‘Of course I’m right.’ He laughed. ‘Aren’t I always?’
Lissa closed her eyes in despair. How could she fight him? It was like hitting a marshmallow that bounced and clung to you, resolutely sticky and sweet. Once she had longed to be loved devotedly, to feel she belonged to someone. And there was no doubt that Philip loved her. He couldn’t bear her out of his sight. Yet now she longed only for freedom.
‘We should give Rosemary a great-grandson. That would do the trick.’
‘I very much doubt she would care. Even if it were possible.’
His tone sharpened. ‘Most women find no difficulty in conceiving. Yet you’re dealing with this matter with your usual degree of incompetence. You don’t try.’
‘That’s not fair,’ Lissa cried, spinning about to face him, feeling the pain of his accusation as if it were really true, as if she didn’t spend hours each day dealing with revolting jelly from long white tubes. ‘I have tried. I never resist you, do I?’
He looked surprised at the very idea. ‘You make it sound as if you’re doing me a service.’
‘Sometimes I feel that I am.’ Reckless words, bravely spoken. Philip was not pleased. Dark eyes sparked with a quiet fury, the expression she most feared, as if he enjoyed these little spats, as if they added to rather than detracted from his arousal.
‘I need no favours, Lissa. I need a son.’
She fought for breath, for courage. ‘And I need a little more consideration.’
‘I devote my entire life to loving and caring for you.’ He took the brush from her hand and tossed it impatiently away, then gripping her wrist led her to the bed, urgent now, stripping his clothes off as he went.
‘Take off your nightdress. No, I’ll do it. I’ll teach you how to please a husband as a good wife should, then there’ll be babies. Just do as I say for once. No protests.’ As Felicity had used to do so very nicely, he thought, meekly obeying his every whim as a woman should. Dear, sweet Felicity.
‘Philip, please, you’re hurting me. Give me time.’
He had hold of both her wrists and was pushing her back on to the green silk cover. Then he took one of her hands and thrust it down between his legs, closing her fingers about his member. He felt her stiffen and flinch. Her resistance filled him with annoyance, firing the anger in him. He tried to push her head in the same direction but Lissa wriggled free, pretending she didn’t understand what he asked of her.
Hot temper showed itself in a white line above his tight upper lip. ‘What’s the matter with you? I’m your husband, dammit. You should be happy to love me, to do as I ask. Instead of chasing after independence and stubbornly resisting me at every turn.’
She knew he was right. She should want to love him. But she didn’t. Lissa could hardly bear to be near him any more, let alone touch him. ‘Please. Not tonight, Philip. Not like this. I’m very tired.’
‘Damn you, woman!’ If she didn’t become more amenable to his needs, he might have to consider chastisement, a touch more discipline. If he did ever resort to such actions, she could blame no one but herself. He pushed open her legs and drove himself into her, enjoying the sound of her cries. It gave him the proof he needed that he could control her body if not her obstinate mind.
Two days later Lissa went to call upon Miss Stevens. Her former employer lived in a cottage clinging half-way up Benthwaite Crag, its precipitous garden held in place by a border of clipped laurel, surrounded by a thicket of hazel and beech that stretched across the hillside and hid other, similar properties. A glass conservatory fronted the little house, offering a magnificent view of the lake and it was here that Lissa found her, busily watering plants. She smelled of damp earth and dahlias and welcomed Lissa as if she were an old friend. ‘How lovely to see you. How is Jan?’
‘In rude health, as they say. Produced a beautiful baby boy.’
‘Oh, how wonderful. I must send her a card.’
Once Lissa had enquired about Miss Stevens’ own health, admired the geraniums, commiserated over the loss of a favourite rose due to the notorious black spot and exchanged other family news she came eventually to the point of her visit. ‘I’m interested in taking on the lease of your old shop.’
‘Goodness me. Really?’ Miss Stevens looked startled. ‘But I thought you were married, to Mr Brandon?’
‘I am.’
‘With lovely twin daughters?’
‘I am, but...’
‘Then surely a lady in your station in life has no need to work.’
Lissa cleared her throat. ‘I would like to. I need to feel more fulfilled.’
‘My dear, isn’t marriage to a wonderful man fulfilment enough?’ Miss Stevens would have given anything for such joy.
Lissa took a deep breath. ‘May I speak in complete confidence?’
Miss Stevens looked suddenly panic stricken, having little knowledge of matrimony. ‘Oh, my, well of course, only – Mr Brandon is my solicitor and…’
‘I need to do this, Miss Stevens.’ Lissa nervously tapped the hanging bell petals of a pink fuchsia. ‘I need something of my own, and for my girls. I think my marriage may be in trouble.’
‘Oh, my dear.’ Shock registered in the other woman’s eyes. ‘Has he left you? Oh, my goodness.’
‘No, nothing like that. We are not particularly compatible, I suppose.’ How to explain her feelings of being held in a trap? That although her husband plainly adored her, he insisted on controlling every part of her life, even in bed, and she couldn’t bear it. But Lissa felt quite unable to explain all of this to Miss Stevens. ‘He is too possessive,’ she said, on a falsely bright laugh.
Stella Stevens set down her watering can and considered her ex-employee more seriously. She had suffered enough romantic disappointments in her own life to recognise distress when she saw it. She could see it in the haunted expression in the girl’s eyes, the pinched quality of the skin about the mouth, the darting glances and quick gasps for breath.
‘I believe a cup of tea is called for.’
‘That would be lovely.’
The tea was made and brought, along with triangles of cucumber sandwiches with the crusts neatly cut off. Lissa struggled to eat one. This meeting was even worse than she’d expected.
‘It is no concern of mine, my dear, but have you seen a doctor, for your nerves at least? And you’ll do that fuchsia no good at all if you don’t leave it alone.’
Lissa guiltily relinquished the flower petals and pleated her fingers tightly together in her lap, trying to keep them still. ‘Could we discuss the shop, do you think? I don’t have much time.’
‘Of course. I hadn’t really done anything more about letting it. It’s very rundown, you know.’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
Stella Stevens liked Lissa. She was lovely, sensible and intelligent, though at this moment her beauty had taken on a brittle quality quite at odds with the liquid, golden grace of the young girl who had first come to work at her drapery. She warned herself not to get involved, that it was no business of hers if Philip Brandon was proving to be a possessive husband. For all she knew he may well have cause. He was certainly not a man to cross for all his outward charm. He was a professional, a man of affairs. And a gentleman. A thought struck her.
‘Goodness me, you weren’t considering…’ she paused, breathless with horror. ‘A divorce?’
The word jolted Lissa. She hadn’t gone so far in her thoughts. It seemed rather too daring for her. ‘I shouldn’t think so,’ Lissa admitted, and Stella grasped her hand in a gesture of relief.
‘Oh, thank goodness.’ And lowering her voice to a confidential whisper, ‘Divorce is not at all the done thing, you know. Very vulgar. You would lose your reputation, my dear. It is only for those scandalous women who are no better than they should be.’
Lissa stared at Miss Stevens in distress. Would this be how everyone would view her if she did leave Philip? Vulgar. Scandalous. Just like her mother. She could almost hear Rosemary’s purr o
f satisfaction at being proved right. ‘I’m sure it won’t come to that,’ she said. ‘I have my children to consider.’
‘Of course you have. I appreciate your confidence in telling me of your troubles, and not a word of it shall pass my lips, but I really think you should consider the matter most carefully before making any rash decisions. There is great stigma attached. Why, every week my magazine implores women to be good wives and mothers. It is up to the woman to make a marriage successful, is it not?’
Lissa set down her uneaten sandwich with a small sound of exasperation. ‘Then they are living in the past. You’d have thought the war would’ve changed all of that, wouldn’t you? Yet here we are, years later, as tied as ever. Duty. Obedience. Responsibilities. Making our husband’s happy. What about our happiness? Are we not entitled to some of that ourselves?’
Miss Stevens looked flustered by her cry for independence. ‘I know nothing of marriage, dear. As a maiden lady.’
‘You are a woman, Miss Stevens.’
‘Quite so, quite so.’ To cover her confusion she got up from the small table and, picking up a small pointed trowel, dug it into a pot of begonias, the soil as rich as fruit cake. ‘I must say I don’t necessarily agree with these opinions but they are generally held. I did have a young man myself, once.’ Her faded old eyes grew misty for a moment as her mind slipped back to those early days of her youth, before the war. ‘But Mama decided he wouldn’t be suitable. I’m sure she was right.’
Lissa squared her shoulders. ‘I’m only asking to rent the shop, that’s all. I can’t go on like this with nothing of my own, I really can’t.’
Or the girl would break. Any fool could see that. Miss Stevens nodded, looking thoughtful. ‘I shall give your request careful consideration, but I make no promises. And you would do well to remember that the law is not easy to face for a woman alone shunned by society.’ The dragon could still roar. And speak utter sense.
The weeks dragged by and Lissa heard nothing from Miss Stevens. Gradually she lost hope, nor did she find the strength to ask Philip again. The idea died, stillborn.
‘Don’t give up,’ Renee told her. ‘Tell him you want to be a typhoon like Mr Woolworth.’
‘Tycoon. I’m not sure that I do.’ Lissa would laugh and change the subject. She enjoyed her visits to Nab Cottage. Renee always managed to make her smile. And Lissa did decide to take up one of her suggestions. Surely there must be something useful she could do. It wasn’t exactly the kind of freedom she’d had in mind but it was a start.
‘I thought I might take up some voluntary work,’ she said one evening as she handed Philip his drink. ‘Just an hour or two a week.’
‘Excellent,’ he said, his attention on his newspaper.
‘I thought perhaps I’d ask Hilary. She might know of something I can do. Would you mind?’
She kissed him on his forehead and he glanced up, surprised. It was rare for her to be demonstrative and the gesture touched him. ‘Of course not, darling. The woman always seems to be dealing with some good cause or other.’ And it would do him no harm with Don Cheyney.
Lissa smiled, as if he had offered her a gift. He loved her best when she was weak and gentle, showing her dependence upon him. She’d turned out to be surprisingly stubborn, not at all like dear, sweet Felicity. Far less malleable than he’d expected or hoped for. There was the matter of her grandmother, for instance. He still had great difficulty in persuading her to visit Larkrigg Hall, with no sign of a reconciliation between them. Not that he had given up hope of winning that one. But then he always did win, in the end.
‘Did you see Doc Robson again today, as I asked?’
Lissa turned away, busying herself with arranging flowers that were already immaculate.
‘Yes.’
Philip wanted to know what treatment he’d offered to help her to conceive, if she must go into hospital for it, which would demand yet more lies. Lissa’s head was spinning with the complexity of the web of deceit she was weaving. The prospect of even more duplicity were she to acquire the shop, was daunting. Perhaps it was just as well nothing had come of that.
One of the old school, Doctor Robson had been unsympathetic when she tried to explain her problems. ‘You are depriving your husband of a son.’
‘As he tries to deprive me of my freedom, of any say in my own life, even in whether or not I want to make…’
‘Make what?’
Lissa, blushing with embarrassment, had stared at the worn carpet in the doctor’s surgery and pretended she’d forgotten what she was about to say. She couldn’t talk about sex, not with the doctor. ‘He seems obsessed. He must have me near him at all times. Constantly checking on where I am and what I’m doing. It’s unhealthy.’
‘It sounds as if you are a very lucky young woman. Few men care so much for their wives.’
She’d looked at him then with pleading eyes, begging for him to understand. ‘I was too young when I married, too inexperienced. I don’t know what I expected, but not this. I didn’t realise what I was taking on.’
Doc Robson had looked very sternly at her over his spectacles. ‘Then it is time you grew up, Lissa. You have made your bed and you must lie in it. Match your expectations to suit your husband’s requirements. That is your responsibility as a wife.’
She’d argued no more. There seemed little point. More worryingly he’d refused to refurbish her contraceptive supplies.
‘I think I’d like to discuss the matter with you both together,’ he’d decided, and Lissa had felt herself go quite white and shivery.
‘That would be too embarrassing.’
‘Don’t be silly, Lissa. He’s your husband.’
Taking her courage in both hands she’d tilted her chin and outfaced the doctor with a courage she did not feel. ‘I thought patient confidentiality meant these things should be private?’
‘Having, or preventing, children is something you should decide together, dear girl.’
‘I’m not ready to have any more babies yet. I had thought about trying this new pill which a friend told me about.’
He’d been so shocked Lissa thought he might have a heart attack there and then. Then he’d proceeded to give her a long lecture on sinful promiscuity, as if it automatically went with the pill. But she’d stuck to her guns and got the prescription she needed. Victory was sweet. How long it would last was another matter.
Now she faced Philip with another lie. ‘He says there’s nothing wrong with me. It’s just one of those things. We must simply be patient.’ She went to him and put her arms about his neck, wanting to distract him. ‘If we’re meant to have another child, one will be given to us. The twins are young yet. Doctor Robson says I’m a perfectly healthy young woman.’ That, at least, was true.
Chapter Seventeen
By February Jan announced that she was pregnant again. In late March, around the time of Lissa’s birthday, Philip insisted they visit Larkrigg Hall. She always protested vehemently but it was hard to deny Philip anything once he’d set his mind to it. And she wanted to see her family, so what excuse could she give?
They sat now in the shrouded sitting room, Lissa’s heart filled with dread as usual, Philip at his most charming. It was like a scene from her childhood bringing back all her old feelings of rejection.
Rosemary Ellis poured tea brought by Mrs Stanton, the housekeeper, more ancient and crabby than ever. She responded to Philip’s attempt at small talk with such a frosty politeness they might well have been strangers, instead of a part of her own unacknowledged family.
Lissa made no effort to join the conversation, having learned long ago that any remark from her was rarely granted the courtesy of a reply. She wondered why the woman even received them. As always, Lissa fixed her gaze on the panorama of mountains through the trefoiled windows, which brought their usual comfort, trying to detach herself from the scene being played in the stuffy drawing room.
She sipped her tea, not tasting it, longing for the agony to b
e over so she could return to the warm cocoon of Broombank kitchen and gather her children on her lap.
‘I’m glad to see you looking so well after your difficult winter,’ Philip was saying. He really could appear a most charming, handsome man when he wished, she thought.
‘I’m old,’ said Rosemary starkly. ‘Prone to colds and chills. Which no doubt pleases you.’
‘My dear lady, you have no idea how it distresses me.’ Philip set down his cup and saucer on the polished table and edged closer. ‘Forgive me for saying so, but you should not live alone in this big house, now that you are reaching your most vulnerable years.’ His voice seemed filled with genuine concern so that even Rosemary paused before barking out her reply.
‘Vulnerable years indeed. And I do not live alone. I have Mrs Stanton. We do very well.’
‘I’m sure you do. But there is really no necessity for it when you have a family only too ready to care for you. You could come and live with us, or we could move in here, if you prefer?’
‘I do not prefer,’ she snapped.
Thank God, thought Lissa, horrified by Philip’s unexpected suggestion. She certainly had no wish to live with Rosemary Ellis. But he was oddly persistent. ‘You would love the twins. Perhaps we could bring them to see you one day?’
No response.
‘Did we tell you that Melissa and I are trying for another child? A boy this time, hopefully.’
‘There’s no hurry,’ Lissa interjected, then flushed as Philip frowned at her.
She had said the wrong thing. Yet again. But sensible thought seemed to desert her when she had the eyes of these two people resting so critically upon her.
For the first time that Lissa could recall, Rosemary turned interested eyes upon her. For a full half minute grandmother and granddaughter’s gaze locked and she saw a terrible bleakness in the faded eyes. She’s unhappy, Lissa thought, and lonely.
A part of her ached to reach out and put her arms about the old woman, beg Rosemary to forgive her for whatever it was that had turned her so firmly against her in the past. She wanted to ask for her love, her acceptance at least, but then the face seemed to close and turn away, and Lissa felt the familiar rebuff like a slap.
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