The Marriage Deal. Sara Craven

pierced the canvas over and over again.

      Later, when Ashley allowed herself to recall that terrible evening and its aftermath, she was to remember above all that shining needle, stabbing in and out, and feel as if it was her own flesh that it was wounding.

      ‘I’m sorry you’ve had a wasted journey,’ Erica said, when the usual social pleasantries had been observed. ‘It might have been wiser to ring first, and check where he was.’

      Ashley forbore to mention that she’d been trying to contact Jago for two days. She said, trying to sound casual, ‘I suppose you’ve no idea where he could be?’

      Erica chose another strand of thread. ‘None at all, my dear. Giles is only Jago’s cousin, not his keeper. Jago’s an adult male. He comes and goes here as he chooses, and we don’t ask any indiscreet questions. Much the best way, I assure you.’ She threaded her needle. ‘Jago doesn’t actually live here yet.’

      ‘I know,’ Ashley said huskily. ‘But I thought—I got the impression he was spending more time here these days—using the flat rather less.’

      ‘I hardly think so.’ The needle stabbed again. ‘After all, it’s the one small piece of bachelor independence which hasn’t been eroded yet, and he’ll be anxious to hang on to that as long as possible, I would imagine. He’s sacrificed quite a lot already,’ she added almost casually. ‘I hope he finds Landons is worth it.’

      Ashley’s brows drew together. ‘I don’t quite understand …’

      ‘How wise of you,’ purred Erica. ‘It’s always so much better to respect the conventions in these matters, and pretend the marriage has been arranged—such a telling phrase, I always think—for personal rather than business reasons.’

      Ashley felt as if a hand was slowly tightening round her throat. ‘Are you insinuating that Jago is marrying me only to gain a stake in Landons?’

      ‘Hardly a stake, my dear.’ The deadly needle went in and out, doing its work. ‘After all, you’re an only child with neither the physical nor mental capacity to become a—a captain of industry. Your father, naturally, needs someone he can trust to run the company eventually, and who better than a son-in-law and as you were—gratifyingly ready to marry him, and Jago is extremely ambitious, everyone’s satisfied.’

      There was a silence. Ashley said flatly, ‘I don’t believe you.’

      Erica laughed. ‘Of course not. Why should you? And you have nothing to worry about. Jago will never forget that you’re Daddy’s daughter, and be less than attentive, but you must remember to allow him—a little leeway now, before the noose tightens for ever. So why don’t you go home like a good girl, and wait for him to call you. I’m sure he will, eventually. He tends to have a fairly strict sense of duty,’ she added blandly.

      Some guardian angel must have protected Ashley on that nightmare drive to his flat, because she remembered nothing about it.

      All the way there, a voice in her head was whispering, ‘It can’t be true—can’t be true …’

      And yet suspicion, once planted, was growing like a weed in the sun, sending out deadly tentacles to smother and choke. She had to see Jago, to confront him, and find out once and for all the real truth behind their marriage.

      Because, she had to admit, the romance had been a whirlwind affair. She hadn’t seen a great deal of Jago while she was growing up, but after Silas had decided to seek a permanent home base near the company headquarters, they had begun to come into contact with each other.

      At first, she had been full of shy admiration, gauche and tongue-tied whenever he was around. As he shared her father’s professional interests, it was inevitable that they should meet. Sometimes he was kind to her, at others, he teased her unmercifully. Gradually, almost in spite of herself, her admiration turned to a kind of hero-worship, and then, bewilderingly, to something much deeper.

      Ashley had found she was aching for a glimpse of him, and agonising when this was denied her. She was ecstatic when he noticed her—once he gave her a lift home from the library, and she lived on it for weeks—and miserable when the passenger seat in his car was filled by one of the leggy blondes he seemed to favour. Not that he was always at home by any means. A lot of the time he was away, pursuing his career, immersed in one of the civil engineering projects for which he had trained at university.

      ‘He’s going straight to the top, that lad,’ Silas had remarked more than once with unveiled satisfaction.

      But Jago’s ambitions and professional abilities counted for little with Ashley. For her, he was the focus of all her romantic dreams, and when, right out of the blue, he had rung and invited her to have dinner with him, she had thought she would die of delight.

      But she had lived, and it was the start of an idyllic period in her life. Jago dined her, and danced with her, partnering her at tennis, taking her on picnics, and visits to the theatre and cinema.

      And when, after six heady weeks, he had asked her to marry him, she had said ‘Yes’ eagerly, with no thought of dissimulation. ‘Gratifyingly ready,’ Erica had said mockingly, she recalled with a shiver of nausea. But it was no more than the truth. She’d been foolishly, blindly ready to allow herself to be handed over in exchange for the Landon empire.

      As she drove, a lot of pieces seemed to be coming together in an increasingly terrifying pattern. She remembered the impatience in him, coiled like a spring, when she had drawn back from the growingly explicit demands of his mouth and hands, so different from the gentle restraint he had displayed during the early days of their courtship.

      Before he was sure of her, said a small icy voice in her brain.

      If he’d really cared for her, wouldn’t he have been prepared to make allowances for her inexperience? she asked herself.

      And more troubling still, he had never actually said in so many words that he loved her. He wanted to make love to her, in any way she would permit, but all he had said when she agreed to be his wife, was, ‘Darling Ash, I’ll try and make you happy.’

      She’d been more than content with that at the time, but now it seemed a disturbing omission.

      At first when she rang the doorbell at his flat, she thought he was still out somewhere, and she was just about to turn away in defeat when she heard the sound of movement inside.

      The door opened, and they faced each other. He looked terrible, was her first thought. He was pale, and his eyes were bloodshot, and he seemed to be wearing a dressing gown, and nothing else.

      She said anxiously, ‘Jago, are you ill?’ She took a step forward, to be arrested by the sour reek of spirits on his breath. It was something she hadn’t encountered before with him, and it alarmed her.

      In his turn, he was staring at her as if he didn’t know who she was, and then she saw a dawning horror in his eyes.

      And in the same instant heard a girl’s voice saying with plaintive impatience, ‘Sweetie, aren’t you ever coming back to bed? Get rid of whoever it is and …’ She appeared from the bedroom, wearing nothing but the coverlet from the bed draped round her, none too effectively.

      The hand was round Ashley’s throat again, tightening, squeezing …

      The girl came forward to Jago’s side. Her eyes, blue and hard as nails, flicked over Ashley dismissively.

      ‘They say three’s a crowd, don’t they, darling? Or is that the way you like it?’

      Jago slumped against the door jamb with a muffled groan.

      Ashley wanted to stamp her feet. She wanted to kick, to lash out with her hands, and tear with her nails, and scream. She wanted to damage them, both of them, physically. Mark them as they had smashed her emotionally.

      Nausea rose, hot and acrid, in her throat, and she turned and ran down the stairs, not waiting for the lift, and out into the chill of the night air. She leaned against her car, retching miserably, uncaring