by Penny Jordan
Darling, you never told me you were dining here tonight.’ Melisande’s sharp eyes appraised Mel. ‘You’re looking tired, Mel,’ she told him, adding to India, ‘What have you been doing to him, darling?’
Simon Herries was at her side. It was apparent that they had finished their meal and were on the point of departure. Mel looked even paler than he had done before. He had stood up when Melisande approached the table, and although he was a tall man, Simon Herries topped him by several inches. Even she had to tilt her head to look up at him, India acknowledged; something that was quite rare when she wore, as she was doing tonight, in defiance of smaller girl friends’ advice, high-heeled shoes.
‘We’re going on to Tokyo Joe’s,’ Melisande told them, mentioning one of the newer clubs. ‘Why don’t you come with us? I’ve read this divine new play; the lead part could have been written for me… but it costs a fortune to put on a production nowadays…’
She was looking at Mel as she spoke, but he didn’t respond, and the actress pouted a little.
‘Persuade them to come with us, darling,’ she demanded of Simon Herries. ‘It will be fun.’
‘I suspect the sort of “fun” Melford and Miss Lawson have in mind requires only two participants,’ he drawled in response, ‘despite the almost puritanical appearance of Miss Lawson.’
‘Darling!’ Melisande protested in half shocked, half fascinated breathy tones, her eyes rounding with surprise. Mel was already on his feet, and India saw the way his fingers bunched into his palm, the giveaway muscle beating sporadically in his clenched jaw.
She reached towards him instinctively, her voice low as she begged him to let matters alone.
‘Such modesty; such quiet, well-bred manners!’ Simon Herries mocked savagely. ‘No one looking at you would guess that what you’re really doing is stealing someone else’s husband, or is it simply that you’ve discovered that it turns some men—especially older men—on to project that quakerish, “touch-me not” image?’
He turned on his heel before India could respond, his hand under Melisande’s elbow as he escorted her out of the restaurant. None of the other diners seemed to have noticed the small piece of byplay. India looked at Mel. He was as white as a ghost, the skin stretched ageingly over his bones, his eyes pained and defeated.
‘He had no right to speak to you like that,’ he said thickly. ‘No right at all. God, I could have killed him!’
‘Forget it. It doesn’t matter,’ India lied lightly.
‘I hadn’t realised what I was doing to you, what interpretation others would put upon our friendship.’ His mouth twisted bitterly. ‘And all for nothing! India, there’s something I have to tell you. Oh, if I thought there was the slightest chance that you might marry me… Alison, my wife, is pregnant…’ He grimaced when he saw India’s expression. ‘Yes, I know, but then, my darling, men are like that. Despite what I feel for you I still make love to my wife. Despicable, aren’t I? And knowing you as I do, I haven’t told you before, because I knew you would never let me leave her while she was carrying my child. But that isn’t all of it. After the boys Alison was told she wasn’t to have any more children. Perhaps that’s why…’ he frowned. ‘God, I shouldn’t be burdening you with all this, but the fact of the matter is that after Johnny was born we took to sleeping separately. She had a bad time, and then the doctor warned us that she wasn’t to have any more. The pill didn’t agree with her… and what with one thing or another we just never got it together again. Until now. Her parents came to spend a weekend with us along with her brother and his wife. We needed the extra bedroom space, so I spent the night with her…’
‘What will she do?’ India asked, her mouth dry. ‘Have an abortion?’
Mel shook his head. ‘No, she’s totally against the idea, and I have to confess that so am I. No, tonight was the final tie-breaker. If you’d agreed to marry me, I would have asked Alison for a divorce. I’m fortunate enough to be able to support two wives, two families, but as you won’t, I feel I owe to my son, or daughter, whichever the case may be, to at least make an effort to provide a stable home. Alison isn’t well, and…’
‘Does she… does she know how you feel, I mean…’
‘About you?’ Mel shook his head. ‘Not specifically. ‘Oh, she knows that all is not as it should be, perhaps even how I feel about you, but nothing else. I’m going to go away for a while, India. I know that my duty, I suppose I should call it, lies with Alison and my children, but I need time to come to terms with it, time to gather my strength, if you like…’
‘Where will you go?’
‘I haven’t decided.’
They left the restaurant in a silence which continued during the taxi journey, almost morose on Mel’s part, and pitying on India’s—not just for Mel, but for his wife as well, and it wasn’t until the taxi stopped that she realised where they were. The taxi had come to a standstill outside the expensive block of apartments where Mel lived.
‘Come in and have a drink with me, please,’ he begged, and India hadn’t the heart to refuse.
She had been in his apartment before, but never late at night, alone with him. It had a curiously sterile appearance, despite the obvious expense of the furniture and fittings.
‘Alison hates this place,’ he told India over their drink. ‘She prefers the country. I think I’ll give the apartment up. After all, I’ve got to a position in life now, where I can quite easily work from home… Alison and I should never have married. We’re too different.’
‘How did you meet?’ India asked him gently, sensing his need to talk.
‘At a charity function. She was what was then called a deb—her mother’s family are very well connected; not much money but generations of blue-blood and the “right” marriages. She was small, and dark, and was the only person there who didn’t seem to look down on me. I was very conscious in those days of my “nouveau-richeness”. To cut a long story short, we both convinced ourselves that what we felt for one another was love and we got married. It didn’t take very long for the gilt to tarnish. Alison tried to re-model me along the lines of her friends’ husbands; and then the boys came along and she seemed to lose interest in me altogether…’
‘You loved her once,’ India reminded him softly, ‘and she loved you. You both have a responsibility to your children and to each other.’
‘Responsibility!’ Mel laughed bitterly. ‘God, that’s a sterile, relentless word. Come on, I’d better get you a taxi.’
‘It isn’t very far—I’ll walk.’
‘No way.’
Reluctantly she allowed him to order her a taxi, smiling a little at his insistence on accompanying her downstairs to the street when it arrived.
‘What do you think’s going to happen to me?’ she teased, her expression changing when she saw the haunted look in his eyes. Oblivious to the taxi and the passing traffic, she put her hands on either side of his face.
‘Oh, Mel, please don’t look like that,’ she whispered. ‘It will all work out… I know it will.’
‘Will it?’ With a muffled groan he pulled her into his arms, kissing her with a fierce urgency which she did nothing to prevent, knowing in her heart that this was his final goodbye.
Held fast in his arms, overwhelmed by pity, she was unaware of the sleek green Ferrari speeding past them, or of the bitter cynicism in the eyes of the man who observed them.
* * *
Another hour and she’d have to call it day, India decided wearily. She had spent the last week working on designs for dresses for one of her oldest customers and her daughter for the latter’s eighteenth birthday party. Celia Harvey was small and plump with smooth dark hair and an almost Madonna-like expression, and India would dearly liked to have dressed her in something soft and flowing, almost pre-Raphaelite, but she had been told in no uncertain terms by the young lady in question that she wanted something slinky and sexy à la Anthony Price. Her mother had raised her eyebrows in despair, and India sympathised.
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br /> Well, either Celia would like it, or she would have to find herself another designer, she decided at length, frowning critically over the multitude of careful drawings she had sketched. Her head was beginning to ache with familiar tension and she flexed her back, rubbing the base of her neck tiredly. Jennifer and the girls from the workroom had left hours before, and outside the streets were in darkness. She glanced at her watch. Nearly nine. Another evening almost gone, and all she wanted to do was to go home, soak in a hot bath and then go to bed.
She grimaced as she remembered the letter she had received that morning from her accountant. It was time they had a meeting, he reminded her. The trouble was that her clientele was expanding all the time, and it was becoming too much of a burden for her to design, and run the financial side of her business. The obvious answer was to take on someone to deal with the financial side, but who? It was at times like this that she missed Mel—selfishly, she admitted. She hadn’t seen him since the evening they had dined together at Jardine’s, and she had presumed that he had gone away, as he had said he intended to do, to sort himself out.
She herself was badly in need of a holiday. Summer had never seemed farther away. London was having one of the worst springs on record, with cold, blustery winds, and almost constant rain.
Of course it was impossible to find a taxi when she emerged into the street. Rather than wait for a bus she set off at a brisk pace in the direction of her flat, and got caught between bus stops in an icy downpour which soaked through her raincoat, the fierce wind making it impossible to keep her umbrella up. To cap it all, a speeding car, screeching round a corner in front of her, sent freezing cold water all over her legs, soaking through the hem of her coat, and by the time she reached the sanctuary of her flat she was both frozen and bad-tempered.
She ran a bath, and luxuriated in it for half an hour, feeling the strain of the day seeping away. With her newly shampooed hair wrapped in a towel she padded into her small kitchen to heat a bowl of soup. When she worked as she was doing at the moment her appetite seemed to desert her. She could have done without Celia’s dress right now; she already had enough orders to keep her going until the autumn.
She was becoming obsessed with the salon, she told herself wryly. Jenny had been saying only that morning that she never went out anywhere any longer. She had pleaded the excuse of there simply being not enough time, but Jenny had scoffed and quoted direfully, ‘All work and no play make’s a spinster dull and grey.’
Something must have happened to her sense of humour lately, India acknowledged, because the comment had jared.
‘Don’t worry about it,’ Jenny had said later when she apologised. ‘We all suffer from it from time to time.’
When she had unwisely asked, ‘Suffer from what?’ Jenny had eyed her assessingly and said, ‘Frustration, of course.’
Was that the answer? She wasn’t consciously aware of the need for a lover, but then perhaps she had grown so used to ignoring her natural urges that she was no longer attuned to them; and spring was notorious for having an odd effect on the lonely.
But she wasn’t lonely, she told herself. She had plenty of…
The phone rang, cutting across her thoughts. She padded into the hall and lifted the receiver,
‘Miss Lawson?’ a crisp male voice intoned decisively. ‘You may not remember me. Simon Herries.’
Her free hand clutched at the silk robe she had pulled on as though by some means he was able to see how little she was wearing. Her mouth had gone dry, her heart pounding heavily.
‘Yes, Mr Herries,’ she managed. ‘What can I do for you?’
‘It’s not what you can do for me, but what you can do for Melisande,’ she heard him say in response.
‘Melisande?’ India frowned. ‘I thought she was in the States filming.’
‘Yes, she is, but she’s due back this weekend. I’m organising a welcome home party for her at her apartment and she particularly wanted me to invite you.’
‘Me? But…’
‘I hope you can make it. Several colleagues of mine from South-Mid Television will be there, and Melisande tells me that you’re quite keen to break into television designing.’
‘Not particularly.’
What on earth was it about this man that set her teeth on edge; brought the tiny hairs on her skin up in atavistic dislike?
‘Melisande will be very disappointed…’
‘I don’t honestly know if I can make it,’ India temporised. ‘I have rather a lot of work on at the moment… I’ll have to look in my diary.’
‘Very well. I’ll ring you at the salon tomorrow and check if you can make it,’ he told her coolly.
After he had rung off India found it impossible to settle. She wandered about the flat, touching things, fidgeting, full of a nervous energy which eventually drove her into her small study where she worked until at last tiredness began to claim her.
She told Jenny about the invitation over coffee the following morning.
‘You’re going, of course,’ her secretary exclaimed. ‘You lucky thing!’
‘Well…’ India demurred, ‘I don’t know if I can manage it, we’ve so much on at the moment.’
‘Nothing that can’t wait,’ Jenny told her briskly. ‘Look, I’ve got all the schedules here. You can’t work all day, half the night and all weekend as well!’
‘There’s Celia’s dress…’
‘Blow Celia! I don’t know why you’re wasting so much time on her anyway. If she wants to dress herself up like a plump shiny Christmas tree let her. Seriously, you ought to go. You’re the boss, I know, but I like my job and I feel I’ve got to do all I can to protect it, which includes making sure my boss doesn’t kill herself through overwork. One party; half a dozen hours out of your life…’
Put like that it did make her reluctance seem a little foolish, India was forced to admit. And why was she so reluctant? She didn’t know; she only knew that it had something to do with Simon Herries. Something; didn’t she mean everything?
‘You know,’ Jenny exclaimed judiciously, when they had finished their coffee, ‘I think you’re scared to go. Are you, India?’
‘No… No, of course not. Why should I be?’ Why indeed?
The phone rang as she finished speaking.
‘It’s Simon Herries,’ Jenny, who had taken the call, announced to her in a whisper. ‘Shall I tell him you’re going?’
‘I’ll tell him myself, thanks very much,’ India replied dryly, taking the proffered receiver.
‘Are you able to make it?’ he asked without preamble, obviously not seeing any need to waste time in unnecessary conversation.
Conscious of Jenny in the room, India forced herself to sound calm and relaxed.
‘Yes… yes, I think so.’
‘Good. Melisande would have been disappointed if you couldn’t. She particularly wanted you to come. So did I.’
Why should her pulses race simply because of those three casually spoken words?
‘Oh, by the way, I nearly forgot. Don’t bother with a taxi, I’ll pick you up. Eight, at your flat—I know the address.’
He had hung up before India could say a word.
‘Well,’ Jenny demanded, ‘are you going?’
‘It looks like it.’
‘Great. Now all you have to do is to decide what to wear.’
CHAPTER THREE
FAMOUS last words, India thought ruefully, three days later, surveying the contents of her wardrobe. Knowing Melisande, the majority of the other guests would be culled from the ranks of the beautiful and/or socially prominent; people with whom she could scarcely compete.
Positive thinking, India told herself. She might not be either wealthy or titled, but she was young, reasonably attractive, and if she wasn’t dressed at least as eye-catchingly as the other female guests she had no one to blame but herself.
However, that was half the trouble. Her own personal preference for plain, unfussy clothes revealed itself in the ga
rments hanging in her cupboard. If she knew Melisande and the rest of her crowd, the women would be dressed in the very latest fashions, the more outré and daring the better. She would look like a minnow in the midst of a whole host of brightly painted tropical fish!
She fingered her velvet dress, frowning as she pictured Simon Herries, looking over it—and her—with that cynical knowingness that so infuriated her. Without giving herself time to change her mind she rang for a taxi.
When it came she was ready, having bathed and carefully applied her make-up while she waited.
She gave him directions and asked him to wait while she slipped into the salon.
It didn’t take her long to find what she was looking for—a dress she had designed for one of her clients to wear over Christmas. Unfortunately the girl had broken her leg the week before the dance and the dress had remained unworn.
Grabbing it off the rail, together with its protective wrapping, India hurried back to the waiting taxi.
‘Sorry about that,’ she apologised to the waiting driver, ‘but I needed to collect something.’
‘Don’t worry about it, love,’ she was assured as the taxi driver glanced down at the dress she was carrying over her arm, grinning at her as he opened the taxi door.
‘At least you’ll never be able to use the same excuse as my missus; not with a whole shopful of things to choose from—always complaining that she ain’t got anything to wear she is.’
India glanced at her watch as she stepped out of the taxi in front of her flat.
Fifteen minutes before Simon Herries was due to pick her up. With a bit of luck she should just about be ready. She had no desire to be forced into asking him into the flat while she finished dressing.
India was choosy about who she invited into her home. The salon was where she saw most of her clients—either there or at their homes; and she treasured the privacy and solitude of the flat which she kept firmly separate from the salon.
Most of the decorating she had done herself, unlike the salon; and she had chosen furniture and furnishings which appealed to her.