Escape from Desire

by Penny Jordan

  Tamara hid a small smile. Nigel had once worked in Fleet Street, and still retained the reporter’s instinct for keeping a story to himself until he was ready to commit it to print.

  ‘Would you mind if I rang Malcolm from the office?’ Tamara asked him. ‘He doesn’t know I’m back yet.’

  ‘He doesn’t?’ He looked at her. ‘What’s the matter with the man? Why wasn’t he waiting at the airport to sweep you off to …’

  ‘To his parents’ house?’ Tamara submitted wryly. ‘That isn’t Malcolm’s style.’

  ‘I know,’ Nigel agreed unrepentantly. ‘The man’s a complete stuffed shirt—a museum specimen. The thing is …’ he studied Tamara with an abstract gaze, ‘this is the first time I’ve heard you acknowledge as much. Having second thoughts? Holiday romance?’

  ‘Concentrate on your new scoop,’ Tamara told him firmly.

  ‘Aha! She doesn’t deny it. Now what, I wonder, does that mean?’

  ‘It means,’ Tamara told him, refusing to be flustered, ‘that like any other woman I like keeping men guessing.’

  As Nigel was to tell his wife that evening, it was the first time he could ever remember his cool in-control assistant behaving like a woman. ‘She’s in love,’ he told her, ‘you mark my words.’

  Pauline Soames, who had met Tamara on several occasions and felt vaguely sorry for her, laughed.

  ‘Of course she is,’ she agreed. ‘She’s engaged, isn’t she?’

  Tamara knew that Malcolm didn’t like her to ring him at his office. Punctilious in such matters, he had once told Tamara that it set a bad example to the rest of the staff, and she, she was appalled to remember, had gravely agreed.

  Like a butterfly emerging from a chrysalis she could hardly reconcile the repressed, unresponsive creature she had been with the woman Zach had brought to life.

  Malcolm’s secretary, the daughter of friends of his parents, with an almost painfully upper-class voice, informed her that Malcolm was still in New York.

  ‘He’ll be ringing me this afternoon,’ she added. ‘Can I give him a message?’

  Having asked her to ask Malcolm to call her as soon as he could Tamara went back to work. At four o’clock Nigel announced that he had had enough. Since he had spent the last thirty-five minutes doodling on his blotter and staring at the phone with a concentration that could have fractured steel, Tamara could only conclude that matters were not going according to plan.

  ‘Shall I hang on, just in case?’ she offered, glancing at the phone. ‘If you’re expecting a call.’

  ‘I was, but something tells me it won’t be coming through—not today anyway. No, you go home, Tamara. You look all in,’ he told her untactfully. ‘Completely washed out.’

  She did, Tamara acknowledged ruefully ten minutes later, as she examined her reflection in the cloakroom mirror.

  It was that time of the day when most of the afternoon shoppers were on their way home and the commuters had yet to leave their offices, and so Bond Street was relatively empty as she walked down it heading for her Tube station.

  Today, for some reason, the Elizabeth Arden salon which she had passed almost every day for the last few years without sparing a second glance seemed to draw her attention as she remembered the faces of the attractively made up girls she had seen that morning and compared them with hers.

  Without being aware of moving she had stepped inside. Had the girl behind the reception desk been more intimidating and less attractive she would probably have fled, but to her astonishment she found her tentative enquiries answered with a reassuring smile and the information that she was lucky—they had a cancellation and one of their make-up experts could give her a lesson right away.

  Something she had not expected was that the ‘expert’ would be male; and an extremely attractive male at that.

  When she had accepted his invitation to sit down he studied Tamara’s face in absolute silence for several minutes before pronouncing,

  ‘Your bone structure is excellent and like many Englishwomen you have a good skin, but you’ve neglected it. This blue eyeshadow is far too hard for you.’

  With deft movements he removed the make-up Tamara had applied, leaving her skin soft and supple, turning to a vast array of cosmetics concealed in the clinically clean units lining the small make-up room.

  ‘First we use foundation—not the sort you were using. It’s too thick—too heavy. Your skin must breathe, that way its true beauty will show through.’

  He applied the make-up with a damp sponge, so thinly that Tamara was astonished to see how the liquid transformed her skin, giving it a soft pearly sheen.

  The hour that followed was a revelation. She could hardly believe that the infinitesimal amount of soft lilac eyeshadow Pierre used had been all it took to make her eyes seem so large and almost amethyst in colour.

  ‘Subtlety is the key,’ Pierre advised her warningly. ‘Your eyes are magnificent—like the eyes of a startled fawn. Before you leave I will dye your lashes for you; they’re dark already, but darkening them a shade further will help to dramatise their size.’

  Blusher gleamed softly along cheekbones suddenly far more prominent than Tamara remembered, a soft slick of lipstick as pretty as any worn by the girls she had seen that morning completing the effect.

  With the help of the chart Pierre had done for her, she was able to purchase new make-up in the boutique, and Pierre’s final words rang in her ears as she hurried out into the now busy streets.

  ‘Wear your hair down,’ he had instructed her. ‘It’s far too beautiful to be scraped back into that ugly knot. If you must wear it up choose a softer style.’

  She would experiment with it tonight, she promised herself, hoping it would not be an impossible task for her to master the techniques Pierre had shown her.

  Further down Bond Street she lingered by the lingerie shop she had seen that morning, one half of her warning her scornfully that nothing she could do would bring Zach back, while the other—the new feminine half—yearned for the soft sensuality of silk and satin against the skin that could still remember every feverish second when the male warmth of Zach’s body had been its only covering.

  In the end she went in rather hesitantly. The boutique was empty of other customers and a pleasant girl came forward to ask if she needed any help.

  ‘The bra and briefs in the window,’ Tamara began nervously, ‘I …’

  ‘They’re gorgeous, aren’t they?’ the girl enthused, smiling. ‘I’ve been drooling over them myself. They’re new stock.’ She glanced at Tamara’s hand. ‘Perfect for a honeymoon. There’s a nightdress and matching negligee. Let me show them to you.’

  The gossamer-fine silk rippled over the counter, the delicate insets of lace adding to the cobwebby effect.

  ‘Try them on,’ the girl urged.

  Telling herself that she was being an absolute fool, Tamara stepped into the small cubicle. The nightdress, so demure off, had a surprising sensuality on, and not merely in the silky brush of the fabric against her skin. The lace insets revealed a considerable amount of pearly flesh; the shoestring straps which tied in tiny bows were deliberately provocative.

  When she left the shop half an hour later Tamara could still not believe that she had parted with such an exorbitant sum of money in such a lost cause. Her face flamed with the knowledge of her deceit. The girl had thought she was buying the clothes for the delectation of her ‘fiancé’, but Tamara knew that there was only one man she wanted to see her in that drift of silk and lace; only one man’s hands she desired to unfasten those satin bows and press seductive kisses in their place, and it certainly wasn’t Malcolm.

  That was when she knew beyond any shadow of a doubt that she would have to terminate her engagement. In the rain forest she had used it as a means of self-defence to prevent Zach from thinking that she was trying to trap him into a more permanent relationship than he wanted, but she was not in the rain forest now, and Malcolm would have to be told the truth—or at least
enough of the truth to convince him that their engagement was over.

  She had just gone to bed when her telephone started to ring, her first illogical thought that it might be Zach quenched when she realised that even if he wanted to get in touch with her he didn’t know where she lived.

  When she picked up the receiver the voice she heard was Dot’s, ringing to check up that she was all right.

  ‘I’m fine,’ Tamara told her lightly, ‘so fine in fact that I’ve just spent a fortune on new make-up and clothes.’

  ‘Good for you!’

  Dot sounded genuinely approving. They chatted for a few minutes and then she hung up, having reminded Tamara that she was more than welcome to pay them a visit.

  It was a novel experience for Tamara to have someone so concerned about her. She had always maintained a slight distance with people, never allowing them to come too close—until now, and she had let Zach come dangerously close and like a moth she was destined to be irreparably hurt by the thing that attracted her the most.

  She had barely replaced the receiver when the telephone rang again. This time it was Malcolm.

  ‘Who was that on the phone when I rang five minutes ago?’ he asked her crossly, not at all mollified when she explained.

  ‘Karen tells me you want to speak to me?’

  Not a word of concern for her, Tamara noticed critically, quelling the thought as disloyal. She had never found fault with Malcolm in the past and he was hardly to blame for exhibiting the very characteristics which had drawn her to him in the first place. Had she questioned him about it she had no doubt that he would have replied huffily that if she had not been fully recovered he would not have expected her to return home in the first place.

  ‘Yes, I did,’ she agreed. ‘When do you hope to come home?’

  ‘By the weekend. I’ve arranged for us to go and stay with the parents. You’ll be able to tell them all about your holiday. Not that they approve,’ he warned her. ‘Mother doesn’t think it’s a good idea for people to holiday separately.’

  ‘Malcolm, must we?’ she began desperately. ‘There’s something I want to discuss with you …’

  ‘Well, we can discuss it at the weekend. The parents always give us plenty of time together.’

  Deliberately contrived half-hours last thing at night which left Tamara feeling acutely selfconscious and stiffly unresponsive when Malcolm did take advantage of his parents’ ‘tactful’ disappearance to kiss her.

  ‘Malcolm, this isn’t something I …’

  ‘Look, Tam,’ he broke in, using the diminutive which she hated, ‘I can’t talk now. I’ll pick you up at the usual time on Friday. We’ll have plenty of time to discuss whatever it is. I must go.’

  Why had she never realised before how stuffy and pompous he was? Tamara asked herself.

  Knowing Malcolm’s fetish for punctuality she was ready well in advance of eight-thirty. She had packed enough clothes to take her through the weekend—a silk jersey dress for dinner on Saturday—the Mellors always dressed for dinner. The dress was a new one; a silver lilac shade which did things she had never dreamed possible for her eyes and figure.

  Taking Pierre’s advice, she had started to wear her hair loose and had even paid a visit to the hair-dressing salon favoured by some of the other girls at work where the ends had been trimmed and some of the excess weight removed, leaving her hair to curl softly in a gently shaped bell. She was even beginning to master the intricacies of her new make-up, and felt justifiably proud of herself as she caught sight of her reflection in the mirror.

  The Caribbean sun had bleached her hair slightly; her new misty mauve eyeshadow added haunting depths to her eyes, the soft iced raspberry lipstick outlined the warm curves of her mouth.

  To travel in she was wearing something completely different for her, a pair of casual cotton trousers cut in the latest style—a pretty shade of lilac with a toning striped blouson and a matching reefer jacket.

  Malcolm arrived sharp on the dot of eight-thirty, the expression of disapproval in his eyes as he looked at Tamara almost ludicrous.

  ‘You can’t mean to travel dressed like that?’ he complained.

  ‘Why not?’ Tamara retorted coolly. ‘It’s comfortable and I like it.’

  ‘You look like a teenager,’ Malcolm accused, but she refused to be swayed. Women far older than her dressed equally casually, and after all, didn’t she have the right to rescue what she could from those flat sterile years when living with Aunt Lilian had stolen from her the natural spontaneity of youth?

  In a disapproving silence Malcolm carried her case down to his BMW. Tamara knew that he hated her to talk while he was driving, and as the powerful car ate up the miles she found her tension steadily increasing. If only she had been able to tell him in London that she wanted to end their engagement! If only she wasn’t going to be forced to tell him while they were at his parents’. She had toyed with the idea of waiting until they returned, but her innate sense of honesty compelled her to tell him as soon as she could; she could not stay under his parents’ roof under false pretences, and besides, now that she had made up her mind she longed for the whole thing to be over and done with.

  The Mellors’ house was set in the Cotswolds, ‘Young Royals Country’, as Mrs Mellors was snobbishly fond of describing it.

  Malcolm’s parents were waiting to greet them when they arrived. There was the normal ritual of sherry in the drawing room. Tamara had not missed the way Malcolm’s mother had examined her reflection and it gave her an impish sense of amusement to guess that she was thinking how unsuitable Tamara was as a wife for her son. No doubt she would prefer the elegant Karen who came from the ‘right’ background.

  ‘Well, we’ll leave you young things together,’ the Colonel said with a heavy gallantry that grated on Tamara’s nerves. Of the two she preferred Malcolm’s father, but it was a daunting thought to realise that in thirty years’ time Malcolm would be almost an exact replica of him. ‘No doubt you’ll want to tell Malcolm all about your holiday, Tamara.’

  ‘Such a dreadful experience for you!’ Mrs Mellors exclaimed. ‘I remember when Humphrey was stationed in Ceylon one had to be so careful. Personally I’ve never cared for hot climates—so unhealthy and unhygienic. I never thought it was wise your going off on your own like that. And walking in that rain forest …’

  ‘Come along, my dear,’ the Colonel interrupted hastily. ‘We’ll see you both in the morning.’

  The drawing-room felt stuffy and oppressive. Tamara could smell the lily of the valley scent Malcolm’s mother used and she longed to suggest that they walk in the garden. Perhaps there she would find it easier to say what had to be said.

  ‘I think Mother is quite right, you know,’ Malcolm began in aggrieved tones, as he poured himself another glass of sherry. ‘I never cared for the idea of you going off like that, but you would insist.’

  ‘In other words, being bitten by a spider served me right, is that it?’ Tamara asked him dryly. Why had she never realised before how spoiled and at times downright childish he was?

  ‘Well, you must admit it wouldn’t have happened if you’d stayed at home.’

  ‘Like a dutiful fiancée?’ Suddenly the task ahead of her didn’t seem anywhere near as daunting as it had, and she mentally thanked Malcolm for unwittingly making it easier for her.

  ‘Malcolm, there’s something I have to tell you.’ She slid the solitaire off her finger, noticing that it had become quite loose—a result of her illness, no doubt. ‘I think we should break off our engagement. I don’t think it’s the right step for either of us. You need a wife who will be a social asset—someone like Karen. I don’t really fit in.’

  ‘Perhaps not, but you could learn,’ Malcolm told her with a tactlessness that astounded her. ‘Mother will be able to give you some good pointers.’

  ‘Malcolm, I don’t think you understand,’ she told him with weary patience. ‘It isn’t a question of whether I could “learn” to be the sort of
wife you want, it’s simply that I no longer want to be that sort of person.’

  He had started to go a dull red.

  ‘You mean you’ve met someone else—indulged in some cheap shoddy affair while you were away, is that it?’

  He was close enough to the truth for it to be painful, although Tamara managed to say valiantly, ‘It was neither cheap nor shoddy on my part, but yes, if you want to put it that way.’

  ‘You’ll regret it. We could have had a good life together,’ he told her, but Tamara noticed that he no longer attempted to dissuade her.

  ‘There’s just one thing,’ he added.

  Tamara waited.

  ‘Can we leave things as they stand at the moment? The parents have invited a neighbour over for dinner tomorrow. He’s something of a big noise locally, and it would upset them …’

  ‘And your mother’s table arrangements?’ Tamara suggested wryly.

  ‘You owe me that at least,’ Malcolm pressed on doggedly. ‘My parents are bound to know that it’s you who broke off our engagement if I tell them this weekend—I’d hardly bring you down here if it was a mutual arrangement—so I’d prefer to wait to announce the news to them until after we get back to London.’

  In the circumstances Tamara could hardly refuse. With great reluctance and even greater distaste she slid the solitaire back on her finger.

  At least Malcolm had accepted her decision without argument—had perhaps been secretly relieved by it.

  ‘So that’s settled, then,’ Malcolm exclaimed in evident relief. ‘Good—I don’t want Zachary Fletcher laughing at me behind my back. I had enough of that when we were at school.’

  Tamara felt as though all the breath had been dragged out of her lungs. It was fortunate that Malcolm wasn’t looking at her at that moment, because had he been, he must surely have realised the truth.

  ‘Zachary Fletcher?’ Did her voice actually tremble as much as it seemed to do to her?

  ‘Yes. He lives several miles away—he inherited a great barn of a place from his uncle. He was in the Army for a while, I don’t know what he’s doing with himself at the moment. The only reason the parents have invited him over is because they hope to persuade him to allow the hunt over his land.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘I’m going up to bed. Remember, Tamara, as far as everyone else is concerned we’re still engaged—at least until this weekend is over.’