'You can't back out of your marriage now; you'd hurt Baba too much,' she said.
'It would hurt her a damn sight more to be married to me when I love you. '
'She mustn't know.'
'You can't be serious,' he said, sitting up in a violent movement, his body stiff with denial.
'Love doesn't last for ever, you could fall out of love with me one day. ' Each word hurt, but she made herself say them.
'I think I fell in love with you the minute I saw you…'
'The first time you saw me you didn't even notice what I looked like,' she said, and he stared at her angrily. ‘We met in New York last autumn and you haven't even remembered…'
Luke looked confused. 'Last autumn? Did we? When?
'We weren't introduced,' she told him. 'I noticed you—but you certainly didn't even look twice at me.'
'That doesn't alter anything,' he said. 'Judith, I love you now.'
Judith was making herself think about Baba when she really wanted to hear Luke say again that he loved her; the words still beat in her ears, in her bloodstream, she had never thought she would ever hear him say that to her. She still couldn't quite believe he meant it, it was so hard to believe, but she couldn't refuse to believe in the tension she saw in his face, the piercing angularity of his facial bones beneath the damp brown skin. Luke was serious, he hadn't just been flirting with her when he kissed her just now; if he had smiled or tried to go on making love to her she might have doubted him, but his voice was so harsh and strained, he was so angry and miserable. That look on his face was the truth; there was no mistaking it.
'I don't know whether love lasts for ever or not,' Luke said fiercely, 'I only know it isn't possible for me to marry Baba now. She's too nice for me to do that to her—I'd really be cheating her if I went through with marrying her. It's my fault; I went into our engagement without meaning a damn thing I said to her. I thought it was enough to enjoy being with her, I didn't expect there were ever be anything else. I was ready to settle for second best, I thought I'd make her happy and that that was all that mattered. If I'd known… but I didn't, how could I have guessed that you were just around the next corner?'
'Don't!' Judith said sharply, getting up abruptly. She wanted to hear what he was saying, but she wanted it too much, her own intensity frightened her.
Luke leapt up too and caught her before she could move; his arms round her. She felt the heavy beating of hi heart against her breasts; her body shuddered in his nearness.
'I'm a different person now,' he told her. 'Before I met you my whole life was like a millpond, nothing bothered me, it was so peaceful and ordinary. I had it all neatly arranged; I went to the office in my car every morning and had meetings with people or went through business with my secretary. I read my paper and over lunch I talked to whoever I was with, then I went back to the office and got on with more work, and I went home and showered and changed and had dinner, in or oat. Theatres, board-rooms, planes to the States or Switzerland or Tokyo. Every day I was busy and every day it was the same; nothing stirred on the surface of my millpond. I was perfectly contented. The only flaw in my life was that I'd never got around to getting married, so I decided to do something about that. I wanted children, I promised my mother I'd give her same grandchildren. It seemed simple enough. Find a nice girt marry her and get on with living the way I always had. As soon as I started looking around I saw Baba and thought: she'll do.' He moved his cheek slowly against Judith's wet hair. 'It serves me right for being such an arrogant, stupid fool. I wasn't really bothered whether Baba loved me or not; she was suitable, she'd do, I'm rich, I can buy whatever I want. That's how I thought, and I deserve the trouble I've bought myself.'
'I won't argue with that,' Judith said huskily. She was aching to put her arms round his neck, she didn't want him to talk, she wanted him to touch her and she was longing to touch him, her hands were trembling with a desire to stroke his strong face, move over the muscular tanned chest which was touching her.
'You hit my millpond like a tidal wave—I'm still crashing about, ' Luke told her, his arms tightening. 'I guess I knew I loved you when we were playing croquet here that day; when you laugh it makes me feel so crazily happy. I didn't want that day to end. I didn't want you to go. While I've been away I've counted the hours until I could ring you again; hearing your voice was the only thing that kept me from flying back here and abandoning the negotiations. I'd have offended those guys over there and blown a hole right in the middle of my current plans, but if I hadn't been able to talk to you every day I'd have risked all that and come back to you.'
'Luke, don't,' she whispered. 'This isn't doing any good; the fact is you're engaged to Baba, she has no idea you aren't in love with her, and even if you did break off your engagement, I couldn't possibly marry you—Baba would never forgive me, I'd never forgive myself for having stolen you from her.'
He put a hand under her chin, forcing her head up so that he could see her face. 'You can't steal what never belonged to her in the first place. I didn't love her.'
'She doesn't know that. She thinks you do—and she loves you; she told me she was crazy about you.'
Luke's face paled and stiffened.
'Baba would be so hurt,' Judith said unhappily. 'I couldn't do that to her, Luke. I'd never be able to live with it. I'm just not that sort of person. My conscience would give me no peace, we wouldn't be happy.'
'Darling,' he muttered, the word pleading, forced out of him and so deep that his voice sounded agonised.
'Let me go, Luke,' she asked as levelly as she could. The physical contact was torture, she couldn't take any more of it.
He looked at her in silence for a moment, his fingers biting into the soft skin under her chin.
'I must go,' she whispered. 'I must.'
'Not yet,' Luke said thickly. His head lowered, his mouth met hers with a demand she couldn't fight off and, in spite of her attempt to remain passive under that angry kiss, she felt her lips parting, quivering in response. The next second her eyes were closing, her body melting in a pleasure whose intensity defeated all her reasoned defences against him.
This will be the last time, she told herself; never again. Giving herself that promise made it disastrously easy for her to give in to her own feelings; she touched Luke at last, openly caressing the strong shoulders and powerful chest. An arm slid round his neck, she curved closer, stroking the ends of his thick hair where they lay damply against the nape of his neck. Luke slid her strap down and she felt his hand take possession of her naked breast; her skin burned as he touched it, the warm flesh filling with excited blood, and an intense sexual hunger ran through her entire body. Trembling, she pulled her head back, almost too breathless to speak, shaking her head as she pulled up her bikini strap again. 'No; Luke, no!'
His hands dropped away, she heard him breathing audibly, sharply. Judith walked away unsteadily. It seemed to take her years to get back to the house; Luke didn't follow her. She went upstairs and got changed, brushed her hair slowly with a shaking hand and put on some new make-up. Before she drove back to London she would have to say goodbye to Mrs Doulton and she didn't know how she was going to face her; she was terrified that Luke's mother might be able to read what had just happened in her face. It was a terrible relief to find Fanny lurking about outside Mrs Doulton's room and be told in a sulky voice that Mrs Doulton was asleep.
'Will you give her my love and say I had to get back? ' Judith asked with a pretence of calm.
Fanny grudgingly agreed. Judith turned away from the other woman's sharp eyes. Fanny had stared at her; she couldn't guess, of course, how should she? But Judith felt uneasy under that penetrating stare.
She drove back to London much faster than she normally drove; she wanted to be sure of getting back before Luke could catch up with her. She didn't think he would follow, but she wasn't a hundred per cent sure about it and she was in no fit state to face any more confrontation. Next time she might not have the courage
to walk away.
Her flat seemed small and very quiet. She sat curled up on her bed for a few moments, thinking about Luke; it was still too new, too unbelievable, to be thought about without numb incredulity. Everything he had said, every look in his face, had been burned into her memory, it might be all she had to carry with her into a blank future. She put her hands over her face. He loves me, she thought. It can't be true, I want it to be true so much—her heart turned over and over, she was one minute icy cold, the next feverishly hot. Judith had spent her whole life forcing herself to accept reality, she wasn't ready, now, to believe that dreams could become reality. In her mind there was a sharp division between the two of them—dreams were moonlit passages between day and day, they were the secret crevices of the mind where she hid what she would not think about in her waking hours. For weeks now she had met Luke in her stupid dreams and woken up to know just what a fool she was, how could she allow herself to accept that he was, after all, within her reach? She could be happy—if she chose, but only by taking happiness from someone else. The price was too high.
It was dusk, almost night, and the moths began to tap at the windows as she switched on the light and forgot to draw the curtains. Her thoughts fluttered helplessly, like that, trying to force their way through the implacable glass between pain and joy.
To make herself feel normal, she rang her grandmother. 'Did you have a good day in Kent?' Mrs Murry asked, completely unaware of the turmoil inside Judith.
'It was quite hot,' Judith told her. 'They have a swimming pool—we all swam.'
'We? I thought you said Mrs Doulton was bedridden.'
'Her daughter Angela was there, with her husband and their children. She's expecting a third baby.' Judith talked about Angela for a while, her voice was still breathless and shaky, but she hoped her grandmother might not pick that up.
'What exactly is wrong with Mrs Doulton?' Mrs Murry asked.
'I'm not sure—she has a very weak heart, she told, me. but she also has some sort of hip trouble, I think she had an operation on her hip a few months ago and it went wrong. She doesn't talk about her illness much and I don't like to ask too many questions. She's always so cheerful and lively, it's hard to believe she's seriously ill, but Luke…' She stopped because even saying his name had dangers, she was afraid of what she might betray to her grandmother.
'When does he get back from Australia?' asked Mrs Murry, and Judith moistened her dry lips before she replied.
'He's back.' She tried to sound casual. 'Got back today. '
'Oh, he was down there, was he?' her grandmother asked in a quick, sharp voice.
'Yes. '
'How much longer is Baba going to be away?' Mrs Murry asked. What was she thinking? Judith hated to imagine.
'No idea. Ruth hasn't heard from her.'
'I don't understand young people today; they seem to behave in a very offhand way. Those two hardly seem to have seen each other since they got engaged; Baba shot off almost at once. It looks to me as though this is going to be a very long-distance marriage.'
Judith murmured something vague and a moment later rang off. She wasn't hungry, she couldn't concentrate on her work, she made herself watch television for an hour, but once she was in bed couldn't remember anything she had seen. It had been so much moving wallpaper for her to stare at blankly while her mind relived those moments down by the swimming pool. Catching herself at it, she grew angry. She must not let herself think about it, about Luke; she must put all such thoughts out of her head. If she gave in to her own craving to remember his mouth, his hands, the way he had looked at her, she would only be storing up trouble for herself later. Love was like an insidious disease, you didn't fight it by giving in to it; you drove it out using every weapon you had; however unpleasant the cure, the disease was far worse.
When she went in to work next day she was coldly tired; she hadn't slept and-she knew it showed. Her dark eyes had shadows under them, her mouth lay in a weary curve. She was dreading seeing Luke, she trembled as she got up to their floor in the building, expecting him to emerge from his office or walk into her own at any moment.
Her secretary, Janice, came in with a pile of post and put it in Judith's in-tray with a smile. 'Good morning, Miss Murry. Did you know that Mr Doulton's back? He left a message to say he was taking the Christopher meeting himself and you needn't show up. He should be back around three, he said. He has a lunch appointment with Sir Henry Morton and he'll raise that matter of the platinum shares then.' Janice looked up from her notebook, having read that from her shorthand. 'So you've got the morning free.'
'Is this what you call freedom?' Judith asked drily, lifting the dozens of letters from her in-tray. 'We might as well go through these now—sit down, Janice.'
Janice pulled a chair forward and sat down. She was a slim, attractive girl of twenty-two with smooth brown hair and blue eyes; not particularly pretty but with a lively smile which could make her seem pretty at times. She was always calm and cheerful, her job wasn't very important to her, Judith had gathered, she planned to get married in a year or so to a trainee architect with whom she had been going out for years. They had been at school together. Judith didn't get the impression that Janice was madly in love, but she was quietly happy with her young man.
They worked for an hour on the letters, then the phone rang and Janice answered it. Looking up, she said softly: 'It's Mr Howell from Span Plastics, he's been trying to talk to Mr Doulton for days, he says. Will you talk to him?'
Judith considered her thoughtfully. 'No, tell him I'm in a meeting.’ Span was one of the companies Luke was currently buying into and she knew that his appearance on their horizon had put the fear of God into the board: she did not want to discuss Luke's plans with one of the directors.
Luke's chief accountant came in to see her just before lunch, a box folder in his arms. 'Time to go through these with me?’ he enquired hopefully, and she made a wry face.
‘What is it?’ Ralph Golding was a persistent man obsessed with figures and graphs; he had been working with Luke for years and had spent five years over in the States familiarising himself with that side of Doulton-Klein. He was very definitely a power in the organisation and he knew it; Judith had rapidly realised that she had to get Ralph on her side if she wasn't to have trouble.. Like any large organisation, Doulton-Klein was split into various lobbies who each had particular axes to grind and who pursued petty vendettas with each other in subtle ways which made them hard to pin down and defeat. Judith had met that sort of thing before at the bank she had worked at until she joined Luke; she knew the wisdom of staying neutral if you could.
'I'm just taking soundings,' Ralph said smoothly, sitting down and opening his box folder. 'Trying this out on people before I take it to Luke—best to iron out all the problems first and it helps to get a new eye on the subject.'
Judith looked grimly at her own work, then pushed it aside. 'Go ahead,' she said with as much calm as she could muster. She couldn't afford to offend Ralph.
By the time he left she only had half an hour for lunch, she sent Janice out for some sandwiches and fruit and ate at her desk. Janice was gone over an hour, she was meeting her fiancé.
Judith had a meeting that afternoon. Luke wasn't involved and it was nearly six before she went back to her office. Janice was just covering her typewriter. She gave Judith a sympathetic smile.
'You look worn out.'
'I am—any messages?'
'Mr Doulton dropped by, I told him where you were and he said it wasn't important, he'd catch you tomorrow. Span Plastics rang again, so did Mr Wilkins…' Janice ran through a long list of telephone calls and Judith nodded, making an occasional note on her pad when a call had to be returned quickly.
When Janice finished Judith asked: 'Letters go off okay?'
'Yes—was there anything you wanted before I left?'
Judith shook her head. 'I'm going home myself shortly. See you tomorrow, Janice.'
'If I were you
I'd have a long bath and go to bed,' Janice told her. 'You're tired, anyone can see that, you need a good night's sleep.'
'I'll make sure I get one,' Judith said drily. Janice smiled at her and went, and Judith sat down behind her desk, contemplating the mass of folders she should take home and study. She had never felt less like work in her life. She had kept thoughts of Luke at bay by working herself into the ground; now she felt dead.
She debated whether to take the paperwork home or leave it, then with a sigh knew she had to take it—she still hadn't caught up with all the ramifications of her job and if she left the outer limits of it untouched she probably wouldn't ever quite understand what was going on in the organisation.
That night she drugged herself to sleep with massive doses of work. When she put the light out at eleven she felt like a zombie and fell asleep almost at once, slept heavily all night and woke up when her alarm went off with a shriek that sent her leaping out of bed before she even knew she was awake. Dazedly she stumbled into the kitchen, put on the kettle, trudged into the bathroom and showered in half-cold water that at least opened her eyes fully, towelled herself vigorously and went to get dressed, after she had rushed to the kitchen to make some tea. When she sat down to eat a slice of toast and a boiled egg she felt more human. Her copy of the Financial Times arrived as she was eating her egg; she was able to read its pink pages while she was drinking her tea and nibbling some toast and marmalade. She hadn't eaten last night and her lunch had been tiny: she was hungry.
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