by Penny Jordan
‘Ready?’ he asked at length.
India made no reply, simply preceding him through the door.
The Ferrari was parked outside. As before Simon opened her door for her, making sure she was quite comfortable before walking round to the driver’s side.
He had impeccable manners, India thought, she had to give him that. No doubt normally his dates enjoyed the sensation of being wrapped in masculine attention—in other circumstances she might have done so herself, because she had discovered that it was quite rare for girls as tall as herself to be treated with such courtesy.
It wasn’t far to their destination. His grandmother had moved to London several years ago, Simon told her abruptly as he parked the car beneath an elegant block of flats.
India had not had much time to speculate too much on the woman she was going to meet—her mind had been too full of her plans for jolting Simon out of his arrogant complacency, and teaching him a lesson she sincerely hoped he would never forget, for that, but still it came as quite a shock to be greeted by a tiny, patently frail lady, who barely reached up to her shoulder, whose soft white hair was carefully arranged around a face which still bore traces of great beauty and whose eyes were still as darkly grey as her grandson’s.
‘Come on in, both of you,’ she invited. ‘Ellie is just putting the finishing touches to dinner. Give me your coats… Ellie has been with me since I was widowed twelve years ago,’ she explained to India as they followed her through a small square hallway into a comfortable and attractively furnished lounge. ‘Simon found her for me, and she’s a real treasure, although she can be a bit of a martinet at times.’
‘Because she needs to be,’ a humorous voice chimed in as a middle-aged woman walked into the room. ‘Otherwise there’d be no stopping you, would there?’
India liked Ellie Roberts on sight. She reminded her very much of one of her favourite schoolmistresses.
‘Dinner won’t be long,’ she told them. ‘I’ll serve it and then I’ll leave you to it. I’m going to spend the evening with my sister.’
‘Ellie doesn’t get out enough,’ Virginia Herries told India as Simon walked across the room and started to pour drinks. ‘I tease her dreadfully at times, but I honestly don’t know what I’d do without her. I can’t believe sometimes that it’s only twelve years since she first came to me—I feel as though we’ve known one another all our lives. Oh, Simon!’ she exclaimed as he returned with a single glass of sherry which he gave to India. ‘Don’t I get one?’
‘You know what Dr Mackay says Grandmother,’ he said.
She pulled a face. ‘David Mackay! He’s an old woman!’
‘Nevertheless, he is your doctor. Perhaps if you’re very good we’ll let you have half a glass of wine with dinner,’ he added, relenting slightly, a smile of such tenderness crossing his face that India found herself holding her breath in awe. Never once in their brief acquaintance has she seen him smile quite like that, and the sight of that tender smile for some reason brought an unexpected lump to her throat an a vague ache to her heart for which she could find no rational explanation.
True to her word, once they had finished the delicious pâté she had prepared and had been served with steak stuffed with oysters and marinated in wine, Ellie took her leave of them.
‘Dessert is in the kitchen,’ she told Simon. ‘No, don’t get up, perhaps your young lady will see to the coffee?’
When India agreed, she smiled gratefully at her.
‘Now, my dear,’ Virginia Herries invited when they had finished the unbelievably light raspberry soufflé and were sitting drinking coffee while Simon helped himself to some Brie, ‘tell me all about yourself.’
‘There’s nothing really to tell,’ India protested, conscious of Simon’s eyes hard on her face.
Virginia Herries laughed. ‘Now that’s patently a mistruth! For one thing, Alison tells me that you design the most enchanting clothes. Tell me about that.’
Briefly India outlined her career.
‘You’ve done exceptionally well,’ Virginia Herries told her. ‘I like girls to have ambition, it proves that they are people in their own right. And the fact that you’ve been so successful proves that you have the talent to match.’
‘Either that or right kind of financial support,’ Simon put in dryly, drawing a frown from his grandmother’s face.
‘Darling, you’ll make your grandmother believe you don’t have any faith in me,’ India pouted, unable to believe until the words were out that she had actually had the audacity to put her plan into action. But it was too late to retract now. While his grandmother looked on indulgently, Simon was staring at her, with eyes suddenly sharpening with suspicion.
Let him think what he liked, India thought rebelliously; after all, he was the one who had accused her, condemned her—and quite wrongly. Her anger smouldered as she remembered his accusation that she had deliberately given the item to the gossip columnist out of spite. If she wanted revenge there were far subtler ways of achieving it, as she was now about to prove to him. Give a dog a bad name… she told herself as she tried to quell the small voice of sanity pleading with her to recant, cautioning that there were cases when prudence was more important than pride.
‘Quite right,’ Virginia Herries approved. ‘Alison tells me that you took India down to the house, Simon…’ She deliberately left the sentence unembroidered, but India’s face flushed as she realised that the older woman might have been told about the unedifying scene Alison and Mel had interrupted. ‘Of course,’ she added hurriedly as her grandson’s eyebrows rose mockingly, ‘nowadays things are quite different, but in my day a young man didn’t take a girl away unchaperoned unless they were engaged at the very least.’
‘Things are different these days, Grandmother,’ Simon said casually. ‘And India is far from being the first girl I’ve taken down to Meadow’s End.’
‘I know, but India is different,’ his grandmother argued, favouring India with a charming smile. ‘And you obviously think so too!’
‘I do?’
‘Well, of course, otherwise you would never have allowed that item to appear in the papers.’
‘Even I can’t stop Fleet Street hacks from muck-raking, Grandmother,’ he told the older woman extremely dryly.
India took a deep breath. Here it was; her chance to show Simon Herries just what she could do when she tried!
‘Oh, come along, darling’, she coaxed, leaning across to place her hand on his arm, her eyes wide and guileless as she stared up at him. ‘Surely we don’t need to keep our secret from your grandmother?’
There was no need for her to say any more. Simon’s loaded. ‘What?’ was obliterated by Virginia Herries’ excited, ‘Darlings! I knew it! Simon, Ellie put some champagne in the fridge on my instructions—go and get it. We must drink to your future. Oh, I’m so excited!’
There was a pink tinge to her cheeks, a sparkle to her eyes that smote India to the heart, but this was no time to allow sentiment to outweigh logic. Simon had falsely branded her as the very worst type of female and he was getting no more than his just deserts, but when she had originally decided to play this trick on him, she had not allowed for the fact that she would be so drawn to his grandmother. How would she take it when she discovered that there was no ‘engagement’? Telling herself firmly that that was Simon’s problem, India sat back in her chair, veiling her eyes as he returned with the champagne, although she very nearly lost her resolve when, having poured three glasses, he brought his hand to rest on the back of her neck, the pressure of his fingers exerting a force which compelled her to look up at him. Standing beside her chair he seemed unpleasantly tall and overpowering. She had to swallow hard to dispel the thought that she would have been much, much wiser simply to accept things as they stood.
‘Well, darling,’—was only she aware of the hard metallic inflection in the last word?—‘it seems we’re going to have to celebrate ahead of schedule after all.’
‘Wel
l, aren’t you going to kiss her?’
India couldn’t stop her eyes from widening fractionally, reflecting her dismay. This was something she hadn’t bargained for.
As he bent towards her, strategically placing himself between her and his grandmother, so that the latter could only see his back view, he mouthed silently to India, ‘I don’t know what the hell you think you’re playing at, but there’s no way I’m going to let you get away with this!’
India’s retort was stifled beneath a mouth which seemed to burn her own with the harshness of extreme cold, making her shudder violently as she tried to wrench her mouth away, her breathing stifled as the kiss was prolonged.
‘Happy now?’ he enquired of his grandmother, when India had at last been released. She longed to touch her mouth, to rub away the memory of that bitter contact, but dared not do so in front of the older woman.
‘More than I can say,’ the old lady replied tremulously, tears blurring her eyes. ‘You can’t know how I’ve longed and prayed for this, Simon. Now at last I know that you’ve put the past behind you, forgiven your mother.’
There was a small significant pause, while India remembered what Alison had told her about Simon’s mother, and then he was saying calmly,
‘Well, I have to think of Meadow’s End, you know. Having re-purchased the estate, I’m going to need a son to inherit it from me, aren’t I?’
‘What will you do? Live in the present house for the time being? Alison told me that Meadow’s End itself is coming along quite well. Has Simon shown you Meadow’s End yet?’ she asked India. ‘The estate was sold after my son’s death—something Simon has always regretted, I know, but of course the fire which prompted the previous owners to sell to Simon practically gutted the main house, which is why he’s been living in what was once the farm manager’s house.’
‘She hasn’t seen it yet,’ Simon supplied, coming to stand behind India, his hands resting lightly on her shoulders. ‘I didn’t want to frighten her off before I proposed. Few girls would relish the prospect of taking on a husband who can only provide the burned out shell of a house as a home,’ he joked.
‘What about an engagement ring?’ Virginia Herries demanded. ‘And the wedding, when’s that to be?’
‘Give us time! We’re barely engaged yet.’
‘But there’s no reason for you to wait.’
* * *
It was eleven o’clock before they finally left. Ellie, on her return, had to be appraised of the news, and more champagne drunk. India, who had a very low tolerance of alcohol, could feel her head beginning to swim as they emerged into the cold, frosty air, which was probably just as well, she reflected hazily, because the alcohol acted as an insulating blanket between her and the razor-sharp condemnation in Simon’s eyes as he meticulously unlocked the car door for her, his eyes the colour of granite and just as hard, as he slid in beside her, closing the door with a cold precision which more than any amount of words brought home to India the full enormity of what she had done.
‘I suppose it’s quite useless asking for an explanation,’ he said at last. ‘Or perhaps I can supply the answer for myself. You’ve lost Mel, your lover and financier, who better to take his place than the man who robbed you of him? And not just take his place, but provide the security of a rich husband. Is that what you were hoping for? That for my grandmother’s sake I’d be forced to go through with this farce and then you could divorce me, claiming a large slice of my income? You don’t know me,’ he said hardily. ‘As you’re very soon going to find out. If you honestly thought I would fall for that ploy, my dear, you’re either very naïve or an addict of romantic novelettes.’
India stared through her window, gritting her teeth. Was everything she did in connection with this man destined to be misinterpreted? How dared he think that she wanted him to marry her?
‘For your information,’ she told him angrily, ‘marriage to you is the last thing I want.’ Her lip curled scornfully. ‘You’ve got far too big an idea of your own worth, Simon Herries; you’re the last man I’d want as a husband! If you must know, the reason I allowed your grandmother to think we were engaged was simply to show you how it felt to be at the mercy of someone else’s misinterpretation of circumstances. Furthermore, I did not tell the newspapers about us. The blame for that I suspect lies with one of your ex-girl-friends—Ursula Blanchard—who apparently learned from Alison that we spent the weekend together, and drew completely the wrong conclusions. I had to endure an hour of being called every unpleasant name under the sun before I could finally get rid of her. Neither have I ever been romantically involved with Mel. I like him, and I don’t deny that he believes he is, or was, attracted to me, but I’ve never given him the slightest encouragement. Now, whether you believe me or not doesn’t matter a damn to me, but I hope that tonight has shown you just how circumstances can be twisted to fit whatever explanation a person wants to give them. Your grandmother was already determined to believe that we were on the brink of an engagement…’
‘And now she’s convinced of it—thanks to you. Didn’t it ever occur to you to think of the effect the truth is going to have on her when it comes out?’ he demanded, completely ignoring her earlier comments. ‘Or is it that you simply don’t care?’
‘Ought I to?’ India asked hardily, preparing to escape from the car as they drew up outside her flat. ‘Do you care about what you’ve done to me?’
‘Oh no, not so fast…’ he told her, reaching out and across her, her hair brushing his dark-suited shoulder as he locked the door. ‘We have things to talk about, you and I.’
‘Such as?’
‘Such as our engagement. Oh, come on, surely you don’t suppose for one minute that my grandmother will keep it to herself?’ he demanded sarcastically. ‘To save her face, if not my own, I’m going to have to play along—but only until I tell her the truth, so don’t run away with the idea that you’ve won.’
‘Won what?’ India demanded furiously. ‘You? My God!’ she laughed bitterly. ‘Some prize that would be! Hasn’t it occurred to you that I just might be choosy about who I decide to spend the rest of my life with? That I might not want a man whose name has been linked with practically every little starlet and model in London?’
‘You’re exaggerating,’ Simon said in bored accents. ‘No woman really wants a man who’s completely without experience.’
‘Meaning you think I would find yours irresistible?’ India shot back defiantly.
She knew she had gone too far when she saw the gleam in the dark grey eyes, and shrank back in her seat instinctively.
‘Want me to prove it to you?’ There was seduction and something else in the soft words; a kind of sure knowledge that aroused even while it repelled, filling her with an insane desire to possess the same knowledge and experience as the man next to her.
She made no demur as his arms came round her, her eyes wide open and her body quivering tensely as she waited for his kiss, but instead of possessing her mouth his lips were exploring the contours of her face, his thumbs slowly stroking the soft flesh of her throat until she ached with the tension of denying her body’s response. It took all the willpower she possessed to prevent herself from turning her head until her lips met the hard male ones tracing a delicate line from her jaw to her eyelids. Her mouth felt dry, her heart thudding heavily against her ribs, emotions she had never experienced before making her aware of her own body in a manner she had previously thought only existed in the pages of a novel.
Then, when she had ceased to expect it, his mouth closed over hers, the fingers he had wound in her hair pulling her head back against his shoulder, exposing her lips to the experienced assault of his. A strange feeling began somewhere deep in the pit of her stomach and spread slowly throughout her body; a weak melting sensation that panicked her into stiffening instinctively against it, her eyes dilating in mingled shock and distress, her fingers clutching at the dark fabric of Simon’s suit.
‘Very good,’ he dra
wled sardonically, releasing her. ‘Only it just so happens that I’m not impressed by impressions of feigned virginity—no matter how excellent or artistic!’
CHAPTER SIX
THE phone rang and India reached for it.
‘India! It’s Alison. I had to ring you to tell you how thrilled Mel and I are by your news. Look, I have to come up to London this week. Why don’t we all have dinner together? I’m dying to know your plans. I knew you were right for Simon the moment I saw you—well, the moment I saw you properly,’ she amended with a chuckle. ‘I hope you’re going to make the wedding soon,’ she added. ‘In another three months I’m going to be huge, and both Mel and the doctor keep fussing dreadfully. Anyone would never think I’d had one baby before, never mind two! By the way, I’ve already spoken to Simon to tell him how pleased I am. In fact I think I’ll give him another ring now and fix up this dinner date…’
She had rung off before India could protest, leaving her to reflect on the old saw that one lie leads to another. Oh well, she decided, Alison was Simon’s cousin, it was up to him to deal with the problem. She refused to allow herself to remember how she had felt before staggering out of his car the night he had brought her home from his grandmother’s. Purely physical reaction, she told herself, when the subject could no longer be ignored. Good heavens, she didn’t even like the man! And yet he had definitely aroused her; touched something deep inside her that no other man had even approached doing.
Experience, India scoffed mentally, that was all it was. But the tiny knot of fear deep down inside her seemed to grow larger every day. And even though it was less than a week since that fateful dinner, she could still remember vividly everything about, and what had followed.
Her phone rang again, she sighed and picked it up. As she had anticipated, it was Simon.
‘Are you free on Saturday evening?’ he asked her, much to her surprise. ‘Alison is coming up to town and wants to dine with us.’