Get away from here, he thought. Just get away. You have total control over your life. This fixation on Suzannah Sheffield. Suzannah White was just too bizarre. Too damaging. He wasn’t over it yet.
Suzannah, moving over the thick emerald grass without any thought to possible grass stains on her expensive black suede shoes, couldn’t have known that. The man before her in his black funeral clothes, a long impeccably tailored topcoat with his beautifully cut suit, looked remote and unfathomable. A man whose severity of expression precluded passion. Yet how splendid he looked, how compelling. The uncanny old telepathic thing wasn’t working. She couldn’t pick up a thing. Yet why had he come here like this?
“Nick.” She reached him, lifted her head and spoke in a clipped voice that was as cool as crystal.
“Suzannah.”
His response was a faint rasp on dark velvet. He still hadn’t lost all traces of his accent. Probably never would.
“May I offer you my sincere sympathy,” he said. “You must be greatly shocked and distressed.”
“Traumatised, I think.” Her violet-blue eyes looked away. “What are you doing here, Nick? You must know it’s only asking for trouble.”
If anything his striking features grew tougher. “You mean your father?” He gave her the faintest grim smile. A travesty of the beautiful one she remembered. “I really don’t think your father will present a problem ever again.” His eyes at that moment were full of knowledge.
“Did someone tell you we’ll be moving out of Bellemont?” she asked sharply.
“No,” he lied.
“Things have gone badly for us.”
“You’ve had offers for the property?” He looked down at her, concealing all his old fascination.
“I suppose there’s no harm in telling you.” She gave a weary shrug. “Negotiations are going on right now. Not as much as we hoped but we’re in no position to hold out.”
“How the mighty have fallen,” he said. “I don’t think the new owner or owners would pressure you to move out in a hurry. Given the circumstances.” He spoke with a kind of compassion.
“Who told you about...Martin?” Looking at his mouth as he spoke she could almost taste his lips. It caused her bewilderment and grief.
“I really don’t recall who mentioned it,” he said. “Bellemont Farm is an historic property, after all! Your father has changed greatly, hasn’t he? He really shouldn’t be leading a battle charge in his condition.”
“What condition?” Suzannah asked. Was it possible he knew all about their lives? He was a powerful man.
“I was just speaking to Jock Craig.” His eyebrows raised. He’d let her believe Jock had been the one to tell him about the stroke.
Suzannah glanced behind her, apprehension in her eyes. “It might be wise, Nick, if you left.”
He followed her gaze to where Marcus Sheffield was determinedly negotiating the grassy slope, righteous wrath all over his face. “Actually that had been my intention only for Craig. In any case it’s too late. Your father, stroke or not, is obviously determined on some kind of showdown.”
“He wouldn’t forget himself on a day like this,” Suzannah said, a little catch in her throat. “And in such a place.”
“I think, Suzannah, your father hasn’t changed much. It fills him with fury to see his beloved daughter within a foot of me.”
Once they had stood shoulder to shoulder, Marcus Sheffield had been a big man, now he was half a head shorter and stooped. “What the devil are you doing here, Konrads?” he snarled. “Haven’t you learnt to keep away from my daughter?”
Nick bowed slightly, his elegance quite natural. “As pleasant a greeting as I could ask for,” he answered, his tone sardonic. “I believe it was Suzannah who approached me. I had no intention of intruding upon your grief.”
“So why are you here?” Marcus Sheffield scowled, his breath shaking in his chest.
“I knew Martin for years. We grew up together.”
“He was light years away from you.” Marcus Sheffield drew his steel-grey brows together.
“I could never understand why you couldn’t see that,” Nick retorted. “I won’t add to your distress, Mr. Sheffield. Fear of another stroke must be a worry.” He turned to Suzannah with terrible power and grace. “Once again my sympathies, Suzannah. It was never in any of our minds Martin should die so young.” With that he walked away, his long legs easily covering the distance to where a big late-model Mercedes was parked.
“Why the hell should he blow back into our lives?” Marcus Sheffield furiously demanded of his daughter. “Did you see him! Arrogance of the devil. The scorn in those black eyes.”
“Don’t upset yourself, Father,” Suzannah murmured, looking pale and sad. She took his arm.
“The hide of him!” her father fumed, high colour mottling his cheeks. This was his first taste of Nicholas Konrads’ power, and the terrible loss of his own.
“We did grow up together, Father,” Suzannah said in a quiet nostalgic voice. “Nick always did have a compassionate heart. I believe he’s truly sorry about Martin.”
“Bah, they were never friends,” Marcus Sheffield scoffed.
“That all had to do with me,” she said, assuming the blame and the guilt. “Then you played your part.” It was the first time she had ventured to say it.
“Everything I did was to protect you,” Marcus Sheffield pronounced stoutly.
Suzannah couldn’t answer, a cascade of tears fell down her heart choking her. Her father was speaking the truth as he saw it, a truth that had blown her life apart. Because of her father, his powerful influence and her unquestioning belief in his integrity, she had become more deeply entwined with Martin, then a short time after the furore of Nick’s disgrace and departure had abated, married him in the same church from whence he had been buried.
Demons would pursue her all her life. Memories. The pain and the bitter betrayal in Nick’s brilliant eyes. The agony in his mother’s. The triumph in Martin’s and her father’s. They had won. In their way they had kept her a prisoner while Nick was shipped off with his long-suffering mother.
Suzannah wondered how she could ever have believed, even for one wavering moment, that Nick was a thief. Nick the hero of her girlhood. Wonderful, sweet, kind with the magic and power of a white knight. How had she ever allowed her father and Frank Harris to convince her he had stolen anything from the safe? So he knew the combination? He had been with her when she put her good pearls away. Nick noticed everything. Money had been very tight in the Konrads’ household, never more than after Nick’s father had died. Mrs. Konrads, not a strong woman after experiences she would never talk about, had had to work too hard, taking domestic jobs in the homes of the wealthy to help out. Nick had adored his mother. He could scarcely contain his anxieties about her, longing for the day when he could support her properly. The day that never came.
Suzannah’s own anguish was permanent and deep. People were following. There was to be the ritual gathering at the house. Nearing the car, an old but beautifully maintained navy Rolls, they saw Nick drive away. In the passenger seat, looking out with intense interest was a very good-looking woman with short bright chestnut hair, fine regular features, designer sunglasses perched on her nose. Just a few seconds, yet Suzannah caught the flare of her nostrils, the intensity of the stare that was directed solely at her.
Nick’s wife? She had read about him in the newspapers from time to time, seen pictures of