Cruel Legacy. PENNY JORDAN
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the intercom buzzer. He had been so scratchy and grouchy lately, so unlike his normal placid, calm self.
Emma came down herself to let them in. Small and vivacious, her tiny frame and delicate features hid a personality that was extremely strong-willed and tenacious. She was not a woman’s woman, and unlike Deborah she had made few friends at university. Deborah had found her competitiveness more amusing than threatening and had often teased her about the streak of conventionality which had made her insist almost as soon as they had left university that she and Toby marry instead of opting to live together as Deborah and Mark had chosen to do.
She and Mark had been invited to the wedding. A lavish affair held at a small, carefully chosen village where Emma just happened to have an ancient relative living. It had been a fairy-tale occasion, and a tribute to Emma’s talents as a master tactician and planner.
‘Mmm … this is really something,’ Deborah enthused generously as Emma ushered them into the apartment. ‘You could virtually fit the whole of our place into your living-room and have space to spare, couldn’t you, Mark?’ she commented as she admired the expensive silk curtains and the specially woven off-white carpet that covered the floor. ‘You must be doing very well, Toby,’ she added when Emma’s husband brought her her drink.
‘Oh, it’s nothing to do with me,’ he told her without smiling. ‘Emma bought this place herself—with her own money.’
Deborah felt her scalp prickle slightly as she picked up on the highly charged atmosphere which had suddenly developed. She looked helplessly at Mark, who was standing looking out of one of the long Georgian sash windows.
‘Don’t pay any attention to Toby,’ Emma advised brittly as she flashed her husband a quelling look. ‘I’ve already told him, if he wants to make a fool of himself by behaving like a spoilt child then that’s his choice.’
Despite the elegant comfort of the antique-furnished traditional dining-room and the excellence of the meal Emma served, Deborah was relieved when it was finally over. Emma and Toby had barely talked to one another all evening other than to make sniping remarks at one another. Toby made constant references to Emma’s money, in between sneeringly putting her down and being irritatingly sorry for himself.
After dinner, while Toby took Mark off to his study to show him his new state-of-the-art computerised set-up, Deborah helped Emma to clear the table and wash the expensive antique dinner service she had used for the meal.
‘This is lovely,’ she commented appreciatively as she carefully dried one of the plates.
‘It’s Sèvres,’ Emma told her. ‘I only bought it a month ago and Toby’s already broken one of the plates—deliberately, of course. I never imagined he would ever behave like this, Deborah—he’s so childish, so resentful; but, after all, why shouldn’t I enjoy the money and spend it on what I want? My grandmother left it to me, not to me and Toby. He seems to think that just because we’re a couple … just because he’s the man, he should be the one to make the financial decisions within our relationship and to have the financial power. That’s what it’s all about, of course. He was quite happy when he was the one earning more than me, making me feel I should be grateful to him when he insisted on buying me something, paying when we went out—not that that happened very often,’ she added darkly. ‘That’s another thing I’ve discovered about him recently: he can be unbearably mean. Take this dinner service, for instance … he wouldn’t speak to me for three days after I’d bought it and I don’t know what he’s complaining about really; after all, I did give him the money to buy into the partnership, and, all right, so I haven’t had this place put in joint names, but after all that’s only common sense, isn’t it, with the divorce rate as high as it is?
‘He seems to think I’m deliberately trying to humiliate him by letting people know that I’m the one with the money. You wouldn’t believe how unpleasant he’s being … mind you, you could see for yourself the way he is tonight, couldn’t you, embarrassing us all with his childishness? I’ve told him he must either accept things the way they are and live with them or——’ She gave a small shrug.
‘You mean you’d leave him, end your marriage?’ Deborah asked her, shocked.
‘Why shouldn’t I? No woman needs to stay in a relationship that isn’t working for her any more, does she, especially not one with the financial assets that I’ve got? I’ve warned him, if he doesn’t like what’s on offer there are plenty more men who would.’
‘You’re not wearing your engagement ring,’ Deborah commented as she dried the last plate.
‘No …’ Emma gave a small shrug. ‘I was never very keen on it in the first place. My grandmother left me a lovely antique ring which I’m having cleaned and re-sized. I’ll probably wear that instead.’
Deborah frowned, remembering the excitement and triumph with which Emma had flaunted the small diamond Toby had given her the day they got engaged, but she had to agree with her that Toby did seem to be behaving unreasonably and unfairly. He had made it more than plain over dinner how much he resented Emma’s inheritance.
‘Take it from me, Deborah,’ Emma warned her as she dried her hands and smoothed on hand cream, ‘when a man tells you that he sees you as an equal, don’t believe him. What he means is that he’s perfectly prepared to pretend that he does, just so long as he remains more equal than you.’
Some men might be like that, Deborah reflected as she rejoined Toby and Mark, but Mark certainly wasn’t one of them. One of the reasons she had been drawn to him in the first place was his quiet air of calmness, his lack of the kind of keen competitive edge that sometimes drove her; she was wise enough to recognise that, no matter how challenging a relationship with a kindred spirit might be, in the end its sheer intensity and ferocity would burn itself out.
She loved Mark and she admired him for all the qualities he possessed which she did not. She applauded his intelligence and diligence, and the very lack of the ruthless drive to gather and hold power, which the others had teased him for at university, was among the qualities she admired most in him. Mark, with his steadfast, quiet strength, counterbalanced her own impetuosity and impatience. She valued his judgement and, although she would never have admitted it to anyone, least of all him, for fear of ridicule, a small, secret part of her was still semi-inclined to set him apart from the other men she knew, to place him, if not on a pedestal, then certainly far above men such as Ryan Bridges, her immediate boss, whose Machiavellian nature and love of intrigue and power had taken him in ten years with the practice from a newly qualified lackey to a partnership and control over the receivership and liquidation section of the business—via, it had to be admitted, an astute marriage to the daughter of one of the most senior partners who had died only a couple of years after his retirement.
It was a well-known fact within the company that Ryan was not above breaking his marriage vows when it suited him, but his affairs were invariably brief and always ended should the recipient of his attentions begin to interpret them as anything other than the brief satisfaction of his sexual needs and ego.
Even while a part of her unwillingly admired him for his sheer drive and determination, Deborah knew that she could never be happy with a man like that. He might pay lip-service to the ideas of female equality, but lip service was all it was, even if his department did have a far larger proportion of qualified female staff than any of the others. There was a reason for that, and it had nothing to do with the superiority of the girls’ accountancy qualifications.
No one spending any length of time in the department could miss the fact that Ryan had a taste for tall, long-legged young women, nor that he enjoyed overwhelming their intelligence and common sense with his sexuality.
He had tried it on with her when she’d first joined the firm, but she had made it more than plain that she just wasn’t interested. Since then he had treated her with amusement and knowingness. He was a very sexually overpowering man, in every sense of the word. At six feet two, he had the physique and the handsomely battered face of an ex-rugby player, and at thirty-five he possessed such strong sexuality that sometimes Deborah felt as though you could almost