For an answer he pulled her around to face him, pressed her body tightly against his and with one hand on her throat forced her head back to look into her eyes.
“I do not leave you alone for the same reason you do not stop trying to anger me with what you write. This reason—” His mouth closed on hers with an erotic ferocity that made her head swim. She had no balance and she clutched at him, knowing she would fall if he let her go.
When his bruising mouth abandoned her lips to rain light kisses over her cheeks and eyes, her face lifted to his mouth involuntarily, like a flower to spring rain. His strong arms wrapped tightly around her as though he would never let her go, and she felt an unbearable ache that she had not known for months stab her heart.
“There is another reason,” Mischa whispered, suddenly no longer kissing but only holding her, and Laddy opened her eyes.
He was looking down at her, his face grave and unsmiling.
“I love you, Lady,” he said.
Laddy recoiled as though he had struck her.
“What?” she demanded, her voice rising to an incredulous squeak. Her hands pushed frantically against him, and her body strained back against the pressure of his masculine arms.
“I love you.”
“Don’t say that! I can’t bear—Let me go!” she cried wildly, twisting and turning as she fought to be free, so that her long hair flung out, blinding both of them.
Mischa’s arms shook her impatiently.
“Lady, stop this! What—”
“Let me go!” she cried again, the unmistakable note of panic in her voice.
When suddenly his arms no longer enclosed her, she was off balance, and she staggered. His broad right hand caught her arm above the elbow in a tight steadying grip, and Laddy drew herself up straight, then looked from his hand on her arm to his face with cold disgust. She stepped back, and Mischa let go. She breathed shakily, trying to control the dry painful shudders that shook her slim frame.
“You love me?” she said in contemptuous horror, when she could speak. “You love me? And when did that happen? When did you discover that?” Her voice was shrill in the large room, as though it echoed back from the ceiling and windows.
“I have always loved you,” Mischa said, and she sucked in her breath with an involuntary hiss.
“You never loved me. You don’t know what the word means.”
“I taught you what it means,” Mischa said.
“You taught me sex!” she blazed. “Sex—not love! I taught myself love—more fool me. I taught myself to love a man who....But it was a myth. The man I loved never existed. And I didn’t have to teach myself to loathe the man you really are! That came naturally. And when you use the word love to me it makes my flesh creep!”
He stood watching her for a long moment of silence.
“Why?” he asked at last.
Laddy snorted in angry derision.
“Why?” she repeated. “You—all right, I’ll tell you why: when you were in the States, in that clinic, I wrote you a letter. Did you know about that letter?”
“Lady, I—”
“Just answer my question!” she said, flinging up a hand to stop his protest. “Did you know?”
“Yes. I knew,” Mischa said, and his voice, strangely, was gentle, and his eyes looked at her as though he understood much more than her words. “Lady, I was—”
“I knew you knew. I never doubted that you knew,” Laddy said in a brittle voice. “There’s your first why. Second—John Bentinck wrote you a letter explaining how those interviews got in the Herald, explaining that I had nothing to do with it. Did you get that letter?”
“Yes, I got it,” Mischa said.
She faced him across a three-foot space, her back rigid, her head flung up with proud strength to meet his eyes.
“And you believed what he said, didn’t you?” she demanded.
Mischa looked at her a moment before replying, “I believed him.”
“So you knew. Long before I wrote you, you knew the truth. But still you let a total stranger answer my letter. You let me suffer that. And now you tell me you’ve always loved me. Tell me, did you love me while Marcia Miller was answering my letter for you?”
She was cold—exultantly cold, like a distant star, with a shell of ice around her brain. She looked at Mischa Busnetsky and knew that he could never hurt her again if she lived for a thousand years.
“Yes,” he said. “I loved you then.”
Her laugh pealed out like icy chimes.
“Well, if that’s your idea of love, I suppose I must be grateful that you’ve never hated me!”
“Lady—” he began, still in that same oddly gentle voice, but she interrupted him.
“No, wait! We haven’t had the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question yet! Did you actually ever believe at any time either that I was giving information to Pavel Snegov or that I had anything to do with betraying your whereabouts to the media?”
Mischa’s eyes watched her steadily, his face tight and unmoving.
“Not for any significant length of time, no,” he said.
“Thank you,” Laddy said huskily. “You’ve confirmed what I’ve always known. If you don’t understand why I hate you, you should. As for your having always loved me—well, once you told me that you did not and never had loved me. And either you were lying then, or you’re lying now. You’ll forgive me if I tend to think that today you are a liar.”
She moved over to the sofa and picked up her black leather coat and put it on. With unhurried motions she tied the belt tightly around her waist and pulled the wide collar and lapels up around her neck and cheeks. She slung her bag over her shoulder. Then she faced Mischa, a cold half smile on her lips, nothing in her eyes.
“You destroyed me, Mischa,” she said. “I’m only half alive, half human, thanks to you. You have no right now to pretend it never happened, no right to try to get me back into the bed you once threw me out of.” She paused. “And no right to tell me that what you feel for me is love.”
“No,” he said quietly. “I am sorry. I didn’t know.”
She did not move so much as an eyelash as she stared at him. Then she crossed to the door and opened it.
“I hope to God I never see you again as long as I live,” she whispered.
Mischa’s jaw tightened. “This I cannot promise,” he said.
She went out without a word.
Chapter 18
It was the coldest winter Laddy could remember. The heating bills for the house were enormous, and everyone was edgy with the cold and the possibility of oil shortages. The Herald began to remember the terrible winter of 1963 and wonder if another one was on its way. With a large segment of the population now dependent on central heating in their homes, the prospects were not comforting.
On a Saturday just before Christmas the fourth anniversary of her father’s death passed, and Laddy sat over her breakfast coffee with two sweaters on and gazed out at the swirling snowflakes that blew cold over the stiff, naked twigs and branches in the blackened garden. She had lost more weight, and she felt too thin for such a cold winter.
She would spend Christmas as she had each year for three years, in Richmond, with the large bustling family of a friend from college days who now worked in a publishing house. Today was the last day she would have any time for Christmas shopping, and her list was long. She had always enjoyed Christmas shopping, but today she knew that it would be a task. The thought of the crowds on Oxford Street—or even in Highgate Village—made her weary before she began. But to go to Richmond without gifts was unthinkable.
* * *
Her Christmas passed pleasantly, with her friend Miranda bringing home yet another new boyfriend for her family’s approval and the young man turning out to be an instant success with all members of the Christmas party.
“Should I marry him, do you think?” Miranda’s reflection in the dressing-table mirror laughed and made a wry face at her, and Laddy smiled back. “Mummy
adores him, don’t you think?” It was late on Christmas night, and tomorrow Laddy would go back to London. The house was silent around the bedroom that had been Miranda’s since childhood and that now the two girls were sharing.
“Do you love him?” asked Laddy.
“Darling, of course I love him!” Miranda laughed, and stroked the brush through her red gold hair. “I love all my men—you know I do.”
Laddy closed her eyes for a moment of painful envy of the light-hearted, nearly callous ease of Miranda’s affections.
“You’re not very well, are you, darling?” Miranda’s voice broke in on her thoughts, and Laddy opened her eyes to see that her friend had swung around on the seat and was regarding her with an air of concern.
“I’m fine.”
“You don’t look at all well, my Lad,” Miranda shook her brush admonishingly at her. “It’s all this cold weather. You need to get away somewhere warmer before you collapse.”
“I can’t afford to get away somewhere warmer.” Laddy forced a laugh. “Do you know how much that house is going to cost me to run this winter?”
“Could you afford to get away to Tenerife if the parents let you have the flat?” Miranda asked. Laddy smiled, shaking her head. It was typical of Miranda to make a show of concern, but Laddy knew it didn’t go deep. She had learned long ago that Miranda was a friend for the good times. She was charming and good fun—but far too self-absorbed to wish to understand anything outside her own immediate, rather shallow emotional ken.
“Not even then, I’m afraid,” Laddy said, suddenly wishing that Miranda were the sort of friend she could tell about Mischa Busnetsky with some hope of being understood. Miranda’s heart had been broken a dozen times. Surely she knew a way to cope? “Anyway, it wouldn’t help,” she said. “Wherever I go, I’m taking myself along.”
“Well, you should try to get away somehow, darling, even if you have to borrow to do it,” Miranda said, ignoring the opening and returning to her reflection with the happy satisfaction of someone who has settled a troublesome problem with selfless concern. “Because you look awful.”
She was right, Laddy thought a few days later as she looked out again over the Highgate garden that seemed more dreary and infertile with every day that passed. She ought to get out of London, where the dirt and the traffic made the winter even more desolate. She could take a long weekend, Harry owed her a few days, and she would get into the country—the Lake District or Cornwall. Cheap, and there would be no tourists at this time of year.
Or Wales.
* * *
“I think you arrived just in time,” Brigit said, standing at the window of Mairi Davies’s bright kitchen and eyeing the lowering sky with concern. “The air’s felt odd all day. We’re in for something, but I don’t know what.”
“Snow,” Alun Davies said succinctly, just that moment coming in the door. He moved over to the ancient black cookstove to warm his hands. “Georgy is predicting a very bad storm.” Georgy was an old man who had been a sailor and whose weather forecasts were reputedly more accurate than the BBC’s.
Brigit looked worried. “Wouldn’t you rather stay here with us, Laddy?” she asked. “We can get one of the guest rooms ready in no time, you know.”
Laddy shook her head and smiled as Rhodri bounced into the warm room in a rush of words, complaining strenuously about the cold. He divested himself of coat and boots in record time and rushed over to Laddy’s side.
“We put coal out back in the old animal shelter for you,” he informed her. “Enough for half the winter, I think. And wood, too—Alun and I, and....We did not want you to freeze, you know.”
Laddy hugged him. “Thank you very much. It’s nice of you to look after me like that. I wasn’t expecting—”
“Well, if it snows the way Georgy says, you will need it, you know.”
Brigit interrupted. “You should stay with us, Laddy—at least till we see how bad this is going to be.”
It was the wise thing to do, and yet she wanted to be alone in that little cottage, away from everyone—even from the warmth of this family.
“What?” demanded Rhodri indignantly. “After all the work Alun and I have done? No, no, you want to go, don’t you, Laddy? Besides, there is a surprise there for you—but I am not to tell you what it is.”
“Yes, thanks, Brigit, but I’d really rather go,” Laddy said. “And I ought to go now and get settled in before it gets dark.” She stood up, thanking them for their trouble, and took the key Brigit had waiting for her on Helen Digby’s instructions.
Everyone trooped out to the car to see her off.
“Sure you have enough supplies?” Brigit asked, stooping to the car window.
“Yes, I stocked up in Fishguard,” Laddy said. “I won’t need to come in for anything except the papers.”
“If we don’t hear from you, we’ll send Rhodri over to check on you,” Brigit said. “I hope you’ve brought something to read.”
Laddy laughed and waved and drove off into a wind that was already stronger than it had been half an hour ago. She glanced up at the black sky and wondered at the wisdom of what she was doing.
Helen had been enthusiastic when she had asked about the possibility of a weekend in the cottage. Wales was beautiful in the winter, she said. Of course Laddy must go. Helen was only sorry that she and Richard would both be in town till February.
Laddy pulled her red car up to the white gate and looked at the sky again, feeling the unfamiliar nip in the air. Was that the snow that Georgy smelled? She almost hoped it would be snow. If those clouds carried rain, she could believe that Trefelin would be washed off the hillsides and into the valley.
She made three trips across the wintry meadow, her arms full of suitcases and provisions that she left at the door. There was smoke coming from her chimney; Rhodri and Alun had made her a fire. That must be Rhodri’s surprise, the reason he had wanted her to come: they had made the house warm and welcoming.
She didn’t need the key; they had left the door unlocked. Laddy quickly got the bags inside the kitchen and with a shivery “Brr!” closed the door on the cold weather and tried to warm her nose with an equally cold hand.
Leaving the shopping bags to sink down against one another on the floor, she picked up her cases and headed for the bedroom to take off her coat and change her clothes.
She got no farther than the door of the sitting room. There, with a startled yelp, she dropped her cases and stared in incredulous dismay.
Sitting on the sofa in front of a roaring fire, large and dark and looking very much in charge of the situation, was Mikhail Alexandrovich Busnetsky.
He had the sofa drawn up before the fire, his long broad arms stretched over the back on either side of him, one ankle resting on a knee. A posture of possession, and Laddy noted it and gritted her teeth. He was wearing worn blue jeans and a thick white Arran sweater that moulded his muscular body, and with his dark hair curling down over his collar and across his forehead he looked like a gypsy.
A lock of hair fell back from his high forehead as their eyes met, and for a split second Laddy saw his face as though for the first time. She saw a face of enormous intelligence, upon which were etched the knowledge of pain and suffering, and indomitable courage. She saw the face of a man who had fought and not always won. She saw....
She saw Mischa Busnetsky, whom she hated, in a place that was filled with memories of him, in the last place in the world that she wanted or expected to see him.
“What are you doing here?” Laddy demanded, when she could speak.
“I am here to write a book,” he said. “What are you doing here?”
Laddy began to take off her coat. It seemed ludicrous to stand in the doorway staring at him as though he represented some kind of physical danger.
“I’m here to relax, and I doubt if I’ll do very much with you sitting there. I presume you are not planning to write your book in this cottage?” she said sarcastically, as she busied herself wi
th her coat and scarf.
“The idea is not without appeal, but I am established in my own,” he said regretfully, as though she had invited him to stay with her.
“Good,” she said, ignoring that. “Would you mind returning there?”
“And not even thanks for this warm fire?”
Laddy looked at him. It was a long time since Mischa had joked with her. “Do I owe the thanks to you, or to Rhodri?” she asked.
“We laid it together. But I lighted it,” Mischa said, with a gravely confiding air.
“And you told him not to tell me you were here,” she said, suddenly understanding that Mischa was the surprise the boy had spoken of.
Mischa shrugged a very Russian shrug. “I didn’t want you to break an ankle in your haste to see me,” he said, wresting an unwilling laugh from her.
“Of course not,” she agreed dryly. “Would you—” She hesitated. She had almost said, “Would you go now?”, but the sight of the first few snowflakes swirling against the window stopped her. Suddenly the idea of being alone on a snowy evening on a lonely cliff was not nearly so attractive as the thought of company—even if that company were Mischa Busnetsky.
So she changed it to, “Would you excuse me? I want to change,” and tried not to flinch when he stood and crossed to pick up her cases.
He set the suitcases on the bed while Laddy hovered nervously by the wardrobe. He seemed to dwarf the room as he stood for a moment looking down at her.
“Am I invited to tea?” he asked, his eyes smiling at her as though nothing terrible had ever passed between them. As though the last eight months hadn’t happened.
“Uh, I...uh, yes, why not? I had a cup of tea with Brigit, but I’m certainly hungry enough to eat something. I’ll just get out of these—” She was babbling; she could hear the flustered panic in her voice and broke off.
“You have been driving all day,” he said. “Relax—take a hot shower. I am capable of making a meal.”
“All right,” she said. “But, Mischa....”
In the doorway he halted and turned to look at her. “Yes?”
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