`Upset me!' She rather guessed that was an understatement. 'I was going quietly insane. Every time I phoned after that, you were never in. I ...'
`You rang again?'
`Frequently. Evenings, Saturday afternoon, Sunday afternoon.'
`I must have been decorating—or at my mother's.' `Thank God I didn't know who you were decorating with!'
`I'm too much in love with you to be interested in anyone else,' she stated quietly, and was soundly kissed. `Oh, sweet darling,' he breathed.
Alethea snuggled up to him. `So you decided to come home early?'
`I was so stewed up because you were never there to answer my phone calls, and I resolved to get my work done with all speed. Matters were very definitely not working out the way I'd planned.'
`How had you planned matters?' she asked prettily.
`Baggage!' he becalled her lovingly. Then willingly explained, 'As I've said, I'd met your mother and saw at once that she was a deeply embittered woman. I met your sister too—she seemed to be heading the same way.'
`She was probably apprehensive and a little mixed up,' Alethea explained. 'She knew—when you didn't—that her husband had robbed you and that he'd been suspended.'
`It's a funny old world,' Trent smiled. 'There was I, needing some way to assist you in following through your intention of leaving your family home. And there you were, that Monday lunchtime, almost in the same breath as you informed me of your brother-in-law's misdemeanours daring to tell me you'd made up your mind not to see me again.' He broke off to tap her nose with his forefinger. 'Sweet love, I wasn't having that.'
`So you devised your devious plan,' she teased.
`It didn't take much planning. In fact, it was so simple, it was as though Fate had dropped the answer in my lap. There was no way I would have prosecuted Lawrence anyhow.'
`You wouldn't?' she gasped.
`I was in love with you. If I hurt your sister it would hurt you.'
`Just a minute—you're saying you wouldn't have prosecuted Keith Lawrence whether I came to live here or whether I didn't?'
Her answer was in his grin. 'Hate me?' he queried.
`To distraction,' she purred, and kissed him. But then she remembered something, and moved a little away from him.
`What is it?' he asked urgently, his eyes not missing the brief shadow that had crossed her face.
`Why didn't you ...? I mean—Tuesday. Tuesday morning, when you came home from South America. Why...?' She was starting to feel a shade warm around
the cheeks, but fortunately Trent understood, and she didn't have to go any further.
First of all, he gently kissed her brow. 'My darling, never think I didn't want you. You'll never know—' He broke off. 'I should explain,' he said, and went on, `I'd worked like blazes to get back to you all the sooner and, having arrived home five days ahead of schedule, I just had to quietly open your bedroom door. Forgive me, I couldn't resist a glimpse of you.'
`Only I wasn't there,' she put in gently.
`I'd never felt so let down in my life. I was feeling sick inside as I went along to my own room. I opened my door, went over and switched on a bedside light—and couldn't believe my eyes.'
`I—er—was lonesome for you,' she confessed.
`Were you, love?' She could tell he wanted to hear more.
`I'd been unsettled for some while,' she obliged. 'Then on Saturday I was so restless I rang Nick Saunders and took him out to dinner—a kind of thank-you for all the work he'd put in on the decorating.'
`Did you, now?'
His tone was quiet, but she wouldn't have liked it, either, had he confessed to taking some woman out. 'I stayed the night at my flat—alone, of course,' she told him hurriedly. 'The next morning, I knew what had been staring me in the face for some while: that I was in love with you.'
`You knew on Sunday?'
She nodded. `If it makes you feel any better, I've had a miserable time of it,' she owned.
`I've never wanted you to be hurt,' he murmured.
`Hurt, unable to eat, sleepless. I couldn't sleep on Monday night,' she confessed. I—er—wanted to feel close to you. The closest I could think of, when insomnia took a hold, was to go and get into your bed. But...'
`But you never expected me to arrive back early,' Trent filled in for her. 'And I, having put that lamp on, having seen you there, was afraid to put it out again in case I disturbed you. I got into bed with no intent, believe me, other than, after not having seen you for over two weeks, to let the salve of being that close to you wash over me.'
`But I woke up.'
`I was determined to keep everything light so you shouldn't be alarmed, but I nearly tripped up when I told you I'd been looking forward to seeing you—it so nearly came out longing to see you. All the while I was wondering what, if anything, I could assume from the fact you'd chosen to sleep in my bed.'
`Oh, dear,' she commented. 'I was afraid you'd be much too clever.'
`Clever!' he discounted. 'Even while I was fairly certain you wouldn't have elected to sleep in my bed if you hated me, I've been in hell—unable to decide if that then meant that you cared for me in any degree ... and how I should set about finding out.'
`We kissed,' she offered.
`And that got out of hand too.'
`Was that why you stopped—er —kissing?' she asked, more and more confident that he did love her as he'd declared, but still mightily unsure of why things had ended up the way they had that night.
Trent cradled her close and placed an adoring kiss in her hair. 'Sweetest Alethea, matters had gone so far be-
tween us by then that, but for a brief moment when shyness caused a hiccup in your wonderful response, I would have made you mine.'
`It—er—was my fault?'
He laughed. 'What a darling you are. No, my innocent, it was mine. If fault there be, it was all mine. In that moment when you backed away, I had a split second in which to wonder what I thought I was doing. Was this the way to gain your trust? By taking advantage...'
`I did trust you,' she said softly.
`Sweet love,' he breathed. 'That's what I counter argued with myself. Surely you must have trusted me, or what were you doing in my bed? But, remember, all the time I was wanting you like crazy. You hadn't known that I'd be sharing that bed when you'd decided to sleep there. I was losing it fast, Alethea,' he confided. 'My brain was alive with argument; while all the while I was trying to deny my desire for you, I was also trying to decide what was best for you.'
Alethea was little short of amazed that Trent had been having such a tremendous battle within himself. 'You decided that I'd better go back to my own bed?'
`I couldn't hope to think clearly while you were still there with me. I needed you to know that I would never let you down—yet wasn't I letting you down by seducing you?'
`From where I was viewing it, the—um—seduction was—er—pretty mutual,' she offered shyly.
`Oh, sweetheart. You were so vulnerable then, and I knew it. I needed to think, but you were still there. My homecoming dream was turning into a nightmare!'
`So, I'd already intimated that I'd go if you put out the light, and you switched it off!'
`And spent the next few hours after you'd gone trying, with little success, to get my head back together.'
`You didn't sleep?'
Did you?' She shook her head, and he smiled. 'Early-morning tea in bed came in useful again when I resolved we'd reached the end of the road; we had to talk.'
`You brought me tea, and I was terrified you'd seen that I loved you.'
`And I was terrified, hoping that you did. I came home early that night, but you didn't.'
`I was running scared, as you discovered when you ran me to earth at the flat.'
He grinned, but was serious again when he owned, 'I was ready to commit murder when that man walked in familiarly, wanting to celebrate his efforts in your bedroom.'
`Perhaps he could have phrased it better,' she allowed.
<
br /> Trent took a moment out to kiss her, but then said, `So much for my daring to believe you might care for me a little. All too obviously while I'd been out of the country, you'd been doing very nicely, thank you. It was more than flesh and blood could stand.'
`I don't suppose I helped very much with my "cheap" remark. I didn't know then that you loved me,' she added.
`So I was hurting like hell,' he growled. 'Who said love made you rational?'
`You're not hurting now?' she asked urgently. `Now, I've never felt better.'
She relaxed again. 'You didn't send my belongings over—you said you would.'
`That was before I'd cooled down sufficiently to begin analysing events. That was when this notion I'd had, that you might care a little, came back and wouldn't go away. But, in the state I was in, it seemed to me that, after the way we'd parted, you had to make the first move. Everything had started with my belief that you should learn to trust me.'
`You still wanted my trust?'
`You had to trust me—trust me enough to come to me. To my way of thinking—though your pride could have prevented it—you had a good excuse because your clothes were still here.'
`Clever,' she murmured softly. 'That was exactly the excuse I did use, of course.'
Trent kissed the tip of her nose, but was solemn-eyed when he revealed, 'The waiting was interminable. Thoughts of you filled most every waking moment. I couldn't sleep, I couldn't eat—and where were you? You didn't call, you didn't phone.'
`Oh, Trent,' she whispered. She'd had no idea it had been like that for him.
He smiled then as he confessed, 'My dear, I've spent this day slowly reaching breaking point. I had, in fact, just decided I must rethink everything. The only certainty in my head and heart was that I must have you in my life—then, the doorbell rang.'
How absolutely fantastic it was to hear those words `I must have you in my life'! Alethea swallowed emotionally. 'And—there I was,' she managed huskily.
`And there you were,' he breathed. 'I couldn't believe it. There was a roaring in my ears, a thundering in my heart which—until I'd got myself under some kind of control—I had to fight, with all I had, to hide.'
`Oh, darling,' she sighed, and gently kissed him, and was gently kissed in return. 'Now there's no need for either of us to hide how we feel.'
`No more, never again,' Trent murmured tenderly. But then he caused her to still, as he went on, 'Alethea, my dear, my life; I wanted you to come and live with me because I wanted you to learn to trust me, to get used to me, to hopefully see that making some kind of commitment is not so awful as I'm certain you've been brought up to believe. But, sweet love, I want, need, more than that.'
Alethea stared at him. She wasn't sure what he was saying. But, since they were never going to hide anything ever again, she confessed, 'I thought I wanted a place of my own, but I don't.'
`Because?' he pressed.
`Because .. ' She took a deep breath. 'Because I only want to live with you,' she whispered.
`Oh, love,' Trent breathed, brushing the backs of his fingers against her hair. One arm was firmly around her when, his expression serious, sincere, he asked, `Enough—to marry me?'
`Marry...!' she gasped, and Trent held her steady.
`I've known, from that first time we went out together, you find the idea of marriage appalling,' he stated quickly. 'But ever since that Saturday, a week after I met you, when you asked me had I quite finished, and I told you I hadn't yet started, I've known that I intend to marry you.'
`You—have?' she managed huskily.
`Say you will,' he urged. 'I know you've a hang-up about it, but together we can—'
I—er—don't have—er—any particular—hang-up.' Alethea found her voice to interrupt, when she had her breath back; Trent had actually asked her to marry him!
`You—don't?'
`Had I still been living at home, I might ...' She stopped. 'Perhaps that's unfair.' She smiled. 'You, Mr de Havilland, have somehow turned my world upsidedown. That, plus my love and trust in you, have made a nonsense of any preconceived ideas I might have had in relation to marriage and—er—my non-participation in such ...'
Trent couldn't wait for her to finish. 'Does that mean yes?' he demanded. 'You love me, you trust me ... You'll—marry me?'
`I'd like very much to marry you,' she accepted, and didn't know if the noise in her ears came from herself or Trent, as he let out a joyous sound and hugged her and covered her face with kisses.
`Oh, Alethea,' he breathed. 'Alethea, I can hardly believe that you've just agreed to marry me. I've been in such hell,' he groaned against her throat.
`Oh, darling,' she whispered, her face against his face. `I don't want you to hurt anymore.'
`Little love,' he breathed, pulling back to look adoringly into her face. 'I've hurt you too. Without meaning to, I've hurt you. Forgive me.'
Alethea leaned forward and kissed him. There was nothing to forgive. He loved her.
The Trouble with Trent! Page 16
