A Little Revenge Omnibus (18 page)

‘My aunt in Northumberland hasn’t been too well again so I’m going to go up and see her. Her doctor wants her to have an operation but she’s afraid that if she does she might not recover, so I thought I’d try to talk to her and make her see sense.’

‘Dee, do you think we’ll be able to track Julian down?’

‘I’m not sure,’ Dee told her soberly. ‘If I know Julian he’ll have gone somewhere where he can’t be touched by European law and it probably isn’t just our fifty thousand pounds he’s taken with him.’

For a long time after she had said goodbye to Dee and replaced her telephone receiver, Anna stood silently in her conservatory, ignoring the indignant miaows of her cat, Whittaker, as he wove round her legs. Beth’s mother, her cousin, had suggested that it was high time she paid a visit home to Cornwall. Perhaps she should, Anna acknowledged. The time was past now when the hurt of going back to the place she had once loved so much, knowing it had taken the life of the man she loved, had been too much for her to bear.

Their love had been a gentle, very young and idealistic kind of love, the intimacy between them a little awkward and hesitant, both of them learning the art of loving together, and what hurt more than anything else now was knowing that Ralph had never been allowed to reach his full potential, to grow from the boy he had in reality still been to the man he would have become.

She could barely remember now how it had felt to love him, how it had felt to be loved by him. Try as she might she could hardly conjure up now those nights they had lain in one another’s arms. They seemed to belong to a different life, a different Anna.

No, there was no reason really why she shouldn’t go back. She had forgiven the sea a long time ago for stealing her love. But had she forgiven herself for going on living without him?

She might not be able to recall his image very clearly any more but she could still vividly recall the look of anguish and resentment in his mother’s eyes on the day of his funeral. It had told her, without the words being spoken, how bitterly his mother resented the fact that she was still alive whilst her beloved son was dead. How distressed, how guilt-ridden that look had made Anna feel. Now her guilt was caused by the fact that her memories of Ralph and their love were so distant that they might have belonged to someone else. She had loved him, yes, but it had been a girl’s love for a boy. Now she was a woman, and if the vague but so sharply disturbing longings that sometimes woke her from her sleep were anything to go by she was increasingly becoming a woman whose body felt cheated of its rightful role, its capacity for pleasure, its need for love...

Anna drew in a distressed, sharp breath. She knew quite well that it was her ongoing training as a counsellor that was bringing to the fore all these unfamiliar and uncomfortable feelings, but that didn’t make them any easier to bear.

Watching as Brough kissed his fiancée, Kelly, she had actually experienced the most shockingly sharp pang of envy. Not because Brough loved Kelly. That couldn’t be the reason. Brough, much as she liked him, was simply not her type. No, her envy had been caused by the most basic feminine kind of awareness that her womanhood, her sexuality, was being deprived of expression.

But what did that mean? That she was turning into some kind of sex-starved middle-aged stereotype? Her body stiffened at the very thought, pride lifting her chin. That she most certainly was not. No way!

Her cat, seeing that his mistress wasn’t going to respond to his overtures, stalked away in indignation. As she continued to stare out of the window Anna’s soft blue-grey eyes misted a little.

At thirty-seven she still had the lithe, slender figure she had had at eighteen, and her hair was still as soft and silky, its honey-coloured warmth cut to shoulder-length now instead of worn halfway down her back. Ralph had used to run his fingers down its shiny length before he kissed her.

Anna gave a small, distraught shudder. What was the matter with her? She had met men, plenty of them—nice men, good men—in the years of her widowhood, and not once had she ever come anywhere near desiring any of them.

How irrational and unsolicited it was that her body should suddenly so keenly remember what desire was, how it felt, how it ached and urged, when her mind, her emotions, remained stubbornly resolute that they wanted no part in such a dangerous resurgence of her youthful sensuality.

‘Yes. I’m sorry, I’m coming,’ she acknowledged as Whittaker’s protesting wails suddenly intruded on her thoughts.

CHAPTER THREE

H
UMMING
EXULTANTLY
BENEATH
his breath, Ward checked the last signpost before his ultimate destination. Rye-on-Averton.

It sounded such a middle England, respectable sort of place, but at least one of its inhabitants was anything but honest and trustworthy.

He hadn’t been able to believe his luck when the agents he had employed had informed him that, whilst they could find no trace of Julian Cox, who according to their enquiries had, in fact, left the country and apparently disappeared, his partner, Anna Trewayne, had been traced to the small English town of Rye.

They had even been able to supply Ward with an address and a telephone number, as well as a considerable amount of other pertinent information about Ms Trewayne.

Widowed, childless, outwardly she appeared to live a life of almost boring propriety and respectability. Ward knew otherwise, of course. He could picture her now. She was in her late thirties and no doubt struggling to hold onto her youth. She probably possessed a certain amount of surface charm—a useful tool for helping to persuade vulnerable men to part with their money. Her make-up would be too heavy and her skirts too short. She would have sharp eyes and a keen interest in a man’s bank account and, of course, a very shrewd business brain—but not, it seemed, shrewd enough to warn her to do what her erstwhile partner had done and disappear whilst the going was good. Perhaps she even had plans to continue with their ‘business’ on her own.

Perhaps he was a chauvinist but for some reason Ward felt an even greater sense of revulsion and outrage towards the woman who had cheated his half-brother than he had done the man. An avaricious, heartless woman. Ward had a deep sense of loathing for the breed. His ex-wife had, after all, been one of them.

He dropped the speed of his powerful, top-of-the-range Mercedes to turn off the bypass and into the town.

Nestled in a pretty green valley, it had an almost picture-book quaintness. Mentally he compared it to the grimy, run-down, inner-city area where he had grown up and then grimaced. No haggard-faced, old-before-their-time, out-of-work men gathered on the corners of this place. No gangs of testosterone-driven youths with nothing in front of them, no way out of the underclass environment that trapped them, roamed these clean, tree-lined streets.

Ward saw a parking area up ahead of him alongside the river and he pulled into it. Time to study his map. As he switched off the engine he was conscious of the beginnings of a tension headache. He picked up the street directory map he had brought with him. A few seconds later Ward jabbed his forefinger triumphantly onto the map as he found the place he was looking for.

Anna Trewayne lived a little way out of town, her house solitary, without any neighbours, but then, no doubt, a woman of her ilk would not want the complications that curious neighbours could bring.

As he reversed his car back into the traffic Ward’s expression was bleak.

* * *

A
NNA
WAS
IN
the garden when Ward arrived, the sound of his car stopping on the gravel drive causing her to put down the basket she had been filling with flowers for the house and frown a little anxiously.

She wasn’t expecting any visitors, and the car, like the man emerging from it, was unfamiliar to her.

Expecting her visitor to announce himself at the front door, Anna turned to slip into the house through the still open conservatory door, but Ward just caught sight of her flurried movement out of the corner of his eye and, wheeling round, started to walk swiftly towards her, calling out to her, ‘Just a minute, if you please, Mrs Trewayne; I want a word with you.’

Instinctively Anna panicked. Both the way he was walking and the tone of his voice were distinctly threatening and she started to run towards the protection of the conservatory, but she wasn’t quite fast enough and Ward caught up with her just as she reached the door, grabbing hold of her wrist in a grip that almost made her flinch at its strength.

‘Let me go... I...I have a dog...’ Anna told him, issuing the first threat that came into her mind, but just as she felt his grip starting to slacken Missie came trotting round the corner, her small, furry body quivering with welcome as she rushed happily towards Anna’s captor.

‘So I see,’ he agreed sardonically. He started to lift his free hand and immediately Anna reacted, her fear for her little dog far, far greater than her fear for herself.

‘Don’t you dare hurt her,’ she told him fiercely, holding out her own free arm protectively to Missie.

The little dog, a bundle of white fluff, had been a rescue dog, bought as a puppy and then abandoned when the family who’d owned her had decided that her small, sharp teeth were doing too much damage to their home.

Anna had taken her in, trained and loved her, and Missie adored her.

Ward frowned his surprise. Odd that a woman of her type should ignore her own danger just to protect her dog. Not that he had intended to hurt the little creature, and Missie seemed to know it.

Ignoring her mistress’s frantic attempts to shoo her away, she was happily investigating the stranger’s shoes, and then, as Ward extended his hand towards her, she jumped up and licked it, wagging her small tail approvingly.

‘Look, I don’t know who you are or what you want,’ Anna began nervously, ‘but—’

‘But you do know Julian Cox, don’t you?’ Ward slipped in quietly.

‘Julian.’ Anna went pale. Was this man someone Julian had sent to demand more money from her? Had he perhaps guessed what they were doing?

As he watched the blood drain from her face Ward experienced a disturbingly unfamiliar—and unwanted—sensation. All right, she might not look anything like he had imagined. Her skirt was calf-length, all soft and floaty, and as for her make-up—well, she had to be wearing some, surely? No woman of her age could have such a soft, pink, kissable-looking mouth naturally, could she? And her hair had to be dyed, he decided triumphantly, whilst as for that air of frightened vulnerability she was projecting—well, that was, no doubt, as false as the colour of her hair.

‘Don’t bother lying to me,’ Ward announced sternly. ‘I know you know him and know something else as well. I know just what the pair of you have been up to...’

‘The p-pair of us...?’ Anna repeated, stammering a little. ‘I...’

‘I’ve got the evidence here,’ Ward told her curtly, releasing Anna’s wrist as he reached into the inside pocket of his suit.

As she rubbed her tender wrist Anna wished that she had the courage to risk slamming the conservatory door and locking him on the outside of it, but a quick, fleeting glance at him warned her of the danger of doing anything so reckless. For a start there was the size of him. He was...he was huge, she decided. So tall, over six feet, and so...so big. Not fat...no, not that. She could feel her face growing hot as her feminine instincts conveyed the message to her that the male body, under its quietly dignified suiting, owed its size to hard-packed male muscle and the kind of physique one might normally associate with a man who spent a lot of his time working physically hard. His hair was thick and dark brown, tinged unexpectedly with gold at the ends where the sun had caught it, giving him an almost leonine look.

‘This is you, isn’t it?’ he demanded as he turned the paper he was holding towards Anna, jabbing his forefinger at a name printed on it.

Anna’s eyes widened as she saw that it was her own.

‘Yes. Yes...it is...’ she admitted, her face burning hotly as she saw from the look he was giving her that he hadn’t, after all, missed the discreet female inspection she had been giving him. Trying to ignore him, she forced herself to read the document. What on earth was it?

Anna blinked and stared hard at what he was holding, her heart starting to pound heavily. In front of her on the paper she could see her own name quite plainly, and just as plainly beneath it was written the word ‘partner.’ What on earth did it mean? Why on earth had Julian Cox untruthfully and surely illegally claimed her as his partner? Anna had no idea. All she could assume was that he had done it because he’d felt it added weight and credibility to whatever he had been planning. Or had he perhaps known that something like this could happen and, in that knowledge, had deliberately set her up to act as a fall guy? Anna wondered queasily. He was, she knew, perfectly capable of that kind of deliberately dishonest behaviour.

The words of denial and protest springing to her lips were ruthlessly suppressed. Could this be the breakthrough, the evidence of Julian’s fraudulent deceit which Dee had striven so hard to find? She needed time to think, Anna decided, time to consult Dee and tell her what had happened, and, most of all, she needed that all-important piece of paper. But as she reached out to take it, as though he sensed what she was about to do, the man stepped back from her, determinedly folding it and putting it back in his pocket.

‘Well, your partner might have been clever enough to disappear, but you, it seems, were less wise—or perhaps more arrogant,’ Ward challenged softly.

Arrogant!

Anna couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

‘How does it feel, knowing that you have deprived other people of their money; that this house, the clothes you wear and the food you eat are, no doubt, paid for out of other people’s pockets?’ Ward demanded with scornful anger. ‘Nothing to say?’ he queried. ‘No protests of innocence? You do surprise me.’

He would be even more surprised if he knew the truth, Anna reflected, but would he believe her if she tried to tell him? From the look on his face, somehow she doubted it. But if he thought she was going to stand there and allow him to revile her verbally...

Tilting her head so that she could look straight into his eyes, she told him firmly, ‘Look, I’m sorry if you feel that you’ve been cheated...’ She paused. Something about his attitude made her so angry that she felt physically weak at the knees. At least, she supposed it must be anger; after all, what else could it be?

She smiled sweetly before saying, very, very gently, ‘However, surely the fact that you were being offered such an exceptionally high rate of interest on your investment must have alerted you to the fact that something might not be quite...genuine...?’

Ward could scarcely believe his ears. Was she actually daring to tell him that it was his own fault he had been cheated; that he had been guilty of either a lack of intelligent caution or an excess of simple greed?

Her head barely touched his shoulder. She was as fine-boned as a little bird and he guessed that he could have spanned her waist with both his hands and picked her up off the ground without straining his breath, and yet she stood there and had the audacity to challenge him!

Reluctantly Ward acknowledged that she had guts. Certainly more than her partner. By heaven, though, she was cool and calm—both virtues that he admired.

Abruptly he pulled himself back from the dangerous brink he was teetering on, reminding himself of just what she had done.

‘I’m sure it would have,’ he agreed grimly. ‘I pride myself on being able to spot a phoney a mile off. As it happens it isn’t me the pair of you gulled—but then, of course, you know that already.

‘Does the name Ritchie Lewis mean anything to you?’ he shot at Anna.

‘No...I’ve never heard of him before,’ Anna told him honestly, starting to frown as she questioned, ‘But if you didn’t invest money with Julian then what are you doing here?’

‘Ritchie is my half-brother,’ he told her impatiently, demanding bitingly, ‘Have you any idea just what you’ve done? Ritchie should be studying, not worrying about the loss of five thousand pounds. No, of course you haven’t,’ he told her scornfully. ‘I’ll bet you’ve never strayed out of your cosseted, comfortable little world. Of course you don’t know what it is to suffer pain, disappointment—’

‘You’re making judgements about me without knowing the first thing about me,’ Anna interrupted him swiftly, her gentle expression suddenly replaced by one of pride and anger.

‘Oh, but I do know the first thing about you. I know that you’re a liar and a cheat,’ Ward returned softly.

Anna gave a sharp gasp.

‘Well...nothing to say?’ Ward demanded.

‘I...I don’t intend to say anything until...until I’ve spoken to my legal advisors,’ Anna fibbed, suddenly gaining inspiration from a recent television series she had been watching.

‘Your legal advisors? They’re no doubt as guilty of sharp practice as you and your precious partner,’ Ward told her bluntly. ‘Well, let me tell you here and now, there’s no way I’m going to let him or you get away with this. You owe my half-brother five thousand pounds and I intend to make sure you pay it back.’

‘You do?’ Anna was impressed. Dee would love to meet this man, she knew. Here at last was someone who was prepared to stand up to Julian; to pursue him, Anna was certain, to the furthermost corners of the earth with relentless determination.

Even so, there was something about his attitude towards her that had got her hackles rising in a way she could never remember anyone else doing.

‘Er...what you have to say is extremely interesting, Mr...er...’

‘Hunter,’ Ward supplied briefly. ‘Her— Ward Hunter.’

Ward Hunter. Well, at least now she had his name. She could pass it on to Dee along with the information he had given her and then she could leave him and Dee to pursue Julian Cox together.

Suddenly Anna had a brainwave.

‘You say you want me to repay your half-brother’s money. I’m afraid I don’t have five thousand pounds here at home with me. Could you call back, say, tomorrow...?’

Ward stared at her. Now what was she up to? One minute she was claiming she knew nothing about the money, the next she was accusing him of deserving to be cheated, and now here she was calmly and coolly announcing that she would repay him. She was even more dangerous than Ward had first suspected.

‘Why should I believe you? You could pull the same disappearing stunt as your partner.’

‘Leave the country, you mean.’ Anna looked down at where Missie was lying on the conservatory floor. ‘No. I couldn’t do that,’ she said simply and ridiculously.