Roberta Leigh - Not a Marrying Man Page 14

  'How do you stop yourself from becoming a cynic?' she wanted to know, and with a rather sad smile he said he didn't think he had.

  'I won't be needing you any more tonight. Miss Vale,' he continued. 'We'll just get on with the routine checking and I'll be in touch with you as soon as we have anything to report.'

  'Mr Lyn will be back in the office on Monday.'

  'We may have finished the case by then.'

  'You're an optimist!'

  He smiled, picked up his hat and briefcase and strolled out. Sara glanced at her watch. She had not expected Mr Brian to leave so early and debated whether to go back to her apartment and change before meeting Nevil, but she knew that once she returned home she would be too tired to go out again tonight and, because she wanted to see Nevil, she decided to go round to his apartment at once. The earlier they met the earlier she could end the evening.

  Riding across the West End in a taxi she could not help wishing she were on her way to see Bruno. If she were, there would be no idea in her mind of ending the evening. On the contrary, she would be thinking of ways to extend it.

  'Bruno,' she whispered, and knew a deep sense of pleasure in the mere sound of his name. Was it only twenty-four hours since he had held her in his arms and kissed her? Since he had said all those sweet, unbelievably wonderful things? If only he had been able to come back with her today instead of having to wait until Sunday. She thought of the beautiful red-haired model and wondered if he would be taking her out tonight in place of herself.

  Jealousy twisted inside her and she was glad when the taxi stopped and she could go up in the lift to Nevil's front door. She must stop thinking of Bruno lest she give it an importance he did not wish it to have. She reached Nevil's door and rang the bell. Within a moment it was opened by Jack Lawton, the friend with whom he shared his home. Sara had met him on several occasions and knew vaguely that he was something in the City.

  'Nevil's not back yet,' he said, leading her into the lounge. 'Is he expecting you ?'

  'Not until later. But I got through my appointment earlier than I thought.'

  'Never mind. Make yourself at home and help yourself to a drink. I'm afraid I've got to dash out.'

  'Don't mind me,' Sara assured him. 'I'll welcome the opportunity of putting my feet up for a while.'

  With a smile Jack disappeared and Sara settled in a chair and let the warmth and peace of her surroundings permeate her. It was a lovely room: quietly but expensively furnished to follow Nevil's elegant taste. Expensive tastes, she thought, glancing at the furniture and fittings. If she had agreed to marry Nevil would he have expected her to live here with him or would he have wanted a house in the stockbroker belt? She tried to see him as a married man, but found it too difficult. For some girl he would make an ideal husband, but not for her.

  The soft purr of the telephone brought her to her feet, her pulses racing as if she were an intruder rather than a visitor. For a moment she stared at the instrument, then reluctantly knew she had to answer it. It was for Nevil, and she explained that he was not yet home.

  'But I can give him a message. I'll be seeing him shortly.'

  'Good.' It was a male voice at the other end of the line. 'I tried to reach him at his office, but he's already left. All I wanted to tell him is that he made a mistake of five hundred pounds in the cheque he sent us. In our favour,' the man added humorously, 'so he'll be pleased when you tell him.'

  'Who did you say you were?' Sara asked.

  The man gave the name of a well-known firm of bookmakers and then hung up; Sara followed suit, but a little more slowly, surprised by what she had just learned. She knew Nevil enjoyed the occasional flutter, but had never realised the extent of his gambling. Five hundred pounds seemed an incredibly large sum of money. Far more than he could afford when, on his own admission, he had no capital behind him.

  A key turned in the lock and she hurried into the hall as Nevil stepped through the front door. His tall figure and fair-skinned face was so exactly the way she had remembered it that her vague suspicions of him evaporated, leaving her feeling foolish for ever having harboured them. Only as they disappeared did she even consciously admit they had been there and she was surprised at the relief she experienced. What a fool she had been to suspect Nevil merely because he had gone to see Hamish at the factory.

  'Hello, Nevil,' she said, putting more than the usual warmth into her smile.

  'Darling,' he said happily. 'It's wonderful to have you back.'

  Before she could stop him, he pulled her close and kissed her. His mouth was hard and the pressure bruising and she vowed that in future she would not let him kiss her again. Regardless of what happened between herself and Bruno, Nevil's position in her life had to be radically changed.

  Feeling her lack of response, he drew back but still kept his arm across her shoulder.

  'You've got jet lag,' he said. 'I'll fix you a drink. It will help you to unwind.'

  That's exactly what I need,' she said gratefully, and returned with him to the living-room.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Months later when she looked back on events, Sara was to wonder what had given her the clue that had finally led to one of the most unpleasant happenings she could remember. Sometimes she told herself it was intelligence that had brought her to the truth; at other times she decided it had been luck and, less frequently, she put it down to the hard core of realism with which she had been bom and which had been honed to a fine degree by the difficult years of her youth. But while the truth had actually been emerging Sara had had no time to intellectualise and, for this reason alone, she afterwards wondered if it was intuition more than anything else that had led her to the truth.

  'You don't look as rested from your holiday as I expected,' Nevil remarked, as he led her back to the sitting- room and made straight for the sideboard and the drinks.

  'I came back rather hurriedly,' she admitted. 'I wasn't planning to return until Sunday.'

  'Why the rush to get back?'

  'Don't you know?'

  Her incredulity made him look sheepish. 'You mean Lucille's new lipstick? But what was the point of breaking up your holiday ? You can't do anything about it. It's finished.'

  'We can find out who was responsible for the leak and we can stop it happening again.'

  These things always happen. You'll never be able to stop it. Just take your fashion designers as an example. Their designs are always being pirated.'

  There's less investment at stake in a design than in a cosmetic formula. Bruno's determined to get to the bottom of this.'

  'More power to him, then,' Nevil smiled, and handed her a Martini. 'Not too dry, I hope ? And since when has it been Bruno? Last time you spoke of him it was as Mr Lyn, and in extremely frigid tones too.'

  'I've called him by his name for weeks,' she said with deliberate casualness, 'and he is going to find out who stole the formula. He's called in Brummells.'

  'He's throwing good money after bad. Even if Lucille's hadn't pipped us at the post, we wouldn't have had more than a three-month lead in the market.'

  'That would still have given us a big lead in our sales. Enough to put us way ahead of them. Now they're the ones with the advantage.'

  'Not if we still go ahead with our launch. Admittedly we'll have to change it—and you won't get the sales you'd hoped for—but you'll still make a good profit.'

  'Not as good as the thief who stole Hamish's idea.'

  'What makes you so sure someone did steal it?' Nevil stared at her over the rim of his glass, his discreet gold cuff links glinting as he raised his drink and sipped it. 'You know the way it is with discoveries in other fields. You only have to look at the Nobel Prize winners and the rows that go on over some of their awards. Scientists can work for years on a discovery and then two different people—thousands of miles apart—produce the same result! That could easily have happened with the lipstick. After all, there have been indelible ones out before now.'

  'But not
like this one. Besides, Lucille's spent nothing on research and are well known in the trade for using other people's ideas.' Sara set her glass on the table beside her. 'Bruno won't call off Brummells till he's got at the truth. He thinks it's important to find out who did it.'

  'He'd do better to write the whole thing off and concentrate on something new.'

  'And get that stolen too? I don't understand you, Nevil. You sound as if you don't care about what's happened.'

  'Of course I care. It's ruined most of the campaign we'd planned to do—and lost us a hefty part of our commission—but I can't get as worked up over it as you. I work on the Rosalyn account and I'm loyal to it because it pays my bread and butter. But if I were offered the chance of going on to a bigger account I'd take it like a shot.'

  'Even a rival account like Lucille?'

  'It's hardly likely to happen,' he smiled. They're with a rival agency.'

  'But if you were given a chance to work for them, would you doit?'

  'Certainly. I'll work for anyone who pays me highly enough.'

  'And do anything?'

  'I didn't say that,' he smiled. 'Don't put words into my mouth, Sara, it's naughty.' He went to the sideboard. 'Care for a refill?'

  'No, thanks.' She waited until he had replenished his glass and faced her. 'I nearly forgot to tell you there was a call for you. Jack had already left the flat, so I took it.'

  'I have no secrets from you,' he grinned. 'You're my only girl-friend.'

  She smiled back, though she felt as if she were pulling at muscles that had no desire to move. 'It was your bookmaker. Apparently the cheque you sent them was five hundred pounds more than necessary.'

  'Damn!' The expletive came from Nevil as his drink slopped on to his wrist, and Sara was not sure if it was the spilt liquid or her remark which had caused him to say it.

  'I didn't know you gambled so heavily,' she continued.

  'I don't.'

  'Paying five hundred pounds more than you should isn't what I'd call a little punt on the horses.'

  'It's my only vice,' he said lightly. 'Marry me and I'll give it up tomorrow.'

  She stared down at her hands. 'I don't want to work when I get married, Nevil, and you wouldn't be in a position to keep us both the way we would like to live.'

  'Of course I would,' he said promptly. 'As a matter of fact I had a bit of luck on the Stock Market while you were away. So all you have to do is to say the word, and you needn't work again.' He walked over to her and pulled her up into his arms. 'I've missed you like hell these past two weeks, and don't think I haven't been worried about you either. I knew you were getting cooler towards me before you went away and I was in two minds whether to follow you to New York, but I decided you would hate it if I ran after you.'

  'Running after me wouldn't have helped.' She tried to extricate herself from his hold. 'I don't love you, and I couldn't marry you even if I did love you.'

  'That's an odd thing to say.' Still gripping her he held her away from him, his pale eyes glinting. 'What's it supposed to mean?'

  'That I believe you stole the formula for the lipstick.'

  There was no change in his hold on her; only his eyes became a little more watchful. 'That's a rather shattering thing to say. Do you have any proof, or are you just clutching at straws?'

  'I've got no proo,'/ she admitted, 'and I don't even know why I said what I did.'

  'Do I take that as an apology and a retraction?'

  'No.' Having voiced her suspicions she found them growing stronger, not weaker, and knew she must have mistrusted Nevil for a long while, for her to have made such an accusation.

  'If anyone else had called me a thief,' he said softly, 'I'd have knocked them down. But that you should do so… the girl I love… it's incredible!'

  'I'm sorry,' she said, still not meaning the words as a retraction but as a genuine expression of regret that she had had to say them in the first place. 'I have no proof for saying it beyond—beyond intuition—and I've felt it ever since I spoke to Hamish today.'

  'You've already seen him?' Nevil asked in surprise.

  'I went straight to the factory from the airport. He told me you'd come down to see him a couple of months ago and that you had been in his office when his new safe was being installed.'

  'So what? All his technicians were there too. Why suspect me and not them?'

  'I don't know,' she said half to herself. 'Perhaps it's because I've always been aware of your lack of loyalty to the company.'

  'I've made no secret that I work only for money,' he said coldly, and dropped his hands away from her. 'But that's a far cry from stealing a lipstick and selling it to Lucille's.'

  'Then where have you found the money to gamble and why can you suddenly afford for me to give up work if I married you?'

  'I told you I've been lucky on the Stock Market.'

  'You would have had to make a great deal of money in order to tell me to give up my job.'

  'For heaven's sake!' He was beginning to lose some of his coolness. 'I love you dearly, Sara, but I'm damned if I'm going to let you stand there and accuse me of being a thief. The best thing you can do is to go home and get a good night's sleep. You're obviously overtired and it's making you fanciful. I'm the man you've been dating for over two years; the man who thinks he knows you well enough to ask you to be his wife. The last thing in the world I thought you would do is to accuse me of———-'

  Flinging out his arms in despair, he turned away from her. His narrow head was erect and his fair hair glinted in the light of the standard lamp.

  For a long time Sara looked at him in silence, beginning to realise the implication of all she had said. Nevil was right. She was tired from her journey and overwrought from her emotional scene with Bruno last night. But no matter how difficult her personal problems were she should never have allowed it to colour her attitude to a man who, as he had rightly said, knew her sufficiently well to ask her to be his wife. She did not love Nevil, but she did owe him some loyalty.

  'I shouldn't have spoken to you like that,' she said humbly. 'You're quite right to be angry with me.'

  Instantly he swung round, his thin features softened by good humour.

  'Anyway,' she went on, 'I'm sure Brummells will find out the truth. They're already looking through everybody's bank accounts and———-'

  They can't do that, it's illegal.'

  'Maybe it is, but they've got ways of finding out. They told me so this evening.'

  'It was just said to frighten you,' Nevil said flatly.

  They backed it up with facts. They know every penny I've earned and spent for the past five years.'

  Nevil gave an involuntary movement and the little colour he had ebbed from his face, making her apology of a moment ago suddenly seem an unnecessary one.

  'What will they find in your account, Nevil?'

  Too much.' His voice was thin and he cleared his throat. 'I'll get on to my bank manager first thing in the morning and warn him of what's going on. I'll put an end to Brummells' snooping if it's the last thing I do!'

  'You're too late.' She was not sure if she was right in saying so, but she decided to pretend she was. 'Mr Brian told me they've got everyone's accounts and it was now only a matter of examining them.'

  'I see. Then that's that.' Nevil's composure had returned, though his colour was still absent. 'I should have insisted on Lucille's paying me abroad. But I wanted the money here.' His eyes were small and mean-looking. 'Because of you, damn it. Because I wanted to marry you and give you a good life.'

  'For heaven's sake, don't say you did it for me!'

  'Not quite,' he admitted. 'I did it for me too. I needed the money and I saw the opportunity and took it.'

  'You went to see Hamish deliberately. You've never gone to the laboratory before. You must have planned it from the word go.'

  His eyes met hers. There was no shame in them; only hard determination. 'I'm not sure you're right, Sara. All I know is that a particular
opportunity presented itself to me and I took it. Nor do I feel guilty about it. Given the chance I would do the same thing again.'

  'You're a common thief!' she flared.

  'I'm rich,' he replied. 'If a company has something that will make them a fortune, they should guard it properly. If they don't it's their look-out. Life's a rat race, Sara.'

  'Only if you're a rat!'

  He smiled. 'Sticks and stones will break my bones, but names will never hurt me. I was taught that as a child and I've never forgotten it.'

  She turned to the door, but he was ahead of her, barring her way. 'You've got to protect me,' he said quickly. 'You must pull Brummells off the investigation.'

  'I can't. Bruno engaged them and———— '

  'Tell him to call them off.'

  'How? Do I just ask him to forget the whole thing?

  You know I can't make Bruno stop now.'

  'Somebody must,' he said quietly. 'If not, there's going to be one hell of a scandal in his life.'

  Perplexed, she looked at him and he put out a hand to guide her back to a chair. She recoiled from his touch and he was intelligent enough to correctly interpret her movement. A faint tinge of pink coloured his cheeks and he dropped his hand to his side and motioned with his head for her to sit down. Knowing there was something awful to come, Sara obeyed him.

  'If you can't get Lyn to call Brummells off the investigation you'll have to go to Madame Rosa. She's still head of the company.'

  'Why should she do it?'

  'To stop a scandal. If she doesn't, you can tell her that the secret she's been guarding for thirty-four years will be blazoned across every newspaper on both sides of the Atlantic—complete with pictures.'

  'Pictures?' Sara echoed. 'Pictures of what?'

  'Of Madame Rosa as a thirty-year-old peasant. Of a young nobleman of twenty whom she seduced and whose child she bore. And of Bruno Lyn,' he grated. 'Bruno, her son—not her nephew but her son!'

  Sara heard the words as though they came from a long way off. Madame Rosa was not Bruno's aunt, as he believed—as everyone believed—but his mother. And the woman he had adored as such was his aunt.