Phantom Lover Page 3

  She made a smart about-turn on to a narrow paved pathway along the side of the house, looking around for some cover. There was a little thicket of low-growing shrubs next to a fishpond and she ducked in among them and crouched to peel off the damp stockings quickly. Unfortunately her bare feet sank into the loamy ground and she had to wipe them with her scarf before she could slide back into her shoes.

  By the time she rose from the bushes Honor was flushed and thoroughly annoyed with herself for her uncharacteristic obsession with her appearance. What did it matter what she looked like? She wasn’t Helen and that was all that would matter to Adam.

  Unfortunately, just as she popped up a man suddenly appeared from the rear corner of the house, running directly towards her with such an implicit threat in the lean of his powerful body that Honor reacted to sheer instinct and began to run back towards the drive, unzipping her jacket to push the grubby stockings deep into the inside pocket as she did so. A garbled shout sent her deeper into panicked embarrassment and there were suddenly people running all over the place as she slammed into a brick wall with such force that she went sprawling backwards, her fingers trapped inside her pocket by the stretchy octopus her stockings had suddenly become.

  ‘Look out, she’s got a weapon!’ she heard, before the brick wall reached down and hauled her up by the scruff of her jacket, one beefy hand punching down into her pocket, almost tearing it off as he wrestled her for her stockings and dragged them free.

  Ears ringing, Honor was conscious of all the chaos around her coming to a dead stop as the limp trophy was dangled from her captor’s hand.

  ‘What the hell—?’

  Honor looked up into the furious brown eyes of the menacingly big blond man who held her. He had shoulders like a rugby player and a broken nose to match and his grip on her jacket was so tight he was practically strangling her with the collar. Perversely, his rough treatment vanquished her embarrassed fright and ignited her temper.

  ‘Let me go, you big, stupid oaf!’ she hissed, writhing in his grasp and jarring her fists as she pounded them against his iron chest.

  ‘No way,’ he snarled, shaking her until her teeth rattled. ‘What the hell were you going to do with these?’ He dangled the stockings tauntingly in front of her pink nose and from the flash of yellow heat in the brown eyes she wondered whether he intended to strangle her with them. He certainly looked as if he’d like to, witnesses or no.

  ‘Wear them on my head!’ she snarled back with furious sarcasm. ‘Or, better still, use them as a slingshot to crack that Neanderthal skull of yours!’

  Dimly she heard the commotion re-start around her as several other men tried unsuccessfully to drag her out of the masher’s bone-cracking grasp.

  Amid the turmoil she heard the startling words which had the effect of freezing her share of the struggle.

  ‘Police? You’re police?’ She cranked her head around, noticing that what had seemed like a crowd was only five men, all as big and brawny as the man who held her, and one woman who looked as if she could match them muscle for muscle.

  She glared up at the man who still held her. ‘What is this, a training exercise in police brutality? You know I could make a complaint about this!’

  ‘You’re the one who ran,’ the blond giant ground out, unimpressed by her outrage.

  ‘I didn’t realise running was a criminal offence, Mr Plod,’ she snapped back. ‘If you’ve made a run in my stockings maybe I can have you arrested.’

  A tiny snicker of inappropriate laughter from one of the men was quelled with a single look from the senior-ranking officer who now stepped forward to take charge.

  ‘I’d like you to accompany me to the station, miss, to answer some questions—’

  ‘I’ve got a few the little bitch can answer right now,’ the man holding her cut in crudely. ‘Who’s in it with you?’ he demanded savagely. ‘Where’s your accomplice? You must have one—you’re too dumb to have hatched this on your own. Is he your lover?’ He gave her body a contemptuous survey that took her in from head to battered toe. ‘If he is, don’t expect him to give a damn what happens to you now; I doubt if he thinks that a brown dumpling is worth doing hard time for—you’ll be the one to take the fall—’

  ‘Mr Blake—!’ The senior officer again attempted to intervene. This time it was Honor who stopped him.

  ‘Blake?’ Shock was piling on shock from all directions. Her heart sank as she looked into the blazing brown eyes. ‘Mr—? You—you’re not a policeman? You’re Zachary Blake?’

  Colour raked along his tanned cheeks as if she had struck him a stinging blow. ‘You know damned well who I am, you lying bitch—’

  ‘That’s enough, Mr Blake! You can let her go now. We have the situation under control.’ The order came sharply, and this time the blond avenger reluctantly released her, stepping back and slowly flexing his big fists at his side as if imagining them squeezing around her neck.

  Honor swallowed painfully. So much for the subtle approach!

  ‘I—don’t know what this is about. I’m just here to see your...to see Adam Blake...’ she offered tentatively, realising that she didn’t know what relationship he had to this man.

  Instead of soothing him, her timid foray into explanation prompted a searing explosion of curses that followed her all the way to one of the unmarked police cars at the back of the house into which she was rapidly hustled.

  ‘You don’t understand,’ she cried, as they pressed her into the back seat. ‘Please, let me speak to Adam, he’ll know who I am!’

  ‘And how well do you know him?’ queried the senior officer in a strange voice as the policewoman slid alongside Honor from the opposite door.

  Honor felt a tiny glimmer of hope that she could salvage herself from this comedy of errors. ‘Very well,’ she said firmly. ‘Just ask him about our letters. Tell him that my name is Sheldon!’

  ‘Our letters?’ He pounced on what he evidently saw as a discrepancy. ‘Is Sheldon your surname? And what is your first name, Ms Sheldon?’

  She hesitated, disturbed by the sudden silky smoothness with which he spoke. ‘Helen.’

  Guilty colour flooded her face, but she reasoned that, once Adam had vouched for the name, then she could set about putting her identity right.

  But her brief flirtation with dishonesty cost her dearly, because the policeman turned away from the open car door and addressed someone behind him with sardonic humour. ‘Hear that, Adam? She says you know each other well. Says that her name is Helen Sheldon. Care to give us a formal ID for the report?’

  ‘Sure.’ A backlit figure moved around and ducked down to look into the car, and Honor gasped as she saw his face.

  ‘No. That’s definitely not Helen Sheldon. I’ve never seen this woman before in my life.’

  The man that she had thought was Zachary Blake followed up his icy denial with a venomous smile that twisted his mouth from snarl to sneer.

  ‘Calling you dumb was an understatement. Didn’t it enter your tiny mind that it might seem a trifle suspicious to claim to know me at the same time that you were busy trying to pretend that you thought I was my own brother? Or maybe you’re being very, very clever. Maybe you’re looking ahead to a defence of mental incompetence. Don’t bank on it. Even if this turns out to be the bumbling amateur farce it looks to be I’m going to make sure that the case against you is nailed down tight. As far as I’m concerned people like you are the lowest scum on earth!’

  And with that Adam Blake slammed the door and stalked off, leaving Honor in the ruins of her shattered dreams.

  That Neanderthal thug, that—that rough, crude, bullying pig was her delightful, passionate, poetic, ideal man? Impossible!

  If anyone was laying claim to a false identity, it was Adam Blake!

  CHAPTER THREE

  ASSISTING the police with their enquiries while trying to retain at least a modicum of personal privacy was hard work, Honor decided wearily that evening as she made herself a solitary di
nner.

  Three hours! It had taken three hours in that police station to satisfy grim officialdom that she wasn’t a homicidal maniac with a lethal grudge against the Blake family!

  Of course, it hadn’t helped that she had not been carrying a skerrick of personal identification, but, as she had pointed out to the slit-eyed Gibbon, handbags were notoriously difficult to juggle on the handlebars of a bicycle! And then there had been the complication of trying to explain her actions without compromising Helen. The police were quite capable of arranging for her sister to be detained at the airport if they thought Honor’s story required her corroboration. Helen would be livid if that happened.

  Unfortunately, after she had down-played the whole thing by treating it as a joke, claiming that she had known all along that Adam had been writing to the wrong sister but had decided it was time to ’fess up, the DI had insisted on driving her home and viewing the physical evidence for himself.

  Then, instead of just glancing at one of the letters, he had read the entire batch, an invasion of privacy that Honor had endured only because she suspected that he would be happy to produce a search warrant and go through the whole house if she said no.

  ‘You don’t mind if I borrow this one for a little while, do you?’ he had murmured at last, not bothering to wait for her answer as he had tucked the piece of evidence complacently into his jacket pocket. Naturally it was one of Adam’s steamier efforts and Honor had cringed on his behalf. If he became a police-station joke he would never forgive her. Not that he was likely to now, anyway.

  Honor sighed as she ate the desiccated omelette she had overcooked in her distraction. At least there was one consolation. She had achieved what she had set out to do that morning. By now Adam Blake must be fully aware of who she was...and who she wasn’t.

  Instead of softening the blow, she had managed to deliver him a real pile-driver!

  Another consolation was awaiting her in the refrigerator: a beautifully rich chocolate cake made for her by one of the group of little old ladies among whom she circulated copies of the talking books that she recorded for the Blind Institute.

  She cut herself a bigger than usual slice and retreated to her lounge to enjoy the last rays of the sun stretching into the small, north-facing room, sprawling on the carpet by the French doors and turning the stereo up as loud as was comfortable, the poignant, meditative mood of Elgar’s cello concerto perfectly suiting her frame of mind.

  Halfway through the concerto her chronically bad-tempered cat, Monty, stalked into the room and availed himself of the last crumbs of cake on the plate before mercilessly clawing a comfortable position in the centre of her supine body, his wheezing, rumbling purr providing a monotonous counterpoint to Sir Edward’s masterly composition.

  So loud, in fact, was the music and Monty’s vibrating bass that Honor didn’t hear the bell or the knocking on her distant front door and it was only when the French doors behind her head rattled violently that she realised she had a visitor.

  She jerked upright, shrieking as Monty dug his claws through her faded shirt into her skin and hung on grimly as she scrambled to her feet. She staggered to undo the tricky door-catch, at the same time trying to brush off the hugely outraged fluffy burr adhering to her sagging clothes.

  The tussle ended when the door flew open under intense pressure from without and Monty, scrabbling for purchase against Honor’s chest, sprang at the interloper’s head and rebounded off it into the relative safety of the darkness beyond.

  ‘What the hell—?’

  Honor didn’t need to open her pained eyes to recognise her cursing visitor. He had greeted her before with that same expression, uttered in that very same, furious tone of voice.

  Adam Blake. In black trousers and a black fisherman’s sweater and with a dark scowl on his tanned face he looked larger than ever, and menacingly attractive. The high, hard cheekbones and strong jaw gave him a sculpted male beauty that she had barely registered during their last hasty confrontation. He and Helen would make a striking pair, Honor realised drearily. They were two of a kind, blessed with golden good looks and a physical magnetism that was impossible to ignore.

  ‘I—I’m sorry.’ To her horror she realised there was a small trickle of blood oozing down his temple and she instantly forgot the stinging on her own chest. ‘It—it was only my cat...’

  ‘If that’s your cat I’d hate to see your dog!’ Adam swiped at the trickle with the back of a big hand and Honor winced in sympathy.

  ‘I don’t have a dog—’

  ‘With a pit-bull like that for a cat I don’t suppose you need one.’

  Honor’s heart began to settle back into a more normal rhythm. ‘You startled him, that’s all. He was scared and you were standing between him and freedom.’ She automatically searched in her jeans pocket for a crumpled handkerchief which she apologetically held out to him. ‘Here, you’re still bleeding—’

  He ignored the pacifying gesture, producing a handkerchief of his own, a crisp white square, beautifully ironed, with which he dabbed his temple. ‘If you’d turn that bloody noise down you might hear your doorbell!’

  Honor bristled as she did so. ‘That noise happens to be Elgar,’ she said tartly, when she had quietened the stereo. ‘I thought you liked classical music.’

  His eyes narrowed at the familiarity implicit in the comment. They weren’t so much brown as blond, Honor thought inconsequently, a shade or so deeper than the dark honey hair.

  ‘Where are they?’

  ‘They? There’s no one here but me,’ Honor blurted, and then wondered whether she had made a mistake in admitting she was alone to a furiously angry man. ‘Mr Blake—’

  ‘Mr Blake?’ His blond eyebrows raked sardonically upwards. ‘Why so formal all of a sudden? What happened to “you big oaf” and “Neanderthal”...darling?’

  The snarled endearment was definitely a threat. Freshly conscious of his solidity and size, Honor swallowed, bravely standing her ground as she nervously tucked a strand of hair behind her left ear. ‘I—I suppose you’ve spoken to that detective—’

  ‘We had a fascinating conversation. Now where are they?’

  ‘W-who?’

  ‘Not who, what! And don’t bother running that doe-eyed-innocence routine past me; I don’t buy it. If you don’t start co-operating I’ll have you slapped behind bars so fast your head will spin!’

  No need—it was spinning wildly already. Doe-eyed? No one had ever called her that before. If it hadn’t been yelled with such insulting emphasis she might have mistaken it for a compliment.

  ‘The police are perfectly satisfied that I had nothing to do with...to do with whatever trouble you’re in!’ Honor said stiffly, resisting the urge to shout back. She wished she knew what she was defending herself against. Exactly what she had been suspected of had never been precisely defined. All she knew was that it involved a serious threat, and that there would be dire consequences for herself if she so much as breathed a word of the case to anyone until cleared to do so by the police.

  ‘It’s not I that’s in the most trouble right now,’ he grated. ‘If you don’t produce those letters in the next five minutes I’ll tear this place apart myself.’

  ‘The letters?’ Honor almost wilted in relief. ‘What do you want them for?’

  ‘What do you think?’

  He took a step towards her and Honor put a defensive hand against the front of her shirt and was disconcerted to feel bare skin. She looked down. To her horror Monty’s hind legs had done a very good job of dragging most of her buttons out of their worn buttonholes. Her faded shirt had parted over her breasts, revealing a similarly shabby bra, one she had hung on to long past its prime because it was so comfortable.

  She gasped, and hastily began rebuttoning, freezing as Adam suddenly reached forward and pulled one side of her shirt out of her hand. While she stood, stiff with shock, he lifted his other hand and ran blunt square fingers over the tender flesh swelling above the frayed lace.
A sharp sting made her wince as his thumb dragged in the wake of his fingers.

  ‘It seems your pet is fairly indiscriminate in his victims—you’re bleeding as much as I am. You ought to get something on those scratches straight away; the skin on your breasts is a lot more delicate and susceptible to damage than the skin on exposed parts of the body.’

  His lack of embarrassment only made Honor’s more acute as his hand slowly withdrew, leaving behind a tingling awareness of his touch.

  Bewildered by such consideration in the midst of his raging fury, and guilty that she had suspected him, even for a moment, of carnal motives, Honor’s eyes flicked to the vivid, red-beaded line down the side of his face.

  ‘I-I have some antiseptic ointment in the bathroom if you want some...’ she offered, clutching the front of her shirt and nervously backing away.

  Something feral gleamed deep in the golden eyes. ‘Good idea. Why don’t you go and get it and we can tend to each other’s wounds?’

  Have him touch her breasts again with that strange, gentle insistence? Honor could feel her face heat up as she turned and fled for the bathroom. After all the trouble she had gone to to dress up nicely for him earlier, he had to walk in on her when she was clad in scruffy jeans and a shirt she had picked up in a jumble sale!

  Only two of the four scratches she had sustained were seeping blood but Honor cleaned and applied the cream to all of them. She didn’t want to give Adam the excuse of demanding an inspection, and the ruthless satisfaction on his face when she had begun to blush had told her that he had instantly perceived her physical awareness of his masculinity as a weakness that could be exploited to his advantage.

  Remember the letters, she told herself severely as she tucked her shirt firmly back into her jeans. Adam Blake is not really the snarling, aggressive, insulting bully he appears to be. He is a warm, charming, sensitive man who just happens to be justifiably confused at the moment. Grabbing the tube of ointment, she kept repeating the incantation as she went back to face him.