Phantom Lover

by Susan Napier

  She had to face it. What she had felt he had not shared. What had been sublimely unique to her had been commonplace to him.

  Glory folded its splendid wings and quietly slipped away.

  ‘Maybe I am a bit of an anachronism these days,’ she said stiffly, ‘but I vowed when I was a teenager that I’d never end up like Helen’s jet-set model friends. If that was the way sophisticated people behaved I didn’t want any part of it. To them sex was as casual and meaningless as a handshake.’ Her voice shook as she said it. ‘To me it was going to be something special...’

  ‘And this is it?’ She flinched at his savagery as he rolled over and cynically surveyed the way she was hugging the bedclothes tightly against her body. ‘This is your “something special”? A pity you didn’t feel the need to make it “special” for me, too...why? Didn’t you trust me? What the hell did you think I’d do—?’

  ‘I didn’t think it mattered...’ she lied weakly.

  ‘Didn’t matter?’ He exploded upright on the bed, totally oblivious to his state of undress as he turned towards her and demanded, ‘What the hell did you bother keeping your virginity for, if you were going to throw it away like this? Talk about casual! My God, Honor, not even you could be that stupid—of course it matters! You weren’t even prepared, were you, you little fool? If I hadn’t had the presence of mind to ask if you were protected you would have risked getting pregnant your very first time! Or is that what you wanted to make it even more special for yourself...?’

  She clenched her hands over her chest, flushing at his cutting anger. Now at least some of that fury was explained. He was right, she had been foolish; her obsession with loving him had blinded her to the true consequences of her actions. She couldn’t believe her usual level-headed self could have been so careless as to forget the prime biological reason for the human sex drive...procreation. No wonder he thought she might have had notions of trapping him...

  ‘I—it’s the wrong time of the month for me...’ she told him truthfully, at the same time wondering whether her forgetfulness had been a subconscious attempt to bind herself to him in some permanent way...

  His hardening expression told her what he thought of that time-honoured prevarication. ‘It’s the wrong time for you, full stop!’ he told her tautly. ‘Do you think if I’d known I’d have allowed it to happen this way?’

  The confirmation of her worst fears was a blow that couldn’t be avoided. She took it on the chin and struck back.

  ‘What way? I didn’t know there was any other way for a man and woman to make love—’

  Her sarcasm rebounded painfully on herself. ‘No, you didn’t, did you? And that’s the point. There are a lot of things you don’t know or didn’t bother to find out.’ His eyes made a grim survey of her shielded body. ‘Did I hurt you? Are you sore?’

  To her horror he put his hand on the quilt as if he intended to whisk away her defences and check her as clinically as any doctor.

  ‘No!’

  ‘I must have; you were very tight that first time—’

  Her flush deepened, anger conquering her humiliation. ‘That didn’t stop you, though, did it? Why didn’t you ask me then if it mattered to you so much? Why wait until you’ve had all your fun to worry about whether you hurt me or not?’

  It was his turn to flush, his eyes darkening to mid-brown as he gritted, ‘It wasn’t fun—’

  ‘Oh, no, I could see you hated every minute of it,’ she said fiercely. How dared he imply that he hadn’t enjoyed what they’d done at all? It might not have been earth-shattering as far as he was concerned but it hadn’t been the nothing he was trying to dismiss it as, either!

  ‘You’re deliberately misunderstanding me...’

  ‘Oh, I’m so sorry, but then we stupidly naïve virgins tend to do that—’

  ‘You’d better learn to start speaking in the past tense there, Honor. You gave your virginity to me, remember?’

  She flared quickly at his insulting tone. ‘Yes, and what a mistake that was. I should have kept it for someone who would appreciate the—the—’ She hesitated, trying to think of the appropriate word.

  He provided it for her in a cruel pun. ‘The honour?’

  She took a deep breath. ‘As it happens I regret it, too...all in all the whole thing was a bit of an anticlimax, wasn’t it?’ She almost choked on her small, bitter laugh. She looked longingly over her shoulder towards the door but she couldn’t force herself to move. She couldn’t imitate his unselfconscious nudity. The idea of getting out of bed under his critical stare was unendurable.

  Adam made a soft sound. ‘Damn it, Honor, that’s not what I meant to say...why do you goad me into these things by pretending to be blasé when we both know you’re not?

  ‘You took me by surprise...is it so difficult to appreciate how much? I couldn’t believe it that first time, and when I did you were right—I was too selfishly absorbed in my own pleasure to care. I wanted to grab what I could while I could, to have something to hold on to when the recriminations started. I never said I was disappointed. Did I feel disappointed when I was inside you? Damn it, look at me!’ His hand cupped her averted jaw and forced her face back to his, his palm cool against her flushed cheek. His eyes were deep and dark and compelling, filled with repressed emotion. Unfortunately his earnest assurances were coming just that little bit too late to be convincing.

  ‘You must see that I had every reason to think that you knew exactly what you were getting into...’

  ‘Of course I knew,’ she said flippantly, her green eyes meeting his proudly. ‘I was getting into bed with you.’

  ‘You were doing a hell of a lot more than that, Honor,’ he informed her harshly. ‘This was never going to be a one-night stand for either of us. You said you wanted an affair—and then I find that you can’t possibly know the first thing about the risks an affair entails. And even knowing that I still took advantage of your inexperience—’

  Guilt. She might have known it! Well, she didn’t want his guilt or his sympathy. Neither was a substitute for love. And neither was desire, she now realised. Desire without love had no strength, no substance to cling to when times got rough...

  ‘You don’t have to wor—’

  She broke off as there was a soft knock at his door, rolling over on her side to stare at it in horror.

  Adam recovered first. Pulling part of the quilt over his hips, he called out, ‘Who is it?’ He anchored Honor’s precious covering with his arm over her waist as she instinctively made to leave, dragging her back against his curved torso so that she felt the soft crush of thick chest hair cushioning her sensitive skin. ‘No, don’t you dare move until this is settled!’ he growled, not bothering to lower his voice.

  There was a little pause, then a subdued voice drifted through the wood panels. ‘It’s Tania. I’m going into town to look at apartments this morning and wanted to know if—’

  Honor was shocked when Adam called out again, ‘For goodness’ sake, you don’t have to yell it through the door, Tania. Come on in.’

  ‘Adam—!’ Honor’s horrified retreat beneath the shared quilt wasn’t quick enough. The door opened before she had covered more than her chin.

  To her credit Tania didn’t say a word, even though her shock was palpable. Neither did she take up Adam’s invitation and step inside. She just looked, her eyebrows raised in a way that implied that whoever she had expected to find in Adam’s bed it hadn’t been Honor. Helen, most probably. After all, with a swan around why would Adam want to bother with an ugly duckling?

  Tania shrugged in cool resignation. ‘I just wanted some advice, that’s all. But I can see you’re very busy.’

  Honor felt her whole body tingle as Adam’s lips suddenly brushed the top of her bare shoulder in a tacit acknowledgement of the sarcastic comment. ‘You obviously see very clearly. Call my construction office and get Don Shelly’s number—he’s my property lawyer, he handles all kinds of real estate and can give you far better advice than
I can... I’m afraid at the moment I find my concentration severely impaired.’

  Tania looked along the hall and then back at Adam, smiling brilliantly. ‘Thank you, Adam. I wonder if you’ll still look quite as disgustingly smug in a few moments from now?’ And with that she turned on her heel and walked away.

  Adam’s arm tightened across the quilt as Honor tensed, wondering what on earth Tania had meant. She didn’t have to wait long.

  Perversely, in her school uniform, Sara actually looked older than her twelve years. Her expression was equally mature as she looked at Honor’s bare shoulders protectively framed by her father’s bare chest, the quilt cuddled around their closely pressed bodies.

  ‘Hi.’ She came across the room to bounce on the edge of the bed, eyeing them with mischievous curiosity. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘OK, brat, there’s no need to try and embarrass me into asking Honor to marry me,’ her father told her sternly, but Honor felt the laughter rumbling against her spine. How could he laugh at a time like this? she thought, too shocked to take in fully what he was saying. ‘As it happens I’m just about to do it. We’ve been having a private discussion leading up to the subject, with the emphasis on private, and we haven’t finished it yet. So buzz off while we finish it, will you?’

  ‘Discussion, huh?’ Sara whooped, bouncing off the bed again and winking at Honor’s pale face. ‘I knew it would happen. I just knew it would! You love each other, right?’

  ‘Too right.’ Adam’s arm contracted painfully at Honor’s convulsive movement, but nothing could have hurt more than the excruciating pain in her chest. This must be what a heart attack feels like, she thought through the mist of agony.

  ‘And you’re gonna get married and everything?’ she dimly heard Sara say happily.

  ‘Especially the everything,’ said Adam wickedly, nipping at the side of Honor’s throat, not seeming to notice her deathly stillness. Moments later when Sara had skipped out of the door she had torn herself out of his arms and thrown off the quilt, her modesty forgotten in her anguish...

  Honor saw her white picket fence through blurring eyes. The relief was enormous. She had been right to come home, she thought, as she parked the VW crookedly in the short driveway and stumbled out.

  Adam hadn’t understood her numb refusal to listen to his glib explanations. He hadn’t understood what he had done by pretending to love her for the sake of his daughter, not until she had finally turned on him and flung his humiliating lie about wanting to marry her in his face.

  ‘We both know what you want and it isn’t a wife you’re madly in love with!’ she’d accused wildly when he had doggedly followed her into her room and refused to leave while she dressed. Cornered like an animal, she’d lashed out.

  ‘Oh, yes, it’s fine for you if she’s in love with you...that makes it all so much easier for you. And isn’t it terrific if she’s a Plain Jane who’ll be so grateful for any attention at all that she won’t mind playing second fiddle to a blasted ghost? You’re not capable of loving anyone who’s alive. If I were beautiful or vivacious I might be competition for your goddess-like Helen of Troy and you wouldn’t like that—that would be like being unfaithful to her. It wouldn’t matter that you were being unfaithful to me. What do I matter? I’m just someone who happened along to fit the bill as Sara’s mother and your bed-warmer. A friend who could be relied on not to get too emotionally demanding...’

  She laughed bitterly at his expression of shock, pleased that she had finally penetrated through his thick skin. ‘No wonder you were so appalled to find out I was a virgin; I wouldn’t have had much to recommend me if I hadn’t been good in bed, would I? How lucky I managed to pass the test after all!’

  ‘Is it so difficult to believe that I’ve fallen in love with you?’ Adam asked quietly, but her rage was a thunder in her ears, drowning out the emotion behind the calm words.

  Honor’s laughter was wild with despair. ‘The way you fell in love with your first wife, your one and only wife? Oh, is that why you sent me all those love-letters and plied me with sweet nothings and were so proud to be my first lover? Oh, yes, Adam, you were so-o-o convincing...!’

  Honor’s hand shook as she fitted her key to the front door, almost falling over the threshold in her haste to get inside.

  She had brought nothing with her, she realised with a weird sense of detachment as she walked through the silent rooms. She had started to pack but then Helen had come in and began talking to her in that slow, aggravatingly calm voice as if she were trying to communicate with a half-wit. Honor knew that Adam had sent her—everyone was on his side, no one on hers—and had succeeded in completely ignoring her until Helen had started taking things out of her suitcase as fast as she put them in.

  ‘This is absolutely ridiculous! I hope you don’t expect me to come with you—I didn’t come all this way to spend it packing and unpacking. I have to leave tomorrow, you know—I’ll be sued for breach of contract if I don’t. I can’t hang around here and watch you ruin your life for the sake of a stupid little misunderstanding that could be cleared up in an instant. It’s as plain as the nose on your face that you’re in love with the man.’ Honor winced at the unhappy metaphor. ‘And if he claims he loves you, why look a gift horse in the mouth? Why don’t you give the poor guy a break...?’

  And so it had gone on and on until Honor had abandoned her methodical attempt at departure and simply fled. She needed desperately to get home, back to her sanctuary, where she would be safe, protected by the comfort of familiar possessions and surroundings, wallowing in the misery of solitude...

  So now she was here she had no luggage, no computer, no wallet and there wasn’t any food in the house. She had even abandoned Monty—not that he was likely to notice that she was gone from his over-pampered existence at the Blakes’. She would probably never be able to entice him home again... Another loss she could lay at Adam’s door.

  She wandered through to the lounge and sat at her empty desk, looking out through the French doors at the spring colour that was blooming in her garden.

  She could see bees floating lazily on the air above the nodding flowers, like giant motes of dust. She didn’t know how long she sat there in a semi-trance—it could have been hours—but the state of tranquil acceptance that Honor sought never came. Adam’s face kept intruding, and Sara’s—bright with loving glee that her desperate measures hadn’t been in vain after all, and Joy’s as she had last seen it, frowning anxiously as Honor had rushed past her out of the door, throwing herself into her car and driving away with a defiant spurt of gravel.

  The desk drawer that had held her letters was still slightly ajar and she pulled it out, inevitably remembering that first night and the outrage she had felt to come back and find Adam rifling through her belongings. She touched the bottom of the empty drawer wistfully. Adam was always outraging her, in writing and in person, challenging her to think, to argue, to find some way to challenge him back. Even in bed he had challenged her to excite him.

  But this time she had no heart for the fight. She had lost it last night, along with her courage and her sense of humour, not to mention her wretched virginity. If only she had been a complete slut—she probably would have eloped with Adam by now instead of being held hostage by her ridiculous scruples about love! She smiled faintly; perhaps she hadn’t quite lost her sense of humour after all...

  When her doorbell rang she found she hadn’t lost her heart either, because it began thumping madly. But when she looked out of the window she discovered that it wasn’t a smoking Mercedes parked behind her in the driveway but a light blue van she didn’t recognise. Damn it, did she really expect Adam to come running round after her entreating her to change her mind? He was probably glad she had let him off the hook!

  Her steps dragged as she answered the door to find a lanky, gum-chewing young stranger waiting impatiently. He raised his clipboard and pen.

  ‘You Miss Honor Sheldon?’

  ‘Yes.’
r />   ‘Honor Leigh Sheldon?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘The Honor Leigh Sheldon who works for the Evansdale Advertiser?’

  ‘Yes!’ Now it was Honor who was impatient. ‘Yes, that’s me. What are you doing, conducting a survey?’ With her current run of luck it would be a survey of local virgins.

  ‘Sign here.’

  ‘Why?’ she asked dully.

  ‘Because I have a package for you, that’s why, and you have to sign for it.’

  ‘What package?’ Belatedly she noticed the name of a courier company, painted on the side of the van.

  The envelope he made her sign for was a plain, A4 manila with no address or identification on the outside, save the courier’s serial number.

  ‘What is it?’ she wondered out loud, turning it over in her hands.

  ‘Don’t ask me, I only deliver ’em,’ the young man shrugged. ‘But in case it’s a letter-bomb I think I’ll leave you to it.’

  He was chuckling at his mortuary humour as he walked away, and Honor gave her door a little slam as she went back inside, to show him what his customers thought of his feeble jokes.

  The envelope was sealed so she went back to her desk and used her silver letter-opener to slit the seal. It slipped, nearly cutting her finger, and the contents of the envelope spilled out over the blotter. They were photographs and Honor sifted through the first two disinterestedly.

  People often sent her colour photographs, hoping they would make the newspaper’s social events page, but these were even less usable than most. The woman, the same one in both pictures, was wearing clothing almost the same colour as the indistinct background, into which she would probably recede completely if converted to black and white for the paper. She had short, wavy, mouse-brown hair and a cowlick on one side that wouldn’t sit down. Spectacles sat on her button nose, and her wide, friendly smile was spoiled by slightly crooked front teeth.