Separate Bedrooms

by Anne Weale

  If the ends of the bows were pulled they would come undone and the nightgown would fall to her hips, leaving her naked. Suddenly she couldn’t bear it. As her husband lifted his hands to release the two bows, she was overcome by an uncontrollable wave of grief and regret.

  She sprang to her feet, looking wildly around for some refuge from a situation which, all at once, had become intolerable. But there was nowhere she could run, nowhere to hide. Flinging herself on the bed, she burst into tears of longing for her dead love.

  ‘Oh, Paco ... Paco!’ she sobbed.

  A powerful hand grasped her shoulder and turned her roughly on to her back. Her gaze blurred by tears, she saw her bridegroom bending over her. Now his blue eyes were colder than ice, and the line of his mouth was hard and angry.

  ‘Who the devil is Paco?’ he demanded.

  CHAPTER TWO

  No one had ever touched her in anger before; or if, occasionally, her mother had smacked her, it was too long ago to remember. Not that Cal’s rough handling had hurt her. It had been more startling than painful.

  As she lay on the king-size bed, blinking tear-wet lashes and trying to recover her self-control, his gaze left her face and swept slowly down her body. She realised suddenly that the way he had turned her over had caused most of the fullness of her nightgown become pinned underneath her, leaving the rest of the chiffon drawn so tightly across her slim shape that she was next to naked. But although, to her, his leisurely scrutiny was almost as intimate as if it had been his hands and not merely his eyes which stroked her from neck to knee, it did not alter the hardness of his expression.

  ‘Who is Paco?’ he repeated grimly.

  Antonia sat up and wiped her wet cheeks with her fingers. ‘He’s dead,’ she answered, in a whisper. ‘I loved him, and he loved me, but we were never novios. He wasn’t a suitable person. My family didn’t approve of him.’

  Her husband said nothing, but turned abruptly away and crossed the room to a chest of drawers. He came back a moment later with one of his linen handkerchiefs which he put into her hand. Then he fetched her peignoir and tossed it on the bed beside her. ‘You’d better put that on again.’

  While she did so, he went through to the sitting-room and through the open door she saw him go to the drinks cupboard. When he returned to the bedroom, he was carrying a small glass and a tall one. He put the small glass beside her on the glass-topped night table.

  ‘Brandy. You may not like it, but it will steady you.’

  His glass held a paler shade of the liquid in hers. She guessed it was brandy and soda, with chunks of ice in it.

  Cal went back to close the bedroom door, and then he returned to the chair where he had been sitting when she emerged from the bathroom.

  ‘It seems that I’ve taken a great deal too much for granted,’ he said, in a sardonic tone.

  ‘W-what do you mean?’

  ‘I assumed that you were a virgin who would learn about love from her husband, as women used to,’ he said dryly—‘But it seems that even in Spain ...’ He finished the sentence with a shrug.

  She said, in a low voice, ‘I am a virgin. Paco never made love to me.’ I wish he had was a thought which she kept to herself.

  Cal’s blue eyes narrowed. ‘But you loved him—and you still do?’

  She nodded, clenching her teeth to stop the sudden trembling of her lips.

  ‘Don’t you think you ought to have mentioned the fact?’

  ‘It didn’t seem to be important. If you had said that you loved me, then yes, I should have told you. But you’ve never said that, not even today—our wedding day.’

  He took a long pull on his drink, then rose to his feet and began to pace about the room. His clenched fists were thrust deep into the pockets of his bathrobe, pulling the terry cloth taut, showing the power of his shoulders.

  He said, ‘No, I agree: I’ve never told you I loved you. I’m not sure I know what love is. It’s a term which is bandied about, but often it doesn’t seem to mean much.’

  He stopped and, looking straight at her, said, ‘I know that I want to make love to you more than I’ve ever done before. When I met you, I felt I had found a beautiful, well-bred, intelligent girl who would spend my money with good taste and instil good manners in my children. In return I was prepared to be a faithful husband and an attentive father. That seemed to me a sound basis for a happy and lasting marriage. Now perhaps you’d like to explain your reasons for marrying me.’

  She was too distressed to consider that some of her reasons might be better unspoken. She said, ‘I—I liked you. I felt, and so did my mother, that I should be happier with an Englishman. I wanted a home of my own ... away from my aunt.’

  She saw his eyes glint with anger, but his voice was level as he said, ‘Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t. You may find me a harder taskmaster than Tia Angela.’

  ‘I’m sure I shall not,’ she said quietly. Suddenly, as he had said it would, the brandy calmed and steadied her.

  Forgetting for a moment her own unhappiness, she realised that if throughout their engagement he had wanted desperately to make love to her, what had happened a short time ago must have been a bitter anticlimax. With a sudden upsurge of the courage which had carried John Marlowe bravely through his final illness, she saw there was only one way she could retrieve the situation.

  She slid off the bed and went to where he was standing.

  ‘I’m sorry, Cal. It’s been an exhausting day, and I was tired and nervous. I’m better now. Please forgive me.’ She laid her hands on his chest and stood on tiptoe to put her lips against his.

  His hands came out of his pockets, but not to close on her waist or to draw her against him. His lips remained closed and compressed. He took her by the elbows and put her firmly away from him.

  ‘I’m afraid that where I’m concerned “Close your eyes and think of England” won’t do, Antonia. I want a willing partner, not merely one doing her duty.’

  ‘But I am willing.’

  He raised an eyebrow. ‘ “Willing” was the wrong word. I should have said “enthusiastic”, and you can’t pretend to be that.’

  ‘Surely it’s up to you to make me enthusiastic. I can’t be enthused by something I’ve never experienced. It was you yourself who said earlier that you had assumed I was a virgin who would learn about love from her husband.’

  He studied her face for a moment before he said, ‘Yes, and in other circumstances I would teach you. But not while you’re still in love with another man. I should find it extremely off-putting to suspect that while I was making love to you, you were thinking of him, and trying to pretend it was he who held you in his arms.’

  Before she could answer, he went on, ‘Tonight I’ll shake down on one of the sofas in the sitting-room. Go to bed and try to get some sleep. We’ll have clearer heads in the morning. As you say, it’s been a long day.’

  He walked past her to the bed and took one pillow and the eiderdown. Then, with a curt ‘Goodnight’, he disappeared through the door, closing it firmly behind him.

  She was woken the following morning by him gently shaking her shoulder.

  ‘I’ve asked room service to bring our breakfast in fifteen minutes.’

  He was no longer wearing the bathrobe but a pair of poplin pyjama trousers. As he turned away towards his bathroom, she saw for the first time his bare back and was instantly reminded of the silky hind-legs of a thoroughbred horse. There was the same ripple of muscle under her husband’s sunburned skin, and she wondered how he kept so fit when much of his life must be spent sitting in planes and at boardroom tables.

  She slid out of bed and went to the wardrobe to take from its hanger a robe of rose-coloured silk, more concealing than the white chiffon peignoir. In her bathroom, she brushed her teeth and splashed her face with cold water, leaving her normal cleansing routine until after breakfast. She returned to the bedroom to brush her hair, and lingered at the dressing-table until, from the other room, she
heard the rattle of the breakfast waiter’s pass-key and saw him wheeling in a trolley.

  Cal had ordered a full English breakfast for them both. They ate in silence and Antonia kept her gaze on her plate, but from time to time she sensed that she was being watched, and wondered if he noticed that her eyelids were still slightly puffy from the tears she had shed as she lay alone in the darkness, in what should have been her bridal bed.

  Still awake and restless in the small hours, she had bitterly regretted the lack of self-discipline which had made her break free from Cal’s arms. If only she had controlled herself, this hideous impasse between them could have been avoided. Instead of sitting in strained silence, eating bacon and eggs for which she had no appetite although his seemed unimpaired, he would have been satisfied and good-tempered, and she would have surmounted the first and most difficult hurdle in her adjustment to married life. Instead of which, because of her stupid lack of grit, she had made a mess of their marriage before it had properly begun.

  As if he read her thoughts, he said suddenly, ‘I think you’d better tell me more about this young man, Paco. You say he’s dead? What happened to him?’

  ‘He was killed in a motor accident.’

  ‘How long had you known him?’

  ‘Not very long. About six months.’

  Prompted by questions from Cal she gave a reluctant account of how she and Paco had met, and all that had followed up to the time of his death.

  ‘I—I was in the car with him. We were going away together in the hope that it would make my mother realise how much we loved each other. Paco was clever and hard-working. It would have been easy for my uncle to arrange a much better job for him.’

  ‘I see,’ said Cal, when she stopped. ‘Well, I don’t want to seem to deprecate the strength of your feelings for the boy. First love is a violent emotion, and there’s nothing like family opposition for making it seem doubly powerful. I don’t expect you to believe me, but I think if your mother and aunt had had the sense to let you meet Paco openly, your feelings for him would gradually have subsided.’ He put down his knife and fork and leaned back in his chair. ‘As they will now—given time. How much time remains to be seen. But we weren’t engaged for very long, and during that time I was often away from you. As we get to know each other better, you’ll find the past will lose its potency. Meanwhile you have my word that I won’t touch you until you want me to. We’ll go on as if we were still engaged.’

  Suddenly his blue eyes, so arctic the night before, held the warmth and humour she was accustomed to seeing in them.

  ‘An old-fashioned engagement, as indeed our actual engagement was. Now pour me another cup of coffee and try some of this thick-cut marmalade on your toast.’

  His patience and his good humour when she had expected him to be barely civil to her filled her with relief.

  They spent the day shopping and sightseeing, with a light pub lunch at half past one. By the time they returned to the hotel, among other things Antonia had seen the Queen’s standard flying over Buckingham Palace, and had visited the Burlington Arcade where Cal pointed out the beadle, always an ex-N.C.O. of the 10th Hussars, who was there to enforce the rules of the Arcade—among them, no singing or whistling—and to ring a handbell as a warning before he locked the gates at half past five.

  As in Knightsbridge the night before, Cal loitered patiently beside her while she gazed at the antiques, cashmeres and exquisite linen displayed by the shops in the Arcade.

  In the evening he took her to the National Theatre on the South Bank, and afterwards to one of his favourite restaurants where he introduced her to burek, a Turkish pastry stuffed with mint, cheese and spinach, followed by roast quails, with a delicious honey and cognac ice-cream for their pudding.

  When they had returned to the hotel, and were going up in the lift, Antonia said, ‘Cal, please let me sleep on the sofa tonight. I’m shorter than you are, and it isn’t fair for you to have all the discomfort.’

  ‘It’s a long sofa. I’m not uncomfortable on it.’

  ‘Even so, it would make me feel better.’

  ‘Do you feel badly?’

  ‘Naturally I do. It’s my fault, this situation.’

  ‘Not entirely. Thinking things over, I realise there was a strong clue to the fact that the field wasn’t clear for me. Unfortunately, I missed it.’

  ‘What clue?’ Antonia asked, puzzled.

  ‘You remember the first time we met, I told you how someone had described you, and later remarked that you hadn’t asked who it was? I should have known that a woman is only uninterested in admiration when her mind is completely occupied by one man.’

  The lift doors slid aside and they stepped into the close-carpeted corridor and walked to the door of their suite.

  As Cal unlocked it, she said, ‘Tell me now who it was.’

  He stood aside for her to pass into the lobby. The switch inside the door of the sitting-room lighted a red-shaded table lamp which cast a subdued glow over the luxurious room. In their absence one of the maids had drawn the curtains, and the room was so warm that, as soon as Antonia had touched the switch, her next thought was to shed her fur coat. As she began to shrug it off, she felt Cal helping her.

  He said, ‘It was a Frenchman—Alain Roget. He met you and your father at a reception during a conference in Valencia last year.’

  ‘Really? I don’t remember him.’

  ‘He remembered you very clearly.’ He cast the coat over a chair and, taking her lightly by the shoulders, turned her to face him. ‘He was right about your eyes. The irises are golden, like clear dark honey. He omitted to mention that you have a beautiful mouth, charming ears and a lovely long neck. I was looking at them in the theatre.’

  He had his back to the lamp, and in the dim light, Antonia could not read his expression, but his words and even more his tone caused a curious disturbance in the pit of her stomach, a sort of fluttering sensation.

  She said, trying to sound casual, ‘You said you’d enjoyed the play.’

  ‘I did, but there were times when I found watching you more interesting.’ He dropped his hands from her shoulders, but he didn’t step back, and he was standing very close. ‘I promised I wouldn’t make much love to you physically, but I didn’t include making love verbally. I intend to do that as often as possible in the hope that it won’t be too long before words aren’t enough for you. When that time comes, I shall bath and shave at night. Meanwhile I’ll continue my practice of usually bathing in the morning. Give me ten minutes, and the bedroom will be all yours.’

  She was in her bathroom, taking off her eye makeup, when he called to her, ‘Goodnight, Antonia.’

  ‘Goodnight,’ she answered, and soon after heard the door close.

  It took her some time to fall asleep, but when she did she slept well and woke up refreshed. Presently she got up and, hearing no sound from the other room, quietly opened the door.

  Cal was still sleeping. He was lying on his stomach with his arms folded under his pillow and his head turned sideways so that she could see his face. Asleep, there was a gentleness about his mouth which was not an impression his face gave when he was awake. By day he had an air of brisk, incisive authority, with more than a hint of ruthlessness in the square-boned chin and piercing blue eyes.

  It was after eight, and she thought he would probably want to be wakened. She bent down and said in a soft voice, close to his ear, ‘Cal, it’s time to get up ... Cal ... Call’ The third time she said his name he stirred, and made a muffled sound as if unwilling to be woken.

  ‘It’s gone eight o’clock.’

  At this he shifted on to his side, but he didn’t open his eyes. He said drowsily, ‘Come back to bed and be quiet, woman,’ and put out an arm which, had he been in bed and she sitting on the edge of it, would have caught her round the waist. Instead, because she had just straightened, it caught her behind the knees with a vigour which pulled her off balance and made her fall on top of him.

&nbs
p; He gave a slight grunt at the impact of her body on his, but even then he resisted waking up and, with a murmur of pleasure, snuggled his face against the softness beneath the shirred yoke of her short primrose voile nightdress. At the same time his right hand moved over the smooth contour of her hip, caressing the line of her thigh until, at the hem of her nightie, it went into reverse.

  She struggled to free herself. ‘Cal—it’s me, Antonia!’ she exclaimed.

  At that his eyes opened. His hold on her slackened, allowing her to spring to her feet and hurry back to the bedroom.

  By the time she had had her bath and made up her face, Cal had bathed and shaved, and the breakfast waiter had been and gone.

  As she came out of the bedroom Cal rose from his place at the table and drew out the other chair for her.

  ‘Good morning,’ he said, as if this was their first encounter. But there was a gleam of amusement in his eyes which made her flush as she replied.

  He had asked for a copy of The Times and had already divided the newspaper, giving her the fashion page. Normally Antonia would have read with interest the article on British textile designers, but this morning she found it difficult to concentrate. Was her husband really as absorbed by the news as he appeared to be? As she was eyeing him, he glanced over the top of the paper and caught her eye.

  ‘What do you think of these kippers?’ he asked.

  ‘They’re delicious. I’ve had them once before, but they were frozen and these, presumably, are not?’

  ‘I shouldn’t think so, no.’ He retired behind his paper again.

  Suddenly she felt impelled to say, ‘Who did you think I was when I woke you up?’