Lovers Touch

by Penny Jordan

  ‘Well, then,’ she said brittly, ‘what exactly do you suggest? Although I must warn you that Joss has extremely demanding standards. The business associates he’s inviting to this wedding will expect to be properly entertained.’

  Nell was furious, but she controlled her anger this time. How dared Joss allow his secretary to come here and attempt to browbeat her like this? Their wedding might be a business arrangement, but it was still first and foremost a wedding, not a business meeting, and as such was not going to be masterminded by Joss’s secretary.

  ‘I think the wedding breakfast menu is something you can safely leave to me,’ she said calmly. ‘And now, if you’ll excuse me …’

  ‘Joss has sent me down here for the whole day. He said you would need help getting organised. I’ll have to tell him, of course, that you’ve rejected my advice. He won’t be pleased. As I’ve already said, he sets very high standards, and since it’s his money that’s paying …’

  She stopped and smiled thinly.

  ‘Is that what he told you?’ Nell enquired lightly, not letting her real feelings show. She saw a faint shadow of something darken the other woman’s eyes, and guessed that she had merely assumed that Joss would be paying. It gave her the courage to continue quietly, ‘Actually, he’s not. Not that it’s any concern of yours. As to your assisting me … I really don’t think that’s necessary or desirable.’

  She sat down in the same dismissive manner she remembered her headmistress using to good effect. ‘I’m sorry you’ve had a wasted journey over here.’

  She was still shaking half an hour after her unwanted visitor had left.

  It was an hour after that that Joss walked into the library unannounced, his face dark with anger.

  Although inside she was terrified, Nell managed to keep her face calm.

  ‘Why did you send Fiona back?’ he demanded without preamble.

  ‘Because I don’t need her,’ Nell told him bravely. ‘I’m perfectly capable of organising our wedding myself, Joss. I might have no option but to agree to this marriage, but I will not be bullied and told what to do by your secretary.’

  ‘She’s extremely efficient and experienced.’

  ‘I don’t doubt it,’ Nell murmured with a touch of cynicism that made his eyes harden.

  ‘Just what are you trying to imply?’ he demanded harshly.

  ‘Nothing,’ Nell returned promptly. ‘Had you asked me first if I wanted your secretary’s assistance, I would have told you that I didn’t. Just as I would also have told you that I am perfectly capable of finding my own interior designer if need be.

  ‘This wedding may be a business arrangement … and I may be very much the junior partner, but I will not be dictated to by your secretary, Joss, nor by anyone else.’ She saw him frown, and felt her temper ease from her; sighing slightly, she said, ‘Joss, if you have so little faith in my ability and so much in your secretary’s, perhaps you should be marrying her … but then of course she can’t provide your son with a foothold in the peerage, can she? I appreciate that it’s no concern of mine what role she plays in your life, but I won’t have her interfering in mine … whatever her relationship with you.’

  It was as close as she dared to go in telling him that she suspected that he and his secretary were or had been lovers. She had suspected it from the moment she met the other woman. There had been a certain mocking challenge in those too calculating blue eyes; a certain arrogant determination to let Nell know that she considered her position very much inferior to her own; and from her attitude Nell had come to the conclusion that she was far more to Joss than merely his secretary.

  ‘Whatever …’ His mouth snapped shut and he glared at her. ‘Fiona is my secretary and nothing else, but, as you say,’ he added cruelly, ‘my relationship with her has nothing to do with you. Jealous of her, Nell?’

  She was shaking inside, but determined to hold herself together and not betray what she was feeling.

  She deliberately chose to misunderstand him and to use the weapon she knew to be most lethal.

  ‘Jealous? Of someone who doesn’t know that one never serves a summer menu once the game season starts?’ She allowed her eyebrow to lift slightly, and said indifferently, ‘Hardly.’

  ‘No … she isn’t of your class, Nell, and there’s really no need to underline that fact. But then, neither am I, and when I bring my secretary to this house, I shall expect her to be treated with respect.’

  Nell turned to look at him. ‘Respect has to be earned, Joss. It can’t be commanded … nor bought. Did you want to discuss anything else with me?’ she added carelessly, when the silence had stretched for too long. Joss was looking at her almost as though he hated her. Perhaps he did, she thought wildly.

  ‘No,’ he told her harshly; and before she could say another word he had left.

  CHAPTER SIX

  WITH less than a month to go before the wedding, Nell was determined to prove to Joss that her powers of organisation were equal to the combined efforts of his secretary and his interior designers, even though she might exhaust herself in the process.

  Perhaps it was as well if she did. It would leave her less time to think, to dwell on the enormity of what she was going to do.

  A curt phone call from Joss had reminded her that he expected that they would both inhabit the master suite of the house from the day of their marriage, and, with the ideas and information garnered from Liz, Nell called Mrs Booth into the library for a conference of what could and could not be achieved.

  Between them, the existing staff, who had learned to turn their hands to almost anything and everything during the years they had worked for her grandfather, confirmed that they could tackle all the renovations and redecoration Nell had in mind.

  She had worked long into the night for the three days since her return from Cambridge, drawing up lists and making plans.

  Telephone calls to suppliers in London had taken care of the ordering of the wallpapers and fabrics she would need, and Mrs Knowles in the village had confirmed that she and her daughter and niece together could just about make up the fabric Nell had ordered in time for the wedding.

  The sketches and photographs culled from magazines that Nell showed her had made her marvel a little, but she was a skilled needlewoman with enough confidence in her own ability to boost Nell’s flagging spirits. After three days of non-stop endeavour, she was beginning to wonder if she should after all have simply given in and allowed Joss to organise everything.

  But if she gave in now, what would her life with him be like? If she did produce a son, he would probably have the child taken away from her, insisting on having him brought up by nannies and other hired, qualified staff, and Nell was not going to have that.

  In fact, Nell was discovering a fighting spirit she had never even guessed she possessed. It disturbed her to realise how very protective she felt already of a child she had not yet even conceived.

  She even found herself walking the length of the long gallery when she ought to have been doing other things, studying the features in the family portraits, wondering whether her child would take after her family or look like his father.

  Her child … She shivered a little. The child would not merely be hers, but Joss’s as well, and he would have his own definite ideas about his upbringing.

  At times when she ought to have been concentrating on wallpapers and fabrics, she found herself dreamily wondering, picturing a baby with Joss’s dark features, a child whom she could love as much because he was cast in his father’s image as for himself, and then she caught herself up sharply. Their child would be an individual, not a mirror-image of his father. He would have his own traits and characteristics, his own very definite personality.

  Within four days of her return home, she had marshalled her workforce, and on Wednesday morning they began stripping the wallpaper from the master bedroom and preparing it for redecorating.

  She was on her mettle now, and determined to prove to Joss that s
he could revamp the house as well as his interior designer.

  Something in her, in fact, was actually enjoying the challenge. The money she had been so carefully hoarding against her uncertain future could now be spent in the knowledge that the sale of the dinner-service would replenish her bank account and more than cover the cost of the wedding.

  While her team of decorators worked upstairs, down in the kitchen Mrs Booth was organising the arrangements for the wedding breakfast.

  She and Nell had pored over recipe books inherited from Nell’s great-great-grandmother in an attempt to find something not just suitable but different enough to surprise Joss’s friends.

  Perhaps it was unworthy of her to want to do this, but Nell reflected that everyone was allowed a little bit of ego-boosting every now and again.

  By Friday the master suite was ready for its new raiment; the walls stripped of their dusty paper and dull hangings, the woodwork of its old-fashioned, dark brown varnish. It was amazing how light and airy the room looked, Nell reflected, studying it. Down in the village, Mrs Knowles and her helpers were already working on the new hangings for the bed; she had chosen a soft peach fabric with a design on it in French blue. The walls were to be papered in a companion paper in a trellis design above the dado rail, and sponged in toning peach below it. A border that exactly matched the fabric just above the dado rail would complete the redecoration, and she had decided to continue the same colour theme throughout the entire suite.

  Luckily her grandfather had never replaced the old Edwardian white sanitaryware, now back in fashion. The bathroom was a good size and the estate carpenter was making a matching dado rail for both the bathroom and the dressing-room.

  In the sitting-room, she was using a slightly more formal companion paper, and here the curtains were to be plain peach lined with a subtly patterned fabric in shadow stripes.

  Mrs Knowles had promised that all the curtains, chair and settee covers, cushions and bed hangings would be finished on time, and Nell knew that she could rely on her.

  Walking round the bare rooms, the furniture pushed into the middle of them and covered in dusty covers, she tried to visualise how they were going to look, praying that she had not made any errors.

  It was too late now for cold feet, she told herself, leaving the men to their work and going back downstairs.

  Out of the downstairs room only two needed a minimum of work, one being the library and the other the dining-room, its red Chinese silk wallcovering being, in her opinon, too beautiful to destroy.

  Some of the rooms would have to remain untouched for now, but if she could just prove to Joss that she was fully capable of organising the work herself they could be tackled later.

  She wandered into the drawing-room, wondering what he would think of the colour scheme she had chosen for the large south-facing room.

  She was hoping that the subtle mixture of blues and terracottas; the faded elegance of the pieces of antique furniture she had decided should furnish the room, would meet with his approval.

  On Friday she was on tenterhooks, wondering if Joss would come round to see her, but he rang late in the afternoon, his voice cool and impersonal, to announce that he would be out of the country for ten days on business.

  She gave a faint sigh of relief, and then wondered sadly how many brides would have shared her relief at hearing such news.

  Very few

  On Saturday, Grania arrived unexpectedly, a man Nell had not seen before in tow.

  Nell had reminded her about the marriage over the telephone, and, apart from saying derisively that she could not imagine why on earth Joss would want to marry her, she had made no comment.

  Nell wasn’t entirely surprised now to hear that Grania had changed her mind about being a bridesmaid.

  ‘In fact, darling, I might not be able to make it at all,’ she added airily. ‘Guy and I could well be in Sardinia …’

  Nell made no comment, although she could see that her stepsister’s companion looked a little embarrassed.

  Grania didn’t stay long, seeking Nell out privately to ask her for a small loan.

  When Nell discovered that her idea of a small loan was several thousand pounds, she was stunned, and had to refuse.

  ‘Oh, come on, darling. You can easily afford it now. Don’t tell me Joss isn’t paying very handsomely indeed to join the family.’

  How many other people had come to the same conclusion? Nell wondered miserably, when Grania had gone, leaving the house in a temper when she discovered that Nell wasn’t prepared to advance her the money.

  Everyone locally knew her position; would they, like Grania, immediately leap to the conclusion that the only reason Joss could be marrying her was because she had something he wanted, and he could afford to pay for it? It was one thing to have to acknowledge to herself the basis on which their marriage was formed; it was another to suspect that others knew it as well, even thought she suspected she was being naïve in hoping they might have accepted that it was a love match.

  Who, looking at her, would ever think that Joss was in love with her? Oh, her new clothes, her new self-confidence, had improved her appearance, but nothing could elevate it to match that of the women Joss favoured.

  Grania’s acid comment denigrated them both.

  She spent the rest of the day writing out wedding invitations, walking down to the village to post them early in the evening, taking the short cut through the park.

  The scent of autumn crisped the air, the trees stark against the horizon without their softening leaves.

  A group of women chatting outside the post office turned to look at her. Nell knew them, normally would not have given their interest in her a second thought. Today though, her sensitivities rasped by what Grania had said to her, she found herself instinctively tucking her left hand out of sight, and hurrying past them with only the briefest acknowledgement.

  The weekend brought no contact from Joss, several telephone calls from people who had already received their invitations, including Nell’s godmother, whose husband was Lord Lieutentant of the county. They chatted for a while, Lady Worboys wanting to know all the details of their engagement.

  She had met Joss once, briefly, at a small Christmas party held by Nell’s grandfather the year before he died.

  ‘I suspected then that he was rather interested in you. I’m so glad you’re not having a long engagement, darling. They’re never a good idea. Now … is there anything I can do to help?’ she asked practically.

  Nell thanked her and said no. She loved her godmother, but she was rather inclined to view life through rose-coloured glasses, and Nell was feeling far too sensitive to endure her well-meaning but painful chatter above love and happy-ever-afters.

  She was just on the point of going to bed when the telephone rang again. She picked it up listlessly, almost dropping it when she heard Joss’s vigorous voice demanding, ‘Nell, is that you?’

  ‘Joss!’ she exclaimed faintly. ‘When did you get home? I thought you were in America.’

  ‘I am,’ he told her drily, adding, ‘They do have telephones over here, you know, Nell. How are things progressing?’

  Instantly the happiness that followed her shock was destroyed by a bitter awareness that the only reason he had rung was to check up on her. He was probably worried that her standards of organisation wouldn’t match up to those of his secretary, she thought wrathfully.

  ‘Very well,’ she told him crisply, matching the businesslike tone of her voice to his. ‘I’ve sent out all the invitations. Several people have rung this weekend to accept. Joss …’ A thought that had been niggling at the back of her mind all week put to flight her chagrin. ‘I noticed you hadn’t included any members of your family on your list …’

  ‘I’ve already told you, Nell,’ he interrupted her harshly, ‘my family go their way and I go mine. Even if I invited them, they wouldn’t want to come. They wouldn’t feel comfortable, you see, hobnobbing wi’ such grand folk,’ he mimicked
the Glaswegian accent of his youth, and beneath the harsh words Nell sensed a frisson of pain.

  ‘You’ve not changed your mind about marrying me, then?’

  The curt words surprised her.

  ‘Did you expect me to?’ she asked unevenly when she recovered from her shock.

  ‘Hardly.’

  If she closed her eyes she could actually visualise the cynical twist of his mouth, its well-cut upper lip curling slightly.

  ‘It’s isn’t in the de Tressail make-up, is it, to go back on their given word, and besides, you can’t afford not to marry me, can you, Nell?’

  Surely that couldn’t be bitterness she could hear underlying the drawled words? Surely it couldn’t be that Joss … hard, unfeeling, unemotional Joss was suffering from the same stinging self-awareness of what others might read into their marriage as she was herself?

  She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, and then, before she could lose her courage, she said huskily, ‘Joss, are you on your own?’

  There was a brief pause, during which she could almost feel his surprise at her question.

  ‘Yes,’ he said curtly. ‘Why?’

  ‘When … when we get married, I’d like everyone else to believe that it’s … that it’s because we … we care about one another. I … I think it would be better for both of us if they did …’ She was stumbling over the words now, her tension increased by his complete lack of response. The empty silence between them almost hummed. What was he thinking? What was he going to say? Would he reject her request? Would he demand to know why she had made it. Or would he understand?

  ‘A love-match … between you and me? Do you really think the world will be so easily deceived, Nell?’

  She had to stifle her sharp cry of distress. Perhaps he was right to remind her that no one, other than perhaps her godmother, was likely to believe for one minute that Joss Wycliffe could possibly have fallen in love with plain Nell de Tressail, but surely, just this once, he could have indulged her … humoured her … offered her a sop to her pride and pretended that they might get away with it?