Buch lesen: «Haunted Dreams»

CHAPTER ONE

‘LET’S get married, Em!’

‘Sholto!’

The soft gasp was incredulous, more horrified than delighted. The man eavesdropping couldn’t help smiling, although he had been irritated when he heard the other two walk in here. They had no idea he was there, of course. The room was shadowy, just one lamp lit on a small low table behind him. He had a headache threatening; light made it worse, as did the constant babble of voices, the throb of music, in the party going on outside. That was why he had retreated into this room, which was his study. As the host he ought to be out there, talking to people.

Moving warily a fraction, he could see the intruders in a mirror on the wall above him.

They still hadn’t noticed him; he had his back to them and was hidden by the deep leather armchair he sat in, for one thing, and, for another, they were far too absorbed in themselves.

He could only see the boy in profile, but the girl was facing him; he saw the dim light glimmering on sleek brown hair, on a string of pearls around a pale, slender throat, on wide, startled blue eyes.

‘I’m serious! I’m crazy about you, you know I am—oh, come on, Em, say yes!’ The boy was excited, a little drunk, his voice furry, thickened. ‘We can get engaged tonight…Announce it here, tell everyone…That would make them all sit up!’

He had shifted, coming full-face. Their audience realised then that this was no boy. He recognised him—he should have picked up on the name at once; it was hardly a common one. Sholto Cory must be in his twenties, surely? Much older than the girl with him, anyway. Blond hair, blue eyes, a fresh complexion, he was attractive and lively, and led a busy social life. The youngest son of a Scottish family with land, but not much money, he was lucky enough to have brains. He had gone into banking and was doing well, but there was a question mark against him in the mind of the man watching him. Was Sholto tough enough to claw his way to the top?

The watcher’s narrowed grey eyes moved to assess the girl again. He was sure he had never seen her before. Small, slender, with a fall of straight dark brown hair, well-brushed and shining, a cool oval face, and big, blue, dreamy-looking eyes with incredibly long dark lashes, she wasn’t pretty, certainly not beautiful, and wore very little make-up, compared with some of the other female guests tonight. From the look of her, she had only just left school. Pale pink lipstick on her mouth, a dusting of powder on her small nose…Those lashes were real, and she wore no eyeshadow.

It surprised him that Sholto Cory should have fallen for a girl like this—he would have expected Sholto to go for something more obvious, a glitzy type. Sholto must have better taste than he had ever suspected.

But the girl had a sort of radiance; her nature shone in her face, in her gentle blue eyes, the sweet curve of her mouth. Her party dress was a pansy-blue silk, demure, almost old-fashioned, but it suited her perfectly, and the cut made him suspect it had been designed for her by someone very clever and very expensive. He even thought he could name the designer—her clients tended to be conservative and very rich—which meant that this girl must come from a wealthy family. Did that explain Sholto’s interest?

His mouth twisted wryly. Or am I just too cynical? he wondered.

‘You’re not serious, Sholto!’ the girl was saying.

‘Of course I am!’ Sholto retorted, sounding impatient, then dived at her and began trying to kiss her.

‘Oh, don’t!’ She wriggled away, shaking her head. ‘Sholto, I can’t…I’m sorry, I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but I really can’t…I do like you, you know I do, but marriage…No, I’m not ready to get married yet.’

‘We don’t have to get married for ages! We could just get engaged.’

‘If we get engaged they’ll all start planning the wedding, and before we know where we are they’ll fix a date and…Oh, I can’t, Sholto!’

‘I thought you loved me!’

Sholto sounded as if he might start crying, and the girl heard it, looking up at him, her lower lip caught between two rows of small white teeth.

‘I’m sorry…Oh, poor Sholto,’ she said unhappily.

The man eavesdropping couldn’t help smiling again, but Sholto was not amused. She had hurt him—and now she was making it worse by sounding sorry for him!

He went red and grabbed her by the shoulders, pushed her backwards until she met the wall, held her there with his strong, slim body and began to kiss her angrily, bruising her mouth.

She tried to fight him off, but Sholto was stronger; his hands tightened on her, his fingers digging into her soft skin.

‘Don’t, Sholto! You’re hurting me…’ she cried in a smothered voice, a sob in her throat.

The man in the armchair hadn’t meant to intervene. In fact, he was surprised to find himself on his feet, but he didn’t stop to think about what he was doing. He was across the room before they heard him coming. A tall, hard man, he took Sholto by the neck as easily as if he were a puppy and flung him aside.

Sholto fell against the door with a loud crash. ‘What the hell…?’ he spluttered, recovering almost at once and leaping back towards the other man.

At that instant the older man flicked down a switch on the wall and the chandelier in the centre of the room flooded them all with blinding light.

Sholto stopped dead, his indrawn breath very audible. ‘Sir!’ He turned white.

The other man ignored him; he was looking at the girl, who was silently crying, tears rolling down her face.

‘Are you OK?’ he asked her gently.

She didn’t answer, just put her hands over her face, trembling so much she had to lean on the wall to stay upright.

Sholto stammered, ‘I h-had no idea you were in here, sir. I’m s-sorry if we intruded, we thought the room was empty.’

‘Clearly.’ The voice was clipped, curt, the man’s lips barely parted to let the word out. ‘Go back to the party, Cory,’ he added.

Sholto looked relieved and gabbled, ‘Yes, sir, of course. Come on, Em!’

The other man’s voice cracked like a whip. ‘Leave her here—she can’t go back to the party in that state!’

Sholto hesitated, reddening, met the hard stare of grey eyes and almost ran out of the room, the heavy mahogany door closing behind him with a solid sound.

Pulling a clean white handkerchief out of a pocket, the other man put it into the girl’s hand.

She whispered, ‘Thank you,’ and dried her face, blew her nose, gave him a fleeting glance through those long, long damp lashes, her eyes dark blue with distress and embarrassment.

‘I’m sorry we disturbed you.’ She began to move sideways towards the door. ‘I’ll leave you in peace.’

He put a hand out to stop her, not touching her but barring her way. ‘I shouldn’t go back just yet. Give yourself a minute to calm down before you have to face the others.’

‘I am really perfectly well now, but thank you for being so thoughtful.’ The grave courtesy was touching; a child playing at being grown-up. How old was she? he wondered. And who was she?

‘We ought to introduce ourselves,’ he said. ‘My name is Kerr.’ He watched her, wondering how she would react when she realised who he was. ‘Ambrose Kerr.’

The girl’s head jerked up, the blue eyes wider than ever, and he noticed how clear the whites were around the sky-colour of the iris; he was reminded of the blue and white sheen of early Chinese porcelain. She stared at him and this time really took in what he looked like, her gaze searching his face. ‘Oh,’ she said huskily, then, thinking aloud, ‘This is your house, then!’ Her fine dark brows met. ‘It’s your party,’ she worked out, looking shocked. ‘Oh. That’s why Sholto looked so horrified.’

Ambrose Kerr’s mouth twisted in sardonic amusement, remembering Sholto’s face. ‘Yes, I don’t imagine he was pleased to see me.’

She looked up at him, frowning. ‘You should have let us know you were in here as soon as we came in!’ she reproached, and he gave her a wry look.

‘I apologise, but it all happened so quickly—you came in without warning, and before I could announce my presence Sholto proposed, and I didn’t like to interrupt and ruin what could have been a magic moment.’

The dry tone made her turn bright pink. ‘Oh…you heard that?’

His grey eyes were amused. ‘I’m afraid so. Very reluctantly, I assure you.’

She gave a long groan. ‘Sholto will want to die when he realises! Oh, poor Sholto. And he was so thrilled to get the invitation to your Christmas party; he said it was a tremendous compliment to get one.’

He held a party for his staff every Christmas, at his impressive, Nash-designed home in Regent’s Park, within a mile of the city headquarters of the bank he ran. He didn’t draw up the list of guests himself—the invitations went out on the advice of the senior staff, so that the chairman could meet promising newcomers and assess them in a social situation, and meet again older members of the staff he did not normally come in contact with. Ambrose Kerr knew that they all hoped the party would give them a chance to catch his eye and impress him, and he could imagine how Sholto Cory’s heart must have sunk when he recognised him a few moments ago.

‘Oh, dear,’ the girl said, frowning at nothing, talking in a low, worried voice, as if to herself more than him. ‘I feel worse now, but how was I to guess he would propose? Out of the blue, like that?’

Ambrose Kerr watched her, fascinated by the changing expressions on that oval face. She showed everything, didn’t she? Colour swept over her face all the time—now pearly white, now carnation-pink…and those big eyes were revealing too, giving away all her thoughts and feelings. He had never met anyone so transparent, so unprotected, so vulnerable. She shouldn’t be let out on her own, he thought; this was not a safe world for innocents, she could get hurt, and he felt a strange pang at that idea. He wasn’t usually so protective in his reactions; it startled him to feel that way about this girl. Why had she got under his skin? he wondered, staring at her.

‘How long have you been seeing Sholto?’ he asked.

She didn’t need to think about it. ‘Since September the third,’ she said at once, and she was smiling suddenly, her eyes bright with memory, making him wonder exactly how she did feel about Sholto Cory. Maybe she liked him more than she realised?

‘We met on a river-boat,’ she said. ‘Going down the Thames to Greenwich on a rainy Saturday; it poured, all day. Everyone else was terribly cross; they were soaked to the skin and some of them had come dressed up in such pretty clothes. They huddled in the bar, drinking, and looking really fed-up. But Sholto was such fun, he made me laugh all the time. We got the giggles and that made everyone else get even crosser.’

It sounded very uncomfortable and far from fun. Ambrose gave her a dry look. ‘What on earth were you doing on a river-boat on a rainy day, anyway?’

‘Oh, didn’t I say? It was a birthday party for Sholto’s cousin Julia. I went to school with her, that’s why I was invited. It was the first time I’d met Sholto, though. He asked me to go riding with him the next morning; it was a Sunday and he wasn’t going to work. He said he would book us a couple of horses from a stable in Epping Forest, and he’d pick me up and drive us out there—it was only a half-hour drive from where I live. He said it was bound to be fine next morning, after all that rain, by the law of averages, and he was right. It was a glorious autumn morning, all the trees in the forest were turning yellow, and we had a wonderful ride. The leaves kept falling all around us, like golden confetti.’

‘It sounds very romantic,’ he said drily. In fact, it sounded as if she did like Sholto rather more than she realised. Sholto might have been a little too precipitate but perhaps she intended to marry him in the end? It wasn’t his business, he knew nothing about her—it didn’t matter to him whether or not she married Sholto Cory.

But his frown deepened, carving heavy lines in his brows, lines which had a permanent look, as if he frowned a good deal, thought the girl, watching him. Not because he was bad-tempered, she decided, her eye wandering over the rest of his strong, controlled face. There was a faintly sardonic humour about his eyes, a warmth to his mouth—no, he didn’t look bad-tempered. He must have a lot on his mind all the time, though.

She knew from Sholto how important he was, how much power he had; she had been curious about him for ages, and now she was impressed—who wouldn’t be?

‘And you’ve been seeing Sholto ever since?’

‘Well, we’re in the same crowd, we see each other at the same parties and so on…yes…’

‘But you weren’t expecting him to propose?’

‘It never entered my head. We barely——’ She broke off, a vivid red. ‘Well, I mean…I’m not…We aren’t… We never…’

He was filling in the blank spaces, his dark brows raised. ‘You aren’t in love with him?’

Just as obviously, they had never made love either; apart from the odd kiss, he suspected. That was what she couldn’t bring herself to say. She’s a virgin, he thought, looking into those blue eyes, startled. As rare as a unicorn these days. I don’t believe it.

‘How old are you?’

She gave him a stricken look, obviously understanding why he asked the question.

‘Twenty,’ she said half-defiantly. ‘Twenty-one in a few months. On the second of April, actually—I just missed April Fool’s Day.’ She laughed, but Ambrose didn’t.

He felt a strange stirring inside his chest, as if he had swallowed a bird that was trying to escape, wings fluttering against his ribs.

I must be sickening for something, he thought—maybe that headache is a symptom of something worse on the way? The last thing I need is to go down with the flu, especially of the virulent kind.

The silence that had fallen had made the girl look nervous. Noticing this, Ambrose said idly, ‘Has Sholto been your only boyfriend?’ and then wondered what on earth he was doing, asking this total stranger such a question. Serve him right if she slapped his face or walked off in a huff.

She gave him an even more startled look, very flushed, and opened her mouth to answer.

Ambrose quickly said, ‘Sorry, not my business, of course.’

‘Well, no, it isn’t,’ she said quietly. ‘And I shouldn’t have talked about Sholto behind his back, especially to you—he wouldn’t like it.’

‘No, of course, you’re quite right. I’m sorry,’ he said gravely.

Sholto must be worried stiff in case he had bitterly offended the very man he most wanted to impress. Ambrose Kerr felt a twinge of pity for him. This wasn’t Sholto’s night, was it? And he must have hoped it would be! He had probably planned that proposal, had wanted to do it here, so that he could announce it tonight, in front of the most important people at the bank!

He was probably hanging around outside, watching the door to this room, waiting on tenterhooks for her to come out so that he could pounce and find out what had been said about him in here.

‘Please…’

Ambrose looked down at the girl, who gave him a pleading look.

‘Yes?’

‘Please, could you forget you saw us? That it ever happened, I mean? You won’t let it influence you? Against Sholto, I mean…That would be so unfair.’

Still speaking gravely, he promised, ‘His career won’t suffer. Don’t worry.’

Looking at him uncertainly, she asked, ‘You promise?’

‘I promise,’ he said, and smiled at her suddenly, making her blink with surprise at the charm in that smile.

Charm wasn’t the first thing you thought about when you looked at Ambrose Kerr. He had an air of authority, calm self-assurance. He was a big man, broad-shouldered, tall, his body fit and powerful. His grey eyes made her shiver a little when they weren’t smiling. For all that charm, she didn’t think it would be wise to make him really angry. No wonder poor Sholto had looked witless when he recognised him.

Sholto was always talking about him—he admired him from a distance, because of course he didn’t know him, had never met him before tonight. Mind you, nobody seemed to know much about Ambrose Kerr, Sholto said.

He had come out of nowhere, shooting across the sky of the business world like a comet over the past decade. He had no family connections, no history he talked about, and people were far too nervous of him to go on asking questions he made it plain he didn’t want to answer.

He had an American background, but he didn’t have an American accent. He looked Mediterranean, if anything, with olive skin, close-shaven tonight along that tough jaw; his hair was dark too, smooth, a glossy blueblack in this light, brushed back from a widow’s peak, but with a silver streak at the temples.

She could see why he impressed Sholto so deeply. He impressed her. Her nerves rippled; no, it was more than that—he…She frowned, searching for the right word. Disturbed, she thought; that was it. He disturbed her. In fact, being with him was like standing on the very edge of a volcano. You were always aware of depths you couldn’t see but which you sensed were explosive and potentially deadly.

‘I really must go,’ she said uneasilv.

‘You haven’t told me your name yet’

‘Emilie,’ she said, and spelt it out. ‘Emilie Madelin.’

The name meant nothing to him. He repeated it, to memorise it, and at that instant the telephone on the library table began to ring. Ambrose frowned; he had been expecting the call tonight, another reason why he had come into this room—to wait for it.

‘I’ll have to take that—excuse me for a moment…’

He had meant her to wait, but as he picked up the phone the girl took the opportunity to slip away before he could stop her, murmuring politely, ‘Thank you again…’

The heavy mahogany door closed behind her.

Staring at it, Ambrose spoke into the phone curtly. ‘Yes?’

‘Ambrose?’

‘Hello, Gavin. How did it go?’

‘Like a dream. We’ve got him; everything’s in place for the kill. You can close in at the board-meeting on Thursday.’

Gavin Wheeler’s voice was excited, a little thick, as if he had been drinking, and no doubt he had. Gavin drank far too much, especially when he was coming to the end of a particular project.

Ambrose never drank with him, which, he knew, Gavin resented. From the occasional curious remark, Ambrose knew Gavin suspected him of being a reformed alcoholic, which was ironic. Ambrose’s childhood had been made miserable by an alcoholic father who was violent when he was drunk and morose when he was sober. That was why Ambrose himself only drank the occasional glass of wine, on social occasions, and no spirits at all, and never drank when he was alone. But he had never talked to Gavin about his fatherAmbrose wasn’t giving Gavin any power over him, if he could help it. He did not entirely trust Gavin; in fact, Ambrose did not trust anyone unreservedly.

Coolly, Ambrose said, ‘Good work, Gavin. Sure Rendell doesn’t have a clue what we’re doing?’

‘Not unless someone has told him since this morning,’ Gavin said, laughing. ‘I’ve personally talked to all the shareholders; their shares will change hands on Thursday, too late for George Rendell to guess what’s going on. Our friends on the board all agree that he’s too old for the job now. He should have retired long ago.’

‘If he’d had a son he would have done, no doubt,’ Ambrose said. ‘It must have been a terrible blow to him to have no heir.’

‘Don’t waste any pity on the old man; he has plenty of money to make his retirement comfortable,’ Gavin retorted.

‘It is still going to hit him hard; his life is invested in that company.’ Ambrose rather liked the old man, and was sorry for him, but the company was going downhill when it should be doing well in the current climate, and, with the bank’s money invested, it was his duty to make sure their money was safe.

‘He’d have to retire soon, anyway,’ said Gavin indifferently. He didn’t care two pins about George Rendell—he barely knew him. Gavin didn’t work at the bank; he was directly responsible to Ambrose, who kept him moving between the bank’s clients, doing deals, arranging take-overs, finding out information and researching possible mergers. Gavin was a clever accountant; he had a cold heart and a cool head and the temperament to enjoy following a difficult trail to track down a target.

‘He isn’t a friend of yours, is he?’

‘Not a personal friend, but he has been a client of the bank for a long time.’ Ambrose was irritated by the question. Personal feelings couldn’t come into the way he dealt with clients. The bank’s money had to be safeguarded, that was his job, and they had invested quite a sum in George Rendell’s company.

George Rendell’s family had been making paper for over a century and had several mills in Kent and Sussex. Two years ago George had asked if he could borrow money with which to update machinery, and Ambrose had agreed, but although George had kept up the monthly repayments, a large amount of the money was still outstanding and the company’s audit last year had revealed that, far from an improvement in sales, there had been a falling-off since the new machinery was introduced. Ambrose had come to the conclusion that the management was set in a rut, starting at the top, with George Rendell himself. He was nearing seventy and had no son to take over, allowing him to retire. The company was ripe for take-over. It was in the bank’s interest to arrange one with a client firm, safeguarding the bank’s investment.

‘The company should be making twice the amount of product; the whole place needs a good shake-up,’ Ambrose said. ‘OK. So when do you fly back?’

‘Ten tomorrow.’ Gavin had been up to Scotland to see a big shareholder in Rendell and Son who was prepared to sell to their prospective buyer for the firm.

‘You’ve got your secretary with you?’

‘She’s here right now,’ Gavin said, laughing in a way that told Ambrose that the two of them were in bed together.

Gavin always had affairs with his secretaries; he chose them for their looks as much as their brains, although the girls always had both. Gavin expected his secretary to work hard, to be ultra-efficient, as well as good in bed. They never lasted long; about a year was the usual time one stayed with him. Ambrose wasn’t sure whether he sacked them or they left, but they kept changing.

Well, he’s good at his job, I don’t have to like him, thought Ambrose. The way he lives is none of my business.

‘Well, work on your report with her during the flight back,’ he said coolly. ‘Get her to type it up as soon as you arrive, and have it on my desk before five tomorrow.’

‘OK. Will you be around when I arrive?’

‘No, I have meetings all afternoon, but I’ll be back by five. I’ll see you then. Goodnight, Gavin, and thank you.’

Ambrose hung up and looked at his watch. The party would soon be over, his guests would start drifting away in half an hour; he had better get out there and circulate for the last few moments.

As soon as he opened the door he was engulfed by people eager for a chance to talk to him. He was just working out how to escape again, when he was rescued by Sophie Grant, one of his senior stock-market experts. She joined the circle surrounding him, waited her moment, and then asked him to show her his latest prize orchid in the heated greenhouse behind the house.

Several others clamoured to see it, but Ambrose explained politely that there should never be more than two people in the orchid-house at a time.

‘It uses up too much oxygen,’ he assured them.

As he and Sophie walked off she laughed softly. ‘What a smooth liar you are!’

Ambrose gave her an amused look. ‘An essential tool in the banker’s weaponry. And it’s true—it isn’t a good idea to have too many people in the orchid-house at one time. Thanks for rescuing me, anyway. Do you really want to see the orchids?’

‘Of course I do! They fascinate me; there’s something luscious and terrible about them. They’re so beautiful, yet they look as if they might eat people.’

Ambrose gave her another sideways glance; there was something orchidaceous about Sophie: she was beautiful and looked as if she might eat people—men, anyway! She had thick, white, perfect skin, dark, gleaming eyes and a ripe, full red mouth. Her body was just as extravagant: ultra-female, rounded, sensual, almost defiantly flaunted in the clinging black satin backless dress with the neckline plunging between her full breasts.

They had had an affair briefly, two years ago. Ambrose had been attracted, even fascinated, for a brief time but had soon realised that he didn’t like what he found under the come-hither smile and the desirable body. Sophie was ambitious and hard-edged; there was no emotion in their lovemaking, apart from lust, and Ambrose wanted far more than that from the woman in his life.

He had discreetly backed off, gradually stopped ringing her, asking her out, and Sophie had accepted it without a word. He was grateful to her for that. He’d been afraid she might make a scene, try to hold on to him. He was convinced she cared no more for him than he did for her, but he also suspected she had been hoping to marry him. He had money and social cachet, and Sophie wanted both. But she hadn’t fought for him. She had behaved impeccably. He had promoted her a few months later, not a reward for good behaviour, simply that her tact and discretion had proved to him how valuable she could be to the bank.

‘How’s Gavin doing on the Rendell project?’ she asked, when they were in the hot greenhouse looking at the massed orchids. He had been collecting them for some years, but lately he no longer found them exciting, and was considering selling them to the friend who had talked him into having his own orchid-house.

‘Everything’s set for the board-meeting on Thursday.’

‘Good,’ Sophie said, her eyes gleaming. ‘I know I don’t usually sit in on board-meetings, but could I come along on Thursday?’

Ambrose frowned. Sophie was the executive responsible for dealing with the Rendell account, admittedly. In fact, looking back, he seemed to recall it had been Sophie who first suggested that they should get someone else in to run the company.

‘I don’t think that would be appropriate, do you? Aren’t you related to the Rendell family, Sophie?’

She gave him another of her cat-like smiles. ‘My mother is old George’s cousin, but our side of the family have no money. We see very little of the mill people; we aren’t good enough for them.’ She gazed at the rich patina on a purple orchid. ‘Gorgeous thing,’ she said in a soft, creamy voice. ‘What a pity they don’t have any scent.’

What was she thinking about? Not the orchid, Ambrose decided, watching her. Whatever it was, that smile made him uneasy. It made no difference to him whether or not she liked her Rendell relatives—his decision had been based purely on financial grounds—but maybe he shouldn’t have given that account to her to manage. He hadn’t realised at the time that she had any connection with the Rendells; George himself had mentioned that to Ambrose some months back.

The heat in the greenhouse was beginning to make his shirt stick to his back and sweat was trickling down his neck.

‘We had better go back to the party,’ he said, making for the door into the house.

People started leaving once he reappeared. Ambrose stood by the front door, shaking hands with departing guests; when Sophie said goodnight he lightly kissed her cheek, and she gave him a tilted, cat-like smile.

‘Lovely party, Ambrose. You made us all feel so welcome—you’re good at that.’

He heard the sting under the sweetness; he smiled back at her without warmth.

‘Thank you. Goodnight, Sophie.’

Sholto had left much earlier; he had said goodnight without meeting his host’s eyes and rushed off, alone. Presumably the girl had gone home already, Ambrose had decided, but a few minutes later Emilie Madelin came along the panelled hall towards him, her hand threaded through someone’s arm in an intimate, confiding way.