A Question of Marriage

by Lindsay Armstrong

  ‘I’m not sure about Ptolemy. Copernicus was a monk but maybe Isaac Newton or Edmund Halley had a wife that you could draw some humour from?’ Aurora broke in to suggest. ‘Mind you, it was quite customary in Galileo’s days, at least, for scholars not to marry. That’s why his daughters ended up in a nunnery—they were illegitimate and didn’t have any prospects because of it. You don’t—’ She broke off and glinted a wicked little look at him. ‘You don’t subscribe to that view, do you, Luke?’

  ‘Not at all,’ he denied and shrugged. ‘I’ve never thought about it that way.’

  ‘So why did you and Leonie call it quits?’ Aurora heard herself ask.

  He blinked at her.

  Aurora wrinkled her nose. ‘Sorry. That just slipped out. Well, it is topical, I guess. And I’m reliably informed she’s a ten, if not to say an eleven or twelve, Leonie Murdoch.’

  ‘Who by? Don’t tell me—Neil and Mandy Pearson.’

  Aurora agreed wryly. ‘To compound matters, Neil couldn’t have been more surprised to hear you and I were walking out together than if I’d told him the…the Aga Khan had taken an interest in me.’

  ‘I think the present one would be a little old for you, Aurora.’

  She ignored the little glint of irony in his eyes and gestured. ‘You know what I mean. He seemed to think we were in different leagues. He also, now I come to think of it, expressed the opinion of you that—no.’ Aurora stopped.

  ‘Please don’t spare my feelings,’ Luke said politely.

  ‘It’s not your feelings I’m worried about,’ she retorted. ‘I just don’t feel right about quoting what Neil said in confidence, I guess.’

  ‘Then I’ll ask him—you have spilt most of the beans anyway.’

  ‘Luke!’ Aurora stood up and put her tray on the coffee-table. ‘Don’t you dare!’

  ‘There is, actually, no way you could stop me, Aurora,’ he murmured. He stood up. ‘In fact I might give him a ring right now.’

  She looked around a little wildly. ‘There’s no phone in this room!’ And she walked over to the doorway and stood in it with her arms akimbo.

  ‘I know you knocked me out once, but are you seriously suggesting you’re capable of barring me into this room?’ he queried.

  ‘You knocked yourself out!’

  ‘Aurora—’ he came to stand in front of her ‘—it so happens I was indisposed that night, not to mention wondering whether I was hallucinating. I’m perfectly fit and in my right mind at the moment.’

  She looked up at him. ‘Is that a threat, Luke?’

  ‘Of a sort,’ he said gravely. ‘Apart from having something to prove dating back to our first encounter, I can’t think of anything I’d rather be doing—than this.’ He picked her up and carried her over to a leather settee.

  She wriggled in his arms, more from surprise than anything else, but immediately knew she had as much chance of escaping him as getting out of a steel trap. ‘I don’t propose,’ she told him as he sat down with her in his lap, ‘to engage in any undignified, not to mention wasted struggles, Luke Kirwan. And I have to point out that you more than avenged yourself for that first night on the very next occasion we met. I also don’t intend to succumb to—more blackmail.’

  ‘No? What do you think I have in mind?’

  She pretended to consider. ‘Kissing me into some kind of submission?’

  He grinned at her. ‘What a lovely prospect!’

  ‘But you wouldn’t—would you, Luke?’

  ‘I certainly had in mind kissing you. If you regard it as a fate worse than death—’ his dark eyes glinted ‘—all you have to do is tell me what Neil said.’

  ‘Try me,’ she suggested, a little glint in her own eyes.

  ‘That is throwing down the gauntlet, Aurora.’

  She merely composed her features, closed her eyes and clasped her hands at her waist. But he didn’t attempt to kiss her immediately. He played with the top button of her shirt, then slid his fingers beneath it and cupped her shoulder.

  She resisted the tremors threatening to run through her with an almost Herculean effort of will. She told herself she must be mad—how had she allowed herself to fall into this kind of game with him? But when he slipped her bra strap aside and stroked her breast, she had to bite her lip to give her will power a bit of a boost. And when her nipples peaked, when she moved convulsively at the aching delight he was wreaking on her body, she had to admit she was unequal to the gauntlet she’d thrown down.

  Her lashes flew up and she said raggedly, ‘He thought, because you’ve always had women chasing after you, that the concept of monogamy might be a little foreign to you. Luke—’ she sat up ‘—if you ever tell him I told you or let it interfere with your friendship, I’ll never forgive you! He was only theorizing because—’ she gestured helplessly ‘—no one could understand why you and Leonie had parted, I guess. You’ve never made me feel quite like that before, not even at Beltrees,’ she added.

  ‘I’m glad it rated a mention.’

  Some colour ran beneath her skin as he adjusted her shirt and kissed her chastely. Then she lay back against his arm, which was propped along the armrest of the settee, and studied him. ‘You may not be the devil in disguise I took you for, over my diaries and the police file, but there’s still so much I don’t know or understand.’

  ‘Such as, not being at all sure you want to go down this road with a man to whom the concept of monogamy may be foreign?’ he suggested.

  She stared into his dark eyes, her own suddenly wide. ‘Is it?’

  ‘Of course not.’ He lifted his head and looked across the room.

  ‘So—what did go wrong with Leonie?’ she asked.

  It was a long moment before he brought his gaze back to her. ‘Does this indicate a renewed interest in getting to know me, Aurora?’

  She chewed her lip for a moment, then looked at him sideways to a quizzical little glint in his eyes. ‘After what has just occurred, it may be a little difficult for you to grasp that I still have reservations about that, Luke,’ she replied formally, ‘but I do.’

  ‘I quite understand,’ he said gravely.

  She clicked her teeth shut, then said through them, ‘No, you don’t!

  In fact, that is a prime example of a male chauvinist at his worst—what you just said.’

  His lips twitched, but before he could respond she went on intensely, ‘Everyone, and I do mean everyone, who knows us has exhibited either intense surprise that I should be putting myself in Leonie’s shoes, or intense concern for her. What the hell am I to think?’ she asked. ‘Apart from the obvious—that we must be as different as chalk from cheese.’

  ‘You are,’ he murmured, trailing the tips of his fingers down her cheek.

  ‘How so?’ she asked, a little stunned.

  He moved restlessly and Aurora sat up and slipped off his lap so she was sitting beside him.

  And she said quietly, when he didn’t answer, ‘Maybe not such a threat to your independence as Leonie was?’

  ‘You’re actually a considerable threat to my peace of mind, Aurora,’ he replied with a trace of humour. ‘But I wasn’t intending to do anything about it until—’ his lips quirked ‘—you walked into my trap over the matter of Neil.’

  She said crossly, ‘I should have known better.’ Then a lightening smile lit her eyes, but she sobered suddenly. ‘It doesn’t get me any further forward, though.’

  Luke stood up and walked over to his desk, where he pushed some papers around for a moment, then he turned to her. ‘I don’t know what went wrong,’ he said. ‘I had the greatest admiration for Leonie, I thought I was in love with her, I went along with her plans for the future in so much as—in the fullness of time we would get married. I even…’ he paused and looked around ‘…bought this house with an eye to that kind of future. Then I got cold feet. For some reason it was like looking down the barrel of a gun.’

  Aurora blinked.

  He shrugged. ‘Perhaps I should reph
rase: there was something niggling away at me that I could only identify as a disinclination to change our—modus operandi.’

  ‘So you would have been happy to go on as before but not marry her?’ Aurora asked. ‘That’s…’ She couldn’t continue.

  He smiled briefly. ‘Diabolical? She thought so too and I can’t blame her. But that’s what happened, Aurora. Perhaps you’d like to make a judgement? Although, believe me, it has nothing to do with requiring more than one wife.’

  ‘Just a disinclination to be tied down by any one woman for the rest of your life,’ Aurora said more to herself than him, then she looked at him penetratingly. ‘You could be more like Galileo and the scholars of his time than you know. Wedded to your science, kind of thing, so that any woman could only take second place.’

  ‘Only time will tell, I imagine,’ he replied, a touch dryly.

  ‘You object to me doing this? You did invite me to make a judgement, Luke. And you did, or do, seem to have a rather personal interest in me despite coming close to getting your fingers burnt with Leonie Murdoch—darn it,’ she said. ‘Does she know about me?’

  ‘If Mandy Pearson or Julia have anything to do with it, I’m quite sure Leonie does—’ his tone was even dryer than earlier ‘—but I haven’t tried to hide you—why would I?’

  ‘There’s a difference between being open and above board—and flaunting a new girlfriend,’ Aurora said distractedly. ‘I keep getting back to how soon—’

  ‘Aurora, the reason it happened so soon is because you precipitated it.’

  ‘I didn’t, I—’

  But he broke in again, ‘You certainly came to my notice in a rather dramatic way. You certainly made sure it wouldn’t be a forgettable encounter—the first one or the second one.’

  She gasped. ‘I didn’t do any of that deliberately! I was desperately trying to avoid you, Luke Kirwan!’

  ‘I know, I know. What I’m trying to say is—things just happened that way. Whereas you seem to feel it was all part of some devious plot on my part—to what? That’s where you lose me.’

  ‘Perhaps you should have waited a while,’ she said helplessly at last. ‘And now this. Your father’s worried about you, Leonie wants a reconciliation—is that true, by the way?’

  He looked at her but didn’t answer for a long moment. ‘Leonie seems to think we’ve thrown three good years away for no real reason,’ he said at last. ‘I’m not so sure. Aurora, could we talk about you for a change?’

  ‘Why? I mean…what do you want to know?’ She held his dark gaze steadily although she was reeling inwardly from his honesty.

  He leant against the edge of the desk, crossed his long legs and folded his arms. ‘How experienced are you, Aurora?’

  She sat down on the settee rather abruptly and clasped her hands together. Then she said slowly, ‘I see what you mean—how my expectations and previous experience of men might colour my dealings with you? I’m much less complicated than you are, Luke.’ She smiled briefly. ‘Several teenage infatuations, then a serious crush, but he was a married man so—he never even knew about it. That’s one reason I was so determined to get my diaries back unread—as you probably know,’ she said ruefully.

  He put his head to one side. ‘I must have missed that bit. I didn’t read them in detail, I told you.’

  ‘Enough to know…’ She stopped and looked away.

  ‘To sense they were a lifeline—yes. Go on,’ he said gently after a moment.

  ‘At twenty-three, I took the plunge. In retrospect, I think I was beginning to feel like the last spinster on the planet because it all seemed to blow up out of the blue. At the time I thought This Was It, in capitals, but six months later—well—’ she raised her eyebrows ‘—maybe I’m not so unlike you after all. I began to feel stifled, he became possessive and jealous—over nothing—and I found myself in the uncomfortable position of asking myself what I had ever seen in him. Strange,’ she mused.

  He was watching her narrowly. ‘Perhaps even frightening?’

  ‘Yes, even frightening. I had to hide behind my father, in fact, to extricate myself.’

  He smiled faintly. ‘That would have gone against the grain.’

  She looked wry. ‘I do like to fight my own battles, but I was extremely grateful to have Dad do it for me.’

  ‘And do you think any residue of it has coloured your dealings with men since?’

  ‘Yes, it has,’ she said honestly, then glinted him a wicked little look. ‘As you know, I have strong feelings about being smitten on first encounters and I’m always on the lookout against…’

  ‘Being led down the garden path,’ he finished for her. ‘Is that all?’

  She said serenely, ‘It hasn’t turned me off men, as you might have noticed, but it would be fair to say I’m older and quite a bit wiser because of it. There hasn’t been anyone serious since then.’

  He straightened. ‘So, how do you see us?’

  ‘Ah. I really don’t know. Isn’t that why this all came up?’

  ‘How would it be,’ he suggested slowly, ‘if we carried on as before until some clarification comes to us?’

  Aurora took her time in answering as a little voice inside her said, Don’t do this, Aurora. He may not be the devil in disguise but there’s no guarantee you wouldn’t get hurt… When was there any guarantee of that, though? she asked herself and looked around—a mistake, as it turned out. Because she encountered the other side of Luke Kirwan that was starting to fascinate her: his scholarly side.

  ‘You mean, more as friends?’ she asked uncertainly. ‘If that’s what you mean, we’d have to draw the line at what went on in here earlier,’ she added with more spirit.

  ‘As in—I’m not allowed to lay a finger on you?’ he queried with a wicked little glint.

  ‘Mae West,’ she said tartly, ‘was of this opinion—Give a man a free hand and he’ll try to put it all over you.’

  He came over and sat down beside her laughing quietly. But after a moment, he said, ‘We could stop here and now, Aurora, if you really wanted to.’

  ‘Is that…how little it means to you?’ she asked with a quiver in her voice that she couldn’t hide.

  He put an arm around her. ‘No. It means a lot to me. You may not realize this but I feel a lot more relaxed, a lot less—’ his lips twisted ‘—dangerous since getting to know you.’

  She leant back against him. ‘Really?’

  ‘Really. But—’

  ‘No, don’t go on,’ she said. ‘I think I understand and I feel quite complimented—I probably shouldn’t,’ she mused. ‘I probably should even feel like a pair of carpet slippers—’

  ‘There is not the slightest comparison,’ he drawled. ‘You are…like a breath of fresh air in my life.’

  ‘Thanks. I guess I have to say that in between making my life a misery, there have been one or two bright spots—but perhaps we should leave it there, for the time being, Professor.’

  ‘May I humbly be allowed to make one last observation?’

  ‘Only one!’

  ‘It’s going to be awfully hard to break the habit of kissing you, Aurora.’

  ‘OK, I’ll agree to certain concessions.’ Her green eyes were sparkling with amusement.

  ‘You mean you’ll dole them out when and where you see fit?’

  ‘Luke, I’ll do more. I’ll kiss you goodnight and take myself home to bed.’ And she suited actions to words.

  But it ended quite differently from how she’d planned it. It became, once again, a sensory delight that left her trembling in his arms, more physically moved by a man than she ever remembered.

  ‘She was right,’ she said huskily, when she could cope with talking.

  He drew his finger around the outline of her mouth, and studied her vivid, heart-shaped little face cupped in the curve of his elbow, and ran his fingers through her tangle of curls. ‘Mae West?’

  ‘Mmm…’

  ‘Do you mind?’

  ‘How could I? I
didn’t actually resist—I didn’t resist at all.’ But she licked her lips cautiously.

  He smiled. ‘Do you remember something else you once accused me of? Men will be men?’

  She nodded after a moment.

  ‘You were so right. That was very much a “men will be men” reaction. In other words, I couldn’t help myself.’

  ‘Because I was being bossy?’

  He looked rueful. ‘Not only that, because you’re gorgeous.’

  She hesitated, then slid her hands around his neck. ‘So are you. Quite the nicest tiger to cross my path, in fact.’ And she drew his head down, kissed him lingeringly, then slipped off the settee. ‘Goodnight, sweet prince,’ she said softly, but with laughter dancing in her eyes, and added, as he moved, ‘No, I let myself in, I can let myself out—you get back to Newton’s wife!’

  The laughing look she tossed him over her shoulder as she slipped out of the room told him that she was perfectly alive to the fact that Newton’s bloody wife, he thought darkly, was going to be extremely cold comfort.

  He got up and walked over to the window to find himself suddenly pondering where, exactly, Aurora Templeton fitted into his scheme of things. The view over the lit pool did not vouchsafe any answers. He rubbed his jaw restlessly and contemplated the fact that, above all, he didn’t seem to have a scheme of things any more.

  As his father had been at pains to point out to him, he’d walked away from one woman into the arms of another—why? Not because Leonie had changed in any way, which was what was making it so hard for her to understand… He moved his shoulders restlessly and recalled that his father had even gone further and confessed that he’d almost got cold feet as the altar had approached, but his marriage to Luke’s mother had been as strong and enduring as they came so if it was marriage Luke was afraid of—who was to say Aurora would be a better candidate than Leonie?

  He had a point, Luke conceded to himself. Unless Aurora had read him better than any of them and he was wedded to his science?

  But if that were so and all else aside, was it fair to keep pursuing Aurora? A girl, he reminded himself, who had fought almost tooth and nail to retrieve her diaries because not only had they been intimate memoirs but her mainstay in a life with no mother and a father gone a lot of the time. A girl who talked to her goldfish… And fair to keep pursuing her for no reason other than that he simply didn’t seem able to help himself?