Tangled Destinies

‘It’s not silk underwear.’

Clenching her teeth, she said through them, ‘I should hope not! Stop hinting that you’re going to stir up trouble!’

‘You used to be so intensely curious. Are you indifferent to what I’m giving Lisa, or afraid I’ll say something you don’t want to hear?’ he asked, satin-smooth.

‘Indifferent,’ she lied angrily. ‘And I should have thought that even you would have had the good taste not to give Lisa and John a present. They won’t want to be reminded of you during their marriage. And while we’re about it, it’s tactless in the extreme for you to lurk about at a time like this—rather like a spectre at a wedding feast!’

Glittering lights danced from under his lowered lashes. ‘You think I should leave before I do any harm?’

‘Yes,’ she bit out.

‘Ask me nicely.’

She checked a rude retort. This was her chance to plead on behalf of the young lovers. ‘I——’ She bit into her full lower lip. The plea stuck in her throat.

‘Beg me,’ he drawled lazily. ‘I’d love to see that pride of yours dented with humility. It might remind you of your more appealing gentleness when you were more——’

‘Malleable?’ she suggested icily. ‘Good grief, István! All you want is for women to be obedient and adoring! Everyone has to play second fiddle to you, don’t they? Just because I don’t——’

‘Follow me like a dog?’ he supplied helpfully.

She coloured up angrily, her mouth grim. ‘Any flash young man who can do circus tricks on horseback would gather admirers, especially in a sleepy village like Widecombe-in-the-Moor in deepest Devon!’ she cried hotly. ‘As soon as I learnt discrimination, I realised that anyone who tried to go further than skin-deep with you would find that there wasn’t anyone at home!’

‘Amusing, acerbic, bitchy. Quite a change from the Tanya I knew, the woman beneath. What’s making you so vicious?’ he said in quiet disapproval.

‘Bitterness,’ she rasped. I hate myself! she thought helplessly. What’s happening to me? What’s he doing to me?

‘It’ll ruin you,’ he said shortly. ‘Take it from one who knows. Feel it by all means, then put it aside and get on with your life. I don’t like——’

Tanya let her eyes harden. ‘Good,’ she said miserably, wanting to be the exact opposite of anything he liked. ‘Suits me. You want to know what’s changed me? In a nutshell, you!’ The words began to flow again; everything she’d felt and thought over the years and had been ashamed to admit. ‘I can’t bear the way I feel, I wish I could change, but you’ve soured my life and made me bitter!’ she cried jerkily.

‘Then tell me how,’ he breathed, his face hard, his body tense.

Her chin lifted high. ‘I became bitter when Mother died. She was distraught when you vanished. I don’t need to point out the connection with you and her death again, do I?’

‘She knew where I’d gone,’ he said gently.

Tanya rounded her eyes in outraged disbelief. ‘What?’

‘She knew,’ he repeated firmly. ‘And you must be careful about jumping to conclusions as far as her death was concerned. You see, Tanya, she was dying when I left her.’

His compassionate expression at her stunned reaction hit her with a knee-weakening force, making it hard for her to collect her thoughts. ‘No!’ she wailed. ‘If that were true, it means she told you—but not us…!’ Her voice trailed into nothing. A nagging thought had struck her. If true, this would be another secret he alone had shared. Tanya felt deeply hurt that her mother might have put her trust only in him.

‘Ester didn’t want to burden any of you with her illness till it was impossible to hide it any longer. At the time I left, she was dying of cancer and it was too late for surgery,’ he continued relentlessly. ‘Now you must realise that I couldn’t have known the cause of death unless she’d told me before I left. I never saw her again, did I?’

‘Lisa could have told you——’ she said, desperate to prove him wrong.

‘No,’ he said quietly, and something in his eyes convinced her.

Tanya pressed a hand hard against her cheek to ease the pain there. ‘Father didn’t know till almost the last week—none of us did! Why on earth would she confide in you?’ she croaked.

‘To persuade me to stay.’

Her breath rasped in sharply. ‘Oh, God!’ she groaned. ‘You…knew and…still you left?’

‘I had to go. Now will you believe I’m not your brother?’ he asked softly. He looked white, the sharp ridge of his high Slav cheekbones standing out beneath the dark hollows of his eyes. ‘She wanted me to stay and pretend that I was her son. I refused.’

Confused, she walked to the window to think; her world, the past she’d known was frightening her in the way it was slipping and sliding in all directions. Things she’d thought to be true weren’t true. She gripped the white silk drape tightly then turned, her eyes wary beneath her wet lashes, and she realised she’d shed tears.

‘I became so bitter when Mother died,’ she said in a distant voice. ‘Father lost all interest in life and abandoned everything he’d worked for…all the things he’d believed in, like forgiveness and love for others. He had no emotional energy left and lost his concern for other people. It made him bitter too.’ And his hatred for István, who they all thought had hastened her mother’s death, had been frightening to see.

‘I’m so sorry,’ István said quietly. ‘Lisa said you look after him now.’

‘He’s no trouble, and besides, we can’t afford help.’ Tanya spoke without resentment though the tiredness came through in her voice. ‘Mariann and Sue work in London and send what they can. Mrs Lane—the new vicar’s wife, who lives in the new vicarage—is looking after Father while I’m away.’

‘It’s a huge mausoleum of a house,’ commented István. ‘Too big for you to cope with alone, I’d have thought.’

‘I can manage. I’ve learnt to run my business and the house by tight organisation,’ she said curtly. ‘If I’ve lost my malleability and gentleness, well, it’s not surprising. It takes drive and grit and initiative——’ She stopped in embarrassment, seeing that he was watching her curiously.

‘Go on. I am interested. In your business. Let me guess. A riding school?’ he hazarded.

‘No,’ she said shortly. ‘Riding holidays. I thought you and Lisa had done a lot of talking? You know remarkably little about us.’ And she could have bitten her tongue out. Of course they hadn’t been discussing life in Widecombe!

He smiled faintly. ‘We didn’t have the time. Are these riding holidays on Dartmoor?’ he asked.

‘No,’ she said proudly, keen to show him that she’d triumphed in difficult circumstances. No wonder she wasn’t the same person he’d known. ‘I set the whole thing up on the small business scheme. I sell holidays that I’ve packaged myself—riding in the Camargue and gypsy-caravan tours in France.’

There was nothing in his face to indicate that he was impressed with her venture or thought it small-time and doomed to failure. ‘It’s a bad time for the holiday business, I hear,’ he remarked casually.

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