He had looked at her once after he had finished castigating her, and had demanded bitterly, ‘Why? Just tell me why?’
And she had turned her head in stubborn silence, too shocked and numb with the reality of what she had unleashed to defend herself.
‘You’d better go,’ he had told her quietly. ‘Before I do something I’ll only regret.’
And then, as she walked towards the door, sick with shame, trembling with the shock of his angry words, he had added rawly, ‘You just don’t care, do you? You just don’t give a damn…’
She had managed to speak then, fighting back the nervous tremors that racked her to say huskily, ‘Would it make any difference if I did?’
He had looked at her for a long, long time before saying stonily, ‘No… I don’t think it would. I wish you’d never come into my life. Do you realise that, I wonder? Do you realise how much I wish I never had to set eyes on you again?’ he had added viciously, and she had taken those words to bed with her and had known, as she lay there sleepless and cold with shock and reaction, that there was only one course open to her.
One of them must leave, and it couldn’t be Marcus. Her grandfather needed him too much, and so it must be her…
She came out of the past with a start.
Deveril House was in reality more her home than it was Marcus’s, but right from the first moment she had come to live here, after her parents’ death, she had associated the house with him, and therefore she had always felt that he had more claim on it than she had herself.
It was because of that conviction that she had not allowed herself to grieve over it…to miss it. Because of Marcus, she had striven so hard to remain independent of it.
Surely she had achieved that, if nothing else? she reflected with grim satisfaction, refusing to remember her seventeenth birthday party or the kiss that Marcus had given her then…her first truly adult kiss, or so she had thought it at the time. A tame thing perhaps, by modern standards… If she closed her eyes, though, even now she could call back the rough/smooth sensation of his mouth on hers, the tension that had gripped her for that heart-stopping second of time when the pressure of his mouth had changed and she had known, gloriously and triumphantly, that he wanted her.
So much for the folly of youth.
‘I said, how long have you been in contact with Susie?’
She took refuge in feminine vagueness, shrugging her shoulders and saying carelessly, ‘I don’t really know. Does it matter? Quite some time. Long enough for her to feel that she can trust me, obviously,’ she pointed out with delicate unkindness, watching the colour touch his cheekbones as her thrust went home.
‘Where is she, by the way?’ she asked idly, as though unaware of
his anger.
‘She’s out with a friend,’ he told her grimly. ‘What exactly was it she told you that made you come rushing back here, Maggie? Quite a miracle for her to perform. I seem to remember that, when your grandfather died, I put notices in every newspaper and magazine I could find, begging you to return.’
‘That was different,’ Maggie defended herself huskily. ‘Gramps was gone. There was no point,’ she added, unwittingly betraying the fact that she had read his pleas for her to come home. ‘There was nothing I could do…but this is different.’ I’m different, she wanted to add, but the words remained unsaid. To utter them was to court danger, since he might reasonably demand to know in what way she had changed, and she would be forced to admit that it was only now, after ten years, that she felt confident enough of her self-control to be able to return to the scene of her agony.
‘So…you still haven’t answered my question. What did Susie tell you to bring you rushing back here?’
‘I think that’s between me and Susie, don’t you?’ Maggie taunted him, adding, ‘Where’s Mrs Nesbitt, by the way?’
Before he could reply, the door burst open and a stunning brunette burst in. Older than Maggie herself, she had the polished perfection which Maggie automatically associated with someone very much in the public eye and very much aware of herself and her attractions.
It was idiotic to take such an instant and strong dislike to the other woman. Maggie normally liked other members of her own sex, enjoying their company and their conversation, but this woman…perhaps it was something to do with the very hostile way in which she was regarding her, she reflected as the brunette demanded, ‘How is my poor fiancé today, and, Marcus darling, who does that car outside belong to? Don’t tell me you’ve actually found someone to take Mrs Nesbitt’s place? I only hope this one lasts a little longer than the last replacement. You’ll really have to learn to control that temper of yours if…’
‘Sorry, Isobel. Not a housekeeper, I’m afraid.’
‘Oh.’ She turned in Maggie’s direction and studied her coolly, her hand resting on Marcus’s shoulder as she stood beside him.
‘Then who…?’ She paused delicately, eyebrows slightly raised, glossed mouth faintly pursed.
‘My stepcousin, Maggie Deveril. I presume it is still Deveril?’ he asked Maggie in an unexpectedly harsh tone.
His question caught her off guard, shocking her. Did he really think she would have married after what… Abruptly she caught herself up just in time, sensing the traitorous ground lurking beneath her feet. Of course, it was only natural that he might think her married…just as it was equally natural that he should be engaged.
Engaged… She told herself that the sick feeling gripping her insides owed its existence to the past and not the present.
‘Ah, yes, I think I remember you,’ Isobel commented thoughtfully, her eyes narrowing. ‘You left the area rather unexpectedly, didn’t you? You know, darling, you’ve never told me all about that. I do think family skeletons are so exciting, don’t you?’ she asked Maggie, focusing on her again, and then adding with a light laugh, ‘Although when a young unmarried girl leaves home unexpectedly, there is normally only one conclusion one comes to, isn’t there?’
There was a tense pause, and then her own cold, ‘Is there?’ and Marcus’s hard, ‘Isobel, that’s enough,’ both came at the same time.