'Can't we go?'
The front door banged violently; the angry voices no longer snapped at each other.
'In a minute,' soothed Sian, watching the door of the room.
Cass came through it, frowning heavily, his skin dark with angry colour, his eyes glittering.
'Cass, we must go,' Annette pleaded, getting up, and he looked at her blankly for a second, then smiled reassurance.
'Yes, I'll get the car. Wait for me outside.'
Sian followed him into the hall, and he looked down at her impatiently as she caught up with him. 'Well, what now?'
'Look, I can't stay here much longer, you know. I do have my own life to lead. I've got to be back at work tomorrow, so I'll have to be back in London tonight.'
'Can't you take a few days off?' He ran a hand through his smoothly brushed hair until it all stood on end to match his distracted, irritated expression.
'I just did. I'm not entitled to any more.'
'Ring your paper and ask…'
'Ask my editor if I can stay?' Sian laughed shortly. 'Oh, he would say yes. He'd jump at it! He would also expect a follow-up to my first scoop—the latest inside dope on Annette's flight from the altar.'
Her dry tone made him scowl, staring. 'You could refuse to write it, couldn't you? If you really like Annette, you won't put her through any more.'
'Let me remind you, from tomorrow I am due back at work. If I stay I shall technically be working.'
His mouth indented. 'Oh, very well. I'll make other arrangements for- Annette, but can you hang on for a few hours to give me a chance to work something out?'
She felt small and mean under his accusing eyes but, however much he disapproved of her, she couldn't bear to stay here. She had to get away, from him and from having to watch him with Annette. Was his sister right? Did he hope to get Annette back? It was none of Sian's business, but she couldn't believe those two were suited. Annette was right out of his league—couldn't he see that? Annette herself had realised it, even if only at the last minute. Or had she always known it, but only found the courage to run away at the eleventh hour? Even then she probably wouldn't have gone if Rick hadn't rung her and galvanised her into flight.
'OK,' she said flatly, staring at him and bewildered by his blindness about Annette. They would have been a very ill-matched couple—why couldn't he see that?
He turned and walked out of the house and she stared after him, that queer little pain nagging away inside her again. I'm jealous, she thought, wide-eyed with shock. How stupid! I'm jealous—but I hardly know the man, so why should I be?
She might not know him well, but one thing she was sure about it—she'd be more on his level than Annette had ever been.
Hot colour ran up to her hair. How ridiculous, she thought, angry with herself. What on earth made me think that? He wouldn't give me a second look!
Oh, but he has, her mind reminded her; he's looked more than twice, in fact. She stared at nothing, remembering the times when she had felt that powerful flare of attraction—or had she imagined it? Had she wanted to believe he was as aware of her as she was of him? It was so easy to deceive yourself—wasn't that what Cass was doing over Annette? If he thought they could ever be happy together he was deceiving himself. If Sian hadn't heard Annette's side of it already she would have been just as sure that marriage between Cass and Annette would be a recipe for disaster. The two of them were worlds apart. Why couldn't he see that?
'Are we going yet?' Annette said huskily behind her, and Sian turned and hurriedly smiled reassurance.
'Let's wait outside the house.'
Cass drew up shortly after that, and they drove to the hospital to find it besieged by reporters and photographers who jostled each other to get pictures of them arriving.
Cass and Sian hurried Annette into the hospital, and the burly porters held the clamouring mob back while they escaped up to the heart unit. Annette was in tears by then; Cass had his arm around her and was murmuring gently, but his grey eyes acidly reminded Sian that the mob outside were her people, she was one of them. Sian looked away, wishing she could deny it. This was one of those times when silence was the only defence.
They found Rick in the waiting-room. He came to take Annette away from Cass, his face jealous, resentful. Annette cried harder at the sight of him and clung, her arms round his neck.
'Oh, Rick, he isn't worse? Why can't I see him? I'm so scared. He isn't going to die, is he? Outside there are… they all shouted and tried to grab me as if I was a criminal or something… what's going on? When can I see my father?'
Rick had both arms round her, his chin on her soft hair. 'The sister says you can take a look at him, but he's under sedation, he won't know you're there. He's OK, though, Annette. He's going to be OK, in time. Whatever happens, you mustn't upset yourself or he may pick it up. You've got to be very calm and quiet before you see him.'
She struggled with her tears, shaking. 'I am, Rick. I'm calm and quiet.'
'Come and see Sister,' said Rick, leading her out, ignoring Sian and Cass. Sian sat down, grimacing, avoiding Cass's eye. Did it wound him to see Annette with Rick, to be forced to relinquish her to the other man? She wished she could leave at once, get away from here.
Cass prowled up and down, his hands in his pockets, his head bent, his face dark. Rick came back and Cass looked sharply at him.
'She's in there with her father.' Rick had a hospital mask tied round his neck, and had obviously just pushed it down from his mouth. He faced Cass belligerently. 'There's no need for you to stay. She doesn't want you here; I can take care of her from now on. Tonight, I'll take her to stay with my aunt. I've got a car, so that I can drive her back here in an emergency.'
Cass listened, his face a mask. He didn't answer, just nodded, and Rick turned on his heel and went, pulling up the mask over his mouth again. Cass stared after him and then turned to look at Sian.
'I'll drive you back to London now,' was all he said, in a quiet voice, but Sian would have given a great deal to know exactly what he was feeling.
CHAPTER FOUR
Cass didn't talk much on the drive back to London, and Sian was relieved about that because her thoughts were chaotic, and she needed to be quiet to sort them out into some sort of order. So much had happened in far too short a time, both around her, and inside her. She was bewildered, dazed, unsure—in fact, the only thing she was sure about at the moment was that she wasn't sure precisely how she did feel.
And he was the cause: this frowning man sitting beside her! He had done this to her! She looked sideways, through her lashes, and watched him driving, his grey eyes hard and fixed, his profile unyielding. A queer little tremor ran through her; an electric shock along her nerves.
It was crazy. She barely knew the man. It wasn't even twenty-four hours since he had first walked into her life, why should he have this devastating effect on her? Am I that impressionable? she asked herself, closing her eyes to shut out all sight of that lean, dark face in profile, the wind-blown hair giving him the look of some marauding barbarian, a dangerous invader coming unstoppably towards you while you stared, paralysed.
My imagination has run mad, she thought, laughter in her throat as she realised what she had been thinking. At that moment, Cass turned his head, still dark-browed, and snapped, 'What's funny?'
'I am,' she said, and he stopped scowling and looked surprised.
'Why?'
'Never mind, something I was thinking.' She looked at the speedometer and winced. 'Do we have to drive at this speed?' The car was touching ninety although it ran so smoothly that she hadn't realised it until then.
'Yes,' he said coolly.
'Soothes the savage breast, does it?'
Her mockery made him laugh. 'Something like that.'
'It may be doing you a power of good, but it makes me feel sick,' Sian said frankly, and he grimaced.
'Sorry about that. I was miles away.'
Sian could guess where, but carefully said nothin
g. He took his foot off the accelerator, and the speed began to fall. Sian gave a faint sigh of relief and he grinned wryly at her.
'That's better, is it?'
'Sixty-five is bearable,' she said, leaning back in her seat and relaxing.
'We're only half an hour from London,' he told her a moment later. 'In time for lunch—will you let me give you lunch? I owe you a lunch at least, wouldn't you say?'
'That's OK,' she said, meaning that he didn't owe her anything and there was no need to buy her lunch, but he misunderstood, either deliberately or because he really didn't get what she meant.
'Fine, why don't we eat at a pretty little riverside pub I know? It's a lovely day and the landlord is a friend of mine. The place will be packed out, but he keeps a couple of tables in his garden for friends on fine days. It's quite an experience—Danny was a jazz musician—he can play anything you care to name—and while he was travelling up and down the country doing gigs he taught himself to cook like an angel. You won't get better food in London.'
'What's the pub called?' she asked, wondering how he had met a jazz musician who cooked like an angel. Of course, there was no point in being curious about him or his life because after today they weren't going to be meeting.
He talked about the pub for several minutes, then asked her, 'How long have you been in journalism?'
Sian realised he was only making polite conversation, but she answered him because anything was better than sitting next to him, brooding over the weird effect he had on her, or sensing him brooding over Annette. At least he wasn't doing that while he chatted about jazz and Fleet Street.
'Ever since I left school and joined the local newspaper,' she told him.
'You've done well to get this far!' he commented, eyeing her speculatively. 'You must be good or you wouldn't be working in Fleet Street at your age. You can't be much more than twenty-three or four.'
She laughed. 'How flattering! Try twenty-five.' Almost twenty-six, actually, she thought, but why be utterly frank with him? Somehow twenty-five didn't sound as old as twenty-six, although she couldn't quite say why.
He shrugged. 'That's still pretty young.' He grinned suddenly at her. 'I speak from experience. I can give you ten years.'
She had guessed his age, but he looked younger at times. He was very fit, very lean; his body had the suppleness of a much younger man. She secretly assessed him, her eyes flicking down over him, then up again. As her gaze reached his face, she found him watching her, his mouth crooked with amusement. Sian went red and looked away, burning with embarrassment.
'Well?' he murmured teasingly.
'Well what?' She was furious because, for all her efforts to sound cool, she knew her voice was husky.
'Do I pass?'
She hesitated, torn between rage and laughter, then gave in and laughed. 'Oh, you'd do, on a dark night,' she said, and he laughed too, his head thrown back and his laughter open and full of enjoyment.
Sian was still very hot, and stared out of the window at the grey mass of London's huddled streets as they drove towards the centre, off the motorway. Then Cass turned towards the river to follow it along its curving path, through sprawling suburbs, until they reached the riverside pub, a whitewashed Georgian building set in a garden of lawns and flowerbeds, with willows edging the riverbank just below it.
Cass was right; it was packed with people that Sunday lunch time, and there were cars parked like sardines in the large car park adjoining it, but the landlord welcomed Cass with a wide grin and friendly eyes which held an unspoken sympathy. He must have read about the wedding fiasco, but he didn't breathe a word about it.
'A table in the garden? Of course, I'll get Nell to lay it right away. There isn't anyone else out there, today; you'll have the garden to yourself. But come and have a drink with me in my office first. It's ages since we saw you here.'
'I've been busy, I'm afraid,' Cass said, following him into a tiny room, just big enough for a desk covered with papers and a couple of filing-cabinets. Cass sat down on the window-seat which was piled with red velvet cushions, and patted the place next to him, gesturing for Sian to sit there.
The landlord asked what they would drink and poured them glasses, handing them over with a smile as he saw Sian staring at the four walls which were crowded with sketches in pen and pencil: some quite lovely landscapes, others funny and often savage cartoons.
'Didn't Cass tell you I drew?'
'You did them all?'
Her stupefaction made him laugh, brushing his long brown hair back from his thin face.
'All of them, I'm afraid. Whenever I get five minutes to myself, I open my sketchpad.'
'Cass only told me you cooked!'
Danny roared. 'Isn't that typical? He's a materialist, our Cass—just interested in the body, not the soul. Isn't that so, Cass?'
'Let's say the pleasures of the body are easier to get hold of!'
Sian laughed, then met his eyes and flushed, the mockery in his glance reminding her of her own covert assessment of him in the car not long ago.
'But isn't jazz soul music?' Cass asked Danny lightly. 'You know I love jazz. Doesn't that qualify?'
'OK, I take it back—you do have some unmaterialistic tendencies,' Danny agreed, grinning. 'But not many. Nobody who has made as much money as you have can be anything but materialistic.'
'What's wrong with a little ambition? Sian, you're ambitious, aren't you?'
'To be a good journalist, yes,' she agreed.
'To be a success,' Cass insisted, and she had to admit he was right.
'Just as Danny once dreamt of being a great jazzman,' Cass drawled, grinning, and Danny made a face at him.
'You wouldn't have minded that yourself!' he teased, and Cass laughed.
'Really? You wanted to play jazz?' asked Sian, eyes widening in disbelief.
'He certainly did, once upon a time, before the business bug hit him,' Danny told her, an eye on Cass, who was looking wryly amused.
'What did you play?' asked Sian. Then grinning, she added, 'Don't tell me—your own trumpet!'
Danny roared and Cass pretended to punch her. 'Very funny, but it was clarinet, actually, and a little bit of sax.'
'Did you say sex?' asked Danny innocently, and Cass pulled a face at him.
'She knows I meant saxophone, so don't try that old chestnut on her, or I won't send a man down to mend your computer next time it breaks down.'
'Talking about that…' Danny began, and Cass interrupted quickly.
'Not on your life! I'm not looking at it now. I'm hungry and it's Sunday and I want my lunch.' He finished his drink and stood up. 'Come on, Sian, let's get out into the garden before he drags me off to his den.'
The garden was lovely: a small, isolated part of the public gardens, walled off and secret, with rambling roses spilling torrents of red and gold flowers down the walls, lavender scenting the air, a sycamore giving shade and a table and chairs placed on a little patio for them to eat under a yellow umbrella.
'How long have you known Danny?' Sian asked at one point, and Cass shrugged.
'Years now. I was twenty, so was he. He was playing jazz up at Cambridge while I was in college there; he was a student too that year, but he got sent down because he never did a stroke of work. Just made music in the local pubs and clubs. I thought his was a great life for a while. I sat in on some of their sessions in my spare time but, unlike Danny, I did work. My family expected it, and I didn't have either the courage or the motivation to take Danny's route. So I stayed and went into business, and Danny dropped out. He did OK. He's got this place and a lot of friends. He still plays jazz when he feels like it, and we've always kept in touch. He's a nice guy.'
Sian nodded, agreeing, but as she watched the river flowing under the slanting green willows, she thought that Cass was quite a nice guy, too, and full of surprises. She would never have suspected him of wanting to be a jazz musician.
'Why electronics?' she asked him idly, and he answered the sam
e way, in between eating the duck which was their second course.
'Who knows why? As Danny says, I got the bug. Computers came along while I was still young enough to get obsessed with them the way Danny was about jazz. I'm one of those lucky people, in fact, whose hobby is their way of earning a living.' He smiled at her across the table, sunlight turning his grey eyes silver. 'Like yourself!'
Her heart gave a funny little sideways kick and she flushed, as if he might be able to tell what his smile had done to her heartbeat. Her eyes fled and hunted across the garden, but she felt Cass watching her—but thinking what?
'You were right, this food is marvellous,' she said huskily, although she hadn't really thought about what she was eating and couldn't quite remember the first course. Had it been a tossed salad with croutons and hot cheese? Or hadn't it? She hadn't tasted a thing or looked properly. She had been looking at Cass and watching dappled sunlight playing over his face and hair.
'Isn't it?' he drawled, but something in his voice made her doubly self-conscious. She didn't dare look at him again.
When they had drunk their excellent coffee, they went for a stroll along the river under the willows. The afternoon was hot, and there were lots of other people out, some walking, others rowing a boat on the water with the ducks scattering around them, squawking and demanding bread.
They sat down on the grass under a shady tree and talked for a while, but Sian tried not to catch his eye or let the conversation touch on anything personal or intimate. She kept their talk firmly centred on books, films, television, current affairs, and skimmed over the surface even then. She did not want to get too close to him or let him get too close.
Perhaps she had known on sight, or perhaps the realisation had grown on her gradually—but she was now quite convinced that this man could hurt her, and she wasn't going to let that happen.
They went back to the pub and chatted to Danny for a while, then said goodbye and drove back into London. Sian firmly intended to say goodbye to Cass in the car. She did not want him in her flat; partly because that would be like letting him into her life, the really private core of her life. She might see him in the rooms when he wasn't there, just as when she leaned back in the car and closed her eyes she still saw his dark, lean face glimmering on the inside of her lids.
No More Lonely Nights Page 6