by Penny Jordan
* * *
The meal they were served was everything Kate had imagined and more. The restaurant did not provide a choice of dishes, merely one menu which was served in the manner of a banquet.
When it was over they were told that coffee would be served in the drawing-room, and for those guests who wished to take advantage of it a small combo would be playing in the conservatory so that people could dance.
‘Which is it to be?’ Joss asked her easily, getting up to come over and stand by her chair. ‘The drawing-room or the conservatory?’
‘The drawing-room, I think,’ Kate told him wryly. ‘I’m rather past the age for dancing.’
Instantly his eyebrows drew together in a sharp frown.
‘Kate, this is about the fifth time this evening you’ve made reference to your age, and I can’t think why, unless it’s to underline the fact of my own, and to subtly remind me that I’m now a man in my forties. You are thirty-seven years old; you’ve barely reached the age at which the French consider a woman to have come into her prime. You’re not Methuselah.’
‘And this isn’t France,’ Kate told him, flustered, as he pulled out her chair so that she could leave the table. Did he think she had been deliberately fishing for compliments by harping on about her age? All she had wanted to do was to make it clear to him that she was aware of the fact that she was a mature woman, and that he was here with her because she was the mother of his daughter, and not because he was attracted to her. All she had wanted to do was to make it clear to him that she was aware of the realities of their situation.
She swung away from him abruptly, feeling flustered and embarrassed, heading for the drawing-room, but he caught up with her half-way across the room and, taking hold of her arm, firmly guided her in the direction of the conservatory instead.
‘You may consider yourself to be ready for the fireside and old age,’ he told her smoothly. ‘But I can still appreciate the pleasure of dancing with a beautiful woman in my arms.’
The words ‘beautiful woman’ jarred and she pulled away from him, her eyes blazing.
‘I’m not your secretary, Joss,’ she told him irately. ‘There’s no need to pander to my vanity by pretending you see me as a physically desirable woman.’
They were standing within a few feet of the entrance to the conservatory, and his hand on her arm stayed her.
‘What makes you think that I don’t?’ he asked her dispassionately.
Kate’s mouth thinned.
‘You’re taking good manners too far,’ she told him crisply.
‘Am I?’ he said wryly, giving her an oblique look. ‘Kate, if you’re so convinced that at thirty-seven you are no longer seen as a desirable, sensual woman, I can only think that you must consider me at forty-two to be past all hope.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she told him sharply. ‘It’s different for a man.’
‘Not these days,’ he returned equably. ‘Look at Joan Collins…Sophia Loren, Linda Evans, to name just a few. Is it really that you consider yourself to be so old that no man could possibly find you desirable, or is it that you find such an assumption a convenient self-delusion to hide behind?’
Kate frowned at him. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘No? How many relationships have there been in your life, since you had Sophy, Kate?’
She gave a tiny, outraged gasp of anger. ‘That’s none of your business,’ she began, only to be interrupted as he said coolly,
‘No, it isn’t, but that doesn’t give me an answer. I think you’re deliberately hiding from your own sexuality…deceiving yourself into believing that you aren’t desirable. Open your eyes, Kate. You are a very beautiful woman…a very warm and compassionate woman.’
When she refused to turn her head and look at him he said fiercely, ‘Have you any idea what you’re doing to me? How guilty you’re making me feel? Is it because of me that you’ve developed this ridiculous belief that you’re undesirable…because you believe I rejected you? Because if so…’
Kate had endured enough.
‘No, it is not because of you,’ she lied. ‘You have no reason at all to feel any guilt. There…satisfied?’
The evening was fast becoming a nightmare. Joss was pushing past the ‘no trespassing’ signs she had put up as her defence, and ruthlessly raising subjects she had no wish to discuss.
As she looked up at him and saw that he was looking cynically unconvinced, she said bitterly, ‘Don’t you think you’re being rather arrogant, Joss? All right, so there hasn’t been a succession of lovers in my life, but that has nothing to do with you…not directly. When Sophy was a baby she took up all my time and attention, and then later…well, I was content with my life the way it was, and I still am.’
She saw that he was looking at her oddly.
‘Kate,’ he interrupted her huskily, ‘are you saying that there hasn’t been anyone in your life since me?’
Too late she saw the trap. She looked wildly at him, and then away from him, longing to be able to lie, but knowing she had left it too late.
‘I don’t think there’s any point in this discussion,’ she said defensively, and then added, ‘I’m tired, Joss. I’d like to go home. It’s been a long day.’
‘You haven’t had your coffee yet,’ he pointed out, and somehow or other she found herself being guided to one of the small tables tucked discreetly into the shadowy foliage that clothed the walls of the conservatory.
The combo were playing waltz music and several couples were dancing, not all of them as old as Kate would have imagined; she noticed several couples on the floor who could only have been in their mid to late twenties.
The coffee was served with delicious hand-made chocolates, but Kate had no appetite for them. For some reason Joss seemed to keep prising out of her things she would much rather have kept to herself.
She was looking broodingly into her empty coffee-cup when he said abruptly, ‘Would you like to dance?’ and before she could refuse he was on his feet, drawing her to hers, and propelling her unwilling footsteps in the direction of the polished dance-floor.
She and Joss had never danced together before, and in view of her tension and nervousness she fully expected to find that she was falling all over his feet and making a complete fool of herself, but instead, once he had taken her in his arms, something almost magical seemed to happen, so that within seconds she was gliding over the floor, her steps matching his as though they were made to go together.
Kate had waltzed before at a variety of social functions with a variety of partners, but never before had she experienced the dangerous intimacy which had once made the dance forbidden to unmarried girls because of the dangerous manner in which it allowed a man to actually touch the bare flesh of his partner.
And Joss was touching her bare flesh, his hand resting firmly against the small of her back, curving her into the intimacy of his own body so that with every movement she was conscious of the maleness of him.
When she felt the hardness of his arousal pulsing against her she went rigid with shock, almost stumbling as she missed a step.
‘What’s wrong, Kate?’ Joss whispered against her ear. ‘Still not convinced that you’re capable of arousing desire…?’
That she should be embarrassed, while he appeared to be totally unfazed by his reaction to her, stunned her into silence. But the heat and pressure of him against her wasn’t something she could easily distance herself from, and shatteringly, within seconds of recognising his reaction to her, her own body was responding to it. Before, when she had almost demanded that he release her, now she was praying that the music wouldn’t end, and Joss would not see the shaming, humiliating evidence of what was happening to her in the swollen hardness of her nipples which were even now pushing eagerly against the thin stretch jersey of her dress, as though clamouring for his visual attention. If he stepped away from her now… She went hot at the thought, and then cold as she wondered if his apparent arousal was simply s
omething he had manufactured by thinking of someone else, his secretary perhaps, just to prove a point to her… If so, it was even more vital that she didn’t allow him to see just how much he was affecting her.
Because she dared not allow herself to leave the floor until she had got her rebellious body under control, she nodded when the tune changed and Joss asked if she wanted to stay on the floor or return to their table, but in the end it made no difference. Nothing she could do or say to her wanton flesh seemed able to stop it from flaunting its response to him, and in the end she had to suffer the appalling tension of stepping away from him and quickly turning her back on him as she headed for their table, praying that he wouldn’t look properly at her until she had managed to wrap herself in the protection of her shawl.
‘Cold?’ he enquired solicitously, watching her do so.
She managed a brief, tight smile. ‘A little…and tired. I’d really like to go home, Joss.’
Just for a moment it seemed as though he was going to argue, as though it might even be disappointment that was shadowing his eyes, but Kate knew she was imagining things.
‘You’re right,’ he agreed calmly. ‘I’ve got an early start in the morning. I’m flying to Germany on Monday on business.’
‘Will your secretary be going with you?’
The moment the words were out, Kate regretted them. Colour stung her face, and she said in a stifled voice, ‘I’m sorry.’
‘There’s no need to be,’ Joss told her easily. ‘She doesn’t always accompany me when I go abroad, but on this occasion she will be going. Her German is more fluent than mine.’
No doubt he was already dying to get back to her, Kate reflected bitterly as Joss drove her home, if for no other reason than to relieve the ache that thinking about her while he was holding Kate in his arms had obviously engendered. Then she hated herself for her contemptible thoughts.
By the time Joss had driven them back to her house, an uncomfortable tension was filling the car.
Joss pulled into the drive, despite Kate’s assertion that he could stop outside the house, and as he stopped the engine he said blandly, ‘There’s no need to worry, Kate. I’m not about to pounce on you.’
The derision in his voice stung, and she retorted quickly, ‘I never thought you were.’
‘Ah…of course not. You’re far too old to generate that kind of response.’
As he turned away from her, Kate suddenly realised how ridiculously she was behaving.
‘I’m sorry,’ she apologised, adding lamely, ‘It’s just that it’s all been such a shock…’
The unexpected sensation of his hand clasping hers warmly made her jump, but Joss seemed unaware of it.
‘I’m sorry, too. Here I am, an adult, mature male of forty-odd,’ he added ruefully, ‘and for the life of me I can’t seem to stop myself behaving like an immature fool. Well, the experience is a salutary one, if nothing else…’
‘Would you like to come in for a nightcap?’ Kate asked, offering an olive branch, and then biting her lip savagely as she worried that he might misinterpret her invitation.
To her relief he did not, saying easily, ‘That sounds a good idea; there are still one or two things we ought to discuss. I don’t want to pressure you into acting as my go-between with Sophy, Kate. If you’ve any qualms at all…’
‘No,’ she told him quickly. ‘In the circumstances, it’s only fair that I should be the one to tell her.’
‘Because she might not believe me?’ he asked ironically as they walked towards the back door together. ‘Well, in the circumstances, I could hardly blame her.’
As she started to make the coffee, the sight of him leaning against her kitchen units filling the room with his presence made her feel tensely on edge, until a thought struck her.
‘If you’re interested, I’ve got some photograph albums of Sophy…’ she offered hesitantly.
Immediately a warm smile illuminated his face. ‘I’d love to see them.’
‘I’ll go and get them,’ Kate told him. ‘You could be looking at them in the sitting-room while I make the coffee.’
As she hurried past him she missed the comprehensive, rather grim look he gave her as he noticed the way she was careful about not coming too close to him.
The albums were upstairs in her parents’ wardrobe. Kate brought them down and put them in the sitting-room, leaving Joss to study them alone. Her father had been a keen amateur photographer, and he had insisted on keeping a record of Sophy’s growing years as he had done her own. Joss was so deeply immersed in them that when she walked in with the coffee he was oblivious to her presence.
From behind him she could see the familiar photographs of her daughter… Sophy pigtailed and gap-toothed, riding her first proper bike, squinting into the sunshine… Sophy wrapped up in the bright red hat and gloves her mother had knitted for her, while the two of them built a snowman.
‘She’s very like you,’ she offered tentatively.
He put down the album and turned round. ‘And you were still able to love her?’
The dry irony in his voice made her flush a little. She wondered if he had guessed that, despite everything, she had never been able to teach herself to hate him, and that when Sophy was born her first feeling on discovering that she was the image of him had been of overwhelming joy.
‘There’s one here of the two of you together,’ he said abruptly, flicking back to the beginning of the album. ‘How old was she then?’
It was the photograph her father had taken of Sophy. She had been ten days old. She was sitting in the garden with her, the flowers providing a soft, colourful background.
‘She was ten days old,’ she told him. It was devastating how just looking at that photograph could bring back the emotions of that time…her overwhelming joy and pride in her child, her anxiety for her future…her own loneliness and confusion…her intense, unending longing for Joss to be with them.
‘And you were sixteen,’ he said savagely, closing the book. ‘I deserved to be shot. If anyone had done to Sophy what I did to you…I think I’d have wanted to destroy him. Is that how your father felt about me, Kate?’
She shook her head.
‘No. He wasn’t like that. He was very gentle…very compassionate. He wanted to make it easy for me to go on with my life, I suspect, and so he said that there were times when we all did things we would later regret and feel ashamed of. That was one of the arguments he used to stop me trying to find you,’ she added wryly, missing the curious flare of emotion in Joss’s eyes.
‘You wanted to find me?’
‘At first. I was so frightened, you see… I loved you…or I thought I did.’ She bit her lip. ‘I don’t suppose I knew what love was, really, but Dad made me see that if I did succeed in finding you, I would be causing your wife terrible unhappiness. That made me stop and think. He was trying to make me see that there were other things involved than my own feelings…’
‘He sounds a very caring man,’ Joss said abruptly.
‘He was,’ Kate agreed. ‘They both were…him and Mum. Please don’t feel too bad, Joss,’ she added huskily, reaching out instinctively to cover his wrist with her hand in a gesture of reassurance. ‘Mum and Dad were marvellous to both me and Sophy. Dad retired early and he spent a lot of time with her. More time I’m sure than many fathers are able to spend with their children. She never suffered any lack…’
‘Of a father,’ Joss put in savagely. ‘No, I’m sure she didn’t. In fact, to judge from what you’re saying to me, she did far better without me in her life. A loving mother…devoted grandparents…security and grace her gifts from all three of you. No, I’m damn sure she didn’t feel any lack.’
He sounded so angry that Kate stared curiously at him.
‘But what about me, Kate?’ he continued bitterly. ‘I was not so fortunate. I…there was nothing in my life to compensate for what I might have shared with her…’
Surprised by his vehemence, Kate said uncertain
ly, ‘But you’ve been free to marry, to have children…’
‘So I have. Unfortunately things didn’t work out that way. My wife didn’t want a family. Children had no place in her life, and rather than give me any, she divorced me.’
‘You could have married again,’ Kate said helplessly.
Joss gave a mirthless laugh.
‘Is that really how you see me—as a man who, having once made such a traumatic mistake, could easily and carelessly attempt that kind of commitment a second time? You aren’t the only one to carry scars from our relationship, you know, Kate,’ he told her more quietly. ‘It took me one hell of a long time to get over the fact that you’d ditched me. By the time I had I was thirty…the kind of watershed in a man’s life when he starts thinking seriously about his future.
‘I thought about mine and I married. That was a mistake. And it isn’t one I want to repeat.’ He lifted the album on to the sofa and stood up.
‘I think I’ll pass on the coffee, if you don’t mind,’ he said tiredly. ‘I’ve got an early start in the morning.’
Silently Kate walked with him to the back door.
‘Thank you for…for a very pleasant evening,’ she said awkwardly as he turned towards her.
The light from the kitchen illuminated the hard structure of his bones, the shadows cast by the porch adding depth to the slant of his cheekbones, so that for a moment he looked almost gaunt.
‘Pleasant.’ His voice was dry and cynical. ‘What a liar you are, Kate; you hated every moment of it—and some moments more than others,’ he added sardonically.
He walked to his car without another word, and Kate stood by the door until he had driven off, thinking that it was a miracle that he hadn’t guessed the truth. She hadn’t hated the evening at all. She had just been petrified of somehow betraying to him the fact that she found it impossible to forget that once she had lain in his arms and made love with him, and that that loving had been the most intensely pleasurable experience of her life, and that it was because of that that she hadn’t felt the slightest attraction for any other man. Because she had felt, somewhere deep inside her, that no other man would be able to make her feel the way he had been able to make her feel.