The Mistress Scandal

‘And what will she decide?’ he persisted.

‘You don’t get it, do you?’ She gave him an exasperated scowl. ‘You might tell your brother what to think, but Sophie is no puppet. I’ll just try and support her in her decision.’

‘A commendable attitude.’ He seemed noticeably unimpressed. ‘What if that decision is to marry Greg? Will your non-interventionist policy hold true then?’

‘Even then,’ she confirmed reluctantly.

‘Greg thinks you’re trying to spike his guns. He finds you scary.’

‘I think Greg finds anyone scary who doesn’t respond to his charm, and I’m not the sort of person who is won over by a slick tongue and a pretty face.’

Gabriel’s dark eyes narrowed as he digested her lofty claim.

‘I’m left wondering just what it was about me that won you over that memorable night.’ At his soft words all the colour leached from Alice’s face.

Knowing that what was coming next was inevitable, she watched his brow furrow in mock confusion before his eyes abruptly widened with comic comprehension. Alice started as he vigorously slapped his thigh.

‘Don’t tell me …!’ he instructed firmly. ‘It was my inner goodness shining through again, wasn’t it?’

‘You think you’re so clever, don’t you?’ she hissed. She’d known he’d be determined to mortify her. He didn’t know that he couldn’t think anything about her she hadn’t already thought herself.

‘Well, you’d know about stupid men, wouldn’t you? As you’re married to a prize idiot!’

‘Leave Oliver out of this!’ she yelled.

‘Or do you have his tacit approval of your nocturnal activities? Perhaps you share the details with him later … Some men get off on that sort of thing, I understand.’

‘You’re sick!’

The soft noise Alice hadn’t noticed emerging from the intercom became a sudden wail.

‘My son needs me,’ she said shakily. ‘Why don’t you let yourself out? Incidentally, if I have got any influence with Sophie I’ll use it to stop her getting any more involved with someone who’s even remotely connected with you!’

Gabriel appeared to take her open malice in his stride. ‘At least you’ve dropped all that objectivity rubbish. We both know where we stand, I think.’

Pushing past him, Alice wished she could say the same. In the last half-hour her whole life had been turned upside-down!

CHAPTER TWO

‘I WONDER what are they up to. Big brother must want to give me the once-over, probably, and warn me off. Perhaps,’ she theorised a little wildly, ‘he’ll want to pay me off.’

Alice knew better than to interrupt Sophie in the midst of one of her wilder flights of fancy. She maintained a neutral silence; she didn’t feel in the mood to get involved in convoluted conspiracy theories.

‘If he’s having his brother there, I want you. I’m not about to be browbeaten.’

Privately Alice didn’t think she’d ever seen anyone less browbeaten. She was the one feeling helpless. She’d seen that stubborn set of her sister’s chin before.

She could have said, I can’t possibly come with you because Gabriel MacAllister is the father of my child and he doesn’t know. That might prove distracting, she brooded darkly. And oh, incidentally, I don’t want him to know! It brought a wry fleeting smile to her face when she imagined how her sister would respond to that dynamite confession! God, how did my life get this complicated?

Naturally she was glad that Sophie had returned from the long weekend break at their grandmother’s house outside York in a positive frame of mind, but an energised Sophie was hard to resist once she set her mind on something!

And it was Alice who had convinced her she ought to speak to the wretched boy! She repressed a cowardly impulse to look for the nearest bucket of sand to bury her head in!

Drinks with the MacAllister brothers was not exactly her idea of a restful evening. It might have been a less daunting prospect on neutral ground, but it seemed Gabriel had leased Milborne Hall on the outskirts of town.

Alice had been forced to listen to local speculation about this surprising development for the past two days. She found herself praying that the more optimistic amongst the locals were wrong when they said rather smugly it was perfectly natural Gabriel MacAllister would want to live somewhere as perfect as their little rural backwater.

‘Wouldn’t it be better if Mum and Dad …?’

‘Are you kidding! Mum starts crying every time I look at her, and I’m just glad Dad sold his shotgun last year,’ Sophie reflected grimly. ‘You can laugh …’

Not recently!

‘But you’re not living there. I wish I’d stayed at Gran’s.’

‘I’m working …’ Alice made a feeble last-ditch attempt to wriggle out of it.

‘You’re not on duty until nine, are you …?’ Sophie smiled when her sister glumly nodded. ‘Fine, drop Will off a couple off hours early with Mum and we’ll go straight there. We’ll be finished in plenty of time for you to get to work. Anyone would think you were the one scared of meeting the man! It’s not you he’s gunning for.’

No, but he would be if he ever found out, Alice reflected grimly. But he never would. This line didn’t contain the same comforting certainty it once had when she’d lain awake in the night wondering if she’d done the right thing letting everyone assume … They’d all been so pleased and supportive. It had been the idea of Oliver’s baby—her great-grandson—that had kept Olivia, his grandmother, going after the devastating news of her grandson’s death. Of course she’d done the right thing—the only thing, she reassured herself briskly.

‘I’m sure Mr MacAllister is not gunning for you, Sophie.’

‘He’ll either think I’m just a feckless kid who got out of her depth, or I’m using the oldest trick in the book to get a rich meal ticket.’ Her carefully nurtured hard-boiled expression was spoiled by the quiver of her soft lips.

‘I’m sure he won’t think anything of the sort, and even if he does, five seconds after he’s seen you he’ll know different,’ Alice responded crisply. ‘Besides, what does it matter what he thinks of you?’

‘In a perfect world it wouldn’t,’ Sophie admitted, sounding very mature and even a little bit cynical to Alice’s sensitive ears. ‘Didn’t you like him?’ she added shrewdly, regarding her normally placid sister’s belligerent expression curiously. ‘You haven’t told me much about what he said.’

‘There isn’t much to tell.’ She was amazed and relieved that Sophie couldn’t hear the guilt in her voice.

‘And was he as good-looking as they say?’

‘Better, probably,’ Alice admitted after a reluctant pause during which an image of Gabriel’s dark lean features rose up to mock her. ‘And I’m sure he’d be the first to tell you so,’ she reflected with sweet malice.

Sophie laughed. ‘That’s probably where Greg gets it from,’ she concluded ruefully. ‘He takes longer than me to get ready, and I’ve not known him to pass a mirror without checking himself out.’

Alice instinctively knew the comparison was unfair, and had to bite her tongue to prevent herself springing, quite inappropriately, to Gabriel’s defence. You couldn’t compare her sister’s lover’s narcissistic love affair with his own reflection with Gabriel’s impregnable confidence. Gabriel’s innate arrogance was such that he didn’t need the designer accessories to bolster his self-worth.

Alice double-checked the pocket of her light jacket. Fortunately Sophie had been too preoccupied to notice that her big sister was as jumpy as a kitten.

‘I’ve left my mobile in the car.’ She clicked her tongue in exasperation and frowned as her sister rang the doorbell.

‘Don’t panic. I’ll get it.’ Sophie was halfway down the shallow steps that led to the entrance of the sprawling Victorian pile before Alice could respond.

She didn’t like the necessity of leaving Will, not even with her mother. Even though it was only two nights a week, she made sure she could always be contacted. Considering her mother’s age, she wasn’t sure how fair it was to her, or how much longer the arrangement would work, but that was a problem for the future. She had plenty more immediate ones to occupy her mind at the moment!

Money wasn’t a major problem yet, but since a couple of Oliver’s more chancy investments had gone bad the hours she put in at the hospital were a big help, and when Will was eventually in school and the time came for her to resume her career full-time it would be an advantage that she wasn’t totally out of touch.