by Penny Jordan
He returned shortly before lunch; a meal which was eaten almost completely in silence.
'I've decided that we might as well return to London,' he announced abruptly when they had been served with their coffee. Something had happened during his walk to change him. The eyes which rested on her averted profile were completely impersonal, his attitude towards her that of a coolly polite stranger. No longer did the burning intensity of his gaze trigger off shivers of awareness, scorching her flesh where it alighted upon it. He smiled mirthlessly, lifting his cup to his mouth. 'It wasn't my original intention, but in the circumstances it seems the best course of action—for both of us.'
Genista went upstairs to pack, leaving Luke to settle their bill. She had closed her own case and was staring at his, wondering whether her newly married status meant that he would expect her to adopt the duties of a normal wife, when he walked in, calmly settling the matter for her by opening the wardrobe and withdrawing the clothes he had hung there. He packed methodically, with a precision that spoke of long practice. No doubt in the early days of building up his business he must have travelled widely, and probably not always alone.
Jealousy knifed agonisingly through her. How many other women had known the pleasure she had found in his arms? It was something she would be wiser not to think about, but it was impossible not to. How many of them had he loved? Or had there only been one—Verity? Verity who had gone off with his brother-in-law because she preferred being a rich man's mistress to a poor man's wife.
'Ready?'
She nodded numbly, following him out of the room. On the threshold she was unable to resist one backward glance. In these impersonal surroundings she had come to full womanhood; had experienced ecstacy and pain; had learned the difference between mere infatuation—which was what she had felt for Richard—and love.
It was late afternoon when they reached the outskirts of London. Luke had said not one word about their future together, and Genista felt as though her forehead was in the grip of an iron band, which tightened increasingly painfully as the silence between them stretched into a tension that plucked at her overwrought nerve ends.
'I want to call at the office,' Luke told her as he turned off the motorway. 'There are some papers I want to pick up.'
Everything was the same—but different. It was hard to believe that the last time she had entered these offices she had entered them as a single woman, unaware of what lay ahead of her.
Bob looked up from his desk as they walked in. Most of the staff had already left, and he did a double-take as he saw them.
'We weren't expecting you back. How did it go?'
Jilly walked out of her office, and grinned at them. Luke asked her if she could get him a file, and while they talked, Genista managed to ask Bob about Elaine. His face was grave.
'She has to have major surgery. The surgeon wants to be sure that they remove the growth completely.' He looked close to tears, and Genista laid a sympathetic hand on his arm, feeling almost maternal.
'They can do wonderful things these days,' she comforted him.
He smiled bleakly. 'I know. It isn't the operation I'm worried about—it's afterwards—when Elaine realises what it means. I had to give consent for the operation. Before she went in she begged me not to let them remove her ... anything, but the surgeon told me that if they didn't she could die.
Oh God, Genista!' He covered his face with his hands, his shoulders bowed and shaking, and Genista placed her arms round him instinctively, putting her cheek comfortingly against his hair.
'You've done the right thing, I'm sure of it. The operation will be a shock to her, but once she realises that you still love her, that you still feel the same . . .'
'Of course I do.' Bob's voice was rough. 'Love isn't something you turn on and off like a tap.'
'Have you told Bob our good news?'
Neither of them had heard Luke approach the desk. Genista looked up, frightened by the black fury in his eyes. How he must hate her, now that he had discovered the truth. He had thought her a sophisticated woman of the world, well schooled in everything it took to please a man, instead of which he had discovered that she was an inexperienced virgin. No wonder he was looking at her as though he wanted to murder her!
'What news?' Jilly asked gaily, coming to join them. 'Don't tell me you've finally got Genista to declare a truce in this war she's declared against the male sex.'
'I hope so,' Luke replied dryly, 'otherwise it doesn't say much for the success of our marriage.'
'Marriage!' Bob and Jilly uttered the word in disbelieving unison. 'You're married? Oh, Genista, how could you without telling me?' Jilly wailed. 'I want to know all about it. What did you wear? When was it all decided? You dark horse, you, spinning me that line about disliking Luke, and all the time'... Do you know, she even had me convinced that she didn't know how you felt about her,' she complained to Luke. 'But I could see that you'd fallen for her like a ton of bricks the moment you set eyes on her.'
'Perceptive of you.'
Was she the only one who was aware of the sarcastic inflection behind the words? Genista wondered miserably. Jilly's ecstatic chatter filled the awkward silence Luke's announcement had provoked. Bob congratulated them stiltedly, and Genista knew that his thoughts were on Elaine. Poor Bob! She wished there was some way she could help him.
'You'll be giving up your job, of course?' Jilly mused. 'Does Luke have a flat in London? Nice, but hardly suitable for children,' she added, betraying quite plainly the direction her thoughts were taking.
'You're ahead of us there,' Luke responded lightly. 'But as it happens I don't live in London. I have a house about fifty miles away. It's in the country, and the pleasure of returning to it after a day cooped up in an office more than makes up for the travelling involved.'
'And now it will be even more pleasurable because you'll have Genista to go home to,' Jilly murmured. 'You've always loved the country, haven't you, Gen? She's a small town girl at heart—but then I expect you already know that?'
'We haven't had a lot of time to catch up on each other's backgrounds,' Luke replied succinctly. 'We've been too involved with more immediate concerns.'
Jilly laughed delightedly when Genista coloured.
'Well, I think it's wonderful. My only complaint is that I didn't get an invitation to the wedding.'
'It was a very quiet ceremony,' Genista told her quietly. 'We were married by Luke's godfather, in the Lake District.'
'What did you wear?' Jilly demanded. 'I want to know all the details.'
'A pale green silk suit,' Luke said promptly before Genista could answer. His arm circled her waist, holding her against him, the look in his eyes full of tenderness as he added softly, 'And very beautiful she looked in it too.'
It was only to keep up appearances, of course, but even so, her heart pounded with dizzy pleasure for a briefly betraying moment before she reminded herself sternly that it meant nothing.
'Green silk? Oh, not that gorgeous outfit you bought the other week, Gen?' Jilly exclaimed. The one you were going to wear for the christening?'
Genista could feel Luke watching her, and the tiny scraps of paper which had once been his cheque seemed to burn a hole in her handbag.
'Thrifty as well as beautiful!'
The light words held an undercurrent of steel that made Genista dread the time when they were alone. Luke had specified that she was not to wear clothes paid for by anyone else, and neither had she done, so why should he be annoyed because she had not used his cheque?
'You're very quiet, Bob?'
Genista frowned a little at the challenge in the quietly spoken words. Was Luke trying subtly to remind her of the weapon he still held? He need not have done.
'Old age creeping up on me, I suppose,' Bob replied lightly. 'Genista knows I wish her all the happiness in the world. She deserves it, and I suspect it's very selfish of me to worry about how I'm going to replace her.'
'Very,
' Luke agreed coolly. 'But I'm afraid you'll have to. Genista will have more than enough to do running our home, and no newly married man wants to find his wife dropping with exhaustion every evening.'
The pointed comment made Genista's cheeks burn. Jilly winked at her and hissed conspiratorially, 'Lucky thing! What I wouldn't give to be waiting for Luke to come home to me every night!'
They left shortly afterwards. Luke tossed the files he had collected on to the back seat of the Maserati as he opened the passenger door.
This time the silence between them seemed to have an added ingredient of hostility, and Genista's head began to throb painfully with the tension gripping her body.
They drove east, along the M4 in the direction of Bath, the countryside rolling and unfamiliar. Some forty miles outside London Luke took a slip road off the motorway and in the gathering dusk Genista gained only a vague impression of high hedges and narrow winding roads.
Luke switched on the cassette player and the strains of Debussy filled the car. Genista tried to relax her tense muscles, but it was impossible. The intimacy of the car seemed to close over her, like a thick, muffling blanket. Luke, on the other hand, appeared completely relaxed. She stole a look at his remote profile. He was concentrating on the road ahead, but the anger which had seemed to grip him as they left the office had gone. His shirt was open at the throat and memories of how his body had felt beneath her urgent fingers poured over her.
'What's wrong? Have I suddenly grown another head?'
She looked away quickly, hating herself for being caught out staring at him. She was like a miser, greedily studying his gold, storing up memories for the time when he might no longer be able to look upon the real article.
They were deep in the country. In front of them a Tudor farmhouse materialised out of the dusk, the black and white facade of the upper storeys picked out by the new moon.
The house had an air of serenity that soothed Genista's bruised heart. It seemed to reach out and embrace her, and she wondered idly to whom it belonged. Some rich landowner, no doubt. From the front it resembled an 'E' without the middle, the two outer wings like arms protecting the main body of the building.
As the Maserati purred throatily towards the locked gates she started in surprise. Luke flicked a switch inside the car and they opened automatically. This time Genista did not look away when he returned her stare.
''This is your home?'
'Well, I'm certainly not taking you to someone else's.'
'But. . . but it's beautiful,' she said weakly.
His smile mocked her confusion. 'What did you expect? Some Victorian monstrosity tailed up by a fashionable interior designer? I saw this house for the first time twenty years ago when I was still at school, and I vowed then that one day it would be mine. You could call it a case of love at first sight.'
'I'm surprised you believe in such things.'
The words slipped out, tinged with pain. Such a short time ago she wouldn't have believed in it herself, but now she knew better.
'But then you don't really know me, do you? Luke said coolly. 'Love isn't something that happens according to plan. It obeys no laws but its own. Surely you must have noticed how incongruously it strikes? How . . . cruelly? After all, that's something you've had first-hand experience of yourself, isn't it?'
For a moment Genista thought he had guessed how she felt about him. Her face went paper-white, her lips parting tremulously in quick denial, and then she realised that he was probably referring to her parents. He couldn't know how she felt; she had been at such pains to hide it from him.
He stopped the car in front of the house, gravel crunching underfoot as he walked round to her door and opened it for her.
The house was all in darkness.
'Someone comes in to clean for me every morning, and leave a meal prepared if I'm dining at home, but I prefer not to have live-in help. I enjoy my privacy.'
He touched a light switch and the square hall was immediately illuminated with light. Genista stared around, her eyes widening with pleasure. The hall was panelled, the wood glowing mellowly with the patina of the years. Underfoot on the parquet floor lay silky Persian rugs, glowing richly. On a table beneath a portrait stood a huge brass bowl full of crimson roses.
'The sitting room is through there,' Luke murmured, touching her arm. 'It's the library really, but I prefer it to the drawing room, which I find too large when I'm on my own. I left instructions for a buffet meal to be left for us. I'll just go and bring in the cases.'
Genista was in the library, examining some of the books on the shelves when he returned. The room was furnished comfortably rather than luxuriously, and she had an immediate sense of being at home.
'I expect you do a good deal of business entertaining here,' she commented when Luke walked in.
He shrugged off his jacket and walked over to a glass-fronted cabinet removing a bottle and two glasses.
'This is my home, not a conference centre,' he told her harshly as he poured the golden amber liquid into the crystal. 'I didn't buy the house as a tax deductible investment, if that's what you mean. When I want to do business I use my office—that's what it's for. When I want to relax I come home. It may be that I have to call upon you occassionally to entertain for me, but it will be occasionally— you won't have to work for your keep if that's what's worrying you. And talking about "keep".' He picked up one of the glasses and brought it across to her. 'Malt whisky—drink it, you look pale, it will do you good ... For the duration of our marriage I'll make you an allowance. Although I don't expect you to act as my social secretary, you will have certain . . . responsibilities. You'll need clothes ...'
'I don't want your money!' Genista put down her glass, its contents untouched, her voice tight with anger. 'I have plenty of money for my wants. I don't want yours, Luke.'
'But nevertheless you will take it.' A muscle twitched in his jaw, and his fingers were clenched round the precious crystal. 'You destroyed the cheque I gave you to buy a wedding outfit—your pride refused to allow you to wear something I had paid for. Well, I have my pride too, Genista, and just as long as you're my wife, I will keep you. Is that understood?'
For a moment she contemplated defying him, but the look in his eyes warned her that it would be wiser not to.
'I suppose I'll be allowed to keep my car,' she responded sarcastically at length.
'What would you do if I said "no?" Keep within the bounds of this house like a prisoner rather than touch anything I might have given you? I don't carry the plague, you know, Genista. I won't contaminate you.'
'You already have.'
She said it so quietly that she thought he hadn't heard her, until the brittle sound of glass breaking brought her head up in shocked protest. His glass lay shattered in the hearth in a dozen pieces, his face white with fury.
'Damn you, you won't let me forget, will you?' he swore. 'What am I supposed to do? Pay a penance for the rest of my life because I took your virginity? What is it you hate the most, Genista? The fact that I wasn't Bob, or the fact that you enjoyed it, despite that?'
'You're dispicable!'
'Despicable or not, I'm still your husband. Remember that, won't you?'
When the door slammed behind him Genista sank into the nearest chair. She heard the throaty roar of the Maserati as it roared away, although it was several seconds before she realised that Luke had left her completely alone in her new home. She waited half an hour and when he did not return she rose on shaky legs and started to explore her new surroundings.
Across the hall from the library was the drawing room, a beautifully proportioned room, which had obviously been remodelled during the Georgian era. The high, moulded ceiling and graceful marble fireplace drew a faint sigh of appreciation from her. The room was decorated in shades of palest green, and beautiful though it was she could quite see why Luke might prefer the library for relaxing in. It was much more a family room. A family! She stopped like someone transfix
ed. Where on earth were her errant thoughts leading? Any family that filled this beautiful house would not be hers and Luke's, but the thought of the children he might father on another woman left her raw with a pain that lacerated her already tender heart.
Behind the library was a formal dining room, elegant antique furniture gleaming under the lights of the chandelier. Genista closed the double doors quietly, trying not to imagine that huge mahogany table filled with a large family.
The kitchen had been completely modernised, but in a way that completely kept its traditional appeal. There was a note on the table saying that a salad and a cooked chicken had been left in the fridge.
Genista did not feel hungry. Her ears were alert for the first sound of the returning Maserati. When it did not come she went back to the library, reluctant to explore upstairs, as though she were a visitor who must await the invitation of the owner.
She was curled up asleep in a chair in the library, when something wakened her. She stiffened, tensing as she heard the front door open, and slow footsteps crossing the hall. The door handle turned, and she held her breath. It was gone two o'clock in the morning. Where had Luke been?
He opened the door and stood by it, swaying slightly, his eyes glittering dangerously over her sleepy features.
'Waiting for me like a dutiful wife?' His voice was faintly slurred, and alarm clawed at Genista as she realised that he had been drinking.
'Why, I wonder? Not because you were lonely in bed without me? Or was it? You wanted me this morning, Genista, no matter how much those flashing eyes of yours want to deny it. Oh, you're safe enough now,' he muttered. 'There's a certain something to be said for alcohol—it blunts one's desire. Shocked?' His raw mockery caught at her nerves. 'You ought to be grateful that you're being spared my unwanted advances; that I'm not defiling you by further exhibitions of my lust. You hate me, don't you? Don't you?' he demanded ferociously. 'I took your virginity, and you haven't got the guts to admit that you enjoyed the experience, so instead you blame me—hating me.'