Chains of Regret Read online

  When she did decide to go home again it happened so suddenly that she was in Paris, sending word to her father, almost before she realised what she was doing.

  In the space of a month Raissa Sibour had fallen in love and remarried,ˇ and Helen had felt it was time to move on. She’d had very little money as Fawn’s mother had kept everything she had given her and she had refused to take wages from Madame Sibour. She had just enough to keep herself in Paris for a week

  before leaving for London.

  Helen hadn’t realised how homesick she had been until they left the city behind and her eyes rested once more on the green fields of England. She could scarcely believe she had stayed away as long, neglecting those she loved most. Without pausing to dissect such’ a thought, she turned contritely to the man by her side.

  ‘Stein,’ she laid a humble hand on his arm, attempting to convey her desire to forget the past and make amends, ‘I’m sorry if I didn’t seem pleased to see you at the airport.’ Her voice faltered as he jerked his arm away. She turned her head and shrank back in her seat. His face looked harder than ever and a tiny nerve jerked by the side of his mouth. Was her touch so distasteful? This was the first time she had ever touched him voluntarily. She had behaved badly when she had first known him, but she had been young. In the year she had been away she had grown considerably older. Surely he could understand?

  Uneasily she stirred under his long, calculating stare. ‘So?’ he prompted harshly.

  She stiffened, muttering with a hint of her old rebelliousness, ‘Nothing. That is,’ she glanced at him again, her blue eyes unconsciously appealing, ‘I’m just trying to apologise. It was good of you to come and meet me. I do appreciate it.’

  ‘Prove it!’

  With a speed to match the snapping briefness of his terse command, he drew swiftly off the road. The shady layby might have been made for him. Before Helen had time to realise what was happening, he was pulling her roughly into his arms, kissing her deeply.

  He swung her against him, crushing her mouth with his, cutting off her cry of protest. Too surprised by his action to resist immediately, Helen began experiencing almost forgotten sensations. The heat and weakness she had known vaguely before when he had kissed her returned, making her feel helpless.

  Despite the painful tightness of his arms, she began floating as his lips “assaulted hers in a way she found both devastating and exciting.

  It was nothing like his previous kisses. Pressed hard against him, she felt the demands of his body, commanding and receiving her response. She found it impossible to struggle against the authority and expertise he was wielding, and blindly she surrendered to both. Unable to combat the turbulence inside her, she clung to him, her arms sliding around his neck, her fingers threading convulsively through the thick darkness of his hair. Her eyes closed heavily as her ability to resist him disappeared and her body yielded to his caressing hands.

  After long moments he released her and she stared at him mutely, eyes wide with confusion. He drew back, but not before she caught the gleam of harsh satisfaction on his face-and something else which seemed to cancel out any warmth. Helen wasn’t sure what it was, but it filled her with the same nameless apprehension she had felt at the airport.

  ‘Stein,’ she swallowed nervously, while attempting to hide a sudden shudder, ‘hadn’t we better get on?’

  ‘Yes.’ He removed his glance from her throbbing lips, his eyes glittering, but stayed right where he was.

  Helen knew suddenly there was something terribly wrong. ‘Please,’ she whispered, trying to control incomprehensible panic, ‘can’t we go now? Dad must be waiting. If we don’t turn up soon he’ll be anxious.’

  ‘He won’t ever be anxious again,’ he smiled.

  His smile shook her. There was no humour in it, it was merely a savage twist of his lips and his eyes held hate. ‘What do you mean?’ she shivered.

  He didn’t flicker an eyelid and there was ice in his face. ‘Your father died at the beginning of the week, Helen. His funeral’s tomorrow.’

  Helen stared at him, her eyes slowly dilating and darkening with shock. Every bit of colour fled from her face as if wiped off by a sponge. A terrible terror gripped her and she tried to stop herself shaking. Stein couldn’t be serious, but didn’t he realise what he was saying?

  Frantically she sought for breath, her voice breaking.

  ‘You’re joking!’ she gasped. ‘You’re trying to punish me by being deliberately cruel!’

  ‘It’s coming quite natually,’ he taunted, his glance without sympathy on her grey, pinched face. Grimly he added, ‘You don’t have to believe me. You’ll soon see for yourself.’ ‘

  Helen tried to fight the harsh sickness rising in her throat. ‘Then you aren’t joking?’

  ‘No,’ curtly Stein ignored her shocked, beseeching expression. ‘He had a heart attack.’

  The extreme coldness of his voice chilled her. ‘When?’

  ‘A few days ago.’ Suddenly he grasped her shoulders and began shaking her, as though he would really have liked to strangle her. ‘We tried to contact you. He kept asking for you, but your friends the Sommiers could only tell me they believed you were in Paris, presumably enjoying yourself.’

  ‘Stein!’ Helen stared at him, her face contorted as a mounting horror ran through her veins. She wanted to ask more questions about her father, but Stein shook her so hard she was unable to speak. Her head was rolling on her shoulders and he seemed to have forgotten what he was doing as he viewed her with extreme loathing. As she attempted to wrench free of him, the pain from his hands merged with that which began piercing her heart. A dark cloud fell, obscuring his face, however hard she tried to focus. She strove to speak, her mouth working, she suspected distortedly, but she only managed an inarticulate little cry as her immediate surroundings faded and she sank unconscious against him.

  Helen had always been fond of her bedroom at Oakfield and since her return home yesterday, it was the one place more than anywhere else where she wanted to be. She had never looked on it as a refuge before, but this was how she viewed it this afternoon, as she entered like a sleepwalker and closed the door.

  Blindly she stared at the new black coat and hat which she had thrown numbly on her bed an hour earlier.

  Stein had bought them, they had been waiting for her. Did he intend them to be, she wondered wildly, a permanent reminder of her sins?

  Steeped in misery, she turned away, ready to admit she deserved this and worse. When one of the departing mourners had commented fatuously that she would soon feel better, because life must go on, she had felt like screaming. How could she expect or even want to feel better, after what she had done?

  Helplessly she sank in a chair by the window, trying to get a grip on herself. Although stunned by grief and remorse, she hadn’t yet been able to weep, she had been too frozen inside. Now, as she felt tears threatening, she knew they were a luxury she couldn’t afford, not until she had seen Stein. Soon she must go down and ask him if he intended staying on, and when she must see her father’s lawyer. She had no particular wish for Stein to stay, but at the same time she didn’t know how she was to get through the next few days without him.

  Distractedly Helen thrust back the mane of tawny hair which, having escaped the neat coil at the back of her slender neck, insisted on falling over her face. She found it almost impossible to believe her father was gone, his funeral over. He had been laid to rest that afternoon in the small churchyard in the nearby village.

  The vicar, who had conducted the simple service, had been kind, but even he had been unable to disperse the feeling of unreality which had been with her ever since Stein had told her of her father’s death.

  Stein … In odd moments, when she stopped thinking of her father, Helen tried to fathom the bewildering pattern of his behaviour since he had met her yesterday at the airport. There were so many questions to which she couldn’t find answers. Why, for instance, hadn’t he told her immediately about
her father? Why had he waited until he had kissed her? And why had he kissed her at all in such circumstances, and especially when he despised her?

  Bitterly she reflected on his conduct this afternoon.

  No one, observing how carefully he had looked after her during the last few. difficult hours, could have guessed his true feelings. He ‘had been by her side, his hand under her arm, his eyes constantly on her pale face, ready with an encouraging word whenever she faltered. He had walked with her into the old stoneflagged church and out again, through the mud and rain, to the graveside. Back at Oakfield he had relieved her almost entirely of the burden and strain of coping with those who returned with them to the house for light refreshments. Despite the solemnity of the occasion, Helen had sensed many of the women envying her Stein’s dark, immaculate presence.

  They didn’t realise, of course, how much he hated her. She supposed she ought to be grateful that he had chosen to disguise it for even such a short space of time. In some ways she welcomed his derision as she felt she ought to suffer for neglecting her father. It was no excuse that she had considered that with a housekeeper and Stein, he would be well enough looked after. It was too late to try and absolve herself on these grounds. She ought to have come back to see him, or at least written more often.

  Despairingly Helen dropped her head in her hands and sighed. Apart from the past, which she had no doubt would hurt for a long time to come, there was also the future to consider. There would be a lot of decisions to make, some of which must involve Stein.

  She would have to decide about things like whether to offer him her father’s shares in the firm, or whether to keep hold of them herself.

  Would it be possible, she wondered, to step into her father’s hoes? She wasn’t sure if she was capable of doing this, with her lack of experience, but perhaps Harold Dent, Lester’s solicitor, could advise her.

  She would have Oakfield, but it was a huge, rambling old house, really far too big for one. It might probably be wiser to sell and get something smaller, even a flat in town, where she might find something to do. In country areas there was little employment and, even if she could afford it, especially after the past year, she was unable to contemplate a life of complete idleness.

  When she was sure the last of the guests were gone, Helen rose reluctantly to her feet. She dared not risk Stein accusing her of shirking her responsibilities by remaining up here any longer. Once they were alone again she had little hope that his softer mood would continue, but the last thing she wanted to do was incite his anger. Running a quick comb through her tangled hair, but without checking otherwise that she was neat, she ran swiftly downstairs.

  She didn’t think Harold Dent had attended the funeral, but she could have missed him. She hadn’t seen him in years as her father had rarely invited him to Oakfield. He could be waiting now to deal with the estate.

  Some solicitors preferred to get the reading of the will over and done with as soon as possible.

  The spacious lounge was deserted and she asked the maid, busy clearing away, if she knew where she could find Mr. Maddison.

  ‘He’s in the library, miss.’ The girl looked at her curiously. She was new since a year ago, but Helen hadn’t noticed until this morning. There had been other changes too while she had been away, which she hadn’t yet had the time or heart to go into. The staff at Oakfield, in the past, had often changed. The house was isolated, the nearest village beyond easy walking distance, but their last housekeeper had been a nice woman. Helen wondered what had happened to her.

  The new one didn’t seem nearly as pleasant.

  She knocked on the library door like a guest. Reminding herself that she wasn’t one didn’t help. Her nerves were still strung too tight to allow her to behave normally.

  Stein was sitting behind her father’s desk and glanced up from the papers he was studying as she walked in.

  Again Helen experienced a flicker of half forgotten resentment that he should be making himself so much at home. Angry with herself, she averted her face hoping she hadn’t betrayed what she was thinking. She had a sincere desire to be friends with Stein now, and it amazed her how the antagonism she tried to forget kept resurfacing.

  ‘I magined you’d be resting,’ he said smoothly, bringing her eyes back to him as he rose to his feet.

  When she shook her head, he waved her to a chair.

  ‘You look exhausted, you’d better sit down.’

  ‘I couldn’t rest.’ Helen’s voice choked as she complied, but she rushed on before he could comment ‘I’d like to thank you for everything …’

  ‘I was glad to be of help.’

  She met the cool grey eyes, her own wide and anxious. ‘I thought Mr. Dent would be here. You know-my father’s solicitor.’

  ‘I know who he is.’ Stein left the desk to stand near her before the fire. ‘Didn’t I mention it? He’s on holiday and can’t see you for another week.’

  ‘A week?’ Helen gazed at him uncertainly. ‘It’s a large firm, couldn’t they have sent someone else?’

  ‘Is there anything you’re particularly worried about?’ he asked curtly.

  ‘No, it was silly of me. I got it into my head that Mr. Dent would be here and you might be having to entertain him. In fact,’ she stared at her clenched hands in her lap, ‘I never heard Dad mention making a will, but I suppose he must have done.’

  ‘I’m sure he left his affairs in order,’ Stein returned formally.

  Helen jumped up again quickly, as something in Stein’s manner began affecting her oddly. There was a calculating glint in his eyes and she had a feeling he was deceiving her. Yet how could he be? They weren’t discussing anything legal, and if she chose, she could easily check up on Mr. Dent.

  ‘Are you going back to town this evening?’ she asked hastily.

  ‘To town?’ He searched her flushed face, his brows drawing together. ‘No. Why should I?’

  She bit her lip, wishing she could see a clear course to steer instead of having to stumble blindly. ‘You’ve been staying here.’

  His grey eyes went icy, but only for a moment. ‘Your father was a lonely man.’

  Did he have to keep rubbing it in? Helen nodded silently.

  ‘Would you rather be on your own? I’ll leave if you like?’ he offered silkily.

  ‘No, no, of course not,’ Helen willed herself to speak evenly. ‘Stay as long as you like. I just wondered what your plans were.’

  ‘Naturally.’

  She heard’ the sardonic emphasis in his voice and wasn’t sure what to say next. She had a feeling now that he was baiting her, but she was so tense that it was probably only her imagination working overtime.

  Stein might not be regarding her very kindly, but there was nothing in his eyes to suggest he was her enemy. If yesterday he hadn’t been pleasant, it was understandable.

  He must have been upset because of her father, but, in the past, he had always forgiven her.

  ‘There’s bound to be a lot to see to,’ she explained vaguely. ‘I’ll have to decide what to do about the business and-and everything, and I expect you’ll have your problems too?’

  He smiled gently, a smile which didn’t quite reach his eyes. ‘The year you’ve spent in’ Paris can’t have prepared you for anything like this. You’ll need advice.’

  ‘Paris?’ Helen’s breath caught. ‘Who told you I was there?’

  ‘Madame Sommier. I was trying to find you, remember? She said you’d only been with her a week or two.’ His voice hardened. ‘Were you living with a man in Paris?’

  ‘No!’ she replied tightly, glaring at him. ‘And I’m sure Madame Sommier didn't suggest I was.’

  ‘She didn’t suggest you weren’t,’ he returned her angry stare coolly. ‘Some girls don’t mind admitting they enjoy having affairs, but perhaps yours went wrong? Was that why you came home? Had you decided to try your luck again here?’

  Stein was talking as though he was discussing the weather. His words held t
he animosity, not his voice.

  Suddenly Helen knew he had weapons and was going to use them, and that he also knew she couldn’t fight back.

  She shivered, her anger fading, her hands clenching and unclenching at her sides. Since her return she was seeing him differently from the image she had carried around with her for so long. She saw now that he was a handsome, even striking-looking man, very sure of himself and his position in life. She couldn’t tell how this could be as without her father he would probably be reduced to nothing again, but she could feel the power and assurance almost flowing out of him. She could also sense a lot of things she was unable to put a name to, and it was these unknown factors which instinctively frightened her.

  She wanted to explain about helping Raissa Sibour with her three children, but she was suddenly unable to.