A Touch of Notoriety - By Carole Mortimer Page 0,51

marriage ended some years ago,’ Raphael bit out tautly. ‘And the only thing I begrudged was having his young wife make sexual advances to me—’ Raphael broke off abruptly as he realised his anger had made him say far too much. Reveal far too much. ‘It is time I—’

‘Your stepmother made sexual advances to you?’ Beth repeated incredulously.

Raphael easily read the all-too-familiar tenacity of Beth’s expression. ‘Yes,’ he hissed.

‘She tried to seduce you? Even though she was married to your father?’

‘I think “seduce” is too polite a word for what Margarita intended in regard to her stepson, from the age of sixteen to nineteen, every time he returned for the school holidays,’ he drawled scathingly.

‘You were only sixteen when she first tried to seduce you?’ Beth’s eyes were wide. ‘Why didn’t you tell your father what was happening? Explain the situation to him and—’

‘And what, Beth?’ Raphael moved away impatiently. ‘Expect that he would believe my word for what had happened over the word of the young and beautiful wife with whom he was totally besotted?’ He eyed her mockingly.

‘Your father knew about her—her sexual interest in you?’

‘He eventually knew Margarita’s version of things, yes,’ Raphael bit out flatly.

‘How?’

‘You really do not want to know—’

‘Yes. Yes, I really do, Raphael.’ Beth nodded determinedly.

He sighed his impatience with her stubbornness. ‘Remember that you were the one who asked me to tell you this,’ he warned harshly as he drew in a deep breath before speaking again. ‘I was out in the stables one day and she came into the stall where I was working, unbuttoning her blouse as she did so, revealing that she wore nothing beneath. I told her—as I had told her so many times before—that I was not interested in her in that way. She left her blouse partway unbuttoned and came towards me, her intentions obvious in her gaze and the lascivious expression on her face.’ Raphael’s own expression was bleak as he remembered the day that had changed his life for ever. ‘I was too busy trying to fend off her attentions to realise that someone else had entered the stables, but apparently Margarita was not. To my surprise she suddenly pulled away from me and began screaming as she started pulling and tearing her blouse. By the time my father had hurried to the stall where we both were, Margarita had mussed her hair into a tangled mess and ripped several buttons from her blouse, the material itself gaping open to reveal her bared breasts.’

‘Giving your father the impression that you had attacked her...’

‘Yes.’

‘But didn’t you explain to him that you were completely innocent, that Margarita had done this to herself? That this wasn’t the first time she had tried to proposition you?’

‘How truly naïve you are, Beth.’ Raphael eyed her pityingly. ‘Of course I told him those things. But what should he believe, the evidence of his own eyes—Margarita’s dishevelled appearance, her tears and distress, her accusations that I had tried to rape her—or the son who stood before him with a raging erection and denying any attraction for his young and beautiful stepmother? I was nineteen years old, Beth,’ he added hardly as her eyes now widened in shock. ‘An age when a woman’s bared shoulder could give me an erection, let alone a pair of magnificent breasts!’

Beth’s cheeks felt hot with embarrassment at Raphael’s last comment. Shocked by the other things he had told her, but definitely embarrassed at hearing he had been aroused by his stepmother’s advances, in spite of himself. ‘Did your father throw you out?’

‘Of course,’ Raphael grated harshly. ‘And I was only too happy to go, believe me. But not before I had made arrangements for Rosa to live with my sister Delores. My sister was the only reason I had returned to the ranch for as long as I had after my father’s second marriage. Because of Rosa’s slowness Margarita took delight in being cruel to her at times when my father was not looking.’

‘She sounds an absolute bitch!’ Beth muttered disgustedly.

‘Yes,’ he confirmed heavily. ‘Have you heard enough now?’ he rasped scathingly. ‘Can we now both get on with our preparations to leave England today?’

‘Not yet.’ Beth gave a distracted shake of her head. ‘Okay, I accept that at nineteen you probably weren’t mature enough to deal with someone as vicious and manipulative as your stepmother so obviously was, but what about the last fourteen years? Have you been back, explained the situation to your father?’

He