by Anne Mather
‘I expect it still feels pretty cold to you, Morgan, doesn’t it?’ his father commented wryly, and his son moved his shoulders in a dismissing gesture.
‘The nights can be damn cold where we live,’ he replied evenly, turning to lift his glass from the shelf. ‘Can I get you another drink, Dad? Or is that your limit?’
Mr Fox agreed to have another Scotch, and he accompanied his son to the bar as Barry dropped down on to the sofa beside Helen. ‘Drink all right?’ he murmured, the coolness he had exhibited towards his stepfather and Morgan evaporating as he looked at her, and she nodded.
‘How—er—how long is Morgan staying?’ she asked in a low voice, hoping to take the tension out of the situation, but Barry’s lips tightened as she mentioned his stepbrother’s name.
‘I don’t know. Ten days—a fortnight, maybe. He’ll be gone by the time we get back from our honeymoon, thank God!’
‘Why?’ Helen stared at him aghast, and his pale cheeks darkened with sudden colour.
‘Oh, I don’t know. He just rubs me up the wrong way, I suppose. Coming back here. Acting like he Owned the place. Offering me a drink!’
Helen smoothed the pad of her thumb round the rim of her glass. ‘Well, this is his home, too,’ she observed reasonably, and her fiancé gave her an impatient look.
‘It’s not his home. His home is in Nrubi, wherever that might be. It’s a pity he didn’t stay there.’
Helen sighed, and then Susan Fox erupted into the room with her transistor, slim and attractive in purple pants and an embroidered smock. ‘Hi, Helen,’ she greeted her brother’s fiancée lightly over the din of the pop programme being broadcast, and then went to join her father and Morgan by the bar. ‘Can I have a Martini?’ they heard her asking, before Morgan said something in response that made them all laugh.
Beside Helen, Barry stiffened, and she felt a reluctant sense of sympathy for him. He was jealous, she realised regretfully. For so long he had commanded Mr Fox’s undivided attention that he had come to regard it as his right. Morgan’s blood relationship to his stepfather was a thorn in his side, but it was only a temporary thing. Why couldn’t he see that? wondered Helen uneasily, herself aware that Morgan Fox was not a man one could ignore.
She was seated beside Morgan at dinner. In the spacious dining room they were seated at the square mahogany table which Mrs Parsons had decorated with slender silver rose holders, and the candles in the silver candelabrum gave off a delicate perfume as they ate. There was minestrone and roast beef, accompanied by real Yorkshire pudding, and a steamed pudding to follow.
‘Real north country fare,’ said Mr Fox with satisfaction, as Mrs Parsons brought in the apple dumpling, and Morgan gave him a wry smile.
‘You’re making me wish I’d never left home,’ he remarked, wiping his mouth with his napkin, and Mrs Fox regarded him reprovingly.
‘You look as though you could do with some home cooking,’ she commented with characteristic candour. ‘Look at your father and Barry. They must be at least half a stone heavier than you!’
Morgan accepted his generous portion of apple dumpling without comment, but glancing sideways at him, Helen caught the mocking gleam in his eye.
‘Do I look so undernourished?’ he asked in an undertone, and she had to school her features to prevent herself from giggling.
‘Not to me,’ she answered in a low voice, and this time he looked directly at her.
It was a devastating experience. This close she could see the silvery tips of his lashes, short thick lashes that just missed being feminine. But there was nothing feminine about his face, with its gaunt cheekbones and deeply set eyes. It was aggressively masculine, and possessed that doubtful distinction—sexuality. Returning his gaze was like looking into a deep pool, that invited as well as repelled.
The sure awareness that Barry was watching them brought her eyes back sharply to her plate, but when she ventured to lift her lids her fiancé was still looking at her. She arched her brows in silent, if not very convincing, interrogation, but Barry just continued looking at her, his eyes cold and lacking in sympathy.
The remainder of the meal passed, for Helen, in discomfited silence, and she was glad when Mrs Fox suggested they had coffee in the drawing room and she could escape from Barry’s inimical stare.
Susan joined her as they crossed the hall, whispering insinuatively: ‘Just six more days, Helen! Just imagine—a week tonight you’ll be in Alcudia.’
‘Yes.’ Helen sounded distracted and Susan gave her a second look.
‘What’s wrong? Getting cold feet?’
‘No—’
Helen was impatient, but Susan overrode her denial insisting: ‘I know. It’s Morgan, isn’t it? I saw the way you were looking at him at dinner. Are you thinking he’s more of a man than Barry will ever be?’
‘Susan!’
Helen was angry now, but Susan was unrepentant. ‘You can’t fool me,’ she insisted. ‘I can see how attractive he is. I could even be attracted to him myself.’
‘Susan!’
‘Oh, don’t worry, I’m not quite that stupid. But if I was only his stepsister…’
Mrs Fox’s hand on Helen’s arm-made her start violently, and the older woman looked at her strangely as she said: ‘Pour the coffee, will you, Helen? I want to help Mrs Parsons clear the table and then she can load the machine while I relax.’
‘Yes, Mrs Fox.’ Helen swallowed her embarrassment, and seated herself beside the low table where Mrs Parsons had already placed the tray, just as Barry and his stepfather came into the room. Barry came straight across to her, seating himself beside her, and she gave him rather a nervous look before asking Mr Fox how he would like his coffee.
‘Oh, black, please,’ declared the older man, slipping his arm about his daughter’s waist as she came to stand beside him. Then he bestowed a teasing look upon her. ‘I suppose you’ll be next,’ he remarked, squeezing her affectionately. ‘I wonder who the lucky man will be?’
‘Don’t you mean the unlucky man?’ remarked Barry sarcastically, and Susan pulled a face at him.
‘Well, when I do choose to get married, it won’t be to some stuffy civil servant!’ she retorted. ‘Why—why, Morgan’s got more guts in his little finger than you’ve got in your whole body!’
Her words were intended to be jibing. Barry and Susan often indulged in this harmless kind of baiting, and neither of them took it seriously. But tonight Helen sensed an underlying note of bitterness, and she guessed Susan’s admiration for her half-brother had added fuel to Barry’s already smouldering resentment. It was perhaps fortunate that Morgan was not around to hear his stepbrother’s savage indictment of doctors who allowed this country to pay for their training and then took themselves off to some more lucrative practice overseas.
‘I hardly think Osweba qualifies in that category,’ Mr Fox interposed quietly, at this unwarranted criticism of his son, and Helen hastily handed Barry his coffee before he could say anything more.
It was with mixed feelings that she saw Morgan coming into the room just then, but as Helen’s hands were occupied with her own coffee, Susan took the opportunity to pour Morgan’s coffee herself.
Barry replaced his empty cup on the tray with a decisive clatter, and then said shortly: ‘Well?’
Helen, who had been expecting this, made no attempt to evade the question. ‘If you mean what I think you mean, then aren’t you being a little small-minded?’
‘Is it small-minded to object if my fiancée makes eyes at my stepbrother?’ he snapped, and Helen gasped.
‘I—I didn’t!’
‘What would you call it, then?’
‘I—we—we spoke half a dozen words together, that’s all.’
‘I’m not objecting to what you said!’
‘Oh, Barry…’ Helen replaced her own cup now, glancing about them uncomfortably. But fortunately no one seemed to be paying any attention to them and she turned reproachful eyes upon him. ‘Can’t I even look at a
nother man? Heavens, he’s your own brother!’
‘Stepbrother,’ Barry corrected briefly. Then he scuffed his toe against the leg of the coffee table. ‘Oh, what the hell! There’s nothing I can do about it.’
Helen sighed. ‘There’s nothing to do!’ she said imploringly, fiddling with the coffee pot. ‘Would you like another cup?’
‘No, thanks.’
Barry shook his head, but Helen was relieved when his mother came to join them and conversation became general. Naturally the wedding came under discussion, and those final arrangements that were still left to make. Talking about the white Mercedes he had hired for the occasion, Barry came out of his black mood, and Helen relaxed as her fiancé extolled the virtues of foreign cars. It was a favourite topic with him, and she allowed her head to rest against the back of the sofa and her thoughts to drift.
Almost compulsively, her gaze moved round the circle to rest on Morgan Fox’s unusually light hair. It was thick and straight, with a side parting that left several heavy strands to fall across his forehead. From time to time he pushed them back, his long brown fingers combing through his hair and occasionally resting in a curiously weary gesture at the back of his neck. His hair was shorter than Barry’s, barely brushing his collar at the back, and he didn’t wear the long sideburns Barry effected and which gave her fiancé’s face a rather artistic appearance. She thought he looked rather tired, and this knowledge brought a wave of unwilling anxiety sweeping over her. Yet what did it matter to her if Barry’s stepbrother needed some sleep? Why should she be concerned? Anyone who had just flown five thousand miles would be tired, particularly bearing in mind the time change.
Realising she was staring at him again, she quickly looked away, relieved to see that no one else had observed her betraying appraisal. But even though she concentrated on the delicate pattern of the coffee cups, she could still see his face and the sensual fullness of his bottom lip.
He moved, giving her a reason to look his way, and her eyes ran over the long muscular legs outlined beneath the dark blue lounge suit he was wearing. She wondered if he was more at home in shorts or safari suits, and guessed he found an excess of clothing uncomfortable after so long in the tropics. This time his eyes flickered over hers, but their appraisal was cool and detached, and she pretended there was a speck of dust on her skirt in an effort to avoid detection of her interest.
The conversation had shifted to Morgan now and Helen listened as he answered his father’s questions about the politics of Osweba. Then, inevitably, his daughter was brought into the conversation and it was with obvious reluctance he produced his wallet and the photograph of the bespectacled teenager everyone called Andy.
Barry barely glanced at his niece, but Helen studied the portrait with avid curiosity, trying to gauge something of the girl’s personality from that small likeness.
‘She doesn’t look much like you,’ remarked Susan, with her usual lack of tact, but Morgan merely smiled.
‘Oh, she is, I assure you,’ he said, pushing the picture back into his wallet. ‘There are more ways than one of resembling someone.’
‘Do you mean she’s brainy?’ demanded Susan, rolling her eyes in mock derision, but her mother reproved her, saying:
‘I expect Morgan means that she likes the same things he does,’ which aroused a contemptuous snort from Barry.
‘What are we supposed to infer from that?’ he enquired unpleasantly. ‘When she can’t even be bothered to turn up for the wedding?’
‘Barry!’ Mr Fox halted the conversation there, and Helen felt as embarrassed as if she had been a party to her fiancé’s outburst. ‘I think we’re all suffering from a bout of pre-wedding nerves, and as I’m sure Morgan will be glad to get to bed, I suggest you take Helen home now, hmm?’
Barry looked as if he would have liked to have said more, but his mother’s disapproval, added to that of his stepfather, kept him silent. Morgan said nothing and it was left to Susan to break the ominous silence that had fallen.
‘Can I come round tomorrow and try on those sandals you said I could borrow?’ she asked lightly, as if nothing untoward had occurred, and Helen rose to her feet, nodding her relief.
‘Of course,’ she said, as Morgan and his father rose, too. ‘It’s Sunday, so come whenever you like.’
‘All right.’ Susan grinned cheekily up at her older brother. ‘You can take me, if you like. You’d like to meet Helen’s parents, wouldn’t you?’
Barry’s face was reddening again, and Helen urged him towards the door. But outside, with her goodnights said and the irritation of Morgan’s polite farewell colouring her tones, she exclaimed:
‘What on earth did you think you were doing? Speaking to your stepbrother like that! Embarrassing everybody!’
‘Embarrassing you, you mean, don’t you?’ retorted Barry moodily, leaving her to close the passenger side door herself and striding angrily around the bonnet. ‘I don’t know what’s got into you!’
‘What’s got into me?’ she echoed, as he pulled away. ‘Don’t be ridiculous! You’ve been spoiling for an argument ever since we got into the car to come here.’
‘Oh, have I?’
‘Yes, you have. And it’s purely jealousy, that’s all. You’re jealous because your stepfather is making a fuss of his own son. His own son! Don’t you think you owe it to him to be polite, whatever your private feelings might be?’
Barry did not answer and they covered the test of the distance between Banklands and her parents’ house in silence. But after he had brought the car to a halt and Helen made to get out, Barry’s hand on her arm stopped her, and in the light from the street lamps she saw his scowl of contrition.
‘I’m sorry,’ he muttered grudgingly, and she knew it was up to her to make the next move.
‘So am I,’ she murmured, and his lips brushed lightly across her cheek and found hers.
For several minutes there again was silence in the car, but this time of a much more satisfying sort. Nevertheless, when Barry’s hand probed beneath the fastening of her jacket, she gently pushed him away and thrust open the car door.
‘We’ve waited this long,’ she reminded him lightly, and he bowed his head in reluctant assent.
‘Okay,’ he said, leaning across to close the door again. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow night? You haven’t forgotten we’re going to Peter and Liz’s, have you?’
‘Tomorrow evening?’ She shook her head. ‘Of course not. What time will you pick me up? About seven?’
‘About then,’ he agreed, and with a smile he left her, the Triumph reversing away noisily into the quiet road.
If Helen’s parents had expected a long discussion about Morgan Fox’s arrival, they were disappointed. After the briefest of explanations about the dinner party and why she should be home by half past ten, which was early for her, Helen excused herself and went to bed, glad that Jennifer was not around to add her voice to the proceedings.
But in her room she found that sleep was very far from her thoughts. For the first time, she really began to contemplate the implications of the step she was taking, and to wonder whether Barry would have recovered his good humour so willingly if they had already been man and wife. She had never really considered that Barry might be a jealous person. In truth, she had never ever given him cause to display such feelings, content as always just to be with him, to know herself cared for and protected, the envy of many of her friends. Barry was everything any girl could ever wish for—tall and dark and handsome, with a good job with good prospects, and no financial problems. He had always treated her with gentleness, respecting her rather old-fashioned notions of chastity, realising that if he tried to force her to do something she would regret, he would lose her loyalty and trust.
This evening he had displayed an entirely unknown facet of his character, and why? Because she had shown a quite natural interest in his stepbrother. What had she done, after all? Spoken to Morgan at dinner, and shared a perfectly innocent joke with him. It was
ludicrous for Barry to get angry over something so innocent. Good heavens, if she had been found in Morgan’s arms he could not have reacted more positively, short of actual physical combat, and the injustice of his behaviour brought a wave of resentment sweeping over her.
Untying the waistband of her skirt, she tore it off impatiently, tossing it carelessly on to the bed. She should have said more, she fumed, unlacing her jerkin. So why hadn’t she? The answer was as unpalatable as the question, and she pulled her silk wrapper over her shoulders with fingers that were not quite steady. The truth was that deep inside her she knew Barry had had some justification for his suspicions. Not that he could have known that, of course. Her feelings had been well hidden. But she couldn’t deny that Morgan Fox disturbed her in a way that she had never experienced before, and that knowledge had left her feeling raw and exposed. She remembered once, some years ago, a girl she used to go to school with had asked her whether she had ever lost control with a boy. Helen had regarded the girl rather pityingly and replied that she didn’t believe in all that nonsense; that people said things like that to excuse their own inadequacies. The girl had retorted tartly that if that was what she thought, she must be either stupid or frigid, and Helen had never forgiven her for throwing her remarks back in her face. Tonight, however, she felt strangely vulnerable to that memory, as if she stood on the brink of some certain revelation that would put paid once and for all to her sane and ordered existence.
CHAPTER TWO
HELEN was in the garden, helping her father to clear away all the leaves and broken twigs left by the winds of the past week when Jennifer came charging out to tell them that Susan had arrived accompanied by her stepbrother.
‘Barry?’ exclaimed Helen, looking up, and then coloured as Morgan Fox came round the corner of the house.
‘No. Me,’ he announced wryly, as Helen’s father walked to meet him. ‘How do you do? You must be Mr Raynor.’