The Eden Inheritance (45 page)

Otto had eaten very little, picking at the food which had been placed on a tray on his lap, and Lilli watched him in distress. She had tried to imagine how awful it would be to see him so ill but the reality was much, much worse. If he had not always been such a strong man it would have been easier to bear, she thought. As it was, the contrast was heartbreaking, the iron will still there locked inside the failing body. Tears pricked her eyes. She looked away and saw a tall figure silhouetted between the veranda shutters. She gasped, startled, and at the same moment Ingrid spoke, her voice raised slightly in a note of indignation.

‘Jorge! What a surprise!'

‘Is it?' It was the same amused drawl Lilli remembered so well, the voice she had heard in her dreams.

He came into the salon, moving with the lazy grace of a big cat. The light from the candelabra etched the lines on his face into sharp relief so that he looked older, more debauched, more dangerous than ever. But he still had the power to stir her senses into unwelcome response.

‘I heard Lilli was here,' he said. ‘I dropped by to see her.'

‘You shouldn't have.' Otto was sitting forward in his chair, his anger and dismay lending him some of the strength his illness had taken away. ‘Lilli doesn't want to see you. You must know that.'

‘It's all right, Daddy. Don't worry on my account.' Lilli slipped from her chair to stand behind his, her hands resting lightly on his shoulders. ‘I'm flattered that you should have taken the trouble, Jorge, but as my father said, you shouldn't have. I really don't want to see you.'

Jorge shrugged, apparently unconcerned.

‘I'm sorry about that, Lilli,' he said in the same throwaway drawl. ‘I thought that you and I meant something to one another. And in any case with things as they are it may well be unavoidable.'

‘What do you mean?'

He glanced in Otto's direction.

‘Obviously things are going to change around here. There will be new arrangements to discuss.'

The cruelty of the remark took Lilli's breath away but Ingrid was on her feet in a moment, facing him furiously.

‘How dare you, Jorge!' she demanded. ‘ How dare you come bursting in here uninvited and upsetting Otto in this way!'

Jorge half smiled but his face remained curiously expressionless.

‘Facts have to be faced sooner or later, whether you like it or not'

‘But this is not the time or the place. I think you had better leave, Jorge.'

Jorge shrugged elegantly.

‘As you wish. This is your home – for the present. I am only sorry you choose to be so inhospitable to an old friend and business partner. But – so be it. I'll talk to you alone, Lilli, in the very near future.'

‘Can't you understand, Jorge, that I have nothing to say to you?' Lilli was furious at his arrogance and total lack of consideration for her father, furious too at herself for ever having allowed him to gain such a hold over her emotions and her life. ‘Ingrid spoke for me, too. I've come back to Madrepora because my father is ill. That is the only reason. And I would be grateful if you would leave him – and me – alone.'

Jorge laughed deep in his throat, a laugh coarsened by too many late nights and too many cigars.

‘My darling Lilli, you are more beautiful than ever – especially when you are angry. All that fire – irresistible! I shall look forward to doing business with you.'

He turned, moving out of the circle of light by the candelabra, an actor who knew he had delivered the perfect exit line and did not wish to spoil it by further dialogue. Before Lilli could retaliate the darkness had swallowed him.

‘That pig – who does he think he is!' Ingrid blazed. Lilli did not think she could ever remember seeing her stepmother, usually calm and composed to a fault, so out of control. ‘He has no respect for anything or anyone. One of these days someone will do to him what they did to his father – blow a hole right through him – and it will be no more than he deserves.'

‘Ingrid … don't, please.' Otto's voice was strained and beneath her hands Lilli could feel the tension in the rigid line of his shoulders. ‘Just leave it, huh? Don't let him spoil Lilli's first night home.'

‘He has already done that.'

‘No, he hasn't.' Now that Jorge had gone Lilli felt weak and shaky but she was determined, for her father's sake, not to show how upset she was. ‘I'm angry that he should say such things but at least I've seen him now, and I have to admit I was dreading that. Now – well, it's done, isn't it? The worst is over.'

‘Lilli.' Otto reached up, taking her hand and pulling her around to his side. ‘I don't think it is over. You heard what he said. He wants to talk to you – alone.'

‘I won't
be
alone with him. End of story.'

‘
Liebchen
, it's not as simple as that. You know what Jorge is like. He'll engineer it one way or another. For one thing he won't let you go so easily. It's not his style. For another … well, you heard what he said.'

He broke off, strength ebbing from his voice.

Lilli dropped to her knees beside his chair. ‘Daddy, what did he mean by those things?'

‘Not now, Lilli!' Ingrid said sharply. ‘Your father is very tired. I won't have him upset any more tonight.'

‘It's all right,' Otto said. ‘We've been through all this, Ingrid. Lilli has to know the truth about Madrepora – and about Jorge and the others.'

‘But not tonight. It's too much for you, Otto. There's always tomorrow. And now I am going to call Basil and get him to put you to bed.' She spoke briskly, her tone almost schoolmarmish, and as she swept out of the salon in search of Basil Otto raised his hands helplessly before letting them fall back on to his knees, shaking his head at Lilli in an attempt at wry humour.

‘You see what it's come to, Lilli? Otto von Rheinhardt having to do as a woman tells him!' His words were slightly slurred by tiredness and the effect of the drugs he had been forced to take earlier, and Lilli looked up at him, puzzled.

‘What did you say?'

‘I said Ingrid bosses me about shamelessly.'

‘No – not that. You said Otto von something – well, it wasn't Brandt, anyway.'

‘Did I?' Furious with himself for the slip of the tongue Otto was grateful for once that he could use the excuse of the drugs to retreat into vagueness. ‘Oh, it's an old family name. I used it as a boy. Haven't even thought of it for years …'

‘Oh Daddy!' Lilli's face softened with love and pity. ‘I was going to ask you again whilst Ingrid is out of the room what on earth is going on here, but I see she was right. You're in no fit state to talk tonight. Well, I shall still be here tomorrow. You can tell me then all you want me to know.'

‘Yes, Lilli, yes. I must confess I don't feel up to it …'

The door opened and Ingrid sailed back into the salon, followed closely by the faithful Basil.

‘Here he is, Otto. Now you get a good night's sleep and I'll look after Lilli,' she said.

‘Yes, yes. Very well. Good night then,
liebchen
. And – in spite of everything – it is good to have, you home.'

He touched her cheek and Lilli stood aside, anguished, watching Basil ease him out of the chair and help him across the room.

‘I had no idea he was this ill,' she said to Ingrid when he was out of earshot. ‘It's dreadful! You should have let me know sooner.'

‘I told you – he didn't want it.' Ingrid poured herself a fresh coffee. Her face was smooth and oddly untroubled. ‘And now that Jorge has been here causing trouble I should think you can see why.'

Lilli felt a dart of guilt, knowing that her own past indiscretions were at least partly to blame for what had happened here tonight. But only partly. There had been something else, something she did not understand.

‘What is it Daddy wants to tell me?' she asked.

For a moment Ingrid was silent and Lilli could see her weighing the odds, deciding whether or nof to speak. Then she shook her head.

‘No, Lilli, it has to come from him. When he's strong enough. It's not my place – it has nothing to do with me at all.'

‘But you are his wife. You must know what it's all about.'

‘I know, yes, but it's still not my business. It has to do with arrangements that were in place long before I came to Madrepora and things which concern only you and him.'

‘And supposing he isn't strong enough, or lucid enough, tomorrow or the next day? Supposing he's never able to tell me?'

‘Then in that case I will do it for him. But he must have the opportunity first.' She spoke decisively and Lilli knew it would be useless to press her further.

‘Ingrid,' she said. ‘Would you mind very much if I went to bed too? I'm very tired myself. It's been a long day.'

She did not add that she did not want to have to sit here making small talk with her father's wife, that she did not feel comfortable in her presence and wanted, more than anything, to be alone with her thoughts.

‘Of course I don't mind,' Ingrid replied. ‘ I'm beginning to get used to spending my evenings alone, which is probably just as well since it is all I have to look forward to.'

Lilli could think of nothing to say. But she crossed the room and kissed her stepmother on the cheek with more warmth than usual. Ingrid had at least brought Otto some happiness and companionship in the last years of his life. For this alone Lilli knew she would be eternally grateful.

Her old room was unchanged. Lilli undressed by the light of the moon which shone brightly through the unshuttered windows and climbed into the four-poster bed, rearranging the folds of mosquito netting which fell from the canopy to provide a cool white haven.

As a child she had loved this bed which might have come straight out of the pages of a book of fairytales. To her it had been in turn an enchanted castle, a remote island, a pirate ship. Here all the innocent world of a lonely child had been hers, allowing her to dream and pretend and play-act to her heart's content. But here too she had cried bitter tears – for her mother, and, years later, for Jorge who had manipulated and deceived her, and now, with her emotions churning, it was these sadder memories that were the more real to her.

Lilli drew the fine lawn sheet up to her breasts, letting her arms lie on top of it, and closed her eyes. But sleep refused to come, as it had refused to come every night since she had received Josie's letter, and the scene that had been enacted downstairs earlier began to play itself put again, over and over, like a cine film being run and rerun.

Why had Jorge had to come here tonight? she asked herself, a spark of anger driving sleep even further away. Why couldn't he have left her alone for just a little longer? But that wasn't Jorge's way. He had to gain what he considered to be the advantage, playing his favourite game of interchanging brutal cruelty with intoxicating flattery until his victim was no more than a marionette in the hands of an experienced puppet master. Jorge went all out for what he wanted – and he wanted her. No – not quite true. He didn't want her – he wanted the idea of her. To possess and discard as he chose in the service of his lust and self-esteem. She knew it, hated him for it and yet still felt herself drawn irresistibly to him just as she always had been.

She had known all those years ago that what she was doing was wrong, and had been unable to care. But she had not known then what she knew now. She had been very young, very, impressionable, very romantic. She couldn't blame herself too much. What she was most afraid of was that even now, older and wiser, she would still be unable to resist and would allow it all to begin again.

Jorge was her destiny. That was what she had told herself when she was sixteen years old and it had been music to her ears. She had had no idea of what had gone before and what was to follow. And if she had, would it … could it … have been different? Lilli did not know. She only knew that now, lying in her old bed with Jorge's presence, despicable yet still undeniably magnetic, all around her, she was as much his plaything now as she had been then.

S
HE HAD BEEN
sixteen years old when it had begun, and she had been a pupil at the Convent School of Our Blessed Lady in Caracas for almost eight years.

At first, rebellious and homesick, she had hated the school. Then, gradually, things had improved. She had learned that the nuns were ready to forgive almost anything of a girl as quick and clever as she, and her wicked sense of humour made her popular with the other pupils. Lilli, who had so often been lonely, discovered the pleasure of companionship and even love of a sort.

Her name was Rosina, she was bookish and serious – all the things Lilli was not – and for two whole terms they spent their leisure time walking in the school grounds, their arms about each other's waists, sharing their secrets. Once or twice they even kissed and touched one another but the contact gave Lilli no pleasure. For her it spoiled the purity of their friendship, awakening in her feelings not only of guilt but also of disappointment – an emotion which made no sense since she had expected nothing in the first place. She had begun to avoid Rosina, who followed her like a puppy-dog which has been kicked by its master. But there were other friends to take Rosina's place, friends to laugh with and get into scrapes with, and Lilli forgot the vague yearnings and became her old happy-go-lucky self.

Much as she enjoyed school, however, she loved the long holidays when she returned home to Madrepora even more, and the summer when she was sixteen was no exception. Her heart was light with pleasurable anticipation as the little plane her father had sent for her skimmed across the blue sea dotted with tiny islands. But oddly there was no thought in her mind of Jorge. She had scarcely seen him in the last ten years. Instead it was Uncle Fernando and Fabio, Jorge's brother, who stayed at the ginger-bread house and did business with her father. Lilli had once asked Otto the reason for the change, but he had merely shrugged: ‘ Jorge is busy elsewhere,' and if his eyes had shadowed when he said it Lilli had not noticed. After a while she had ceased to wonder, though she had never quite forgotten him.