Princess

by Alison Fraser

  ‘Do I really look that grim?’

  ‘Mm, sometimes when you don’t realise anyone is watching you,’ she murmured.

  ‘And then?’

  She sorted through the sketches and selected another along with the comment, ‘Confident. Self-assured.’

  ‘Image preservation,’ he said wryly, thinking of how insecure he was about the girl standing beside him. ‘And when I’m looking at you, Princess?—This one?’ He pointed at the only portrait with him smiling, his eyes lightened with his feelings for the artist. Serena nodded. Strange that she could capture his emotion on paper and yet not be able to interpret it. ‘You’re very talented, you know. One day the rich and famous will be lining up to be immortalised by your skill. Perhaps I should pay you a fee if you’re going to do my portrait.’

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ she said crossly, not sure if he was teasing and obviously shy about the sketches she had already done in secret.

  Her sharpness did not bother Adam; he was used to the reprimand. Sometimes it even made him smile. ‘Perhaps I could give you another in exchange.’

  ‘A painting?’ she frowned up at him.

  ‘Yes.’ Adam, hoping he had chosen the right moment, went on, smilingly, ‘I bought rather a good one at an auction a while back—mother and child.’

  ‘But you paid so much!’ she exclaimed astoundedly.

  ‘I bought it for you then—as a goodbye present—but now...’ he pulled a wry face—the possibility of his leaving while she was still there was inconceivable to Adam. Brushing the back of his hand against her cheek, he said quietly, ‘It was to remind you of your childhood in Italy. The golden days, you’ve called them, with your mother and father. It should be yours.’

  But Serena wasn’t listening, hadn’t really heard anything after his ‘goodbye present’.

  ‘Do you want to...’ she hesitated, but when Adam smiled down at her, she swallowed hard and forced herself to continue, ‘Would you like to sleep with me?’

  Her blunt question, low and flat, struck him like a physical blow and brought back a suppressed memory of her taunting him with experience he had discarded as make-believe. A cold, relentless fury crept over him as he caught her by the arm, fingers biting into flesh. ‘Is that how you repay kindness from a man, or do you think I have to buy a woman in order to get her into my bed?’ he demanded hoarsely. Wanting this girl to cherish for the rest of his life, he was shattered by the casual offer of a transitory sexual relationship.

  ‘No, that’s not...’ The rest stuck in her throat, blocked there by Adam’s dark, murderous expression.

  ‘Are you suggesting we confirm Julia’s sordid suspicions?’ he pursued raggedly, ‘or is this some cruel little test?’

  ‘You’re twisting things,’ she cried in protest, trying to pull free from his bruising grip. ‘I thought...’

  He cut into her explanation. ‘You thought I go around seducing little girls for the hell of it!’ he shouted angrily, beyond reason. ‘Nothing’s changed, has it? Perhaps I’d better live up to my reputation!’

  It was meant as a punishment, an assuagement for the hurt she could so easily inflict, but the sweet taste of her mouth dissolved all the rancour, leaving in its wake the heady, weakening sensation of wanting her with every fibre of his being. He lifted his lips from hers and for a second studied her perfection. Her lips were bruised and trembling, her eyes soft with invitation. He took it, and uninhibitedly her mouth began to answer his arousal with a fierce passion of its own, as naturally as though they had made love a thousand times. He felt the top buttons of her blouse give to his exploring hand and needed to push further, to lay his palm against the swell of her breast. A low moan escaped her throat as his fingers spread inside her lacy underwear and reached the tip of her breast, already pulsating with life. As she pressed her slight frame closer, it seemed that every part of him was riotously alive to her touch; this girl needed no lessons on how to turn a man on. And yet his spirit rebelled even while his body hardened with longing for her, and he jerked her back from him.

  Her look of frustrated disbelief was crippling. Her breathing, shallow and spasmodic, almost made him forget pride and conscience.

  ‘I don’t understand.’ It was the plea of a confused child at some inexplicable injustice of the adult world, and conditioned Adam’s response.

  ‘Simple. I don’t make love to children, and I have no desire to act as stand-in for John while you improve your technique,’ he announced harshly, at that moment despising himself for the weakness he had for her, knew he would always have. To him, her lovemaking spoke of a new sexual awareness that had not been present in their first kiss; he tortured himself with the image of her responding to another man’s passion. ‘Go to bed! Now!’

  Horrified, Serena backed away from him, eyes wide and accusing.

  ‘For a clever man, you can be incredibly stupid!’ she cried before she turned and ran.

  Without knowing the reasoning behind her parting shot, Adam fully agreed with her. Experience, not arrogance, told him she would have lain with him, there, on the studio floor, let him love her completely. He ached for her and realised that he had since his first day back—and yet he knew that to possess her only once would be infinitely worse.

  It was poetic justice that would surely have been appreciated by some of the women who had called him bastard for cutting loose from anything taking the shape of heavy involvement. He wanted Serena Templeton, but tied to him for her life, not free to come and go to another man, and settling for less, a small part given out of gratitude or curiosity or whatever unfathomable emotion had been ruling her head at the time, he wasn’t quite ready to contemplate. Tomorrow he’d get rid of Julia. And perhaps inch-by-inch in the coming summer he would make up the ground he had lost tonight.

  CHAPTER TEN

  By eight the next morning Adam was driving towards Leeds with an unusually taciturn Julia. Her silence he assumed was not due to any contrition for her conduct but a rare show of common sense that made her hold her vicious tongue.

  She had said enough already. Apparently her love of drama had not been satisfied by the scene she had created at dinner. When he had returned from walking off his frustration she had been waiting for him. As she languidly uncurled herself from his bedroom armchair in sheer nylon that barely covered her full breasts the message had been clear.

  She had underlined it with, ‘I met the sweet young thing while she was making another mad dash for the stairs. But she stopped just long enough to say “He’s all yours”. Well, darling, I took her at her word.’

  Hard incredulity had changed to cold contempt, and Adam had used the sort of language a woman like Julia would understand.

  She had dropped the seductive quality from her voice, taunting, ‘Why, I do believe you really love the girl!’ She had found that amusing, laughing maliciously, ‘And maybe she hasn’t got all her marbles—but even she has the sense to realise that you and she... well, lover, it’s on the sick side of ridiculous!’

  He hadn’t intended to give her the chance to say more, and something in his expression must have told her to back rapidly to the door—but she had left her poison in his system.

  He had been bedding Julia and her like for more years than he cared to remember—the sort of woman you could walk away from without any crisis of conscience. It had made him a proficient lover, nothing more.

  But he had outgrown that past, hadn’t he? He had done nothing to hurt Serena, had treated her almost as a sister until he ached with the effort it cost. He made her laugh, was there when she needed to talk and allowed her to expend some of that inner anger against him although he had not caused it. Her sweet apologies made it worthwhile. Loving the girl had made him a different man from the Adam Carmichael those other women had known, hadn’t it?

  It was with relief that he eventually turned into the station square, carelessly leaving his car on a prohibited area in his haste to be rid of Julia. Luck was with him, for the London train was
already standing on the platform.

  His basic good manners forced him to carry her luggage to a first class carriage, but it was only her sharp taunting remark that delayed his departure.

  ‘Well, good luck with your young playmate. Something tells me you’ll need it, after our little assignation!’

  ‘Nothing happened between us,’ he growled down at her.

  ‘Well, darling, you and I know that, but...’

  ‘I’ll break your neck if you’ve spoken to Serena about it!’ he threatened, and meant it, ignoring the shocked stare of an old lady who had been about to sit down and quickly passed up the aisle.

  ‘After your unseemly rush to get me out of the house, I couldn’t possibly have had time to say anything to anybody, now could I?’ Julia reasoned, but her smile was sly and secretive.

  The guard’s whistle blew before he could demand a further explanation, but he was inclined to believe that Julia’s attempts at being enigmatic were not to be taken seriously; he wasted no time, however, in getting back to Rippondale.

  His mother anxiously looked up as he strode purposefully into the lounge; she was finding the emotional turbulence of the last day a severe strain.

  ‘Has she gone for good?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said shortly, not wishing to discuss the woman he had already dismissed from his mind. ‘Where’s Serena?’

  ‘Hasn’t come down yet. I suspect she needed a good night’s sleep after the meal last night,’ she said on a weary sigh. ‘Come to that, you could be in need of the same.’

  If she had expected any explanation for his haggard appearance, it was not forthcoming.

  ‘I’m going to the study.’

  Two hours and half a page later, Adam accepted the fact that he was unable to concentrate, for Serena intruded between each line. As he headed for the stables, his eyes were drawn upwards to her room. The curtains were drawn open and he wondered if she had already gone out somewhere and he had missed her.

  So much for the hope that her long holidays might bring them closer, he thought bitterly as he saddled up the white stallion to go riding alone. This time he twisted the knife himself by speculating whether his supposed rejection would drive her into Saxon’s arms, just as the last time when he had come so very near to losing his self-control.

  He spurred the horse to the top of that hill where he had first kissed her—and recognised his sentimentality for what it was. As he gazed unseeingly at the valley below him, cool logic told him that a day might come when he would have outlived his usefulness to Serena. Perhaps he already had. He could just hear her saying, ‘He’s all yours’—tough and defiant. But on an emotional level he couldn’t imagine how he would be able to cope with it.

  He read no significance into her behaviour in the studio; in the cold light of day he couldn’t believe she would have gone through with it. Another test, maybe? The exact motivation behind her offer eluded him—but it was not love. She had responded to him with passion, fierce and fiery, but never with that soft loving warmth that crept into her eyes and voice when she talked of her father.

  It was after noon when he finally galloped home, with a recklessness that reflected his mood, and seeing the Mini parked at the front, he threw the reins to Brocklehurst, who had by now given up any pretension of being a gardener. With the curt, unnecessary instruction to rub White Lightning down, he found himself running up to the door of the house.

  Without losing his sudden growing sense of panic at the sight of the Mini parked at such an odd angle, Adam dashed upstairs. The instant he reached Serena’s bedroom, the truth began to steal over him like a cold paralysis. The twin photographs of her parents were gone and no brushes or perfume cluttered up the dressing-table. As if to deny what the bare surfaces and the stripped bed linen were telling him, he opened the wardrobe, then turned from the empty hangers and caught his reflection in the inside mirror—his self-composure cracking wide to let all the naked agony come through.

  That was Nancy’s first thought when she muttered breathlessly, ‘She’s gone!’—only to see the look of defeat in his eyes. She had steeled herself for his anger, but not the utter dejection in his moan as he sank down on the bare mattress. ‘It seems she left in the early hours of this morning, or so her college friend said when she brought the car back. She’s written a note—it’s addressed to me, but I think you should read it.’ Nancy pressed the note into Adam’s hand. ‘I don’t understand all of it—especially the reference to you.’

  He had to read it twice before he could focus and make full sense of it.

  ‘Dear Nancy,

  I hope you will forgive me for doing things this way, but I was frightened you’d try to dissuade me, and I’ve kept you too long from your life back in London. Don’t worry—it’s something I want to do. Fly solo. Go round Europe and visit all the places I’ve dreamed about. Lots of my college friends do it in the summer.

  Tell Adam thanks—his debt is cancelled. I’ll write soon.

  Serena.’

  The letter fluttered from his hands as he anguishedly gripped his head, his whole frame shaking with despair. Nerves raw with a confusion of anger and desolation, he couldn’t stop his mind filling with changing visions of her—Serena smiling, angry, fragile, mocking, beautiful— the sound of her voice, compelling even when it uttered words of cold dislike.

  ‘Here, drink this.’ Nancy Carmichael, having realised her son was in shock, had gone for a large glass of brandy. Placing the glass to his lips, she forced him to drink the burning liquid. ‘Adam,’ she consoled, ‘Adam we need you—Serena and I. Don’t fall apart on us!’

  The sound of Serena’s name acted as more of a restorative than the brandy, and his pride reasserted itself, making him despise his show of weakness for a girl who could breeze out of his life as abruptly as she had become a part of it.

  ‘That bitch doesn’t need anyone. She’s one hundred per cent ice!’

  ‘Don’t, Adam,’ Nancy pleaded, sitting down beside him. ‘You love her. Don’t despise yourself for the emotion orher for causing it.’

  But she couldn’t hold him as he rose and crossed to the window, pretending an absorption with the view while he tried to bring himself under some sort of control.

  ‘You have to bring her back, Adam,’ his mother announced quietly, coming to his side.

  It was a long time before he could form a reply, cold and aloof.

  ‘You read her note, Mother. She said my debt has been paid,’ he clipped out, brushing past his mother on the way to the door.

  Nancy trailed him to his room and watched a little startled as he opened and shut drawers, quickly and efficiently adding to the pile of clothes on his bed—far too many things for a short trip abroad!

  ‘You’re not going to fetch her back, are you?’ she accused with a dawning horror.

  No, he wasn’t. He had the right to privacy too—a dark corner where he could nurse his wounds. He continued to pack methodically while he said grimly, ‘No, Mother, don’t ask that of me.’

  ‘I’m frightened, Adam. She’s so young...’ Nancy appealed, and clung on to his arm until he turned and answered her.

  ‘She’ll survive. She’s strong—she’s had to be,’ he said, and unconsciously his respect for Serena crept back into his voice. He remembered all the pointless cruelties she had been made to suffer. A shadow would come into her eyes and he’d say ‘Tell me’, and she would, sometimes sadly, with tears held back, at others angrily. Once she had said that no one would be allowed that close to hurt again. She had meant it. He should have listened.

  ‘Because of Andrea?’ Nancy pressed, and when his eyes hazed with memory, she decided to be open. ‘Serena has never referred to her once in the last two years. At first I thought the loss was too new to be spoken of, but as time went on... well, it just wasn’t natural. I hoped she’d tell me in time. I didn’t want to force her after she drew back from Simon Clarke. But she chose you instead, didn’t she?’ She paused, but Adam didn’t look as t
hough he was going to give up any of Serena’s secrets.

  ‘I understand that. I’ve watched that special affinity you and Serena have for each other grow over the last months. No, Adam, don’t stop me,’ she raised a silencing hand when he would have denied it as an illusion which had deceived him too. ‘Against all odds, it’s there, and perhaps it’s a good thing for both of you. But don’t you see, it shuts the rest of us out. And I have the right to know—I love you both.’

  He saw that their conspiracy of silence had hurt his mother by exclusion, but the motive for it was still there as he warned bleakly, ‘It’s not a pretty story.’

  Her reaction was totally unexpected as she lost all patience with her clever confident son and came back staunchly, ‘For God’s sake, Adam Carmichael! I’m sixty-six years old, I’ve lived through a world war, and your father, as much as I loved him, wasn’t always an easy man to be married to.’

  The point was made, especially with her sudden reference to his father. He started economically and unemotionally, but by the end of the narrative his voice had broken with feeling.

  ‘The marriage, as you suspected, had taken a bad turn very early on. Serena’s last memory of her father was of him trying to reason Andrea out of another of her bitter tirades. Whether the argument contributed to the accident we’ll never know, because Serena was stretched out on the back seat supposedly asleep, but when she came out of hospital, confused and grieving for her father, the last person she wanted to turn to for comfort was Andrea. She was no longer bound by her father’s instructions to try and love Andrea, and perhaps it was this rejection that tipped the balance.

  ‘At first the intimidation was silent—waking up in the middle of the night to find her stepmother watching her from the foot of the bed, saying nothing. A spook in the darkness that became part of a nightmare that came when Serena couldn’t force herself to stay awake.

  ‘And during the day, Andrea fussing, Andrea playing devoted stepmother by taking up all her meals and exacting a price for the bed and board she supplied. If Serena sat up and begged and licked the mistress’s hand, then she’d get fed and patted for being a good girl. If not, she’d go hungry. Thank God, Andrea was still sane enough to keep her alive on scraps that didn’t have to be begged for.