Read Online The Body of a Woman by Clare Curzon - Free Book Online

what she stood for, that she couldn’t take in this new shock. It had struck alien into a warm experience of being awakened after coma. Her mind seemed to fall about inside like one of those equilibrist dolls which you push one way and it keeps swinging back at you. Totally overcome, like a hunted beast she had instinctively run for home.
    All her misgivings now revolved about Chloe. At least the girl had been able to write and post that letter, so at least she was in control of her own actions. This was something to hold on to. But the connection with Pascal remained inexplicable.
    Leila blamed herself bitterly that she’d allowed her fascination for him to smother her unease over Chloe. Since the last negative phone call to Mrs Knightley she’d taken no steps to discover where her stepdaughter might have gone. Now, in view of the letter, she was little wiser, except to know from which town and country Chloë had written. If the girl was bent on travelling through Europe she could well have moved on by now.
    She’d had Chloë’s letter in her hands and left it behind. Why? From scruples because it was addressed to Pascal? That was stupid. She should have hung on to it and insisted that he explain. Or concealed it, taken it away to open in private. Which could have given her time to think before she faced him over it.
    And Pascal - surely a stranger - clearly more in the child’s confidence than she was herself! Where did he stand in this? When she fled from his cottage he hadn’t run after her.

    So what had he thought when she suddenly vanished? He had been preoccupied in the kitchen, cooking breakfast, still talking to her through the open doorway. Eventually he would have come out to see why she didn’t answer.
    Then he’d have picked up the mail which she’d dropped. He’d have seen Chloë’s writing on the envelope and surely he’d know she’d recognised it.
    So now he would realise her shock, would surely follow her here and offer some explanation.
    She thought of the morning she’d found him on her doorstep with the empty teacup. It seemed months ago. Amused at his fake excuse, she’d invited him into her home, where he’d picked up the photograph. He’d remarked how alike they were, stepmother and stepdaughter.
    All this time he had known Chloë and he hadn’t let on. That was deliberate deceit. What need had there been to keep their association secret? The deception was scary.
    As for herself, this - this tenderness she’d thought she felt for him, and his pretence of interest in her - she could see now he’d been playing her along for some ulterior reason. To what purpose? How would he expect to use her? Was he intimate enough with Chloë ever to confide to her that her father’s wife had slept with him? Was that his intention? - to shame Leila in the child’s eyes, widening the gulf between her parents?
    Deliberate entrapment. That much was clear now. Even at their first meeting, out on the cricket field, he must have known who she was, and on some whim he’d set out to charm her. Why her? It hadn’t been for her brains or beauty: she couldn’t fool herself she was something special.
    What she’d taken for interest - fondness even - was deliberate mischief-making. The reason had to be that she was Chloë’s guardian. In some way he hoped to get at the child through her.
    And Chloë only fifteen!
    If Leila herself, supposedly adult, could be so easily hoodwinked,
what chance against him had a schoolgirl with even less experience?
    I have to keep a cool head, she warned herself. Whatever else, I’ve put myself in a position to be blackmailed. But I won’t cover up for him. I’d rather it all came out and Aidan blew his top, than allow that fiend to get anywhere near my daughter. Anyway, why should I be afraid of what my husband thinks, with him the pathetic womaniser he is?
    She