by Ann Charlton
‘I regretted that,’ he snapped. ‘But it was inevitable that our ways should part. I was at his funeral.’
‘Oh well! At his funeral! That makes it all right, I suppose?’ cried Teressa, her voice cracking faintly.
‘His funeral service was packed with hypocrites, Ashe Warwick. You were just one more standing in the sun that day.’ Bright, merciless sunlight and cheerful blue skies. The wrong kind of weather to be burying Damien in that stone-studded field of memories.
Teressa had been back to take flowers. It had been drizzling rain then-much more suitable. She felt like crying. His eyes became intent at her passion.
‘You were a kid. People, lots of people, tried to help Damien in ways you wouldn’t have understood—’
‘They didn’t do much good then, did they? And not many tried. And you—you were the biggest disappointment of all to him. You can’t imagine what it was like, watching him shrivel up when you showed your true colours. He was going to have a son at last, even if only by marriage. And then you ran out on him and Cecily—’
‘True colours?’ Ashe repeated slowly.
‘You left chaos behind that day you changed your mind, Ashe. 1may have been a kid, but 1 was the one who had to pick up the pieces. Cecily was nearly out of her mind—she was practically hysterical when you went to Dad’s study to tell him the engagement was off.’
‘Was she?’ he said in a dry tone.
‘It was the last straw for Dad. You didn’t think he’d believe those trite reasons you gave him, did you? Incompatibility and all that rubbish.’
‘I was hoping he would,’ he murmured, head lowered.
‘Didn’t you think he’d ask Cecily?’ she demanded, and his head came up.
‘She didn’t tell him the reason, surely?’
‘Of course she told him. Only after he insisted that she must have done something to make you cancel the marriage. You didn’t beat around the bush with my sister, though, did you Ashe? Cecily knew exactly why you dropped her.’
Ashe fixed her with those disturbing eyes. His hands were clenched at his sides. ‘And why did I drop her?’
‘Because it was an heiress you wanted. And with your financial connections you knew even then that there would be precious little left for her to inherit. It took a long time for her to get over that. Even now that she’s married to a man she loves, she can’t throw off the humiliation. Anything I might have done to make you uncomfortable is trivial … if I could find a way, I’d do more…’ Teressa stopped for breath, her chest heaving. Ashe turned his back on her. He seemed to be staring at her bookshelves, his shoulders hunched forward.
‘So because of that, you decided to punish me, Teressa,’ he said heavily. Then, rounding on her, ‘But that’s not all, is it? There had to be more to make you play out that housemaid act.’
‘Not all? Not all!’ she almost yelled. ‘You don’t think that’s enough reason? Well, it is. Quite enough to make me bite my tongue and say yes, sir, no, sir, three bags full, sir, and run baths for your rich girlfriend. Enough to make me gatecrash your beautiful, comfortable, successful life, even if it did only remind me of what it was like, or what it might have been like if I’d grown up fast enough to be a part of it … ' Her words ran out. She hadn’t meant to say any of that.
He nodded grimly. ‘I see. So it isn’t just a noble case of getting back at me for Cecily, is it? It’s plain old-fashioned jealousy as well.’ He breathed deep, lowered his voice. ‘It was rotten luck and I can imagine how unfair it must have seemed to you, but it isn’t my fault, you know, that you have no money and 1 have.’
‘That has nothing to do with it,’ she denied, but deep down she knew he was right. She had heaped this other resentment on him too. He was the logical person—responsible for so much already, and it was an easy way out. Ashe Warwick had come to symbolise all those cancelled dreams … He met her eyes across the room.
‘You always looked for reasons to dislike me, Teressa.’
‘I didn’t have to look far, did I?’ she accused. ‘What really grates is that you’re doing it all again. But at least Lara Moore is capable of looking after her own Interests. Has she changed her mind about you yet?’ she enquired hopefully.
Ashe frowned. ‘You set out to make trouble between Lara and me! My God, I don’t believe this. You’re only twenty-two. Where the hell have you been, what have you been doing to have acquired such talents?’
‘Was she very upset that I spent the night at Deception with you?’
‘Very,’ he said drily.
‘Never mind, Ashe,’ she mocked. ‘Plenty more fish in the sea. Do be sure to run a credit check on Daddy first, though, won’t you? Of course, now that you’re doing so well on your own you can probably lower your aims. Just a moderate fortune would do—’
Ashe regarded her over the back of the divan where she had found security of some sort out of reach.
‘You’ve got a vicious tongue, Teressa, and it might not be entirely your fault. But I’m not letting you get away with your little hoax.’
She laughed. ‘Going to complain to the police, Ashe? Going to say you’ve been tricked into behaving like a decent human being for once in your life and you can’t bear the humiliation of it all?’ She was too late to move. He caught her at one end of the divan.
'A very vicious tongue,’ he repeated, and pulled her close. Then he put his mouth to hers in a kiss that was unlike either that first chaste one or that punishing prologue to the New Year. This was firm and determined and somehow seeking, as if Ashe were exploring more than the shape of her mouth. She struggled, but he held her and the warm pressure of his lips opened hers and brought her response.
‘But maybe not beyond redemption,’ he said softly.
‘I hate you, Ashe!’
‘Yes, you told me.’ He seemed unperturbed. ‘Now, when can we continue this much more satisfying relationship, Teressa?’
‘Continue?’
‘Tomorrow night.’ He sat down and hitched one leg over the other and nodded as if he had cleared his mental calendar for the date. ‘I’ll pick you up at about seven-for dinner at my place—’
‘No!’
‘—wear something appealing. None of those Orphan Annie outfits—’
‘I don’t intend ever to see you again,’ she cried, perplexed by his unemotional insistence.
‘But of course you will, Teressa. You’ll be seeing a great deal of me from now on—’
‘I won’t!’
‘—because you might be a malicious, irresponsible, possibly promiscuous liar, but you care about some things. Your sister—’ He looked broodingly at her. ‘You’re very loyal to Cecily. And—there’s Mrs Richards.’
Teressa’s defiance crumpled. She was all concern, all regret.
‘She had nothing to do with any of this. I didn’t even tell her I knew you until after I’d been to Deception. And even then I didn’t tell her all about you.’
‘Why not?’
She hesitated. ‘I—she thinks you’re wonderful. And I don’t want to be the one to disillusion her.’
Ashe was silent a long time. He seemed to be thinking of something else and raised his head sharply when she spoke again as if he’d forgotten she was there.
‘She didn’t tell you any outright lies about me, Ashe.’
His lip curled. ‘You think that’s all right? A hint—the lie by omission—by implication? Her husband died and she’s been telling me about his bad back for the past year.’
‘Nearly two years!’ Teressa told him fiercely. ‘And how come you didn’t notice Tom wasn’t around any more? How come it never occured to you that she might be working all alone—all that cleaning five nights a week because she didn’t know any other kind of work and needed the money?’ He passed a hand over his face in a tired gesture.
‘I’m running a finance company, for God’s sake! I only see Mrs Richards now and then. Why the hell would I assume anything was wrong when she talked about Tom as usu
al? There are other people who deal with the service contracts, but if she wanted she could have come to me and told me her problem. Instead she evolved an elaborate lie to fool me—like you did. And I don’t like that, Teressa”
‘Leave her alone, Ashe—please!’
‘Ofcourse. She’s an old lady whom you used to get at me. I won’t dispense with her services. In fact I’ll organise help for her and she won’t even need to lose money over it.’
The if was almost audible.
‘As long as I do what you say”
‘That’s right,’ Ashe agreed smoothly.
‘It’s blackmail.’
‘If you like”
‘I—I’ll find her another job!’
‘She signed the Universal contract “Thomas Richards”.’
Teressa stared. ‘You mean—she forged Tom’s signature?’
‘That’s right.’
Ashe, you wouldn’t—you couldn’t have her charged with forgery—'
He shrugged. ‘It’s an offence.’
‘You would! God, but you’re rotten!’ Teressa spun on her heel and paced around. In trying to hurt him she had made a trap for herself. ‘All right, I’ll come tomorrow night. But I’m working late.’
‘Leave your car at home. I’ll pick you up from work,’ he said smoothly. ‘Give me the address”
And she had to.
Mrs Richards couldn’t get over the fact that Ashe was going to organise cleaning help for her without any loss of pay. She couldn’t get over how fair he was being in the circumstances. And she couldn’t get over how wonderful it was that Teressa was having dinner with him the following night. Teressa had a feeling she wasn’t going to be able to get over it either.
All the next day Teressa told herself that Ashe Warwick would find himself tied up at his office with higher priorities than a girl who had made a fool of him. But when she left work at six, he was waiting in the burgundy Mercedes. His anger was no longer apparent-in fact he looked very relaxed. Teressa felt more in danger than ever. As they drove away, her fingers went to the silver streak and Ashe noticed the nervous gesture.
‘You said that began to grow when you were seventeen. Was that true or another of your fairy stories?’
‘It was true.’
He glanced again at her and nodded, and left a long silence before he spoke again. ‘Have you a permanent job lined up, Teressa?’
‘Not until February.’
‘As what? I imagine you were playing down your capabilities when you humbly admitted to being a typist. '
‘I’ll be working in reception and public relations.’ She mentioned the hotel name and his eyebrows went up.
‘Impressive—but not what I would have expected. I seem to remember you were very good at maths …and didn’t you tell me once that you wanted to work with computers?’
Teressa was thrown off balance. That he had actually absorbed anything about her at the time was amazing—that he recalled it now, even more so. It made her feel uncomfortable. But then since when had being with Ashe ever been comfortable?
‘I did work with computers for a while, but in the end I decided I preferred to work in a job where I met people.’ She paused, then blurted, ‘I didn’t think you’d remember anything about me—you used to look right through me most of the time.’
He smiled reminiscently. ‘I remember you very well.’ She squirmed in her seat, humiliated to know that weighty, plain Tess lived on in his memory.
‘You had such expressive eyes. I used to find them on me and—’ He shot a look at her. ‘Very pretty eyes.’
‘I had braces on my teeth,’ she said flatly.
‘—your hair was short and bounced about when you shook your head—’
‘I was plain,’ she said, somehow obliged to brutally list her own shortcomings.
‘—you were rather graceful—’
She snorted. ‘I was fat.’
‘You walked like a slim girl, your head up … except when you saw me, then you used to look down at your feet, and it annoyed me, 1 remember, that you wouldn’t look at me…’ Ashe stopped abruptly, and Teressa remembered how annoyed he’d been at Deception. She had found if difficult to look at him then too.
‘Now that I think of it, there was a lot of Tess in blushing Teressa Richards. Maybe that was why I liked her—’
Teressa’s fingers worked at the hair at her temple.
This was all too close, she thought. Too close. But to what? She ran away from the question.
‘I was acting. Young Tess disappeared a long time ago,’ she said firmly.
‘We’ll see,’ he said under his breath, and after a while, ‘As you don’t have a job until February, you can work for me.’
She turned to stare at him. ‘You can’t be serious.’
‘Perfectly serious. I’ll even pay you. It’s typing mostly. I’d have to ask you to make the odd cup of coffee. Writers like coffee all day long—’ he quoted her gravely. ‘But of course you know that.’
‘I don’t want to work for you.’
‘But you will.’
He didn’t mention Thelma’s name. He didn’t have to.
The Bridge traffic toiled along in the last throes of the peak flow. 1t was an hour to sunset and gold flecked the grey-green harbour waters. Teressa thought of hours, days spent working for Ashe.
‘But you aren’t free during the day,’ she said, suddenly thinking of the day-long coffee he’d mentioned.
‘I’ve arranged to take time off to get my second book off the ground. You’ll remember 1 offered you the job under—ah, slightly different circumstances.’
He glanced at her again and smiled. ‘What a lucky thing for me that you can type!’
But, she thought in sudden malice, he didn’t know how well she could type. The thought pleased her. He could find himself with a very indifferent typist, a rotten speller. Ashe mightn’t be so keen to have her around after a day or two. But then he might have other things than typing in mind for her.
Once over the Bridge they took a left turn.
‘I thought you lived at Harbord,’ she said.
‘Ah—Mrs Richards told you about the apartment there did she? I’ve moved.’
His house was only minutes away in a narrow lane overhung with branches. It was an old two-storey brick held in the loving embrace of trees, shrubs and ivy tendrils that hugged their way to the second storey windows. He led her to the house’s side entrance over which a liquid amber branch fluttered its maple-like leaves.
‘You have a tower!’ she exclaimed. The door was curved to fit the eccentric bulge that rose past the roof line to a coif of terracotta tiles.
‘You’ll be sitting in its upstairs window while you type,’ he told her, and opened the door, holding it for her to pass. ‘I’ve been wanting a captive for my tower.’
His offbeat house came as a surprise. Inside, the ersatz tower appeared as a bulbous alcove tacked on to a livingroom. There was a clutter of sofas and chairs of excellent quality and much used. A large rug partly covered the slate floor, and on the walls hung similar ones with paintings and a woven hanging. In a niche stood a lovely old grandfather clock. Its ticking was a mellow, leisurely theme for the room. Near a cordoned-off fireplace a Victorian hat-stand uncurled its feet. Hanging on it were a cloth cap and a disreputable-looking straw affair. Teressa gazed at them and tried to imagine Ashe wearing either.
‘What do you think ‘?’ asked Ashe.
‘It’s—not what I expected.’ Teressa hadn’t expected to like it so much.
‘I haven’t lived here long. Like to see the rest of it?’
She nodded and followed him to the diningroom.
Stained glass filtered the light across the top of the long window. The glossy leaves and tall red blooms of canna lilies outside made a frieze along the lower pane. Glass doors led on to a timber deck on which were some chairs and a table. Through an arch was a tiny kitchen, slate-floored and immaculately appointed.
; Ashe led the way upstairs and opened a door.
‘My bedroom,’ he said impassively.
A massive bed with a cream and tan fur throw.
Curtains that started at the ceiling and fell in lush folds to the floor. A tub of bamboo. Teressa saw it all in seconds and backed out. Ashe gave her a mocking smile.
The rounded upstairs walls of the ‘tower’ held a desk and a smaller table, a typewriter and bookshelves.