The Call of Destiny (The Return of Arthur Book 1) (3 page)

‘Why do you want him?’ ‘To
save the world.’

Uther stared at Merlin. Was he
serious? ‘You expect me to believe that?’

Merlin repeated relentlessly. ‘Do we have a
deal?’

Uther raised his hand.
Hesitated. Their fingers touched. They shook. The light in the green moons
flared. Merlin sipped his beer. ‘Four actually,’ he said.

The general’s eyebrows arched. ‘Four what?’
‘Double firsts,’ said Merlin. ‘Four, not three.’ ‘I do beg your pardon. Was it
really?’

‘Yes.’

‘Even more remarkable.
Apologies. I thought I read it somewhere. I must have been mistaken.’

‘Not at all,’ said Merlin
politely. ‘Believing is not always seeing.’ He turned away to Uther and winked
solemnly before turning back to the general.

Walking down the steps of
Grey’s out into the reassuringly familiar world, Uther Pendragon had the
feeling that he had just returned from a long journey, though he was not at all
sure where he had been. Once more the paving stones were solid under the soles
of his shoes, the sunlight golden on the buildings. Then suddenly a cloud shut
out the sun and a breeze blew down St. James’s. The flag on the club veranda
lifted and rolled. A muslin curtain flapped from an open first-floor window,
and then hung limp. There was a crack of thunder. Umbrellas bloomed on the
street and the first raindrops rapped the canvas awnings of the man’s shop on
the corner of Piccadilly. He hailed a black cab, pushing in front of a man who
had hailed it before him, jumped in and watched in amusement as the red-faced loser
thrust two fingers in the air. Ignorant yobbo. Life was good. Life was bloody
good.

Sinking back he released a
sigh of profound contentment. Stunning woman, Igraine. Now that Godfrey was out
of the way, he would marry her – after a suitable interval, naturally. There
might be gossip otherwise. Celebrity chat was what the mob lived on, wasn’t it?
Poor sods, what else did they have in their lives? Of course he loved her to
bits, or he would never have done . . . what he had done to get her. The most beautiful
woman in London, and a Dowager Marchioness into the bargain. Two presents in
one gift-wrap. Walking her up the aisle would do him no harm, no harm at all.

That evening, in exuberant good humour, Uther
announced over a glass of champagne in the bar of his favourite dining club
that he was now a member of Grey’s. ‘How about that?

Not bad for a boy from the wrong side of the
river.’

Igraine regarded him with fond
indulgence. ‘This is the nineties, darling. That sort of thing doesn’t matter
any more.’

‘Easy for you to say,
duchess.’ Uther knew very well she was no such thing, duchess being his
affectionate and slightly mocking soubriquet for Igraine. Nevertheless, the
truth was that though he made fun of the aristocracy, titles impressed him.
Igraine, Lady Truro; it had a certain ring to it; secretly he was hugely proud
of escorting a Marchioness, even if, since the death of her husband, the
Marquess, she was only a Dowager Marchioness. He was also proud of his own
background, even prouder for having risen above it. Born in Peckham thirty- two
years ago – father a railway worker, mother a cleaning lady – he had discarded
the south London accent of his youth, together with outmoded working-class
attitudes and socialist ideologies, much as a mountaineer, ascending from camp
to camp, discards unnecessary baggage on the way to the top. A realist, he soon
discovered that equipment and people indispensable at low altitudes became an
intolerable burden in the rarefied atmosphere of the summit climb.

Achieving the status of the
most successful property developer in London fulfilled an early ambition. But
once he had made his pile, other considerations became pre-eminent. The
daughter of a viscount and the widow of a marquess,

Igraine opened up for him an exciting new
landscape of social acceptability and of power.

‘They’re lucky to get you,’
she said, adding fondly, ‘and so am I.’

They had met at a New Year’s
Eve party less than a year ago. Uther had a weakness for raven-haired beauties,
especially when they were as luscious as Igraine; he had focused all his
considerable charm on her. By the end of the evening she had fallen for him,
and within a week they had begun an affair. She couldn’t believe what she was
doing; she kept reminding herself that she was married with three kids; women
in her situation simply did not do that sort of thing. Yet however guilty she
felt, her feelings were beyond her power to control. She was fond of Godfrey,
but with Uther she was irrationally and ecstatically in love; nothing like this
had ever happened to her before.

In character, Uther and
Godfrey were as different as two men could possibly be. Godfrey was weak and
indecisive, constantly in financial trouble, always cadging from his friends;
Uther was strong, self-assured, successful, an independent spirit. Godfrey was
the product of privilege, Uther the product of deprivation. In appearance,
though, they were uncannily alike, the same height, the same heavy build, the
same curly black hair, brown eyes and thick lashes. It was eerie and unsettling
for her to be sitting opposite the living image of her dead husband. Godfrey
was in his grave, yet here in the body of her lover he appeared again, a
haunting reminder of the wrongs she had done him.

After dinner they sat in the
bar. From time to time she gazed into Uther’s eyes, or fondled his face, and
once she undid a shirt button and slipped in her fingers to stroke and knead
the warm flesh. Generally he discouraged such advances in public, concerned with
what people might think. She, on the other hand, did not give a damn. Her love
was tactile, passionate, spontaneous. Absurd, she thought, to be acting like
some randy teenager; but absurd or not, she found it difficult to keep her
hands off him.

There would never be a better time to tell him,
she decided. It was July, and the baby was due in December. Surprisingly, he
had not noticed anything. But then that was Uther, bless him. He would need
careful handling. She began by referring to her symptoms, hoping he would
swiftly diagnose her condition, but he was far too self-absorbed to respond to
hints, unsubtle though they were. He had, moreover, drunk a great deal of
champagne and claret; his brain was not functioning as well as it normally did.
At the precise moment she dared to murmur the ‘p’ word, he had in his
imagination planted his foot and a flag on the summit, and was presiding over a
cabinet meeting in Number Ten. Receiving no reaction, she decided to postpone
the revelation to another day.

Dozing on the way home in the
taxi, he suddenly opened his eyes. ‘Pregnant!’

‘Yes,’ she murmured. ‘You!’

‘Yes.’ Her heart pounded in her chest.

‘Dear God!’ He closed his eyes
again and didn’t speak another word until they were back in her apartment. ‘You
do realise this is a total, unmitigated, bloody disaster, don’t you?’ he said,
throwing himself into an armchair.

Igraine was stunned, unable to
respond. How selfish could a man be? That the timing was inconvenient for both
of them she was the first to admit. But an unmitigated disaster? ‘We’ll keep it
quiet, darling, if that’s what you want.’ It was all she could think of to say.

‘You said you were on the pill,’ he observed
petulantly.

So it was to be the blame
game,’ she thought. ‘I was. I am.’ ‘Then how the hell . . . ?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘You’ll have to get rid of it,’ he said
abruptly.

Igraine felt sick; this was
the man she loved more than life, the man for whom she had left her husband.
The hurt and disappointment showed clearly on her face. She turned her back on
him, partly to hide her feelings, partly because she could not bring herself to
look at him.

‘Darling,’ said Uther,
assuming a sudden disarming smile, ‘I’m being a pig, aren’t I? A selfish
piggy-wiggy. I’ve been on my own far too long. Forgive me.’ With that he took
her in his arms and kissed her, and in an instant she was happy again.

Not a word more was said about
the baby. Uther stayed over; something he rarely did, for fear some “sleazebag
gutter press journalist” might be lying in wait for him when he left.
Disappointingly for her, there was no love-making. As she put her arms round
him he rolled away; seconds later he was snoring. His parting words the next
morning – ‘Whatever happens, we mustn’t let it come between us’ – echoed in her
head all day. Come between us? That sounded ominously like a threat, a warning
that this embryo developing inside her could destroy their relationship.

That evening Uther returned to
Igraine’s apartment later than usual, though much to her relief he was in a
good mood. He had lunched with the chairman of the local Conservative
Association who had promised that a suitable constituency would be found for
him in time for the next General Election, sooner if possible. The weather was
set fair, and the summit, albeit distant, in sight.

‘I’m proud of you, darling,’
she said, genuinely happy for him.

‘He particularly emphasised my
spotless reputation. The truth is, the party badly needs an injection of
decency and integrity. We have been damaged by sleaze.’

‘That’s one thing they’ll
never have to worry about with you,’ she said loyally.

Uther poured himself a scotch
and sat on the sofa next to her, his arm draped across her shoulders. ‘Well
now, my dearest, that’s rather what I wanted to talk about.’

Igraine tensed. She had always
told herself that she would do anything for Uther, anything at all.

‘This pregnancy – I know what it means to you,’
he continued ominously, ‘but the point is, if the press got wind of it, I’d be
finished.
Kaput
. It wouldn’t take them long to discover that you and
Godfrey separated a year before he died. It would be pretty damned obvious who
the father was. We would both be labelled adulterers.’

‘If we tell the truth,’ said
Igraine, ‘I’m sure they’ll leave us alone.’

A sour smile. ‘I fear you are
being a touch naïve, duchess. The press doesn’t give a damn about truth; what
they care about is a good story, and if it involves adultery and sexual
shenanigans, so much the better. That’s what sells newspapers. They’ll use
smear and innuendo. They’ll make Godfrey’s death look as if . . . ’

Uther’s arm slipped from her
shoulders as Igraine sat up. ‘As if what?’

‘As if it wasn’t an accident,’
– Uther avoided her eyes – ‘or a suicide.’

Her eyes widened. ‘What on earth do you mean?’

‘Godfrey refused to give you a
divorce,’ said Uther, stressing every word.

‘So?’

He was studying the carpet
now. ‘They’ll say I had an excellent motive for . . . well, for getting rid of
him.’

‘But that’s absurd!’ Igraine
protested. ‘If they even hinted such a thing, we’d sue them.’

‘A fat lot of good that would
do. Mud sticks, Igraine. Think of the scandal. The story would run till the
next millennium. You are happily married, you meet me, and five minutes later
we have an affair and your husband leaves you and goes and lives in a crummy
bedsit in Victoria. A year later he kills himself. Five months after his death,
you have my baby. Fantastic! Guess who gets the sympathy vote, duchess. Not me,
that’s for sure. One way or another, they’d say I was responsible for Godfrey’s
death. They’d crucify me. You too probably,’ added Uther for good measure.

‘But it wasn’t like that.’

‘Nevertheless, it’s what people will think,’ he
assured her.

‘I don’t care what people
think,’ said Igraine, sounding a great deal more confident than she felt.

‘Lucky you, darling,’ said
Uther tartly. ‘I have to care. A politician lives or dies by what people
think.’

‘Then why go into politics?’
‘Because it’s what I want.’

Her voice was low and
intense. ‘And
I
want my baby.’

‘You can have as many babies
as you like, Igraine, but not this one. Not if you love me.’ And he stormed
out, almost slamming the front door off its hinges.

Even in the depths of her
misery, it occurred to Igraine that she could always start again. There had
never been any problem finding men. The real problem was that she wasn’t
interested in other men; it was this one she wanted. Having just lost her
husband, and with a young family to bring up – seven year old Elaine, five year
old Margot, and “baby” Morgan, only three – she felt achingly vulnerable. Poor
mites, there had already been the most appalling upheaval in their little
lives. Now they were just getting used to Uther. No, she concluded, any other
man would be unthinkable.

Uther bided his time,
flattering himself that Igraine loved him too much to defy him. Yet several
days passed and still he had no word from her. At last he was compelled to
accept that somehow or other the problem would have to be resolved. Nothing was
more important to him than his high political ambitions. He would never be
Prime Minister if he were involved in a scandal. There was something else that
had preyed on his mind ever since that strange and disturbing meeting with
Merlin – those ominous words of his.

It
is
written
that
he
will
overthrow
you.

Are you suggesting I
should be afraid of my own son? Is that so surprising? Many men
are.

He phoned Igraine. ‘We need
to talk.’ His voice softened. ‘I miss you.’

‘Me too,’ she whispered.

For the rest of the day she
waited for the doorbell to ring. Finally at ten o’clock Uther arrived, and as
he entered the hall, came straight to the point. ‘I was at fault, I confess it.
Mea culpa
. It would be wrong to . . . do what I suggested.’ He took her
hand. ‘I love you, Igraine. I want to marry you. I couldn’t bear to lose you.’
Igraine’s eyes filled with tears. Could he possibly need her as much as she
needed him? ‘I am going to suggest something, and I want you to consider it
very carefully. Please don’t answer me right away. Think about it first.
Promise me?’

Igraine nodded dumbly.

‘My proposal is this. You go
down to the country as soon as possible. There’s a place I know where you will
be very comfortable. Everything will be handled with the utmost discretion. You
will have the best care money can buy, and all in a superb setting – a
beautiful house in lovely countryside in the heart of Somerset.’

Was he about to pronounce the
death sentence on her unborn child? She could not look at him.

‘A perfect place to have the baby.’

Her face lit up. Throwing her
arms round his neck, she covered him with kisses. Gently he pulled away. ‘Let
me finish.’ Her eyes searched his anxiously.

‘You will have the baby, and
then . . . ’ – a moment of tense silence – ‘I shall arrange to have it adopted.
You needn’t be involved. You may depend on me to find good and loving parents
for the child.’

Igraine shrank from Uther, her
body hunched, her fists held high, as if she were defending herself against a
violent assault. ‘Go to hell, you bastard!’

‘I suggest we talk about this
when you are calmer,’ he said coldly. ‘What I am proposing is a fair
compromise. The child will have a good life, and you and I . . . we shall be
happy again.’

Her voice grated in her
throat. ‘I won’t let you take my son away from me.’

‘Think about it, Igraine,
that’s all I ask.’ Suddenly he realised what she had said. ‘Your
son
?
How do you know it’s a son?’

‘I had a scan. It’s a boy,’
she said, searching his face for the smallest hint of a change of heart.

‘I don’t want to hear any
more,’ he said, turning his back and walking away from her.

She followed, pleading, ‘This is your son, your
son and heir.

Doesn’t that mean anything to you?’

He looked at her with cold eyes. ‘Think about
what I said.

I’ll phone you in the morning.’

‘Our own flesh and blood,’ she
said sadly. ‘How can you ask me to give him away?’