Rashad spread the magazine open on his desk with lean brown hands that were not quite steady. It was pure primitive rage, not nerves, that powered him. Matilda’s pale blond hair was pulled back from her face, and she was wearing a rather prim high-necked brown dress. But then, her natural beauty required no adornment: she had the fair hair, ivory skin and turquoise-blue eyes of a true English rose. His perfect white teeth gritted as he studied the caption below the photo. She was not named but her partner was: Professor Evan Jerrold, the philanthropist. A rich man—of course a rich man! No doubt another gullible sucker ripe for the plucking, Rashad thought with fierce bitterness and distaste.
He was exasperated that he was still sensitive to the sight of Tilda and the regrettable memories she roused. It had been, however, an unsavoury incident in his life and a reminder that he had human flaws. Five years earlier, Rashad might have been seasoned on the battlefield and idolised by his countrymen as a saviour, but his great-uncle Sadiq had succeeded in keeping him a virtual prisoner in Bakhar. Rashad had lived under constant threat and surveillance. He had been twenty-five years old by the time his father had been restored to the throne and he himself had been eager to take advantage of the freedom that had been denied him.
It had been King Hazar who suggested that Rashad complete his academic studies in England. Rashad might have inherited his mother’s intellectual brilliance and his father’s shrewdness but, in those days, he had had little experience of the ways of Western females. Within days of his arrival in Oxford, he had become infatuated with an outrageously unsuitable young woman.
Tilda Crawford had been a bar-girl, a one-time exotic dancer and a deceitful gold-digging slut. But she had told Rashad poignant stories about her bullying stepfather and her family’s sufferings at his hands. She had judged her audience well, Rashad acknowledged with derision. Brought up to believe that it was his duty to help those weaker than himself, he had flipped straight into gallant rescue mode. Duped by her beauty and her lies, he had come dangerously close to asking her to marry him. What a future queen that lowborn Jezebel would have made! The acid bite of the humiliation that had been inflicted on him still had the power to sting Rashad’s ego afresh.
He squared his broad shoulders and lifted his proud dark head high. It really was time to draw a line beneath the sleazy episode and consign his regrets to the past. Only now could he see that this feat could scarcely be achieved while the wrongdoers went unpunished. Without a doubt, the requirements of truth and decency had not been served by the dignified silence he had maintained. Indeed, had he not inadvertently made it easier for Tilda Crawford to go on to defraud other wealthy men? He might well save her elderly admirer from a similar trial, he thought with bleak satisfaction. Offenders should be called to account for their sins, not permitted to continue enjoying the fruits of their dishonesty.
Rashad studied the photo of Tilda again and marvelled at how much better he felt now that he had recognised where his ultimate duty lay. Action was required, not strategic withdrawal. He contacted his chief accountant to confirm that not a single payment had yet been received on the interest-free loan he had advanced to the Crawford family. He was not surprised to have his worst expectations fulfilled. He gave the order that the matter should be pursued with diligence. Powered by a strong sense of justice, he tossed the magazine aside.
Pushing the mass of her long blond hair back behind her ear, Tilda studied her mother, Beth, in total consternation and asked for a second time, ‘How much do you owe?’
The tear-stained older woman gazed back at her daughter with wretched eyes and repeated the figure shakily. ‘I’m sorry; I’m so sorry about this. I should’ve told you months ago but I couldn’t face it. I’ve been hiding my head in the sand and hoping all the trouble would go away.’
Tilda was in serious shock at the amount of money her mother confessed to owing. It was simply huge. Surely there was some mistake or misunderstanding? She could not imagine how Beth could possibly have got into that much debt. Who would have loaned her perennially cash-strapped parent so much money? How on earth could anyone ever have believed that Beth might repay such a vast sum? She reminded herself that interest charges could be very steep and began to ask more pertinent questions in an effort to establish how and when such a debt had originated.
‘When did you take out the loan?’
Beth wiped at her reddened eyes, but did not look directly at her daughter. ‘Five years ago…but I’m not sure you could describe it as a loan.’
Tilda was astonished that her mother could have kept it a secret for so long. But she could remember very well how much of a struggle it had been back then just to put food on the table. She was simply bewildered by Beth’s uncertainty about whether or not she had taken out a loan. ‘Can I see the paperwork?’
The older woman scrambled up and went into the very depths of a cupboard from which she withdrew a plastic container. She shot her daughter a sheepish glance. ‘I’ve had to hide the letters so that you and your brothers and sisters didn’t see them and ask me what they were about.’
As a sizeable pile of letters was tipped out onto the table Tilda swallowed back a groan of disbelief. ‘How long is it since you were last able to make a payment?’
Pushing her short fair hair off her brow in a nervous gesture, Beth sent Tilda an uneasy look. ‘I’ve never made a payment—’
‘Never?’ Tilda interrupted in dismay.
‘There wasn’t the money at first and I thought that I would start making payments when things improved,’ the small blonde woman confided, shredding a tissue between her trembling hands. ‘But things never did improve enough. There was always a bill or someone needing new shoes or bus fares…or Christmas would come along and I hated disappointing the children. They would go without so much for the rest of the year.’
‘I know.’ Leafing through the heap of unopened letters, Tilda breathed out and in again very slowly and carefully. She knew she dared not show how appalled she was by what she was finding out. Her mother was a vulnerable woman, prone to panic attacks. She needed her daughter to be calm and supportive. It was, after all, over four years since Beth had last left the house to face an outside world that had become so threatening to her. Agoraphobia, a fear of open spaces, had made Beth’s home her prison. But it had not stopped the older woman from working for her living. A whizz with a sewing machine, Beth had a regular clientele for whom she tailored clothes and made soft furnishings. Unfortunately, however, she did not earn very much.
‘Exactly how did you get the loan?’ Tilda prompted in confusion. ‘Surely nobody came to the house to offer you that much money?’
Across the table Beth worried at her lower lip with her teeth and shifted uncomfortably. There was a shamefaced look on her face. ‘This is the bit I really didn’t want to tell you. In fact, it’s why I felt I had to keep it all a secret. It made me feel so guilty and I didn’t want to upset you. You see, I asked Rashad for the money and he gave it to me.’
Every scrap of colour ebbed from Tilda’s oval face. With her flawless features stretched taut over her delicate bone structure, her turquoise-blue eyes seemed brighter than ever against her pallor. ‘Rashad…’ she repeated weakly, her heart sinking like a stone and shame grabbing her by the throat. ‘You actually asked him to help us out?’
‘Don’t look at me like that!’ Beth gasped strickenly, her unhappiness overflowing into tears. ‘Rashad once said that we all felt like part of his family, and that that’s how families always work in Bakhar—everyone looking out for everybody else. I was convinced he was going to marry you. I thought it was all right to accept his financial help.’
Tilda