by Helen Brooks
The sound of high laughter beneath the window caught her attention and made her stiffen. Hugging the towel tightly round her, she walked across to the curtains and pulled them aside, peering down the ivy-covered stone wall outside to the snow-covered drive. She could just see a woman standing in the light from the house, the drifting snowflakes that were caught in the slight breeze now the storm had burnt itself out falling on to sleek black hair and the lovely young upturned face. She laughed again, her full red lips a soft pout in the whiteness of her face, and although Fabia couldn’t see her expression clearly in the dim light she felt the beautiful face was alight with some emotion, alive with feeling. It was the girl from the reception, his girlfriend!
As Alex stepped into view, taking the woman’s arm in the way he had so often taken hers, she felt no shred of surprise. With a feeling of doom she realised she had expected the inevitable from the first moment the carefree laughter had met her ears. It had been too good to be true, the hope, the expectation. She had known really, deep inside.
She wanted to turn away but remained glued to the window in an agony of self-torture. He walked the woman over to a Land Rover parked haphazardly to one side of the drive, bending down to hear something she was saying so the lighter brown of his hair merged with the darkness of hers. As she saw the woman’s arms come round his neck and Alex’s head being drawn down to meet the half-open bright red lips Fabia shot away from the window as though it had burnt her, the towel falling from her hair and the damp golden strands tumbling down on to the bare skin of her shoulders.
‘Fool, fool, fool...’ She ground the words out through tightly clenched teeth as she strode round the room in an agony of feeling before collapsing on the softness of the bed. ‘It doesn’t matter, he means nothing to you.’ She was talking to herself in earnest now but she didn’t care, she reflected wildly as she buried her face in the sweet-smelling duvet. There was nothing to get upset about; he hadn’t done anything after all, had he? Hadn’t promised a thing. She sat up suddenly, her eyes widening in shock. Just the opposite, in fact! He had been absolutely honest with her when he had explained his reasons for wanting her to accompany him here. He needed someone who was quite clear as to where she stood, no strings attached and certainly not heart-strings. She pulled his words out of the depths of her mind. ‘I am in the middle of several important business transactions and can’t waste time on trivia.’ She bit her lip hard. What had he said? Oh, yes, he didn’t want ‘interminable problems once the festive season is over’. That woman down there, there were probably lots more like her and now he was counting her as of the same ilk. She tasted blood in her mouth. How could she have been so stupid? Of course he wouldn’t say no to a little light diversion during her stay here; what man would? Of course he was going to try it on and see how she responded. And had she responded! She groaned as she kicked at the duvet viciously with her legs. But she hadn’t meant it like that, she had felt—
She froze on the bed. What had she felt? She sat up, her hair a tangled mass of gold around her heart-shaped face in which her eyes shone out a vivid violet-blue in the whiteness. ‘I felt a darn sight too much,’ she murmured in the emptiness. But it was just physical attraction, of course it was. She nodded vigorously. The raw sexuality between them couldn’t be denied but from this moment on she would keep it in its place. If she couldn’t be remembered for anything else he would remember her as the one he didn’t sleep with!
By the time she was ready for dinner she was the epitome of the cool blonde, long golden hair swept into a soft loose bun on the top of her head and a little discreet make-up to give some colour to her over-pale face. She had bought two new evening dresses, along with a long black skirt and several glittery tops, expecting they would dress for dinner each night, and now the soft gold silk of the ridiculously expensive dress gave her the courage she needed to face him again. She looked good, she knew she did, and for the moment that was all she must think of. She had brought this whole mess on herself, she would admit that, but she was blowed if she was going to become one of Alexander Cade’s ‘fancies’. ‘No way, Mr Cade,’ she said bitterly into the mirror as she checked herself for the last time. ‘You’re just like all the rest; the only difference with you is that you’re honest about it. Well, thanks for the warning. I shan’t forget again.’ The tenderness, the sweet words, they were a familiar pattern, probably genuine at the time but swiftly forgotten. How easy it had been to persuade herself differently.
She eased her mouth into a smile as she caught its tightness in the mirror. He had told her he was a busy man with no time for commitment. Well, fine; that suited her just fine! He had nothing she wanted. She despised all his kind.
Her thoughts were mirrored on her face as she opened the door, starting visibly as she almost cannoned into the focus of her malevolence, who was standing just outside, hand raised to knock. ‘What’s happened?’ The smile on his face died as his rapier-sharp glance swept over her face seconds before she schooled her features into blankness.
‘Happened?’ She forced a short laugh and then wished she hadn’t as the sound died in a croak. ‘Nothing’s happened.’
‘You’re upset.’ He looked at her keenly. ‘You weren’t like this when I left you a couple of hours ago.’
Before I saw you in a passionate clinch with Miss Happy-Go-Lucky? she thought balefully. How dared he? How dared he look at her as though he really cared how she felt when just half an hour before he had held another woman in his arms? She still wasn’t quite sure what his little game was but she didn’t like it, she didn’t like it at all!
‘Nonsense.’ She smiled casually. ‘You just startled me, that’s all.’
‘Well, if you look like that when you’re startled, angel-face, I sure dread to think how you appear when you’re angry.’ He leant back against the far wall as he spoke, his eyes lazy as they wandered over her slender form. ‘You look gorgeous, absolutely gorgeous, by the way.’
Cut the charm, she thought to herself angrily, this girl’s immune. ‘I’m here to do a job and I intend to do it to the best of my ability,’ she said coolly, driving back all treacherous thoughts of how delicious he looked in his evening suit with rigid determination. ‘You kept your part of the arrangement; now I do my bit, OK?’
He straightened abruptly, the warmth in his face dying as he took in her stony face and hard voice. ‘I see, a business deal, nothing else. That’s what this little episode is trying to tell me, right?’ She nodded coldly. ‘And the little scene in the sitting-room? That meant nothing, I suppose?’
‘Absolutely nothing.’
‘What is it with you, Fabia?’ He took a step towards her and then seemed to force himself to stand still, his big body taut and restrained. ‘Why are we back to the ice-maiden act? It won’t wash any more. I know you want me as much as I want you. I felt your need downstairs when we were making love.’
‘We weren’t doing anything of the sort,’ she said icily as inside her whole being jolted with the force of his words. So he thought he only had to click his fingers and she would succumb, did he? The arrogance! The sheer male arrogance! ‘We exchanged a few kisses, that’s all; love had nothing to do with it! That phrase is dreadfully misused.’
‘Well, excuse me...’ he drawled slowly, resuming his former position against the wall, his eyes hooded against her. Somehow she felt the casual stance was a pose, a sham, but then she couldn’t trust her feelings where he was concerned. The last few hours had made that plain. ‘Do I take it you are still prepared to play the part allotted to you in public?’ She nodded again, her eyes wary. ‘Well, that’s good of you, that’s really benevolent,’ he said smoothly. ‘But let me make one thing plain, Fabia—I thought I already had but it would appear you had missed my point.’ The gold eyes had turned to marble. ‘In private there is no need to continue the charade. I’m not starved of female companionship, as you well know.’ His face was expressionless but she suddenly knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that he w
as furiously angry. ‘Neither would I intentionally force myself where I’m not wanted. I obviously misunderstood your...enthusiasm for the role as something else. Nevertheless you are here and you’ll behave yourself in front of my grandmother. Do you understand me?’
‘Perfectly.’ She glared at him furiously and for a long moment they were like two contestants in a boxing-ring seconds before the bell went for the next round.
‘Hell, Fabia,’ he shook his head as he levered himself off the wall, ‘why do I always bite back with you? Look, I don’t know what’s going on in that head of yours but how about giving me a break, girl? Letting down the drawbridge for just a short time? You don’t know me, fine, I accept that, but how about throwing out all the preconceived rubbish that you’ve taken in and giving us a chance to get to know each other better? If nothing else it’s going to make the next few days a lot easier for everyone concerned.’
For a moment, just a moment, the sincerity in his deep rich voice reached her and she felt herself weakening, and then the icy hand of logic pulled her backwards with a sharp jerk. Fool, she told herself bitterly, how many times do you have to be burnt before you stop playing with fire? The man’s lethal. You thought Robin had got a good line but he was a mere novice beside Alex.
‘I’m here to do a job for you and nothing else,’ she repeated as she shut the door behind her, turning back to see his face close against her, his features setting into the cold autocratic lines she knew so well.
‘OK, Fabia, have it your way,’ he said unemotionally, his eyes looking through her as they walked along the corridor. ‘If you want to live in that little box you’ve made for yourself, who am I to try and dissuade you?’ The tone was casual and uncaring and hurt her more than anything that had gone before, but she said nothing. Her emotions were too raw for more verbal sparring.
Isabella was sitting in solitary splendour as they entered the huge dining-room, a tiny little figure at the end of the vast dining-table, and somehow, in spite of the little woman’s caustic tongue, the sight touched Fabia deeply.
‘You look quite charming, my dear,’ Isabella said warmly as they reached her side, patting the chair to the left of her as she spoke.
‘Thank you.’ Fabia looked into the wrinkled old face warily. She had the distinct impression that those bright black button eyes saw far more than Isabella revealed.
‘I like to have young people around me,’ Isabella said comfortably as John began serving the soup from a large silver tureen. ‘Makes me feel young. Too many old fogies in this house, eh, John?’ She smiled wickedly at the elderly butler, whose face remained in its impassive lines.
‘As you say, madam,’ he replied blandly.
Isabella gave a cackle of laughter as she turned again to Fabia. ‘He thinks I’m a dreadful old lady,’ she said with a wave of her hand at John. ‘Quite dreadful. Isn’t that right, John?’
‘As you say, madam,’ he said again, his face dead-pan, but as the old man’s eyes met those of his mistress over the soup tureen Fabia saw a smile in their watery blueness that matched a light in Isabella’s. The two understood each other, she realised suddenly, perfectly.
‘How long have you known my grandson, Fabia?’ Isabella asked after a few minutes of silence.
‘Just a few weeks.’ Fabia had practised this little speech in her head for so long it came out quite naturally. ‘We met at a social function Alex was holding. My friend and I had been given tickets at the last moment and we thought it was a shame to waste them.’
‘Another of your charity dos, Alexander?’ Isabella asked disapprovingly. Alex nodded without speaking and his grandmother turned to Fabia again, her lined face irritable. ‘I keep telling him, he’s too busy to bother with such things, he works all hours of the day and night as it is. Work, work, work...’ She eyed her grandson morosely. ‘But he says just giving a donation himself is not enough, that other people’s consciences need to be awakened, those who can afford it, that is.’ She looked at Fabia sharply. ‘What do you think?’
The abrupt question, coming on top of the surprising revelations that Alex worked too hard and actually cared about the charities he supported, temporarily robbed Fabia of speech and she stared at Isabella for a second, her mouth opening and then closing.
‘I think Fabia would like to eat her dinner in peace,’ Alex said smoothly, meeting her eyes for a split-second over the dining-table. ‘All right, Grandmama?’ His tone was mild but there was a touch of steel in the softness that the old woman clearly recognised.
‘So I’m talking too much, so what’s new?’ Fabia had a sudden urge to giggle but restrained it with difficulty. This irascible old woman was outrageous but she liked her brand of unpretentious honesty and uncompromising veracity. There was an integrity about Isabella that was unmistakable, very much like her grandson—she caught her thoughts sharply. No, she hadn’t thought that, she wouldn’t be fooled again.
As the meal progressed she found that playing the part allotted to her became more and more difficult, due mainly to the close proximity of Alex rather than anything else. He reached across the table a couple of times, taking her hand briefly in a little show of affection that had her wanting to snatch it back at once. She didn’t like the feel of his hard warm flesh on hers; it was...unsettling. Added to which those sharp bird-like eyes of his grandmother seemed to be watching her every move. She forced her mouth to smile, talked lightly of this and that, but had the distinct impression that she wasn’t fooling Isabella for a second. The old woman knew there was something wrong, she just didn’t know what it was—for the moment.
Yet the old lady seemed to like her. As Fabia talked frankly about her humble beginnings, her job, the little flat that she called home, she sensed she had gained Isabella’s friendship. Isabella became quite animated at one point, reminiscing about her equally modest childhood as the youngest daughter of a poor Italian family in a little obscure village deep in the countryside of rural Italy. ‘Then Henry comes along one day,’ she said dreamily, ‘Alexander’s grandfather. His parents had sent him to do a tour of Europe; they still did it in those days.’ She nodded to herself. ‘And he couldn’t speak a word of Italian and I knew no English. But we communicated.’ She raised dark eyes to Fabia’s interested gaze. ‘In a manner as old as time.’ Alexander shifted uneasily but the old lady was not going to be silenced this time. ‘When Henry wanted to marry me his parents were horrified, and mine...’ She laughed softly. ‘They dragged me off to the priest and asked him to keep me locked in a room at the church. It was shameful, you see; I was a Catholic Italian girl and he was English and not of the same religion.’
‘What did you do?’ asked Fabia, fascinated.
‘Alexander will tell you, won’t you, my dear?’ Isabella sank back in her chair. ‘I’m tired.’
‘Oh, it doesn’t matter, please, leave it if—’ The old lady interrupted her forcibly, waving her hands at Fabia irritably, her strong voice belying the excuse of exhaustion.
‘Alexander knows the tale, he’s heard it often enough. Tell Fabia what happened, my boy.’ Fabia looked keenly into the dried-up old face. For some reason known only to herself Isabella wanted Alex to tell her the rest of the story.
‘If you insist,’ Alex said lazily, his flecked eyes with their strange golden light fastening on Fabia’s pale, beautiful face tightly. ‘My grandfather was determined to have her; he would listen to no one. Late one night he got a ladder and rescued her from the church. They eloped. For a time both sets of families would have nothing to do with them but then my father was born and...babies have a way of smoothing family feuds out.’ He paused, his darkly tanned face and long thick burnished hair giving him the aura of a fierce brigand in the dim light from the shaded standard lamps, one at each end of the room. ‘He had to have her, you see. Once he had found her there was no way on earth anyone would have persuaded him to let her go. He would have died first.’ There was an emotion in his voice that had her transfixed now, her eyes locked wit
h his, her head refusing to accept the message her heart was giving her as she looked into his waiting face. ‘There’s an old story about the Cade men; it goes on from generation to generation. We only love once, just once in our lives, but when we do it’s for eternity.’
‘Is it true?’ she whispered breathlessly, mesmerised by the atmosphere that had thickened like a powerful drug.
‘Oh, yes.’ His eyes were burning into her. ‘Quite true.’
Isabella expelled a satisfied sigh, nodding her head like a wise old owl. ‘So now you know, my dear.’ She looked hard at Fabia. ‘Don’t you?’ There seemed to be more in the question than its face value and Fabia stared at her silently, trying to read the razor-sharp mind behind those bright black eyes.
‘Yes, of course, thank you for telling me your story,’ she said carefully, fighting the urge to lift her gaze to Alex’s and see what was written in the hard face, afraid of what she might see. Laughter? Mockery? Scorn? He was sitting as still as a statue and she was vitally conscious of every line of his body as though she were looking at him.
She wondered what he really thought of the old story. He would have had to agree with it in front of his grandmother, knowing it meant so much to her, but what of him, and all those countless women he had known?
The rest of the evening passed pleasantly enough and when Isabella retired for bed, at just after ten, Fabia waited until the old lady had disappeared with the ever faithful John at her side, it being Christine’s half-day off, and then made her escape from Alex’s sombre presence. He nodded slowly at her hesitant ‘goodnight’, his dark face enigmatically distant, but she was conscious of his eyes on her as she climbed the long curving staircase, their heat burning into her back as though their light came from the sun itself. She glanced round just before disappearing from view to find his gaze tightly fixed on her as she had expected, the big body taut and still, the goblet of brandy in his left hand motionless. Everything in his stance suggested an attitude of waiting and it unnerved her without reason; she didn’t understand him and she understood herself still less.