Heart On Fire Part 13

"Does your father want me?" she asked huskily, moving towards him.

"No, but I do," he said with mockery edging his voice, and she tensed, her colour rising, but she refused to be taunted into answering him back this time. He might enjoy these barbed little exchanges, but she did not.

He was barring her way back to the house, and she wouldn't risk trying to pa.s.s him, so she turned away and walked down the steps into the garden, only to realise, too late, that that had been a bad move.

Ellis followed her. She should have known he would.

She bit down on her inner lip. She had known. Of course she had.

Walking away from the house instead of running to it, and to the safety of Celeste's protection, had been a Freudian slip, hadn't it?

She hadn't done it deliberately, but she had known at the back of her mind that he would follow her if she came this way, yet she had come. What did that tell her about her state of mind?

"We hadn't finished our discussion," he drawled, and she gave him an angry look.

"I had. I don't want to hear any more of your nasty, suspicious questions about your brother." She halted, cradling the sprays of winter jasmine between them as if they were some sort of protection.

Her angry green eyes roved over Ellis Lefevre, from head to toe.

"Oh, it's impossible to believe that he's your brother. He's nothing like you, thank heavens. Stephen is kind and thoughtful, and I know I can trust him."

Ellis laughed shortly.

"But you don't trust me?"

122 "No, I don't." She made no attempt to soften that retort and Ellis watched her, his grey eyes hard and glittering.

"Is Stephen your lover?" he suddenly bit out.

"No, he is not!" she threw back with a similar force. "I told you that last night!"

"Last night I was too angry to listen," he said flatly. "When I found you there, in the boathouse flat, I jumped to the conclusion that Stephen had installed you there, and was visiting you secretly, without my father knowing anything about it. Celeste would have to know; nothing happens here without Celeste knowing, but she always kept our secrets when we were young. She wouldn't tell, and my father never goes down there. He wouldn't be able to see you coming and going, although he might hear something, if he came down the garden."

He drew a rough breath, shrugging.

"I was so furious when I saw you that my imagination ran riot, picturing you and Stephen together. I couldn't think rationally, but in the morning light it seems so unlikely."

Flushed, she said in contrary pique, "What--that Stephen might want me?"

His eyes gleamed through their black lashes, and his smile was infuriatingiy amused. She could have kicked herself for letting her ego betray her.

"Oh, no, that is only too likely!" he murmured, as his eyes moved slowly, cares singly over her from her red-gold head to her long, slender legs.

"But that isn't the question. Do you want him? That is what I wasn't sure about, but this morning I can't believe it for an instant."

She couldn't meet his eyes, and she did not like the smile she heard in his voice, so she bent to breathe in 123 the scent of the yellow jasmine, the flowers brus.h.i.+ng her cheek.

"No comment?" he murmured.

"I'll take that for an' admission, you know."

She gave him a brief, irritated look.

"I kept telling you last night that there was nothing going on between me and Stephen, but you were it. such a nasty temper that you wouldn't believe me."

He was silent for a moment then with obvious reluctance, said: "Oh, OK, I was jealous..."

Her heart missed a beat. She kept her eyes down, but she was listening with intensity, hardly able to believe what he was saying.

"I couldn't think straight," he multered.

"I was too furious with you for choosing Stephen instead of me... For some reason, that really hurt. Any other man might not have been so bad, but my brother! I couldn't stand the idea of that."

Because his father preferred his brother? wondered Claudia suddenly.

Of course--Ellis must resent the fact that his father had refused to see him, yet was always happy to see Stephen. That was enough to make anyone jealous; she knew she would have been jealous herself if her parents had played her off against, Annette; but luckily they had been careful never to have favourites. Family quarrels were always the most bitter and divisive, had the most lasting effects. This one would be complicated by the fact that Ellis and his father were so alike; they had the same forceful, obstinate natures. They could hurt each other more, know just where to hit to hurt most.

Ellis grimaced.

"And, in any case, Stephen just isn't the type to bring his girlfriend down here and use our father's home as a love-nest. I must have been crazy to think he would." He paused, then said roughly, "And I was,. of course... Quite crazy, at that moment, with jealousy..."

~ . She hoped he could not hear the being of her heart; it was almost deafening her.

"I believe you now," Ellis finished wryly, glancing ~ sideways at her, his mouth crooked, and ishe looked at him through her lashes, feeling a queer, protective sympathy for the pain he must have felt over his father's rejection of him. How could one blame Quentin, though? In his situation, fighting his slowly increasing blindness, filled with despair and rage, he hadn't really known what he was doing. He was too unhappy himself to realise what he was c~Oing to his elder son; he had only known that Elli~ had supplanted him in running the corporation, an~i he wasn't rational enough, in his pain, to be able to recognise that it was fate, not Ellis himself, which had dealt that blow.

Quentin had probably always been fonder of Stephen than of his elder son, because the ~ounger boy took after his mother, but when Ellis hl d taken over the corporation, Quentin's prefer et ee had deepened, and darkened, until he had shut ut Ellis altogether. What a painful muddle it was, :hought Claudia; Quentin had been jealous of Ellis, who in turn had been jealous of his brother. Until now, it hadn't really dawned on her that the same bitter feelings churned around in them both.

Perhaps, now that they had made some sort of tentative approach to each other, they could actually talk it out and start to understand each other?

"Well, I'm glad you've sorted that out," she said gently, and ambiguously, and turned back towards the house.

"Now, I had better get back before your father starts calling for me."

125 "He will be on the phone for another half an hour at least." Ellis put a hand under her arm and steered her towards the river, round the boathouse, on to the path along the riverbank, where bare willows hung towards the grey water and a covey of ducks quacked in alarm, and waddled hurriedly away from the human intruders into their domain, then swam in circles, waiting to see if there was any food coming.

There was a white-painted Victorian ironwork bench nearby.

"Let's sit and watch the river," Ellis said, and Claudia could not think of a reason why they shouldn't, so she sat down and he sat beside her, turning to face her, one leg crossed over the other, his arm along the back of the bench.

"I thought we were going to watch the river," Claudia said tartly, fixing her own eyes on the gleaming water. "We mustn't stay long.

Your father is going to send out search parties soon. " It made her intensely nervous to have him so close, watching her.

"He has too much to do to think about you. We've run into problems with our German subsidiary, and my father is sorting things out.

That's why I flew back from Tokyo, why I'm here--I wouldn't have felt I had to come back if we hadn't got serious trouble. I shall have to go there myself, I would have left today, but it will be an enormous help if, first of all, my father can talk things out with the German management . " "I see," she said, not sure she did, and Ellis gave her an amused smile, reading her perplexed expression.

"The point is, my father set the company up, he has known the German managing director for years. They are old friends, and of the same generation. The man 126 will talk more openly with my father than he probably would to me."

Claudia's green eyes searched his face, she was frowning thoughtfully.

"Do you run into that problem often? Corporation executives who would rather deal with your father?"

His grey eyes were sharp and narrowed, a flicker of irritation in his face.

"Occasionally I domit's only to be expected. Some of the older men resent the change at the top. They would resent me, whoever I was. The status quo is always more comforting than change of direction." He frowned at her.

"I don't have to remind you not to repeat what I've said to my father, do I?

I don't want him worrying about this. I can cope with it. In any case, in time, the old guard will retire and the problem won't exist any more."

"You haven't told your father, then?" she slowly said, and he scowled, brows black.

"No, I just said... I don't want him worrying about it!"

"Don't you think he might be able to help? As he is now, for instance?

Acting as a bridge between you and these men?"

"I can't ask him to do that!" he muttered, an irritated tic beating beside his mouth.

"You've asked him this time!"

"This time is different; it was urgent... There;s a strike brewing, and a row between the members of the German board of directors... I wasn't quite sure what was going on, but I had to get it settled fast because we have a vital contract to fulfill, and I hoped my father could succeed where I was failing He broke off, looking exasperated.

"Why am I telling you all this? It means nothing to you."

127 "I understand that you needed your father," she said quietly.

"And I know how much that will mean to him. Can't you put yourself in his place? Blind, ill, shutting himself up here away from everybody? How do you think he's been feeling?"

"That's precisely why I don't want to worry him! I know he has had a very bad time these last two years. I've tried to lift as much from his shoulders as I could."

"You don't think he might feel excluded?" she said softly, and Ellis gave her a hard, frowning stare.

"Do you think he does? He has never said anything to me. " Except to forbid you to visit him," Claudia said and Ellis's eyes flashed angrily.

"So. Who told you that? Stephen, I suppose? I don't like the idea of my private life being discussed with all and sundry. I'll have a few words to say to him when I see him."

"While you're busy nursing your own ego, you might spare a thought for your father's!" Claudia burst out, and he stiffened with affront.

She didn't care how angry he was, she had to make him see the truth.

"Being blind hasn't made him mentally incapable, you know. He still has all his other faculties. He's a very clever, very shrewd man, and he's full of energy, but it has all been building up inside him, with nowhere to go. I think the idea of writing his own life story has helped. He's enjoying remembering, making notes, starting files on people and events. He is very organised. We spend hours with reference works, checking up on the people he has known, to make sure his memory isn't at fault. But he still gets frustrated and angry about being shut out of all the corporation business."

128 "I don't shut him out! When I took over, around two years ago, he was very ill, you know. Did Stephen explain that? He had a minor stroke, he had raging blood-pressure and his heart wasn't too good, either.

The blindness was a slower process; I think it had probably caused the blood-pressure and the stroke, because he was refusing to admit that his sight was going. He had to stop working, and I was thrust into this job. I didn't ask for it--my father told me to take over.

His doctors asked me never to discuss business with him. They said it might cause a relapse, so I took their advice, and my father resented it. That was when he ordered me out of the house, and told me he never wanted to see me again. " "That must have hurt you badly," Claudia said, her green eyes full of sympathy.

He nodded in bleak silence, staring at the river. For a moment they sat in silence, then Claudia said, "When you turned up last night, I a.s.sumed Stephen had rung you and asked you to come back and see your father because he was asking for you."

"I rang Stephen in London, yesterday evening, as soon as I got back from Tokyo," Ellis said, his brows together in a heavy frown.

"Stephen told me he thought I wouldn't get thrown out if I came down here.

He told you about that, too, did he? I suppose he hasn't told you about. my birthmark, and all my girlfriends too? Is there anything in my private life that you haven't heard about? Do the two of you ever talk about anything else?"

Claudia smiled at his glowering expression.

"Have you got a' birthmark? Where? Stephen forgot to mention that."

He stopped scowling, and his eyes gleamed with sudden amus.e.m.e.nt.

"I'll be only too happy to show 1~ you some time," he mocked, and watched the faint pink ness invade her face.

"Anyway," she hurriedly said, looking away, "I'm very discreet, you don't need to' be afraid I'll repeat anything--I told you that the first time we met! In fact, your father told me that he missed you, he didn't tell Stephen. It was actually me who asked your brother to get in touch with you and pa.s.s the message on Her words broke off in startled surprise as Ellis suddenly caught her face in both hands, turning it up towards him. Her green eyes widened, the pupils black and dilated, staring at him with an apprehension which was half excitement. Ellis looked down into her face, his palms warm on her cheeks, his fingertips pressing softly on her temples.

"So it was you, was it? I might have known. I can see my father thinks the sun s.h.i.+nes out of you. He kept telling me you were a terrific secretary, and what a sharp little wasp you were, how you snap right back at him if he snaps at you. That seems to impress him a great deal, far more than all your amazing efficiency."

"I think he was bored with people being sweetness and light to him, and ignoring his bad temper and sulks," Claudia explained.

"Stephen had warned me to be patient with him, and I was, at first, until it dawned on me that he was just irritable because he was so bored."

"And now he's eating out of your hand?"

She laughed.

"Oh, I wouldn't say that.! Your father is not an easy man to deal with. But we get on much better these days."

130 "And you talked him into sending for me?" Ellis smiled down into her eyes.

"For his sake--or yours? Did you miss me?"

Flushed, she gave him a furious look.

"No, I didn't! I didn't talk your father into ~anything. He said he wanted to see you, that's all."

"And you didn't?" he teased, then his head came down and his mouth lightly brushed her lips, whispering against them, "Sure about that?"