she said with as much authority as she could muster. ‘There are two fierce dogs. I only have to whistle.’

She found that she couldn’t take her eyes away from his face. It was such a striking face. A strong, sharp nose, above which black brows met in a fierce frown. Angular features which held the potential for cruelty, but a mouth that was strangely sensual and grey eyes which were now fixed on her with a tight, hostile expression.

He was dressed in black. Black trousers and a black jumper. Maybe, she thought, he might be less intimidating in a pair of shorts and a Hawaiian shirt.

‘Really?’ he said in a deep, ironic voice and with the very slightest trace of an accent. ‘I’ve already had the pleasure of meeting your two fierce dogs. They escorted me to the front door.’

‘Who are you?’ She already knew, of course. Initially his sheer physical impact had done something to her brain, made it shut down, but the minute he spoke, she realised that he was Antonio Silver.

‘I’m Benjamin Silver’s son,’ he said coolly, his hands thrust into his pockets, his eyes raking over her and then moving away to glance around him at his surroundings. He looked at her again and she had that same rattled, agitated feeling. ‘But you know that, don’t you? I can see it from the expression on your face. I take it my father received my letter.’

‘You’re not wanted here,’ Corinna burst out and then was immediately horrified by what she had said.

His eyes narrowed on her and she felt herself go scarlet at the scrutiny.

‘You must be Corinna Steadman,’ he said with no attempt at politeness, ‘my father’s keeper.’

Something about his voice made her look at him warily. She felt like someone who was treading very carefully on a minefield and it wasn’t a very pleasant sensation.

‘I work for him, yes,’ she said in a thin voice, ‘I’m his private nurse.’

‘That’s not what I said.’ He moved towards the front door and then turned to her. ‘I’m going to fetch my case from the car,’ he said with a cold smile that didn’t contain the remotest hint of humour. ‘Don’t even think of slamming that door shut behind me.’

Corinna didn’t say anything. She was still in a state of semi-shock, brought on, she decided, by the fact that he had appeared like a ghostly materialisation on the doorstep at the very moment she had been wondering about him. In a very short while the shock would wear off and she would be able to respond to him in a more controlled manner. In her profession, self-control was instilled as part of the training process and it wouldn’t let her down.

He returned from the car with a tan leather holdall which he dumped on the ground, and she eyed it with resentment.

‘I’m not about to carry that upstairs for you, like a porter,’ she informed him, and was subjected to another of those freezing, ironic observations.

‘I don’t recall having asked. Or maybe you fancy yourself as a mind reader, as well as keeper of the house.’

‘I don’t fancy myself as anything of the sort!’ she spluttered angrily, but he had turned away and was walking in the direction from which she had just come, towards the drawing-room, looking around him on the way.

She followed him, half running to keep up, with her arms folded across her chest.

‘You can’t just waltz in here——’ she began, and he

spun around to face her.

‘And why not?’ he asked coldly.

‘Because,’ she said nervously, ‘because it’s late and you should really come back tomorrow if you want to see your father. He’s normally up and about by nine-thirty. I’ll tell him you called.’

‘You mean you’ll warn him.’ His lips stretched into an icy mimicry of a smile. ‘No, thanks.’

He had very long legs. He stretched them out in front of him and crossed them at the ankles, clasping his hands behind his head.

‘I feel as though I’ve never been away from here,’ he said to himself, flicking those sharp grey eyes around and taking in everything. There was nothing, she decided uncomfortably, that this man missed. ‘Nothing’s changed at all; even those two pictures are in precisely the same place.’

‘Nothing has to change!’ Corinna said, hovering by the door.

She could tell immediately that he had temporarily forgotten about her presence and she wished that she had not reminded him of it because she was once again subjected to the brunt of that disturbing, hostile stare. He eyed her shortly and then commanded her to sit down. With some surprise, she found herself obeying, tentatively perching on the chair furthest away from him, a fact which didn’t escape him from the look on his face.

‘I’m glad I arrived when I did,’ he surprised her by saying. ‘No one about. No one but you.’ There was something a little forbidding about the way he said that, and she shivered. ‘It gives us the opportunity to chat.’

This man was arrogant, menacing and far too good-looking. Just the sort of man, she thought uneasily, that she had spent a lifetime conscientiously avoiding. Her father had been arrogant, good-looking, a magnet for other women. Over the years she had managed to submerge her feelings about her childhood into some safe, dark corner where she had firmly closed the door and, she had thought, thrown away the key. Now, though, memories rose up from those secret depths, memories of her father accusing her mother of having affairs, wild arguments in which they made no attempt to lower their voices, her mother shouting that what could he expect when he was fooling around behind her back as well? Antonio Silver, her inner voice told her, was a dangerous man.