the dark shape of her aunt standing at the window of the flat, looking down. She couldn’t see her face, but instinct warned she’d gone from one kind of trouble straight to another.
Reluctantly she moved, walking slowly round the yard to the flat door and going in.
Kezia Trewint was waiting for her in the living room, her face set, her deep-set eyes burning with anger and scorn as she looked at the girl hesitating in the doorway.
‘So,’ she said. ‘You’ve been with him. Another Carlow woman chasing after a Penvarnon man. Just as I knew you’d be all those years ago.’
Rhianna gasped. ‘What—what do you mean?’
‘I mean you—up against the stable wall with Mr Diaz. A slut—a dirty little tart—just like your mother before you.’ She drew a hoarse breath. ‘Didn’t she bring enough shame on our family? And him of all men?’
‘No,’ Rhianna managed. ‘It—it wasn’t like that…’
Oh, God, she thought. This was an entirely different level of misunderstanding. This was terrible.
‘You think you weren’t seen sneaking off, and him following?’ Miss Trewint demanded derisively. ‘That Mrs Seymour didn’t go after him, and me with her? That we didn’t see you with our own eyes? It’s what the family have been expecting ever since you came here. Grace Carlow’s daughter, and the living image of her. Made him wonder, I dare say, what Ben Penvarnon once had, and fancy a taste of the same.’
Her eyes rested on Rhianna’s still unfastened buttons. Her sudden laugh was vicious, grating. ‘But that’s where it’ll end. I promise you that. Because he’s not like his father. Not that one. He won’t be setting you up in some London flat and paying the bills in return for his pleasures. Now he’s used you, he’ll forget you. He can’t do otherwise. Because she might find out, and he can’t risk that.’
Rhianna stared at her. She felt very cold. ‘I don’t understand,’ she said. ‘What are you talking about. Who is she? And what are you saying about my mother?’
‘She was Ben Penvarnon’s mistress, bought and kept,’ Miss Trewint flung at her. ‘As everyone knows. And I was the one, God forgive me, who brought her into this house and put temptation in his way, flaunting herself in front of him.
‘“Yes, Mr Penvarnon,”‘ she mimicked. ‘“No, Mr Penvarnon.” “I think Mrs Esther’s a little better today, Mr Penvarnon.”‘ She drew a shuddering breath. ‘Playing sweetness and concern for the sick woman she was supposed to be tending, and all the time she was running off to meet with her wedded husband in that hut on the beach or up on the moors. And you’re proving yourself no better with his son.’
‘That’s a lie. And I don’t believe what you’re saying about my mother either.’ Rhianna’s chest was so tight it was difficult to breathe. ‘She was in love with Daddy. You only had to see them together to know that.’
‘What did she ever know about love?’ Her aunt glared at her. ‘All she knew was having her fun and wheedling all she could out of another woman’s husband. And after he was dead, and there were no more pickings to be had, she had to do something. Find some other fool to keep her.’
Her mouth thinned. ‘And you’ll have to do the same, my lady. Don’t think you’re staying here after tonight’s goings-on. Even if I was prepared to keep you, Mrs Seymour won’t have it. Reckons you’re an insult to her sister, and that Mr Diaz must have run mad to look twice at you with what he knows.’
‘But nothing happened,’ Rhianna protested desperately. ‘Or not like you think, anyway,’ she added. But it could have done, said a sly voice in her head. He was the one who put a stop to it, not you, so no credit to you. And you can’t even claim it was his fault—not this time.
But I can’t think about that, she told herself, wincing inwardly. I’ve got to forget those dark, urgent moments in his arms when nothing mattered but his mouth on mine and the touch of his hand on my skin.
‘A seriously bad idea for a great many reasons.’ That was what he’d said, and now she knew what he’d meant. Why he’d let her go. And why he’d do nothing to prevent her being sent away permanently. Not this time.
‘Nor is it going to happen.’ Miss Trewint’s voice reached her grimly. ‘So you can start packing your bags. I knew you were going to be a bad lot from the first, hanging round Mr Diaz whenever he came here. And there you were tonight, supposed to be working, but throwing yourself at any man who’d look at you.’ She snorted. ‘I should have turned you out two years ago, when you were sixteen, but for that headmistress of yours insisting you should finish your education—get more qualifications.’ She shook her head. ‘I was a fool to listen. But you’ll make no more mischief here. You’re going tomorrow, and good riddance too.’
But where am I to go? Rhianna wanted to ask. What can I do? I haven’t earned enough to save anything, so what am I going to live on while I find work—somewhere to live? And although I never wanted to come here, and the last six years of my life haven’t been that happy, at the same time they’ve been centred exclusively on this house. I’ve grown accustomed to it. I don’t know anywhere else.
But she said none of those things aloud. She wouldn’t argue, she thought. Nor would she beg.
I can take care of myself. Her own words, she thought. And if they’d been an empty boast a little while ago, she would have to live up to them now.
She was putting the last of her things in her only suitcase the next morning when Carrie put a cautious head round her bedroom door.
‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘Your aunt’s supervising the cleaning-up operation, stalking round like Medusa on a bad day.’ She saw the open case and her eyes widened in distress. ‘Oh, God, it’s true. You’re really leaving. I heard Mum and Dad rowing in the study when I came down, and apparently there was another huge row earlier, between Diaz and my mother, and he slammed out of the house and drove off somewhere. I thought he might simply be peeved about the state of the house,’ she added glumly. ‘Wine and food spilled all over the place, half the crockery and stuff abandoned on the lawn, and Simon, among others, getting totally wasted with his ghastly friend Jimmy, who was sick everywhere.’ She groaned. ‘Thank God I’ll only be eighteen once. I couldn’t go through all that again.’
She paused. ‘But Mum was saying you had to go, and Dad was trying to reason with her, so what’s happened?’
Rhianna bit her lip. ‘Your cousin Diaz kissed me goodnight.’ She tried to sound nonchalant. ‘Your mother and my aunt both saw it, and as a consequence all hell has broken loose.’
Carrie gaped at her. ‘But it wouldn’t have meant anything,’ she protested. ‘Not from Diaz. He probably realised you were rightly miffed about the waitressing business and was just being kind again.’ She sat on the edge of the bed. ‘Face it, love,’ she said gently. ‘You’re far too young for him. He dates the kind of women who go to first nights at the opera and have their photographs taken in the Royal Enclosure at Ascot. Mum knows that perfectly well.’
‘Yes,’ Rhianna said, trying to ignore the sudden bleak feeling in the pit of her stomach. ‘But she also knows that my mother had a serious affair with your uncle Ben, and, however unlikely it may be, she doesn’t want history to repeat itself.’
If she hadn’t
