by Penny Jordan
Alone in the drawing room, Tamara suppressed the waves of hysterical laughter bubbling up inside her.
Of all the cruel ironies of fate! Zachary Fletcher a close neighbour of Malcolm’s parents. She and Zachary Fletcher facing one another across Mrs Mellors heavy Victorian dining table making polite conversation; Zachary Fletcher, who had promised he would never tell her fiancé what had happened. Zachary Fletcher, who must not discover that she had broken her engagement in case he thought it was because she expected something from him!
CHAPTER SEVEN
ZACHARY here! Even now Tamara could hardly believe it. She knew he had arrived, because she had heard the purr of a car across the gravel outside and then the ring of the front doorbell.
She had spent the day in a constant state of tension; it was just as well that neither of Malcolm’s parents were in the least perceptive, otherwise they must have surely realised that something was wrong.
She and Malcolm had gone for a walk after lunch—the Mellors were firm believers in the beneficial effect of fresh air and Tamara had been urged outside to ‘get some colour back into her face,’ as Malcolm’s mother put it, adding rather maliciously that perhaps it was the new make-up Tamara was affecting that had had such a disastrous result on her complexion.
Tamara had bitten hard on her tongue and told herself that this was the last weekend she would have to spend with Malcolm’s parents and surely she could endure it without quarrelling with them. A walk had been the last thing she had felt like after lunch—in point of fact she had felt decidedly queasy. The Mellors were fond of rich food and Tamara had noticed a tendency to nausea since her return from the Caribbean and put it down to the after-effects of her illness. The island doctor had explained to her that the poison injected by the spider had very similar properties to modern paralysing drugs, combined with a powerful numbing effect similar to a tranquilliser. He had also made it frighteningly clear to her just how close she had come to losing her life; telling her that if it hadn’t been for Zachary’s prompt action she would have died.
And now, having told herself that it was over and that he was gone from her life, she was to see him again. The very thought was enough to make her fingers tremble violently as she tried to apply her make-up.
Oh God, she thought wearily, she could not go down there and face him. She couldn’t! But she had to. If she disappeared now and by some mischance Zach mentioned that he too had been on St Stephen’s at the same time as she had been there, Malcolm was bound to put two and two together and come to the conclusion that her departure—and possibly the termination of their engagement—had something to do with Zach, and Tamara could not bear that to happen. If was bad enough having to cope with the anguish of knowing that Zach despised her, without having him realise that she had fallen in love with him.
And so, she forced herself to concentrate on the task of applying her make-up as Pierre had so painstakingly taught her—not make-up but warpaint, she thought half hysterically. Warpaint to make her look braver than she was.
The Mellors were sticklers for punctuality and knowing this Tamara was ready on the dot of eight, wearing her new silver-lavender dress, her face carefully made up and her nails frosted a soft rose, her hair cascading to her shoulders in a sleek bell.
In the doorway she paused and then re-traced her steps, with a final flourish of bravado spraying the outrageously expensive perfume she had bought for herself on the pulse points at her wrists, throat and the backs of her knees, and then as a last thought picked up a silver mesh shawl to drape round her shoulders, as she knew from chilly experience that the Mellors were careful of their heating bills and often the large drawing room could be almost cold, especially when one was sitting down.
The others were already in the drawing room. Tina, the girl from the village who came up to help Mrs Briggs with the cooking and serve the meals when the Mellors entertained, was proffering a glass of sherry to Zach, her expression almost fatuously bemused.
No one had seen Tamara yet and she had a cowardly impulse to leave now and damn the consequences, and then Malcolm looked up and came towards her. Formal clothes became his rather too solid frame, his fair hair gleaming under the lights.
‘Ah, there you are, darling!’ he exclaimed, curving her towards him with an unexpectedly proprietorial air. ‘Umm, you smell nice, what is it?’
‘L’Heure Bleue,’ Tamara replied automatically, her eyes leaping the chasm that lay beyond herself and Zach, her feelings clearly betrayed in them for a brief second before she caught herself up and turned away to accept a glass of dry sherry from Tina, with a composure that half of her unwillingly admired while the other half stood aside and mocked that it could not possibly last.
‘What a pretty frock, my dear,’ Malcolm’s mother exclaimed, ‘and such an unusual colour. I don’t believe I’ve seen you wearing it before. In my day engaged girls didn’t work as they do nowadays, of course, but I can still remember saving my pin money to buy things for my bottom drawer. Of course, things are very different now …’
How would she have felt if she genuinely loved Malcolm? Tamara wondered wryly. As mothers-in-law went, hers would certainly have been a formidable adversary.
‘Zachary,’ Colonel Mellors interrupted, ‘let me introduce you to our daughter-in-law to be. Tamara my dear, meet Zachary Fletcher, one of our closest neighbours.’
‘Mr Fletcher.’
Again she marvelled at the even tone of her voice; at the cool steadiness of her fingers as they barely touched Zach’s, her eyes sliding warily away.
‘Tamara—I’m afraid I shall have to call you that as Colonel Mellors hasn’t told me your surname.’
There was mockery and something else—less kind—a kind of hard inflexibility underlining the words, but no one else seemed to be aware of the suddenly charged atmosphere which was to colour the entire evening like a tautly drawn glittering thread in a skein of dull grey wool.
Merely his presence was like an electric charge, Tamara admitted when they went into the dining room.
Malcolm’s parents were talking about the iniquities of income tax, and the problems of leaving one’s possessions to one’s families.
‘Of course, Malcolm will take over from us here one day. Mellors have owned this land since the time of Queen Victoria.’
‘And how does Tamara feel about living in the country?’ Zach asked carelessly, his question voiced to the Colonel, but his eyes on Tamara herself.
‘Oh, she knows that Malcolm would simply not countenance living anywhere else,’ Mrs Mellors cut in before anyone else could speak. ‘And of course it is still a woman’s duty to live her husband’s life rather than vice versa.’
‘Whither thou goest?’ Zach quoted, his eyes still on Tamara’s faintly flushed face. ‘An ideological and often impossible belief. You have no career, then, Tamara? No ambitions of your own?’
He was deliberately trying to goad her, Tamara realised with a sudden shock of pain that even now after all that had happened he was still trying to hurt her.
‘There’s no need for Tamara to have ambitions,’ Malcolm’s mother told Zach firmly. ‘Of course it’s a pity that she refuses to hunt.’ Having turned the conversation on to the topic which was the purpose of the meal, all three Mellors now discussed the merits of hunting enthusiastically, breaking off now and again to ask Zach’s opinion, which was always given in a pleasant but carefully noncommittal tone, which told them nothing, either of his personal views or his intentions with regard to the hunt’s access over his land.
‘Well, I suggest that we males retire to my study with the port,’ the Colonel declared genially when the meal drew to a close. ‘It will give the girls a chance to make wedding plans, eh, Tamara?’
Needless to say they did nothing of the kind, in fact Mrs Mellors sedulously avoided the subject, and it gave Tamara a certain amount of grim satisfaction to know that little though she realised it, Mrs Mellors was about to be granted her greatest wish.
‘Yes, I’m sure you’re right, Colonel, and far be it from me to spoil any man’s sport, but I have plans for my land which do not include the hunting of foxes all over it.’
Upstairs in her room Tamara started to prepare for bed, running her bath while she started to undress. The silk jersey dress fell to the floor, where she let it lie unregarded. Coming into the room afresh, she had caught the elusive echo of her own fragrance, and was startled by its alien sophistication and the image it projected; the image which was now hers.
It there was one thing and one thing alone she had gained from knowing Zach, it was the sheer pleasure of sensuality. Her silk camiknickers had been another frivolous present to herself. She had read that they were all the rage in America, where for some reason they referred to them as ‘teddies.’ These were silver grey to match the sheer silk stockings she had bought to wear with her new dress. She was just starting to clean off her make-up when she heard the tap of her door, and picking up her robe from the bed, she went to open it. The last thing she wanted now was an argument with Malcolm. The headache which had originally been fiction was fast becoming fact.
As she opened the door she said wearily, ‘Oh, Malcolm, please—not tonight …’
‘My, my, things have changed since St Stephen’s!’ came the drawling taunt from the doorway, as Zachary Fletcher stepped across it.
If an evening suit became Malcolm, it turned Zach into a virile demigod. Tamara stepped back instinctively, panic fluttering in the pit of her stomach as she acknowledged the danger he represented to her fragile defences.
‘You’re certainly a creature of surprises,’ Zach continued, stepping past her into the room and turning to close the door, which he then proceeded to lean against, effectively blocking her exit, arms folded across his chest. ‘What happened? Or can I guess? Having lost your virginity to me, you had to discover some other means of keeping Malcolm interested, so you swopped from innocence to world-weary experience, and he, poor fool, couldn’t tell that your newly found “experience” was gained in the arms of another man. Clever, aren’t you, but a word of warning. Your estimable mama-in-law to be isn’t fooled, and she doesn’t want to see you married to her one and only.’
‘It’s what Malcolm and I want that matters,’ Tamara flung at him tightly, anger superseding the shock his words had originally caused her.
‘And Malcolm wants you? No wonder!’ Zach drawled insultingly. ‘Dressed like that you’re every adolescent’s dream of a centre-fold come to life.’
The sound of her palm across his jaw filled the room, leaving Tamara white and sick, hating herself for the violence he had forced her into.
‘Oh, come on,’ Zach mocked, ignoring the red flush marking the brown skin. ‘What did you have in mind? A little visual titillation to follow up that bored, “Not tonight?” I’ll just bet the poor so-and-so doesn’t even know what’s hit him. He’s the type that thinks women come in two varieties—the ones you marry and the ones you go to bed with. No doubt he thinks he’s got the bargain of the decade in you—both in one sweet-smelling, tantalisingly wrapped package. So tantalising in fact that I’m tempted to unwrap a little of it myself.’
‘Get out!’ Tamara snapped at him through gritted teeth. ‘Just get out of here!’
This was a thousand times worse than anything she had visualised even in her worst moments; despite the smiling lips the jade eyes were as cold and empty as glass. Tamara could sense within him an unrelenting anger, and it was that that made her retreat, trying not to betray the effect he had upon her.
‘When I’m ready,’ he told her softly, adding almost conversationally, ‘Do you know that since I made love to you there hasn’t been a day when I haven’t regretted robbing your husband-to-be of the privilege of being the “first.” I even wondered if what had happened between us might somehow make you feel guilty enough to break off your engagement—it isn’t unknown. But I needn’t have worried, need I, Tamara? A scheming little bitch like you soon found a way to turn circumstances to her own advantage.’
‘Scheming? I prefer to think of myself as resourceful,’ Tamara lied tightly. ‘Why did you come up here? So that you could self-righteously denounce me to Malcolm?’
‘What’s the matter? Frightened he might break the engagement if I do?’ Zach sneered.
His contempt seemed to unleash a reckless torrent of rage inside Tamara, so strong that she no longer cared what she risked; what she did.
‘What makes you think Malcolm would want to break it?’ she threw at him tauntingly. ‘Perhaps he prefers me more with the experience than he did without it!’
The whole of Zach’s body seemed to stiffen and harden, and through her elation at having at last got through to him Tamara felt the first beginnings of prickling fear.
‘Well, in that case,’ he murmured smoothly, ‘perhaps I ought to give you some more.’
He moved so quickly that she hadn’t a chance of escape. Her robe was thrust ruthlessly aside, his fingers biting into her shoulders as his mouth came down on hers in a savagely brutal kiss, the touch of his hands on her body, drawing whimpers of pain into a throat raw with tears, her mind reeling from the knowledge that this was the reverse coin of the passion they had shared before; this was passion with a sadistic face, and yet mindlessly her body still responded to its primitive call, her hands locking behind Zachary’s neck, her slim form pressing pleadingly against the hard muscles of his.
When he wrenched his mouth away they were both trembling; Zach with anger, and Tamara with desire.
‘You little bitch,’ he said thickly. ‘You enjoyed that, didn’t you?’
Sickly Tamara stared at him, knowing that even if she wanted to she could never make him understand. Her mind knew that he had deliberately insulted and degraded her, but her body knew only that his was the touch it craved and could make no distinction between punishment and pleasure.
‘Tamara, can I come in?’
She froze as she heard Malcolm’s voice, and reached unsteadily for her robe, avoiding the curling mouth and hard eyes of the man watching her, suddenly remembering that she had left the bath water running.
‘Just a moment,’ she called back, hurrying into the bathroom to turn off the tap, before going to open her bedroom door. Let Zach make whatever excuses he wanted for being in her room; she no longer cared; no doubt he thought to humiliate her and hurt her as well, but the only person he would hurt was Malcolm, and little though she wanted that to happen she knew enough about her ex-fiancé to know that the blow would be to his pride rather than his emotions.
‘I wanted to talk to you about last night,’ Malcolm began as he walked in, then the sudden shock of discovering Zachary leaning against the wall was enough to produce a silence and then a heavy frown as he looked first at Zach and then at Tamara herself.
‘What …’
‘I asked your mother which was Tamara’s room,’ Zach explained smoothly. ‘She left this downstairs.’ Miraculously he produced the gauzy scarf which Tamara had indeed left downstairs, ‘and I was just returning it to her.’
‘I can’t think why Mother didn’t simply say she would return the scarf to you,’ Malcolm complained when they were alone. ‘Odd sort of chap, don’t you think? Now, Tam, about last night,’ he began again when Tamara made no response.
‘There’s nothing to say,’ she told him firmly. ‘Our engagement is off, Malcolm, and if you’re honest with yourself, you’ll admit that it’s best that way.’
She compounded the unpleasantness of the weekend by over-sleeping on Sunday morning, and so missing church. Malcolm’s mother made her disapproval plain when they returned, adding that once Malcolm and Tamara came to live in the Cotswolds, it would be Tamara’s duty to set the villagers
an example by going to church. All in all Tamara was not sorry to return to the solitude of her own flat.
She had given Malcolm his ring back in the car. He made no suggestion that they should meet again or that Tamara should reconsider, and she guessed that he would soon find solace elsewhere—possibly with the far more suitable Karen.
The main topic of the return journey to London had, to Tamara’s dismay, been Zach.
Malcolm appeared to have taken a violent dislike to him, for some reason that Tamara could not fathom. From Malcolm she learned that Zach had recently inherited his uncle’s estate and the large house that went with it.
‘He just isn’t our sort,’ Malcolm complained. ‘His mother was on the stage.’ Malcolm made it sound an unpardonable lapse of taste. ‘And the last thing we heard about him was that he was in the Army.’
‘Well, surely your father approved of that,’ Tamara interposed.
‘I suppose he would have done if he’d made anything of it, but he got chucked out, and ever since then he’s been bumming around.’
Tamara wondered what Malcolm would say if she told him that far from ‘bumming around’ as Malcolm so contemptuously accused, Zach had been with the S.A.S., but wisely she refrained from doing so.
* * *
On the Monday morning when she got up for work, a wave of giddiness almost made her lose her balance, and the thought of food of any kind was totally nauseating.
Tamara blamed it on the tension of the weekend, and the heavy food she had eaten.
Nigel remarked that she looked too pale for someone who had been away on holiday and told her that she ought to get her doctor to check her over.