by Anne Hampson
'You suppose correctly, my dear.' Paul's voice was suddenly terse. 'So long as we understand one another there'll not be any complications later on, will there?'
'No,' she managed in low and choking accents, 'there won't be any complications.'
'You asked what made me come…' He stopped to look down at Mandy, who had come back into the room from the kitchen.
'Do you want the best cups and saucers, Aunty Laura?' she asked.
'Yes, please, Mandy.'
'And jam and butter to go with the scones?'
Laura nodded, smiling. 'And you'll find the cream in the fridge.'
'Okay,' cheerfully as Mandy danced from the room again.
'I came,' continued Paul in that attractive, alien voice, which seemed rather more accented today, 'because, when you'd left, I decided to find Joseph and see how he felt about his child being adopted.' Paul moved over to the window and stood for a moment looking down into the Mews before swinging round to face Laura. He was thoughtful, she noticed as she waited for him to resume. 'I naturally began with a visit to his villa to see if I could gain any clue as to where he might be.
There were some papers which had been screwed up and thrown into the fireplace, and among them was one from his sister.'
'He has a sister?' Laura had no idea why she put the question, unless it was from a sense of fear that this woman might make an offer to have Mandy.
'Yes, he has, and as her address and telephone number were there, printed on the top of the paper, I immediately phoned. Joseph was staying with her.'
'He—! So he's in England? I suppose his sister does live in England?'
'In Putney.'
'That's not far away.' Laura was frowning as she spoke. 'To think, I went off to Greece and he was probably already back in England.'
'Fate. You were destined to meet me.'
She thought he was in a teasing mood until she looked up and saw how serious his expression was. 'Have you seen Joseph?'
'Yes.' A small pause and then, 'He was interested in the fact that his daughter had been left on someone's doorstep, but not in the least interested in accepting her. He had enough on his hands, he said, with the two he already had. I must admit I felt sorry for him.' Paul shook his head and a frown darkened his brow. 'That sister of yours wants horsewhipping.'
Laura bypassed that and asked instead if Joseph was willing for his child to be fostered out.
'He seemed rather to favour adoption.' Paul's blue eyes seemed deliberately to avoid hers.
'You mentioned adoption?' Laura felt sure he had not mentioned fostering.
'Naturally. We were discussing the child's future.'
'Before she can be adopted her mother must be—'
'Her mother won't be found,' interrupted Paul rather gently. 'She died over a year ago.'
'Died?' Laura stared somewhat uncomprehendingly. 'So she didn't commit suicide at the time she left Mandy?'
'She died a natural death—at least, she didn't take her own life. Joseph's sister had come by the news quite by accident some months ago. Joseph was informed by letter, but he didn't tell Irene.' Paul looked down into Laura's face as if to note her reaction.
She said, shaking her head bewilderedly, 'You mean —he didn't want to marry my sister?'
'It seems obvious that he didn't.'
'But, the children. Didn't he care that they were illegitimate?'
'If you want my opinion, Laura, I believe he meant to desert Irene, leaving the children with her.'
'He—!' Laura stared, appalled. 'You're saying he didn't love her, that he meant to treat her in the same contemptible way he treated his wife?'
'I could be wrong, but I'm fairly sure I'm not.'
'The… rotter! He's not fit to have Mandy! Or the other two poor little children,' she thought to add. Anger had coloured her face, given a sparkle to her eyes. Paul moved a little restlessly and there was an unfathomable expression on his face. 'And you, Paul, have just said you're sorry for him!'
'In a way I am, Laura. He's all mixed up, confused as to where he is going and what he must do. It's his own fault, admittedly, because he's made one mistake after another. He ought never to have married Mandy's mother, but having done so, he should have abided by it—'
'What makes you say he should never have married Mandy's mother?' Laura broke in to ask.
'He obviously wasn't in love with her.'
'At first he was… must have been.'
'My dear Laura, love doesn't die as quickly as that. They were only married for seven months.'
'Seven months?' Laura gaped at him. 'Is that all? How do you know?'
'I've been talking to him, and his sister,' Paul reminded her. 'As I was saying, he kept on making mistakes. He went off with Irene just to escape, to shirk his responsibilities. A man who does things like that is not in his right mind. He can't think straight.'
'And so you don't blame him?' Laura's eyes flashed indignation.
'I didn't say so,' argued Paul. 'I merely said I felt sorry for the man because obviously he's never going to find happiness, or even peace of mind. However, you and I are interested in our own future and that of Mandy, not his. He's agreeable for me to adopt her if you and I marry.'
Something tingling along her nerves caused Laura to ask, 'You and he have already arranged everything, haven't you?'
'We certainly had a discussion and agreed that Mandy would benefit by adoption rather than her being fostered.' Again Paul seemed reluctant to meet her gaze.
'Did you tell Joseph that I wanted to foster her?' persisted Laura.
'How could I, when I'd given him to understand you and I were to be married?'
'I see…'
'What do you see?'
'I see that I have no alternative other than to marry you. You could very easily have persuaded him to agree to my fostering her because you've admitted he isn't in the least interested in her welfare.'
'Laura, my dear…' Paul came close, took her hand and pulled her towards him. 'Do you honestly believe you'd have been happy with that sort of responsibility on your shoulders for every minute of every day? Have you thought what would happen if you were ill and could not work? And what of the child herself… is it fair for her to be alone, with just you for company? She needs children to play with. She will be the happier, soon, for having a baby brother or sister to love and pamper.' So serious his voice, and sincere.
Laura felt tears pricking her lids and lifted a quivering hand to rub them. Her thoughts had flown to the man she loved, to Phil, who, as things had turned out, could so easily have adopted Mandy. It was his children she had wanted, his arms about her, his kisses and intimate lovemaking. How could she be a good wife to Paul when she loved another man? She looked up at him mistily, seeing the firm and noble features, the brown skin and fair hair, the blue eyes so intensely fixed upon her face. He was a fine, good man, deserving of a woman who could give love unstintingly, who would be his alone, his true wife, his companion and his friend.
'I c-can't marry y-you,' she quivered, her mind refusing to be disciplined into rational thought. For it was not rational to talk like this when at the back of her consciousness she was admitting that there was no other course for her but marriage to Paul. He had been so right to remind her of what could happen if she were ill—or she could die for that matter. What would happen to Mandy then? 'I'm sorry, Paul,' she said in fretted tones. 'I'm so unhappy—oh, forgive me for saying that! What I really mean is that I'd imagined my marriage to be so different.' Her eyes were wide and pleading as they looked up into his. 'Try to understand, and to—to bear with me.'
'I'll try, my dear.' Paul's smile was crooked. 'All I do ask, though, is, don't try me too far, will you? I never was a patient man—'
'I think you're wonderfully patient,' she argued. 'You're so good with Mandy, and you don't know her… well, not like Phil does. And you've been patient with me, you know you have.'
She heard a sigh before he spoke.
'It hasn't always been easy, though,' she heard him admit ruefully. 'I've sometimes wanted to shake you.'
She lowered her lashes, colouring delicately, for it seemed so intimate, his talking like that, as if they were married already and he had the right to shake her. He tilted her chin, bent his head to fasten his lips to hers. She stood there, passive, scarcely conscious of the passion in the kiss, the possessiveness. Nor was she conscious of his hard frame so close and insistent, his hands moving sensuously and slowly, from her waist to her breasts. But he did not caress them; he just bent to kiss one nipple that, despite her lethargy, had hardened to a little bud, tender and desirably tempting. She could not know the difficulty this Greek was having at control, for he was a virile, strongly passionate man, who had found in Laura something he knew he had been looking for all his life.
She could not know all this because her thoughts were hazily trying to bring Phil's face into focus.
Chapter Seven
Laura smiled at her husband and wondered if he knew the difficulty she had in appearing cheerful. They had been married for almost a month, and not a day had passed but she had told herself that she could have found another way out. She ought to have made contact with Joseph herself, explained the position and asked him to consent to her fostering his child. She felt sure he would have given that consent, in which case the Authority would have had difficulty in trying to make excuses for taking Mandy into care. In fact, Laura felt convinced that they would have been only too eager to leave the child where she was already so settled and happy. Yes, she had been foolish, admitted Laura to herself. She had listened to Paul's warnings that she might be ill and not able to look after the child, but she ought to have firmly told him she would cross that kind of bridge only when she came to it.
'You're quiet, Laura.' The low, alien voice held censure in its depths, and not for the first time Laura was aware of her husband's growing lack of patience. She made no attempt to conceal the fact that she 'suffered' his advances, disliked his lovemaking because she could not reciprocate. Her heart was elsewhere, and she did wonder just how long she would feel like this—herself cheated and yet cheating the man who had up till this last week been so infinitely patient with her.
'I was thinking of my home,' she responded, and hoped the misery building up inside her wouldn't become manifest in a fall of tears. Paul would not like that.
'This is your home,' he reminded her in the same quiet, accented voice. He took the bottle from the cooler and topped up her wineglass. 'You have to forget the past, Laura; I've been telling you this for almost a month.'
'A month isn't long.' She lifted her glass and took a sip of the fruity white Cretan wine. 'I'd spent so much time and care on planning that little place and the result pleased me very much. You said yourself it was lovely.' There was a sort of simple, candid appeal about her expression as her eyes met his across the candlelit dinner table. 'It was hard to hand it over to an estate agent.' She had wept, she remembered, when she handed over the key. Most of the contents were included, since there seemed to be no sense of bringing furniture over here when it would have to be stored away, probably for years.
'You'll feel better once we're away and back at the villa,' Paul had assured her gently, his protective arm about her shoulder. But although she had smiled through her tears and agreed with him, she knew in her heart that she would never forget the moment as long as she lived.
'I agree that a month isn't long in forgetting certain things,' Paul was saying, and now there was an almost merciless quality in his voice. 'But it's my observation that you're making no attempt whatsoever to forget. On the contrary, you're brooding over the past, and over what you now consider to be the mistake of marriage to me.'
She looked at him, fork poised halfway to her mouth. Not for the first time had she been made aware of his perception. At times he seemed to be almost omniscient. The other thing which stayed in her mind was his mentioning 'certain things.' By that he meant her love for Phil and the heartbreak of losing him after she had so blithely and confidently seen her future as settled with Phil, and boundlessly happy. So much for dreams, she now thought bitterly.
'Surely you must know that it takes a long time to forget someone you love as dearly as I love Phil?' Laura spoke at last, knowing she was hurting him and yet driven by honesty and by the wish that he would not go on hoping that she would fall in love with him. Oh, yes, she knew that this was his one burning desire, because although he had never actually voiced the words, she had very soon guessed that he loved her. Therein lay the tragedy… a husband in love with the wife who loved someone else. It would not have been so bad, so hard to bear, if Paul hadn't been such a fine man, so kind and generous, to say nothing of the charm and gallantry which characterised his manner with her. He had given a dinner party in order to introduce her to various friends, and there was no mistaking the pride, the deep affection which was there for all to see.
'Since you're such a highly intelligent woman it amazes me that you can still be in love with a man who could be as heartless as he. To have accepted Mandy would not have been any hardship—'
'Phil hasn't the kind of money you have,' broke in Laura swiftly. 'When Mandy was older she could have been a burden…' Her voice trailed to a self-deprecating silence and she lowered her lashes against the look her husband gave her. But she could not close her ears to what he was saying.
'Why are you saying these things when, in your heart, you're condemning Phil? When you know that he would have had your support when the time came to pay out these expenses for the child? You told me yourself that you were only too willing to continue with your job.' Pausing, he waited a moment, but she had nothing to say and he added in a hard voice, 'Be honest, Laura, and admit that the man's love for you wasn't strong enough. He was willing to lose you rather than take the child.'
She closed her eyes and a sigh escaped her. 'You're right,' she conceded, but with difficulty, because she was admitting that Phil's love had been far less strong than hers. 'All the same, for my part, I can't stop loving him—not as quickly as you think I should.' Again there was about her that simple, candid appeal, and for her husband a charm that had the power to dispel both his anger and his frustration at her attitude in dogmatically refusing even to try to forget the man who had let her down so badly.
He said in low and gentle tones, 'Eat your dinner, dear, and let us put this matter from us. There are other, far more important things to talk about.'
'There are?' she looked enquiringly at him, her heart lightening at the change in him. Whatever her thoughts regarding Phil, she had to own that Paul's varied changes of mood could always affect her, depressing her spirits or lifting them, as they were being lifted now. Obsessed by the love she had for one man Laura did not even think of analysing her feelings for the other. 'What things, Paul?'
'I want to make you a settlement, in case anything should happen to me—'
'Don't say such things!' The interruption was swift and vehement, so much so that it brought a most curious expression to Paul's eyes. 'You're young, and in perfect health. You'll live to be a hundred.'
He looked at her long and hard before saying, 'Well, at least it's nice to know that despite your lack of love for me, you're not hoping for an early widowhood.'
She flinched, then coloured, ashamed to think that such an idea could have entered Paul's head, an idea which proved that he could attribute such a wish to her. Had she been so grossly unappreciative, then? Had she been so hateful towards him that he could harbour the thought that she wished him dead?
'Paul,' she whispered huskily, 'please don't say anything like that to me again. I might not love you but I admire you, and I'm grateful for all you've done for Mandy and me.' Her eyes were wide and contrite, her voice unsteady. 'How would I go on without you? And Mandy… she loves you very much.'
'Grateful.' Paul's voice was faintly bitter. 'I'm not asking for gratitude,' he added, ignoring the rest of what she had said. 'And now,' b
riskly before she could speak, 'the matter of a settlement. I want to provide for you, and for Mandy also. We'll go into Heraklion tomorrow afternoon and see my solicitor. There is also the question of an allowance. I notice you haven't yet asked me for any money.' He threw her a quizzical glance and forced a reluctant smile from her. 'Obviously you haven't yet indulged in any extravagances.'
'I was never extravagant,' she returned, still smiling. 'And I can't think I ever shall be.'
'I want you to have a good wardrobe,' he said, and now his voice was firm and emphatic. 'As my wife, you must have nice clothes—Don't take that wrongly, dear. You have some charming clothes but what I meant was that your wardrobe mustn't be limited. I shall make you an allowance so that you can go out and buy whatever you want. I'll give you some extra for Mandy…' His voice cut slowly to silence.
Laura, lips quivering and eyes far too bright, was staring mistily at him, and for perhaps the most surprising moment of her life she felt the urge to get up, go to him, fling her arms about his neck and offer him her lips. Dazed by the knowledge of this almost irrepressible compulsion, she continued to stare, with the emotional tenseness of the silence stretching until Paul, with that incredible gift of perception, rose from his chair, moved round to her, bent his head, and kissed her full on the lips.
'I think that's what you wanted,' he said, and she noticed that his expression matched the tender quality of his voice.
Later he came to her room, the room adjoining his, to which she had moved on her marriage. She was in a dainty nightdress, lacy and transparent, and Paul stood for a long moment watching her brushing her hair while her eyes met his in the mirror. He was in a dressing gown of black silk trimmed with gold, a colour almost matching his hair, she noticed, which was a sort of burnished gold shading to paler tints at the front, where it marked the aristocratic line of his forehead. She turned as he came forward and a smile fluttered to her lips. He took the brush from her hand and placed it on the dressing table.