A Northern Romance_Atlantic Island Romances

by Liz Graham

  ‘Oh, right,’ he said, his lower lip pouting just a little as it did when he didn‘t get his way. It was rare, but she’d noticed it before. ‘You want to get right out to the workplace. I’ve never met a woman so intent on slaving her whole life away.’

  IN THE MIDST OF THIS WHIRLWIND, only one thing marred the perfection. No, two things. At the back of her mind, the truth of her life niggled her. She’d spent so long deceiving others as she attended university, working two, sometimes three jobs to provide for herself and pay her bills. Conor worked hard at being the person she wanted to become, and sometimes she felt she was almost there already. She had admitted her true past to no one, of the shame she’d felt as a child of her poverty and her father‘s drunkenness. The schoolyard taunts still haunted her dreams.

  She spent her money wisely as she created this new persona, investing in expensive clothes, good quality that would last well with care. She had her future all mapped out - a future which now featured Devon.

  The second problem was - well, Devon himself. Or rather, his friends and their whole way of life. They were shallow and snobby, and talked of cars, and investments, and exotic vacations. They also talked a lot about themselves, defining themselves through their possessions as if they were empty husks needing to be filled by the latest trends. They also talked a lot about other people, and never very nicely. Melissa was the worst of the lot, her sneering laugh only raised by other’s misfortunes, and Conor found her guard automatically raised the few times she found herself in the other woman‘s presence.

  She didn’t want to imagine what this crowd would make of her father. How could she bring Devon home to the small house in Lower Crank Cove, that tiny structure long since turned grey as the paint peeled off in the harsh North Atlantic gales?

  When she caught herself dreaming of becoming Mrs. Devon Radford, of walking gracefully down an aisle in a long beaded white gown, her imagination always skipped forward to an image of her drunken father stumbling at the reception, perhaps falling into the wedding cake to the amusement on the faces of Devon’s friends behind their politely raised eyebrows.

  No, she and her father would never be accepted by Devon’s circle. She could keep up the bluff herself indefinitely, but one meeting with Dad, and it would be all over. She would be exposed.

  Despite it all, she was in love. When it was just the two of them alone, the rest of the world fell away – Melissa, Dad, all of them fled her mind and she was at ease with Devon. From the first evening when their eyes met, from that first tender kiss outside her apartment building that late April night, being with him had felt right. Conor had never known a man’s touch to thrill her so, and had never dreamt that making love could be so tender.

  At those times, he was her perfect match.

  ‘It must be love.’ she murmured to him as he slept, stroking his long blonde hair away from his face. They lay entwined in her bed in the early morning light. ‘It must be love, right?’

  IT WAS A BEAUTIFUL LATE MAY DAY. The very last of the winter's snow and ice was fast disappearing into black puddles on the curbs, and the sky was even bluer than Devon’s eyes as he grinned at her across the gleaming red Cabriolet, its top down for the first time this year. It was warm that day, warm enough to shed the usual spring windbreaker and heavy sweater that she wore, for that day the wind blew from the south carrying with it the smell of summer. To celebrate the weather, Conor wore a simple long-sleeved top with a scalloped neck, its watermelon colour reflecting the warmth of her golden skin as the garment defined every curve in her petite frame. The hip hugging jeans had cost more than two weeks’ worth of groceries for her but were well worth it. With her high heeled black ankle boots and her dark brown hair gleaming with natural red highlights in the sun, she felt ready to take on life with Devon by her side.

  ‘Where to today?’ she asked him, leaning over the passenger door as he hopped into the driver’s seat. Their eyes were on a level. Conor felt her stomach doing flip-flops as she gazed at him, still hardly able to believe that all this package had fallen into her lap. On a day like this, it was easy to brush aside her doubts.

  ‘I’ve got a surprise for you,’ he told her. His longish blonde hair ruffled slightly in a warm breeze, and his perfect teeth shone white against his tanned face. She felt herself melting anew as she watched him start the car, the dark blue denim shirt sleeves rolled up to reveal strong wrists which ended in those long fingers, the hands which had brought her such delight last night. She slipped in to the car and casually brushed imaginary lint from his chest. Okay, it was just a ploy to touch him, she admitted, and couldn't suppress a slight moan as he took her in his arms and kissed her lightly, first on the lips and then slowly, on her neck. Thrills ran down her spine.

  ‘I hope it involves a picnic in a secluded meadow,’ she murmured. ‘Tm feeling a little hungry.’

  He laughed, his lips still touching her skin. Conor slipped her hand inside the open neck of his shirt, feeling the silky roughness of his blond chest hair.

  ‘Afraid not,’ he said, his blue eyes coming up to meet her brown ones. The smile left his face as he searched her face. ‘We have something to do. Something very important.’

  Devon paused as if he might explain further. Then, deciding against it, he withdrew his arms and turned to the wheel.

  He put the car into gear and started down the suburban street where Conor rented her small bachelor apartment. The wind, always present in the north-east end of St. John’s, rose again with a sudden chill as he sped along the road. Conor could feel goosebumps come out all over her body with the breeze.

  She turned to look at him, the question in her eyes. He smiled back, glancing at her as he brought her through the streets of St. John's, down towards the city’s core. She wasn’t familiar with these narrow old streets from the nineteenth century, for she had had little cause to drive along them. During her five years in the city, Conor had spent her time between the university and her part-time jobs, rarely making the time to explore the residential neighbourhoods of the old city.

  The sports car purred to a halt across from a large park along a street lined with ancient trees and huge Victorian houses. In the distance beyond the green of manicured acres, old stone buildings rose. She recognized them as the back sides of the old Colonial building, and the Lieutenant Governor’s mansion. This had been an enclave of wealth for centuries. The houses to her right weren't the townhouses for which the city was famous, the row houses which lined Gower, Bond and many of the other old streets, the multi-colored homes pictured on the postcards. These Victorian mansions were unattached, sitting in proper gardens with garages and lawns. They were big, and they had always been expensive, as if the very houses themselves closed rank against poverty. They stank of money. Lots and lots of old money.

  ‘It's time for you to meet Mum,’ he said, switching off the ignition and turning to her, his eyes lit with anticipation as he waited for the effect of his words on her.

  Conor felt the color drain from her face. His mother? Oh no, she thought, she had had no warning! She sat immobilized in the passenger seat, desperately trying to think of an excuse not to enter the looming dark blue mansion.

  He couldn‘t fail to notice her hesitation.

  ‘Come on,’ he said, leaning over to deliver a playful kiss on her small, straight nose. ‘She doesn’t bite.’

  She was familiar with the photos of his mother on the Saturday society pages of the local paper. No, that intimidating, elegant woman with her upswept golden hair would never bite a guest, but her sharp eyes would spot a gold-digger a mile off. And that's exactly what she would think Conor was, once she knew the young woman‘s family circumstances.

  She tried to swallow the knot of fear that had worked its way up from her stomach to her throat. She glanced down at herself, tearing her eyes away from the innocent love which shone from Devon's.

  ‘I can’t,’ she said quietly, then found inspiration. ‘Look at how I’m dressed!’

>   Conor gestured to the outfit which had looked just right not ten minutes ago. Now, she felt sleazy in the close-fitting clothes, and she hunched her body over and crossed her arms as if that could hide the suggestiveness of her clothing.

  ‘Looks good to me,’ he said, licking his lips and winking, but left off his teasing when he noticed the expression on her face. ‘Really, don’t worry about how you’re dressed.’

  He placed a comforting arm around her shoulder and gave her a quick hug.

  ‘Come on in,’ he coaxed. ‘Mum’s expecting you. She’s invited everyone to meet you.’

  Conor had no choice but to give in, and climbed slowly out of the small car. In this neighbourhood, surrounded by these mansions and the manifestation of this wealth, she couldn‘t stop herself from slipping into the defensiveness she’d learned as a child growing up in poverty.

  ‘What sort of a name is ‘Mum' anyway?’ she asked almost scornfully. ‘What, are you English? Why don’t you call your mother ‘Mom’ like everyone else does?

  Devon's blue eyes were hurt as he glanced down at her, and he hesitated as his arm hovered over her shoulder again now she was by his side. He gave a small, self-conscious laugh.

  ‘It’s just what we call her,’ he said, shrugging in a deprecating manner. ‘Mom, mum, what difference does it make?’

  ‘Sounds pretentious to me,’ Conor muttered before she could stop herself. Oh, stop this! She cried to herself. Don't take your own discomfort out on him. His dad died when he was young - his mother was all he had left. Give the guy a break.

  His arm wavered, then dropped back to his side and he paused uncomfortably.

  ‘What‘s with you?’ he asked, taking her arms in his hands, forcing her to look directly up at him. It was too late to tell him the truth now. Too late to tell him how she’d wanted so desperately to fit in with him that shed mislead him into believing she was something she was not. Conor felt hot tears of frustration burn her eyes. She had no choice but to go through with it, she knew. She drew back her shoulders in a deep breath and steeled herself.

  ‘Sorry,’ she mumbled, looking away. ‘It's just the shock.’

  He relaxed as he turned to the front entranceway and took her arm.

  ‘That‘s okay,’ he said. ‘I should have warned you. But I don’t usually bring my girlfriends home. I thought you’d be excited about it.’

  This last was said with the unconscious arrogance of the rich young man who had never known self-doubt, the youth who had the world open at his feet. The man who came from money.

  Conor felt with a sinking heart that something was about to change.

  THE PARLOR DOOR OPENED onto a tableau of Devon’s life. The tall, elegant woman in the upright armchair rose to greet them as they entered the room. She was dressed in a lightweight cream suit, the skirt reaching to just past her knees, with a gold silk blouse under the finely-tailored jacket. Her silver and gold earrings were tasteful, and appropriate for the afternoon.

  ‘Delighted to meet you,’ the older woman said pleasantly. Conor could feel her experienced eye take her in and just as quickly, dismiss her. ‘Melissa‘s been telling us all about you.’

  Her eyes darted wildly around the room, and sure enough, there was Melissa. The young blonde woman sprawled on an ivory damask sofa, her booted foot casually kicked over the firmly upholstered arm, eyeing the newcomer with amused speculation.

  She smiled nervously, unwilling to open her mouth lest she suddenly revert to the curious mix of Irish and flat twang of her childhood on the Northern Peninsula.

  ‘Conor,’ Melissa said brightly, a mischievous smile dancing on her face.

  Her defenses sprang up automatically.

  ‘Please,’ Devon’s mother said. ‘Have a seat. Devon, perhaps you could get drinks for the men.’

  She looked around the silent room, and could only see a swarm of strange faces sitting in a circle, all studying her intently. Melissa reluctantly shifted her feet off the arm of the sofa to make room. Conor forced herself to breathe deeply and evenly to calm her nerves as she sat, but it was no good. Her heart was beating quickly and her traitorous metabolism was kicking into action. The peckishness she had felt earlier was threatening to develop into hunger, complete with highly inappropriate stomach rumbling if she didn’t get something into it.

  ‘Tea?’ The well-modulated voice was asking her a question. Conor looked up to see Mrs. Radford with the teapot in her manicured hand.

  ‘Yes, please,’ Conor said fervently. She tried not to show her disappointment at the thin fresh milk which was added to the fine china cup. She had grown up taking canned milk in her tea, a habit born of isolation and poverty from years before her own time, but it didn’t appear to be on offer. She sipped it anyway and tried not to show her distaste of the pale watery liquid.

  A small rumble echoed through her stomach. Spying a plate of chocolate biscuits on the coffee table, Conor balanced the saucer in one hand and planned to reach across with the other to grab not one, but two, but became aware of the eight pairs of eyes on her every action. She fervently wished someone would begin to talk to cover the sound of the crunching she would make as she ate.

  She felt a slight nudge at her elbow as she reached, on the arm holding her tea.

  Conor jumped, and the hot tea spilled over her top and lap, and onto the ivory sofa beneath her. She stood up quickly, balancing in her foolishly high heeled boots, and stepped back to survey the damage.

  A yelp sounded at her feet, and she almost fell as a bundle of white fur rushed past her feet, whining with pain as it hid under Mrs. Radford‘s chair. Conor stared speechlessly at the tea stain darkening the sofa cushion.

  ‘Oh, dear,’ the older woman said after a pause. ‘Mary, a cloth please?’

  A uniformed maid came to wipe up the mess, shooting a disgruntled look at Conor as she did so. Mrs. Radford fussed over the small lap clog, soothing its hurt feelings.

  The arrival of more family and friends took the spotlight off Conor for a moment. She looked around for Devon's support, but he was still at the side table in the dining room, pouring whiskies and talking to another man. He had missed the whole scene.

  ‘You and Conor are friends, then?’ one oldish gentleman was asking Melissa.

  ‘I wouldn’t say that, exactly,’ Melissa replied with a tinkling laugh as her eyes fell on Conor. ‘But we did take some business courses together.’

  Conor nodded.

  Melissa had always struck her as a half-hearted student, absent from class more than she was there, and ready with an excuse for the various male professors. Her blonde hair, high cheekbones and rich-girl attitude usually let her get away with it.

  She laughed lightly again, striking a false note to Conor’s ear. The brunette shoved a biscuit into her mouth.

  ‘You were always so serious,’ she said, and turned so that her laughing eyes danced toward Mrs. Radford. ‘And working. Conor, didn’t you work at McDonald's on campus?’

  A new silence fell on the group around the coffee table, and Mum’s exquisite eyebrows rose a notch. Conor’s face now felt permanently red.

  ‘Yeah,’ she said, after chewing and swallowing hastily, shrugging as if it were no big deal. ‘My father taught me the value of a dollar, and insisted I work while at university.’

  It’s true, she thought to herself. Dad did teach me the value of a dollar, or at least he showed me what it was like to have none. And I couldn't have gone to university without working my way through, for he could barely support himself, let alone me.

  The dig sailed past Melissa’s head.

  ‘You’re from St Anthony,’ the blonde woman said. ‘Funny, you don’t have the accent.’

  ‘My Dad lived on the Northern Peninsula,’ Conor smiled brightly. ‘I didn't actually spend much time in St. Anthony myself.’

  Again, this wasn’t a lie. The small house in Lower Crank Cove was not technically in the town at all. If they wanted to think she’d been away at private school,
let them.

  Inside, her guts were in turmoil from the tension.

  ‘McLowrie,’ Mum mused aloud as she tuned back to her seat. ‘I don’t believe I’m familiar with your people.’

  Her expressive eyebrows invited a further discussion of Conor’s heritage.

  ‘Oh, my father's not from here,’ Conor confidently said, in a tone denying any local heritage at all. No twang escaped, thank God. ‘He’s a McLowrie from County Kirk, Ireland.’

  Mum paused in thought.

  ‘Oh,’ she said, simply. It was against her social code to admit ignorance of ‘people’ so she said nothing at all. Instead, she left it at that, as if there might be something distasteful in the whole Irish connection.

  Bored with baiting Conor, Melissa soon turned the conversation around to the gossip of their own circle. This achieved the purpose of making Conor feel excluded, but she was grateful rather than upset. She fixed her face and pretended interest in the conversation, yet inside she was seething.

  As the room started to fill up with other friends and family, all eager to size up Devon’s new girl, the air became clogged with expensive perfumes and hairspray. Conor quickly parried searching questions without revealing the truth of her fraudulent life, yet each time she was asked who her father was and what he did, her heart sank further and further into her still unsatisfied stomach.

  She felt as though she were being swallowed by this sea of strange, shallow people and their presumptuous questions. Why did they care so much who she was and where she came from?

  Stay calm, she told herself, although her heart was racing. If you can pull this off they’ll accept you as one of them, and they’re useful contacts for your future. Conor kept her back straight and tall, and smiled sweetly as she dodged the bullets.

  Devon’s mother had thrown her to the wolves then ignored her, and Conor was grateful for that small mercy. But where was he, why wasn’t her boyfriend by her side supporting her through this ordeal?