Diana Hamilton - Threat From The Past

THANKFULLY, Meg appeared at that moment, wheeling a heated trolley along the passage, but Selina gave him one look of seething, burning hatred before leading the way into the dining-room. She had been right to be afraid of being alone with this devil in human guise; the first encounter with the burning brand of his mouth had been enough to make her lose all control. But there would be no second encounter; she would make absolutely sure of that!

Seating herself, her nostrils flared with a tiny surge of anger. She’d told Meg not to go to any trouble but she’d gone ahead and pulled out all the stops. Despite the adequate central heating a huge fire burned companionably in the grate, the overhead spots doused to leave a couple of rich-shaded table lamps to shed soft intimacy over the panelled room, and pure white candles lent extra grace to the fine Irish linen, old silver and exquisite crystal set before them.

If Meg had deliberately set out to impress Martin’s wealth and standing on the stranger then she couldn’t have done better. It was just a pity that the last person that should be impressed was Adam Grab-What’s-On-Offer Tudor!

‘The beef Wellington and the greens are on the trolley,’ the housekeeper informed her sniffily, handing out the steaming bowls of walnut soup. ‘Trifle, cheeseboard and fruit on the sideboard. I’ll bring coffee later.’ Sighing gustily, she stumped out of the room, leaving a positive miasma of disapproval behind. Selina smothered a sigh of her own.

Meg could have served cottage pie and fresh fruit in the more informal breakfast-room, which had been the kind of fare Selina had had in mind when she’d told her not to go to any trouble. But she’d perversely put in as much effort as she could, making a martyr of herself to stamp home her disapproval of the fact that Selina was entertaining at all as firmly as she could.

But Meg’s long-endured vagaries were pushed to the back of Selina’s mind because she could feel that intense, wicked green gaze on her—it prickled right through her skin. But she didn’t look up from her soup.

After that degrading scene back in the drawing-room she would have demanded he leave, had ached to do so, but she still had to discover why he had wanted to see Martin in the first place. Raising her head at last because no problem went away if you went on ignoring it, she met his eyes across the table and found a tone of cool enquiry.

‘Suppose you tell me why you’re here.’ And wished in a moment of childish panic that she didn’t feel so deserted. She couldn’t blame Vanessa for wanting to stay with Martin until she was properly satisfied he was on the mend, but Dominic needn’t have fled back to London in such a bone-breaking hurry...

‘But you know why I’m here.’ The smoky voice was velvet-soft, the green eyes glinting with triumph. ‘I wanted to get to know you better, and so far I’ve enjoyed the progress we’ve made.’ He had finished his soup and was pouring Martin’s prized and classic burgundy into Waterford glasses, and Selina stopped pushing the croutons around her bowl and laid down her spoon.

‘What did you want Martin to do for you?’ she asked tightly, ignoring his unforgivable reference to the way he’d kissed her, the way she’d allowed it, actually encouraged it.

‘It’s not a question of what he can do for me, rather of what I can do for him.’ He was still smiling softly, his voice gentle, as if they were discussing something pleasant and normal and not something devious and sinister, something that had given Martin a heart attack. And the insouciant devil was moving around, collecting the soup plates and reaching for the beef and vegetables, the hot plates from the trolley. As if he owned the place, as if he had rights. And Selina, provoked beyond caution, snorted,

‘Do you really think I’m crazy enough to believe that?’ She would have liked to punch the facts home, call the monster’s bluff, let him know that the thought of a visit from him had put an elderly man into hospital. But she couldn’t allow herself that luxury. She had to prevent him from finding out where Martin was, prevent him from turning up at the sick man’s bedside.

So she contented herself with staring at him from furious yellow eyes, her arms crossed over her chest, and the fury changed to resentment as, taking over, he calmly carved slices of meat, added a generous portion of vegetables and handed her the heaped plate. Which she ignored.

And then, settling down to his own meal, he asked levelly enough, ‘So what have you been told about me?’ He speared a piece of tender, pastry-enclosed beef with his fork and sipped Martin’s best burgundy with evident appreciation. ‘From your reception of me, I take it Vanessa’s been getting at you, giving her distorted version of my character. And I don’t suppose Dominic had any hesitation over putting his oar in the water, either.’

A dark eyebrow rose with half-contemptuous amusement and she scornfully gave him full marks for trying, for taking the game right into her court, and told him frankly, ‘I was told that you are Martin’s son. That Martin supported you both until your mother died. By which time you were eighteen and able to fend for yourself.’ She pushed her untouched food away and picked up her wine glass, hoping the alcohol would calm her stretched nerves. ‘The general opinion is, I believe, that you would have liked to receive Martin’s financial support indefinitely.’

She hoped she had put that delicately enough. She had no wish to pussy-foot around, because from what Dominic had told her, and from her own knowledge of the effect his intended visit had had on her uncle, he deserved all he got. But she had already had one extremely graphic demonstration of his reactions to the way she had deliberately angered him before and wasn’t angling for a repeat performance.

‘I see.’ He laid down his cutlery and gave her an unreadable look. ‘And did either of them mention my mother—apart from the fact that she’d died?’

Selina quickly buried her nose in her glass. Dominic had. But again, to reveal she’d been told that Adam Tudor’s mother—and why, dammit, did that name seem oddly familiar?—had been promiscuous, had taken advantage of a much younger man’s inexperience, had tried, throughout the rest of her life to bleed him dry, and how her son, after her death, had tried to do the same, had come looking for charity, would definitely bring his own special brand of retribution down on her head.

So she held her tongue but it appeared he could see directly inside her head because his face closed up, his eyes narrowing to slits as he repeated, ‘I see,’ forcing the words through his teeth.

‘I’m sorry.’ Her mouth tense, she got to her feet. The polite form of words was so patently untrue that she felt like a fool for saying them. And she added quickly, ‘You must see that in coming here you’re wasting your time, upsetting the family.’ That was as near as she could get to the truth, without letting him know what he had done to Martin, and her eyes went cold. She had only one thing on her mind now—to get rid of him, once and for all.

But Adam had other ideas. He stayed exactly where he was but his eyes followed her tall, swaying figure as she walked to the door, and the heavenly voice was cutting as he told her, ‘Have you stopped to ask yourself why Vanessa and Dominic painted me black? And don’t pretend they didn’t. Your reception of me alone pointed to that. And did you wonder why the whole damn lot of them seemed to have disappeared off the face of the earth?’ Then, as sanguinely as a prowling cat, he was on his feet, his mouth barely moving as he commanded, ‘Come back here. I haven’t finished with you yet, not by a long way.’