Forgotten Fiancee

by Lucy Gordon

  “I never get a chance to talk to you, Amy,” he read. “So now I’m going to say it all at once.” It was easier without an audience.

  “Say what, Frank?” Sarah responded. “You make it sound important.”

  “Wait a minute,” Justin stopped her. “I should stand closer, then we’re not shouting to each other from opposite sides of the room.”

  “But Lucinda says Amy and Frank should stand apart,” she objected.

  “I’m just trying to create a natural atmosphere.”

  They tried again.

  “This is useless,” Justin said after a while. “He should simply cut the cackle and take her in his arms. If he had, she wouldn’t have gone off with the other fellow in the end.”

  “Frank isn’t a decisive character. He just couldn’t do such a thing.”

  “But I could,” Justin said firmly, tossing the book aside and taking her into his arms.

  “You planned this all the time, didn’t you?” she asked, laughing.

  “Sure did. I’m a devious character.” He began to. kiss her neck, just beneath her ear, making shivers of pleasure go through her. “You don’t really like that young puppy, do you?” he murmured. “You were just teasing me?”

  “I wasn’t teasing you,” she said, speaking with difficulty through the hammering of her heart. “Oh, Justin, you fool. I never think of Alex…only of you.”

  “Good,” he said against her mouth. “Let’s keep it that way.”

  “Halloo!”

  They jumped apart at the sound of Nick’s voice below. “It’s only me,” he called. “I’ll lock up.”

  “I like Nick a lot,” Justin said in a shaking voice. “But he has no sense of timing.”

  “Colly must have beaten him at chess,” Sarah said distractedly.

  “Then curse Colly and all his works.” He straightened his hair, feeling like a guilty teenager.

  Nick came in. If he noticed anything in the air he gave no sign of it, but chatted away about his evening. Justin, still physically on edge, could have done without it, but he was fond of the old man, and he settled down with a look of intense interest. Sarah slipped away to check Nicky, who was just awaking.

  “He couldn’t have done that once,” she confided to the baby. “I can remember when, if it didn’t make him some money, he didn’t want to know.”

  “What’s that?” Justin was in the doorway.

  “I was telling him a bedtime story,” Sarah said hastily. “Has Nick gone to bed yet?”

  “No, he wants a game of chess. Apparently he beat Colly, and he wants to tell me just how he did it.”

  “Oh, darling, I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. There’s a notice on the wall of my—the place I used to work. It says, It’s never too late to learn a new skill. Seems like my day for learning patience.” He kissed her nose good-humoredly. “Good night, Sarah. Don’t wait up. I couldn’t tell you how long I’m going to be, but if I’m not in bed by four in the morning, send out a search party.”

  One morning when Nick had just driven off to the wholesaler, Sarah said, “I’ve got to see Brenda about our new advertisement for the local news sheet. Can you manage on your own for a while?”

  “Yes, ma’am. I may not be bright, but I’m willing.”

  She gave him a swift, tender kiss. “Councillor Norton will probably drop in for his order this morning. It’s all packed up, over there. And if Denton’s calls I’ll have twice as much as usual. Right, Nicky, my love. Let’s be off.”

  But the baby reached out his fat arms to Justin. “Leave him with me,” he suggested. “I’m great at looking after him now.”

  “Well, it would certainly be easier.”

  “Come on, Nicky,” Justin said, taking him from her. “You and I can enjoy some man talk.”

  But almost as soon as they were alone, the delivery from Denton’s arrived. “Sarah’s not here,” Justin told the pleasant middle-aged man who came into the shop, “but she wants twice her usual order—whatever it is.”

  “Ice cream,” the man said cheerfully. “The best for miles. I’m Terry, by the way. Twice as much of everything, coming up.”

  When Justin had helped him carry the cartons inside and store them in the deep freeze Terry produced a small tub of ice cream. “Nicky’s favorite,” he said. “Banana. Have some yourself.” He offered two small wooden scoops.

  Justin tried it, and his expression changed to one of astonishment at the most delicious taste he’d ever known. This was the real thing. “That’s fantastic,” he said. “Did Sarah order some of this? If not, I’ll order some for myself.”

  “Don’t worry, she ordered plenty.” Terry added somewhat wryly, “Sarah’s not the only one who gave me a double order. It’s odd how knowing we may be closing down concentrates everyone’s mind.”

  “Closing down? Are you crazy? Don’t tell me people don’t buy this stuff.”

  “Oh, yes. We’ve got all the work we can handle, and then more. In fact there’s a backlog, people are getting impatient.”

  “So take on more staff.”

  “More staff means more and better equipment. My machines are on their last legs. I need investment and bigger premises, but I can’t produce conclusive figures to show that it would be economic, so the bank won’t help. I can’t afford to expand, but if I don’t I’ll go under.”

  Justin nodded. He was familiar with the pattern.

  “Anyway, I can’t stay here talking. Nice to meet you.” Terry departed, leaving Justin thoughtful.

  Nicky was excellent company. When there was a lull in the customers they passed the time with a walking lesson, then consumed more ice cream. Nicky contrived to get most of his around his mouth, which struck him as very funny. Justin wiped him clean, and found that Nicky was eyeing him with a twinkle. “You’re a mess,” he said severely, and got a contented gurgle in reply.

  As he lifted the child Nicky steadied himself by putting his arms about Justin’s neck. And then the strangest thing happened. A feeling unlike any he’d known before swept over Justin. It was both physical and emotional, a tenderness so powerful it had a primeval, animal quality. There were two strands intermingled, the gentle and the violent, gentleness for the child and a readiness to kill anyone who harmed him.

  Now he understood the look he’d seen on Sarah’s face when she’d held her baby. He held the little body tighter and rested his cheek against the silky hair.

  The phone rang. Justin answered with one hand and heard a man’s voice. “Councillor Norton here. My order should have been delivered by now.”

  “I thought you were calling for it.”

  “Oh, no, no, no, no, no!” the man said rapidly. “I don’t have time for that. Busy man, you know. Busy man. It’s one of the penalties of public service. One’s time isn’t one’s own. One makes the sacrifice gladly but one does expect a little help from those for whom the sacrifice is made.”

  “Er—does one?” Justin was treading carefully, anxious not to offend one of Sarah’s customers. Evidently he’d made the wrong reply, because a testy note entered Councillor Norton’s voice.

  “Young man, are you trying to be funny?”

  “Not at all,” Justin said hastily, turning to stop Nicky plundering the counter. “I’m alone now, but I’ll deliver your goods as soon as Sarah returns. Can I have your address?”

  “Everyone knows where I live,” Councillor Norton snapped, and hung up. Justin breathed out and counted to ten.

  “You know that guy?” he demanded of Nicky. The child made a sound that might have been a raspberry “Yes, that’s how I feel.”

  Nicky solemnly offered Justin a present. He accepted it and found himself holding a handful of ice cream.

  “Thank you,” he said, since his appreciation was clearly expected. “What am I supposed to do with that?”

  Nicky grinned. That’s your problem.

  Justin stared. For an astounding moment he’d almost thought the child had spoken to him. Of cour
se, that was impossible, but Nicky’s expression made his thoughts clear.

  Justin firmly pressed the gift back into the tiny hand. “Now it’s your problem,” he said. “Get out of that.”

  For answer Nicky hurled the ice cream across the shop. It landed on the clock face, where Justin would have to clean it. Nicky met his eyes. My point, I think.

  “Oh, yeah? You think that’s funny?”

  A gurgle. I think it’s very funny.

  “Just wait. I’ll get even.”

  A dismissive grunt. In your dreams.

  “You’re not the only one who can throw ice cream, you know.”

  But I’m the only one who can hit the clock.

  “You think! You see this fresh tub? I’m going to take the top off—like this—squash the ice cream in my hand until it’s the rough consistency of yuk! Then I’m going to throw it and hit the—oops!”

  “What’s going on?” Sarah asked, wiping her eye.

  “We were having a contest,” Justin explained with as much dignity as he could muster in the circumstances. “It’s called, ‘Let’s splatter Mommy with ice cream.’”

  Nicky snorted. Liar.

  “All right, all right. Actually I was aiming for the clock.”

  “Justin, I’m probably going to regret asking this, but why were you throwing ice cream at the clock?”

  “Trying to get a bull’s-eye, of course.”

  “Of course. I should have thought of that.”

  “Nicky managed it. You don’t think I’m going to be defeated by a toddler, do you?”

  Sarah’s lips twitched. “He’s had more practise than you. He throws things at the clock all the time. I only asked you to mind the shop. I didn’t say anything about ice-cream-throwing contests.”

  “He started it,” Justin said defensively. He gave a grin that made her heart turn over, and the next moment they were laughing together.

  “I’ll swear that kid talked to me,” he said. “Not in words but—I don’t know. It was like I could read his mind.” He saw her smiling. “I guess that happens to you all the time, but you’re his mother. How come I can read him so easily?”

  “Because he wanted you to,” Sarah said, sliding away from the dangerous subject. “Nicky has his own ways of getting his meaning across.”

  “That must be it.” He wasn’t sure whether to tell her about the powerful sensation of bittersweet tenderness that had swept him, but he backed off because he couldn’t have put it into words.

  Sarah sighed when he described Councillor Norton’s call. “Oh, dear! He’s up to his tricks again. I made it very clear he’d have to collect his own stuff. He’s only two streets away, in Hanmere Lane.”

  “But he’s too much of a big shot to come in person. He told me so. I got a lecture on the sacrifices of public service.”

  “Poor little man,” Sarah said ruefully. “He’s the leader of the parish council.”

  “How big is the council?”

  “Only five. There’s Mr. Norton, and Imelda Drew, and three others nobody ever sees. They’re businessmen who live around here but work miles away. They just rubber-stamp whatever the other two tell them. It’s the most important thing that’s ever happened to Mr. Norton, and I’m afraid it’s gone to his head.”

  “I’ll do the delivery. I’m curious to meet him.”

  Hanmere Lane was at the prosperous end of Haven. Everard Norton lived in a well-kept, picture-book cottage with a thatched roof and hollyhocks growing around the door. In the front a large notice proudly proclaimed Councillor Norton’s Residence. Justin knocked, and a man appeared at a window. He was plump, with an almost bald head and steel spectacles’, and he looked cross.

  “This is not the tradesmen’s entrance,” he said. “Kindly go to the rear.” He closed the window.

  Justin went around the tiny house and found the same man waiting for him at the back door. “I can’t have deliveries made at the front,” he said in a petulant voice, ushering Justin into the kitchen. “It disturbs people who come to see me for advice.”

  “I hope I haven’t bothered whoever’s there now.”

  Councillor Norton reddened slightly. “As a matter of fact there’s nobody here now, but there might have been. I’m a public figure, on call night and day. I need some consideration. Let’s have a look.” He inspected the box, removing tea, sugar, a box of cigars. “I hope everything’s here.”

  “Sarah assures me that it is.”

  Norton sniffed. “It all seems to be in order.” He sounded disappointed. “Well, what are you waiting for?”

  “The money,” Justin explained. “This bit of paper is the bill.”

  Norton adjusted his spectacles. “Of course it’s the bill,” he snapped. “I can see it’s the bill.” He made no move to pay it.

  “I thought perhaps you hadn’t noticed it,” Justin said. He’d rapidly taken in the details of the expensive kitchen. Councillor Norton could afford to pay his bills.

  Norton breathed hard. “I shall settle my account the next time I come to the shop.”

  “But you’re too busy for that,” Justin reminded him. “An important public figure like you can’t waste time—”

  “Young man, are you being deliberately impertinent, or are you just plain stupid?”

  “I’m not sure,” Justin said gravely.

  “Be very careful. Jobs are hard to come by these days, as you’ll discover if I’m forced to complain to Miss Conroy about your manners.”

  Justin couldn’t resist. “I hope you won’t do that, sir,” he said humbly.

  “Hmm, that’s as may be. Be off with you.”

  Justin departed while he could still keep a straight face, but his laughter faded as he neared the store, and by the time he arrived he was in a temper.

  “You shouldn’t let him get away with it,” he stormed.

  “Well, he pays in the end. He just likes to make me wait for it, and he always tries to beat the bill down.”

  “I don’t know how you can call him a poor little man. He’s a pompous idiot and as vain as hell. And for all his talk about serving the community, he’s out of touch. He thought I worked for you, which makes him the only person in Haven who hadn’t heard I was your lodger. The others knew everything about me, down to my sock size, long before we’d met.”

  Two evenings later, as he was about to close the shop for the night, he saw a gleaming, chauffeurdriven Rolls-Royce gliding to a halt outside. In the back seat was a man in his forties with a thin moustache and a weaselly face. With him was Councillor Everard Norton.

  “Hey, Sarah, get this,” Justin called.

  She joined him at the door. “The Rolls belongs to Cyril Coverdale,” she said. “He trains racehorses about three miles away. He often escorts Mr. Norton to council meetings.”

  “Is he a councillor, too?”

  “No, I think he just does it to be nice.”

  Councillor Norton descended on the little shop. “You’ll forgive me, my dear Sarah,” he said loftily, “if I delay you from closing for a moment. I’m on my way to a most important council meeting, but I just had to stop and pay my bill, since I’ve been practically accused of trying to evade my financial obligations.” His eyes rested on Justin.

  “I’m sure nobody suggested such a thing,” Sarah said soothingly.

  “Would that they had not!” Norton exclaimed sorrowfully. “If only I could believe that I’d imagined the whole thing, the sly hints, the suggestion that I might flee the country—”

  Justin choked but held his tongue. Norton sailed on.

  “I accept such slings and arrows as part of being in public life. I bear no grudges. Here is the money I owe you.”

  Sarah took the money and flicked through it, frowning slightly. “I’m afraid it’s not quite enough,” she said.

  “Your bill was incorrect, my dear Sarah. The cigars you charged me for were not there.”

  “Yes, they were,” Justin said immediately. “I remember you taking them ou
t when you inspected the delivery.” He smiled blandly. “You must have forgotten.”

  Councillor Norton pressed his lips tightly together before replying. “If you say so,” he conceded at last. “I’m a man of many cares. My mind is constantly occupied with the welfare of Haven. It’s easy to make these small errors.” Reluctantly he dug into his pocket and produced the missing money, refusing to meet Justin’s eye.

  Sarah poured oil on troubled waters. “I expect you’ve been hard at work for tonight’s meeting. You’re going to license the hall for Laughing All the Way, aren’t you?”

  For a moment the councillor was caught off guard. “Are we? Is that tonight? I thought the next meeting—

  “The next meeting is after the performance,” Sarah reminded him. “It’s tonight or never.”

  “Then I’m sure we can find the time for it,” Norton declared grandly. “In the press of major affairs, let us never forget the small details.”

  “It wouldn’t be a small detail if the Haven Players saw their hard work go for nothing just because you forgot their license,” Justin pointed out.

  Norton treated him to a frosty gaze. “I don’t recall anyone asking you to speak, young man.”

  “I don’t wait to be asked.”

  “Perhaps, Sarah, you should be a little more careful who you employ.”

  “I don’t employ Justin,” Sarah said. “He’s our lodger, and he helps out in the shop. Isn’t that kind of him?”

  The discovery that he wasn’t dealing with a menial didn’t please Norton, but he was too wise to pursue an argument he couldn’t win. Justin was no longer looking at him. He was watching Cyril Coverdale, who’d gotten out of the Rolls and was staring at the shop impatiently. After a moment he came in.

  “Don’t be offended if the license seemed to slip my mind,” Norton was saying. “There are things being discussed tonight which—well, I mustn’t betray confidences. But this I will say. Haven’s day has come.”

  “Are you ready, Everard?” Coverdale asked him. He gave the other two a smile that seemed meant to be genial, but was merely chilly. Norton became a little flustered.

  “Oh, er, yes, of course.” He slipped out of the shop and was swallowed up by the Rolls, which glided away.