by Robyn Sisman
At the end of the song, he looked over in her direction.
My darling, forgive me
I know you can’t bel-eeeve
How badly I sing . . .
Jack left the stage in a thunder of good-humored applause. As he threaded his way through the tables, hands reached out to pat him approvingly on the arm or shoulder—one even on the bottom, Freya noticed with a sudden frown. Hands off! When he took his place again at the table, amid rapturous tweetings from Polly and Lulu, she thought it would be a sensible idea to remind everybody what was what. She pulled Jack close by the shirtsleeve and kissed him on the cheek.
“Darling, ‘marvelous’ isn’t the word,” she murmured.
He turned his head. His smiling blue eyes, disconcertingly close, rested on hers for a moment. They held surprise, and something else she couldn’t quite decipher. He thumped the table. “I need a drink!”
Soon afterwards, the karaoke ended and the guests deserted their tables to unleash their high spirits on the dance floor. Gallantly, Sponge asked Freya to dance with him and she accepted, pleased to show the watching world that thirtysomethings knew how to party, too. Complete strangers smiled at her and sometimes shouted their approval of Jack’s performance. She felt the warm, anonymous press of bodies, and saw how her dress shimmered in the flashing lights. Toby bopped up, jacket off, circles of sweat under his arms, and did his impersonation of a choo-choo train opposite her. She caught sight of Jack dancing with Vicky—how thoughtful!—then with one of those bridesmaid girls. Hmmm.
When she went back to her seat for a rest, everyone had disappeared. Freya poured herself another glass of wine and frowned at the table, empty now except for crumpled paper napkins, glasses, bottles, and a litter of crumbs. Nobody came over to talk to her. Nobody asked her to dance. She was beginning to feel painfully conspicuous when someone draped an arm around her shoulder and slumped into the chair n to her.
“Hello, sis,” slurred Roland, breathing into her face.
Freya recoiled from the fumes. He pulled his chair closer. His shirt was unbuttoned. Sweat glistened on his skin.
“So. That painting. How much would you say it’s worth?”
To keep him at bay, Freya rattled on about the yoyoing values of contemporary art, while Roland stared at her with the dopey, lopsided smile of the very drunk. “Maybe a thousand dollars, if you bought it in a gallery,” she concluded.
He patted her thigh. “You’re a little cracker,” he told her. “Fantastic legs. Come on, let’s dance.” He grabbed her hand and staggered to his feet. Freya gritted her teeth. If it had been anyone else she would have told him to get lost; but rejecting her stepsister’s chosen partner might look like sour grapes. She allowed him to lead her into the press of bodies, and went through the motions, head high and gaze abstracted, while Roland waved his arms about and ricocheted off her. Almost at once the music slowed to a smoochy number. Roland reached out and pulled her close, pressing every sweaty inch of his body to hers. His hand groped her bottom and squeezed slowly, suggestively. To him she was a single girl of a certain age, and fair game. She couldn’t bear it.
Quite suddenly she was free, and Jack was standing there with a big, bland smile on his face, and his hand resting affably on Roland’s collar. His teeth gleamed in the lights as he spoke into Roland’s ear. The n thing she knew Jack had set his arms on her shoulders and was steering her away from a bemused-looking Roland.
Freya smiled into his face with relief. “What did you say to him?”
“I told him they were playing our song.”
“Yuk. That’s so corny.”
“You have no romance in your soul.”
“Where have you been, anyway?”
“Looking for you.”
And with that, he drew her into his arms. Freya relaxed against him and clasped her hands around his waist. Jack felt solid and comfortable and familiar. His warm breath tickled her neck as he crooned along to the music. “Stand by me . . .” Freya rested her cheek on his shoulder and gazed through half-closed eyes at the blur of bodies and shimmer of lights. His shirt smelled good.
When the tempo changed into the pounding, irresistible beat of a familiar old song they stepped apart spontaneously and carried on dancing. It was like old times. They advanced and retreated and circled, mimicking each other’s gestures, laughing at the sheer silliness of it all. When they took a break and returned to the table for refueling, Freya felt flushed and charged with energy. She watched the muscles in Jack’s hand as he tipped the wine bottle.
“This is such . . . fun!”
“That’s because you’re not angry.”
“Angry?”
“Tight. Wound up. Snap, snap, like a vicious little crocodile.”
“Is that how you see me?” Freya was stung.
“Not tonight I don’t.” Jack drained his glass and smacked his lips. “Tonight you are a goddess. Freya, goddess of love and beauty. Come on, let’s dance.”
They plunged back into the hot pack of gyrating bodies. Fast numbers, slow numbers, silly songs that made them fling their arms in the air, old favorites whose words they shouted aloud: they danced and drank, and drank and danced, until suddenly the music finished, the lights stopped flashing, and Rocky’s voice announced that it was midnight. The party was over.
Freya stumbled out into the courtyard with Jack, dazed by the sudden darkness and cool air. Fairylights sparkled in the trees. A double line of flares lit the path. The moon was bright and benign in a pewter sky cobwebbed with cloud. She could hear her friend the owl screeching from its hidden perch; her mind shied away from the unresolved problem of who would be sleeping on the chaise longue tonight. Jack held her hand loosely as they were swept up the path with the crowd. There was a babble of voices shouting good-bye, arguing over car keys and who was sober enough to drive. Freya saw Annabelle trying to round up Roland and his chums, and shepherd them out to a waiting minibus. Then the noises receded as she and Jack veered off toward the house. They walked up stone steps and onto the terrace. The lawn was silver, shadowed by the looming shapes of clipped bushes.
“Ah-woooh!” Jack was howling at the moon.
Freya gave him a shove. “You’re drunk.”
“Who cares?” Jack threw out his arms and took a deep, ecstatic breath. “I love Cornwall.”
“You don’t say corn waal. It’s Cornwull—veddy clipped and veddy British.”
“Oh, is it?” With a sudden grin Jack pulled her into his arms and waltzed her up the path. “Oh, I don’t care if you are called the fair Miss Frigidaire . . .”
“ ‘Cause I’m sen-SA-tional,” she sang back, then tripped on a flagstone.
“Stop!” She stumbled against his shirt front as her ankle twisted, and her one of her shoes came off. She bent to retrieve it. “Bugger. The heel’s loose.”
“Uh-oh. Looks like I’m going to have to pick you up and carry you.”
Freya laughed in his face. No one had carried her since she was about eight years old. “Don’t be ridic—”
“Stop saying that!” He made a grab for her. Freya swerved out of his reach and took off along the terrace at a lolloping, peg-legged run. He chased after her. She darted in through the French windows, across the library and into the hall. As she reached the bottom of the staircase, her stockinged foot slid on the wooden step. She grabbed the newel post, breathless and dizzy, and swung herself around defensively to face Jack.
He reached out and picked her up, just like that. “Light as a feather,” he pronounced, staggering wildly around the hall.
Freya kicked her legs. “Put me down!”
From upstairs an unfamiliar female voice called, “Are you all right?”
Freya and Jack looked at each other and giggled. Freya put her arms boldly around his neck. “Okay, carry me, you he-man. Let’s see how far you get.”
He shifted her weight a little and began to climb. Moonlight streamed through the big window at the turn of the stairs. Freya stared
dreamily at his profile. What nice ears he had. She blew playfully on the hair at the nape of his neck. When he reached the landing, he paused.
“Out of breath already?” she teased.
He turned his head and kissed her. The shock of it ripped through her. Her eyes closed, then flew open.
“Freya,” he whispered. His voice was full of longing.
“Jack . . .” She put her fingers to his face. It felt soft and hard, smooth and rough, familiar yet as new and exciting as a wild frontier. Suddenly she wanted to touch every part of him—his ears and his neck and the line of his eyebrows and that corner of his mouth that curled up—just a bit, not enough for anyone but her to notice—when he was secretly amused. She slid her feet to the ground, staying within the strong clasp of his arms, feeling his body strike sparks against hers. Then she wound her arms around his neck and kissed him back.
It seemed that her being split in two, so that her mind floated free in a haze of wonder and anticipation, while a drumbeat of desire propelled her body upstairs. She felt the reassuring bulk of Jack’s body, his thigh hard against hers, his breath on her hair. The bedroom was bathed in moonlight. Without any conscious wish or effort she was lying down, eyes shut, arms stretched wide on a bed that tilted and swayed beneath her. Then Jack’s weight was on top of her. She smiled and ran her hands down his back, feeling the ripple of his ribs under her thumbs. He pulled down the straps of her dress, then raised himself off her. Her eyelids fluttered open. He knelt astride her. He was undoing his shirt.
Wait . . . Undoing his shirt? Was this right? No . . . Yes! But the warning voice grew louder. This was Jack—her old friend, her younger friend, lover of Candace and a thousand interchangeable others, past and future. She was heading down a blind alley: she would get hurt. Freya put her hands flat against his chest. “I don’t think this is a good idea.” Her voice was weak and unconvincing.
Jack seized her hands and was kissing her palms. “Of course, it’s a good idea,” he murmured. His eyes were half-closed, his face sharp and concentrated with desire.
“No.” She pulled herself out from under him, into a sitting position. Jack reached for her—blindly, possessively. She put out a hand to ward him off. “No,” she said again. With a supreme effort she managed to swing her legs over the edge of the bed and stand up. She was trembling. She couldn’t stop. It was embarrassing. She held on to the bedpost. “I think I’m a little drunk, and so are you. Let’s not do anything we’ll regret.”
“I won’t regret it,” Jack said fiercely. He slid from the bed and smoothed his hands over her shoulders. He was trembling, too. “Come on, Freya, let yourself go. We’ve both been wanting to do this for ten years.”
“I have not.”
It was a lie. She wanted to. Oh, how she wanted to. Her body was ripe and ready as a juicy fig. It’s just sex, she told herself. She didn’t want to have “just sex”—not with Jack.
But that’s what it would be. On Sunday he’d go home to Candace; she’d be no more than another name on the list. With an effort as great as slamming down a steel shutter, she made herself say, “It’s been fun pretending, Jack, but I think this game has gone far enough.”
“I’m not pretending! And neither are you.” His thumbs dug into her arms.
“Let’s not forget about Candace.”
Jack tossed his head at this irrelevance. “Freya—”
“We’re friends, Jack. That’s all.”
“It’s not all!”
“For chrissakes, let me go!” She was almost weeping.
His fingers tightened painfully. Then he flung her away from him. They stared at each other in distrust.
Jack’s eyes narrowed to glittering slits. His mouth twisted. “Well, what a little cockteaser you are.”
Freya’s head snapped back, as if he’d hit her. Her nose prickled with tears that she commanded herself not to shed. Vulnerability made her caustic.
“You and your cock. That’s all you think about. The only reason you want me is because I’m here.”
“That’s not true!”
“You don’t really want a woman like me. Someone who talks back. Someone who doesn’t think every single thing you do is a miracle. And I don’t want someone who screws around. So let’s not get started, okay?” She could hear her own breath, ragged and harsh, and made an effort to calm her voice. “I’ll sleep on the chaise longue,” she said.
Jack punched the air in fury. “You don’t think I’m going to stay here, do you? Just climb into bed like a good little boy, while you lie sanctimoniously on the other side of the goddamned room? Jesus, Freya! You really have got ice in your veins.”
He backed away from her. He was buttoning his shirt, his fingers fumbling, sliding, slipping. Anger flowed out of his powerful body. He jerked open the door. His mouth twisted in a parody of the smile she loved. He cut the air with a mocking sweep of his hand.
“The bed’s all yours.”
CHAPTER 26
He ought to have passed out by now. Why the hell hadn’t he? Jack slopped more whisky into his glass and raised it to his lips. The smell made him nauseated. He slammed down the glass and paced up and down the library, kicking errant scraps of silver ribbon and crackly paper out of his way. He was so . . . angry!
His first impulse had been to leave—to jump in the car, drive straight to the airport and go home. To hell with Freya and her family and this stupid wedding! But the car keys were in Freya’s purse upstairs; returning to the bedroom was too humiliating to contemplate. Instead, he’d tramped around the dewy gardens for the better part of an hour, irritatingly shadowed by an inquisitive Bedivere, who clearly hoped that Jack was going to reveal the whereabouts of his bone-hoard. But his efforts to calm his mind and exhaust his body had proved futile. All he’d gotten was wet feet. All he’d seen was the sordid debris of the party—extinguished flares, gusting napkins, the litter of cigarette butts and burst balloons. All he’d heard were the sounds of a couple copulating in a hay barn; their moans only increased his frustration.
He hated her, yet he couldn’t get her out of his mind. Freya running down the beach in her bikini, long legs gleaming with seawater. Freya dancing in her mermaid dress. The feel of her in his arms, the look in her eye when he’d retrieved the karaoke disaster, the tender lift of her chin as she’d raised her head to kiss him. And the kiss itself. That kiss! . . .
Jack groaned aloud and circled back toward his drink. Thank the Lord for alcohol. When at length he’d returned to the house, he’d remembered the couch where Roland had sat in state, big enough to sleep on, and the tray of drinks at his elbow, and found his way here. Now he slumped onto the worn cushions and sank his head in hands. He needed to sleep. But he couldn’t. Resentment boiled inside him. How could she do that to him? Not once, but twice. What did the woman want? Come here, Jack. Go away, Jack. Isn’t this fun, Jack? No, don’t be ridiculous. Push, pull, push, pull, until he was dizzy, exhausted, frustrated, and furious. When he thought of how he had put himself out for her, abandoning his work, flying thousands of miles to take part in this ridiculous charade, and she couldn’t even—! He tugged at his hair. And why bring Candace up at a moment like that? He hadn’t even thought of Candace since he’d been here—not once!
Jack jumped up from the couch and began pacing again, looking for distraction. The room was full of books, rows and rows of them—clothbound, leatherbound, jacketed; stamped, scrolled, foxed, and frayed. Oh, for the solace of literature, to take possession of his mind and lead it into pastures new—or at least send him to sleep. He peered at the magisterial volumes—Horace, Byron, Pepys, Boswell—and was uneasily reminded of his own novel. He moved along the shelves, looking for something taxing and intricate, which required his full concentration. Ah, Henry James: The Golden Bowl. That should do it. He placed the book ready by the couch, then collected all the cushions he could find for his sore head. Grunting, he bent down to unlace and remove his damp shoes. The bottoms of his trousers were wet, too. Ma
ybe if he hung them over a chair to dry, he could use those huge wedding-present bath towels as a makeshift covering. He was starting to unzip his fly when the sensation of being watched made him turn around sharply.
A woman was standing in the open doorway. For a moment he thought it was Freya, come to beg his forgiveness, and almost threw Henry James at her. Then the figure stepped out of the dimness and came into focus.
“Can’t you sleep either?” said Tash.
Jack gave a noncommittal grunt. As she strolled over to him, he saw that her feet were bare and her dark hair loose and tousled. She was wrapped in the pink thing she’d worn this morning.
“Ooh, lovely, you’ve found the booze.” She gave him a conspirator’s smile.
“Uh, yes.” Jack realized that he must present a slightly peculiar spectacle, alone here among the wedding presents, with his shoes off, his pile of cushions, and the Penroses’ half-empty whisky bottle. “I’m afraid I helped myself. Hope that’s okay.”
“ ‘Course it is, Jack! You’re practically one of us. What’s ours is yours.”
“Thanks.” Her friendliness was cheering. At least somebody liked him. “Here, let me get you a glass.”
He poured her a drink and sat down. Tash clambered onto the other end of the couch and relaxed with a small sigh, tucking her legs beneath her. She raised her glass in a playful toast.
“Here’s to my last few hours of freedom.”
“Freedom,” echoed Jack. Yeah, he’d drink to that.
“Just think: by tomorrow night I’ll be Mrs. Swindon-Smythe.” Tash giggled. “It sounds frightfully grown up.”
“Yep. You’re a brave girl.”
“Don’t say that! I’ve got butterflies in my tummy as it is. Still, I suppose Roley’s got the essentials, so what the hell?” She gave a larky grin.