years ago.’
‘Maybe I do bear some resemblance to this woman—–’
‘It isn’t just a resemblance, Meredith,’ Gideon Steele shook his head. ‘Look, I can show you a photograph if you like,’ his hand went into the breast pocket of his jacket.
‘No!’ she stopped him in the action of taking out his wallet. ‘I don’t want to see any photograph.’ She turned away, absently twisting the signet ring round on her right hand, the ring that had been a birthday gift several years ago from her parents. ‘It won’t make any difference,’ she told him stiffly.
‘Scared, Meredith?’ he taunted gruffly.
‘Certainly not!’ She spun round, an angry frown between her eyes. ‘I have nothing to be frightened of,’ she said haughtily. ‘It’s quite simple, you have the wrong girl,’ she repeated her earlier claim.
‘The right one,’ he corrected softly, running an agitated hand through the darkness of his hair, revealing several streaks of grey beneath the darkness. ‘God, I had no idea it was going to be this difficult!’ he scowled.
‘What did you expect?’ Merry shouted angrily. ‘That you could calmly walk up to some unsuspecting girl and tell her that her parents aren’t her parents any more, and that some unknown woman is? If you thought that you’re a fool!’
‘Meredith—–’ he began warningly.
‘I don’t care,’ she exclaimed furiously. ‘You had no right barging into my life with such a story! If I were of a nervous disposition—–’
‘Which you obviously aren’t,’ he drawled hardly.
‘Luckily for you,’ she snapped. ‘But if I were I could have been totally destroyed by what you just told me. As it is, I think you’d better go back to your source—Harrington, I presume,’ she added drily. ‘And tell him it’s back to the drawing-board. Why do you want to find this girl anyway? Has your stepmother died and left her the family fortune?’
His mouth twisted derisively. ‘Would it change your mind if she had?’ he taunted.
She gave an angry gasp. ‘How dare you! I have no intention—–’
‘Calm down, Meredith,’ he mocked. ‘Anthea is still very much alive. She would just like to see her daughter.’
‘Whom she abandoned as a baby, by the sound of it!’
If she had expected an angry defence to her scorn she was mistaken, Gideon Steele only nodded abruptly. ‘Anthea hasn’t denied that. But it hasn’t stopped her feeling guilty for the last twenty years, for wanting to see her daughter.’
‘Has she ever stopped to consider that perhaps her daughter doesn’t want to see her?’ Merry snapped.
‘I only said she wanted to see her daughter, I didn’t say she had made any attempt to do so. My stepmother has no idea I’ve sought you out. She certainly doesn’t know I’ve found you.’
‘But I keep telling you you haven’t,’ she said exasperatedly.
His mouth was a thin determined line. ‘There’s a sure way of settling this, Meredith—–’
‘Please call me Merry,’ she invited irritably. ‘I prefer it. And how can this be settled?’
‘Talk to your father—–’
‘No!’ she almost shouted, glaring at him.
‘Then you are frightened—–’
‘I am not!’ she snapped. ‘I just don’t think it’s fair to put something like that to my father. He’s never really got over losing my mother, all he needs is my asking him if he’s really my father!’ She gave Gideon Steele a disgusted look. ‘I won’t do that to him.’
‘Then take my word for it—–’
‘I won’t do that either,’ she told him coldly, giving the impression she would never take his word for anything. ‘I’ve already told you, I’m not the girl you’re looking for, so why don’t you leave me alone?’
‘Ordinarily I wouldn’t have bothered to find you in the first place,’ he said harshly. ‘Anthea’s past is her own affair—and my father’s if she chooses to tell him about it. But she told us both about you last year.’
‘Why?’ Merry frowned.
‘If you aren’t her daughter why are you interested?’ His eyes were narrowed.
She flushed. ‘You involved me in this, I just wanted to know all the facts.’
‘If you aren’t the Meredith Charles I’m looking for then I don’t see the necessity of acquainting you with them.’ He moved to the door. ‘As you suggested, I’ll go back to my source. And I suggest you go to your father.’
‘I—–’
‘I’ll be back, Meredith,’ he warned. ‘And if necessary, I’ll bring Harrington and the dossier to prove the truth to you.’ He swung the door open. ‘I’d advise you to be prepared. Go and see your father, Meredith,’ he said softly. ‘After all, what real harm can it do? I’m sure there must be some way you can ask Malcolm Charles if he is your father without being blunt about it. I’ll be seeing you, Meredith,’ he promised before leaving.
‘I’m so sorry,’ Vanda hurried into the room as soon as Gideon Steele had left the apartment, ‘but he just wouldn’t take no for an answer.’ She grimaced. ‘And he isn’t the sort of man you can argue with.’
‘No,’ she agreed vaguely, pulling her suitcase down from the top of the wardrobe. ‘I’m going to see my father for a few days, Vanda. I—If Mr Steele should come back, you don’t know where I’ve gone, all right?’
‘Are you that frightened of him?’ Vanda asked in an awed voice.
She gave a taut smile. ‘I’m not frightened of him. I just—I don’t like him.’ And she didn’t, she didn’t like his self-assurance, his arrogance—and most of all she didn’t like the things he had told her.
‘He didn’t offer you a part, then?’ Vanda sat on the bed as she watched Merry pack.
Only that of his stepsister, she thought hysterically. It was unthinkable that a man like that should be any sort of relative of hers, no matter how remote. ‘No,’ she answered calmly enough. ‘And as the play has folded I thought I’d go and see Dad for a few days. He gets a little lonely without my mother.’
In fact her father seemed sprightlier than ever. His job in the nearest town at the branch of one of the countries leading insurance agencies kept him very busy, filling most of his evenings at least.
He met her at the station, hugging her before taking her case out to the car. ‘I couldn’t believe it when I got your call,’ he smiled at her, his hair still as black as her own, his eyes more hazel than green; he was still a very handsome man, despite being in his late forties.
Merry
