A Temporary Arrangement

by Pamela Fudge

  CHAPTER SIX

  Roz had no idea how long she had been standing there, hands idle, while the tea stewed in the pot, or exactly when she became aware that Sam was standing by the door watching her. It was the slight prickling of the scalp at first, and the gooseflesh rising on her arms that warned her. She felt a flush heat her cheeks long before she turned to face him.

  The look that she surprised in his eyes made the blush deepen to crimson, but it was so brief and quickly hidden, that Roz couldn’t be sure that she had identified it correctly. She had to fiddle with the cups to hide her confusion and give herself time to collect her scattered wits.

  ‘Oh, for goodness sake,’ Aunt Ellen looked up from the sponge she was beating, her face a picture of consternation, ‘here’s Sam, gasping for that cup of tea, Rosalind. Isn’t it ready yet?’

  ‘I was just going to pour it,’ she said snappily, and then was immediately ashamed. No matter what happened, she mustn’t take it out on the one person who was totally innocent of any duplicity. She added in a milder tone, ‘It won’t hurt him to wait.’

  He came to stand beside her, ostensibly to collect his cup, but Roz was sure that he was doing it purposely to unnerve her. He was so close that she could feel the warmth of his breath on the exposed skin of her neck, and for the first time since she’d had it cut she found herself wishing that her hair were long again.

  When she breathed in she could smell a tantalising hint of spicy cologne. That, combined with the heady aroma of good honest sweat tickled her nostrils so that she had to fight the urge to inhale deeply and savour it. Such a working class odour would be regarded with horror in the city, she knew, and yet for some reason she found it erotic in the extreme.

  How the tea found its way into the cups was a mystery to Roz. She somehow managed to pass a cup to Sam with a surprisingly steady hand, only to ruin the effect when his fingers brushed against hers - purposely, she was sure - as he took it, and then quite a large amount of the brew found its way into the saucer.

  She succeeded in ignoring that quite successfully, but not the smile that told her he had noticed, and was well aware of the reason for her clumsiness. Flustered by his perception, Roz hurried a cup across to her aunt, staying on that side of the room, well away from Sam and those knowing tawny eyes.

  ‘Your tea’s getting cold, shall I pass it over?’

  Roz avoided his gaze. ‘I’ll drink it in a while,’ she said shortly, and then in a very different tone she asked her aunt, ‘Is there anything I can do for you? Peel potatoes, prepare the veg - anything at all?’

  ‘Presently, dear,’ Ellen said absently, whipping cream with an old-fashioned whisk and an energy that belied her age and skinny arms.

  ‘Come and see what I’ve been doing,’ Sam offered, ‘You’ll be quite surprised.’

  And that, she told herself sternly, was just what she didn’t want, any more of his surprises. She’d had more than enough for one day.

  ‘There’s plenty for me to do in here,’ she told him primly. ‘I can start by loading these things into the dishwasher.’

  She picked up a couple of utensils, only to have them snatched away by an irate Ellen who scolded, ‘I haven’t finished with those yet, dear. You go along and see what Sam wants. You can help me later.’

  Sam walked to the door and held it open with a grin on his face almost as wide as the door frame. To Roz’ fury, she knew she had no choice but to go with him, or bring her hostility toward him right out into the open.

  The minute the door had closed behind them, she turned on him with a ferocity that took him unawares and caused him to take a surprised step back, much to her own satisfaction.

  ‘All right,’ she hissed, ‘you’ve got me out here - for what purpose I can’t imagine - but I’m warning you here and now, just don’t start anything. Do you hear?’

  He recovered with surprising ease, and put out his hands in a gesture of denial, ‘Nothing was further from my mind,’ he said innocently. ‘I only thought we should finish our little talk. Decide what, if anything, we are going to do.’

  ‘No more little tricks?’ she didn’t try to hide the suspicion in her tone.

  ‘Tricks?’

  ‘Like practicing your kissing techniques on me,’ she began to walk along the garden path so that the high colour of her cheeks wouldn’t be apparent to him. ‘I have a boyfriend who kisses very adequately and so don’t feel a pressing desire to sample your dubious expertise in the matter any further.’

  ‘Are you quite sure?’

  ‘Oh, stop it,’ she rounded on him again. ‘Look, I know we have a problem, and I’m perfectly willing to discuss it,’ her shrill tone jarred on her own ears, and she lowered it carefully to a more acceptable level, before she continued more calmly, ‘What I don’t need, Sam, is for you to complicate things for me any more than they are already. I was sure enough of my feelings before I came down here, and when this is over - which can’t be soon enough for me - I just want you to leave me alone to live my life the way I want - with whoever I like. Is that quite clear?’

  ‘As crystal.’

  He didn’t look a bit put out, she couldn’t help noticing, and she felt sure she heard him mutter, ‘Adequately,’ in an amused tone as he walked away - but, of course, she couldn’t be absolutely sure that she wasn’t mistaken and she didn’t know what it meant anyway.

  Roz was suitably impressed with the amount of work he had managed to get done in the large garden, but she would have died before she told him so. He was already quite full enough of himself, she decided crossly, and didn’t need one more person to tell him how wonderful he was or he’d be quite unbearable.

  She had to force herself to ignore a little voice that tried to insist that Sam was the least big-headed person of anyone she knew. The acclaim that had been heaped on him in country and western circles in recent months had not changed him one bit from the regular guy he had always been.

  She hurried to catch Sam up, and rounded a bend in the path just in time to see him disappear into the darkened bowels of the old shed that housed the garden tools.

  Peering into the gloom, she said hopefully, ‘I don’t suppose you’d consider being the one to break it off?’

  He was suddenly, disconcertingly, right in front of her, and he gave her a very straight look from those expressive eyes, before saying, ‘And be known as the singer who dumped his ‘long time lover’ when he found a bit of fame and fortune? Wouldn’t do much for my image, would it?’

  Roz became impatient, even though she could see his point, and she huffed peevishly, ‘Ooh. Since when have you cared about your “image”? It would only be a five minute wonder, after all.’

  ‘It would still make all the papers,’ he reminded her, ‘and Andrew - is that his name? - might not take too kindly to seeing your name splashed all over the papers as the girl Sam Lawrence dumped,’ Sam went to turn away, and then paused and looked at her hard, ‘I suppose he does know about us?’

  Roz did have the grace to blush, as she muttered, ‘Well, I’m not absolutely sure... Like most of my associates, Andrew never reads the tabloids or glossies. You and I haven’t made the press together for quite some time and I suppose - with my hair cut - I do look quite different. I don’t think anybody I know has any idea.’

  Sam’s tone was incredulous, ‘You haven’t told him have you? But why wouldn’t you share something like that? You intend to marry the guy, so you shouldn’t be keeping secrets.’

  He was right. She knew it, but it only served to make her more furious, and she yelled, ‘Don’t you tell me what I should or shouldn’t be doing. How can I tell him? He’d never understand. How could he, when I don’t really understand it anymore myself?

  ‘This was your idea, Sam. You got us into this engagement, and now you can damn well get us out. Do you hear me?’

  ‘Loud and clear - along with half of the neighbourhood, I expect.’ he sighed and seemed to capitulate, suddenly becoming more reasonable, ‘Look I
need some time. All I ask is that you just go along with it for just a little longer. There is a solution to this, I’m sure - I just haven’t come up with it yet - but I will, Roz - trust me.’

  She almost said that she’d sooner put her trust in a rattlesnake, but a grain of common-sense held her back and reminded her that continually battling with Sam wasn’t going to solve a single thing. Falling out with him might simply make him turn stubborn, which could make things even more awkward than they were already.

  It wasn’t going to help either of them in their chosen careers if they were shown in a bad light. It might soon become yesterday’s news, but mud had a nasty habit of sticking, and Roz had an uncomfortable feeling that Andrew wouldn’t like getting the least bit dirty, not even for her.

  ‘I don’t have much choice, do I?’

  She knew she sounded ungracious, but she was more shaken that she cared to admit. She had finally been forced to face the unpleasant fact that Sam was right, and he had been all along. There really was no easy way out of their ‘engagement,’ after all.

  ‘Good girl.’

  ‘You don’t have to sound so pleased.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I don’t mean to. I just know that together we can work things out with the minimum of fuss. We’ve been engaged for almost six years, we can hardly turn our backs on it in six minutes flat, can we?’

  He sounded so reasonable that she couldn’t do anything but agree, and leaving him to service Aunt Ellen’s old mower in peace, Roz wandered thoughtfully back to the house, trying to analyse how she felt as she went.

  She was lifting her hand to push open the back door, when the ruby and diamond ring - that only appeared on her left hand when she was at home - was suddenly caught in a beam of bright spring sunlight. She found herself staring at the stones, the diamonds flashing brilliant fire on her finger, and was suddenly unaccountably glad that she didn’t actually have to return the lovely ring she and Sam had chosen together- not yet.

  Of course, that was just because she was fond of the ring, she told herself firmly. It had nothing to do with the man who had given it to her - nothing at all.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The days passed pleasantly, but far too uneventfully for Roz' peace of mind when she suddenly realised that the best part of the first week was almost over and not so much as single hint had been dropped about the end of the engagement being imminent.

  In fact, she seemed to have allowed herself to settle far too easily into a holiday mood, and with Sam and Ellen's encouragement had been quite happy to shop, sight-see, to help in the house or to potter in the garden.

  'How long are you taking off?' she finally asked Sam, sure that he'd want to get back to the recording studio and his latest album, as time was money in his case.

  'As long as it takes,' he said obliquely, which she took to mean the announcement of their parting, and made her wonder even more when he was going to come up with the plan he had promised for making it easy.

  She should tackle him, she knew, and ask him outright what exactly he meant to do about it all. But it just seemed such a shame to upset the status quo when they were getting along so well. Aunt Ellen was so obviously happy having them both there. She had made no further mention about them naming the day, so it was somehow a lot easier to let things drift for a while, to simply enjoy the break from what Roz found herself reluctantly, and surprisingly, admitting was sometimes a tedious and not to mention arduous climb up the promotions ladder.

  There was a bit of a minor scare mid-week, when Aunt Ellen greeted them at breakfast one morning with the news that she had received a mysterious phone call.

  'Someone asking if Sam Lawrence, the singer, lived here,' she told them worriedly. 'I told him, quite sharply, that I'd never heard of a Sam Lawrence – singer or otherwise - but if it was a reporter he wouldn't be so easily put off.'

  'Probably just a fan,' Sam assured her carelessly, but Roz didn't miss the sudden tension in his face, or the alert expression in his eyes.

  'Is it anything to worry about?' Roz carefully waited until her aunt had popped in to visit Win before she voiced her query.

  He sighed deeply, 'Perhaps not, but it might pay us to be a little more aware. I’ve had wind of an award that might be coming my way in which case the whole media circus could start all over again any time - especially if we're seen together.’He didn't say any more, he didn't have to. It had been a while since the papers had paid them much in the way of attention but they both knew that, with Sam’s star on the rise, their luck as far as the media was concerned could be running out.

  This was the opening that Roz had been looking for, and yet she was strangely reluctant to force an issue that was beginning, more and more, to take a back seat - ridiculous as it seemed in view of it being the reason that they had come to Dorset in the first place. She couldn't even understand her own reticence, and couldn't account at all for Sam's.

  Well, this is totally absurd, she told herself crossly. It can't go on indefinitely. One of us is going to have to make a move in the right direction, so I suppose it had just as well be me.

  She took a deep, steadying breath, and then told him, quite firmly, 'That ‘end of engagement’ announcement is going to have to be decided upon and made, Sam. You know, as well as I do, that it can't be put off indefinitely.'

  For a minute he looked startled, almost, she thought fancifully, as if he had completely forgotten the reason for them being together, and then he collected himself, and smiled, so that she was at once reassured.

  'You're quite right. There is no easy way to do this – I’m not even sure why I thought there was. We'll set the wheels in motion, and together we'll start with telling Ellen. It's only right that she be the first to know.'

  The very thought of the distress it would cause her great-aunt made Roz blanche, and very nearly tell him to leave it for a while longer. Common sense came to the rescue and pointed out that she would only be delaying the inevitable.

  'I had it in my mind,' Sam went on, 'to take Ellen, and maybe Win, too, out for a nice meal, perhaps to one of those good hotels, on the cliff top with a sea view.'

  'Oh, she'd like that,' Roz enthused, and then stared at him. 'You weren't thinking of breaking it to her over dinner, were you?'

  He looked sheepish, and then grinned, 'I was going to ask if you minded delaying the telling until after the evening out - if you don't mind waiting a little longer, that is?'

  Roz was filled with a relief that made her light-headed and quite giddy, but she told herself firmly that it was purely concern for her great-aunt that caused it.

  'I don't mind at all,' she assured him, and then realising it might sound as if she wasn't bothered by yet another delay, she added, 'After all, we don’t want to ruin the evening for her. Just so long as I know that it will be dealt with by the time I go back to London.'

  She didn't call the city home, and she didn't mention Andrew, but neither of them appeared to notice.

  'I'll make a cup of tea, shall I?' Sam offered, and Roz sat back to enjoy the sight of him bustling around Ellen's big kitchen, setting out tea things as if he'd been born to it.

  Things had been so much better between them in the last few days, and Roz was as comfortable in his company as she had ever been. There were occasional flashes of awareness, when for an instant he became almost an attractive stranger to her, but on the whole she felt that they had put their relationship back onto a proper footing.

  The thought of the kiss they had shared could have caused her some concern if she let it, but she was determined to put it down to nothing more than a normal, healthy attraction between two old friends. As she reminded herself, they had shared enough kisses in the past to know that they were nothing more than a moment's careless pleasure and no big deal at all.

  'And after Ellen is told,' she prompted eventually. 'What then?'

  He sipped his tea thoughtfully before he spoke, 'I’m being interviewed on BBC Solent Radio at the end of next week,'
he told her. 'I thought I might just drop into the conversation the fact that we've grown apart, and have mutually decided to go our separate ways in order to each concentrate on our own careers.'

  'Just like that?'

  'I'd have thought that the more casually it was done, the less attention it would be given, and that is what you want, isn't it? Less chance of lover-boy finding out, especially as the press don't seem to have managed to get any recent photos of you thus far.'

  The dig about Andrew was the only one he had offered recently, so Roz allowed it to pass without comment, only saying quite mildly, 'If you think that's best.'

  'Have you any better suggestions? It is the truth, after all.'

  'Yes, I suppose it is.'

  Better than telling the whole world that it had been little more than a hoax that had gone on for too long? Better than letting it be known that she was the one who had done the dumping or allowing Sam to take all the blame? Yes, she supposed that it was better than any alternative that she could come up with.

  She stared moodily into her cup, and found herself wondering if she would still be finishing the relationship if it had any basis in fact. If the ring on her finger had been put there with love, would she have found the strength to give it back easily?

  Roz shrugged dismissively, there was no point in 'what ifs' because she had never loved Sam, and he had never loved her. If he had, she would never...

  'What are you thinking?'

  The question, asked so suddenly, made her jump and flush guiltily, and she had a horrible suspicion that he was able to read her mind, which was totally ridiculous, as she was quick to remind herself. Thankfully, she was saved from having to answer by the return of Aunt Ellen.

  Now that Roz was getting what she wanted, she discovered that she was quite unreasonably annoyed by Sam's unexpected capitulation. He had been so set on keeping the engagement going, had almost blackmailed her into coming home, been difficult and unhelpful at the beginning, only for him to suddenly do a complete about-turn and do exactly what she had asked him to do in the very beginning. It didn't make sense - and nor did the way she felt about it.