"You're not too old, you know," he said suddenly.
She looked at him, startled. "Too old for what?"
'To confide in me. You used to do so when you were at school."
She made no reply and he patted her arm.
"You should credit me with a bit of intelligence, my dear. I don't want to pry between you and Lance, but no one could see you together without realizing that whatever your engagement is based on, it isn't based on love!"
Still she said nothing and he stood up and paced backwards and forwards in front of her.
"Answer me one thing, Rose. Is Lance marrying you because he blames himself for your accident?"
"Yes," she said huskily and as she uttered the one word her reluctance to talk about herself disappeared. "You're quite right, Dad. Lance isn't in love with me. But he's not marrying me just out of guilt. There are other reasons too."
Haltingly and with difficulty she tried to explain his motives, and when she had finished, her father, far from looking relieved, appeared even more disquieted.
"I think you're both behaving childishly. Lance might believe he's turned his back on love for good, but that's only a normal reaction. In a matter of months he'll think quite differently and then where will you be? Lance is a hot-blooded man, Rose, he'll want a woman in the fullest possible sense!"
"I'll be his wife." she said steadily. "And I love him."
"Enough to give yourself to him knowing he doesn't love you? I doubt it when it comes to it. You've too much pride. And that's when the trouble will start. Other women will throw themselves at him and you'll have to stand by and watch. And of course there's always the chance that he'll fall in love again — and not with you. Have you thought of that?"
"Yes." Her voice was so faint she could hardly hear it herself. "Yes," she repeated more loudly. "I've thought of it from all angles and I'm still going ahead."
Footsteps sounded behind her and looking round she saw Didi framed in the french windows.
"I hope I'm not interrupting you both?" she asked gaily. "You look so serious."
She came over and sat next to Rose. 'You're getting to look better every day, my dear," she said happily. "Another week of convalescence and then you'll be able to come to Paris with me and buy some clothes."
"There's an awfully good place in Cannes," Rose said.
"You can't buy your clothes there! Once you're Lance's wife you'll be photographed wherever you go and you've got to do him credit."
"Rose will do any man credit," her father interrupted. "You set too much store by outward appearances, Mrs. Hammond."
It was the first time Desmond Tiverton had spoken so frankly to his hostess, and she seemed taken aback by it. A look of surprise passed over her heavily painted face, but in an instant it was gone and the blue eyes beneath their thickly mascaraed lashes twinkled up at him.
"If I do, it's because that's what most men seem to go by."
"Then you know the wrong sort of men."
"In my particular life one only meets men of a certain type. Money creates its own barrier, you know."
"It's only lack of money that creates a barrier," Desmond said abruptly. "If you've enough of it you can go everywhere and anywhere."
"How little you know! Why, just take you and me as an example. You think just because I'm a rich woman I'm different from other women and you treat me like a — like a—"
She hesitated, at a loss for the right word and Rose, aware of an undercurrent between the two people, decided it would be diplomatic to leave. Quietly she moved away, aware that neither her father nor Mrs. Hammond realized she had gone.
In this she had done her father an injustice, for he was instantly aware of being alone on the terrace with a woman who had filled him with fear from the moment he had set eyes on her.
"I have never been aware of treating you differently, Mrs. Hammond," he said quietly. "If I've been rude in any way I apologize."
"You haven't been rude at all," Didi pouted. 'You've been indifferent, and sometimes that can be even more of an insult."
"An insult!" his voice rose. "Really, madam, I don't know what you mean."
"That just goes to show how obtuse you are. Look at at the way you're behaving now — calling me Mrs. Hammond and then Madam when you know very well my name is Didi."
"I'm sorry." He reddened. "I… I somehow didn't think I should call you by your christian name."
"Don't be so old-fashioned. You're talking like a man of ninety."
He did not reply and taking out his pipe, examined it minutely.
"For heaven's sake put your pipe away," came the irate order. "You've no idea how it gets on my nerves watching you fiddle with it all the time."
"I'm sorry," Desmond said stiffly. "But if I annoy you so much perhaps it might be best if I left the villa."
"You can't do that!" Didi's voice rose. "Lance would be furious with me."
"I'd rather have Lance furious with you than have you furious with me~"
There was a little silence and suddenly Didi giggled. "I'm sorry. I really have no right to talk to you this way. It's just that I never could resist a challenge and you're the first man I've met in a long while who hasn't regarded me as a woman."
"On the contrary," he answered. "It would be impossible to overlook the fact!"
She took his remark as a compliment and leaned back happily in her chair, smoothing her skirts around her and swinging one slim leg backwards and forwards.
"I'm glad you've noticed," she said softly. "I try very hard to keep young."
"Too hard," he said abruptly.
"What?"
Carefully he stowed his pipe in his pocket and turned away from her. But she was not to be put off and jumping up, came over to him.
"What do you mean by that?"
Still he did not answer and she put her hand on his arm.
"A woman has a right to make herself look as young and pretty as she can, and if I've tried harder than most you surely can't blame me."
"I don't blame you at all," he said, still not looking her way. "But you're lovely enough without having to try."
"That's the first compliment you've ever paid me," she said and snuggled against him. "I want you to like me, Desmond. You're different from any man I've met. You're so mature and serious that—"
"What on earth are you trying to do?" He swung round so abruptly he almost knocked her over. "You don't need to flirt with me, Mrs. Hammond. I'm very well aware that you're a woman, albeit a ridiculous one!"
Color flamed into her face and tears sparkled in her eyes.
"How dare you talk to me like that?"
"I could say the same thing to you, although your rudeness has taken a different form. Ever since I've been here you've thrown yourself at me!"
"Why, you—" She raised her hand to strike him and he caught her wrist and pulled it down.
"No, you don't," he said thickly. 'You're going to hear a couple more home truths yet. It isn't right to flirt with a man, Mrs. Hammond, particularly a man who isn't used to playing your little games. I'm not one of your fancy boys, but I'm just as capable of wanting a woman as they are."
"I'd never have known it," she panted. "You give the impression that you finished with love years ago."
"I did," he said quietly. "I finished with it when my wife died. But men are capable of other emotions towards women."
As the meaning of his words penetrated, the blood drained from her face, leaving her make-up blotchy and vivid.
Aware that he was still gripping her wrist, he let it go. His finger marks where white on her skin and she rubbed it against her breast
"I didn't deliberately set out to flirt with you," she said in a voice from which all the animation had gone. "It's something I do without realizing it. I'm sorry if I've made your stay here an embarrassing one. I'll try and treat you in a more grandmotherly way in future!"
"I'm not asking you to be grandmotherly, Mrs. Hammond." There was a strange look in hi
s eyes as he stared at her. "All I wish is that you'd give the real you a chance to come through."
"The real me?"
"Yes. When you think no one'? watching you your face has a very different expression from what it has now. It's not easy to see under all the make-up you plaster over it, but—"
"Now really," Didi said tartly. "Don't let's start a row again."
"Damn it, woman," he said with unexpected asperity. "I'm trying to apologize."
"By telling me I'm plastered with make-up?"
"Yes. You should be pleased I care enough to tell you. Why don't you stop pretending to be what you can never be again ? Why not capitalize on all the things you've got ?"
"Such as?" Didi asked.
"Such as warmth and maturity and a brain. I'm pretty sure you've got one."
"Thanks for the compliment but forgive me if I don't take any notice of it. It's all very well for you to talk about warmth and maturity, but show me the man. who'd choose a middle-aged woman when he could have a brainless young beauty."
"I could show you lots of men," he answered. "But they wouldn't be gigolos."
"I don't believe you," she said pettishly. "No matter what age he is a man wants his woman to be young."
"Haven't you heard of 'young in heart'?" Desmond asked gruffly.
She stared at him, vivid blue eyes gazing into grey ones.
"Oh, Didi," he said, speaking her name for the first time. "Oh, Didi."
He pulled her into his arms and pressed his mouth on hers. Her arms twined themselves around his neck and she clung to him as if he were a harbor she had just discovered a resting place she had never believed existed.
Desmond was the first to recover and as suddenly as he had pulled her close, he let her go.
"I'm sorry," he said huskily. "I don't know what's come over me. Talking to you the way I have — being so damnably rude… I can only think I must have got a touch of the sun."
She did not answer, did not make a move towards him as he turned and walked rapidly into the house.
CHAPTER TEN
THE next morning Desmond told Rose he intended to go home.
"But you can't leave until after the wedding,'" she protested. "That's the reason you came out."
"I came to see you," he corrected. "And now I have, it's time for me to go home again. Living a life of idleness doesn't suit me."
"But it's only for another fortnight. I'm sure you can find plenty to do until then. Why not start a book?"
"I've just finished one. And anyway, I—" He pushed back his chair from the breakfast table and stood up. "I'm not going to write another book just yet. I thought of taking a job again."
"That's wonderful news. Where?"
"At one of the Universities. I was offered one a few weeks ago." As always when he was embarrassed he took out his pipe and rubbed the bowl against the palm of his hand. "To be quite honest with you, I really only came to a final decision last night. Didi and I had an argument and I'm afraid I told her a few unpleasant truths."
"Oh, Dad, you didn't quarrel, did you?"
He shrugged. "We made it up, so you've nothing to worry about. But while I was in the middle of telling Didi where she was going wrong with her life I realized I wasn't doing so well with my own. I ran away from life after your mother died and it's time I took up the threads again."
"I'm glad," Rose said softly. "But I'm sure you can wait a few more weeks until I'm married."
He sighed. "Very well. But the day after your wedding I'm leaving."
The tapping of heels heralded Didi Hammond's arrival and with heightened color Desmond watched her come close.
"I always seem to be interrupting the two of you in some secret conference," she said to Rose.
"I've just been persuading Dad not to go home until after the wedding."
Didi was suddenly still, the smile freezing on her face. 'Till after the wedding?"
"Yes, He's decided he's been a lotus eater far too long."
"What Rose means," Desmond said, "is that I've made up my mind to take another job. I've been offered a chair at one of the Universities."
"How very erudite that sounds," Didi said with a light laugh. "When I talk to you, Desmond, I'm inclined to forget you're a learned professor."
"Not as learned as I thought," he said in an embarrassed voice.
Rose, listening to them, wondered what had taken place between them after she had left the terrace the night before and became convinced that whatever it was, it had precipitated her father's desire to return home. Could he have fallen in love with Didi ?
Her surmise was proved correct, for one afternoon a few days later when Lance and Desmond had gone out in the speedboat, Didi Hammond talked to Rose in a way she had never done before. They were sitting together in the arbor shaded from the sun by a large parasol. Rose was embroidering a tablecloth and Mrs. Hammond idly picked up a few of the colored skeins and twisted them between her fingers.
"I've never been good at sewing," she remarked, "and yet it's such a pretty hobby for a woman to have."
"I'm not doing it because it's pretty," Rose grinned. "I find it relaxing."
"You shouldn't want to relax at your age. You should be on the go, enjoying yourself." She caught her lips between her teeth with a little moue of apology. "I'm sorry, my dear. I keep forgetting you're still convalescent."
"I wish a few more people would forget. I'm quite well now. But Lance…" Rose stopped, not wishing to say anything disloyal, yet the older woman finished for her. "Yet Lance keeps treating you like a Dresden doll. I wondered when you were going to find that a bit nauseating. If you're not careful you'll end up being a long- suffering woman, and there's nothing a man finds more boring. Stand up for, yourself, Rose. I know my son's a wonderful catch, but you're not so bad yourself."
Rose looked at her future mother-in-law with surprise. The vivid blue eyes, so like Lance's, were no longer glinting with their usual look of mischief, but were tinged with a sadness that darkened them and gave a look of sharp pathos to the face.
"I'm surprised you should say that to me," she said slowly. "After all, what have I got to offer Lance? I can no longer participate in the things he likes and—"
"That's the least important thing! You can offer Lance something he's been looking for all his life: a maternal woman. Oh yes, don't look so astonished that I know. I'm not quite the fool I seem. I was never a very good mother to Lance. When he was a little boy and my husband was alive I didn't have eyes for anyone except Edward. And when Edward died, Lance reminded me so much of him that just to be with him was heartache. So I ran away and looked for happiness everywhere else."
"Did you find it?"
"No. You can't find happiness in others if you don't have it in yourself. And if you're afraid to come to terms with yourself how can you be happy?"
Rose did not answer for she knew Didi was talking more to herself. She was amazed the woman could portray such a depth of feeling and wondered why, after so many years of running away from any real emotion, she should now turn around to face it. But she had no need to wonder long for Didi suddenly said:
"Your father's to blame for all my soul searching. He's an uncomfortable man to have around but a very stimulating one in certain respects."
"Certain respects?"
"Yes. In his attitude to women he's completely stereotyped. He wants them all to be home bodies."
"The maternal woman, you mean," Rose said dryly.
Mrs. Hammond suddenly sat up straight, as if the question had touched a chord.
"Of course, that's it exactly! I should imagine you're like your mother, Rose, and that's what Desmond is looking for again. No wonder he resents being attracted to me."
The moment she had spoken she put her hand to her mouth and looked so much like a guilty child that Rose could not help smiling.
"You're not telling me anything I didn't know," she said. "And I'm not the sort of daughter who can't bear to think of her father falling i
n love. Dad's young and so are you."
"That isn't what your father thinks. Not long ago he intimated I was a stupid old woman. Well, maybe I was. But I don't think it's too late to change, do you?"
"I don't know," Rose said honestly. "It depends how much you wish it."
There was no answer and Rose resumed her embroidery, conscious of a feeling of disquiet. It was enough that she herself stood a chance of being hurt by one of the Hammonds. It would be ironical indeed if her father was likely to suffer from the other remaining member of the family.
At dinner that night there were an unexpected number of guests, at least unexpected to Rose, for she realized they had been deliberately invited by Lance and his mother.
"Didi thinks it's time you began to meet all our friends. She says your convalescence is over and you should be introduced as the Hammond bride."
They were standing together in the hall outside her bedroom, for Rose had closed her door to find him waiting impatiently for her in the corridor.
"I thought I'd better warn you about the mob downstairs in case you wanted to put on something more festive:"
"Do you think I should?"
She stood before him, tall and slender in a cream silk dress with a gold cord at the waist and thick gold beading at the hem. She had not had her hair cut since her accident and it had grown so long again that she had twisted it into a plait and piled it on the top of her head, making her neck appear more slender than usual.
"You look lovely," he said. "In fact, I rather take your looks for granted. There's nothing flamboyant about them and yet when one analyzes them you're…" he paused. "You're a beautiful, charming woman."
She turned scarlet at the unexpected compliment. Facile bouquets came easily to Lance, as she well knew, but this remark — stilted though it was — came from the heart and she trembled with joy.
Together they went down the stairs and not even a drawing room full of people — the Hammonds' idea of a few friends being some thirty or forty — could still the happiness that bubbled inside her. Moving from group to group with Lance by her side she was conscious of a deep sense of happiness and felt that in agreeing to marry him she had done the right thing after all. Only when — dinner over — dancing began to the strains of a sextet did she experience a momentary pang and become overwhelmingly conscious of her limp. Lance placed his hand on her arm, his touch sending a thrill through her body.
Rachel Lindsay - Heart of a Rose Page 12
