Love in the Valley

by Susan Napier

  ‘You’re so big,’ she murmured faintly, the pulse points of her body throbbing with congestion as he gently straddled her, careful not to lean his full weight on her, careful that she should feel all pleasure and no pain.

  ‘You’re always saying that to me,’ he muttered thickly, with the remnant of their earlier teasing, ‘but this time I’m flattered.’ Aroused as he was, he was still sufficiently in control to reassure the age-old woman’s fear: ‘I won’t hurt you, Julia. I’ll wait until you’re ready. Your smallness will make it good for both of us.’

  She couldn’t speak, everything roughly shouldered aside by the growing urgency of her passion, the gentle skill of his fingers, the conviction that this was the one man who had the right to take her virginity, to accept her love.

  She felt him ease one powerful, thickly-haired thigh between hers to nudge them apart, felt his chest skim hers as he supported himself on tautly strained arms on either side of her head. His body, that magnificent structure of sensuous pleasure, seemed to crush all sensation into one place, everything focused on the hardness settling between her legs. Involuntarily, the words came:

  ‘Oh, Hugh, I love you … love me, please.’ She repeated the litany mindlessly, consumed with anticipation.

  ‘You mean, you want me,’ he corrected her absently as he sought her softness.

  ‘I love you,’ she said again and this time she registered a slight stiffening of his body.

  ‘You don’t mean that, Julia,’ he muttered, struggling to hold back, body tense with the effort. ‘We don’t need lovelies. Let’s enjoy this for what it is.’

  ‘Do you think I’d be here like this if I didn’t love you?’ Julia moaned through kiss-stung lips, wanting to give herself to him, body and soul, in consummation.

  He raised his head, body still as death. ‘Frankly, yes,’ he stated brutally looking down at their bodies so nearly conjoined, seeing the passion-swollen breasts, the small white hips covered by the broad saddle of his. ‘I want your body, Julia—and you want mine. There is nothing else.’

  She caught at him as he began to lift himself off her: ‘Don’t go, please don’t stop.’

  He paused. ‘Is that a retraction?’

  Julia couldn’t believe that he could stop now, that he would deprive them both of satisfaction if she didn’t lie to him. He didn’t want her love—she could understand that—but to do this … ‘No.’

  She felt the tortured shudder of his body and for a moment she thought he was giving in. Then, sweat breaking out on an impassive face, he pulled away and sat up, reaching for his trousers on the floor.

  ‘Oh God, I don’t believe you. You won’t make love to me because I said “I love you”? You’re incredible! Is this some new morality I haven’t heard of?’

  ‘Not new. Mine. You know the score, Julia, or you should.’ He was referring to her supposed experience. Now was definitely not the time to confess to none. She knelt up on the bed, the flush of their love-making still mantling her body. He, too, was still aroused, and moved stiffly as he dressed and walked over to poke viciously at the dying fire. Julia followed him, naked and pleading, her body gleaming as flames leapt anew in the grate.

  ‘Are you afraid? Is that it? You think I’ll make demands on you? Won’t you …’

  ‘No, Julia!’ he turned his back to her. ‘Don’t compound the error. Put on your clothes and go.’

  ‘Why, Hugh? Why?’ she asked quietly, not moving. ‘I didn’t ask for anything in exchange.’

  ‘No, but you expect it all the same; if not now, later,’ he said perceptively. ‘It was a mistake, Julia. I don’t want to get involved, and neither should you.’

  ‘It’s too late, I am involved,’ Julia moved around to confront him proudly, tossing her golden head. She would not allow him to make her ashamed of what she felt or what they had done. ‘I love you, Hugh … all of you, even as you are now … and there’s not a damned thing you can do about it.’

  ‘Put your clothes on,’ he said, ignoring her challenge, though the grey eyes had to wrench themselves away from the inviting loveliness before him.

  She was tempted to say ‘make me’ but she sensed that confrontation was not going to work after all. Silently she pulled her clothes over suddenly chilled flesh. She gave the evocative hollow in the wide bed one last wistful glance.

  ‘All right, I’ll go,’ she said quietly. ‘But don’t think it changes anything. I love you. I’m not asking you to change what you are; I’m not asking you for pretty lies. Maybe I will get hurt, but that’s my risk, Hugh, not yours. You risk nothing.’

  He closed his eyes as if he as in pain and for a moment Julia though she had reached him. But:

  ‘No, no more, Julia.’ It was said with such weary bleakness that Julia retired, defeated, without another word. Left the tall, broad-shouldered man shrouded by the shadows of his room, and by deeper, darker shadows, that she could know nothing about. Left him brooding, alone—as he meant always to be.

  CHAPTER NINE

  I MUST have no sense of occasion, thought Julia next morning as she lay abed contemplating another pure and frosty day, no sense of tragedy. She had slept like a log and her pillow was redolent with dreams rather than tears. By rights she should be feeling shattered, instead she felt oddly optimistic.

  Oh, they had shared some beautiful moments up there in Hugh’s eyrie. Golden moments… glorious, unforgettable. Julia stretched languorously as she relived their deliciousness.

  She simply would not accept his rejection. The fact that Hugh hadn’t continued to make love to her after her too-ready confession of love was actually in her favour. If he had not given a damn for her he would have gone ahead regardless. Julia knew that most men, given a willing woman, wouldn’t quibble about a few whispered love words. But Hugh cared too much for his own self-respect, and hers, to lie. And, too, he was afraid. Afraid of love and everything it entailed. Something had happened to destroy his faith in emotions. His rigid self-control, his obsession with privacy, his contempt for sentimentality, all these feelings were rooted in the past. They must be very deeply ingrained to have survived a long, loving apprenticeship with the Marlows. Julia had her own suspicions, but they could only be guesses.

  She didn’t regret what she had done. She could no more have held back her confession of love than she could have stopped breathing. In the midst of joy and passion she had been true to herself. And because she loved him she could forgive Hugh his brutality, knowing it was her, Julia, he was rejecting, so much as the idea of love itself.

  She frowned, and bounced determinedly out of her bed. There were still—she counted on her fingers—still seven days of her employment left. Surely in that time she could slip under Hugh’s defences, persuade him that she was mature enough to make the transition from friend to lover without threatening his emotional status quo. Let him then discover for himself the satisfaction of a close-bond with someone who loved him enough to enjoy giving more than taking.

  But what if she was wrong about him? Julia worried as she dressed. What if he was truly incapable of giving anything of himself into a sustained relationship? She chewed her lip thoughtfully. If raw sex was all he could ever offer, could she settle for that, for being only a minor part of his life? But then, sex with Hugh hadn’t been raw, even if he had intended it to be so. He had tempered its heat with consideration and unselfishness. He had loved her with his body … surely at some level he was capable of loving her with his mind? She longed to make him happy, to bring him smiles and laughter, to fill the clinical corners of his carefully structured life with warmth. She wanted to drive away for even the grim emptiness that she had glimpsed in his face last night, as he turned her away.

  Julia made herself slow down as she prepared and then cleaned up after breakfast. The croissants were softly crisp from the oven, the kedgeree a creamy-hot concoction of savoury goodness, the waffles chewy and sweet. She ate a double-helping herself, to curb her impatience. Don’t push, she told herself.
Hugh hates to be pressured. Take it slow, marshal your arguments, slay him with logic if not love. There was no logical reason that she and Hugh shouldn’t become lovers.

  Monday was laundry day and Julia was washing up the last few dishes as Jean Brabbage sailed through the kitchen with another load of bed linen.

  ‘I may as well clean Mr Hugh’s room while I’m here,’ she commented as she came back. ‘I hate to disturb him while he’s at work so I’ll grab the chance while he’s away.’

  Julia almost dropped the glass bowl she was drying and stared, heart pounding, at the plump expanse of olive-green wool that stretched across the housekeeper’s back as she rummaged in the cleaning cupboard.

  ‘Away? Away where?’ she managed faintly.

  ‘Auckland, so Mrs Marlow says,’ said Jean, turning around. ‘Business.’ She sniffed. ‘I thought he was down here to avoid business.’

  ‘So did I,’ said Julia numbly. ‘For how long, do you know?’

  ‘Three or four days, I think.’ She bustled out of the room happily, unaware of Julia’s misery.

  Gone! And without even saying goodbye. The joy drained out of the day. Julia couldn’t imagine that Hugh had been driven away by what had happened last night, or rather, by what hadn’t happened. So it must just be an awful coincidence—an urgent call from his office perhaps. Or his publisher. There were dozens of possibilities, none of them likely to be you, Julia told herself sternly. The day-to-day business of the world didn’t stop just because Julia Fry had fallen in love!

  But when would she see him again? And what would she say? What would he say? Would things be the same between them, or different? Please, please don’t let us be back at square one, Julia agonised. Three or four days! The suspense was going to kill her. She could only hope that a few days away might result in Hugh’s discovery that he missed her. She clung to the thought.

  Whichever way her doubts carried her, she certainly didn’t expect what actually happened. Hugh arrived on Tuesday evening, an hour or so before dinner. Gathered in the lounge for drinks, the family heard the throaty purr of the Maserati in the driveway and looked expectantly at the door as footsteps sounded in the hallway. Julia put down her glass with a hand that trembled.

  It wasn’t Hugh, though, who came through the lounge door first. It was the elegantly groomed figure of Ann Farrow. Julia’s throat slammed closed and she struggled for breath.

  ‘My dear!’ Connie recovered herself first and rose regally from the couch, throwing an enquiring look at her son as he towered in the doorway. ‘How nice to see you again so soon.’

  ‘Ann’s staying for a few days, Connie,’ Hugh said meeting her eyes blandly. ‘I knew you wouldn’t mind my inviting her.’

  ‘Why, no, of course not,’ said Connie gamely, clinging determinedly to her self-possession. She looked helplessly at her husband, who raised an eyebrow, and back to Ann. ‘You can have the room next to us—Ros can move in with Olivia, can’t you, darling? Come and have a drink you two, it must be freezing outside. Sit down, Ann.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Ann’s voice was a cultured drawl and she moved with the self-confidence of beauty. She’s got hard eyes, though, thought Julia critically, as she watched Hugh guide his guest to the couch with a hand under her elbow. She felt outraged when he followed her down and the two of them sat, thighs touching, presenting a smugly combined front to the rest of the room.

  ‘Fortunately I don’t have any classes this week,’ Ann continued, sending Julia’s spirits into a further nosedive. ‘It’s nice to get away from the intensity of the campus now and then. When Hugh asked me to come down with him for a few days, naturally I couldn’t resist.’

  Naturally. Julia stared at her with dislike. She had never been jealous of anyone or anything before in her life, yet now the emotion seethed hotly inside her. She sat and slowly steamed as everyone gradually recovered their manners and filled the room with conversation, unable to utter a word. The way she felt, if she opened her mouth she would shriek like a fishwife. It was obvious to the meanest intelligence what Hugh was doing. He was making a definite statement. He had said that Julia wasn’t a subtle person, but what Hugh was doing wasn’t just unsubtle, it was downright cruel.

  He only met her gaze once, and Julia’s eyes shot cobalt sparks that were politely ignored. He even smiled slightly; the bastard! If anything it was that superficial smile that convinced Julia that she was right. He was brandishing Ann like a shield. Ann was of his world; Ann was a sensible, sophisticated woman, she wouldn’t embarrass a man with protestations of love. Hugh didn’t like scenes, but Julia was going to give him one. He needn’t think he could scare her off by flaunting another woman in her face. Julia didn’t scare easily.

  When he excused himself to take his luggage upstairs, Julia seized her chance, and muttered something about dinner. She caught him as he turned the first landing.

  ‘Hugh!’

  He half-turned, foot on the first of the next flight of stairs. ‘Julia?’

  She sought for an opening gambit. ‘Do you want me to come up after dinner? You must be behind with your schedule again by now.’ She hadn’t meant it to sound quite so accusing.

  ‘That won’t be necessary. Ann is going to do some proof-reading for me.’

  ‘Oh, so she came down here to work,’ said Julia sarcastically. ‘Why couldn’t I proof-read?’

  ‘Do you have a degree in English?’

  ‘I though she was a computer specialist.’

  ‘She also has an English degree.’

  ‘I suppose she can type too,’ Julia muttered sullenly.

  ‘No. But I can.’ He held up his hand and wiggled the healed fingers in proof. ‘So I think that we can now dispense with your valuable services.’ He took another step and Julia exploded against the door he was trying to shut in her face.

  ‘Now wait a minute, buster.’ She dashed up the stairs in front of him and whirled around to bar his way with her small figure. Their faces were on a level for once and it gave Julia a feeling of confidence. Hugh looked as calm as ever, but Julia sensed that he was braced against attack, the grey eyes wary. ‘I demand to know what is going on here!’

  The corners of his mouth turned down. ‘I’m taking my case up to my room. Any objection?’

  ‘Yes, I have an objection, several of them as a matter of fact,’ said Julia, incensed by his literalism, enough to plunge to the heart of the problem. ‘What did you bring her down for?’

  ‘If by her you mean Ann,’ he said, knowing she did, ‘why shouldn’t I? She’s a close friend of mine … she’s often helped me with my work. Must I now have permission from the household staff before I can invite my friends to visit me?’

  ‘Hah!’ Julia flung back her head in disbelief. ‘Sarcasm doesn’t become you, Hugh. Or are you ashamed to have sunk to the level of seducing servants?’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Julia,’ he said at his coldest, attempting to retrieve his mistake.

  ‘Yes isn’t it,’ she said sweetly. ‘Whatever you are you’re not a snob. So why the sudden coyness? You seduce me and then slink off like a thief in the night, and then come back with Miss Computer in tow. Is this another example of Mr G.B.H. Walton’s infamous morality?’

  ‘Let’s not debate who did what to whom …’ he began.

  ‘Who? Whom?’ Julia cut him off, swooping sarcastically. ‘There’s no need to be so careful with your grammar, I’m not the English scholar; I’m just a poor, ignorant cook. I’m not one of your cerebral types who can be fobbed off with fine words. I’m Julia. I’m me, and I don’t give up so easily.’ Her fierceness gave her stature, her determination an almost visible aura around her stiffly-held golden head.

  ‘There is nothing to give up,’ Hugh pointed out with clipped precision. ‘And you flatter yourself if you think that Ann’s presence has anything to do with you. The world doesn’t revolve around your rather unstable emotions, you know.’

  Julia wavered. It sounded nonsensical said out loud. Instinct
came to her aid. She was not a vain person but she knew, deep in her bones, that Hugh was strongly attracted to her. He was bluffing, and with his face he was a master of bluff.

  ‘I thought you said you came down here to work on your own … to get away from the pressures of your office? If you were so keen on having Miss Farrow’s help, why didn’t you ask her to stay last time she was here?’

  ‘I didn’t need her then. Frankly, Julia, I don’t see why I should be answerable to you for my actions.’

  ‘Don’t you just?’ Julia glared at him, baffled. ‘All I want is a straight answer.’ She tried a final dig: if you’re afraid of me, confront it … tell me I scare you to death.’

  ‘More Freud?’ he asked softly. ‘All right, have it your way, Julia. I’m scared to death of you …’ and, without a pause ‘… I hope you can stretch dinner to two extra.’ Leaving Julia open-mouthed behind him he took the rest of the stairs two at a time.

  Julia snapped her mouth shut. Very clever, Hugh Walton. She couldn’t quite grasp how he had eluded her. He had admitted his feat, but with such smooth insincerity that no one in their right mind would believe him. Unfortunately for him, Julia wasn’t in her right mind. She was in love.

  Over the next few days her love had to put up with great adversity. Ann fitted herself very neatly into the family circle. She would fit herself neatly into any situation, Julia thought sourly, for all her intelligence she had no real personality of her own, it had been honed almost out of existence.

  It was galling, though, to see what a perfect couple she and Hugh made—both tall and handsome, treating each other with the comfortable intimacy of long acquaintanceship. Julia couldn’t hope to compete with Ann on an intellectual level, that much was obvious from the long, obscure conversations that she and Hugh had indulged in over dinner, successfully excluding everyone else. Julia, back between the twins and now treated to a friendly camaraderie tinged, to her chagrin, with sympathy, felt like an ignorant clodhopper in comparison. It made her wonder whether Ann, with her sleek self-satisfaction, her slight air of hardness, might not be a better match for Hugh in the long run.