Impasse

by Margaret Pargeter

  To her consternation, Slade was there. He didn't let her in, there was a butler to do that, but he was in the lounge pouring drinks. Lee almost turned and ran when she caught sight of him, resplendent in full evening dress, his international playboy image well to the fore. During the course of the evening, Lee was to come to suspect that he had dressed magnificently on purpose to show her what she had given up, but in that moment his assured masculinity so took her breath away that she was unable to think of anything, except, perhaps, the rate her heart was beating.

  He regarded her silently, making no move to welcome her, and when she recovered sufficient poise to look around, she saw to her surprise that there were several other guests. Mrs Western, when Lee forced her numb legs in her direction, -murmured apologetically that Slade had invited some friends at the last minute, leaving Lee with no alternative but to smile and murmur, 'How nice!'

  Slade continued to stare at her so coldly that she feared it would be noticed. When he thrust a glass in her hands containing a drink she didn't immediately recognise, she wondered if it was poison. Certainly he looked just about as friendly. The other guests consisted of three couples whom she hadn't seen before. Before dinner had progressed very far, she discovered they were actually business associates, and she wondered why Slade had arranged for them to be here on this particular evening. It didn't take long before she thought she understood. These people weren't close friends, so the conversation had to be general. He had been determined to be here, himself, to see that Lee didn't corrupt Lydia or steal from her in any way, but he had resolved that it shouldn't be an intimate occasion.

  The only time a more personal note crept in was when one of the strangers mentioned touring in France, and Lydia, obviously becoming aware that Slade was excluding Lee as far as possible from the conversation, said quickly, 'Miss Moreau has relations in—the Dordogne, isn't it, Lee?'

  'Yes,' Lee smiled at the couple concerned. 'I haven't met them yet, but I did get as far as that a few years ago. Unfortunately I met with an accident.'

  'Were you badly injured?' the woman asked with a sympathetic glance. 'Traffic over there goes so fast!'

  Wishing she had never mentioned it, with Slade's glance suddenly rapier-sharp, Lee moved her head negatively and muttered something about losing her memory.

  'She's going back again,' Lydia jumped to her rescue. 'The next time we dine together, perhaps you'll be able to compare notes? Lee's father was French, but her mother was Belinda Farrell, the actress, you know.'

  Lee was the focus of attention now, she suspected much to Slade's chagrin. 'Oh, how marvellous!' a middle-aged blonde lady cried. 'I was a great fan of Miss Farrell's. I thought her last film, The Night the Rains Came, was wonderful. Of course she was very popular.'

  Someone else said, 'You resemble her, Miss Moreau, but I presume you don't act?'

  After a few more such queries, which Lee answered as best as she could, Slade changed the subject firmly. Lee sensed that he was angry with his mother for introducing it and impatient of the questions his guests were asking, but she refused to believe he was acting protectively.

  An hour later, when he was called to his study to take a call from the States, she decided to go home. She was disturbed by the way his eyes had seldom left her all evening and felt she could stay no longer. If he had looked at her kindly, she might have borne it, but the icy condemnation in his eyes left her cold and shivering. While he was otherwise engaged, she took the opportunity to escape.

  Lydia didn't want her to leave as early, but Lee had made up her mind. Quickly she kissed Lydia good night and said she would be in touch. Yet as she drove away, she couldn't help gazing through the rear mirror of her car at Slade's home and wondering what the future could hold for her without him.

  The next afternoon she called at The Willows with a pair of socks that Trigg had left behind. Dulcie didn't always make her welcome, but for once she seemed genuinely pleased to see her.

  'Thank goodness for someone to talk to!' she cried, dragging Lee inside when she would as soon have gone straight home. 'I had a terrible argument with George last night over Trigg—I just have to tell someone or burst!'

  Thinking it more than likely that Dulcie had already discussed it with half the neighbourhood, Lee allowed herself to be pushed into a chair and tried to look attentive. Trigg's parents were always quarrelling about him, she doubted if they'd ever agreed on anything concerning him since the day he was born. When Dulcie mentioned boarding school, however, Lee's ears pricked apprehensively. So it was that again!

  'We got some papers to sign,' Dulcie explained. 'I arranged everything, it's not as if George has had to bother, but instead of being grateful he thinks we should wait. Until I actually did something about it he was quite agreeable, but now he just refuses to see my point of view and I don't think he ever will.'

  Lee concealed a wry smile. George, like many men, chose the line of least resistance until cornered. 'Why don't you wait another year or two, as I've already suggested?' she advised discreetly. 'Then both George and Trigg might feel differently.'

  Dulcie jumped up and paced the room in agitation. 'Why can't you agree with me sometimes?'

  'I'm not taking sides,' Lee said patiently. 'I'm simply giving my opinion. But I do think a lot of Trigg—and you,' she added hastily.

  'Beats me why!' Dulcie retorted sharply, but Lee could see she was partly mollified. 'Ah, well,' she sighed, 'you might as well stay for a cuppa, now you're here. It won't take a second.'

  'And Trigg?' Lee asked tentatively, a little uneasy that Dulcie had changed the subject so quickly. He would be miserable at boarding school and she couldn't help feeling concerned.

  'I suppose I may as well forget it,' Dulcie sighed, then confessed rather sheepishly, 'I guess I'd really made up my mind before you arrived, but it's not easy to admit you're wrong and everyone else is right.'

  Lee left soon afterwards. She didn't feel so good, and Dulcie's lukewarm tea hadn't helped. It didn't make her feel any better, either, to find Slade in the drive when she got home. She knew her face was pale as she parked her car and walked towards him. What on earth did he want? She would have walked straight past him if he hadn't spoken.

  'Lee!' Savagely he leapt from the gleaming monster he drove and caught up with her. 'I've been waiting hours!'

  'Have you?' she answered distantly. He was biting words off in a way that made her feel distinctly nervous, but she tried to appear cool. Her heart seemed to be in her throat and a dizzying sensation was making her head spin. Again she wondered why he was here.

  He followed her inside without waiting for the invitation she didn't proffer. Lee stumbled into the kitchen, not turning until she reached the table. For a burning moment, as their eyes met she almost wilted under the sheer intensity of his gaze.

  'This isn't a social call,' he muttered thickly.

  She tried to resist an overwhelming desire to throw her arms around him, to confess how terrible the past weeks had been without him, but of course that was impossible. His attitude towards her hadn't changed, and she had her pride.

  'What do you want?' she breathed.

  'An explanation,' he replied curtly.

  She realised he was furious over something—but what? 'Would you mind explaining?' she asked carefully.

  'The explaining's for you to do,' he retorted sharply. 'I want to know exactly what happened in France after you left me!'

  Lee gasped as she recalled the remark she had made at dinner, the previous evening. All her life she had been too impulsive, you'd think at twenty-five she would have learned! Her remark must have seemed to Slade like a challenge he had to get to the bottom of. Yet what right had he to demand anything, when everything was over between them?

  'It's none of your business,' she muttered stubbornly. 'Anyway, why should I satisfy your idle curiosity?'

  'Idle curiosity!' he cursed under his breath. 'My God, Lee! Haven't you any idea what I went through in Paris after you left? I
was desperate to find you.'

  'You were?' A dazed kind of glow entered Lee's eyes.

  Suddenly he seemed aware of what he was saying and a cooler expression replaced the heat in his face. 'You were nineteen. Wouldn't that alone be a good enough reason to worry over you? I was thirty, remember.'

  So he had only been worried. 'You could have checked with Grandfather,' she said dully.

  Slade grasped her shoulders, his eyes murderous. 'I had already checked, without his knowledge, and saw no point in alarming him unduly.'

  'Your hired spies, I suppose?'

  'Don't look so scornful, Lee,' he snapped. 'They're sometimes necessary.'

  'So you decided I'd gone off with another man?'

  'Until,' his eyes darkened, 'we were together again.'

  She felt her heart thud violently as he stared at her, unreadable expressions chasing over his face. His throat moved, as if something had just rocked his deepest emotions. Was he remembering the tempestuous passion of their reunion, her confession that he was the only man she had ever known? A film of sweat broke out on his brow and she stared at it curiously.

  'Slade?'

  Ignoring the enquiring note in her voice, he rasped, 'So what was all that about losing your memory?'

  She sighed, feeling unequal to further defiance. 'I told you, I was trying to find my French relations. My mother always said she didn't like them, but I don't think she ever knew them, and after I left you I decided to look them up. I still owed you eighteen months and I thought if they took me in I would be safe.'

  He winced, his mouth tightening, as if he'd been hit somewhere where it hurt. 'And…?'

  'I'm not sure,' she confessed. 'I was hitch-hiking and it got dark. I only recall seeing some lights coming up behind me, then everything went black. The driver of whatever it was that hit me couldn't have seen me, because he didn't stop. I was found wandering by some people the next morning and they took me to the nuns in a nearby convent. I wasn't badly injured and they— the nuns, that is—looked after me until my memory returned. That's all.'

  'All!' His face darkened with the savage force of his emotions. 'You might have been killed!'

  'I'm sorry,' she said helplessly. 'I suppose I was young and foolish and didn't stop to think. After my memory returned I came back, and Grandfather was ill.'

  Slade drew a deep breath, as if trying to put some devastating picture behind him. Lee frowned as she noticed how pale he had gone. If she had been killed, did he believe he might have got the blame? For several minutes he didn't speak, then he said slowly, 'Matt mentioned that you'd nursed your grandfather?'

  'Julia and I together.'

  'Over a year.'

  Lee coloured faintly. 'It was the least I could do, after neglecting him for a year.' She raised eyes so clearly blue that there was no doubting her sincerity. 'I did nothing out of a sense of duty. I think Grandfather knew that and died content.'

  Slade was silent again, studying her with a mixed expression. 'Nursing an old man must have been quite a change for you?'

  She took the odd note in his voice for dryness and flinched. 'Six months in a convent hospital taught me a lot. The nuns were kind but strict. I learned a lot of things about nursing and caring for the sick. I also learned to recognise the difference between true values and false ones. I told you I'd changed.'

  'Not physically.'

  Her delicate features paled. 'Is that the only way you ever see me, Slade?'

  'No,' he denied curtly, clenching his hands. 'Lee,' he went on tautly, 'I've got something to ask you, but what time will your friends be back?'

  'They shouldn't be long.'

  While she was wondering why that seemed important, he appeared to reach a decision. 'When are you going to London? From what you were saying to Lydia, I gathered it's to be soon.'

  Where was the connection between the question he wanted to ask and her trip to London? 'Monday.'

  'How do you intend travelling?'

  'By car,' she frowned.

  'I'll take you,' he said firmly. 'I'll pick you up early. What I have in mind, I hope, will take the whole morning.'

  This frightened Lee somehow. 'I'd as soon drive myself.'

  He stared at her closely. 'You don't look fit enough.'

  'I'll be all right,' she protested. 'I caught a slight chill a week or two ago and it seems to have gone to my stomach. I'll get something at the chemist's tomorrow.'

  'You're far too thin as well,' he observed grimly, 'so don't argue. And I have to go to town on Monday, anyway. I have an appointment in the afternoon which I can't miss, so I'll pick you up about nine—'

  To Lee's stunned surprise he bent and kissed her as he said goodbye, but his departure was so swift that she had no chance to enquire what it was all about. He might have kissed her for many reasons—impulse being the most probable. Certainly, as he had left, his face had been too hard and strained to allow her to imagine anything between them had changed. Perhaps it was for Lydia's sake that he had decided to be more friendly. Maybe he thought that a pretence of friendship might arouse his mother's antagonism less than outright enmity. Lee sighed as she began preparing dinner. Friendship from a man was cold comfort when she wanted his love.

  When the casserole she was preparing was safely in the oven, she rang Mrs Western to thank her for what she had to pretend had been a lovely evening, and Lydia was inclined to chat.

  'It's so nice having someone to talk to. Slade's been busy all day. He's having important discussions with some Middle East delegates about electronics and I don't expect to see much of him all weekend. Then on Monday, I believe he has another meeting with one of them in London. I was telling him he works far too hard. Like you, he's getting far too thin.'

  It seemed the unanimous verdict, Lee thought wryly, as Lydia rang off, but how could she eat when her appetite was non-existent and even the sight of food made her feel sick? She blamed the cold she'd had, but she didn't know about Slade. He had always worked too hard; his mother was probably right.

  The weekend passed slowly. Julia and Nigel went off until the Tuesday evening to visit Julia's parents, while Sandra had arranged to stay with Matt's parents for a few days to give his mother another break as his father was ill again. Lee wasn't lonely, but the house seemed empty, as it always did when she was by herself in it. She could have gone out or had some friends in, but she couldn't find the necessary energy. On Sunday she decided she would spend at least one night in London. There was shopping she could do. It would be fun. She tried to whip up enthusiasm. She might even have her hair done.

  She was still not sure what to make of Slade's offer to take her, but she wasn't looking forward to it. They wouldn't be good company for each other and she wished he hadn't suggested it.

  On Sunday, before she went to bed, she set her alarm for seven the next morning, intending to be up and away before he arrived. She didn't trust herself not to make a fool of herself if she had to spend even an hour alone with him, and felt she would rather suffer his anger than her own inevitable humiliation.

  But as soon as she got out of bed on Monday, she knew she wouldn't be going anywhere; she felt too ill. She sat still, hoping she was mistaken, but whenever she tried to move her stomach heaved. Her head ached as well and she couldn't stop trembling. Unhappily she crawled back under the sheets, thinking if she stayed there for a while she might be able to get downstairs and make a cup of tea.

  The tablets she had got from the chemist couldn't have worked, though she had felt better yesterday. Weakly she watched the curtains wafting on the breeze coming in through the open window. Before she left she must remember to check the windows. Autumn was upon them and there were bound to be a few storms.

  The weather looked far from promising, this morning. Nothing looked promising this morning, she thought dully, falling into a fitful doze.

  When she woke again, she lay for a minute, then determinedly dragged herself out of bed and downstairs to the kitchen. It was after eight an
d she still felt terrible. She wished she could contact Slade, to tell him not to call, but where would he be? There was a chance that he might have changed his mind and not turn up.

  Deciding to trust he wouldn't, she boiled the kettle and put a coffee bag in a cup. Coffee seemed to help her more than tea, lately. Then she made some toast, but though she was determined to eat it, she found herself still sitting staring at it ten minutes later.

  The knock on the door startled her, yet she knew it could only be Slade. Panic struck her, though she had been expecting him, and she went unsteadily to answer it. He was wearing a grey three-piece suit and looked so smart that she felt like a tramp by comparison and wished she could sink through the floor.

  'I've decided against going to London,' she muttered, as he frowned. 'Neither of them said good morning.

  'What's wrong, Lee?' Slade asked abruptly.

  'Nothing,' she bluffed. 'Can't a girl change her mind?'

  'Not the way you're doing it,' he snapped, his eyes all over her. 'You look ill.'

  She hugged her thin robe about her tightly. 'I—I'm sorry, I slept in. I didn't realise the time, but I'm definitely not going. I'll post my manuscript.'

  'Hi, not so fast!' he rasped as she began closing the door. 'Do you really think I could go anywhere with you like this? What the devil's wrong with you, anyway, Lee? You're like a scarecrow and your face hasn't any colour. You used to be able to go practically night and day without any sleep. There has to be some reason for such a change!'

  Lee's mouth set sulkily. 'I've still got plenty of energy most of the time—and I can do without such flattering remarks!'

  'You're getting them, all the same,' he snapped, pushing her inside and slamming the door. 'Where were you, or can't you remember?'

  'In the kitchen.' She stared at him resentfully through the thick curtain of her red hair and flinched when he grabbed hold of a brush lying on the hall table and with a few quick strokes restored it to order. 'That's better,' he said more gently. 'Now lead on, Delilah.'