Stormspell (23 page)

Dominic's lips tightened. 'You didn't tell me. Mrs Cooke.'

'No.' Mrs Cooke looked slightly discomfited now. 'As it Was a personal call. I didn't think it was urgent. And as Miss Symonds said she would call back—'

'In future. I'd like a list of any calls that come in while I'm in conference to be left on my desk. Mrs Cooke/ Dominic interrupted her crisply. 'Personal or otherwise. I'll decide if they're important.'

'Yes. Mr Dominic.'

Mrs Cooke inclined her head, and briefly he felt contrition. It was not her fault, after all. His father wouldn't have welcomed that kind of information, particularly when it had nothing to do with the corporation.

'Right.' Dominic inclined his head rather more agreeably. 'Was there anything else?'

Mrs Cooke shook her head. Then: 'Shall I tell Mr Crown you're leaving? He may wish to speak with you before you go.'

'Be that as it may.' Dominic's lips twisted rather ironically. 'I don't intend to give him the opportunity.' he asserted dryly. 'Tell him he can ring me later, if there's anything urgent.' He massaged the back of his neck with weary fingers. 'I doubt if I'll be going out this evening.'

'And Miss Symonds?'

'Barbara? Oh. yes.' Dominic's hand dropped to his side. 'If she calls again, tell her I'll ring her this evening. Right now. I need a drink—a strong one!'

Mrs Cooke did not look as shocked as he had expected now. Instead, she permitted herself a faint smile, and he realised she had humour, after all.

'Until tomorrow, then. Mr Dominic.' she said politely, and he left his office feeling distinctly less brittle.

Barbara rang again while he was in the shower, and Shannon came into the bathroom waving the extension.

'Shall I be plugging it in here?' he asked, when he had attracted his employer's attention, and Dominic gave a resigned nod, before wrapping a thick towel around his hips and stepping out of the cubicle.

'Darling, would you mind if I changed our arrangements?' Barbara exclaimed, when she heard his masculine tones. 'Daddy's sprung this dinner party on me, right at the last moment. One of those awful political things, that he really couldn't avoid. So could you have dinner here this evening, instead of me joining you as we planned? I know it's short notice, and I do want to see you, but I simply can't let Daddy down.'

Dominic eased himself against the wall, lifting one leg to rest the ball of his foot against the tiles behind him. 'I don't think I feel up to attending one of your father's political rallies this evening, Barbara,' he said at last, with flat finality. And at her cry of protest he added: 'Honey, I've had it with dinner parties. For tonight, at least. You and me—that was something different. But I've just spent the last eight days attending one conference after another, and quite frankly, I'm talked out. I'm sorry, but that's the way it is.'

'Oh, Dominic!' Barbara made a sound of evident annoyance. 'Dominic, there were people I wanted you to meet—friends of Daddy's. People who could help you, who could help Crowns!'

Dominic felt a sudden constriction in his stomach. It was a feeling he had had before, whenever his father had attempted to coerce him into doing something
he
wanted. It was a gut feeling, a painful tightening of his stomach muscles, that produced a totally negative response.

'You mean I'm invited to this dinner party?' he enquired with apparent mildness, and Barbara confirmed that this was so.

'Of course you're invited. When Daddy suggested it, I couldn't help but agree.' She paused, and when he didn't say anything, she went on: 'Won't you come, darling? For me? I promise vou won't regret it.'

'I thought you said your father sprang it on you at the last moment.'

'Well, he did. But naturally he expects you to attend. He knew you were expected back yesterday, and when he learned that you and I planned to have dinner at your apartment—'

'—he decided to use the situation,' finished Dominic expressionlessly.

'Not—use. exactly,' confessed Barbara reluctantly. 'But naturally, there are people he'd like you to meet. After all, as the nominal head of—'

'No, Barbara.' Dominic's tone was final, but she would not accept it.

'You—you can't mean that,' she stuttered, scarcely believing he would disappoint her, but he was adamant.

'I'm tired, Barbara,' he said implacably. 'And what's more, I don't intend to spend my evenings furthering your father's career.'

Barbara gasped. 'That's a rotten thing to suggest!'

'But relevant, don't you think?' suggested Dominic coldly. 'Gerald and I have hardly been friends, up to this point.'

'Daddy and your father have always—'

'I'm not my father!' retorted Dominic tersely, and then, realising he was behaving boorishly, he shook his head. 'Look, Barbara, I don't want to quarrel over this, and if you choose to change your mind and come and take dinner with me, then that's okay. But so far as me joining your father's dinner party is concerned, forget it.'

Barbara was silent for a few moments, and he thought at first she might have rung off. But then the unmistakable sounds of her sobs reached him, and the constriction inside him balled into a hard core.

'For God's sake. Barbara,' he muttered, clenching his fist beside him, straightening away from the wall. 'It can't be that important to you!'

'I—I'll ring you to—tomorrow, Dominic,' she sniffed, but still she didn't ring off, and Dominic's mouth compressed.

'All right,' he got out at last, and it was almost a snarl of self-disgust at his own weakness. 'All right. I'll be there!' he told her, giving in to her deliberate appeal to his sympathy, and rang off before he was tempted to change his mind again.

Shannon entered the bedroom as he was dressing to go out, and viewed his employer's velvet dinner suit with some concern.

'Are you not eating at home this evening after all, sir?' he exclaimed, brushing a speck of dust from Dominic's sleeve. 'Haven't I got a rack of lamb roasting this past hour, and a dish of smoked salmon cooling in the freezer?'

Dominic expelled his breath heavily. 'I have to go out.' he said flatly, meeting the Irishman's offended gaze. 'I know I said I'd be eating at home—but now I find I'm not.'

Shannon frowned. 'Would you be eating dinner with Miss Pascal and her niece?' he asked with a meeting of his brows. 'Sure, you took my advice and spoke to the young lady.'

'No, I didn't.' Dominic's response was brusque, but he couldn't help it. 'I'm having dinner at the Symonds'! I'm sorry if you've gone to a lot of trouble unnecessarily, but there it is.'

Shannon turned and left the room without another word, and Dominic couldn't blame him. He was put out. and quite rightly, but then so was Dominic, and he was frustratedly aware that he had been manipulated. His father would be very amused if he ever learnt that his son had been persuaded by a woman's tears, particularly when he suspected they had been deliberately turned on for his benefit.

He turned away from the mirror and picked his wallet up off the bed. and as he did so, an image of Ruth, as he had last seen her, flashed before his eyes. It wasn't the black and white photograph he envisaged. but the flesh and blood female that she was.

standing on the verandah, watching him walk away down to the harbour with Doctor Francis. If she had shed tears, would he have turned back? If she had spoken with him, if she had appealed with him to stay, might he have been persuaded then?

He walked into the living room, where Shannon had already switched on the lamps. The warm glow from their amber shades contrasted sharply with the crystal-cold darkness beyond the long windows. The lights of London glittered with an icy brilliance, and he wondered how Ruth was reacting to the chill of an English spring.

The beige telephone on its polished table mocked his introspection. There was one way of finding out, an inner voice derided. He had only to pick up the receiver and dial her aunt's number. Ruth herself might answer. As soon as he heard her voice he would know how she was feeling. Her tone was very expressive.

He glanced at his watch. There was still half an hour before he need leave for the Symonds'. Plenty of time to call a friend and enquire after her health. Only Ruth wasn't a friend, he told himself savagely. To her, he was an enemy, and to him, she was the manifestation of his own bestiality.

He flung himself on to the couch beside the phone and viewed its simple lines with dislike. In God's name, why was he tormenting himself like this? She wasn't in danger any longer. She wasn't alone or abandoned. She had an aunt and an adopted cousin of her bwn. So why was he plaguing himself with responsibilities that were not—and could not—be his?

He got to his feet again, and went and poured himself a Scotch. The raw spirit was soothing, and he poured another before returning to his seat, staring into his glass as if all the secrets of the world might there be revealed.

He was still sitting there when the telephone rang, and for a moment he wondered if some method of thought transference had induced Ruth to ring him. This idea was quickly abandoned, however, when his father came on the line, and at the end of their conversation he felt more morose than ever. Jake wanted him to go to the United States the next day, to attend a conference of Western industrialists in New York, and the possibility that it might be another week before he was back in London filled him with impatience. He didn't feel like packing up and leaving again, and he had been tempted to tell his father to find someone else to take his place. He didn't think Barbara would be too thrilled either, and he slumped back against the soft leather with a feeling of acute depression.

Finishing his drink, he eventually hauled himself upright, sitting in a hunched position, legs apart, his hands holding his glass hanging loosely between. This was no good, he told himself severely. He was allowing Ruth to occupy too large a place in his thoughts. Like anything remembered, he was exaggerating his responsibility towards her out of all proportion, and there was only one way to discard it.

Putting the glass aside, he reached for the phone, and after only a second's hesitation dialled the number of the house in Wellington Mews. There mightbe no one in. he consoled himself, as the tone pur- • red. He could hardly blame himself for not getting in touch with her if there was no one in. and by the time he got back from New York he might have succeeded in shaking off this melancholy.

'Miss Pascal's residence!'

The aloof female tones were too precise to be those of Davina Pascal herself, and Dominic drew a deep breath before saying harshly: 'Is Miss Jason there? I'd like to speak to her.'

There was a moment's silence, and then the voice continued: 'Who shall I say is calling, sir?' and Dominic's teeth jarred together.

'I'm—a friend of hers,' he said at last, with reluctance . 'Please ask her to come to the phone.'

There was another silence, longer this time, and Dominic's long fingers sought the tense nerves at the back of his neck. For God's sake, he muttered silently, what was going on?

When Ruth's voice came on the line, his reaction was more powerful than even he had expected. It was such a delightful voice, soft and faintly husky, and evidently anxious as to who might be calling her.

'Ruth?' His own voice had suffered from the delay, and came out more roughly than he could have wished. 'Ruth, how are you? I read about your father in the paper. I'm terribly sorry.'

'Dom—Mr Crown!' she choked, obviously recognising his voice without effort. Then, more coldly: 'What do you want?'

'What do I want?' Dominic expelled his breath impatiently. 'What do you think I want? I want to know how you are. Whether you're happy. What you think of London.'

'I'm very well, thank you.' Her response was clipped. 'Thank you for calling—'

He knew she was going to ring off, and it was suddenly imperative that he should stop her. 'Ruth! Ruth—wait!' he exclaimed, overriding her polite rejoinder. 'Ruth, please—talk to me!'

There was another of those nerve-racking silences, when he half suspected she had rung off already, and then she said quietly: 'We have nothing to say to one another, Mr Crown. I—I don't know why you bothered ringing me. I'm perfectly all right. Aunt Davina is very kind, and Martin and I are good friends already.'

'Martin?'

Dominic couldn't prevent the automatic echo of the name, and Ruth explained, 'My cousin Martin. Or at least, my adopted cousin. He's Aunt Davina's adopted son—'

'Yes. yes.' Dominic was impatient now. He didn't want to hear about Martin Pascal, whatever the boy's name was, he wanted to hear about Ruth, and the gulf between them had never seemed wider. 'So, how long have you been in England? I've been away—' He didn't stop to explain, but hurried on: 'I saw your picture in
The Times
this morning. I—I didn't even know your father had died.'

'Why should you?' Ruth was very cool, very detached. 'As a matter of fact, I've been in England a little over two weeks. Daddy died just a few days after—after—'

'After I left?' asked Dominic abruptly, and she made a sound of confirmation. 'So what happened? How did you find out you had an aunt?'

'It's a long story.' said Ruth flatly. 'It's not important now. The important thing is that—I'm here, and—and I'm happy. That's all you need to know.'

'Ruth!' His use of her name was strangled. 'Ruth, can't we at least speak civilly to one another? For God's sake.' he broke off savagely, and then continued. in a driven tone: 'Ruth. I want to see you. Will you meet me for—for breakfast tomorrow? I'd say lunch, but by then I'll be on my way to New York.'

'You can't be serious!' Ruth sounded shocked now. and he half regretted his impulsive invitation. But somehow he had to satisfy himself that she was well and happy, and he couldn't do that through the medium of the telephone.

'I am serious.' he said heavily. 'Ruth, don't you think you owe it to me to—'

'I don't
owe
you anything!' she retorted chokingly, and this time there was no mistaking the fact that she had broken the connection.