‘I don’t care if you were levitating six inches off the bed, Jessica. Open this door or else I’ll break the thing down.’
‘You’re not strong enough,’ she pointed out flatly.
‘In which case, I’ll yell so loudly that every neighbour in a sixty-mile radius will come running to see what’s going on.’
She didn’t doubt him either. She reluctantly unhooked the chain from the door and stood aside to let him enter. His absence over the past five days had been just what she’d needed to put him in perspective. Or so she reminded herself as she watched him divest himself of his jacket and stride purposefully towards her sitting room. The fact that it was after twelve o’clock was obviously something that hadn’t registered with him, or maybe his body was still running on American time.
‘So,’ she said mutinously, following him into the sitting room, but then standing by the door with her arms folded defensively. ‘What do you want?’
‘I had a long chat with my mother when I got back from America this evening,’ he said, perching on the window-ledge and staring at her, his eyes hooded and unrevealing.
‘And? What does that have to do with me? I’m tired, and whatever you have to say to me can wait until another day.“ Her sluggish brain began working furiously, trying to remember what she could possibly have said to his mother that might have been relayed back to him, but she had been very careful to keep her emotions to herself. Even when it had become patently clear that she and his mother got along really rather well, circumstances considering. Despite frequent references to maternal disapproval, there was something innately warm inside Victoria that Jessica had found herself responding to. So what could she have told her son that had made him find his way over here at this hour?
‘I liked your mother!’ she blurted out, confused. ‘And I thought she liked me too!’
‘And you’re wondering how she might have betrayed one of your little confidences?’ he said in a jeering voice.
‘I didn’t give her any!’ Jessica retorted, whitening. Had she? She had been tempted, but she had held back, biting back the need to confess how she really felt about her son She wrapped her dressing gown more tightly around her but even so she still felt cold.
‘Then why are you so frantic to try and remember what you said to her? No, don’t bother to answer that. Not that you would. Denial is your instinctive response to any question you find even remotely troublesome.’ He moved across to one of the chairs and sat down, rubbing his eyes.
‘Why are you sitting down and making yourself at home at this hour of the morning?’ Jessica asked coldly.
‘I told you. We need to talk.’
‘We’ve already talked. I don’t remember it getting us anywhere.’
‘My mother liked you. Have I mentioned that?’
‘You’ve been drinking, haven’t you?’ Jessica asked looking at him narrowly. He hadn’t staggered into the house like a typical inebriate, and his words weren’t slur ring, but there was something aggressive and unpredictable about his behaviour.
‘Don’t try and change the bloody topic, Jessica. I’m sick to death of that ploy of yours. I’m sick of pussyfooting around all your little problems.’
‘You? Pussyfooting? Don’t make me laugh. I’m going to go and get you a cup of black coffee. You’re going to drink it and then you’re going to leave.’ She didn’t give him time to answer. Instead she swept out of the room headed towards the kitchen, relieved to find that he hadn’t followed her, and then slumped heavily against the fridge door while she waited for the kettle to boil.
Why had he come? She had never seen him under the influence of drink, but she was pretty certain he was there now, whatever he might say, and drunks were notoriously unreliable. They said what was in their mind, and she didn’t think that she could stand an hour’s worth of Bruno Carr raving on about all her inadequacies. But how could she get him out? He was bigger than her and stronger and if he decided to stay put until he had said whatever piece he had come to say, then he would stay put.
The kettle began to boil and she shakily poured the water into a mug and then stirred in two heaped teaspoons of strong coffee granules.
She half expected to find that he had passed out on the sofa in her absence, but when she got back to the sitting room it was to find him where she had left him, and if the drink was getting to him then he showed zero signs of it.
‘Drink up.’ She stood over him with her arms folded and watched as he took a mouthful and then recoiled, spluttering.
‘What the hell have you put in this?’
‘You’ve had too much to drink. The stronger the coffee, the better,’ she told him calmly, and he muttered something unflattering under his breath. ‘You need to get back to your house, get yourself into bed with a couple of paracetamol and go to sleep. In the morning, you might be coherent.’ And you won’t be here, she thought to herself. Whatever state he was in, she still didn’t like what he could do to her. Just seeing him, looking down at that rumpled thatch of black hair, was enough to make her feel unsteady.
‘Stop giving orders. I’m sick to death of you giving orders.’
‘You’re sick of a lot of things concerning me, aren’t you? Is that why you came here? So that you could tell me just how sick you are of me and everything that I do and say? I wouldn’t have thought that you would need drink as a prop to give you Dutch courage for that, though. You’ve always been just fine at telling me precisely what you think.’
‘Oh, do me a favour. You’re hardly the shrinking violet when it comes to saying what’s on your mind.’
‘Right, I’m off to bed.’ She made a move to turn away and he grabbed her clumsily by the wrist.
‘Oh, no, you don’t. You’re going to stay right here and listen to what I have to say.’ He frowned, as though he had temporarily forgotten what he had to say, and Jessica watched him with an expression of long-suffering patience.
‘Then hurry up and say it. I’m tired.’
‘No, you’re not. You’re all wired up because I’m here.’ He shot her a crafty look from under his lashes, which she did her best to ignore, but her heart had gone into overdrive.
‘Don’t flatter yourself.’
‘I’m not.’ He gave her a lopsided, knowing smile and she raised her eyebrows expressively.
‘And that wolfish grin doesn’t sit well on someone who’s had too much to drink. You just look ridiculous.’ The annoying thing was that he looked anything but ridiculous, even though he should have. ‘And I don’t recall saying anything funny,’ she snapped, when he grinned delightedly at this remark.
‘Did I tell you that my mother took to you?’
‘Yes, as a matter of fact, you did.’
‘Said you had a lot of fighting spirit.’ He gave something that sounded like a snort. ‘What could I do but agree with her?’
He was still loosely hanging on to her wrist as though having forgotten that his hand was there, and she tried to jerk her hand away. Instantly, his grip tightened, though he was still staring thoughtfully into the distance.
‘Would you mind letting me go?’
‘Only if you promise not to hover over me like a schoolteacher with your arms folded.’
She sighed loudly and nodded, then, when he continued looking at her, repeated woodenly, ‘I promise not to hover over you like a schoolteacher with my arms folded.’ At which he gave her a satisfied look, released her hand, and she gratefully went to the sofa and sat down, curling her legs underneath her.
‘My mother never really cared for the women I’ve gone out with,’ he said in a ruminating voice.
‘Yes. I know.’
‘You know?’
‘She told me.’ That, Jessica freely admitted to herself, had given her a buzz.
‘And what precisely did she tell you?’
‘She precisely told me that you always went for the same type of woman. Pretty, empty-headed, disposable.’
‘My mother told you all th
at, did she?’ His voice was blustering, but she could see that he was severely taken aback. ‘So you two sat there, having cosy little confidential chit-chats at my expense over cups of tea.’
‘Your name cropped up now and again.’ Jessica shrugged. ‘Bound to, I guess, under the circumstances.’
‘And what other gems did she come up with?’
‘She said that when you were three you rifled her lipstick drawer, smeared bright red lipstick all over your face and then fell down the stairs in her high-heeled shoes.’ That had been such a gem of a confidence that she couldn’t resist smiling now at the image, and Bruno scowled at her.
‘God, the woman never lets me forget embarrassing incidents like that. I was three at the time!’
‘That’s probably because you’ve managed to put all embarrassing incidents behind you now.’
‘Well, it would be extremely suspect if I was still prone to smearing lipstick on my face and tripping downstairs in high-heeled shoes, wouldn’t it?’
‘Anyway, we’re getting off the topic of why you’re here.’ She felt she had to drag the conversation back into the boxing ring or else totally lose sight of the fact that Bruno Carr was to be kept at a safe distance.
‘So we are.’ He stretched his feet out and crossed them at the ankles, then he clasped his hands behind his head and sank into silence.
‘Well?’ Jessica prompted.
‘My mother didn’t expect to like you. When I first explained the situation to her on the telephone, she was horrified. ’Course, she blamed you for the whole mess.’
‘Oh, of course,’ Jessica said sarcastically. ‘Because Archangel Bruno couldn’t possibly have had a hand in it at all!’
‘It seems she changed her mind after meeting you.’
‘You mean...she thinks that you might be partly responsible for the situation? You amaze me!’
‘I mean she expected to find that you followed the trend of my usual girlfriends.’
‘Ah!’ She was no clearer now as to the direction this conversation was going but she realised that she couldn’t have halted it even if she wanted to. Which she didn’t.
‘Don’t interrupt,’ he ordered and she declined to point out that she hadn’t. ‘I came here fortified to say my speech and you’ll sit there and listen to it. My mother...whom I love dearly and whose opinions I value greatly, seemed to think...’ His voice petered out and he frowned accusingly at her, as though she were personally responsible for his failure to carry on.
‘I haven’t interrupted,’ Jessica pointed out. ‘You were saying...?’
‘She seemed to think that you might possibly be the right woman for me.’
Jessica’s mouth dropped open in sheer amazement. If his mother had told him that, then the woman was an actress of Oscar-winning standards because she had certainly said nothing to Jessica of the sort. In fact, she had pointedly steered clear of any matchmaking tendencies.
‘She seems to think I might be better off with someone like you.’
‘Someone like me? I’m not an act at a circus show! What do you mean someone like me? I can’t think that your mother would have referred to me in those terms!’ Her eyes started welling up and she blinked the tears back.
‘No, she didn’t. God!’ He stood up and raked his fingers through his hair and began pacing the room as if he needed the physical activity to think better. ‘You’re not making this any easier for me,’ he said, stopping in front of her. Looming so that she had to look up at him.
‘She seemed to think that you and I are rather well suited, which happens to be my opinion as well.’ Jessica opened her mouth and he held up one hand for her to be quiet, then he sat down heavily next to her on the sofa. ‘And it has nothing to do with the baby. Well, obviously the baby comes into the equation. The fact is I happen to enjoy your company even if you spend half your time running away from my questions and the other half giving me a hard time for asking them in the first place.’
Jessica could feel her heart beating quicker and quicker, and she thought that she might well be holding her breath, so she exhaled very deeply and told herself not to get worked up over what he was saying because it probably wasn’t leading where she would dearly have wanted it to lead.
‘Well?’ he prompted challengingly. ‘Aren’t you going to rush in here to defend yourself?’
‘I’ll wait until you reach the end of your speech. I wouldn’t want to be accused of interrupting you.’
‘There you go again! Throwing me off my stride!’ He glared at her. ‘You’ve done that from day one! I’m not accustomed to having to be alert one hundred per cent of the time when I’m with a woman, just in case some stray verbal arrow comes flying my way!’
‘I know what you’ve been accustomed to, Bruno. Isn’t that why marriage would never work between us? Because you’re not accustomed to women like me? Because at the end of the day, whatever your mother says and however much your head agrees with her, your heart is firmly rooted in another type of girl?’
‘So I’ve told myself for the past few weeks,’ he muttered, and she strained across to hear what he was saying.
‘What was that?’
‘You heard me!’ He looked at her, tilted his head slightly to one side and gave her a winningly boyish ‘can’t you see where I’m heading?’ look, which she returned with a perplexed frown.
‘It seems that I rather like the intelligent, bossy—’
‘I am not bossy!’
‘Answer-me-back at the drop of a hat style of woman.’
Jessica, listening intently to every word, found that she was having trouble swallowing. Her throat appeared to have become very dry.
‘It seems that...’ he began, and then, once more, left the sentence unfinished.
‘I wish you’d get to the point, Bruno.’
‘Because you can’t wait to see the back of me?’
‘No.’
‘Are you telling me that you don’t want me to go?’ He gave her a sly, charming smile and she flushed. ‘My mother informed me that she thinks you’re not quite as hostile towards me as you like to make out...’
‘Oh, she does, does she?’ Traitor, Jessica thought.
‘Yes. What do you say?’
‘Oh, what does it matter?’ she said on a sigh. ‘It doesn’t matter how many roads we go down, we always seem to end up right back at the place we started, which, in case you’re wondering, is nowhere.’
‘I disagree. Have I told you that I’ve been doing some thinking?’
‘I think you might have.’
‘I don’t repulse you, do I, Jessica? Admit it. It’s just the opposite, isn’t it? I turn you on and that terrifies you. That’s why you didn’t want to continue what we had once we got back to England. That’s why you’ve been fighting me every inch of the way. Because you’re not indifferent to me at all. Okay, I’m going to lay all my cards on the table and tell you that I think you—’
‘Don’t you dare say it!’ She felt the customary panic at the prospect of having her emotions laid bare for him to pick over, but hard on the heels of panic came a kind of weary lassitude. She was fed up playing games. What was the point of it all? It didn’t change the way she felt.
‘Why not? Because you might give yourself away?’
‘Is that why you came over here, Bruno?’ she asked quietly. ‘So that you can gloat at yet another conquest?’
He looked at her startled, then confused, but she was too dispirited to react to the fact that he had just pulled off the greatest piece of bluffing he had probably ever done in his life.
‘No, that’s not why I came here.’
Jessica looked at him, mildly surprised at this admission.
‘I came here to tell you that...it seems that...well, my mother put two and two together to be honest... nothing better to do with her time than try and analyse other people’s motivations... I don’t suppose you have a glass of whisky lying about, do you?’ When she shook her head, he continued, flushi
ng, ‘If you really want to know, I think you’ve managed to pull the rug from under my feet...’
‘Rug? What rug? What on earth are you on about?’
‘You’ve made me fall in love with you.’ He stared at her defiantly, and his admission was so overwhelming that for a few seconds she sat there and stared back at him with her lips parted. ‘I couldn’t stop thinking about you when I got back to England. I was pretty sure that you’d make contact, and when nothing happened I told myself that it didn’t matter. In fact, that it was the best thing that could happen. I tried to launch myself back into my social life, I even dated a couple of other women, but it was a ridiculous farce. I compared all of them to you, and I missed you.’
‘You slept with other women?’
‘I don’t think I could have even if I’d wanted to,’ he replied with a dry, ironic laugh. ‘How could I when my head was filled with you?’
Jessica could feel a foolish grin spread over her face.
‘Good,’ she told him comfortably. ‘Carry on.’
‘Good?’ He shifted slightly. “Course, I’m only admitting all this because I know you feel precisely the same way about me...don’t you?’ He paused. ‘Don’t you?’
‘I...well, yes...I do happen to like you very much...’ She smiled to herself.
‘Like?’
‘Perhaps a bit more.’
‘You mean you’re deeply, irretrievably, passionately in love with me?’
Jessica laughed and gazed at him tenderly. She inched her way towards him until she was curled against him, and could hear the beating of his heart through his shirt. He kissed her hair and stroked it, then kissed it again.
‘I might well be,’ she said softly. ‘You might well have pulled the rug from under my feet as well.’ She raised her face to his and her heart, which had been doing all sorts of odd things ever since he had appeared on the scene, seemed to settle in just the place it belonged. ‘I thought I could do without men and I could. I just found that I couldn’t do without you.’
‘What do you mean by that?’ he asked in mock hurt, kissing the tip of her nose while he stroked her neck very gently. ‘I’m not an act at a circus show, you know.’
The Baby Verdict Page 16
