Façade

by Jessica Steele

  With three pairs of eyes on her, privately of the opinion that neither of his parents would miss her if she was not there, Sorrel's only option was to smile.

  'Then I must have a blank space in my diary for that weekend,' she replied, and, her smile encompassing both Moira Drury and her husband, 'Thank you very much,' she said, 'I'd love to come.'

  Her thoughts were broken into time and again on the drive back to London as Rod kept up a lively patter of conversation, in each brief lull, Sorrel was to grow more and more unsettled. In fairness she had to own that meeting Ellis Galbraith again had a lot to do with the way she was feeling. But it depressed her that by the look of it, Rod Drury was starting to become more attached to her than she wanted.

  That he was an exceptionally nice man and would, she was sure, make some girl a wonderful husband one day, was all very well. Provided his thoughts weren't straying to believe that one day he might be acting that wonderful husband to one Sorrel Maitland.

  She had seen enough unsound marriages in the set the Armitages belonged to, to know that in remaining single, she had missed nothing. And if the fraught marriage of Cynthia and Leslie Armitage had not been enough to put any girl off, she had a clear memory of Ellis in a rare confiding mood that had stupidly led her to believe he thought more of her than he actually did, telling her how his parents had been so much in love at the start of their marriage, but how they had ended up hating each other—their marriage had finished in divorce.

  Rod Drury was pulling his car up outside her apartment block when, as she tried to think of anyone she knew who had stayed happily with the partner they had started out with; to contradict her thoughts that marriage brought nothing but strife, came the memory of not only how happy Rod's parents were together, but her own parents too.

  As usual, when she had unlocked the outer door, Rod insisted on seeing her up to the door of her flat on the second floor. 'Do I get to come in for a few minutes?' he asked, his expression ever hopeful, causing her to wonder if now was the moment to tell him that she wasn't going to see him again.

  The memory of the weekend at his parents' home she had committed herself to stopped her. She had virtually promised she would go, and she hated breaking promises.

  'I'm rather tired,' she put him off his attempt to gain entry to her flat, where always talkative as he was, a few minutes would stretch into an hour before she would be able to close her door on him.

  'All that fresh country air?' he suggested a shade wryly, seeming perfectly content to talk that hour away on her doorstep.

  'It is rather enervating, isn't it?' she agreed solemnly.

  'You never did tell me what Ellis Galbraith was doing sitting with you under the old apple tree this morning,' he said, bringing up a matter she had thought he had forgotten, since this was the first time he had referred to his coming back from the stables and seeing her with Ellis.

  'Neither I did,' she said a shade coldly, to let him know that nobody put her through the third degree. But, as she saw the slightly taken aback look that came instantly to his face, she softened, and invented, 'He saw me sitting there when he was passing.' She shrugged. 'It was natural for him to come and say "Hello".'

  'You used to live near each other, I think you said,' remarked Rod, in no hurry to go.

  'That's right,' she answered, inserting her key into her door and hoping he would take the hint as she added easily, 'But that was years ago.'

  Her door open, Sorrel stepped purposefully through the opening, and turned to bid him goodnight. But when Rod's face loomed close and he looked to be going to kiss her, as he had a few times before without her raising any objection, suddenly Sorrel could no more return his kiss than fly.

  'Goodnight, Rod,' she said firmly, pulling her head out of range. 'Thank you for a lovely…'

  'You enjoyed yourself?' he asked, while accepting that he wasn't going to get to kiss her, still in no hurry to go.

  'Very much,' she replied, wanting to close the door.

  'I'll call for you tomorrow,' he said, stepping back when she moved the door a few inches as though preparing to close it. 'I'll call about…'

  'Tomorrow?' she asked.

  'You haven't forgotten we're going to the first night of that new play?'

  'Of course not,' she lied. 'I just wasn't thinking.'

  She leaned heavily against the door when at last she had been able to close it on Rod Drury. She had thought herself unsettled coming home in his car, but, as her brow puckered, she wondered what had come over her a short while ago that, when his kisses before had meant nothing, had cost her nothing, she should suddenly be visited by an aversion to being kissed by him or any man.

  Without prompting, all at once into her mind came the memory of how eagerly she had once welcomed Ellis's mouth on hers. How joyously she had thrilled to having his arms around her.

  She came away from the door banishing the picture of the innocent seventeen-year-old she had been, but only for another thought to come and trip her up. That thought—would she be averse to Ellis's kisses too, should he ever want to kiss her again?

  Not that he would want to kiss her, she thought, starting to feel fed up. Not that she would let him. He might have remembered the girl she had been at seventeen with a clear memory of her freshness, but if her instinct was right, very clearly he had no liking for the woman she had turned into at twenty-five.

  She went into her bedroom and sat down before her dressing table mirror. Solemnly she stared at her delicate features. If she was truthful, she mused, her phoney air of sophistication gone, she wasn't sure that she liked what she had become very much herself either.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Awake early after only a fitful night's sleep, Sorrel got out of bed the next morning no happier with herself than she had been when she went to bed.

  She went over to her wardrobe and pulled the doors wide trying to decide what to put on. But on discarding first one fine garment and then with dissatisfaction another, the cost of which had made her blink at the time, she remembered, she discovered that her expensive clothes meant nothing to her.

  Settling for wearing what she felt most comfortable in, her jeans from her old days and a much washed T-shirt, she was then posing herself the question—why on earth had she spent all that money on a new wardrobe if she was happier grubbing around in casual gear?

  The answer that suddenly appeared out of the blue was to shock her and make her collapse into a chair. Minutes later, having faced facts with an honesty she could wish was not a part of her, Sorrel was still gasping at the appalling truth that confronted her. Entirely without being aware of it, what she had done had been to turn herself into a near enough carbon copy of the sort of female she had seen pictured on the arm of Ellis Galbraith so many times!

  Astonished, as vivid and clear recollection came to her of his ex-fiancée Wenda Sykes, she knew then that her sophisticated pose had nothing at all to do with her trying to comply with what old Mr Ollerenshaw had instructed in his will. It had nothing to do with his request that she 'live a little', she saw. At the very root of her leasing this expensive flat and making believe she was something she was not, was a desire to be the type of woman Ellis Galbraith so obviously admired!

  Rocked to her foundations, Sorrel took about half an hour to surface from her amazing discovery. Her first instinct then was to set to straight away and do something about it.

  But that instinct was to take second place when it came to her how well her air of sophistication had served her when she had bumped into Ellis again. For with her cool detached air well out in front, not only Ellis but Rod Drury and his parents too had espied nothing of the inner turbulence that had filled her.

  Her mind was a mixture then of, should she return to the clothes-careless girl she had been, or should she, for the moment, stay with the protective mantle she had adopted? Her telephone rang before she had reached any conclusion.

  It was not yet half past eight, so Sorrel hoped her caller was not go
ing to be Rod Drury ringing to remind her that he was taking her to the theatre that night. Though remembering how he seemed to think she never surfaced until the sun was high in the sky, she changed her mind that it might be him as she went to answer the phone.

  To. hear Ellis Galbraith's deep-timbred voice the moment she had given her number made her almost drop the instrument. But aggression, against him, against the recent discovery about herself, was suddenly there to get her through the next few minutes.

  'How did you get my number?' she demanded sharply, not trying to disguise that she was not, to put it mildly, very pleased about it.

  'With difficulty,' Ellis replied, and paused—but added when that obviously wasn't enough for her, 'First I had to ring Rod Drury.'

  'Rod Drury gave it to you!' she exclaimed.

  'Under protest, I think,' said Ellis, a smile in his voice. Though his voice was even when he said, 'He also staked proprietorial rights by telling me that he's taking you to the theatre tonight.' And before Sorrel was sure how she felt about that remark, his voice even still, Ellis was asking, 'Has he a proprietorial right, Sorrel?'

  'That's none of your damned business!' she flared, drawing breath to tell him more in the same vein. Only she did not get the chance.

  'Which means he hasn't,' Ellis chopped her off before she was ready. And, with the cheek of the very devil, she thought, he said, 'Come out with me.'

  'I did that when I was seventeen,' she said angrily, and had put down the phone on him before she had time to think about it.

  Inwardly groaning, wishing she hadn't said that bit about when she was seventeen, Sorrel hated him because her stupid remark might have given him some inkling as to how desperately she had been hurt by him at seventeen.

  Damn him, she thought, pacing the floor, why did he have to come back into her life? She was over him, cured. Nothing had had the power to upset her since she had got over him. Not Cynthia Armitage's vile insults, or even dear old Mr Ollerenshaw dying, had seen her in the state she was in now. Her hands shaking, her insides a turmoil from just that phone call, Sorrel damned Ellis Galbraith again.

  By the time evening came and she was dressed in a full-length green silk dress, she was once more in charge of her person. Calmly then she was able to greet Rod when he called for her, taking his usual compliment to her beauty in her stride.

  'Hope the play's up to scratch,' he commented when they were settled in their seats. 'But just in case we're in need of some lighter entertainment, I've booked a table at a night club for later.'

  'Lovely,' murmured Sorrel, trying to find some enthusiasm. A few minutes later the curtain went up and the play began.

  It was a good play, and knowing that the tickets had been like gold to obtain, Sorrel tried to lose herself in the top quality of the acting. But, owning to feeling fidgety inside, she was again hating Ellis Galbraith that, after all this time, his sudden appearance back in her life had disturbed her far more than it had any right to.

  Heartily sick and tired of him forever popping uninvited into her mind, she felt it was just about the last straw when they adjourned during the interval, Rod leaving her to go to the bar, and Ellis Galbraith was about the first person she saw.

  He seemed to stand out from everyone else at any rate. Tall, dark and distinguished in his well cut clothes, there was an unpretentious air of arrogance about him as he surveyed the crowded mass, each hoping to relieve their thirst before time ran out and they had to return to their seats.

  Not short in stature herself, Sorrel was glad of a large man in front of her who afforded her the chance of observing Ellis without being seen herself as he started to move from where he had been standing.

  Remembering his impertinent 'Come out with me,' she wondered, ridiculously, she owned, had he deliberately come to the theatre that night because he had known that she would be there? Truly ridiculous, she was telling herself a second later, because the play had been sold out ages ago, which had to mean Ellis had been in possession of his ticket long before today.

  Her heart started to pump energetically when from her vantage point she saw that it was in her direction that he was heading. For one wild moment, panic-stricken, she almost took to her heels. Then to the left of her, somebody addressing a woman whom she hadn't had time to notice as 'Wenda' had her eyes leaving Ellis to go to the stunning girl nearby, who was none other than the girl he had once been engaged to!

  A painful stab of jealousy she was unprepared for caught her out that Ellis had not the slightest interest in coming to say 'hello' to her, but that it was his ex-fiancée he was coming over to see, despite his suggestion that he had told her where to get off.

  But, still thinking she was hidden from his view, what happened in the next few moments was to leave her feeling temporarily numb of all sensation; then fighting hard to stay cool and make it appear that she was totally unaffected.

  For, reaching a point where if he turned to the right he would be going over to greet his ex-fiancée, so as she heard Wenda's sultry-voiced call of, 'Hello, Ellis,' so Sorrel saw that Ellis had not even seen Wenda. And, if she could believe her eyes, she saw a look that was so contemptuous of the woman he had once been engaged to in his eyes that she just knew that it would not bother him if he never saw Wenda again. Though the moment before he turned to the left and in her direction, his good manners did manage to surface sufficiently for him to nod a curt, if civilised, greeting to the woman he once must have loved.

  Shaken, Sorrel knew then that Ellis's disgust with Wenda because she had been 'kind' to some old man with a foot in his grave for her own ends had been no false statement. And as feeling began to course through her again, at that moment she knew that she personally would never survive should Ellis ever get to hear about her own kindness to an ailing old man, and the money he had left her, and in consequence, serve her with so much as a sample of that same disgusted, withering contempt.

  She was to be never more glad of her sophisticated front when, either having seen her all along, or having only just spotted her waiting there for Rod to come back, Ellis stopped dead in front of her. The contempt had left his eyes, she saw, admiration replacing it as he took in the polished look of her in her pale green silk. 'You're a long way from home,' she managed to find her voice, and even compliment herself on the affected sound of it.

  Ellis's right eyebrow arched upwards a fraction at her tone, but his voice was level as he replied, 'I have a flat in town.'

  Appearing to take that in her stride, Sorrel managed to remain cool, treating this meeting as accidental, as she was now sure it was, she asked:

  'What do you think of the play so far?' and wanted to hit him for not playing according to the rules, when he said:

  'I prefer one conversation at a time. We haven't finished the conversation we started this morning yet.'

  Indifferently, she shrugged. 'I thought we had,' she drawled, for all the world as though his phone call, his asking her to go out with him, had had as little effect as that.

  She wasn't surprised that her manner irritated him. She saw from the slight narrowing of his eyes that he didn't care much for her attitude. But, when she was convinced that not one more word would he stay to address to her, all at once he was pulling his head back and was thoughtfully surveying her. Then, his even tone gone, he was saying:

  'I just don't believe this.'

  Without thinking first, Sorrel went plunging in to ask, 'You don't believe—what?'

  His eyes fixed on hers, refusing to let her look away, his expression severe, unhesitatingly Ellis told her, 'This isn't the real you, Sorrel Maitland.'

  Of all the people she knew, Ellis was the last person she wanted to see straight through her. But when the thought struck that once she had been so open with him, her mind such an open book to him that he more than anyone else should know what made her tick; she felt angry that he had been uncaring of her in the past, so what the hell was it to him now how she acted.

  Affecting a light soph
isticated laugh, she looked him fully in the eyes, as she tinkled, 'It's the only me I have, Ellis.' She was glad again of that anger, when, slicing through her affectation, quietly, his voice gentle, Ellis dared to ask:

  'Did I do this to you, Sorrel?'

  She had to look away from him then, her teeth clenching hard as she fought for control at the nerve of him. From the corner of her eye, she saw Rod coming away from the scrum over by the bar.

  'Your conceit is showing again, Ellis,' she said at last. And, proud of her control, she even managed another look at him, before, her head that inch or two higher, she left him and went towards Rod.

  She made the crush of people her excuse that her shaking hands slopped a few drops of the drink she took from Rod. But even as Rod was commenting that he had seen her talking to Ellis, Sorrel recognised why it was she was shaking so inside. Many things she had remembered about Ellis, but one of the things she had forgotten until now was that light of battle that would come into his eyes when, loving a challenge, he took up that challenge. If she wasn't very much mistaken, that light that said he was metaphorically rolling up his sleeves for a fight had come into his eyes in that moment of her turning and walking so loftily away from him!

  Throughout the remainder of that evening Sorrel spent many moments in telling herself that she had been mistaken. That even if Ellis had asked her for a date and had been refused, since she meant so little to him in the past, he was man enough to accept that not all the women of his acquaintance were waiting with bated breath for him to ask them out.

  Determined to oust Ellis from her thoughts, she was warmer to Rod than she had meant to be. And that Rod seemed to like it was evidenced in the many times he smiled at her as they danced, and dined, and chatted away.