said unhappily. ‘Lavished exclusively on you. No wonder we were poor. Mother even quarrelled with Father about the way she spent her money!’
‘I know. I heard them. Did you ever wonder where Ester got so much money from?’ he enquired idly.
‘She brought it with her when she escaped from Communist Hungary as a young woman,’ she snapped.
‘And worked as a daily help in the vicarage. It’s a strange thing to do, when you have such savings, isn’t it?’ he murmured.
Tanya frowned. She’d never thought of that before. ‘She—she always liked to be busy——’
‘Another thing. She never spent the money on herself at all. The only person she gave it to was me. Odder still, wouldn’t you say?’
‘Unfair! What are you trying to tell me?’ she asked warily, unsettled by the inconsistencies of her mother’s behaviour.
‘To think beyond your resentment. A sense of injustice has robbed you of your brains. Was the money so important to you?’ he probed.
‘No! The injustice, like you said!’ she muttered. ‘And the fact that Mother was besotted with you to the exclusion of the rest of us.’
‘Besotted?’ His eyebrow arched in disagreement. ‘Did she hug me? Kiss me as much as she kissed you and John and your sisters?’
She frowned at the detached way he’d spoken about them all, as if he was talking about someone else’s family. In a way that was true. Her father had disowned him. ‘Of course she…’ Her voice lost its initial confidence and her frown deepened as she struggled in vain to recall any moment of affection between her mother and István. ‘No,’ she said slowly. ‘No, she didn’t! In fact…I can hardly remember her cuddling you at all!’ Her amazement apparently pleased him. Something made her think that he was coaxing her towards some extraordinary conclusion.
‘Curiouser and curiouser!’ murmured István.
‘Not particularly,’ Tanya retorted quickly, loyal in defending her mother’s behaviour. It had been strange, though. What their mother had felt for István was an unusual kind of love. Nearer to a slavish devotion. ‘No hugs,’ she mused, after a moment. And felt sorry for him.
‘Why do you think that was?’ he queried.
Her huge eyes lifted to his, catching a glimpse of the raw emotion he was obviously feeling. No hugs. Her understanding of his character deepened. ‘I don’t know, it’s inexplicable. Mother was a warm and loving woman to the rest of us. I can’t…’ She wrestled with the discovery. ‘Perhaps you weren’t the cuddly sort,’ she suggested feebly.
‘Not everyone was of that opinion,’ he said softly. His eyes were fixed intently on her, but almost immediately they swivelled to where Lisa stood pleading with John.
Tanya froze. The implication was all too plain. Lisa had once found him eminently huggable. ‘I hope you’re not here to make trouble,’ she breathed, alarmed to see a slow, sensual smile of wicked promise curve his lips. ‘Are you?’ she demanded.
‘All I’ve done is to turn up for a family wedding,’ he said with disarming innocence.
‘You can cause trouble even when you’re not around!’ she complained.
His dark gaze swept back to fasten on her accusing eyes. ‘Meaning?’
‘Like when you never turned up for meals, or never came home at night,’ she said in a low tone. ‘Don’t you know how upset Mother was? We stayed up all hours, waiting for you——’
‘So you were worried!’ he husked.
Drat him, how did he work that one out? Her tone, probably, she thought morosely. She’d betrayed the anxiety she’d felt. The last thing she wanted was for István to know she’d idolised him!
Happiness had once been doing anything that her elder brother did. Like a fool, she’d trailed all over the moors, fifty careful yards behind him, the victim of her own hero-worship. She’d fished the same river, had ridden to the same rocky crag. But then her riding lessons had been cancelled, she remembered with a sigh. Hell hath no fury like a thirteen-year-old girl denied her pony!
Worse, he’d stopped tolerating her quiet adoration and had begun to snap and snarl at her as though she irritated him. The early, childhood days of affection changed almost overnight to a bad-tempered rejection. Her own brother didn’t want to be bothered with her any more and pride had made her pretend she didn’t care.
‘Me? Worried about you? Good grief,’ she said lightly, ‘I’m well aware that the Devil looks after his own. I stayed up to keep Mother company,’ she added, skirting around the truth.
She knew only too painfully what her mother must have been feeling when István failed to turn up. A deep, searing anxiety that was as intense as a physical pain. He could have been lying somewhere in a ditch after falling off his motorbike. Concussed from being thrown by his horse. Drowned in the river. Even now it angered her to think of the needless hours of worry.
‘All those times when you rolled in without an explanation or an apology,’ she continued, ‘I could never fathom why Mother put up with your thoughtlessness, why she always welcomed you back with open arms and a mug of cocoa and digestive biscuits!’ she finished crossly.
‘Well, she understood me better than the rest of you,’ he said with a slight shrug of his big shoulders. ‘She knew what I was doing and that I could take care of myself. And that there were times when I had to get out and roam the moors or drive till I was exhausted. I can’t stand being fenced in. Don’t you know that by now? I need a free rein——’
‘Freedom!’ She fought back the angry tears, struggled to crush the hurtful memories and lashed out blindly. ‘How can you say you were fenced in? You had all the freedom you wanted! You were spoilt rotten!’ she seethed. ‘And you gave nothing back but heartache!’ Flinging a hasty glance in John’s direction, she saw he was well out of earshot and recklessly let her tongue take her further. ‘You seduced Lisa!’ she hissed. ‘You put her life in danger. You——’
‘Yes? Go on,’ he goaded, his eyes glittering. ‘Say it.’
Her teeth ground together, preventing the hot spurt of angry words. If she spoke of the time Lisa lost István’s baby, she knew she’d howl her eyes out because she was on the brink of losing control of her emotions. He’d been twenty-four and should have known better. Lisa, nineteen, almost three months pregnant. Tanya’s body trembled.
‘You never showed an ounce of family feeling!’ she grated, chickening out of the direct accusation. ‘That’s why I fail to see why you’ve come here at this time. You’re not here to celebrate the wedding, are you? You and John have always loathed each other.’ That left Lisa as the reason, she thought in dismay. Her voice rose half an octave. ‘What…what did make you turn up here?’
‘I decided I had to make a play for what I wanted,’ he said softly.
Her heart thudded. ‘That’s what I was afraid of!’ she said jerkily. ‘István——’
‘Pleading will do no good. My mind is made up.’ He looked at her steadily. ‘I refuse to be rushed by you, or anyone. I’m very much my own man, Tanya. I’m calling the shots and in time all will be revealed,’ he drawled, and turned to go.
‘Running away again?’ she taunted, half out of her mind with despair at his intentions. He froze and she knew she’d actually reached a vulnerable part of that apparently impenetrable skin. It gave her no pleasure, however. Somehow he always turned her into a shrew—and that was awful. She hated herself for complaining and whinging, for letting her raw emotions bubble to the surface, for being bitchy. He made her feel less good about herself. That was why she hated to be near him.
Slowly he turned and walked towards her again. ‘I didn’t run,’ he interrupted, a thinly disguised anger underlying