Anne Bennett 3-Book Collection: A Sister’s Promise, A Daughter’s Secret, A Mother’s Spirit. Anne Bennett

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СКАЧАТЬ Collingsworth said in a voice dripping with sarcasm. ‘Heart of gold, has our Ray, and a few days ago out of kindness he sold you to me for tonight.’

      ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

      ‘Ridiculous, am I?’ the man sneered. ‘I speak the truth, and I bought you for my own use tonight because you have something that is prized and that I wanted and that is your maidenhead. I take it you are a virgin?’

      ‘Of course I am.’

      ‘There is no “of course” in this business.’ He pressed himself so close to her that he was spitting in her face as he spoke. She noted his eyes seemed to shine with a demonic light as he said in levelled tones that were as cold as ice, ‘And let me tell you another thing: I intend to have that prize that I paid for and you can be accommodating or not. Either way, it makes no odds to me.’

      Molly was so frightened her heart seemed to be jumping about in her chest as she ground out, ‘I don’t think so.’

      ‘Well, I do,’ Collingsworth suddenly bellowed. Rage that he had been duped, made fun of, took hold of him. Someone would pay. Molly was unprepared for both the suddenness and the power of the punch that knocked her to the floor and caused blood to pour from her nose.

      Collingsworth looked at her coldly. He had promised Ray he wouldn’t hurt her physically, for it was well known that he sometimes liked to rough his woman up, and he would have been banned from many a whorehouse for it if he hadn’t been such an influential man, whom they all depended on. He hadn’t had any intention of hurting Molly when he had arrived that night, but that had all gone by the board now. She deserved all he was prepared to mete out to her and he powered a kick into her side as he said, ‘Get to your feet and let’s get down to it because I always get what I pay for.’

      Molly gave a groan as the man’s foot caught her, and she curled up instinctively. Through bloodshot eyes she lay and watched the blood drip from her nose and pool on the carpet, as her assailant said, ‘Get up unless you want some more of the same.’

      She heard his voice and saw the foot raised, and then she saw an old woman as if through a window in her mind. This image was not misty or hazy, though. The old woman’s cold eyes, like Edwin Collingsworth’s, were filled with malice and hatred, and her fists were raised. The image engendered such anger in her that she leaped to her feet and threw herself at Collingsworth with a shriek, like some sort of screaming virago.

      Collingsworth was unprepared, both for the attack and for the strength of the girl, who looked as if a puff of wind would blow her away. He threw her against the wall, but as he came towards her, she kicked him between the legs.

      She had no shoes on, however, and so, although he doubled up at first, he had recovered enough to be after her as she made for the living room. She wondered where Ray was and how long she had been with this mad man, and knew she had to get out of the place, out into the street and shout for help.

      Collingsworth, who had thought Molly would be easily subdued, was taken aback at first and then he seemed to increase in strength. Chairs and small tables were overturned, and vases and lamps crashed to the floor as he crossed the room in pursuit of Molly until he had caught her by the arm and smacked a hard hand across her face so that for a moment she was blinded. In that moment he had her against him, his fingers pulling her knickers to one side. She gave a yelp of terror and punched him to each side of his head with her fists, which were as hard as little hammers. Then she tore herself from his grip, hearing her blouse rip but paying no heed as she made for the door.

      But when Collingsworth caught hold of her again, she felt despair fill her being and she knew this was it. She was spent. He would have his way with her and there was nothing she could do about it because she had no strength left.

      He kicked her to the floor, and she saw he had the heavy base of a table lamp raised to crash down on her head. She dived under a coffee table. Before her were Collingsworth’s legs, and in a split second she had hold of them and jerked with all her might. Collingsworth had been unbalanced, ready to smash Molly’s skull, and before he was able to recover himself he fell heavily. His head hit the table with a sickening thud as he went down so when he hit the floor he was already unconscious, and blood was seeping from a gaping wound, staining the carpet crimson.

      For a moment Molly sat and looked at him. She was petrified and didn’t have a clue what to do, but she knew one thing: if he came to again he would kill her as easily as swatting a fly. She had to get him to the door, bolt and lock it against him and wait for Ray to come home. He would tell her what to do.

      Ordinarily, Molly wouldn’t have been able to move even a man of Collingsworth’s stature, but that night she managed it although she was both sweating and crying with the effort when she eventually heaved him outside the door of the flat. She couldn’t leave him there – he was too close – and she rolled him to the top of the stairs, pushed him with her foot, watched him topple down the first couple of steps and then disappear into the darkness. She heard him hit every step.

      She gave a sudden shiver and realised that, while she was scantily clad, Collingsworth was naked. She ran into the bedroom, collected up his clothes and threw them down the stairs. Shaking from head to foot, she bolted and barred the door behind her. Then, overcome by nausea, she fled for the bathroom where she vomited over and over into the toilet.

      Now that the fight was over, she was aware of aching pain everywhere and she could plainly see why when she stood before the mirror. Her body was a mass of bruises, but her face had borne the brunt of Collingsworth’s anger and she sported two black eyes, her face was smeared with blood from the shattered nose, and her bottom lip was split wide open. She wanted to lie on the floor and weep but she knew that that would achieve nothing, so she forced herself to run a bath. She sank with a sigh into the perfumed waters, knowing everything would sting and throb afresh, but she felt defiled and dirty and she needed to try to wash that feeling away.

       EIGHTEEN

      Molly tossed and turned on the bed, in too much pain and far too upset to sleep, but as she played the scenes over and over again in her head, she became horrified by what she had done and she began to wonder if it had been her fault in some way and if she could have handled it better. The point was, she had drunk too much to behave in any sort of logical way and that was her fault. And was it really necessary for her to push Collingsworth down the stairs, especially as he had already passed out and had a head wound seeping blood?

      She hadn’t been thinking straight. She had just wanted the man as far away from her as possible, where he couldn’t hurt her any more, but what if she had killed him? He was rich and influential, Ray had intimated, and she knew she would never get away with killing or even maiming such a person. What would happen to her when it was discovered what she had done? She ran her trembling fingers around her neck, imagined the hangman’s noose tightening there and felt sick with fear.

      Ray would know what to do when he came back, though she faced the fact he might be less than pleased with her at first, because pulling Collingsworth’s legs from under him so that he was knocked unconscious and then rolling him down the stairs could not be construed as being ‘nice’ to him by any stretch of the imagination.

      But then when she told Ray what Collingsworth had wanted to do, surely he would see that she had little alternative? When he saw the mess that the man had made of her face, she imagined that he would be incensed on her behalf, because she knew that he couldn’t be involved in any of this, whatever the odious man had said. If he had been, wouldn’t he at the very least have СКАЧАТЬ