Czytaj książkę: «Silver»

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

PART ONE: Silver

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

PART TWO: Geraldine Frances

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

PART THREE: Jake

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

PART FOUR: Silver

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Copyright

PART ONE

CHAPTER ONE

THERE were just the two of them in the ski-lift. The avalanche warning issued that morning by the Swiss Federal Avalanche Institute was keeping the other skiers away from these dangerous off-piste slopes.

In Gstaad Silver had overheard a group of guides mourning the loss of income the avalanche threat would bring.

Since the British heir to the throne had come so close to death on off-piste snow at Klosters, the authorities had clamped down heavily on guides foolish enough to allow the persuasion of their clients to overrule their own better judgement.

She, though, had no need of a guide. Neither, it seemed, did he. She recognised him. In his twenties and thirties he had been famous as an amateur racing driver, and it seemed he had never lost that need for the exhilarating thrill of speed. Especially when that thrill went hand in glove with death.

She knew he was watching her, and she knew why. In her mind’s eye she re-created an image of herself, tall and slender, wearing a cerise ski-suit, the kind that speed-skiers wore. It moulded her body, revealing high, taut breasts that owed nothing to silicone injections or indeed any other artifice. She had a narrow ribcage and waist, flaring out to feminine hips and long, long legs. It was a body which could have been that of an athlete, but which, in her, was softened into voluptuous femininity.

Her head was covered with a snug-fitting hood, and her profile as she stared silently down into the valley would have made a poet cry for the inability of mere words to convey the perfect, haunting quality of her features.

As he looked at her, Guido Bartoli wondered what it would be like to make love to her, here, high above the mountains where the air sang crystal-clear and the snow cracked ominously under its own weight. He mused that if he were to make love to her, and if she were to scream her pleasure noisily into the silence, as he liked his women to do, it would undoubtedly bring about the avalanches that were threatened. Life, death, love—the eternal triangle. He dwelt for several cynical and pleasurable moments on the possible consequences of his mental meanderings.

To be destroyed in that moment of ecstasy by the displeasure of nature at having her virgin world of silence splintered. It would be a fitting way for him to die… But for her… He looked at her again.

Deep in her eyes was that fierce, hungry look he remembered from his own youth. No, she was not yet ready to join him in mutual destruction.

He was forty-two years old, a wealthy, good-looking man whose company was still much sought after in bed and out of it. He felt the familiar clutch of excitement tighten his muscles as he watched her.

She knew he was looking at her, but she didn’t betray it. He liked that. It showed style. He wondered who she was. Most of the regular Gstaad crowd were known to him. This woman wasn’t. Neither was she someone it would be easy to overlook.

She puzzled him—intrigued him—some sixth sense telling him that there was a dichotomy about her, a mysteriousness, that in itself was a challenge.

He spoke to her, softly, so as not to arouse the wrath of the snow. In English first, since her pale skin made him think she must have Celtic origins, and then, when that got no response, in French, and finally in Italian, half a dozen ruefully apologetic words that drew no response other than a coolly enigmatic look that for some reason made him feel slight chagrin. She had eyes like those of a young hawk he had once tamed: wild and feral; dangerous both to herself and others; green eyes that threw back the reflection of the trees edging the snowfields.

The lift stopped. He had to step past her to get off. She stood back from him and apologised.

In Russian.

The shock of it made him stand and stare at her. Russian, for God’s sake! Just who the hell was she?

He stood watching her as the lift swung her upwards. Silver permitted herself a small smile. She’d heard about Guido Bartoli and wondered if they’d meet. He was an Italian count with a very Catholic marriage and a reputation for treating his mistresses with extreme generosity, as indeed he could afford to—but his wealth wasn’t what interested Silver. She had contemplated using him for the final test and then had changed her mind, but it was a good omen that they should have met, and by accident, today of all days.

She stretched luxuriously, breathing in the cold, sharp mountain air. The threat of the storm and its attendant danger exhilarated her. She felt a fierce surge of pleasure and power run through her body—a body lithe with exercise and careful honing. A body that matched the beauty of her face.

She touched her skin and frowned slightly, reaching for her goggles. She mustn’t let euphoria make her take a stupid risk… Calculated risks, now, they were a different thing altogether. Calculated risks were designed to test her progress, her readiness for a task which she had never deceived herself would be anything other than hard. She pulled on her goggles, her eyes focusing on the horizon. Green eyes with a touch of grey, that changed colour so that people who looked at her often weren’t sure what colour they really were.

It had started to snow, and the peaks above her had disappeared.

No matter… she shrugged the thought of danger aside as the lift shuddered to a halt and she got off. The only passenger… the only skier foolhardy enough to come up so high, to risk the danger of off-piste skiing. But it wasn’t on a mere whim that she was risking her life on this, one of Gstaad’s most dangerous runs. It was a very definite purpose that had brought her here. The final test, bar one…

But first the run… and then… and then the ultimate barrier must be breached. For until it was…

A fine, delicate shudder ran through her. Closing her eyes, she arched back her throat and looked upwards, an expression of rapt, fierce anticipation carving the perfect structure of her face… an expression that was almost ecstatic as her body quickened with feverish excitement, her eyes behind her goggles glittering cold as the ice- and snow-covered mountain.

She smiled to herself as she recalled the look of chagrin in Guido Bartoli’s eyes when he’d realised she was not going to respond to his flirting. It had amused her to address him in Russian. She had a facility for learning languages and was equally fluent in Italian, French and a number more. A legacy from her father, who had…

But no, she was not going to think of the past… not today. She had lived with it as her closest companion for the last two years, and today she was going to step away from it.

Guido had been right about one thing, though. She was Celtic in origin, heiress to a fortune so staggeringly large that even her trustees weren’t quite sure exactly what she was worth.

And not just heiress to a fortune, but heiress to an ancient title as well, carrying a family name that echoed with over a thousand years of history. Her ancestors had been Celtic princes when Egypt had ruled the known world. They had been princes long before the Romans had discovered the misty shores of the land of the Angles, their names written on every page of history that followed that invasion. They had also had a facility for picking a winning side, and their English titles had added weight and wealth to their hereditary Irish lineage.

She was the last of her line, and her father had reared the girl who was the only child fate had seen fit to bestow on him as the son he had never had.

She stood ready at the top of the slope, poised, alert, the adrenalin flowing through her veins like a powerful drug. The day; her life; eternity itself lay spread out before her like the village below, offered up to her as a sacrifice, as she in turn offered up herself… To live or to die… the decision was not hers. Who but the fates knew on which side they would weigh the scales? A higher power, if such an authority existed, must see into her soul and know what she planned; reared by a father who had been insistent on a sporting code of ethics that no longer existed, she had felt it only fair to give that power a chance to intervene. If it chose not to do so…

She bent her knees, her body fluid and ready, waiting until the falling snow thickened, driven by the wind, and then she dug her poles into the fresh snow and laughed out loud, throwing herself forward into the ferocity of the storm.

If she was good enough, if her skill matched her self-confidence, she would survive; if it didn’t, she would die, her body broken and her beauty destroyed.

The final test… but not the final hurdle. That still remained… and she knew enough about her own make-up to recognise what this ski-run was all about… the final psyching up for the barrier through which she must pass if she was going to go on and achieve her ultimate goal.

Snowy trees flashed past, blurred by her speed and the impact of the storm, and she felt the siren song of all she had done and would do sing in her blood.

This was her first taste of the narcotic of absolute self-confidence, but it would not be her last.

The chalet was small and utilitarian, unlike her own. Hers was a luxuriously equipped hideaway owned by a Saudi Arabian prince who had been persuaded to allow her to hire it for an unspecified amount of time. Its sole appeal for Silver was its inaccessibility. The overwhelming richness of its decor, the ostentation of its size and splendour, irritated her to the point of distaste. It was as though someone had tried to create the fabled luxury of a rich nomadic sheikh’s tent within the totally unsuitable framework of a wooden chalet.

This one, though, was everything that such a building should be. Neat and four-square, with a balcony on the upper floor and a large glass window for viewing the mountain. Smoke curled slowly from the chimney, but she didn’t hesitate as she used the key she had purloined to let herself in.

She was still wearing the cerise ski-suit. The chalet wasn’t far from where she had finished her run. Another piece of careful planning. To the rear of the property lay the garage and drive, cleared of snow for access to the narrow road that linked the remote cluster of chalets, of which it was one, with Gstaad.

She let herself in and closed the door behind her. The entrance hall was plain and yet welcoming in a way in which the large, imposing, marble-flagged hallway to her rented chalet was not.

This one had a natural wood floor covered with a rag-rug. The floor was highly polished, and Silver smiled grimly as she stepped on the rug and discovered that it had been very carefully stuck to the floor.

As she opened the inner door she saw that several other rugs covered the polished floor in the main living-room of the chalet, their textures different, so that anyone walking on them would realise even blindfolded which way they were walking. One row led to the sofa, in front of the stove, another to the small kitchen, and the third to the stairs that rose up in one corner of the room.

She didn’t linger in the living-room, despite the tempting warmth of the log-fuelled stove, but instead crossed it and went upstairs.

The chalet had two bedrooms, both with their own bathroom, and, outside, a passage linked the chalet to the garage and sauna.

She knew all this without having to look. She had done her research well, and in all honesty it hadn’t been difficult. Annie had been all too easy to milk of information. She was so ridiculously proud of Jake and all that he had done—all too ready to sing his praises to anyone who was ready to listen.

Silver wondered idly whether, when Annie visited him up here, they shared one bed or whether she slept alone. Nothing she had ever said had indicated that they were lovers—just the opposite—and Silver knew that Annie still loved her dead husband, but…

Halfway up the stairs she paused, wondering what it would be like to make love with a blind man. Would it give a woman an added thrill of excitement to know that he must learn her by touch, taste and scent alone, and therefore employ those senses to make up for his lack of sight—or would she feel repulsed by the knowledge that those dark blue eyes could see nothing other than the blackness of permanent darkness?

At the top of the stairs she wondered if he had made love to many women since losing his sight, and then she shrugged the thought aside, heading first for his bathroom, where she stripped off her clothes and stood beneath the hot sting of the shower until her skin glowed.

Then, wrapped in a huge, fluffy white towel, she went into his bedroom, noting approvingly that the simple furniture was exactly right for the chalet, that the two paintings on the wall had been chosen with taste and a good eye for colour, and that the sheets on the bed were pure cotton and freshly laundered.

For a man who was currently virtually unemployable, and who had apparently no money of his own to fall back on, he lived very well. Very well indeed, even if the chalet did belong to one of Annie’s wealthy patients.

Silver wasn’t deceived by the chalet’s apparent simplicity. Such a blending of colours and fabrics, so much use of materials that were natural rather than synthetic, so much attention to detail, right down to the pure and very expensive soap in the bathroom, not to mention the Hockneys on the wall downstairs—all whispered discreetly, to those with the properly attuned ear, of wealth and privilege. And more than that: of knowing just how such things should be done… and when, and by whom…

The chalet wasn’t representative of Jake’s taste, though; how could it be? It wasn’t his. What kind of tastes would he have, a man who spent his life with the very roughest kind of people—those who dealt in drugs—and who was in Switzerland to recover from the effects of the bomb blast which had tragically destroyed his sight.

She unstrapped the plain gold watch which had been her father’s last birthday present to her, along with the details of the various secret trust funds he had set up for her and the deeds to the Irish castle which had been in the family long before William the Bastard had ever set his covetous eyes on Harold’s England.

She had loved her father. Now he was dead—a hunting accident, one of those appalling, unthinkable accidents that should surely never have happened to such a keen and excellent sportsman, a rider admired for his ability and skill.

No accident, of course, but her father had been too wealthy, too important, had had his fingers in far too many pies that no one wanted stirring for too much fuss to be made, and, besides, only she knew the truth. A quiet announcement… the death of the Earl of Rothwell, Lord Wesford, James, William, Geraint… and so on… All his titles and dignities… all his names: family names, each showing an affiliation for the various causes her family had espoused over the years. James for the Stuarts, William for the Hanovers, Geraint, a derivation from the family’s French titles.

She still missed him. Her father had had a brain which had allowed him to build a modest inheritance, counted merely in the odd million or so, into a multi-billion-pound empire. There wasn’t an innovation or a discovery he hadn’t been aware of and involved in—secretly, subtly… he had not been a man who ever courted publicity.

He had also been a first-rate sportsman. He had had everything to live for, mourned his friends at the funeral. What a tragic waste that he should die. And she had moved among those mourners, blundering, overweight, unable to imagine the enormity of her loss, for once unaware of the amused and contemptuous looks people gave her, the raised eyebrows and unkind comments… the incredulity that a man like her father should have produced a child like her.

But that was all behind her now. This wasn’t the time to dwell on the past, other than to acknowledge what it had given her. Now she had to concentrate on the future… a future she could only be fit for if… She tensed, hearing a car drive up to the chalet. It had to be Jake. The taxi that collected him from the hospital would have picked him up at three, as it always did. Now it was almost four.

She wondered how long it would take him to find her. Not too long, surely? She had deliberately worn a particularly strong scent. She wondered if he would recognise it. She didn’t normally wear it during the daytime, and to the best of her recollection there had only been one evening occasion on which she had met him. That had been Annie’s birthday, when she had booked a table for her friend at Gstaad’s most exclusive eating spot, only to have her refuse, uncomfortably explaining that she had already agreed to have dinner with Jake.

Silver smiled to herself as she remembered how Jake had stood there and looked at her… Strange to think he was blind. No one looking at him and not knowing it would ever realise. He had somehow or other perfected a trick of looking directly at people that made it seem as though he could actually focus on them.

He hadn’t invited her to join them, simply smiled at her in that grim-lipped, scornful way of his that made it so abundantly clear what he thought of her. Rich bitch… spoiled playgirl… shallow… useless… predatory… she hugged to herself with glee the words he had not voiced but nevertheless felt, enjoying them, and the joke of it was that he had no idea that it was for that—because of his so obvious contempt and disdain—that she had picked him above the others she had contemplated approaching. His blindness only gave the situation an added piquancy.

It was a pity he knew so much about her. She had been angry when she’d discovered how much Annie had told him, but in the long run it was probably for the best. It would make any explanations so much less tedious and messy. And there would have had to be explanations, no matter whom she had chosen.

The car drove away and the door to the chalet opened. She had left the bedroom door open, but she still couldn’t hear him moving. She had noticed that about him before: that silent, menacing tread that Annie had once told her was a legacy of his early army training.

Annie had never told her why he had left the army and joined the special anti-drugs squad of carefully chosen operatives, working alone and in secret, reporting only to their superior in Whitehall. Whatever the reason, it was unimportant as far as her plans were concerned.

‘What are you doing here, Silver?’

Silver was glad he wasn’t able to see her as her eyes widened fractionally. She hadn’t heard him come upstairs, and the sight of him standing in the doorway, looking directly at her, made her muscles clench.

She forced her body to relax, curling her mouth in the lazy, teasing smile she had been practising, knowing that it would be reflected in her voice.

‘Why don’t you come over here and find out?’

She made no comment on the fact that he had recognised her. It simply confirmed her view that she had chosen correctly… made the right decision.

She watched as the mobile eyebrows rose. It was odd, after all he had been through, that his black hair should remain untinged by any grey at all, while she…

‘Silver, I’m not in the mood to play games. Simply say what you’ve come to say and then get on your way.’

No compromise there, simply a harsh, flat statement that indicated very clearly what he thought of her. That was good…

‘I want you to be my lover,’ she told him equably. She had been practising this for over a week now, mentally rehearsing every question he would ask and every answer she would give, and now, with all the poise she could muster, which was considerable, she added coolly, ‘Or rather, should I say, I want you to teach me how to make love to a man so that he won’t be able to resist me?’

She smiled as she caught the betraying indrawn breath. Much as Annie knew about her, there was one thing she did not know.

‘You see, Jake,’ she went on, taking firm hold of her advantage, ‘I need that expertise, and I need it very badly.’

‘What the hell kind of game is this?’ he asked her angrily, and she knew that she had broken through the tough armour of his self-assurance because he swore at her, something she had never heard him do before. An odd conceit in a man who lived the way he did.

‘No game,’ she assured him smoothly. ‘Annie’s told you a lot about me, hasn’t she? About why I’m here? About what I intend to do…?’

She saw from his face that she was right, and went on as though he had invited her to do so.

‘Unfortunately, there’s one major stumbling block. As a virgin, I’m afraid that I rather lack the—er—expertise necessary for my plans…’

‘A virgin…?’

She gave him a cold smile which showed in her voice as she bit off the words. ‘Amazed? You needn’t be. As my ex-fiancé once commented, a woman as ugly as me in both face and body is hardly likely to attract lovers. Of course,’ she added pleasantly, ‘you can’t see me… and I understand that physically you might find it impossible to become my lover, but I’m sure if you were to imagine I were someone else…’

Now she had broken through his guard.

‘My God,’ he swore, ‘what kind of woman are you?’

‘The kind who generally gets what she wants and pays generously for it,’ she told him sweetly.

‘Pay?’

For the first time in the months she had known him she saw him make an awkward movement. He stepped forward automatically, as though he intended to reach out, grab hold of her, and inflict a physical punishment on her; but she had deliberately moved the chair from beside the bed to the open doorway, and as he walked into it he tensed and swore savagely under his breath. Her father would have described what she had done as cheating. She tried not to admit that knowledge. She couldn’t afford that kind of weakness… not now… not ever again.

‘Please don’t be foolish about this, Jake,’ she said with composure. ‘Obviously I should wish to pay for the skills you can teach me, just as I would pay for any other commodity.’

‘Just the way you paid for your new face,’ he jeered unkindly, but she didn’t wince. Why should she? Once she had been sensitive, vulnerable, easily hurt by others, but not any more.

‘At least I have a genuine reason for being here,’ she told him sardonically, unable to resist the temptation to punish him just a little. She saw that her barb had found its mark. He tensed momentarily, his whole stance betraying wariness, and then it was gone and he had himself under control.

‘Well, you’ve come to the wrong man, Silver,’ he told her curtly. ‘I don’t need your money. Now get the hell out of my bed before I throw you out…’

Now she had him cornered, and the fierce thrill of triumph that ran through her was visible in the brilliant glitter of her eyes.

‘You’re lying, Jake,’ she countered softly, and then, before he could speak, added coolly, ‘I could allow you to continue to lie to me, but I don’t have that kind of time to waste. You see, I happened to be standing outside Annie’s sitting-room when you were telling her how desperately you did need money.’

What she hadn’t heard was why. Annie, it seemed, knew far more about Jake than she was prepared to admit. It had been obvious to Silver from the quality of their conversation that they were two people who knew one another well—as friends, not as lovers—and, intrigued as she was by the mystery that seemed to enshroud Jake, she was pretty sure that his presence at the clinic had nothing at all to do with any supposed reaction to his surgery, as Annie had originally intimated to her in the days when she’d had far too much to accomplish herself to worry about other people’s affairs.

Lost in her own thoughts, Silver took several seconds to become alive to the deep aura of menace emanating from Jake. It washed over her in an icy cold blast, activating her own instinct for self-preservation.

‘What you want the money for, what you do with it—that’s your concern and not mine, but don’t waste both our time by lying about not needing it,’ she told him, ignoring his anger.

She waited, feeling the tension ease out of her body a little as the menace evaporated.

‘Hasn’t anyone ever told you that it’s dangerous to listen outside other people’s doors?’ he asked her.

Silver shrugged the question aside and said firmly, ‘I’m prepared to pay you a million pounds—–’

She didn’t get any further; Jake interrupted her with a smothered curse.

‘God! If it’s just your virginity you want to lose, you could lose it for free any night of the week just by picking up someone—–’

‘It isn’t,’ she interrupted him flatly. ‘If you’d listened to what I said originally, you’d realise that. My virginity isn’t of any importance. I simply mentioned it to illustrate why I need the expertise you can teach me. It isn’t pleasure I want from you, Jake. It’s simply knowledge. A crash course in what turns a man on, in what sends him out of his mind with desire… In what makes him forget everything else in the driving need to possess one particular woman.’

‘Go and buy yourself a sex manual,’ he jeered. ‘It will come much cheaper than a million pounds.’

But Silver could see where the tiny betraying nerve pulsed in his jaw as his mouth compressed, and she felt a corresponding savage kick of triumph in her own stomach. She was going to win… whether he knew it or not, she was going to win.

She didn’t make the mistake of letting him sense her triumph. He might be blind, but his other senses, already honed by the years he had spent staying alive in one after another of the world’s danger zones, had been hardened by the accident, compulsively perfected by what Annie had once, in an unguarded moment, described to her as the strongest will she had ever come across. His perception was a hundred times greater than that of the majority of sighted human beings.

‘I’ll give you twenty-four hours to think over my proposition,’ she told him coolly. ‘After that, the deal’s off.’

As she spoke, her voice was cold and brisk, formidably like that of her father, a man who had single-handedly run one of the world’s most successful private business empires. It had none of the deliberate sensuality she had injected into it before. She was a clever woman, who for the first time in her life was learning to direct that intelligence into promoting for herself a false image—which in time she was determined would become herself—and she had already learned the power of projecting conflicting messages. She did it now, contrasting the frozen chill of her voice with the deliberately erotic movements of her body. She slipped off the bed and walked slowly up to and then past him, holding herself tall, using her powerful imagination to create the role she needed.

She was a high priestess of an ancient religion, sure of her strength and her power, knowing that her body was one of her strongest tools, unconcerned by her nudity. Her hair rippled down her back, a silver cloud, her skin warmed by the room’s heat.

She didn’t touch him—that would have been a beginner’s mistake—but she walked close enough to him to be quite sure he would be aware of her nudity… of her body, with its woman’s scents and allure.

Annie had told her that he was generally an abstemious man who didn’t indulge in any of life’s pleasures greedily. It was an admission Silver had rather trapped the other woman into giving.

A dulcet comment about the anomaly of the fact that he was a man in his early thirties apparently without any intimate relationship in his life had provoked Annie into defending him, and had also elicited the information that he had once been married and that his wife was now dead.

Silver had sensed that Annie was torn between protecting Jake’s privacy and telling her more. She had been curious to know how his wife had died, but not curious enough to push Annie too hard.

She had other ways of finding out all there could possibly be to find out about him if she so chose… there were those admirable men of business in Switzerland who had looked after her father’s affairs so discreetly and who now looked after hers. But Jake Fitton’s past held no interest for her, and neither did his future. She had a use for him, that was all—a use that, once finished, would cease to be of any importance.

He let her walk past him without moving, looking stoically towards the window as though unaware of the tormenting, warm human presence of her.

Her clothes were in his bathroom. She opened the door, wondering what she would have done if he had given way and reached for her.

She didn’t like admitting that she could make mistakes, and had he reached for her she would have had to acknowledge that she had made one.

She didn’t want a man who wanted her, who felt desire for her… just as she didn’t want to know anything about Jake other than the fact that he suited her requirements admirably and that he disliked her enough to ensure that their relationship did not cross any of the barriers she intended to set around it.

Yes, he was ideal for her purpose, this cold, angry, embittered human being who looked at her with those hawk’s eyes that couldn’t see her, but that still held bitterness and dislike. She approved of that. She understood it and could relate to it. She needed him, and she meant to coerce him into submitting to that need.

CHAPTER TWO

SILVER waited out the twenty-four hours in her chalet. The oil sheikh had installed a Jacuzzi in a specially built extension that was raised on pillars some thirty feet above the ground.

The room was circular, one third of its wall-space taken up by specially treated glass that allowed those inside to look out, but no one to look in. From the Jacuzzi the view of the mountains was spectacular.

Low divans followed the curve of the glass wall, heaped with priceless rugs and silk cushions. The jacuzzi was large enough to hold an entire rugby team, and sometimes, when she relaxed in it, Silver wondered about the women who had shared it with the sheikh.

Had they enjoyed the experience? He was fifty-odd years old and fat, with heavy jowls and small, greedy eyes. His hands flashed with jewels and his beard smelled of perfume.

Silver had rented the chalet through an intermediary who had been instructed to describe her as a very wealthy middle-aged widow. She had not wanted any unheralded visits from the chalet’s owner while she was in residence, something which she had heard on the grapevine had happened to a beautiful, amoral socialite she knew, who had described the event with a shudder of distaste.

The socialite’s companion, a sleek, too pretty nineteen-year-old boy with homosexual tendencies, had laughed maliciously and taunted, ‘Oh, come on, you must have been tempted. They say he’s a very generous lover, and gives uncut stones as a mark of his appreciation. The more appreciative he is, the higher the carat of the diamond.’ And he had looked pointedly at the brilliantly cut stone she had been wearing on her finger.

Everyone had laughed until she had told him tartly, ‘This, my dear one, is a fake. He also punishes those who don’t please him by knocking them around or passing them on to his bodyguards.’

Silver had no real fears that he would arrive unexpectedly. She moved languidly in the warm water and then got out. The twenty-four hours were almost up, and she had heard nothing from Jake.

She dried herself, standing carelessly in front of the huge window, enjoying the room’s heat. A jungle of plants covered the back wall, turning the room into a luxurious green cavern of tropical indolence, an erotic contrast to the crisp sharpness of the snow outside.

Before she dressed she smoothed body lotion into her skin; it had the same expensive perfume as her scent. It left her skin velvet-soft and with the same lustrous gleam as expensive heavy satin.

Jake had another two hours. After that she would start packing for her return trip.

The phone rang, and she dropped the silk underwear she had just picked up, reaching for the receiver, subduing the wild dance of elation that sang through her blood.

‘Silver?’

It wasn’t Jake. She forced down her disappointment.

‘Annie. How are you?’

‘Fine. Can you make it for dinner on Friday? It will only be a fairly informal affair. Some old friends are passing through. Jake will be there…’

‘Does he know you’ve invited me?’ Silver questioned her, wondering if this was a skilful ploy of Jake’s to evade her time-limit and yet accept her terms at the same time.

‘He doesn’t even know yet that I’m going to invite him,’ Annie told her.

‘Mm… Friday… I’m afraid I won’t be able to make it. I won’t be here.’

There was a short silence, and then Annie queried almost sharply, ‘So you’re going through with it, then? I understand why you feel the way you do, but is it really wise? Wouldn’t it be better to simply leave things as they are? To put the past behind you?’

‘No,’ Silver told her with emotionless economy. They had been through this so many times before, ever since in that moment of weakness she had confessed to Annie how important it was to her that she reach the goal she had set herself—an impossible goal, some might claim; an unhealthy, even dangerous goal, others might say… especially Annie… especially if she knew the full truth. There were certain things that Silver had kept back from her, certain truths which she had suppressed because even now she could hardly accept them herself.

To have learned that the man she loved had not only betrayed her but was also involved in her father’s death, and in supplying drugs to other members of the wealthy and élite circles he moved in, had devastated her.

No, these were not things that could be told to anyone. Charles had boasted to her that he was beyond the reach of the law, that he had powerful friends who would protect him… well, she was going to show him that, though he might think himself invincible, he was vulnerable just as she had been vulnerable… just as her father had been vulnerable. She was going to bring him down… to destroy him… to…

‘Silver, think!’ Annie cautioned her. ‘If you do succeed, what then—what afterwards?’

‘I don’t care about afterwards,’ Silver told her truthfully.

In her cluttered, untidy office, Annie stared at the calendar on the wall. It depicted a paradisiacal Indian Ocean island, all pale yellow sands, emerald seas and waving palm trees. If she was truthful, she had never felt happy about doing Silver’s operation; that was why she had abandoned the lucrative field of cosmetic surgery in the first place. The puritan in her had balked at what she was doing… And yet there had been something about Silver that had called out to her for help… something in her very desolation and determination that she hadn’t been able to resist. She had felt an awareness of the extent of her suffering, of her need… she, who had thought herself armoured against emotionalism, just hadn’t been able to refuse to help her.

And then, of course, there had been the money.

Five million pounds to help finance her clinic here in Switzerland… her very special clinic where she used her skills to treat the victims of human violence and destructiveness, mending ruined faces and bodies torn, ripped apart… destroyed by human cruelty.

All her skill, though, hadn’t been enough to save Tom.

As always, the memory of her husband weakened her, pain sweeping through her, blotting out the environment of her hospital with its orderly, sane demands on her, taking her to another place… another life and the man she had shared them with.

It was no good remembering Tom. He was never going to come back, never going to bound into their flat, sweeping her off her feet and into bed. She trembled, remembering how it had been between the two of them, and knowing that it was as much because of that… because of all she had shared with Tom that Silver would never have… that she had finally been persuaded to carry out the operations which had given Silver her new face.

‘Be careful,’ she said quietly. ‘Be very careful, Silver…’

Silver smiled mirthlessly as she replaced the receiver. She had no need of Annie’s warning. She knew full well the enormity of the task she had set herself, but it would be accomplished, and without Jake Fitton’s help if necessary. There were other men.

But none quite as ideal, she acknowledged bitterly twelve hours later, standing on the platform waiting for the local train which would take her to Innsbruck. She was travelling light, the same way she had arrived: one piece of hand luggage, into which she had managed to pack everything she had brought with her.

In Paris she would buy new clothes, clothes for the woman she had made herself into. For the woman Annie had made her into, she amended grimly. She had no illusions about herself. Outwardly she now bore the physical attributes of a beautiful woman. The ability to reflect those physical attributes inwardly, to project the reality of being that woman—that task lay with her. She had the determination to do it… the motivation… she had the intelligence. And the skill? Only time would tell.

She now possessed the physical body and face of a beautiful woman; in Paris she would clothe that body as it needed to be clothed if she was to attract Charles’s attention and ensnare him. She knew exactly what kind of woman appealed to him. How he liked initially to be challenged, even dominated by the woman he desired… It was only later that his own true character surfaced and he began to need to inflict cruelty and humiliation on his lovers… to subjugate them…

She had learned a good deal about the real Charles since her father’s death… about the Charles who hid behind the mask of almost godlike physical beauty… behind the appeal of his tall, broad-shouldered body and his golden, deceitful face.

Yes, in Paris she would buy clothes: clothes from Valentino and Armani, from Chanel arid Yves St Laurent, clothes from those designers who knew all about how subtly to emphasise a woman’s sexuality without making a parody of it.

And from Paris she would go to London. To a new life… a new identity. Everything was arranged: the exclusive apartment that whispered sleekly of old money… the letters that would allow her to enter Charles’s milieu as an accepted member of that exclusive and very small world.

Everything was planned, right down to the smallest detail.

A frown touched her forehead as she acknowledged the one major obstacle still confronting her. She now had to find someone to take Jake Fitton’s place. Someone dispensable… someone who would give her what she wanted… what she had to have if her plan was to succeed.

Damn Jake Fitton. She had known he would be difficult to persuade, had known it instinctively, a gut-deep reaction rather than any logic. After all, by his own admission he needed the money… and she had counted on his needing that money too much to refuse her.

That she should have miscalculated so badly and so early on in her planning was more worrying than she wanted to admit. It spoke of an underlying lack of facts; of having made an emotional rather than a clinical decision; of having made the kind of basic error her father would have derided. He had taught her to play chess, he had taught her to gamble for the highest stakes, and he had taught her to run his business affairs, which were now hers… and she had thought she had learned those lessons well. She had thought there was nothing anyone could teach her about man’s basic greed and vulnerability; now she was having to rethink the assessments she had made… to backtrack… to look for an alternative route by which she could reach her ultimate goal.

The train arrived. She got on board without looking back, swaying easily down the carriage, knowing that people were watching her, but remaining outwardly oblivious to their interest.

She sat down and removed a magazine from her bag, coolly snubbing the attempts of the man seated opposite her to engage her in conversation.

Maybe in Paris she would find a man. She told herself it was stupid to allow herself to get so worked up over Jake’s refusal of her proposition, that there was no point in dwelling on what was after all a very minor matter, but it remained there like a small shadow, clouding her mood, growing as the miles passed. The fact that he had rejected her as a woman didn’t bother her… After all, she reasoned mirthlessly, that was something she was used to.

No, it was her own miscalculation that worried her… her own failure to correctly judge the situation, guess what his reactions would be. It showed a grave lack of judgement—a lack of judgement she could not afford. And only now did she admit that she had chosen Jake Fitton as much because he was such a challenge as because of his suitability for the role. It was that small piece of vanity that had been her downfall, and now she was furious with herself too for putting her whole plan into jeopardy simply for the unnecessary and trivial pleasure of putting Jake down, of forcing him to acknowledge her superiority.

His thinly veiled contempt of her had rankled after all… and that was a weakness she could not afford to have. After all, before she was finished, there would be people who felt far more than mere contempt for her…

She closed her eyes and leaned back in her seat, ruthlessly regimenting her thoughts, forcing herself to admit her own stupidity…

The train rattled into Innsbruck.

She was spending the night in a hotel before flying out in the morning. A porter caught sight of her and hurried towards her beaming, only to grimace when he saw she had no luggage. She walked out into the sharp winter sunlight, looking for a taxi. A car drew up alongside her, the rear door opened and from inside it Jake Fitton said quietly, ‘Two million pounds.’

She wanted to refuse, to tell him that it was too late, that the deal was off. The words trembled on her tongue, but she fought them back. She couldn’t afford to give in to emotionalism now.

Instead she smiled and said coldly, ‘You put a high price on yourself, Jake. I hope you’re worth it.’ And then she slid into the car beside him, closing the door and settling herself into her seat while he instructed the driver.

He was taking her back to his chalet, she realised, listening. Two million pounds. Well, she could afford it—easily! She closed her eyes again; her heart was thumping frantically. Until this moment she hadn’t wanted to admit to herself how important it was that it was this man who completed the final hurdle for her… that his acceptance of her terms had a symbolism that was very important to her. Far more important than the man himself.

On the drive back to Gstaad he addressed no comment to her, and she was skilled enough to make none of her own.

She had been brought up by a father whose realisation, eight years after her birth, that she would be the only child he could ever have had led him to pour into her all that he himself had learned in his determination to make her a fitting heir to his name and possessions. Car journeys, for her, were always a reminder of those times when she had sat beside him in the back of the Bentleys he had always chosen over the more status-laden Rolls-Royces, listening while he talked, answering while he questioned. So Jake’s silence was an added burden.

She wondered if such silence was habitual to him, or if he was deliberately trying to unnerve her. Apart from that afternoon in his chalet, she had never really been alone with him, having always encountered him only in Annie’s company.

On those occasions he and Annie had talked as old friends did. There had been silences, generated when he’d become aware that she was there, a silent third, an interloper on their intimacy, and then it had been Annie who had talked, sensing the atmosphere between them and trying her best to disperse it.

The road twisted and turned, offering superb views that were not designed for the nauseous or nervy. In Gstaad they had to stop to allow returning skiers to cross the road. Silver recognised Guido Bartoli among them. Even now it was not too late to change her mind.

The skiers cleared, and the car pulled away smoothly.

‘Second thoughts?’ Jake said quietly beside her, focusing on her as though he could see her.

She had known from the moment she met him that he was dangerous, ruthless—a merciless foe—but such enmity demanded a degree of involvement, of intimacy even, that would not enter their relationship.

Allowing only polite coldness to inform her face and voice, she said quietly, ‘Two million pounds is a lot of money.’

He smiled at her, a curling, taunting smile that said what they both knew: that her second thoughts had nothing to do with money.

As she looked away from him, Silver wondered why, when, since he was blind, she was completely free to look at him, to study and assess him, she found it so difficult to do so.

Where did it come from, this innate distaste for breaching his privacy even when she knew he would be unaware of it?

It was true that he was conspicuously formidable, hardened by life into something almost indestructible. You could see that in him by just looking at him, by seeing how he reacted to his blindness, how he accepted it and adapted to it, daring it to imprison him.

They had reached the chalet. Silver fumbled for the door-handle and got out, waiting for Jake to join her. He stopped to say something to the driver and then walked across to her, finding her unerringly.

He unlocked the chalet door, telling her calmly, ‘Just as a matter of interest, I’ve had the locks changed.’

Silver followed him inside. The stove was burning warmly, and from the kitchen came the mouth-watering aroma of something cooking.

‘I thought it might be as well if you moved in here for the duration of your… tuition. I’ve allocated you a bedroom—second on the left. It doesn’t have a private bathroom, but there is a shower. Since I’m sure neither of us wants to draw this out any longer than necessary, I suggest we make a start this evening. Since you specifically mentioned that seduction was your prime objective, I have to assume that where the non-sexual aspects of such a role are concerned you require no enlightenment.’

He paused, as calmly polite as a lecturer addressing a student, which of course she was.

Silver inclined her own head and replied evenly, ‘Your assumptions are correct.’

‘Mm… you sound confident, but a confident woman wouldn’t have worn that perfume you were wearing the other day. It’s too strong… too obvious. Unless, of course, your prey has a particular penchant for it.’

Silver almost gasped at his astuteness. He was so close to having guessed exactly why she had chosen that particular perfume. The perfumer who had mixed it for her had disapproved.

‘Tuberoses are not really for you,’ he had told her critically, but she had ignored his advice, insisting that he made the strong, heavy scent.

‘I’m sure I don’t need to say this, and you must forgive me for being crass, but since the object of this exercise is not to seduce me I’d prefer you not to use it…’

It took her several seconds to assimilate the subtle insult. When she did she was tempted to retaliate, but she forced herself to say mildly, ‘It costs a thousand pounds an ounce. In view of your extortionate fee, every little I can save is a bonus.’

He didn’t smile, but simply gave her a level, assessing look which she withstood only by reminding herself that he could not actually see her.

‘Next point—clothes. Since you are ultimately to play the seductress, I have no doubt you will probably want to dress for the part. Again, I would caution you against overstatement. I personally find nothing particularly erotic about a woman who has obviously dressed herself with sex in mind. However, the discovery that a woman dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt, with her face free of make-up, is wearing silk satin underwear… now, that…’

Silver was tempted to lie and say that she was allergic to silk, but controlled the childish impulse, saying curtly, ‘I’d like to go up to my room and unpack.’

He shrugged, looking at her impatiently.

‘In a moment. There are still some points we have to discuss. The first, and I should have thought one of the most important as far as you are concerned, is that I have a clean bill of health, at least as far as any sexually transmitted diseases are concerned.

‘The second is that I have assumed that you will have taken the necessary precautions to ensure that no pregnancy occurs.’

‘I have,’ agreed Silver coldly.

‘Good. Now, since I’m hungry, we may as well start the first lesson now. You can leave your unpacking until later. Right now, try imagining that you’ve invited your prospective victim round for a meal. During the course of this meal you intend to make him sexually aware of you and also of your availability. How would you accomplish that?’

Silver felt her heart thumping just a little bit too fast. This was what she wanted, but now that it was here… She tried to blank out of her mind Jake as a person and instead use her imagination to create the scenario he had just described.

She closed her eyes, summoning concentration, asking him a little huskily, ‘Two questions…’

She opened her eyes. He seemed to be watching her.

‘One: how long have we known one another? Two: what is our existing relationship? Do we work together, or…?’

‘We’ve met twice before,’ he told her immediately. ‘The first time a mutual acquaintance invited us both to dinner. The second was at a cocktail party when you discovered that my existing lover has gone to spend a fortnight with her parents. This invitation for dinner was given on the pretext of your having been asked to keep an eye on me, so to speak, by my lover.’

Silver gave him a sharp look spiked with dislike.

‘What’s wrong?’ he asked her evenly. ‘Don’t you like the character I’ve cast for you?’

She digested his silky-voiced comments in silence. Annie had obviously told him a great deal. Too much. ‘I have no feelings at all about her. I was just wondering why you accepted the invitation.’ She wasn’t going to let him guess at her disquiet. He was trained to play on people’s weaknesses. For all she knew, he might simply be assessing… guessing… He smiled at her then, a mocking, warning smile that made her muscles lock.

‘Ah, now that’s for me to know and you to gamble on, isn’t it?’ he told her softly. ‘After all, surely that’s what this is all about—knowing your victim’s vulnerabilities? You’ve got five minutes and then we begin. I’ve arrived at your front door and you’ve let me in.’

She closed her eyes, blotting out both the man and her surroundings; the latter was easy to do, the former surprisingly difficult. She tried to superimpose on his granite-tough features another man’s smoother, younger face and to hold on to that vision. She waited until she had only seconds left before saying softly, ‘Jake… you’ve made it. Marvellous,’ and wondered if he’d notice her subtle and deliberate betrayal of the fact that she had doubted that he would arrive. ‘Come on in and make yourself at home. Dinner won’t be long… It won’t be anything very special either, I’m afraid.’ She mimicked the warm gurgle of laughter she had once heard an acquaintance use to devastating effect. She had a good ear and was adept at reproducing intonations and nuances. ‘I was running late at the gallery and only had time to rush into my local delicatessen on the way back, but then I did warn you that I was no cook, didn’t I?’

She gave a slow, warm smile that promised that she was far more accomplished in other areas, which she hoped was carried through into her voice, because Jake could certainly never see the smile.

‘What should I do with my coat?’

The interruption was unexpected, as was the way Jake feigned uncertainty, looking back over his shoulder as though searching for a hallway.

‘Here… let me take it.’

Silver knew she was several seconds late in picking up her cue. She also had an odd reluctance to approach him and take the jacket he was slipping off.

‘It’s freezing outside, isn’t it?’ she improvised wildly, thrown off-key by his unexpected participation. And then, remembering something a friend had once told her, she added quickly, ‘I’ve lit a fire in the sitting-room. Come on through.’

She still hadn’t taken his coat and he checked her abruptly, saying briefly, ‘Adequate, Silver, but not good. The fire was good, but you failed to make good use of the opportunity I gave you when I asked what I should do with my coat, and the suggestion that something more exciting than dinner might be on offer was very precious… some might even say tacky. We’ll go through it again, only this time we’ll reverse the roles. Still, at least you didn’t pretend I’d arrived early and caught you in the middle of getting changed,’ he said drily. ‘I suppose that’s something. Now listen…’

Speaking as though he were she, he turned to her, matching the smile she had used.

‘First, before he even sets a foot inside the door, you’ll have prepared a mental dossier on him: what he likes and doesn’t like, his weaknesses and strong points. Let’s say this particular victim is an up-and-coming producer of television documentaries with a slant towards the political. You just happen to number among your acquaintances a politician you know he’s been keen to meet. And if you don’t, I’m sure you’ll be able to find a way to make sure that you do.

‘You open the door. He’s on edge, not sure what the evening’s going to hold. He’s aware of the signals you’ve been sending out, enjoyed the prelude to flirtation, but is now getting cold feet, wondering if the evening is going to end up heavy and problematical.

‘You surprise him, get him off guard. You pull a pretty regretful face and tell him you’ve been trapped into joining some old friends for dinner, but that he’s included in the invitation. He breathes relief. The pair of you leave for the kind of venue you know is going to impress him. Your tame politician is already there. You introduce them and discreetly pretend not to notice how impressed he is.

‘At a suitable opportunity, whenever the politician’s gone to the bar or whatever, you tell the victim how marvellous he’s being, helping you to entertain your father’s brother’s cousin’s dull friend. If you’ve done your homework well, you can even get the politician to dangle some tempting bait in front of him, by praising his work and suggesting that the two of them get together.

‘Already your victim is disarmed. He’s totally forgotten that he wasn’t sure he wanted to have dinner with you.

‘As soon as dinner’s over, you start getting a little on edge. You look at your watch… make it subtly obvious that your attention isn’t really on your victim. He’ll feel the withdrawal symptoms like a blast of Arctic air. You announce hesitantly that you really must leave. On the way home he asks you if something’s wrong. You hesitate and then admit to man-trouble. You’re expecting a phone-call or whatever. He then starts thinking he’s misunderstood the entire situation and suffers the consequent challenge to his ego. When you invite him in for a drink, he’s only too eager to accept and offer you his “brotherly” advice—–’

‘Oh, come on,’ Silver interrupted him acidly. ‘That wouldn’t deceive a five-year-old. It’s so obvious.’

‘Never underestimate the efficacy of the obvious. That is why it is obvious, after all.’

‘This is ridiculous,’ Silver told him sharply. ‘I haven’t come here to play these kind of games. What I require you to instruct me in is sexual technique. That’s all.’

‘If that’s the way you want it.’

He shrugged and seemed completely unaffected by her outburst. Silver, on the other hand, was flushed and angry. Did he think her such a fool that she hadn’t got the intelligence or the ability to be able to coax her prey into her carefully baited trap? She had seen others do it often enough.

‘I’m hungry,’ she said, aggressively now. ‘Do I get any dinner, or is that an optional extra?’

There was a small silence. She could feel him assessing her, and she cursed herself for so nearly losing her temper. He was probing her for her weaknesses as deliberately and cold-bloodedly as she had searched for his.

‘Board and lodging is inclusive,’ he told her unemotionally.

Over dinner neither of them spoke, Silver because she was still too angry, as much with herself as with him. His silence, she suspected, had a more dangerous and manipulative motive.

She didn’t offer to help afterwards as he loaded the dishwasher and deftly restored the kitchen to pristine order.

He hadn’t offered her anything to drink during dinner, or had anything himself, and he didn’t offer her anything now, saying briskly as he walked back into the room, ‘Well, we’d better make a start, hadn’t we? We’ll take all the opening stages as accomplished. Your victim has reached the stage where he’s ready to contemplate wanting to make love to you.’

She was sitting in one of the chairs in front of the fire, and as he came towards her he told her drily, ‘In order to facilitate matters, it might be advisable if I show you what’s possible, preferable—and desirable.’

He sat down on the sofa and added, ‘Come and sit here,’ and when she would have sat next to him said firmly, ‘No, not there… Here on the floor.’

Silver shot him a suspicious glance, but his face was perfectly grave and composed, as controlled and emotionless as though he were quite simply a lecturer instructing a rather dull pupil.

As she knelt ungraciously at his feet, he told her wryly, ‘In the harems of the East, the concubines used to be taught to wriggle snakelike upwards from the foot of the bed, adoring their master’s person with their hands and lips as they went.’

Silver was glad that he couldn’t see the betraying wave of colour that burned her skin. With great difficulty she managed to stop her colour from fluctuating.

‘Not that I’m suggesting you do the same thing, at least not at this stage, but it’s a point worth remembering. Now, sit in front of me, resting your back against my legs.’

Silver did as he instructed, sitting ramrod-straight as she stared into the fire.

‘Now, when I speak to you, instead of turning round to look at me you can tilt your head back so that, were I able to see, what I would see would be the undoubtedly tempting line of your exposed throat… your breasts… very temptingly within easy reach of my hand… thus.’

She wasn’t prepared for the brief, clinical touch of his hand, and her body flinched at the contact until she willed it into acquiescence. ‘I could, if I wished, lean down to kiss you, or, more probably, reach down to pull you up over my body, like so.’

His hands fitted easily beneath her armpits, and although she was so tall he turned her easily, so that for a brief, startling moment of time her face was pressed against his hard thigh. Then he was drawing her upwards, as though she were as fluid as a piece of silk.

‘At this stage if I were physically aroused you would be aware of it, and if I weren’t… Well, there are several options open to you, depending upon how much time you have and how far the relationship has already advanced.

‘If it’s still in its early stages and you think I’m drawing you up to kiss you, like so…’

He lifted her easily so that she was virtually draped across his body. One hand in the hollow of her back pressed her torso against his; the other found her nape and locked smoothly in her hair, his mouth cold and clinical on hers.

She wondered a little unkindly if he closed his eyes when he kissed her or if his perpetual darkness rendered it unnecessary.

Her own had closed instinctively, more to blot out the sight of him than to focus her awareness on his mouth, which was just as well, she acknowledged grimly, because there was certainly nothing provocative or erotic in its distant possession.

His eyes weren’t closed, but his lids were lowered so that his dark irises glittered between them. She lay totally unmoving against him, not wanting to remember how she had felt when Charles had kissed her—how joyously, frantically grateful she had been that he loved and wanted her; how eager to respond… to please…

‘You’re not concentrating.’ The harsh criticism jolted her out of her memories, her body tensing in dislike before she could stop it.

‘You’re supposed to be learning how to arouse a man to desire, not wallowing in self-pitiful memories,’ he derided her.

She stifled her rage that he should so easily have followed her thoughts.

‘Now listen and remember. You’ve gained an advantage—physical contact. Now you’ve got to make the most of it… turn a tentative embrace into an erotic enticement.’ When she said nothing, he muttered under his breath, ‘My God, what the hell happened to you when they were handing out good old-fashioned feminine instinct?’

She could have told him that she had never been encouraged to develop her femininity; that her father had treated her as the son he could never have; that plain women, ugly women, as she had heard herself described, were not given many opportunities to develop such instincts. But instead she folded her mouth into a hard line and reminded him coldly, ‘If I had those kinds of instincts, I wouldn’t need you to teach me, would I?’

He was still holding her, but there was nothing intimate about it, apart from the proximity of their bodies, his own all hard, solid, unyielding muscle, unprepared to accommodate her more vulnerable softness, so that leaning into him and being held there hurt her breasts. She tried to ease her discomfort by moving away, but the weight of his hand on her back wouldn’t allow her to put any space between them, and all she could do was move slightly sideways.

‘Let go of me,’ she complained. ‘I can hardly breathe.’

She felt his chest expand as he suddenly took a deep breath and she winced at the uncomfortable pressure against her breasts.

‘You can feel that, can you?’ he asked her.

‘Yes.’

‘Well, that’s a start, at least. Now this time, when I kiss you, I want you to move your body against mine. Here,’ he told her, the hand in her hair sliding unerringly to her waist and then upwards to the curve of her breast, touching her briefly before moving away. ‘And here…’ His other hand left the hollow of her back and traced the curve of her hip.

‘As rhythmically as you can manage. I trust I don’t have to tell you what kind of rhythm,’ he added under his breath, and Silver was glad that he couldn’t see the fierce flood of angry colour that burned her face. She wanted to wrench herself away from him and tell him that she would find someone else to help her, but the stubborn streak of hardiness that had enabled her to survive so much wouldn’t let her. There was far more than mere pride at stake here.

‘Now, just in case you haven’t already realised it, the object of this exercise is to transform what is on my part merely a light kiss into… Well, let’s see what you can turn it into, shall we?’

She hated him… Hated the cold, dismissive way he spoke to her, the way he touched her… the way he made no effort to hide his dislike and contempt. But she needed him too much to show her feelings, and so she waited as his hands moved back to her body and he held her as he had done before, pressing the same cold mouth to her own.

Instinctively she froze, while her mind screamed its impatience with her body’s ineptness and she forced her unwilling muscles to obey her mental commands, moving her body against his, trying to imagine that he was Charles, and that this situation was real.

It was harder than she had thought, her body made clumsy and bashful by the unresponsiveness of his. It was like trying to soften iron, she decided angrily, knowing even before his mouth left hers that she had failed to impress him.

It was a shock to open her eyes and find his boring into her, as though he really could see her. Her heart jerked uncomfortably and she pulled away from him, saying bitterly, ‘Is all this really necessary?’

‘You seemed to think so… Look, I’ll show you how it should be done and then we’ll give it another try. Now concentrate,’ he instructed her, taking hold of her, ignoring her body’s tense rejection as he manoeuvred her ungently on to the sofa and then kept her there with the weight of his body.

‘Now,’ he said grimly against her mouth, ‘this is what should happen.’

This time his mouth was just as clinical, but it moved slowly and subtly on hers, matching the slow tempo of his body, the subtle rotation of his hips pressing her deeper into the sofa, the movement of his chest against her breasts, his hands in her hair, as he deliberately increased the rhythm, enforcing their erotic cycles on her body. He held her head between his hands so that she couldn’t evade his mouth, making a thousand unknown pulses leap under her skin, making her breasts swell and harden and her belly turn weak. The rhythm quickened, changed and became more forceful, and then, shockingly, stopped.

‘This is what I meant when I told you to move your body against mine,’ she heard him saying calmly in her ear. ‘If he’s attracted to you, it should turn him on. Now it’s your turn.’

He levered himself away from her briskly, leaving her to stare up at him. She felt too shocked to move, her pride bruised by the inescapable knowledge of the effect he had had on her. She shuddered as she sat up, wondering why on earth she felt so weak.

As she looked at him, sitting relaxed and composed at the other end of the sofa, she knew there was simply no way she could do to him what he had just done to her.

He must have read her mind, she suspected, because suddenly his voice changed, softening slightly.

‘Forget about me. Just try imagining that I’m someone else—this all-important man that all this is for.’

The palms of her hands had gone damp. She was more scared than she had ever been in her life, even when Annie had explained to her just what the surgery she had wanted would involve… how painful it would be… how potentially dangerous. She didn’t want to touch him… didn’t want to experience his amusement and contempt when she failed to match the effortless sensuality he had just shown her. Was it just experience that brought such skill, or was there more to it than that? Did you have to be born with a facility for it? If so… If so, her plan was doomed, and she wasn’t going to allow that to happen.

Taking a deep breath, she got up.

‘We’ll take it from the top this time, when you’re sitting on the floor.’

Obediently she sat at his feet, closing her eyes and willing herself to believe that she wasn’t here in this chalet, but in the library at Rothwell, that it wasn’t Jake’s body behind her, but Charles’s. She breathed slowly and deeply, trying to relax, trying to capture the evocative scent of old leather and wood that permeated the high-ceilinged room. Trying to imagine the heat of the fire, the guttering of the candles on the desk behind the old leather chesterfield, the feel of Charles’s hands on her hands as he reached for her and twisted her round in his arms, drawing her up over his thighs.

She tried to imagine she was water, amorphous and fluid, flowing against him; her hands touched his chest, feeling the hardness of muscle that unexpectedly flexed beneath her palms. Again the touch of that cold mouth; for a second her concentration wavered and her nails dug into his shoulders as she tensed, but then she pushed Jake’s image to one side and fought to superimpose over it that of Charles.

The kiss was warm and teasing, as Charles’s had been, but instead of accepting it shyly and awkwardly she remembered what Jake had taught her. She was a powerful, seductive woman, and he was her victim. She murmured softly beneath the cold mouth and slid her fingers into his hair, frowning momentarily, conscious of its texture and thickness, knowing by some form of osmosis that Charles’s fair, fine hair would never feel like this, vibrant with male energy. For a moment her confidence faltered, the image of Charles she was fighting to fix behind the closed eyelids fracturing and the pieces reassembling into Jake’s face. She shivered and suppressed the image, telling herself fiercely that this wasn’t Jake, it was Charles… Charles, and that this was her chance to take hold of her own fate and shape it… form it. This was her chance to start exacting payment, and to do that she must seduce him away from other loyalties… other loves.

She moved her body sinuously, ignoring the unresponsive muscle and tissue that was Jake, letting her movements whisper promises of pleasure, trying to recreate the rhythms Jake had shown her, forcing her mouth to soften and linger coaxingly on the implacable, shuttered lips that refused to give her any encouragement.

When Jake took hold of her shoulders and held her away she stared at him, waiting for his judgement. This time her body had not reacted the way it had when he had kissed her, for which she was profoundly grateful. That was a complication she didn’t need or want. Nor did she want to remember that, despite all she had felt for Charles, he had never drawn that involuntary, unstoppable feeling from her.

‘You’re beginning to get the idea,’ Jake told her.

Beginning… Silver glared at him, conscious of a fierce stab of disappointment. What had she expected? she derided herself. Lavish praise? She suppressed her chagrin and said as lightly as she could, ‘I see. And how long will it be, do you suppose, before I’ve absorbed it to your satisfaction?’

‘Who knows, but until you have we don’t go any further.’

As though he heard the angry protests locked in her throat, he said evenly, ‘What do you want from this, Silver? You told me you wanted to be able to seduce a man to the point where he’d virtually kill to have you. Judging on your present performance, you wouldn’t even be a good lay; you’d be forgotten even before the bed had gone cold,’ he told her brutally, and although the words cut into her ego like thin whip-strokes she knew he was telling the truth.

‘Now… we’ll do it again, and remember, a seductress doesn’t necessarily love the man, but she does love herself and her power over him, and because of that she enjoys what she’s doing. She loves making him ache and burn… making him want…’

An hour later, her throat burning with suppressed tears of rage, her pride cut to rags and her temper burning through her like vitriol, Silver pulled back from Jake’s restraining hands and gritted, ‘Don’t tell me… I know… try again. Tell me something, Jake. What exactly do I have to do to get a pass mark?’

He wouldn’t release her, and a flash of caution warned her against trying to overcome his physical strength. She reminded herself that there was nothing personal in this; that it was idiocy to let her dislike for him prejudice her progress. After all, she had chosen him.

‘I should have thought that was obvious,’ he told her. He was beginning to sound terse, and his mouth snapped shut with uncompromising hardness. She had known all along that he wasn’t a man who would suffer incompetence easily, and now he was proving it to her. ‘When you can arouse me, you’ll get your pass.’

Arouse him? She couldn’t stop the shudder jolting through her as she snatched her hands away from his shoulders.

‘We’re talking about a physical reaction, nothing more,’ he told her drily, correctly reading her reaction. ‘A physical reaction to deliberate provocation. It isn’t impossible. It isn’t easy, either… I don’t like you, and I certainly don’t want you,’ he told her frankly, ‘but until you can draw that involuntary physical response from my flesh, we don’t go any further. There wouldn’t be any point.’ He gave her a hard look which made her catch her breath until she remembered that he couldn’t actually see her.

‘Now, let’s try it again, and this time remember: the sooner you get it right, the sooner we can move on to the next stage, and ultimately the sooner you and I can go our separate ways.’

It should have been all the encouragement she needed, but it had exactly the opposite effect. She became unbearably conscious of herself and of him, and totally unable to superimpose Charles’s image on to his features, no matter how tightly she tried to close her eyes and use her imagination. Her movements became clumsy, her body tense and awkward.

After three humiliating attempts to recapture her earlier burgeoning skill had failed, she was tempted to call the whole thing off.

She was too demoralised even to hide from him how she felt, pushing her hair back off her hot face as she protested angrily, ‘It’s no use. I’ll never get it right…’

She expected him to agree with her and was surprised when he remained silent, until she remembered that, for all his contempt, he would stand to lose two million pounds if she backed out now.

‘We’ll have a break,’ he told her equably at last, adding, ‘Think of it as mind over matter, Silver. The physical skills alone aren’t enough. You have to be confident of success… to know you have the power to arouse me… to know that you can make me want you. Without that mental strength, no matter what I teach you, you won’t succeed. The outward skills can only facilitate the effectiveness of the inner ones. Which is perhaps why they say seductresses are born and not made.’

It infuriated her that, after she had faced so much, endured so much, she was failing at this last obstacle… surely the most simple of them all?

‘I’m tired,’ she told him pettishly. ‘I’m going to bed.’

She waited for him to stop her, to make some cynical and mocking retort, and when he didn’t she walked stiff-backed over to the stairs and then up them.

A month of Jake’s time was what she had bought. Four short weeks of his time and his tuition. So why should it suddenly seem as though those short weeks were going to prove a lifetime of endurance and punishment?

CHAPTER THREE

HER bedroom was simply furnished. Rag-rugs on the polished floorboards, a large double bed with bolster pillows and two huge quilts, a solid-looking chest of drawers in an unvarnished bleached wood that felt smooth and worn to the touch, and a wardrobe to match. The small shower-room was as basic and frugally furnished as the bedroom, but there was a Tightness about the plain white sanitaryware that was pleasing to the eye.

Silver showered, dismissing her longing to soak her tense muscles in a hot bath, and then moisturised her face completely. Annie had warned her that for some time to come her skin would be vulnerable. When she had finished she brushed her hair vigorously, her mouth curling into a crooked smile.

When she’d walked into Annie’s clinic her hair had been russet-brown. It was the shock of the series of operations she had put herself through that had turned it almost pure white.

The mirror gave back to her a perfect reflection. She studied it clinically, trying to see it as others would see it… as Charles would see it. Flawless skin… she had always had that before, though no one had ever really noticed. An elegant, straight nose; not for her the cutesy girlish bobs favoured by starlets. High cheekbones slanting under widely spaced eyes, small ears, a delicate jawline, a full mouth. That too had already been hers, although in the heavy, plain setting of her old face its fullness had appeared almost grotesque.

Standing naked in front of the mirror, Silver studied her body. No surgery had been needed here. Just diet and exercise—almost an entire year of it before this svelte, high-breasted figure had emerged from the smothering layers of fat.

Now she had a narrow ribcage and a tiny waist, curving hips and long, long legs.

She looked back into the past, seeing her reflection not as it was now, but as it had been then. She had started overeating as a teenager, partly in compensation for her own deep-seated insecurities, partly out of the guilt induced within her by her aunt.

The awareness that her beloved father, much as he’d loved her, would have preferred her to be a son wasn’t something which had grown on her slowly, but had been cruelly forced upon her by her cousin.

She shivered, remembering with devastating clarity the day her cousin had relentlessly and cruelly explained to her that for her father there could never be a son… someone who would carry on the family name, its titles and burdens… That she, as a daughter, could never inherit them, and that it was through her that her father had contracted the childhood disease which had led to his inability to father any more children.

Charles would inherit… Charles would become the fourteenth Earl of Rothwell on her father’s death… Charles, who if she was lucky might condescend to marry her. And so her insecurity had begun, her awareness of her lack of worthiness to be both her father’s only child and Charles’s wife… and with it her obesity.

How assiduously and malevolently her aunt had nurtured those insecurities. She could see it all so clearly now… as she had not been able to do then.

And Charles… how cleverly Charles had used his mother’s manipulation of her, charming her one moment, spurning her the next… offering her compassion and caring one day and replacing it with coldness and disdain another. And so it had gone on, the constant see-sawing of her emotions, so that her lack of self-worth and her vulnerability had grown at the same pace as her dependence on Charles.

She had totally believed her aunt when the latter had told her that it was her father’s wish that she marry Charles, never dreaming that she might have lied, and so she had grown through her teens adoring her Adonis-like cousin… loving him… wanting him… to such an extent that, when her father had finally begun to appear antagonistic toward Charles, when he had tried to caution her, she had refused to listen, believing herself to be deeply in love with her cousin.

It had been the only thing they had ever quarrelled about… Silver bit her lip, wondering whether, if he were alive now, her father would recognise anything of the daughter he had known in her, or would pass her by in the street as one of her godmothers had done in Gstaad last week.

She had loved her father so much; and she had indirectly been responsible for his death. She shivered suddenly. It wasn’t just a desire to make Charles pay for the hurt he had inflicted on her in rejecting her that was making her put herself through this… this self-torture. Motivating her just as strongly was her deep-rooted belief that justice must be done, that Charles must pay for the crime she knew he had committed. Charles had murdered her father, and, what was more, he had murdered him because he had known that her father stood between him and Rothwell, that the information her father had about Charles would ensure that she broke her engagement to him; and so Charles had killed him. How safe and secure he must feel now… As far as Charles was concerned, both of them were dead, her father and then apparently her. But she was going to rise again from the dead… not as the girl everyone thought had committed suicide, the plain and ugly Geraldine Frances—but as Silver. And she was going to teach him what it meant to love someone, to desire them and to believe those feelings were returned, and then to face rejection.

But, over and above that, she was going to take away from Charles everything he thought he had gained by murdering her father. For that, any sacrifice, any self-torment could be endured.

Now no one would ever recognise her as Geraldine Frances…

She touched one high cheekbone with her fingertips, feeling the living skin. It frightened her sometimes to look into the mirror and see this unfamiliar mask, but she had to suppress that fear. This was what she had wanted, this porcelain perfection of feature… this almost unreal beauty…

She had been frightened this evening as well, when she’d realised how very easily she could fail this last test.

She shivered and pulled on her pyjamas. Cream satin, the fabric severely cut, almost masculinely so, flowed over her body, changing subtly so that it no longer appeared severe, but instead became subtly erotic. She had bought the pyjamas because she felt she was too tall for frilly feminine nightwear, and because she knew that the ancient flannelette nightwear she had worn since she was a teenager, comfortable though it was, could no longer be a part of her life.

Now, as she walked into her bedroom and the coolness of the satin stroked her skin, she remembered what Jake had said to her about wearing silk underwear beneath a pair of jeans and her body tensed angrily.

There had been a point this evening when she had been tempted to accuse him of deliberately drawing out her torture, but then she had remembered his cold distaste when she had first put her proposition to him and she had held back the bitter words, knowing that, no matter how much he disliked her, it wouldn’t make any sense for him to spend any longer with her than was necessary. And anyway, he had been right, she acknowledged drearily.

No matter how hard she tried to forget them, to tell herself that she was now a beautiful, desirable woman, her old inhibitions wouldn’t let go, grimly reinforcing the judgement of his hard, unyielding body, until the rhythm she was trying so desperately to maintain became the beat of painful music to the refrain that pounded over and over again through her mind. Words it would surely take many lifetimes to obliterate, words which she felt were carved upon her soul.

Charles’s words, cruel and condemning, bitter and hurtful… the words he had used to describe her to another woman.

She got into bed and lay there, knowing that she wasn’t going to be able to sleep.

She had been there just over half an hour when Jake knocked on her door and called her name, loud enough for her to hear, but not so loud that it would have woken her had she been asleep.

She was tempted to pretend that she was, but she stifled the pettish instinct, getting up instead and padding over to the door to open it.

‘What do you want?’ she asked him ungraciously.

He smiled mirthlessly. ‘Still sulking? You might be able to afford to waste your time, but I can’t.’

She turned her back on him and said curtly, ‘Save the lecture for tomorrow, would you, Jake? I want to go to sleep.’

‘And you shall. But not yet…’

She looked at him and read the inflexible purpose in the hard bones of his face. She should have anticipated this, and she berated herself mentally for believing that he would allow her to overrule him.

There were two courses open to her now: she could stand her ground and risk having him call the whole thing off, or she could give in.

Great as her desire was to defy him, she couldn’t let their personality clash come between her and the course she had set for herself.

He was looking at her, and despite his blindness the blue eyes were alive with intelligent awareness. That panicked her. She wanted to turn away from him so that he couldn’t look at her, even though she knew it was impossible for him to see her.

‘I’ll come back downstairs,’ she said woodenly.

‘A very wise decision.’ He held open the door, waiting for her. She wanted to protest that she would have to get dressed, and then thought of the intimacies she would have to endure before she was free and gave a faint sigh, preceding him through the door.

The stove was still burning, and she was glad of its warmth. The settee stood in front of her, an implacable reminder of her failure. She thought bitterly that she would never again feel quite the same about that particular piece of furniture.

‘Now,’ Jake instructed her coldly, ‘this time, try to use your intelligence. Think about what you’re doing… about the image you’re projecting. We haven’t been lovers yet, but all the signs are that we will be. The scene is set. It’s up to you to make the most of the opportunity I’m giving you. Remember, when I walk away from you tonight you want me to lie awake remembering the feel of you, the scent of you, aching for you. You want me to forget every other woman I’ve ever held…’

Silver shivered, bitterly aware of how very skilled he was, of how he was using his voice and his imagination, of how he was forcing her to confront her own failure and fears.

She wanted to scream at him that it was no use, that she couldn’t do it, but her stubbornness wouldn’t let her. She had come too far, sacrificed too much.

As she stood there, curling her fingers into tight, hard balls of tension, he said coolly, ‘Stop trying to think of me as him. That immediately sets up barriers you can’t overcome. He’s too important to you. Try instead to imagine me simply as man… all mankind… not a person with characteristics you may or may not like, but merely a symbol of maleness to your femaleness.’

She wanted to tell him that he was wrong about Charles, but she suspected he would know that he wasn’t, so instead she closed her eyes and willed herself to blank out his features, to see him simply as a body, a set of reflexes which she had to activate.

Into the darkness, he added, ‘If it’s the basic pattern of movements that worries you, try improvising slightly. Let your instincts guide you and not your brain.’

What instincts? she longed to demand bitterly. Haven’t you realised yet that I don’t have those kinds of instincts? If I did I wouldn’t need you! But she knew that to lose her temper would achieve nothing. He wasn’t responsible for the past; he was nothing in her life, simply a cipher… a necessary staging post through which she must pass on her self-selected route.

She breathed deeply and evenly, steadying her nerves, and then went over to him, dropping into the now familiar position. He reached for her, and she saw the frown touch his forehead as his fingers slid over satin, but he made no comment, simply disengaging one hand and then the other, so that he could slide his hands up her bare arms beneath the sleeves of her pyjama jacket.

She stiffened instinctively as her body touched his, forgetting for a moment the purpose of his touch—she hadn’t realised how different it would feel to lie against him without the constricting layers of clothes—and then she forced herself to ignore her own reactions and to concentrate instead on his. If she could feel his body so much more intensely through the satin of her pyjamas, then surely he must be correspondingly aware of hers: of the sleek, subtle movement of the fluid fabric as it flowed over her skin. That was what she should be like, she told herself: fluid, amorphous, clinging, silken, inviting his touch, teasing him with her very lack of substance; making him aware of her every subtle movement.

Her hands were on his chest and, as she willed her flesh and bones to mould themselves to his, she smoothed her palms over his shirt-front, levering her torso away from him, the better to allow her hips to sink into him. Think of it as a dance, she told herself, a subtle, dangerous dance which only one of us can control, and as she moved her hips a small, forgotten memory came back to her, a laughing conversation she had overheard between two girls at a party, and she broke the cold dominion of his kiss with the soft pressure of her mouth, mimicking the slow movement of her hips, her mouth open and moist.

Unexpectedly, his throat muscles clenched and then his fingers circled her wrist as though he was going to push her away.

She felt anger and disappointment, bitterness at yet another failure followed by a savage determination to force some reaction for him. She pulled her wrist free and held his face in her hands the way he had done hers, driven by her need to prove to him what she could do, opening her mouth on his, flattening her torso against him, moving her whole body against him, willing him to react, to give her the words of praise she so desperately craved, and when he didn’t she used her teeth sharply against his bottom lip, caught up in a fierce, furious rage of resentment, her hands leaving his face to curl into bitter fists which she beat frantically against his shoulders as she spat furiously, ‘It’s no good! I can’t do it. I’ll never be able to do it.’ Tears of temper and failure burned her throat and eyes.