The End of her Innocence

by Sara Craven

  She concentrated her attention ferociously on the menu, trying not to listen as he moved effortlessly into charming host mode, offering his enthusiastic approval of Ian’s choice of wine when it appeared at the table.

  I could always invent a headache and ask to be taken home, she thought, but he’d know I was lying, and that I was actually running away again. And that would be even worse than having to sit here with my feet tucked under my chair to avoid even the slightest accidental contact with him.

  Indifference is what I should aim for, with a slight frosting of annoyance at this unwarranted intrusion on my tête-à-tête. Especially as Ian and I seemed to be getting somewhere at last.

  She smothered a sigh and asked for smoked salmon and a fillet steak, medium rare, conventional and easy.

  ‘Is this your first visit here?’ Ian was asking.

  Darius shook his head. ‘I came to the opening. The owner’s a friend of mine—Jack Prendergast.’ He looked across at Chloe, who no longer had a menu to shelter behind. ‘Maybe you remember him from the last Birthday Ball? Large guy with red hair, rarely without a smile.’

  She drank some water. ‘I really don’t recall much about that evening at all.’ She spoke coolly, and saw the green eyes spark with swift amusement.

  ‘What a shame,’ he said softly. ‘I’m sure he hasn’t forgotten you. Clearly I’ll have to make the next ball rather more memorable.’

  She stared at him, instant embarrassment yielding as quickly to shock. ‘You mean you’re planning to revive it?’ Her voice sounded hoarse. ‘But why?’

  ‘Because it seems a good—a neighbourly thing to do.’ He gave her a faint smile. ‘And it might also lay a few ghosts to rest. My father would like that.’

  But how can that possibly happen, she thought, when everyone present will know that twenty-four hours later you ran away with your brother’s wife?

  ‘I wasn’t around for the last one,’ Ian said. ‘Why is it called the Birthday Ball?’

  ‘In memory of my great-great grandmother Lavinia,’ Darius returned. ‘She was a celebrated nineteenth-century beauty, fancied by the Prince of Wales, among others, and her doting husband, to whom she was entirely faithful, decided to mark her birthday at the end of July with a gala dance at the Hall each year.

  ‘People came to it from all over the country,’ he added. ‘And subsequent generations continued the tradition, although they didn’t cast their net for guests quite as wide. By my mother’s time, it was pretty much confined to local people. But it was always a great night.’

  How can you say that? Chloe demanded silently. When you know what you did—how you ruined people’s lives? How can you live with yourself?

  She said quietly, ‘Won’t Sir Gregory find it rather—taxing?’

  ‘On the contrary, he’s all for it.’ It was Lindsay who replied. ‘He gets very bored, and the arrangements for the ball will hopefully give him a new interest.’

  Well, you’re his nurse, thought Chloe, so you of all people should know. Or are you more concerned with being the belle of the ball and opening the dancing in Darius’s arms? Have you already moved being Lady Maynard?

  She said expressionlessly, ‘Amen to that,’ and drank some of her wine.

  The arrival of the first course made things marginally easier, because the food could be discussed in place of trickier subjects.

  Chloe made herself eat every scrap of her smoked salmon, while Darius cheerfully demolished a fair chunk of coarse pâté, but Lindsay treated her goat’s cheese tartlet as if arsenic might be one of the ingredients and Ian seemed equally hesitant over his potted shrimps.

  Listen, she addressed the pair of them silently, you may be no happier about the way this evening is going than I am, but why let it show? Let him play whatever game this is, and pretend that it doesn’t matter to you. Or simply treat it as a rehearsal for dinner at the Hall.

  ‘So,’ Ian said, as their plates were being cleared. ‘How’s Samson these days? Still bent on self-destruction?’ He turned to Chloe. ‘I had to attend to his damaged hock when he tried to kick his way out of his box a few months ago. We had to sedate him to get near him.’

  Darius shrugged a shoulder. ‘He’s the same evil-tempered swine that he ever was. But his malevolence is directed more towards the rest of the world these days. He scares Arthur stiff.’

  He paused. ‘However, he’s seriously fast and he jumps like an angel, so I’m considering letting him put all that ferocious energy to some good use by sending him over to stud in Ireland.’ He gave a swift grin. ‘A few good-looking mares may give him a better outlook on life.’

  ‘My sympathies are with the mares,’ said Chloe tartly, and his smile widened.

  ‘I wouldn’t expect anything different,’ he told her softly, and she sat back in her chair wishing she hadn’t spoken.

  A little later, it occurred to her, as she ate a steak so tender she could probably have cut it with her fork, that Ian and she could quite easily be married and on their honeymoon by the date of the Birthday Ball, which would solve a multitude of problems. It was something to aim for anyway.

  And when the meal from hell was over and they were finally alone, she would convince Ian that she was entirely his. Go into his arms with tenderness and passion, and give him everything he’d ever wanted from her.

  She thought of him kissing her, his mouth warm as it brushed her eyes, her cheeks, her parted eager lips. Of his teeth tugging gently at the lobe of her ear, as his fingertips stroked her throat, moving downwards with slow, exquisite deliberation.

  Of him touching her at last, his hands gentle on her breasts, lingering on her thighs, making her body arc towards him in unspoken longing.

  And his voice, husky with desire: ‘Oh, God, my sweet, my angel, do you know what you’re doing to me?’

  For a moment, she felt her body flare with the fierce heat of arousal, her face burn in the voluptuous anticipation of pleasure.

  She felt her entire being quiver into a sigh, then looked up and saw Darius watching her across the table, his eyes like emeralds in the candlelight, his gaze intent—rapt. Saw the faint, sensuous curve of his mouth, and the almost idle play of his fingers on the stem of his wineglass.

  She realised with horror exactly whose caresses she was remembering. Whose lovemaking she had once invited with such total candour.

  And, worst of all, knew that he knew it too. That he had read her every thought. Shared each memory. Recognised every secret need.

  Leaving her, she thought, defenceless.

  For a moment, the space between them seemed to crackle as if charged with electricity.

  Chloe’s hand moved in hasty, instinctive negation and caught the edge of her own glass, spilling its contents in a ruby flood across the white tablecloth.

  ‘Oh, God, I’m so sorry. I can’t believe I’ve been so clumsy. What a total mess. Shouldn’t we put salt on it—or white wine?’

  She was on her feet, babbling apologies to everyone, including the waiter who mounted an efficient and smiling rescue operation, removing all the empty plates, replacing the cloth with a clean one, and bringing fresh cutlery and glasses along with the dessert menus.

  When Ian tried to pour some more wine for her, she refused. ‘I think I’ve had more than enough, don’t you? We don’t want them adding in the laundry bill.’ Smiling, making a joke of it, but with determination. Wanting to make the silent man on the other side of the table believe it was only alcohol which had set her aglow. And that anything else was entirely in his imagination.

  Emphasising this by asking ruefully for black coffee instead of pudding. Then, by moving fractionally closer to Ian and touching his sleeve with a teasing fingertip. By taking a few grapes, a sliver of celery and some fragments of Stilton from his plate. Intimate gestures, she thought, which should designate precisely who was at the centre of her world. And restore her own equilibrium at the same time.

  While Darius lounged in his chair, apparently too enthralled by
the colour of the cognac he’d ordered to actually drink it, and his companion, eyes fixed on her plate, ate her way doggedly through a crème brûlée.

  When Ian looked at his watch and spoke apologetically about having an early start in the morning, there was no demur from anyone. Darius simply nodded and signalled for the bill.

  Outside on the pavement, there were the usual awkward moments of leave-taking, coupled with over-hearty expressions of gratitude from Ian.

  Lindsay was the first to turn away, walking rapidly up the street to where Darius’s car was parked.

  He smiled at them as he prepared to follow her. ‘Well,’ he said softly. ‘That was most enjoyable. I shall look forward once again to welcoming you to the Hall next week.’

  On the surface, it was the polite—the conventional—thing to say.

  But Chloe knew differently. She recognised the veiled threat beneath the formal courtesy, and she stood, trembling inside, as she watched him go.

  And as she sat without speaking beside the equally silent Ian on the homeward journey, one desperate question echoed and re-echoed in her brain. What am I going to do? Dear God, what am I going to do?

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHLOE found sleep elusive that night.

  She had made no attempt to resume her interrupted conversation with Ian when they arrived back at the Grange. She’d felt obliged to offer him more coffee, but was thankful when he declined the suggestion, and after a swift, almost clumsy, peck on the lips, drove off, saying he’d call her.

  Her aunt and uncle were intent on a game of Scrabble when she put her head round the sitting room door and wished them goodnight, so she was able to escape to her room without Aunt Libby’s eagle eye spotting there was anything amiss.

  But she couldn’t hide from herself, or the turmoil raging inside her. She turned restlessly in the bed, seeking a cool place on the pillow, even the sheet seeming to press her down.

  Eventually, she pushed it aside and got up, pulling on her cotton robe before making her way over to the window seat. There was no breeze coming through the open window, and the moon looked huge and heavy above the fields, a great golden orb preparing to drop out of the sky.

  Chloe leaned back against the wall, closing her eyes.

  She’d thought it was all over and done with long ago. That she’d relegated the past to some forgotten corner of her mind. Conquered her demons and laid them to rest.

  Now it seemed she had to confront them again—one last time.

  But it has to stop here, she told herself. I can’t allow some ludicrous, meaningless memory to interfere with the life I’ve chosen for myself—everything I’ve planned for and worked towards for the last seven years.

  I won’t allow it.

  I deal with it here and now, and then I let it go. For ever.

  And if there’s pain, I deal with that too.

  It had been the same hot, still weather then, she remembered. But oppressive, too, as if an approaching storm was being signalled. And that wasn’t simply a dramatic veneer imposed in retrospect by her imagination.

  ‘Off to the Willow Pond again?’ Aunt Libby had asked that afternoon so many years ago now, glancing up at the sky. ‘In that case, take your waterproof. The weather’s going to change.’

  ‘Oh, I’ll be back long before that happens,’ Chloe had assured her breezily, tucking a towel and some sun lotion into her haversack and slipping her arms through its straps.

  If she was honest, she’d been feeling at a bit of a loose end. School was over, and only the results of her public examinations remained, about which she’d been modestly confident. Her best friends Jude and Sandie had both been abroad with their parents on celebratory vacations, and long weeks had stretched ahead of her before the start of the university year.

  Worse still, Ian was away assisting on an experimental inoculation programme for cattle in Shropshire, and his regular phone calls were no compensation at all.

  At the same time, her woebegone expression had cut very little ice with Aunt Libby, who was kind but frank.

  ‘Yes, he’s a thoroughly decent boy, and your uncle and I think the world of him. He’s going to make a fine vet and probably a good husband when the time comes, but it’s far too soon for either of you to be thinking seriously about anyone.

  ‘Enjoy your salad days, my dear, and fall in and out of love half a dozen times. That’s what being young is for. But you also have your degree course to concentrate on, and a career to consider. Don’t get sidetracked, however appealing it may seem at the moment.’ She paused. ‘And don’t lead Ian up any garden paths either. He deserves better.’

  And what she meant by that was anyone’s guess!

  It was all right for Aunt Libby, Chloe thought rebelliously later as she cycled through the lanes. She’d probably forgotten what it was like to be turned breathless by the sound of someone’s voice, or feel your heart skip a beat when he walked into the room. That is, of course, if she’d ever known. She and Uncle Hal were sweet together, but …

  Anyway, she ought to be glad that I’ve already met the man I want, she told herself. That there’s no fear of me plunging off the rails at college, or anywhere else.

  In addition to that, she decided with sudden mischief, Aunt Libby should be gratified that her niece had suddenly discovered a strong domestic streak and was taking a real, if unexpected, interest in housework. In learning the unfashionable arts of cooking, cleaning, washing and ironing, and for their own sake too, rather than just with an eye to the future.

  Not very liberated, perhaps, but deeply satisfying in its own way. And what was so wrong in preferring order to chaos?

  She found the Willow Pond deserted, as it often was midweek. Quickly she stripped to her pale pink bikini and slid down into the cool water, enjoying the sensation of its freshness against her heated skin. She swam to the other side of the pool and back, using a slow and dreamy breaststroke which seemed to lend itself to the general languor of the day.

  She hauled herself out and went and sat on the rock where she’d left her towel, wringing the water from her waving mass of dark hair, and combing the damp strands with her fingers as she lifted her face to the sun.

  ‘My God—little Chloe grown up at last. Who’d have thought it?’

  The amused masculine drawl made her jump and she turned her head with a start, shading her eyes, her heart thudding as she realised who was standing a few yards away.

  She said rather breathlessly, ‘Darius—Mr Maynard, I mean. What are you doing here?’

  ‘The same as you. Or that was the plan. And Darius will do just fine.’ He walked forward and stood regarding her, hands on hips, the mobile mouth quirking. ‘Thinking of changing your own name to Lorelei, my pet?’

  She flushed under his scrutiny, suddenly aware just how skimpy her bikini really was and wishing she’d chosen to wear her former school’s regulation one-piece swimsuit instead.

  Or cycled to the swimming baths in East Ledwick.

  She reached hurriedly for her discarded cotton cut-offs and elderly striped shirt, with a silent sigh for the dry underwear in her haversack. ‘I—I’ll get dressed and out of your way.’

  ‘Please don’t,’ he said. ‘Unless, of course, you want me to feel terminally guilty about driving you off. Surely, there’s plenty of room for both of us.’ He paused. ‘Besides, I thought we were old friends.’

  Which was, presumably, some kind of absurd joke, Chloe thought uncertainly. Because she and Darius Maynard were nothing of the kind. He knew her mainly from her reading sessions with his late mother, and on Lady Maynard’s instructions had seen her to the main door when they were over, chatting lightly to cover her own tongue-tied silence as she walked beside him.

  After that, she’d encountered him a few times when she’d been up at the Hall to exercise one of the old ponies that he and his brother had ridden as boys, and while he’d been perfectly pleasant, she’d always felt uneasy around him, and glad to get away.

  But
for the past two years she’d hardly seen him at all.

  ‘Working abroad,’ Mrs Thursgood had said with a sniff. ‘Paid to keep away and out of mischief more like.’

  Aunt Libby had uttered a mild remonstration, but Chloe could tell her heart wasn’t really in it, and had wondered about the nature of the mischief.

  Now, she was no longer a shy schoolgirl, mute in the face of his male sophistication, therefore there was no earthly reason for her to be shaken even marginally by this unexpected meeting.

  So why did her mouth feel dry, and how could she account for this strange hollowness in the pit of her stomach? Her new-found poise must be more fragile than she thought, she realised without pleasure.

  She said, ‘I—I thought you were working away.’

  ‘I have been. I came back yesterday. Thought I’d revisit some people and places. Renew old acquaintances.’ His smile teased like the stroke of a hand on her skin. ‘And with great good fortune, I find I’m beginning with you.’

  He began to unbutton his shirt, and Chloe looked down at her towel, tracing its pattern with a fascinated finger.

  She ought to leave, she thought. Make some excuse and—go. He was undoubtedly what Jude’s grandmother had once described, eyes dancing from her own young days, as ‘NSIT, my dears: Not Safe In Taxis,’ reducing them both to gales of laughter. Only now it didn’t seem so funny.

  And she recalled Sandie, who’d seen him when the local hunt met near her village, had pronounced him ‘utterly gorgeous’.

  A splash told her that Darius was safely occupied in the pool providing her with the ideal opportunity to make a quick exit. Except that haste of any kind did not recommend itself in this kind of baking heat.

  Nor did she wish him to know that he caused her even the slightest alarm, she thought, biting her lip. Especially when there was no reason for it. No reason at all.

  She found herself reaching for her sun lotion and smoothing it gently over her arms, shoulders and the first swell of her breasts above the cups of her bikini, before proceeding down to her midriff and the slender length of her legs.