Element Of Risk. Robyn Donald

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ into the nursery and taken them outside for the photograph. Her eyes looked glazed because she had been fighting back tears. The next day she had left the nursing home, and the couple who had adopted her children had come and taken them away.

      How would she have felt if she had known they were Natalie, whom she loved with the hero-worship of a neglected child, and Luke?

      It was better that she hadn’t known. It would never have worked. She’d been far too young to cope with the situation.

      She wasn’t, she thought wryly, coping too well with it now, and it was five months since Frank’s call.

      The colours in the photograph had faded, but she could remember everything about her children, even their faint scent of baby powder and milk and innocence. A resurgence of the old pain gnawed at her. She had never forgotten, not a thing.

      And Luke Dennison was not going to stand in her way. He had money and power, but she had money too, and the power of her threat. Although she hadn’t any intention of contacting the media—she knew how badly hurt its victims could be—it was a threat she could hold over his head.

      She was going to see her daughters.

      Refusing to think of the way he had kissed her, the angry manifestation of his power used to intimidate her, she drank the cup of tea before ringing an Auckland number.

      Frank whistled when she told him what she wanted him to do. ‘I told you not to tell him. You can’t trust people when it comes to children. Any ideas?’

      ‘Try Mrs Bennet, Mrs Philip Bennet. She used to live in Epsom—I’m almost certain it was Owens Road. She’s the grandmother. Oh, and can you give me the name and address of that solicitor you were recommending— the one who specialises in family law.’

      ‘Yup.’ He didn’t say again that he’d told her so, but she heard it in the monosyllable.

      She scribbled down the name and address he gave her, said goodbye and hung up, then turned to look around her. The room was small and sparsely furnished in motel style, with furniture that didn’t fit her long legs and body. The rush of adrenalin that had sustained her so far faded slowly, leaving her melancholy and thoughtful.

      Setting her mouth, she went out into the street and called into the florist’s shop. They weren’t busy so the woman made her a posy of cottage flowers while she waited, looking at her curiously when she thought she was unobserved.

      After Perdita had paid for them she said in a rush, ‘You know, you look awfully like that model—the Adventurous Woman.’

      Perdita gave her a warm smile. ‘I’m retired, now,’ she said.

      The woman’s eyes widened. ‘You came from around here, didn’t you?’

      ‘I used to spend holidays here with my cousin.’

      ‘Mrs Dennison at Pigeon Hill.’ She sighed. ‘That was a tragedy. She was a lovely lady.’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘Oh, well, you must be noticing quite a few changes in the last ten years.’

      Perdita smiled again. ‘Quite a few. The place has grown.’

      ‘Are you planning on living here?’

      Until that moment the thought had never occurred to Perdita. She said vaguely, ‘No, I don’t think so,’ but as she walked out of the shop the idea took root and on the way down the hill to the cemetery it flourished. Nothing would give her greater pleasure than to live close to her daughters.

      But would it be fair to them?

      And how would Luke deal with that? At the thought of his reaction her skin prickled. He was a bad enemy.

      The little graveyard had served the district well for over a hundred years. Perdita walked across newly mown grass sheltered by the huge old puriri and totara trees that made a dense barrier around the perimeter. It was very quiet and still.

      Natalie’s headstone was plain and austere. With wet eyes Perdita read that she was the beloved wife of Luke, loved mother of Olivia and Rosalind, aged thirty-seven years.

      Stooping, Perdita put her flowers with the others there. Death was so final, so impersonally unfair, when it carried off those who were young and good and happy.

      She turned away, only then seeing through the sparkle of tears the tall, powerful figure of the man who had made Natalie so happy. Damn, she thought, suddenly exhausted by emotion. Why did he have to come here now?

      Head held high, chin tilted, she waited beside the grave. He’d see the results of her grief, but she wasn’t ashamed of it.

      His face was set in lines of harsh restraint. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’

      She said, ‘I brought flowers.’

      He closed his eyes as though she couldn’t have said anything more painful. On a note of bitterness she finished, ‘I loved her too, Luke.’

      ‘Yes, I know,’ he said heavily, looking down at the bunch of cottagey flowers, bright cornflowers and spray carnations in a froth of white gypsophila.

      ‘She was so kind to me,’ Perdita said.

      He jerked his head away but she saw the flash of naked emotion in his pale eyes. Gripped by compassion, she touched his arm. He had rolled up his sleeves, so her fingers were pale and slender against the tanned forearm with its light dusting of hair. The heat of his skin burned through barriers she hadn’t been aware of. Something moved deeply inside her. Snatching her fingers away, she had to resist the temptation to cool them in her mouth.

      Hastily she went on, ‘She taught me how to dress and how to behave, that I wasn’t strange because I liked to read. In a funny sort of way she gave me my career. If she hadn’t taken me to Clive’s that Christmas to buy my clothes he wouldn’t have recommended me to the model agency. My life would have been as narrow and circumscribed as my mother’s. Natalie gave me everything, and she did it with such grace and empathy. She never made me feel that I was a gawky nothing.’

      ‘She groomed you to take her place,’ Luke said bitterly. ‘I wonder what she’d have thought of that.’

      His words drove every vestige of colour from her face. Instinctively she stepped back, casting a swift, horrified glance at the mute grave.

      His mouth curled into a mirthless, wolfish smile. ‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘She can’t hear you. She’ll never know that you betrayed her love by seducing her husband. She’ll never know that the children she adopted and loved so much were yours and mine. She’s dead, Perdita, and you and I are left to wonder just what would have happened if she hadn’t died. Because you’d have come back just the same, wouldn’t you?’

      Perdita’s lips trembled. ‘Yes.’

      ‘And created even more damage than you did when you crawled into my bed that night.’

      She shook her head, but he went on relentlessly, ‘Why did you do it?’

      ‘I told you. I was asleep when you came to bed. I didn’t expect you home that night,’ СКАЧАТЬ