walking down the aisle were clearly audible, not hurrying, measured at a dignified pace. Whoever it was seemed to have an unsettling presence, giving rise to a rush of whispering. The footsteps kept coming, right up to the front pew.
Was it the bishop, making some kind of ceremonial arrival? Out of the corner of her eye, Sally saw her mother’s head turn slightly—licence enough to take a sideways glance without being reprimanded since her mother was doing the same thing.
It was a man in a black suit, royal-blue shirt. He’d paused in the middle of the aisle, right beside them, and from the hiss of her mother’s sharply indrawn breath, he was someone who did not meet with her approval. Sally instinctively leaned forward to see his face, wanting to identify the problem.
Shock knifed through her.
Jack Maguire!
His strikingly handsome face was grimly set, a cold blue gaze projecting hostile scorn at her mother, whose head jerked forward, instantly breaking whatever eye contact he’d drawn from her. His mouth curled mockingly as his gaze slid to Sally who was too stunned by his presence to do anything but stare openly at him.
For a moment he stared back and she felt herself beginning to burn, heat surging into her cheeks. He nodded, as though she’d given him the reaction he wanted, then turned away, moving to the front pew on the other side of the aisle, seating himself directly opposite her mother, where amazingly there was a place vacant for him and none of her father’s top executives queried his right to take it.
He was Sir Leonard Maguire’s son.
Did they think he might be his heir?
It made no sense to Sally. The estrangement had been total…hadn’t it?
Strike one! Jack thought with intense satisfaction. The shock and chagrin on Lady Ellen’s face was worth his own bit of stage management. The gall of the woman, writing him a letter to say he wasn’t welcome at Sir Leonard’s funeral. He hoped his prominent presence here would eat into her mean heart and destroy her arrogant composure.
Sitting there in fashion-plate perfection, the stylish black hat framing artfully streaked honey-blonde hair, big brown eyes subtly shaded to look mournful, pearls around her throat, a black suit—no doubt carrying a designer label—hugging her voluptuous figure. She had to be forty-five, but living a life of luxury no doubt contributed to her looking only about thirty. The eighteen-year-old nymphet who’d seduced his father had done very well for herself.
Not so well in the future, Jack vowed.
They made a striking trio, the Maguire women; the blonde, the redhead and the brunette. He’d only caught a glimpse of Jane, sitting beyond Sally in the pew. Dark hair, dark eyes, olive skin, all shadowed by her older sister’s blazing beauty, which was far more pronounced now than when she was fourteen. The glorious cascade of red-gold curls, the white skin, still prone to revealing rushes of emotion, the fasciating sage-green eyes… Jack had to admit the woman she was now stirred the beast in him.
He’d like to have her in his bed.
Maybe he’d get her there…one way or another.
The idea had huge appeal, for many reasons.
Sally didn’t hear much of the funeral service. Her mind kept circling around Jack Maguire’s presence. What did it mean? Had he simply come to see his father buried, taking some dark satisfaction in publicly claiming the relationship that had never been acknowledged to his satisfaction in life, putting any hope of it to bed, once and for all? A funeral was about finality, letting go.
Her mother’s hands were not folded neatly on her lap. They were tightly clenched. No way would she make a public scene about Jack Maguire’s effrontery in doing what he’d done here in the cathedral, but she was fuming over it. No doubt she’d throw one of her vicious tantrums when they got home. It invariably happened when things didn’t go to plan. Everything always had to be picture perfect for her mother, and Jack Maguire was a huge black blot on this landscape.
Blackjack…darkening other people’s dreams.
He’d darkened hers, many a time. She’d never been able to forget him. The knowledge that he was out there somewhere, not getting what she got from her father, always ate at her comfort zone about accepting all she did from her parents.
He was not out there today.
He was right here.
Assaulting everyone’s comfort zone.
Hymns were sung, prayers recited, eulogies given, the service proceeding as planned, until it was time for them to stand and follow the coffin as it was wheeled out of the cathedral. Her mother stepped out of the pew first. Sally and Jane were supposed to flank her for the walk down the aisle. Before they could take their places, Jack Maguire moved out from his pew, positioning himself beside his father’s widow, leaving them no option but to pair up behind them.
For several tense moments—Sally thought her mother might explode at this spoiling intrusion—Lady Ellen stood rigidly still. Jane felt the danger, too, instinctively grabbing Sally’s hand for sisterly support. She had always been timid, too scared of horses to ever try riding, and too easily browbeaten by their mother who could be truly scary when she flew out of control. Which didn’t happen often. It had never happened in front of their father. But if things didn’t go as she planned, as she expected…
Lady Ellen started walking, head held high, determinedly ignoring the man accompanying her. Both Sally and Jane breathed a sigh of relief and followed, keeping pace with the lead couple. Not that they were a couple, Sally thought, not by any stretch of imagination. Her mother and Jack Maguire were two separate units, and the sense they were heading towards a nasty collision had her own nerves twitching and her heart at a gallop.
She studied the back of Jack Maguire’s head, fiercely wishing she could see into the workings of his brain. He had pulled back from making trouble ten years ago and kept away from the family, but whatever embargo he must have accepted during that time had obviously been lifted by his father’s death. Sally could almost smell trouble in the air, positively sulphurous now for having been held back for so long.
They moved beyond the last pew, beyond ears that might hear.
“Didn’t you get my letter, telling you not to come to the funeral?” her mother sliced at Jack Maguire in a low, venomous tone.
“Did you really expect me to respect your wishes, Lady Ellen?” he drawled sotto voce, the words dripping with derision.
“Your father wouldn’t have wanted it.”
“My father is beyond speaking for himself.”
“He didn’t want you with him all these years.”
“On the contrary, we lunched regularly together. You were kept out of our relationship.”
Sally tensed, her mind bombarded by one shock after another, and nervously aware that her mother’s supposedly unassailable stance had just been seriously undermined. How would she react to this claim?
“I don’t believe you.” Flat denial.
“Ask his secretary. She made the appointments,” came the mocking reply. “Or any one of his executive staff, all of whom are well aware of the connection.”
It certainly answered why the seat in the front pew had been vacant for him! Besides, he spoke with such confidence, Sally could not disbelieve him. And, in her heart of hearts, she was glad he had managed to strike up a relationship with his father, even if it did make her mother furious. All these years of having been shut out from the family had not been right.
They emerged from the cathedral. The funeral attendants lifted the coffin from the trolley to carry it down the steps to the waiting hearse. During the pause while this procedure got underway, they stood in silence, the heat of the midsummer afternoon beating down on them.
Sally wondered what was steaming through her mother’s mind. The loss of authority