Penny Jordan - Penny Jordan's Crighton Family Series

‘So’s blackmail,’ Luke countered tightly, ‘and as for my kidnapping you...we’re lovers...an item...an accredited couple...remember?’

The aggressively angry way in which Luke was driving the car caused Bobbie to be thrown back against her seat, the jolt making her gasp for breath, but it wasn’t that that made it impossible for her to respond to Luke’s taunt. She was still in shock from hearing him accuse her of wanting to blackmail Ruth.

‘You can’t do this, Luke,’ she warned him, but the sideways glance of derision he gave her made her heart bang heavily against her chest.

‘Who’s going to stop me?’ he scoffed. ‘Your partner in crime?’ He shook his head and laughed mirthlessly. ‘I think not, and besides, you didn’t leave me much option. After I’d heard what the nasty, cold-blooded little pair of you were planning, I knew I had to act swiftly to protect Ruth.’

Since that one statement encompassed three errors on which she urgently needed to take issue with him, it was, as Bobbie was forced to acknowledge later, rather odd that it should be the least important of them she should protest to him about first, telling him shakily, ‘We are not little and I resent your use of that kind of demeaning and discriminative language, especially when—’

‘Oh please,’ Luke interrupted her savagely. ‘Spare me at least the politically correct whinge. My God, you really are in a class of your own, aren’t you?’ Luke breathed aggrievedly. ‘You haven’t a scrap of conscience about what you were planning to do, the hurt you were about to inflict, and yet you’ve got the gall to come on to me about calling you little...for all the world as though you’re the wronged party.’

‘I am,’ Bobbie insisted fiercely. ‘And how dare you talk to me about conscience. You must have deliberately listened in on our conversation. A private conversation...’

‘Only accidentally,’ Luke told her tersely. ‘I wanted to make a phone call of my own and had no idea the line was already in use until I picked up the receiver—’

‘At which point any normal, decent person would have replaced it,’ Bobbie rebuked him smartly, ‘not eavesdropped.’

‘For Ruth’s sake, I had no other option,’ Luke returned grimly. ‘And thank God I did. How much were you intending to blackmail her for? Not that it matters—be it one penny or a million pounds, the concept is still the same.’

‘We were not planning to blackmail Ruth,’ Bobbie denied angrily. ‘You’ve got it all wrong.’

‘No, you’re the one who’s got it all wrong,’ Luke replied acidly. ‘Just how wrong you’re about to find out....’

They were heading for Chester, Bobbie noticed. Inwardly she was quaking with apprehension and a sick sense of aching disillusionment.

Why on earth did she have to be such an idealistic and romantic fool? Now was quite definitely not the time to have herself mentally and emotionally confronting the fact that a small, deep and very secret feminine place within her had hoped against hope that if Luke were to be told the truth he would instantly and unhesitatingly share her feelings and not just share them, but also want to champion them, to champion her, she admitted; to love her so unequivocally and totally that he immediately and completely understood the complexity of her emotions.

But then, of course, Luke did not love her, did he? And if she was honest with herself, she had already known that.

‘Where are you taking me?’ she demanded as she firmly closed the door on her foolish dreams.

‘Somewhere where you won’t get the chance to put your nasty little plan into action—where you won’t get the chance to make any contact with Ruth at all, somewhere where I can keep an eye on you until I can make arrangements to get you sent back where you came from.’

‘What! Sent back...? You can’t do that.’

‘No? Even in this country we can and do deport undesirable aliens.’

Undesirable aliens! Bobbie took a deep breath and then counted to ten before saying coolly, ‘I appreciate that your massive ego, your superiority complex and sense of justice give you the delusion that you can do whatever you like, Luke, but unfortunately for you and fortunately for me you are just as subject to the laws of the land as I am myself and not even you can have me forcibly imprisoned or forcibly repatriated just because it’s what you want.’

Luke gave her a look that turned her blood to ice as he warned her, ‘Don’t tempt me. If that’s a challenge you’ve just issued, then consider it taken up. The prison I have in mind for you may not be Chester gaol but rather my flat, and as for your repatriation, well, let’s just say I am sure I shall be able to think of some way to encourage you to want to return home....’

Bobbie dared not look at him.

‘You must think a lot of Ruth to go to all this trouble on her behalf,’ Bobbie offered shakily.

‘Yes, I do,’ Luke agreed calmly, ‘but it wouldn’t matter who you were trying to blackmail. My reaction would be the same. If that’s the kind of behaviour you’ve been brought up to think of as the norm, then no wonder Ruth dumped your grandfather.’

Bobbie stared at him in silence for several seconds, not because shock had deprived her of the ability to respond but because of the sheer weight and intensity of her fury.

When she did speak, she spaced her words carefully and slowly, reminding herself that there was nothing to be achieved in doing what she most wanted to do, which was to scream at him and beat her fists against his chest as she forced him to take back his insults.

‘My grandfather and my parents,’ she began and then had to stop because her voice had started to tremble so much her mouth could barely shape the words. ‘You aren’t fit to be in the same room with them,’ she told him shakily when she could speak. ‘To breathe the same air...to exist in the same universe.’

‘Abused children often display an intense degree of loyalty towards their parents. It’s a phenomenon social workers often remark on,’ Luke said brusquely. ‘Apparently it’s because they don’t know any other way of relating, any other kind of relationship.’

‘My parents...my family, are not child abusers,’ Bobbie denied furiously. ‘You don’t understand....’

‘I understand perfectly,’ Luke corrected her flatly. ‘After all, I heard your sister telling you that Ruth had to be made to pay.’

‘To pay for abandoning our mother, yes,’ Bobbie protested, ‘but not to pay in financial terms. What we meant—’

‘Don’t waste your time lying to me, Bobbie,’ Luke warned her coldly as he negotiated a difficult turning.

They were in Chester now and Bobbie realised with a sinking heart that there was every possibility that he would be able to carry out his threat and incarcerate her in his flat. But he couldn’t keep her there for ever. Sooner or later he would have to leave her on her own and when he did...

Fiercely she started to make plans. If it came to the worst, she would just have to phone Sam and...

She tensed as she realised that Luke had stopped the car. Instinctively she reached for the door but Luke gave her a warning look and told her softly, ‘I shouldn’t bother making a run for it if I were you. I used to play rugger and I promise you that if I have to I’m quite willing to bring you down in the kind of tackle that could do a lot of expensive damage to those perfect teeth of yours.’

‘My teeth happen to be my own, thank you very much, and not the result of some expensive cosmetic dentistry,’ Bobbie responded sharply, tilting her chin at him so that he would know that she wasn’t in the least bit intimidated by his threat.

Even so, she decided that it might not be a good idea to risk humiliating herself by trying to run away from him, remembering the ease with which he had constrained her earlier and, of course, the street was empty, which meant that there was no one she could call out to for help.