Wildcat Wife

by Lindsay Armstrong

  'Oh. You!' she gasped.

  'Yes,' he agreed. 'Who were you expecting?'

  'No one! That's—'

  'Then perhaps you should have put some more clothes on,' he murmured with a twisted little grin.

  Saffron looked down to see that the edges of her robe had parted company to reveal clear skin down to her pale yellow bikini briefs. 'Damn,' she muttered as she drew them together and tightened the sash. 'I...tripped,' she explained.

  'Not again—any damage? May I come in, by the way? Unless you'd prefer to be kissed on the doorstep?' His dark glance was entirely wicked.

  'Come in,' she said hastily, and led him through to the lounge. 'I wasn't expecting you—Fraser!'

  But she got no further. In fact, when she could speak again they were seated on the couch with their arms around each other, her head on his shoulder. Enya was soaring through 'Orinoco Flow', somewhat reflecting Saffron's feeling that she was sailing away into ecstasy.

  'How is he?' she murmured, rubbing her cheek against the wool of his jumper.

  'He's doing pretty well. It's still a bit early to tell but, if it's successful, they tell me this operation should make a new man of him.'

  'I'm so glad.'

  'Mmm. I hate hospitals.' He sighed and rubbed his jaw. 'Diana's with him. But I should go back tonight. So.' He looked around. 'This is genuine Saffron Shaw?'

  'All my own work,' she answered pertly, and sat up. 'What would you like? Something to eat? Drink? Oh!'

  'What?'

  'I forgot about my toasted cheese. Never mind; it's not completely cold.' She nibbled at a slice.

  'Is that dinner?' he asked quizzically.

  'Yep! Like a slice?'

  'No, thanks.' He grinned wryly. 'Not only don't I like cold toasted cheese, but I couldn't bear to deprive you of any food. On the other hand, I could do with a drink— Stay there.' He got up. 'Tell me where it is and I'll get it.'

  Saffron wrinkled her nose. 'Well, there's a bottle of red wine in the rack in the kitchen—and that's the full extent of it.'

  He laughed and ruffled her hair and walked through to the kitchen. When he returned after a few minutes, he brought with him not only the wine and two glasses but also a selection of cheese, salami, pickled onions, olives and gherkins on a board.

  'I wondered what you were doing!'__

  'Raiding your fridge. Do you mind?'

  'No, of course not. Only I feel guilty—you haven't eaten, have you? I should be whipping up something only I'm not terribly good at it...'

  'Hush, sweet Saffron,' he advised, and poured the wine. 'Tuck in; if I know you, you need it. How's Delia?' He sat back down beside her and stretched his long, jeans-clad legs.

  'Worried and—' Saffron bit her lip.

  'I was going to suggest that she come up to see my father not tomorrow but the next day. They'll still be doing tests and he'll be hooked up to all sorts of machines, but I know he'd like to see her.'

  'Oh!' Saffron's face lit up. 'Could she? She'd be thrilled. But...' Her face fell.

  'Diana...?'

  'Leave Di to me. Roger's back in residence anyway. That should take her mind off too much mischief. They're having a reconciliation.'

  'I see.'

  He looked down at her wryly. 'What do you see?'

  Saffron hesitated, unsure whether to speak her mind. 'Nothing really.'

  'Now, Saffron, I know you well enough to know there must be something,'

  he teased. 'Spit it out.'

  'You may not like it.'

  'When has that ever stopped you?' he asked with a trace of irony.

  'Well, then, on behalf of the female sex in general—in general, mind—I rather resent the implication that without a man in our lives we're prone to mischief.'

  'I wasn't generalising,' he said after a slight pause.

  'See?' She glanced up at him.

  'I didn't think you liked my sister.'

  'I don't. That is, for reasons best known to herself, she didn't seem to like me. As a matter of fact I know exactly why she doesn't like me. She thinks I'd be highly unsuitable wife material for you, Fraser. Would I be wrong in divining that she also thinks you've got to a slightly dangerous age in regard to the state of matrimony?'

  'What are you trying to say, Saffron?' he countered impatiently. 'If there's one thing women deserve being lumped into a category over, it's their eternal preoccupation with the state of matrimony/

  The silence was crashing as even Enya clicked off just as he finished speaking. And they stared into each other's eyes, Saffron's darkening, his cool and taunting.

  'I don't have that problem in regard to you, Fraser,' she said, speaking precisely and coldly. 'I always knew marriage would be impossible for us. But, just as a matter of interest, what is your problem with it? And as a further matter of interest, although academic now, what did you have in mind for me? Mistress? Part-time lover? Until the right wife came along? Perhaps even after she came along?'

  'Well, the hellcat didn't stay submerged for long, did it?' he drawled.

  'Perhaps you too need to be taken to bed on a very regular basis to keep you out of mischief. Oh, no,' he added roughly as her hand flashed out and he caught it inches from his face. 'Keep your fists to yourself, Miss Shaw. Unless you would like me to rip your clothes off and make love to you on the floor?'

  Saffron panted as she tried to wrest her wrist free, causing him to smile unpleasantly and say sardonically, 'Not that there's an awful lot to rip off.'

  She glanced down and closed her eyes in sheer frustration because, with her exertions, her robe had parted again but even more revealingly this time.

  'Let me go,' she said urgently.

  He did so, but added insult to injury by closing her robe up to her chin for her, tightening the sash and smiling wryly into her eyes. He also said,

  'Listen, no one in their right mind would start making wedding lists at this stage so if that's what you're holding against me, Saffron, don't you think you're being a little premature?'

  She put her hands to her face and tried desperately to think. She also cursed herself for allowing this to blow up out of nothing. She didn't like his sister and thought it quite likely that her sour marriage was souring her, but...why shouldn't it? And why should men consider that all the worries of a woman's world could be solved by sex?

  'Saffron?'

  She took her hands away and breathed deeply. 'Am I being a little premature? No,' she said sadly. 'That's what I tried to explain to you about me. That's what—'

  'Before you seduced me?' he interrupted with detached interest. Saffron bit her lip then clenched her fists. 'Let's not forget who started this,'

  she said bitterly.

  'But I'm interested. Did nothing change after you seduced me?'

  'Will you stop saying that?' she flashed angrily.

  'Why? Isn't it true?' His eyes mocked her.

  'Only after you kissed me most— Oh, what the hell?' She slid off the couch and stood in front of him with her hands on her hips. 'Nothing changes the fact that I'm not the right wife for you, and nothing changes the fact that you don't really know what kind of wife you want—only that it's about time you got one!'

  He stood up as well and for a moment he was terrifyingly tall, tough and together. 'So on the basis of all this surmise I'm getting my marching orders; is that it, Saffron?'

  Her shoulders slumped slightly. 'Fraser, it wouldn't work. I think we both know it wouldn't work,' she said huskily. 'Tell me honestly that I'm wrong... about you.'

  The silence lasted for a full minute. 'Well, I can tell you one thing,' he said at length. 'We'll never know. Will you finish the house?'

  Her lips parted as she stared at him. 'Not if you don't want me to,' she said barely audibly.

  'Oh, I do. I don't back out of my business deals, Saffron.'

  'But—'

  'I didn't think you did either.' His gaze was hard.

  'It means we'll have to—' she swallowed '—stay i
n touch.'

  'Perhaps you should have thought of that before you sent me on my way, in a manner of speaking.' This time his gaze was darkly insolent as it raked her from head to toe, and carried an unmistakable meaning which he then chose to make crystal-clear. 'Going to miss me—actually touching you, Saffron?'

  She turned away suddenly. 'I think you'd better go-'

  'I'm on my way,' he said from right behind her. 'Don't bother to see me out.'

  But he put his hands on her shoulders and turned her to face him, to add with a shade of malicious amusement, 'Come now—tears? I thought you were tougher than that.'

  She straightened her spine although the green of her eyes remained drenched. 'I will be, Fraser. I will be.'

  'Good.' He kissed her lightly on the brow. 'Fare thee well, then, my hellcat interior decorator. Until we meet again. I wonder what we'll find to do battle about then. Zanzibari doors?'

  And, with this parting shot, he left.

  Saffron waited until she heard him drive away then she collapsed onto the couch and burst into serious tears. Why? she asked herself. Why choose tonight to have an argument with him when he came all this way to see you? When he was obviously tired and had had enough of hospitals...? Why? She wiped her eyes with the back of her hands and lay full-length with her head cradled in the cushions, just lay until the shuddering sobs subsided. Then she sat up and picked up her wineglass, which she hadn't touched, and took a long draught, welcoming the harsh taste of it before the body took over. She stared at the glass miserably.

  'Because being right about anything doesn't exactly recommend itself to you at the moment?' she asked herself softly. 'Because you've fallen in love with him? And are horribly afraid he hasn't? What if he said he had—and asked you to marry him? What would you have done then?'

  She drank some more wine and closed her eyes as she wondered what made her think that something she couldn't do for another man would be possible for Fraser Ross. Giving up her career in other words.

  But I didn't get asked, or told I was loved, she reminded herself. So what was I supposed to do? Tear myself to pieces over a mart who may never love just one woman? No, she thought, it's better this way—a far, far better thing...

  She grimaced as she reminded herself of Sydney Carton going to the guillotine at the end of A Tale of Two Cities. Then she deliberately reminded herself of the anguish she'd suffered over Simon Harris, only, she discovered, Simon seemed to have paled into insignificance suddenly. She got up abruptly, afraid to delve too deeply into the significance of that, and took herself off to bed.

  'They're home,' Delia said some days later.

  It was a Monday; not that that made much difference to Saffron. She'd worked right through the weekend.

  'That's nice. They don't keep them in long, do they?'

  Delia shrugged. 'Five or six days. They got home yesterday afternoon. I spent an hour with Bernard. Fraser is spending the rest of the week with him.'

  She glanced at Saffron, who said casually, 'Good. What about Diana?'

  'She and Roger have gone away for a few days— without their children. Apparently there's a—'

  'Reconciliation under way,' Saffron finished for her prosaically, and stuck her pen behind her ear. 'Let's hope it lasts, from your point of view. Delia, do you think cream is a good colour for a man? To be sat upon, as in a lounge suite?'

  Delia paused, as if she'd been about to say something else, and asked,

  'Why?'

  'Well, I like it so much when it's set against a lot of wood but I can't help wondering how practical it is. Look at this.' She showed Delia a photo of a lounge suite, broad and comfortable and covered in cream linen. Then she showed her the sketch she'd made of it in the main lounge of Fraser Ross's house, a sketch now complete with lamps, paintings, tables and chests.

  'I think it looks lovely,' Delia said genuinely. 'I adore those two Javanese wooden-backed chairs and that vast, low coffee table. I think the gold screen painted with animals is superb and the Ch'ing marriage cupboard—' she pointed to a tall, red-lacquered, two-door antique cupboard with brass handles '—was such a find. But, if you're worried about practicality, why don't you go for cream leather?'

  'No,' Saffron said immediately. 'I hate leather except in dens or fuddy-duddy old men's clubs, and I don't think it suits the mood of this room at all, which is supposed to be slightly oriental and mysterious.'

  Delia, used to Saffron's decided opinions, remained serene. 'Well, there are other rooms for him to relax in if he's all muddy and fishy or whatever,' she said with a humorous glint. 'But it is supposed to be a masculine setting, I presume—you know what it needs? A tiger skin or a zebra skin draped somewhere. Or a stag's head on a wall.'

  Saffron raised her eyes heavenwards. 'Don't even suggest it. I'm in enough trouble over Zanzibari doors. Besides, tigers are an endangered species,' she said severely.

  'Maybe, but I've never heard that zebras are.'

  'That's how they become endangered,' Saffron remarked. 'Anyway, do they have zebras in Java? I doubt it.'

  'And do they have elephants in Zanzibar?' Delia asked sweetly. Saffron glared at her then burst out laughing. 'Sorry. You know, you're right, though. I need a more masculine influence somewhere, and this plain cream suite simply doesn't supply it.' She tore up the photo and tossed the pieces into the bin under her desk.

  'Why don't you ask him what he'd like?' Delia suggested after a moment.

  'I tried that,' Saffron said bleakly. 'Whatever else Fraser Ross is, he's not a fountain of ideas to do with decorating.' She started to doodle on a pad. Delia watched her bent head and felt her heart go out to her boss. Because she had no doubt that things had not been resolved happily between Saffron and Fraser Ross. But how to help? 'A man's man,' she commented quietly, and added suddenly, 'His father is of the opinion that too many women have made fools of themselves over him.'

  Saffron's head came up at that and she stared at Delia. 'Do you think I don't know that?' she asked very quietly. 'Do you think I haven't seen it with my own eyes?'

  'Have you?' Delia blinked.

  'Yes...'

  Delia sat back and sighed. 'No one could accuse you of that, Saffron.'

  A strangely haunted little smile played on Saffron's lips. In the explanation Delia had wormed out of her on the way back from the airport, she hadn't given any details of just how they'd come to sleep together... 'No,' she said tiredly, however. 'I guess they couldn't. Uh...OK! Lounge suites; I'm on the trail once more!'

  'What about—' Delia frowned again '—that lounge suite with printed fabric zebra-skin cushions. Scatter cushions, I mean. But not dozens of little fiddly ones. Say, just two large ones in each corner of the couch trimmed with gold braid? He obviously doesn't object to an international flavour otherwise he wouldn't have let you have your head over Java, not to mention Zanzibar. And he obviously doesn't mind a jungle flavour, in theory, if he's OK'd the elephants on the screen.'

  Saffron blinked and studied her sketch intently while Delia waited composedly for her idea to be demolished. But her boss surprised her. She got up, came round the desk and kissed her tenderly on the forehead. 'Delia,'

  she said in her husky voice, 'you're a genius. That's if! It's just the touch I need.'

  But Delia suddenly looked worried. 'What if he doesn't like zebra skin?'

  'Then he's stuck with a plain cream linen suite,' Saffron said hardily. 'Delia, I really don't think he cares one way or the other, but I can just see this room on the pages of the House and Garden Yearbook now!'

  'I still think you ought to consult him.' Delia looked stubborn.

  'Over two cushions? He can throw them away if he doesn't like them, once the spread is done. Anyway, he and I are not communicating at the moment in case you hadn't noticed.' Saffron looked at her dryly.

  'I'm afraid that's about to end.'

  Saffron went still and looked at her assistant narrowly. 'What do you mean?'

  'He'd like to see you tomor
row morning. At his father's house. He said to bring the quotes for the Zanzibari doors and the Arab chest. He said—' Delia sighed and shrugged '—that there are a few final things you need to hammer out, such as how to get all the stuff up there, and that by next week he'll be too busy.'

  'And did he issue any more edicts?' Saffron enquired with dangerous restraint.

  'Ten o'clock tomorrow morning.'

  'Hello? I'd like to leave a message for Mr Ross, Mr Fraser A. Ross, please,'

  Saffron said into the phone some minutes later. Delia had left to deal with someone who had come'into the showroom.

  'Go ahead,' a brisk though elderly voice replied, leaving Saffron in no doubt that it was Flora MacTavish.

  'Uh—it's Saffron Shaw here; is that you, Miss MacTavish?'

  'None other, Saffron, none other. How are you?'

  'I'm fine, thanks. How are you?' - 'Considering I'm seventy-six and have an invalid in the house, considering that Diana has chosen this of all times to go back to her no-good husband, I'm doing remarkably well. What is it you wish me to pass on to Fraser?'

  Saffron winced. 'He sent me a message to meet him tomorrow, there at the house, at ten o'clock. I'm afraid I'm unable to make it, but he knows where to find me so he—'

  'Young lady,' Flora said sternly. 'I like you, and admire your career et cetera, et cetera. But Fraser is responsible for a vast empire and the well-being of many, many people so he doesn't have the time to be running after little interior decorators, however brilliant they are. You be here tomorrow, Saffron, if you know what's good for you, and don't be late!' The phone went dead.

  Saffron took the phone from her ear and stared at it. Then she replaced it carefully, and, dropping her face into her hands, had to laugh.

  She wasn't laughing the next morning when she dressed for work. It was a wet day with the rain lashed by a buffeting south-easterly wind, and consequently cooler than the norm for the time of year.

  'Go casual? Go dressy? Don't go at all?' she said to herself as she dismally surveyed her wardrobe. 'It's going to be an impossible—interview. How do you conduct yourself with a man you've slept with so recently then fallen out with so—badly?'