Dragon's Lair (28 page)

have very little relevance. She wanted Gethyn, and she wanted his

trust and support.

'Gethyn.' Her voice was very quiet and shook a little. 'We—we

must talk. We can't let everything slide like this —not after last

night.'

'Why not?' He did not even trouble to take his eyes off the road for

a second. 'We enjoyed a pleasant interlude together, and now it's

over and you can get back to your safe, tidy life in London as you

always planned.'

'How can you say that?' she whispered. 'It wasn't like that. You

know it wasn't. Oh, how can I make you believe me?'

'You don't have to. Just for a while, abstinence made your heart

grow fonder, and I let myself be fooled into thinking it could last.

But it couldn't. Nothing ever does.'

'Love lasts,' she said steadily. 'And you said you loved me. Didn't

you mean it?'

He gave a slight shrug. 'No doubt I meant it at the time,' he said

callously. 'Men are prone to exaggerate at such moments, as you

must know. You're not that naive, Davina.'

'That's the cruellest thing you've ever said to me,' she said in a low

voice.

'Then thank your stars you won't be around much longer.' He pulled

out to overtake a lorry with unerring precision. 'Go back where you

belong,
cariad.
Time heals all wounds, they tell me. The sort of

scratch you've just suffered shouldn't take long at all. Get Mummy

to kiss it better.'

She turned her head away and stared out of the window with

unseeing, tear-blurred eyes. Her nerves were stretched almost to

screaming point by the time they swung on to the Plas Gwyn track,

but in a way the coming confrontation would almost be a relief.

As they reached the parking spot, Davina saw the Fenton family

gathered round their car, packing luggage and equipment into the

boot. They waved cheerfully as the Landrover bumped past, and

Davina forced herself to return the greeting.

When the Landrover stopped in front of the house, she sat very still

for a moment, fighting for her self-control. She was tempted to ask

Gethyn for her handbag, still under the tarpaulin in the back. She

wanted a mirror so that she could check there were no too obvious

signs of distress, and repair what ravages there were with a touch of

concealing powder and lipstick. But there was little point in such

tactics, she told herself. Her mother would be quite capable of

seeing through the kind of pitiful façade she would be able to

assemble.

She climbed down and walked with a steadiness that amazed her up

the path to the front door. Her heart was beating uncomfortably as

she crossed the threshold, but the only person in the hall was Tim

Fenton, unnaturally neat and tidy, who was lingering by the dining

room door. His face lit up when he saw her.

'Gosh!' His eyes widened as they discovered her arm. 'What have

you done?'

'Broken it, I'm afraid.'

'Oh.' He looked downcast. 'I was hoping we could go on a dragon

hunt before I left. We're going this morning, did you know?'

'Yes.' She smiled down at him with an effort. 'I knew. Have a safe

journey. And it's far too early for a dragon hunt, anyway. The lazy

beasts don't wake up until around lunchtime,' she added, trying to

alleviate his obvious disappointment.

He sighed. 'I only wanted to say goodbye to it,' he muttered

half-resentfully.

'Say goodbye to the horses instead. I daresay Mrs Parry would give

you some carrot for them, if you asked her. Now I must go, Tim.

Someone's waiting for me.'

She crossed to the sitting room and opened the door. Her instinct

had been quite right. Mrs Greer was sitting alone on one of the

sofas, smoking a cigarette with quick jerky movements, an

untouched cup of coffee on a low table in front of her. She looked

up irritably as Davina entered. 'At
last
-' she
began, then gasped.

'My
God,
what have you done to yourself?'

'I broke my arm in a fall. Didn't Mrs Parry tell you ..

'Not that.' Mrs Greer dismissed Davina's injury with an impatient

wave of her cigarette. 'Your hair—your general appearance. I

cannot believe what I see. In less than forty-eight hours you've

turned yourself into a scarecrow!'

Davina ran a hand through her hair with irritation. 'Did you come all

this way, Mother, just to criticise the way I look?'

'Of course not.' Mrs Greer leaned back against the cushions, her

mouth set in a thin line. 'I telephoned here yesterday morning to find

out when you would be returning. The woman who seems to run

this place informed me you had gone out—with your husband—and

that she didn't know when you would be back.'

'I see.' Davina pulled a leather-covered pouffe forward and sat

down on it. 'And following on that information, you felt obliged to

drive all the way here. Did you drive, by the way? I didn't see your

car anywhere.'

'I hired a car,' Mrs Greer returned almost absently. 'It will be

returning for me in about an hour. I hope you can be ready by then.

Have you a dress or something you can put on?'

'Oh, yes,' Davina said calmly. 'But you've had a wasted journey, I'm

afraid. I have no intention of leaving here.'

There was a long silence, during which Mrs Greer studied her

daughter with narrowed eyes.

'I don't think, Davina,' she said at last, 'that you quite appreciate my

concern for you. Have you any conception of what I went through

last night—arriving here, only to find you were still with that man,

and that no one seemed to have any idea of your whereabouts?'

'Perhaps you were the only one who considered that it was any of

your business.' Davina raised her eyebrows and saw her mother

flush angrily.

'Please don't be insolent or try to be clever,' she snapped. 'You may

have been married, Davina, and have found yourself a career of

sorts, but you're still a child in many ways. You told me you were

coming here to get a divorce. That was the only reason I agreed to

permit it ...'

'Mother.' Davina leaned forward, her eyes fixed earnestly on the

older woman's face. 'Please believe me when I say you no longer

have the right to give or refuse me permission to do

anything—particularly where my marriage is concerned.'

Mrs Greer's smile was thin and angry. 'So it's like that! This is just

what I was afraid of. You never had the least sense of proportion

where that man was concerned. He's always been able to exert

this—animal influence over you. It nauseates me even to think

about it. What a fool you are, Davina! He treats you like dirt, and

you crawl back to his feet when he snaps his fingers, like a whipped

dog.'

'I love him,' Davina said quietly.

'Love?' Mrs Greer invested the word with an almost strident

mockery. 'What you feel for Gethyn Lloyd, my dear, is very far

removed from love. You're sexually infatuated with him, and he

proved when he left you how much of a lasting bond that kind of

thing is. I didn't bring you up, Davina, to be used by a man like

that.'

'What do you know of Gethyn?' Davina got to her feet and walked

over to the window. 'Only your own prejudices.'

'Well, one would hardly call him a responsible pillar of society.'

Mrs Greer gave a little silvery laugh. 'I suppose I must admit to

being prejudiced against a man who deliberately abandons my

daughter at such a time. I defy any mother to feel differently.'

Davina turned and looked down at her mother. 'I see. And it was

this same spirit of maternal concern, no doubt, that made you tell

him I was having an abortion.'

The colour faded from Mrs Greer's cheeks with startling

suddenness, leaving two ugly patches of rouge standing out starkly

on her cheekbones. She made an immediate recovery, but for

Davina it was enough. She had seen the truth written on her

mother's face, and she felt sick inside.

'Is that what he's told you? Oh, my darling!' The appalled tone

sounded really sincere. 'He misunderstood me completely—or else

he's deliberately out to make mischief. He always was jealous of

our relationship. I knew that from the first.'

'No, I don't think he's out to make mischief. And I can't think how

anyone could get words like miscarriage and abortion muddled.'

Mrs Greer moistened her delicately reddened lips. 'But that's

exactly how it happened, darling. I remember now. I didn't say

"miscarriage". I used the clinical term, which the Sister told me. I

said you were having a "spontaneous abortion". He can't have heard

me properly. It wasn't a very good line.'

'It still isn't,' Davina said bleakly. 'And what about the rest of my

message to him? Was that also translated into clinical terms? Such

as "You've done enough harm. Get out of her life and stay out"

instead of "Please come. She needs you." Is that the way it was?'

'I admit nothing, you understand.' Mrs Greer was on her feet now,

her eyes blazing. 'But believe this—anything I did, I would do

again. He's not the man for you. Look at this house.' She gave her

surroundings a derisive glance. 'Does he really intend to bury you in

this dead and alive hole? Oh, God, Davina, think before it's too late.

Come back to London with me. When you're free, you can do

anything you want. One day you'll meet a decent man from your

own background, someone who will treat you with the sort of

consideration every woman wants. In a couple of years you'll inherit

the money from your father's estate. You'll be quite a wealthy young

woman. I don't know whether you're aware of that...'

'Oh, yes, quite aware.' Davina gave her mother a searching look.

'And perhaps I'm not the only one. Is that it, Mother—the reason for

all this maternal devotion? Father's money? But you don't need it.

You have money of your own. Or have you had some losses over

the past year or two that I don't know about?'

'You're being ridiculous and insulting, but I'll overlook it this time

because you're obviously upset.' Mrs Greer picked up her handbag.

'You don't understand a thing about the stock market. You never

have done.'

'I have a feeling that once Father's money became mine, I might

have been given a chance to learn,' Davina said drily. 'But not, of

course, if I was still married to Gethyn. As my husband he would

have been entitled to a major say in how the money should be used.

But not; of course, if we were divorced.'

'I refuse to listen to another word.' Mrs Greer walked to the door. 'I

am more distressed than I can say. I'm going outside now to wait

for my car. I expect you to join me. I'm sure in spite of the hasty

things you have said, the totally unwarranted accusations you have

made, that you still realise where your best interests lie.'

When the door had shut behind her, Davina sank down on to a chair

and closed her eyes. Well, at least now she knew the truth,

unpalatable as it had proved. And she had kept from her mother the

satisfaction of knowing that her intervention had been just as

disastrous as she could have wished. She gave a long and bitter

sigh. Was that really all there had been behind the heartache and

misery she had suffered? Her mother's instant realisation that

Gethyn was not the kind of son-in-law who could be manipulated

and used for her own ends? It had not been merely chemistry that

had set her at odds with him, but the knowledge that his shrewdness

and will would be pitted against hers once he was Davina's

husband.

Davina felt sick. It gave her no satisfaction to realise that it was her

mother's own too casual reference to her inheritance which had set

her on the right track at last. It was a measure of Mrs Greer's

desperation that she should have made such a mistake. She

wondered almost dispassionately just how much money her mother

had lost in the economic recession. She would never know, of

course.

Her mother had urged her to leave Plas Gwyn and go back to

London before it was too late. There was a strange irony in that. If

she did ever return to London, it would be because it was too late.

Mrs Greer would never admit anything, so there was no point in

involving her in a confrontation with Gethyn. Somehow she would