For The Love Of Sara

“Two — three years. What does it matter now?”

Joel didn’t altogether understand why he was so curious, except that there was a certain sadistic satisfaction to be gained from forcing her to talk about something which must be painful to her. He threw the end of his cheroot out of the window. “I suppose you must have found it hard bringing up a child alone,” he remarked probingly. “Is that why you took the job as this Colonel Frenshaw’s housekeeper?” He paused. “Is that why you’re marrying my father? For Sara’s sake?”

“Don’t you dare to mention her name!” she cried fiercely. “You don’t know her. You don’t know me. Why don’t you go away and leave me alone!”

“I want to know.”

“It’s not your affair.”

“Damn you, isn’t it? I have a right to know —”

“A right! A right, Joel!” Her voice had risen. “You have no rights, no rights at all. You forfeited them when … when …” Her voice trailed away and she turned away from him, staring down at her hands. “I want to go back now. Will you take me — please?”

Joel levered himself up in his seat, staring at her averted profile. For a moment, just for a moment, he had been near to learning the real truth behind all this. He knew it, and he exulted in it. But she had withdrawn again, and frustration filled him. He sat there, his fists clenched, wishing for once that she was a man. With a man, he would have felt no compunction about beating the truth out of him. But Rachel was not a man, she was very much a woman, and somehow he had to find a way to release the pent-up emotions which were silencing her tongue. But how?

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!”

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