Maid for Marriage

by Sue Peters

  In the cool hill air Dee's flagging energy revived, and the fact that her spirits declined to follow suit made her increasingly impatient with herself. It was madness to allow Luke—any man—to dominate her thoughts in this manner. It threatened her self-sufficiency, as well as her peace of mind.

  She had imagined herself to be strong enough to keep that mind uncluttered, and fixed with a singleness of purpose upon her goal, to keep herself free from male entanglements and dedicate her life to travel. But Luke was proving to be stronger than she had bargained for, and it was humiliating to find his personality imposing itself upon her thoughts, even when he himself was absent.

  'It doesn't look as if Luke's going to make it after all,' Manoj regretted on the third day of their holiday, but still Dee's eyes continued to watch for his arrival, no matter how hard she tried to control them, and as the hours passed she became tense and irritable, and increasingly nervous that her host and hostess might notice her distraction and imagine that she was not enjoying herself.

  Luke arrived shortly after breakfast on their fifth day in the hill village.

  A helicopter appeared, and hovered low over the open space of a small golf course, which had been built to cater for the growing tourist population. The children spotted the machine from the bungalow veranda.

  'It's Uncle Luke! It's Uncle Luke!' they shouted, and raced to watch the machine land, hotly pursued by their ayah, calling anxious instructions to them not to get too close. Fighting a feeling of inevitability, Dee followed more slowly, with Gita and Manoj.

  She responded mechanically to Gita's pleased, 'This is nice. Now we can all be together again for a few days, before we go on the lecture tour.'

  Luke had come, just as he'd said he would. Just as she had known he would. Even before he stepped down from the machine, Dee knew that it had come to bring Luke, and no one else.

  A door opened in the side of the aircraft, and her heart gave an uncomfortable lurch as his familiar tall outline darkened the space.

  Take three deep breaths, she told herself, reverting to her father's advice for coping with stress. It had always worked before, quickly restoring her ability to face whatever the situation demanded.

  It did not work with Luke.

  The lurch turned to a swift, uneven beat, which accelerated as he jumped agilely to the ground and ducked under the still whirring rotor blades. He scooped up the two boys, one under each arm, and ran with them away from the dust cloud raised by the machine.

  As soon as he was clear the helicopter rose again into the air, and Luke held up the boys to wave to the pilot as it clattered away to lose itself over the nearest hillside, then he returned the children to their feet and strolled towards their parents and Dee, announcing unnecessarily. 'I'm back.'

  He spoke to Gita and Manoj, but his eyes as he said it turned on Dee. Her breath came faster, in time with her accelerating heartbeat, and she tried to look away, but found she could not as the glowing quartz flecks mesmerised her, and she thought bemusedly, Maybe tonight the imp will let me sleep. And knew that she hoped in vain since, while Luke's return had answered one question for her, it threatened to pose at least a dozen more, not one of which she wanted to answer.

  However reluctant Dee was to admit it, in the days that followed Luke's presence brought the sparkle back, just as it had in Delhi.

  The challenge of his company brought her to life in a manner that left her both dismayed and exhilarated. No matter how her mind urged caution, she could not help but notice that the carpets of wild flowers in the surrounding meadows took on a brighter hue when Luke walked with them to take tit-bits to the ponies each morning.

  The already spectacular scenery seemed to become even more majestic when he named the distant peaks to add to her enjoyment of the view, and the clear, crisp air took on a wine-like quality, which doubled her restored energy.

  It showed itself in the easy dexterity with which she caught balls tossed by the boys, which she had dropped before, and would surely have done so again had Luke not shouted to her commandingly, 'Catch it, Dee! Hold it!'

  Her fingers could do nothing less. Obeying his call, they reached up and plucked the flighting ball from the air with an ease that astonished her, even as they closed round the bright sphere.

  'You're getting better,' the boys encouraged. 'You haven't dropped a catch at all today.'

  'I was only rusty. I haven't played ball games since I was at school.'

  Those games had never held the thrill of these, whose sole rule seemed to be to keep the ball in the air, and if it was dropped, or someone else caught your throw, you lost a point.

  'Get rid of it quick, Dee. Throw it!' the children shouted, and Dee drew back her arm and made a less than expert throw in Luke's direction.

  The two groaned in unison as he raised his arm for the easy catch, and then cheered wildly when, inexplicably, he dropped it.

  'Another point to you,' they gloated, and Dee forced a smile and ran with the children to retrieve the ball, with vexation pursuing her because she knew that Luke could have held on to the ball easily enough if he had wanted to, and it was condescending of him to allow it to drop in order to let her score a point.

  The kind of condescension which a grown-up would extend to a young child, although Luke hadn't done so with either of the boys, tacitly acknowledging their masculine supremacy in the matter of balls.

  Dee hugged the vexation to her. It made a good armour. It made her better able to cope with Luke. Sternly she reminded herself that, if she was to travel the world as she intended, there were bound to be many more such encounters with men of the world like Luke, who would be just as handsome, just as virile, and just as dominant as he was.

  To remain free, and to know any peace in that freedom, she must learn to handle their undoubted charisma, and to remain untouched by it, and by them. To do this successfully, she realised belatedly, she must first learn to handle herself.

  When deciding on her future, after Alan, she had naively left out the most important ingredient from her calculations, that of her own essential femininity, which had responded to the first really powerful male challenge in a way that both surprised and frightened her.

  No one, not even Alan, had ever succeeded in arousing her like this. It was the difference between meandering along a country road and driving in the fast lane of the motorway, and she would need to keep all her wits about her, and her eyes firmly fixed upon her way ahead, if she was to survive to reach her destination.

  Luke would make excellent practice, she told herself robustly, and wondered with an inward grin what he would think if he knew he was unwittingly taking on an apprentice.

  The small amusement restored her poise, and gave her enough confidence to take Luke to task when they finally abandoned the game in favour of lunch.

  'There was no need for you to be so patronising. I'm quite capable of scoring my own points without your help.'

  'I don't doubt it.' His level regard made Dee feel, uneasily, that she was being strident. It made her wish she had not spoken, but it was too late now, and Luke heightened her discomfort with a cool, 'It wasn't my doing. The boys wanted me to let you gain a few points so that you wouldn't feel left out of it. They meant to be kind. They're too young, yet, to appreciate feminine independence when they see it,' he mocked.

  His manner derided her independence, and her. Dee felt her cheeks begin to burn, and grow hotter because Luke's sideways glance registered their colour and told him that his shot had gone home. It went deeper than he realised, Dee thought ruefully. It probed the question, Would Luke have been equally kind if he hadn't been pressed to be by the children? Or would he have grabbed the chance to take advantage of her own lack of expertise and triumph over her, as she knew that he could have done with ease?

  Dee didn't know, and she couldn't ask, and suspected from the enigmatic look which Luke turned on her face that he had guessed her question, and had no intention of providing her with the answer.


  He had still not mentioned his telephone call to Bill. Dee comforted herself with the reflection that, in that respect at least, she was one step ahead.

  She already knew what Luke obviously still regarded as a closely kept secret, and if and when he finally condescended to share it with her she promised herself that she would respond with an uninterested 'Yes, I already know', and immediately turn the subject, and leave Luke feeling as deflated as she herself did now.

  The subject came up unexpectedly the next day.

  Dee sat with her host and hostess, finishing a leisurely after-lunch coffee on the bungalow veranda. The two children had been taken by their ayah to play with some young friends at another bungalow, and Luke had left his coffee on the low table between his chair and Dee's while he'd gone to answer a telephone call. He returned shortly afterwards, and unhurriedly finished his cooling drink before informing Dee, 'That was your Delhi contact ringing me.'

  'Ringing you?' Not herself, as he should have done.

  'Yes, he's got all the exhibits together now, so I told him to arrange our flight for tomorrow.'

  'You told him...'

  Dee choked on her own coffee, but Luke went on as if he hadn't noticed, 'If we check out of our hotels first we can pick up the package and go straight to the airport from the bank. It will cut down the risk if we don't have to carry the exhibits through the city twice.'

  Her pride was more at risk than the package, Dee thought furiously. Her Delhi contact had telephoned Luke, and not herself, as if it were the natural thing to do. Her fingers closed convulsively round her coffee-cup in a white-knuckled grip, but before she could speak Gita exclaimed, 'I'm so looking forward to seeing the exhibition! I do hope it won't be held too far away for us to be able to reach it in between Manoj's lectures.'

  'I've decided to hold it at Ransom Court,' Luke told her. 'You'll be staying with me while you're in the UK, so you'll be able to view the exhibition at your leisure.'

  He had decided, not Bill had decided. As if Luke had the sole right to decide on anything he wanted for everybody, and expected no opposition to whatever decision he chose to make. Mounting rage made an iron band tighten round Dee's chest.

  Luke did not even bother to look at her as he gave her the news. He dropped it as a fait accompli right into her lap, and left her to digest it as best she might, with no opportunity to say 'I already know' and turn the subject, as she had planned.

  Dee's churning mind registered, He's said nothing about wanting me to be there for the duration of the exhibition. Had he forgotten? Or was this just another example of his arrogant assumption that her agreement was not necessary?

  In a tight silence she listened to the conversation going on round her. Manoj offered generously, 'You can borrow the minibus to drive you back to Delhi if you like, Luke. You could send it back by chauffeur.'

  'Thanks, but there's no need to deprive you of it. While I was about it I arranged for the 'copter to come and fly us back. It will be quicker than going by road.' He turned to Dee. 'If you haven't flown by helicopter before it's no more alarming than flying by plane.'

  Dee did not care if they travelled on elephant back. The thing that alarmed and infuriated her was the lordly way in which Luke had taken control of the arrangements, which should have been left in her hands alone, as the courier in charge of the mission. At the very least, he should have had the decency to consult her first. Instead he acted as if she were his subordinate, there to do as she was told.

  The mere fact that her Delhi contact had phoned Luke and not herself fuelled her indignation to boiling-point, and she held the lid on the simmering cauldron with difficulty while Gita mourned, 'What a pity you've had to cut short your holiday here with us. Manoj and I had planned on us all having another few days together.'

  A pity? Dee's teeth clenched until her jaw ached as much as her tightened fingers. The pity was that she had consented to come in the first place, and put herself in a position where she had no option but to spend hours in Luke's company, albeit along with the two children and their parents.

  Beguiled by the place and the people alike, she had foolishly allowed herself to relax and be lulled into a false sense of security, confident that she could handle Luke's company, like fine wine, and suffer no ill-effects from the draught.

  Too late she realised its potency.

  Too late she wished she had been more assertive, more independent, more aloof, and because she hadn't Luke had grabbed the advantage and taken over her professional responsibilities as well as her personal time.

  With angry self-condemnation Dee took a gulp of her coffee, which rewarded her hasty mouthful by going down the wrong way.

  'Ouch!' In the midst of her splutters for air Luke's hand came down hard in the middle of her back, sending the errant liquid along its proper route with painful speed.

  'Did you have to make that quite so hard?' she muttered furiously as soon as she recovered her breath.

  'Sorry.' The tilt of his lips said he wasn't in the least sorry, and Dee's return glare held all the bottled-up anger and resentment she felt against him.

  He narrowed his eyes, reading the anger and the resentment, and knowing their cause was not only the smack, but Dee didn't care. These days even Bill didn't trouble to give her detailed instructions. He merely outlined her assignment, and left her to take charge of the rest herself, and Luke had absolutely no right to usurp her freedom to do so.

  She opened her mouth to tell him so, when Manoj remarked, 'You must make your last day here memorable. Do something special. Is there anything you'd particularly like to do this afternoon, Dee?'

  There were several things she would like to do, all of them unmentionable because they included Luke's swift dispatch to some other, preferably far distant, corner of the globe, but before Dee could think of a more acceptable reply the object of her wrath answered for her, 'Dee is coming riding with me.'

  She thought wildly, He can't dictate to me like this. I won't let him. I'll tell him I don't ride. That I hate horses. Anything, but I won't go riding with him.

  She hadn't been alone with Luke since the night he had taken her back to her hotel in his car. And then he had kissed her. The memory of it stung her lips still, and the prospect of being alone with him again appalled her.

  Her new-found confidence wavered. How would she cope if Luke tried to kiss her again? How would she cope with herself? Horses were of no use as chaperons.

  Dee fought for calm. If her refusal was to be effective it had to be dignified, and final. She began determinedly, 'I'm not ‑'

  Luke cut across with, 'While the children are out Manoj and Gita will be able to have the whole of the afternoon to themselves. They may not get another chance to be alone again until after the lecture tour is over.'

  Dee could have groaned out loud. It had been a fatal mistake to wait, even for a few seconds. Like a hawk swooping on its prey, Luke had snatched the advantage and denied her the right to make her own choice.

  With careful deliberation Dee drew in three long, painful breaths. She felt as if her mind was spinning out of control. With one deft stroke Luke had made it impossible for her to refuse to go with him. Equally impossible for her to remain with her host and hostess and intrude a third person upon their precious privacy.

  He used every single opportunity, with infuriating success, to bend her, Dee, to his will, and foil any attempt to protest on her part as neatly and effectively as he had scored points in the ball game. Only this was not a game. This was for real, and the consequences spelled disaster to Dee's dream of independence.

  Into a stretched silence Gita said, 'I didn't know you rode, Dee,' and with an effort Dee forced her voice into a reluctant admission.

  'I ride a good deal when I'm at home.'

  'How did you know I could ride?' she demanded of Luke when, less than an hour later, they mounted two beautifully groomed polo ponies, borrowed from the nearby club.

  'It wasn't too difficult.'


  Was anything difficult, let alone impossible, for this impossible man? Dee urged her mount up beside Luke's across the short hill turf, refusing to allow her escort to lead the way and to meekly follow behind him, as he no doubt expected her to do. He slanted her a sideways look.

  'When we've been with the children to feed the ponies, you've handled the animals as if you'd been doing it all your life. And they responded to you, as they would not have done to anyone who wasn't used to horses.'

  Dee's lips tightened. She would need to guard her every movement while she was with Luke. Nothing escaped his notice, and he used every scrap of knowledge to his own advantage.

  The drumming of hoofs coming from somewhere just ahead of them lifted her head enquiringly, and Luke identified the sound for her with, 'The polo ground is quite close. The track we're following skirts round the edge of it. Let's go and watch them play for a while.'

  'If you want to.'

  Dee tried to keep the eagerness out of her voice. She was not interested in polo. But a match meant people, and she welcomed any relief from the nerve-stretching ordeal of being alone with Luke.

  Typically her mount sensed the tension in its rider, and reacted with a skittishness which demanded Dee's full concentration to hold it on course and prevent it from bumping into Luke's impeccably behaved pony on her other side. The animal's nervous fidgeting served to increase Dee's irritability, and when Luke remarked, 'I've been approached about setting up a polo ground at Ransom Court,' she grasped at neutral ground to ask,

  'Do you play?'

  'Now and then. I don't have a lot of time. I'm away from home a good deal.'

  'Like now, I suppose?' Dee said, and blurted out before she could stop herself. 'You didn't tell me you'd offered to hold the exhibition at Ransom Court.'

  A second later she could have bitten her tongue for allowing Luke to see that his secrecy bothered her, but it was too late now to draw back, so she cast caution to the winds and demanded, 'What made you do it?'