by Penny Jordan
Not of wishing that she had not married him…not even of discovering that no matter how much she liked him he could never take the place she had reserved for so long for Ian.
No, surprisingly enough what she feared was disappointing him—waking up one morning and discovering that he had changed his mind…or, even worse, waking up one morning after they were married to discover that, as Anna had predicted, sexually she was so unappealing, so undesirable that he could no longer bring himself to touch her.
And because of the intimacy of her fears, and the revelations which must automatically accompany them, she was afraid to voice them.
She knew that had she had enough previous sexual experience she would not be suffering this anxiety; that if she could look back over her life and say mentally to herself, maybe Ian didn’t want me, but there were others—or even one other—it would be different, but because of her nature she had never felt inclined to experiment sexually, and, no matter how much she might regret this now, there was no way she could turn back the clock and alter things.
She was twenty-nine years old and still a virgin, and she was terrified that when she and Stuart eventually came together as man and wife he would find her so undesirable that their marriage would be destroyed.
A woman was designed by nature to accept a man’s sexual advances, even though she might not feel intense desire for him, but a man…
Her fear worried at her mind without cessation—the only person she felt she could discuss it honestly and openly with was Margaret.
She rang her one afternoon when she had the office to herself.
‘Sara!’ her friend exclaimed when she answered the phone. ‘How are you? Only three weeks to go now. By the way, guess what—I’m pregnant. Some surprise, eh?’
Margaret pregnant—the sharp pang of envy that engulfed her body confirmed to Sara, if she needed any confirmation, just how committed she now was to the concept of marriage to Stuart. They had already discussed the subject of their future children. Stuart wanted to wait until they had been married for six months before they started their family, and she had agreed. Now suddenly she felt an impulsive aching urgency to have conceived already. Because she wanted a child, or because it would tie Stuart more firmly to her?
She was so shocked that she should even consider such a course that for a moment she couldn’t speak.
‘Sara, are you still there?’ Margaret demanded.
‘Yes, yes. I’m here. I’m thrilled about the baby… Thrilled and envious.’
Margaret laughed. ‘Well, it will soon be your turn.’
‘I hope so…Margaret, there’s something I need to discuss with you.’
Her voice sharpened with anxiety and tension, causing the laughter to drop from her friend’s voice as she questioned, ‘What’s wrong? Not having second thoughts, are you? Both Ben and I think Stuart is ideal for you. If you’re still thinking about Ian—’
‘No, no, it isn’t that. I want to marry Stuart. It’s just…’ She paused, and then said quickly, ‘With you and Ben… Did you…? Well, I know you said you weren’t in love with him. But sexually…’ She paused, unable to go on.
‘I think I know what you’re asking me,’ Margaret told her gently. ‘There’d been other men before Ben, and naturally neither of us would have contemplated committing ourselves to marriage if we hadn’t at least made sure that we could be sexually intimate, but if you’re at all worried that you don’t find Stuart sexually desirable—’
‘No. No, it isn’t that,’ Sara interrupted her, gulping nervously, as she rushed on before she could lose her courage, ‘I know it’s ridiculous in this day and age, but there hasn’t been anyone else for me, and I’m afraid…well, I’m afraid that Stuart is going to find me a disappointment. That I won’t…that he won’t…’
There was a pause and then Margaret asked her slowly, ‘Have you told him any of this? Discussed your fears?’
‘No. No, I haven’t…I—’
‘Then you must,’ Margaret told her firmly.
When she made no response, Margaret added gently, ‘You’re going to marry the man, Sara—if you can’t even bring yourself to tell him how you feel, how on earth are you going to…? And besides, think of his feelings. You’re a virgin. He ought to know that. If you can’t bring yourself to tell him, then why don’t you write him a note? Explain…’
‘When shall I give it to him?’ Sara asked her grimly. ‘Halfway through the wedding ceremony? And as for telling him…what am I supposed to say? “Oh, by the way, I haven’t mentioned it before, but I’m actually still a virgin?” He’ll think there’s something wrong with me. He’ll think—’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Margaret chided her. ‘He won’t think anything of the sort. In fact, if you want my opinion—’ She broke off. ‘Oh, hell, I’ve got to go. Alan’s just come in. Paul has fallen off the swing and cut his head. Look, Sara, tell him. Tell him… Now! Today. I suspect you’re worrying about it far more than he will. He isn’t Ian, you know,’ she added before hanging up.
Tell him. Tell Stuart that she wasn’t coming to him with all the benefit of being sexually experienced and at ease, and yet oddly enough, as she sat staring into space, she suddenly realised that given the choice between the two men the one she would have automatically chosen as her first lover wasn’t Ian.
Ian. It surprised her sometimes how difficult she found it even to recall his face, and yet not so very long ago he had been her whole world.
She still ached inside whenever she recalled her conversation with Anna and she suspected she always would. The wounds the other woman had inflicted could never heal; weren’t they after all part of the reason for her fear now?
Tell him, Margaret had urged her. And yet how could she? In public he played the role of the loving fiancé to perfection, but in private… In private he never touched her, never gave her the slightest indication that he found her desirable, that he wanted her—but then why should he?
But they were going to be married. They were going to have children. Her panic swelled inside her, tightening her muscles, making her head and back ache with tension.
Stuart was away for the whole day, delivering an order. He had told her that he didn’t expect to be back until late in the evening.
He had been kind to her over these last three weeks of their engagement, but distant, never coming to stand beside her or lean over her shoulder as she worked as he had done before they had decided to get married.
She was shocked by how much she missed this most casual of physical contact with him. She was like someone who was secretly starving, she told herself with distaste, someone so desperate for physical affection…any kind of physical affection. And yet why should she be like this? In the ten years she had known Ian, she had never suffered any awareness of this kind of deprivation. She had loved Ian, yes, had longed for him to kiss her, to make love to her, but with hindsight she recognised that that longing had been based on a confused belief that if he did so it would mean that he must care for her, whereas with Stuart… With Stuart she actually physically ached for him to touch her, actually had to physically stop herself from moving closer to him.
She had already noticed that when they were out together in public she automatically closed the distance between them, walking as close to his side as it was possible for her to get, until she realised what she was doing and forced herself to move away from him.
She wasn’t completely naïve. She knew quite well that it was possible to experience desire without love, but before she had always imagined that that was more a male experience, and she had certainly never suspected that she would ever experience such a sharply painful need.
She wanted Stuart as her lover, she acknowledged with a tiny shiver, which surely could only bode well for their marriage, and yet…
What if the very intensity of her wanting should repel him, drive them apart? She tried to envisage how she would feel were their positions reversed: if he wanted her, and she co
uld only accept him because of her desire to have children. Wouldn’t she in those circumstances feel overwhelmed, threatened, angered, and finally completely turned off by the sheer intensity of his desire?
She got up and moved restlessly around the room, hugging her arms around her body. She had lost weight recently; her mother had remarked on it when they went to buy her wedding dress in Ludlow. Nothing in the shop had appealed until the girl had suddenly produced a dress in heavy cream satin, its style vaguely Tudorish, showing off the cream embroidery on the fabric. She had touched it, had had a vision of herself gliding down the main staircase at the manor, and she had known then that the dress was just what she had been looking for.
It had unfortunately needed altering, but the girl had promised her that it would be ready in plenty of time. She was due to go for a fitting the week before the wedding. Her mother was determinedly trying to feed her up, telling her that she must not lose any more weight, otherwise it wouldn’t fit.
The strain was telling on both of them. There had been several occasions when she had caught Stuart watching her almost broodingly.
She had longed to ask him if he was having second thoughts and yet at the same time had been afraid to do so. What if he said he was? She tried to tell herself that if he asked to be released from their agreement it would probably be for the best; that it was not after all as though their emotions were involved; that he had every right to change his mind; and yet the thought of his doing so caused her such fear and pain.
Had Anna’s taunts traumatised her so much that she now expected and dreaded rejection in any form? Had it made her feel so vulnerable, so insecure as a woman?
Her head was pounding and she felt slightly sick. She stared at the VDU and found she was unable to focus properly on it. She hadn’t been sleeping well. There was so much to do, not just here in the office but with the arrangements for the wedding, with the work on the house, which Stuart had brought forward because he felt that, while the house was comfortable enough as it was for a bachelor, she, as a woman, needed more comfort, more luxury.
She had tried to protest, telling him that it was not necessary for him to go to such lengths, but he had overruled her, and for the last three weeks the house had been filled with the noisy clatter of workmen brought in to repair the plasterwork in the small sitting-room, and to redecorate it, and to do the same in the large panelled room that was the master bedroom, and the bathroom adjoining it.
Originally, she recognized, those two adjoining rooms must have been ‘his and hers’ bedrooms, and she had been half tempted to ask him if in the circumstances he might not prefer to revert to their traditional usage.
Today the workmen had left early. The repaired plasterwork needed to dry out before the redecoration could start.
She had spent the last few evenings poring over a variety of books and catalogues, searching for authentic period room illustrations to give her some guidelines on which to choose the décor and furnishings of the newly repaired rooms.
She had already mentioned wistfully to Stuart that the bedroom with its fine panelling and huge renovated fireplace called out for an equally large oak four-poster bed, but she had seen the cost of such beds in the catalogues she had obtained, and they ran into thousands rather than hundreds of pounds, and that was without the heavy damask curtains, the antique crewelwork covers, the expensive Turkey rugs, and the other furniture the room would need to bring it properly to life.
Much as she loved the house and was looking forward to living in it, she had to admit that things would have been considerably simpler if it had just been a comfortably sized modern house they were furnishing.
Stuart had suggested that it might be best if she avoided going near the upstairs rooms while the men were working on them, because of the danger of damaged falling plaster, and she had taken his hint and kept well out of their way.
The pounding in her head increased. She still had work to finish but the afternoon sun pouring in through the window was making her feel sick and dizzy. Perhaps if she went home and took a couple of tablets the headache might clear, enabling her to come back and finish her work early in the evening when the sun would no longer be shining in through this particular window.
With a faint sigh of exasperation for her own weakness, she got up and collected her things.
Luckily when she got home she discovered that her parents were out, enabling her to take a couple of tablets and go straight upstairs to bed.
Much as she loved them both, this was one occasion on which the last thing she wanted was company…and the second last was to discuss the wedding.
When she woke up she could tell from the coolness of her room that she had been asleep for several hours. She moved cautiously and then acknowledged with relief that her headache had gone.
She got up, stripped off her clothes, and showered quickly before redressing, this time more casually, in clean underwear topped by a pair of faded old jeans and a chunky cotton-knit sweater with a design in pastels on a white background which her sister had bought for her birthday the previous summer.
When she went downstairs her parents were watching television. Her mother made to get up, but she stopped her.
‘Sorry I missed supper,’ she apologised. ‘I had the most awful headache, so I came home early and went straight to bed. I’ve got to go back, though. I’ve got some work I must finish.’
‘I’ll make you a drink first, and something to eat,’ her mother announced, starting to get up, but Sara shook her head.
‘Oh, no, you won’t. You stay right where you are. I’ll make us all a drink and I’ll have a quick snack, but it’s gone eight now, and I’ve at least a couple of hours’ work left.’
‘Will you wait for Stuart to get back?’ her mother asked her.
‘I might, although he said it would be very late.’ At the back of her mind lay the knowledge that Margaret had been right to urge her to talk to Stuart about her fears, and her conversation with her friend had highlighted a point she herself had not previously considered: that being that Stuart might feel that, in not being honest and open with him in the first place, she had placed an additional burden on the wrong side of the scales weighing out the success or otherwise of their marriage.
The rear of the house was in darkness as she drove up to it, the security lights coming on as she parked her car. She got out and unlocked the back door with the keys Stuart had given her, switching on the lights as she made her way to the study.
She had just settled herself down and switched on the computer terminal when she thought she heard a noise coming from upstairs.
She froze, switching off the machine, her ears straining as she listened, but now she could hear nothing.
Telling herself she must be imagining things, she was about to switch on the machine again and start work, when she decided instead that it might be as well to go upstairs and check. And besides, now that the workmen had finished it would surely be safe for her to look inside the rooms on which they had been working.
Inwardly acknowledging that the noise she thought she had heard was probably just an excuse to exorcise her curiosity, she headed for the stairs.
If she had heard anything, she decided as she walked up them, it must simply have been the house settling down for the night, because she could hear nothing now.
She had used the back stairs, remembering Stuart’s wry comment that it was going to cost a fortune to carpet the place, walking quickly along the broad gallery off which opened the main bedrooms.
The gallery overlooked the formal gardens to what had originally been the front of the house, but was now the side. It had small paned casement windows which were bowed in places, the glass thick, and, like the leading, original. Beneath the windows were window-seats, where presumably the ladies of the house, weary of promenading along the gallery, could sit to stare down into the gardens below.
The polished floorboards were the original oak: wide, and dusty from the toing and
froings of the workmen, but once polished…
Sara smiled wryly to herself; already she was becoming very much the housewife, the châtelaine, although she had no illusions about the sacrifices both in money and in time that such a house would demand.
Ultimately, though, it would be worthwhile. She smiled to herself, wondering how she would cope with the hazard of small tricycles being pedalled up and down her polished floors on wet days, and she was still smiling as she pushed open the door to the main bedroom.
‘Sara…’
She froze as Stuart said her name, staring at him in shocked astonishment. He was kneeling on the floor beside the most beautifully carved oak tester bed she had ever seen, meticulously rubbing wax into the carvings.
‘Stuart! I had no idea…I thought you were still out. I was working downstairs. I heard a noise…’
She was gabbling, she recognised, as she struggled with a mingled sense of shock and guilt.
‘I managed to get back earlier than I anticipated.’
‘But I didn’t see the Land Rover.’
‘No. It developed a small problem with the petrol pump so I dropped it off at the garage and got them to give me a lift back. You say you came back to work?’ He was frowning.
‘Yes. I left early this afternoon. I had a headache, but there was something I wanted to finish.’
‘That makes two of us,’ he commented, as he stood up and stretched.
Helplessly she followed the movement, hearing the faint crack of his muscles, watching the way the soft fabric of his worn denim shirt moulded itself to his body. There was an ache in the pit of her stomach; a tension in her body that made her muscles tremble slightly. She felt dizzy, confused by her own feelings…her own desires.
‘The bed,’ she said huskily. ‘It’s beautiful, but they’re so expensive…’
‘This one wasn’t,’ he told her mildly. ‘At least not in terms of money. I admit there’ve been occasions over the past three weeks when I have wondered if I’d bitten off more than I could chew. Generally around one o’clock in the morning.’