Mistresses: Blackmailed With Diamonds / Shackled with Rubies. Robyn Donald
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they’re mostly dressed up so that they don’t look like crimes. Bribery, corruption—you name it. I don’t go in for it myself, but I know people who do. I can’t help that. It’s a fact of life. So maybe your folks buy stuff that fell off the back of a lorry? Big deal!’
I’d picked myself up off the floor and sat down on the sofa again. He gave an exasperated sigh and sat down beside me.
‘I know my way around the big jungle, Della. I can cope with it. And I could sure as hell have coped with your little jungle.’
I felt winded. Had I been arrogant? Denying him the right to make his own decisions? Had I thrown everything away for nothing?
And it had been totally thrown away, because I’d heard him speaking in the past tense. He’d said, I could have coped, not I can cope.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I never thought of it that way.’
His anger had passed, and he took my hand. It wasn’t the start of anything, just a friend comforting a friend.
‘How have you been?’ he asked quietly.
‘Sad,’ I said. ‘You?’
He nodded. After a while he said heavily, ‘I found the jewellery where you said it was. There was no need for that. It was rightfully yours. I gave it to you.’
‘I could never really feel it was mine,’ I said. ‘Except Charlie.’
He rose and went to a small chest of drawers, returning after a moment and holding something out to me. It was Charlie.
‘Take him,’ he said. ‘He’s always been yours.’
‘Thank you.’
I took him gratefully. As everything else had been taken away I had clung to Charlie, sitting up at night and holding him in my hand like a talisman. Losing him had been like losing Jack again. Now the sight of him made me smile.
‘I haven’t seen you smile since we met again,’ he said.
‘I’m glad to have him back,’ I said softly. ‘I’ve missed him so much.’
‘Only him?’ he asked quietly.
‘No, not only him. But he was really mine. I didn’t think you could ever be.’
‘That’s not true, Della. I was all yours. But maybe we were never as close as I thought. Was I only fooling myself, then?’
‘Perhaps you were. When I wouldn’t tell you about myself, maybe you filled the blank spaces with a fantasy. ’
‘And are words all that count? When you came into my arms that last night, don’t you think my heart knew you then in the only way that matters? Didn’t your heart know me?’
I nodded, feeling a lump in my throat. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘It knew everything.’
I was crying as I said it, and he reached out and held me close. I put my arms about him and we sat there for a while, comforting each other and mourning what we’d had and lost.
Chapter Eleven
Della’s Story
JUST as I’d feared, Jack insisted on having the party. Grandad began planning the food, but Jack managed tactfully to steer him away.
‘I don’t think beans on toast will quite meet the case,’ he said.
‘He can do other things.’ I defended Grandad. ‘Sardines on toast, cheese on toast, mushrooms on toast.’
‘I think I’ll stick to my catering firm.’
For a few days we didn’t see him. He was spending his nights at the house he nominally shared with Grace. Grandad became sentimental.
‘Knight in shining armour,’ he declared. ‘He won’t stay here in case he compromises you.’
‘Grandad, come into the twenty-first century,’ I begged. ‘Nobody thinks like that any more.’
‘What else could it be?’
I could imagine another reason. The night Jack and I had talked, we’d got closer than we’d meant to. Now I reckoned he was embarrassed to be with me in case I started hoping for more than he had to offer.
But I didn’t say that to Grandad. I just murmured something about his snoring, he hotly denied that he ever snored, and we left it at that.
Jack returned unexpectedly one evening when Grandad had gone to bed. He looked harassed.
‘Grace won’t let the subject alone and it’s doing my head in,’ he groaned.
‘The subject being me?’
‘You, and my foolishness in getting mixed up…etc. etc.’
‘Put your feet up. I’ll make you some supper.’
‘It’s not beans on toast, is it?’ he asked in alarm.
I laughed. ‘No. Scrambled eggs, because they’re nice and light.’
We sat down at the table together and he ate with relish.
‘Grace laid on a fantastic meal tonight,’ he said, ‘and I could hardly eat any of it for the indigestion she was giving me.’
‘Poor Grace,’ I said.
He stared at me. ‘That’s the last thing I expected you to say.’
‘Well, she sent you to my rescue, however little she meant to. Maybe I owe her one. I can’t help seeing that she’s scared and miserable. You’re all she has. The days when you really did need her were probably her happiest ones and she’s trying to keep some part of them alive.’
‘But why can’t she see that she’s doing it the wrong way?’
‘The really sad thing is that she probably does see it,’ I mused. ‘Grace isn’t a fool. She must know that when she nags you she drives you further away, but she doesn’t know how to do anything else. It gets her your attention, even if you do storm out afterwards. But then she knows that she’s irritated you and she gets more scared, and nags harder, and so it becomes a vicious circle.’
‘So what do I do?’
‘I don’t know. But maybe if she felt that you understood—’
‘I can’t be understanding when she starts abusing you,’ he said firmly.
‘Then change the subject. Get her to talk about something else, and be nice about that.’
He shook his head in a kind of wonder. ‘If Grace only knew that you were fighting her corner.’
‘Don’t tell her, for heaven’s sake!’ I begged. ‘That would really upset her.’
He grinned. I poured him some more tea.
‘How are the party arrangements going on?’ he asked.
‘Everyone in my family has accepted,’ I said, in such a tense voice that he looked at me askance.
‘You really disapprove, don’t you?’
‘I can’t see why you’re doing it. I’m just going to be embarrassed out of my mind.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I’ve heard Grandad on the phone to them. You can’t imagine the stories he’s telling.’
He gave me a wide grin.
‘Nonsense. Of course I can imagine. I know him by now. He’s so much like Grandpa Nick that it’s weird.’
‘But you don’t know my family. The first thing they ask themselves is, “Where’s the profit?”’
‘Very wise. I ask