He heard her before she rounded the corner of the church with her arms full of flowers. Her hair was tied back from her face—a fresh and lovely vision in her simple white cotton dress.
For a moment she was unaware of his presence and he caught a glimpse of the woman she would be in maturity, fulfilling all the promise of her name. And then it was gone, chased away by her first sight of him and the dark troubled expression displacing the contentment. She hovered, ready for flight, as he slowly uncoiled to his full height and backed away from the grave. This she did not wish to share with him.
And while he stood a hundred yards away, watching her as she knelt by the stone to arrange her flowers, a fear grew in him that she had not intended sharing anything with him ever again. He recalled her assertion of the night before—’I did not leave so you would follow’. Somehow he had lost her, and he could not fathom why.
Serena sat motionless, staring at the portrait, reliving memories, fleeting but precious, of her childhood. When she finally moved away, there was a suspicion of tears on her cheeks. Adam walked a few paces behind her through the rusty cemetery gate and down the hill, sensing that she did not wish him to speak. Just before the village she abruptly halted and without turning, said clearly, tonelessly,
‘Please, Adam, go away.’
He stood immobile, unable to move, to find the will to act. She wheeled round on him, a small figure of defiance dwarfed by his height.
‘What do you want of me? What more? I played the game by your rules, right up until the end. But you keep changing them, and I just can’t keep up.’ Her voice was heavy with pain and bewilderment.
‘Rules?’ he repeated stupidly.
‘Yes, your damned rules! I’ve tried to be your sort of woman. I’ve made no ugly scenes... didn’t ask for more than one night.’ Her eyes pleaded with him. ‘Please—just go away before you spoil it.’
Didn’t she know how he felt? Hadn’t he shown her more clearly than words could ever hope to that he didn’t want just a memory?
‘I want to marry you,’ he blurted out in desperation, the words halting her in amazement as she gasped, ‘Because I was a virgin?’
‘If you had a score of lovers before me, it wouldn’t have changed anything. I’d still want to marry you,’ he muttered intensely. ‘—And it’s not very flattering my proposal is greeted with tears. A simple yes or no would do.’
With the back of her hand Serena scrubbed away the errant tears, and refused to meet his eyes as she whispered, ‘I can’t marry you, Adam, I can’t...’
Stung and confused, he growled, ‘I won’t be used as a sex object for you to cut your teeth on, Serena!’ Even to his own ears it came out cruel and ridiculous.
She laughed without humour. ‘That’s my line, surely. Except that your teeth are sharp enough already.’
They had reverted to being antagonists, and yet strangely he felt stronger with the shift in mood.
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ he said, temper rising. ‘Why can’t you be bloody honest for a change?’
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she replied crossly.
‘Don’t throw smokescreens of other women and make me out the villain so you can carry on playing Snow White.’ He grasped one arm, his fingers savagely biting into her bare flesh. ‘Admit it. You wanted sex and I was merely a bystander.’
The hard slap she delivered on his cheek, an instinctive reaction to his cruel words, cracked wide his control; his hand gripped her long hair, forcing her head up. Ready to receive his brutal retaliation, her green eyes seemed enormous in their fear, defusing his anger until only his love for her remained. His kiss was one of ineffable tenderness, devoid of passion, a promise to cherish. He cupped her face in his hands and imagined he saw his love reflected in her eyes, no longer fearful, but wondering; and then, as though she could no longer bear the intensity of his gaze, Serena buried her head in his shoulder, her arms curling round his waist. He cradled her small frame in his arms, unable to tell which one of them was trembling more.
‘Will you marry me?’ His voice quavered. She did not respond, but he felt the slight shake of the head against his chest. ‘Why not?’
Her words were muffled but distinguishable. ‘Because I love you.’
What a time for her to pick to make one of her obscure remarks! Adam groaned inwardly.
Pushing her at arm’s length, he demanded with more than a tinge of offended pride, ‘Are you saying that because you imagine that’s what I want to hear? I want to marry you. For us to be together for the rest of our lives, and you give me a loving lie as a consolation prize!’
She pulled away from him completely and shot him a look of pure exasperation before stating, ‘I said you could be incredibly stupid sometimes!’
‘How am I supposed to know you love me?’ he challenged brusquely. ‘You’ve talked about your father as though he was one step short of a god, and you stand there scowling at me as if I was the devil himself.’
‘Ooh!’ The sigh was drawn out, and then she was stalking away from him, but this time Adam had no doubts about following, and when he spun her round, she flared up at him, ‘You’re not my father, Adam Carmichael, and I don’t want you to be! And maybe in your sophisticated circles, making love is just one move away from a handshake. But to me it’s an expression of love, and I showed you last night in your bed how I love you!’
She was positively glaring at him, her confession of love delivered with a strange fury, but he believed and was overwhelmed by it—the realisation that she had been willing to settle for so much less than she should ever deserve in order to give him the freedom she imagined he wanted.
Curling his fingers round one wrist, Adam dragged her to the shaded privacy of the woodland bordering the road and stifled her protest with the kiss of a lover, moulding her body tightly into his so she could feel his need for her.
When he finally released her, she was breathless and blushing furiously, and he stared fixedly at her enchanting face, wondering if it would always hurt just to look at her.
‘Adam!’ she tried to break into his daze, snapping to gain his attention. ‘Stop looking at me that way. It’s indecent!’
‘You’ll have to get used to it, Princess,’ he laughed down at her cross expression, feeling heady with the scent of victory, ‘because I won’t be looking at anyone else but you for the next fifty years. Afterwards, who knows?’
‘We have to be sensible,’ she protested with a heavy frown for his teasing. ‘We have nothing in common.’
‘A fierce pride, a slightly warped sense of humour tinged with sarcasm, a determination to get our own way,’ he listed with questionable seriousness, and as a pretended afterthought, ‘Oh, and love. And let’s face it, with a combination like that, who else would be happy with either of us?’
Serena ducked away from the mouth making a disruptive trail down her neck, struggling to be clear-sighted in the face of his frivolity. ‘Our life styles? I hate parties.’
‘So do I. Lots of boring people talking for the sake of it. We’ll go and live on a desert island, just the two of us.’
‘Children?’ she challenged his remark about there being just the two of them.
‘Six at least,’ he quipped, and then on a lower, more serious note, ‘Well, however many it takes to produce a little girl that looks exactly like her beautiful mother.’
She was losing the battle, but somehow she didn’t mind any more, her protests growing weaker by the second. ‘We don’t share the same interests.’
‘You like classical music, don’t you?’ Serena nodded her assent. ‘Well, so do I. Especially Beethoven.’ He’d seen her record collection. ‘Who’s your favourite author, besides myself of course?’
At last she was smiling, as she played his game, ‘J.D. Salinger.’
‘Mine too,’ Adam avowed, making a mental note to remedy the fact that he had never read any of the writer in question.
But she was wise to him. ‘Which paint
er do you admire the most?’
He frowned with concentration, as though debating the merits of the great masters, and then, with slow deliberation, announced, ‘Serena Templeton Carmichael.’
She smiled up at him, and he sensed in that moment that she had put her trust on him. The game was over; they were both winners—after all, it turned out they were both on the same side. And shyly Serena laid her head once more on his chest, as though that was where she felt safest.
Quietly she whispered, not a question but a reassurance to both of them, ‘For ever.’
‘“Till all the seas gang dry,”’ he quoted softly as his mouth brushed her forehead.
Princess Page 19
