‘What is it?’ she cried out frantically, betraying more of her terror than she knew. ‘What do you want?’
But she already knew what he wanted. He wanted her father’s wealth, and ultimately her father’s power. He wanted the bank, and to get it he was prepared to fulfil the conditions her father had set upon its acquisition. Marriage to her.
‘Don’t touch me,’ she begged wildly, her self-control shattering under the tension of his slow advance towards her. She had already backed as far away from him as she could, and her skin burned as she heard her own shaming plea and recognised the panic and fear in her voice.
‘Touch you?’ He stopped and frowned, his mouth curling as though in disgust at the very thought, his expression suddenly changing as the rage died out of his eyes, the hot red glitter replaced by cold hardness. ‘I haven’t come to play games, Jessica. I’m not here on my own behalf, but on your mother’s. Your father’s had a heart attack. He’s in Intensive Care. You mother needs you with her.’
She didn’t believe it. He was lying to her—using another ploy to weaken her.
‘You’re lying to me,’ she whispered, her face suddenly ashen. ‘I don’t believe you.’
‘No, you wouldn’t, would you?’ He reached for her too quickly for her to avoid him, grasping her arm and dragging her towards the telephone on the table by the stairs.
Holding her arm in a grip so tight that she could already feel her flesh going numb, his eyes never leaving her face, he punched out a number into the telephone.
Jessica heard it ringing, and then when the ringing stopped he said tersely into the receiver, ‘Intensive Care, Sister Allen, please.’
Jessica’s head started to thud uncomfortably. What if he wasn’t lying? What if it was true? What if her father’s heart attack had in part been brought on by the discovery that she was refusing to fall in with his plans?
Anger, fear, pain…a conflicting mix of emotions gripped her as she stood there, her throat dry with apprehension, her eyes locked on Daniel’s.
Holding the receiver slightly away from his ear, so that she could hear the voice on the other end, he said tersely, ‘Sister Allen, I’m sorry to bother you. It’s Daniel Hayward. How is Mr Collingwood?’
There was a moment’s pause, and then Jessica heard a woman’s voice saying quietly, ‘Rather poorly at the moment, I’m afraid, Mr Haywood. As you know, he’s had a major heart attack, and I’m afraid it’s still far too early to give you any more information than that.’
Jessica stared at the receiver. She tried to speak, and found that her tongue had become thick and clumsy and that her head was buzzing. She saw Daniel put down the receiver and then turn to look at her, a frown replacing the grim hauteur with which he had been regarding her.
‘Oh, God, don’t look at me like that, Jess,’ she thought she heard him saying, but the words were indistinct and fuzzy, and the world was turning dark all around her. She was being sucked down into a dark, cold vacuum, which she fought desperately against letting claim her.
Sick and dizzy, she was conscious of Daniel picking her up and depositing her in one of the hard antique chairs that furnished the hallway.
She wanted to close her eyes to blot out his face, but she knew that if she did she would lose consciousness completely. She had to focus on something to will herself not to give way to the panic and fear inside her.
‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have broken it to you like that.’
Compassion. Concern. She stared blankly at Daniel, her body trembling as though she were frozen. He was holding her hands, she suddenly realised, crouching down on the floor beside her, his thumbs registering the too rapid race of the pulse in her wrists.
‘Let go of me, I’m all right.’
Her father in Intensive Care…Strange how she had never thought of her parents as vulnerable before. Strange how she suddenly felt as frightened and abandoned as a small child. She hadn’t lived with them for years—rarely saw them—and if asked would have said that she was an adult and no longer dependent on them in any kind of way, but now she realised that it wasn’t true.
She struggled to stand up, swaying uncertainly on her feet, her eyes blank.
‘I must go home. My mother. Why didn’t she ring me?’ she cried out in sharp anguish.
Daniel was still holding her hands, still refusing to let her go.
‘Perhaps she was afraid you’d refuse to come,’ he told her quietly.
‘Refuse?’ She looked at him, her eyes dark with shock. ‘but he’s my father.’
‘Yes, but you’ve made it very plain that you want to keep your life separate from theirs, haven’t you, Jessica?’
‘Because I couldn’t be what they wanted. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t love them, that I don’t care…’
* * *
She started to cry, her body shaking with emotion as she fought to control her feelings.
‘I must go home. My things…I need to pack.’
‘I’ll do that for you,’ Daniel told her. ‘You just tell me how to find your room, and then we’ll be on our way—at this time of night we should make good time.’
‘We?’ Jessica stared at him, and then said shakily, ‘I’m not going back with you.’
The look he gave her made her feel small and ashamed, as though somehow she was beha
ving more like a child than a woman.
‘I have my own car here,’ she pointed out in a calmer voice. Naturally I—’
‘Naturally nothing,’ Daniel overruled her. ‘You’re in no fit state to drive, and if you’re honest you’ll admit it.’ He saw her face and smiled unkindly.
‘Yes, I know how much against the grain it must go that I’m the one to have had to break the news and witness your…distress. You’ve had a severe shock, Jessica, and if you won’t consider the risk to your own life of driving several hundred miles while suffering from that shock, then at least think of the lives of the other people you might be putting at risk.’
She looked away from him, unable to deny the truth of what he was saying.
‘Besides,’ he added calmly, ‘my car will make much better time than yours.’
‘But you must be tired yourself,’ she pointed out. ‘You’ve only just arrived.’
Suddenly she realised how much he had taken on his shoulders, how very different his behaviour was from what she would have expected, but then she reminded herself of all that he stood to lose if anything should happen to her father, and of what a golden opportunity this must be to him to try to bring her round, to persuade her…
She ought to make a stand, to tell him that there was no way she was going to allow him to drive her back to London, but the thought of the long, tiring drive south, the knowledge that she was in no fit state to make that drive, silenced her.
‘Your room?’ Daniel demanded curtly.
Numbly Jessica told him, too drained to continue arguing. She watched with listless eyes as he went upstairs, and then, remembering his long drive and the equally long one ahead of them, she roused herself and went into the small kitchen which formed part of the caretaker’s suite of rooms.
Jane had told her to make herself completely at home in this part of the house, and she knew the other girl would not mind her raiding the fridge in order to make some sandwiches and a flask of coffee for the homeward journey once she knew what had happened.