by Sue Peters
The path twisted round a clump of huge beech trees, the ancient boles wide and massive, effectively hiding Manoj and his family from sight as they strolled on in front.
Now was her chance!
Dee stopped dead, and spun to face Luke. She reached up and gripped him by both arms to stop him too, and her eyes were anguished pools in her chalk-white face.
'Luke, wait a moment, please. I must speak to you.'
She was conscious of his surprise. Careless of what he thought of her volte-face. She had to know how he felt. How he was. How he would be, for whatever time it took to be sure.
The dipping sun cast Luke's shadow across the golden leaves, darkening them in a long finger pointing along the path. Pointing to where? To what?
Momentarily Dee closed her eyes as the strain of not knowing got the better of her, bringing with it a vision of the rabid dog, lunging forward, snapping at Luke's legs as he swung her high up in his arms, out of reach of danger.
Endangering himself. Risking a hideous disease, and an unthinkable death, in order to keep her safe.
To be loved like that...
She had to know. The words stumbled haltingly from her lips. 'The rabid dog... that night at the bungalow... it jumped up at you. Did it bite you? Scratch you? Touch you at all?'
The very same questions which Luke had thrown at her, and which at the time she had not understood. They trailed to a halt through trembling lips. She had heard, somewhere, that it took some time for rabies to develop. Was that where the shadow pointed?
'Luke, please. Tell me...'
'Dee, darling.'
For answer, Luke folded her in his arms, and shock added to the anguish and threatened Dee's reeling senses. Desperately she hung on to consciousness, willing Luke to answer her. Dreading what his answer might be.
'Please, Luke. I have to know.'
'The dog missed me by a yard. It was too weak to get anywhere near me.'
'Are you sure? You're not just saying that to...?'
He shook her gently. 'Dee, stop it! Stop torturing yourself. I'm telling you the honest truth. The dog got nowhere near me. Do you think I would ask you to marry me if I thought there was the slightest risk of my developing rabies?'
'M-marry you?' Sudden strength flowed back into Dee's failing limbs, but doubt still showed in her uplifted face. 'But.. .what about Mari?'
'What about Oliver?' he countered.
'Oliver's my brother.'
'Mari's my sister.'
Comprehension dawned, and laughter rocked them. Relieved laughter. Healing laughter, mingled with tears. They clung together until the storm passed, and when Dee had recovered sufficiently to be able to speak she gasped, 'I thought the stand erector explained about Oliver. I heard him say ‑'
'He didn't have time to finish. The stand started to tip, and we had to rescue it quickly. And afterwards there was no time, and I was in torment, not knowing. But I thought you knew about Mari. Kate said she had to leave some of her unmentionables in your room.'
'Kate told me about the unmentionables. She didn't explain who they belonged to.'
'I was madly jealous about Oliver. Will you forgive me? It made me bad-tempered, and I was a beast to you.'
'I was madly jealous about Mari.'
Forgiveness was unbelievably sweet, to give and to receive, and it was some time before Dee's lips were free to confess, 'I thought you were angry with me, about the newspaper photograph. That I might have tried to compromise you in front of the camera, to...' She stopped, her colour rising.
'It was the other way about. I thought if you saw a picture of us together you would realise what a perfect couple we make.'
'Do we?' innocently.
'You little minx!' Luke punished her suitably for tormenting him. 'What fools we've been,' he mourned, 'to waste so much precious time.'
His kisses made up for the loss. They explored her eager lips with tender care, rejoicing in their willing response, that had been so unwilling before. They traced an ardent line along the slender column of her throat to the sweetly perfumed, throbbing hollow at its base, and Luke groaned his pleasure as Dee buried her face in the fiery thickness of his hair, which muffled her admission, 'I must have loved you all along, and didn't know it.'
'I loved you from the very first moment I set eyes on you, in the foyer of your hotel.'
'I was hot, and sticky, and crumpled.'
'No other woman in the room could hold a candle to you. After I left you I went straight to Gita to angle an invitation for us both to go to dinner that night, so that she could find out for me if you were already engaged. You said you hadn't got a boyfriend with you, but I didn't know if you might have left one behind in England.'
'Gita did ask me,' Dee remembered.
'And you told her that you didn't intend to get married at all. That you were all set to be a career girl. I was in despair. I didn't know how to make you change your mind.'
'You didn't waste any time,' Dee accused him with a forgiving smile. 'You took complete control, of my job and me.' His masterful behaviour no longer had the power to infuriate.
'I felt desperately afraid when I knew you would be carrying the gems yourself.'
'I knew the risks, Luke. I've been trained to cope with them. Bill isn't as uncaring of his couriers as you seem to think.' In the midst of her happiness, loyalty made Dee defend her boss.
'I know that. I knew it all along. If it had been any other woman I wouldn't have questioned the matter. But love turned me into a coward, for your sake. And you must admit,' he confessed somewhat shamefacedly, 'it made a good excuse to persuade Gita to invite you to go to the hill station with them, where I could be sure of joining you later. Those business meetings in Calcutta seemed to go on forever,' he groaned at the memory of their enforced separation.
'You're a devious, scheming ‑'
'I'm all of those things. But it worked.' His kisses measured his satisfaction at the success of his scheming, and a long, sweet silence ensued until he told her, 'Mother and Dad will be home soon, and Mari. I'm longing for them to meet you. They'll love you.'
'There's going to be a christening soon in the college chapel at home. You'll meet all of my family then, all at once. Including my brand-new nephew.'
In the turmoil of events which followed her brother's call—was it only that morning?—Dee had actually forgotten the momentous event to which she had looked forward for so long, news of which had reached her mere minutes before they had set out for the cricket match.
'I hope they approve your choice.'
Luke looked uncharacteristically doubtful, and Dee was quick to reassure him, 'They'll love you too.' She grinned suddenly. 'Mother will approve. She's been trying to change my mind about getting married for ages. She's just like Gita. She thinks all women are made for marriage.'
'Maid for marriage.'
Luke's tongue twisted the word round, and gave it a new meaning, while his lips tenderly sealed the bond between them, and Dee answered in kind, easily fluent now in the language that had no words, because no words were necessary between them.
He paused long enough to ask, 'When will you marry me, Dee? Make it soon,' he begged.
'We're not even engaged yet.' She couldn't resist a little gentle teasing.
'I've got the ring.' He fumbled in his pocket, and slipped the ring on to her finger. 'I know it fits, because I tried it on in the bank in Delhi, just to make sure. You said you liked this one?' His eyes questioned her anxiously.
'Oh, yes, I do. It's the one we both liked.'
'I've been carrying it about in my pocket for days, trying to get you on your own.'
And she had been avoiding him, avoiding the happiness that could have been hers days ago. But that was behind her now, behind them both, and the future stretched ahead, as golden as the carpet of leaves on which they stood.
Luke lifted her hand and pressed his lips to the token of his love, and Dee said softly, 'It's lovely, Luke.'
'It can't compare with you. Nothing can.'
He folded her to him, and long, precious moments passed, oblivious of time, that brought the children creeping back to peep round the beech trees, wondering what had kept them for so long.
A mischievously smiling Gita rounded up her offspring, and hurried them away, and at long last Luke raised his head and remembered, 'You didn't tell me about Oliver's bet.'
Laughing, Dee told him, and added a contented, 'Oliver's won. I owe him a coffee.'
'No, he hasn't. I've won,' Luke contradicted, and lowered his lips to claim their prize.
