Love's Duel

Leonie frowned. ‘What arrangements?’

Giles shrugged. ‘The apartment, the car, the monthly allowance. Of course, it will be a bigger allowance than he gave you—after all, nearly five years have elapsed since your affair with him.’

She gasped. ‘You really believe all that rubbish about the car and the allowance?’

He nodded. ‘And don’t forget the apartment.’

‘I never stayed at that apartment. Jeremy may have paid the rent on it, may even have taken other girls there, but I never even saw the place, let alone actually lived there.’

‘The maid said differently.’

‘A maid employed by Jeremy! Don’t you see, it was all made up, to blacken my character even more.’

‘Let’s forget about Jeremy, for God’s sake!’

‘Forget him!’ Leonie echoed shrilly. ‘Do you think I haven’t tried?’ And yet his handsome face was much harder to bring to mind then Giles Noble’s, it always had been; this man’s image was indelibly printed on her memory. ‘I despise him, and I despise you even more for listening to his lies. Now would you please get out of here?’

‘No,’ he replied calmly.

‘I shall scream,’ she threatened again.

‘Go ahead.’

She got no farther than opening her mouth, when his firm lips instantly clamped down on hers. Leonie had never known such faintness, everything started to fade into darkness, her body going slack, and still that mouth continued its punishing onslaught, moving over the softness of her lips with a savagery that bruised.

When she felt she could take no more he at last raised his head, his eyes searching her waxen features, her dilated eyes and shaking body. That she was suffering from a minor form of shock was obvious at a glance, and Giles’s features hardened angrily.

‘You really mean it about feeling sick, don’t you?’ he rasped.

Her breathing was shallow, her eyes dazed. ‘Yes,’ she choked.

‘Sit down.’ He led her over to a chair, forcing her to sit down. ‘Bend down. That’s it,’ he put her head between her knees. ‘All right?’ he asked a few seconds later when she had struggled back up to a sitting position.

She had broken out in a cold sweat now, the shaking was getting worse. ‘Could you please leave me? I’m sure I’ll feel better when you’ve gone.’

‘I’m sure you will,’ he agreed grimly. ‘But I’m not going anywhere just yet. Come on,’ he led her over to the bed. ‘I’ll help you in,’ he rasped as she just stood there in front of him.

Leonie stood motionless as he helped her off with her robe and slipped off her mules, tucking the covers in around her as if she were a little girl.

His thoughts seemed to be running along the same lines. ‘You may only be twenty-two, Leonie, but you’ve done a lot of living in your young life.’

She was in a daze, making no demur as he moved to turn out the light, half expecting the bed to give as he got in beside her. When she heard the door open and close as he left she heaved a sigh of relief, then turned over to sob brokenly into her pillow.

She stayed in her bedroom the next morning, asking Dorothy for the luxury of breakfast in bed. Not that she was particularly hungry, but not eating breakfast at all would cause even more speculation.

The Rolls was still in the driveway when she let herself out of the house at nine-thirty, her intention to go for a walk until Giles Noble had left to go back to London. She couldn’t face him again, not after last night’s insults. To think that he had actually offered to make her his mistress! She still shook at the thought of it.

She walked down the gravel driveway, wearing practical flat shoes, her denims old and faded, her cotton sun-top showing the creamy expanse of her shoulders, finishing abruptly at her waist. She intended cutting across the fields to the river, and would have done so if the plum-coloured Rolls hadn’t come to a silent halt beside her.

Giles Noble leant over and pushed open the passenger door. ‘Get in,’ he ordered grimly.

‘I’d rather——’

‘Get in, Leonie,’ he repeated tautly. ‘We have to talk, surely you can see that?’

‘If it’s about last night——’

He gave an impatient sigh and got out of the car to come round and forcibly push her inside. He was soon behind the wheel again, driving off at great speed.

‘Could you please slow down?’ she finally had to ask, her fingers digging into the edge of the seat as his huge car manoeuvred the small country roads.

His foot at once eased off the accelerator, his shoes of the finest leather, the formal suit he wore in that dark pin-stripe that Leonie remembered so well.

‘Don’t you ever wear anything else?’ she asked without thinking, at once biting her lip. ‘I’m sorry,’ her voice was stilted, ‘I didn’t mean to be rude.’

‘I take it you mean the suit. I have half a dozen made a year for wearing in court.’

‘But surely it doesn’t really show under that black flowing thing?’

He gave a wry smile. ‘That “black flowing thing” happens to be a dignified part of my profession.’

‘Yes.’ She repressed a shiver. The black gown he wore in court had often turned him into a bird of prey in her dreams, the gown appearing as wings, wings he wrapped about her before he devoured her. ‘Whose life are you hoping to ruin today?’ she asked bitterly.

His mouth tightened. ‘The man in question is as guilty as hell,’ he told her grimly.

‘It must be nice to always believe that,’ her mouth twisted. ‘I wonder how many of them were really innocent.’

‘As you were?’ he scorned.

‘As I was. There’s no point in this conversation, Mr Noble. I can’t prove my innocence, if I could I would have done so four years ago. Your friend Jeremy is much more believable. It’s easier to believe a Harley Street doctor than the young girl who imagined herself in love with him.’

‘You didn’t love him at all,’ Giles said tautly. ‘You and your brother used his infatuation with you to try and obtain money from him. How did you feel about seeing Philip Trent this weekend? Did you find you still love him?’

‘I’ve always loved Phil, but not in the way you mean,’ she told him resentfully. ‘Take me back, Mr Noble. I shall pack my belongings and leave immediately.’ Damn the contract, she wouldn’t live through this agony again, not again. ‘You can explain the reasons for my departure to your aunt.’

‘I don’t intend telling my aunt anything,’ he surprised her by saying.

Leonie gave him a sharp, suspicious glance. ‘Why?’

‘I never discuss my cases with her. I never discuss them with anyone.’

‘But surely this is different? Surely—You don’t want to tell her because you still plan to have an affair with me!’ she accused heatedly. ‘You’re hoping to use my past to force me into an affair with you. My God, you’re worse than any criminal you’ll ever meet in the courtroom!’

His mouth twisted. ‘You know damn well that isn’t how it’s supposed to happen, Leonie.’

‘Yes!’ she insisted. ‘But I won’t be forced. No man will ever use me again, not in any way.’

‘Not even Trent?’ he taunted harshly. ‘Didn’t you and he discuss using the same method on me that you used on Jeremy?’

‘You?’ Leonie’s eyes were wide, deep blue eyes the colour of pansies.

‘Yes, me,’ he confirmed tautly. ‘Last night I was just trying to make things easy for you, see how far you were prepared to go at our first meeting. You’re an even better actress now than you were four years ago, your outrage seems quite genuine.’

‘Maybe that’s because it is genuine! You mean you came to my room last night hoping to trap me, trying to make me attempt to blackmail you?’ She was incredulous at the deviousness of this man’s mind.

Giles gave her a sideways glance. ‘Don’t tell me it never crossed your mind.’

‘But it didn’t!’

‘If you had agreed to my suggestion last night I would have been disappointed,’ he drawled insultingly. ‘I have you marked down as much cleverer than that. I was supposed to be really desperate for you before you agreed to come to me.’

‘Come to you…?’

He shrugged. ‘I’m a prominent barrister, third generation. I would want to protect my reputation and family name at all costs. And it would be a fitting revenge, wouldn’t it, Leonie?’

She swallowed hard. ‘Revenge…?’

‘Don’t tell me you never thought of revenge.’ His mouth twisted.

‘Yes, I thought of it!’ Her eyes sparkled with hatred. She had thought of revenge many times, until Tom had reasoned that John Noble was just doing his job, that if it hadn’t been him it would have been someone else. But he hadn’t had to enjoy it, hadn’t had to be quite so cruelly sadistic!

Giles gave a mocking smile. ‘I knew you would. Those huge blue eyes of yours can be so candid on occasion. I saw the hate in them every time I looked at you, saw the anger burning there. You may have changed outwardly, Leonie, assumed a sophisticated veneer, but those eyes are unmistakable. I would have recognised them anywhere.’

‘There’s no reason why you shouldn’t,’ she said tightly, trying to take in all that he was saying.

‘But you didn’t think I would.’

‘I didn’t?’ She wasn’t even listening to him any more, her head was aching, her temples throbbing. She would leave here today, would get as far away from him as possible, and would try to build a life for herself—once again.

‘You said so yourself last night,’ he reminded her. ‘Different name, different look—oh no, my recognising you wasn’t part of the plan at all. I could see the shock in your face when I showed straight away that I knew you were Leonora Gordon.’

‘I was shocked at seeing you, not at being recognised!’

‘Oh yes?’ he scorned.

‘Yes,’ she insisted heatedly. ‘I had no idea you were Emily’s nephew.’

‘You’re saying she never spoke to you about me?’ he derided. ‘Even though I know she takes great pride in telling every new acquaintance of how proud she is of me.’

‘She wouldn’t if she knew what a bastard you are!’

He shrugged. ‘She knows, she just chooses to ignore it. You may have noticed, she sees no wrong in anyone.’

‘I’ve noticed,’ Leonie muttered. ‘But I had no way of knowing that Emily’s nephew Giles, and John Noble, were one and the same man. They certainly didn’t sound like the same man.’ Emily’s glowing accounts of her nephew had no bearing on the man Leonie had met in that court four years ago.

‘It won’t work, Leonie,’ Giles drawled mockingly. ‘I would never get caught in a trap like that.’

‘Too intelligent, I suppose,’ she said sarcastically.

‘You could say that. Of course, I could have let this charming little charade take its course, and then told you the truth, but that would just be a waste of your time and mine. I’ll take you back to the cottage now, I’ll even drive you back to London if you still want to go.’

‘I don’t.’ She suddenly came to a decision. She liked it at Rose Cottage, enjoyed her work, and she loved Emily’s company, so she wasn’t going to be driven away. Tom had taught her to stand firm when she believed in something, and she believed in her right to live her life without interference from Giles Noble.

He raised dark eyebrows. ‘Do I take that to mean you’ve changed your mind about leaving?’

‘You can take it how you like, Mr Noble,’ she said with saccharine sweetness. ‘But I am contracted to work with Emily, and that’s exactly what I intend doing.’ She looked at him challengingly.

‘And if I tell her about you?’

Leonie faced him unflinchingly, suddenly very calm and in control. This man couldn’t hurt her any more, and she intended showing him that. ‘I’m sure that in her usual fashion she’ll skip over the more unpleasant parts and see me only as a girl caught in the force of circumstances. Yes, you go ahead and tell her, Mr Noble. I really couldn’t give a damn any more what you do.’

‘Couldn’t you?’

‘No! If I have to leave this job I’ll just get another one. You can’t touch me any more.’

‘We’ll see, shall we?’ he smiled, a smile without humour, like a cobra about to strike its victim. ‘Yes, we’ll see,’ he repeated softly.

CHAPTER THREE

‘ARE you telling me you’re still there?’ Phil was incredulous when she visited him in London a couple of weeks later.

Leonie gave a light laugh. ‘Yes, I’m still there.’

‘And you’ve seen nothing of Noble since you parted on that Monday morning?’

‘Nothing,’ she shook her head.

Leonie had been surprised by that herself, expecting Giles Noble to keep badgering her until she left. Every time the telephone rang she jumped, every time someone knocked on the front door she tensed, but so far there had been no sign of Giles Noble. And he hadn’t told Emily a thing about them having met before. This uncertainty was worse than anything, but then he probably knew that. At the moment they were having a war of wills, it was all a question of who broke first. Well, it wasn’t going to be her!

Phil raised his eyebrows. ‘That’s rather strange, isn’t it?’

‘I think he’s hoping I’ll just leave.’

‘And you aren’t going to?’

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘Oh, I thought about it, very seriously, in fact. But I’m through running, Phil. If he wants me out then he’ll have to throw me out, literally.’

‘And you think he won’t?’

She gave a half smile. ‘I’m sure of it. He would have done it by now if he was going to.’

Phil shook his head. ‘I’ve a good mind to try something on him just to see what would happen.’

‘Phil!’ Leonie gasped.

He relaxed back on the sofa that he converted into his bed at night. The bed-sitter was infinitely tidier than it had been the last time she had called on him here. And Wanda was noticeably absent too! ‘I wouldn’t really,’ he grinned. ‘Although the way it looks you can’t really blame him for expecting it.’

‘I know that,’ she sighed. ‘And I don’t blame him for that. I just hate the way he tried to trap me into it. The merest suggestion of blackmailing him and he would have had you in prison before you could deny all knowledge of it.’

Phil became serious. ‘I’m never going back to prison. Never!’

Leonie bit her lip. ‘How’s the job going?’ she changed the subject to something less sensitive.

He shrugged. ‘It’s okay. But I’m not going to get very far as a delivery boy.’

‘I thought you always wanted to open up your own restaurant,’ she frowned.

‘I did.’

‘If it’s a question of money…’

‘Of course it’s a question of money,’ he said irritably. ‘I’m not exactly a safe bet for a bank loan.’

‘Tom didn’t leave me destitute, Phil. I could——’

‘No!’ He stood up to pace the room. ‘I won’t accept anything from you.’

She looked bewildered. ‘But I——’

‘Don’t you understand, I’ve taken enough from you already! If I hadn’t interfered you would have had your fling with Lindsay, eventually found out what he was really like, and the affair would then have blown itself out. Instead of which the whole thing was made embarrassingly public, and Noble crucified you.’

She touched his arm as he walked past her. ‘I’m glad I found out about Jeremy.’

‘But I could have just told you about him, you didn’t have to find out that way!’

‘No more recriminations, Phil, please. Now, about this restaurant——’

‘I can’t take money from you, Leonie,’ he told her firmly.

‘But——’

‘I said no!’

‘All right,’ she sighed in the face of his obstinacy. ‘I have to go now, Phil, Emily hasn’t been too well lately, so I told her I would be back early.’

‘What’s wrong with her?’ he seemed genuinely concerned.

‘She’s had rheumatism for years. It gives her a lot of pain, but this week has been worse than most. I’ve had the doctor out, but there’s really not a lot he can do except give her something to help her sleep at night.’

‘Does Noble know?’

Leonie shook her head. ‘She wouldn’t have him bothered.’ Her mouth twisted. ‘She says he’s too busy to be worried with something like this.’

Phil shrugged. ‘No doubt he is.’

‘No doubt,’ she agreed bitterly. ‘Anyway, I must go.’

‘But you’ll come again?’

She smiled. ‘Of course I will. By the way, how’s Wanda?’

‘Very well,’ he grinned back. ‘I’ll have to introduce the two of you some time.’

‘I’d like that.’

‘Really?’

‘Really,’ she nodded. ‘Maybe the next time I come down.’

‘Okay, I’ll arrange it.’

Leonie drove back through the early evening sunlight, feeling more relaxed, the beauty of the evening soothing her. Until this move to Rose Cottage she had lived in town, in Tom’s house, and now she had found that she liked living in the country most of all, enjoyed the slowness of life, the clean fresh air.

Dorothy, Emily’s housekeeper, came rushing into the hallway as soon as Leonie entered the house. ‘Oh, Mrs Carter, thank goodness you’re back!’

‘What is it?’ She was at once concerned. ‘Is Emily all right?’

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.