Infatuation

by Charlotte Lamb

  There was a large policy meeting that morning; Luke was already there when Judith arrived. She was nervous, it would be the first time she had seen him since she walked away from him in his mother's garden.

  He was listening to one of the other executives with a frown, but as Judith walked through the door Luke turned his head, his gaze shooting across the room, and she knew he had sensed her arrival. It made her so tense to know that he was as aware of her presence as she was aware of his that she could hardly manage a polite smile when someone else said: 'Hallo, Judith, you look very elegant.'

  'Thanks,' she said, feeling Luke listening. She was wearing a lemon silk shirt and a pale grey skirt with a broad leather belt. She looked cool and immaculate; it was an image she had decided to project this morning. It wouldn't give away too much of the turmoil inside her.

  During the long meeting Luke at one time passed a letter to her. 'Have you seen this?' he said levelly, but Judith felt his fingertips brush her hand and she couldn't meet his eyes.

  'No,' she said. It was the first time she had spoken directly to him. It amazed her that all the others were so blind to what was going on; they hadn't picked up anything odd between Luke and herself, obviously nothing showed, yet she felt so screwed up that her facial bones ached.

  She left the meeting just before twelve. She felt Luke walking behind her; his stare seemed to be fixed somewhere between her shoulder blades, but someone was with him, talking rapidly, he had to let her walk away.

  She went through some letters with Janice until lunch time, then shot out of her office to drive across London to a lunch with someone with one of the major banks. It was four o'clock when she got back, and as she parked her car in the underground car park she saw Robert getting out of his own car.

  'What are you doing here?' she asked, smiling, as he walked over to join her by the lift. His footsteps rang in the high-ceilinged concrete vault; if he hadn't been smiling it would have given him an air of menace.

  'I'm here for a meeting with your Mr Aldridge.'

  'Aldridge,' she thought aloud. She hadn't yet familiarised herself with the names of all the executive staff. Hundreds of people worked in the Doulton-Klein building; probably she never would know all of them even by name.

  'Overseas Development,' he prompted, and then the name rang a faint bell. Judith nodded, smiling. 'I'm early.' Robert admitted. I’m on my way back from another appointment and there seemed no point in wasting time going to the office first. I thought I might get a cup of coffee from Aldridge's secretary if I had to wait.’

  'Come to my office, we'll find you some coffee,' she promised.

  'How hospitable!' Robert mocked, laughing.

  'We try to make our friends happy.' They stepped out of the lift and she stopped off at Janice's little office to say: ‘Make some coffee for two, would you, Janice?' Then she and Robert went into her own office and she sat down behind the desk and waved a hand at the chair in front of it. 'Sit down, Robert.'

  He was looking around, his face wry. 'Very impressive. You're obviously highly thought of to get an office this big—you were very wise to come here instead of coming to us. I doubt if we could have given you anything bigger than a cardboard box.'

  It was a very large, elegantly furnished office, far bigger than she had ever expected to be given; the carpel was a soothing creamy beige and the windows were masked by slatted blinds which she could use to keep oat the sunlight on a very hot day, the furniture was modem and expensive and on the matt blue walls hung a few beautifully reproduced prints of modern paintings. It had the air of being more of a sitting-room than an office, it was a place in which you could relax— if you ever had the time and no mound of work to get through.

  Robert perched on the edge of her desk and scanned the paperwork on her desk briefly. 'Do you get much aggro from the men? Much backbiting because you got the job and they didn't?'

  'If they have dark thoughts they keep them to themselves. I'm not the only female assistant Luke has—he has several in the States, too.' Judith had talked to them on the phone now; they seemed to be older than herself and they had been with Luke for some time, she had picked up a certain amount of possessive self-interest in the way they talked about him.

  'We all know he likes women,' Robert said drily. He sauntered around the desk to look out of the window. 'Not much of a view.'

  'I wouldn't have time to look at it anyway.'

  'You work too hard,' said Robert, bending over her chair to kiss her, so suddenly that she only just had time to move away before he did. He froze, staring at her, flushing, and she regretted her hurried duck away.

  'I'm sorry, Robert,' she stammered while he looked at her in that hurt surprise, and at that moment the door opened and they both looked, guiltily, towards the door, expecting to see Janice with the coffee. Instead they saw Luke.

  He stood on the threshold, looking at them, his lean face harsh. Judith went scarlet, then white, she saw his lips fasten into a tight line and his nostrils flare angrily. She knew he had caught something in the atmosphere between herself and Robert.

  'Hallo, Luke,' Robert said uneasily, dragging a smile into his face.

  Luke gave him a curt nod. He kept his eyes on Judith as he did so, only flicking a brief glance Robert's way. 'I want to talk to you, Miss Murry. My office in five minutes.'

  He went out, closing the door very quietly.

  'Aren't you allowed to have callers?' Robert asked jokily, but he gave her a curious, puzzled look.

  'I'm here to work, remember,' Judith said as lightly as she could. Janice came in with the coffee and a worried, uncertain smile.

  'Mr Doulton asked me to let him know when you got back. I didn't expect him to come himself, I just phoned his secretary and told her you'd arrived and the next minute he…'

  ‘That's okay, Janice,' Judith said reassuringly.

  'He seemed to be angry about something,' Janice added, lingering.

  ‘Obviously something has gone wrong,' said Judith, getting up. ‘I'd better go and find out. Stay and drink your coffee, Robert. I'll get Janice to ring Aldridge and tell him you're in the building and will be up soon.'

  'Free for dinner tonight?' Robert asked as she walked to the door, and she turned with a polite smile, shaking her head.

  ‘Sorry. I'm so busy…'

  'Another time, then,' said Robert, and she nodded. She was shaking as she walked along the corridor to Luke's office; she paused outside, breathing deeply to calm herself, then tapped and at his brusque: 'Come in,' opened the door.

  He was standing by the window with his back to her. 'Close the door. ' he said without turning, and she knew he was perfectly well aware that it was her. 'What was Gordon doing in your office? What was going on?' Luke demanded, and as she hesitated for an answer turned to face her, his grey eyes filled with icy hostility.

  'I know you've been dating him, but I don't like the idea of having him snooping around your office and taking a look at all the private documents lying around on your desk. You're not to have the man there again, is that understood? You have a very confidential job, I would have thought it was obvious that someone like Gordon shouldn't be running loose around the office.'

  'He only came in for a cup of coffee; he didn't look at any of the papers.'

  'What was he doing when I came in? You both jumped about six feet in the air—I've never seen such guilty expressions!' He was biting out the words between his teeth, a dark red colour in his face. Judith shrank from the anger in those grey eyes; there was violence in the air, distaste in the way he spoke.

  'We were startled, that's all.'

  'Startled? It looked to me as if you were in his arms until I opened the door.'

  Her own temper flared. 'If I had been that wouldn't be any of your business! My private life is my own affair. I'll make sure Robert never sees any confidential papers, but...'

  Luke moved abruptly and she shrank, fumbling with the door handle. He stood right in front of her, looking
down at her. 'For God's sake, Judith…'

  'Don't!' she broke out as he caught her shoulders.

  'I was jealous,' he said huskily, his fingers tightening on the slender bones he held.

  'You had no right…'

  'That makes it worse—I couldn't even punch his face for him, I had to pretend to be polite.'

  'That I didn't notice!' said Judith with a spurt of angry laughter. Was that what he called pretending to be polite? Looking at poor, bewildered Robert as though he was a slug he had just discovered in his lettuce?

  'I suddenly realised you could see him, let him kiss you, and there as nothing I could do about it,' Luke said in a thick, harsh voice. 'I want to tell the world you're mine, I don't want to have to stand back and watch you with other men, that would drive me slowly round the bend…'

  'I'd better leave then,' said Judith through what seemed to be a mouthful of broken glass. Every syllable hurt, but she said them, feeling Luke's fingers bite into her as he heard the words. He was white now, she saw lines around his eyes and mouth as he struggled for control.

  'You can't,' he said. 'I couldn't bear it, I'd miss you so much I wouldn't want to live.' He bent his head and she felt his lips against her throat. His voice whispered beneath her ear. 'I want to be with you all day; you aren't smiling at me, any more; I thought when I got back to London it would be enough just to talk to you, work with you, watch that smile in your eyes—but everything is going wrong; you're not with me, you're so distant. I tried to see you all day yesterday and you were never here and today you've been avoiding me— tell me the truth, darling. Is it all on my side? Don't you care, after all? I thought you did, I thought it was the same for you as me; was I fooling myself?'

  She closed her eyes and ached with a pain deeper than she had ever known. 'I can't, Luke.' Why had he met Baba first. Why had he asked her to marry him when he didn't love her?

  He was rigid, she couldn't see his face, it was buried against her neck, but his lips were icy and his breathing now was shallow and jerky.

  'You don't love me?' he asked, and she tried to lie to him, to tell him she didn't, but she could not force the words between her lips. Her heart would not let her lie to him.

  Luke lifted his head after a long moment and looked into her eyes. Judith tore herself away, walked into the centre of the room with her back to him. 'It won't work if you don't stay away from me,' she said. 'I'll have to leave if this sort of thing happens again.'

  Luke walked round his desk and sat down. He put his dark head between his hands and sat in silence and after a moment Judith left. There was nothing they could say to each other.

  The incident didn't make it any easier to work with him. Luke kept his distance now, he stayed strictly on the business level, but it was torture for Judith to be in the same room day after day and to feel Luke's awareness of her at every minute. Even though he didn't try to touch her again, or mention anything but work, there were unavoidable moments when their hands brushed or they stood next to each other in a lift or were alone in an office for an hour. Judith felt each second of those moments; she was conscious of her own hidden emotions and could guess at his, she watched the deft movement of his long-fingered hands as he flicked over a page, observed the tension of his cheekbones when he looked down, the unsteadiness of his mouth as he looked up again and caught her watching him, heard the husky note in his voice with a constricted heart. Once his knee touched her own and she took a quick breath. Luke looked at her sideways, a fever in his eyes. Dry-mouthed, she bent her head and pretended to read the paper in front of her. She had often pushed herself to the limit as far as work was concerned, that was nothing new to her—but now she was pushing both of them beyond the limits of human endurance and each day the sensual torture seemed to intensify. It almost seemed to have become an exquisite pleasure; the higher the barriers between them the more achingly she longed to cross them, and the more she wanted to touch Luke, feel his mouth on hers, the higher the screw of pain was turned until it passed the level at which pain was pleasure. She only became aware of that when she realised how closely she was flirting with danger; she was now deliberately seeing him alone, watching him, letting their hands touch. The more it hurt the more she enjoyed it. Neither she nor Luke ever mentioned what was happening, but she strongly suspected Luke was going through the same process. She knew he watched her, she knew he stood behind her chair in the board room and bent over to look at one of the folders in front of her, his cheek an inch from hers, she was well aware that he went out of his way to put a hand on her shoulder or her arm, give her a cup of coffee, brush a buzzing wasp away from her neck. If any other man had done any of those things she would barely have noticed. They were both using intimate, familiar moments like weapons to hurt each other because they could not reach each other any other way.

  During her fourth week with Doulton-Klein she rang Ruth to ask when Baba was coming back, and Ruth said in surprise: 'Didn't Luke tell you? She should be back on Saturday. She's had her tests and now she's waiting to hear for certain whether or not she's got the pan. She rang me a few nights ago. She was terribly excited. Apparently she's staying with the director at his house—Baba says he has a fabulous swimming pool and there are fifteen rooms in the house and three of them are bathrooms. He has a Jacuzzi and a solarium and an enormous barbecue patio. Baba says he has parties every single night.'

  'Sounds like fun,' Judith said jerkily. 'She has told Luke she's earning back, has she?'

  ‘Oh, yes, she said she's rung him lots of times. He keeps pressing her to come back, she said. Well, she can't be surprised about that—she's been away for ages and it isn't fair on Luke, but I think she's been having such a great time over there that she didn't want to come back. It's been like a simply fabulous holiday; all I expenses paid. She said she had three different tests; and…'

  'Is this director married?' Judith interrupted, and Ruth giggled.

  'Just between you and me, that's what I asked her—but he is, and his wife's a darling, Baba said, she gets on with her like a house on fire. It was his wife who asked Baba to stay with them, the hotel was so huge that Baba got lost when she tried to find her room.'

  Judith sighed. 'That was nice of them. American hotels are much bigger than ours—some of them have a thousand rooms.'

  'Help! No wonder Baba wanted to get out of it. She's keeping her fingers crossed about the part—as she's only done some amateur acting up to now the producer was dubious about giving it to her, but now that he's seen all her tests she thinks he may just change his mind.'

  Why hadn't Luke told her that Baba was coming home soon? Judith wondered as she put the phone down later. She sat staring at nothing, her face pale. She had to get a new job, that was obvious. It was going to be a bit difficult to explain why she should suddenly leave such a highly paid, high status job after only a short while. She was never going to get anything as good, she had to face that. But she knew she would not be able to stand the torture of being with Luke all day after he had married Baba. That would just send her quietly out of her mind.

  CHAPTER NINE

  MRS DOULTON rang Judith next morning just as she was dashing out to a meeting. 'I wondered if you could come down this weekend, Judith—I haven't seen you for some time and I enjoy our little chats. Could you drive down on Sunday?'

  Judith hesitated; she would have loved to go, but she was afraid of finding Luke there. 'Well, I…'

  'Would it be too boring for you? I suppose it must be, it's been good of you to put up with all my anecdotes about people you've never met,' Mrs Doulton said, picking up her hesitation and misinterpreting it.

  'I love talking to you,' Judith denied quickly. 'It's just that I have to see my grandmother this weekend—I rarely get a chance to visit her during the week, I'm too busy' I thought I'd take her out on Sunday; now that I have a car, you see, I can drive her to the sea or into the country, it gives her a, change of scenery.'

  'Bring her here,' Mrs Doulton said at on
ce as though under the impression that that was what Judith had been hinting at, and Judith stammered: 'Oh, I couldn't ... I mean ... it's kind of you, but you don't even know her…' She was horrified, caught between two fires, she did not want to hurt or offend Mrs Doulton, but she equally did not want to go down and visit her, running the risk of seeing Luke.

  'I’d like to know her,' said Mrs Doulton, laughing. 'From what you've told me about her I think we'll take to each otter. At least ask her if she'll come, will you, Judith?' and, of course Judith had to say she would.

  Judith had a very shrewd idea of her grandmother's character and how she would react in any situation; Mrs Murry was obstinate and unsociable, she did not like strangers, she was bound to refuse to go down to Lambourne to visit Luke's mother. Judith didn't feel too worried about promising Mrs Doulton that she would pass on the invitation; she would be amazed if it was accepted.

  'I'll let you know if we can come,' she said before she rang off. 'Will your daughter and her children be there?' She dared not ask if Luke was going to come; that would be too much of a giveaway.

  'They may drop in—I'm never sure if they will or not, it depends what else is happening. Angela's husband often has visitors for lunch on a Sunday and then they don't drive over to see me.' Mrs Doulton paused, then said: 'And Luke can't get down, either. He's flying to Paris on Friday night, isn't he?'

  'Is he? I've no idea,' said Judith with a sense of wild relief. Was Luke going to be away long? She didn't know whether to hope he was or to fear it; she would miss him, but at the same time she would be able to breathe more easily if he wasn't around for a while.