Roz stared at him as if mesmerised; and for a moment she hated him. Then she realised with dull despair that he was entitled to think any or all. of those things. And to tell him now that she loved him could only sound false, because at she’d left it too late, said too much, done to little…
‘Adam, is there someone else?’
If it was any satisfaction to her, which it wasn’t, she saw that she’d surprised him. His eyes narrowed and his fingers tightened cruelly around her wrist before he released it abruptly.
She rubbed it mechanically and waited with baited breath.
‘What makes you think that, Roz?’ he said finally with a spark of anger in his eyes that frightened her. ‘And are you only asking that or hoping it?’
‘No! I’m sorry, I shouldn’t … I …’ She stopped and made helpless little gesture. ‘I’ll go to bed.’
‘And hope that in the morning things will have sorted themselves out?’ he mocked.
She trembled and said huskily, ‘I think you expect an awful lot sometimes, Adam …’ Only to to wonder immediately why she’d said it. Yet wasn’t it true that he’d married her without loving her and everything came back to that? Yes.
She tilted her chin and started to say goodnight, but he interrupted her. ‘Do I, Roz? Perhaps. Goodnight.’
Roz slipped into her own bed feeling exhausted and drained, her moment of defiance gone, and fell into an uneasy sleep until about eight o’clock when the sound of raised voices woke her. This was so unusual she sat up in alarm—and realised the voices were coming closer and she could hear Milly, saying, ‘She must have done it between the time I went to bed and you came home, or maybe later, I don’t know, but I didn’t hear a thing. Was her car in the garage when you …?’
‘I didn’t park my car in the garage, I didn’t even open the doors!’ Adams said furiously then. ‘I left it out front, where it still is if you’d care to look. Nor did I think to check her bed, but the real mystery to me is how this could have all blown up without you or Roz being…’
The voices stopped outside her bedroom door, then it opened violently and Adam stood in the doorway with a piece of paper in his hands and an expression of such anger on his face that Roz put her hand to her throat fearfully and stammered, ‘what is it?’ although she had an incredulous inkling.
‘He shut the door sharply behind him, but not before Roz saw Milly standing in the passage, her face white and worried.
‘Read this,’ said Adam through his teeth, and strode over to the bed to thrust the piece of paper at her. He was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt.
‘What is it?’
‘As if you don’t know,’ he said sardonically, and took the paper back. ‘I’ll read it—it’s from Nicky, and it was on the hall table. “Dear Roz, I hope you don’t think this is cowardly of me leaving you to explain things to Adam, but I’ve decided to take your advice. You did say I would have to make up my own mind. Well, I have. I want to marry Richard… ”’ he broke off, exclaimed violently, ‘Richard! I don’t believe it!’
‘Go on,’ Roz said. ‘Is there more?’
‘Oh yes! She says “… and if the family don’t approve they’ll never see me again” She then,’ he went on with such withering scorn that Roz blanched, ‘goes through detailed instructions about how, we’re to place an advertisement in the personal column of a newspaper to signify our approval.’
‘She … I …’ Roz put her hands to her mouth, because if she’d thought he looked angry last night it was nothing to how he was looking at her now.
‘You?’ he queried, then when she couldn’t speak, ‘Don’t worry, I just know I have you to thank for this, Roz. Were you trying to relive your life through Nicky when you gave her your advice? Were you thinking longingly of Mike Howard, the great love of your life that you let slip through your fingers because everyone told you he was too young, but most particularly me?’
‘No! No, you don’t understand,’ Roz cried.
‘Then Nicky’s lying? You never said that to her?’ he grated.
‘No! Yes, I did, but…’
‘Then you’ll pay for this, Roz,’ he said in the hardest voice she’d ever heard..
‘Adam, you don’t understand. It wasn’t like that at all!’
‘Oh, but I do,’ he said with soft menace. ‘And so will you shortly.’ He walked out and slammed the door.
Roz scrambled out of bed to go after him, then she hesitated and decided to get dressed first. At random she pulled on a pair of jeans and a. pink cotton blouse which she was still buttoning as she ran downstairs.
The kitchen was empty, so she tried Adam’s study and he was there with Milly, talking into the phone, Margaret she guessed as he said, ‘I want Richard down here within an hour, and if you can lay your hands on Amy bring her too. No buts, Margaret, just come.’ He slammed the phone, down and glanced at Roz.
‘Well?’ he said in such a hard, clipped voice that Milly did an indiscreet double-take.
‘Adam,’ Roz said shakily, ‘please, you must believe me, I warned, her not to do anything rash. I only ever knew about it accidentally in the first place, although I could see she had something on her mind. But the night before last she broke down and told me. And so I …’
‘Gave her your famous advice?’
‘No! I tried to give her the opposite advice, actually. But she kept pointing out that I’d only been nineteen and that I barely knew you. Then,’ Roz took as breath, ‘she asked me to speak to you about it. I said she should, but she said she couldn’t pluck up the courage. That’s when I said I would so long as she didn’t do anything rash in the meantime. I swear that’s how it was. Something must have happened yesterday …’ She broke off abruptly. And looked at Milly. ‘That phone call …?‘
‘Yes,’ Milly said slowly. ‘Now I wonder …’ She broke off to explain to Adam, then added, ‘The more I think about it the surer I am that phone call sparked this off. She was quiet yesterday, Roz. And then she said she was so tired, but she did nothing all day really. While you were away she just.…‘
‘And where the hell were you? Adam shot at Roz.
She flushed at his tone. ‘At the doctor’s,’ she said steadily.
‘So who the devil do you think rang her and upset her ?’ he demanded.
Roz lifted her shoulders helplessly. ‘I can only guess. Perhaps Lucia’s found out now—Nicky did say you and Lucia were the only two who didn’t know.’
‘Do you mean to tell me the whole family has known about this and not bothered to enlighten me?” he demanded with quiet fury. ‘And that you, knowing. this was on the cards, made no move to alert anyone, ‘Roz?’
‘I’m. trying to make you understand I didn’t know she was going to do this. And l was going to tell you. I just didn’t… have a chance.’
‘But you had her here with you, you knew she was in a state—you must know by now how volatile Nicky is! My dear; Roz, even if only subconsciously I think she must have gained some encouragement from you. Perhaps even supplied you with that ulterior motive last night,’ he said with irony. ‘Were you worried that you might have set something in motion that could be a little hard to explain?’ he finished between his teeth.
Roz stood as still as a statue, while Milly looked as if she wished she could disappear into a hole in the ground, but it was obvious Adam couldn’t care less, because he said then, ‘Well, just for the record, let’s hear what you would do if you were in my shoes, Roz?’
Roz licked her lips and discovered she was angry. If I were you, Adam, I’d put the ad she wants in the paper right away. ‘And when she comes back I’d let them get engaged. I don’t know whether marriage would work out for them or if he’s the right one for Nicky, but personally I think she could do a lot worse, and I don’t really think it’s a crime to marry your second cousin. But apart from that l think you could trust Richard to behave sensibly—he told her he wouldn’t marry her without the family’s approval, and I think you’ll find he will be j
ust as stunned as the rest of us are that she’s done this. So if I were you, Adam, that’s what I’d do. Tell them you don’t object to them being engaged and if in,’ she shrugged, ‘a year they still feel the same way, then you will discuss marriage. I don’t see how else you can handle Nicky, and anyway, not all young marriages fail, although I agree they’d be wise to wait.’
‘I … actually I agree with Roz,’ Milly said awkwardly.
Adam was silent and his dark eyes held Roz’s blue gaze captive. But she didn’t flinch, just returned his stare calmly, her lips set and something saying inside her head, make what you will of that, Adam Milroy!
He did. ‘I don’t suppose I could have expected anything else from you, Roz.’
Something snapped inside her. ‘Nor I from you!’ And she turned and ran from the room, just as the phone started to ring.
‘She ran upstairs to her bedroom and closed the door, then leant back against it panting with anger. frustration and battling a tidal wave of tears. I can’t stand much more, she thought. I do … I do hate him after all. And the time’s come to do something about it!
She went over to her dressing room and heaving down a suitcase from the top shelf, dragged it over to the bed. Then she pulled open her bureau drawers and indiscriminately gathered a cloud of underwear into her arms.
The door opened and she glared across the room at Adam as he came in and closed it behind him. ‘Go away,’ she said huskily, and pushed her hair which she’d not had time to brush off her forehead, dropping drifts of delicate colour around her—ivory, cyclamen. pale grey.
‘What do you think you’re doing?’
‘What does it look as if I’m doing? I’m packing and I’m leaving. I may not be the kind of wife you thought you could make me into, and while I take some of the responsibility for that, I don’t have to be insulted in front of other people or accused of the things you’ve accused me of this morning. Everyone’s allowed one mistake in their lives, Adam, and I’m obviously yours. Why don’t you just admit it and let me go? You can keep Nimmitabel as payment for all you’ve done for me, but.
She stopped and backed away a step as he came right up to her, and wrested what she had left in her arms away. ‘Adam,’ she said hoarsely.
‘You’re going nowhere, Roz,’ he said quietly.
‘I am! You can’t stop me…’
‘Oh yes, I can.’ He took her into his arms and she struggled desperately and with tears pouring down her cheeks, but with futility, until her strength ran out abruptly and she could only lean against him helplessly, shaking and crying. He lifted an hand and pushed her hair away from her hot, wet cheek, then picked her up and carried her over to the bed.
‘N-no … she stammered.
‘What did the doctor have to say yesterday?’ he asked, surprising her into immobility as he put her down, pulled the pillows up behind her and pushed the suitcase off so he could sit down beside her.
‘What does it matter?’ she asked bitterly.
‘Tell me, Roz.’
She read the determination in his eyes. ‘There’s nothing wrong with me. It’s all in my mind, in other words.‘
‘Well, that’s good news.’
She smiled ironically. ‘Always assuming I can get into the right frame of mind, not to mention your bed … but perhaps I shouldn‘t have said that‘? I’m sure it could constitute an ulterior motive, another one …’
She stopped abruptly, then sat up and snapped in a furious, goaded undertone, ‘Don’t laugh at me, don‘t you dare!’
But he was, silently, and when she launched herself at him he caught her wrists and lay down with her.
‘I don’t understand you, I. really don’t,’ she gasped. ‘You say I’m not being a good wife, but when I try and change that, all you can think … do … is look, for reasons to doubt it and become quite horrible. When you’re not laughing at me, that is. As if—as if you expect it all to be perfect, but how can it ever be that? I’m sure even marriages made in heaven are hard to maintain in perfection without … oh, I don’t know why I bother!’
Roz stared at him, her eyes darkened to sapphire, her mouth clamped tightly shut and her breasts rising and falling visibly beneath the thin pink cotton of her blouse.
Adam returned her gaze meditatively and in a way that suddenly made a trace of pink steal into her cheeks. He said presently, ‘It’s a curious thing, Roz, how I like you when you’re angry. It didn’t know I would, or that I could make your so very angry—or that we could come to be so much at cross-purposes. Particularly over this,’ he added significantly, and released her, wrists to touch her mouth with his fingers.
‘What?’
He smiled ‘slightly. ‘This… His fingers moved down to her chin and he tilted her head back slightly and claimed her mouth with his.
For a moment Roz was frozen with disbelief, then flooded by a determination to treat this incredibly blatant demonstration of male chauvinism with the contempt it deserved—utter passivity. Only something went strangely wrong, because in the end she found herself kissing him back, and although it was an oddly angry sort of way, it was, she realised dimly, in a more intimate way, than she had ever kissed him before.
Adam lifted his head at last, but she kept her eyes closed in case he was laughing, again, and flinched as he drawled softly, ‘Well, well! That was at little … surprising. Roz?’
Her lashes fluttered up and her mouth trembled. But there was no sign of amusement in his eyes, rather a dark, narrowed look as he was trying to see through to her soul. Then she felt his fingers on the buttons of her blouse and her lips parted as he undid three or four and pushed the pink cotton aside to frame her naked breasts.
Roz put a hand to grasp his wrist, but he shook his head slightly and said quietly, ‘I only want. to look. It’s been …’ he stopped,
‘Adam …’ she breathed, and quivered down the length of her body, so close to his, so ready, she thought with some despair, to be helped right out of her clothes and held, slim and soft against the tall hard strength of him, to feel his weight on her, his hands in her hair or about her waist and hips, to be able to hold him and move beneath him and move her lips down his throat across his shoulder…
Oh, where did all my anger go? she wondered as she waited motionless, because in spite of what she felt she was terribly afraid of being rejected again.
Then she was glad she had waited, although it occurred to her that it hadn’t been very brave, but Adam pulled the edges of her blouse together over her breasts and said, ‘Roz, it might not have been made in heaven, our marriage, but I have no intention of ending it. Have you? Seriously, I mean, and not because I provoked you this morning, for which l apologise.’
‘Then,’ She licked her lips, ‘do you believe that l didn’t encourage Nicky?’ she asked huskily.
‘Yes. Unfortunately it all came at me out of the blue this morning. But have you?’
‘Not really,’ she whispered. ‘No.’
‘You have said …’
‘I know,’ she interrupted. ‘I get very confused sometimes and I guess I have thought about it, but,’ she sighed, ‘I’ve never been able to visualise it.’
‘Then has it worried you that it might have been what l had in mind, despite my assurances to the contrary? No, Roz,’ he pulled her a bit closer as she stirred restlessly, ‘don’t shy away from it. Tell me.’
She swallowed and wondered dismally what to say. Yes? But not for the reasons you think … Could I say it?
‘Yes, but Adam…’
‘Look, it’s all right.’ His lips twisted into a smile. ‘I’d feel the same way if I thought you were determined to leave me, because despite everything, we have forged some ties between us. And because I also take some responsibility for this state of affairs.’ He grimaced and smoothed her hair. ‘A lot, the lion’s share actually, because I had hoped to do better, make you happy, and I had hoped to make you at least feel secure and relaxed. And that’s why, when it became so obvious I
was only succeeding in the opposite direction, I decided we should do this. Not this,’ he corrected with a grin. ‘But not,’ he went on, ‘because I was trying to ease you out of this marriage, as you seem to think. I could find a much simpler way of doing that if I were so minded,‘ Roz, as l think you must know. But I also gave you my word once. ’
Her lashes fluttered up and down.
‘Do you understand, Roz?’
‘Yes. You’re going to get up and … no, Adam,’ she said urgently; as she saw his mouth harden, ‘I do understand, really I do, and I won’t make any more scenes. I’m sorry I’ve been so dumb about it.’
‘I’m sorry I’ve been so horrible,’ he replied with another twisted smile. ‘But I came home in a bad mood and …’ He stopped rather abruptly. ‘Because of me not understanding?’ whispered Roz.
He was silent, looking past her for a moment. ‘Because of something that happened to me that l didn’t …expect,’ he said at last.
‘While you were away?’
‘Mmm.’ His eyes focused back on her face.
‘Could you tell me about it?’ she asked diffidently.
‘One day,’ he said slowly. ‘Perhaps … oh hell!’ he added as they heard the sound of a car driving up to the house, ‘that will be Margaret and Richard. Want to come down and give me the benefit of your moral support? Unless,’ he stopped as if struck by something, ‘Margaret likes the idea of Richard and Nicky?’ He looked at her searchingly.
‘I don’t think so,’ Roz said slowly.
‘You’ve spoken to her about it?’
‘No, but she said something once, only I didn’t know what she meant at the time. Now—well, once I knew what was going on a lot of little things fell into place. It was quite strange, like a kaleidoscope … Yes,’ she disengaged herself and sat up, ‘I will come down, but I’ll get properly dressed first. Don’t … ‘
‘What? Lose my temper?’
She smiled faintly.
‘You must be feeling better,’ he said.
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