by Lilian Peake
The frigid voice asked, “You’re otherwise engaged? But isn’t it possible for you to postpone the appointment?”
She answered, imploring her brain to provide her with a plausible excuse, “I’m very sorry, but—” Her brain had let her down. It had nothing to offer. She finished lamely, “I’m going out.” There was no reaction from the other end. “With—with my boy-friend.”
“And,” the caller returned coldly, “you couldn’t put him off for once? After all, he lives next door, doesn’t he? It’s surely not impossible for you to see him at any time of the day—or night.”
Her nails made faint scratch marks on the metal of the instrument in her hand. The addition of the last two words was no accident. With her lips pressed together, she refused to speak.
“It’s not entirely a social occasion,” he went on. “We discuss business matters.” He waited. “I should be glad if you would regard the acceptance of this invitation as part of your work.”
She prised open her lips and said, “If you put it that way, Mr. Pascall, I have no option but to accept.”
“Thank you, Miss Stuart,” he drawled. “I’m extremely grateful, not to say flattered, that you have consented to break your date with your boy-friend and made one with me instead.” He rang off.
That evening Gayle went out with Mel. In the cinema they held hands and afterwards walked home, arms round each other, discussing the film. They had been friends and neighbours for so long it was almost as if they already belonged to the same family. But—and the idea gave Gayle a shock—that would have made them brother and sister, and, she told herself severely, she must not feel that kind of affection for Mel.
Now and then they stood still and Mel would kiss her. Gayle was accustomed to his kisses. They were gentle, asking no more of her than that she should lift her lips and allow his to rest upon them.
Mel was an uncomplicated person and if there was any passion within him, he was either keeping it strictly under control or she, Gayle, was not the woman to arouse it. With her lack of self-assurance, her nagging sense of inadequacy, she was sure it was the latter. It frightened her sometimes, this feeling that she had nothing to offer the opposite sex, no sparkle, no provocation that she could use, like other women, like Carla Grierson, to make a man desire her.
Herbert gave his daughter a lift to the Pascall residence. As they drew up outside the extensive gardens which, with its line of trees, screened the house from the road, Herbert squeezed her hand.
“Don’t look so worried, love. They aren’t going to make a meal of you!”
Gayle laughed nervously. “Do I look all right?”
“You look nice to me whatever you wear.”
“Yes, but,” she told him gently, “this is a special dress. It was on the racks and I’ve admired it for a long time. So I tried it on and bought it.”
“Deducting the employee’s discount, I hope?”
“Of course.” She looked down at herself, at the pale and dark lavender panels of the long skirt, panels which were cut diagonally so that they swirled round her body from waist to ankles. She thought of the halter neck and, topping the close-fitting bodice, the deep-cut neckline. “I hope it’s suitable for the occasion.” The thought of the matching waist-length jacket which covered her bare arms and shoulders was reassuring.
The door was opened by the host himself. He smiled and bowed mockingly low. The house behind him was quiet.
“Am I the first?” Gayle asked, and when Ewan nodded, she turned, prepared to run. It was a gesture which was as involuntary as blinking, the urge to escape from a situation which was beyond her experience and control.
A hand shot out and caught her wrist, pulling her in. “Where the blazes do you think you’re going?”
“I’ll wait outside,” she said, panic widening her eyes and quickening her breathing. “I—I never like to be first. Honestly, Mr. Pascall, I’d rather. Please let me—”
He was laughing so loudly her face flooded with colour. “You’ve made history, Miss Stuart. The guest who ran away. One look at the Pascall home and she was racing down the drive, never to darken its doors again! I must admit, it’s the first time it’s happened to me.”
They were standing in the hall, and from the dark oak panelling and high, moulded ceiling, Gayle judged the age of the house to be over a hundred years.
“Your coat, Miss Stuart?” Ewan’s hand came out to take it from her and a woman appeared from the area in which Gayle guessed the domestic quarters would be. The woman smiled and nodded and removed the coat from Ewan’s arm, taking it upstairs.
Ewan showed Gayle into a room which, with its gracious splendour, took her breath away. The wooden floor shone with diligently applied polish, exotic rugs were scattered everywhere. Antique chairs and settees were placed at intervals round the room. There were floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking extensive, well-tended gardens. Inset bookshelves reached to the ceiling and were laden with books.
On a polished table in a bay stood a giant vase resplendent with flowers and long-stemmed grasses. Here there was room to breathe, Gayle thought, to relax and let the imagination wander and the mind to dream.
She thought of the house she and her father shared, with its modest closed-in living-room, the shabby furniture and worn carpet, the cluttered kitchen which she never had time to clear. The small garden with its low fences, over which neighbours’ pets—and children—jumped whenever the fancy took them.
“Lost in thought?” Her host handed her a drink. “Well, have you decided? Do you like my home?”
She smiled up at him. “How could I possibly dislike it?”
“A diplomatic answer. You could object to it on principle, perhaps? It might go against the grain. You might consider that one man should not own such a place, that no one should possess enough money to be able to call such a house his own.”
She smiled and sipped her drink.
He smiled back and said, “You’re giving me no hint of your views of the rich in relation to the poor?”
She looked deep into the potent liquid in her glass. “It doesn’t do to reveal one’s politics to one’s employer. Especially,” she dared to say, because she was not looking at him, “When one’s employers politics are so obviously different from one’s own.”
He threw back his head and laughed. He seemed in a mood to be pleased. He was animated and buoyant, Gayle had never seen him so alive. She was aware of him to such an extent that it was as if every nerve in her body was in tug-of-war contact with his. She felt alive, too, and stimulated as she had never been before. Which was why she dared not raise her eyes, because if he looked into them he might, with his perspicacity, see into her mind.
“You’re so sure, aren’t you,” her host provoked, “that my beliefs and yours can never coincide?”
“Of course I am. Our backgrounds are so different and our outlook on life, too.” She glanced up and her smile was a challenge. “You’re a rich man and rich men can indulge in whatever takes their fancy.”
The expression in his eyes became contemplative and estimating. She coloured and turned away, realising the implications of what she had said.
“Gayle?” She was forced to turn back and look at him. “Take off that jacket?” It was spoken as a question, but it was really a command, and one which oddly did not arouse in her the desire to disobey.
She lowered her glass to a table. When the jacket was off and swinging from her hand, she felt his gaze trailing to her bare arms, lingering on her shoulders and dwelling on her throat. His eyes were seducing her but, after countless seconds, it was of the dress that he spoke.
“From Pascall’s stock?”
She stiffened. “Yes, but I paid for it.”
He moved until only a pace separated them. “I never thought otherwise. I have never, ever, doubted your honesty.”
His voice, and when she met them, his eyes, were strangely serious.
“Because,” she whispered, “you know my father? Y
ou trust him implicitly, therefore you trust his daughter?”
As she spoke, her breath was shallow and quick, her pulses pounded, and not only at his nearness. Her conscience nudged her deep-down guilt into wakefulness.
“You’ve inherited so many of your father’s good qualities,” he said at last, “I’m convinced you also possess his integrity and his high principles.”
Now her heart thudded with fear. Those dresses, those cheap dresses he had forbidden her to buy, yet which she had bought—and sold. If he knew about those, what would he say then?
The door bell chimed. The tension slackened. Ewan went to meet his guests. Gayle’s head drooped with relief and a feeling of reprieve. She told herself exultantly, her secret was safe.
Ewan’s mother swept in, resplendent in a flowing silk gown. It was, without doubt, a product of haute couture. After greeting the other buyers and their wives, Anastasia Pascall turned to Gayle with a swift, triumphant smile.
“From London,” she said, indicating her dress. “From the House of one of London’s most celebrated designers.” To the assembled company, “You see in me a traitor. I no longer patronise my son’s department store for my gowns. Since Miss Grierson went away, the service in,” with a sly glance at Gayle, “a certain department of that store has not been the same. I no longer give it my unswerving loyalty and patronage.”
One or two of her listeners gave an embarrassed laugh. In the face of such a statement, in which resentment and dislike was scarcely veiled, there was nothing else they could do. But her son frowned. It seemed as much as he could do to disguise his irritation. It was plain that he did not like his employees, especially when they were also his guests, to be insulted before their faces.
Throughout the evening Mrs. Pascall did her best to ignore her son’s youngest buyer. At dinner Gayle, to her surprise, found herself placed on Ewan’s right, while at the head of the table Mrs. Pascall occupied the hostess’s chair.
The employer-employee relationship was cast aside. Everyone was on first name terms. Under cover of the general conversation, Ewan leaned across and murmured to Gayle, “We’re off duty. Drop the formality. Call me Ewan.”
She opened her mouth, started to speak, then shook her head.
‘Don’t be an idiot, Gayle. I can’t be Ewan to the others, but not to you. You’re my guest, as they are. You’re their equal—and mine. Say it—Ewan.”
It took her a few seconds to comply, but in the end she whispered, “Yes, Ewan.”
He inclined his head mockingly. “Thank you, Gayle.” The conversation veered to shop, as Mrs. Carrington had warned. Gayle listened intently to the discussion, and in doing so learnt of the other buyers’ problems. Everyone, it seemed, had awkward customers. I’d like to bet, she told herself, glancing covertly at her hostess, that I’ve had the most difficult customer of all!
“The sales,” Ewan said, idly turning his wine glass, “in the dress section of the fashion department have recently shown a pleasing upward turn.” He flicked his eyes at the startled face of the buyer of that particular section. “I should like to compliment Miss Stuart on her efforts.”
Apart from a snort of annoyance from the woman at the head of the table, there were general murmurs of approval. Here and there was even the odd, unbegrudging congratulation. Scarlet-faced but managing to smile, Gayle acknowledged them. Had the ordering and the selling of the forbidden dresses paid off, beyond her expectations, even earning her the approval of the managing director himself?
Gayle reflected, torturing herself, if Ewan ever learned how those improved sales figures had come about, what then? But he must never know! Mrs. Carrington had promised to keep the secret and Gayle had every faith in her discretion. June Warner, the young assistant, knew nothing of the ban on the lower quality stock.
“How’s Carla?” asked Tom Marsh of Heavy Electrical.
Mrs. Pascall answered for her son. “As beautiful as ever.” She was plainly proud of her daughter-in-law-to-be. “Her photograph has been in all the glossy magazines. And the dresses she models,” she held up a hand, “they’re divine!” She sighed. “How I wish she were back. She knew exactly what suited me. I miss her so. Ewan, too. Don’t you, darling?”
The man to whom she addressed her question said slowly, lifting his glass and gazing at the spectrum of colours thrown off by the twisting, sparkling facets, “A man would have to be blind and quite without feeling not to miss the attractions of a beautiful woman.” His listeners laughed sympathetically.
After the meal, the guests returned to the drawing-room. Gayle, feeling her solitariness amongst the laughing, friendly crowd, wandered to one of the windows to gaze out at the gardens which were misting and fading into the late April twilight.
“If it weren’t so dark,” Ewan said, joining her, “I’d offer to take you round the estate. Another time, perhaps.”
She glanced at him quickly, but he was staring outside. What did he mean, “another time”? When would she go there again? Next time she would have ready a convincing reason for refusing the invitation to the buyers’ dinner.
All the evening Ewan stayed with her. Since she was the only guest without a partner, Gayle supposed he was taking pity on her. His mother tried continually to coax him away, but he refused to be coaxed. As a gallant host, Gayle could not fault his behaviour. He dismissed her statement that her father had offered to call for her and said he would take her home instead.
When his guests had gone and his mother removed herself from the premises by driving away with a careless wave—it seemed she did not live with her son but owned a large house a few miles away—Ewan helped Gayle into her coat and escorted her to his car.
The journey back was through country lanes. The moon had risen into a clear sky and stars were scattered like so many sequins across the blackness above their heads. Just before the hedges, which lined the winding road, gave way to box-like, brick-built suburban dwellings, Ewan pulled on to the grass verge, bumping to a standstill.
Gayle stared at him in the semi-darkness. “Why—?” she began.
“Why not? To enjoy the moonlit night, perhaps, to appreciate the peace and solitude after the noise of a busy evening’s talking.” His head turned towards her and in the moonlight his features were provocative, his smile mocking. “Perhaps to make the most of the company of the woman beside me.”
“Of course,” she forced a lightness into her voice, “you’re missing your fiancée. You admitted as much this evening.”
“Yes,” he smiled lazily, “I’m missing a woman in my arms. Will you take pity on me and pander to my needs?”
With a swift, unpredictable movement he twisted round and pulled her so close against him she could feel the hardness of his ribs biting into her. There was no chance of escape and even if there had been, she acknowledged in her heart that she would not have taken it.
This was where she had longed to be, she realised now, for an incalculable length of time. His mouth was rough and hard, but she did not mind. She responded with an ardour which betrayed her hidden desires, but which, as she fought to regain her sanity, both alarmed and dismayed her. It was there, after all, this uncontrollable passion, it was there, not for Mel whom she was to marry, but for Ewan Pascall, who was engaged to another woman.
He let her go for a few pulsating seconds, then she was back, and his lips were holding hers more surely than before. She was frightened now. The feeling between them had changed, an urgency threatened to blaze the trail for the passion that was stampeding to be freed from its bounds.
One of them must bring this madness to an end, and Gayle knew it must be herself. This was Ewan Pascall, rich man, pampered man, engaged and soon to marry. But above all, he was her employer and tomorrow was a working day. Anywhere in the store they might pass each other. How would she feel then? Embarrassed, cheap, easy to get?
She eased back her head and he did not close the gap, although he would not permit her to escape entirely. “Tell me,” he asked,
his eyes contemplating her mouth, “how serious are you with your boy-friend?”
“I’m going to marry him,” she said, twisting and turning until he let her go. “And you’re going to marry Carla. This is mad, crazy...” She covered her face. “You had no right...” There was a long, strained silence. A car sped past, a couple laughed and talked as they strolled by. Somewhere a door slammed.
Ewan came to life. “No, I had no right, none at all, but I refuse to say I’m sorry.” His fingers reached out and turned the ignition key. “You seemed as eager for it as I was.” He steered the car on to the road and drove on.
“You’re wrong,” she bluffed, “quite wrong. I told you, I’m—I’m engaged.”
She almost heard his eyebrows rise. “You are? Then,” sardonically, “I’ve never been so fooled in my life. In your social circles, does an engaged woman respond to another man’s kisses as ardently as you respond to mine?”
She gritted her teeth. As they drew up outside the house, she thought, I’ll invite him in. I’ll show him in unmistakable terms that I’m not his—or any man’s—merely at the crook of a finger. Yes, she would ask Ewan Pascall in. He would, she knew, take it as further encouragement. The idea pleased her.
The shock he would receive would be all the greater.
Yes, Ewan said, he would be delighted to go in with her. It would be a change to speak to her father as man to man, instead of employer to employee. His dark eyes mocked her in the light of the street lamps. “Almost as pleasant as kissing his daughter.”
They got out of the car. “This way, Mr. Pascall.”
As she pushed open the gate he caught her hand. “Ewan,” he prompted.
“Ewan,” she echoed, smiling sweetly up at him. His hand, over hers, tightened. She did not pull hers away. It would not be long before he would never want to hold her hand again.
“Mel!” Gayle had known he would be there, and his mother, too. It was like a family gathering. She threw away Ewan’s hand as a child discards a cast-off toy and hung on to Mel’s arm. It took only seconds to switch on a look of rapture and gaze into Mel’s face and to follow this manoeuvre by reaching up and kissing him. His mouth, at first tight with surprise, became soft and welcoming.
