Subtle Revenge

‘Very commendable,’ he drawled. ‘But I would like to see my future bride tomorrow. Maybe we could discuss the wedding?’

She gave him a pitying glance. ‘I think you’ve had too much champagne, Mr Randell.’

‘Luke,’ he encouraged softly. ‘And when I decided to marry you I hadn’t had any champagne.’

‘When you decided, Mr Randell?’ she deliberately used the formality. ‘I thought it was supposed to be a joint decision?’

‘It is,’ he shrugged, his shoulders broad, the muscles ripping across his chest. ‘You’re just a little longer making your mind up than I am.’

‘We only met today,’ she scorned disbelievingly, wondering that even Jacob P. Randell’s son should have so much arrogance.

‘That’s all it takes,’ he dismissed.

Lori sighed, knowing she had to get away, and soon. Her search for Jonathan was becoming almost frantic. If she really lost her temper with this man there was no telling what she would say!

Luke noticed her preoccupation, and his mouth quirked into a smile. ‘Kitten, I——’

‘Don’t call me that!’ she shuddered, hating the intimacy of a pet name from this man. ‘I don’t like it. Ah, Jonathan!’ she called to the other man as she finally spotted him. ‘Goodbye, Mr Randell.’ Just saying his name reminded her of exactly who he was—and the contempt and hatred she had for all his family.

No doubt a lot of women found him devastatingly attractive, would like his almost roguish behaviour, the promise of intimacy in his devilish grey eyes, but knowing what she did about him gave him no chance with her—even if his approach was the most original she had ever known! No doubt she was supposed to believe he really meant the marriage proposal, and would only find out if had all been a ‘joke’ once she had slept with him.

His narrow-eyed gaze levelled on Jonathan as the other man came towards them. ‘Your young friend again,’ he growled his displeasure. ‘A boy-friend?’

‘I—Yes.’ She was sure Jonathan would forgive her that exaggeration. After all, he was just waiting for the day she said yes to one of his invitations.

‘Your previous engagement for tomorrow?’ Luke quirked one dark brow.

She was tempted to say yes, but Ruth might already have told him about the visit to her aunt. ‘No.’

He nodded. ‘I thought not. I’m not giving up on you, kitten,’ he drawled confidently. ‘The Jonathans of this world don’t mean a thing to me. I doubt they mean anything to you either.’

Jonathan had almost reached them now, and Lori felt indignant on his behalf. He was a very good-looking man, not as dark as the devil like this man, but neither did he have his cold ruthlessness.

‘Lori!’ He had reached her side now, taking her hand in his, his pleasure at being with her evident. ‘Mr Randell,’ he greeted respectfully, obviously having learnt who the older man was, whose son he was. For the same reason Jonathan admired him Lori hated him.

‘I’m ready to leave now, Jonathan,’ she told him pointedly.

‘Hm? Oh—oh yes,’ he gave a light laugh. ‘Nice to have met you, sir,’ he shook Luke’s hand strongly.

Lori felt a sense of satisfaction at the sudden tightness of Luke Randell’s mocking mouth. Jonathan’s ‘sir’ had been meant as a show of respect, nevertheless the other man didn’t like it, obviously feeling his at least ten years’ seniority over the other man, being somewhere in his late thirties.

‘Likewise,’ Luke drawled, the very faintest trace of a transatlantic accent discernible in his irony. He turned to Lori. ‘We’ll meet again,’ was all he said to her, and yet she knew he meant it.

She met his gaze steadily for several seconds, seeing the determination in his jaw, the challenge in the light-coloured eyes as he waited for her reply. It sent a shiver of apprehension down her spine. She had been wrong about there being little similarity between father and son. The eyes, those grey steely eyes, were the same, containing a strange mixture of warmth and cruelty.

‘I doubt it,’ she snapped, nearing the end of her control, and looking to Jonathan to help her now. ‘Ready?’ she prompted him, her chin high, studiously avoiding looking at Luke Randell again.

‘Of course,’ Jonathan agreed readily.

Lori moved smoothly across the room at his side, unaware of the striking figure she made in the pale green dress, her movements graceful and fluid, her hair moving silkily as she walked.

She might have looked relaxed as she made her laughing goodbyes to the Hammonds, might have appeared calm as she followed Jonathan outside to his low sports car. But once she had sunk into the bucket-seat her breath left her in a hiss, her lower limbs felt trembly, her hands shook as she clenched them in her lap.

Jonathan noticed none of this as he climbed in beside her, his lean length fitting into the car from habit, his long legs only slightly cramped. ‘Do you realise who that was?’ he said excitedly, backing the car out of its parking space and accelerating into the busy traffic.

She might have known Jonathan would suffer from a case of hero-worship! Jacob P. Randell was set up as a prime example to all young lawyers, that one single blemish on his career when he had pushed the accused too far being forgotten at such times. Luke, as his son, came in for the same admiration.

‘Yes, I realise,’ she sighed, leaning her elbow against the window to put her hand up to her aching temple.

‘Luke Randell!’ he shook his head in disbelief. ‘Fancy having the great Jacob to live up to!’

‘I’m sure Mr Randell—Mr Luke Randell,’ she defined with distaste, ‘has more than lived up to his father’s hopes for him.’

‘He’s a lawyer too, you know,’ Jonathan was awestruck, not seeming to notice Lori’s aversion to the subject.

She hadn’t known, but it didn’t come as any surprise to her. What else could the son of such a famous man do? And he would be good at it too, would have the same presence in court that his father had, would take to the stage as if born to it.

Jonathan glanced at her. ‘I never knew there was a son, did you?’

‘I never gave it a thought.’ Which was true. The way Jacob P. Randell had broken her family apart, destroyed it, it had never occurred to her that he could possibly have a family of his own, that there were actually people who loved such a man.

‘Mr Hammond has nothing but praise for him,’ Jonathan continued.

‘Yes,’ she acknowledged, wondering how such an astute man could be so deceived.

‘I wonder if——’

‘Jonathan!’ she cut sharply across his words. ‘Do you think we could talk about something other than Luke Randell?’

A ruddy hue coloured his cheeks. ‘Sorry. I was just—You’re right, what am I doing talking about him when I have you alone at last?’

‘I have no idea,’ she mocked.

‘Neither do I,’ he grinned. ‘Do I get invited in for coffee?’

‘Sally——’

‘Went off with her boy-friend hours ago. I think the air of romance got to them,’ Jonathan added with a twinkle in his laughing blue eyes.

Lori laughed softly, beginning to relax once again. ‘In that case, you do get invited in—for coffee.’

‘What else?’ he quipped with pretended hurt.

She smiled at him, wondering why she had never allowed him this close to her before. As a friend, she was sure, he could be a lot of fun. And she needed fun in her life at the moment, needed to erase a pair of piercing grey eyes from her memory. Along with all the other painful memories meeting Luke Randell had raked up!

‘The wedding didn’t introduce an air of romance in me,’ she added teasingly.

‘Just my luck!’ Jonathan grimaced.

Sally and Dave weren’t at the flat when they got in, so Lori knew they must have gone to Dave’s flat instead. Dave was a local electrician, and Sally had met him at a party a couple of months ago. Unfortunately Sally had fallen in love with him—unfortunately, because Dave’s affections seemed to be less engaged. Much to Lori’s embarrassment he had even made a couple of passes at her behind Sally’s back, although not for anything would she hurt her friend by telling her so. She only hoped Sally wasn’t going to get too hurt, had a feeling the relationship meant one thing to Sally and something else completely to Dave.

‘Nice place,’ Jonathan looked about the flat appreciatively. ‘But then I knew you would have good taste.’

Lori looked over at him as he lounged in one of the armchairs. ‘Did you indeed?’ she said dryly, having changed from the long bridesmaid’s dress into a silky dress, looking tall and slender.

He shrugged. ‘Everything about you is—perfection.’

Her mouth quirked teasingly. ‘How much champagne did you have today?’

‘Not much,’ he dismissed seriously. ‘I don’t need champagne to know how beautiful you are. Luke Randell thought so too,’ he scowled. ‘I should watch him, Lori, his sort play by their own set of rules.’

‘I have a few rules of my own,’ she told him stiffly.

‘Oh?’

‘Yes,’ she bit out. ‘I never go out with a man I detest.’ Her eyes glittered her hatred.

‘Hey, steady on——!’

‘I think you should go now,’ she cut across his embarrassed words. ‘It’s been a long day.’

‘Yes, but—Okay,’ he sighed as she saw her determined look. ‘I don’t suppose it would do any good for me to ask you out?’

She looked at his hopeful expression and her anger instantly faded, the hectic rise and fall of her breasts steadying. Jonathan could have no idea of her inner turmoil, of the deep shock she had received today. It had probably surprised him at the amount of vehemence the usually cool Lori Parker could display at a complete stranger.

If only Luke Randell had been a stranger, then she would merely have rebuffed his outrageous approach, would probably have forgotten about him by now. But she couldn’t put him from her mind—and heaven knows she was trying to!

‘Try me again on Monday,’ she told Jonathan vaguely, wanting more than anything to be on her own for a while. And there was a good chance of her being alone all night. The single bed across from her own was often empty now.

He grimaced. ‘I’ve heard that before. You’ve been putting me off for six months like that. I thought today I was finally making some impression.’

She was instantly contrite, smiling at him warmly. ‘How about dinner on Monday?’

‘You mean it?’ He suddenly looked younger than his thirty years in his eagerness.

‘I mean it,’ she nodded.

‘Really? I mean—well, I——’

‘If you don’t want to …’

‘Don’t you dare change your mind!’ Jonathan stood up to grasp her arms. ‘Don’t you dare!’ He kissed her hard on the mouth. ‘Monday, eight o’clock. I’ll call for you here. And no excuses!’ He was whistling happily, if tunelessly, as he left.

Lori kept her mind a blank, refusing to question her sudden acquiescence to Jonathan, refusing to think of Luke Randell. Years of training, of having to bury her private pain, enabled her to succeed in doing exactly that, and her last worrying thoughts were of Sally and the number of nights she was spending with Dave.

CHAPTER THREE

SALLY still hadn’t returned the next morning as Lori ate her solitary breakfast before getting herself ready for her visit to Aunt Jessie. Even at eighty years of age Aunt Jessie was a stickler for smartness, and Lori put on one of the suits she wore to work, a rust-coloured one contrasted with a cream blouse, the scarf-collar tied neatly at her throat. Her make-up was light, her hair brushed until it gleamed. Aunt Jessie wouldn’t be able to fault her appearance today—as she often did! Aunt Jessie was her greatest critic, she had also, been her one stability during the last twelve years.

‘You’re late,’ the old lady snapped as Lori let herself into the tiny lounge her aunt shared with another woman; two small bedrooms and an even tinier kitchen going off this main room. The boarders of the home lived in pairs in these tiny self-contained flats within the home, although there were several big lounges too where they could all get together, and unless the boarders had visitors and preferred to cook for themselves, they all ate together in the main dining-room on the ground floor.

‘Sorry,’ Lori accepted the criticism with a smile, and gave her aunt the plant she had brought with her.

The flat was like a small greenhouse, and poor Mrs Jarvis, the woman who shared the flat, had to put up with it, whether she wanted to or not. Luckily the other woman liked plants, but even if she hadn’t the autocratic Aunt Jessie wouldn’t have parted with one of her beloved plants. Lori could still remember the shock on the Matron’s face the day Aunt Jessie had moved in two years ago as Lori unpacked the car full of potted plants. Aunt Jessie had consistently refused to give up her greenery ever since, and now the Matron, and all the other staff, had become accustomed to walking through a jungle when they came into this flat.

The old lady eyed Lori over the top of her pink-framed spectacles, her faded blue eyes still lit with a quick intelligence, her hair snowy white, her lined face still possessing some of her great-niece’s beauty, and her movements still spritely, despite the fact that she suffered quite badly from rheumatism.

‘What’s happened to you, girl?’ she asked in her abrupt voice, the short-sharpness of her manner belied by the affectionate twinkle in her light blue eyes.

Lori returned that affection. No one would ever believe her great-aunt was eighty years old—she looked as if she would go on for ever. And knowing her determination she probably would!

‘Well?’ she barked at Lori’s silence.

‘Nothing.’ Lori stood up to get a gaily-coloured pot from the cupboard under the sink, putting the plant inside and carrying it to the window. ‘Smells like chicken,’ she teased.

‘You looked in the oven,’ her aunt dismissed. ‘No, not there. Really, Lorraine, do you have no sense? That plant needs more warmth than it will get in that draughty window!’

She moved the plant to one of the shelves in the alcove next to the electric fire, not at all perturbed by her aunt’s bluntness, knowing it hid a genuine and constant affection. ‘I didn’t look in the oven. I know the smell of your cooking a chicken—delicious!’

Only by the slight lessening of her aunt’s scowl could she tell she was pleased by the compliment. ‘I’m still waiting, Lorraine,’ she frowned at her.

Some of her confidence wavered. Aunt Jessie had always been too astute. She should have known she couldn’t fool her this time either. ‘A friend of mine got married yesterday,’ she revealed guardedly.

Her aunt nodded. ‘I remember you telling me—You aren’t still mooning about that young Judas, are you?’ she snapped her displeasure at such an idea.

Lori felt herself blushing. From the moment she had introduced Nigel to her aunt she had known she didn’t like him—and the dislike had been mutual. ‘A rude, cantakerous old woman,’ Nigel had called Aunt Jessie. ‘A pompous young know-it-all,’ Aunt Jessie had called him. When she had told her aunt of her broken engagement, of the reason for it, Aunt Jessie had assured her she had had a lucky escape. Judas, she called him then, and she still continued to do so.

‘No, of course——’

‘I know what next week is,’ her aunt continued in her brisk no-nonsense voice. ‘But whether or not you can accept it, he was never right for you. If he’d really loved you he would have continued to do so even if you had been the one accused of stealing.’

Stealing. Her father had never so much as taken a paper-clip from the bank he was manager of! A discrepancy had been found in the accounts during a yearly audit, and as manager her father was chosen as the likeliest candidate to have covered up, and committed, those discrepancies. Despite his strong denials he had been brought to trial. Jacob P. Randell had somehow managed to convince the court that her father was more than just a likely candidate, that he had committed the crime.

‘What is it?’ Her aunt was watching her with narrowed eyes, getting awkwardly to her feet with the aid of her walking stick, moving easier once she was actually on her feet, discarding the walking stick altogether.

Aunt Jessie was old, despite her efforts to look spritely, and she deserved to live the last of her years in peace. The events of twelve years ago were now a faded nightmare to her. If Lori told her about Luke Randell she would only worry.

‘You were right the first time,’ she said softly. ‘The wedding yesterday upset me.’

‘Forget him,’ the elderly lady dismissed. ‘He isn’t worth losing even one night’s sleep over. How did the wedding go? Did your friend look nice?’

‘Very.’ Lori went on to describe the wedding in detail, knowing how her aunt loved to hear about such things. Mrs Jarvis would be told all about it tonight when she came back from spending the day with her married son and his family.

‘And who is Jonathan?’ her aunt pounced once Lori had told her he had driven her home.

She laughed softly. ‘Just a friend, another of the lawyers in the practice.’

‘Oh.’ Aunt Jessie looked disappointed. ‘Do you like him?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then why isn’t he more than just a friend?’

It really was wicked of her to tease her aunt in this way. ‘I’m going out with him tomorrow,’ she revealed.

‘That’s better.’ Aunt Jessie folded her arms across her chest. She was as tall as Lori, only slightly more rounded, and their family resemblance was obvious. ‘You aren’t getting any younger, you know.’

‘Considering you never married at all …’ Lori said pointedly. It was an old teasing game of theirs, and one they both enjoyed.

‘Not because I didn’t have offers,’ came her aunt’s predictable answer. ‘I just didn’t want some bossy man running my life for me.’

‘Besides, where would he have slept?’ Lori said tongue-in-cheek, knowing there was hardly room for the bed in her aunt’s bedroom, as the room was full of plants too.

‘Cheeky madam!’

‘Hungry madam,’ she corrected with a laugh. ‘When is lunch going to be ready?’

The one sure way to get your life back on an even keel was to spend the day with Aunt Jessie, her no-nonsense view of life brought everything back into perspective, even something like that unexpected meeting with Luke Randell. Maybe it had been inevitable—after all, she had chosen to involve herself in the world of law and lawyers, and that was something in which the Randell family were prominent.

She would accept it for what it was, a chance meeting that should be forgotten by both of them.

Then why did she have a hunted feeling all day Monday, almost as if expecting Luke Randell to suddenly appear in her office? It was a ridiculous feeling, and yet one she couldn’t dispel, and she felt a sense of relief when it came to five-thirty and she could go home.

Jonathan came in just as she was putting on her jacket to leave, and held it out for her. ‘It’s still on for tonight, isn’t it?’ he seemed anxious.

She put up a hand to release her hair from her collar. Her fingernails were painted the same plum-colour of her lip-gloss, her fingers long and tapered, the skin palely translucent, giving an impression of delicacy, and each movement was one of grace and beauty. ‘Did you think it wouldn’t be?’ she teased, her teeth pearly white as she smiled.

Jonathan’s eyes deepened in colour as he looked at her. ‘I was hoping it would be.’ His voice was husky.

She swung her handbag over her shoulder, checking she had her car keys, and her hair bounced round her face, red-gold in the bright overhead lighting. ‘I’m looking forward to it,’ she nodded.

He swallowed hard, making her effect on him a little too obvious. ‘So am I,’ he said eagerly.

‘Until later, then,’ Lori said briskly.

She had fully expected not to enjoy the evening with Jonathan, but she was pleasantly surprised, liking the quiet restaurant he had picked out, enjoying the meal and wine, and the conversation. Jonathan had a wide range of interests she hadn’t even guessed at, from hang-gliding to reading a good murder mystery.

‘I never get them right,’ he admitted with a grin.

‘What a confession for a lawyer to make!’ she teased, the wine giving her cheeks a healthy glow, her mood having mellowed as the evening progressed.

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