The Heart of the Matter

by Lindsay Armstrong

  'Nothing!' she protested, but she saw his teeth flash as he smiled. 'I mean . . .' But her voice wobbled betrayingly.

  He stopped walking and turned her to face him. 'If it's what I think it is, there's no hurry, you know. It's been a long exciting day. Anyway,' he smiled down at her again and touched her anxious face, 'it's still yesterday here, because we've crossed the International Date Line. Tomorrow's officially our wedding day in Western Samoa, date-wise.'

  Clarissa's lips parted and she smiled uncertainly back at him. Then she sighed and rested her cheek on his shoulder for a moment. 'It's not that—I mean, I'm not really tired. And I won't have changed dramatically by tomorrow. The thing is, I'm really terribly inexperienced, although you might

  'Oh, Clarry,' he interrupted softly, and took her into his arms, 'do you think I don't know that?'

  'Well, I thought you might imagine I'd ... well, experimented a little, but

  'No. Nor is there anything terrible about it. In fact it appeals to me very much.'

  'Does it?' she asked a little tremulously. 'I was worried I might make a fool of myself or ... disappoint you. It's something I've never quite been able to think about,' she finished in a rush.

  Rob was silent for a time, searching her face with a curious intensity. Then he said, 'I love you, Clarry. Just remember that.' And she thought there was an undercurrent of pain in his voice but couldn't imagine why, so she decided she'd imagined it.

  She said herself, 'I love you, Rob,' and buried her face in his shoulder.

  His lips moved on her hair. 'Then it will be all right, you'll see.'

  All right? Clarissa thought, coming out of her memories briefly and staring at the flickering pattern of firelight on the wall opposite her bed. A tremor went through her body. How to describe being made love to by Rob? Or just being made love to for the first time, although she could never separate the event from the person in her mind. She hadn't cried because he hadn't hurt her, but she had been tense and just a little shocked—it was something she'd been unable to help. And she'd realized she'd been foolish not to make herself think more about the real intimacy between a man and a woman instead of allowing her thoughts to cut off at the proverbial bedroom door and

  imagine it would all take care of itself in a rose-colored haze and with symphonic splendor. Because it was not as if she'd had an overly protected childhood in one sense—being brought up in the country, surrounded by animals, had seen to that. Nor was it that she didn't desperately want to respond to Rob's lovemaking—it was just, put simply, that being made love to, however gently, and suddenly realizing what it meant to actually live with a man, had come as a shock.

  And to her everlasting shame, she had burst into sudden tears afterwards, tears of confusion and despair because she was quite sure she must have disappointed him horribly, she was suddenly certain there was something wrong with her, and because, the strangest thing of all, she loved him ...

  'Clarry, Clarry, don't,' Rob had murmured, rocking her in his arms. 'You should have told me I was hurting you.'

  'You ... you weren't,' she wept. 'Not really. I just didn't know ... what to expect.'

  'Then I must have let you down,' he said rather wryly.

  'Oh no!' she'd gulped. 'It was the other way around.'

  'What makes you say that?' he'd asked, holding her away from him.

  'I just know.'

  'Which only goes to show how little you do know, my darling Clarry. Can I tell you something? My first time was a real disappointment to me too.'

  Clarissa had caught her breath and stared up at him with her eyes wide and her lips parted. 'Was it?' she whispered incredulously, then blushed hotly.

  'Mmm. I won't bore you with the details,' he said very gravely but with his lips twitching. 'But I guess

  it's safe to say most people don't really know what to expect and a lot of first times are rather traumatic. Perhaps even more so when you've been brought up to be very modest, and anyway are that kind of person.'

  'H-how did you know?' she had asked with a catch in her voice.

  Rob had stared down into her confused eyes, then drawn her head into his shoulder, and she'd thought he'd said something like, 'The thing is, I should have known better.' But almost immediately, he had sat her up in his arms and said, 'because I like to think I know you very well, my Clarry. The other thing is, it's almost always only a transitory state of affairs, especially if we can share it. And if only you'll give me a chance, I promise you matters will improve.'

  'Of course I will! I mean ... I don't know what I mean, but I just felt... the thing is, will I improve?' Clarissa asked painfully.

  'I can guarantee it. I have a reputation to maintain, you know,' Rob had said very seriously. 'How could I ever hold my head up again if my wife deserted me after our wedding night?'

  'Oh, Rob,' she'd said, half-laughing, 'it wasn't you, it was me.'

  That's debatable,' he said enigmatically. Then he added abruptly, "Clarry, if we still want to be with each other and if we take things slowly—I know I've said this before—it will be all right. Trust me. Do you?'

  'More than anyone else in the world!'

  'Then all you have to do is try to relax.'

  She had tried, and to a great extent succeeded, so that that awful bout of shyness and nerves had almost become something to laugh about. And they had

  laughed a lot, although not about that, because somehow, Rob had managed to set their relationship on a dual footing so that the old and the new had begun to blend and so that they could enjoy lovely Western Samoa and also live together in harmony and in a growing, on Clarissa's part, sense of wonder.

  She had come to enjoy coming back from a day of sailing and sightseeing, dressed like a boy in shorts and a T-shirt and with her hair in a thick plait after having been as active as Rob, and then assuming a new role ... Dressing for dinner in something cool and pretty and discovering that for the first time in her life, her clothes, which she had in such abundance, thanks to her mother, had assumed a new meaning, just as her body had. Seeing a certain glint in his eye as they dined and coming to know with a not unpleasant little skip to her heartbeat what it meant ... That quite soon he intended to help her out of her pretty clothes and lay her on the bed and slide his hands over her body from head to toe in a way that left her feeling anything but boyish, that made her smooth, straight limbs feel incredibly soft and languorous, her golden skin tremble, and then part of her body that had never been revealed to anyone but Mrs. Jacobs since puberty, her paler, pink-tipped breasts, her small, compact but rounded hips, the tops of her slender thighs, shiver in curious anticipation of the sensations Rob could arouse by touching her.

  She had also become much bolder about touching him, and sometimes, when they were doing other things, she would catch her breath and experience an odd sensation at the pit of her stomach at the sight of his tall, lithe body, something not at all in keeping with their daytime relationship really. And that had been when it had begun to dawn on her that she was experimenting, or at least, slowly awakening to desire which she had just not understood the meaning of before, even in the days when she had wondered what it would be like to kiss Rob.

  All this, but particularly his patience, the way he'd set out to show as much as anything else the lovely fun side of a relationship between two people who slept together, had doubled or trebled her regard for him, so that it had seemed like an unassailable force within her, her love for Robert Randall...

  Yet it all came crashing down around me, Clarissa mused.

  The firelight in her bedroom at Mirrabilla was less bright on the walls now, but the room was warm and serene.

  If only I could not remember what came next, Clarissa thought, then with a restless movement of her head on the pillows, I might be able to feel warm and serene. But I should have known it was coming when Rob told me about buying my mother out on the plane trip home ... I should have understood what it was all about, but I didn't. I had to be shown...


  CHAPTER FOUR

  'Don't cry, Clarry,' said Rob gently.

  ‘I’m not—I am. I'm just so sad to be leaving.'

  'We could come back and have a second honeymoon. I take it you approved of your first?'

  Oh, Rob!'

  'And you're not just crying because we're leaving?'

  'No, I'm not. I'd love to have a second honeymoon with you, anywhere.'

  He grinned and reached for her hand.

  But some hours later, as their jet was banking for its final approach into Sydney, he said, 'Clarry, did your mother mention that she's sold her share of Mirrabilla to me? You and I are now joint shareholders.'

  'No! Oh, Rob,' she turned to him anxiously, 'I feel ... awkward about that. I...’

  'There's no need to, Clarry,' he said soothingly. 'I think your mother would have sold anyway, and in the circumstances who better to than me?'

  'Well,' she said slowly, 'I guess so. And she's never really loved Mirrabilla the way...' She stopped.

  'The way you do? I know that. I thought we could live there. Would you like that? I'll probably have to be away from time to time, but then that would be the case wherever we lived. Perhaps I should have warned you before we married—about that.'

  'Oh, I knew it would be like that! And if I've got Mirra . ..' Clarissa stopped again, self-consciously. Then she turned to him again urgently. 'Rob, I do still feel awkward about this. You didn't have to buy half of Mirrabilla for me, because we got married... it...'

  'Clarry,' he said steadily, 'for one thing, I love Mirrabilla too. Don't forget I grew up there as well. And for another, once it gets back on its feet, it will make a profit, so I'm only making a good investment—two good investments,' he added with a smile. 'In our future and in a place we both love, as well.'

  'Rob, I do love you so,' she'd whispered. 'Thank you.'

  Three months later, however, she was to remember those words, and her honeymoon, with a mixture of cynical irony and wretched despair. Who wouldn't, when you'd seen your mother and your husband in a passionate embrace and suddenly found a million little things whirling in your mind like a kaleidoscope to settle into a pattern going back for years... A pattern, which only Clarissa Kingston had been too blind and too naive to see or understand. And what she hadn't understood, had been explained in a conversation she'd overheard as she had stood rooted to the spot like a wraith in her long white nightgown just beyond the drawing-room doorway...

  When she and Rob arrived back from Western Samoa, it was to discover that her mother had taken herself off on a round-the-world cruise. Clarissa was rather surprised but not unduly so. The excitement of going home, the heady prospect of having a real hand in helping to run Mirrabilla, the black and white pup Rob had presented her with to keep her company when he was away, which had somehow acquired the name of Mem—all this had kept her very busy and happy. Then another surprise had come along, and when she told Rob about it, he looked a shade rueful and remembered, 'Who said something about the best laid plans ganging agley? Do you mind?'

  She considered gravely and discovered that she was a little apprehensive but mostly rather amazed and— well, proud. It seemed a very adult thing to be, to be pregnant. Besides, she got on well with young things. 'No. Do you?'

  'Why should I mind?' he queried.

  'I don't know. We'll be a real family now, won't we?'

  'We certainly will.' He looked away over the verandah, his blue eyes distant.

  'What is it, Rob?' Clarissa asked.

  He looked back at her and smiled. 'I've never had a real family, just parts here and there. No, of course I don't mind, Clarry.'

  'Oh, Rob!' she said a little tearfully, and went into his arms.

  Then her mother arrived home, and she had only been at Mirrabilla one day, although she had proposed to spend a few days with them, when Clarissa had unwittingly witnessed that scene that was to stay in her memory for such a long time.

  She had been pleased to see her mother, particularly looking so well. Narelle had been full of her cruise and especially talkative and vivacious—and quite stunningly attractive. Yet Clarissa hadn't quite got around to imparting her momentous news. Tomorrow, I'll tell her tomorrow, she thought. Then Rob had come home and she'd wondered if he would mention it, but he hadn't.

  It had been her momentous news that had sent her to bed rather early, however. Being pregnant had that effect on her, she had discovered, the effect of wanting to fall asleep at the end of the day like a child. But this day, she'd woken up before midnight, which was unusual because she normally slept like a child, right

  through, but she had woken up alone and decided to see what Rob was doing.

  There was only one lamp on in the drawing room, so she had stood at the drawing-room doorway in the shadows and her bare feet had made no sound. And as she'd watched, Rob had released her mother and pushed her away abruptly.

  And her mother had staggered slightly, then dropped her head into her hands and started to speak in a low, choking voice but one that was perfectly audible to Clarissa.

  'I know why you married her. It was for revenge, wasn't it? For the years ... oh God, what a mess!'

  Rob's voice had been colder than Clarissa had ever heard it. 'Perhaps that too, Narelle. You did toy with me for years, didn't you? From the time I was about nineteen, to be precise, although even before that you ... looked. In fact you made my life hell. Even your own son began to wonder what was going on after that weekend he persuaded me to spend with him in Sydney for his birthday. But it was only a game to you, while I was a more or less penniless student and your part-time bloody butler, wasn't it? Then things changed

  'No! You don't understand—that had nothing to do with it! It was a sense of guilt, embarrassment ... despair that it could happen to me. A sense of disaster!'

  'Narelle. .'Rob had made a curt gesture as if to cut her off, but she went on in a husky, tear-laden voice, 'Believe me, I didn't want it to happen and I knew you didn't either. You respected Bernard, you were so close to Ian, but all the same it did.'

  'What's happened, Narelle, is that I've married Clarissa and this is all futile.'

  'It wasn't futile a couple of minutes ago...’

  'Yes, it was,' Rob had said grimly. 'Nor will it ever happen again. Even you surely couldn't want to cheat on your own daughter.'

  'No,' Narelle had said hoarsely and agonisedly. 'I just want you to admit... the truth. Is that so much to ask? Just for my ... own peace of mind, please.’

  There had been a tense little silence. Then he'd said, I don't suppose you've stopped to consider that I might have married her to save her from being sold off to the highest bidder. That is what you had in mind, isn't it, Narelle?'

  'No . . .'

  ' Yes," he'd said through his teeth. 'Do you think I'm blind or stupid? You had her out on a platter tempting every eligible man in town, but with a price tag on her—yes, Narelle, don't you know it was the talk of the town? To marry Clarissa Kingston, first you had to get her mother's approval, and the one sure way to do that was to buy out her share of Mirrabilla, otherwise she'd influence her so beautiful daughter elsewhere.'

  'Oh, Rob,' Narelle had said tormentedly, 'it wasn't like that. I wouldn't have forced her into anything! But she might have fallen in love with someone who ... who could have. Don't you realize I was thinking of Clarissa all the time and desperately trying to save Mirrabilla for her! But I was running out of time. You know now that we were one step away from bankruptcy.'

  'You could have come to me for help!'

  Narelle had made a small dreary gesture. 'I happen to have some pride.'

  Rob made a disgusted sound. 'Wouldn't it have been better to bury it than marry her off to God knows who, just to save face?'

  'Rob,' Narelle had taken a deep, visible breath, 'I know Clarissa has always... meant something to you, but not in this way. She's only a child compared 'Well, at least she'll be safe with me!' And that was when Clarissa had made a small sound an
d crumpled to the floor.

  The curious thing, Clarissa later realized, was how she had handled things from then on. Because the moment her mother and Rob had revived her from the dead faint she'd fallen into, it was if she'd been wrapped in an insulating cocoon of some kind. She hadn't cried or felt particularly anguished. She had just stared at them both out of huge, darkened eyes, and then turned away silently.

  And it was quite a long time before she realized she'd lapsed into something like a state of shock, because it had stayed with her months and been a buffer that had prevented either of them from getting through to her. She had simply turned away from them. Not that her mother had stayed at Mirrabilla more than another day, but she had attempted to make an explanation—Clarissa hadn't heard a word of it. As for Rob, she had said to him the next morning '—don't please; I don't want to talk about it. I understand now, I really do. I'm only sorry I'm pregnant.'

  Rob had studied her, his mouth set in a hard line, then he had closed his eyes briefly and said, 'I wish I could find the words to tell you that I'm not, Clarry.'

  But she had turned away.

  By the time she was about four months pregnant, Rob had told her that her mother would like to see her. And for the first time Clarissa had shown some emotion.

  She'd started to shiver and gone white, and two days later she'd tried to run away.

  But Rob had caught up with her only a few hours from Mirrabilla and brought her inexorably back. He had also been angrier than she'd ever seen him, and perhaps it was this that had finally elicited a spark of life from her.

  'I didn't run away!' she cried at him. 'I can come and go as I please. I know you think I'm a child, but I'm not. And if I choose to support myself

  'You're carrying on like a child, Clarry. You seem to forget you're with child yourself. And how the devil you expect to support both of you when you can't even look after yourself is a mystery to me. Just take a look at yourself! That alone should tell you how well you're supporting yourself and this baby. You're too thin, you've got great big shadows under your eyes ... Whatever else has happened, Clarry, it's no fault of your baby, and no one should have to tell you that! Not if you're as grown up as you maintain.'