Conveniently His Omnibus

by Penny Jordan

  * * *

  ‘WHY IS UNCLE JON sleeping in the sitting room?’ Alex asked the question innocently at breakfast time.

  It was David who replied, eyeing his sister faintly scornfully, as he said. ‘It’s because he’s been drinking. He smells just like Daddy did when he and Mummy had been to a party.’

  ‘Yes, but why does that make him sleep downstairs?’ Alex persisted, breaking off as the subject of her question came into the kitchen. The blue eyes looked slightly bloodshot, the brown skin faintly sallow.

  ‘Coffee?’ Sophy asked quietly.

  Jon nodded and then closed his eyes, moaning faintly as he did so. ‘What happened?’ he demanded wryly, sitting down beside Alex and taking the coffee Sophy poured for him.

  ‘I don’t really know. A taxi driver brought you back.’

  ‘Oh, God, yes...I bumped into some friends I was at Cambridge with. Which reminds me...I think I accepted an invitation to a party for both of us tonight.’ He fished in his pocket and produced a scrap of paper with an address scribbled down on it. ‘Yes, there it is...’

  ‘You haven’t had enough partying?’ Sophy asked him drily, taking the paper and smoothing it out.

  ‘Mmm...but we ought to go. It’s someone who’s just setting up on his own and he needs my help. If you don’t fancy it, I could always go alone.’

  Instantly Sophy recognised that she did not want that at all. She wanted to be with him...accepted by his friends as his wife.

  ‘No...no. It will be a pleasant change.’ She would have to arrange a babysitter, but that should not be too difficult. Helen Saunders at the Post Office had a teenage daughter who was trying to save up to buy her first car. Susan was a pleasant, responsible girl, who Sophy knew she could trust with the children.

  ‘Why don’t you go upstairs and go back to sleep?’ she suggested to Jon, noting his bleary eyes and haggard appearance.

  ‘Mmm...sounds like a good idea.’

  She watched him go, conscious of an urge to rush after him and go with him to fuss over him as though he were genuinely her husband.

  ‘Poor Uncle Jon, he looks really poorly,’ Alex commented sympathetically, finishing her breakfast.

  * * *

  SUSAN SAUNDERS proved willing to babysit, and having arranged to pick her up at eight Sophy went upstairs to study the contents of her wardrobe. She had attended several business cocktail parties with Jon before and knew what to expect. As his secretary she had always worn something businesslike and formal but now she was his wife. In the end she selected a simple cream silk shift-style dress, which had been an impulse buy in London and which had been so hideously expensive she had been too guilty to wear it.

  Holding it up against herself she saw how the cream silk emphasised her tan and the silky richness of her hair. The demure front was offset by the deep vee back; the dress would be pleasantly cool on what she suspected was going to be an oppressively hot evening.

  Her mind made up, she went back downstairs, not giving in to the temptation to walk into Jon’s room and see if he was awake. Sooner or later they were going to have to talk; she was going to have to explain to him that the reason she had fled so abruptly had not been because she was shocked by his disclosures or found them distasteful. Even now she found it hard to grasp that he had made them, that he had told her that he wanted her.

  He came downstairs just after lunch, looking worn and tired. ‘God, I feel dreadful,’ he told her wryly. ‘It’s a long, long time since I’ve been in the state I was in last night.’ He sat down at the kitchen table and leaned his head back. ‘I have the most God-awful headache.’

  Silently Sophy produced some Alka Seltzer, watching the face he pulled as he drank it. ‘Filthy stuff,’ was his only comment before he closed his eyes again.

  ‘Jon, about yesterday.’ It had to be said before she lost her courage but the look in his eyes as he opened them immediately silenced her.

  ‘Not now, Sophy,’ he said wearily. ‘Just leave it, will you? I think I’d better get some fresh air...’

  He didn’t want her to go with him, Sophy could tell that. Was he regretting saying to her what he had? Idly her eyes registered his progress to the door, her senses wondering how she could ever have been ignorant of his masculine appeal; how she could ever have been blind enough to think of him as sexless...? A quiver of heat darted through her as her glance rested briefly on the taut outline of his buttocks and then slithered down the length of his legs. Suddenly it hurt to even breathe; she was terrified he would turn round and see what was in her eyes. She reached clumsily for her mug of coffee, her whole body shaking. So this was desire, this fierce, hot need that pushed aside everything that stood in its path; that demanded and aroused. Jon wanted her, he had said so and it ought to be the simplest thing in the world simply to go to him and tell him that she wanted him too, only it wasn’t.

  * * *

  ‘COME AND SHOW me when you’ve got your dress on.’ Alex was in the sitting room with Susan and David, and Sophy smiled and nodded. Jon was already upstairs getting ready but she had only just arrived back with Susan. According to Jon they were supposed to be at his friend’s for nine o’clock. She had showered and put on her makeup before going for Susan but she had not changed into her silk dress.

  She had decided to drive the BMW tonight—the first time she had taken it out with a passenger, although Jon was the most uncritical of men when it came to being driven.

  She almost collided with him at the top of the stairs, his hands coming out to steady her, touching her briefly, making heat sheet through her body.

  How on earth had she ever considered him unattractive, she wondered achingly. His hair was still slightly damp and curled into his neck, the white silk shirt he was wearing clinging to his skin. The black pants weren’t ones she could ever remember seeing before and then she realised it was part of a dinner suit and that he was carrying the jacket—a new dinner suit, she was sure. He was even wearing a bow tie, and as he moved past her she caught an elusive hint of some masculine cologne, faintly old-fashioned and citrusy.

  ‘I shan’t be long,’ she told him. ‘I’ve only got to put on my dress and do my hair.’

  Once it was on she wasn’t sure if the cream silk had been a good idea. She had forgotten that the back was so low that it was impossible to wear a bra under it and the silk, almost perfectly decorous, seemed to hint at the shape of her breasts in a way she found unfamiliar. Her hair she left loose, sliding her feet into cream high-heeled sandals that made her taller than ever. For the first time in her life she was not ashamed or embarrassed by her height. Even in these heels she was nowhere near as tall as Jon. She picked up her bag and went downstairs.

  ‘Wow...you both look smashing!’ Alex told her, her admiring eyes going from Jon to Sophy in excited wonder. Susan grinned at her and then blushed bright red as she looked at Jon. A sharp knifing feeling that Sophy recognised as jealousy tore through her. She was jealous! Jealous of an eighteen-year-old...just because that eighteen-year-old had recognised instantly what she herself had been blind to for so long. Jon was an extremely attractive and desirable man!

  ‘We shan’t be back late.’ Instead of being reassuring her voice sounded slightly brittle. She saw Jon frown as they went outside.

  ‘Are you all right?’ he asked her quietly. ‘You seem on edge.’

  ‘It’s the heat.’ It was partially true after all. Surely he knew the reason she was so on edge? He touched her arm as he opened the car door for her and she flinched, red hot darts of sensation destroying her composure.

  ‘For God’s sake, Sophy.’ His voice was harsh against her ear. ‘What the hell do you think I’m going to do? Give in to my animal passions and take you here in full view of the kids?’

  He had managed to subdue the harshness to a laconic drawl which infused the words with a certa
in dry mockery, but they still made her shake with reaction. ‘I’m sorry that you find the knowledge that I’m a fully functioning sexual being so distressing, but as I’ve already told you...you have nothing to fear.’

  ‘I know that.’

  ‘You do?’ His mouth twisted in a way she was coming to know. ‘Then you’ve a pretty odd way of showing it.’

  He walked round to the passenger door of the car, which she unlocked for him, and got in beside her.

  She had lost count of the thousands of times she must have driven him and yet tonight his presence beside her in the close confines of the car disturbed her. She was acutely conscious of the lean sprawl of his legs...of the rise and fall of his chest, and the cool scent of his cologne mingling with a different, more basic scent which her sense responded to on a deeper, primitive level.

  She wanted him, she realised despairingly, and she would give anything not to be going to this party tonight but to be alone with him so that they could talk. Instead she forced herself to concentrate on her driving, absently noting the easy way in which the big car responded to her touch. It was a pleasure to drive, but right now she was hardly in a mood to appreciate that fact.

  It was ten-past-nine when she pulled up in the drive to Jon’s friend’s house. A mock Tudor building in an avenue of similar houses, it was an easily recognisable symbol of success.

  She walked with Jon to the front door.

  A small brunette opened it to them, smiling ravishingly at Jon, and exclaiming, ‘Darling, you made it!’ She giggled. ‘After last night we weren’t sure if you’d remember.’ She took her time before looking at Sophy.

  ‘So this is your wife? Please come in. You can’t know how thrilled we were to bump into Jon last night in Cambridge.’ She chattered on as she led them through the house to a long terrace at the back where the rich aromas of barbecued meat mingled with the heat of the evening. ‘It’s simply ages since we last saw him. Roy, my husband, was so pleased...he’s having trouble with this new computer of his and if anyone can help him it will be Jon. How long have you been married?’

  She was still talking to Sophy but it was Jon who answered, his expression unreadable as he drawled, ‘Not very long...not long enough, in fact.’

  Sophy could feel the brown eyes darting speculatively from Jon’s face to her own. In time she might quite get to like this petite brunette, but at the moment she was too uncomfortably aware of her speculation and her interest in Jon. My God, she thought despairingly, what was she turning into? A woman who was jealous of every mere look her husband received from other women? She must be going mad, suffering from some sort of sickness brought on by the heat. Or perhaps that frustration Jon had accused her of not so very long ago?

  ‘There’s an old friend here of yours that you simply must meet, darling.’ Their hostess was talking to Jon now, holding on to his arm in a way that made Sophy’s fingers curl into tiny talons.

  ‘Roy, over here a minute, darling,’ she called to her husband, and Sophy watched the burly fair-haired man detach himself from a small group.

  He looked older than Jon although Sophy recognised that they must be around the same age, clever hazel eyes studying her gravely as he shook her hand.

  ‘So you are Jon’s wife? You’re a lucky man, Jon, she’s lovely.’

  ‘Hey enough of that,’ Andrea threatened lightly, punching him on the arm. ‘Just remember you are married to me...’

  ‘Ah, you’re jealous.’ They were simply playing a game...but Jon could have said the same words to her and they would have been all too true.

  ‘I think you’ll find you know most of the people here,’ Roy was saying to Jon. ‘What can I get you to drink?’

  ‘Get him a drink later, love,’ Andrea interrupted. ‘Jon, there’s a very special friend of yours here tonight. An old flame,’ she added, winking at Sophy, as though to show it was still a game, but Sophy could feel herself tense. Jon had tensed too, his jaw hardening fractionally, his eyes closing slightly, such minor changes, that she suspected only she was aware of what they portended.

  ‘Oh...?’ He wasn’t giving anything away in his voice either, Sophy recognised, watching him frown in the hesitant mild manner she had once thought typified the man himself and which she was now coming to know was simply a form of camouflage. What was Jon protecting himself from? Her mouth felt dry, her body tensing almost to the point of pain.

  ‘Yes... Lorraine. You must remember her, Jon. Heavens, you and she were an item for a couple of terms at least. She used to be absolutely crazy about you.’

  ‘But Jon managed to resist all her wiles, didn’t you, my friend?’ Roy was chuckling, ignoring his wife’s frown. ‘Just as well too, otherwise Lorraine would have had you neatly trapped in matrimony and then I would never have been able to meet this lovely lady.’ He kissed Sophy’s fingers gallantly as he spoke.

  ‘We were all a little in love with Jon when he was at university,’ Andrea told Sophy with a small smile. ‘He was so different from the other under-grads, far more sophisticated and just that little bit withdrawn. It made him seem very exciting and out of reach...challengingly so, I’m afraid. We used to chase after him quite unfairly. All you wanted to do was to be left alone to get on with your work, didn’t you, darling?’ she added to Jon.

  Roy laughed. ‘Says you,’ he teased his wife. ‘How do you think he got that jaded, world-weary air you found so tantalising in the first place? It certainly wasn’t by sitting up burning the midnight oil over his books!’

  Jon looked distinctly uncomfortable. He tugged at his bow tie as though it were strangling him, but this time Sophy was not deceived. He was not really embarrassed. He was simply pretending he was. If she looked at his eyes, they were cool and faintly aloof, not embarrassed at all.

  ‘Well you must come and say hello to Lorraine or she’ll never forgive me,’ Andrea insisted, drawing Jon away from Roy and Sophy.

  Silently, Sophy watched them go.

  ‘You mustn’t mind my wife.’ Roy sounded kind and faintly uncomfortable. ‘She’s right when she said that most of the girls in our crowd had a thing about Jon. Poor guy, he was forced to live like a hermit in the end, just to get rid of them. In those days girls had just discovered sex,’ he told Sophy with a grin. ‘It was a difficult time for us men, being the pursued instead of the pursuers.’

  ‘I’m sure,’ Sophy agreed copying his bantering mood. ‘It must have been hell.’

  Roy was easy to talk to but that didn’t stop her glance following Jon’s dark head, watching it bend towards the blonde woman he had stopped beside. Andrea drifted off and left them, Roy was still talking and she must have been making the right responses but inside she was tormented by jealousy. What were they saying? Was this perhaps the one love of Jon’s life? She ached to be with them; to hear what was being said, and was given her chance when someone else came up to talk to Roy. She walked unsteadily away, moving towards Jon. He turned as she reached him, surprise and something else—anger perhaps—flickering across his face.

  ‘Lorraine, this is my wife, Sophy.’

  There was no mistaking the expression in the other woman’s eyes, it was vitriolic. So much so that Sophy found herself taking a step backwards.

  ‘I think I see Peter Lewis over there. I’d like to introduce you to him, Sophy.’ Skilfully Jon drew her away from Lorraine, leaving Sophy wondering if what they had been saying before she arrived was something for their own ears alone.

  At eleven she began to feel tired. Jon was locked in conversation with Roy in the latter’s study, so Andrea had told her. Although everyone seemed friendly, Sophy was disinclined to talk. She wanted to go home. She wanted to be alone with Jon.

  ‘Deserted you already, has he?’

  She recognised Lorraine’s metallic voice instantly, turning to face the older woman.

  ‘So Jon h
as finally married! My dear, how on earth did you manage it?’ She laughed when she saw Sophy’s face tighten. ‘Oh come on. I know him, Jon may look like an extraordinarily attractive member of the male species but looks are all there is. Sexually he’s a disaster area—I should know, I spent months trying to get him into bed with me when we were at university together and when I did...God, what a non-event!’

  Why was Lorraine telling her all this? Sophy wondered, listening to her.

  The glossy red lips curled in open mockery. ‘Oh, come on...you must know it’s true. I know quite well that Jon’s been living like a monk since he left Cambridge. He always did have a hang-up about sex, and you must be aware of it, unless, of course, you haven’t actually been lovers.’

  Sophy felt acutely sick. She knew what Lorraine was doing now. The woman hated Jon, Sophy could see that hatred shining in her eyes but she couldn’t know the truth, Sophy told herself, she was simply probing, looking for a weak spot in Jon’s armour, trying to find a way to humiliate him, as perhaps, Jon had once humiliated her. Illuminatingly she wondered if she had possibly hit on the truth. Could Lorraine, like Louise, have been one of those women who had thought to seduce Jon and found the task impossible? She looked at the blonde, noting the hard eyes and arrogant pose. Lorraine was attractive, there was no denying that. At twenty-one or two she would have been beautiful...and probably even more arrogant, certainly arrogant enough to swear vengeance against any man foolish enough to reject her.

  She managed a slight frown. ‘I’m sorry,’ she began apologetically, ‘but—’

  ‘Oh, come on, my dear,’ Lorraine interrupted her impatiently. ‘Don’t give me that, I know Jon hasn’t changed. He was sexless at twenty-two and he’s sexless now.’

  ‘I’m afraid you’re quite wrong.’ Suddenly, soaringly she felt gloriously strong, glad to do something for Jon...to protect him from this woman’s malice. She even managed to smile freely for the first time that evening. ‘I can’t speak for Jon’s past, of course,’ she shrugged delicately, ‘but I can certainly tell you that as his wife I have no complaints.’