by Penny Jordan
He looked at her now, his eyes narrowing slightly.
'No comment? I take it my beloved sister has been busily filling you in on my past history. Is that why I keep getting the cool brush-off?'
'No,' Diana told him bravely and honestly. 'Ann has mentioned you. She told me that you had a good job in America that you loved, but that you decided to come home when your uncle died.'
'I didn't have a lot of option really. Whitegates was my mother's home while she was a girl—she and my father were cousins; and then we all lived there when my uncle was alive. He inherited the farm, and my father was the local vet. If I hadn't come home when my uncle died it would have meant the farm being sold. It's been my mother's home all her life.'
Diana could tell from his voice that his hadn't been an easy decision to make. As though to confirm her private thoughts he added slowly, 'I've always loved horses. I did enjoy my work in America and, more than that, there was a girl there who I loved. The boss's daughter, as it so happened. She was the queen of the local society set. She didn't want to come over here and make a new life unless it was in London. She wanted me to sell up and stay over there; I could have invested my share of the farm with her father… but I couldn't do that to my mother.'
'And…'
He turned his head, and Diana received the full force of the cynicism in his eyes. Grey eyes met gold, and hers dropped as he said curtly, 'And so we split up. She's married now, I believe, with a couple of kids.'
'And you still love her?'
'No, I doubt if I ever did in any of the ways that matter, but it taught me a lesson I've been slow in forgetting. You still haven't answered my question,' he pressed. 'If it isn't my sister's ambition to get me married off that's bothering you; why the oh-so-cool rejection?'
'I'm not rejecting you.'
Thankfully, they had reached the town square, and soon she would be able to escape, but instead of slowing down and turning into the pub car park, Marcus drove on, through the town and out again in the opposite direction, towards the farm.
'Marcus!'
'You're soaking wet, I'm already late, and besides you still haven't given me a satisfactory answer to my question. It seems to me that the only way I'm likely to get one is to kidnap you.'
He didn't speak again until they reached the farm. Diana knew she ought to protest and demand that he turn the car round and take her back, but the chill had reached right through her thin clothes now and she was shivering.
They went in through the back door, into a large kitchen with an enormous Rayburn standing against one wall. The air was redolent with the mouth-watering odour of cooking food, and Diana felt her stomach churn with hunger-induced nausea. She had only had a snack for lunch, and now suddenly she was starving.
'Mrs Jenkins, will you show Mrs Johnson upstairs? She needs a hot bath, and something clean and dry to wear. You've got ten minutes before dinner,' he told Diana glancing at his watch, and then adding to the housekeeper, 'I'll go and see my mother now, Mrs J.'
It was useless to protest, Diana found herself being propelled into the hallway and upstairs.
'I think Miss Ann left a few things behind after she got married. They'll still be in her room. It's this way, Mrs Johnson.'
They were in the Queen Anne wing now, and the room the housekeeper showed her into looked out over the fields, and down towards the River Wye and the Welsh hills.
'The bathroom's across the corridor,' the housekeeper told her. 'Mr Marcus keeps saying he'll get individual bathrooms installed for these rooms. There's certainly space enough, but he never gets time to get anything organised. This place needs a mistress! Oh, I do my best, and so does poor Mrs Simons, but it isn't enough. The whole house needs redecorating.'
Diana could see what she meant, and she was already mentally stripping the faded floral paper from the walls and replacing it with a more modern and classical finish; perhaps a soft-spattered effect, or one of the new ranges of pretty florals with matching bedlinen.
The bathroom was huge, with an enormous old-fashioned bath, and plenty of deliciously hot water. She lay back in it, unable to avoid seeing the changes pregnancy was making to her body. Without her clothes the distortion of her shape was immediately noticeable, and she touched the firm swell of her stomach lovingly.
'It won't be too much longer now. Are you looking forward to meeting me as much as I am you?'
She flushed as she realised she had spoken the words out loud. She had developed this habit of talking to her baby only lately, and occasionally when she realised what she was doing she felt extremely foolish.
Mrs Jenkins had found her a pair of clean briefs, and some jeans and a sweater. All the garments were a little on the generous size, but they were an improvement on her own clammy things.
The bulkiness of the sweater hid the bulge of her stomach, and she rolled the jeans up to her calves to take up the excess fabric. There was nothing she could do about her hair, which was now curling wildly round her face.
Her handbag was in the bedroom, and she grimaced faintly as she looked at her shiny make-up-free face. She looked about sixteen. She pulled a face at herself, and picked up the damp towels, depositing them in the linen basket.
Just as she opened the door, Marcus appeared at the top of the stairs.
'You've made it with ten seconds to spare,' he told her.
She wanted to protest that there was no need for her to disturb their meal, that she could get a taxi back to town, but he was already going back downstairs, leaving her with no alternative but to follow him.
'Oh, by the way,' he stopped at the bottom and turned to look up at her, 'I've phoned the garage. They'll pick your car up, fix the tyre and get it back to you first thing in the morning.'
Swallowing the feeling that he had somehow invaded and taken over her whole life, Diana thanked him.
'Ma, I'd like you to meet Mrs Johnson—Diana,' Marcus introduced, taking her across the room until she was standing in front of the pretty grey-haired woman in the wheelchair.
'Diana has very kindly agreed to join us for dinner tonight.' Immediately the tired eyes brightened, and she smiled warmly at Diana.
'How lovely! That's one of the main things I miss about not being mobile—the fact that I can't get out and about to meet new people. Diana… of course.' Her glance grew slightly speculative. 'You must be the girl Ann's been telling me about. You've taken over the bookshop, haven't you? Lovely—reading's one of my favourite pastimes, but it's been nearly impossible to get decent new titles locally. I normally have to wait until Ann or Marcus are going to Hereford or London.'
'Dinner's ready, Ma,' Marcus interrupted, and Diana forced herself to swallow the small painful lump in her throat as she watched the older woman manoeuvre her chair up to the dining-table.
The room overlooked the back of the house and had lovely views, but sitting looking out at them could never compensate for the freedom to explore and enjoy them on foot. The limitations of physical handicaps were something that one was inclined to accept at face value, until brought face to face with the reality of them, Diana recognised, as she took the chair Marcus indicated.
Despite all her doubts, she enjoyed the meal, surprising herself by the amount she ate.
Jane Simons was an intelligent and witty woman, who made light of her disability and expected others to do the same. She seemed to have a lively interest in everything that went on around her, and was, as Diana soon discovered, quite heavily involved in local community affairs.
It must take a very strong and special personality to be able to cope so well with the loss of one's mobility and freedom, and something more than that to be able, as Jane Simons was, to make another person completely forget that she was actually restricted to her wheelchair, which was what Diana found happening to her by the time the meal was over.
Marcus remained slightly in the background, throwing in the odd comment now and again, but at other times apparently content to let the conversation flow a
round him. Unlike Ann, Jane Simons made no comment on her son's single state, but she was not one of that breed of possessive demanding women who could not bear the thought of their son being committed to anyone other than themselves, Diana could see that.
It was just gone nine o'clock when they rose from the table, and Diana was surprised to realise how long they had been talking.
'I must get back.' She looked at Marcus. 'If I could use your phone to ring for a taxi…'
He frowned. 'There's no need. I'll take you home.'
What could she say? To refuse would look both churlish and ridiculous, but once again the unease that had remained dormant during the meal surfaced.
Why couldn't he accept that she didn't want any further involvement with him, and why, more to the point, did he want an involvement with her? Because she would be a convenient bed partner?
They were half-way back when Marcus abruptly stopped the car and turned to face her.
'Now,' he said coolly, 'we can talk without being interrupted. Why is it I get the feeling that I'm someone you'd rather not know, Diana?'
'Why should I want to?' she countered unsteadily. 'When I first moved here you accused me of running after you. You didn't want to know me then, Marcus.'
'I was in shock,' he told her wryly, 'I'm not used to my dreams manifesting themselves in my office.'
He was smiling at her in a way that made her heart miss a beat. A tingling excitement shivered through her. This had to stop right now; she wasn't in a position to allow herself to become attracted to this man. And she was attracted to him, she admitted to herself, frightened by the realisation.
'I know you've only recently been widowed,' he confounded her by adding, 'but—'
'But just because I went to bed with you once, you expect me to repeat my mistake?' Her voice sounded shrill and unfamiliar, she was close to the edge of total panic. For some reason, hearing Marcus describe her as a widow increased her feeling of guilt. She hated lying like this, but he was forcing her to do so. It was his fault that she was caught in this morass of lies and evasions. If he had simply left her alone… She lashed herself up into a state of righteous anger against him, knowing that it was her own defence against the weakening tide of emotion she could feel growing inside her.
'Your mistake? Is that what it was? It didn't seem like it at the time!' The humour and tenderness was gone, from his face now, leaving it hard and angry. 'You'd like to pretend that night never happened, wouldn't you Diana? But you can't.'
Without another word he re-started the car and drove her home. She was still trembling when she got out of the car, moving hurriedly and awkwardly before he could leave his seat to assist her.
'I respect your grief for your husband, Diana, but…'
'Please! I don't want to talk about it. Can't you see I came here in the first place to escape from the past? I wanted a new start…'
'And I went and spoiled it all, didn't I?' His eyes registered her betraying use of the word escape, but he didn't say anything. He dared not—he was held too dangerously tightly in the coils of a frustration that was as much emotional as it was physical to risk pushing her any further tonight. He wanted to… He wanted nothing quite as much as to take her in his arms and make her admit that there was something between them, but he sensed that to do so would only add to her panic and withdrawal.
It had been a shock, seeing her like that, so unexpectedly in his office and for a moment he had thought… but it had been for a moment only; before he remembered how often he had thought about her since meeting her, and how many times he had woken up in the night, still half asleep, searching for the warmth of her body next to his own, only to realise she wasn't there.
He watched her go in frustrated silence. She was deliberately erecting barriers against him. He could almost feel them. Why? Because she felt guilty about making love with him so soon after her husband's death, that was why; any idiot could see that. He had to convince her that she had nothing to feel guilty for, but how?
Frowning, he drove home. It was odd, but he distinctly remembered the tight, almost virginal feel of her body when they had made love. He had registered it only fleetingly at the time, too aroused by the desire he felt for her to dwell on it; but he had had the unmistakable impression that it had been a long time since she had last made love; and had he been asked to do so, he would have automatically put the date of the commencement of her widowhood some years in the past. Of course, it could be that her husband had been too ill to make love to her; and that she, out of loyalty and love for him, had refused to take a lover. That would explain the almost frantic way in which she had responded to him; as though having him inside her was something she was prepared to die for.
Damn! He swore suddenly as he was forced to brake to avoid an obstruction in the road. If he didn't stop thinking about her, and start concentrating on what he was doing, he wasn't going to live to so much as see her again, never mind persuade her to let him into her life. And he would persuade her. He was quite determined on that point.
CHAPTER FIVE
Very gradually, Diana found that she was being integrated into the life of the town.
After living in London for so long, she still found it strange to be addressed by people she hardly knew with a friendly 'good morning', but now their faces were slowly becoming familiar, and she found that she was slowly leaving behind the acute bitterness and anguish of Leslie's death. It would always hurt that her friend had died so young, and surely so unfairly, but now her pain was beginning to soften and become more tolerable.
On the morning that Bill Hobbs told her that the property was now ready for her to move into, she could hardly contain her excitement. Long after the workmen had packed up and gone she wandered round the empty rooms, breathing in a mixture of wood shavings and plaster dust, uncaring of what the dust was doing to her clothes, or the emptiness of the rooms.
This was her kingdom… hers and hers alone. She hugged the knowledge to herself, clasping her arms around her body. It gave her a warm, secure feeling, which she was intelligent enough to realise sprang originally from the awful fear and desolation she had felt on Leslie's death.
Because she could no longer trust other human beings to be a permanent part of her life, she was using the house as a substitute. Death could not take the house away from her. It was hers for as long as she wanted it to be.
Suddenly within her she felt a tiny fluttering movement, so brief and delicate that she held her breath, fearing that she was imagining it. That she should feel her baby move just at this particular moment seemed to be a good omen for the future. Ridiculously she felt tears prick her eyes.
She had things to do, she reminded herself. She should be working and not wandering around up here mooning. She had already decided that she would stay on at the pub whilst the decorators worked on the building, and when she rang up to tell them that they could now start work, she was congratulated on her foresight.
'We'll be able to get the work done much faster with the house being empty,' the decorator told her, adding reassuringly, 'My lot will be down first thing in the morning, and hopefully it shouldn't take too long. I've got all the details of what you want.'
Downstairs, in the shop area, the aroma of new wood was strongly pungent. Her pregnancy seemed to have increased her sense of smell, and she sniffed the air appreciatively.
The boys had made an excellent job of clearing the worst of the overgrowth from the garden. She hadn't decided yet what she was going to do with it. She would have to have some sort of fence erected along the river bank to protect the baby.
She went outside and wandered along the crazy-paving path the boys had discovered beneath the weeds and overgrown grass.
There was an ancient apple tree in the middle of the lawn, and she was contemplating having a wooden seat constructed around it. It would make a pleasantly shady spot for sitting in. The vegetable plot was separated from the rest of the garden by a ramshackle trellis, which would
have to be replaced. She would grow some sort of climber along it—not roses with their sharp thorns, but clematis perhaps, the old fashioned multi-flowered kind, and perhaps even sweet peas. Her father used to grow them at home in their small suburban garden and she remembered how she had loved them.
Some of the glass had been replaced in the greenhouse and she walked towards it. An old gnarled grape vine twined round some of the metal struts. It needed pruning; she would have to ask around and find out if there was someone who could come in and do the gardening for her.
A piece of roofing glass that the boys hadn't been able to remove caught her eye. She reached up to touch it, only realising how dangerously precarious it was as it wobbled and started to slide towards her.
Fear held her immobile, and she watched the glass fall towards her in horrified fascination until suddenly she was plucked away from the source of danger. She heard the tinkling sound of the glass as it smashed into the sunbaked ground but it was muffled by the protective pressure of the arms locked round her.
'Are you all right?' The harsh sound of his voice reverberated through her body.
Where on earth had Marcus sprung from? She hadn't heard him at all. Shaken by her experience, she felt a wave of faintness rush over her. Even as she fought against it, she heard herself give a tiny moan and felt the pressure of Marcus's arms tighten.
'Diana, it's all right… you're perfectly safe.'
His voice was rough with concern, his body supporting hers, shielding it from all danger. She had a dangerously weak impulse simply to lie there and close her eyes enjoying the warmth and comfort of being held by him, but she thrust the weakness aside.
For a moment, as she struggled to be free, she thought he wasn't going to let her go, but then he did so. As she stepped back from him Diana caught sight of his grimly white face and realised how great her danger had been.
She couldn't help but look over her shoulder to where the sheet of heavy glass lay splintered on the ground.