Roz and Charles were sitting on high stools at the bar, a solid sheet of shining mahogany; it was too early to eat and Charles had suggested a drink while they were waiting. Roz was just burying her nose in a tall glass of Martini and lemonade when she felt a hand clutching at her shoulder and heard a shrill, unmelodic voice in her ear.
'Roz—Roz Wilshire, isn't it? I'd know you anywhere!' and as Roz turned on her stool with a look of mystification on her face, the blonde young woman went on, 'You do remember me, don't you? Oh, please say you do, you can't have forgotten me!'
Roz delved in the depths of her memory and came up with a name. It wasn't the face she recalled, not the rather protuberant blue eyes nor the silky blonde hair, it was the voice. She remembered now, it was a voice which she had always hated; over-loud, piercing; a voice to jangle her nerves, and it had jangled them for a whole year. It had been the year of her finals, she was no longer in hall and this girl had shared the small flat with her.
'Vera,' she tried it out and it seemed to fit. 'Vera Lofts. I thought you went teaching somewhere up North.'
'Oh, I did.' Vera's giggle was just as bad as her voice, if not worse; it irritated Roz's already stretched nerves. 'But I've wangled my way back, and I'm taking my Master's. Won't you introduce me?' Vera's pale blue, probing gaze slid to Charles.
'Certainly.' Roz became enthusiastic. 'Vera, this is Charles Maine, my photographer; Charles—Vera Lofts. I roomed with her in my final year.'
Charles was not interested; his glance flicked over the girl, discovered several features that would render her unphotogenic and passed on to a leisurely and rather rude exploration of what was below her shoulder line. That apparently was unsatisfactory as well, so he returned his attention to his drink after a murmured, 'Hello'.
Roz hurried to cover what could turn into an embarrassing silence. 'What's it like at the U nowadays?'
'Still scandalous,' Vera giggled again. 'Remember that dishy lecturer, the one you had such a thing about?' Charles's scrutiny must have upset her, because she was putting the knife in, in earnest. 'He's married now, of course, but he's got this thing going with a post-grad student. Rumour has it that he's taking her with him to the States, a sort of consolation prize for doing his research notes for his lecture tour. Marriage hasn't altered him one little bit, all the youngsters still swoon over him and he still laps it up. I pity his wife.'
'I doubt she needs it.' Roz heard herself sounding disapproving, and then, out of the corner of her eye, she saw the flick of a white cloth. 'Sorry, we'll have to go, I think that's our waiter, trying to tell us our table's ready. Come on, Charles.' She made it sound hearty. 'I'm starving! Goodbye, Vera, nice to have seen you after all these years,' and picking up her drink she walked steadily into the dining room, hoping that Charles would take the hint and follow her.
'Bitch!' she muttered under her breath as she sat down at the table and then looking up to find Charles regarding her with an expressionless face. 'I think that little exchange has put me off eating.' Hastily she swallowed what was left in her glass and held it out to him. 'Can I have another, please?'
It set the tone for the rest of the evening. She drank her second Martini and lemonade swiftly, picked at her food and swallowed several glasses of wine thirstily to finish by asking for a brandy with her coffee.
'I know it's unusual,' she defended as she watched Charles raise an eyebrow, 'but I've this horrible taste in my mouth and nothing seems to wash it away. Maybe the brandy will burn it out.'
After the light and warmth of the pub dining room, the cool night air hit her like an icy blast. She wasn't drunk, she wasn't tipsy, she didn't chatter too much or giggle and she didn't trip over things. In the car, she mulled over Stephen's shortcomings. How dared he? How could he? Getting himself talked about, making Eve an object of sympathy, having her talked about and giggled over by a lot of chattering and gossiping students. She thought of what she would like to do to Stephen had she been big enough, and her hands crisped on her handbag so that her nails turned white under the colourless lacquer she used.
'You aren't big enough!' Charles seemed to pick up her thoughts. 'Stop getting so worked up about it. It's not you he's letting down, it's your sister, despite all the sweet nothings he murmurs in your ear when he thinks nobody's watching.'
Roz abandoned her slouched position and sat up very straight in her seat, staring out through the windscreen into the half dark. 'Bad manners, Charles,' she snapped. 'Stephen is my brother-in-law and I love my sister.'
'But I'm excused, aren't I?' He sounded bitter. 'My upbringing wasn't of the mannerly type, more dog eat dog and the last one alive's the winner. One thing I did learn, though, and that's not to kiss and tell. You should get Stephen to take lessons in that. He tends to dwell on his conquests.'
'You've been talking to Stephen?'
'Say rather that Stephen has been talking to me, only when you weren't there, of course.' Charles looked amused. 'No conversation complete without a eulogy on the excellence of Professor Stephen Berry. I've never known a man so much in love with himself!'
'But if he is taking that post-grad girl with him,' she harked back to what was foremost in her mind, 'what are we going to do?'
'We?' The dashboard light showed his surprise. 'I'm going to do nothing, and neither are you…'
'But I can't…'
'You can.' He was unsympathetic. 'And you will. Just nothing, it isn't your business!'
CHAPTER FIVE
Through the open french window, Roz could see Eve and Charles seated together on the swing hammock. They were deep in conversation, and just for a moment she felt a twinge of envy. They had no right to get on so well together, they only did so because Eve didn't know the ins and outs of Charles. He was showing her his 'party' face, and it was unfair that he kept that face for Eve.
It would be ironic if, for the second time in her life, she lost her man to Eve, but that would be fate, because Eve was just as good-looking as she was and had a far nicer nature. She was warm and loving, sympathetic too, not the mass of prickles which was Roz Wilshire. With a little sigh, Roz buried herself again in the pack of photographs which depicted the latest fashions from Paris.
She was doing an exercise, trying to pick out the various trends and then tone them down for everyday wear, to give a forecast of what the big multiples would make of the extreme garments in the photographs. It wasn't a serious attempt, nobody was going to publish this bit of work, but she stuck at it grimly, making quick, deft sketches of wearable clothes; clothes with the same line but with the more extravagant excesses removed or toned down.
The originals took too much wearing, she decided.
They might be all right on a youngster who wanted to make a splash, but she was trying to remember that the magazine readership embraced thousands of women from sixteen to sixty and very few of them were five foot eight tall and had figures like beanpoles. A slight noise behind her made her drop her pencil and turn round to see Stephen entering the sitting-room.
'All alone? That's nice,' he gave her a confidential smile. 'It's so rarely I have an opportunity to speak to you.'
'Any time, Stephen.' She gave an inward grimace; Stephen was going into his cloak and dagger routine and she wondered who he was going to stick the dagger in. Outwardly, she smiled, a pleasant, noncommittal smile which meant precisely nothing. 'It's not as though we had anything secret to discuss,' she continued. 'There's nothing Eve can't share, or Charles either, for that matter.'
'Oh, Charles!' Stephen's golden glory was slightly tarnished by the chill in his sea-blue eyes. 'What on earth do you see in that fellow, Roz?'
She grinned to herself and wondered what Stephen's reaction would be if she said 'sex appeal'; he would probably think she was a little mad. 'It's working together so much,' she explained gravely. 'We have a common interest in that, and of course we both know the same people.'
'We worked together once.' He sounded rather regretful, as though the past was infin
itely preferable to the present state of affairs.
'Mmm,' Roz smiled widely. 'A long time ago, though and I was dreadfully impressionable. The good old bad old days when I was growing up—a very painful process. Thank heaven it only happens once in a lifetime.'
'I hurt you when I married Eve?' He drew nearer.
Roz kept her smile going while she drew back in her chair. 'If you're hoping I'll say yes you'll be disappointed,' she said tartly. 'At the time, I admit it felt like a deathblow, but now I know better. Calf love's like that, it's too intense to last. Looking back now, I find it all rather a bore.'
'Do you, Roz?' He moved nearer still and, huddled as she was into the back of the chair, she could retreat no further. Stephen clasped her shoulders firmly and lowered his head to an intimate lack of distance so that his eyes shone into hers; his were filled with a supreme self-confidence which set her teeth on edge. 'Weren't they the best times?' he murmured huskily as he sought her mouth with his own. Roz twisted slightly, but he was too quick for her and his lips claimed hers hotly.
'Naughty!' Charles's voice came from the open window where he and Eve were standing together, having walked up from their seat on the hammock. Stephen raised his head swiftly and Roz did an automatic survey. Eve's face registered worry and a hurt which tore at her heart, Charles' had a mocking expression, but Stephen's embarrassment, if he had any, which Roz doubted, was hidden by his beard.
Charles stepped through the window and gently disengaged Roz from Stephen's grasp. There were white patches of temper at the sides of his nostrils, he gave her one contemptuous look, but as he stepped back, his face changed as though somebody had wiped off the contempt with a cloth. He came erect, registering nothing but a loving reproach, except for his eyes, which were hard and filled with a cold rage.
'I thought we'd decided to break the news at dinner tonight.' Even his voice was reproachful and he looked at Eve with a sad smile. 'We're engaged. Did your sister always spoil surprises?'
The hurt cleared from Eve's eyes, to be replaced with a matchmaking glow as she looked from Roz to Charles and back again. 'You mean… Oh, Roz, you little beast, you could have told me first!' She shared Charles' reproach, but it was a laughing, real emotion; not assumed as his was.
'I meant to,' Roz summoned up a cheeky grin, 'but Stephen was here and you weren't. I was dying to tell somebody, and when I saw you and Charles so cosily together in the garden, I thought he was telling you. Stephen's very pleased,' she added with a malicious look at her brother-in-law. 'He'd got the idea that I was heading for a desiccated spinsterhood, hadn't you, Stephen?'
Eve rewarded her with a beaming smile. 'You always were secretive—it just shows what love can do.' She turned back to Charles triumphantly. 'It's loosened her tongue. We'll have a party to celebrate… It's ages since we did any entertaining… I can't wait…' and she grabbed her husband's arm and towed him to the door. Roz watched them go, Eve still enthusing and Stephen looking as though he was glad to escape, and only the door closing behind them cut off Eve's excitement.
As soon as they were alone, Roz whirled on Charles, the words which she hadn't dared say before coming in a forceful stream. 'What the hell do you mean, misleading Eve like that? How dare you? I haven't… I wouldn't…!'
'…But this time you will.' Charles's fingers closed on her arm and she squeaked with pain. 'You should be congratulating me on some quick thinking, not snarling like an angry cat. Or would you rather I'd left the explanations to you?'
'I wouldn't have told lies…'
'No?' He gave her a shake which made her teeth rattle. 'Then enlighten me; how would you have explained that touching scene to your sister?' His voice changed to a mockery of her own high, clear tones. 'It didn't mean anything, Eve…'
'And it didn't!' Roz was smarting under the injustice of his implied accusation. 'It was just Stephen up to his tricks. Eve would have understood—'
'Then you weren't looking at her face,' he interrupted. 'You haven't give any thought to the situation here. Eve's not been able to be any sort of wife for months, she's been expecting Stephen to stray, she even mentioned that post-grad student—making rather a sad little joke about it. She's made herself accept that, telling herself that out of sight's out of mind; but her own sister! And in her own house, right under her nose!'
'How dare you? I told you, you don't understand—'
'Oh, yes, I do! Your sister's a wonderful person, and for some reason she finds it hard to talk to you.' The sneer in his voice came over clearly. 'She's been needing a sympathetic audience and I've just been providing it, so you can take that superior look off your face. She needed somebody to talk to and I'm a stranger, unconnected. I learned a lot, and when we came to the window and caught sight of that touching little scene, I was watching her face. The last thing she expected to see was you leading her husband on, so I covered for you. Now, you'll carry it through. I'm a great believer in the sanctity of marriage.'
Roz opened her mouth to let out a vitriolic stream and then shut it again while she exchanged vitriol for vinegar.
'You! You believe in the sanctity of marriage! That's a laugh!'
'Laugh this off!' Charles jerked so that she came hard against him. His hands left her arms and she found herself firmly held. One arm was about her waist while his other hand was tangled in her hair, holding her head still. She tried to wriggle away, but the hand tightened and pulled so that she thought her hair must be coming out by the roots. 'Give,' he muttered fiercely as his mouth came down on hers, hard and angry.
When he raised his head, Roz sobbed; her scalp was smarting and her lips felt bruised. 'Animal!' she whispered, trying to kick at his shins. His foot came behind hers to hook her off balance and she fell back in the chair with him on top of her. 'I won't…' And then her protest was cut off as his mouth found hers again. Only this time it wasn't savage and angry, it was warm and seductive, compelling a response. The hot sweetness uncoiled within her and she found herself softening against her will. She sobbed with humiliation as her hands went up to his head, holding his mouth against hers, and everything dissolved in a blur of feeling and wanting so that when she felt his fingers on her breast she moaned and arched against him.
It seemed an aeon of delight until Charles raised his head and looked down at her. The angry light was gone from his eyes and amusement curved his mouth. 'Bloody uncomfortable,' he murmured. 'Why couldn't you have collapsed on the couch? But you look suitably rumpled and flushed.' Without haste, he did up the buttons of her silk shirt blouse, his fingers lingering on her neck. 'I've bruised you a bit.' He didn't seem in the least sorry. 'Come on, Roz, let's go and see what treats your sister has in store for us.'
Roz pulled herself together and stepped past him to stand in front of a handy wall mirror. It was a convex one and her image was distorted, but it was good enough to ensure that she was tidy and neat. 'It's only a front,' she threw the words over her shoulder, 'just for Eve's benefit. I've no intention of letting it go any further than a sedate engagement which will last only as long as you're here—and if you start pawing me again I'll slap your face in public!'
'You won't, Roz.' His arm went about her waist as they moved towards the door. 'I'd slap you back and kiss you silly, in front of- everybody; and I could do that, I've just proved it.'
'Brute!' her fingers went to her swollen lip as if she could still feel the pain of it. 'I don't like your samples!'
His arm tightened about her waist and his fingers closed, pressing hard on her rib cage. 'That wasn't a sample,' he reproved her. 'It was part of the main stock, and you did like it. Try being honest for a change.'
'And I won't have a ring.' Roz adjusted her safety-belt, sat back in the car seat and looked mutinously determined. 'It's no use you buying one,' she added. 'I won't wear it.'
Eve had started this—Roz glowered at the countryside. Eve had dripped a cloying sweetness of engagement rings, love evermore; white weddings and 'The Voice that Breathed o'er Eden'. It had o
nly been cloying to Roz. Eve and Charles had seemed to be enjoying themselves, Charles had aided and abetted in Eve's worst excesses, he had even looked faintly regretful when Eve had displayed her own engagement ring.
'I don't wear it much,' she held out the large diamond solitaire. 'To be quite truthful, I didn't like it half as much as the one he wanted to give me. That was an heirloom—his grandmother's, I believe; rubies, but I knew I mustn't have it. I'm always taking rings off, you see; washing up and so on, and I'd have been sure to lose it. This at least is replaceable.'
'Orphanage brats don't have heirlooms,' Charles said quietly, and Roz raised her eyebrows. So he'd told Eve that! But then of course he would; Eve would have winkled it out of him and been gently sympathetic, going overboard to show him that, as far as she was concerned, it made no difference. She would have been kind and sweet, saying something like: 'It doesn't matter that you never knew your family; we'll make it up to you. We'll be your family from now on.' She would have pointed out that now he had a readymade family, a sister, two nieces and a nephew, not to mention a brother, and Roz wondered how Charles had taken that!
'I understand that a ring is essential,' Charles gave her a mocking grin. 'It's what convinces everybody.'
'Oh, if that's all you want, something to give this farce an air of reality, I've plenty of junk jewellery and some of it looks very good, so you needn't bother,' she said ungraciously.
'Not good enough,' he shook his head. 'There's no mistaking the real thing, and I'd hate for somebody to start thinking that the engagement might be as phoney as the ring. We'll see what we can get in Brighton.'
Tame a Proud Heart Page 7