A few minutes later the usual Saturday rush was in full swing.
'Phew!' muttered Jo at one stage. 'I'm glad I'm not in tomorrow.'
'Lucky old you,' said Tim enviously. 'Can you hold the fort a minute? Time I collected glasses.'
'Right.' Jo turned back to the bar to find Rufus leaning against it.
'Good evening, Jo,' he said affably. 'Scotch and soda, please.'
Jo fought her heart back from her throat to its normal location and complied without a word, hoping her tan hid the flaring colour in her face. To have Rufus materialise on the other side of the bar threw her into a confusion she hadn't felt since she was eighteen and pursued by the worldly Linus.
She took the proffered banknote and gave him the requisite change, glad she had an electronic till to do the sums. 'Two evenings on the run at the Mitre, Rufus?'
'There's no law against it, Jo.'
'No, but a touch different from your usual social round, surely?'
'You know nothing about my social life,' he said without rancour.
'True. But I've never seen you here before,' she pointed out. 'I thought the Chesterton would be more your kind of thing.'
'I use it to entertain clients, I grant you, but the man I brought here yesterday was very impressed with the meal. Until last night I had no idea you still worked here,' he added, and smiled. 'I'll come here more often in the future.'
Jo turned away to serve another customer, and by the time she was free again Rufus was sitting at a table, talking to a vivacious blonde with a tan almost as dark as her own. After the long, hot summer tanned faces were common, but the blonde was pretty, and very animated as she laughed with Rufus, who looked suitably attentive. As he was more than entitled to do, Jo reminded herself, furious to discover she felt jealous. But she had always known that Rufus was unlikely to remain a widower for ever, nor would generous Claire have wanted him to.
Depressed by the superiority of Claire's nature to her own, Jo was glad to be kept busy by the usual organised chaos of Saturday evening, and had no more opportunity for speculation on the social life of Rufus Grierson until closing time. When Phil rang the bell for 'time' Jo sighed with relief, and craned her neck to see across the still crowded room, but there was no sign of Rufus and his attractive blonde companion. They were probably on the way back to Rufus' new home right this minute, thought Jo bitterly. He had obviously decided his year of mourning was up.
Jo collected her bicycle from one of the Mitre storerooms, wheeled it across the rapidly emptying car park, and found Rufus Grierson leaning against a car under the light near the exit.
'I'll stow that in the back of the car and drive you home,' he informed her, and grasped the handlebars.
Jo, torn between delight at the sight of him and anger at his pre-emptive manner, scowled irritably. 'No, thanks. I like to ride home.'
'After the night you've just spent in there?' he said, shaking his head. 'Come off it, Jo. You looked fit to drop by closing time.'
'I thought you'd gone, long before then,' she said coldly.
'We moved into the other bar when Rory arrived.' He looked down into her blank face. 'My brother, Rory, in case you've forgotten. And Susannah, his bride-to-be.'
So the blonde belonged to his brother. To her shame Jo's spirits soared.
'It's taking you a long time to accept a lift,' observed Rufus.
'Mainly because I can't think why you're offering it.'
'My motives are pure, I assure you,' he said sardonically. 'You're tired; I'm here with a car.'
'But why are you here?'
'It seemed the best way to achieve conversation with you, Jo Fielding.' He frowned. 'I was worried about you.' 'Worried? About me?' Her eyes widened incredulously.
'Look,' he said impatiently. 'Couldn't we continue this in the car? The bike comes apart, I assume?'
'No need; I'll leave it here. I do sometimes, if I get a lift.'
'So I'm allowed to drive you home?'
'Yes.' Jo looked him in the eye. 'But only as far as the front gate.'
'Don't worry. All I ask is a few minutes' conversation, not a repeat of last night—ravishing experience though it was,' he added deliberately.
Jo wrenched the handlebars away from him and wheeled the bike back across the car park. When she rejoined Rufus he was standing where she'd left him, swinging car keys from a long forefinger.
'It's a different car,' commented Jo as he handed her in.
'I got rid of the other one after the funeral.'
Which put an end to conversation until they reached the quiet, tree-lined streets on the outskirts of town, when Jo broke the silence to ask what Rufus wanted to talk about.
'Is it something to do with Claire?' she asked warily.
'No.' Rufus turned into Bruton Road, where Jo lived in one of a row of tall Edwardian houses converted into flats. He killed the lights, then undid his seat belt and turned towards her purposefully. 'I'd like some information.'
She frowned. 'What information do I have that can possibly interest you, Rufus? How to pull a pint? Chis it something to do with my work? If so, no chance.
Reporters never reveal their sources—especially to devious lawyers!'
'I'm neither devious nor interested in you as a journalist—'
'I find it hard to believe you're interested in me at all,' she snapped. 'So get to the point.'
'I will if you'll be quiet long enough to let me,' he said irascibly, and drew in a deep breath. 'Let's start again. Jo, did you mean what you said last night about not having a lover?'
She gave him a startled look. Surely Rufus wasn't proposing himself for the post? She thrust the dizzying thought away, and assured him there was no man in her life at the present.
'Not even one of those platonic friends you talked about?'
'No. Since I started on my novel my social life has dwindled to nothing except for the odd party at Thalia's, or Callie's.' Jo grinned suddenly. 'My sisters insist I socialise now and then. They're convinced I'll turn odd and become a recluse.'
'Difficult to be reclusive while you work at the Mitre,' he observed. 'I was watching you tonight. You're very popular with the customers. It's a clever balancing act.'
She raised an eyebrow. 'Balancing act?'
'Friendly and warm, but also brisk and efficient.'
'Thank you. I do my best. Even so from time to time some man gets the wrong impression. But Phil— the manager—is always on the alert. He's an expert at pouring oil on troubled waters.' Jo gazed at him searchingly. 'So what else did you want to know?'
Rufus turned to meet the scrutiny. 'It's difficult to express it without giving you offence, but, to be blunt, I need to know whether you've slept with anyone else recently.'
'What?' Jo glared at him, incensed. 'It's absolutely none of your business who I sleep with.'
'In this instance it is,' he said with finality. 'So tell me, Jo. Before last night when was the last time you made love?'
Instead of slapping his face, Jo reached for the seat belt and undid it clumsily, so angry that her fingers were trembling. But before she could jump from the car Rufus caught her by the arm.
'Calm down. I'm not asking out of prurient curiosity.'
'I fail to see why you're asking me at all!'
'Answer me first, then I'll give you my reasons.'
Jo stared into his intent face for a moment, then shrugged indifferently. 'If you must know, I haven't had a relationship of that kind for a long time. I don't sleep around. Just before Claire died I met a man called Edward Hyde, who works for my sister's husband. After the funeral I was very down. Edward was kind and sympathetic and I was lonely, so when he asked me to marry him I said yes.' She sighed. 'It was a mistake. I discovered he wanted to change my lifestyle completely. I could have given up the bar work without a backward glance, of course, but not the writing. So that was that. If Edward hadn't been so sweet when I was grieving for Claire I wouldn't have said yes in the first place. So I gave him
back his ring.'
'When?'
She shrugged irritably. 'I can't remember to the exact second! Some time in November, last year.'
'And no one since?'
'No one.' Jo eyed him militantly. 'Why do you want to know?'
'Because if you happen to get pregnant from last night I'd want to be certain I was the father,' said Rufus bluntly.
'Get lost!' she said stormily, her hand shaking with temper as she tried to get her key in the door.
Rufus took the key from her and turned it in the lock. 'It needed to be said.'
She turned on him, glaring up into his face which, to her added fury, looked as inscrutable as ever. 'Even if it did happen I wouldn't tell you, Rufus.'
'That would be very foolish,' he said, with the patience of someone talking to an unreasonable child. 'Remember what I said last night?'
'You said a lot last night,' she said tightly.
'I said I wanted a child as much as Claire did. I also said that I still do. So if you are pregnant due to my loss of control last night I will naturally take responsibility.'
Jo's eyes glittered with rage. 'Oh, you will, will you?' She gave a scornful little laugh. 'In your dreams!'
She went inside and slammed the door in his face, then ran up all the flights of stairs so fast that lights were dancing in front of her eyes by the time she was safe inside her flat. She slammed the door shut and stalked about the room like an angry tigress, vibrating with the temper she rarely lost these days. She was twenty-nine years old, she reminded herself. A grown woman shouldn't indulge in tantrums.
Nevertheless, it was a long time before Jo simmered down enough to make herself some coffee. She slumped on the sofa to drink it and worked her way through half a packet of chocolate biscuits while Rufus' words went round and round in her brain.
What if he was right? Unlike Claire she had no idea when she was fertile. And in the past contraception was something she'd firmly left to the men involved — all two of them. What an idiot! Until Rufus had brought the subject up the possibility of consequences from last night had never occurred to her. Now it would be hard to think of anything else until she knew whether she was pregnant or not.
With an anguished groan Jo went off to have a shower. And let out a screech of frustration when she found Rufus' raincoat still hanging there.
Jo got up next morning with a blinding headache, the direct result of washing down chocolate biscuits with black coffee while out of her mind with worry. As she still was, she realised bitterly, and swallowed a couple of painkillers, chewed dutifully on a plain biscuit, then moved on to several cups of tea. To add to her gloom it was raining, and because there was no delivery of newspapers on a Sunday she would have to walk to the nearest newsagent a few roads away.
Jo pulled on a raincoat and went downstairs, wincing as she came out into daylight, despite the greyness of the day. When she arrived back with her usual armful of papers the light was glowing on her answering machine. She pressed the button, then breathed in sharply as she heard Rufus' voice.
'Jo. I'm on the public phone at the Mitre. No one knows anything about my raincoat.'
Jo's headache was beginning to subside an hour later, when her doorbell rang.
'Yes?' she said, resigned, into the intercom.
'Rufus here, Jo.'
'Hello.' She sighed. 'Sorry I forgot your raincoat. You'd better come up.'
When Jo opened the door to him Rufus eyed her searchingly. 'Good morning, Jo. You look fragile.'
'Headache.' She motioned him inside. 'I'll fetch your coat.' She went to the bathroom for it, and returned to her sitting room to find Rufus sitting on her sofa reading the financial section of her paper.
'By all means make yourself at home,' she said, resorting to sarcasm to disguise her pleasure at the sight.
Rufus got up. 'Are you expecting someone?'
'No.' She breathed in deeply. 'But I feel rough. I'd very much like to be alone.'
'Do you get headaches often?'
'Only if I ignore the things that trigger them off.' She gave him a hostile look. 'I was in such a temper when I got up here last night I ate half a packet of chocolate biscuits and drank a lot of black coffee.'
The corners of his mouth twitched. 'Your cure for stress?'
'Yes. I don't smoke—and I'm never, ever drinking brandy again,' she added bitterly, eyes kindling.
'I just want a quick word, then I'll leave you in peace.'
'Right.' Jo folded her arms militantly. 'Say your word.'
'I looked at your calendar while you were in the bathroom. I gather that by next weekend you'll know whether you're pregnant or not,' he said rapidly, dumbfounding her.
Jo stared at him, outraged. 'How do you know that?' she demanded.
'You forget,' said Rufus, unmoved. 'For my poor, darling Claire life revolved latterly around certain red asterisks on the calendar. You mark yours in the same way.'
Jo's face flushed scarlet with angry embarrassment. 'This is preposterous. You've no right to trespass on my private life—'
'I agree, in every other aspect of it,' said Rufus, taking the wind out of her sails. 'In this instance I have every right.'
'It doesn't apply,' she said tightly.
'It might.' Dark eyes locked with hers. 'Claire once told me you preferred to leave contraception to the men in your life.'
Jo ground her teeth, wondering what else had Claire told him. 'Only two men ever featured in my life in that way, so it's never been a problem.' She turned away to stare out of the window across the rooftops. 'But if it's third time unlucky and I'm pregnant due to your attentions I prefer to deal with it myself.'
'What do you mean by "deal"?' he asked sharply.
She turned back to face him, head high. 'Coping. On my own. I don't need a man in my life for anything, not even as a father for this mythical child we don't even know exists yet.' She bit her lip. 'This is ridiculous, Rufus. We're both making a fuss over something that hasn't even happened yet — and probably never will.'
'I want your promise that you'll tell me if it does,' he ordered. 'I'm not leaving here until I get it.'
The look in his eyes made Jo decide that he meant what he said. 'Oh, very well,' she said wearily at last. 'I promise. Though if I say all's well how will you know if I'm lying?' she added curiously.
'Because the one thing I do know about you, Jo Fielding, is your honesty. Claire said you never lied about anything, not even to get yourself out of trouble in school,' he said, disarming her. He put his hand under her chin and raised her face. 'I'll give you some advice for free. If you take to lying regularly you'll have to control a certain little mannerism that gives you away.'
She dodged away, horrified by her body's reaction to his touch. 'What do I do? Tell me!'
'Not on your life.' Rufus laughed, his eyes dancing in a way she'd never seen before. 'I'll keep that bit of information to myself. It may come in very useful in the future.'
Jo hid her inner turmoil with a stiff little smile. 'Since we're unlikely to come into contact in the future I don't see how.'
'Who knows what the future has in store?' he returned affably. 'I'll leave you in peace to get rid of your headache.'
'Very good of you,' she said acidly, and opened the door. 'Goodbye, Rufus.'
He picked up the raincoat and went outside to the landing. 'No doubt it's pointless to ask you to ring me.'
'Utterly pointless.'
'Would it also be pointless to ask you to have dinner with me one night?'
'Yes, it would.'
'Why exactly?' he asked with interest.
'Rufus,' said Jo, wanting him to contradict her, 'you don't even like me.'
He gazed at her consideringly for a moment. 'Don't I?' he said at last, and went sauntering downstairs without waiting for a reply.
CHAPTER THREE
Jo's novel had been simmering in her brain for years before she'd finally decided that to write it she had to give up her job on Features
at the Gazette and freelance. It was a decision she'd never had cause to regret. She'd worked up a list of profitable contacts and managed to make a very respectable living. Unknown to most people other than her family, she kept on her part-time work at the Mitre more for research for her novel than any real need to earn money.
When Rose Fielding had been persuaded to move she helped Jo find a flat, donated some furniture from the family home to furnish it, and made Jo's curtains herself before going to Oxfordshire to take up residence in the lodge Jo always referred to as the Willow Cabin, due to its location at Thalia's gate. And, faintly guilty at her pleasure in living alone, Jo had occupied her flat for six months by the time Rufus Grierson made his unexpected re-entry into her life.
'You'll be lonely and get all reclusive and peculiar, living alone and not seeing anybody,' had been her sisters' comment. Rose Fielding said little, but came up to Pennington for a day now and then, rang her youngest child regularly, and made sure Jo went down to Oxfordshire at least once a fortnight.
Since moving into the flat Jo had never felt in the least lonely. But now it had all gone wrong. Her peace was shattered. After a year-long struggle to put Rufus Grierson from her mind he was now all she could think about, including his arbitrary demand to know what happened—or didn't happen—on the date starred in red on her calendar. In the end she thrust the calendar in a drawer and forced herself to ignore it, but the damage to her concentration was done. She switched the computer on every morning, but she was lucky if she managed even a page or two of progress before it was time to pack up for the day and go off to the Mitre.
At the end of the week Jo went early to put flowers on Claire's grave, and stood beside it for some time, staring blindly at the massed blooms heaped on it. Rufus, it seemed, had been earlier still. When she got back she switched on her computer and sat staring at the screen. She was four-fifths of the way through the story, and had only the climax to get in print—the ending which had been planned in her head since the start. But after her early-morning pilgrimage she found it even harder than ever to transfer her finale from her head to the computer, and in the end she gave it up and went out shopping for food supplies.
The Second Bride Page 4
