A Song Twice Over (90 page)

‘Give it to that formidable old woman you've taken in – with a maid to look after her. She'll keep a sharp eye on your property, all right. She likes her independence, by the look of her. So you'd be doing her a service.'

‘
And
salvaging your conscience for having her evicted to begin with.'

‘I have no conscience.'

‘So you say. What about the child?'

‘You would have her with you – naturally. And your own child back again, if you want him.'

She wanted him. ‘No!' she said sharply. It was too late for that. He seemed to understand.

‘Very well. A home, then, Cara, and all that goes with it. I can afford most things you will be likely to ask for.'

‘And you would live with me, in this fine house – openly?'

He nodded. ‘I would.'

Carefully, with great concentration, she adjusted, very slightly, the position of the clock on her mantelshelf and the candlesticks on either side of it. A delicate task, to be undertaken with care and skill, before she turned to smile at him.

‘So what would I do in your fine house all day, Christie?'

He shrugged. ‘What is it women do …?'

‘Wait for their men to come home,' she said flatly. ‘And put up with whatever mood is on them when they do. That's how it seems to me, at any rate, from the ladies who sit here every afternoon drinking my tea, fine and haughty as you please and as worried underneath as any weaving-woman from St Jude's about what “himself” might have to say to the size of my bills. No, thank you very kindly, Christie, but I won't be a fine lady in a fine house – begging for crumbs like a pet sparrow. It might be cake instead of bread and the bars of the cage might be gold. But a cage is a cage for all that, and I haven't a mind to it.'

‘What do you want then?'

He had thrown that challenge at her feet once before, with that same casual tossing of the hand. A gentleman dispensing arrogant largesse to a drab in a blue plush cloak. But she could afford to be arrogant herself now. And hard. If she chose to be.

‘I want another shop,' she told him. ‘In Bradford where the Tannenbaums and their smart friends come from. And one in Leeds …'

‘I have no property in Bradford, Cara.'

‘Have you not? How very remiss. Then build some – can't you? A big corner site, three or four floors high, all in carved stone with windows as tall as I am and my name in gold letters
this
big –'

‘
My
name,' he said.

‘What?'

‘My name, Cara.' He did not sound particularly pleased about it. Simply a little resigned and very determined. ‘Why so astonished? Should I agree to make such a sizeable investment then naturally I shall put my mark on it.'

‘On a shop-front?'

‘Why not? So long as it is the grandest and best in the North. Goldsborough's.'

‘Adeane's.' She too was very determined and had no resignation in her anywhere.

He smiled, slowly, with speculation and something beneath it she was, as yet, unwilling to recognize.

‘Would “Goldsborough & Adeane” suit you better?'

It would not. ‘
My
name,' she told him through clenched teeth. ‘
Mine
.' Already she could see it there, glittering down at her from a façade of mellow, honey-coloured stone, a royal swan of a building dominating the commercial duck-pond of Bradford – Leeds – Halifax …
Adeane's
.

‘My name,' she said, prepared to fight him to the death for it.

‘Very well.'

Why had he given in so easily? What trickery was this? He told her.

‘There
is
a solution …'

‘Oh …?'

‘Make your name mine … as a last resort, of course. Marry me, Cara.'

Had he thrown this at her too, like a challenge?

‘And if I did,' she threw back at him, ‘then I'd still call it Adeane's.'

He turned his head away from her and then gave her, once more, his sombre look.

‘Would you now?'

‘So I would.'

‘What else would you do, Cara? Marry me or fight me every afternoon across a boardroom table? Or both? Yours is the power to choose.'

Power over
him
? Or was he using the lure of it to tempt her into yet another trap? A dazzling bait, a lilting, dancing enticement until the cage door slammed shut behind her, giving the power – as always – to him?

‘Games, Christie.'

‘No. No games. The truth is …'

‘Do you know what the truth is?'

‘Oh yes.'

The haggard eyes seemed about to tell her, the hard, tense mouth to make revelations which aroused her curiosity, as the weary line of his shoulders, the fatigue and the hint of pain in him stirred her compassion. Deliberately, she supposed. Christie the Enchanter. His sorcery more powerful and tortuous and fascinating than ever her father's. Of another order entirely. Christie. Grand Master of his Craft. And her Craft too, of course.

Could she match him now? It seemed to her that she could.

‘Cara …?' Once more the haggard look.

‘Don't play the wounded soldier with me, Christie Goldsborough,' she told him, half-furious, half-amused. ‘Oh no – don't come limping to me now, all out of breath and broken down, and expect to melt my heart-strings … Because you won't …'

‘Will I not?'

‘You will not. Because it's all nonsense, Christie. You may look lame but you don't feel it. You can still go anywhere you please and do as you please and get any woman you want … Well – can't you?'

‘Yes.' The answer came like a slap, with not the slightest doubt about it. ‘
That
I can.'

‘Then why …?'

‘Because it has been a long time, Cara, since I wanted
any
woman.'

He paused.

‘I want you, Miss Adeane.' The confession did not appear to delight him.

‘Oh.'

‘Is that an answer?'

‘I shouldn't think so.'

‘
Cara
…' He allowed her to see his pain again.

‘What, Christie?'

‘Would it be possible, do you think, Cara, to start afresh? To give ourselves another chance …?' Slowly, with the merest hint in her own heart now, of those other things she would name as and when she pleased, she smiled at him.

‘It might.'

‘I hope so. I would like that, Cara. Very much – as it happens …'

‘Would you?' She smiled at him again. ‘Then you had better be on your best behaviour, Captain Goldsborough. Truly. If you want to have any dealings with Miss Adeane of Market Square, that is. A very particular woman she is, believe me, and not easily pleased. Not easily impressed either. Why should she be – with her wardrobes crammed full of silk dresses and her reputation for sound, honest trading from here to Manchester? A man would have to put himself out to
win
a woman like that. And think himself lucky if he succeeded. Wouldn't he now, Christie?'

He looked away from her and back again.

‘Yes, Cara,' he said.

How much had those two words cost him? Supposing it to be a great deal she rewarded him with a smile.

‘And now I must go downstairs a moment.'

‘Why?'

She saw that he would find the moment long. Uneasy, perhaps. That he would listen for her returning footsteps on the stairs and worry, even, that she might not come

How wonderful.

‘Because I am a careful shopkeeper, Christie, and it is absolutely necessary at this hour to check my doors and my locks and see that everything is in order. For instance, no candles left burning in the workroom and no …'

‘All right – all right …' Irritably he waved her away and, pausing in the doorway, she turned and looked at him, his legs stretched out towards the hearth, his eyes closed, the fickle dog lying in adoration at his feet, both of them wishing she would put more coal on the fire, both of them ill-tempered, over-bred and over-complicated and vulnerable in a shared need of her which did not entirely please them.

But she must go now and see to her lamps and her locks. Must go about her own business at her own pace. Leisurely, she thought. One step at a time. No need for haste. Choosing her own moments to suit her own needs. And theirs, of course: Sairellen and Anna; Liam whose needs she had fulfilled by letting him go free; the dog

and the man who would both be here, she knew, staring into the

fire, when she came back.

First published in 1985 by Collins

This edition published 2012 by Bello an imprint of Pan Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited Pan Macmillan, 20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR Basingstoke and Oxford Associated companies throughout the world

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Copyright © Brenda Jagger, 1985

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