Classic Bestsellers from Josephine Cox: Bumper Collection. Josephine Cox
she had thought he was everything she’d ever wanted and now she was finding out he was a worthless good-for-nothing. ‘Go on!’ she challenged. ‘Tell me why I should believe a single word you say?’
For a moment he held her, his hands clamped round her shoulders and his gaze melting into hers. ‘I think I’m falling in love with you,’ he murmured. ‘I’ve never felt like this about any girl before. That’s why I need you to know the truth about me – so that if you hear it from somebody else, you’ll know I’ve told you all there is to know.’
Daisy wondered if she should walk away before she got hurt. Then she looked at his face and read the truth in his eyes, and she knew she could never walk away.
‘Why?’ she asked softly. ‘Why did you do all them bad things?’
‘I don’t know …’ He shrugged. ‘Anyway, what does it matter?’
‘It matters to me,’ she said. ‘If you’re being truthful with me, I need to know all of it. What made you so bad? Tell me.’
‘I can’t …’
Daisy was angry. ‘Why not?’ she demanded.
‘Because if I do, you’ll walk away. You’d be crazy not to.’
Daisy smiled. ‘I can be crazy at times, or haven’t you noticed?’
Her smile was infectious. ‘Yes … I’ve noticed.’
‘So, tell me.’
He told her how his father had been mixed up in a robbery. ‘I knew nothing about it until afterwards, when Mam told me. It was an organised gang, who had already pulled off a number of jobs. The police had been after them for some time, but they always managed to get away. This time, though, the robbery went wrong and they all went to prison.’
His voice fell to a whisper. ‘In the prison, there were accusations and threats among them. One day a fight started and my dad was stabbed to death – a piece of metal, they said, straight through the heart.’
‘God Almighty, how awful!’ Daisy was shaken. ‘It must have been a terrible shock to the family.’
‘There’s no family,’ Roy corrected her, ‘just me and Mam. Mam was in a bad way when she heard – shouting and crying … desperate she was. After a while, she went upstairs, packed a bag and left. She never came back, and I never found out where she’d gone. I was twelve years old.’
Daisy began to understand. ‘No wonder you turned bad,’ she said. ‘How did you manage? What did you do? Did they let you stay in the house, or did you go to relatives?’
‘Relatives didn’t want to know,’ Roy said sombrely, ‘so I took off. I had no idea where I were going or what I might do. I managed to get work here and there – told them I were fifteen and nobody questioned it. I managed to pay for board and lodgings and didn’t go hungry.’
He smiled, but it was a poor, lonely smile. ‘I even went looking for my mam, but I never did find her. After a time I gave up and just got on with my life.’
‘Didn’t you have any friends?’
‘Just one,’ he said. ‘I was seventeen and in with a bad lot. Don was one of ’em, but he turned out to be a good mate. If it hadn’t been for Don, I might have got into even more trouble, but he watched out for me. Then we parted ways and I didn’t see him again until just recently. We bumped into each other at the pub and got talking. I told him I needed a regular place to stay, and he got me a room in a house near to him, in Johnson Street.’
Daisy had a reason for being curious. ‘What does he look like, this Don?’
‘He must be about twenty-five, I reckon … fairly well built; kinda handsome, in a rough-looking way.’ He smiled. ‘He’s good at charming the ladies, so I won’t be introducing him to you, that’s for sure.’
Daisy’s curiosity grew. ‘What’s his surname?’
‘Carson.’ He gave her a quizzical look. ‘His name is Don Carson. Why are you so interested?’
‘Don … Carson.’ Her eyes grew wide and bright as marbles. ‘Bugger me, Roy, it’s him! Don Carson is Amy’s ex-fiancé. They were due to be wed and he dumped her days beforehand, the swine!’
Though shocked that Daisy should know of his old friend, and that he was once engaged to Amy, Roy was not surprised.
‘He’s not the marrying kind,’ he told her. ‘What’s more, if you ask me, Amy had a good escape. He’d make the worst husband imaginable. He likes a drink and he loves the ladies, and, as far as I know, there’s never yet been one woman that could hold him.’
‘Well, I never!’ Daisy couldn’t get over it. ‘I wish you hadn’t told me now.’
‘It were you that asked,’ Roy protested light-heartedly.
‘I know that, and I wish I hadn’t.’
‘Will you tell Amy?’
‘I don’t know,’ Daisy answered. ‘If I did, what purpose would it serve?’
‘None that I can see, except for her to realise what a lucky escape she’s had.’
‘Oh, look, all that aside, I’m sorry I forced you to tell me all those other things … about you and your dad and that. But I’m glad you told me,’ Daisy said. ‘I understand you a lot better now.’
‘I’m glad too,’ he replied. In truth he was relieved to have told her.
Daisy went on, ‘You have to believe that what happened was not your fault. I know what it’s like for parents to do bad things that frighten you, and sometimes you get the blame. It makes it difficult to think you can rely on people, but, you know, you can trust me, Roy.’
He gave a small, harsh laugh. ‘Don’t be so quick,’ he urged. ‘You don’t know me well enough to think I’m worth the effort yet.’
‘What else is there for me to find out?’ Daisy asked. ‘You haven’t murdered anybody, have yer?’
‘No.’
‘And you haven’t set fire to anybody’s house, have yer?’
‘Not that I know of,’ he laughed. ‘Though I’ve slept in a few places where burning them down might be an improvement.’
‘And is there anything else you need to tell me?’
‘You’ve heard it all,’ he promised. ‘And I can see from your expression that you don’t like what you’ve heard.’
‘You’re right there,’ she answered honestly, and looming in her mind was Don Carson.
Roy’s face crumpled. ‘I knew it would turn you against me. That’s why I didn’t want you knowing,’ he groaned. ‘I knew you’d run a mile, the minute you heard what a bad ’un I’ve been.’
Raising her hand to touch his face, Daisy asked softly, ‘Do you see me running?’
When he looked at her now, she could have sworn there were tears in his eyes. ‘No.’ Wrapping both his arms round her, he held her. ‘So why aren’t you? I’m no good, Daisy. Happen I never will be. So why aren’t you off down the street, like a cat with its tail on fire?’
‘You’re right,’ she admitted. ‘If I had any sense that’s what I’d be doing all right – putting as much distance between you and me as I could. But then, I’ve never been known as a sensible person, so I’m not running and I don’t know why, so don’t ask me. But I’ll tell you something,’ she went on. ‘You mustn’t feel sorry for yourself, and you mustn’t think you’re the only one who’s ashamed of their parents.’
Now it was time for her to confess. ‘Mine fight and squabble all the