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He met her faintly mocking gaze. ‘No, you’re right. I’m not. But you have two choices when you go to a place like that—either you try to blend in and mimic all the other boys around you, or you attempt to stay the person you already are. It was because my mother had been so strict about making me study that I was there in the first place and so I vowed to stay true to my roots. I was determined she would never think I was rejecting her values.’ There was silence for a moment. Up here in the totally soundproof hotel suite, he thought that the rest of the world seemed a long way away. ‘And I think Ambrose admired that quality. I’d actually met him before I won the scholarship, and became friends with his son. I’d polished the windscreen of his car a couple of times, because my mother worked as housekeeper for some of his friends. The Cadogans.’
She nodded. ‘I know the Cadogans.’
‘Of course you do. Everyone does. They’re one of the most well-connected families in England.’ He heard his voice become rough, as if someone had just attacked it with coarse sandpaper. And suddenly it stopped being just a memory. It came back to him and hit him, like an unexpected wave sneaking up behind you and knocking you off your feet. He could feel his heart pounding heavily. His skin felt heated and he wanted suddenly to escape. He wanted to get out of that damned suite and start walking. Or walk right over to the chair where she sat and haul her into his arms.
‘You were saying?’
Her cool prompt made the mists clear and he was tempted to tell her that he’d changed his mind and it was none of her business. But he had bottled this up for more years than he cared to remember and mightn’t it be therapeutic to let it out and for Amber to see her father in a good light for once? He cleared his throat. ‘My mother had worked for the family ever since she’d got off the ferry from Rosslare. They worked her long and hard but she never complained—she was grateful that they’d allowed her to bring her baby into the house.’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘I guess it’s unusual for you to hear it this way round. To hear what life is like below stairs?’
‘Being rich is no guarantee of happiness,’ she said flatly. ‘I thought that was one thing you and I agreed on. And please don’t stop your story just when it was getting interesting.’
‘Interesting? That wouldn’t have been my word of choice.’ His mouth twisted. He thought that there were some memories which never lost their power to wound...was it any wonder he’d buried it so deeply? ‘One day a diamond ring went missing—which just happened to be a priceless family heirloom—and my mother was accused of stealing it by one of the Cadogan daughters.’ His heart twisted as he remembered his mother’s voice when she’d phoned him and the way she’d tried to disguise her shuddering sobs. Because in all the years of heartbreak—those times when she’d waited vainly for a letter or a card from her family in Ireland—he had never once heard her cry. ‘My mother was as honest as the day was long. She couldn’t believe she was being labelled a thief by a family whose house she had worked in for all those years. A family she thought trusted her.’ There it was again. Trust. That word which didn’t mean a damned thing.
A clock chimed in one of the suite’s adjoining rooms.
‘What happened?’ Amber asked as the chimes died away.
He gave a heavy sigh. ‘In view of her long service record they decided not to press charges but they sacked her and eventually she found a job as a cleaner in a big girls’ school. But she never got over it.’ He felt the lump which rose in his throat. The sense of helplessness. Even now. ‘She died months later—years before her time.’
‘Oh, Conall.’
But he held up his hand in an imperious gesture because he didn’t need Amber Carter’s pity, or for her to soften her voice like that. He didn’t want token kindness. ‘That might have been the end of it if I hadn’t gone back to the house and got one of the daughters to talk to me, to find out what had really happened.’
There was a pause and he noticed she didn’t prompt him to continue—maybe if she had he would have stopped—but when he started speaking again he could hear the shakiness in his own voice.
‘She told me that the ring had been stolen by her sister’s boyfriend—a boy high on drugs and keen to purchase more. It was all hushed up, of course. My mother had simply been the scapegoat.’ He gave a bitter laugh. ‘So I took it on myself to exact some sort of revenge.’
‘Oh, Conall,’ she whispered. ‘What did you do?’
‘Don’t look so fearful, Amber. I didn’t hurt anyone, if that’s what you’re thinking—but I hurt them where I knew it would matter. One night, under the cover of darkness, I took a spray can and let rip—covering their beautiful stately house with graffiti which was designed to let the world know just how corrupt they were. I caused a lot of damage to the place and they called the police. It was my word against theirs. They were one of the oldest and most respectable families in the country while I was just...’ he shrugged ‘...a thug with a motive.’
She was silent for a moment. ‘And where did my father come in?’ she asked eventually.
Conall stared straight ahead, remembering the stench of unwashed bodies and the sound of voices shouting in the adjoining cells. His own cell had been small and windowless and he’d seen a glimpse of a different path which had lain before him—a path he hadn’t wanted to take.
‘When I was sitting in the detention centre,’ he said slowly, ‘with my offer of a place at university having been withdrawn and looking at the possibility of a jail term—Ambrose arrived, and vouched for me. Rafe must have called him. He said I’d been a friend of his son’s for many years and that this was a one-off deviation. I don’t know if he spoke to the Cadogans but all the charges against me were dropped and he offered me a job in his construction company—at the very bottom rung of the ladder. He told me I needed to prove myself and he never wanted to hear of me wasting my time and my education again. So I worked my way up—determined not to abuse his faith in me. I learnt the building trade from the inside out. I worked every hour that God sent and saved every penny I had, until I could buy my first property. And the rest, as they say, is history.’
Amber understood a lot more about Conall Devlin now—and much of it she admired. But not all. He was hard-working and lo
yal, but he was also heartless. But at least now she could understand some of his prejudice towards her. Of course he would despise someone who represented everything he most deplored. To him she was just another of those spoilt and privileged people who stamped their way through life, not caring who they trod on—just as the Cadogans had done to his mother.
She could see the pain on his face even though he was doing his best to hide it—but hiding pain was something she recognised very well. And despite everything—despite this whole crazy, mixed-up situation—all she wanted was to go up to him and put her arms around him. Sitting there in his wedding suit with his tie pulled loose and his dark hair all ruffled, he looked more approachable than she’d ever seen him and she felt a great wave of emotion welling up inside her. In that moment she hated the Cadogans and what they had done to his mother and she found herself silently applauding the graffiti. The most natural thing in the world would be to go over there and kiss him. To comfort him with her body, which was crying out to be touched by him. But sex was off the menu. He’d told her that.
She glanced at the ornate archway which led through to the bedroom and the vast, petal-strewn bed and wondered how she was going to be able to get through the night—any night—when she was forbidden to touch him. And she wanted to touch him. She wanted to feel those expert fingers caressing her and to rediscover the pleasures of sex. Should she accidentally roll up against him during the night, or pretend she was having a nightmare?
She drank another mouthful of champagne. No. She sensed that she would get nothing from Conall if she was anything other than truthful. He was already furious because she’d kept her virginity a secret—if she started to play games with him now he would have zero respect for her. She could spend the next three months tiptoeing round him while the tension between them grew, or she could do the liberated thing of reaching out for what she most wanted. And what did she have to lose?
‘Conall?’
‘No more questions, Amber,’ he warned impatiently. ‘I’m done with talking about it.’
‘I wasn’t going to ask you any more questions about the past. I was wondering more how we’re going to spend this short-lived marriage of ours.’ She lifted her shoulders in a shrug, suddenly aware of the softness of her body beneath the heavy material of her wedding dress. And that Conall’s dark blue gaze seemed fascinated by the movement. Any movement she made, come to think of it. Should that give her the courage to carry on? ‘Because despite what I said earlier, we can’t talk all the time, can we? We’ve already done the past and we both know there isn’t going to be any future.’
‘You sound like someone asking a question who has already decided what the answer is going to be.’
‘Maybe I have.’ She hesitated. ‘All you have to do is agree with me.’
Their eyes met.
