Dark Mirror. Daphne Clair

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ He bent his head, almost as if embarrassed, and rubbed a hand briefly at the back of his neck. ‘It’s...a difficult situation,’ he said.

      ‘You mean, since you lost interest in her.’

      ‘It wasn’t quite like that,’ he said less patiently. ‘Whatever Tansy likes to think, there was never any great love-affair.’

      ‘I see. Just a sordid little encounter or two, a bit of harmless fun?’ Her voice was raw with resentment. It hurt to think he had taken so lightly what Tansy had so generously offered him.

      ‘There was nothing sordid about it,’ he said shortly.

      Tansy certainly hadn’t thought so. She’d thought it was the love-story of the century. ‘And it wasn’t harmless either,’ Fler said swiftly, ‘for Tansy.’

      ‘Look,’ he said, his eyes holding hers. ‘For what it’s worth, I suppose I handled it badly. I tried at first to let her down lightly. It didn’t work. In the end maybe I was too—brutal. What you don’t seem to understand is how unreasonable she was. I couldn’t let it go on. And there was nothing in it. It was all totally one-sided.’

      ‘Are you saying she imagined all of it?’ This was unbelievable. ‘That you never took her out, never touched her?’

      He was silent for a moment. ‘I went out with her,’ he admitted. ‘A couple of times. I didn’t know then that she was a student,’ he told her.

      Fler allowed her brows to rise fractionally in disbelief, but said nothing.

      He said, ‘She looked all of twenty-five when we met. It was a party. We talked. I took her home. The point is—’

      ‘The point is, you don’t want anything more to do with her.’ He was obviously bent on denying any real involvement, any culpability.

      He hesitated only briefly. ‘In a nutshell, yes. But I’d like you to understand—’

      ‘I understand perfectly. You’ve been playing my daughter for months like a fish on a line. Now the game’s suddenly turned serious and you want out! Your career might suffer if this story gets about. You even feel a little—just a little—guilty. Are you married?’ It was a suspicion she’d entertained for some time, been afraid to voice to Tansy.

      He looked startled at that, and angry. ‘No, I’m not married! If I had been I’d never have gone near the girl in the first place.’

      Fler let her scepticism show. His type didn’t change their spots with marriage. He’d probably still be running after nubile students when he was in his dotage, and not able so easily to persuade them into falling in love with him.

      ‘She’s a nice young woman,’ he said quietly. ‘I liked her. But the whole thing got out of hand.’ He shook his head. ‘I think you ought to persuade her to have some kind of counselling.’

      The nurses had suggested it, but when Tansy rejected the idea they hadn’t really argued. The consensus seemed to be that she’d over-reacted and given everyone, including herself, a nasty fright, but that it was unlikely to be repeated.

      ‘Would that salve your conscience, Mr Ranburn?’ Fler asked him. ‘It’s easy for you, isn’t it? Turn her over to other people to pick up the pieces, and find yourself some other poor little innocent whose life you can wreck.’

      He leaned across the small table, the hazel eyes greening with temper. ‘I have not wrecked anyone’s life!’

      Ignoring the denial, Fler went on, her own temper rising, her skin heating and the nerve-ends prickling. ‘Is Tansy the first one to go this far? Maybe I should talk to the university board about your activities with female students. People like you ought to be stopped before they do any permanent damage.’

      ‘I’ve tried to explain,’ he said tightly. ‘But you don’t want to listen—’

      ‘Has it occurred to you,’ she asked him, going much further than she had ever intended, ‘that Tansy might be pregnant?’

      She stopped abruptly there. Until she said it, she hadn’t realised herself that it was a fear that had been lurking at the back of her mind.

      She appeared to have stunned him, too. He stared at her for a second, then gave a harsh bark of laughter. ‘If she is, she’d better not try to lay that at my door!’

      Fler felt a hot thundering of pure fury in her head. But before it could explode into action, he’d pushed himself out of the booth and stood up. Looking down at her, he said, ‘I don’t think I’ve got through to you any more than I could to your daughter. But if you want a bit of advice, here it is. Because I’m just about at the end of my patience with her. Get her off my back!’

      Watching his rapid progress to the door, Fler barely restrained herself from hurling her untouched cup of coffee after him.

      CHAPTER THREE

      TANSY hadn’t objected to Fler’s plan to take her home. She didn’t want to face her flatmates yet, she said shamefacedly. Would her mother go over there and pack up some of her clothes?

      It was only two weeks to the August holidays. Maybe missing that fortnight wouldn’t be too disastrous. If she didn’t go back to university after the holidays, though, she’d have no chance of passing her first-year exams.

      They’d have over a month to decide, Fler thought, looking through drawers in the flat and folding undies, shirts, jeans into a bag. She hesitated over the photograph of Tansy with her father and Fler, and decided to leave it.

      ‘Need any help?’ One of the flatmates peeked round the door. They’d been helpful, embarrassed, subdued when Fler arrived. And anxious about Tansy. That had warmed her, their genuine concern and shock at what had nearly happened. So different, she thought, from Kyle Ranburn’s patent self-interest. ‘We had no idea!’ they’d told her, stricken at their own lack of awareness. ‘Why did she want to do that?’

      Fler hadn’t told them why, respecting Tansy’s agonised plea, ‘Don’t tell them! I feel such a fool.’

      Fler smiled at the girl. ‘I think I’ve found everything she’s likely to need.’

      ‘Don’t forget her diary.’

      Diary? Tansy had never kept a diary before. Fler looked about, and the girl came into the room and plucked a thick, hard-covered volume with a small gilt lock on it from among the books on a shelf over the bed. ‘I think she’d want it. She nearly went spare once when she thought she’d lost it. We finally found it down the back of the sofa. She’d been writing it up in front of the TV. Forgot to take it back to her room. She must have been tired.’

      ‘Thank you.’ Fler tucked the book down into the front of the bag. ‘Do you know where she keeps the key?’

      The girl shook her head. ‘Secret. I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s got it on a chain around her neck.’

      There had been no chain around Tansy’s neck. When she got to the hospital she’d been wearing her watch, a pair of panties and a СКАЧАТЬ