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  He didn’t trust Charles—he never had. There was something too smooth, too knowing, too calculating about him… something dangerous and subtle.

  At the top of the stairs, Charles paused.

  It was barely half-past ten. If he were in London, he would just be on his way out for the evening… an evening spent eating and drinking at one or other of the city’s most expensive and fashionable venues, almost always at someone else’s expense. His mother had taught him to be careful with his money. She had pleaded her widowhood and consequent poverty with a masterly skill. She had often complained bitterly to him about the size of the allowance James had given her. A man of his immense wealth could easily have afforded to make her a settlement of several million pounds, she had claimed, ignoring the fact that she had been living rent-free in a very comfortable house in one of the most exclusive parts of London… a house James had redecorated and refurnished for her at considerable expense, several times… He had paid Charles’s school fees, provided her with a car, permitted her the run of all his estates and properties, but that still hadn’t been enough. Nothing would ever have been enough to satisfy her craving for Rothwell itself—a craving she had passed on to her son.

  And Charles continued to pursue the policy she had adopted. He moved in a circle of very wealthy young men and women. When he was at school and it was known that his uncle would never produce a male heir, he had taken to using the title applicable to a male heir presumptive; that of Lord Wesford—his uncle’s second title which arose from his baronetcy—taking good care that he used it only where it would be most useful and never anywhere where it could get back to his uncle’s ears. This unofficial usurpation of honours that were not strictly his had had his mother’s full approval, and it had made it all the more galling that he knew privately that his uncle was in fact petitioning the Queen so that the earldom passed not to Charles, but through Geraldine Frances to her sons.

  His mother had been furious. Latterly, though, she had come to realise that there was another way for Charles to get what he wanted. Marriage to Geraldine Frances might not confer the titles on him, but it would ultimately bring him Rothwell and the money, and it would be his son who eventually inherited.

  Charles had listened to his mother’s suggestion with cynical detachment. No wonder his father had found it so easy to seduce her. He wished he’d known his father better; he suspected the two of them would have had a lot in common… Pity he had been fool enough to marry a woman without any promise of great wealth—or had he hoped that her father would relent and that she would receive a large inheritance? Perhaps if the Earl had lived longer, he might have done so.

  He had something else in common with his father, as well… He thought about the girl who would be waiting for him in London. She was a model, only a few years older than Geraldine Frances, but oh, how very different!

  That she was still naïve enough to be impressed by the people he knew, the places he went, added an extra piquancy to their affair. He teased her with promises of taking her to society events, which he had no intention of fulfilling. She had an accent that grated on his ears, and she would stick out like a sore thumb among the social set in which he moved.

  Besides, when he went out in society it was normally as the discreet escort of an older woman. There were half a dozen or so to whom he paid subtle court… nothing too over-the-top… just enough to convince them that his flattery was genuine… just enough to make sure that he was always welcome at their parties… in their homes… that he was always included in their invitations and never expected to pay.

  He hadn’t had to take any of them to bed yet… but if that became a necessity… He shrugged cynically. He had his little hot-eyed model for pleasure, and for the rest… Well, it would stand him in good stead when the time finally came for him to bed Geraldine Frances.

  He had reached her bedroom door. He stopped outside it. There was no way he was going to be sent to Argentina. Did his uncle really not know how easily he could see through that manoeuvre? Separate him from Geraldine Frances and that fierce, vulnerable teenage idolatry of him would easily die; but he wasn’t going to allow that to happen.

  He wished again that she were a couple of years older. As it was… He knocked briefly on the door and pushed it open.

  Geraldine Frances hadn’t gone straight to bed. She was too wound up… too thrilled and excited by having Charles’s company and attention.

  Charles… Her eyes shone with pleasure. How handsome he was… how sophisticated… How gentle and tender with her. How much she loved him.

  She sat on the window-seat, looking out into the darkness, hugging her knees, letting herself melt with the pleasure of imagining herself married to Charles.

  And then her face clouded and she looked miserably at her own ungainly body. If only she were prettier, slimmer… She had tried to diet, but she just couldn’t do it… Going without food seemed to make her hungrier than ever, so that she simply stuffed herself until she felt almost sick. She was the fattest girl at school, and she knew that the others made fun of her behind her back. She comforted herself by thinking how jealous they would be if they saw her with Charles…

  She heard the faint knock on the door and got up, expecting her father. She hadn’t changed out of the unflattering black dress she had worn for the funeral.

  When Charles walked in, she stared at him in surprised delight.

  His fair hair was ruffled, a haggard expression tormenting his eyes.

  ‘Forgive me, little one,’ he said huskily as he came towards her. ‘I shouldn’t be here like this…’

  A delicious tremor raced through her at the implications of his words… and the way he looked at her.

  ‘But I wanted so much to be with you…’ His voice sounded muffled, hoarse with emotion… with passion? Her heart thumped and she went instinctively towards him.

  ‘Charles, what is it?’

  ‘It just came to me that, now Ma’s gone, I’m completely alone…’ He waited, wondering if she would take the bait, hiding his triumph when she did, reacting as he had anticipated she would, her plump face creasing into a look of intense compassion, melting with the pleasure she felt in his having come to her.

  ‘Oh, no… you’re not alone…’ she breathed unsteadily, thrilled beyond words that he had come to her to unburden himself, to find solace for his unhappiness at his mother’s death. ‘You’ve got us… Daddy and me…’

  Dared she go up to him and put her arms round him, offering him physical comfort? She hesitated and then, when he bowed his head as though overcome with emotion, caution was forgotten and she ran towards him, flinging her arms around him and crying out passionately, ‘Oh, Charles, don’t! Don’t be upset…’

  Upset! He grinned to himself while theatrically portraying agonised emotion, putting his head on her shoulder and letting her think he was overwhelmed by the loss of his mother… letting her hold him in her inexperienced, naïve embrace, and ignoring the unpleasantness of her too-soft flesh pressing against him.

  ‘Oh, God, I shouldn’t be here with you like this…’

  He started to push himself away from her, and Geraldine Frances tensed and then quivered with joy as he murmured, ‘You aren’t a child any more. When I hold you in my arms you don’t feel like a child…’

  He drew her back against him and added, ‘It’s going to be hell being so far away from you…’

  So far away…? Warning bells jangled in her ears. This time it was Geraldine Frances who reluctantly detached herself from their embrace.

  ‘So far away? But—’

  ‘Your father’s sending me to Argentina,’ he told her, and then added, in a voice which he muffled against her hair as he pulled her back against him, ‘I think he’s guessed how I feel about you and he doesn’t approve—and who can blame him? I’m no catch for the future Countess of Rothwell, am I?’ He nuzzled her hair and Geraldine Frances was ablaze with delirious joy, incandescent with it. He loved her… He must lov
e her… That was what he was saying, wasn’t it? And her father was going to send him away! She couldn’t let it happen.

  ‘I expect he thinks you’re too young to know your own mind… and perhaps he’s right… Oh, God,’ he added in tones of apparent self-loathing, ‘I shouldn’t be saying any of this to you. I shouldn’t be laying this kind of burden on you… it’s only that I’m so frightened of losing you…’

  Well, that much was true, but Geraldine Frances, dazzled by what she was hearing, could only stand motionless within the circle of his arms, feeling as though she had just been given the greatest gift that life could offer.

  And that was how James found them when he opened the door to Geraldine Frances’s room and walked in. He had intended, after a long inner battle with himself, to give her a gentle warning about attaching too much importance to Charles’s attentions. To walk into her bedroom and find her standing in her cousin’s arms, her young face turned up to his as though she were looking on the Holy Grail, her feelings so sharply and acutely revealed, was almost too much for him to endure.

  He could only stand there, stupefied, while Charles said smoothly and, to his ears, totally falsely, ‘I’m sorry, sir, I shouldn’t be here, I know…’ He turned his head and looked down at Geraldine Frances, a totally false look of love and promise, and said softly, ‘Perhaps your father’s right to send me away, my darling… you’re so young…’

  ‘Daddy, no!’ Geraldine Frances pleaded, her face flushed, her eyes brilliant with tears and emotion. ‘Please don’t send Charles to Argentina…’ And then, seeing the look on her father’s face, she pressed despairingly, ‘I love him and I’m going to marry him…’

  The words hung on the silence in the room. Above her head, uncle and nephew exchanged looks, and it was James who was forced to look away first.

  He had been outmanoeuvred… and with such skill and cynicism that it took his breath away. Why had he not realised how easily Charles could use Geraldine Frances against him? How could he tell her now what he suspected? How could he look her in the face and ask her to question if a man of Charles’s looks and age could really be in love with a girl like her… a plain young girl… a very, very rich girl, who would one day own the house which Charles believed he should own.

  Frightened by the silence and by the tension she could feel stretching between the two men who formed her entire world, Geraldine Frances panicked.

  ‘If you send Charles to Argentina, I’m going with him,’ she threatened desperately, clinging to her cousin’s side… and James knew that he was defeated.

  Charles didn’t return to London the next day, nor for two more days. There were plans to be made.

  James remained resolute that there could be no formal engagement until Geraldine Frances was eighteen. Having bought what time he could, he was forced to pay for these concessions by giving in to the subtle pressure Charles was putting on him both to increase his allowance and to permit his continued occupation of the London house.

  It was agreed that Geraldine Frances would go back to school, and stay there until she had taken her A levels. Her father had hoped she would go on to university; she had a good brain, and she would need to learn how to use it to its best advantage if she was to hold together what first his father and then he himself had gathered together to support Rothwell… Already he had started to teach her all the complexities of the many trusts he had set up… of the involved and multi-national financial basis that underpinned their fortune. Such things couldn’t be trusted to Charles… James had no illusions on that score.

  Geraldine Frances had been too happy to object to his decree that no formal engagement should be announced until she was over eighteen.

  James felt as though he was caught in a trap that was largely of his own making. He wanted Geraldine Frances to marry, and he wanted grandsons, but at the same time he wasn’t sure that he wanted her to marry Charles. And yet she loved her cousin, or thought she did, and, much as it seemed to be a betrayal of her as a human being and his daughter, he was forced to admit that physically she would repel far more men than she would attract… And those who did seem to be attracted to her… He suppressed a sigh. They would undoubtedly be motivated by the same things that he felt sure motivated Charles.

  In a way he was desperately hoping that time would solve the problem for him; that by some miracle time would reduce Geraldine Frances’s undoubted emotional dependence on Charles, and that it would also somehow work the miracle necessary to make his daughter into the woman she truly deserved to be.

  It had also occurred to him that Charles, being made to wait, might grow impatient and look for another, easier victim.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHARLES had no intention of doing any such thing. He wanted Rothwell and he fully intended to have it.

  From the moment he had first experienced awareness of another human being’s emotions, Charles had known that his mother neither loved nor wanted him.

  The brief flare of passion which had brought his parents together in the first place had died out long before Charles himself was born, and his mother, used to being treated with the deference and awe which being the daughter of the Earl of Rothwell accorded her, hated the privations forced on her by her new way of life.

  Charles might have been born in the exclusive and fashionably private wing of one of London’s foremost hospitals, but it was with that one concession on the part of his grandfather that the similarities between himself and the other children born there began and ended.

  Charles had no privileged, luxurious home, but a shabby, cheap rented flat in a part of London which his mother had barely known existed until after her marriage.

  Her husband, bored already with his wife and bitterly disappointed in her father’s refusal to either fully support or acknowledge him, had made other arrangements to finance the lifestyle he wanted, long before Charles’s arrival.

  Margaret grimly refusing to admit publicly what she knew privately, followed her husband to the South of France, but, while he enjoyed the luxurious comfort of his mistress’s Mediterranean villa, she and Charles lived in what was virtually a slum.

  For Charles the earliest years of his life had left an indelible memory on his personality which translated into an abhorrence of poverty so deeply ingrained that it was almost a phobia. Allied to that was an awareness that to his parents, the father he scarcely remembered, and the mother whose acid bitterness against that father coloured his entire childhood, he was an unwanted encumbrance.

  Furious that she had conceived in the first place, furious with the father who had rejected her, the brother who had superseded her and the husband who had deserted her, Margaret had turned the full force of that fury against the male child to whom she gave birth.

  Not that she was physically cruel to him, but from the moment he was born all her resentment and bitterness at the supremacy of the male sex coalesced and overflowed, finding a focus and an outlet in Charles.

  It was only later, after the death of her parents and her husband, that she began to see what a useful pawn her child really was.

  And yet even there she found something for which to blame Charles. Had she not had a child, she was sure she would have been able to persuade James to allow her to make her home at Rothwell, where she could have surreptitiously taken over the reins of the great house’s management so that it would always have been far more hers than his.

  It was a fallacy that Rothwell belonged to the earls; in truth it had always belonged to their countesses, because Rothwell, with its vast treasure of furniture, carpets, paintings and other objets d’art, needed the love and control of a mistress to provide it with the care and attention that made it flourish.

  Charles had always known of his mother’s obsession for Rothwell, just as he always had known of her lack of love for him. Rothwell should have been hers, she would tell him frustratedly after a visit to the house to see James. These visits always left her on edge and bitter, and it was then that
he would feel the verbal sting of her acid tongue.

  And so, as Charles grew from infancy to childhood, somewhere within him also grew a deep-rooted belief that Rothwell was the magic that would turn the base metal of his mother’s dislike and resentment of him into love.

  Charles was not by nature a timid or gentle child, he had too much of both of his parents in him for that, but he had learned young that it was impossible for him to pit himself against his mother and win.

  However, once he started attending the exclusive school Margaret had convinced James was the only possible place she should send her child to to begin his education, he quickly discovered a wonderful outlet for all his aggression.

  School was his first real contact with other children. Margaret complained quite untruthfully to James that the allowance he permitted her was far too miserly to allow her to employ a proper nanny, and so Charles had had to make do with the impatient and irritated attentions of the various housekeepers his mother employed, and who were generally told to ‘Keep him quiet and out of the way’.

  It seemed to Charles, growing up, that women held an awesome and unfair power, and he had enough of his grandfather in him to feel bitterly resentful of that unfair distribution of control and authority.

  The school was old-fashioned, and followed the old methods of permitting boys to be boys, while girls were expected to be demure, clean, tidy and neat, and Charles very quickly developed a sharp sense of pleasure in discovering subtle ways of punishing those unprotected female children for the power his mother held over him.

  It was fortunate that the day school only took pupils from four to seven, the age when most boys of his class started at their exclusive prep schools, because by the time he was seven years old his teachers were becoming uncomfortably aware of the number of complaints they were receiving from the parents of some of their pupils about his bullying tactics.