Flame of Desire

by Carole Mortimer

  ‘Well, you ungrateful girl! I’m sure I was only trying to tell you what was best.’

  ‘For whom?’ Sophie demanded angrily. ‘Certainly not for me. You can have no idea as to the state of my marriage, only my husband and I know that. I have no intention of divorcing. Luke.’

  ‘But Nicholas said—’

  Her angry gaze swept over the two of them. ‘Nicholas seems to have said altogether too much, Mrs Sedgwick-Jones. I like your son, I like him very much, but I am certainly not going to marry him.’

  ‘Well!’ and for once the woman seemed at a loss for words.

  ‘Now I really do have to go,’ Sophie said politely. ‘Excuse me.’

  Nicholas caught up with her in the driveway. ‘Let me drive you home.’

  She was grateful for the offer, having made her grand’ exit and realising she had no way of getting home except to walk there, but she didn’t know if she should accept it. Nicholas seemed to have read far too much into her acceptance of his dinner invitation, and she didn’t want him to think she was encouraging him if she accepted this offer of a lift.

  ‘Come on, Sophie,’ he encouraged. ‘We can talk on the way.’

  Perhaps that wouldn’t be such a bad idea, at least she could finally try to convince him of her sincerity when she said she couldn’t marry him. ‘Very well,’ she nodded coolly.

  ‘I know Mother was a bit heavy-handed,’ he began once they were on their way, ’but—’

  ‘Heavy-handed!’ Sophie scoffed. ‘She couldn’t have been any more blunt if she’d tried!’

  He grimaced. ‘Oh, but she could. She doesn’t approve of my wanting to marry a divorced woman.’

  ‘But that’s the whole point, Nicholas,’ she turned in her seat to look at him. ‘You aren’t going to marry me. You shouldn’t have deceived your mother in that way. I consider you wholly to blame for tonight’s embarrassment.’

  ‘It was wishful thinking, Sophie.’

  ‘And that’s all it can ever be,’ she said gently, her anger evaporating. ‘I did try to explain to you this afternoon, but you wouldn’t listen.’

  ‘I guess I didn’t want to. When he told me the two of you were getting married I felt as if the bottom had fallen out of my world. But when I found out you were living apart I—well, it gave me new hope. I suppose I just hoped too much.’

  She bit her lip. ‘I’m sorry. I never meant to hurt you.’

  ‘But you’re in love with him,’ he said dejectedly.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then why— Sorry, I’m interfering again.’

  ‘Why leave him?’ Sophie finished with a slight smile. ‘It’s quite simple, Nicholas. He doesn’t love me.’

  ‘But he married you!’

  ‘Not because he loved me. No, it was a much more basic emotion than that.’

  ‘Oh!’

  She could see she had embarrassed him again. ‘Sorry, but you did ask.’ She squeezed his arm. ‘Thank you for bringing me home. And I hope I haven’t made things too difficult for you with your mother.’

  He shrugged. ‘No more difficult than usual. She isn’t an easy person to live with.’

  No, she could imagine she wasn’t. ‘Thank you once again,’ she said.

  She made as little noise as possible going to her room, not that she thought she would disturb anyone, but because she wanted to be alone to think.

  She had thought of Luke a lot the last five weeks, had thought of nothing else in fact, but she had tried to avoid analysing her feelings towards him. But talking to Nicholas and his mother she had discovered that she didn’t want to be apart from Luke any longer, was prepared to take the little he had to give her. Who knew, her love for him might one day penetrate through his physical desire for her and he would perhaps feel a small measure of love for her.

  But he had told her he wouldn’t take her back, and he had meant it. He could even now have someone else living in the apartment with him. There was only one way to find out—go and see for herself.

  It wasn’t an easy decision to come to, to risk humiliation much worse than anything else she had ever known. But they had never had that talk Luke had suggested they have, never actually sat down and discussed anything. She thought it was time they did so.

  She turned from removing her make-up as there was a gentle knock on her bedroom door, smiling at Rosemary as she came into the room.

  ‘I thought I heard you come in.’ Rosemary came to sit on the bed, watching her ministrations. ‘You’re back early.’

  ‘I should never have gone.’ Sophie smoothed her newly cleansed face. ‘Nicholas’s mother instantly started talking about my divorcing Luke and marrying Nicholas, and you know how I feel about that.’

  ‘Divorcing Luke or marrying Nicholas?’

  Sophie blushed. ‘Marrying Nicholas.’

  ‘Does that mean you’re no longer sure about this separation from Luke? Your father said—’

  ‘I’ve changed my mind since I spoke to him,’ she cut in hurriedly.

  ‘Since earlier this evening?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about, actually. Something you said to your father has been troubling me.’

  ‘What’s that?’ asked Sophie.

  ‘Well… You told him that Luke has other women.’

  ‘Yes,’ she agreed stiffly.

  ‘Well…’ again Rosemary hesitated. ‘Do you really believe that?’

  ‘I know it,’ Sophie mumbled.

  ‘Am I one of these women?’

  Sophie was taken aback by the bluntness of the question. She cleared her throat noisily. ‘I—It—’

  Rosemary was very pale. ‘Oh God, I am!’ She shook her head. ‘All this time you’ve been thinking that Luke and I… Oh God!’ she said again. ‘No wonder you couldn’t bear to stay with him any longer! But it isn’t true, Sophie, none of it’s true.’

  Sophie was just as pale by this time. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean that there’s never been anything between Luke and myself that hasn’t found its roots in my imagination. Luke would never involve himself with a married woman, and I would have probably run a mile if he’d made any moves in my direction.’

  ‘But I— What about all those times you said you were going to meet him?’

  ‘It was never intimately. We always met as a crowd, at a party or half a dozen or so of us going to the theatre. I let you think I was meeting him alone because it made me feel young and attractive.’

  ‘You aren’t exactly old!’ protested Sophie.

  Rosemary sighed. ‘I know that, I’ve just felt it at times. You see, I’d been a failure to your father—’

  ‘I’m sure he’s never thought so. He loves you, he’s always loved you.’

  ‘But I hadn’t given him the son he so badly wanted. You can have no idea how inadequate that made me feel. I resented you because he doted on you. Things became a little easier when you went away to school, there was no constant reminder of my childless state.’

  ‘I’m sure it never bothered Daddy that much.’

  ‘Maybe not, but the seeds of resentment were there and I couldn’t do anything to stop it. Then two years ago you left school completely, I couldn’t take it and began to spend more and more time in London. There were plenty of men there who would have been only too willing to start an affair, but I chose to go after Luke.’ Rosemary gave a wry smile. ‘The reason I chose him was because I knew I would never get him. But I wasn’t prepared for his reaction to you,’ she added with a shake of her head.

  Sophie licked her dry lips, shocked and upset by all that Rosemary was telling her but realising that in a way she was to blame. She had often shut her stepmother out of the closeness between her father and herself, had done it without realising it, never knowing how much Rosemary had been hurt by it. She felt sure her father was just as ignorant of the facts.

  ‘His—his reaction to me?’ she queried.

  ‘Mm,’ Rosemary smiled.
‘He seemed to take one look at you and that was that. The elusive Luke Vittorio had fallen in love with you. It seemed the final straw, the two men in my life both seeming to prefer you to me.’

  ‘Luke isn’t in love with me,’ Sophie told her quietly.

  ‘Of course he is,’ Rosemary scoffed. ‘Oh, I know he’s never told you so, but he’s told me.’

  ‘W-when?’

  ‘The day I went up to London for my tests. I called round to see you both, but only Luke was at home. We had quite a chat. He knew from the first that my outrageous behaviour in chasing him was due to my jealousy of your closeness to your father.’

  ‘But that night—that night I followed you to his room?’

  ‘An act of desperation on my part. I knew he’d fallen for you and I didn’t like it. I thought that if I—well, never mind what I thought, one look at that painting was enough to tell me what I wanted to know. I hated the fact that you were going to marry him, hated it, and bitchily told you he would always be mine.’

  ‘And I believed you,’ Sophie said dully, so many things explained now. But could it really be true that Luke loved her? It didn’t seem possible.

  ‘I can see that now,’ Rosemary sighed. ‘I forgot I’d ever said it. You see, Sophie, your marriage to Luke suddenly seemed to give me a happiness I hadn’t felt since your father and I were first married. Suddenly we were alone and—well…’ she blushed prettily. ‘I suppose this coming baby shows you that things were right between us again. After all these years…’

  ‘And Luke knew all this, that I was to blame for the strain between you and Daddy?’

  Rosemary nodded. ‘He’s very astute.’

  Sophie could see it all now, could see the misunderstandings there had been, the times they had talked at cross-purposes, she believing him to be talking about his affair with Rosemary and he believing her to be talking about the rift she had caused in her parents’ marriage, however unwittingly.

  ‘Oh, Mummy,’ her voice broke, ’I have to go and see him, have to explain.’

  ‘Explain what? That you love him? You do love him, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes,’ she admitted huskily. ‘Why did he never tell me how he felt, why let me think he only wanted—’

  ‘Your body,’ Rosemary finished dryly. ‘Don’t be embarrassed, Sophie. I told you we had quite a chat. He said that love was something you didn’t want from him. But that isn’t true, is it? These last few weeks you’ve been pining away for him.’

  ‘I wanted his love so badly that I had to leave him,’ she said ruefully. ‘It was hurting me too much to love him and think he only felt desire in return.’

  ‘Then go and see him and tell him so.’

  ‘I intend to.’

  Sophie didn’t bother to telephone the apartment to tell Luke of her visit, wanting to see his reaction to her appearance without him having prior knowledge of her arrival. He could be very adept at hiding his true feelings, she knew that now.

  She had risen very early this morning, and the train journey down here had seemed never-ending. She was pale and thin, but the purple dress she wore managed to conceal this somewhat. Her tenseness reached breaking point as she entered the apartment building, barely conscious of acknowledging the doorman’s polite greeting.

  The apartment was in silence, a completely unlived-in look about it. Dust covered the furniture, a quick look in the kitchen showing her the emptiness of the refrigerator. She slumped down in a chair. Luke wasn’t here! It was something that hadn’t occurred to her, even though she knew he often travelled abroad.

  What could she do now? She had no idea how long he was to be away. She could always stay here; the apartment looked as if it could do with a good clean, and if she were living here when Luke returned he could hardly throw her out.

  She heard a crash from the direction of the studio and jumped to her feet. Someone was here. It had to be Luke! The sight that met her eyes when she entered the studio stopped her in her tracks. Far from being away, Luke was lying on the studio couch, a dark growth of beard on his chin.

  Standing on easels in front of the couch were the two paintings of her, one of them the nude Rosemary and her father had been so shocked by, the other the portrait painted for her father. Luke had been right, it was the best work he had ever done—and had surely been painted through the eyes of a man in love? Oh God, she hoped so!

  Sophie walked over to stand in front of the couch on shaking legs, feasting her eyes on him. His black hair was ruffled and untidy, but even so she could see it was much longer than he normally wore it, and he was very pale, deep lines etched beside his nose and mouth, a frown on his face even in sleep.

  But what was he doing living amongst all this debris, the usual tidiness of the apartment completely erased? Well, whatever his reasons he couldn’t continue to live like this. Sophie went into the bathroom, wetting the face-cloth and coming back to squeeze the surplus water over his face.

  At first there was no reaction, then she saw his eyes flicker and open, his mouth turning back in a grimace. ‘What the—’ he blinked rapidly, focusing on her with effort. ‘Oh no,’ he groaned, ’not again! Just go away, Sophie. Leave me alone.’

  It wasn’t exactly the reaction she had been hoping for. ‘I have no intention of going anywhere until I’ve cleaned this place up.’

  ‘You mean…’ he licked his dry lips. ‘You mean you are real?’

  ‘Of course I’m real. What’s the matter with you, Luke? Are you drunk?’ she asked suspiciously. ‘Boy, it must have been some party! Have you just got home?’

  He struggled to sit up, his clothes wrinkled and untidy. ‘I have not been anywhere.’ He shook his head dazedly. ‘I have not been anywhere for days, weeks.’

  ‘But you—there’s no food in the apartment. You must have been out.’

  He shook his head. ‘No.’

  ‘But what have you been eating if you haven’t been out?’

  ‘I have not been eating,’ he grimaced. ‘But I have been drinking. If you look under the couch you will probably find a lot of empty whisky bottles which I had sent up. There is more in the bedroom, but you will find no food.’

  As she stepped back her foot did in fact catch on something and she heard the crash of glass against glass. Her mouth tightened. ‘Get up, Luke,’ she ordered. ‘Go and shower and I’ll get some food sent in. You look as if a good meal wouldn’t come amiss.’

  He ran a hand over his eyes as if they hurt him. ‘I am not hungry,’ he said tersely. ‘Will you just get out of here and let me sleep.’

  ‘Sleep is the last thing you need right now!’

  ‘What do you know about it?’ he snapped.

  ‘I know you can’t continue to live like this—you’ll kill yourself!’

  ‘Why are you here?’ he demanded angrily. ‘You were supposed to call first.’

  ‘I wanted to surprise you.’

  Sighing, he stood up, his clothes in an even worse state than she had thought. He didn’t look as if he had changed them for days. ‘Oh, you did that,’ he admitted grimly.

  Sophie was surprised to see how thin he was, his body almost gaunt. ‘Oh, Luke!’ She ran to him, putting her arms about his waist and holding him close against her. ‘Luke, what are you doing to yourself!’

  He wrenched her arms away from him. ‘If you must stay here, Sophie, go and get that food. I want to shower and put on clean clothes.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Leave me, Sophie.’ His eyes were chilling. ‘At least let me be clean so that I can face you on an equal footing.’

  ‘Very well.’

  She decided to go out herself and get a few provisions, and found Luke sitting in the lounge when she returned, his face buried in his hands as he sat hunched over. He was dressed and shaved now, still much too thin, but more like the Luke she loved.

  She put the shopping down and ran to kneel in front of him. ‘Luke, what’s wrong?’

  He looked down at her with dazed eyes. ‘You ha
ve come back. I thought you had gone.’

  She clasped his hands in her own. ‘Only to get some food, darling. I—’

  ‘What did you call me?’ he cut in harshly.

  ‘Darling,’ she repeated huskily.

  He tilted her face up to look at him. ‘Do you mean it?’

  ‘I’ve always meant it.’ Now wasn’t the time for pride. ‘Luke, why did you marry me?’

  ‘You know why.’

  ‘The real reason,’ she prompted.

  ‘I do not—’

  ‘I’ve been talking to Rosemary,’ she told him. ‘She told me quite a lot of things, explained away a lot of misunderstandings.’

  He stood up forcibly. ‘And that is why you are here?’

  Sophie still sat on the floor. ‘No. I—’

  ‘Because I do not want you here simply because you have listened to your stepmother.’

  She stood up. ‘I was coming here today anyway.’

  His eyes narrowed. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I—well, it’s difficult to explain. Yesterday I went to dinner with Nicholas. His mother talked a lot about my divorcing you and marrying Nicholas.’

  If anything Luke went even paler, his skin almost grey. ‘So you are here to talk about a divorce.’

  ‘No, I’m not! To have it actually put into words made me want to come and see you and find out exactly how you felt about me. Rosemary only spoke to me after I’d made up my mind to come here today. You see,’ she twisted her hands together nervously, ’I believed you to have been having an affair with her all this time.’

  ‘I know.’

  Her violet eyes widened. ‘You know?’

  Luke nodded. ‘At first I could not believe you could think such a thing, and then it just made me angry. I once told you that you had no idea what you did to make me angry—that was the main thing.’

  ‘But why didn’t you explain, tell me it was all her fantasy?’

  He shrugged. ‘I wanted you to ask me, to show you trusted me enough to believe me when I gave you the answer. But you never asked,’ his voice hardened roughly, ’never gave any indication that it mattered enough to you to ask.’

  ‘It mattered too much. I dreaded the answer. I—I love you, Luke.’