Marjorie Lewty - A Girl Bewitched (1982) Page 6

  Fury began to stir inside her, like a smouldering volcano. 'Work for you? I wasn't aware that I was going to work for anybody.'

  He started the car and drove slowly down the drive and along the narrow lane outside. At the turning into the main road he braked and glanced briefly at her. 'I understood from Edward that you wanted to give yourself time to learn the marketing side of the business. If so, you will certainly be working for me.' He swung the car round effortlessly. 'Perhaps your uncle hasn't had time yet to tell you about the new set-up of the firm?'

  'Only that it seems you're the fairy godfather who is going to save Fairley Brothers from ruin,' she said nastily.

  'And that doesn't please you?'

  'No,' said Emma.

  'Do you want your family firm to sink without trace, then?'

  'Of course I don't,' she said crossly. .'It's the fairy godfather bit that doesn't turn me on.'

  They drove in silence along the dark, hilly road. In the summer this road between the little holiday town, and the village with its Norman church and its sandy beach and sailing harbour, would be alive with traffic, but in April it was deserted. Suddenly Trent Marston asked, 'How far is this house we're making for?'

  'We're nearly there,' Emma told him. 'We'll be coming into the town in two or three minutes and then the Southall house is up on the cliffs beyond.'

  Abruptly he pulled the car on to the grass verge and switched off the engine and the headlights.

  'It seems that there are one or two things we need to get straight while there's an opportunity,' he said. 'First, for the record, I've accepted the job of straightening things out for your firm. Your uncle has given me a free hand to do whatever is needed to get the firm on its feet again, and I believe I can do it.'

  'You mean it's a takeover?'

  'No.' He moved his shoulders impatiently. 'Of course it's not a takeover. Edward Fairley is the kingpin of Fairley Brothers, I'd have thought you'd know that. Without his expertise there wouldn't be a firm at all. In my opinion he's a near-genius with electronics and he's brimming over with new ideas. We plan to expand from the purely nautical navigation aids the firm is making now, into a much wider market. There's still plenty of scope for new designs in many different fields. It's the marketing side of the firm that's weak, and that's where I come in. I've got all the right contacts,' he added.

  I bet you have, thought Emma. Smug, arrogant brute! But in spite of herself she felt a twinge of excitement. How lovely if Uncle Edwards's work could be given its full value and if the firm could flourish once again as it must have done when her father was alive. If only it hadn't been Trent Marston who was prepared to work the miracle. If only it had been a man she could have trusted and admired.

  'And what about Joe?' she said. 'Joe Kent—our marketing manager. Does he get made redundant? Do you just step in and push out a man who has given most of his life to the firm?'

  He shrugged. 'Without much success, it would seem.'

  'That was exactly the reply I would have expected from you, Mr Marston,' she said icily. 'Now, may we move on, please?'

  He didn't stir. 'Not just yet. There's one other thing we need to discuss.'

  'I can't think of anything I want to discuss,' she said distantly. She looked out of the side window at the gorse bushes, their prickles standing out whitely in the sidelights of the car. Th&t was how she felt sitting beside this man—prickly all over.

  'We have to discuss our relationship if you're going to work for—correction, if we're going to work together.'

  'Our re——' she nearly choked. 'We don't have any relationship, Mr Marston, and I'm not going to work with you!'

  'Your uncle thinks otherwise,' he said smoothly, sitting back in his corner. 'He's been telling me about all the work you have put in so that you can take your place in the firm, probably rise to a directorship in a year or two. He seems to think quite highly of your capabilities.'

  'That arrangement was thought of before you joined the firm, Mr Marston,' Emma said stiffly. 'Things have altered. I accept the fact that you will be much more valuable to the firm than I could possibly be— therefore I step down. To be frank, I don't like you and I couldn't work with you. I needn't explain why, I'm sure you know.'

  'Because of your cousin Lisa, you mean? Are you her nanny?' he sneered. 'Did she come snivelling to you with some pathetic story of my misdeeds?'

  Emma kept her temper with a huge effort, her fingernails digging into her palms. 'As a matter of fact Lisa hardly mentioned you,' she lied. 'I disliked your attitude from the first moment I saw you. But it wasn't until I accidentally witnessed your disgusting performance outside Uncle Edward's study this afternoon that I knew my first impression had been right.' That was quite a sentence to get out. She was beginning to feel utterly exhausted by this confrontation.

  'All right,' he said. 'Point made—you don't like me. I can't say that that exactly fills me with grief. But it doesn't seem a valid reason to disappoint Edward and change all the plans he has for you—and for the firm. There are plenty of business relationships where love is not lost. Sometimes it provides a cutting edge to the proceedings. I guess I like a challenge.'

  She said stubbornly, 'I shan't change my mind.'

  'You'd disappoint your uncle and upset his plans for the sake of a silly little girl who can't bear to be out of the limelight?'

  'Oh!' she gasped. 'That's just the end, that you can say that after the way you behaved to Lisa!' Suddenly she wanted to hurt him as he had hurt Lisa. 'I don't like you and I won't work with you. Is that clear, or are you as stupid as you're callous and conceited and insufferable?'

  She felt him stiffen and heard his quick intake of breath. He sat up as if she had pointed a gun at him and she winced as he took her shoulders in a grasp of steel and wrenched her round to face him.

  'You little bitch,' he ground out between his teeth.

  'Don't you dare speak to me like that or——-' His face was so close to hers that she could feel his breath on her cheek. In the near-darkness she could see the dangerous glitter in his eyes.

  'Or what?' she gasped, struggling to free herself. 'Do you include violence to a woman among your other charming habits?'

  Abruptly he let her go, pushing her away from him, and sank back into his own seat. After a moment or two he said, 'All right, I'm sorry. But just don't go too far, that's all.'

  'That's a warning, is it?' she mocked.

  'That's a warning,' he said grimly, his hand going out to the self-starter.

  As the powerful car leapt forward towards the town Emma felt trickles of fear up and down her spine. Just then she had been helpless in the grip of the most powerful emotion she had ever felt in her whole life. She had wanted to provoke him to anger, wanted to lash out against him. And it wasn't only because of the way he had treated Lisa. Love and loyalty had nothing to do with it, she had to admit. It was the man himself who released some frighteningly primitive urge in her.

  She would have to watch it. She would have to watch it very carefully indeed.

  They drove in silence for the rest of the way, except when Emma provided Trent with directions. Through the quiet little holiday town with its Playland still boarded up, its pier closed. Up the long, steep hill to the cliff-top where rich retired people had built their white, architect-designed homes looking over the sea. Richard had already started getting out plans for a new house for himself and Lisa. Meanwhile, Lisa had told her, they would live with 'Mother.' Emma didn't envy her. Mrs Southall was amiable enough, but accustomed to ruling over her own little empire—her store, her children. But perhaps, Emma thought, Lisa wouldn't mind. She had always been so sweet and compliant. And Mrs Southall was obviously delighted with her new daughter-in-law.

  The party was already in full swing when they arrived, the opulent modern house spilling light from every window on to the lawns and flowerbeds. It was cleverly built into the slope of the ground on the cliff- top and a semi-basement with wide windows provided a long pla
yroom, the whole width of the house. From here came the dull thud of a rockbeat, much amplified.

  'Oh, lord, is it that kind of party?' groaned Trent as they got out of the car.

  'Don't you dance?' Emma enquired. If he didn't then she would know exactly how to keep out of his way.

  'Fortunately I escaped discomania,' he said dryly as they climbed the shallow steps to the wide front door with its ornate brass trimmings and white plaster portico.

  Mrs Southall greeted them in the hall, looking elegant in a low-cut black dress, her fading fair hair pink- rinsed and immaculately coiffured, the orchid she had worn at the wedding pinned at her shoulder.

  She smiled fleetingly at Emma and murmured, 'You know everyone, don't you, Emma?' and then turned a brilliant smile upon Trent. 'So glad you could come along, Mr Marston', she cooed, linking an arm with his and turning him towards the drawing room where bridge tables could be seen laid out. 'I'm sure you won't want to rampage around with the children. Too dreadfully noisy! Now, I've got so many people wanting to meet you——-'

  She led him away, talking gaily, smiling up into his eyes. Good heavens, thought Emma, suppressing a giggle, she's the merry widow, making a bid for the handsome, eligible bachelor. She wouldn't be more than ten or eleven years older than Trent Marston; she had been much younger than her husband who had died last year.

  Good luck to her, she's welcome to him, thought Emma, and escaped down the stairs to the playroom, turning for one last look at Trent's back as he walked beside Mrs Southall, his dark head bent towards her courteously. Oh yes, he would make quite a stir among the young and the not-so-young matrons in the bridge room, with his arrogant masculine charisma. Everything about him—the taut elegance of his body, the lazy grace of his movements, the challenge of those dark eyes—would set pulses leaping; send all the respectable ladies wild with improper yearnings.

  I might have been taken in myself, thought Emma. I might have gone down for the count, like poor little Lisa, if he'd turned his charms on me before I knew the kind of man he really is. What a lucky escape! She was smiling to herself as she went down the last steps into the warm, cavernous darkness of the playroom.

  The atmosphere came up to meet her—the heat and the noise and the shuffle of feet on the wooden floor and the jungle beat issuing from the hi-fi equipment, mercilessly amplified. Oh yes, she could get away from Trent Marston here, it would be easy to hide in the gloom, broken only by the disco lights revolving slowly, changing from red to green, to blue to yellow, shifting over the couples twisting and turning, or locked together and moving sensuously, as the mood took them.

  'Here's my girl.' Jim Bolton's voice, slightly slurred, sounded in her ear. 'I've been watching for you, my lovely. Come and have a drink.'

  An arm close round her waist, he led her through the maze of dancing couples to the far end of the long room, where a table was laid and cans of beer and bottles of soft drinks and Coke and a huge bowl of punch with slices of fruit and cherries and grapes floating on the top.

  Jim scooped out a long glassful for each of them. 'Good show, isn't it? Ken and George rigged up the lights themselves.' He pulled her down beside him on to cushions on the floor, and Emma realised suddenly that she was feeling very tired. But when Jim put an arm round her and drew her towards him she pulled away a little.

  'Ah, c'm on, sweetheart,' he urged. 'Weddings put ideas into a fellow's head.' He buried his mouth in her neck, where the velvet jump-suit was scooped low.

  Emma scrambled to her feet. 'Too early in the evening,' she said, realising with a sinking heart that Jim had already been drinking freely. 'Come and dance.'

  She merged with the couples on the floor, and Jim, protesting, joined her. After a while she managed to lose him. As Mrs Southall had said, she knew everybody there. She was a year or two older than most of them. Lorna and the twins had gathered together their own circle of friends, whether they had been at the wedding or not. But in her velvet jump-suit, cut low and sleeveless, she looked younger than twenty. Ken, cutting in on one of his friends, grinned cheekily at her. 'Sexy, that's what you are, Emma.' His bright blue eyes moved appreciatively over her in the shifting lights. He had none of his brother Richard's seriousness; Ken was a whizz-kid.

  They were all kids, Emma thought, an hour later, beginning to feel a headache coming on. She was tired and she wanted quite desperately to go home. She was dancing with Jim—or rather, they were shuffling round together, and his arms were round her waist, his cheek sagging against hers. She considered trying to sober him up, to ask him to drive her home, but it didn't seem a very good idea. The rest of them had paired off by now. She wondered if she could find a telephone and ring for a taxi, but if she ventured up into the main part of the house she would surely encounter some of Mrs Southall's guests, and that meant seeing Trent Marston again, which was the very last thing she wanted.

  Jim was leaning heavily against her now. She pushed him away a little and put one hand to her throbbing head and thought longingly of slipping into a cool bed and closing her eyes.

  'Mine, I think,' murmured a deep voice close above her. In one swift movement she was detached from Jim, who seemed to dissolve into the gloom, and she found herself in Trent's arms, and moving to the music.

  The sheer physical shock of feeling his hard, taut body against hers after Jim Bolton's slackness left her speechless, her heart thumping. Then she pulled herself together. 'I—I thought you didn't dance,' she said idiotically.

  'Did you now?' His voice was deep and soft, just above her ear, giving the words an intimacy that sent an odd shiver through her. 'Perhaps there are one or two other things about me that you got wrong.'

  Emma was utterly confused. This was the man she hated, that she had been desperate to keep away from, and yet the sensations that were coursing through her as his body pressed against hers were overwhelming.

  'Let's dance,' he went on huskily, his hands moving up and down her back on the softness of the velvet. 'You feel like a kitten, a beautiful strokeable kitten.'

  She groped desperately for sanity. 'I have claws,' she said.

  He rubbed his cheek against her hair. 'Oh, I know all about that. They scratch but don't go very deep. Now, don't talk, just enjoy the dance.'

  He was a wonderful dancer, of course. She had never had a partner like him. They moved together to the languor of the beat, in perfect unison as if their two bodies were one. I must be mad, she thought wildly. I've drunk too much of that punch, it must be more potent than I thought. She ought to pull away from him, but his arm around her was like sprung steel holding her close, thigh to thigh, the soft swelling of her breast against his muscled hardness. She'd been so right about him—he was danger, he was temptation. She had to fight it, she had to.

  Summoning every bit of will-power, she pulled away from him, stopped dancing. He still held her, loosely now. 'What's the matter?' he asked, looking down into her face.

  'I—I——— ' Her voice refused to function. She stared up into the strong, hard face above her own and as she did so a crimson glow passed over it from the disco lights. He looks like the devil, she thought faintly.

  But his voice was unexpectedly gentle as he said, 'You're tired, aren't you? You've had a hectic two days, you need a good night's sleep. Come along, I'll take you home. That's why I came to find you. I've had enough of the skittish ladies in the bridge room.'

  Heaven, she thought, to get home and slide into a cool bed. But to travel back in the car beside Trent? She'd planned to ask Jim to see her home, and now, after the way she had just been feeling, that seemed even more advisable.

  'But—but we can't leave so early——- ' she faltered.

  He led her to the side of the room. 'You just watch us.'

  'And—and I half promised to go home with Jim Bolton,' she said weakly. 'You know—the best man and the chief bridesmaid, it's a sort of ritual that they pair off for the rest of the day.'

  She looked round for Jim and spotted him slumped on
the floor near one of the hi-fi loudspeakers. He didn't seem conscious of the booming sound issuing from it. In fact, he didn't seem conscious of anything.

  Trent followed her glance. 'He won't miss you,' he said dryly. 'Come along.'

  At the top of the stairs they encountered Mrs Southall. 'Emma's feeling all in,' Trent told her. 'I know you'll understand if I take her off home now. All the excitement of the wedding and no doubt a spot of jet-lag too.'

  Mrs Southall's light blue eyes passed over her. 'Poor Emma,' she said coolly. 'Of course you must go home straight away. But there's no need for you to rush away so soon, Trent.' She said his name coyly. 'My chauffeur will see Emma home safely.'

  'Many thanks, but I'll drive her myself.' His smile and his tone were pleasant enough, but somehow he conveyed that any further argument would be quite useless. 'Have you a wrap, Emma?'

  Five minutes later, after thanks and further apologies, she found herself sitting beside Trent, driving back the way they had come.

  Now what? she thought nervously, watching the way his hand rested on the wheel, lightly and yet with complete control. Had he just been making an excuse to get her to himself in the seclusion of his car, to continue what he had certainly started on the dance floor? A tremor ran through her from head to foot.

  They drove through the sleepy little town and up the hill on the other side into the blackness of the country road again, the headlights cleaving a dazzling white path ahead. Trent didn't say a single word until he stopped the car outside the front door of the old grey house, all in darkness except for the light from die hall window. Then he switched off the engine and turned towards her and smiled. 'Delivered safe and sound,' he said.

  'Thank you,' said Emma. That smile was almost more disturbing than the touch of his hands had been.

  They sat looking at each other in the dim silence inside the car. Emma felt her heart thumping against the velvet of her jump-suit.

  Then, slowly, his arm came up and slid along the back of the seat and he leaned towards her. After a moment, when she could have drawn away if she had had the power to do so, his hand dropped to her shoulder, closed round her neck and he drew her slowly towards him.