"I do like her," he said shortly, "but she's different from us."
"She breathes and eats and sleeps the way we do," Tanya said. "I think your Shakespeare put it better, but you know what I mean."
"Shylock in The Merchant of Venice," Roger replied. "I know exactly what you mean. But Diana isn't like us, any more than Adrian is."
"You wouldn't talk this way if you lived in my country," Tanya burst out. "Anyone who is not for our government is automatically considered an enemy and put in prison. But here it doesn't matter which side you are on. You all have your freedom!"
"You'll be telling me next it doesn't matter who we vote for!" Roger retorted.
"I'm not sure it does. You and Adrian are both good men."
"I don't appreciate being compared to Adrian."
"Why not?" she asked crossly.
"Because he's overbearing and ice cold."
"He's nothing of the sort! He's just learned how to hide his feelings."
" He doesn't have any."
"Of course he does! Do you think I'd have married a man who—"
With horror Tanya realized what she had said. But it was impossible to draw back the words, nor was there any way in which she could deny them. Their truth was too evident in her expression. Desperately she looked at Roger, knowing she had to obtain his promise of silence.
"Please forget what I said," she begged. "It is not my secret to give away."
"Not your secret…?" He shook his head dazedly. "You mean you're Adrian's wife?"
"Please! "Fear shook her. "Keep your voice down. No one must hear."
Seeing her anguished expression, his own softened. "Don't you think you should tell me the whole story, Tanya? It's the least you can do."
She nodded and wondered where to begin. "I met him in Rovnia," she said slowly. "It was the day of the Rose Carnival…"
Roger listened to Tanya's story with no outward sign of emotion and only when she told about her arrival at Park Gates did his anger explode. "What a filthy way to treat you!"
"People do strange things when they are caught in a trap, "she said.
"That still doesn't justify his behavior. You should never have done as he asked."
"I did it because—" She stopped and glanced over her shoulder. "What was that?"
"What?"
"I thought I heard the door open."
Roger peered past her. "There's nobody there." He turned to face her again. "I still think you were crazy to do as Adrian wanted."
"But I understood the problem he had. You must not condemn him because he married me and then regretted it."
"It isn't the fact that he regretted it that makes me angry. It's the way he's tried to get rid of you—to pretend you're his sister's nanny… Damn it, Tanya, he deserves everything he gets, and if you let me use this information, I'll make damn sure he doesn't win the election."
"You mustn't!" She stared at him in horror. "I gave him my word I'd keep it a secret. If he discovers I've betrayed him… Oh Roger, promise you won't say anything."
Roger's eyes became narrow blue slits. "If that's the way you feel, there's nothing more to be said. I think you're wrong but I'll respect your wishes."
"I don't want you to respect them," she said. "I want you to understand them. People change—as you know very well—and you can't blame Adrian because he stopped loving me. After all, he thought I had divorced him and—"
"You needn't excuse him," Roger said abruptly. "I've given you my word and I won't break it." He rubbed the side of his jaw, his lids lowered over his eyes. "I take it Diana knows who you are?"
"Yes."
"Then that's why she asked me not to see you. She's in a tricky position too."
"Only until the legal position is cleared up. Then they will be free to marry."
"It beats me how you and Diana can defend him," Roger muttered.
"What would you have done in Adrian's position?" Tanya demanded. "He wants to win the election as much as you do, and he was afraid that if you found out about me, you'd use it against him."
"I still don't believe I'd have acted in the same way," Roger said slowly. "Nor would I have got engaged to another girl without first making sure I was legally divorced."
"It's only a technicality," Tanya explained. "Once the election is over, he'll get his freedom."
"And the Prince and Princess will live happily ever after."
"Yes," Tanya forced herself to say. "Although Diana is so reserved, I think she loves Adrian very much."
"Do you?" Roger said in such an odd tone that Tanya stared at him.
"Don't you? " she asked.
"I don't know what Diana feels. Except that she isn't as reserved as she pretends." He rose. "Fancy another drink? I don't know about you, but I can do with one."
She shook her head and watched as he went over to the bar. Whenever Roger spoke of Diana he was always on the defensive, as if expecting to be attacked. Did he feel the girl was his enemy because they were on different political sides? Yet why should it matter to him if this were so? Tanya continued to watch him as he waited for his drink. It wasn't only Roger's attitude to Diana that was strange but Diana's attitude to him. Tanya remembered how the girl had demanded she stop seeing him. At the time she had not understood Diana's anger but now she found herself searching for a different reason for it. Could Diana—and Roger too—be fighting something far more basic and emotional than a by-election? Like love?
It was a fantastic theory that quickly became believable fact. Everything pointed to its truth. Diana's anger against Roger; Roger's bitterness toward Adrian, which had always struck her as having a deeper cause than political differences.
Roger returned to their table holding a glass of beer. He sipped and gave her a slight smile. But the smile did not reach his eyes. Tanya looked at him as though seeing him for the first time; and in a way she felt she was. He was too thin for his height, and even though normally pale-skinned, at the moment it had a grayish tinge to it, as if he had had too many anxious days and sleepless nights.
"Why are you looking at me with such big eyes?" he asked. "If you're still worrying that I'll give away Adrian's secret, then forget it. I promise you I won't."
"I was not thinking of Adrian," she confessed, "but of you and Diana."
With the glass halfway to his mouth he paused and put it down carefully as if he were afraid he might spill it. "What about Diana and me?"
Unused to modern prevarication, and with the bluntness of her race, Tanya said: "I think you love each other."
"For God's sake! That's such a crazy suggestion I won't even bother to deny it."
"I'm glad," Tanya said, referring to the last part of his answer, "because I'm sure I'm right."
"Women always think that," he said with an attempt at humor.
"When a man loves a woman there is something in his voice when he says her name that always gives him away. Whether or not you admit it, you love Diana. I—" She stopped short as the bar door opened and a middle-aged man with a bush of graying hair approached them. She recognized him as Roger's election agent.
"Hello, Bob," Roger said. "I don't think you've met Miss Kovacs. Tanya, this is Bob Edwards."
Tanya's hand was taken in a hard grip as the man said hello and then joined them at the table. For the next half hour he talked to Roger about the rallies he had planned, and the various problems which their canvassers had discovered, and when a distant clock chimed the hour, Tanya used it as an excuse to say she wanted to go home.
It made her feel disloyal to Adrian to sit here and listen to his rivals talk so positively about winning the election.
"You needn't bother seeing me home," she said. "You and Mr. Edwards have things to talk over and—"
"It's nothing that can't wait." Roger glanced at his agent. "I'll see you at the Committee rooms in the morning."
"Fine." The man took out the stub of a cigarette from his pocket and was carefully lighting it as Tanya and Roger left him.
>
"I do not think I like your agent," Tanya commented as they drove toward Park Gates. "He does not seem honest."
"He's no more dishonest than most of his breed. You're just not used to the type."
"That is so," she agreed. "I know only teachers and professors—like my father."
"Do you miss your life in Rovnia?" Roger asked, for the first time referring to the story she had told him earlier that evening.
"I miss the life I used to have—when I was a child and in my early teens—but I do not miss what Rovnia is today."
Roger grunted, as though not sure what to say, and she was relieved when she could finally leave him and enter the house. She had no fear that he would break the word that he had given her but nonetheless still regretted the slip of the tongue which had forced her into telling him the truth.
Roger himself was in far less sanguine a mood as he set off for home. He found it impossible to forget what Tanya had told him about Adrian. In spite of their differences in outlook, he had always respected the man, but now he felt contempt for the way he had behaved toward the woman he had once professed to love and who was still his wife. Yet Tanya wouldn't hear a word against him; obviously loved him still. It beat him how she could. But then women could love the most unsuitable of men. Like Diana for instance. If Tanya was right and Diana loved him… But no, that was impossible. His momentary elation gave way to anger and he savagely pressed his foot on the accelerator, forcing the ancient car to its maximum speed. Only when he came to the village and was forced to slow down did he again remember all Tanya had said about Diana. But it was nonsense! She no more loved him than he loved her.
With a squeal of brakes he brought the car to an abrupt halt outside his front gate. He didn't love a toffee- nosed little aristocrat like Diana Biddell! It was a preposterous idea.
He banged the front door violently behind him, forgetful of the lateness of the hour and the sleeping occupants of the house, his whole being so intent on refuting all Tanya had said that he was unaware of anything else.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Two days later Adrian strode angrily into his home and slammed the door hard behind him. The sound brought Diana running from the library, her expression showing concern at such unusual behavior.
"Is anything wrong, Adrian?"
"Everything. It's all over the county that Tanya's my wife!"
"What!" The envelopes Diana had been holding slipped to the floor and she bent automatically to pick them up. "Who—who did it?"
"Who do you think?" he said irritably. "Obviously Poulton."
"I don't believe Tanya told him."
"She loves him," Adrian said. "That's why she did it."
Diana looked down at the envelopes. "What are you going to do?"
"What can I do? I can't deny it, can I? But I'm damned if I'm going to let her stay here. She can pack her bags and go!"
"If you send her away you'll be playing into Roger's hands."
"What do you suggest I do—introduce her around to the constituency?"
"You might have to."
Adrian was amazed; not because the idea was new to him—he had thought of it himself the moment he had heard the news—but because he had not expected Diana to make such a suggestion.
"Are you saying I should acknowledge her as my wife when I'm supposed to be engaged to you?"
"You have no choice," Diana said quietly.
"And where will you fit into all this?"
"I won't. For the time being we'll have to forget our engagement. In the circumstances, it's the only thing we can do."
The look he gave her was long and steady and held far more admiration than ever before. "You've behaved wonderfully all through these last difficult weeks," he said quietly, "but I never thought you'd be called on to… Dammit, I could strangle Tanya!"
"That would give Roger the election on a plate!" A faint smile curved Diana's lips. "It might have been better all around if we'd broken off our engagement when Tanya arrived here."
"Are you saying that because of my career," he asked, "or because you've decided you don't love me?" She was so long replying that he came over and put his hand on her shoulder. "Don't you love me, Diana? I know I haven't been a very satisfactory fiancé but—"
"Neither have I," she interrupted. "As to whether or not I love you… I don't know, Adrian. We've never talked about love before. We got engaged because we both wanted a home and children, but you can't honestly say you feel for me the way you felt when you married Tanya!"
Abruptly he turned away from her, and it was a few seconds before he replied. "I'll never feel for any woman what I felt for Tanya. I wouldn't let myself go through that sort of thing again."
"You talk as if one can decide whether or not to fall in love."
"I think one can. Not when you're young perhaps, but certainly when you're older—when you've already been hurt. I'm sorry I have to say this," he continued gently, "but it isn't fair for you to marry me expecting something I'll never be able to give you."
"Why didn't you say this when you asked me to be your wife?" she said.
"Because at the time I didn't think you'd want more from me. But now I'm not so sure. Perhaps I wouldn't allow myself to see that you were still young and had a right to expect roses and blue skies."
"Instead of which you're telling me that all you can offer me are clouds and nettles."
He was faintly surprised that she could joke about it and not sure that he liked it. Still, perhaps it was better to keep things light. Lord knew he'd had more than his fill of emotion.
"Your original opinion of me was correct, Adrian," Diana went on. "I'm quite aware that your feelings for me aren't the—aren't the ones you felt for Tanya, and quite frankly I wouldn't like it if they were. I'm not passionately in love with you either and—and I think that if we both realize it, we'll have a better chance of being happy." Unexpectedly her lower lip started to tremble and she bit hard on it. "I don't believe in love that bowls you over so completely that you forget everything else. I don't want my life to be upset by a lot of unnecessary emotion."
"What are you afraid of?" Adrian sensed a deeper meaning behind her words. ''Emotion doesn't necessarily have to be destructive. It can be deeply satisfying."
"You're happy to live without it."
"Because I've been hurt."
"Perhaps I'm afraid of being hurt too."
"Perhaps you're afraid of life," he corrected gently. "Your father's always been so—"
"Please leave Father out of it," she said sharply. "You're the second person to hint I'm father-fixated, and it's beginning to annoy me."
Adrian was curious to know who the first person had been, but forbore to ask. "I'd like to continue this conversation another time," he said quietly, "but with a wife waiting in the sidelines, it isn't exactly opportune."
He moved toward the stairs, stopping as he saw Tanya coming down them. "I was coming to look for you," he said icily. "I suppose you know why?" He saw her creamy skin pale and the anger he had thought to control erupted again. "Doesn't giving your word mean anything to you?" he demanded. "Are you so anxious for Poulton to win that you had to break your promise?"
"I didn't break it," she whispered. "He found out by accident. He promised… he swore he wouldn't tell anyone."
"He's told everyone! Did you think he wouldn't?"
"I don't believe Roger broke his word," Diana intervened.
"So he's found a champion in you!" Adrian said, swinging around on her.
"I'm not his champion." Diana's face was flushed but she would not back down. "Until you were on opposite sides, you and Roger were friends. Surely you know he wouldn't do anything underhand? "
"We're not discussing what we used to be," Adrian retorted. "All I'm concerned with is what we are. And you know the facts as well as I do. He found out Tanya's my wife and he's made sure everyone else knows it."
"You're wrong!" Tanya cried, and turned on her heel.
"Wher
e are you going?'' Adrian called.
"To see Roger."
"You can't. Don't be stupid. Tanya!"
But she took no heed of him and raced across the hall to the drive. Adrian called her again but she refused to turn back and, afraid he might come after her, she swung across the lawn and disappeared between the trees.
She was hot and disheveled by the time she reached Roger's house and she banged on the knocker, praying he would be in. Luck was with her and Roger himself came to the door. One glance at her face and he drew her into the small room he used as his office.
"You've heard then?" he said.
"Yes," she cried. "How could you?"
"I didn't," he said heavily, "It was Bob Edwards. You remember when we were talking in the Cat and Bells and you thought you heard the door to the bar open?"
"You mean it was him?"
"Yes. He wanted to speak to me but when he heard you mention Adrian's name he stopped and listened. Then he waited a bit before coming in."
"That's why his manner was strange," Tanya muttered. "I know I didn't like him and I was right."
Roger laughed without humor. "There's something to feminine intuition after all."
"I owe you an apology," she said. "I'm sorry I believed you had broken your word."
"Forget it. Anyone would have thought the same."
"Diana didn't."
Roger rubbed the side of his face but gave no sign that he had heard what Tanya had said.
Tanya sat down on a chair, not because she wanted to remain there but because her legs did not feel as if they could support her. "What are people saying about Adrian and me?"
"Nothing very good," Roger admitted. "They know you're a Rovnian and that Adrian left you after you were married."
"He had no choice," she stated. "He was sent back to England and I was unable to go with him. He never deserted me."
"You don't need to defend him to me," Roger said gently. "But you asked me what people are saying and I've told you. Bob wanted to discredit Adrian and he's succeeded. You've got to admit Adrian's played into his hands. Having you hide your identity and pretend to be his sister's nanny was a pretty lousy thing to do."
Tanya could not disagree. Yet she still saw it from Adrian's point of view. With a heavy sigh she rose and went to the door. "Sometimes I wish I'd never escaped from Rovnia!"
Rachel Lindsay - Unwanted Wife Page 8
