by Penny Jordan
Sarah Marsden had far more intuition than her husband, and she was well aware of her daughter’s reluctance to talk about anything or anyone connected with Dominic Savage. She knew about her adolescent crush on him, of course; it had been glaringly obvious, but Dominic had been at pains to treat her gently. She had never fathomed out what it was that had led to Christy’s abhorrence of the very mention of his name, and she knew her daughter far too well to pry. Instead she said calmly, ‘I invited Dominic to come round for supper. A man living on his own never eats properly.’
‘Nonsense, Mum,’ Christy interrupted crisply, ‘there’s no reason why on earth a man shouldn’t be able to take care of himself in much the same way as a woman has to.’
‘Oh, I wasn’t suggesting that Dominic wasn’t capable of looking after himself, Christy,’ her mother corrected gently. ‘I’m sure he can. But as a very busy doctor, I’m also sure that he doesn’t have the time to do more than grab the odd snack. There’s a ragout in the freezer; I thought you might give him that. It always used to be his favourite…’
‘Stop worrying about Dominic Savage and try and get some rest,’ Christy instructed her. Really, her mother was impossible at times! Here she was recuperating from major heart surgery and all she could think about was Dominic Savage’s stomach.
It wasn’t because she wanted to impress Dominic that she took particular pains with her appearance that night, Christy told herself, donning an elegantly sophisticated jersey dress that David had urged her to buy from a shop in South Molton Street.
The camel-coloured jersey, so dull on anyone else, on her was the perfect foil for her copper hair, the knitted material designed to cling lovingly to every inch of her body. Despite the fact that it covered her from throat to knees, it was undoubtedly a dress designed for women with men in mind. Which no doubt was why David had chosen it in the first place, she thought wryly, remembering her own doubts the day she had tried it on. That had been before David had told her how he felt about her. Her mouth compressed slightly as she busied herself blow-drying her unruly curls into sleek copper order.
Now her make-up: just the merest hint of green eyeshadow, and then mascara to darken the blonde tips of her eyelashes. Blusher to emphasise her cheekbones, and then the merest slick of lip gloss. She stood up and slipped on her high heels, smiling rather grimly at her reflection.
Yes… This was the woman she now was, not the child she had once been. No one looking at her now could doubt her maturity. As she walked away from the mirror she didn’t see the glimmer of vulnerability that darkened her eyes, nor the soft quiver of her mouth.
Her father’s eyebrows lifted slightly as she walked into the kitchen, but he was familiar enough with her London clothes and the sophistication that went with it not to make any comment. She found the ragout in the freezer and started the preparations for supper. She couldn’t very well avoid eating with her father and Dominic, but once the meal was over she intended to excuse herself on the pretext that she was tired. After all, she thought cynically, Dominic could hardly want her company.
A pain, as though someone had twisted a knife in her heart, tore through her as she remembered the open warmth of his smile, for all the world as though he had actually been glad to see her. No doubt there were times when a doctor needed to conceal his true feelings, and he had obviously more than mastered that art.
Her mother wasn’t allowed any heavy meals, so just before Dominic was due, Christy took her up a light snack.
‘Oh, very nice; I do like that, Christy,’ Mrs Marsden approved, as she studied her daughter’s dress. Despite the fact that she lived a rural existence, Sarah Marsden had retained a vivid interest in fashion and was able to comment knowledgeably on her daughter’s outfit.
‘David chose it,’ Christy told her, failing to notice the look of concern darkening her mother’s eyes. ‘I wasn’t sure if it was really me, but you know what he’s like. He overruled all my objections.’
‘Yes, he can be a very forceful man. And a very magnetic one as well…’ She paused, and Christy looked across at her.
‘You’ve always seemed so happy in your job, Christy. Your father and I were a bit surprised to hear that you’d given it up. I hope it wasn’t anything to do with this silly heart of mine.’
‘It wasn’t,’ Christy assured her truthfully. ‘As I told Dad this morning, David has been offered some work in Hollywood, and since there’s every chance that he might stay on over there, naturally I couldn’t go on working for him.’
‘But he could have taken you with him.’
Christy could sense the direction of her mother’s thoughts. ‘Yes, I suppose he could,’ she agreed airily. ‘But he didn’t, and quite fortunately, as it turns out that that means I’m free to come home and spend some time with you. Unless, of course, you’re trying to tell me that my help isn’t wanted…’
‘Christy, darling, this is your home. We’re both delighted to have you back. Umm…that sounds like Dominic’s car. You’d better go down and let him in. Your father will never hear him. He’s getting dreadfully deaf, you know.’
Reluctantly Christy headed for the door. As her mother had predicted, the sound of the doorbell had not brought her father out of his study, so she made her way down to the hall, shivering in the blast of cold air that swirled in as she opened the front door.
Dominic had changed out of the suit he had been wearing earlier and was now dressed casually in navy pants and a matching jacquard sweater. His eyebrows rose as he saw her, and for a moment something almost like pain seemed to flicker in his eyes.
‘I’ll just tell my father that you’re here,’ Christy told him formally, stepping away from him. ‘Supper shouldn’t be long.’
Her father, roused from his study, apologised to Dominic for not hearing the bell.
‘I persuaded Christy that we’d be better off eating in the kitchen. Our dining-room faces north and it’s freezing in there at this time of the year. Come on in, and sit down.’
Christy gnawed anxiously at her bottom lip as she followed them. The very last thing she had wanted was to have Dominic sharing the warm intimacy of the kitchen with them, watching her while she worked…it made no difference that there had once been a time when her parents’ kitchen had been as familiar to him as his own, and she resented his easy assumption that all was as it had once been. Surely he must be aware how hard it was for her to have to face him like this, but he was behaving as though nothing had happened, as though he had never humiliated and hurt her in a way that was branded into her heart for all time.
While she busied herself putting the finishing touches to their supper, Christy could hear her father and Dominic chatting, and yet she was also conscious, every time she happened to glance at him, that Dominic was also watching her. Watching her, she thought shakily, not just simply looking at her. What was he watching her for? Did he think she was going to fling herself at him and beg him to make love to her? Did he think that she was still suffering from that dreadful teenage crush?
‘Ragout. My favourite.’ Dominic smiled at her as she served out the meal, but she refused to smile back.
‘Your mother tells me that you’ve given up your job in London.’
‘The man I worked for is going out to Hollywood.’ Although it was impossible to refuse to answer Dominic’s questions with her father smiling benignly at them, she kept her answers as curt and clipped as possible, and after several attempts at conversation with her, all of which she blocked, she saw his mouth compress into a hard line and a steely glint darken his eyes.
The phone rang in the hall, and her father got up to answer it. While he was gone Dominic took advantage of his absence to say curtly, ‘What’s wrong, Christy?’
That he should actually need to ask her robbed her of the breath with which to answer him, and by the time she had recovered her wits, her father was back in the kitchen.
For the rest of the meal Dominic directed his conversation almost exclusively towards
her father. Eight years ago she would have felt hurt and left out and would have made a childish attempt to break into their discussions, but now she was glad to be left alone.
After supper, her father’s suggestion that he and Dominic play a game of chess left Christy free to clear up the kitchen and then go upstairs to check on her mother.
‘You needn’t sit up here with me, dear,’ Sarah Marsden told her. ‘I’m perfectly all right. In fact, I was just thinking I’d like to go to sleep. Why don’t you go back downstairs and join your father and Dominic?’
‘They’re playing chess.’
Her mother laughed. ‘Oh dear, I remember how you always used to resent that. Dominic tried to teach you to play several times, didn’t he?’
Memories she didn’t want to acknowledge surged over her; an image of her petulant sixteen-year-old face pouting protestingly as she tried to divert Dominic’s attention from his game to herself. That had been in the days before she had realised the true nature of the strange restlessness that seemed to possess her.
‘You were always far too restless to concentrate,’ her mother added fondly. ‘I remember one Sunday afternoon, you picked up the board and threw all the pieces on to the floor.’
‘The year I took my O-levels. Dominic threatened to wallop me for it.’
‘Yes, I remember.’ Her mother laughed, and Christy wondered if she also remembered how that miserable afternoon had ended. She certainly did.
For weeks she had been troubled by a vague but persistent feeling of restlessness; she wanted to be with Dominic, but when she was, she wasn’t satisfied with their old comfortable friendship. Too young and inexperienced to be able to analyse her own feelings, she had taken refuge in fits of sulks alternated with bursts of temper. Dominic’s threat to put her over his knee and administer the punishment he thought she deserved had acted like a shock of cold water on her newly emerging feminine feelings, and she had retreated from him to the sanctuary of her bedroom, in floods of tears.
The next day he had been waiting for her when she came out of school. He had driven her half-way home and had then stopped the car on a secluded piece of road.
‘I’m sorry about last night, infant,’ he had said softly. ‘I forget sometimes that you’re not a little girl any more.’
She had burst into tears again, but this time there had been nowhere to run and she had sobbed out her misery and confusion against the hard warmth of his shoulder, even in her anguish conscious of the pleasure of his body close to her own and his arms wrapped round her.
He had kissed her briefly on the forehead as he released her, offering his handkerchief so that she could dry her eyes. That had been the day she knew she had fallen in love with him.
‘Come back, Christy…’
Her mother’s teasing voice jolted her back to the present and reality, and although she listened to her chatter as she smoothed her pillows and checked that she had everything she needed, Christy was wondering what her mother would say if she told her that now she could play chess. Meryl had taught her. Meryl, whose patience made her an admirable teacher; Meryl, whose patience allowed her to turn a blind eye to a husband to whom a continuous string of brief sexual affairs seemed to be as necessary as the air he breathed. And yet without Meryl, David would be very unhappy. She was his wife, and in his way he loved her. He also loved their children. Sighing faintly, Christy walked towards the door. Adult relationships were very complex things. As a teenager she had day-dreamed about the perfect life she would have with Dominic if he loved her; she had imagined that love alone was enough, that nothing else mattered, but different people had different needs.
She herself was too old-fashioned in her moral outlook to involve herself in an affair with a married man, especially a married man whose wife she knew and liked.
No matter how awkward and unsettling it was discovering that Dominic had come back to Setondale, she knew that she had made the right decision in refusing to accompany David to Hollywood. Already, the effect of his sexual magnetism was beginning to fade now that he was no longer there to generate it. Maybe even the desire she had felt clawing so sharply within her had really been the desire of an inexperienced woman for experience rather than a particular desire for David himself.
Ever since the humiliation of her rejection by Dominic, Christy had kept the sexual side of her nature firmly under control. She was not and never had been the sort of woman to whom sex could be sufficient in itself, but there were times, increasingly so these days, when she saw lovers embracing, couples together, when she was pierced by an intense need, coupled with sadness for all that she had lost in not having a lover of her own.
And that was Dominic’s fault; his strictures, his contempt had made it impossible for her to be open and honest in her dealings with his sex; she was quite frankly terrified of misinterpreting a man’s feelings and suffering once again the savage rejection which still haunted her.
She went downstairs and started to make a tray of coffee for her father and Dominic. It was gone ten o’clock and, as Dominic no doubt remembered, her parents preferred early nights.
When she took the tray in it was obvious that Dominic was winning the game.
‘He’s got me completely tied up,’ her father commented with a mock grimace as she handed him his coffee.
‘Mmm.’ She studied the chess board knowledgeably. ‘Another two moves and you won’t be able to avoid checkmate.’
Her father’s eyebrows rose, but he looked pleased. ‘Well, well, so you have managed to learn something while you’ve been in London!’ Turning to Dominic, he asked teasingly, ‘Do you remember how often you tried to teach her?’
‘There are teachers and teachers,’ Christy responded acidly, watching the way Dominic frowned as he looked up at her. The humour she had seen warming his eyes earlier was gone now, and they were a hard, flat grey.
‘And pupils and pupils,’ he taunted back, while her father looked from one set face to the other as though suddenly conscious of the fast-flowing undercurrents racing between them.
Christy was glad that the phone rang, cutting through the thick silence. Her father went to answer it, and she started to follow him until Dominic’s smooth voice stopped her.
‘You’ve changed, Christy. And I don’t suppose for one moment that chess is the only thing you’ve been taught!’
She swung round, her eyes glittering with the temper he had always been so easily able to arouse inside her, but before she could say anything, her father came back into the room, frowning slightly.
‘The call’s for you, Christy. It’s David.’
‘My ex-boss. I suppose he’s lost an all-important piece of filing.’ She knew she was flushing and that moreover, Dominic was aware of it, but David ringing her when she had thought she had made it quite clear to him that there was no point in him pursuing her had caught her off guard.
She hurried to the phone, curling the flex round her fingers in nervous agitation as she spoke into the receiver.
‘Christy, my love, you can’t know how much I’ve missed hearing your voice. I miss you, Christy. Come back.’
She gritted her teeth together. She had always known that David was persistent when there was something that he wanted, but she thought she had made it clear there could be nothing between them.
‘I can’t come back, David,’ she responded coolly. ‘My mother is ill and she needs me.’
‘I need you. God, how I need you! Come back, Christy…’
Her body had started to tremble. This was too much to cope with coming on top of her clash with Dominic.
‘I can’t, David.’ She took a deep breath. ‘And I wouldn’t even if I could. I’ve already told you that. You’re a married man. You know how much I like Meryl.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake!’ she heard him swear sharply. ‘Listen, Christy…’
Suddenly she panicked. ‘No…no…I don’t want to hear any more.’ She held the receiver away from her, but before she could slam
it down she heard him saying furiously, ‘I’m not letting you go as easily as that. I want you…and I can make you want me…’
Even with the receiver held away from her, the words were plainly audible. She slammed it down, literally shaking with reaction.
‘And that’s your boss, is it?’
The shock of Dominic’s hard voice coming from behind her made her whirl round to stare at him.
Correctly reading her expression, he added evenly, ‘I just came in to say goodnight, on your father’s instructions. I didn’t mean to eavesdrop. Do you love him, Christy…is that why you’ve come running home?’
‘He’s a married man.’ She cried out the words desperately, hating him for seeing her like this when she was so weak and vulnerable.
‘I see…’
Surely that wasn’t compassion she could see in his eyes. She shook her head disbelievingly and heard him say, ‘If there’s anything I can do to help…’
Eight years ago she had needed his help, but he had rejected her, and suddenly she wanted to throw that in his face, and to tell him that it was his fault she was the person she was now; that it was his fault that she was a twenty-four-year-old virgin with ridiculously unrealistic ideals of love and marriage, but common sense told her that the blame wasn’t all his, so instead she stormed past him, saying bitterly, ‘Stop trying to big-brother me, Dominic; I don’t need your help, either as a doctor or as a man.’
His face closed up immediately, and she was conscious of an unfamiliar hardness about it, an expression that warned her that he would be a dangerous man to push too hard.
‘I’ll say goodnight, then.’ He paused in the act of stepping past her to the front door and said quietly, ‘Just tell me one thing. Was he…’ he gestured to the phone, ‘the one who taught you to play chess?’