White Lies (21 page)

Without knowing how she remained on her feet she walked down the hill, past the two concerned women in Reception, and climbed into the boat. 'Beau Jardin,' she whispered. It wasn't home. Not any more.

She pushed past the startled Anseydit when they landed, her tears threatening to engulf her before she reached the safety of her bedroom. But Anseydit ran beside her, jabbering rapidly, pointing to a launch in the bay. Suddenly she registered what he was saying—that Pascal's father was on the veranda.

At the very edge of hysteria, she walked up the wooden steps, her unhappy eyes on the thin, frail man with thinning grey hair who lay weakly on a steamer chair, his legs wrapped in a cashmere rug. He could only be in his early sixties yet his face was dissipated and weary, with lines of pain etched deeply around his mouth and in the clefts between his brows. Once he must have been a handsome man; the watery brown eyes still retained some of their command.

'He's not here,' she said coldly.

'I can see that,' he snapped. 'Who the hell are you?' he asked hoarsely.She hesitated. Suddenly she didn't feel married.

'Mandy Cook.'

'Mandy!' A slow, delighted smile touched his face. 'Mandy! I'm delighted to meet you at last! Please, let's talk...' He coughed—a terrible racking cough that seemed to paralyse him—and Mandy, after a moment's hesitation, hurried forward and anxiously put a glass of water to his lips.

'You should be in hospital,' she muttered. 'What are you doing here?'

'I had to see you,' he grated, when the fit was over. 'Damn lungs! Them or my liver'll be the death of me yet.' His hard, rough, nicotine-stained hand gripped her wrist like a vice. 'I had to see you before Pascal got rid of you. I don't trust him an inch!'

'Neither do I!' she grated. She remembered what Vincente had wanted to do with her and tried to break free, filled with loathing for the St Honore men. They thought they could manipulate women, use them for their own needs! 'Hold still! I want to look at you!' 'No,' she said in disgust. 'Let me go!' The merciless hand drew her closer and he scanned her face in detail. 'You're not like her. Not in any way.' 'Like who?' she asked, with a frown. 'Mary.'

Mandy tried to hold onto her patience. The man was sick. Possibly hallucinating. 'Mary who?' she asked.

'My wife,' sighed Vincente confusingly. 'Susannah says Pascal is still in a furious temper. Sulking, I suppose. What pretty hands you have. I see you're married. Is your husband with you?'

This was farcical. She had to get away. Yet his remark arrested her. 'No. He's not. And. ..why would Pascal have been sulking?' she asked warily.

Vincente touched her hair and she would have jerked back, but there was a gentle love in his eyes that she couldn't fathom because it was definitely not sexual. Perhaps, she thought bitterly, Pascal had told his father about them and the baby, and Vincente's hostility had vanished at the thought of a grandchild. And she felt a twinge of pity for him because it was too late for playing happy families.

'He's mad because I told him a while ago that I was going to disinherit him,' he chuckled nastily. 'I told him that as I was being loaded into the ambulance. It made me feel a lot better. I said he had to meet you and treat you well because I was going to leave everything to you. I've remade my will in your favour, Mandy. You're my heir. Are you pleased, my dear?'

She froze. Vincente continued to smile smugly at her while her mind sought to make sense of what he'd said. 'You're ill,' she said gently. 'The drugs—'

'No. I haven't been taking their damn drugs! Ask Susannah. She's disappeared somewhere but she knows. I told Pascal about my new will as they were closing the ambulance doors and he ran after it, yelling and banging on the doors,' said Vincente with satisfaction. 'Only seen him that angry once before and he attacked me then.'

Mandy felt herself trembling when she recalled that Pascal had said that his father had threatened to leave Beau Rivage to his mistress. It was true. Impossible, irrational but... true!

She tried to understand the implications. Pascal had known at the time he'd first met her that she, a stranger, for some crazy, illogical reason, had been named as his father's beneficiary.

That was why he'd tried to get rid of her. Why he'd done his best to damn her reputation and send her home squirming with embarrassment and shame. And he'd failed; that was why he'd... Her eyes flickered with pain.

Then he'd married her. It was so obvious now she thought of it. Marriage had been the only option left if he was to keep the land he desired with every fibre of his being.

Between them the two St Honore men had ruined her life. 'You malicious old man!' she screamed, snatching her hand away in horror. 'You wanted to avenge yourself on your son and you didn't care who was hurt in the process! You don't know; you can't have any idea of what you've done to me!'

'Mandy! Mandy!' he quavered hoarsely.

But she ran furiously into the house, to her room, where she began to fling her clothes into a suitcase. Her shaking hand snatched open the drawer where her undies were kept and then she stopped, aghast. Sitting prettily on a bed of soft oyster satin were the little baby booties that Pascal had given her as their baby's first present.

It was too much to bear. Mandy finally gave way. She crumpled to the ground and wept. She would go home. She would beg for her old job back and become a statistic—another single mother. Her child would be without a father and she would live a life without adult love.

She sobbed loudly, knowing that she could have borne all of that if Pascal had never woken her heart. But he'd shown her the deep joy of true love and for that she cursed him. He'd woken her and yet had remained untouched, a sleeping tiger with only an animal's instincts for life—for food and sex.

He'd lied to her from the very beginning, knowing that she was a serious threat. All he'd ever wanted was to secure his future from his dying father, and to win the terrible game of revenge that the two men were playing to the death. Pascal would have kept her from seeing his father, hoping that he would die. She shuddered. It was horrible. Revolting.

'I've; come to take you to the airport,' came a voice from behind her.

Mandy sucked in her breath and held it as the soft, seductive voice whispered through her raw body, jangling every nerve. She wanted to run to him, throw herself into his arms and seek comfort there. Fiercely she pulled her mind back from lurching to the brink of stupidity and steadied her pulses. She turned around.

'Why didn't you have the decency to let me leave without seeing me again? I didn't expect you to come back, Pascal!' she said bitterly.

'It's my home.'

She winced at the cold, deadpan delivery. He felt nothing.
Nothing!
'I don't want you near me,' she muttered in disgust.

'I'm not touching you, am I? And I won't let anyone else take you,' he growled. 'If you want to leave St Lucia, then I'm more than willing to help you on your way.'

'My God! You said you could be hard and ruthless,' she said furiously. 'I never realised how hard, how ruthless! I only hope to God that my child doesn't carry too many of your genes! If I knew that he or she would turn out like you or your father—'

'I'll take your luggage.'

Mandy felt like hitting him—anything to get a reaction—because she felt as if a steamroller had hit her and he might have had the decency to be a
little
upset.

'Have you seen your father? Is he still sitting on the veranda?' she asked curtly.

He tensed. Knowing him so well—or so she'd thought—she was sure that she had startled him. 'The boat! I thought one of the staff must be here... It's Father? He's
...here?'

'Yes,' she snapped.

'He must have discharged himself! Typical. Stubborn fool,' he muttered furiously. He slanted a cautious glance at her. 'Did he...did he talk to you?' he asked carefully.

'Oh, yes!' she scathed, her mouth tightening when Pascal took a sharp breath. 'He told me that you knew before we ever met that I was to inherit Beau Rivage! So now I understand why you were hostile to me. I know why you decided to marry me. You might have wanted sex but you certainly wanted to keep your inheritance too, didn't you?'

'I want Rivage, yes. I wanted sex.' He hesitated, his face suddenly haggard. 'Did he say... anything... else?'

'Isn't that enough? He's crazy!' she snapped. 'It's mad to leave a plantation to a strange woman you intend to make your mistress!'

The breath hissed out of Pascal's body, almost as if in relief, and the tension in his high shoulders slipped away.

'Well, don't worry. I'm not accepting. It would mean being your neighbour!
You
tell him he can keep his plantation and give it to someone else! I don't want to see him again. Make sure he's gone before I step out of here.'

'I'll do that all right! Wait. I'll get rid of him,' he said savagely.

After he'd stormed out she lifted her hand to the linen hangings on the bed for much needed support. She felt weak, but she had to be strong. Ahead of her was an hour and a half's journey to the airport—with Pascal. And then the journey home. And then...

Somewhere outside in the garden Pascal was shouting his father's name impatiently, as if Vincente was proving difficult to find. Almost sagging with emotional exhaustion, she wearily picked up her flight bag and took it out to the landing. And came face to face with Vincente himself.

'Oh, no!' she groaned.

'Mandy,' he said in a soft, gravelly plea.

'No!' she said sharply, recoiling from his outstretched arms. 'Get away from me! I loathe you both—'

'You can't!' wailed Vincente. 'You can't loathe me! I've spent the last few years searching for you! I've paid out thousands of dollars—'

'You wasted your time trying to find the perfect mistress of Beau Rivage,' she snapped. 'I can't be bought.

I'd rather suffer poverty in England than the kind of life you lead.'

'But.. .Lacey said you were absolutely desperate to find your family. Hasn't Pascal told you about you and me?' asked Vincente.

'Yes,' she said tersely. 'I'm your mail-order mistress.'

Vincente gaped. 'Nothing could be further from the truth! I'm your father, Mandy!'

'You're
madV
she gasped, staggering back. She came into contact with a hard, unyielding body and jumped away because she knew it was Pascal. She pressed herself against the wall, her huge, horrified eyes darting from one man to the other. Both a little crazy. Both torturing her..'.

'Tell her, Pascal!' grated Vincente. 'Tell her she's my daughter!'

Angrily Mandy opened her mouth to speak. But the furious words died in her throat. Pascal was staring at her, his face ashen. 'No,' she whispered, refusing to accept what she saw.
'No!'

'Tell her!' bellowed his father. 'You know it's true. I told you several days ago that she's my daughter!'

Mandy started. That was when Pascal had disappeared. 'Vincente... you mean you advertised for me...because you had discovered...' She swallowed the choking lump in her throat. It was hard to say. 'You thought I might be your daughter?' she croaked.

'That's right,' Vincente said, 'but the investigators couldn't find you anywhere. You'd vanished from Glasgow—'

'Dave and I went to Devon when we married,' she whispered.

'The agency I hired was chasing dead ends for months. I finally resorted to advertising for you because I'm dying. I wanted to see you as mistress of Beau Rivage before I go.'

Mandy stared, wide-eyed, in shock at Pascal. To have Vincente as a father...

'I have proof,' persisted Vincente. 'Mary, my wife— your mother—ran awry twenty-six years ago. She left a note saying she was pregnant, knowing it would twist the knife in the wound for me. I'd wanted children for years,' he said bitterly. 'We traced Mary to the Sunnyside nursing home in Glasgow. The detective agency has told me that you are registered as her child. We followed the trail to the two children's homes where you stayed and then it petered out after your marriage. It's taken me a long time to find you but there's no doubt. You're Mary's daughter. Mine.'

Mandy blinked in horror as something dawned on her. If this was so, she was Pascal's sister.

His sister and his wife.

'No!' she said hoarsely. 'It isn't possible!'

'There's no doubt,' protested Vincente.

One of Mandy's wildly shaking hands stole to her stomach. With the other she slowly removed her wedding ring. Pascal seemed turned to stone. No emotion showed on his face.
He knew,
she thought. And he'd been too chicken to tell her.

Shaking badly, she dropped the ring at his feet and walked down the stairs, her feet echoing on the fragrant, beeswaxed treads in the deathly silence that had fallen.

Susannah emerged from the shadows of the library and ran forward, catching Mandy by the wrist in an astonishingly fierce grip. 'Mandy! Wait! I heard everything. But Pascal isn't your brother—'

'You're only
saying
that!' Mandy sobbed, twisting her arm free. '
They
know. They believe it!' she wailed, pointing a shaking finger at the top of the stairs.

'Mandy-'

'No!'

She fled outside, her hands over her ears. Beyond that, she didn't know what she was going to do. But her prime instinct was to hide from all eyes, to shut herself away from anyone who might point at her and whisper the word 'incest'.

So she ran. Faster than she ever had in her life, because her life was running after her, chasing her with its horrors, coming at her from all directions and screaming dreadful things in her ears. Blanking her mind, thinking only of where her feet landed, she raced along a jungle path without heeding the boa constrictors or other dangers, startling pigeons and grackles and kingbirds, bleeding from where her legs and arms had been torn by sharp branches, not caring and hardly feeling any physical pain because her mind had become filled to bursting with all the pain in the world.

She might be guilty of loving her brother. Knowing him biblically, forming his child within her. At long last a terrified wail broke out from her anguished chest. This was the child she had planned on devoting her life to! Her baby was to have been her only love, the only piece of the world she could trust!