In The Presence Of The Enemy Read Online Free PDF

thought someone had somehow linked our names. I thought someone was trying to get me to react in a way that would betray the past relationship between us. I thought someone was in need of some sort of proof that Eve and I are connected through Charlotte, and the pretence that Charlotte had been abducted—plus my reaction to that pretence—would be the proof required.”
    “Why would anyone want proof of your connection to Eve Bowen?” Helen asked.
    “In order to sell the story to the media. I don’t need to tell you how it would play out in the press if it became known that I—of all people—am the father of Eve Bowen’s only child.
    Especially after the way she’s…” He seemed to search for a euphemism that eluded him.
    St. James concluded the thought without resorting to a more pleasant way of expressing it. “The way she’s used the child’s illegitimacy to benefit her own ends in the past?”
    “She’s made it her standard,” Luxford admitted. “You can imagine the field day the press would have with her once it was known that Eve Bowen’s great crime of passion involved someone like me.”
    St. James could well imagine. The Marylebone MP had long portrayed herself as a fallen woman who’d made restitution, who’d eschewed an abortion as a solution refl ecting the erosion of values in society, who was doing the right thing by her bastard child. The fact of her daughter’s illegitimacy—as well as the fact that Eve Bowen had nobly never named the father—was at least part of the reason she’d been elected to Parliament in the fi rst place. She publicly espoused morality, religion, basic values, family solidarity, devotion to Monarch and country. She stood for everything that
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derided among Conservative politicians.
    “The story’s served her well,” St. James said. “A politician who’s admitted publicly to her imperfections. That’s hard for a voter to resist. Not to mention a Prime Minister seeking to bolster his Government with female appointees. Does he know the child’s been kidnapped, by the way?”
    “No one in the Government’s been told.”
    “And you’re certain she’s been kidnapped?”
    St. James indicated the letter that was lying on his knee. “This uses a form of block printing.
    It could well have been done by a child. Is there any chance that Charlotte herself could be behind this? Does she know about you?
    Could this be an effort to force her mother’s hand in some way?”
    “Of course not. Good God. She’s only ten years old. Eve’s never told her.”
    “Can you be sure of that?”
    “Of course I can’t be sure. I can only go by what Eve’s told me.”
    “And you’ve told no one? Are you married?
    Have you told your wife?”
    “I’ve told no one,” he said fi rmly, without acknowledging the other two questions. “Eve says she hasn’t either, but she must have let something drop at one time or another—some reference, some chance remark. She must have said something to someone who bears a grudge against her.”
    “And does no one bear a grudge against you?” Helen’s dark eyes were guileless and her expression bland, both implying that she had no idea that
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’s primary philosophy was to dig up the dirt fast and publish it fi rst.
    “Half the country, I dare say,” Luxford admitted. “But it’s hardly going to ruin me professionally if word gets out that I’m the father of Eve Bowen’s illegitimate child. I’ll be a laughingstock briefly, considering my politics, but that’ll be the end of it. Eve, not I, is in the vulnerable position.”
    “Then why send you the letter?” St. James asked.
    “We both received one. Mine came in the post. Hers was waiting at home, hand delivered sometime during the day, according to her housekeeper.”
    St. James re-examined the envelope in which Luxford’s letter had been mailed. It was postmarked two days previously.
    “When did Charlotte disappear?” he asked.
    “This afternoon.