Accidental Engagement

by Green, Cally

  There was an uncomfortable silence. ‘And do you remember the address?’ he asked at last.

  She nodded. ‘Yes.’

  ‘All right, then. We’ll go there this afternoon.’

  ‘No.’ She spoke more vehemently than she’d intended, because the idea of having him with her was a tempting one and she had to fight down her urge to accept his offer. But in the end she knew she couldn’t let him go with her. She tried to explain. ‘This is something I have to do on my own.’

  He played with his drink. ‘I don’t like the idea. If there is anything wrong at home you’ll need someone who’s there for you.’

  She looked at him uncertainly.

  ‘Listen, Anna, I’ve made a hell of a mess of things,’ he said. ‘I was going to keep my distance until you’d sorted your problems out, but I can’t. I know you’re angry, and I don’t blame you. But what we had was too special to abandon. Can’t we wipe the slate clean and start again?’

  Her heart leapt. But her mind told her to be careful. He had betrayed her once. Could she really trust him to not betray her again? ‘I don’t know,’ she said honestly. ‘I’ve never found it easy to trust people. Even before all this happened, trust was something I was wary of giving.’ That much, at least, she remembered. ‘And since this happened . . . ’

  ‘I know. I’ve given you no reason to trust me. In fact, I’ve given you every reason not to. But I’m not asking you to trust me, at least not to begin with. I’m just suggesting we start again.’

  The waiter came to clear the plates. She was glad of the time it gave her to calm her emotions, allowing her to pour a glass of water and sip it slowly before making any sort of reply. There were still a number of things that puzzled her, and she wanted to clear them up before she made her reply. ‘When you confronted me with the fact that I wasn’t your fiancée you asked me why I’d done it,’ she began slowly.

  He remembered. His words, fuelled by anger, had been scathing.

  ‘You asked if I’d wanted a taste of the high life -’

  ‘Anna -’

  ‘It’s all right. I don’t blame you. You invented a fiancée to keep the likes of

  Serena at bay and then you found yourself facing a rag tag and bobtail who claimed to be Annabelle. I can understand how you must have felt.’

  Surprisingly, he smiled, and the tension lessened between them. ‘Rag tag and bobtail isn’t the way I’d have described you. A young fawn, vulnerable and uncertain - that’s how you seemed to me when you walked into my life.’

  She smiled in return. But then she became more serious. ‘Is that what you really thought? Did you really think I was exploiting your deception to manipulate you into marriage?’

  He threw down his napkin with a sigh. ‘I don’t know. I was confused. One minute I thought one thing, the next minute I thought something else. I didn’t want to believe it, but I’d had a lot of bad experiences - one in particular . . . ’

  Janine, thought Anna, remembering the conversation she had had with Emmy.

  ‘ . . . and my confidence in women had been shaken. No.’ His frown deepened. ‘That’s not quite right. My confidence in my judgement of women had been shaken. You see, I’d believed in someone once before. Her name was Janine. I’d even asked her to marry me. And then I discovered she wasn’t in love with me at all. She was in love with the idea of being my wife. Fast cars, city apartments, Little Brook —’

  ‘But Little Brook belongs to Claire and Emmy!’ Anna said.

  ‘Not for much longer. They want to move to the coast, and as soon as I marry they intend to move out: Little Brook is a beautiful house but it’s too big for them now. They want something smaller; more cosy.’

  ‘But you work in London,’ said Anna. ‘Little Brook will be no good to you.’

  Mark shrugged. ‘I’m tired of London. When I was younger . . . . but once the Midlands branch of Raynor Enterprises is up and running I want to base myself there. And Janine knew it. So you see,’ he said, looking directly at Anna, ‘I’d had my fingers burnt.’

  Anna nodded thoughtfully. She had already heard some of the story from Emmy, but now that she had heard all of it she realised it explained a lot. No wonder Mark had been so suspicious and moody when she had first walked into his life.

  ‘So what do you say, Anna?’ he asked. ‘What we had was something special. I’d like the chance to rebuild it. Only this time on more solid foundations.’

  She still was not sure.

  ‘That is, if I haven’t misjudged your feelings?’

  ‘That depends what you think my feelings are,’ she said hesitantly.

  ‘I think,’ he said, taking her hand over the table, ’that you like me. I think that you want me. I think that you need me. And I think - I hope - that you might also love me.’

  ‘I thought I did,’ she admitted. ‘But that was when I thought we had a history together. As it is, we’ve known each other for less than a fortnight. That’s far too short a time to fall in love with someone.’ Even as she said it she wasn’t sure. Her feelings for Mark were strong, and they were real. But she had been hurt and caution still dominated her decisions.

  ‘Which is why I don’t want this to be the end of us, but the beginning. If we let it go now we will never know what it could have become.’

  ‘I want to agree but . . . ’

  ‘But?’

  She swallowed. The conversation had taken an unforeseen direction and she now found herself having to confront an issue which, if Mark’s feelings for her had been nothing more than lust, she would have approached in a completely different way. It was something that had been worrying her ever since she had discovered she wasn’t really engaged to Mark.

  ‘Something’s worrying you,’ he said. ‘What is it?’

  She looked up at him, her expression strained. ‘Have you never wondered why I had a white mark on my finger?’

  Her words hit him liked a thunderbolt. He had forgotten about the mark, but of course, it had been there. It was one of the things that had led Emmy and Claire to deduce that she must be Annabelle, because although she was not wearing a ring there was a definite mark to show where a ring had been.

  ‘I’m frightened, Mark,’ she confided. ‘You see, I am beginning to wonder if the mark could have been made by a wedding ring.’

  Chapter Ten

  ‘You’re jumping to conclusions,’ he said. Even so, he was shaken by her words. ‘It could have been made by any number of things. Some women wear rings on that finger simply because they won’t fit on any other finger.’

  ‘I would never have done that.’ Anna’s voice was positive.

  ‘You might have done if the ring had had something to do with your father. If it had been his wedding ring, perhaps - or rather, the ring he gave to your mother.’

  ‘It’s possible,’ she conceded.

  ‘Besides, if it had been made by a wedding ring – or an engagement ring either for that matter – then surely you would have remembered?’ he asked, sounding as though he was trying to convince himself as well as her.

  ‘I think so,’ she said. ‘But I can’t be sure. Which is why I can’t answer your question, Mark. I can’t allow myself to get any closer to you, because I don’t know what problems my past - and my future - may hold.’

  ‘Whatever they are, if you love me then we’ll overcome them.’ He held her hand tightly. She felt his strength flowing into her. ‘Together.’

  They were leaning across the table, a scant few inches apart. Anna longed to lean further, to meet Mark’s lips, but the past hung like an iron curtain between them and she knew that she could never go forward in life until she had gone back.

  ‘I have to find out the truth,’ she said. ‘As soon as lunch is over, I’m going to the flat.’

  Anna got nervously out of the taxi. She had not allowed Mark to drive her. Somehow she did not want him to become involved in her past. Mark was the present and the future, something warm and light shining at the end of a
long, dark tunnel. But the tunnel itself - that was something she must walk through alone.

  She stood looking up at the house. It was all exactly as she remembered it. The peeling paint on the windows - she’d wanted to have them painted but there had never been enough money, and doing it herself had been impossible because, looking after her father, she had never had the time; the rendering on the front of the house, which had chipped off in a number of places; the small patch of garden at the front where she had played as a child, and which later, as she had grown older, she had tended lovingly. Yes. She remembered it all.

  The taxi drove off and she hesitated for a moment, patting her handbag to feel the comforting bulk of the mobile phone inside - the phone Mark had given her protectively “Just in case” - before making a move.

  Then, steeling herself for what she might find, she crossed the road.

  She found a set of keys in her purse and had them ready in her hand. She tried them in the door. They fitted, and she went in.

  From above came the sound of music. It was stumbling and halting: Mrs Voronowski was giving a piano lesson. Anna felt herself relax slightly at the sound. Whatever else her past held, she knew her memories of music making were good.

  She went up the stairs.

  The first landing was small. Three doors opened off it: the living room and two bedrooms. She decided against going in. Instead she went up to the second floor. Another set of rooms. She shuddered and went up again, to the third floor, where the strained sounds of the piano could be heard more clearly. She gave an involuntary smile as she heard the piece. It was one of the first pieces she had ever played, a sprightly tune called Jack-in-the-box. How she had loved to play the staccato chords, making her hands jump from the keys in order to produce the short, sharp sound that mimicked the action of the springy toy!

  ‘ . . . practise, practise, practise - that is what this piece needs! Too much watching of the television and not enough playing of the piano this week, I think, nicht wahr? You must work hard if you are to succeed. Ten minutes a day, every day, that is what you must do. Ja?’

  ‘Yes,’ came a meek child’s voice.

  ‘Gut! And then the piece will be perrrrrrfect, simply perrrrrrfect, the next time you play it for me.’

  Anna smiled as she recognised the voice. And the words! Mrs Voronowski was winding up the lesson. ‘Vell now, off you go. And tell your mother what I said.’

  ‘Yes, Mrs Voronowski,’ came the dutiful reply.

  The door opened, and a little boy of about seven years old came out. He glanced at Anna and then, deciding she must be Mrs Voronowski’s next pupil, skipped down the stairs.

  ‘Miss Pringle! Miss Pringle! Don’t be standing out there, jung lady. Our time is precious! Far too precious to waste.’

  ‘It’s not Miss Pringle, Mrs Voronowski. It’s An - Lisa,’ Anna said, going into the room.

  ‘Ah! Lisa! Liebling!’ Mrs Voronowski, a short, shapeless elderly woman dressed entirely in black, gave a genuine smile and held out her beringed, gnarled hands to Anna. ‘But vat are you doing here? I thought you had gone for good.’

  Anna was momentarily taken aback, but the warmth in the old woman’s eyes reassured her. She was definitely wanted here.

  ‘Ach! mein liebling, it is good to see you again. You vill stay for a cup of tea?’

  ‘But Miss Pringle . . . ’ said Anna.

  ‘Miss Pringle. Miss Pringle,’ said Mrs Voronowski disparagingly. ‘Miss Pringle is late almost every week, and twice she has not come at all. She is not a serious student. Not like you were, mein liebling. But then, she does not have your talent.’

  Mrs Voronowski turned and crossed the cluttered room, passing by the upright piano before bustling into the kitchen. Two cups of tea later she returned to the small living room and motioned Anna to sit down. ‘Let me have a look at you. Ah! I have missed you,’ she said as she handed Anna her cup of tea. ‘So, you have come to pick up the last of your things.’ Her sharp old eyes became suddenly shrewd ‘Or not? Something, it has happened to you, nicht wahr?’

  Anna, sitting down on the old horsehair sofa which, whilst uncomfortable, brought back a host of happy memories, took a sip of tea. ‘Yes. Yes, it has.’ She leant back and gave a sigh. ‘It started, I suppose, when I crashed outside Little Brook.’

  She proceeded to give her former teacher an account of what had happened, ending, ‘So you see, I had to come back. I had to find out what it was that was so frightening, because if I don’t find out then I won’t be able to go on with my life.'

  ‘And this young man of yours, this Mark. He is special, ja?’

  Anna smiled. ‘Very special.’

  ‘Gut. That is sehr gut - very good. You deserve your share of happiness. But it is ironic, nicht wahr? That you have had to come back to find out why you ran away.’

  ‘Did I run away?’

  ‘Oh, ja. And very wise you were. Otherwise he would not have let you go.’

  They were so intent on their conversation that they did not hear footsteps coming up the stairs.

  ‘He?’ asked Anna. ‘Who . . . who was he?’

  ‘He was -’

  ‘Your fiancé.’

  The harsh voice made Anna spin round in surprise. But as soon as she saw the intimidating figure in the doorway she remembered everything. Her hands grew clammy. She was afraid . . .

  Mark paced the hotel room. He had tried to occupy himself in a variety of ways but nothing had worked. He hadn’t wanted to let Anna go off alone but she had left him no choice. She had told him that it was something she needed to do alone and he had reluctantly respected her wishes. But as the time passed he grew more and more concerned.

  She’s got the mobile, he told himself for the hundredth time, but it did nothing to reassure him. Something about her past had frightened her badly, and he could not be at peace until she had safely returned.

  ‘I’ve had enough of this!’ he said out loud. Grabbing his jacket from the back of the chair he strode out to the car park and got into the Porsche . . .

  ‘So you’re back.’

  Anna felt her heart sink as she heard the familiar voice. Darren! How could she ever have forgotten? She felt the first touches of panic and was seized with an urge to run away. Run away! That was what she had done last time. And she understood why . . .

  ‘At last,’ he continued, his voice intimidating. ‘And not before time. What do you think you were doing, upsetting us all like that?’ There was no worry or concern in his eyes, no desire to know what had happened to her. Only a determination to reproach and condemn her.

  ‘Is that all you can say?’ Mrs Voronowski was indignant. ‘Lisa has been in an accident, you can still see the bruises. Where are your words of sympathy? Where is your support?’

  ‘Who asked you to meddle?’ he said roughly. Looking at Anna he said, ‘We can’t talk here. We’ll sort this matter out downstairs.’

  Downstairs. In his flat.

  ‘No.’ Anna’s voice was defiant.

  But Darren wasn’t impressed. ‘Don’t you take that tone with me,’ he said harshly. He reached out and grabbed her wrist but she twisted it out of his grasp. His mouth set and she felt afraid. She knew that expression. It meant he was determined to dominate her and would not listen to anything she had to say. ‘You’re coming back to the flat, and you’re doing it now.’

  A new voice broke into the conversation. ‘I think that’s the lady’s decision, don’t you?’

  ‘Mark!’ Anna was flooded with relief.

  But Mark's attention was on Darren. ‘If you want to bully someone, try bullying me.’

  Darren turned. Finding himself confronted by six-feet two of icy male, instead of five-foot six of vulnerable female, he visibly shrank. Nevertheless, he had not finished. ‘Stay out of this,’ he said. ‘This is between me and my fiancée.’

  ‘I don’t think so.’ Mark’s voice was like steel. ‘You see, Anna is my fiancée.’

  ‘Here. Drink this.’ M
ark handed Anna a glass of brandy. They were back at the hotel, in Mark’s room, the unpleasant encounter with Darren over.

  ‘I don’t like spirits,’ she protested.

  ‘This is medicinal.’ He gave her a conspiratorial smile. ‘So it’s all right that you don’t like it. You’re not supposed to like medicine!’

  She smiled back at him, if a little weakly, and took the glass. Her nerves needed something to steady them, and she took a sip of the richly-coloured liquid. There was a burning sensation as it went down her throat and she coughed. But it did what it was supposed to do and she felt her nerves beginning to relax.

  ‘Why didn’t you phone me?’ he asked.

  She put the glass down on the dressing table. ‘There wasn’t time. One minute I was talking to Mrs Voronowski, the next minute . . . ’ She shuddered.

  ‘Mrs Voronowski seems like one of a kind,’ he said.

  ‘She is.’ Anna smiled, realising he was giving her a chance to regain her confidence. Realising, too, that he did not want to make her talk about her experiences until she was ready to do so. ‘She’s very stern and strict with her pupils, but only because she wants them to achieve the very best standards. Underneath, she’s a warm and loving person. She helped me a lot when my father died.’

  ‘And Darren?’ he asked, when her pallor disappeared.

  She gave a deep sigh.

  ‘He said he was your fiancé. Is it true?'

  ‘No.’ She shook her head firmly. ‘We were never engaged. He had just convinced himself that we were.’

  ‘But the mark of a ring?’ asked Mark.

  ‘She could tell it was hurting him to have to talk to her about another man but she realised he needed to know where he stood. Her past was as important to him as it was to her.

  ‘She sighed, drawing her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms around them. ‘Darren lived in the second floor flat. Mrs Voronowski had the third floor, and we - my father and I - had the first floor. We invited him round for a meal when he first arrived, in a neighbourly way - my father was still alive at the time, and not too ill - and a friendship developed. But that’s all it was: friendship.