No Provocation

by Weston, Sophie

  `I'd never known a girl who muddled hero worship and love, and then went and gave her silly heart on the strength of it.'

  There was pain in the even tones. Candy felt like crying. She had never felt so out of her depth before. She hugged him, but she did not know what to say.

  `And then—that night when you came back and he was with you—I saw you. Did you know that? I—needed to talk and I never seemed to be able to get you to spend time with me. So I was looking out for you, and when I saw your car I came down.'

  Candy caught her breath.

  `You saw Dave kiss me?' she said in a strangled whisper.

  Justin held her away from him and looked down into her face.

  `I saw you kissing,' he agreed ironically. 'I wouldn't have said you were struggling.'

  Candy was tense and bewildered, strung between hope and a terror that he wanted the marriage ended forever. But this she could deal with.

  She said crisply, 'He jumped on me without warning. I think I'd stopped being as adoring as he likes his helpers to be, so he was bringing me back into line. I told him I didn't appreciate it. He was very offended. Didn't you see him stalk off to the bus stop?'

  Justin's eyes narrowed. He shook his head. 'I backed away as fast as I could. I didn't want you to think I'd been spying on you. I wasn't going to mention it. But when you came in, looking so alive, I just lashed out.' A faint flush came into the tanned cheeks. 'I've never forgiven myself for that.'

  Tor making love to me?' Candy asked with a very fair appearance of coolness, though her heart was thumping uncomfortably.

  Justin's eyes glinted at that.

  `I can't honestly say that, no. But for using that experience of mine to persuade you into something I knew you didn't want.'

  Candy swallowed. But she met his eyes bravely.

  `It seemed to you I didn't want it?' she asked politely.

  He laughed, but his eyes were sad. 'Not at the time, no. But you were off balance, and it was all new to you. And sexual attraction is a powerful editor of the emotions. You couldn't be expected to know that. But I could. I did. And you realised it soon enough in the morning.' His face was bleak suddenly. 'You couldn't bear the sight of me.'

  Candy removed herself from his arms. She put her hands behind her back and lifted her chin.

  `I was embarrassed,' she said clearly. 'And it seemed as if you couldn't bear the sight of me.'

  Justin stared at her. She could feel the hot colour surging into her face, and resolutely ignored it. But his fascinated inspection didn't help.

  `Embarrassed?' he echoed faintly.

  Candy glared at him 'It's all very well for you. As you've pointed out, you've got decades of experience to draw on.'

  `Not decades,' Justin protested.

  Candy swept on, ignoring the mischievous murmur, `I'd never done anything like that before, and I—didn't know I could go out of control like that. I thought—'

  Justin seemed to have regained his habitual calm amusement, she saw with dudgeon. One black eyebrow rose. She blushed furiously.

  `Well, if you must know, I thought it as a bit excessive. And I thought you might find it—oh, I don't know, embarrassing. Even disgusting.'

  The amusement disappeared as if she had blasted it out of him with a machine gun. He looked horrified. `What?'

  `Bear in mind it was all new to me.' Candy reminded him of his own words, not without a certain satis—

  A

  faction. 'And you'd not shown any signs of wanting to

  be with me since we came back from France. I thought

  if I dumped my adolescent lusts—to say nothing of my heart—at your feet, you'd hate it.'

  He took a hasty step forward.

  `What did you say?'

  She glared at him. 'You heard perfectly well.'

  Justin shook his head. 'Yes, but I didn't believe it,' he said candidly. 'You've been running for all you're worth ever since France. Even before.'

  Candy shook the hair out of her eyes, leaned forward and hissed, 'Because I didn't know how you felt. You said we could have fun being married. Fun,' she emphasised grimly, 'not high romance and undying devotion. What was I supposed to do? Say, "I'm awfully sorry but I think I may be falling in love with you, after all"? You didn't talk to me, take any interest in anything I did—' She broke off with an angry sob.

  Justin sat down slowly on the window seat. He held out his hand to her. Candy shook her head.

  `Come here,' he said levelly. 'Please.'

  She swallowed and protested hardly, 'Justin, I still don't know what you feel.'

  He gave her an incredulous look. 'I would've thought I'd made it obvious enough.'

  Candy set her teeth. 'Not to me.'

  He smiled. 'Then come and sit here and let me explain.' She hesitated, and his smile grew. 'Or are you afraid?'

  At once she went and sat next to him on the window seat, not touching or appearing to notice the hand that was still extended. He gave a little nod, and half turned on the chintz cushions to face her. But he did not attempt again to touch her. He said quietly, 'When we met I wasn't looking for a wife. Or a girlfriend,' he added quickly at her cynical look. 'I'd been there, done that, and frankly I didn't want to get into that sort of mess again.'

  Candy listened, head bent. She deliberately avoided looking at him. She had come to recognise every nuance in the smooth voice, but that handsome, guarded face could deceive her all too easily. Though now, she thought, he was telling the truth.

  `Then why did you ask me to marry you?' she asked bluntly.

  Justin leaned back into the oak corner. He seemed very relaxed, but she could sense the tension in the lounging body. She knew he was watching her, but she still refused to look up.

  `Now there you have one of life's great mysteries,' he drawled. 'It didn't fit in at all well with my plans. In fact it didn't fit in with anybody's plans.' He paused. `Including yours, my darling,' he said deliberately.

  She did look up then, flushing quickly at the endearment. The warmth in his eyes made her look away; her heart leaped too crazily at it.

  She said gruffly, 'Or Lizbeth Lamont's.'

  Justin looked taken aback.

  `Lizbeth?'

  `She more or less told me she was an old flame. And that I wasn't much of a rival,' Candy reminded him with rancour.

  His eyes glinted. 'I remember. It was one of the few times that gave me hope.'

  Her brow creased. 'Because she was jealous? But why on earth didn't you ditch me and marry her? Or live with her or whatever you wanted?' she demanded impatiently.

  Justin sighed with impatience. 'It gave me hope,' he said carefully, 'because you were jealous. I don't give a damn about Lizbeth Lamont, and never did. It's mutual—and we both know it.'

  Candy wanted desperately to believe him. But Jeremy had said they had been lovers, and Jeremy was no mis-

  chief-maker. And that conversation she had so reluctantly overheard was not easy to forget. The way her mother had swept her off, too. Yes, her mother must have guessed something.

  She said slowly, 'Mother took me to lunch at the Capriole. I was upset, and she insisted on shopping. You were there with Lizbeth. I—overheard a bit. I thought—' she cleared her throat ' —I mean, it sounded as if she was trying to make you choose between us. And you—didn't think I could manage without you. Mother hurried me out of there as if she already knew .. Her voice became suspended. She knuckled her eyes.

  `Oh, love,' said Justin, and took her hands in both of his. 'Don't cry. It's not what you think. Honestly. And I should've told you, only I knew you were upset, and I wanted to sort it out without your getting hurt if I could.' He put his arm round her and pulled her close. `Lizbeth was wretched. But not over me. She isn't my girlfriend,' he said into her hair. 'I'm afraid she's your father's.'

  Candy went rigid. It was so far from what she expected that he might have been speaking a foreign language.

  `But she'd stayed with you at the flat. She s
tarted nest-building. Jeremy said,' she blurted.

  Justin shook his head. 'She's a colleague. A trusted colleague. She's stayed overnight a couple of times when there's been a crisis. So have the other editors. She might have shoved the furniture about a bit. She's an assertive woman, and she fancies her interior decorating skills. But we were never lovers. Apart from anything else, I keep my private life out of the office.'

  `I came to your office,' Candy murmured.

  He shrugged. `So that was another rule I broke for you. There've been plenty, God knows.'

  `Oh,' said Candy. A thought occurred to her. 'So she was telling you about her affair with my father in that restaurant?'

  Justin looked uncomfortable. 'Another broken rule, I'm afraid.'

  `Why? How?'

  `My staff's private life is their own affair. I've never interfered before. Lizbeth couldn't believe it. But she was at the end of her tether, and needed to talk, and I—' He flushed faintly.

  `Yes?' asked Candy.

  `You were so damned miserable,' he said in an uneven voice. 'Your parents were tearing you to pieces. I'd have done anything to stop it. None of my principles mattered a damn. I'd even have offered to buy Lizbeth off, if I thought it would do any good.'

  He would have hated that. He must have hated the whole business.

  He sent her a quick look. 'It wouldn't have been any use. Nothing would have changed it.' He looked compassionate suddenly, and his voice gentled. 'I've talked to your father. I'm afraid this time it's for real.'

  Candy shook her head, trying to take it in. 'You did that for me?'

  `Perverse, I know,' he said drily. He looked away. 'But there was nothing I could do. You'll have to be brave.'

  He looked defeated. Candy could not bear it. She took his hands.

  `I knew it would have to come to this eventually,' she said at last, with a sigh.

  Justin's hands tightened. He looked startled. Candy drew a long breath, meeting that look.

  `It's not my responsibility,' she went on steadily. 'I see that now. I told my mother this morning. It's her life. It's her problem. She's been making me a fifth wheel for too long.'

  There was a stunned silence.

  Justin said blankly, 'You mean I've been jumping through hoops trying to get that tedious pair together again, and you don't even care?'

  Candy shook her head. 'Not much,' she told him, surprised. 'Not the way I care about us. Now that is my responsibility, rather than messing about with my parents' lives. And I haven't done very well by you so far. Have I?'

  Justin's expression was arrested. He seemed to be monitoring himself rigorously. He asked gently, choosing his words with care, 'Are you sure? This isn't just shock, is it?' Candy shook her head vigorously. He went on in that same careful voice, 'You've always been so involved with them. The Centre too, I suppose. But mainly your parents. You're such a caring girl. But you didn't seem to have any room or time in your heart left for us. You and me.'

  Just for a moment Candy glimpsed the bleakness.

  `I thought if there was a solution for them—you might just start to give us a chance.' He sighed. 'I know Lizbeth. She's a tough lady and her career's important to her. I offered her an editorship in the States.'

  He would have been so ashamed, Candy thought.

  `Oh, Justin.'

  He gave a twisted smile. 'She turned me down flat. Said she was in love. She said I ought to understand that even if I didn't understand anything else. They're going to get married. So it was all for nothing.'

  He looked tired. For her he had broken all his rules, and it must seem to him now that he had behaved badly and stupidly. Candy wanted very much to take him in her arms. Looking at the defeated set to his mouth, she was suddenly full of anger.

  She said crisply, 'Then my mother will either have to get used to living on her own or marry George Silk.

  That's what he's wanted for years. She should never have married my father or used me as a sticking plaster to keep the marriage together.'

  Justin looked at her, his expression weary. 'Don't lie to me, Candy,' he told her softly. 'When you first came to me about that story on your mother's gambling debts you were willing to put your whole life in pawn to keep them together.' He closed his eyes. 'That's why you married me,' he said almost to himself.

  `That's not true.'

  Incredulous, his eyes flew open. Meeting them, Candy shook her head violently.

  `No. I was desperate to get away from them. I knew that unless I did it would never stop. But I wasn't trained for anything, and Dave didn't want me—' She bit it off. But it was too late.

  `Ah,' said Justin. 'The second of life's mysteries answered. I wondered. So you married me because David Tresilian didn't want you.'

  Candy would have given anything in the world to deny it. But she knew that this was a watershed, and she couldn't afford to lie now, not even by omission.

  `In a way,' she admitted miserably at last. 'Now I realise that I didn't really know him. It was just a fantasy. Sometimes it was very lonely before I went to the Centre; and he was kind. When you and I first met I still—wanted that kindness to be more. Only to begin with, though,' she ended on a rush of painful honesty.

  There was one of Justin's long silences. Candy could not look at him.

  At last he said very softly, 'And to end with?' `You mean now?'

  He nodded. Candy took a deep breath and shut her eyes.

  `I'm in love with you,' she said rapidly. `I'm very sorry and I'll try not to be a nuisance—'

  It was a sentence she was not destined to finish.

  Justin took her in his arms and kissed her with a fervour bordering on savagery. There was no doubt about his feelings now. His expression was stripped to the bone. Candy could see—at least when he let her open her eyes and breathe again—all the pent-up doubts and repressed hope he had been harbouring. It was so like what she had been feeling herself that she put up a hand to his cheek and caressed it without any of that deadly self-consciousness.

  Justin caught her hand and carried it to his mouth, turning it over so that he could press a kiss against the palm.

  `Never stop being a nuisance,' he told her fervently. She reached up and brought his head down to her, kissing him shyly but very openly.

  `I've been so stupid.'

  `Maybe a little,' he agreed on a breathless little laugh against her lips. The laugh deepened into a chuckle. 'Do you remember you once promised me no provocation? It made my blood run cold. It sounded like your mother talking to your father. And of course every damned thing you did was a provocation. I used to watch you climbing into that filthy old jacket to go to the Centre and break into a cold sweat with wanting to pull you back and make love to you.' He rubbed his cheek against her hair. 'Will you ever forgive me? I wasn't really sour about the Centre. I know you do good work there. I was just eaten up with jealousy of Tresilian.'

  Candy said quietly, 'There's no need. For a while I thought he was wonderful. In his own way he is, I suppose. I admire what he's doing. I was such a child. And he used to tease me, call me "love" —I built it up into a fairy-tale, but there was never any substance to it. In my heart of hearts, I knew it.'

  Justin looked at her searchingly. `So it wasn't Tresilian who frightened you so?'

  Candy was astonished. `No, of course not. I'd never have gone back to the Centre if he had.'

  `That's why I thought it was so hopeless,' Justin murmured. 'Because I thought he'd scared you and you still kept going back. Who was it, then?'

  `A man called Langton,' she revealed with difficulty. She hung her head. 'I felt an awful fool about that. His parents were friends of Pops'.'

  `Tom Langton?'

  She nodded.

  `I know him too,' Justin said grimly. 'Thick and noisy. I can see you wouldn't have cared for it.'

  `I didn't care for the appetite he had for a rich wife, either,' Candy said drily. 'Oh, he scared me all right, but that wasn't the worst, Justin. He made me feel
like part of a deal—a negligible part.'

  `So Tresilian—who didn't scare you and made you feel as if you were doing a good job—scooped you on the rebound,' Justin said thoughtfully.

  She flushed. 'Only up to a point.'

  He looked at her searchingly. 'You're sure?'

  `I'm sure. I wouldn't have been spending so much time at the Centre recently if—well, if you'd wanted to spend any time with me,' she told him. 'Dave wasn't the attraction. It's just that I seemed to be of some use there, and I wasn't needed at home.'

  Justin said remorsefully, 'Negligible again, in fact. That was my fault, my darling. Things hadn't gone as I'd planned in France. I shouldn't really have gone away then, and although I'd made sure we wouldn't be interrupted I didn't have my whole concentration on you. Your father was doing some nasty deals behind my back.'

  Candy frowned. 'I was afraid of that.' She looked at him candidly. 'I was afraid you blamed me at one time.'

  His arm tightened.

  She blushed a little but went on, 'Has he done something dreadful?'

  Justin shrugged. 'Nothing I can't handle. But it all took time. And I'd thought you and I would have ourselves sorted out by the time we got back from the cottage. We hadn't, and I had to catch up with all the things I'd put off to go there in the first place. My secretary,' he added gloomily, 'said you'd leave me.'

  Candy said shyly, 'You mean that, even before we went to France, you wanted to be married to me? That it wasn't a matter of convenience to you by then?'

  Justin sighed. 'My darling, I lied to you. It was never a matter of convenience to me. I fell in love with you the moment I saw you.'

  Candy said, ' What?'

  He made a face. 'I know. Pretty dubious behaviour for a tough businessman.'

  She shook her head disbelievingly. Justin had the grace to look confused. He ran his hand through his hair.

  `Look, I saw you at that party. So beautiful and scared to death. I just wanted to take you away somewhere. I wanted to make you happy, to make you laugh. I'd never reacted like that to anyone before. And then I found out who you were. I knew I had to be out of my mind. Then we talked and danced—and you were so polite. I kept thinking I was out with a china statue. Yet I had the feeling there was something more. And then you kissed me. Do you remember? There you were with your red hair all over the place, and I thought, This one's for me.'