The Sister Secret

  The Sister Secret

  Jessica Steele

  Dear Reader,

  The more I thought about writing about two lovely sisters, the more I grew to like the idea. Belvia, so warm hearted and so spirited, ready to do anything for her dear—not so identical—twin. Josy, so shy, so sensitive. Both, in different ways, suffering at the hands of their devious, bullying father. Both enduring many trials and torments before they come to find true happiness.

  I do so hope that after reading of Belvia and how she found that happiness you will want to read how Josy eventually came to discover true happiness, too.

  Wishing you happy reading.

  Yours sincerely,

  Jessica Steele

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER ONE

  BELVIA parked her car on the drive and let herself into her house and, dressed in old jodhpurs, she went straight to the kitchen where she was fairly certain she would find her sister busy preparing the evening meal.

  ‘How was she?’ Josy asked as soon as she saw her.

  ‘You could come with me tomorrow and see for yourself,’ Belvia suggested gently. Hetty was Josy’s horse, but Josy just couldn’t bring herself to go to the stables. It had not always been like that. At one time Josy had been up at the stables every minute she could spare—but that had been before Marc...

  ‘I’m not—’

  ‘I know, love, you’re not ready yet,’ Belvia interrupted quickly, her heart going out to her twin who, although like her in some ways, was so unlike her in others. ‘What are we having for dinner?’ Aware that Josy was hurting, she swiftly changed the conversation.

  ‘Father’s favourite.’

  ‘Ham, peas, potatoes and parsley sauce!’ Belvia recited. ‘I’d better go and get showered and changed.’ She was on her way out of the kitchen when she hesitated. She might have continued on her way, but saw that Josy was watching her. ‘Er—do you get the feeling that Father’s up to something, or is it just me and my imagination?’ she asked.

  ‘He’s been a bit—um—pleasanter than usual this last couple of days, if that’s anything to go by.’

  ‘Then he is up to something!’ Belvia needed no more confirmation than that. She knew her father of old. He could be charming—but seldom without a reason.

  ‘He was saying last week how money was tight and how we might have to make more economies in the home.’

  ‘According to him money’s always tight,’ Belvia laughed, and, unconcerned with their father’s wheeling and dealing, commented, ‘Thank goodness Mother left us both a little nest-egg, so we don’t have to ask him for anything!’

  Belvia left the kitchen and went up to her room, thinking that it was only eighteen months ago, when she and Josy had had their twenty-first birthday, that they had inherited the money left to them by their mother. It was a tidy sum, but not vast by any means. But, even so, their father had wanted them to invest the whole of it in his engineering business. Josy would have let him have the lot, but Belvia would not let her.

  ‘He’s more likely to spend it on his women than his business,’ she’d persuaded her. ‘And I’m sure Mummy would never have tied it up so that he couldn’t get his avaricious fingers on it if she’d wanted him to have it.’

  ‘That’s a point,’ Josy had agreed, remembering as Belvia did their sensitive and long-suffering mother. She’d had no money herself to start with, but the twins had been fifteen when she had inherited from a relative—and had been married for long enough to have the scales drop from her eyes. She had seen him for what he was, a philanderer and spendthrift. She had taken immediate action to ensure that, while keeping a little for herself, her two girls should have a secure future. A year later she was dead.

  Belvia stripped and stepped into the shower, the water darkening her long hair. She and Josy were not identical twins: Belvia was the taller of the two and, while they both possessed dainty features, creamy complexions and the same large, deep brown eyes, Josy had hair with a reddish tint to it, while Belvia was blonde.

  Belvia was the younger twin by ten minutes but, with Josy at a very early age showing signs of being painfully shy, it had seemed inborn that Belvia should protect her wherever they went.

  Josy never had outgrown her shyness and, when they had left the all-girls school they attended, while Belvia had got herself a job in an office, Josy had urged her to talk to their father about letting her stay at home and keep house for them.

  ‘Are you sure? It might be better if you got out and met a few new—’

  ‘Oh, please, Bel!’ Josy had begged in agony—and Belvia had been immediately contrite.

  ‘All right, don’t worry, I’ll see to it,’ she had quickly soothed.

  Belvia had talked long and hard to their father, but she was sure that in the end it was purely in the interest of his own comfort that he had agreed. And matters had gone on fairly smoothly from there.

  There had been a flurry of excitement when last year she and Josy had come into their inheritance. Belvia had learned to drive, purchased a good second-hand car, and had subsequently taught Josy to drive. Josy had purchased a good second-hand car too, and had then started to realise that she could also afford to buy and keep the horse she had always so passionately wanted. Belvia, her staunchest ally, had phoned around for her and found a stables which would allow her to keep a horse there.

  Stepping from the shower, Belvia began towelling herself dry, a smile coming to her face as she remembered her twin’s joy, how Josy had forgotten to be timid or shy the moment she had cast her eyes on Hetty.

  Josy had bought Hetty without quibbling over the price, and over the next few months had spent every spare moment she could find up at the stables. Belvia had thrown up her dead-end job and, her school grades being excellent, had persuaded a firm of accountants to allow her to train with them. She had been so keen, in fact, that she would have trained without salary, but it had not come to that, and she had begun to enjoy every minute of it.

  Then in the months that followed she had become aware that, while everything in her life was metaphorically coming up roses, Josy too was beginning to blossom.

  She had found out why one lunch-hour when, her sister’s car being in the garage for a service, she had driven up to the stables to give her a lift home, and had seen her in easy conversation with a jodhpur-clad male.

  She had been more than a little amazed to see that Josy, whom she’d never heard utter more than a few words to any man near her own age, was smiling and actually chatting! Belvia at once felt sensitive to her sister and, while joy warmed her that Josy might be losing some of her paralysing shyness, she was on the point of going quietly away so that Josy might chat with her fellow-rider the more, when her sister turned and saw her.

  ‘Oh, Belvia!’ She welcomed her with a loving smile, and with not a stammer or a stumble in sight she introduced Marc to her.

  Marc was French and, it emerged, was a groom at the stables. He was twenty-five and was, Belvia discovered, almost as shy as Josy. But he was unfailingly gentle to her sister, and Belvia could not help warming to him for that alone.

  It seemed to Belvia after that that there was seldom any conversation she had with Josy in which Marc’s name did not come up.

  ‘Who’s Marc?’ their father, on overhearing them, enquired one day.

  ‘He’s a groom up at the stables,’ Josy answered, and, to Belvia’s surprise—and their father’s astonishment—’May I bring him home? I’d like to intro—’

  ‘A groom!’ It
was all Edwin Fereday said, but it was enough.

  One day four months ago Josy had come and sought her out in her room and told her that she and Marc were getting married. ‘Oh, darling!’ Belvia had squealed on the instant, leaping up and going over to give her sister a hug.

  One look at Josy’s excited face, as she spoke of there being a flat available at the stables where she and Marc would live after their marriage, was all she needed to know that her sister was very happy.

  ‘Have you decided when?’ Belvia asked, her heart bursting with joy for Josy.

  ‘Soon—next month.’

  ‘That doesn’t give us long to get ready, but we’ll manage. I shall have to—’ Something in Josy’s suddenly haunted manner caused her to break off. ‘What is it?’ she asked quickly.

  ‘I don’t want a big wedding!’ Josy cried in alarm.

  ‘Nobody can make you do anything you don’t want to,’ Belvia soothed calmly, having had years of practice in dealing with her dear sister’s sudden panics. ‘I’ll talk to Father if you like—’ She broke off as a sudden thought struck. ‘Sorry,’ she smiled. ‘I expect Marc will want to speak to him himself.’

  ‘Marc would just about die at the very thought,’ Josy replied, and went on to reveal that she and Marc had decided to get married in secret and go to Marc’s home in France for their honeymoon, and then return to the flat.

  ‘You’re getting married without Father or me there?’ Belvia queried gently. While it was unthinkable to her that her twin should marry without her there, she at the same time strove hard to remember what she had just told her—that Josy did not have to do anything she did not want to.

  ‘Of course I want you there!’ Josy answered at once. ‘But not him. Marc’s as nervous as me about it, and I’m not having Father looking down his snobby nose because Marc happens to be a groom and not a brain surgeon.’

  Belvia felt more joy that the sister she had tried all her life to protect should now, in her love for the man she was to marry, be in turn protective of him.

  ‘Are you going to tell Father before or after your wedding?’ she teased, and, straightening her face, asked, ‘Would you like me to tell him?’

  ‘I’ll do it—after. I’ll tell him I’m going on holiday—and I’ll come and move out and tell him when I come back.’

  ‘Oh, love!’ Belvia cried on a sudden note of anguish—she had never thought of Josy leaving home—’I’m going to miss you dreadfully!’

  Belvia came out of her reverie on hearing the sound of her father’s car on the drive. He was home early—perhaps he was dining out. Typically he would not have thought to phone to let Josy know he would not be in for dinner.

  Belvia forgot about her father as she turned to go and seek her sister out. She recalled how at Josy’s wedding she had been unable to stop crying in her joy for her—but recalled too how, only a day later, Josy had telephoned her from France, stunned and in shock that Marc, her husband of such a short while, had been killed in a fall while they were out riding.

  Barely able to take in the tragedy that had taken place, Belvia had sensed that her twin would not want her to tell their father anything of what had happened, so she had phoned his secretary and left a message that she was going off on a week’s holiday. She had gone at once to France. She and Josy had stayed in France until after Marc’s funeral and then returned to Surrey.

  There was then no question of Josy going to live in the flat which she and Marc had got ready. And, save for Josy saying that she did not want her father to know she had married, that she could not bear any insensitive remarks he might make if he knew that in the space of just over twenty-four hours she had been married and widowed, she had seemed to retreat into a world of her own. So much so that Belvia, who knew her better than anyone, began to be greatly worried when, although her sister appeared to be outwardly functioning normally, it seemed to her that she was going around in a daze. Josy still seemed to be deeply shocked when the whole of Belvia’s holiday allowance from her office was used up, but she felt she could not leave Josy for hours on end by herself while she was at work.

  ‘Aren’t you going to your office today?’ Josy surfaced to ask one day, seeming not to have noticed that Belvia had not been to her office for the past six weeks.

  ‘I’ve given it up,’ she smiled.

  ‘But I thought...’

  ‘I didn’t think about it deeply enough before I took up the training.’ Belvia made light of it. ‘I’ve decided to take some time off while I have an in-depth think about what I want to train for.’

  ‘Meantime you’ll continue exercising Hetty for me?’

  ‘Of course,’ Belvia smiled. It was no hardship for her to go up to the stables each day, but each day she hoped that Josy would want to go and exercise her horse herself. She could not bring herself to sell Hetty on, and spoke of how much she loved her horse, but Belvia felt that only when she could go to the stables herself would she start to accept Marc’s death.

  Belvia left her room and went downstairs to check that Josy was all right. Marc had been dead three months now, but it still seemed like only yesterday.

  ‘I’ll make the parsley sauce if you want to go and tidy up a bit before dinner,’ she offered, and Josy, with a smile of thanks, left her to it.

  Contrary to Belvia’s expectation, her father did not go out to dinner that night, but was seated in his usual place at the dining-room table when she helped Josy wheel the heated trolley in.

  ‘Good day at the office?’ Belvia asked, to cover for her silent sister. Only last week her father had said Josy seemed to be getting worse in that she barely spoke a word to him these days.

  ‘As well as can be expected,’ he answered pleasantly as Josy placed his soup in front of him. He’s up to something, Belvia thought yet again, and wished he could give a hint so that she could prepare both of them for it.

  ‘Business booming?’ According to him, within their home four walls, it never was, so she reckoned it would keep his attention off Josy while he related how dire matters were.

  ‘To be honest, no,’ he answered right on cue. ‘Though there’s nothing wrong that can’t be cured by a bit of financial investment.’ Here it comes, Belvia thought, as she prepared to be strong for both herself and Josy. Had their mother wanted him to have their money, she would have left it to him.

  ‘These are hard times,’ she commented pleasantly as she searched for words that might be kinder than a blunt no. She was not blind to his faults and she knew he would try to bully her if she was not firm at the outset but, despite not wearing blinkers where he was concerned, he was her father and, while she might not like him very much, she loved him.

  ‘They certainly are. Though I’ve every confidence that I’ll weather my present little crisis.’

  Not with our money you won’t, Belvia thought, hoping with all she had that she could be as strong as she had to be. ‘If you’d like me to go over the firm’s books...’ She threw in a neat red herring, guessing, since he had not wanted her to work in the firm his grandfather had started, that he’d burn the books before he would allow her loose among the figures.

  ‘There’s no need for that,’ he replied shortly, but was back to being pleasant again when, to her amazement, he leaned back in his chair and revealed, ‘I’ve one of the keenest financiers in the country coming to dinner tomorrow evening.’

  ‘You...’ Belvia could not believe it. He never invited anyone home to dinner, and certainly never any keen financier! As far as she was aware, he did not know any who were that good. ‘You’ve invited...’ Her voice trailed off again. ‘Who?’ she asked.

  Edwin Fereday smiled, waited a moment for effect, and then announced, ‘Latham Tavenner, that’s all.’

  Belvia’s eyes shot wide open. The name Latham Tavenner was known to her as that of one of the sharpest, if most honourable, financiers in the business. But what in creation, if her father was to be believed, was he doing having anything to do with Fereday Products? W
hile the firm which her great-grandfather had started was quite a sizeable outfit, it would be small fry compared with the companies he had dealings with and, she would have thought, was way beneath his notice.

  ‘What’s he coming here for?’ she asked suspiciously.

  ‘Because I asked him to!’ her father retorted, doing away with any pretence of pleasantness at the note of challenge in her tone.

  Belvia might have inherited all her mother’s sensitivity and none of her father’s insensitive ways, but she had also inherited from somewhere a fair degree of intelligence. She used it then, and, knowing her father too well, she asked sharply, ‘Does he know he’s going to invest in Fereday Products?’ and drew forth a swift and bullying reply from her parent.

  ‘No, he doesn’t!’ he retorted. ‘Not yet! And don’t you tell him either. You just keep him—’

  ‘I,’ Belvia jumped in, not for a moment prepared to be bullied by him or anyone else, ‘won’t be here.’

  ‘Yes, you damn well will!’

  ‘No, I won’t! Kate Mitchell, who I used to work with, is having a retirement party. I promised I’d be there.’

  ‘Then you can just ring her up and unpromise!’

  ‘No, I can’t!’

  Her father favoured her with a spleenish look, glancing from her to her sister irritatedly. And then suddenly he was smiling a smile which Belvia did not like at all, with his look coming back to her. ‘Very well,’ he agreed. ‘If that’s your last word, so be it. We’ll just have to leave it to Josy to entertain our guest.’

  That was when Belvia knew why she so often disliked her father. She looked from him to where Josy was just about dying a thousand deaths. She had never met Latham Tavenner either, but she did not have to: any man who was as successful and therefore as worldly as he must be would terrify her. Belvia knew in that one glance at her sister that she was crumbling just thinking about entertaining the man at their dining-table.

  ‘So I’ll stay at home!’ she agreed shortly, unable to take her support from Josy now. She caught Josy’s grateful look and smiled at her before she turned back to ask her father frostily, ‘And what, in particular, would you like us to cook for your guest?’