Love's Duel
‘Some women!’ Phil scorned. ‘The only one who seems to have really suffered out of this is you, and you were completely innocent of the whole thing.’
‘I wouldn’t call your time in prison getting off lightly.’
‘I deserved it. But it’s taught me something.’
‘What’s that?’ she asked eagerly.
‘Never to get caught again.’ He laughed at her expression. ‘That was a joke, Leonie.’
She gave a wan smile. ‘It’s never seemed particularly funny to me.’
‘Or me,’ he was serious now. ‘I really have learnt my lesson. I’d been playing on the edge of crime for some time before Lindsay stopped me. Going to prison was a very unpleasant experience, and I don’t intend ever going back again.’
‘What will you do about work?’ she asked worriedly. ‘You said you were unemployed.’
‘I’m starting a job on Monday. They got it for me through the prison, so my employers know my background.’ He shrugged. ‘If they’re willing to give me a try then I think I owe it to them to do my best. I’ll be a success, Leonie, you’ll see.’
‘If you need money——’
‘No! No, I have enough.’ He smiled. ‘Just because you’re rich now it doesn’t mean I’m willing to let you help me out. I have to stand on my own two feet, even if I fall over a couple of times.’
‘I’m not rich, Phil,’ she smiled at the description. ‘But if you need help——’
‘I don’t,’ he told her firmly. ‘I’m starting the way I mean to go on, with a clear conscience.’ He grinned suddenly. ‘But I’ll let you buy me lunch if you like.’
‘I like,’ she smiled back.
They relaxed with each other much more over the meal, laughing together as they used to, and Phil made Leonie feel young again, taking her back to the happy childhood they had shared together.
‘When did you start drawing?’ Phil asked as they finished their meal. ‘I remember you were always good at art, but you never mentioned taking it up as a profession.’
‘That was Tom’s idea. He was an art teacher at one of the colleges, and he encouraged me to develop what talent I have.’
‘It seems to have paid off.’
‘Yes.’ Much more successfully than she had ever imagined.
‘What’s Emily Dryer like? God, do you know I can remember reading her books way back in my childhood,’ he said ruefully. ‘I used to like the way the kids in her stories could always get filthy dirty and get away with it. Mum and Dad used to give me a good hiding if I came home like that.’
‘Only because you used to do it all the time,’ Leonie smiled. ‘And Emily is the kindest woman I ever knew. Next to Mum she’s the woman I love the best.’
‘Then she must be nice.’
‘She is,’ she confirmed huskily. ‘A little on the forgetful side now, but absolutely full of energy. She leaves me standing when we go for a walk together, and at the end of the day when I’m ready to collapse she’s still going strong. The woman she used to work with died, and for a while Emily stopped working. But she has too much talent to stop for ever, and so six months ago she took up her pen again. She had two other girls helping her before me, and neither of them worked out, but when we met everything seemed to click into place.’ Leonie shrugged. ‘I’m happy there.’
‘And you’ve put the past behind you?’
She repressed a shiver, the past had never seemed so painful as it had been today. First there had been the fact that Emily’s nephew was a lawyer, and then seeing Phil again after all this time, both had reminded her very strongly of the past, of the nightmares that were never far away. The past could never be forgotten, it could only be accepted, and she was nowhere near accepting it yet.
‘I’m happy,’ she evaded a direct answer. ‘And especially so now I have you back,’ she smiled at him. ‘Can we spend the evening together, or are you going out?’
‘With Wanda, you mean?’ he grimaced. ‘She thought you were another girl-friend this morning. It took some time to convince her you were my sister.’ His face darkened. ‘I could have killed Noble for implying any other sort of relationship between us!’
Leonie had forgotten that, forgotten John Noble’s implication that her relationship with Phil was more than just that of stepbrother and stepsister, the way he had hinted at them being lovers and preying on the affections of a besotted man. God, she thought, that man’s mind was worse than a sewer, it was totally warped.
‘So we can spend the evening together.’ She pushed all thoughts of John Noble to the back of her mind, wishing she could forget about him altogether.
‘And tomorrow too, if you like,’ Phil took his cue from her.
In the end they spent all of the weekend together, and Leonie was glad to discover that Phil’s veneer of toughness was only skin-deep, that underneath he was still her much-loved brother. By the time she drove back to Kent she was a lot more relaxed, and Phil seemed more inclined to seeing her again.
She was surprised to see the plum-coloured Rolls-Royce still in the driveway when she arrived back at Rose Cottage late on Sunday evening. She smiled to herself as she remembered the way she had looked for Emily’s cottage when she had come down for the first meeting, only to discover that the ‘cottage’ was a huge house, albeit surrounded by a veritable orchard of roses. Emily was an eccentric, and if she wanted to call her home Rose Cottage then that was exactly what she could call it.
Leonie let herself into the house with her own key, hearing the murmur of voices in the lounge. She would have to go in and say hello to Emily’s nephew, although after that long drive she wasn’t really in the mood to be sociable.
Emily came out of the lounge, closing the door behind her. She smiled as she saw Leonie. ‘There you are, my dear. I was getting quite worried about you. Did you have a nice time with your brother?’
‘Lovely, thank you, Emily.’ She slipped off her jacket, the navy blue trousers and blouse she had worn for the drive still looking bandbox fresh. ‘Have you had a nice weekend?’
‘Oh yes,’ Emily glowed. ‘I’m just going to make some coffee, would you like some?’
‘Let me do it,’ Leonie instantly offered.
‘Certainly not,’ Emily replied indignantly. ‘I’m perfectly capable of making a pot of coffee. You’re as bad as Giles! I’m not incapable, you know. He says I should slow down, that I work too hard.’
‘Well, you do,’ she agreed gruffly, knowing Emily wasn’t going to like her saying it.
‘I have to work, it’s what I like doing best.’ She sighed. ‘Now I’m not going to let you upset me. Go along into the lounge and introduce yourself to Giles.’ She marched off into the kitchen.
With a shrug Leonie turned to open the lounge door. Emily’s last words had bordered on an order, and it sounded as if her nephew might have upset her once today already. Emily was a dear, but she didn’t like criticism of any kind, especially about the hours she worked. Obviously nephew Giles had touched upon this sensitive subject.
A man rose from the chair beside the fire as Leonie entered the room, a man who left her gasping, a man who was shockingly familiar, a man with the cruellest eyes she had ever seen, and that man was John Noble!
CHAPTER TWO
‘YOU!’ His eyes went black with recognition, his expression one of unsuppressed fury.
Leonie was deathly white, almost a sickly grey. It was like all her nightmares coming true in one terror-stricken minute. The chances of her ever meeting John Noble again had been highly unlikely, and yet here he was in Emily Dryer’s lounge, could in reality only be Emily’s dearly loved nephew Giles.
He looked much older, the wings of grey hair at his temples more pronounced, although at thirty-nine this was only to be expected; his eyes were more flinty than she remembered, his mouth more cruel, his face all strong angles, his body lean in the dark grey trousers and black fitted shirt. He was tall and powerful, and he towered over Leonie like an avenging angel.
He took a step towards her, the savagery in his face increasing as she flinched away from him. He caught hold of her arm, his fingers digging painfully into her flesh. ‘What are you doing here?’ he demanded angrily. ‘What are you doing in my aunt’s house?’
Her hope that perhaps there had been some ghastly mistake, that perhaps this wasn’t nephew Giles went crumbled into the dust. Nephew Giles and John Noble were the same man! If she could have said anything at all in that moment it would probably have come out as an hysterical laugh, but her voice seemed locked in her throat, only her eyes able to mirror her fear and shock, her utter terror.
‘Answer me, damn you!’ He shook her hard, uncaring of the bruises he was inflicting through the silkiness of her blouse.
Whether she would finally have been able to speak she never afterwards knew, for at that moment Emily bustled into the room, the tray of coffee in her hands. For all his fury John Noble was still able to move forward and take the tray from his ageing aunt, placing it on the low table that stood in front of the sofa.
‘I wasn’t long, was I?’ Emily chattered as she poured out the three cups of coffee. ‘Have the two of you introduced yourselves?’ She looked up enquiringly.
Leonie swallowed hard, sure that she must look terrible. ‘I——’
‘No,’ John Noble said tautly. ‘No, we haven’t.’ His expression was grim as it raked mercilessly over Leonie’s slender figure.
She twisted her hands nervously together under that insolent appraisal, wishing she could tell what he was thinking, but his thoughts were as enigmatic today as they had been in court four years ago. If anything he looked even more haughty, more arrogant.
‘This is my nephew Giles, Leonora,’ said Emily with a smile, unaware of the waves of antagonism passing between the other two. ‘He’s John really,’ she confided. ‘But as his father was also called John we’ve always called him Giles.’
Except in court! In court he had been John G. Noble. Well, at least now she knew what the G. stood for! This man, this hateful, sarcastically cruel man, was Emily’s beloved nephew. Either Emily was unaware of the harshness in him or else she knew of it and excused it. Knowing Emily it would be the latter, she always had sympathy and understanding for the unpleasant quirks in people’s natures.
‘And this is Leonora,’ she announced proudly.
‘Leonora…?’ Giles Noble raised an enquiring eyebrow.
‘Carter,’ Leonie supplied in a stilted voice.
His piercing gaze went to the simple gold band that encircled her wedding finger. ‘Ah yes,’ he drawled. ‘You’re a widow.’
‘Leonora lost her husband two years ago,’ his aunt supplied. ‘Such a shame for one so young.’
‘Yes.’ Giles took the proffered cup of coffee. ‘When you spoke of your widowed friend Leonora, Aunt, I naturally assumed her to be a—lady of your own age.’
‘Did you, dear?’ Emily said vaguely. ‘But I’m sure I mentioned how young and pretty she is.’
‘No, you never did.’ Giles Noble’s mouth twisted, his gaze rapier-sharp as it raked over every inch of Leonie’s body.
He was doing it again, but now he was stripping her not only of her pride but of her clothes too. She had never seen that insultingly familiar look in any man’s eyes before, never felt such degradation at a man’s glance. Her humiliation was complete as with a contemptuous twist of his lips he turned away.
‘Oh well, it doesn’t matter,’ his aunt smiled brightly. ‘I’m sure the two of you will be good friends.’
Leonie almost choked over her coffee at the unlikelihood of that happening. Her hand shook as she returned the cup to its saucer, her fear a tangible thing. This man was her tormenter, the evoker of all her night-time fears, and yet she could feel his magnetism as strongly as she had in the courtroom, knew that once again he was swallowing her up, absorbing her personality, reducing her to the naïve child she had still been four years ago when she first met him.
Giles Noble looked at her again. ‘My aunt tells me you’ve been to see your brother this weekend. I believe he has been—away?’ his voice taunted her.
‘I—er—Yes.’ She stared down at her hands, her breath catching in her throat as she waited for him to speak again, for that cold clipped voice that could be silkily soft when he wanted it to be to rip into her once again.
‘Where?’ he asked finally.
She drew a ragged breath, raising her head slowly. ‘He’s been—working abroad,’ her eyes met his challengingly. ‘On an oil-rig,’ she added defiantly.
‘Really?’ Giles Noble drawled slowly. ‘How interesting—for him.’
Leonie swallowed hard. ‘Yes.’
‘Why don’t you both sit down?’ Emily asked from the sofa. ‘I don’t like you both towering over me like this.’
‘Sorry, Aunt. Mrs Carter…?’ He waited for Leonie to be seated before sitting himself, his long legs stretched out in front of him, his position relaxed.
Leonie sat in a daze, wondering why he didn’t just expose her to his aunt. He knew damned well Phil hadn’t been working abroad, he could do his arithmetic as well as he did everything else, and he knew very well Phil had just been released from prison. And yet he said nothing. What sort of cat-and-mouse game was he playing with her now?
‘I’m sure you can call her Leonie, Giles,’ Emily was still unaware of the tension between them. ‘Can’t he, dear?’
‘Leonie?’ he repeated softly. ‘But I thought your name was Leonora?’
She bit her lip. ‘It is. Emily just—prefers to call me that.’
‘It’s too pretty to shorten,’ Emily put in.
‘Most people call me Leonie,’ she said firmly.
‘Do they indeed?’ Giles slowly drawled.
‘Yes!’ she snapped, her tension almost at breaking point.
‘Then so shall I. You see, dear Aunt, I happen to think Leonie is a much prettier name.’
Thank goodness for that. She could still remember the contemptuous way he had called her Leonora in court. At least she was to be spared that.
‘Does your brother enjoy his work on the oil-rig?’ Giles Noble asked suddenly.
Leonie visibly jumped, the question unexpected—as he had known it would be. He was still the lawyer, throwing her off guard, tricking her. ‘He’s left now. He has a job in London.’ Why didn’t he just say that he knew it was all a pack of lies, that her stepbrother was a jail-bird?
He nodded, his expression mocking. ‘You’ll be able to see more of him, one presumes.’
‘Yes.’
‘That will be nice, for both of you. I’m sure it can’t have been all that comfortable where he’s been.’
‘Don’t be silly, dear,’ his aunt chided. ‘They have all the conveniences on those places nowadays.’
‘So they do,’ he gave a slight smile, even white teeth visible between those firm lips. ‘Except women. I suppose your brother was living it up this weekend?’
Leonie gave him a cold look, the memory of Wanda in Phil’s room still an embarrassing one. ‘We spent a quiet weekend together,’ she informed him resentfully.
Those firm lips tightened, the eyes glacial. ‘I’m sure you did.’
‘I don’t like to hurry you, Giles,’ his aunt cut in, ‘but it’s after eleven, and you have a long drive in front of you. I do wish you would leave it until morning, I don’t like to think of you driving all that way in the dark.’
Giles stretched his long legs. ‘I do it all the time when you don’t know about it, Aunt Emily.’
‘Well, I know, but the point of that is that I don’t know about it. I shall only worry,’ she added persuasively.
‘Actually, Aunt, I’ve been thinking of taking you up on your offer to stay an extra night. I don’t have to be in court until tomorrow afternoon, I could drive up after breakfast.’
‘Oh, that’s a splendid idea!’ his aunt clapped her hands together with pleasure. I’ll just go up and check that Dorothy hasn’t stripped your bed. She has a habit of getting things done before you want her to.’ She bustled out of the room, a worried frown on her brow.
Leonie gulped, glancing over at Giles Noble, hurriedly looking away again as she saw he was looking right back at her, his expression unreadable.
Suddenly he stood up, his movements restless. ‘Of course you know why I’m staying on,’ he said coldly.
‘Yes,’ Leonie didn’t attempt to prevaricate.
‘So your brother is out of prison now,’ he remarked quietly.
‘I’m surprised you remember us,’ she said tautly. ‘After all, you’ve prosecuted in much more important cases than ours.’
‘But I’ve never lost one that was quite so cut and dried,’ he told her contemptuously.
‘You didn’t lose,’ she gasped. ‘Phil went to prison because of you.’
‘And you walked away free.’ His eyes were narrowed.
‘But not because of you,’ she scorned.
‘No, you would have got life if I’d had my way!’
‘Life?’ she repeated dazedly. ‘Even if I had been guilty, which I wasn’t, I certainly didn’t deserve life!’
‘I happen to think you did.’
‘That was obvious,’ Leonie snapped.
‘You were guilty, Leonie.’
Her eyes flashed. ‘The court didn’t seem to agree with you.’
He shrugged. ‘Unfortunately they can’t always be right. Most of the time, yes, but not always.’
‘This time they were!’ she told him vehemently.
His look was dismissive of such a claim. ‘The wedding ring on your finger, is it real?’
‘Of course it’s real! You——’
‘You mean there was a Mr Carter?’ He sounded sceptical.
‘Yes, there was a Mr Carter!’
‘And he walked out on you.’
‘No, he died. You already know I’m a widow.’
‘You’ve lied before, you could be lying now. I had no idea my aunt’s friend Leonora was really Leonora Gordon, the girl who——’
‘Mr Noble,’ Leonie cut in stiffly, ‘my past is my affair. The fact that you happen to know about it shouldn’t make any difference.’
‘But it does,’ he said silkily soft. ‘Don’t you think my aunt is entitled to know that her trusted friend was once prosecuted by me on behalf of her lover?’
‘He was not my lover!’ she denied heatedly, her initial fear now fading to anger. She didn’t have to take this abuse from him, she was no longer on trial.
‘Wasn’t he?’ Giles Noble’s mouth twisted scornfully. ‘Jeremy tells a different story.’
‘I’m sure he does,’ she said disgustedly. ‘He has a reputation to maintain.’
‘You aren’t trying to tell me that he made all that up? Because if you are I should save your breath; he went into the affair in great detail. I probably know as much about you as he does.’
Leonie’s face blazed with colour and she felt sick. She had allowed Jeremy to touch her more intimately than any other man had done, might even eventually have slept with him, but she hadn’t. She hadn’t! That he had invented the details of their affair she knew, and it was obvious that Giles Noble believed every word.
‘Why should his story be any more believable than mine?’ she challenged. ‘It takes two, you know.’
‘So I heard.’ Once again his mouth twisted with contempt.
‘Mr Noble——’
Emily came back into the room, beaming at them both. ‘For once Dorothy hasn’t been quite so efficient. Your bed is still made up, Giles.’
‘Then I suggest we all retire for the night,’ he said smoothly, showing none of his animosity towards Leonie in front of his aunt.
Leonie was only too glad to go to bed, although she couldn’t sleep once she was prepared for bed, pacing the room as she wondered what Giles Noble’s next move would be. She was surprised he hadn’t given her away to his aunt at once, although his remark about his aunt being entitled to know seemed to point to him not being silent for much longer.
What would happen when he told Emily, dear kind Emily who tried never to believe a bad word about anyone? Well, she couldn’t be sacked, not directly, she was contracted by the publishing company and not by Emily herself, and yet things could be made so unpleasant for her here that she would have to leave. And if she left she would be in breach of contract. Because Emily couldn’t work without her illustrator in residence it had been written into Leonie’s contract that she had to live at Rose Cottage. At the time of signing the contract she hadn’t minded moving in here, but now it wouldn’t be possible for her to stay.
She still hadn’t got over the shock of seeing John Giles Noble again. She must have had a premonition of this meeting, why else had he been so much in her thoughts the last few days? He had it within his power to hurt her unbearably, to strip her of all the quiet happiness she had managed to attain for herself the last few years. All her security had been taken from her in a single moment. At the first glimpse of those steely grey eyes after four years she had known that Giles Noble wouldn’t let her escape without making her suffer all that humiliation once again.
She spun around as her bedroom door slowly opened, her eyes opening wide as Giles Noble quietly entered. He closed the door behind him, leaning back against it, his arms folded across his chest. Leonie pulled her silky bathrobe more securely about her, making sure the belt was firmly tied. Not that she feared any moves from him in that direction, he had made his contempt of her very clear. No, it had been an involuntary action on her part, and one that seemed to give him amusement.
‘What do you want?’ she demanded.
‘What sort of question is that to ask the man who’s just entered your bedroom?’ he drawled, moving to slowly look around the bedroom she had made her own.
‘This man, a very relevant one,’ she retorted in an angry whisper. ‘And could you lower your voice, your aunt may hear us?’
Giles shrugged, picking up her black lacy bra from the chair and putting it down again with a quirk of his eyebrows. ‘I don’t need to talk at all,’ he said softly. ‘Neither of us does—unless you’re one of those women who like to talk.’
Leonie gasped. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Jeremy told me all about you, Leonie.’ He was advancing towards her like a predator after its prey, and for once those grey eyes were not icy but held a warm glowing invitation.
‘If he told you all about me then you should know whether or not I like to talk,’ she scorned to hide her fear. This was the last thing she had been expecting from this man, and she didn’t know how to cope with it—unless she was sick all over him. She couldn’t allow him to touch her, she cringed just at the thought of it.
‘He didn’t mention it.’ Giles’s eyes were on her parted lips. ‘But he mentioned a lot of other things.’
‘I’m sure he did. Did he also mention that he’s a liar?’ she said shrilly.
‘Oh, come on, Leonie, isn’t it time you stopped this game now?’
‘Game?’ she swallowed hard. ‘What game?’
‘Four years ago we were attracted to each other.’ He was standing so close to her now his thighs were touching hers. ‘Don’t make me wait any longer to touch you.’
‘T-touch me?’
‘Yes.’ His hand ran from her breast to her thigh. ‘You’re more slender than you were then,’ he looked down at her breasts, slowly raising his eyes to her face, ‘but just as beautiful. Leonie…’
She was galvanised into action at the sight of his dark head lowering to hers, flinching away from him, her disgust evident in her face. ‘Keep away from me!’ she spat the words at him. ‘Don’t ever touch me again! Attracted to you?’ she swallowed down the nausea. ‘I can’t bear you near me. You—you make my skin crawl!’
He was breathing heavily, his expression savage. ‘You might lie to yourself, Leonie, but don’t bother to lie to me. You wanted me before and you want me now.’
‘Never!’ Her eyes were wide with fear as he advanced on her yet again. ‘I don’t want you. I don’t!’ she cried brokenly. ‘If you touch me again I swear I’ll be sick!’
His eyes blazed at her challenge, his mouth twisted with cruel satisfaction. ‘Maybe you like to fight—something else Jeremy didn’t tell me,’ he drawled insultingly.
‘Do you know him so well he would discuss such things with you?’ she said disgustedly.