‘That’s what will happen to Jack if he’s committed to a psychiatric hospital.’
‘Don’t over-dramatize what I’ve asked you to do,’ he said. ‘Jack Hyland disinherited me without a second thought and now he wants to ruin the most important property deal I’ve ever organised.’
‘It was Laurence who disinherited you,’ she said. ‘Why would the man you considered to be your second father do something so cruel to you?’
‘What kind of question is that? You know the reason. He was forced to change his will when he was on his deathbed.’
‘All I’ve ever heard is your side of the story, Victor.’
‘Are you calling me a liar?’
‘If you insist that Jack is crazy, then you undoubtably are a liar,’ she said. ‘I’ve no intention of writing that report. I’ll vouch for his sanity before any medical panel. I’ll tell them how he risked his health to save my daughter from drowning. I should have been looking after my children but, instead, I was in the basement searching for information you needed.’
‘Don’t offload your guilt onto me. I told you not to do anything that would jeopardise your job.’
‘That’s true,’ she admitted. ‘You’re more subtle than that.’ Her chest expanded when she eased out of the chair and stood before him. Determination had chiselled his face into harsh, unfamiliar lines. No, she thought, not so unfamiliar. She had glimpsed that same expression when he entered Hyland Hall on the night of her arrival and realised that his plan to control his uncle had failed.
‘Did you ever have any feelings for me?’ she asked. ‘Or have I always been simply a means to manipulate Jack—’
‘Sophia, can you hear yourself?’ He sounded bemused. ‘If I wanted you to manipulate my uncle, I’d have been sadly disappointed. He’s still living in that mausoleum. You couldn’t even persuade him to have Sunday lunch with me.’
‘He’s capable of making his own decisions.’
‘As are you. Have you given a thought to your future? What will happen to you and your daughters when he dies and Hyland Hall is rubble? I’ve offered you my home and my love. Will you destroy all that to protect a man who calls you a gold-digging whore?’
Three weeks ago, she lay on his bed and took him into her, not once, but twice, with hardly a pause into between. Such heat, electrifying, tumbling her through waves of pleasure, every nerve pulsating. Now, she was chilled. The cold wind of reality blowing away every sensation she had experienced in his arms.
‘You’re the only person to use that word, Victor,’ she said. ‘And if you want me to be your whore, Mount Eagle would be a poor reward for my services.’
She had stood by Jack’s bedside and considered how easily he would die if she held a pillow over his face. How had she allowed her mind to become so unhinged? Low hanging fruit, easily plucked. Strings, invisible and controlling, how deftly Victor had operated them, pulling her this way and that. She had been his marionette but the strings he’d held were now severed and she had only one thing more to say to him before she left.
‘My name is Sophy,’ she said. ‘It’s Sophy.’
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Isobel
Fear Zone turned out to be such an ordinary place. The name sounded silly now. So, also, did the name she had given to Jack. He had risked the treacherous mud to rescue her sister and the word ‘recluse’ had an alien sound. Isobel would never use it again. She started to call him ‘Mr Hyland’ at first but he said ‘Jack’ would do just as well. His face with its scars and puckers still upset Isobel but only because of the pain it caused him. Each time he told her a little bit more about his youth, she imagined the ghost of his family moving past. Not in a scary way but as if they were gently stirring the air around them when he spoke their names.
The shock of what had happened to Julie had not brought her parents any closer. Happy endings only happened in books. In real life, hurt feelings and broken promises were not easily forgiven or forgotten. Admittedly, they were talking to each other and her father sometimes came into the kitchen with Charlie for tea and sandwiches. Mostly, he ate at the gate lodge and was happy to be close to them again.
Isobel was afraid to ask him about the gold coin and his head or tails decision. Every time they were together, the