A wolf-whistle, loud and crass, sounded over her shoulder. She looked. A young man, much younger than herself, was smiling at her from across the street. He put his hands over his heart as she looked, the mimed message crystal clear.
Normally she would have ignored such a display. But this time she laughed and smiled at him, before turning back to concentrate on her regime of indulgence.
Her first stop was with the cosmetic department, where she spent a considerable fortune on new makeup, picking out colors which she had never dared wear before but suddenly seemed to stand out from among the clever displays to catch her eye. She bought more of the perfume David had given her, buying the largest bottle available, plus matching powder and bath oil.
She replaced the torn camisole beneath her shirt with a new one and while she was in the lingerie department, bought more of the silky teddies, in a rainbow of colors. The torn camisole she dropped to the bottom of her bag and, for the rest of the afternoon, every time she opened her bag to find her wallet her fingers would touch the material and she would remember the way David’s hands had overcome the flimsy barricade.
The next stop was her hairdressers, where, although she had no appointment, she was nevertheless welcomed with much enthusiasm, the owner himself coming forward to speak to her. For the next two hours she was pampered, with a facial, manicure, pedicure, hair treatment and fresh cappuccino whenever she wanted. And during the pools of quiet, while she was left alone, Anastasia found her mind wandering back to her newly-hatched secret, to turn it carefully over and examine it from all angles.
After that, she wandered the streets, combing through every store looking for a ball gown. That morning she had been unenthusiastic. Now she found herself deeply interested but determined to get just the right dress. It was terribly important that her appearance tonight was just right. But the longer she looked, the more Anastasia grew sure that she would not find the right dress anywhere in town. The gown would be like her Edwardian dress—a special find that one would have to just stumble over, perhaps weeks before. Nothing she could see in the stores made quite the right statement she wanted. And all her instincts told her that the Edwardian dress wouldn’t be right.
The black mood she had been pushing away all afternoon finally descended upon her around three o’clock when she called a halt to her treasure hunt. Feeling flat and hollow despite her hectic shopping spree, she walked back to the underground car park under her office, intending to return home. She would have to wear one of the other dresses in her wardrobe, from past years.
She gave her car keys to the supervisor at the entrance to the car park and asked him to bring her car to the entrance for her to avoid seeing anyone from the office. It wouldn’t surprise her if Hugh had been keeping an eye on her car.
To her relief, the supervisor brought her car to the entrance without trouble. She piled the numerous shopping bags into the trunk and smiled. “Thanks.”
“No sweat, Miss. Have a nice time at wherever you’re going.”
She laughed. “Is it that obvious?”
He grinned. “It’s Friday afternoon and with all those packages…” He shrugged. “You’ve gotta be going out with a man.”
She nodded. “I guess you’re right,” she said and nudged her car out into the traffic. Only, which man? She bit her lip as she headed for home and a replay of the day’s events ran through her mind. What am I going to do?
Aunt Benitta came into the drawing room as Anastasia was uncorking a bottle of champagne.
“So you didn’t change your clothes, after all,” Benitta said.
She shook her head. “Did Dad think I had?”
“I suppose so. We didn’t discuss it. You know what your father is like.”
She nodded. “Well, he could have been right at that. I’ve been getting the most amazing reactions from people today.” She carefully poured the champagne into the cut crystal champagne flute she had placed on the bar. “Join me?” she asked Benitta.
“At this hour?”
“It’s past four,” she said, holding out her left wrist for Benitta to inspect her watch. She crossed to the glass fronted cupboards that held all the holiday crystal and took out another glass.
“Well, why not?” Benitta murmured. “It’s only a few hours’ head start, after all. If Pierre and Angelique’s ball is anything like those of yesteryear we will all be swimming in the stuff tonight.”
Anastasia slid the filled glass across the bar to Benitta. “Here. You’d better ease into it, then and build up a tolerance.”
Her aunt laughed at this illogical excuse and sat on one of the handsome bar stools with a groan of protest over the height of the stool in comparison to her petite stature and took a sip. “So, you’ve been getting some strange reactions, then?”
Anastasia nodded and leaned against the bar with both elbows. “Hugh tried to kiss me. In the office.”
Benitta took a moment to answer. “I gather that kissing you in the office is unusual.”
She took another long sip of the pale liquid. “Very. He’s never done it before.”
Benitta considered that for a moment. “I see.”
“I suppose you think that it sounds funny, that Hugh hasn’t kissed me at work?”
“I suppose it could be considered a reasonable arrangement, as you are both partners and influential in the company.” But Benitta’s voice didn’t agree with her democratic words. The old lady put her head to one side and examined her across the bar between them. “It does surprise me that he stopped at one kiss, though.”
She cut her gaze away from the close scrutiny her aunt was giving her and hastily swallowed some more champagne to give her an excuse for not answering. Benitta was edging just a little too close to territory she had been mentally side-stepping all afternoon. Anastasia wasn’t ready to step into the sensitive area yet, not even for her most favourite and beloved aunt.
But Benitta wasn’t to be stopped now the subject had been broached. “Or is it that you didn’t give him the chance, Anna?”
She stood up straight and lifted one eyebrow in a manner she hoped looked like an appropriate mixture of shock and benevolent good humour. “Aunt Benitta!”
“Don’t wave me away with that expression, Anna dearest. Your mother used to try to intimidate me with it too. It lost its power over me a long time ago.”
At the mention of her mother, Anastasia felt herself crumple like a deflated balloon. Slowly she picked up her glass and drank. “No, I didn’t give him the chance,” she admitted.
“Anastasia, you would have to be one of the most stubborn people I’ve ever met in my life. Your persistence is quite astonishing. I’ve seen you square up to opponents twice your size in every measure that counts and not back down even when it started to hurt. So why does mention of your mother always knock all the fight out of you?”
She shrugged and looked away from her aunt, feeling the crease between her brows begin to ache from being held so firmly in place.
“You collapse every time her name is mentioned in connection with yours. Like this morning, when your father said her name. No wonder you have such a cold war relationship with Christopher. You look and act like Katherine so much that her name is constantly brought to his mind when he is in conversation with you. And you, with your normally gung-ho attitude, must find it mentally debilitating to have to throw in the towel every time he does speak of her.”
Anastasia bit her lip, fighting back the torrent of words pushing at her lips. Now was not the time to confess all. It would be too much for even her aunt’s tolerant attitudes. “I hadn’t noticed myself doing that,” she countered.
Benitta gave her a look of wise disbelief and drank. She put the glass down and pointed one manicured finger against the bar, an inch or so from where Anastasia had rested her midriff against the padded leather edge. “Shall I tell you why you got such unusual reactions to your appearance today, Anastasia? Because today, more than any other day where you dress in th
e same ordinary business suits that you barely even think about when you put them on…today, you looked like what you are—a woman deeply in love. You were glowing with it.”
Anastasia had not intended to allow herself the indulgence of such a dramatic reaction but her body betrayed her. At her aunt’s astonishing statement, she jumped and her hand knocked the champagne glass to the floor, where it shattered with a musical, sodden plop.
“Damn.” Forcing herself to move normally, she crossed over to the door that led into the family room and through to the kitchen, to find Mrs. Greenaway, the housekeeper, to help her clean up the mess.
It took several minutes of fuss before the floor behind the bar was clean again and Mrs. Greenaway had returned to the kitchen. During that time, Anastasia was aware of Benitta’s sharp, patient examination of her. And when finally they were face to face once more, her aunt smiled slowly, her expression saying that she wouldn’t be distracted from getting Anastasia’s response. “Well?” she asked.
She sighed. “I wish you had told me this before. It would have saved me a week of agony and a bewildered morning.”
“I thought you knew.”
“I knew I wasn’t in love with Hugh,” she replied carefully.
“You just didn’t know you were in love with his best friend.”
This time, Anastasia let her true astonishment show. “You knew? Who else has guessed? Who else knows?”
“I’m the only one close enough to you who has both eyes open, so I doubt anyone else has seen it…yet.” Benitta drained her glass of champagne. “Including David,” she added. “Your father is too caught up in his own woes to see clearly and Hugh is in love with you too, so even if he did guess the truth, he would deny it for as long as he could.”
Anastasia found herself compulsively smoothing out the foil at the neck of the bottle with her thumb, her hand resting around the curve. “What will I do?” she asked in a hoarse whisper, voicing the question that had been worrying her all afternoon.
“What else is there to do? Go to him of course. Tell him. And tell Hugh.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?” Benitta said reasonably. “You’re not married yet. Engagements can be broken. And I hardly think Hugh can blame you for falling in love, although he may wonder why you agreed to marry him in the first place. But that’s between you two, of course.”
“I can’t tell anyone this,” Anastasia insisted. “Especially not David. He’ll want… I can’t go to him like that,” she amended.
Benitta threaded her fingers together and rested them on the bar. “Why not?” she repeated.
“Oh, Benitta, you know why not. Look at my parents. Look at what they had. I can’t risk that. I can’t risk hurting David the way she hurt Daddy—still hurts Daddy, even now. Especially whenever he sees me.”
“You can’t hurt David but you would risk hurting Hugh?”
“He would have been safe. I don’t love him and he doesn’t love me like that…like they did. It’s not the same.”
“But with David it is?”
“Yes…No.” Anastasia shook her head in frustration. “I don’t know. We haven’t spoken about this, not in this way.”
“Then you have spoken about it in some way?”
“Not about love.” Anastasia pushed the bottle out of her reach, now bare of foil, which lay in fragments all over the bar. She tried to marshal her thoughts, to pin down exactly what it was she was trying to say. And now that she had recognized that she loved David, she found she could identify the problem. Speaking slowly and with care, she said, “Everyone who knew Mom, who remembers what it was like when she was alive, remembers only that Mom and Dad were terribly in love. Their courtship and marriage is a legend—the celebrated romance of the decade. You’re one of the people who keeps the legend going, Benitta. I’m not sure that you spread the tales for that reason but whatever reasons you do it for, you’re keeping the legend alive.”
“I do it because I loved them both. And that is how I remember Katherine, as the beautiful woman who stole my brother’s heart and the perfection of their love for each other. It’s my way of telling myself that her death wasn’t the waste it seems to be. That she had a complete life during the time she was among us.”
Anastasia nodded. She could feel her chest beginning to tighten up, heralding tears and made herself breathe deeply to clear them. She needed her voice to try to make Benitta and herself, understand.
“Yes, you see what everyone else sees. But it really wasn’t like that at all, Benitta. I was there, at the end and I can remember and what I remember is that they fought. All the time and often long enough to bring them to a bloody standstill. I remember this house as a child. It was filled with unhappiness for a lot of the time. Empty, with people off stage in the wings, licking wounds, recovering from injuries before the next battle.”
Benitta pursed her lips. “Every couple fights. It’s human nature.”
“The way they fought wasn’t natural. They weren’t lover’s tiffs. They would say the most acrimonious, the most damaging things to each other. They would scream them out.” Anastasia shivered. “I can remember watching the tendons on my father’s neck stand out as he shouted and his fists balled up tight, making the veins throb in his wrist.”
Benitta shook her head. “You were a child. You were how old when your mother died? Five years old? To a child, such things can seem very much distorted and exaggerated.”
“I’m describing it from an adult’s perspective, already adjusted,” Anastasia replied. “To my five-year-old’s memory, those fights were Armageddon itself. Nothing was more terrifying than when they were fighting. Nothing ever has been. That’s why I can stand up to anyone. I’ve seen the worst, so far as I can remember.”
“Even so. Lover’s tiffs can be acrimonious. It depends on the people involved, their personalities and natures. And your parents were very passionate people. They lived life to the full. Nothing was done at half strength. They partied hard, loved hard, played hard. And from what you remember, they fought hard.”
Anastasia shook her head again. The tears were very close now. “They may have loved each other once, Aunt Benitta. But it died, not long after I was born and I grew up among the carnage. You were in England by then. You didn’t see it happen. You probably wouldn’t have known, even if you had been here. They kept it very private. Except from me.” She grabbed the bottle of champagne and another glass and filled it.
“No, they loved each other. Passionately. I refuse to believe it could just die like that. How could it? What could possibly have happened to make it die?” It was Benitta, now, who was fighting to believe what to her was inconceivable.
Anastasia drank deeply. “What about the affair my mother was supposed to have had with the artist who painted her picture?” she suggested.
“That? Vengeful gossip. There were those among your mother’s friends who envied her because her marriage was idyllic, you know.”
“But what if it was true?” Anastasia persisted.
“Impossible.”
“Is it?” Anastasia smiled bitterly. “Then tell me why, six months before she died and barely a week after her final sitting for the portrait, my mother walked out on us?”
Benitta sat very still and Anastasia was appalled at her own callousness when she saw a tear trickle down the crinkled cheek. Anastasia patted Benitta’s hand where it lay on the bar, her own tears forgotten.
“I’m sorry, Auntie. I’m truly sorry. I didn’t stop to think how it might upset you to hear this.”
Benitta sniffed and wiped the tear away with her fingertips. “It’s nothing. An old romantic’s dreams, is all.”
“You knew Katherine left us, didn’t you?”
“Oh, yes. But it was something that was always shrouded in mystery. Your father has never spoken of it to me, or to anyone else that I know.”
“He’s never spoken a word to a soul,” Anastasia said.
Benitta nodded. “
I still don’t want to believe you, Anna. I am a romantic and it’s hard to let the memory of such a perfect relationship be tarnished. They loved each other, I’m sure of that. Your father has never recovered properly from her death. He misses her dreadfully.”
“He hates her,” Anastasia said flatly. “He hates what she did to him, the misery they made of their lives in the end. He keeps her portrait on the wall to remind himself of his folly and stays in this house as a shrine to the bitter memories she evokes.”
“Oh, my dear…” Benitta began She looked appalled.
“And then there’s me,” Anastasia continued. “Dad has tried so very hard to make sure I didn’t grow up like her. And he almost succeeded. If I’d married Hugh and never met David, who’s done his level best to undo it all, Dad would have succeeded.”
“You speak as if Christopher has tried to condition you. An experiment.”
“He didn’t need to. All he had to do was withhold his approval whenever I succumbed to impulse and followed my nature—the nature I inherited from my mother, along with her looks.” Anastasia tried to smile and only half succeeded. “So you see? I can’t go to David. I can’t put him through what my mother put my father through, even if I thought that sort of relationship is what David wants. And I don’t even know that.”
Benitta delved into a pocket and produced a handkerchief, which she used to dab at her eyes. She sniffed again and sipped at the remains in her glass. “My dear,” she said gently. “I think you’ve misjudged both your father and David.”
Anastasia shrugged. “My father isn’t about to sit down and explain it to me. As you said a while ago, you know what he’s like.”
“And what about David? Does he want anything from you? What about the simple friendship you have been cultivating?”
“There is nothing simple about it,” she replied.
The older woman pursed her lips again, thinking. “I believe you need to talk to him, Anastasia. Find out. Ask him.”
Inconvenient Lover Page 12
