`Are you in the habit of receiving letters from your— from him?'
`No, of course not,' she denied.
`He doesn't appear to have had any trouble finding out where you live.' His eyes narrowed threateningly. 'He hasn't been here, has he?' he rapped out.
`Good heavens, no !'
`Make sure he doesn't come 'here either,' he bit at her darkly.
`What do you take me for? Of course I wouldn't ask him here. You know I ...' Oh, what was the use? Even if she did tell him the very thought of Nick nauseated her, he wouldn't believe her. The mood he was in now he wouldn't believe anything she told him.
Suddenly she was tired of doing battle with Ben. Tired and weary of this constant warring. And since it took two to make a fight, she turned silently away from him, her letter still in her hand, and walked from him and into her room.
Ben didn't trust her, that much was obvious. He just didn't trust her, and aside from all other considerations, what was a marriage without trust? All her secret hopes that something might come of her marriage to him were dashed to the ground with the realisation of his lack of faith in her. It didn't stop her wanting him—she loved
him and wanted him, full stop, but she didn't want a marriage that followed the same pattern as her parents', the same constant bickering—she'd heard enough of that to last her a lifetime.
She stiffened as Ben came into her room, but remained where she was sitting on the edge of her bed. She had no idea what he wanted, but hardly thought he had come in to try and make friends. Suddenly the room was too small with Ben in it; he was crowding her and she had to get away from him, away from the man who tortured her very soul. She looked up at him, a decision she hadn't looked for upon her, and entirely without emotion she told him of that decision.
`I want this marriage ended,' she said calmly. 'I want it ended—and now.'
CHAPTER NINE
A DREADFUL silence hung in the air at her words. Then Ben spoke. 'You want our marriage ended—just like that.'
She should have mistrusted the mildness of his tone, Tiffany realised much later, should have known better than to think he would accept her decree without question.
`Your decision wouldn't have anything to do with your letter from lover-boy, would it?' he questioned, making her gasp—she hadn't even read her letter from Nick yet. Hearing her gasp seemed to clinch it for him that his accusation had hit the truth. 'So you aren't as immune to him as you would have me believe ?—You didn't require my assistance at the party,' he said, the thin veneer of his mildness gone
to reveal the red-hot lava of his temper. 'You were in fact merely playing hard to get.'
`No,' broke from Tiffany. 'You've got it all wrong.'
`Like hell I have!' She knew then that nothing she could say to him was going to get through his volcanic rage. `Well, let me tell you, Mrs Maxwell, you're married to me and that's the way you'll stay ...'
`I will not,' Tiffany broke in, as temper she didn't know she had got made her defy him. 'I'm leaving this flat,' she shouted, 'leaving you, and then I ...'
She got no further. Suddenly she was lying down on her bed with the weight of his body holding her down. It happened so quickly, so fast, for a moment she had no idea how she had got there. Then Ben's lips were over hers, hard and ruthless, and she was fighting like a wildcat but finding herself powerless against his strength.
His angry mouth claimed hers again and again while his hands tore at her clothes. The hysterical thought, my God, he's going to rape me, seared like lightning across her brain, but there was no time for panic, it-was happening now, no time to decide what to do, but to get in and do it. She felt, heard, the buttons on her shirt snap off as he tore it open, felt one experienced hand come to the back of her, and where she sometimes had difficulty in doing up the stiff fastening of this particular bra, felt it give as he had no difficulty at all in undoing it. Unaware of her shirt being taken from her arms, she was shocked to find the top half of her naked as her bra followed her shirt on to the floor and Ben's hands moulded her breasts, his touch leaving her only for his mouth to plunder where his hands had been.
No, Ben !' she screamed, and was ignored, felt his hands at the zip of her jeans and heard a ripping sound as they were dragged from her and were tossed in a pile with her
other things. Then his mouth was again on hers, punishingly forcing her lips apart.
The worst part of it all, the thought passed dimly through her mind, was that if he didn't stop soon it wouldn't be rape, for he was arousing in her feelings she didn't want, and not only was she fighting against him but against the response she knew she would give him if he didn't soon stop.
She felt the naked warmth of his chest against her breasts and knew his shirt was off, end then, wanting only to yield to him, she knew that Ben with his inherent breeding would find it impossible to live with himself if he took her this way. And for that reason and that reason only, when now her body was begging him to take her, she found enough will power to stop struggling, and when after a few seconds of kissing her lifeless mouth he raised his head, she was able to whisper:
`You'll hate not only me but yourself, afterwards, Ben.'
He looked back at her, and she knew she could have saved herself the effort, because he was going to ignore her. Then a dazed looked came over his face and as if in a trance he stretched out a hand to touch her sad face, only to withdraw it as like someone waking from a bad dream he rolled away from her and stood up. Tiffany covered her breasts with her hands, thankful her brief bikini pants were still covering her, and watched the look of complete disbelief wash over his face as it registered that he had been within a minute of raping his wife, saw the look of disbelief change to self-loathing, self-disgust, and could have wept for him.
`Oh, God Almighty!' was jerked from him, ragged as though he still didn't believe it. Then as though the sight of her distraught face, the red marks on her arms and body that would turn to bruises, were too much for him to cope with together with his thoughts, he turned and left her.
She didn't see Ben again that day—didn't want to. While she thought she was prepared to forgive him, she knew he would have a hard time forgiving himself; that much about him she had learned.
She was in the kitchen the next morning, pale but outwardly composed, hurriedly sipping a cup of tea before dashing off to the airport, when she heard a sound and knew that Ben had joined her.
' We must talk, Tiffany.' His voice sounded perfectly controlled, she thought, and only hoped her voice would sound the same when the time came for her to answer him. `There's—a lot I want to say to you.'
She met his glance steadily, willing herself not to go soft at the sight of him dressed in slacks and sweater, but with a tiredness in his eyes that told her he had slept no better than she had.
`Very well.' She was determined not to let him see how his very presence turned her legs to water. They both knew there was no time for him to tell her anything now if she was to be at the airport on time.
His, 'Tiffany,' arrested her as she was shrugging into her uniform jacket. 'Will you ...' and then with a touch of his old asperity showing through, 'I want you to hold off leaving until we've had a talk.'
I She was picking up her bag as she gave him a cool, 'All right, Ben.'
She was still congratulating herself on how cool she had managed to sound when she drove into the staff car park. She had no idea when she would see him again to have their 'talk', but as he was leaving the Airline at the end of the summer it must be soon. What there was to talk about though, for all he had said he had a lot to tell her, she couldn't begin to guess. It was a foregone conclusion that their marriage would end with his contract with Coronet
anyway, so why he had become enraged when she had wanted to precipitate it, she couldn't think. He was much too honest a person to prevaricate, so why when she had wanted their marriage to end without delay had he all but ... Tiffany blanked her mind off at that point as she had through the
long hours of the night, and decided yet again that Ben's reason for not wanting the annulment to go through just yet was because since he thought she was still in love with Nick Cowley and out of some mistaken sense of chivalry, knowing Nick didn't have marriage in mind, he was trying to protect her. Even that didn't add up, because there was no saying Nick wouldn't be around when she was free. Tiffany gave up trying to puzzle it out; she felt like a dog who had been chasing its tail with the same thoughts whirling round and around in her brain and coming out precisely nowhere.
She was surprised to see Sheila Roberts working in the Crewing Office, and her surprise must have shown, for Sheila told her, 'I'm grounded for a while,' and went on to tell her she had been having earache and had had the mother and father of all nosebleeds. Sheila looked glum. `So I'm stuck here until I get the O.K. from the specialists.'
Tiffany felt genuine sympathy for her; she couldn't pretend she liked the gossipy girl, but she very much doubted the specialists would give her the all-clear to fly again, for the hours spent in pressurised cabins spelt doom to any stewardess with ear trouble.
As Tiffany anticipated, she had very little time to think of Ben once they were airborne, though she did pause to muse how strange fate was. At one time, when she couldn't stand him, she had seemed to fly with him quite often, but since their marriage she hadn't flown with him once.
She was pleased to see Patti Marshall was one of the stewardesses on this trip, for not only was Patti a good
friend, but it gave her a chance to apologise for her abrupt departure from her party.
`That stupid Nick!' Patti said with instant understanding, saving Tiffany from going into an embarrassing explanation. 'It wasn't funny at the time but I get the giggles every time I think of my going into the kitchen and seeing Nick Cowley spreadeagled doing his "where am I?" bit.' Patti burst into a fit of giggles, and Tiffany couldn't help but picture the scene as Patti saw it, and grin with her. Then when Patti had controlled her mirth, she went on to tell her, 'Barry sobered Nick up and gave him a bit of a lecture—I think it made him realise he'd made an ass of himself. Anyway, before he left he said he'd be writing to you to apologise—I gave him your address. Did he write?'
`Y -yes,' Tiffany answered, and realised Patti had read more into her hesitant answer than she had meant her to. `Ben gave me the letter ...'
`Strewth!' exclaimed Patti before she could finish. 'I never thought of that. He was mad enough to bite nails in half when when he came to say you were going home. Was he very annoyed at Nick writing to you?'
`A bit,' said Tiffany, and as their brief respite ended, she thought that must be the understatement of the decade!
The rest of the trip passed with the usual happenings— someone being airsick, someone having too much to drink —nothing that hadn't happened before, and all taken in the stride of the experienced stewardesses. In no time at all the weeks went by and Tiffany was again in the staff car park. Before getting into her Mini she looked round for Ben's car, spotted it and wondered over which part of the globe he was flying at the moment, and wasn't sure whether she wanted him to arrive back in London before she finished her rest days or not.
She could have found out when he was due in from
Sheila Roberts, but she could just see her passing the news around, 'And imagine, she didn't even know his flight plan !' She did see Sheila for Sheila to tell her that they had been hit by a 'flu epidemic and that most of the stewardesses were on stand-by. That could mean she could be called out at any time to take on someone else's duty.
Tiffany drove home through the summer rain—how soon June had come around ! She let herself into the flat, quiet without Ben. Not that he was noisy, but he gave the apartment that lived-in feeling, and she had to confess that much as she loved the apartment, it wasn't the same without him in it.
It was as she went into the sitting room after changing out of her uniform that she saw an envelope propped up against a little porcelain vase on the mantelpiece. In haste she picked it up, and there her haste ended. She was frightened to open it—frightened in case he had had second thoughts about their 'talk' and that his note was saying she would be hearing from his solicitors—perhaps not ever seeing him again.
With trembling fingers she withdrew the single sheet of notepaper, read what he had written once, then again, then promptly burst into tears. 'Dear Tiffany,' he had written in his strong masculine scrawl, 'Welcome home. Ben'.
Tears of relief and happiness streamed down her face. Ben, oh, Ben !' she whispered. He would never know how much his simple note meant to her. She forgave him everything as again and again she studied his handwriting, and again and again as she busied herself cleaning an already clean apartment, the words went through her brain, 'Dear Tiffany, Welcome home. Ben'.
The next day she did some shopping. Not that there was a lot she could buy for the store cupboards, as since she had refused a housekeeping allowance, Ben had taken to
re-stocking the cupboards himself. But there was the inevitable trip to the cleaners and a few odds and ends she needed.
Returning to the flat, she was greeted by the faint lingering smell of furniture polish as she went through into her bedroom. The flat would be shining when Ben walked in, and she had managed to keep herself fully occupied. She had telephoned Aunt Margery last night and again had felt the compulsion to give her some hint about the break between her and Ben that was bound to come before too long, but something had held her back and she wasn't sure if it was fear of hurting her aunt that had kept her silent or because Ben had wanted her to leave things as they were for the moment.
Thinking about her aunt triggered off the impulse to take out the box containing the white nightdress and matching negligee she had given her. Tiffany shook them out of their folds, her eyes lingering on the feminine garments, knowing she would never wear them. Choked by sudden thoughts of what would never be, she left the froth of white on her bed and went hurriedly into the bathroom where she bathed, washed her hair and bundled herself into her fluffy dressing gown. While her hair was drying, she made herself a sandwich and a cup of coffee, took her snack meal into the sitting room and picking up the paper started on the crossword.
Some time later, stuck on a clue, she went to her room to tidy her hair, brushing it vigorously until it floated and crackled around her head and shoulders. About to leave her room, she caught sight of her aunt's gift draped across the bed, and on a sudden impulse she discarded her well-used dressing gown, and with barely a pause slipped the nightdress over her head, and while the mood was still with her, she then pulled on the matching negligee.
She wouldn't have been female if she had been able to resist the urge to take a look at her reflection in the mirror. Her eyes didn't see the picture of refreshing innocence and unawakened womanhood as brown eyes stared back at her. She, saw a slightly pink face, devoid of make-up, her hair floating in shining waves about her shoulders, and a dream of white falling from her shoulders to the ground, her curves obvious but concealed. 'You, my dear,' she told her reflection, 'look quite nice,' then with a half ashamed grin for talking to herself, she went back to her crossword.
Still puzzling on the elusive answer to her crossword clue, Tiffany kicked off her slippers and tucked her feet beneath her on the settee. How warm and peaceful the apartment was. How cosy, she thought dreamily. Where is Ben, I wonder?
She awakened slowly, some subconscious instinct telling her she was not alone. She looked to the door and came tingling awake and alive to see Ben standing with his back to the closed door, his eyes going slowly over her.
Her hair was tousled, her cheeks flushed from sleep, and she had no idea what a delightful picture she made in her bridal attire. All she knew was that she hadn't meant Ben to see her like this, and although she appreciated his warm look, she knew she had to get out of it and fast. She made a move to rise to her feet
`No, don't get up,' Ben stopped her, his voice sounding a shade thick. Tiffany subsided back on to th
e settee mainly because as his eyes wandered over her figure and back to her face, she was swamped by such a feeling of wanting to fling herself into his arms, she did not dare do anything that would take her a pace nearer. 'You look beautiful,' he breathed, and moved from the door towards her.
Tiffany just sat and stared at him, feeling suspended in a mindless vacuum. Ben came nearer, his eyes holding hers,
and she could do nothing to break that invisible thread that held her glance fast to his warm grey eyes. Her mouth parted, and she passed her tongue over nervously dry lips, her eyes widening, heart hammering, as he came to stand in front of the settee, his hands coming down as if to embrace her. It was as though a magic spell held them both.
Then a car horn honked outside and awareness seemed to flood into his eyes, and the spell was broken. She heard his light laugh, heard him say wryly, 'No, I'd better not touch you—I still don't believe in you and you might disappear.'
`I w-wasn't expecting you,' Tiffany said, her voice unrecognisable in her own ears, sounding cracked with forced brightness, her eyes dropping away from his.
`I trust you weren't expecting anyone else,' he said, which had her looking at him again ready with unneeded defence, but he was smiling, and she realised he was teasing her.
Then fortunately he was putting some normality into the atmosphere, moving out of the room, saying something about changing and having a relaxing evening. When he had gone, Tiffany thanked heaven for the chance to be on her own; she needed some time to get herself under control. Then knowing she couldn't sit around as she was all night because although her garments were respectable there was no mistaking the aim of their designer, she rose from the settee, intending to change into something less alluring.
She was almost at the door of her room when Ben emerged from his, his arm coming out to stay her. Just the touch of his hand on her lace-attired arm was enough to start her heart hammering away again, but she could see from his face that any effect she had had on him five minutes ago had now vanished, for his face was as composed as ever.
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