Gypsy

Now that she was alone, away from those all-seeing tawny eyes, she didn’t have to keep up the pretense any more, sitting down heavily on the bed, wrapping her arms about herself as she shuddered with reaction.

Oh Ricky, she silently cried, why aren’t you here to take care of me, to love me! Twenty-eight was too young to die, especially when he had so much to live for.

She knew her husband would have enjoyed this verbal sparring with Lyon, that he had reveled in their animosity, the clash of characters between the two brothers only becoming so heatedly intense after she and Ricky were married. They were all aware of that, the relationship between herself and Lyon no secret from the rest of the family. Ricky had never been angry about her and Lyon, only angry for her. Especially after reading Scarlet Lover.

She had written the manuscript during the days once Ricky had gone to work, hadn’t told him about it, embarrassed at her own imagination, only allowing him to read it after it was completed. She had known the exact moment he reached page one hundred and twenty-three, had watched him anxiously, her breathing becoming constricted at how still he had suddenly become.

He was sitting cross-legged on their bed, the manuscript spread out in front of him, looking up at her with pained eyes. ‘Leon de Coursey—’

‘I’ll change it.’ She ran to him, stricken. ‘I won’t send it to a publisher. It’s only rubbish, anyway,’ she dismissed. ‘It was just something for me to do while you were—’

‘It isn’t rubbish, you will send it to a publisher, and you won’t change a thing,’ Ricky told her intensely, his laughing blue eyes unusually serious. He cupped her face in his hands. ‘That was what it was like between you and Lyon?’

‘Lyon?’ she hedged unconvincingly. ‘I don’t—’

‘Darling, we’ve never lied to each other,’ he encouraged gently. ‘What we have together is—fantastic. What you had with Lyon, if de Coursey is him— and I believe he is—was something else entirely. It was primitive, savage—’

‘Yes, it was both of those things,’ she acknowledged bitterly. ‘We seemed to bring out those qualities in each other. But it was also destructive.’

‘It’s all right, darling,’ Ricky took her in his arms, holding her trembling body close against his arms, beginning to kiss her, the manuscript, and Leon de Coursey, or Lyon—the two had become confused in her mind by this time!—were forgotten in the heat of their passionate exchange.

But the next day Ricky had parcelled up the manuscript and sent it to a reputable publisher, and now the heated historical romances of Shay Flanagan were almost history themselves.

Just as her relationship with Lyon was also history, a painful part of her history she had tried to put behind her.

DAMN IT, what was she doing in there! Lyon shook with the rage of being instructed what to do as if he were one of the help. No one had ever, ever, spoken to him that way before! And all it had achieved was to make him want Shay more than ever.

More than anything he was curious about page one hundred and twenty-three of her book. Was Leon de Coursey the hero of her book or the villain? Knowing how Shay felt about him, de Coursey was the blackest villain there had ever been!

God, she had grown incredibly beautiful the last three years, he could feel his thighs tightening just at the thought of her. Had she undressed now that she was alone in the bedroom, was she naked even now, lying between those brown silk sheets, moving sensuously in her sleep as she always used to?

He had been haunted by those sounds she used to make as she slept, had woken up in a sweat more than once after imagining her there beside him, only to know the agonising disappointment of pent up desire when he found he was once again alone, that Shay now shared his brother Ricky’s bed, giving him all the passion she had once so freely given him.

He had never forgotten the look on Ricky’s face when he had first been introduced to Shay; his younger brother had looked as if it were Christmas and New Year all rolled into one, with Shay the glittering angel on top of the tree. To her credit Shay hadn’t looked at him the same way for several months, but finally it had come. Lyon could still feel the pain in his gut at knowing she was no longer his.

‘Lyon?’

He turned sharply, scowling. ‘What is it, Jenny?’ he asked tersely.

She smiled engagingly. ‘I wondered if there were anything I could do for you?’

He remembered other times he had received completely different offers from this beautiful woman, occasions when he hadn’t been averse to her providing him with the physical relief he needed, even on the bed in the adjoining room once. ‘A whisky,’ he requested harshly, ignoring how hurt she looked at his coldness. ‘And just keep them coming until we land.’ He was going to need to be numb from the feet up to cope with knowing Shay was only feet away from him after imagining every woman in his bed was her for the last five years.

‘And Mrs Falconer, can I get her anything?’ Jenny recovered quickly from his snub.

‘Nothing,’ he bit out, staring broodingly at the closed door to the bedroom.

He was still staring broodingly at the door, Shay on the other side of it, when they touched down at Heathrow Airport hours later.

HE HAD been drinking. She had known it the moment she came out of the bedroom to join him to leave the plane. Lyon wasn’t offensive, didn’t look or act drunk, but she knew he was one of those people who became more controlled after consuming alcohol, the tawny eyes narrowed, his mouth a compressed line of tension.

She spared him only a brief glance before turning to the mirror to put the hat back on her recently brushed hair, several tendrils having escaped as she lay sleepless on the bed. She had known she wouldn’t really be able to sleep, hadn’t slept without medical help since Ricky disappeared, but the thought of spending all that time alone with Lyon was abhorrent to her. But as she lay on the bed she had almost been able to feel his eyes burning her flesh through the closed door, and she clung to the sanctuary of the bedroom, preferring to save her energy—and emotional strength—for the ordeal of returning to Falconer House.

‘We can leave now, if you’re ready.’ Lyon watched her gloweringly.

She pulled the black lace of her hat down over her face before turning to look at him, knowing by the scowl on his face that he disliked this partial shield to her emotions. The time when she gave a damn what Lyon liked or disliked was long gone!

She gave a haughty inclination of her head, as coolly composed as when they had faced each other in Los Angeles all those hours ago, ignoring the hand he put out to guide her down the steps to the waiting airport cars, one for them, the other for the coffin containing Ricky’s lifeless body, the law deeming the funeral director with the car should take over now.

She bore the tedium of Lyon’s dealing with the passport officials with a bored look on her face, secretly wondering how much longer she could keep up this cool façade as the man seemed to linger over clearing them. It was true that the shock of losing Ricky had numbed her, that her independent career from the Falconer empire had given her a confidence she had hitherto lacked, but this act of cool emotionalism was causing more of a strain than she felt able to cope with. But not for anything would she admit to Lyon how all this was affecting her.

‘Could we hurry this up, please?’ Lyon suddenly pressed as the man continued to linger over checking their passports. ‘As I’m sure you can imagine, my sister-in-law is under severe strain.’

The man glanced sympathetically at Shay, receiving a wan smile in return, miraculously seeming to find no further delay with their documents.

Once out in the general flow of people at the airport, Shay felt her panic rising, flinching from the cameras as they clicked practically in her face as each newspaper representative tried to get the best picture of Richard Falconer’s widow, questions coming at them from all directions, the hand that grasped her arm making her pull away.

‘It’s me, you little fool,’ Lyon rasped, pushing his way through the reporters, pulling her along with him. ‘Where the hell is the damned car?’ he swore roughly as they emerged out into the English summer sunshine.

‘Mr Falconer—’

‘Thank God.’ He turned to the chauffeur gratefully, guiding Shay to the waiting limousine, the windows discreetly darkened for privacy.

‘I’m sorry about this, Mr Falconer.’ The man preceded them. ‘But there’s been a bomb scare, and the police are—’

‘Yes, yes,’ Lyon dismissed tersely, still running the gauntlet of the press. ‘Let’s just get out of here.’

‘Thank you, Jeffrey.’ Shay smiled at the man as he opened the back door for her, sliding inside and across the seat as Lyon climbed in next to her, cameras still clicking, the questions still coming until Jeffrey firmly closed the door, enclosing them in cool, silent peace.

‘I’d like to know how they found out when we were arriving,’ Lyon scowled heavily.

Shay had a more resigned view, knew that the press were always able to find out what they wanted to know. She had been badgered by the worldwide media as soon as Ricky’s plane went down, the last weeks a nightmare of trying to escape them, finally having to move from the apartment she had shared with Ricky the last three years and move into a hotel, security guards placed outside her room to protect her privacy and grief.

‘Does it matter?’ she sighed, the incident just another horror in the nightmare her life had become since Ricky’s crash.

‘Yes, it—No,’ Lyon amended with controlled violence as he saw the unconscious vulnerability in deep purple eyes, the pale skin beneath those fathomless depths looking bruised and translucent. ‘No,’ he sighed heavily. ‘I don’t suppose it does.’

Shay didn’t even question the way Lyon had stepped down from his undoubted anger at their arrangements being known by the press, shut him out of her mind completely as they began the drive to the house, grateful for the self-discipline she had learnt from her writing, needing mental as well as physical control to maintain the daily schedule of work she set for herself in order to meet her deadlines. It would have been so easy to have sat back and lived on Ricky’s wealth, to have treated her writing as a mere hobby to keep herself amused. But she hadn’t wanted that, had made it into a career. She felt an inner peace now that she had.

God, why was she wandering in this way! They would be at Falconer House soon, the scene of her greatest happiness, greatest humiliation, and finally her greatest pain.

It was a huge house, big enough for several families to live in comfortably, but she still didn’t know how she had managed to live there for two years after her marriage to Ricky, didn’t know how she was going to visit there now. Because visiting was all she intended doing. She couldn’t stay on there, not even if Lyon asked her to do so. And she knew that he was going to ask her to do just that, that it probably wouldn’t even be a request but an order. It was one she would enjoy disobeying!

CHAPTER TWO

‘GOOD GRIEF, Matthew!’ Shay’s exclamation was instantaneous on seeing him. ‘What have you been doing to yourself?’ She looked askance at the sling supporting his immobile arm.

The awkwardness she had envisaged upon entering the Falconer house again was forgotten in her concern for Matthew. His wheelchair had moved silently across the hall carpet as he came to meet them in the entrance hall, Shay shocked to see how pale he was, almost as white as the bandage on his arm beneath the sling.

Matthew Falconer had been in a wheelchair when she had first been introduced to him six years before, an explanation for his incapacity never offered by any of his family, although she had heard from the office grapevine when she still worked for Lyon that Matthew had been injured in a skiing accident at the age of nineteen, his legs severely damaged, and had been in a wheelchair ever since.

She had also learnt, from experience, that Matthew’s inability to walk in no way detracted from his masculinity, or his ability to put a person in their place with a few well-directed words! After a few minutes of being in Matthew’s dynamic presence people tended to forget he was in a wheelchair, the electronically-operated machine having so many gadgets on it he could perform practically anything an able-bodied man could do—except, of course, walk.

‘Can’t you think of a better greeting than that after all this time, Gypsy?’ he drawled wryly, pain having etched lines into his handsome face over the years that shouldn’t really have been there on a man of only thirty-five.

Gypsy. It was a long time since she had heard that particular nickname, two long heart-breaking months! The three younger Falconer men had taken the space of one afternoon to come up with the name Gypsy for her; Lyon had instantly hated it, refusing to call her it. But Ricky had continued to use the name after they were married, and hearing it now brought tears to her eyes.

‘Matthew.’ She bent and kissed him warmly on one rigidly hard cheek.

He managed a tight-lipped smile. ‘You always were an affectionate little thing,’ he muttered. ‘Too affectionate on occasion.’ He shot a sly glance at the stone-faced Lyon.

She had forgotten Matthew’s cryptic, sometimes cruel, sense of humour, holding back her own smile with effort; one thing the Falconer men could never be attributed with was tact!

Matthew turned fully to his older brother. ‘The two of you came back alone?’

Shay turned in time to see Lyon’s warning look, instantly feeling a ripple of apprehension down the straightness of her spine. Lyon was displeased with his brother for asking the question, and she had a feeling she was the reason for his annoyance with Matthew.

‘Yes,’ he replied tersely, dismissively. ‘What happened to your arm, Matthew?’

The younger man shrugged. ‘The controls of this stupid machine went haywire for a while and I hit the ground,’ he told them with self-derision. ‘It’s nothing serious, just a sprain.’

‘You didn’t mention it when I telephoned yesterday,’ Lyon scowled.

‘I said it’s only a sprain,’ Matthew bit out tautly. ‘I’m in a wheelchair, Lyon, not senile! I don’t need you fussing over me like an old woman every time I accidently cut myself shaving!’ He looked at the older man challengingly.

Who would eventually have won the silent battle of wills Shay wasn’t sure; Lyon was obviously the stronger-willed of the two, but Matthew had his pride on his side. Even feeling the interloper, as she did, she couldn’t let the senseless battle go on.

‘Could I have a cup of tea, do you think?’ She cut across their tension. ‘I’m feeling a little weary.’ Her eyes hardened as she looked at Lyon. ‘I think you might be better having coffee,’ she told him with sarcasm. ‘A whole pot of it!’ she added before strolling through to what she knew was the main family lounge, the décor different from what she remembered, in green and cream now, but otherwise the room was just as elegantly comfortable as she remembered it.

Matthew was still chuckling as he followed her into her room. ‘Been drinking, has he?’ he mused.

‘Just a little,’ Shay drawled.

‘You always did have a strange effect on my big brother.’ He grinned his satisfaction with the fact.

‘I don’t care to be discussed as if I weren’t present.’ Lyon strode across the room to pour himself a glass of whisky from the cut-glass decanter.

‘Oh, we know you’re here,’ Matthew taunted. ‘But what about Neil?’

Lyon’s mouth compressed into a thin line as he turned and rang for the maid. ‘He’ll be back tomorrow,’ he supplied abruptly, turning to the young woman who entered the room so that he could order Shay’s tea.

Once again Shay had sensed Lyon’s reluctance to discuss Neil in front of her. ‘Is Neil away?’ she probed softly.

Matthew gave Lyon a censorious look. ‘You haven’t told her?’

‘Obviously not,’ he drawled. ‘For God’s sake, Matthew,’ he scowled belligerently. ‘It isn’t the sort of thing you just blurt out in the middle of a flight that Shay was already finding such a strain!’

‘Hell, Lyon, you’ve been in Los Angeles almost three weeks,’ Matthew criticised.

‘During which Shay flatly refused to see me,’ Lyon rasped harshly.

Shay felt no regret for that decision, had no desire to spend any more time in his company than she needed to. ‘Where is Neil?’ she asked tautly. ‘Has he been hurt in some way? God, he isn’t dead too …?’ She gasped as that horrific thought occurred to her.

‘No, of course he isn’t dead,’ Lyon snapped. ‘Your fertile imagination is running riot!’

‘Then why won’t you tell me where he is?’ she demanded impatiently. ‘Why all the secrecy?’

‘Because he’s in Los Angeles,’ Lyon muttered.

‘Los Angeles …? But—’ She broke off, a cold stillness slowly creeping over her, her hands clenching at her sides, the long lacquerless nails digging into her palms. She didn’t feel any pain from the wounds she was inflicting, knew another pain that far superseded it. ‘He’s running the Los Angeles office, isn’t he.’ It was a statement, not a question, the deep purple of her eyes her only show of emotion now.

‘Shay—’

‘Isn’t he?’ she directed the question at Lyon, ignoring Matthew’s attempt to reason with her. ‘Answer me, damn you!’

Tawny eyes darkened furiously at her dictatorial tone. ‘Yes, he is—’

‘You bastard!’ Her hand unclenched long enough to move up and slap him hard across one arrogant cheek, the white fingermarks she left livid against his tanned flesh as he remained immobile after the attack.

‘Shay!’

‘You replaced Ricky with him,’ she accused disgustedly, once again ignoring Matthew. ‘One brother is dead, never mind, I have two more I can send in his place!’ she said heatedly, bright spots of colour in her otherwise pale cheeks.

‘Shay—’

‘Excuse me,’ she at last acknowledged Matthew’s efforts to speak to her, ‘I have to get out of here before I’m sick all over the Persian rug!’ She swallowed convulsively, breathing deeply in an effort to hold in the nausea. ‘I take it I’ve been given the suite I once shared with Ricky?’ Her eyes flashed warningly at Matthew.

‘It’s always kept prepared in case you or Ricky came home for a visit,’ he frowned. ‘But I thought this time you might prefer—’

‘I prefer the suite I shared with Ricky,’ she told Matthew forcefully. ‘It’s one of the rare places in this house that holds no bad memories for me!’ She hurried from the room, her head held high.

‘LET HER GO,’ Lyon instructed his brother as he would have followed her, his lips barely moving as he stood rigidly still, shifting suddenly, throwing the contents of the glass to the back of his throat before refilling it, welcoming the burning sensation as the alcohol hit his empty stomach.

‘Haven’t you had enough of that for one day?’ Matthew watched him concernedly.

‘Not nearly enough.’ Lyon grimly drank the second glass straight down too.

‘Getting drunk isn’t going to help the situation,’ his brother spoke soothingly, his hazel eyes troubled. ‘And it’s going to give you one hell of a headache in the morning!’ he added derisively.

Lyon scowled. ‘I’ll worry about that then,’ he bit out.

‘Worry about it now, Lyon, and tell me what happened on the flight here; Shay was as taut as a violin string when she arrived.’ Matthew shook his head.

‘Nothing happened.’ Lyon achingly recalled the hours he had sat feet away from Shay, only a thin door separating them physically; mentally it might as well have still been the Atlantic!

‘Nothing?’

‘No,’ he confirmed abruptly. ‘We barely talked to each other.’

‘Then why was she—like that?’ Matthew looked puzzled.

‘Doesn’t she have the right?’ Lyon groaned. ‘I have sent Neil to Los Angeles to replace Ricky—’

‘What else could you do?’ Matthew said impatiently. ‘Shay is going to realise, once she calms down, that you had to send someone in his place to run the Los Angeles office.’

Lyon stared up the stairs Shay had so recently ascended, the scent of her elusive perfume still in the air. ‘Someone, yes,’ he acknowledged bitterly. ‘But it didn’t have to be another Falconer.’

‘You make us sound like something contagious,’ Matthew derided dryly.

‘I think to Shay we are,’ Lyon nodded, wondering if he would ever be able to shut out the agony of knowing Shay considered him to be the lowest creature on earth. It was there in her voice every time she spoke to him, in every glance she gave, and there was nothing, nothing, he could ever do to vindicate himself in her eyes. ‘All except Ricky, of course,’ he acknowledged tightly.

Ricky was dead, his own dear brother, although the twelve years’ difference in their ages had meant they were never really as close as he and Matthew had always been. Still, Ricky had been his brother, and the only thing he could think of right now was that Shay was no longer married.

He had to be sick, or drunk, or both. Probably both. He would never have admitted these feelings, even to himself, if his defences hadn’t been down. A man was dead, a brother he had loved, and all he could think about was how good it had once been to make love to the woman who was now his widow!

‘Lyon?’

His tormented gaze focused on Matthew. ‘She’s more beautiful than ever!’ he rasped.

‘Yes,’ Matthew agreed softly.

His mouth twisted with self-derision. ‘I’d hoped that she wouldn’t be.’

‘Gypsy was destined to be always beautiful,’ Matthew remarked thoughtfully. ‘She’s like a pure-bred racehorse; long supple lines and a glossy coat.’ He grimaced at the description. ‘Only Shay has ever been able to make me wax lyrical like that; I wonder if we have any Irish in us?’

‘Shay brings out uncharacteristic emotions in most men,’ Lyon remarked with bitterness.

Matthew’s expression was mocking as he arched dark blond brows. ‘What emotions does she still bring out in you, big brother?’

‘None of your damned business!’ Lyon scowled, not willing to admit to anyone the torment of knowing Shay was so close to him once again. He found himself wanting to keep reaching out and touching her just to see if she were real or a figment of his tortured imagination. And then those purple eyes would rake over him contemptuously, and he would know it wasn’t all a dream!

‘I had a feeling it wouldn’t be,’ his brother drawled derisively.

Damn Matthew, he always had been able to see and guess too much. Being in a wheelchair might have physically incapacitated him but his other senses worked overtime. Matthew saw, and understood, too much!

‘Isn’t it time you told me exactly what happened to your arm?’ prompted Lyon determinedly.

Now it was Matthew’s turn to scowl, his humour fading completely. ‘I don’t need reminding of the embarrassing episode,’ he snapped. ‘One of the maids found me sprawled out in the study, and I had to suffer the humiliation of being dragged back into my chair by Hopkins! I’d really rather not talk about it right now.’

Lyon could understand his brother’s feeling of helplessness at having their butler haul him back into his chair; Matthew had never accepted the restrictions of his incapacity well, had mastered everything for himself so that he never had to rely on other people. Lyon had no doubt that if it weren’t for Matthew’s injured wrist he would have managed to get himself back into the chair and wouldn’t have mentioned the incident to anyone.

He walked to Matthew’s side. ‘Okay, we’ll discuss the progress you’ve made on the Thorpe contract this last week—then we’ll talk about your fall.’

His younger brother glared at him. ‘You’re a determined bastard!’

Lyon grinned. ‘I don’t think there’s anyone who would argue with that!’

THE BASTARD, the lousy, unfeeling bastard!