The Devil's Pawn Read online

  The Devil's Pawn

  By

  Yvonne Whittal

  Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  First published in Great Britain 1984

  by Mills & Boon Limited

  © Yvonne Whittal 1984

  Australian copyright 1984

  Philippine copyright 1984

  Reprinted 1984

  This edition 1990

  ISBN 0 263 76996 8

  CHAPTER ONE

  The sound of raised voices coming from the direction of the study made Cara Lloyd pause in the spacious hall and glance at the grandfather clock with its ornately carved stinkwood casing. It was after ten o'clock in the evening, and concern puckered her smooth brow between the dark, winged eyebrows. Who could possibly have had the audacity to call at this late hour to discuss business with her father?

  She turned towards the kitchen, but the heated and prolonged argument behind that closed door made her pause a second time. It was an unspoken rule in her father's home not to interfere in his business affairs, but his raised, clearly distraught voice made the frown deepen between her brows, and she crossed the thickly carpeted hall to listen in unashamedly to the conversation being conducted behind that panelled door.

  'Twelve months, that's all I'm asking for,' her father pleaded. 'Please give me another twelve months?'

  'No way, Lloyd,' a deep voice replied cuttingly. 'Our agreement was for eighteen months, and that's it. Either you pay up by midday this Saturday, or you're out of business completely.'

  The threat was unmistakable, and Cara's curiosity intensified when her father exploded, 'That's inhuman!'

  'That's justice, Lloyd,' that deep, unfamiliar voice snarled with a savagery that made Cara tremble. 'You called the tune once, but now the time has come for you to dance to mine.'

  'Oh, my God!' David Lloyd groaned, and the sound of utter defeat in his voice was too much for Cara to bear. She opened the door without knocking and stepped into the study with its oak-panelled walls to find her father seated behind his desk with his head in his hands.

  'Dad?' she queried softly, her voice husky with concern, but a movement beside the French windows made her turn, and her glance collided with narrowed grey eyes that reminded her of the film of ice in the bird bath on a cold wintry morning.

  Recognition was like an unpleasant shiver of shock tripping across her nerve ends, and her pulse began to drum loudly against her temples. She knew this man with the sun-bleached hair and tanned, rugged features. His tall, wide-shouldered frame had been imposing at a distance, but now it seemed to shrink the size of the spacious study to almost that of a closet.

  Cara wrenched her eyes from his and turned to her father in a valiant, but unsuccessful, attempt to ignore the man whose presence had disturbed and disrupted her composure so often during the past year at local functions and parties. 'Is everything all right, Dad?' she asked, looking down into David Lloyd's pale face.

  'We're discussing business, Cara,' he reminded her sharply, but he softened the rebuke by adding gently, 'Don't concern yourself, my dear.'

  She hesitated, her tawny eyes studying him with grave uncertainty, but the set of his mouth told her that this was not the moment to contradict him, and she turned reluctantly towards the door.

  'Just a minute!' Her fingers curled nervously into her palms at the sound of that deep, commanding voice, and she turned beside her father's desk to face the man approaching her. Cara's slender body was of average height, but this man dwarfed her completely, and her insides quivered with something she attributed to fear as he extended a hand towards her. 'I'm Vince Steiner.'

  'As if I didn't know that,' she thought with unaccustomed cynicism. Everyone in Murrayville knew of the blond giant at the head of the Steiner Engineering & Construction Company. He had offices in most of the major cities, commuting between them in a ten-seater, privately owned jet, so Cara had been told, but for some inexplicable reason he had chosen to take a personal interest in the erection of the local steel plant which was being undertaken by his company, and for this purpose he had moved to Murrayville. His appearance was savagely masculine, making it difficult to forget him even after the briefest glimpse. Women literally swooned at his feet, and conniving mothers had set their sights on him as a future son-in-law, but Vince Steiner had remained aloof from their persistent invitations, and the beautiful Chantal Webber from Johannesburg had finally dashed their hopes with her frequent visits to his palatial home which he had rented on the outskirts of the town.

  Cara's small, slender hand disappeared into his, and the cool rough texture sent an electrifying warmth surging through her which was infinitely more disturbing than the many times she had seen him observing her at functions over the past year. They had never been introduced. In a town like Murrayville it was taken for granted that everyone knew everyone else, and to date they had always had the length of a room between them. This accounted for her not recognising his voice, but his devouring eyes had spoken volumes on each occasion their glances had met in the past, and Cara had gone to great lengths to maintain a comfortable distance between them.

  She extricated her hand from his with care, her fingers tingling with the memory of his touch, and she turned from him to see the deepening frown between her father's busy brows. 'Dad, what's going on?' she questioned him determinedly.

  David Lloyd's mouth tightened disapprovingly, but it was Vince Steiner who broke the brief, tense silence in the room.

  'Are you going to tell her, Lloyd, or shall I?' he demanded with icy disdain, and Cara saw her father's face go a shade paler.

  'I don't want my wife and my daughter involved in this.'

  'Whether you want it, or not, they're going to be involved, so you might as well tell her,' Vince Steiner argued, the resonant timbre of his voice vibrating with impatience and anger, and Cara was once again aware of a distant threat hovering behind his statement.

  'Dad?' she questioned huskily, and she experienced the first icy blast of fear when she darted a brief glance at Vince Steiner's harsh, unrelenting features.

  David Lloyd sat frozen behind his desk for interminable seconds, his face pale and distraught, but he cracked finally under the mental pressure brought to bear on him.

  'There has been a slump in the building trade these past two years,' he explained tonelessly, sagging in his chair as if his body had suddenly become boneless. 'Circumstances forced me to approach Mr Steiner. He had the monopoly on the erection of the steel plant out of town, and I hoped that he could engage my company as a sub-contractor, but he turned me down.'

  Cara shot an angry, disillusioned glance at the man beside her. So Vince Steiner was the sort who kicked a man when he was down. The look in his cold grey eyes told her that he was perfectly aware of what she thought of him, but it also told her that he could not care less.

  'There's more to it than that, Lloyd,' he corrected her father harshly and, turning to confront Cara, he concluded her father's brief explanation. 'Your father approached me again eighteen months ago. He needed money, and I gave it to him.'

  Shock and dismay made her draw a sharp breath, and her eyes pleaded with her father when their glances met. 'Is this true?' she managed jerkily.

  'Yes,' David Lloyd confirmed, his hand trembling as he took out his handkerchief to wipe the beads of perspiration off his forehead. 'I had already sold my business premises to make ends meet, and the house has been heavily mortgaged. I tried to get a loan from the bank to keep me going until m
y business improved, but I had nothing to offer as security, so they turned down my application.'

  'You took money from Mr Steiner?' she demanded incredulously, still finding it impossible to believe that her father could have done such a thing, and David Lloyd sagged further into his chair until he looked like a tired old man of eighty instead of a sprightly sixty.

  'I had no other choice, Cara. I was desperate when he made the offer.'

  'And you don't have the money to pay back that loan?' she grasped the situation at last, and her father confirmed this with a brief nod of his head before he elaborated.

  'To pay back the loan means that I would have to sell this house and everything in it.'

  'You can't sell this house!' Cara gasped in something akin to horror. 'It would destroy Mother if you did that!'

  David Lloyd mopped again at his perspiring brow and gestured helplessly. 'I know, Cara, but it seems I may have no other alternative.'

  'What a touching little scene,' Vince Steiner sneered, shattering the ensuing silence, and Cara turned on him, her tawny eyes fiery with anger. 'Can't you see what you're doing to my father? Have you no feelings at all, Mr Steiner?'

  His eyes were cool in their assessment of her, and his glance travelled with slow deliberation from her dark, glossy hair, piled into an elegant knot in the nape of her slender neck, down to her sandalled feet. He was nothing if not thorough, and Cara was aware yet again of that feeling that her clothes were no barrier against the blatant sexuality of his probing eyes. She felt hot and embarrassed, as if she had been stripped mentally down to her skin, and his insolent, faintly sensuous smile told her that he was well aware of her reaction. He had done this to her before many times in the past, and she had not reached the age of twenty-four without encountering a few desirous glances, but none had affected her as alarmingly as Vince Steiner's. He wanted her, and this time he was making no secret of it. The knowledge repulsed and excited her simultaneously, and she despised herself for the latter as she hid the effect he was having on her behind a cool, haughty exterior.

  He raised a large, sun-browned hand and fingered a stray curl beside her ear with a confidence that bordered on arrogance. 'At this moment I'm having very strong feelings.'

  His contradiction of her accusation startled her, but she would not give him the satisfaction of witnessing her emotional distress and, without moving away from him, she said icily, 'Don't touch me!'

  His smile deepened until deep grooves formed in his lean cheeks. White teeth flashed contrastingly against his tanned features, but there was something malevolent in that smile when he lowered his hand and turned his attention to her father.

  'I think the solution to your problem is right here, Lloyd,' he said smoothly, gesturing towards Cara.

  'No!' Ashen-faced, David Lloyd leapt to his feet behind his desk. 'Leave Cara out of this!'

  Cara's quick mind had grasped the meaning behind Vince Steiner's statement, but a part of her stubbornly refused to believe it, and exasperation boiled up inside of her. 'Would someone please explain what's going on?'

  'There is nothing to explain, and the subject is closed,' her father barked, gesturing towards the door. 'Leave us now, Cara.'

  Not even Cara's mother disobeyed when David Lloyd used that tone of voice, and Cara turned once again towards the door to leave the study.

  'Cara!' Her name on Vince Steiner's lips sent a sharp, curious tremor racing through her. Something warned her to ignore his unspoken command to remain, but a force stronger than her own made her pause at the door to glance back at him. His square jaw was set in a harsh, unrelenting line, and his grey eyes were piercingly intent on her face. 'Would you help your father if you could?'

  'Leave Cara out of this, Steiner!' her father exploded before Cara could formulate a suitable reply, but Vince Steiner was undaunted by her father's angry stance.

  'I asked you a question,' he reminded Cara, 'and I'm waiting for an answer.'

  'Don't say anything, Cara!' her father instructed, a ring of frantic desperation in his voice. 'For God's sake, don't say anything!'

  The perspiration was literally running in rivulets down her father's forehead, but Vince Steiner was hatefully cool and calm. He was in complete control, and he knew it. Cara's dislike deepened, and loyalty to her father dictated her actions when she stepped away from the door.

  'Dad, I love you, and I care about what happens to you, and…' Ignoring the plea in her father's eyes, she turned towards the man who had observed her with that strange intensity during the past few seconds. 'Yes, Mr Steiner, I would help my father if I could.'

  'In that case I have a proposition to put to you.' The tension in the room spiralled higher as he took his time lighting a cigarette, and Cara thought she had never before seen anyone ooze such supreme confidence. It frightened her, but she would not give in to the thoughts which were beginning to race through her mind. 'Your father wants me to give him twelve months grace to repay the loan. I'll do that, but in exchange for my leniency I shall require certain security.'

  'Here it comes,' she thought. 'He wants me to be his mistress.' She could no longer deny to herself that this was what she had suspected when he had referred to her as the solution to her father's problem, but she feigned innocence when she asked: 'What form of security do you need, Mr Steiner?'

  'Marry me, Cara, and your father can have those twelve months he's been begging me for.'

  Cara felt as if the air had been driven from her body by a giant hand squeezing her lungs ruthlessly. Of all things she had never expected Vince Steiner to propose marriage as the solution. He was nearer forty than thirty, and there was about him a certain aura that suggested he was a man who preferred his freedom to the bondage of marriage. That was how she had summed him up, and to suggest marriage on this unheard of basis was totally ludicrous.

  'You must be mad!' she accused sharply, fear heightening that attractive husky quality in her voice.

  'I suggest you both think it over, and I shall call again tomorrow evening for your answer.' Vince Steiner crushed his half-smoked cigarette into the copper ashtray on the desk, and Cara was beginning to detest the calm arrogance of the man as he inclined his head briefly in their direction. 'Goodnight, Lloyd… Cara.'

  He chose the French windows to make his exit, but seconds—or was it hours later—she could still feel his dominant, threatening presence in the silent room.

  'He couldn't have been serious,' Cara brushed aside Vince Steiner's proposal, but her face was now as white as her father's. 'It could only have been a joke.'

  David Lloyd sat down heavily behind his desk and shook his grey head. 'I'm afraid he meant it, Cara.'

  She groped blindly for the chair beside her, and sat down quickly before her legs gave way totally beneath her. She would not believe it! She could not believe it! There had to be another solution to her father's problem, and she would find it. Vince Steiner was not the only man with confidence in himself, and she would prove this to him.

  Her frightened tremors began to subside, and she faced her father with admirable calmness across the width of his desk. 'How did you land yourself in this mess, Dad?'

  'I told you, there has been a slump in the building trade, and it didn't help when Steiner's company succeeded in acquiring the contract for the new steel plant being erected here,' David Lloyd explained tiredly. 'When I failed to get the contract for the plant, I put in a tender for the houses which are now being erected for the steel company's staff, but Steiner has the monopoly on that as well.'

  Cara did not need her father to tell her of Vince Steiner's success. The smaller construction companies in the area had crumbled swiftly during the past year until her father's company was the only one left. The Steiner Engineering & Construction Company was too powerful to outbid, that was how the spokesmen for the other companies had explained their disintegration, but none of them had been as ruthlessly destroyed as her father's company was about to be.

  'I know how powerful the Stei
ner Company is,' Cara argued, 'but that still doesn't explain why you needed a loan. Surely you had built up a sizeable amount in capital over the years?'

  She had never seen her father perspire the way he was perspiring now, and she waited with characteristic patience while he mopped his brow once again.

  'Without work there was no money coming in,' he explained at length. 'It takes money to continue living in the style to which one is accustomed, and when the business took a dive I had to delve into the capital to make ends meet.'

  It was a feasible excuse, but Cara had a feeling that her father was hiding something from her. 'We were, in other words, living beyond our means, but if you told Mother I'm sure she would have done something about cutting down on the expenses.'

  'I didn't want her to know,' David Lloyd groaned, burying his face in his hands for a moment before they dropped back into his lap, and the eyes that met Cara's were glazed. 'I always hoped that the situation would improve, but then Steiner moved in, and one by one the smaller construction companies faded away. I knew it would happen to me as well, but I continued to hope that I was wrong.'

  Cara got to her feet and paced the floor restlessly, and her slender body moved with a natural, fluid grace. Her delicate features were pale and her thoughts revolved in chaotic circles. She could not erase Vince Steiner's features from her mind, and she suppressed a shudder when his unacceptable proposal forced its way to supremacy in her thoughts. She had never before met someone so aggressively male, and she had a nasty suspicion that he would be totally ruthless in getting what he wanted out of life. He could have been more lenient with her father, but she had sensed in his manner an undercurrent of something she was as yet unaware of, and she wondered if she would ever know the true reason behind his obvious determination to break her father so completely.

  'What makes you think you will be able to pay back the loan in a year from now?' she questioned her father in the hope that he might say something which would offer her an escape route.