Dark Summer Dawn

Somewhere near at hand a man’s voice was saying, ‘Bit of a surprise to all of us, actually. He didn’t tell you?’

‘Not a word, until it was too damned late for me to do anything about it.’ It was Dane Riderwood’s voice, molten with fury. ‘My God, it’s sheer lunacy! He takes a holiday and comes back with some gold-digging little typist and her brat. Heaven knows no one expects him to live like a monk, but surely he didn’t have to pay for his fun with marriage!’

Lying, hidden by the high back of the sofa, Lisa felt sick. She didn’t understand all that was being said, but she could recognise the cold contempt in ‘typist and her brat’. She wanted to jump up and run to Dane Riderwood, to punch him and kick him, and make him sorry, but even as the thought crossed her mind, caution followed. If she did so then other people would come, and they would ask her why she was behaving like that, and she would have to tell them, and her mother’s happy, shining day would be spoiled, some instinct told her. Aunt Enid had been bad enough, but this was a hundred times worse.

This was her new family of which Dane was to be an important part, and he didn’t like them. He didn’t want them. She buried her face in the cushion and put her hands over her ears. She didn’t want to hear any more.

She was quiet some time later when Chas and Jennifer came to fetch her, to take her up north to Stoniscliffe. They were having a delayed honeymoon, because Chas wanted to show Jennifer his home, and wanted Lisa to settle in there too.

They looked at her pale cheeks and the wariness in her eyes and decided privately that it was over-excitement and nervousness, and didn’t press her for any explanations. It had been a relief to know from chance remarks they had let fall that Dane wouldn’t be joining them at Stoniscliffe. He was going back to America.

Perhaps he’ll stay there, the child Lisa had thought passionately. Perhaps he’ll never come back.

The woman she had become could smile wryly at such naïveté, looking back across the years. Of course he had come back, and gradually the situation had begun to ease although Lisa told herself she could never like him or even wholly trust him, and she was slightly on her guard all the time when he was around.

Grudgingly, she had to give Dane his due. He had never, she was sure, given her mother any distress by even hinting at his true feelings about his father’s second marriage. But then he had no reason to do so, she reminded herself. Chas and Jennifer had been very happy—even someone as prejudiced as Dane would have been forced to admit that. He was always civil, if rather aloof, to Jennifer, and he took hardly any notice of Lisa at all. But then, she thought, he had never bothered with Julie either, who had always shown a strong tendency to hero-worship him.

Sisterly devotion had never been Dane’s style, Lisa thought with a curl of her lips. He had girl-friends, of course—a lot of them. Some of them even came to stay at Stoniscliffe to run the gauntlet of Chas’s indulgently critical appraisal. But it was clear they were for amusement only. Dane showed no signs of becoming serious about any of them, although they were all beautiful and glossy and self-assured—good wife material for a man who stood to inherit a thriving family firm and would need a smooth and practised hostess in his private life.

Julie and Lisa discussed the girls between themselves, tearing their appearances, their manners, their clothes apart mercilessly. Later, they wondered about their sexual potential as well, with avid adolescent curiosity. At least Julie had done most of the wondering. Lis wasn’t that interested in the partners Dane chose for his sexual athletics, although she had little doubt he was an expert in that as he was at everything else.

Locally, he was the golden boy, already managing director of Riderwoods which was expanding rapidly and surely. Chas was proud of him, calling him a chip off the old block, but Lisa thought there was more to it than that, unless the original block had been granite, because there was a ruthlessness about Dane that chilled her.

That was why, quite apart from the original dislike and distrust, she had never been able to accord him the admiration which Julie lavished on him. He wasn’t Lisa’s idea of a hero. She saw no warmth in him, no tenderness.

Even when she was sixteen, and Jennifer who hadn’t been well for some time had died very suddenly in her sleep, there had been no softening in him. He had been away on a business trip, but he came home for the funeral, but even while he had uttered his condolences to her, she had the feeling that his thoughts were elsewhere. She had wanted to scream at him, ‘You’re not sorry! You never wanted her here, or me either.’ All the old hostility and hurt had welled up inside her, and she had said something in a cold, quiet little voice and turned away.

She had thought then that she couldn’t possibly dislike him more than she did at that moment. But she knew better now.

She leaned back against the sofa cushions, trembling a little inside as she always did when she let herself think of the events of two years before. Not that she often thought of them—the mental censorship she exercised saw to that.

She wouldn’t have been thinking of him now—God knows she never wanted to think of him again—if it hadn’t been for Julie’s letter. ‘Dane, of course, is going to give me away.’

She would have to write to Julie, maybe not tomorrow, but some time soon, and make some excuse. Because there was no way she was ever going back to Stoniscliffe while Dane was there, and Dane was always there now. It was a grief to her. She missed Chas, and the big grey house on the edge of the Dales, but she had to keep away because she never wanted to see or speak to Dane Riderwood again.

The ring at the doorbell made her start, because she wasn’t expecting visitors, although there were any number of people who would know she was back from the West Indies by now and could be dropping in. She grimaced slightly at the thought of her appearance, no make-up and hair tied up in a turban, and was strongly tempted not to answer it, but the bell rang again imperatively, and there was little point in pretending she wasn’t at home when the caller could see the light shining under the door.

Pushing the litter of papers and envelopes off her lap, she called, ‘All right, I’m coming!’

She was smiling a little as she opened the door, because it was more than probably Simon who had shown signs of becoming besotted with her just before she had flown off on this last assignment, and she liked Simon even if she was a long way from falling in love herself.

She began, ‘You’ve caught me at a bad moment. I’m …’

And then she stopped, the words dying on her lips as she saw exactly who it was, standing on her doorstep, waiting for admittance.

‘Hello, Lisa,’ said Dane Riderwood.

CHAPTER TWO

FOR a moment she could neither speak nor move, and her breathing felt oddly constricted. It was like a nightmare—as if Dane was some demon that her thoughts had conjured up. All these months she had never allowed herself to think about him at all, she had closed him out, incised him from her brain.

Now Julie’s letter had reluctantly forced open the floodgates of her memory, and she had walked through the past like some forbidden city. ‘Talk of the devil,’ people used to say, ‘and he’s sure to appear.’ And it was true because the devil was here with her now.

She made a grab for the door intending to slam it in his face, but her momentary hesitation had been her undoing, because he had already forecast her intention and walked into the room.

He said, ‘Allow me.’ And he closed the door himself, shutting them in together.

Lisa said between her teeth, ‘Get out of here!’

‘When I’m ready.’ His voice was as cool as ever. He had hardly changed at all physically from the first time she had set eyes on him. The lines on his face had deepened with maturity, but his body still had the spare lithe grace of some predatory animal. He moved forward and she recoiled instinctively. He threw back his head and stared at her for a moment, his eyes hooded, their expression enigmatic.

‘Relax,’ he advised caustically. ‘The sooner you hear what I have to say, the sooner I can be gone, which is what we both want.’

‘What the hell are you doing here?’ she almost whispered.

‘I’m not preparing to carry out the fell purposes you seem to have in mind,’ he snapped back at her. ‘For God’s sake, Lisa, sit down and behave like a civilised human being.’

‘What would you know about civilised behaviour?’ She was beginning to tremble inwardly and she folded her arms defensively across her body. ‘Just say whatever you came to say and get out.’

‘Ever the gracious hostess.’ Dane walked past her, looked with a lift of his eyebrow at the littered sofa, then sat down in the chair opposite. ‘You’re very nervous,’ he commented. ‘What’s the matter? You said I’d called at a bad moment when you opened the door. Are you—entertaining?’ His eyes went over her derisively, establishing beyond doubt that he knew quite well she was naked under the old towelling robe, and she flushed angrily.

‘No, I’m not,’ she grated, and could have kicked herself. Perhaps if she’d lied and said, ‘Yes—someone’s waiting for me in the bedroom right now,’ he might have left.

‘Then I’m fortunate to find you alone,’ he said smoothly. ‘I’d like some coffee.’

For a moment Lisa stood glaring at him impotently, then she turned and went into the small kitchen. The towel round her hair was slipping and she tore it off impatiently, thrusting it into the small linen basket next to the washing machine. Her hands were shaking so much she could hardly spoon the coffee into the percolator. She began to set a tray with brown pottery mugs, pouring creamy milk into a matching jug. She heard a slight sound behind her, and glancing over her shoulder, realised that Dane was standing in the doorway watching her.

‘Do you have sugar?’ She made her voice cool and social.

‘You’ve a bad memory, Lisa,’ he said sardonically. ‘How many years did we live under the same roof, and how many cups of coffee did you pour for me? No, I don’t have sugar, and never have done.’

‘Too many,’ she muttered.

‘Well, that’s one thing at least we can agree on,’ he said. He strolled forward, trapping her between his body and the worktop behind her. He put out a hand and tilted her chin, studying her face critically.

His touch sent every nerve-ending in her body screaming. She wanted to strike his hand away. She wanted to use her nails and teeth to free herself like a cornered animal, but it would be no good, she knew. He was the stronger, and he would not hesitate to use his strength.

He said silkily, ‘You don’t change, do you, Lisa? I remember you all those years ago—a little hostile creature, all hair and eyes.’

She smiled, a little meaningless stretching of her lips. ‘How odd you should say that. I was thinking much the same about you. Oh, not the hair, of course, but the hostility—and the eyes. They haven’t altered at all. They’re still cold.’

As cold and as cruel as January, she silently added, meeting their greyness, noticing how their bleak light remained unsoftened by the heavy fringing of dark lashes.

Dane said, ‘Cold?’ and smiled. ‘Is that what you really think? Surely not.’

Her breathing quickened a little. ‘You wouldn’t like to hear what I really think. Now if you want this coffee, you’d better let me make it.’

He flung up his hands in mock capitulation and moved away, and Lisa felt limp with relief.

When she carried the tray through to the living room, he had resumed his seat by the fire and was smoking a cigar. She felt a sudden surge of nostalgia as the scent of the smoke reached her. Chas had always smoked cigars and their faint aroma had hung round the house at Stoniscliffe whenever he was there, as if it was Christmas every day, Jennifer had said, laughing.

She put the tray down. ‘What happened to the cigarettes?’

‘I gave them up about eighteen months ago.’ He gestured to the cigar. ‘Do you object to this?’

‘No, of course not.’ She subdued an impulse to add it was the least objectionable thing about him, and poured the coffee instead. ‘Why do you ask?’

He gave a slight shrug. ‘It doesn’t fit in with the image here. A masculine intrusion into a purely feminine environment.’ He paused. ‘Or at least that’s the assumption I’m making. Perhaps I’m wrong.’

‘Perhaps you are,’ she agreed.

He glanced around, brows lifted. ‘You don’t live alone?’

‘I don’t live alone.’

Dane was very still for a moment, then he moved abruptly, tapping a sliver of ash from the tip of the cigar. ‘Of course not. May one ask where he is?’

‘No, I don’t think so,’ she said calmly. ‘Perhaps now you’d like to tell me what you want from me.’

‘Not a thing, sweetheart—now or ever.’ His voice bit. ‘Let’s get that firmly established, shall we? I haven’t come blundering in on your idyll on my behalf but on Julie’s.’

‘Julie’s?’ She was startled, her eyes flying to the creased letter.

His gaze followed hers and his mouth tightened. ‘It looks as if I’ve made a wasted journey. Nevertheless I’ll say what I’ve come to say. Julie’s panicking because she hasn’t heard from you. She’s desperate for you to come home and help with the wedding. She wants to know why you haven’t written or phoned.’

Lisa said, ‘I only got her letter today. I’ve been away—abroad. I only returned yesterday.’

‘The contents don’t seem to have impressed you very much.’ Dane was leaning back in the chair, watching her from beneath lowered lids.

‘You and I both know,’ she said tautly, ‘that there is no way I’m ever going back to Stoniscliffe. You’ll have to stall Julie—find some explanation that will satisfy her.’

‘I can’t think of one,’ he said. ‘And even if I could, I doubt if it would satisfy Chas. He can’t wait for you to come—back.’

She noted ironically the small hesitation and wondered whether the word he’d stumbled over had been ‘home’.

‘How is he?’ She wasn’t merely trying to change the angle of the subject under discussion. She really wanted to know. Letters were pretty unrevealing, and she had kept hers amusing and busy, providing excuse after excuse for not returning to Yorkshire.

‘If you really wanted to know, you would have gone to see for yourself,’ Dane said harshly. ‘How the hell do you think he is—trapped in a wheelchair for the rest of his life!’

‘A wheelchair?’ She gaped at him, her head reeling in disbelief. ‘What do you mean?’

‘He had a stroke,’ Dane said curtly. ‘It’s left him partly paralysed. He can walk a few yards with difficulty and use one hand.’

Lisa shook her head. ‘He said he hadn’t been well, but he never even hinted …’

‘Why should he? If you’d cared, you’d have gone to see.’

‘That’s your reasoning, not his.’ She glared at him.

‘Perhaps,’ he said. ‘He always was too soft with you—too ready to make excuses. He wouldn’t write and ask you to come back because he’s terrified of pity. He’s a strong man who’s suddenly found a physical weakness he can’t command or overcome, and it’s been a struggle for him. He has a nurse living in, but he doesn’t ask for help or sympathy from anyone else. He’s counting on Julie’s wedding to bring you back to Stoniscliffe. I could have told him it was a forlorn hope.’

‘That’s not true!’ Her throat felt thick and tight. ‘I—I love Chas.’

‘So you’ve always protested. According to you, you asked for nothing better than to be a daughter to him and a sister to Julie. Well, now’s your chance. Live up to your words.’

‘It isn’t as easy as you think.’ She was arguing against herself now, not him, although he wasn’t to know that. ‘I have a career—commitments.’

‘As you’ve already made clear.’ His mouth twisted a little. ‘Couldn’t you convince him that you also have a commitment to Chas—a prior commitment? Unless, of course, you no longer see it that way. As for your so-called career,’ he shrugged, ‘I imagine it would survive a slight hiccup like Julie’s wedding.’

‘You can sneer all you want,’ she said furiously, ‘but it’s my life. It isn’t the sort of success you would recognise, but I’m happy. What did you expect me to do—become a “little typist” like my mother?’

‘When you can capitalise on your considerable assets? Hardly.’ Dane looked her over. ‘You must have one of the best known faces and bodies in the country. How does the man in your life like having to share you with the fantasies of thousands of others?’

She shifted her head. ‘He survives.’ She’d deliberately led him to believe that there was such a man, so there was no point in screaming at him that her face and body belonged to herself alone, that in front of the cameras she played the role Jos had written for her, no more no less, and all it needed now was for Dinah, who was away on tour in the Midlands, to walk in and blow the whole stupid pretence sky high.

‘I’m sure he does more than that.’ His eyes seemed to linger on her mouth, on the deep vee where the lapels of the dressing gown crossed. ‘Even with your hair in rats’ tails, you’re quite something.’

Lisa felt herself shrink inwardly, but there must have been some physical movement as well, because he threw up a hand. ‘Don’t be alarmed. I said I wanted nothing from you, and I meant it. All I need is your co-operation for a few weeks.’ He paused, then added cynically, ‘And you won’t be out of pocket over it. I’ll make it worth your while.’

She said between her teeth, ‘How readily you reduce everything to cash terms. You know what you can do with your bloody money!’

‘Spare me the righteous wrath,’ he drawled. ‘I know quite well Chas has been paying out handsomely for the honour of keeping you in the manner to which you’ve become accustomed. I can’t stop him, of course, but perhaps you should remember that there’ll come a time when the gravy train will stop permanently.’

And on that day, Lisa thought savagely, it would give her immense satisfaction to return every unspent penny.

She said with assumed lightness, ‘You disappoint me. There was I thinking I was set up for life. I shall have to take care I don’t lose my looks.’

‘I should just take care generally,’ he said gently. He put down the pottery mug and stood up. ‘Thank you for the coffee. I’m driving back to Yorkshire tomorrow. I’ll pick you up around midday.’

‘Thanks, but no, thanks,’ she said. ‘I have arrangements to make, and there are trains.’

‘So there are,’ he agreed. ‘But Chas at least would think it strange that we didn’t travel together. I don’t deny your attractions, but I’m sure there are other models in London.’

‘Plenty,’ she said flatly.

‘Then let’s have no more excuses about arrangements.’ He gave her a long dispassionate look. ‘Play this my way, Lisa, and I’ll see to it that you aren’t bothered in future. You can come back here after the wedding and live whatever kind of life takes your fancy. I’ll see you tomorrow, and don’t keep me waiting.’

He didn’t seem to expect her to show him out, and she was glad of that because she didn’t think her shaking legs would support her. She remained on the sofa staring at the door which had just closed behind him and trying to make sense of the last teeming half hour.

In a moment, she told herself, she would wake up and find she’d been having a bad dream. Whenever there had been nightmares, it had always seemed as if Dane was part of them hovering there somewhere on the fringe of her subconscious.

She hoped very much she would wake up soon. She moved restively and her hand caught her undrunk mug of coffee and spilled it across the hearthrug, and she stared for a moment down at the resultant mess, forcing herself to face reality.

Somehow, without knowing quite how it had happened, she was going back to Stoniscliffe to help with Julie’s wedding. She sank her teeth into her lower lip. It was no wonder Dane was such a success in business. No object remained immovable for long under the pressure of his irresistible force. She loathed him!

She cleaned up the spilled coffee while her mind ran round and round like a small animal trapped on a wheel. She could always vanish, she supposed. She had done it once two years ago, and she could do it again. But to do so would be to hurt Julie who didn’t deserve it, and more importantly, it would grieve Chas.

Lisa caught her breath at the thought of him in a wheelchair. He had always been such a strong, positive man. This new weakness would irk him terribly, she knew, and found herself wondering exactly when it had happened.

At the same time, she told herself fiercely that she wasn’t to feel guilty. If her disappearance from Stoniscliffe had had even a remote connection with Chas’s stroke, then Dane would have mentioned it. A mirthless smile curved her mouth. Boy, would he have mentioned it! So she wasn’t to blame herself, although she knew that her conscience would trouble her. Chas had been ill and needing her, and she hadn’t known. Why hadn’t Julie told her? she asked herself almost despairingly, and then shook her head at her own foolishness. Julie would have been obeying orders.

Chas would have wanted her to return to Stoniscliffe under her own steam, at her own wish. He wouldn’t take kindly to any sort of pleading on his behalf from anyone. Not even from Dane.

So that was yet another secret she had to keep, because Chas had never known the real reason why she had left Stoniscliffe in the first place, and that was the most important secret of all. No one knew the truth except herself, and the man who had just left her crouched, trembling like a child, in a corner of her own sofa.

She went across to the telephone and dialled Jos’s number. Myra answered almost at once, and her voice bubbled down the phone as she recognised Lisa.

‘Did you enjoy the trip? Are you worn out? Come to supper tomorrow night and tell me your version.’

‘I’d love to, but I can’t.’ Lisa hesitated. ‘Is he in a good mood, Myra?’

‘Fair to middling. Why, is there something wrong?’

‘In a way. I have to go away for a few weeks, that’s all.’

‘That’ll be enough,’ Myra said blankly. ‘What’s happened?’ She paused. ‘You’re not—ill or anything?’

Lisa guessed the real question behind the tactful words. ‘No, nothing like that. I have to go up north to organise a family wedding. My stepsister is getting married, and there’s a panic on.’

She could hear Myra talking to someone at the other end, her voice muffled and then Jos spoke.

He said sharply, ‘What is all this, Lisa? Myra says you’re going up north. You have to be joking!’

‘I wish I were.’ Lisa rapidly explained about the wedding. ‘But there’s more to it than that,’ she went on. ‘I’ve just found out that my stepfather had a stroke at some time, and that he wants to see me.’

‘Oh, hell!’ Jos was silent for a moment. ‘You realise that all this couldn’t be happening at a worse time.’

‘Please believe that if I could get out of going, I would,’ she said unhappily. ‘But they’re all the family I’ve got, and I owe them a great deal. Certainly I owe them this.’

‘Then obviously you must go, but for heaven’s sake get back as soon as you can. They have short memories in this game,’ he said grimly. He paused. ‘You said they were all the family you’ve got. Wasn’t there a brother as well? I seem to remember Dinah mentioning him.’

‘There was and there is,’ she said. ‘But I don’t regard him as a brother. It was Julie I grew up with.’

‘Lucky Julie,’ Jos commented. ‘Tell the stepfather he did a good job. And phone me as soon as you get back.’

‘That’s a promise,’ Lisa said, and replaced her receiver. Her hand was sweating slightly and she wiped it down the skirt of her dressing gown.

She would have to write to Dinah and she could pay Mrs Hargreaves and give her any necessary instructions in the morning. There was no great problem there.