‘That made it worse,’ she whispered. ‘Agonisingly worse! To be so blissfully happy with you and yet to know that I was with you only in order to save Harford! I felt so guilty about it—but I couldn’t tell you. How could I? Because I wasn’t brave enough! I couldn’t bear to have you look at me and know what I’d done, what I’d stooped to! And it wasn’t only you I felt guilty about.’
Her voice dropped even more, became even more strained. ‘I felt so guilty about my grandmother! There I was, so blissfully happy with you on Santera. I’d just abandoned my grandmother! When I got that phone call from her carer, telling me she’d had a sudden deterioration and was sinking fast, it was like a knife in my heart! While I was with you my grandmother had given up the last of her will to live—I’d abandoned her when she was at her weakest! I was with you and my grandmother was dying! If I had stayed at home with her she might never have deteriorated like that—’
Her eyes flew open. ‘Guilt—guilt—guilt! It’s all I could feel! About you, about my grandmother—however I twisted and turned. Guilt, guilt, guilt!’ She gave a long, exhausted sigh. ‘When you arrived at Harford the day of her funeral, and threw in my face what my father had said to you, I couldn’t defend myself. I was exactly what you said I was. And there was no way out of it. No way.’
She inhaled heavily, lifting her head to look at him. ‘Except to try and make amends to you in the way I did. It had been trying to save Harford that had made me do what I did. So giving you Harford was the only way I could try and clear up the mess I’d made—salve my conscience. Absolve me from the guilt I felt.’
She fell silent, just staring at him. Drained. He went on standing, just looking at her.
‘Guilt,’ he said. ‘That’s a word you use so much. But I am amazed …’ He paused, then continued. ‘Amazed you even know what the word is. His eyes were resting on her, completely unreadable. ‘It’s a word that seems totally and completely unknown to your father!’
His eyes flashed suddenly, and Flavia felt herself reel at the fury in them.
‘My God, I always knew the man was unscrupulous—his business dealings showed me that! But to do what he did to his own daughter! And then—’ his voice twisted in disgust ‘—to prate to me and pretend he doted on you!’
She gave a painful shrug. ‘It was part of the act he always put on when he got me to go up to London—he’d lent me money for a hip operation for my grandmother, and in return I had to go and stay with him sometimes, act as his hostess and all that. I hated it!’
‘That’s why you were so hostile and prickly all the time?’
She nodded. ‘Yes.’
‘Especially to me?’
‘Yes.’
‘Because your father had made it clear you were supposed to be “nice” to me?’
‘Yes.’
She was answering monosyllabically because it was all she could do. She could feel the tension ratcheting up in her. Feel his dark eyes resting on her. Unreadable—so unreadable. She wanted out of here. There was no purpose now—none at all—in being here any longer. She’d said everything to him—confessed everything to him. He was free to go now—surely he was free to go? There was nothing more to confess.
Nothing more?
She felt the accusation swirling inside her—whispering, dangerous.
Liar …
No! There was nothing more she was going to confess to him! Dear God, she’d laid bare everything—the sordid truth of her relationship with her father, what he had got her to do and how he’d got her to do it. Told him about how twisted up she’d felt about her grandmother—about the time she’d spent with him on Santera! There was nothing else to confess to him—nothing!
But still that voice inside her whispered—liar …
He was speaking again, the words brushing like acid against her defenceless flesh.
‘And so had it not been for your father’s manipulation of you—had it not been for your concern over your grandmother—you’d never have had an affair with me? Even if your grandmother hadn’t been old and frail and dependent on you, you’d never had had an affair with me? Would never have had anything to do with me? Would have been totally indifferent to me.’
‘Yes.’
‘Liar.’
Who had said the word? Him or her? She stared at him.
‘Liar,’ Leon said again softly. ‘If you had met me with no connection to your father, and if you had had no responsibilities towards your grandmother, what would you have done?’
His voice was changing, sending ripples of electricity trickling along the endings of her nerves. She could feel her pulse beating—insistent, strong.
‘I’ll tell you what you would have done, Flavia.’
He stepped towards her, cupped his hands around her face. She could feel her skin flush with heat.