Charles gave her his devastating smile; it made her catch her breath and wish that it was night-time. 'They say that two can live as cheaply as one, but I've never believed it. I'll make allowances in the budget for increased expenditure and take it from there.'
'Excellent.' She beamed at him. 'I like a man who doesn't haggle over money and who understands the need of a woman for a really good fur coat.'
'Have you enough money?' Now he was being practical. 'You haven't worked for several months…'
'Enough,' she assured him. 'Of course, I shall probably be penniless by lunchtime, but you weren't expecting to marry a wealthy woman, were you?' and, to cover her embarrassment, she buttered her toast lavishly, spread it thickly with marmalade and bit into it with evident enjoyment.
There had been a shower of rain early that morning, but by the time Roz reached Oxford Street the pavements were dry and crowded. She went happily from store to boutique to store, rather like a ferret in search of one particular rabbit, and she was still cheerful when after two stores and four boutiques she had found nothing she liked. She liked London, the bustle, the noise, even the crowds. Sussex was all right for a holiday, but she'd grown out of the country life after so long away from it. Now she wouldn't willingly live anywhere else.
In the third store, she found what she was looking for, and she lifted it off the rail with a mute plea that it would be the right size. It didn't look much on the rail, in fact it looked old-fashioned with its demure round collar and pin-tucked bodice, but the material was a fine tussore silk in a soft shade of ivory which suited her better than white. The price tag came in for a close inspection—it made her eyebrows rise—but the dress was so suitable. It had a row of self-covered little buttons all down the front of the pin-tucked bodice, very full sleeves which ended in tight cuffs, a wide, stitched belt to emphasise her narrow waist, and the skirt was full enough to swing round her legs without looking in the least bulky.
She clutched it to her bosom protectively, as though she was shielding it from other rapacious hands, and hurried to a fitting room. It fitted and the length was right, and Roz breathed a sigh of relief before she glanced at the price tag again. She comforted herself about the enormous expense. This dress would actually save money. She already had shoes, handbags and gloves which would team with it. Perhaps a hat, although she didn't usually wear one, and she went off happily to the millinery department where she chose a small, plain pillbox which she could jazz up if she wished.
At least this outfit wouldn't moulder in the wardrobe for years like Eve's traditional bridal outfit; it was eminently wearable and, although it didn't look very weddingy, perhaps if she carried a few flowers— and she wondered if Charles would give her flowers. The fanciful shopping done, she attended to more mundane matters. Some salad stuff for lunch, bread, thinly sliced York ham, and finally she made her way to a tea shop, struggling through the crowds of housewives out on bargain hunts and teenagers examining the contents of with-it boutiques.
She entered the tea shop with a feeling of relief and dropped the plastic bags containing her purchases on a spare chair while she ordered coffee. While she drank it, she was thinking about the future, what it would be like, how she and Charles would get on together, and she was just making a resolution to put a curb on her tart tongue in the interests of connubial felicity when her reverie was interrupted.
'It's very crowded in here—do you mind if I share your table, Roz?'
Roz looked up, her eyes still slightly glazed with thought, to see Margery Smith at her elbow and smiling down at her in a hesitant way.
'But certainly.' Roz shifted her carrier bags from the spare chair to a point near her feet while under her lashes she surveyed the girl. No, not a girl, a woman. In a better light than there was in Charles' hallway. Margery looked at least thirty, maybe a little older, although it wasn't obvious, not at a cursory glance, which was all Roz had ever given her before. A smallish woman, about five foot four, slender and brown-eyed, all this together with her pale hair which had been professionally tipped and streaked to a gilt finish, made Margery look younger than her years. In a bad light, she could easily pass for twenty-five. Roz found herself wondering bitchily if the silvery tips and streaks in the immaculate hairdo not only lightened it but concealed the first signs of grey.
Margery sat down thankfully, dropping her own parcels on the floor before she ordered tea. 'Wedding shopping?' she enquired. 'I hope you and Charles are going to be very happy. I'm sure you will,' she added. 'Charles is a wonderful person.'
Roz admired her savoir-faire in stupefied wonder. Margery had an almost little-girl ingenuousness, something quite different from the business efficiency she had displayed when she was Charles's secretary. Away from her desk and appointments book she seemed a different person.
'I'd have loved to come to the wedding,' Margery continued, 'but I have a new job—Charles recommended me for it. I'm with a group medical practice and I can't get away. It's very interesting and I've a lovely little flat, tiny but so convenient. Of course the kitchen's not as nice as Charles's—I designed that myself. Do you like it?'
Roz murmured that it was indeed very convenient, while she decided two things. The first was that it wasn't necessary to hold a conversation, just listen, and the second was that, as soon as she received her first pay cheque from the magazine, she would demolish that kitchen, convenient or not, and have a firm in to build her a new one! Margery meanwhile chattered on.
'I hope you don't mind Charles telling me, he always tells me everything. We've always been so close—well, we would be; we've known each other a long time.'
It all sounded very cosy and intimate, and Roz choked back chagrin. She would have liked to ask 'How close?' She wanted to know the formula for getting Charles's confidence; how to turn the 'cat who walks by himself into a nice domestic pussy who sat by the fire instead of doing his lone, lorn thing in the wet, wild woods.
None of this showed in her face, though. That part of her was under perfect control. She heard herself make a banal remark which turned the chatter on to what had been going on in London during her absence and Margery became amusingly informative, giving brief, thumbnail sketches of people they both knew and drily comic descriptions of their activities.
She came away from the tea shop with mixed feelings. She'd learned a very little and it was all confusing. Margery didn't fit in with her idea of a femme fatale, but appearances weren't everything. And Margery did have this cosy relationship with Charles. He'd found her another job and a flat to live in; she wondered acidly if he also paid the rent! The thought of that cosy relationship had her envying like mad because all she shared with him was a hot, desiring thing which, while it screamed for satisfaction, didn't promise warmth or companionship. It was almost too violent to last and, and when it was sated, what would be left?
Charles was coming down the stairs from the studio when she entered the house, and he raised an eyebrow at her burdens so that she glanced down at the cheerfully coloured plastic carriers—there did seem to be an awful lot of them.
'Spent up?' He made the enquiry with a faintly cynical smile.
'Mmm.' She staggered through the hallway and into the kitchen where she dropped into a chair and kicked her shoes off with a groan of relief. 'I told you I was expensive. Gosh, I could do with a cup of tea!'
'May I see?'
'Isn't it bad luck or something?' She clutched tightly at the yellow bag which contained her dress. 'I remember when Eve was married, everything was whipped out of sight and shrouded in secrecy as soon as Stephen put his finger on the doorbell.'
'Bad luck!' Charles was serious. 'I don't believe in luck, myself, not in marriage.'
'Ah, you go in for the "hard work" and "understanding" theories.' She watched his back as he filled the teapot and arranged the cups and saucers. He was so good to look at that a little bubble of happiness swam up and burst in her throat, making her chuckle. 'Do you "understand" me, Charles?'
/> 'Enough.' He brought her tea to where she was sitting. 'Now may I see?'
'Mmm,' but she was curiously reluctant; maybe he wouldn't like it. 'It doesn't look much until it's on, but…' she took a sip of tea because her throat had suddenly become tight. 'And there's a hat to go with it, a pillbox and very plain. I thought I might jazz it up a bit. What do you think?' She selected another carrier and took the hat out carefully to perch it on her head.
'No,' he considered it gravely. 'No jazzing, leave it plain, it's better that way. As for the dress,' his finger came out to flick the cameo brooch on her lapel, 'wear that with it—it doesn't need anything else.'
'Are the prints finished?' Roz asked as she tossed the salad for lunch.
'Mmm.' Charles came to stand behind her, putting his arms round her, his hands coming up to cup her breasts. 'I shouldn't be doing this,' he murmured as he nuzzled her neck.
Roz gasped and dropped the salad servers on the counter as the treacherous warmth uncoiled within her. Her legs suddenly became almost too weak to hold her and she leaned back against the warmth of his body for support. 'Why not?' Her question came out as a husky whisper, she was melting all over and she thought she could feel him tremble against her. Then, equally suddenly, she was free and he had stepped back from her.
'I'm behaving myself.' He was wry about it. 'And we're short of time. We'll have lunch and I'll take you back. If we leave early enough, we'll miss the rush hour and I should be able to deliver you at your door in about an hour and a half, which will give me ample time to get back here. If we're lucky getting out of London, I just might manage both journeys while it's still light.'
Roz gasped with dismay. 'Take me back? Aren't you going to stay?'
'No,' he shook his head. 'I'll come back here and drive down on Wednesday morning. Leave it, Roz!' as she started to object. 'You said Stephen would rather I didn't stay there.'
'But it's not his house…'
'Maybe not, but it's his home and Eve's his wife.' His mouth curved into a small smile. 'I don't know what you said to twist his arm yesterday, I don't want to know…'
'I told him a few home truths, that's all,' she interrupted defiantly. 'He was overdue for some of them…'
'…and I bet he's still smarting!' Charles shook his head reproachfully at her. 'Leave it to your sister, my girl, haven't I told you? She's no fool and she isn't any starry-eyed miss in need of your care and protection either. I don't approve of interfering between married couples.'
Roz glared at him. She wasn't loving him now, he was repulsive, and he had no right to be telling her what to do! Unthinkingly, she said so, and added a few other things as well, none of them complimentary, to finish up on a fighting note.
'And if that's the way you think,' she was haughtily furious, 'you needn't bother coming down on Wednesday because I shan't be there. And you can take that,' she threw the yellow plastic carrier and its contents at him, hitting him in the chest with it, 'and you can put it in the dustbin for all I care. I never want to see it again!' And with a crash, she threw the cutlery on the table, followed it with the cruet and fled into the bedroom, slamming the door violently behind her. Once there, she abandoned a lot more restraint and flung herself face down on the bed.
She wasn't crying, there wasn't a tear in her eyes— she had gone too far for that. She would have liked to lie there and scream, but she couldn't. There was the hard, hot lump in her throat which hurt until she thought she'd die of it. She could hardly breathe for the pain of it and her heart was hammering so hard that the blood drummed in her ears. Her first intimation that Charles had joined her was a sharp and quite painful slap on her rear. It was short and salutary, and she squealed with mingled pain and wrath as she rolled over to face him.
'Brute!' she snapped, the fingers of one hand crooked into claws while with the other she massaged her afflicted parts. 'How dare you? Get out of my room!'
'My room,' he corrected as he dropped on the bed beside her and inspected her still suffused face. 'Let that be a lesson, you little harpy!'
'Don't you dare lay a finger on me!' she warned through clenched teeth.
'In your present state, I wouldn't touch you,' he drawled, 'you're a mess!' His eyes slid over her cruelly, making her aware of rumpled clothing, untidy hair and a ladder in her tights which she couldn't account for. 'An unattractive mess,' he added.
The words jolted her into a sitting position from which she could see herself in the mirror and she choked back a groan of despair. He was quite right, she looked wild and unkempt. The things she'd always prided herself on, her cool collectedness, her air of remoteness, her well-groomed look—they were all gone. Beneath her tumbled hair, the face which looked back at her from the mirror was the face of a virago, and the rest of her matched it.
'It's all your fault,' she muttered sulkily as she tried to restore some order to her appearance.
'Perhaps.' Charles stood up and reached out a hand to pull her to her feet. 'Now go and wash and tidy yourself, then we'll eat. After that, I'll take you back to your sister—and,' he put a finger under her chin, tilting her face up to his, 'I'll be at the Register Office at twelve-thirty on Wednesday, that's the day after tomorrow, and you will meet me there, understand?'
'And if I don't?' She was still faintly defiant.
'You will.' He lowered his mouth to hers. There was nothing gentle about his kiss, neither was it mocking, it was cruelly sensual and it lit fires which started to rage through her slender body so that she sagged against him, her arms going about his shoulders, her fingers threading through his hair and her lips parting willingly and hungrily under his.
'That's why!' He had raised his mouth from hers and was looking down into her drugged eyes. 'To put it crudely, darling, you want it as much as I do, and the only way you'll get it is to marry me.' He laughed at her flushed face. 'I've transposed things, my dear. It's usually the woman who insists on marriage, isn't it?'
CHAPTER EIGHT
On Wednesday morning, Roz woke to a clear sky and the sun just tipping over the edge of the Downs. She watched the sky change from a pale primrose to blue and she felt neither happy nor unhappy, she felt numb. Surprisingly, she had slept. When she had gone to bed the previous night, she had been sure that she wouldn't close her eyes, she had even stocked the bedside table with a selection of books to while away the sleepless hours, but she had scrambled herself into bed, switched off the light just in case a miracle happened—and she had slept. She didn't feel any better for it; she was still tired and confused.
Within ten minutes of waking she had lost the numbness, and it was now replaced by a sick, shivering fear. Would Charles come? If he didn't, she would be lost, alone, and nothing that anybody could say would comfort her—she would also be humiliated. If he did come, she would be sick with fright at what she was doing and still humiliated because she would be marrying a man who had just disposed of a mistress with as little thought as he would change his socks.
She slid out of bed and crept downstairs through the silent house to the kitchen where she made herself a cup of tea, loaded it with sugar and drank it while standing by the table. She drained the cup, gagged at the undissolved sweetness in the bottom and poured another. This she took back upstairs with her and, getting back into bed, she sat there, propped up against the pillows sipping while her mind went round in ever-decreasing circles, arriving at the same point every time. The Register Office at half-past twelve.
It seemed hard to realise that it was only two weeks since she had been happily certain of where she was going and what she was going to do—well, two weeks and two days, she qualified. In that short space of time, she had fallen head over heels in love, and not with a worthy man. Her pride was in the dust, her morals had proved to be no better than they need be, she had been humiliated, slapped and told to keep her nose out of what was not her business and Charles had sent her back here alone to wait it out for a day and a half.
She wondered what he'd been doing since s
he had last seen him on Monday afternoon. Probably clearing away the last evidence of his liaison with Margery Smith, she decided cynically. She could imagine him going through the house with a fine-tooth comb, dumping the odd pair of laddered tights, the odd scrap of underwear and the forgotten mac in a cardboard carton together with the abandoned pair of slippers which had skidded under the wardrobe and the odd glove crammed at the back of a drawer.
The sun was quite high when young Freda disturbed her musings.
'Mummy says will you come, she'd come to you, but Jasper is just woken up and she's feeding him. Is it true you're getting married, Auntie Roz, and can I see your veil and dress, please?'
Freda was dressed for school, and the sight of her sturdy little normality drove away the visions of despair.
'You can see my dress.' Roz dragged her face into a smile because upsetting children wasn't in her line, it wasn't fair on them, their minds were too clear-cut, simple and direct to understand, and she had discovered that Freda was amazingly percipient. 'But there isn't a veil, I'm afraid.'
Freda peeped into the wardrobe and sniffed disapprovingly. 'I thought it would be better than that,' she explained, 'but I suppose it's because Charles is shy. All the same, I think it's very unfair. Lots of my friends have been bridesmaids and I wanted to be one too.' And she stumped out of the room registering more disapproval.
Roz slid out of bed, hunted for her slippers which Freda had kicked inadvertently under a chair, wrapped herself in her dressing gown and pattered along to the master bedroom where Eve was putting a clean, full Jasper back in his cot.
'Another dissatisfied customer,' she growled. 'Freda wanted to be a bridesmaid. She's never going to forgive me.'
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