Sinful Nights: The Six-Month Marriage\Injured Innocent\Loving (22 page)

‘Phew,’ he commented theatrically, raising his eyebrows. ‘So that’s the fabled Joel Hargreaves.’

Joel was constantly appearing in the gossip press. He had fingers in many financial pies and was known as much for being a highly successful entrepreneur as he was for his womanising. ‘Quite a man,’ Simon murmured.

‘If you like the type.’ Lissa managed a thin smile. ‘Personally I don’t.’

‘No, I could see that.’

Lissa had a small smile at the smug satisfaction in Simon’s tone. Physically, they couldn’t be more dissimilar. Simon although tall was slim and boyish with his shock of sunbleached fair hair and his easy smile. Joel in contrast, was taller, broader, the epitome of everything that was intensely male. His skin was olive coloured, his eyes a glinting rich gold, his hair dark and thick. Once, rather fancifully before she had really known him Lissa had imagined that he might have posed for a statue of Achilles. She had always had an
overromantic imagination she thought wryly. Joel was no story-book hero. Far from it. Women fell for him like ninepins and he made full use of the power he seemed to have over her sex. Lissa had watched a procession of women come and go through his life, and if he had ever felt anything more than sexual desire for any of them, she had never noticed it.

‘Dinner tonight?’

She dragged her mind back to the present and Simon. Over his anger now, he was a cajoling, eager boy again, but how long would it be before he reverted to type … before he tried to force her into an intimacy she didn’t want to share. She sighed faintly. She liked her job and she liked Simon … but if he was going to be difficult … But how could she give up her job now, when she might need to prove that financially she was able to care for the girls, at least on a part-time basis. She knew there was no possibility of them coming to live with her full time at least not now. For one thing her flat had only one bedroom but in a few year’s time … If, however, she let Joel bludgeon her into giving up her rights to them now, she would have no chance of re-establishing any relationship with them in the future. She knew that.

L
ISSA STARED
at the letter, tapping her nails absently on her kitchen counter as she studied its contents for the umpteenth time. It had arrived three days ago; a coolly worded, imperative demand from Joel that she present herself at Winterly so that they could discuss the girls’ future.

Trust Joel to make sure he had the advantage of being on his home ground, Lissa thought wryly. The letter had surprised her; taken her rather aback. After the way they had parted in Simon’s office she had expected only to hear from him via his solicitor, but instead had come this command, because that was what it was, to go down to Winterly so that they could talk. She was tempted to refuse, but if she did might that count against her in an eventual court hearing? Her solicitor seemed to think so. She pressed the heel of one hand to her aching temple. Perhaps she ought to take Simon up on his offer and hope that her status as an engaged woman might persuade the court to settle in her favour. But Simon wasn’t really interested in the girls; all he wanted was to get her into his bed. She glanced at her watch. Ten
o’clock. She had been up since seven, prowling round her small flat, knowing that she must go to Winterly but desperately searching for excuses not to do so.

Chiding herself for her weakness she went into her bedroom, hastily packing enough clothes to last the weekend, and then before she could change her mind, she pulled on a jacket, collected her car keys and carrying her overnight bag marched towards her front door.

There was a freezing wind blowing, driving needle sharp flurries of icy snow into her face, and Lissa huddled deeper into her jacket as she made for the lock-up garage block where she kept her car.

The traffic through the centre of London was bad enough to need all her concentration. Once on the M4 though she turned on her radio, and listened with grim foreboding to the weather forecast. A drop in temperature and snow, but not until late evening. Well she should be safely at Winterly by then.

Once off the M4 she drove carefully along the familiar country roads. She had spent all her childhood living in Dorset, the names of the villages she drove through composed a familiar litany. Her parents’ old home lay only fifteen miles from Winterly. Amanda and John had met at the home of mutual friends, and the tiny village five miles east of Winterly she was now approaching was also the nearest village to her parents’ old home. Nothing had changed, she thought with a hard pang of nostalgia as she negotiated the sharp bend in the centre of the town where the Tudor building now housing a bank jutted dangerously into the centre of the road. A sign outside a shop, fluttering in the cold wind caught
her eye and she drew up outside it. A cup of coffee was just what she needed right now. Coward, an inner voice chided her as she climbed out of the Mini and locked it. She didn’t really want a drink, she simply wanted to put off facing Joel.

The small town was busy with Saturday shoppers, but she was lucky enough to find a small corner table still free. A smiling waitress came to take her order, the familiarity of her soft Dorset burr taking Lissa back in time.

She had just received her order when she heard someone call her name in an incredulous voice.

‘Lissa, it is you isn’t it?’ the feminine voice exclaimed, a pretty plump brunette of about her own age hurrying over to her table, a wriggling toddler tucked securely under one arm.

‘Helen … Helen Martin,’ Lissa exclaimed in turn, recognising an old school friend.’

‘Helen Turner now,’ the latter laughed. ‘Do you mind if I join you?’

‘No, please do …’

Aware that Helen was studying her, Lissa strove to appear calm and friendly. At one time she and Helen had been ‘best friends’, but after … but after she was fifteen they had drifted apart.

‘I was sorry to hear about Amanda and John,’ Helen said quietly at last. ‘It must have been a dreadful shock for you. Joel has got the children hasn’t he? Poor little things. They must miss their parents dreadfully.’ She pulled a face. ‘Somehow I can’t see Joel in the role of
doting uncle. Has he changed at all or is he still as masterful and macho as ever.’

‘I don’t see much of him these days,’ Lissa said assuming a fake casualness. ‘In fact I’m on my way to Winterly now. We’re joint guardians of the girls.’ She might as well let it be known that Joel wasn’t solely responsible for her nieces’ welfare.

‘Yes, you’re godmother to both of them aren’t you.’ Helen broke off as her son reached for his glass of orange juice, almost tipping it over.

‘Are you married yourself?’ she asked when she had rescued the glass. ‘I remember I always used to think you would marry young and have a brood of children.’

‘No, I’m still single,’ Lissa told her calmly. It was true that when they were teenagers she had yearned for the security of a loving husband and children, but in those days she had been so ridiculously innocent, wanting without realising it to compensate herself for the lack of love in her own home.

‘Umm … Well it can only be by choice,’ Helen said frankly, wrinkling her nose as she studied Lissa’s smoothly made-up face and immaculate hair. ‘You look very lovely and elegant Lissa, I hardly recognised you at first. What have you been doing with yourself? I know your parents sent you away to school …’ She grimaced faintly. ‘And it was all my fault really wasn’t it? If I hadn’t persuaded you to go to that party with me. My parents gave me hell for that, I can tell you. What exactly happened?’ she asked curiously.

‘Oh nothing much.’ Lissa was proud of her cool offhand tone. ‘It was all very much a storm in a teacup.’

‘Yes, that’s what my parents thought,’ Helen agreed. ‘I remember them discussing it at the time. My father always thought your people were too strict with you.’ She giggled lightly. ‘All I can remember is you disappearing upstairs with Gordon Salter and then the next minute your folks storming in with Joel Hargreaves, demanding to know where you were.’ She rolled her eyes and grinned. ‘Funny how seeing someone you haven’t seen in a while brings back old memories. You didn’t come back to school with the rest of us after that summer holiday did you? Your folks sent you off to boarding school didn’t they?’

‘Yes.’

Lissa looked down at her coffee cup, gripping her hands together under the table to stop them from shaking.

Helen was looking at her watch. ‘Heavens I must fly,’ she exclaimed. ‘I promised Bill I’d meet him in the DIY centre at one, and it’s nearly that now. Come on poppet,’ she commanded, picking up her son. ‘Nice to see you again Lissa … Bye.’

She had been gone five minutes before Lissa felt relaxed enough to pick up her coffee cup and drink what was left of her coffee, and then when that was done she simply sat staring into space, unable to drag herself back to the present … too caught up in the memories of the past Helen had unleashed. What Helen remembered as merely an awkward incident had had such far reaching effects on her own life that even now still affected her.

Sighing faintly Lissa leaned back in her chair, willing
her body to relax. She had been so excited about that party. Her parents had forbidden her to go, because they didn’t approve of her crowd of friends. Why couldn’t she have ‘nice’ friends like Amanda, her mother had constantly harped? Not that there was anything wrong with the crowd she went around with; they simply did not have the sort of moneyed background her parents approved of. This particular Saturday her parents had been dining with John’s family. John and Amanda had been on the point of announcing their engagement, and Lissa had spent the afternoon at Helen’s bewailing the fact that she was forbidden to attend Gordon’s birthday party. Gordon Salter was something of a local Romeo, and Lissa had had a mammoth crush on him for several weeks. ‘Why not go to the party anyway,’ Helen had urged her. Her parents need never know. She could leave early and be back before they even knew she had been out. Even though she knew it was wrong, Lissa had agreed. After all what did her parents really care about her, she had argued rebelliously with herself. Amanda was the one they loved not her.

It had been surprisingly easy to deceive her parents. They had left home with Amanda a good hour before the party was due to start, leaving Lissa plenty of time to get ready. She didn’t have many ‘going out’ clothes of her own, and on a reckless impulse she had raided her sister’s wardrobe, ‘borrowing’ a mini dress which was rather shorter than short on her much taller frame. Make-up had come next. Some of Amanda’s eyeshadow, and thick black liner applied with a rather unsteady hand. Lissa had thought the effect rather daring.

She had arranged to meet Helen at Gordon’s house, but when she arrived there her friend had been busy talking to several people she did not know, and feeling suddenly shy she had felt reluctant to intrude. Gordon himself had materialised from the kitchen, and had greeted her with a brief kiss on the cheek. She had been so thrilled and excited that later she could barely remember accepting the drink he had given her, or drinking it. She must have done so though; and she had compounded her folly by drinking two more glasses of Gordon’s special punch. That was why she had agreed to go upstairs with him, thrilled out of her mind that he should actually fine her desirable. She hadn’t been drunk, but what she had had to drink had been sufficient to rid her of her normally stifling inhibitions. She could remember quite vividly the thrills of excitement that had run up and down her spine when Gordon kissed her—boyish, quite inexperienced kisses really. They had been lying together on his bed, doing nothing more than exchanging explorative kisses when the door had suddenly been thrust open and a man Lissa didn’t recognise had appeared framed darkly against the light behind him. Even now she shuddered slightly remembering the sickness and fear that had then crawled down her spine. Before she could even move her father was in the room, dragging her off the bed, saying things to her, calling her names … that had numbed her senses and her tongue.

What had followed had all the trappings of the very worst kind of nightmares. Her parents had dragged her home in a thick silence, but once there, the real torment
had started. What had she been doing with that boy? her mother demanded. They had questioned her in her father’s study with Joel Hargreaves standing impassively by, listening to every single word. Lissa thought now she had never hated anyone in all her life as she had hated him that night. Send him away, she had demanded tearfully of her parents, but her father had refused. ‘No Lissa. I want Joel to know what sort of girl his brother is going to get for a sister-in-law. Had you no thought for your sister when you disobeyed us?’ he demanded, adding, ‘do you think it fair that she should be tarred with the same brush as you?’

They had questioned her about what she had been doing with Gordon and in vain she had told them they had simply been kissing, blushing bright painful red to admit as much, but they had refused to believe her, saying why should they when she had already deceived them once by attending the party in the first place, and all the time Joel Hargreaves’ watchful eyes had been on her, deriding … scorning … making her feel dirty and humiliated.

And her humiliation had not ended there. There had been a visit to their doctor; an examination which had left her racked with anguish and mental agony; and then she had been sent away to school. So that Amanda wouldn’t have to bear the disgrace of a promiscuous younger sister, her parents had said.

It had taken years for Lissa to accept that she was not what her parents had called her; but the events of that night and the days which had followed had left her permanently scarred. To allow a man to so much as
touch her was to relive again all that anguish; to endure the biting contempt in Joel Hargreaves’ eyes when he looked down at her lying on the narrow bed with Gordon, her brief dress exposing all the long length of her legs, her mouth swollen from Gordon’s kisses, all her tender, vulnerable adolescent emotions exposed to the cruel scrutiny of his worldliness.

‘If you’ve finished with the table …’