by Anne Weale
‘I should have done, but he... he throws me off balance.’
‘No one’s ever done that before, and you have known a lot of men. You’re not like I was with Andrew... totally clueless about them.’
‘My vast store of worldly wisdom doesn’t seem to be much help in this situation,’ said Flower. ‘Oh, Emily, I do envy you... having Andrew and Lucy and very soon the new baby. You have everything I want in life, but can I achieve it with Roderick? It’s such a step in the dark... such a risk.’
They were still discussing the matter when Andrew came in for tea, having collected his small daughter from his sister’s house in a nearby village.
Staying with the Fairchilds reinforced Flower’s conviction that theirs was the kind of life she wanted for herself. But talking it over with Emily, and also taking Andrew into her confidence, didn’t seem to bring her any nearer to a decision.
On her last evening with them Andrew had to attend a local committee meeting and, for the umpteenth time, his wife and his guest weighed the pros and cons of Roderick’s proposal.
‘If you look at it rationally, the pluses definitely outweigh the minuses,’ said Emily. ‘If you turn him down you could wait for years for someone else to turn up. Lovely men aren’t thick on the ground. Also you’ll have to uproot yourself from the manor. But what I see as the key point is that for the rest of your life—especially if Mr Right never materialises—you’ll have to live with the thought that it might have turned out brilliantly.’
When Flower made no comment, she went on, ‘Really, the questions you have to ask yourself are: can I make him love me? Can I make him so happy, so comfortable that he won’t want to look at anyone else?’
They were questions which kept Flower awake long after her hosts were asleep in their large Victorian brass bed while she lay in one of the twin beds in Emily’s small but comfortable guest room.
And the next day, all the way home, the questions continued to nag her while, on tape, Pavarotti’s thrilling lyric tenor made her long to know she was loved, not to be asking herself if she could make Roderick love her.
Before leaving South Lodge she had telephoned Watson to tell him she expected to be home for lunch.
The footman was waiting on the gravel sweep in front of the front door when she brought the car to a halt. She remembered coming back from London—could it really be less than a week ago? — and finding a hired car there, but never dreaming that its driver would turn her world upside-down.
‘Hello, John. Everyone all right? No problems while I was away?’
‘Everyone’s fine, miss. Did you have a good trip?’
‘Very nice, thank you.’
She went into the house and used the downstairs cloakroom to wash her hands before lunch, which was due to be served in ten minutes’ time.
Watson was crossing the hall when she came out. ‘Good afternoon, Miss Dursley. You’ll find Sir Roderick and Mr Dursley in the library.’
‘Sir Roderick? What is he doing here? I thought he was in London.’
‘He arrived back an hour ago.’
‘I see.’
But she didn’t. She had not expected to see Roderick again until she had made up her mind. At the moment her decision still hung in the balance.
The library had double doors of solid mahogany, and it wasn’t until Watson opened one of them for her and stood aside that she heard Roderick’s deep, pleasant voice. As soon as he heard the door opening, he broke off what he was saying and rose to his feet.
The sight of him sent a surge of pleasure through her. In that instant her mind was made up. Whatever the risk and whatever the outcome, this was a chance she had to take.
‘Hello, Dodo.’ She kissed her grandfather before turning to Roderick and saying, with raised eyebrows, ‘I didn’t expect to find you here.’
He acknowledged her greeting with a slight inclination of the head. ‘I hope it’s a pleasant surprise.’
Flower let the remark pass and turned to Watson, who was hovering in the background. ‘A Campari and soda for me, please.’
‘I’m glad you’re back, safe and sound. I worry about you... haring round the country in that damned dangerous sports car,’ said Abel.
‘It’s drivers who are dangerous, not cars,’ she said lightly. ‘You know I’m a careful driver, darling.’
‘So you may be, but men don’t like to be overtaken by a pretty young blonde in a fast car. I’ve driven with you. I’ve seen them trying to pass you... playing the fool... showing off... breaking the speed limit. One of these days—’
‘There wasn’t anyone like that on the road this morning.’ She looked at Roderick. ‘Do women driving fast cars bring out your macho instincts?’
He smiled and shook his head. ‘Being macho is for guys who need to prove something. I may have been macho at eighteen, but that was a long time ago.’
He had all the right answers, she thought. But did they express his real feelings, or was it merely that he knew how to put himself over, to say the things that people wanted to hear and which would help him to achieve his own ends?
Either way, it made no difference to her decision.
‘Thank you.’ She took the glass from the salver Watson was offering and sipped the Campari while he replenished the men’s glasses.
When he had left the room, she said, ‘Has either of you had second thoughts about the deal you proposed?’
For once her grandfather was silent, leaving it to Roderick to say, ‘Certainly not. Has talking it over with your best friend—which I gather was the reason for your visit—helped you to make up your mind?’
‘Not really. As you told me the other day, other people’s opinions are largely irrelevant. But I have made a decision.’
‘Which is?’
‘I think we should try being engaged and see how that works. Not for long...say, for two or three months.’
He smiled at her. ‘I was going to suggest the same thing. To that end, while I was in London, I went to the bank and got out the family engagement ring. My mother received it from her mother-in-law, who had had it from my great-grandmother and so on back to the late-eighteenth century. By the time my parents went to Arizona, my mother’s fingers were so thin that it was too loose to wear. She decided to leave it behind with one or two other family jewels.’
As he stood up he took from his pocket a worn leather ring-box. ‘Of course, it may not appeal to you. If you don’t like it you must say so.’
He opened the box and showed it to her; a marquise emerald surrounded by a cluster of diamonds.
Flower did not have to feign pleasure. ‘It’s beautiful,’ she said sincerely.
‘Shall I put it on?’
Before he could do so she had to remove the inexpensive dress-rings she was wearing on several fingers of her left hand. After putting them in her pocket, she held out her bare hand to him.
As Roderick slipped the Anstruther emerald on her third finger, her grandfather said delightedly, ‘We must celebrate with champagne.’ Beaming from ear to ear, he got up to press the bell to recall the butler.
Flower looked up into Roderick’s eyes, searching for the slightest sign that this moment meant something more to him than the first step towards the achievement of his ambitions.
But, although she knew him to be capable of tenderness, or at least of simulating tenderness, at that moment his expression had never been more enigmatic.
CHAPTER SEVEN
That night Flower was reading in bed, in an effort to switch off thoughts which would keep her awake, when there was a knock at the door.
‘Come in.’
Expecting to see her grandfather, she was surprised and disconcerted when Roderick walked into the room, closing the door behind him.
He was wearing the white towelling robe provided in all the guest bathrooms and had obviously just had a shower.
He came swiftly to the bedside, sat down, and took the book from her hands and put it aside on the night-tab
le.
The next moment she was in his arms and the question ‘What do you want?’ was superfluous. His embrace made it clear what he wanted.
At first the pleasure of being enfolded by strong arms and kissed by lips tasting faintly of toothpaste, while her other senses registered that his jaw was newly-shaved and his skin smelt deliciously of soap and some very light lemony aftershave, overwhelmed all other reactions.
For a minute or two her response was the instinctive yielding of a woman in the arms of a man she loved and desired as ardently as he desired her.
With one of her hands caught between them and pressed to the warm brown skin exposed by the loosely sashed terry bathrobe, she could feel the strong, faster than normal beating of his heart. Her own heartbeat matched it.
More than anything in the world she wanted to surrender completely to the rapturous sensations and longings his powerful body and ardent kisses aroused in her.
Subconsciously, she had been wanting this ever since the night she had panicked and run from the morning-room. She was ready and eager to make love; to experience at last the real thing, the fusion of heart, soul and flesh with a man she adored.
And then, as she felt his fingers starting to undo the buttons of her Italian pyjamas, she remembered that he didn’t love her. As, with two buttons unfastened, his hand slipped inside the silk jacket, she broke off the kiss and said, breathlessly but firmly, ‘No...no... definitely not.’
‘But we’re engaged now,’ he said.
Her resistance seemed to amuse him, and no doubt it did seem absurd to fend him off when her face must show all too clearly that, whatever she might claim to the contrary, she wanted him in her bed as much as he wished to be there.
If his eyes glittered, so must hers. If his colour had risen, her cheeks must also be flushed.
‘You’re taking too much for granted. This isn’t a normal engagement and I’m not going to sleep with you until we’re married,’ she told him.
He didn’t argue with her. Instead he captured her hands and, lightly clasping her wrists, began to press soft little kisses all over her right hand, alternating kisses with playful bites. And while he did this his eyes caressed her half-exposed breasts, which she was unable to cover.
‘Aren’t you being a little silly?’ he asked, lifting the hand she was trying to free and holding it against his cheek.
‘No, I’m trying to be sensible,’ she said unsteadily.
‘Trying’ was the operative word. It was almost impossible to maintain her defences when her fingertips touched his cheekbone and longed to stroke it and the way he was nibbling her knuckles made the blood rush through her veins like the surge of a flood-tide.
She lay back on the pillows she had piled behind her to read, her breath coming faster and faster, her insides melting and throbbing, every nerve in her body conspiring against her common sense and self-control.
From her teens she had sensed that, when the right man arrived, she would be capable of intense passion; but this was her first experience of losing control. Other men had gone further without ever giving her the feeling she had now; the feeling that, if she couldn’t stop him, Roderick would bring her to the brink of total abandonment.
He let go of her hands and stood up. ‘All right... if that’s the way you want it. Goodnight, Flower. Sweet dreams.’
His eyes mocking, he bowed and walked out of the room.
Two days later, after Roderick had informed his godparents, his aunts and a few close friends, their engagement was announced in the three national newspapers likely to be read by the other people whom it would interest.
The next day Flower received a letter from London, signed Mary Dorset. It was from one of Roderick’s aunts, a gracious expression of pleasure that her nephew had found a girl to share his life, and an invitation to a small family party to celebrate their engagement.
To Flower’s secret relief—a feeling of which she was ashamed—the date set for the party conflicted with her grandfather’s visit to Germany to inspect some new bakery machinery.
She felt that meeting Roderick’s relations would be rather an ordeal on her own, doubly so with Dodo there.
In the event, the aunts—the other two had travelled from Scotland and Devon to meet her—were less daunting than she had feared. The two who were visiting London were both no-nonsense countrywomen, running large houses and gardens with little help and enjoying a break from the chores which were their everyday lot.
Mrs Dorset, a widow remarried to a director of one of London’s grandest antiques and fine-arts galleries, lived a different but no less busy life, including being mother and stepmother to seven children, some grown-up, some still in their teens. Flower received the impression that, far from eyeing her critically, the aunts were not concerned about Roderick’s marriage being what their generation called a mesalliance. They had problems enough with their own offspring without worrying about a nephew whom, clearly, they regarded as perfectly competent to run his life without advice or interference from them.
After the party, Roderick, who had arranged to sleep at his aunt’s house in Belgravia, escorted Flower to her flat.
Since the night he had come to her room at the manor he had gone to the other extreme, behaving as circumspectly as a Victorian man engaged to the shyest of virgins. He had not even kissed her properly, and she knew his restraint was deliberate, an exasperating revenge for her refusal to sleep with him.
‘Wait for me, would you?’ he said to the driver when the taxi drew up in the forecourt of the block of flats where she had an apartment.
Then, watched by the night-duty porter, he saw her to the open lift, where he gave her a chaste kiss on the forehead and one of his sardonic smiles before returning to the street.
A few days later, leaving Lucy with her grandparents, Andrew and Emily drove down to spend a weekend at the manor.
They arrived on Friday night, and on Saturday morning, knowing how her friend loved to browse in antique and junk shops, Flower took Emily on a tour of the shops in the area.
No sooner were they alone in the Ferrari than Flower asked, ‘What do you think of him?’
‘I think he’s a dish...a darling. If Andrew didn’t exist, and you hadn’t seen him first, I could fall for Roderick myself. I don’t know why you ever hesitated about snapping him up,’ said Emily.
Her verdict was not surprising, as Roderick had exerted himself to be nice to Flower’s friends. When they left the house, he and Andrew had been lingering over a late breakfast, talking as if they had known each other for years.
On Monday, when the Fairchilds were to depart, Roderick was also leaving; going back to the States to settle his affairs there. He would be away for a month before returning to England for good. ‘I’m glad you like him.’
‘How could anyone not?’ Emily gave her a sideways glance. ‘Before you made up your mind, did you take your brother’s advice?’
‘No... no, I didn’t... we haven’t...’
‘Why ever not?’ asked her friend in surprise. ‘I...just feel it’s better not to. He wanted to but I didn’t.’
‘Come off it, Flower,’ said Emily, ‘I bet you’re longing to. He certainly is.’
‘What makes you say that?’
‘The way he looks at you. Several times last night, before and after dinner, I noticed him looking at you like a tiger at a gazelle. He’s ravenous for you, sweetie. I took it for granted he’d be tiptoeing to your room after lights-out.’
‘We’re having an old-fashioned engagement. No hanky-panky until the honeymoon.’
‘You amaze me. Andrew and I did the deed on my eighteenth birthday and whenever we had the chance from then until we were married. Why not? I must say I shall be glad when my bulge has deflated,’ she added wistfully. ‘It seems ages since I was able to lie on my tummy or make love without this—’ she patted her distended belly—’coming between us. This time next year you may be in the same boat. Or are you going to wait for a bit? U
ntil the heart clinic is up and running, as they say?’
‘We haven’t discussed having children, except in the general sense that we both want to have a large family.’
‘Well, there’s no hurry, is there? Anyway, I expect you’ll have a full-time nanny and be less bogged down in the early months than I was with Lucy and will be again until this one is eating solids and out of nappies.’
‘I haven’t thought that far ahead,’ said Flower. ‘Actually, I should have preferred to keep our engagement unofficial. It’s supposed to be a trial period. But both Dodo and Roderick insisted that it should be official, and Dodo has instructed his lawyers to draw up a marriage settlement. Seems medieval to me. As far as I’m concerned, marriage means pooling resources. What’s mine is yours, and what’s yours is mine, et cetera.’
‘That’s how we look at it too,’ said Emily. ‘But then I’m not an heiress. The only money I have is the little bit Granny left me and what I can make from freelance dealing. But that doesn’t amount to much now. There are precious few bargains these days—in fact, not much worth buying at all.’
Nevertheless, although all the dealers they visited during the morning complained of the difficulty of keeping their premises stocked, Emily managed to spend most of the cash she had with her and was especially delighted to find a pair of old red and cream toile de Jouy curtains which she said she could sell at a profit to a specialist dealer in London.
‘Unless when I get them home I find I can’t bear to part with them. Sooner or later we shall have to move to a larger house and, although your grandfather would think me mad, I’d much rather have nicely faded handmade old curtains at my windows than new ones, even if we could afford them.’
They returned to the manor to find Andrew waiting to meet them in front of the house. As by then it was nearly lunchtime, neither of them thought it strange that he should be there.
But, as the car slowed to a halt and he came forwards to open the passenger-door and help his wife to climb out, he stopped her from starting to tell him about their successful morning by saying, with a worried expression, ‘I’m afraid I have bad news. It’s your grandfather, Flower. He’s been taken ill...seriously ill. Thank God Roderick was here when it happened. If he hadn’t been...’ He left the sentence unfinished.