For the Love of Sara Read online

  "Like you did?"

  Rachel hesitated. "Yes. Like I did."

  "Oh, why did my daddy have to die?"

  Rachel sighed. It was a long time since this subject had last come up and after the scene with Joel she was ill equipped to deal with her questions. "Darling, I have to get the Colonel's tea!"

  "Well, anyway, I shan't do that," went on Sara imperturbably. "I shan't meet anyone and get married, I mean I shall stay with you for ever and ever and look after you."

  Rachel's nerves were stretching by the minute. "That - that's nice, darling," she managed. "Now, I must get on. I've wasted enough time. Are you coming with me or do you want to stay here?"

  "I'll come with you." Sara turned and went back to the pram. "I'll just get Helga. She likes watching you make tea, too."

  Helga was a rag doll which Rachel had made three Christ- masses ago. Old and scruffy now, usually without any clothes whatsoever, the doll nevertheless occupied a firm place in Sara's affections and went everywhere with her.

  Rachel waited, cooling her impatience. She was glad she had something to do, something with which to occupy her mind. When she had started this she had known that sooner or later she was bound to meet Joel again, but she had not expected the encounter to be so bitter or so painful. It had been a gruelling couple of hours, a gruelling day really since Joel's appearance that morning, and her nerves felt shot to pieces. For the first time she wished that James Kingdom had been here to share it with her. Perhaps he knew of some way to control his son, but she did not.

  It was late when Joel drove down the Bayswater Road and turned into Lancaster Mews. He had stopped at one of the motorway service areas and swallowed two whiskys and a packet of ham sandwiches because hunger and fatigue were beginning to affect his driving, and he wanted his wits about him when he got back to London.

  His father's house was tall and white-painted and attractively Georgian in appearance. Its origins were doubtful, though, there being some talk of its having been a stables in years past, and James Kingdom had bought it after the conversion. There were servants' quarters on the ground floor, and the Talbots, a married couple who had been with his father as long as Joel could remember, had a comfortable flat there and coped with the cooking, housekeeping and chauffeuring between them. His father also owned a small estate in Wiltshire. That was where Joel had been brought up until he was old enough to go away to school. After that, his father had married again and Francis had been born, and things had changed. His father spent very little time in the country these days, but to be charitable Joel supposed that was because the bank occupied so much of his time.

  He parked the car at the foot of the shallow steps which led up to the white panelled door with its significantly polished brass hinges. There were no lights anywhere in the building that he could see, but that did not mean his father had retired for the night. His study was at the back of the house overlooking a small walled garden, and it was here that James Kingdom spent most of his free time.

  Joel had a key, and he inserted it carefully and turned the latch. The door gave inwards on to an attractively panelled hallway with the staircase to the main floor directly ahead of him. He closed the door and mounted the stairs two at a time. Immediately he was in the spacious living area of the building. This had been extensively modernised with lots of Swedish wood and leather furnishings. Joel switched on the lights and looked around. There was evidence of his father's occupation in the supper tray that still resided on a low table before the cowled hearth, but of James Kingdom himself there was no sign

  Joel walked impatiently through a swing door into a half way. A light showed beneath a door at the end of the passage, and he strode towards it, opening his father's study door without preamble.

  James Kingdom was seated behind his desk, working. Or at least Joel assumed he was working from the amount of papers strewn over the desk. His frown when he looked up cleared when he saw who it was who had interrupted him, and a sardonic smile slid over features that resembled Joel's own. They were alike, Joel accepted that, except that James Kingdom's face bore the imprint of his greater age and experience, and. his hair was quite white.

  "Joel!" he exclaimed, getting to his feet. "This is an unexpected pleasure!"

  Joel closed the study door and leant back against it, eyeing his father broodingly. "Don't give me that," he stated grimly. "You know why I'm here."

  "Do I?" James Kingdom raised a heavy eyebrow.

  "Without a doubt," essayed Joel, straightening to cross the room and pour himself some whisky from a decanter on a side table. He swallowed half the liquid in his glass at a gulp and turned back to his father, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "Without a doubt," he repeated.

  James Kingdom subsided into his chair again. "Then would you mind pouring me one of those?" he enquired mildly. "It is my whisky, after all."

  Joel's mouth twisted, but he complied, walking back to the desk with a glass and setting it down deliberately in the middle of the page his father was studying. "There you are! May I have another?"

  His father looked up at him. "And if I say no?"

  "I'm sure you won't," returned Joel mockingly, and walked away again.

  But as he poured his second drink, Joel's face lost its mockery. This was no time for flippancy. His father was deliberately trying to sidetrack him.

  "So?" James Kingdom sipped his drink with evident enjoyment. "To what do I owe the honour? It must be - let me see - the second visit during the last six months!"

  "I lead a busy life," retorted Joel shortly.

  "I'm sure you do. Not least because of the commissions I send you."

  Joel's expression was ironic. "Oh, yes, I'll grant you that. Being the son of James Kingdom of the Kingdom Trust does have some advantages, obscure though they may seem.. However, I would venture to suggest that it's my talent which keeps me in bread, not your name."

  "And your grandmother's legacy!" inserted James dryly.

  "That, too. Although in recent years I've reinvested most of it."

  "Have you, indeed?" His father sounded impressed. "Being an artist must be more lucrative than I imagined."

  "I'm a painter, Father, not an artist! When people think of artists they think of eccentrics in velvet caps and paint- daubed smocks!"

  "Well, no one could accuse you of that!" remarked his father tersely, and Joel stiffened.

  "Nor you either, so I gather."

  "I wondered how long you'd take to get to the point of this meeting," observed James Kingdom, reaching for a cigar. "It's Rachel, of course."

  "How did you guess?" Joel was sarcastic.

  "I didn't have to, actually. Francis told me."

  "I see." Joel swallowed the remains of his whisky. "How did you worm that out of him?"

  "As a matter of fact, I wanted to see you. When you weren't available, I asked Francis if he knew where you were."

  "And he told you? Just like that?" Joel was sceptical.

  "No. He was most discreet. He said he thought you had gone away with Erica for a couple of days."

  "And?"

  "Erica answered her phone."

  "Of course, you had to try it." Joel shook his head. "What did she say?"

  "What you had told her, I suppose. That you had gone to Yorkshire on business."

  "I see." Joel uttered a muffled oath. "Oh, you needn't go any further. I can guess what happened next. Francis isn't equipped to deal with your intimidation. Anyway, for God's sake, what does it matter how you found out? I saw Rachel and I saw my daughter!"

  "Your daughter?" His father raised his eyebrows again.

  "Yes. My daughter. And if you think I'm going to let you take her away from me, you're very much mistaken!"

  "I don't think you have any say in it," returned his father mildly, and then drew back as Joel approached the desk. "And don't think you can intimidate me, son!"

  Joel rested his palms on the desk. "You think not?"

  His father sighed impatie
ntly. "Oh, for heaven's sake, man, stop acting like a fool! All right, so you could physically overpower me. What good would that do? Do you think Rachel would appreciate such primitive tactics, is that it?"

  "Let's keep Rachel's name out of this for the time being, shall we?'

  "I don't see how we can. She's very much in it, isn't she?"

  James Kingdom got to his feet then, as though the sight of his son towering over him was intimidating him, albeit against his will. "We're civilised human beings, Joel. Try and act that way."

  "Is it civilised to expect me to accept my father marrying the woman who bore my child!" demanded Joel violently.

  "You knew nothing about Rachel bearing your child, Joel, and don't you forget it!"

  "You did, I suppose."

  "As a matter of fact, yes."

  "What!" Joel couldn't absorb what his father was saying. "What?" He came round the desk to his father's side and grasped his jacket grimly. "What did you say?"

  James Kingdom shifted uncomfortably. "You heard what I said, Joel. I -I knew that Rachel was expecting your child."

  Joel shook his head incredulously. Although he had heard the words, heard them in all their stark clarity, he couldn't believe it. His hold tightened and he glared at the older man with eyes that glittered dangerously. "What are you saying?" he ground out. "How could you know Rachel was pregnant? No one knew, except Rachel."

  "I tell you I knew." His father tried to pull his jacket out of Joel's grasp. "Why is that so hard to believe? Rachel came to me. She was desperate. She asked for my help."

  Joel's eyes were glittering threads of ice. "She - asked - for - your - help!" he echoed. "What could you do for her?"

  "I could give her the money to get an abortion."

  "An abortion!" Joel didn't seem able to stop himself from repeating everything his father said. "But - but-"

  "- she didn't get an abortion," James finished abruptly. "She used the money to go away - up north. To keep her while she waited for the baby to be born."

  "And you knew this?" Joel thrust his face forward and his expression was murderous.

  "No! No" His father shook his head vigorously. "I told you, I gave her the money to get an abortion. I didn't know that she hadn't."

  Joel thrust him so violently away from him that James staggered against the bookshelves that lined the walls and only saved himself from falling by grasping the corner of his desk. But Joel wasn't watching him. He knew that he couldn't trust himself to touch his father without burying his fist in his stomach. He felt sick, violently sick, sicker now than at any time since he first heard that Rachel was involved with his father. That Rachel should have gone to his father and asked for money for an abortion! That she had deliberately avoided telling him, the one person she should have told!

  Breathing deeply, he turned and looked at his father again. "Of course, it never occurred to you to tell me, did it?"

  "Rachel begged me not to do so."

  "Since when have you respected anyone's wishes?"

  James sought the comfort of his leather chair, lowering himself into it slowly. Then he leant back and regarded his son sourly. "If the heroics are over, I suggest we discuss this matter in a sane and sensible fashion," he said harshly.

  "How sane and sensible would you like me to be?"

  "Joel, I wish you would keep out of this. It is between Rachel and myself - no one else."

  "Not any longer. I want to know what gave you the right to pay Rachel to destroy my child?"

  "You're being melodramatic, Joel!" James Kingdom brought his fist down hard on the desk. "For God's sake, man, Rachel was in desperate straits. You didn't want to marry her. Would you have had me turn her away?"

  Joel came to the desk again. "You could have sent her to me. You could have told me!"

  "Do you think she would have come? To you, I mean?" James shook his head.

  "I think you didn't want her to." Joel's expression was contemptuous. "What an opportunity for you it was, wasn't it? What an opportunity to get back at me for all the occasions when I'd thwarted you, when I'd gone against your dictates!"

  "You're talking rubbish!"

  "Am I ? Am I?" Joel sneered. "I don't think so."

  "Doesn't it occur to you to wonder why Rachel never came to you herself?" James demanded angrily.

  "No. She knew if she came to me, I wouldn't give her money for an abortion!"

  "What would you have done?"

  Joel hesitated, only briefly, but it was enough. "I - would have married her."

  James stared at him derisively. "Would you? Would you? And do you honestly imagine Rachel would have married you under those circumstances? My God, Joel, you're arrogant! I sometimes wonder how I spawned you!"

  "Flesh of your flesh, Father!"

  "Be quiet!" James was incensed. "Rachel didn't come to you because she knew you for the selfish, ambitious swine that you are! You were ten years older than she was, but that didn't prevent your from taking your pleasure, from ruining her life-"

  Joel turned away. "It wasn't like that!" he muttered violently. "I loved her -"

  "Love!" His father snorted. "What word has been more abused? Love! You don't know the meaning of the word!"

  Joel swung round on him. "And you do, I suppose? After two wives I suppose you feel you're pretty knowledgeable!"

  James's face darkened. "I loved your mother, Joel, yes. No one could deny that. I idolised her. When she died . . ." He shook his head. "Francis's mother was different. Our marriage was never alleged to be a love match. We each lived our own lives -"

  "- to the full!" Joel finished the sentence. "Oh, yes, I wasn't too young to understand what was going on, Father. All those house guests. You were no saint! You sit there prattling about selfishness and ambition! Weren't you selfish? Weren't you ambitious?"

  "For you, Joel, only for you."

  "For me!" Joel shook his head.

  "It's true. You are my elder son, Joel, the son of the woman I worshipped and adored. Was it unnatural for me to want to mould you -"

  "In your image, yes!" Joel paced impatiently about the floor. "For heaven's sake, Father, this is getting us precisely nowhere. I didn't come here to talk about the past, except insofar as it impinges upon the future. You've sidetracked long enough. I want to know how you came to find Rachel again - how you came to ask her to marry you. And more important why she is doing so. I know it's to do with the child, with - Sara." He said his daughter's name slowly, experimentally almost. Then he shook his head. "What's wrong with her? Why does she attend hospital? And why do they call her a cripple?"

  James Kingdom squashed out the remains of his cigar. "Didn't you ask Rachel these questions?"

  "Damn you, I'm asking you them!"

  His father shrugged. "I'm afraid that if she didn't relieve your curiosity, I can't either."

  "Father, I warn you - "

  "No." His father got to his feet again. "I warn you, Joel. Keep out of this! For years now, you've treated this house with contempt, you've never come here, I've never seen you. You haven't given a damn about my health and welfare. Well, until now, that situation hasn't been to my liking. But now it is. Now I want you to stay away, spend your time with the people you seem to care about. I know it must be galling for you to accept that Rachel might conceivably prefer me to you, but that's something you're going to have to live with - "

  "You don't care about Rachel - "

  "On the contrary, I'm very fond of her. I like her very much. I always did. Even in the days when you poisoned her mind against me."

  "With good reason, you must admit," muttered Joel bitterly.

  "Perhaps. I admit, I haven't always been this benevolent. But times change."

  "Times might, you don't." Joel could feel a throbbing in his temples. Slowly but surely, this was getting through to him, and the impotency of his position was tearing him to pieces. But why? Why? He had got over Rachel years ago. All he felt for her now was a blind resentment that she should have
walked out on him, have kept this from him. "What have you told her about me?"

  James shrugged. "Hard as it must be for you to accept, Joel, we seldom discuss you at all. Rachel's had a pretty rough time these last few years. I intend to make things easier for her."

  "By marrying her?" Joel raked his hand through his hair. "You could make things-easier for her without marrying her."

  "What?" His father's smile was derisive now, and Joel felt close to choking him. "And leave the field open for you, Joel?" he scoffed. "Oh, no. The little agreement Rachel and I have made is only binding on the marriage contract."

  Joel drove back to his apartment overlooking Regent's Park with a pounding headache. He had left his father's house before his control snapped altogether. He felt sick, and empty inside, and more angry than he would have believed possible.

  He tried to gauge how he would have felt if it had turned out that Rachel had really been married to someone else if Sara had been the imaginary Gilmour's child, and couldn't. It was impossible for him to separate the two things in his mind, but when he considered his father's proposed marriage he didn't think of the child, and his imagination painted pictures more vivid than any he had created on canvas. His recollections of his affair with Rachel had never been more acute, and the ache in his loins was a real and physical thing...

  He drove the car into the underground parking area and took the lift up to the penthouse floor. When he entered the apartment, he was startled to find a lamp still burning in the huge living area, and a young woman sleeping on the burgundy velvet couch. The sound of him closing the door disturbed her however, and she lifted her head with a welcoming smile.

  "Joel! Darling!" she exclaimed, stretching rounded white arms. "I thought you were never coming!"

  Joel came down the two shallow steps that led into the main body of the room, unbuttoning his jacket as he did so. "What are you doing here, Erica?" he asked shortly, tension tautening every line of his features.

  Erica Grey lifted delicately arched brows. "Hardly the welcome I was expecting, darling," she chided him gently. "I gather your business in Yorkshire didn't go as well as you expected."