Substitute Engagement

by Jayne Bauling

  She would stay here for ever, like some cobwebbed bride in a gothic tale, waiting to see if Rob ever came back, and perpetually reliving their brief relationship, remembering with pain whenever she was somewhere she had once been with him—such as down at the harbour in Moroni and on the beach back there, deserted now that the sun was falling down a green sky towards invisible mainland Africa.

  The hotel guests would mostly have repaired to one or other of the happy hours going on in the various bars by now. She ought to join them, wearing a smile and pretending it really was a happy hour.

  Lucia started walking back the way she had come, following her extended shadow, the expanse of damp sand that stretched out before her gleaming in the rich lemon light of the setting sun behind her.

  Further ahead, the pale sand of the beach proper was dry and powder-fine, no longer brilliant white at this hour but softly gold, becoming rosy, with the stray grain here and there, the myriads sparkling in testimony to what it had once been before time and the ocean had ground it to its present insignificance.

  Above the beach, a tall man in a light-coloured shirt and jeans was standing motionless beneath a coconut palm, looking out to sea, or looking at her—

  Looking for her?

  For the space of a second Lucia imagined that she had conjured him up. She had thought so much and longed so intensely, constantly seeing Rob in her mind’s eye, that the force of her frustrated emotions seemed finally to have made him real.

  She had faltered momentarily, but now she con-tinued walking with a little upward jerk of her chin. The old pride had tried to reassert itself since Rob’s departure from the island, but it had had nothing to feed on because she had had nothing to be ashamed of—save the fact that he didn’t love her, and her stupidity in reading too much into the night they had spent together.

  All the same, she didn’t think she wanted him guessing just how profoundly she had suffered since he had gone away—more than she had dreamed was possible.

  He was coming to meet her and her heart was racing in her breast, making her afraid that she might start hyperventilating, or that her legs would give way.

  They met just where the sand became dry, and stood still, a metre apart. Lucia stared thirstily, drinking in the sight of him, a clenching sensation manifesting itself in both heart and loins as she registered that he was still the same beautiful man she loved, still so vital and quirkily attractive, still magnetic, still loved and desired…

  Bathed in this warm, golden-hued sepia light, the darkness of his hair and skin had a burnished look, and she was disturbingly conscious of the deep glow in the smoke-coloured eyes, under which lay faint brown smudges similar to those she saw shadowing her own face every time she looked in a mirror.

  ‘What are you back for?’

  The need to fight her feelings made her sound hostile, and she saw the tension evident in his face increase as he registered it. She was sorry—but how were you supposed to meet and greet a former lover, especially when the great affair had lasted all of a night? Casually, or with a kiss? What was the etiquette?

  ‘Various things,’ he was answering her rather tightly, ‘including my sister’s wedding. She finally decided to get married on Christmas Eve, of all times.’

  Lucia stared at him blankly for the few seconds it took her to realise what he was talking about.

  ‘Oh! I’d almost forgetten about that. I hadn’t heard,’ she confided indifferently.

  Rob’s eyes had narrowed.

  ‘Why aren’t you heartbroken by the news? Been comforting yourself again, Lucia? With Hassan Mohammed this time, or have you met someone new?’ he taunted softly.

  ‘No, I have not, and why should I be heartbroken?’ Lucia lost her temper, and with it, all caution. ‘Thierry and Nadine’s arrangements are a matter of purely social interest to me, and you might as well know that it’s nothing new. You needn’t have gone to the lengths you did to stop me going after him after you’d left the island, because I already knew then, that last night, that I didn’t love him. I don’t think I ever loved him properly, in the way I should have to have been thinking of marrying him.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Rob demanded.

  Her hand chopped furiously at the air. ‘I should have known long ago, but I only realised that day I gave him his ring back. Even when I still thought I was marrying him, I wasn’t in a hurry—at least, not to marry, only for the side of it which would give me somewhere to belong; I was going to ask him for time before our wedding, so I could try working in one or other of the hotels, because I’d have had to stay home on the estate after we were married.

  ‘I kept…After I got back to the island and he was getting engaged to Nadine, there kept being moments when I actually felt almost glad…because I was free! I must have wanted to be, so maybe I’d got over wanting to be settled in one place, with a home that isn’t rented or on loan. I think it was the life we lived with my dad—always on the move, making new friends and having to leave them behind—that made it seem so important.

  ‘Thierry should have been just my first proper romance, not all the rest of it—a whole engagement and maybe even marriage. I got too used to the idea; it made me emotionally lazy—him too—and what would I have done if there hadn’t been Nadine and I’d realised we were trapped?’

  The appeal was angrily agonised, and she stared at him aggressively, but Rob appeared to have relaxed, and his eyes were alight with some strange emotion.

  ‘Don’t you think you might have found the courage to tell him and break it off? That’s a question, not comforting rhetoric, angel, because I’ve no easy answers for you, knowing you as I do.’

  ‘And the answer is no, I wouldn’t, isn’t it?’ she challenged bitterly, able to appreciate his honesty. ‘Because I’m stupid; I do things, try to be what people want me to be when I love them, and I’d have stayed fond of Thierry.’

  ‘So it rests with whether you’d have realised you were damaging him,’ Rob suggested. ‘I think you might have done in time.’

  ‘Too late, knowing me,’ she mocked tautly. ‘And I suppose that’s another thing you know—that I’m obsti-nate. I don’t like admitting I’ve been wrong.’

  ‘Which of us does?’ Rob paused. ‘I seem to have been wrong about a few things—though partly due to some deliberate misleading on your part, my lady, as what you’ve just told me suggests that you were not, as you claimed, looking for comfort that night we spent together.’

  Realising how much her anger had led her into giving away, Lucia flushed.

  ‘Well, whatever my reasons were, at least they weren’t as cynical as yours!’

  ‘It seems to me that you haven’t a clue what mine were, but forget that for a moment. Would you like to accompany me to this wedding, and see your ex safely off?’ Rob was smiling. ‘It’s expected of me, and entirely appropriate, to attend with a partner.’

  ‘And you haven’t arrived with anyone suitable?’ she prompted sweetly. ‘Why don’t you invite Madelon Brouard?’

  ‘No. You.’ Rob was inexorable.

  ‘To pretend or for real?’ she mocked.

  ‘No pretence is necessary,’ he shot back.

  ‘Oh, right,’ she agreed tartly. ‘So we go out, attend the wedding, share a dinner or two, and, on your last night here, we go to bed again and then you split for however many weeks or months or years. No, thanks, Rob. I don’t want to do it again.’

  Because she knew now. She had longed for him, for just the sight of him, but the last few seconds had educated her. His absence had been easier. Seeing him intensified a thousandfold the ache that was loving and not having. She couldn’t bear it, so it was better not to see him.

  ‘Not even if I love you?’ The words were simple, direct and challenging.

  ‘That’s not funny!’ It was a cry of outrage.

  ‘It wasn’t meant to be.’

  ‘Then what—?’ Breaking off, Lucia gestured wildly in denial, her face anguished. ‘Oh,
it’s not true! You don’t—you can’t!’

  Rob’s eyes had narrowed, and he was scrutinising her intently now.

  ‘Tell me why not,’ he invited her silkily.

  ‘How can you?’ she appealed hopelessly. ‘You went away and left me!’

  ‘What else was I to do when you had just told me you’d had all you wanted of me—a night in my bed for comfort?’ Rob responded tautly.

  ‘But you were going anyway, before I said that,’ Lucia protested warily.

  ‘But only after I’d secured a promise from you that you’d wait for me to come back and—court you; or at least let us explore together what was between us,’ he emphasised. ‘But when you started talking about Olivier, saying you wouldn’t be going after him but admitting that you’d only turned to me for comfort, I decided it was pointless. It seemed to me that if you could think of him just then you weren’t even beginning to get over him yet.

  ‘I had to go, my darling. I’d already stolen a night with you, long before I meant to. I needed to go for business reasons anyway, but I also had things to examine and decide about myself. Most importantly, it was too soon for you, and even if I’d known you’d stopped loving Olivier you’d had a rough time and were still off balance. Whatever you were feeling for me had come too early; you’d have started wondering if you were making a mistake, misleading yourself.

  ‘I had to give you time to be sure, and a chance to try out your freedom and discover if you preferred it to emotional commitment…I know I shouldn’t have made love to you before I went, and I never intended to, but—I needed something to take away with me.’

  ‘Maybe you also needed to give me something to hold on to. That’s what it would have been if I’d known you…’ She had been speaking softly, taking a small step towards him, but she stopped as incredulity reasserted its hold. ‘Do you really love me, Rob?’

  ‘So much, Lucia,’ he affirmed simply, and sighed. ‘I couldn’t have stayed away much longer. Even without Nadine’s wedding, even without your speech about only having wanted me for comfort—and that hurt like nothing else ever has before—it’s about now that I’d have succumbed and returned.’

  ‘Oh, I wish I’d waited for you to explain! When I realised you were leaving I thought one night with me was all you’d wanted, and then it seemed you must have meant it as a way of stopping me trying to get Thierry back, because I know your other affairs have lasted longer than that. I suppose it was pride making me say what I did…

  ‘You know, I didn’t need time, Rob.’ She had begun to smile. ‘I was sure from the moment I realised I loved you.’

  She saw his eyes blaze with exultant emotion. As she reached him Rob lifted his hands to the sides of her face and she ran her own compulsively over the muscled length of his arms, reacquainting herself with the feel of him, assuring herself that he was real.

  Then they moved closer to each other, and Rob’s mouth dropped to hers in a kiss so emotional that Lucia was left shaken but sure, and radiantly happy.

  ‘One thing still disturbs me slightly,’ he confided. ‘Our different natures, sweetheart. I’m possessive and demanding, and then there’s the incredible way you love—so generously, giving yourself so completely.’

  ‘You once told me you liked women who give all of themselves,’ she reminded him, bewildered and breathless.

  She was still bound to him by the strong arms about her back, and she had tipped back her head, adoring him with her eyes as the deepening amber light turned his strong idiosyncratic features to gleaming bronze.

  ‘And I do—but I don’t want sacrifices, Lucia,’ he stated decisively. ‘It would be so easy, too easy, for me to accept them from you just because it’s in your nature to sacrifice where you love. I could demand everything unreasonable of you, and you’d never object, would you?’

  ‘There are no sacrifices in love, Rob,’ she said quietly, and he caught his breath, but then sudden doubt assailed her. ‘But…what about Shelagh? You’re still in love with her.’

  ‘I am not; I haven’t been for years, and even when I was it was a pale, tame thing beside the way I love you. Lucia, being apart hasn’t changed anything for you? Hasn’t made you think you’d prefer to live without me?’ he prompted.

  Then he saw what was in her eyes, and smiled. ‘All right I’ve done a lot of thinking. I know I can’t give you up, but I will try not to let my possessiveness lead me into demanding too much of you. That’s how much I love you. I could never be bothered to try and conquer the flaws in my nature for Shelagh, for instance, and it was easy enough to let her go…But I want to overcome them for you, and I will try. You must decide what you want to do—train for personnel work or go in for some other kind of hotel work—and we’ll try to find a way to fit ourselves and my travelling around it.’

  ‘No, anything I do has to fit around us,’ she decreed with tender confidence. ‘Do you want to marry me, Rob?’

  ‘Yes!’ She saw his eyes blaze positively and tightened her hold on him. ‘But I don’t want it to mean your giving up whatever you want to do. We’ll have to work something out.’

  ‘Why, can’t you affort to support a wife?’ Lucia enquired mischievously, and as he laughed she went on seriously, ‘Rob, I just want to be with you. I don’t particularly want a career, and especially not if that’s all I can have, or if it means being separated from you. I haven’t got a vocation of any sort. I just like mixing with people, and we can compromise there. Love is about compromise, not sacrifices.

  ‘You see, Chester Watson has changed my job again. I’m not in the shop any more; I’m part of the hospitality staff—a sort of hostess and guide. I’m still escorting tours as well. I know it would be a bit nepotistic, but I could do the same on a sort of roving basis, wherever you had to be, couldn’t I? I’ve lived on all the islands where you have hotels, so I know them—and I am good! You can ask Chester.’

  ‘I don’t need to.’ Lucia felt Rob’s relief, and understood just how much he had been prepared to do for her. ‘But, in fact, I’m seriously thinking of basing myself more or less permanently in Mauritius, as it has probably the best infrastructure with regard to communications, transport, financial transactions and the like, and I’d only travel briefly, as and when necessary.’

  ‘I love Mauritius! There we are, then!’ she exclaimed delightedly, and kissed his throat lovingly. ‘And never talk about my making sacrifices again when you were willing to make such a one for me, my darling. But I’ll probably only work a year or two. I’m not ready yet, but you do want a family, don’t you?’

  ‘Absolutely.’ Rob had begun to laugh. ‘You can let me know when you’re ready.’

  ‘Oh, I won’t have to; you’ll know anyway,’ she predicted lightly, but then her mouth took on a rueful shape. ‘Rob, I’m never going to be much of a mystery to you, am I?’

  He stirred, his hands moving to caress the smooth curves of her bare shoulders, and a tremor ran through her.

  ‘But you are,’ he told her. ‘Look how much I’ve had wrong about you! And it’s a complete mystery to me how anyone so proud and sensitive can be so generously willing to give so much of herself, and to give up so much to those she loves. I’m going to have to be so careful not to take advantage of that willingness, and I want you to tell me if I ever seem to be moving in that direction.’

  ‘I will,’ she promised, realising that it was vitally important to him. ‘But you do know almost everything about me, don’t you? And some of it is terrible—

  ‘Oh, Rob! How can you love me when you know all my faults?’

  Disbelief had flared again, making her sound panicky and vulnerable.

  ‘If they’re faults, they’re such lovely ones.’ He put his arms round her again, cradling her against him. ‘Generosity, consideration, sensitivity…I do love you, Lucia. I’m always going to.’

  ‘I like it,’ she realised with surprise. ‘You know it all and you still love me! I used to hate the way you understood everything about me.�
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  ‘I know.’ He was drily reminiscent.

  ‘But then I went from resenting it to relying on it,’ she confessed. ‘That’s why…Rob, I felt so—so aban-doned, when you…you didn’t really want to know, to comfort me, when I was crying like a fool that day I gave Thierry his ring back.’

  ‘Oh, Lucia, I couldn’t. I was too disappointed. You were letting go, giving him up, but you weren’t saying the words I wanted to hear, that you no longer loved him, and I assumed you were crying for him!’

  ‘I should have said something,’ she realised, ashamed. ‘I know I didn’t then, but there were other things I didn’t know yet, and even when I knew I loved you I didn’t think you’d want to know, and telling you what I’d realised about Thierry might have made you guess.’

  ‘I wish I had!’ Rob gave her a quick smile and continued reminiscently, ‘Additionally, by then I’d stopped wanting to anger and alienate you. I didn’t want to give you more cause to resent me than you already had, and I was sure that once you’d recovered you would do so, because I’d seen you like that, with your defences down. I loved you by then. I can’t claim to have consciously loved you instantly, but I was attracted to you from the beginnning.’

  ‘Me too, to you,’ Lucia inserted joyously. ‘The first moment I saw you—and I still thought I was engaged to Thierry then!—I had to make myself stop looking. Then you came over and…’

  ‘And gave you cause to resent me by being the messenger,’ Rob accepted regretfully. ‘I did understand a lot of you, almost at once, and I admired you—even when I was still telling myself I didn’t like women like you. You were so courageous, with your brave smile whenever you knew you were on show…

  ‘I think loving you probably started when I saw you with your hand on Thierry Olivier’s shoulder and I suddenly felt so possessive; I didn’t want you touching another man because you should have been mine.

  ‘Without even knowing why I was doing it at first, I started being a little bit more careful about the things I said to you. You were humiliated by what he’d done, and by my knowing, and I didn’t want you to be; I didn’t want to alienate you further when I knew how much you already resented me for having been the messenger and having witnessed what the message did to you…I didn’t want to cause you any more distress.’