by Sue Peters
And a burden to be carried for the sake of his people. Dee's gaze followed the man walking in the middle of his ever-watchful bodyguards with a new understanding. Dee turned back to the rest of the exhibition hall, where she was hailed by one of the stand erectors.
'I forgot to give you this.' He thrust a folded newspaper into her hand. 'I thought you probably wouldn't have the time to go out and buy a copy while you were here. It seemed a shame for you to miss it, so I got an extra one, and brought it down with me. Nice picture of you and Mr Ransom, isn't it?'
Dee shook open the newspaper, and stared down at the photograph on the front page with a sinking heart. It was a full-length picture, with a caption that made her cringe: 'Well-known antiques dealer returns home from his latest treasure-hunting expedition.'
Implying that, this time, she might be the treasure.
'Yuk!' Dee exploded, and the stand erector grinned.
'They say cameras don't lie,' he teased.
'This one has,' Dee replied forcefully. The camera had caught her gazing up into Luke's face with an expression on her own that suggested she was in the throes of a bad attack of calf love, she thought disgustedly.
Her companion increased her dismay by adding, 'I gave Oliver a copy, too. He thought it was great.'
'Oh, no!' Dee groaned as the man tacked on an afterthought, 'Oliver asked me to remind you about that bet he had with you.'
'What bet was that?' Luke strolled up to join them in time to hear the stand erector's last remark, and there was a distinct edge to his voice as he added, 'And who is Oliver?'
CHAPTER EIGHT
Dee gabbled some excuse, and fled.
One thought was uppermost in her mind. She must get away before Luke saw the photograph in the newspaper. She couldn't bear to look upon his derisive grin when he saw her besotted expression in that awful picture.
It wouldn't matter if he saw it after the exhibition was over and she was gone. She would be spared the embarrassment. She crumpled the offending paper in convulsive fingers, hiding the front page from sight, and behind her she heard both the men start to speak at once.
The erector said, 'Oliver's her... I say, sir, have a care! You've overloaded your stand on this side. It's going to tip—here, let me...'
Luke called out, 'Dee, wait a minute. I want to speak to...'
Dee didn't wait to find out what it was Luke wanted to speak to her about. She dodged among the stalls, seeking to lose herself amid the crowd thronging the aisles in between.
She gave a hunted look across , her shoulder. Luke was picking his way steadily among the crowd of visitors, heading purposefully in her direction, and she glanced about her desperately, searching for an avenue of escape.
No doubt the stand erector had already explained who Oliver was. She had no intention of staying around to explain about her brother's silly bet. Nor to give Luke the opportunity to see the newspaper.
The popular daily seemed to burn a hole in her hand. She gave a quick sigh of relief when a visitor waylaid Luke, obliging him to abandon his pursuit for the moment, and Dee looked about her, searching for a means to dispose of the paper somewhere—anywhere—where Luke would not be able to get hold of it.
A set of tall pottery water jars on the nearest stand offered a hiding-place, but the ever-watchful staff were guarding their precious ceramics with eagle eyes, and would make a fuss if she used them as a waste-bin, and would draw even more attention to the very thing she wanted to hide.
A wicker basket caught her eye at the end of the aisle between the stalls, and she headed towards it purposefully, but when she reached it for some reason her fingers refused to let go of the paper.
She gave a furtive look behind her. Luke was once more heading in her direction, and if he saw her drop the paper it would arouse his curiosity even further, tempting him to retrieve it in order to find out what it was she was so eager to get rid of.
Excuses for her rebellious' fingers flitted through her mind, none of them convincing, all of them successful in keeping the newspaper firmly in their grasp.
I'll find somewhere else. Somewhere safer, she promised herself, and hated the next unwanted thought, which suggested, Like the suitcase in your room?
That would be by far the safest, she mentally defended her climb-down. It was somewhere that Luke could not go. She closed her mind to the next thought, which jeered, Admit it! You don't really want to throw away the newspaper. You want to keep the photograph.
She was prepared to admit nothing, least of all to herself, and, by dint of some avoiding tactics which would have done credit to an army manoeuvre, she reached her room and buried the newspaper safely in the depths of her much-travelled suitcase, and returned to the exhibition with slightly more confidence.
Not enough for her to want to be alone with Luke, however. During the hours that followed her ingenuity was stretched to the limit to keep him at a safe distance.
His, 'Dee, I want to speak to you privately,' gradually turned to an exasperated, 'Dee, I must speak to you,' but when he did catch up with her Dee managed to make sure that somebody else was there as well, preventing any possibility of private conversation.
At dinner that night Luke glowered his frustration at her from his seat at the head of the table, but his words perforce had to remain unsaid.
What could they be about? Dee wondered.
No doubt the stand erector had already told Luke who Oliver was. Not that it was any of his business anyway. And somebody else's wager could hardly be of such importance to make Luke pursue her so relentlessly.
Which left only the newspaper photograph.
Perhaps her panic had been unnecessary, and Luke had already seen the photograph after all? Dee frowned. Did he imagine that she had been playing to the gallery when the newspaper photographer had caught her looking up into his face, with that expression on her own?
Did he think—heaven forbid!—that she was trying to compromise him by publicly feigning an understanding between them which did not exist? That her independent stance was merely a front to cover a deeper design? Wealthy men were a prey to such unscrupulous tactics, she knew.
But not—definitely not—by her.
The more Dee thought about it, the more convinced she became that this must be the only explanation for Luke's insistence upon speaking to her in private, to force her to publicly deny any claim on him which the newspaper photograph might imply.
There could be no other subject between them that would demand a tête-à-tête. And there was no other subject of discussion in which she felt less inclined to take part.
With a sinking heart Dee realised that it could only be a matter of time before Luke caught her on her own, but the longer she could manage to delay the confrontation, the better able she would be to face his anger with confidence, when it finally erupted, and deny not only any claim on him, but the remotest desire for one.
Manoj arrived the next day with his family. The perfect antidote to a tête-à-tête, Dee thought gratefully, and resisted Gita's attempts to quieten her two excited sons, who were bursting to tell Dee all about their journey from Delhi.
'I finished my jigsaw puzzle before we came away,' one of the boys told her proudly, and was echoed by his brother,
'And me. Well, nearly.'
Dee thought ruefully, My jigsaw is still in pieces, and none of them seems to fit. But at least the children kept Luke at bay for a little while longer, and after they were in bed that evening Dee and Luke accompanied the boys' parents on a private viewing of the exhibition.
Chatting desperately in order to keep Gita by her side, Dee recounted her difficulty with the stall holder and raised a general laugh, and Gita observed, 'With pottery like that, no wonder he hasn't sold any. I don't like this ultra-modern work myself. It looks dramatic, but it's difficult to live with. I noticed that several of the rings have been sold from the display of Indian jewellery,' she added with evident satisfaction.
One of the first rings to
have been sold was the one which Luke had particularly admired. The one Dee herself had liked, which Luke had carefully fitted, with its fellow, on to her engagement finger for safe keeping. Unconsciously the fingers of Dee's other hand rose to rub the now barren member, and she wondered, Was it Luke who bought the ring?
For Mari?
Her hand stilled, and a bleak feeling, as cold as her suddenly nerveless fingers, clutched at her. It hurt, she discovered, to think of another woman wearing the ring which she had worn first. Which was a totally illogical feeling for a self-confessed career woman, but she couldn't help it.
Exasperated with her own confused thinking, Dee flung herself into the visit to Abinger Hammer with a brittle gaiety which kept her thoughts at bay.
Luke took them to see the famous clock, and then drove them to Box Hill afterwards to walk off a superb lunch. The children ran gleefully across the heathland, vying with each other as to which one would reach the top of the hill first, while the grown-ups climbed behind them at a steadier pace.
They reached a particularly steep part, and the men held out their hands to the girls to help them along, Manoj to his wife, and Luke to Dee.
'I can manage.' She tried to step out of his reach, but authoritatively Luke's hand closed over her own, and she couldn't pull away without causing a fuss, although she winced at the strength of his grip.
His fingers round her own were hard and angry, and warned her that they wouldn't let her go until she had heard what it was he wanted to say.
Quick as a thought, Dee reached out her other hand and linked with Gita, foiling Luke's intention to pull her to one side in order to speak to her out of earshot of the others.
'Let's make a line,' she called desperately, coaxing the two children to turn the four into six, making it into a fun thing, and swinging hands as they walked, as children did, joking to hide her fear.
'Phoo, I'm puffed,' she gasped when they finally reached the top of the hill. 'I could have done with a bit more energy to get me up that last bit.'
Gita gave her a sidelong look. 'You should have eaten all your lunch. You left a lot of it. Don't you like stuffed olives?'
'They're not my favourite food,' Dee excused her abandoned meal, shamelessly slandering the chef's exotic creation, and beside her Luke said, in a tone which was as sharp as when he had used the name before,
'Perhaps she prefers Oliver.'
Dee's eyes widened. Whatever was upsetting him, Luke needed not take it out on Oliver. The two had never met. A sharp retort rose to her lips, but Gita forestalled it with a delighted exclamation.
'What a lovely view!'
The countryside opened out in front of them like a map, and they stood to gaze, the two boys demanding Luke's attention to identify recognised spots in the landscape.
It meant he had to loose Dee's hand in order to point out landmarks, and the tense moment passed, and, guarding against its return, Dee attached herself firmly to Gita's side when they turned to walk back downhill.
'Have you two quarrelled?' Gita asked quietly as they followed behind the two men.
'No, of course not. We don't know one another well enough to quarrel.'
The flippancy hid the hurt, but some of it must have showed because Gita sent her a speculative look, and murmured something that sounded like, 'A pity.'
'Dee, what do you call these?' The boys raced up to ask the name of a clump of bright golden wild flowers growing in the grass near by.
'Wild vetch,' Dee answered automatically, while her mind wondered, Why should Gita consider it a pity that she and Luke hadn't quarrelled?
If the older woman only knew, the brooding conflict was about to erupt between herself and Luke the moment they were alone together, and although the autumn sunshine was pleasantly warm Dee felt a shiver pass over her at the prospect of the threatening storm.
Luke's darkening scowl warned her that if she continued to evade him for much longer he would somehow force the issue to get her on her own, and her nerves were on a raw edge as the little party set out to join the local team on the village cricket pitch the next day.
Luke's attempt to walk beside Dee, and draw her out of earshot of the others as they made their way along a winding path through the beech woods, was effectively thwarted by the children's demands to know the history of the cricket team's successes, and when they finally reached the pitch Dee's fervent prayer was answered by the captain of the team inviting Luke and Manoj to play.
'Your turn will come,' he smiled kindly at the two envious boys. 'Watch us from the stand, and learn from our mistakes.'
Would that she could learn from her own, Dee groaned inwardly. Since she had started on her coveted trip to India her hopes of finding fulfilment in travelling had gone sadly awry, leaving her mind in a turmoil and lost to all previous sense of direction.
She forced her mind to concentrate on the game going on in front of her, and refused to allow herself to think beyond it, occupying herself with picking out the figures of Luke and Manoj among the white-flannelled players.
'Oh, well caught!' She joined enthusiastically in the clapping as Luke expertly fielded a fast ball, and sent the opposing batsman disconsolately back to the stand.
'I do believe you're becoming a cricket fan too,' Gita teased, and Dee shrugged and hoped her rising colour did not show.
'It's more interesting to follow when you know a bit about the game,' she answered offhandedly. 'The boys have been coaching me on the finer points.'
Her interest stemmed from knowing one of the players. Dee tried in vain to thrust down a quick uprush of pride in Luke's neat catch. The palms of her hands stung from the force of her clapping, and she became aware of Gita's amused look, and thrust them under her on the hard wooden bench seat, lest they should be tempted to betray her again.
What on earth is the matter with me? she wondered bewilderedly. If I go on like this I'll be playing cricket myself next.
One small spectator evidently wanted to. An urgent command rose from the pavilion, 'Bundle, come back! Come back here at once.'
The mongrel terrier pretended to be deaf. Balls were something it understood, and it trotted out on to the pitch, determined to join in the fun.
'That's just typical of village cricket.' The dog's owner joined in the general laughter as the game was brought to a halt while the terrier was rounded up and returned to the stand. 'The last time it was a swan that decided to walk across the pitch with a family of cygnets. I must say, Bundle was less trouble to retrieve. The cygnets gave us a merry chase.'
'You're a bad dog,' Dee scolded, smiling, and asked Gita as she fondled the culprit's ears, 'Did your friends get their dog back from the bungalow?'
'What dog?'
'The one that was in the shrubbery the last night Luke and I were there with you. The boys said they had been playing with a dog at their friends' house.'
'That wasn't a real dog. It was only a toy.'
'They said it squeaked.'
'So it does.' Gita's eyes twinkled. 'It drives their parents mad. It's one of those mechanical toys that winds up, and it moves about and squeaks at the same time. Their mother is beginning to wish she had never bought it.'
'I thought the boys meant a real dog.'
'No, although they would love one as a pet. But Manoj won't hear of it. Living in India, the danger of rabies is too great. If we ever go to live abroad perhaps...'
'Rabies?' Cold dread settled like a fog in the pit of Dee's stomach as she remembered, 'Luke said your neighbour telephoned about a dog.'
Gita nodded. 'That's right. He did telephone, to let us know that there was a dog on the loose locally, which was showing suspicious symptoms. It had, in fact, got rabies. We discovered that later, when the bungalow warden shot it in the shrubbery, and put it out of its misery.'
That was the true explanation for the explosion she had heard that night. Not a car backfiring, or a firework. Quite suddenly all the pieces of Dee's jigsaw slotted themselves into place, an
d she saw the picture clearly for the first time, with all the confusion gone.
She saw the road she really wanted to travel, when it was too late for her to follow it. A deep-seated pain settled in the region of her heart, and grew to unbearable proportions when Gita added quietly, 'That was why Luke raced out into the garden and carried you indoors. He heard the dog whine, and guessed what was the matter. He had encountered rabies before. When we got back to the veranda, after I had checked on the boys, and Luke saw you in the garden, going towards the shrubbery, I have never seen him look so frightened.'
The fear that gripped Dee equalled any that Luke might have felt. She said faintly, 'He didn't tell me the dog had rabies.'
'He wasn't absolutely certain then. He only suspected. It wasn't confirmed until afterwards, and he didn't want to cause you unnecessary alarm.'
Dee felt beyond alarm. She felt absolutely terrified. Far from avoiding Luke, she now wanted to speak to him with an urgency which would not be denied.
She could never afterwards remember how she lived through the next couple of hours. Endlessly long hours, in which she chatted with the cricketers' wives and girlfriends, feigning interest in a game that seemed to go on forever, behaving outwardly as if everything was normal, while inside she twisted in torment.
At last even the players were forced to abandon their game in favour of sandwiches and cakes and cups of tea in the small pavilion, and the torture grew worse as the members of the team resurrected what, Dee thought with frantic impatience, must be every single ball that had been bowled or batted that afternoon, and then some, urged on by the two children who drank in the players' every word with open hero worship.
At last it was over. Dee felt sick and shaking as she joined in the general goodbyes, and wondered how it was that people were still able to act normally when they felt as if they were dying inside.
She was silent as she walked beside Luke when they all set off together through the beech woods, back towards Ransom Court. The trees closed round them as the footpath narrowed, and the children ran on ahead, gleefully kicking up leaves that lay like a flame-coloured carpet on the wood floor.
