Sue for Mercy - Veronica Heley Page 0,21
notion that he was being blackmailed. Now when I looked at him I saw a handsome stranger who was also a remarkably good liar.
“Supper won’t be long,” I said. “Why don’t you go and pack? I think I’ll scrap the Russian eggs, though. The mayonnaise won’t come right.”
He reached for me. I stepped back, away into the kitchen, and closed the door. He didn’t follow.
The rest of the supper seemed to be cooking to perfection. I jettisoned the curdled mayonnaise, and started to dish up. When I went back to lay the table, he’d gone. When supper was ready, I went through to tell him. He had just finished packing. By that time my pride had instructed me how to act. I would show him I didn’t care about his other women, and that he meant as little to me as I did to him.
“You didn’t tell me you were engaged to be married,” I said breezily. “We must drink to your fiancée. Does she live in London?”
I expected him to look guilty, but he didn’t. He half-smiled, smothered it, and followed me through to my flat without trying to touch me.
“So that’s what Bianca told you? I’m sorry; I ought to have warned you about her, but I hoped you need never meet. I’m not engaged. I was once — for three weeks, but when Dad was arrested she told me she thought we ought to postpone the wedding for a while. I did the noble thing and offered to release her from our engagement. She said ‘no, no!’, but she didn’t mean it. So I had a chat with her father and said we’d better just forget the whole thing. She was a nice girl, but she didn’t have the guts to last the course. Anything else you want to know about her?”
I took a mouthful of chicken and chewed. I shook my head. Charles sat opposite me as if we were strangers in a restaurant. Usually I laid his place side by side with mine, but tonight I’d put him on the far side of the table.
“Ronald didn’t like her,” he said. “He said I needed an emotional anchor, not a pennant to fly whichever way the wind might happen to blow. Felicity could never do what you have done for me. I can’t imagine her ever offering me the comfort of her body, or...”
“You might have told me. It would have been more open.”
“I didn’t want to tell you anything, you know that. Not until this is all over.”
“But why?” I pushed my plate aside. “Bianca said you were a bit of a rogue where the girls are concerned. She also said you made a pass at her once.”
That ruffled him. “I do not make a habit of hopping in and out of girls’ beds, Sue. It’s happened once or twice — yes. I was always ashamed of myself afterwards, because it didn’t mean anything. As for Bianca...” He checked my face to see if I would take it. “She made a pass at me, not I at her. And I had to decline the offer. That’s partly why she hates me.”
His eyes slid away from mine, and I could see he was nerving himself to hear me call him a liar again. I didn’t. Strangely enough, I believed him.
“All right. I accept that. But she said you were ‘naughty’ over the fraud case, and I know they’re blackmailing you.”
“Yes, and on the other hand, no. I am allowing myself to be blackmailed, if you like, but for an excellent reason.”
“To get at J.B.’s money?”
He didn’t like that. His face tightened up and went cold on me.
“Well what other reason can there be?” I asked despairingly.
“To get Dad out of jail, of course.” He said it as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “Don’t you understand, Sue? He was framed for the fraud case, and the brains behind the frame have just been to see you, to make sure nothing will go wrong with their next job. This time I’m being set up as scapegoat. This time the stakes are higher; before, they played for forty thousand and my father’s firm. This time they are playing for J.B.’s money and his life. They want me to murder him and arrange it so that Julian will inherit.”
I started to cry, partly from shock, partly from relief. I knew I was hearing the truth now. We abandoned the hardly-tasted meal and opened the wine.