Naive Awakening

by Cathy Williams

  Everything was carelessly tossed in. Cosmetics, shampoo, the few expensive items of clothing she had invested in—it was all jumbled together in a chaotic mass.

  She didn’t care. Nothing mattered any longer, except the need to get away from London, and to hell with what Nicholas or anybody else thought.

  It was not quite nine o’clock. She would be able to make it back to the village by the early hours of the morning. It all made perfect sense to her that she get out of the house with the utmost speed. The newspaper article was stifling her. At least in Yorkshire she might be able to breathe without this awful feeling that she was going to choke.

  She was genuinely baffled at Freddie and Sir John’s alarm at her course of action.

  She announced that she was about to leave, just as Freddie was about to make his chess move, and she almost laughed at the expression of dumbfounded amazement on his face. It was so funny, but at the back of her mind she knew that if she burst out laughing it would dissolve at some point to tears, and those she could never explain.

  ‘Do you know what time it is, sis?’ he asked helplessly, reading the stubborn expression on her face.

  ‘Of course I do,’ Leigh snapped, smiling apologetically at Sir John, and glaring at her brother. ‘By the way, Sir John, I’m so glad you’ll be staying with us. The Yorkshire air will do you a world of good.’ God, she thought, I must sound crazy.

  ‘I thought we’d agreed on next weekend,’ he commented, glancing covertly at Sir John.

  ‘You had,’ Leigh informed him, picking up her holdall and hoping it would indicate that the conversation was drawing to a close. She turned to Sir John, whose mild expression made her feel far more sheepish than Freddie’s outright curiosity, and thanked him sincerely for having put them up.

  ‘It’ll be great seeing you again. What a good idea that I’m going up now so that I can get the cottage straight.’ I really do sound crazy, she thought again.

  Sir John frowned. ‘Your sudden departure hasn’t got anything to do with my grandson, has it?’ he asked shrewdly.

  ‘Nicholas? Oh, no. No, no. Of course not.’ She gave a little choking laugh. ‘What a thought.’ If I don’t leave now, she thought, I’ll definitely be in a strait-jacket by tomorrow morning, the way I’m acting.

  Sir John looked worried. She hoped he wouldn’t be worried enough to get in touch with Nicholas. Freddie looked as though she’d taken leave of her senses.

  She gave a last warm, firm smile that made her jaws ache, and left the house with Freddie scampering behind her like a puppy, using every argument conceivable to try to get her to stick it out for the remaining week. She walked very quickly, at least grateful for his help with the bags, and dodged all of his outright questions.

  ‘Be good,’ she said when they reached the Underground, and kissed him impetuously on the cheek. ‘Phone and let me know when I can come to meet you at the station.’ Then, inconsequentially, she added, ‘Isn’t life a barrel of laughs?’

  ‘What?’ Freddie asked, bewildered.

  ‘Oh, nothing.’

  When she finally made it to the platform, where she was informed by an impersonal voice on a Tannoy system that the train she wanted to catch was running an hour and a half late, it was as uncrowded as she had expected.

  She sat on her case and mournfully watched the assortment of people who would be her companions for the next few hours. None looked remotely interesting, but then to be fair, she thought, she probably looked as uninteresting to them as they did to her—a waif-like figure in a faded cotton dress, a baggy cardigan, and long red hair trailing down her back.

  She hugged her knees to her chest, resting her chin on them fighting the stab of unhappiness at the back of her eyes. More than anything, she didn’t want to cry, because that would only re-confirm her hurt. She wanted to be as bright as she could, then maybe she would begin to believe that things weren’t as dreadful as they felt.

  She heard footsteps approaching her, but she didn’t raise her head. Whatever he or she wanted couldn’t possibly be worth looking up for.

  Then she heard him speak, that arresting voice that she had been so struck by the very first time they had met. Her pulses began to race, and she felt suddenly dizzy as she raised her eyes to meet Nicholas’s.

  CHAPTER TEN

  LEIGH’S mouth had gone dry. She stared up at him for what seemed like eternity, her body rigid with shock. He was looking back down at her, his only sign of vulnerability the fact that he looked dishevelled, as if he had spent days without sleep. Otherwise, his eyes betrayed no expression.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ Leigh asked in a strangled voice, remembering why she was here in the first place, sitting on her suitcase in an uncomfortable train station. She was cold, sleepy and aching, and it was all his fault. How dared he just stand there and look at her with those flint-grey eyes as if the whole situation weren’t absurdly unnatural?

  He didn’t answer. Instead he held out his hand to her. Could he really think that she was going to be fool enough to take it, and let him lead her away like some ten-year-old miscreant being taken back home? She looked at it with distaste, and looked away.

  ‘Come on,’ Nicholas said tightly, ‘this is no place to hold a conversation.’

  ‘I agree,’ Leigh replied, ‘which is why I don’t intend budging from this spot; so, you see, it’s been a complete waste of your time coming here.’ Freddie must have told him where she was. She was going to kill that brother of hers if it was the last thing she did.

  He squatted down beside her, so that his face was only inches away from her own. Up close, he looked even more tired, and Leigh was tempted to make some wisecrack about his appearance and burning the candle at both ends, but she had a feeling that she would promptly burst into tears if she tried to be humorous. And he wasn’t looking terribly light-hearted either. There were lines around his eyes which she had never noticed before, and his face had a greyish look about it that made her wonder exactly what nature of candle he had been burning at both ends.

  She looked away, angry with her thoughts.

  ‘Don’t be obstinate, Leigh,’ he said roughly.

  ‘I’m not being obstinate.’

  ‘No? Prove it. Stand up and come with me to where we can talk in some privacy. I think—’

  ‘I don’t care what you think!’ Out of the corner of her eye, she could see a few of the people on the platform looking at her curiously, and she realised that she and Nicholas were providing a welcome cabaret for them on a platform where absolutely nothing else of any interest was happening. The interested eyes turned away when they saw that she was glaring at them, but she knew that the minute her attention had refocused on Nicholas they would swivel back in their direction, eager to pick up from where they had left off.

  ‘Everyone’s staring at us,’ Leigh whispered furiously.

  Nicholas shrugged. ‘Let everyone stare. It really doesn’t bother me.’

  ‘Well, it bothers me!’

  ‘Then let’s get out of here. There’s a coffee-shop just around the corner that stays open till midnight.’

  ‘I’m not thirsty. And I already told you: I’m not going anywhere with you.’ She tried to look steadily at him, but the directness of his gaze unsettled her, and she focused her attention on her fingers instead, twining them nervously together.

  Her head was thumping and she wished that he would just go away. Why had he come to see her anyway? Did he feel sorry for her? Responsible? She was visited by the unwelcome memory of Lady Jessica telling her how kind he always was to the underdog.

  Or maybe, she thought darkly, he had come here to find out exactly what her intentions were now that Sir’ John was coming up to Yorkshire with them. More accusations now that he had had time to think it all over.

  ‘Fine,’ he said briefly, settling into a more comfortable position beside her. ‘We’ll talk here, but don’t start complaining because people are taking an interest in what’s going on. You know how
intrigued bystanders get at the slightest whiff of excitement.’

  ‘I don’t want to talk to you!’ Leigh almost shouted, and she heard a voice say from somewhere behind her,

  ‘Oh, go on, give the guy a break.’

  ‘You see what I mean,’ she hissed. ‘Just go away. I want to be alone.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because…’ she spluttered, trying to find a calm, logical answer to his question.

  ‘Don’t you mean you want to run away?’ he asked mildly, though his eyes were deadly serious. ‘She wants to run away from me!’ he said to their general audience in a loud, clear voice, and a woman answered with a laugh,

  ‘Let her. Then you and I can get together.’

  Leigh was horrified. A handful of people had grouped closer to them, and, with Nicholas’s remark seen as an invitation to drop all pretence of uninterest, they were openly waiting for the next instalment in the drama.

  She refused to look at them. She refused to look at him, though she could see obliquely that he was grinning.

  She might have guessed that he would enjoy playing to an audience. Wasn’t that his job, after all?

  She knew that her cheeks were flaming with embarrassment, and that she had somehow managed to be tossed into the awkward position of either staying put, and having her entire personal life played out to an eager crowd, or else acquiesce to him, and let him lead her to the coffee-bar. Pride kept her rooted to the spot. If people had nothing better to do than eavesdrop on their conversation, then let them.

  All the same, she leaned forward slightly so that her long hair draped across her face, blocking out the unwelcome sight of their faces.

  ‘Is that coffee-bar beginning to look more attractive?’ Nicholas asked in a low voice.

  ‘No!’ Leigh snapped. ‘I don’t want to go anywhere with you!’

  ‘Good for you!’ a woman encouraged. ‘We don’t need men. They’re nothing but a bunch of chauvinistic pigs anyway!’

  ‘Not a feminist!’ a man’s voice yelled out, and there was a ripple of glee as general debate on the subject broke out, with the feminist firmly holding her ground, and managing to recruit a couple of unlikely giggling teenage girls to her cause.

  Leigh and Nicholas were temporarily forgotten. The whole thing, she thought bitterly, would have been amusing, if she weren’t at the epicentre of it. She had never before witnessed a crowd of British strangers throwing themselves into an argument with quite such a lack of restraint.

  ‘No one will miss you if you go now,’ she told Nicholas coldly.

  ‘You will.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ Leigh’s eyes angrily clashed with his. ‘How dare you? You must be the most arrogant, egotistic, conceited man I’ve ever met in my entire life!’

  ‘And you must be the most stubborn, pig-headed woman I’ve ever come across!’ he countermanded.

  ‘Fine! We’re agreed, then; we dislike each other!’

  ‘I never said that. I happen to quite like stubborn, pig-headed women.’

  Leigh could feel something inside of her melting at the intimate timbre in his voice, and she reminded herself that the man was no more than a bastard, and an engaged one at that.

  ‘Well, I don’t happen to like arrogant, conceited men.’

  ‘Arrogant, egotistic, conceited men. You forgot the egotistic.’

  ‘And it isn’t a big game either!’ she yelled, close to tears, forgetting their eager eavesdroppers.

  ‘You don’t have to tell me. It’s deadly serious, isn’t it?’ He looked at her, and she felt herself struggling against the desire to yield to whatever he wanted. He was hypnotic. He had the amazing power to drag all her well-meaning intentions into a whirlpool of sensation over which she had no control.

  But she wasn’t going to allow it. She had too much to lose.

  The hubbub around them was beginning to die down, and the clutch of bystanders were politely but persistently trying, once more, to edge into their conversation.

  ‘We haven’t reached a decision on anything,’ Nicholas informed them, and there was a disappointed sigh from the crowd.

  ‘You’ll never sort anything out on a station platform,’ an elderly man with a briefcase pointed out. ‘It’s much too unromantic.’

  ‘And when,’ his female companion retorted, ‘have you ever been into romance?’

  ‘There’s nothing romantic about this!’ Leigh felt constrained to inform them, much as she disliked their predatory interest in what was none of their business. She hoped that the firmness of her tone would disperse them, but if anything it seemed to encourage their participation in what they obviously considered a juicy, human drama.

  And the train wasn’t due for at least another fifteen minutes! She rested her head in her hands and groaned inwardly. How was she going to last out? She felt as though she was being battered on all sides. As though Nicholas had somehow managed to woo the crowd on to his side, and she was being cast into the role of the belle dame sans merci.

  ‘Why don’t you want to talk to me?’ he persisted, making no effort to lower his voice, encouraging their faithful following to sympathise with him.

  ‘I don’t think we have anything to say to each other,’ Leigh responded.

  ‘I think we have a great deal.’

  ‘Of course,’ she said sarcastically, ‘like what you’re doing here when you’re engaged to be married to someone else?’

  ‘You’re engaged,’ the feminist exclaimed in a horrified voice, ‘to someone else? That’s dreadful!’ She looked around dramatically, relishing her unexpected limelight. ‘Typical. Men. They’re all the same. Wasn’t that what I was saying a moment ago? They don’t care how they hurt women, just as long as they get what they want.’

  ‘Ssh,’ a muscled youth with tattoos on his arms signalled. ‘The man might have something to say for himself.’

  ‘This is none of your business!’ Leigh protested limply. The comment was received with icy disapproval. I give up, she thought. This is a ridiculous situation, and I just can’t cope any longer. She would have left the station, if she could have done so without having to face Nicholas outside.

  She glanced at his cynical, handsome face and a flicker of amusement crossed his features.

  It suddenly struck her that he was playing the situation with all the skill of a musician on his instrument. His involvement of the crowd had gone a long way to dissipating her anger with him. It was what he had wanted, and he had succeeded in achieving it. The opportunist.

  She smiled weakly at him, and someone said, ‘I think we’re getting somewhere here.’

  ‘But what about the fiancée?’ another voice chipped in.

  There was a roar as the train pulled laboriously into the station, screeching to a halt, and disgorging its passengers with bored indifference.

  The crowd was clearly dejected at its arrival. They picked up their briefcases and carrier bags, and Leigh was swept under a flurry of well-intentioned advice.

  ‘Have the coffee with him!’

  ‘Go back home. You’re better off without types like that. Chauvinist.’

  ‘You could do a lot worse, dear.’

  ‘Well?’ Nicholas said, not trying to detain her. ‘Your train’s here. Do I get you to listen to what I have to say, or are you too much of a coward for that?’

  Leigh raised her eyes to his, and he brushed her hair away from her face. His fingers against her skin were warm, and she wanted to swoon at the feel of them.

  ‘I…’ she began, then he was kissing her, his mouth moving over her parted lips, raising a loud cheer from their audience, who were hanging out of the windows, reluctant to bid goodbye to such a riveting drama.

  ‘It’s love!’ someone cried out, and he unpinned the carnation in his buttonhole and threw it at them just as the train pulled out of the station.

  It landed on Leigh’s shoulder. She stood up, desperately. The train. It was pulling away. Her lifeline to recovery was slowly leaving the stat
ion, and she wasn’t on it.

  ‘I must get on,’ she wailed.

  Without the comfort of strangers around, the platform was disquietingly empty, devoid of all human life apart from a couple of stragglers and a guard.

  And them. Leigh looked surreptitiously at Nicholas and felt a tingle of alarm shoot through her.

  ‘That was the last train tonight,’ he said finally.

  ‘I know that! You don’t have to state the obvious!’ She got up and struggled with her various bits of luggage, grudgingly letting him relieve her of some of her burden.

  ‘Coffee?’ he asked.

  She didn’t answer. She wanted to hit him, stamp her feet and burst into tears all at the same time. She had fought so hard to maintain self-control a while back. Now here she was, going with him to that wretched café he had mentioned. He had got what he wanted. As usual. And he still hadn’t answered her question about Lady Jessica.

  She wished that she didn’t care so much about it, but she did. She could feel the jealousy and anger eating away at her, tenaciously chipping at her equilibrium and destroying that peace of mind she so desperately wanted to establish.

  She followed him out of the station, which was strangely quiet at that late hour of the night, and into the nearest taxi.

  ‘I thought it was just around the corner,’ she said dully, not much caring where he was taking her.

  ‘Depends which corner you’re talking about.’

  He gave the taxi driver an address in Knightsbridge, and they sat in silence through the journey. Leigh didn’t even look in his direction. She didn’t need her heart to start playing its usual tricks on her whenever she saw his face.

  And he seemed absorbed in his own thoughts as well. His forehead was creased by a small frown, and she hoped that whatever was bothering him would keep him awake for nights.

  When the taxi dropped them off, Nicholas instructed the driver to take the luggage back to the house. She didn’t have the heart to protest, not that there would have been much point. She could hardly return to the station and wait there for the next train out.