Loveknot

by Catherine George

  "Since I designed it, I'm entitled to my feeling of affinity, Sophie."

  Alexander glanced at his watch. "Time we were off. I'd better deliver you to your grandmother at the gallop. I'm due back in Deansbury by seven."

  Cecily Wainwright ignored Alexander's refusal of tea.

  "Nonsense," she said, holding out her hand to let him kiss it as he always did.

  "Ten minutes won't deter the lady waiting for you, I'm sure."

  Alexander surrendered, laughing, settling himself next to Sophie on a couch in the drawing-room while Mrs. Wainwright plied him with Earl Grey and anchovy toast and demanded details of the condition of Ilex Cottage.

  "It's charming. Grail," said Sophie, her eyes shining with enthusiasm.

  "I'd never seen inside one of those cottages before. It's so compact and cosy, and with the right curtains and a few coats of paint ' " Yes, yes, darling, spare-'us the details. “Mrs. Wainwright laughed.

  "Delighted though I am to know you approve, it's Alexander's professional opinion I'm anxious to hear."

  Alexander supplied it succinctly, then slanted a smile at Sophie.

  "My secretary will send you documented confirmation, of course."

  It was almost half an hour later before he rose to leave, and, sent by Mrs.

  Wainwright to see him off. Sophie thanked him for giving her lunch and for taking her to Willow Reach.

  "It was nice of you to give up your Saturday," she said, as she walked with him to the car.

  Alexander folded his long legs into the driving seat, then gave her a very straight look.

  "No hardship, Sophie. And just for the records, I'm not really dashing off to an evening of riotous debauchery with a member of your sex."

  Sophie's chin lifted.

  "Your social life is nothing to do with me!"

  "Nevertheless 1 thought I'd let you know I'm dining with George and Sally

  Huntley, and, more significantly. Sally's uncle, who just so happens to be on the board of directors of the hotel chain concerned with the site in

  Brading."

  Sophie's pleasure at hearing this surprised her so much, her voice sharpened with the effort to hide it. "Don't you ever do things because you simply want to, Alexander, instead of always with an eye to business?"

  "Why, yes." His eyes gleamed beneath lowered lids. "That's precisely what

  I've been doing all day today, up to now. Goodnight, little sister." And with a mocking salute he sent the roadster purring down the drive to the road.

  "That's a strange expression," observed Mrs. Wainwright when Sophie joined her.

  "Alexander teasing you again?"

  "Yes." Not that Sophie was very sure. The look in Alexander's eyes had been hard to identify. If he had been any other man she would have sworn he was making a very clear statement of intent. But he wasn't anyone else. He was

  Alexander Paget, who had known her all her life, and who, more to the point, had been on the point of marrying Delphine only a short time before. This sudden rush of interest _smacked too much of the rebound for Sophie's taste.

  Besides, Alexander's role in her life had always been rather like an extra brother. Not, Sophie thought broodingly, that fraternal seemed the right description for Alexander of late. His attitude was very disturbing, not least because she felt sure his objective was balm for the wounds Delphine had inflicted. She found she quite badly wanted to know which was affected most--his pride or his heart.

  Cecily Wainwright made no comment on her granddaughter's abstraction, turning instead to the forthcoming wedding while they ate a light supper. She was amused when Sophie confessed her surprise at her father's news.

  "You must be blind, child. Kate Paget's been in love with David for years."

  Sophie looked at her grandmother in astonishment.

  "Really?"

  "Oh, nothing untoward! Kate-was Louise's closest friend all her life, even bridesmaid at the wedding. Then Kate surprised everyone by suddenly marrying

  Hugh Paget only a few weeks later, a man years older than herself, who already had a son." Mrs. Wainwright's smile was confidential.

  "Personally I was always convinced it was because your father chose Louise.

  Though, to be fair, “chose" was hardly the word."

  "Mother always said she and Dad took one look at each other and that was that."

  "Nothing your grandfather or I said made any difference, certainly.

  People didn't just live together in those days, you know, but Louise would have gone off with David like a shot if we'd opposed the marriage. “Mrs.

  Wainwright's smile was wry.

  "So we _let her have her way. And then Kate married her widower and I swear to this day she did it because it meant staying near Louise--and David."

  Sophie stirred a spoon round and round in her coffee-cup.

  "I wonder how it feels to love someone so much? I mean like Mother and Dad, and Aunt Kate, too, if she's been carrying a torch all these years. I'm not at all sure I want to feel so violently over anyone."

  "Have you never considered marrying Julian Brett?"

  Sophie sighed impatiently.

  "No, dearest of grandmothers, I have not.

  Julian's not the marrying kind. And, before you begin to nurture any ideas to the contrary, neither am I. "

  "If you fell in love you'd probably think otherwise," observed Mrs. Wainwright mildly.

  "So I'll make sure I keep both feet on the ground. If I ever detect even the slightest inclination in myself towards falling in love, I'll run like hell!"

  "Sophie!"

  Sophie apologised and for the rest of the weekend took care to avoid the subject, which was easy enough, since all she really wanted to talk about was

  Ilex Cottage. Her thoughts, however, were less exclusive. Excited though she was about moving into a place of her own, the look in Alexander's eyes as he drove off kept intruding on her visions of solitary bliss.

  The following afternoon Sophie refused to allow her grandmother to drive her home, unwilling to let Mrs. Wainwright drive sixty miles or so on a damp, foggy day.

  "I shall go by bus," she said firmly.

  "But it stops at every lamp-post on the way, child, _you'll be ages getting home." Mrs. Wainwright paused, interrupted by the doorbell, and sent Sophie to open the front door.

  Alexander stood outside, smiling down at her. "Hello, Sophie. Thought you might fancy a lift home."

  Sophie stared at him, nonplussed.

  "Did you come all this way just to fetch me?"

  Alexander nodded affably.

  "Of course I did. I'm really quite an obliging sort of fellow, you know."

  "You must be, to drive thirty miles just on the off chance I was about to catch a bus."

  "Wouldn't you prefer my car?"

  Sophie regarded him with a suspicion Alexander obviously found very amusing.

  "I wish I knew what you're up to," she said at last.

  "This sudden rush of attention on your part is very worrying. You must have some ulterior motive. Come on, confess. What is it?"

  "Nothing sinister," he assured her smoothly.

  "It's all part of my plan to unite the Pagets and Gordons in one happy family. My motives, I swear, are of the purest."

  Mrs. Wainwright's appearance put paid to further argument until greetings had been exchanged, offers of tea refused, and Sophie was in the Mercedes on the way home to Deansbury, when she returned to the subject with persistence, telling Alexander his change of attitude was making her uneasy.

  "It's spooky," she said frankly.

  "I don't like it. You've always been the boys' ally, not mine. In fact you and I have never hit it off all that well at all, really. At one time we never managed to exchange _two words without disagreeing, then you moved into your superior phase -' " My what? “he asked, startled.

  "Your superior phase dating roughly from the time you went off to college until, I suppose, right up to your wedding day."
/>   Alexander threw her a narrow, frowning look, then returned his concentration to the road, which was half obscured by floating trails of mist.

  "Superior," he repeated.

  "Is that how you've thought of me all these years?"

  "Yes. Not," she added with brutal candour, 'that you've occupied my thoughts all that much, Alexander. "

  "Why?"

  "Why what?"

  "Why don't I merit much thought from you, Sophie?"

  His voice was so toneless that Sophie eyed his profile in surprise, wondering if he was annoyed.

  "Well," she began, sorry she'd ever embarked on the subject,

  "I suppose it's because you're so self- contained and sickeningly successful at everything. I mean, at school you sailed through exams, you were cricket captain, head boy. And in adult life you've always been well liked and respected, with your niche in life all ready carved out for you in the family firm. You just never seem to suffer from petty things like the rest of us I don't even remember your going through the spotty stage, like Tim and the twins. "

  Alexander's laugh was short.

  "Which only goes to show how effective those blinkers of yours are, Sophie.

  You don't remember the spots because _you're years younger than I am, and my spots, if we must discuss them, just didn't register on you at the time. You probably failed to notice our respective parents were something more than just good friends because you've always been so wrapped up in your own particular form of martyrdom."

  Sophie shot upright in her seat.

  "Martyrdom?"

  "That's right. I think you make rather a meal of the little paragon bit."

  There was a very tense silence in the car for some time as Sophie battled with the temper she rarely allowed herself to lose, because she knew from experience it did more harm to herself than to the object of her wrath.

  "So that's how you see me," she observed with hard-won calm.

  "A sort of masochistic Cinderella, with handsome brothers instead of ugly sisters."

  "And I've decided to cast myself in the role of surrogate godfather," he said casually.

  "It's time you woke up to what's going on around you, Sophie made the most of your life."

  "It's what I've been wanting to do for years," she said, through gritted teeth.

  "More to the point, it's exactly what I'm trying to do now, if I can ever manage to convince all of you I'm perfectly able to take care of myself."

  "You could have begun doing it some time ago if you'd ever woken up to the fact that David and Kate were only too ready to relieve you of your selfimposed domesticity." Alexander reduced speed as he was talking, turning smoothly into a lay-by on the deserted road.

  "Why have we stopped?" demanded Sophie, alarmed.

  "So you and I can have a little private chat." Alexander turned towards her.

  "Did you never realise that David hadn't the heart to hurt you by ousting you from your earth-mother syndrome until the need for it was past? Kate would have stepped in any time this past year or so, but she and David were afraid of hurting your feelings."

  "Not," observed Sophie with feeling, 'a virtue one can attribute to you,

  Alexander Paget. "

  "Which is probably why you and I disagreed so much when we were younger."

  "Very likely." Sophie sagged in her seat, feeling utterly deflated.

  "Why didn't you ever say anything, then, since you were so clued up about the entire situation?"

  "Kate and David wouldn't hear of it. So, since it really wasn't any business of mine, I kept my mouth shut. And," he added with candour, 'until just recently you weren't the constant focus of my attention.

  I was involved with Delphine by the time I realised how things stood with

  Kate. "

  "Which meant you had no time to spare for irrelevant details like me."

  Sophie managed a wry laugh.

  "Not that I blame you. Delphine must have been an all-consuming interest."

  There was another of those silences Sophie had come to recognise as routine lately when alone with Alexander. This one was not thick with unspoken insults. It was surprisingly comfortable to sit alone with him in the gathering dusk.

  "Delphine," said Alexander after a while, 'was like an addiction, a habit I found hard to kick once it had _begun. I never saw enough of her for my enthusiasm to pall, was never given enough physical satisfaction for my appetite to ' "Sicken and so die?"

  "Exactly." Alexander's voice dropped several tones.

  "Looking back on it, Sophie, I think I knew in one part of me that marriage with Delphine had no lasting chance of success."

  "The superior, above-the-belt Alexander. The rest of you wanted her come hell or high water, I suppose."

  Alexander sighed.

  "Only, I suspect, because she flatly refused to let me have her."

  "You mean you might not have married her if she'd gone to bed with you as you wanted?"

  Alexander was quiet for a moment.

  "Sophie, I honestly don't know.

  Anyway, the question's academic she didn't go to bed with me, and in the end she didn't marry me. -'either, so now I'll never know. "

  "If she reappeared tomorrow and repented on both counts, would you have her back?" asked Sophie.

  "I'd be tempted," he said frankly.

  "But I hope I'd have enough sense to refuse. She betrayed my trust, and, if

  I may descend to the purely selfish for a moment, she made me look like a bloody fool. I don't know that I'd care to lay myself open to a repeat performance. Not that the question arises. I received a suitably penitent letter from her a few days ago, saying how sorry she was and how she felt I was too wonderful a man to have a wife who was secretly hankering after the fame and success she's now all set to enjoy."

  _Sophie pulled a face in the darkness.

  "Would you think me excessively catty if I said Delphine should have told you all that a jolly sight sooner?"

  "No, not in the least. I agree." Alexander felt for her hand and held it.

  "But Terry Foyle didn't turn up with the bait until the eleventh hour, unfortunately."

  "Are you still suffering from from the addiction you mentioned?"

  Sophie asked diffidently.

  "No. It was cured by that hellish wait in the register office. Not to mention my unilateral honeymoon. Both very efficient remedies, Sophie."

  "Then it sounds as though your pride, rather than your heart, suffered most."

  Alexander's fingers tightened on hers.

  "I knew Delphine for too short a time to sustain any lasting hurt."

  "I thought it only took a moment to fall in love!"

  "And about the same to fall out of it if it's only infatuation."

  Alexander raised her fingers to his lips and, to Sophie's utter astonishment, kissed them one by one.

  "The more enduring emotions friendship, affection, warmth grow and develop all the time in the right kind of relationship."

  Sophie drew her hand away.

  "Alexander, I don't ' " Don't what? “he said softly, and slid an arm behind her to gather her close as he kissed her mouth.

  There was nowhere, Sophie soon realised, to retreat in the seat of a car like

  Alexander's roadster. As his mouth met hers her head fell back against the double support of Alexander's muscular arm and the headrest, while his free hand held her head still, so that movement of any kind was almost impossible.

  _One of her arms was trapped between his chest and hers, her legs were confined by the steering column, and, when her free hand went up to pull at his wrist, it was like tugging at an iron bar. She decided her best plan was to stay' perfectly still and unresponsive. He would soon grow tired of trying to kiss a lifeless dummy. The plan proved to be a total failure, since she found herself growing less lifeless by the second. Her responses,

  Sophie discovered, were bent on functioning independently of her brain. In fact, after only a few more
seconds of persuasion from Alexander's expert mouth Sophie's brain gave up altogether, and her lips parted in abrupt surrender.

  Alexander made a muffled, relishing sound deep in his throat, and joined both arms around her. A minority section of her brain revived fleetingly to warn her that all this was highly inadvisable, that it would be Monday morning' all too soon, and the man kissing her with such unprecedented enthusiasm was also the man who would be waiting for her behind his desk when she arrived lt;o work for him the following day. The last-ditch attempt failed, and Sophie abandoned herself to the wholly unexpected pleasure she was receiving, and giving, if the quickened tempo of Alexander's breathing was anything to go by. At the first touch of his tongue in her mouth her own curled against it in response, and Alexander gave a stifled groan and raised his head momentarily, but only to move his lips to her heavy lids, closing them with kisses that moved over her face and down her throat, lingering on the pulse he found throbbing there.