Buch lesen: «Dark Victory»

CHAPTER ONE

CHESKA sauntered contentedly towards the woodland pool which, from childhood, she had always regarded as her own special place. It felt so good to be home. Especially when the sky stretched above in a cloudless blue, when a warm breeze stirred the leaves in the trees, when the countryside was bright with drifts of wild flowers. She hugged slender arms around herself. It felt so good to be alone in the tranquillity of the morning and, praise be, to have at last escaped from the unfortunate, pressurising, increasingly dangerous attentions of—

Her thoughts and her footsteps came to a full stop. Her contentment vanished. She was not alone. On the far side of the oval pool, a man lay on his stomach, half hidden in the long grass. Cheska’s pewter-grey eyes narrowed. Who was he? What did he want? He appeared to be gazing up the long sweeping slope of green lawns in the direction of the manor house, but why? She regarded him with suspicion and acute distaste. She did not appreciate anyone violating her hideaway. After all, this was private property, she thought indignantly—and it had yet to reach eight o’clock.

Cheska studied the trespasser. Had she stumbled upon a gypsy, intending to poach a rabbit or maybe a wild deer? His thick jet-black hair and the golden skin of his arms made Romany blood a possibility.

Or might he be one of the so-called ‘New Age’ travellers the newspapers had been complaining about, scouting out a suitable tract of land on which his druggy friends could descend in hordes and create havoc by holding an illegal pop festival? Defiant hands were spread on her slim Lycra-clad hips. Over her dead body. Or was he, perhaps, more innocently, a tramp sleeping rough? Or, less threateningly still, a bird-watcher? All four options were dismissed. The tall, athletic figure stretched out on the far side of the sun-dappled water was too well dressed. He might be wearing jeans, but even from her vantage-point Cheska could see that they were clean and well cut, and that the burgundy sports shirt which fitted his muscular torso like a glove was of good quality.

Her eyes drifted back down. His lean-hipped, taut-curved backside was one of the sexiest she had ever seen. On a scale of one to ten, it definitely rated as a ten. Cheska gave her head a little shake. Where had that thought come from? The jet-lag which had kept her tossing and turning all night and had her raring to go at dawn must be befuddling her. She was not in the habit of admiring male bottoms and awarding points—let alone so early in the day—and, instead of admiring his, she ought to be deciding what the man was up to.

As Cheska watched, he slowly tilted his dark head from side to side, as though studying the eighteenth-century stone mansion from different angles, then he lifted a pair of binoculars. Her heart started to race. Oh, lord, what she had stumbled upon was a thief, undertaking a reconnaissance of the house before he broke in and swiped a selection of the family heirlooms! An exceptionally professional thief, she realised with galloping alarm, for a pad had been produced from his breast pocket and he had begun making notes.

With hasty steps Cheska backed out of sight behind the thick trunk of a beech tree. She gulped down a breath. What was she to do? Her instinct was to steal quietly and quickly away before the man spotted her, which, as he was so engrossed in his survey, should be simple. Her brow furrowed. Yet a prompt retreat would mean that, when she telephoned the police, there would be little description to give them—unless she waxed lyrical about his cute rear-end, Cheska thought wryly. But perhaps the thief was a known villain who, if identified, could be shadowed and apprehended. A burnished curl of cinnamon-brown hair was hooked decisively behind one ear. Before making her getaway, she would creep around the edge of the steepsided pool and sneak a swift, discerning sideways look.

After checking that the trespasser remained preoccupied, Cheska left the beech tree and, with stealthy scampering steps, hightailed it to the leafy screen of a rhododendron. She slunk to another bush, and another, and the next. The note-making continued. A few more furtive prowls and she was on the point of taking up her viewing position beneath the convenient canopy of a weeping willow, when her prey reached down into the grass to produce a camera. As he half turned, Cheska froze. Her pewter-grey eyes flew open wide. Her heart thudded behind her ribs. Jet lag must be playing weird tricks again, for the glimpse she had had of the man’s strong, angled profile had made her think…It couldn’t be, a voice wailed in protest inside her head. It is, her eyesight and common sense insisted. That Roman nose and clean-cut jawline are instantly recognisable, even after a gap of five years. When the man twisted his torso and reached down into the grass again, this time to dispense with a lens cap, her fears were confirmed. Her worst fears. Cheska raised a shaky hand to her brow. She had never expected to meet Lawson Giordano, whizz-kid director of television commercials, again, and certainly not in the depths of the Sussex countryside in the early hours of a summer morning.

She stared at the prone male figure. How did he come to be here? she wondered frantically. What on earth could he be doing? Her curiosity received short shift. His activities did not matter. What mattered was that Lawson Giordano had not seen her, so she did not need to meet him now, Cheska thought thankfully. She could, would, creep quickly and quietly away. As he focused the camera she took a blind step in hasty retreat, turned, and felt her flip-flop sandal start to slide out from beneath her foot. Her balance went.

‘Aarrgh!’ Cheska yelped, as in a flurry of windmilling arms, skidding legs and spiralling body she slithered out from the weeping willow, down the bank of the pool and into the dark green water.

Above her, Lawson Giordano’s head whipped round and he stared. He clambered to his feet. ‘Francesca Rider?’ he said, in stunned disbelief. For a moment or two he gawked down at her, and then he started to laugh.

Pink-faced and with untidy clouds of brown hair tumbling over her eyes, Cheska glared. A dry spring and summer had reduced the level of the pond, so the water barely reached her thighs and the legs of her black cycling shorts. She had also, by some miracle, managed to remain upright. And she was unhurt. She swept back her hair. OK, OK, she thought tetchily, her impromptu descent could be construed as somewhat comic, but she resented providing amusement for a man who had once savagely condemned her and then proceeded to exploit her for his own ends. Exploit her ruthlessly.

Cheska folded her arms across her chest. ‘It isn’t funny, she declared, her voice frigid.

Although it required an effort and a moment or two, Lawson Giordano managed to clamp down on his laughter—though a crooked grin annoyingly remained.

‘You think not?’ he said.

‘I do!’ Cheska snapped. ‘And it’s your fault that I fell.’

‘Mine?’

She glowered up at him. ‘I didn’t expect anyone to be here, and—and you startled me.’

Dark brown eyes made a swift but expert appraisal of her slim figure in the Lycra shorts and matching cut-away top.

‘You thought I might be a lust-crazed rapist, scouring the fields for scantily dressed maidens and about to pounce?’ Lawson Giordano suggested.

Cheska’s glower intensified. She had not considered herself scantily dressed—until he had mentioned it. But now she felt like a fugitive from some Las Vegas strip show!

‘You were looking at the house and I thought you might be what’s commonly called “casing the joint”,’ she retorted, and realised he was staring.

Cheska flushed. In folding her arms, she had pushed up the high breasts which sprang from her narrow body and now the honeyed curves seemed in imminent danger of spilling from her low-cut neckline. Hastily dropping her arms, she waded two or three steps across the muddy floor of the pool to the side, but when she reached it she frowned. The bank, which was covered with ferns and stones and yellow wands of loosestrife, was almost vertical. How did she climb up it?

Looming above, Lawson Giordano made a tall silhouette against the dazzle of the morning light. ‘May I give you a hand?’ he offered, in the low, smoky voice which she remembered so well.

When he held down a golden-skinned arm covered with a floss of black hair, Cheska eyed it warily. She did not want to touch him. She did not want to have any physical contact with the man. No, thanks. Never again.

‘I can manage on my own, thank you,’ she informed him, with the grand hauteur of a duchess.

Lawson shook his head. ‘You can’t,’ he said.

After undertaking a more detailed scrutiny of the bank, Cheska gave a silent scream. While she was loath to admit it, he seemed to be right. Her teeth ground together. She not only balked at touching him, she also objected to Lawson Giordano’s taking control of the situation—as he had always been so magnificently in control of situations before. But what was the alternative? She was damned if she would scramble up to him on her hands and knees.

Cheska forced a grit-eating smile. ‘I can’t’ she agreed, and clasped the large hand which he had continued to hold down.

It would serve him right if, instead of him pulling her out, she pulled him in, Cheska reflected, as her rescuer planted his long legs apart and prepared to haul. A dipping would be no more than he deserved and apt punishment, in view of his laughter, and his cruel manipulation of her in the past. Indeed, nothing would give her greater satisfaction than to manipulate him, by jerking at his hand so that he hurtled past her down the bank, to splash headlong into the water. And if he should sink for the regulation three times—tough luck! She had no badges for life-saving.

‘Don’t even think about it,’ Lawson warned.

Cheska was looking at him in astonishment, wondering if she had a plate glass forehead, when with one powerful pull he yanked her out of the water, up the ferny slope and on to the side. Her legs skitter-skattered like pistons until—wham!— she thudded up against the firm-muscled wall of his chest.

Oh!’ she gasped.

In reflex, she clutched at his shoulders, and in reflex his arms went around her waist. Breathing hard, they stood together, body pressed against body, eyes gazing into eyes.

‘You always were a bloody-minded, uncooperative little bitch, and you haven’t changed,’ Lawson said roughly, then his dark head came down, blotting out the sun, and he kissed her.

Taken by surprise, Cheska opened her mouth to protest. That was her first mistake, for, as her lips parted, his tongue thrust between them, a predatory invader. Her second mistake was not to push him away. But how could she, when he had begun a seductive exploration of her mouth, when he was tasting her—and she was tasting him? A clean, male, intoxicating taste which revived all kinds of memories. As the kiss deepened, Cheska’s head started to spin and her knees seemed to buckle. She clung tighter to his shoulders; it was vital if she was to remain upright. But clinging to him had been her third mistake, she realised, for when Lawson drew back a minute or two later he was smiling, a confident, amused, knowing smile.

‘I—I have changed,’ Cheska stammered, needing to break the spell which he seemed to have cast, desperate to stifle the frenetic thump-thump of her heart. Letting go of his shoulders, she placed her arms stiffly down by her sides. ‘I have,’ she repeated, her voice firmer this time.

A brow lifted. ‘You’re no longer susceptible?’

‘Susceptible?’ she queried. To what?’

Lawson traced the tip of a tapered index finger slowly across her bare midriff, leaving a trail of heat tingling in its wake.

‘Me.’

Cheska took a brisk step in retreat. ‘No way,’ she said tartly.

‘That wasn’t the impression I received a moment ago.’

Her fingers curled into balls, their nails biting into her palms. She was furious with herself for having reacted so unthinkingly, so naively—and furious with him for daring to comment on it. It had seemed odd that Lawson Giordano should kiss her, but now she knew why. He had been testing her. He had been checking whether the sexual fire which he had once ignited with such casual ease could still be coaxed into flame. And she had obligingly boosted his male ego by providing the answer!

‘You always were an arrogant bastard and you haven’t changed,’ Cheska declared, in a sharp reworking of his earlier condemnation of her.

At the back of her mind, it registered that he had not changed physically, either. His hair was still black and wavy, worn a mite too long for fashion and curling over his shirt collar. His eyes continued to be heavy-lidded and a lustrous yellow-flecked brown. His mouth remained…well, beautiful. The granite-cut upper lip hinted at imperiousness, the lower was full and sensual. Cheska felt an irritating and totally unwelcome frisson. Five years ago, his dark Latin looks and muscular physique had meant that Lawson Giordano had been almost insolently masculine. He still was.

‘You’re saying you’re not susceptible?’ he drawled.

‘I’m saying that the only reason you weren’t kicked on the shins just now, or kneed in the groin,’ she added, with a razor of a smile, ‘was because you took me unawares.’

Lawson moved his shoulders in a leisurely shrug. ‘I was taught never to contradict a lady—even when she’s lying through her teeth. But what are you doing here?’ he went on, not missing a beat. ‘How come you’re wandering through the woods alone before breakfast, wearing a revealing top,

and’ dark eyes dipped momentarily down to her

hips in the elasticated shorts ‘—no knickers?’

Cheska forced herself to meet his steady gaze with an equally steady one of her own. He might just have got the better of her, but he would not be allowed to do so again. Whatever he said, whatever he did, she refused to be fazed. She would let him know that the gauche, biddable girl of so long ago had become a sophisticated and self-assured young woman.

‘It was hot,’ she declared, tossing back her mane of long brown hair in a couldn’t-care-less gesture.

‘And you don’t wear knickers when it’s hot?’ The corner of his mouth tweaked. ‘Now that’s intriguing.”

Cheska jabbed a hand up the rolling lawn to where the windows of the house reflected the pale yellow of the morning sun. She had absolutely no wish to continue this discussion about her underwear—or lack of it.

I’m here because Hatchford Manor is my home,’ she said.

‘Your home?’ There was a long moment of silence before Lawson next spoke. ‘But I understood that Rupert Finch, the owner, lived there alone. Apart from a housekeeper and her husband.’

‘He does, most of the time—but I arrived back yesterday. Rupert is my brother.’

Lawson seemed to recoil in shock. ‘Brother?’ he repeated.

Cheska cast him a puzzled glance. She had never seen him thrown before, but his voice had been filled with horror and his tense expression made it plain that he was now working his way through all manner of difficulties and doubts. Yet why should the relationship be of any possible concern, pose any possible problem, to him?

‘But he’s Finch and you’re Rider,’ Lawson protested, raking back the strands of black hair which fell over his forehead. ‘Besides, the guy’s in his early fifties whereas you can only be…twenty-five?’

‘Twenty-six,’ Cheska amended. ‘To be accurate, Rupert’s my stepbrother, hence our different names and the gap in ages, but we’re close and I always think of him as my brother.

‘So you’re not blood relations, he said, with what could be recognised as blatant relief.

She shook her head. ‘His father married my mother. He married her late in life after his first wife, Rupert’s mother, died. And my mother was a widow,’ she explained.

‘When we were talking last week, he did make a reference to a “Cheska”,’ Lawson recalled, frowning, ‘but I thought he said you were abroad.’

‘I was, until yesterday. However, I quit my job unexpectedly—’ a shadow crossed her face ‘—and—’

‘You were working abroad?’ he cut in.

‘What did you think I was doing, holidaying at length in glitzy abandon?’ Cheska demanded. ‘Cruising the Caribbean or living it up at a house party on the Côte d’Azur?’

‘Something like that’ His eyes flickered over her. ‘After all, you have a deep tan which couldn’t have been acquired overnight, so’

‘Although I may have tended to swan around once, I now work hard for my living,’ she informed him curtly.

‘But you’re no longer a model?’

‘No, I stopped modelling shortly after we last met. To continue, I quit my job and—’

‘You got fed up with it?’ Lawson suggested.

Cheska’s lips compressed. His question appeared to imply that she was both capricious and fickle.

‘On the contrary, I was deeply interested in what I was doing and I would’ve stayed, but there were—’ she hesitated ‘—problems. However, they were not of my making. Difficult though you may find this to believe, even “wilful little brats” grow up some time,’ she said, tersely recalling a phrase which he had once used to describe her.

Brown eyes locked on to hers. ‘Grow up into what—wilful big ones?’

She glared, so incensed by the insult which hung palpably in the air that she itched to slap his lean face. Slap it hard. Slap it ringingly. But, once again, Lawson Giordano had read what was in her mind.

‘Try it, and you’ll find yourself back in the water,’ he warned.

‘The speed of my departure meant I was only able to phone Rupert at the last minute,’ Cheska said, tautly resuming her recital, ‘so when he collected me from Heathrow late last night he’d had less than twenty-four hours’ notice of my return.’ She gave him a cold, unsmiling look. ‘And what is the reason for your presence?’

‘I’m doing preparatory work before I start filming.’

Her forehead crinkled. ‘You’re filming here, at Hatchford Manor?’

‘I am,’ Lawson said, bending to retrieve the binoculars, the camera and his notebook from the long grass. He straightened. ‘I came yesterday and everyone else rolls up on Monday.’

Cheska’s thoughts shattered. She had been looking forward to some peace and quiet in which to unwind and recover from the episode abroad, but there would be no quiet if a commercial was being made on the doorstep, and no peace of mind so long as the tall Italian remained in her vicinity. None.

‘Rupert never said,’ she objected, a mite pugnaciously.

‘If you only arrived back late last night, I dare say he didn’t have time to get around to it.’

‘I guess not,’ Cheska muttered.

Her stepbrother had not had much opportunity to tell her, never mind the time, she acknowledged ruefully. Yesterday evening, she had chattered nonstop about what had been happening in her life, while the fond bachelor had indulgently listened. As usual. Cheska frowned. Though she had not told him everything.

“The idea of filming offends you?’ Lawson enquired, noticing her frown.

‘No, but ’

‘Your stepbrother’s signature on the dotted line means the arrangement is incontrovertible,’ he rasped, ‘so if you should be toying with the idea of trying to talk him out of it you’re wasting your time.’

‘Am I? Well, let me tell you that if I did try to talk him out of it I’d manage it,’ Cheska retorted. ‘Rupert is prone to seeing things my way.’

‘In which case, I’d sue for breach of contract. However, I’d advise you to remember that what I expect, I get.’ His dark eyes were unblinking beneath straight black brows. ‘Am I making myself clear?’

‘Crystal,’ she snapped.

He hooked his binoculars and camera over a broad shoulder and gestured up the lawn. ‘Then let’s go.”

One of the things Lawson Giordano had got five years ago had been her, Cheska thought bitterly, as she tramped beside him. In his bed. Though he had not wanted her, in the lusting, besotted, longing-to-possess-her sense. Far from it. As, just now, he had kissed her for a reason, so he had made love to her then for a cold-blooded, selfish and deliberate reason. Cheska’s footsteps quickened. She had forbidden herself from thinking about that long-ago night, and how the touch of his hands, his mouth, his tongue had driven her wild, and she refused to think about it now. It was too demeaning, too embarrassing. Of course, then she had been young and gullible, whereas these days she was mature, alert and—

‘Yipes’ Cheska squeaked, as her foot skidded out from under her.

Abruptly finding herself on the verge of performing the splits, she made an instinctive grab for Lawson’s arm. He stumbled, swore, and for a moment also seemed about to fall. Then he recovered his balance and held her upright.

‘Are you accident-prone?’ he demanded, his fingers biting into the flesh of her bare arms, ‘or is doing pratfalls every five minutes your way of pepping up a slow day?’

Cheska wrenched herself free. ‘I slipped because my flip-flops happen to be wet and muddy,’ she informed him frostily.

“Then take the damn things off.’ Lawson looked down at the flimsy sandals. ‘They were never designed for trekking up hill and down dale anyway.’

She scowled. Forget maturity; he was making her feel like a dim-witted three-year-old.

‘I know, but they were at the top of my suitcase and… available,’ she said, in ineffectual protest, and, barefoot now and with the flip-flops dangling from her fingers, Cheska set off again beside him over the grass. ‘Which product are you promoting this time?’ she enquired.

‘Product?’ Lawson repeated, as if he did not know what she was talking about.

She darted him a glance through the thick veil of her dark lashes. ‘It’s—it’s not a car?’

Five years ago they had met because she had appeared in a commercial which he had been directing. It was her one and only involvement in such a thing, and had come about because, at the time, she had been dating the son of a motor dealer. A millionaire motor dealer who marketed luxury cars and who had decided to boost his sales with an advertisement on television.

‘Driven by an upmarket brunette making her way home at dawn after a night of passion with her lover?’ Lawson said pithily. He shook his head. “There won’t be a car in sight, I swear. However,’ he continued, striding lithely uphill, ‘don’t be surprised if you wake up one morning next week to find a chorus-line of ten-foot-high fish fingers shimmying their way through the herb garden.’

Cheska’s march halted and she gazed at him in horror. Built around 1750, and incorporating an earlier Queen Anne house, Hatchford Manor was a striking Georgian property of elegant proportions, graceful lines and tall windows. It reeked history and, surrounded by wooded acres and lush meadows, occupied an idyllic setting. But to use it as a backdrop for some cheeky, chirpy, vaudevilletype commercial would be sacrilege.

‘ You’re kidding!’ she protested.

Lawson slid his hands into the hip pockets of his jeans, an action which contrived to pull the denim tight across his thighs. It was an action which Cheska noticed, though she wished she hadn’t.

‘Why would I kid?’ he enquired.

She started to walk again. He would kid because, for some totally unwarranted reason, he considered her to be a snob and it would amuse him to rattle her.

As though deep in contemplation, Cheska pursed her lips. ‘Y’know,’ she said, shining a defiant smile, ‘on second thoughts, dancing fish fingers sound like fun.’

‘Don’t they?’ Lawson said.

Cheska had hoped to detect a clue as to the validity of his claim, but neither his expression and nor his tone had given anything away. Yet even if he was promoting breaded fish, which had begun to seem more and more unlikely, he would do so with style. Prior to her advertising début, other commercials which he had made had been pointed out to her, and without exception they had been imaginative, well-crafted and by far a cut above the usual. Apparently he had received several awards. She had not seen anything he had directed since, but it would be surprising if his standards had dropped. Lawson Giordano had cared about his work. Cared passionately.

Though if his standards had plummeted she was not bothered, Cheska decided, as they approached the house. All she wanted was for him to do whatsoever he had come to do and leave. Soonest. A commercial should take no more than three or four days, and for that time she would make certain their paths did not cross again. She had not envisaged spending her first days home holed up in her bedroom or going off for long walks, but if that was what was necessary, so be it.

‘Where are you staying?’ Cheska enquired, wondering whether he had based himself in Tunbridge Wells, the nearest sizeable town, or had elected for the more homespun comforts of an Olde English country pub.

‘Here,’ Lawson said.

She shot him a startled glance. ‘In the manor?’ she protested.

How could she avoid him if he was staying in the same house? Cheska wondered feverishly. Spacious and roomy though Hatchford Manor was, it would be impossible. Her mind buzzed. She would get a girlfriend to invite her to stay next week. She would telephone—

‘No, in one of the oast-houses,’ he said, and pointed beyond the ivy-covered walls which enclosed the gardens at the rear of the manor to where two conical red-brick towers with white caps topped a timbered brick building.

“They’ve been newly converted.’ Cheska said, as relief at his being under a different roof flooded through her. ‘When I left two years ago the building was virtually derelict, but Rupert brought in an architect. Plans were drawn up for a pair of semidetached houses and, after endless progress reports, he wrote last month to say they were finally finished and ready for habitation.’

‘You’ve been abroad for two years?’ Lawson enquired.

‘Almost, and I was abroad for a two-year stint prior to that. In the olden days, oast-houses were where the hops used to be dried, she went on. ‘Hops are dried flowers which give a bitter taste to—’

‘Beer. You don’t need to explain, he said. I went to university in Sussex.’

Cheska cast him a surprised glance. ‘I’d realised from your English that you’d probably lived in England at some time, but I had no idea it was in this part of the country. Being a student and then returning to film in the area is quite a coincidence.’ she observed.

Lawson looked straight ahead. ‘Isn’t it?’

Even though he had studied here, for him to have become so fluent and to have lost almost all trace of an accent meant that he must have a natural flair for languages, Cheska reflected, as they walked on. But Lawson Giordano seemed to have a flair for many things—not least lovemaking. Raising her eyes, she watched a pack of black swifts streak across the sky. For years she had obliterated all thoughts of the night they had spent together, and she was not going to resurrect any memories now. ‘ What’s the oast like?’ Cheska asked.

‘There are stone walls, oak beams and thick white carpets. It comes with all mod cons and is very comfortable. Whoever rents it will be delighted, especially as I believe they’re also to be given the use of the manor’s swimming pool and tennis court.’

Her brow furrowed. ‘The oasts are to be rented out?’

‘To holidaymakers.’ Lawson swung her a mocking look. ‘The prospect of hoi polloi setting their grimy feet on her hallowed ground makes my lady shudder?’ he enquired.

Cheska’s lips thinned. He had misread her bewilderment for snooty objection. Once condemned as toffee-nosed, always condemned, she thought angrily.

‘No, but I understood that the oasts were meant to house a couple of gardeners and their families,’ she retorted.

‘Then you understood wrong.’

Cheska was silent and pensive for a moment. Had Rupert said the oasts were for gardeners or had she assumed it?

‘How did your location people discover Hatchford Manor?’ she enquired.

‘They didn’t,’ Lawson said. ‘It was offered to them.’

Cheska’s winged eyebrows soared. Her stepbrother was a scholarly individual whose consuming passion in life was moths and butterflies. As one of the world’s leading lepidopterists, Rupert Finch had identified new species and written several books on the subject. But he rarely took an interest in television, and she was astonished that he should have known of the TV companies’ requirement for locations; let alone felt inspired to submit his home and his routine to the obtrusion of a film crew.