Dark Summer Dawn

The towering, the insuperable, the shattering difficulty was getting through, firstly, tomorrow, and then the days after that. If it hadn’t been for the wedding she might have been able to do a deal—to say to Dane, ‘I want to go back. I want to see Chas, to spend some time with him, and I’ll do it on the understanding that you go and stay far away from Stoniscliffe while I’m there.’

But because of Chas’s paralysis, Dane was going to give Julie away. He had to be there, and so there was no bargain to be struck.

Not that Dane struck bargains anyway, she thought. He made decisions and carried them through to his own advantage. If he negotiated, he expected to be on the winning side, and generally was. She had never seen him bested by anyone, although at one time she had dreamed dreams of doing it herself. But not any more. He had shown her brutally and finally that against him, she could not win, and she still had the emotional scars to prove it.

But she wasn’t going to think about that now. She couldn’t let herself think about that because otherwise she would turn tail and run away somewhere—anywhere, and Dane would know then exactly what he had done to her, and triumph in his knowledge.

She was restless, pacing round the flat like an animal in a cage, and she had to make herself stop, and fetch the hairdryer and sit down and do something about her ill-used hair which was going to dry like a furze bush if she wasn’t careful, and contribute nothing to her self-confidence. There was something soothing and therapeutic in sitting there, brushing the warm air through her hair, and restoring it to something like its usual smooth shine. She wished she could smooth out her jitters as easily.

She didn’t sleep when she went to bed, but she told herself that she wouldn’t have slept anyway. She’d had no exercise or fresh air to make her healthily tired.

There was too much to do in the morning to give her time to think. She packed and tried to eat some breakfast, while she gave a surprised Mrs Hargreaves her instructions. Then she found Dinah’s tour schedule and wrote her a hasty explanatory note, addressing it to the current theatre.

She dashed out, posted the letter, and as she walked back from the box on the corner, she saw there was a car parked in the street outside the flat. She lived over a shop—a boutique really where they sold small pieces of antique furniture and jewellery, catering for the connoisseur market, and of course the car could have belonged to one of the said connoisseurs, but somehow she didn’t think so.

She stood for a moment, her hands buried in her coat pockets, and stared at it, and wished she was able to turn round and walk away again as fast as she could. It was dark and sleek and shining and looked extremely powerful. It proclaimed money and a quiet but potent aggression.

Dane was waiting at the top of the stairs. He swung impatiently to meet her.

‘I was beginning to think you’d run out on me.’

‘I had to post a letter.’ Lisa despised herself for the defensive note in her voice. She had nothing to apologise for. She wasn’t late; he was early. She took her key out of her pocket and Dane calmly appropriated it and fitted it into the lock.

‘Thank you,’ she said between her teeth, and went past him into the flat.

‘If you’re ready, I’d like to leave as soon as possible,’ he said. ‘The weather forecast isn’t too good for later in the day.’

It would be brave weather that would dare interfere with his arrangements, she thought bitterly as she went into the bedroom to close her case. She tugged russet suede boots on over her slim-fitting cream cord jeans, and pulled a matching coat, warmly lined, on top of her cream Shetland sweater. She had left her hair hanging loose round her shoulders as she had worked and packed, but now it was a moment’s task to sweep it into a smooth coil and anchor it securely on top of her head. It was a severe style, but it suited her, highlighting the line of her cheekbones and her smooth curve of jaw.

She picked up her case and the weekend bag that matched it and went into the living room. Dane was standing by the window looking down into the street.

‘Is that all you’re taking?’ His glance ran over her luggage.

‘It’s enough,’ she returned shortly. ‘I’ve learned to travel lightly.’

‘But not alone.’ There was a barb in the smooth words which angered her, but she decided to ignore it. The journey ahead was going to be trying enough without a constant sparring match going on between them.

Dane picked up the cases. ‘I’ll put these in the boot while you see to any locking up you need to do.’

She was fastening the safety catches on the windows when the phone rang.

‘Lisa?’ Simon Whitman’s voice sounded plaintively down the line. ‘Jos has just told me you’re off up north for an unspecified time. What’s going on?’

Her heart sank at the note of grievance in his voice, which she had to admit was fully justified. Before the West Indies assignment, she and Simon had been seeing quite a lot of each other. She had met him some months before through her work, because he was a young and promising executive with an advertising agency which often used Jos’s photographs. They had got on well almost immediately, and she had accepted the invitation to dinner from him which had speedily followed. They were starting to be spoken of as a couple, to be invited to places together, and although Lisa wasn’t sure that was entirely what she wanted, she was happy enough with the arrangement to allow it to continue unchallenged as long as Simon didn’t start making demands she couldn’t fulfil. Up to now, he had shown no signs of this. On the contrary, he had seemed quite happy to keep their relationship as light and uncommitted as she could have wished, but just then she had heard a distinctly proprietorial note in his voice.

She said, ‘A family emergency of sorts.’ She should have let him know, she thought. He should have been on her list ahead of Dinah and Mrs Hargreaves really, but the truth was she had never even given him a thought. She went on, ‘It’s been landed on me so suddenly, I haven’t really had a chance to contact anyone.’

‘I didn’t think I was just anyone,’ Simon said, and there seemed no answer to that, so Lisa didn’t make one. After a pause, he said ‘Will you be gone for very long?’

‘I hope not,’ she said. ‘For as long as it takes, and no longer. I do have my living to earn, and as Jos reminded me, they have short memories in the fashion world.’

‘They’ll remember you.’ His voice warmed, lifted a little. ‘I can’t get you out of my mind, night or day.’

That troubled her a little, but she found herself smiling. ‘It would be nice if the other agencies in town felt the same. Do you think you could become contagious?’

She was aware that Dane had come back into the room and was standing by the door, silently watching and listening. Anyone else would have had the decency to withdraw out of earshot, she thought bitterly as she turned a resentful shoulder on him.

She could hardly hear what Simon was saying. She had to force herself to concentrate on his words because she was too conscious of that other dark and disturbing presence behind her.

Simon said with that special note in his voice which belonged to almost everyone who had spent their entire lives south of Potters Bar, ‘It will be awful in the north at this time of year, and they reckon there’s bad weather on the way. You’ll take care, won’t you, love?’

Lisa said, ‘I can take care of myself.’ And froze as she realised what she’d said, the words acting like a key to unlock the secret place in her mind and unleash the nightmares which lurked there. She found she was gripping the phone until her knuckles went white. She answered Simon in monosyllables ‘Yes’ and ‘No’, praying that each response was the right one because he might have been talking so much gibberish.

Eventually she said with a kind of insane brightness in her voice, ‘Look, I really must go now. I’ll see you when I get back.’

Simon said goodbye in his turn. He sounded disappointed, as if for all his warnings about the weather he had hoped she might give him the address she was going to, the telephone number so that he could make contact.

She replaced the receiver on the rest with unsteady fingers, and turned slowly.

Across the room, Dane’s eyes met hers, cold and watchful, and she knew that her words had triggered off memories for him too and for an endless moment the past held them in its bleak trap.

If she backed away, he would come after her, a jungle cat stalking his prey. But she had no reason to back off. Because this time what she said was true. She could look after herself, and she would. Neither Dane nor anyone else had the power to harm her.

And sitting beside him in silence, as the car devoured the miles on the motorway, Lisa found herself repeating those words over and over again as if they were an incantation that would keep her safe.

CHAPTER THREE

THEY had been travelling for over an hour and a half when Lisa realised that Dane had signalled his intention of turning off the motorway.

‘Where are we going?’ she asked sharply.

‘To eat. There’s a pub I often use not far from here.’

‘Must we stop? I’m not particularly hungry.’

‘I intend to stop, yes,’ he said coolly. ‘If you don’t want to join me you can always wait in solitary splendour in the car.’

Lisa compressed her lips angrily. She had no intention of doing anything of the kind, as he was perfectly aware.

The village they eventually came to was charming, with well tended houses clustering round a green and a duck-pond. The inn, set back from the road, was a long low building, whitewashed and spruce, and there were already several cars parked at the rear.

Lisa fumbled with the catch on the passenger door, trying desperately to release it while Dane attended to the security on the driver’s side, but it resisted all her efforts, and to her annoyance Dane had to come round and open the door from the outside. For a moment she was afraid he was going to help her out. She didn’t want him to touch her, and she scrambled out with none of her usual grace, bitterly aware of the slight mocking smile which twisted his mouth.

As they walked towards the inn door, a large Alsatian came round the corner of the building. He paused when he saw them, his ears cocked inquisitively, the long plumy tail beginning to wave slightly.

‘What a beauty!’ Lisa exclaimed impulsively, and put out her hand. The dog came up and sniffed at her fingers, then allowed his head to be gently scratched.

‘You never learn, do you, Lisa?’ Dane said harshly. He took her hand and turned it palm upwards, pointing to a faint white mark. ‘Didn’t Jeff Barton’s collie teach you anything?’

Lisa flushed as she pulled her hand away. It had been her first summer at Stoniscliffe, she recalled unwillingly, and she had seen the dog in the lane outside the house and run eagerly out of the gate to pet it. When it had turned on her snarling and bitten her hand, drawing blood, she had screamed more in terror than in pain, and Dane who was home on a short holiday had been the first to reach her. She had flung herself at him, sobbing, arms clinging, but he had put her away from him and she had been bundled unceremoniously into his car and taken to the local Cottage Hospital for the wound to be dressed, and for an anti-tetanus shot which had been worse. She remembered sitting beside Dane in the car, weeping, while he had said with cool contempt, ‘Don’t you know better than to put your hand out to a strange dog, you little fool?’

She hadn’t told him that she knew very little about dogs at all. Aunt Enid had not had time for pets of any kind, and none of the neighbours in London had apparently been dog-lovers either. She had only wanted to stroke the dog, to play with him, because he had seemed friendly enough, she thought passionately. And she hated Dane more than she did already for not understanding, and for pushing her away. He was worse than the dog!

Now she smiled wryly at the memories. ‘If he was treacherous, they’d hardly let him roam round loose. Besides, I’ve learned to deal with dogs. It’s people I’m still not sure of.’ As she let the Alsatian go to greet some more newcomers with a final pat, she added casually, ‘Even the apparently civilised can behave like animals sometimes.’

As she stole a glance at him, she saw that her jibe had gone home. He was suddenly very pale under his tan, and his eyes were glacial, and she felt a bitter satisfaction as she walked ahead of him.

Inside the inn, she found that only the minimum concessions had been made to modernity. The ceiling still sported the original low beams and a log fire blazed brightly in an enormous stone fireplace. Solid high-backed oak settles flanked the hearth and Dane indicated they should sit there by a slight, silent gesture.

‘What would you like to drink?’ He fetched a menu from the bar counter and handed it to her. ‘They have real ale here.’

Lisa shook her head. ‘I never touch alcohol in the middle of the day. Just a tomato juice, please.’

The menu was quite short, and seemed to avoid the usual grills and basket meals, offering homely dishes like shepherd’s pie and hotpot. There was also home-made vegetable soup and a selection of sandwiches.

‘The soup’s almost a meal in itself,’ said Dane, seating himself beside her on the settle. She had hoped he would sit opposite and it was as much as she could do to stop herself edging away. ‘And no doubt Chas has ordered a celebration dinner this evening.’

‘For the return of the prodigal daughter,’ she made her tone deliberately flippant. ‘Very well, then, I’ll have the soup and a round of cheese sandwiches.’

‘I’ll have the same,’ Dane told the smiling girl who had come to take their order. Lisa noticed she had greeted him as if she knew him well, as had the landlord’s wife who was serving behind the bar.

She sipped her tomato juice, and tried to ignore the curious glances coming her way, as other people in the bar half-recognised and tried to place her. But not all the glances were for her. Most of the women were looking at Dane, some covertly, and some quite openly. There was little to wonder at in that, of course. Women had always looked and more than looked.

Lisa had to acknowledge that if she had been a stranger, seeing him for the first time, she would probably have looked herself. He was incredibly attractive, with an implicit sexuality, and the aura of unquestioned money and success to add an extra spice. And he had charm when he chose to exert it. The young waitress was clearly under his spell, but then, Lisa thought, she had never had the misfortune to cross him in any way. She would have no idea of the strength of that relentless cruelty and arrogant maleness which dwelt just below the surface glamour.

‘Dane’s a good friend,’ she had once heard Chas telling a business associate, ‘but he makes a bad enemy.’

Well, she had first-hand knowledge of just how bad that enemy could become, and it had nearly destroyed her.

Dane said, ‘I hope I didn’t make you cut short an important conversation back at the flat?’

After a few seconds of incomprehension, she realised he was referring to Simon’s call, and she flushed a little. ‘Not particularly. We’d already said what needed saying before you came back.’

‘It was a man.’ It was a statement rather than a question.

‘It was.’ He had overheard too much for her to deny it.

‘The man?’ He picked up his glass and drank from it.

‘One of them.’ And that had been an invention which could well backfire on her, she thought vexedly.

‘You don’t bestow your favours exclusively?’ It was said lightly, but she could feel the undercurrent of contempt. But why should she care? She didn’t want or need his good opinion.

‘I’m not actually expected to.’ And that at least was the truth. ‘Is there any purpose behind this inquisition?’

‘Naturally.’ He gave her a long hard look. ‘I’d like to point out that during your absence, my sister has managed to achieve a measure of stability in her life. I wouldn’t want anything to upset that.’

Lisa was very still. ‘I don’t think I have that measure of influence over Julie.’

‘And I think you underestimate yourself,’ he said.

‘In that case I’m amazed you should have pressed me to come back with you. I’d have thought you’d have done your utmost to ensure that I stayed away permanently.’

‘If it had been left to me alone, I probably would have done,’ he said levelly. ‘Believe me, Lisa, the last thing I wanted was for you to come back into her life—into any of our lives, and I give you credit for equal reluctance.’

‘Well, thank you.’ She made no attempt to disguise the sarcasm in her voice.

‘I did my damnedest to dissuade Julie from writing to you,’ he went on. ‘But when she enlisted Chas on her side—told him that she was writing, that she needed you, couldn’t manage without you—I was left with little room to manoeuvre.’

‘Unusual for you,’ she said lightly. ‘You’re quite right, of course, I’d have kept any distance necessary to avoid having to see you or speak to you again. But I won’t upset any apple carts. I’ll do whatever it is Julie wants of me, and then get back to my own life.’

‘That’s very reassuring,’ he said grimly. ‘But what about Chas?’

She shrugged a little. ‘I—I’ll have to think of some story that will satisfy him.’ She paused. ‘Perhaps I should seek some assurances of my own. There must have been—speculation as to why I’ve stayed away all this time. May I know what you’ve said, if anything?’

‘As little as possible, and certainly nothing approaching the truth. Did you imagine I would? Oddly enough, I prefer Chas to have some illusions left about the pair of us. Is there anything else you wanted to know?’

‘Nothing,’ she said, but her heart was pounding. The way he spoke, no one would credit that they had parted in violence and bitterness. She was almost glad that the waitress arrived at that moment, bringing their soup accompanied by a basket of home-made bread cut into chunks.

Lisa picked up a spoon and forced herself to begin eating. If she could maintain a cool façade, that might be her saving grace. But as she swallowed the hot savoury liquid, an instinctive pleasure in good food began to take over and she began imperceptibly to relax. If it hadn’t been for the inimical presence of the man at her side, and the undoubted problems awaiting her in Yorkshire, she might even have been able to enjoy herself.

After a pause, she said, ‘Is Mrs Arkwright still reigning supreme at Stoniscliffe?’

‘If you want to put it like that.’ He offered her the dish of sandwiches. ‘You never did like her, did you, Lisa?’

She shrugged again. ‘Not a great deal, but then she always made it plain she had very little time for me—or my mother,’ she added.

Dane’s face tightened for a moment, then he said, ‘You have to remember she’s been with our family a long time.’

‘I’m not likely to be allowed to forget it,’ she said wryly. Looking back, she could remember how difficult Jennifer’s first months as mistress of Stoniscliffe had been. At first she had been difficult about making changes, a little unnerved by Mrs Arkwright’s usual response to any suggestion—‘The mistress always liked it done this way,’ delivered in a flat tone which brooked no argument. But gradually as she gained confidence and realised that she had Chas’s backing, Jennifer had quietly but firmly taken over and Mrs Arkwright had been forced to retreat, grumbling. But Lisa with a child’s sensitivity had been aware that she had never forgiven or forgotten that she had been replaced as the virtual mistress of the house by someone she regarded as an interloper. As a small girl, Lisa had been made to suffer in various ways, but she wasn’t the only one. Mrs Arkwright hadn’t cared for Julie either and considered children generally to be an obstacle to the smooth running of any house.

In fact, Lisa had since wondered whether Mrs Arkwright’s unthinking harshness in many small matters—making Julie sleep in the dark when she was frightened was only one instance—had been responsible for her stepsister’s acute nervousness. All during adolescence, Julie had been subject to attacks of excitability rising at times almost to hysteria, while at school her wild and often rebellious behaviour had caused constant trouble. Persuasion worked with her most of the time, but attempts to exert any kind of authority over her caused an intense reaction. The only person she had ever seemed to be in awe of was Dane, Lisa recalled ruefully, but she knew that even he had been worried by Julie’s extremes of behaviour, and had always tended to make concessions where she was concerned.

Presumably Lisa’s return to Stoniscliffe had been one of these concessions, especially if Julie had exhibited any signs of becoming hysterical, and it was a weapon she had never hesitated to use whenever it had seemed likely she might be thwarted.

She sighed inwardly, wondering whether Tony Bainbridge realised just what he was taking on, or had he discovered some magic formula to control Julie by. Love could and did work miracles, of course, and yet …

She was suddenly aware that Dane was studying her face, his dark brows drawn together in a frown.

She said, ‘I’m sorry—did you say something? I was thinking.’

‘You were lost in thought.’ His voice was dry. ‘And not particularly pleasant thought by all appearances.’ He paused as if waiting for her to offer some explanation, and when she said nothing, he continued, ‘I was merely asking whether you’d like some coffee.’

‘Yes, I would.’ She finished her last sandwich and sat back with a little sigh of repletion. ‘That was delicious. What a lovely place this is, and the rest of the village looks interesting too. It would be nice to stay here.’

He said coolly, ‘I daresay it could be arranged. It’s out of season. They would no doubt have a room.’

Her eyes met his, widening in frank disbelief while the hot blood surged into her face.

She said, her voice shaking, ‘I was making conversation, not issuing an invitation. Perhaps I should have made that clear.’

‘Perhaps you should,’ he said. His eyes slid over her cynically. ‘You may be a tramp, Lisa, but you’re still a beautiful and desirable woman. And you said earlier that no one had exclusive rights to you. Do you really blame me for trying?’

Anger was threatening to choke her, but she forced herself to speak calmly. ‘Blame—no. Despise—yes. And now can we change the subject? I find the current one distasteful.’

‘Thus speaks the vestal virgin,’ he drawled. ‘Only we both know how far from the truth that is—don’t we, Lisa?’

For a long moment his eyes held hers, and her rounded breasts rose and fell under the force of her quickened breathing, while her small hands clenched into impotent fists.

Then she said unevenly, ‘Can we go now, please? I don’t think I want any coffee after all.’

‘Just as you wish,’ he said, and signalled for the bill. Lisa made an excuse and fled to the powder room. For a long time she stood, her fingers gripping the porcelain edge of the vanity unit, staring at her reflection with unseeing eyes. Just what had she invited by agreeing to return to Stoniscliffe? she asked herself despairingly. She must have been insane to agree.

She ran the cold tap, splashing drops of water on to her face and wrists, making herself breathe deeply to regain her self-control. She hated him, she thought. She loathed him. She had nothing but contempt for him. So why when he had looked at her, his eyes lingering on her mouth, her breasts, had there been that small stirring of excitement deep within her, that tiny flicker of something which could only be desire?

She felt sick with self-betrayal. The poise she had so painfully acquired over the past two years seemed to have deserted her, but then Dane had always had the power to bring her confidence crashing in ruins about her. Yet it was imperative that she give no sign of this. Somehow she had to convince both Dane and herself that the most she felt for him was indifference, and that not even his most barbed remarks could hurt her any more.