Deception (25 page)

Terrified
at the cold anger on Logan's face, she feared
for one awful
moment he was going to knock Jerry flat.
'Please, Logan,' white to
the lips, she entreated him, let's
go.'

For
a few taut seconds she thought he was about to re
fuse,
then suddenly, ignoring Jerry completely, he swept
her
outside. It had begun to rain and it was cold, but Thea
wasn't
conscious of the weather. The cold outside was
nothing to what
she felt in her heart, but, if her evening
was ruined, she had a
horrible premonition that there was
worse to come.

Logan
halted on the wet pavement, careless of the
splashes on Thea's
flimsy skirts. 'Where is this flat of
yours?' he asked grimly,
his eyes daring her to deny she
had one, or to withhold its whereabouts.

It
seemed to stun her how he was so ready to jump to
the
wrong conclusions. Already he was judging and con
demning
her on only sketchy facts. Logan stood looking
at her as if she
were a stranger. 'Are you going to believe
everything that Jerry said?' she cried.

'It
isn't true, then?'

Miserably
she dropped her head, not able to wholly
deny it. 'Some of it is,'
she admitted, miserably.

'The
address of your flat?' The black rage returned to
his
eyes at her halting confession, and his demands were
no longer to be
ignored.

Unhappily she mumbled
an address close to Hyde
Park, pretending
not to hear his harshly drawn breath.
'Logan,'
she begged feverishly, clutching his arm, trying to
make him look at her,'I can explain. We needn't
go there.'

But
already he was hailing a passing taxi, pushing her
inside
and giving terse instructions to the driver. Turning back to her only then, he
asked, 'Do you have a key?'

'Yes.'
She always carried one. Lately it had proved a
constant reminder of her guilt.

They
didn't speak again. Thea sat frozen with misery,
knowing Logan
wouldn't ever forgive her. Hadn't he been
deceived before? Never
again would he tolerate being put
through the same kind of misery.

Inside
the flat, his silence continued for several more
minutes, during
which time he explored the whole of it
very thoroughly, as if he
was an estate agent making a
swift first inventory of every room.
He even opened cup
boards and drawers, running his eyes rapidly
over Thea's
extensive and obviously expensive wardrobe.

'So,' he exclaimed at
last, his features cold with a
freezing
anger, 'this is the first place of
 
to be
unveiled. A West End flat, uniformed porter, no doubt a
beautiful little sports model resting in one of the
garages below. What more is there that I don't know
about?'

'Logan...'

Thea!'
he interjected furiously, with a brutal disregard
for her ashen face,
'don't try stringing me along any
further.
I don't know why you decided to come to Drum-
larig. You started a train of events which you must have
known could only end in disaster, and the telling
of more lies won't help.' He placed a hand at her throat, his grip tightening
frighteningly. 'I want to know—everything!'
 
Her
voice came hoarsely, as she stared at him helplessly.
There's nothing
much ...'

'Everything!'

This
time she swayed, brushing her tumbled hair from
off her hot
forehead with shaking fingers. She didn't think
he would actually hurt her, but she
dared not continue defying him, if this was what she had been trying to do.
Logan looked livid, his face grey, his eyes brilliant with anger. She felt
stunned and lacerated by it, but she guessed it was no use trying to salvage
their marriage- by keeping all further knowledge of her money from him. The evidence
of it here was too real to ignore, yet there was something she felt driven
to speak of first.

Her eyes pleading for
his forbearance, she asserted huskily, 'It wasn't as Jerry said, Logan. It was
I who ran out on him. Not only him,' she floundered painfully. 'There
was another girl with us, Pam, whom I'd always
understood
to be Jerry's sister, until I discovered in Switzerland that
she wasn't his sister at all, and they were lovers. They were just using me to
pay their bills.'

'And that bothered you
so little that it drove you to the wilds of Scotland?' Logan rejoined with
biting sarcasm. 'You obviously went to Switzerland contemplating an affair
with him, if this other girl hadn't beaten you to it. Did you love him as much
as all that?'

'Loved him ...?' In a
daze of uncertainty, her mind not able to cope with the cold accusations he was
throwing ruthlessly at her, she hesitated, searching frantically for the
truth. Had she been just a little bit in love with Jerry? If she had been it
had never gone further than her imagination. She knew it now for what it had
been, a mild infatuation, nothing compared to what she felt for Logan.

She could see that he
had mistaken her silence for damning evidence of guilt and she wasn't surprised
when he went on slating her with words. 'Do you think I care what you did with
other men? It's perfectly clear that you would have been willing to live with
your friend Jerry if he'd asked you. So let's leave the obvious and have a
little chat about this money of yours, shall we? The money you conveniently
forgot to mention when you came to Drumlarig.'

A cold tremor of fear
went through her, making her shrink from him. 'I don't want to talk about
money, Logan. I just want to forget it.'

'How much do you
have?' Unlike hers, his voice didn't rise but was all the more frightening
because of that. 'Tell me!' he grated.

Trying to breathe
evenly, she jerked her head back from his steely grip. Surprisingly he let her
go and she could see he detested even to touch her. Helplessly driven, she
named a figure. Hearing it without expression, he asked the question she had
been dreading. 'Why didn't you tell me before we were married?'

'B-because,' she
stammered, 'if you'd known about it you wouldn't have—you "wouldn't
have let me stay.'

'Does Drumlarig mean
so much to you?'

Yes, she wanted to
cry, but not nearly so much as you. Yet she found it impossible to tell a man who
so obviously hated her that she loved him. Instead she whispered
bleakly, 'You don't understand, Logan. After what happened with Jerry and Pam,
I suddenly realised what an empty, useless thing money is on its own. Suddenly
I didn't want any of it any more. I asked my solicitor to see about giving it
all away, then I set off for Scotland.'

'Why Scotland and
Drumlarig?'

'Why not?' Couldn't he
stop firing questions at her, as though she were a criminal? The hate in his
eyes was terrible to see, but still she didn't seem able to tell him about
being bom at Drumlarig. Pride wouldn't let her, this and her feverish desire to
be accepted on her own merits. She didn't want his feelings influenced by some
incident in the past, although she doubted if pride would provide much
consolation after Logan was done with her.

He appeared to take
her two brief words at face value. 'Anything for kicks, I suppose,' he
commented cruelly. 'Everything you found at Drumlarig provided them didn't it?'
 
 

I
only wanted to help,' a note of pathetic eagerness
crept into her voice.
'I still do.'

She
might never have spoken. 'You found me in bed
and while I was
flat on my back you used your ginning
to influence Jamie and
Martha. And then, like a fool, I
proposed to you, after
swallowing everything you told me
about being a poor little orphan.'

Numbly
Thea protested, 'I did try to tell you, but it
wasn't easy. I've
been trying to tell you for weeks. In fact,
I wanted Drumlarig to
benefit from the money.'

Savagely
he exclaimed, It never will, not from anything
of yours. I have
no use for your money, Thea. I expect it
was merely a whim, but
you'd better get this straight. I
have no wish to be bought
and subjected to a female
dictatorship.'

'I'd
never do that, Logan. You know I wouldn't!'

'You
won't get the chance.'

Suddenly
she was so frightened her legs gave way
beneath her and she
collapsed on the chair behind her.
Why was he talking like
this? As if their life together was
over. Of course he was
furious. Hadn't he the right to be?
She ought to have told
him about the money sooner, but
surely he would forgive
her? They had so much—and
through the night he had
made such passionate love to her.
That in itself must mount
for something. 'Logan,' she was conscious of feeling desperate, 'I'll promise
never to touch
a penny of that money again.'

'I'm
afraid I don't want or trust your promises,' he re
torted
harshly. You've been deceiving me all along, haven't
you?
Nothing that a man with a clear head wouldn't have
detected,
of course. Grocery accounts for a fraction of
what you'd
actually spent. Clothes for Jamie, Christmas
presents—need I go on?'

'Well,'
she choked back a sob, 'you gave me so little
for food we might have starved. Even
the wage you
offered
  
'
she faltered, pausing unsteadily.

'Was
nothing?' he countered, as she flushed unhappily.
You
wouldn't understand that that was a desperate attempt
to attract the right
kind of person.'

'Well,
in my case it didn't, did it?' she flared, feeling
driven.

'How
true,' he sneered. 'However, that's all behind us
now.'

A
small wave of relief was immediately drowned in his
next
pitiless observation. 'You're very comfortable here.
I
certainly needn't have you on my conscience any longer.'

Bemused,
Thea clasped the arms of her chair as she
stared up at his baleful
face. 'How do you mean? What
do you intend doing with me, Logan?
Please,' she en
treated, as he made no reply, 'let's go back to the hotel. I don't
want to stay here any longer.'

'I'm
afraid you'll have to.' His narrowed, smouldering
eyes
went over her, as if he were seeing her for the last
time.
'I'm going back to the hotel to pack, but alone. You're
staying here.'

'You
mean you're coming back here to join me?'

•No,
I'm returning to Scotland—without you.'

As
trie full import of what he was saying hit her, she
jumped
to her feet, with the cry of a small, wounded
animal. 'Logan! You can't leave me
here, you can't!'
When his only reply was
to tighten his mouth grimly, her
voice
rose. 'Don't you understand? It would kill me, be
cause I love you
so!'

She
hadn't meant to tell him, not until she was sure he
loved
her, but she couldn't keep it back. It had slipped
out,
but suddenly she didn't care that he knew. What com
fort
would she find in having kept her love secret if he
left her?

He
took not the slightest notice, his mouth might only
have
become a little grimmer. 'You only love yourself,
Thea.
I regret our marriage. I'm sorry I hadn't the sense
to send you away weeks
ago, but I'm certainly not lacking in that commodity now. Our marriage is
over, my dear, fortunately before it's had time to do any more damage. We won't
be seeing each other again.'

'No, Logan!' Tears
were streaming down Thea's cheeks now, but she didn't realise. 'I love
you—and there's Jamie. I love Drumlarig, too. We could all be so happy
there. You see, I've never been used to cities and I've been lost in London.
You can't leave me, Logan, I'd be lost now without you.'

But he was already
striding through the door. 'Save your breath, Thea,' were his last words as he
slammed it behind him.
      
^/

When he had gone, Thea
sank down on the floor. Laying her head against the edge of her chair, she
sobbed. Logan couldn't mean the cruel things he had said. His anger had been
terrible, but it couldn't stay at such a red-hot pitch for ever. He would soon
be back.