by Anne Mather
‘I suppose he’s—very nice—’
‘Talk about damned with faint praise!’
‘—but that’s not the point, is it?’
‘What is then?’
‘I keep telling you—I don’t want to—get involved. With anyone.’
It was true, she told herself fiercely, silencing the mocking voice of her conscience. Just because she had given in to a totally natural physical need was no reason to go on punishing herself. She had not harmed Ben. He had wanted her, just as much as she had wanted him. The ethics of the situation were not involved here. She was a sophisticated adult, and so was he. They had used their bodies to give one another pleasure. In God’s name, what was wrong with that?
‘Shelley!’
She realised abruptly that Marsha had been talking to her, and gathering herself, she gave an apologetic smile. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘I was simply saying I’d feel happier if you could find someone to care about,’ said Marsha gently. ‘In some ways, you’re such an innocent, Shelley. You worry me. I mean, here you are at thirty-one—or almost—and Mike Berlitz is the only man you’ve had any experience with.’
‘I have had other boyfriends, Marsha,’ murmured Shelley uncomfortably, but the older woman was not convinced.
‘They were not serious,’ she asserted, pausing for a moment to allow the maid to set the cheeseboard on the table. ‘Yes, coffee for two, Sarah,’ she conceded, without looking up, and the girl took her leave with evident disappointment.
‘I have to be so careful what I say when Sarah’s about,’ Marsha added with a grimace, offering Shelley the biscuits. ‘The girl is an inveterate eavesdropper. And I’m sure she’d like something to gossip about where you’re concerned.’
‘I’m sure she would.’ Shelley refused the biscuits, but helped herself to a piece of creamy Cheshire. ‘So do you mind if we change the subject? I’m not an innocent, Marsha, so you’ve no need to worry.’
It was a further forty-eight hours before Ben came to see his mother. The day after Shelley’s visit to Low Burton, he ‘phoned to say that Mr Chater had been rushed into hospital that morning with a suspected thrombosis, and Marsha didn’t press him when he made no reference to his absence.
‘Poor Jennifer,’ was all she said when she came to find Shelley, who was helping Mr Ashcombe to pick some strawberries. ‘It can’t be easy for her, planning her wedding and knowing it could all be cancelled at a moment’s notice. If her father dies, I can’t see them getting married before Christmas, can you?’
‘I don’t suppose her father is too happy about it either,’ commented Shelley quietly, determinedly avoiding thoughts of Ben going to bed with Jennifer, and Marsha sighed.
‘You’re right, of course,’ she said. ‘I’m being selfish. I just don’t want anything to go wrong, that’s all.’
‘Go wrong?’ Shelley took the filled bowl of strawberries from the old gardener with a smile, and forced a note of enquiry into her voice. ‘What could go wrong?’
‘Oh, I don’t know.’ Marsha shook her head as they walked back to the house. ‘I just want them both to be happy, the way two people can be. Not like it was with Tom and me. Or like you and Mike Berlitz.’
Shelley caught her breath. ‘That’s hardly the same thing, Marsha.’
‘Perhaps not.’ Her friend conceded the point as she led the way into the house. ‘Well, let’s hope Jennifer’s father recovers. I haven’t given up the idea of being a grandmother by this time next year, you know.’
* * *
Although Shelley spent hours preparing herself for Ben’s eventual arrival, she could not have anticipated the impact his appearance would have on her. He arrived on Wednesday evening, just as she was coming downstairs for dinner, and she was intensely grateful Marsha was not around to witness her shocked immobility.
He came into the hall just as she reached the bottom stair, and her reaction to his physical presence hit her like a blow. He wasn’t formally dressed. On the contrary, his thin knit shirt and sleeveless leather jerkin, worn over hip-tight denims, would not please his mother, but they pleased Shelley. He looked lean and hard and handsome—not in any gentle way, but taut and tough and masculine; and Shelley felt her senses stir in remembrance of how she had last seen him.
She halted abruptly, rooted to the spot, waiting for Jennifer’s appearance behind him to bring her frozen limbs to life. She felt like a puppet, waiting to be jerked into action, and when Jennifer didn’t appear, she felt her features harden.
Ben allowed the outer door to slam behind him, and then walked across the polished floor to where Shelley was standing. ‘Hello,’ he said softly, his eyes dropping intimately from her mouth to the dusky hollow between her breasts. ‘As you see, I came. Are you glad?’
Shelley was immediately aware that the draped neckline of her cream silk shirt was too low, and that her brown velvet pants clung too sinuously to her hips. She had not dressed with Ben in mind; indeed, had she suspected she might be seeing him tonight, she would have worn something infinitely less flattering. But when he had ‘phoned that morning, to give his mother a report on Mr Chater’s condition he had said nothing about coming out to Craygill, and Shelley had relaxed.
Now, however, she was made insistently aware that far from assuaging the needs he aroused inside her, their lovemaking had only heightened her awareness of them. And, in spite of all her good intentions, desire was flooding her body in a wave of irresistible heat.
‘Wh-where’s Jennifer?’ she asked, once more using his fiancée’s name as a lifeline, and Ben’s eyes darkened with sudden anger.
‘What do you care?’ he enquired brutally, and Shelley gasped.
‘Of-course, I care,’ she argued painfully. ‘I—I wondered if her father had taken a turn for the worse, or something. When you ‘phoned your mother this morning, you mentioned some new tests they were making.’
Ben regarded her broodingly for a moment, and then he thrust his hands into the pockets of his pants. ‘He’s all right,’ he replied, lifting his shoulders in a dismissive gesture. ‘His condition is stable. I expect Jennifer is with her mother. They need one another at a time like this.’
‘Of course.’ Shelley’s tongue emerged to wet her dry lips. ‘Please—give Mr Chater my best wishes next time you see him. And Mrs Chater, too. It must be a terrible time for all of them.’
‘Yes.’ Ben continued his appraisal of his booted feet for a few seconds more, and then he lifted his head to look at her with weary resignation. ‘In any case, I wouldn’t have brought Jennifer with me tonight.’ His mouth hardened at her wary expression, but he went on harshly: ‘For Christ’s sake, Shelley, I didn’t come here to talk about Frank’s illness! All right, I feel sorry for him—for all of them—of course, I do. But I came to see you, and you know it!’
‘No—’
‘Don’t be stupid! You know I did.’
‘Ben, you mustn’t say these things!’ Shelley glanced apprehensively about her, remembering what Marsha had said about Sarah eavesdropping. ‘Look, your mother’s getting changed. Let me go and fetch her. She’ll be so relieved when I tell her that you’re here.’
‘She’ll have heard the car.’ Ben’s hand on her forearm prevented her from backing off, the hard strength of his fingers unbearably familiar on her flesh. ‘Come into the library,’ he said. ‘We can wait for her there. I need a drink, and I suspect you do, too.’
She went with him because he had hold of her arm and because it was probably safer to argue with him there than conspicuously in the hall. Nevertheless, as soon as the library door had closed behind them, she freed herself, and put the width of the room between them.
‘White wine, is that right?’ Ben remarked, approaching the tray of drinks, and Shelley nodded.
‘Thank you.’
‘My pleasure.’ Ben was sardonic, but when he handed the glass to her she made sure that this time their fingers did not touch. ‘So?’ he regarded her intently over the rim of h
is glass of scotch. ‘What do we talk about? The weather?’
Shelley shook her head. ‘Why not?’
‘Because that’s not what’s on both our minds,’ retorted Ben tersely. ‘Shelley, we have to talk—and I mean properly.’
‘There’s nothing to talk about.’ With a nervous shrug, she turned to look out of the window, concentrating all her attention on the delicate petals of a rose, growing in the border outside. ‘Do you realise, I’ve been here three weeks already? I can hardly believe it.’
‘I can.’ Ben swallowed half his scotch at a gulp and took an impatient breath. ‘They’ve been the most frustrating three weeks of my life. Except for Monday, that is.’
‘Ben!’
‘Well, it’s true.’ With an exasperated sound, he closed the space between them, his warm breath fanning the exposed nape of her neck. ‘I’ve thought of nothing else for the past two days. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten how good it was between us!’
‘No, of course I haven’t forgotten,’ she retorted in a low tone. ‘And—and I’m not saying I’m sorry that it happened. But—it didn’t mean anything, Ben. It was sex, pure and simple. I—I’d have thought that someone of your age would have appreciated the difference.’
Ben sucked in his breath. ‘What do you mean? Someone of my age?’
‘Well—’ Shelley was forced to turn and face him, and supporting herself with her hands against the ledge of the window behind her, she said bravely: ‘You do consider yourselves the liberated generation, don’t you?’
Ben’s mouth compressed. ‘What has my generation got to do with it? You’re the same generation as me, or had you forgotten?’
Shelley held up her head. ‘It doesn’t feel like it. Not when you talk like that. Ben, I’m six years older than you are—’
‘Not quite!’
‘Five and a half, then. It doesn’t really matter. I—feel more like your mother’s generation than yours—’
‘Bullshit!’
‘It’s true!’ Her nails dug painfully into her palms. ‘And—and when you talk—about what happened, I think you should remember, I’m not the untarnished innocent you seem to think me!’
‘What are you saying?’ His eyes bored into hers. ‘That I’m not the first man you’ve been to bed with?’ His lips tightened. ‘I know that. I know there was a man in London. My mother was worried about you and she confided in me.’ He shrugged. ‘I can live with that.’
‘You don’t understand—’ Shelley was finding it increasingly difficult to sustain his penetrating gaze. ‘Ben, please don’t make the situation any more impossible than it already is. I’m your mother’s friend! You’re my best friend’s son! We can’t have a relationship. It wouldn’t be right.’
Ben put his glass aside and moved in on her, imprisoning her between the cool wall of the window and the heat of his taut body. ‘It feels pretty good to me,’ he said huskily, bending his head to allow his tongue free access to the palpitating pulse at her jawline. And then, when she flinched away from him, he added angrily: ‘When are you going to stop pretending that it’s any different for you?’
‘Because it is.’ Shelley jerked her head away from him, her eyes bright and desperate. She ached to feel his arms around her; she ached to press herself against him and give in to the hungry demands his nearness was making upon her, but she couldn’t. She owed it to Marsha to remember who she was—who he was—and allowing this situation to continue was inviting disaster. ‘Ben, I think you should know—my—my affair with Mike Berlitz is not over!’
He stepped back a pace to look at her then, his eyes narrowed and disbelieving. ‘No?’
‘No.’ Shelley crossed her fingers tightly. ‘I—just needed a breathing space, that’s all. And—and this holiday provided it.’
Ben’s eyes darkened. ‘I don’t believe you.’
Shelley held herself stiffly. ‘That’s your prerogative.’
He frowned. ‘Are you telling me you’re going to marry him?’
Shelley shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Maybe.’
Ben’s face was paler than before as he said: ‘Are you telling me—it was as good with him as it was with us?’
Shelley hesitated, torn by the knowledge that he had inadvertently given her the means of his own destruction. She had only to say yes, and their tenuous relationship would be over. But did she truly want to do it?
They were still locked in that silent battle of wills when the library door opened, and Ben turned abruptly away. For a moment the bulk of his lean body was between Shelley and his mother, and Shelley struggled feverishly to regain her composure as the older woman came into the room.
‘So there you are,’ Marsha exclaimed, catching sight of Shelley’s vivid hair behind her son. ‘Dickon, what a surprise to see you. You didn’t say anything this morning about coming to dinner tonight.’
‘I’m afraid I can’t stay for dinner, Ma,’ Ben responded, after a moment, the brittleness of his tone evident only to Shelley. He kissed the cheek his mother proffered, and lifted his shoulders. ‘Pressure of work, and all that.’
‘Oh, Dickon!’ Marsha was evidently disappointed, and Shelley wondered if he had intended to stay to dinner when he arrived. ‘It’s almost two weeks since you spent an evening with us. Surely Bill Yates can handle your calls for once. I can’t believe you’ve driven out here just to say hello and goodbye!’
‘Wheeler’s mare is foaling,’ said Ben, pushing his hands into the pockets of his pants. ‘I promised I’d be there. And as his place is near here—’
‘—you thought you’d call in,’ finished Marsha, with a sigh. ‘Honestly, Ben, I sometimes think your blessed animals take precedence over your own mother. I’d have thought that as Shelley was here, you could have made other arrangements.’
‘Please—don’t mind me,’ murmured Shelley, with an involuntary gesture. ‘I’m sure if—if Ben has made a promise—’
‘There you are!’ Ben spread a mocking hand. ‘Your guest understands the situation better than you do. As a matter of fact,’ he held Shelley’s anxious gaze for an agonising moment, ‘I’d go so far as to say, she’ll probably be glad to see the back of me!’
‘Dickon!’ As Shelley’s tortured breathing stifled in her throat, Marsha gave her son a puzzled look. ‘What on earth has got into you? You know Shelley is always glad to see you—just as I am. For heaven’s sake, I thought you were fond of her! But I have to say it hasn’t been much in evidence in recent weeks!’
‘Oh, Marsha, don’t be silly!’ Shelley was beginning to suspect Ben intended to expose her there and then. ‘Ben has his own life to lead—and—and his fiancée’s welfare to care about. You can’t expect him to spend time with—with two old ladies like us!
‘You speak for yourself!’ exclaimed Marsha indignantly, but Shelley’s words had provided the necessary panacea, for Ben’s mother at any rate. ‘Oh, well, I suppose I can’t make too many demands upon you at present. But I don’t see why you should make Shelley the whipping boy for your impatience.’
‘Can’t you?’ Ben’s mouth twisted sardonically, but just when Shelley thought her world was about to come tumbling about her ears, he seemed to relent. ‘Of course not,’ he added, offering her a polite inclination of his head. ‘I guess my attitude was uncalled for. Naturally I didn’t intend to offend you. Put it down to—tiredness and overwork.’
Shelley nodded, avoiding his eyes, and without another word, Ben strode towards the door. ‘When will we see you again?’ protested Marsha, as he made to take his leave, and her son leaned wearily against the jamb.
‘Soon,’ he said flatly, flexing his shoulder muscles, and with another inclination of his head, he was gone.
CHAPTER SEVEN
AS if the thought was father to the deed, Mike Berlitz rang the following morning.
Shelley was still in bed, laying claim to a headache that was almost as bad as she had alleged to Marsha, when Sarah came to tell her she had a call. The maid’s lips curled a
little at the other girl’s hollow-eyed vulnerability, and her voice was offhand when Shelley asked who it was.
‘It’s a man,’ she declared, briefly inspiring the treacherous thought that it might be Ben. But that idea was quickly dismissed. Sarah would have recognised his voice, and besides, after the previous evening’s events, Ben was unlikely to try and get in touch with her.
‘It’s not Charles, is it?’ Shelley mumbled, dragging herself up on her pillows. The last thing she needed right now was medical advice, however well meant, but Sarah shook her head.
‘No, it’s not the doctor,’ she retorted, hovering by the door. ‘I think he said his name was Berliss.’ She grimaced. ‘Do you want me to tell him you’re not well enough to come to the ‘phone?’
‘Berlitz,’ echoed Shelley, automatically amending the word, her spirits plummeting. ‘Oh, God!’
‘What do you want me to do?’ Sarah was growing impatient, and Shelley made a helpless gesture.
‘I’ll come, I’ll come,’ she said, sliding her feet out from under the covers and groping for her kimono. ‘Just give me a minute, will you? I’m not exactly with it yet.’
‘No, you don’t look so good,’ commented Sarah, without sympathy, and Shelley met the girl’s scornful gaze with a controlled stare.
‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘I needed that,’ and Sarah had the grace to colour as she went out of the door.
‘You can take the call in Miss Manning’s room,’ she muttered, gesturing towards her employer’s bedroom. ‘That’s the only room with an upstairs extension.’
‘Okay.’
Shelley’s head was throbbing by the time she picked up the receiver. Her own anxieties, combined with Sarah’s scarcely-veiled hostility, were not a calming influence, and she was in no mood to talk to the man whose behaviour had indirectly caused her present problems.
‘What do you want, Mike?’ she asked, omitting the usual preliminaries, and her abrupt tone seemed to catch him unaware.
‘Hey,’ he protested. ‘Is that any way to greet the man you love? I thought you’d be pleased to know I’m thinking about you.’
