by Penny Jordan
What a terrifyingly complex man Dominic was turning out to be. How could he change so quickly? Not an hour ago he had been berating and taunting her, and yet here he was now talking to her as calmly and pleasantly as he had done in the days when she was still a child, and he was her adored hero. But beneath that pleasant, almost lazily indulgent surface lurked dangers she as a child hadn’t known existed, and consequently, although Dominic seemed to have abandoned his earlier aggression and talked pleasantly to her, telling her about the years he had spent in America, Christy was on her guard against him, her responses stilted and slightly unnatural.
Every time he tried to turn the conversation in her direction she instinctively parried every question, refusing to allow him to draw her into any intimate confidences. And yet, even as she did so, she was painfully aware that in other circumstances she could too easily have allowed herself to drift back into their old relationship. He still exercised a power and enchantment for her that she knew would never entirely disappear, but then she suspected that few women would be able to withstand Dominic if he chose not to allow them to do so.
The train was drawing into Newcastle station when she saw him frown, a derisory glitter darkening his eyes as he scrutinised her.
‘It isn’t going to work, is it, Christy?’ he taunted her with a return to his earlier cynicism. ‘There’s no way you and I can ever be polite acquaintances, is there?’
She felt as though her heart was being torn into pieces, but she managed to say calmly enough, ‘Is there any reason why we should be?’
She saw his face darken. He turned away from her as he muttered under his breath, ‘No…no damned reason at all,’ and then he was lifting her dress box down for her, and she had no alternative but to follow him out of the train and along the station to his parked car.
She told herself that she was glad of his silence as he drove them home, but in truth it was more nerve-racking than she wanted to admit. She couldn’t stop her foolish heart from imagining all manner of romantic scenarios, in which instead of being two people enduring an enforced intimacy as though it were a penance, they were what she had always dreamed they might be: two lovers inhabiting a silence that sprang from perfect communion with one another.
When he stopped outside her parents’ home, he spoke for the first time. ‘I’ll come in and see your mother now.’
Of course her mother was delighted to see them both, expressing delight and pleasure when she heard they had travelled back from London together.
‘And did you manage to sort out David’s problem?’ she asked Christy while her father went downstairs to make them all some coffee.
‘Yes, we found the file.’
‘And Meryl’s well, is she?’
Sarah Marsden had heard all about David’s wife from Christy. ‘Yes. Well, she’s as well as can be expected.’ She had been staring out of the window while Dominic pulled off his jacket, and now she turned round to address her mother, her breath catching in her throat as she saw the way the fine cotton clung to his body. Beneath it she could see the clear outline of his torso, and she stood, breathless and aching with love for him as she watched the masculine play of muscles and felt the need run through her body in a white-hot searing tide.
‘Christy…’
The plaintive note in her mother’s voice brought her back to reality and her unfinished sentence. Now her face was as hot as her body had been seconds before.
‘Er…yes… Meryl’s pregnant.’
She was aware of a sharply indrawn breath, and only realised it was Dominic’s when she glanced at him and saw the savage condemnation bracketing his mouth.
Too late she realised the interpretation he would put on her remark, and sure enough, as he came over to the bed, he stopped at her side to mutter bitterly in her ear, ‘And you still accept him as your lover, knowing that? What sort of woman are you, Christy?’
The sort who’s foolish enough to go on loving you even though my love isn’t wanted, she longed to cry out, but the years of self-control stopped her.
Her father’s arrival with the coffee broke into the unnatural silence. Dominic moved to her mother’s side.
‘Well, you seem to be making excellent progress,’ he pronounced as he stood up.
‘It’s all this spoiling I’m getting,’ Sarah smiled back at him. ‘Which brings me to a favour I’d like to ask you, Dominic.’
Why on earth couldn’t he smile at her like that…just once, Christy thought bitterly, instead of always thinking the worst of her?
Later she decided that her absorption in Dominic’s smile had been the reason her intuition hadn’t warned her what was coming, but by then it was too late.
‘I was wondering if you would drive Christy to and from the ball,’ her mother was saying. ‘Tim doesn’t want to go. He says it won’t be any fun without me.’ She gazed fondly across at her husband. ‘And after…’ she looked apologetically at Christy, ‘well, after her slight mishap with the car we would be worried about her driving, especially if the weather is bad.’
For a moment Christy was too appalled to speak. She couldn’t look at Dominic, and then, her tongue suddenly freed of its constriction, she rushed into nervous speech.
‘Heavens, Mum, there’s no need for that,’ she protested. ‘I can get a taxi…’ she added wildly, only to receive a quelling look from Dominic.
‘I’d be delighted to escort Christy to the ball,’ he told her mother. ‘In fact,’ he looked up and across at Christy, holding her eyes and daring her to contradict him, as he said smoothly, ‘I was going to ask her to come with me anyway.’
Liar, Christy thought bitterly, but there was no way she could say that to him with her parents looking fondly on at them as though…
She swallowed and gulped for air, her heart sinking as she saw quite plainly what her parents were thinking. Heavens, they had got her all paired off with Dominic! Her teeth dug into her bottom lip as she fought to stop herself from bursting into hysterical giggles. Later, when she was on her own with her mother, she would tell her that her matchmaking plans were doomed to failure—and why. It was on the tip of her tongue to ask Dominic acidly what he intended to tell Amanda, but she managed to resist the temptation. He might be taking her to the ball, but there was no doubt in Christy’s mind whom he would be partnering once they were there.
* * *
‘Put your dress on for me, I’m dying to see it.’
It was almost teatime, and Dominic had been gone for several hours. Christy and her mother were alone in the house, and dutifully Christy went into her own room and changed into her ballgown.
The look in her mother’s eyes and the silence when she saw her brought a tiny thrill of pleasure to Christy’s heart.
‘Like it?’ she teased.
‘Oh, Christy, you look…fantastic…’
‘There’s a mask to go with it.’ Christy demonstrated the white and silver disguise.
‘It’s lovely!’
Christy told her about how she had come by her outfit.
‘What a wonderful idea! Is Meryl pleased about the baby?’
For the first time Christy was able to talk to her mother about Meryl and David’s relationship without any constraint, knowing now that David was no longer attracted to her.
‘Yes, I’m afraid there’s always a penalty to be paid for marriage to that type of powerfully attractive man. Often, for all their intelligence, they can be like small children, fatally attracted to sticky but nutritionally useless sweets.’
Christy laughed at her mother’s wry words.
‘At least with your father I never had anything like that to worry about. Now Dominic’s a very attractive and powerful man, but he has the strength and the resoluteness to avoid falling into that sort of trap. He doesn’t have that sort of ego, for one thing, and for another, I suspect that he’s a man who, once he loves, will stay faithful to that love through thick and thin.’
It was Christy’s opening to warn her mo
ther that she was cherishing misplaced hopes. Taking a deep breath, she said as lightly as she could, ‘It sounds like Amanda’s going to be a very fortunate woman, then.’
In the silence that followed she couldn’t bring herself to look at her mother, and then the latter said softly, ‘Oh, my dear…I’m so sorry. Are you sure?’
‘Yes,’ Christy told her shakily. She forced a tight smile to her mouth as she turned to face her mother.
‘I know how much you love him, Christy,’ Sarah Marsden told her quietly, ‘and I had thought…that is, your father and I…’ she bit her lip. ‘I’m more sorry than I can say, my dear. I thought this time… Now that you’re both adults…’
Unable to bear listening to any more, Christy picked up the skirts of her dress and escaped into her own room. It was no use telling herself that it was stupid and, worse still, pointless for a grown woman of twenty-five to fling herself down on her bed and cry as though her heart was breaking for a man who would always be out of reach, but that was exactly what she did.
It was teatime before she had enough self-control to face the world again. Although she had bathed her face in cold water, her eyes remained suspiciously pink, but tactfully her mother said nothing about Dominic when she went back to ask her if she would like something to drink, instead chatting to Christy about her visit to London.
* * *
Two days later at a committee meeting of the fundraising committee, Christy had a brief chance to speak to Dominic alone. The others had all left, and her father was standing outside the Vicarage talking to the Major.
‘Dominic…about the Valentine’s Night Ball. There’s really no need to pick me up and bring me back. I’d really prefer…’
‘What? To be escorted by your married lover?’ His mouth twisted with what was becoming familiar contempt. ‘Why don’t you ask him to do so, then, Christy, or are you afraid that he wouldn’t leave his wife? Men like that rarely do, you know. The arrangement stands.’
Tense with frustration, Christy heard her father call out to her.
‘You’d better go,’ Dominic told her, opening the study door for her. She paused, torn between leaving and staying to argue with him, and then the phone rang.
As she hesitated he picked up the receiver, his voice deepening with pleasure, a smile curling his mouth as he said warmly into the mouthpiece, ‘Amanda! Of course I’ve missed you…’
Later Christy wasn’t quite sure how she got to the car. She only knew that she was shaking almost violently with a mixture of rage and jealousy as her father drove them home.
* * *
A phone call from the Major towards the end of the week to check up on the final details for the Valentine’s Night Ball took Christy over to his Queen Anne house set against the backdrop of fields and hills. The house had once belonged to the Anthony estate, and the Major’s father had purchased it from them just after the First World War.
He lived alone in the attractive red-brick mansion, looked after by a daily cleaning lady from the village, and by his batman, who had left the Army at the same time as the Major. Christy had only been inside the house once or twice, but she had heard a lot about it from her parents, who had been there to dinner and to play bridge on several occasions, and so she was already prepared for the almost spartan neatness when the Major’s batman opened the door for her.
A long time ago, when he had first left the Army, the Major’s pernickety ways had caused comment among the villagers, but now they were so used to him that he no longer drew their awe. Indulgent amusement was probably a closer description of the locals’ attitude towards the Army-like way in which the Major ran his farm and his home, and Christy almost expected him to ask her if she was ready to take ‘tiffin’ as he escorted her into his book-lined study.
A painting of his father hung above the fire, and Christy noted their physical similarities as she sat down. The Major saw her studying the portrait and smiled at her.
‘My father was a fine man,’ he told her proudly, his smile turning to an almost brooding frown as he added, almost under his breath, ‘even if there were those hereabouts who thought him beneath them…’
It was such an odd remark for him to make that Christy was nonplussed for a moment. As far as she was aware, everyone in the locale held the Major, if not in esteem, then in a certain amount of awe. He was known for his strict fairness and adherence to a code long since gone out of fashion, but a fairer or more moral man Christy doubted that anyone could find, and she had assumed that his family had been held in the same high repute.
However, she wasn’t allowed to pursue the matter even mentally, because the Major had a long list on his desk in front of him, and he was clearing his throat preparatory to getting down to business. It amused Christy to realise that he had even listed his queries alphabetically.
‘Now, about the dancing.’ He cleared his throat again, and if she hadn’t known better Christy might almost have thought he was slightly embarrassed. ‘I don’t know what you have in mind, Christy…but I hope there’ll be some music for the…er…older brigade to dance to.’
It took several seconds for his meaning to sink in, but once it had Christy hid a small grin. It wouldn’t do to hurt his feelings by letting him think she was laughing at him.
‘A great many of the tickets have been sold to people in their thirties and above,’ she told him, ‘and of course, since this is a romantic occasion, they’ll be expecting appropriate dance music. I’ve provisionally booked a small combo who will play traditional waltz music, and of course the more romantic slower numbers. They come well recommended—they’ve played at a lot of local weddings—but if you’d like to interview them yourself…they’ve also offered to play for free since it’s for a good cause…’
‘No…no, that sounds excellent. Have you seen the ballroom at the Manor yet?’
Christy hadn’t, and had been loath to ring up Lady Anthony and ask if she might lest it brought her into contact with Amanda. She had no idea whether or not the other woman had returned from London, although with the ball only just over a week away, it seemed unlikely that she would stay away much longer.
‘Well, I’ve taken the liberty of arranging to show it to you today,’ the Major suggested.
Christy wasn’t quite quick enough to conceal her surprise. As far as she knew, the Major and Lady Anthony were such enemies that neither was likely to contact the other voluntarily.
‘If you’ve got the time we could drive over there once we’ve gone through these queries.’
As David’s personal assistant, Christy was skilled at ferreting out and finding the impossible; nevertheless she felt pleased when they reached the end of the the list and the Major complimented her on her work.
Everyone she had approached in connection with the ball had given their services freely. A local florist’s had agreed to decorate the ballroom, and Christy liked the Major’s suggestion that he contact an acquaintance of his who freelanced for The Dalesman and Country Life with a view to doing a piece on the ball for those publications.
Almost an hour later they set out for the Manor, Christy driving behind the Major in his ancient but immaculately kept Daimler. She was familiar with the grounds of the Manor from various fêtes and summer fairs, but she had only rarely been inside. Over the years the house had grown from the original Borders’ fortress into a rambling collection of various styles of architecture, with the interior being remodelled by an eighteenth-century Anthony, who had happened to get on the right side of Elector George.
There was no sign of Lady Anthony when they were shown up an impressive flight of stairs to the ballroom.
The strong winter sunlight was not kind, revealing unsightly patches of damp and cracks in the ornate plaster ceiling, and the Major shook his head sadly over the room’s deterioration.
‘I remember dancing here the year I was twenty-one. You should have seen it. I’ll always remember the scent of the gardenias decorating the room. It was lit with chandelier
s…’ Lost in the past, he looked round the room.
Darkness and soft illuminations would be kind to its fading glory, Christy recognised, and nothing could ever detract from its elegant proportions. She felt a deep inward sadness as she realised how impossible it must be for someone like Lady Anthony to afford all the restoration work that was necessary. Houses like these simply ate up money, and the families who had built and cherished them could often no longer afford their maintenance.
‘Ronnie was twenty-one that year as well. He died at the beginning of the war.’
‘Ronnie?’
‘Celia’s…’ he caught himself up, his ruddy complexion darkening slightly, as he amended, ‘Lady Anthony’s husband… Ronald Anthony. He was her cousin. He was killed in action at the beginning of the war.’
Christy told her mother about the sadly deteriorating state of the ballroom when she returned home, and about the Major’s revelations about the Anthony family.
‘Yes, I seem to remember someone once mentioning that Lady Anthony was widowed as a bride. Her husband was the only heir to the title, I believe. I’ve also heard it rumoured that the marriage was an arranged one. Her father was apparently a very proud man. Since he had no sons of his own to inherit, he decided that his daughter should marry her only male cousin to preserve the family line.’
‘I wonder if she loved him,’ Christy mused. ‘I don’t know. Tell me, what have you got planned for the food?’
Christy allowed herself to be diverted. ‘Everyone’s been wonderfully helpful. The WI are providing the buffet, which reminds me, Mrs Neilson asked me if she could use your raspberry ´ souffle receipe—and they’re taking care of setting up the tables and chairs in a couple of rooms off the ballroom. The Major’s donating some salmon.’
The Major owned and fished a small slice of salmon river in Scotland, and Mrs Marsden grinned as Christy told her this.
‘His freezer is full of the stuff, or so Mrs Fiddler says, but he hates parting with it normally.’
They went on to discuss the floral decoration of the ballroom, and they were still deep in discussion when Christy’s father returned from work.