by Penny Jordan
‘What? Best? Best for whom?’ Guard demanded savagely. ‘People are starting to talk,’ he warned her. ‘They’re starting to wonder what kind of marriage we have, what kind of relationship when we’re spending so much time apart. My God, I’ve even had Edward offering me commiseration and advice, warning me that people are beginning to comment about the amount of time you’re spending with Ralph. Edward also seems to think that Ralph might have tried to persuade you to help finance the shelter.’
‘Is that—is that what you wanted to talk to me about?’ Rosy asked jerkily, warily.
‘One of the things,’ Guard agreed.
One of them? What were the others? Rosy wondered miserably. Only yesterday Edward had commented on how unhappy she looked; ‘lovelorn’ was the word he had used to describe her, pseudo-sympathetically pretending to feel sorry for her because Guard was neglecting her.
‘You mustn’t wear your heart on your sleeve so obviously,’ he had advised her. ‘Men like Guard enjoy the chase, the hunt. You’ve made it all far too easy for him, Rosy, and now he’s bored.’
‘Has Ralph asked you for money, Rosy?’ Guard asked her sternly.
‘He’s worried about the lease, about losing the premises,’ Rosy responded indirectly. ‘The shelter needs—’
‘The shelter needs…’ Guard interrupted her angrily. ‘Tell me something, Rosy, do you ever think about any other needs? Anyone else’s needs? Or are you really so blind that—?’
He broke off as the door opened and Edward walked into the hall.
‘Sorry,’ he apologised insincerely, his foxy eyes flicking from Rosy’s pale face to Guard’s angry one and back again. ‘Have I interrupted a bad moment?’
‘Did you want something, Edward?’ Guard asked him irritably, without taking his eyes off Rosy’s face, ignoring his question.
‘Yes, if you don’t mind, Guard, I wanted to have a word with you. The boys will be home from school soon and Margaret’s fussing about the lack of proper fire-escape facilities on the upper floor and I must say I have to agree with her. For safety’s sake, I really think we ought to move down a floor while they’re here…’
Quickly, Rosy headed for the door, ignoring Guard’s sharply commanding, ‘Rosy…wait…’
Half expecting that he would come after her, she almost ran to her car, her hands shaking as she unlocked the door and got in.
‘We have to talk’, he had said, but she couldn’t. She was far too afraid of what he might say, of hearing him tell her that he had had enough, that he was leaving.
And yet, really, wouldn’t that be for the best? How long could she go on living so close to him, knowing how much she loved him, knowing that Edward was watching their every movement, knowing that her time with him was steadily trickling away, living in dread of betraying her feelings and having to bear the pain of hearing him say that he didn’t want her love…?
All evening at the shelter, she was anxious and on edge, unable to concentrate properly on what she was doing, and it was a relief when her shift finally came to an end and she was free to go home.
The first thing she noticed as she parked her car outside the house was that Guard’s car was missing.
Her heart took a forlorn dive into misery, even though she tried to tell herself that it was just as well that he wasn’t there.
Her head had been aching all evening, and she was in the kitchen taking a couple of aspirin when Edward walked in.
‘Not feeling very well?’ he asked her sharply.
‘I’ve got a headache,’ Rosy responded listlessly. She hated the habit he had of always appearing when she least wanted him to, it was almost eerie, intimidating, as though he was secretly spying on her.
‘Guard’s gone out,’ he told her, watching her.
‘Yes, I realise that,’ Rosy agreed tonelessly.
She wanted to leave the kitchen but Edward was standing right in front of her, almost physically barring her way.
‘He had a telephone call—from a woman,’ Edward told her with relish. ‘He said to tell you that he’d be away all night.’
Rosy felt the blood drain from her face, and knew that Edward had witnessed her body’s reaction to her emotions.
‘Oh, poor Rosy, you have got it badly, haven’t you?’ Edward sympathised insincerely. ‘But you can’t win, you know. Sooner or later he’s going to leave you. Oh, he’ll stay long enough to make sure of this place, but he’s already getting bored with you, isn’t he? A young woman of your age, he probably expected to get you pregnant straight away…Are you pregnant, Rosy? You’ve been looking very pale recently…’
Rosy gasped in outraged anger.
‘That’s none of your business,’ she told him fiercely.
‘Oh, yes, it is,’ Edward responded softly. ‘It’s very much my business. Just as this house is very much my business. I hope you aren’t pregnant, Rosy, because if you are…Well, let’s just say that in a house like this there are all kinds of hazards for a woman in a delicate condition, if you take my meaning. Guard wouldn’t be very pleased if you lost his baby, would he, Rosy? All that time wasted. The boring job of having to do it all again to be faced, when he would obviously so much rather spend his time with someone else…You’ve only been married a month and already he’s bored with you, Rosy. Leave him now, while there’s still time. He only wants the house. He doesn’t want you. He’s never wanted you.’
With a small sob, Rosy managed to push her way past her tormentor, almost running out of the kitchen as she headed for the stairs and the security of her bedroom.
The security? How could she feel secure here now, after what Edward had just said, the threats he had just made?
He must be mad, deranged—but Rosy knew that he wasn’t. She shivered violently as she curled up in the middle of the bed.
How would she feel right now if she had actually been carrying Guard’s child? The cold sickness, the fear, the anguish, the protective way her hand instinctively covered her stomach told her the answer.
She couldn’t go on like this, loving Guard, wanting him, knowing he didn’t love her, living in fear of Edward and his threats.
But where else could she go? The shelter? A wryly bitter smile curled her mouth at the thought…Hardly.
‘You’re not eating your breakfast.’
‘I’m not hungry,’ Rosy responded wanly to Guard’s terse comment. It was Saturday morning and for once he had no serious business to take him out of the house.
Nothing had been said about her refusal to agree to talk to him, and no explanation given to her for his absence all night earlier in the week.
Guard was just pushing his chair back from the table and standing up when Edward walked into the breakfast-room.
‘I’ve got to go out later,’ Guard told her distantly. ‘I don’t know how long I’ll be away. What are your plans?’
‘I’ve—I’ve got some shopping to do later,’ Rosy fibbed, avoiding looking at him, her whole body tensing as she felt him looking at her.
‘Ah, these modern marriages,’ Edward quipped, smiling at them.
He wasn’t smiling an hour later as he caught up with Rosy on the stairs, just after Guard had gone out.
‘Stop making it hard for yourself, Rosy,’ he advised her. ‘Leave him. He’s making it very obvious how little he thinks of you—and how much he thinks of her.’
‘Her?’
The betraying, agonised word had escaped before Rosy could silence it.
‘Oh, come on.’ Edward smirked. ‘You can’t be that naïve. Your husband stays away all night; there can only be one reason, can’t there? There’s got to be someone else, hasn’t there, Rosy? Several someone elses if Guard’s reputation is anything to go by.’
Suddenly, Rosy had had enough. She could feel the tears filling her eyes and threatening to spill down her face. All Edward’s barbed pinpricks, all his cruelty, all his threats, all the pain and misery of loving Guard and knowing she wasn’t loved in return suddenly became to
o much for her.
Head down, she turned and fled to the sanctuary of the bedroom.
The bedroom—their bedroom—the room and the bed she shared with Guard.
Shared with him. She squeezed her eyes tightly closed against the hot, betraying flood of her tears.
As the scalding tears burned their way down her face, she reached out helplessly for Guard’s pillow, wrapping her arms round it and burying her face in it, trying to absorb the faintly lingering scent of him into her own body, as though it were a drug which could ease her pain.
‘Rosy…Rosy, what is it? What are you doing up here?’
Guard. But he had gone out. Rosy tensed as she heard his voice, not daring to turn round.
‘What’s wrong?’ Guard asked. ‘Aren’t you feeling well? Rosy, answer me…’
He was standing next to the bed now, leaning over her, his hand reaching out towards her. Miserably, Rosy lifted her face out of his pillow.
‘You’re crying?’
He sat down on the bed next to her. Next to her, but still apart from her, Rosy noticed.
‘What is it? What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing,’ Rosy lied.
‘Is it Ralph? The shelter? Have you…?’
Ralph? Rosy stared at him. Why should she be crying over Ralph?
‘Ralph! Of course it isn’t,’ she denied fretfully.
There was a look in Guard’s eyes which made her heart suddenly start to thud unsteadily.
‘Well, if it’s not Ralph then what, or rather who, is it?’ Guard persisted quietly.
Edgily, Rosy sat up and moved slightly away from him.
‘I thought you had to go out,’ she told him.
‘That can wait,’ Guard responded flatly. ‘This can’t. What is it, Rosy? And don’t tell me nothing. The day “nothing” makes you cry…’
To Rosy’s consternation, he suddenly reached out and touched her hot, damp face in a gesture which could almost be mistaken for tenderness, just as the look in his eyes could almost be mistaken for real, genuine concern. But that would be a fatal mistake for her to make, she warned herself, another fatal mistake.
She couldn’t tell him the truth. How could she, when—? She tensed abruptly as she heard someone walking down the corridor.
‘It’s Edward, Guard,’ she exclaimed in panic. ‘Don’t let him come in. Don’t—’
‘Edward?’
As she heard the sharp query in Guard’s voice, Rosy’s face flooded with betraying colour.
‘Is it Edward who’s the cause of this…these?’ Guard demanded, his fingers brushing gently against her face.
Rosy bit down on her bottom lip, not trusting herself to answer, but she couldn’t stop the hot, sad flow of tears that gave away her real feelings.
‘Tell me,’ Guard commanded her. ‘All of it, Rosy,’ he warned her. ‘I want to know what the hell’s been going on. What the hell he’s done to cause this.’
‘I can’t,’ Rosy protested miserably. ‘Please don’t make me, Guard. I just wish he would go away,’ she wept. ‘I hate having him watching me, spying on me. He knows, Guard. I know he does and he—’
‘He knows what?’
‘That this isn’t a real marriage…a proper marriage,’ Rosy told him. ‘He keeps telling me—threatening me—’
‘Threatening you?’ Guard interrupted her sharply. ‘Rosy, there’s nothing he can do to either of us now,’ he told her. ‘Surely you must have realised that. No matter what the reasons were for our marrying, what our intentions were concerning the reality of that marriage, Edward’s power to damage us was totally destroyed the night you and I turned our marriage from a fiction to a reality. There’s nothing he can do now, no legal recourse open to him.’
‘No—no legal one,’ Rosy agreed tiredly.
Guard frowned at her.
‘Rosy, what is it…? What are you trying to say?’
She was shivering now, her body suddenly very cold; she felt ill almost, like someone suffering from a very bad virus.
‘Rosy!’ Guard warned her.
Wearily, Rosy shook her head.
‘He keeps saying I should end our marriage,’ she told him quietly. ‘He thinks you’re trying to…He thinks…’ Flushing, she ducked her head, unable to bring herself to look at him as she told him unsteadily, ‘He thinks that if you and I have a child that your claim to the house will be more secure. He’s guessed that that’s why you married me, Guard. He even threatened—’ She swallowed hard and gave a small, hard laugh. ‘He told me that—that in a house like this it would be very easy for a woman to lose her baby…’
‘What?’
Rosy winced as she heard the fury in Guard’s voice.
‘Stay here,’ he told her.
He was gone less than half an hour and when he came back, the controlled, totally blanked-off expression in his eyes made Rosy feel afraid.
What had he said to Edward and, even more important, what had Edward said to him? Had he told Guard about her feelings? Had he—?
‘Edward’s gone, Rosy,’ Guard told her flatly. ‘And he won’t be coming back.’
Rosy stared at him. How on earth had Guard managed to make him leave so easily and so quickly? Edward had been like a limpet in his determination to stay, and Guard had told her that there was too much risk involved in insisting that he left.
‘He’s gone? Just like that?’
Fresh tears rolled down her face, but this time they were tears of relief.
‘Oh, God, Rosy. Rosy, don’t cry…’
Rosy tensed as Guard moved towards her, obviously intending to take hold of her and comfort her, flinching back from him, her eyes wide and dark with distress.
‘There’s no need to back away from me as though I’m some kind of—I’m not going to touch you.’
‘No, I know you aren’t,’ Rosy agreed woodenly, looking hurriedly away from him as she felt fresh tears starting to fall.
‘Well, if you know that, then why on earth—?’ she heard Guard saying. ‘Rosy,’ he demanded softly, his voice suddenly changing. ‘Rosy, look at me.’
‘I can’t,’ Rosy whispered. ‘I can’t.’
‘Yes, you can.’
She trembled as Guard’s hand cupped her face, gently tilting it upwards so that he could look into her tear-drenched eyes.
‘Now,’ he told her quietly, ‘if you know I’m not going to touch you, then why flinch away from me like that?’
Rosy blinked hard, trying to suppress her tears, her lips trembling as she failed and the full force of her emotions stormed through her, shattering her defences.
‘It’s because I want you to touch me,’ she told him in a tormented, husky voice. ‘Because I love you and I want you and I can’t bear—Guard…Guard…’
Her protest was smothered beneath his mouth as he reached out for her, holding her so tightly that she could feel the fierce beat of his heart as though it were her own.
‘Rosy…Rosy.’
She scarcely recognised the stifled, intense voice as Guard’s, the fiercely whispered endearments, the hungry, passionate kisses. Surely she must be imagining them, she thought dizzily.
Surely this couldn’t really be Guard, holding her like this, kissing her mouth, her face, her throat…Telling her how much he loved her, how much he had always loved her, telling her he had waited for what felt like half his life, her lifetime, to hear her say what she had just said.
‘But you can’t love me,’ Rosy protested shakily, pushing him slightly away from her and looking up into his eyes, her own shy and bewildered. ‘You’ve always disliked me—hated me.’
‘Oh, Rosy,’ Guard groaned. ‘Only you could think that. Only you do think that. Why the hell do you think I married you?’
Rosy frowned.
‘Because I asked you to. Because you wanted the house.’
‘No, Rosy,’ Guard corrected her thickly. ‘I wanted you. Did want, have wanted, do want, will want,’ he stressed, ticking each assertion off on her
fingers, pausing to kiss each one of them tenderly and then less tenderly as he saw the expression in her eyes.
Rosy felt her whole body jerk in shocked reaction to the sensation of his sucking on her fingertips.
She could feel what he was doing to her right down to her toes. And everywhere else as well.
‘But you didn’t want to marry me. I had to ask you,’ she reminded him in a small voice. ‘And you said you needed time…’
‘Time to get myself under control and work out just how capable I was of going along with what you were asking. You were damn lucky I didn’t snatch you up there and then and take you to bed, just to show you exactly what I thought of your plans for our business marriage. Perhaps that’s what I should have done,’ he added, lifting his head to look at her.
Rosy couldn’t conceal the sharp frisson of excitement that ran through her, or the hot colour burning her skin.
‘Would you have liked that, Rosy?’ Guard asked her thickly, letting her see just how much her reaction was affecting him, exciting him, Rosy recognised, on a small wobble of uncertain delight. ‘Would you have liked it if I’d carried you off to bed and made love to you?’
‘I…Oh, Guard, how can you possibly have loved me without my knowing?’ Rosy demanded giddily.
‘With extreme frustration,’ Guard told her drily, ‘and a hell of a lot of jealousy.’
‘You, jealous? Of whom?’
‘Ralph, for one,’ Guard told her quietly. ‘And Bressée for another. My God, when I saw the way you were letting him flirt with you…I’ve always considered myself a very logical and cautious human being, but that night…I wanted to take you to bed and stamp the seal of my possession on you so clearly that no man—no man—would ever doubt that you were mine.’
‘Edward said you didn’t love me. That you just wanted the house,’ Rosy told him painfully. ‘He said—he said you had someone else and I thought…Why, if you love me, Guard, did you…? Didn’t you…?’ She stopped and looked pleadingly at him. ‘Why didn’t you say something that night, the night…?’
‘Oh, Rosy. How little you know,’ Guard told her, but his derisive look was, Rosy recognised, more for himself than for her. ‘I was angry with myself for—for letting things get out of hand, for letting my feelings, my needs, destroy my self-control. You’d turned to me for comfort—in fear and panic. I never intended…I thought you must have guessed how I felt and that was why you refused to talk about what had happened.’
