Roz, who had been filling the teapot from the hot water jug, set the metal container down with a distinct thump. 'That's a lie!' Anger drove the colour from her cheeks. 'Look here, Charles; I didn't ask you to come down here, I as good as told you that I didn't want your interference. I'm quite capable of arranging my own life, I'm a big girl now.'
'And still as stupid and starry-eyed as when you were nineteen!' At her look of surprise, he smiled nastily. 'Your sister loves you very much, she talks about you all the time. I've had your life story from when you were in rompers. Do you want me to give you a short resume? The earnest young student who brought home her big, beautiful tutor to be admired and who had him whipped from under her nose by her sister? And then there was Stephen himself. After dinner last night, he became very loquacious, he told me the same story almost word for word.'
'If you don't shut up,' Roz warned, 'I'll throw the teapot at you. You've no right to draw conclusions or to sit in judgment. It's none of your affair. Go back to London and leave me alone!'
He leaned back in his chair and looked at her. 'I'm making it my affair. I told you I have this thing about married men and single girls, and besides that, I happen to like your sister. I don't happen to like the idea of her husband two-timing her.' A raised hand stilled her protest. 'Besides, if you recall, I've some goods on offer. I've already given you a couple of samples and as far as I'm concerned you're my prospective customer.'
'And I should feel complimented?' Roz looked at him sardonically. 'I might if the goods were in mint condition, but I'm afraid I don't buy in the "used property" market.'
Charles raised his eyebrows at her across the table. 'You liked the samples, you can't deny that, and I don't think you've any reason to quarrel with the condition of the goods. People who live in glass houses…you know. And if I'm willing to overlook—' He broke off to watch Roz as she carefully put down her cup, collected her bag and jacket.
She was just rising to her feet when his hand came down hard on her wrist. 'Nobody walks out on me, Roz. Sit down!'
Roz perforce sat; it was better than making a scene, and there was a little voice inside her which warned that Charles wasn't afraid of scenes. He was probably a past master himself at making them and making capital out of them. Neither did she make a scene when, later, he pulled into the car park of a small country club. He switched off the ignition and consulted his watch.
'Just right, time for a drink before we order dinner.'
Roz made no attempt to leave the car, she sat stonily in her seat and looked at him through the window. 'I want to go straight home,' she said icily.
'Not a hope!' Charles grinned, not much and not kindly.
'You don't seem to understand,' her nose elevated at least three inches. 'I'm not dressed for dinner out, and, besides, Eve will be expecting us back. It would be the height of bad manners to go off somewhere without letting her know.'
Slowly his eyes left her to wander up the length of a telegraph pole. 'We can let her know,' he murmured. 'This is Sussex, not darkest Africa. One telephone call is all it takes. Now are you going to walk in or do I have to carry you?'
Roz had been going to say, 'You dare!' but a glance at his face was sufficient to convince her that he dared! And with a haughty sniff, she slid out of the car and slammed the door behind her with sufficient force to set the vehicle rocking on its excellent suspension. She made her telephone call to an Eve who was quite phlegmatic and unworried and then stalked into the ladies' room to do a few running repairs.
The repairs took slightly longer than she had expected but not as long as she had hoped. Her usually smooth chignon was the worse for wear and had to be completely redone, she had eaten all her lipstick and temper had robbed her face of any colour. Grimly, she applied herself to contriving a cool, sedate countenance and stepped back from the mirror ten minutes later feeling quite satisfied. But it was only ten minutes, and she had hoped for half an hour! There was no other way out of the ladies' room except the door by which she had entered, so she sauntered out, giving the impression of a young lady who was looking forward to a cool drink and a good dinner with no outward signs of the turmoil which was raging within her.
Charles was waiting for her and a waiter escorted them to a table in a secluded alcove although the dining room was barely half full.
'Martini?' Charles raised an eyebrow. 'We could have gone into the bar to drink it, but it seemed a waste of time.'
'With a lot of lemonade,' she stipulated, 'and not too much of the fruit salad stuff on top.'
'You object to fruit salad?' The eyebrow went even higher.
'I've been put off,' Roz explained. 'I came here once and had a Pimms No 1, and there was so much stuff on the top I expected a knife and fork.' Good, she complimented herself, that's the way to do it; set the conversation at an ordinary level and keep it there. Charles would soon take the hint that she wasn't in the mood for anything deep or searching.
Charles didn't take the hint; he waited until the drinks arrived and then plunged into the deep end. 'How torrid was it, the affair between you and your brother-in-law?'
Roz removed the cocktail stick balanced across the top of her glass, which skewered a cherry between two slices of lemon. 'The temperature was normal for the time of year,' she said flatly, hoping he would abandon the subject, but she was disappointed.
'Your sister seemed to think it was nothing deep,' he murmured. 'She told me she would never have encouraged him if she'd thought it was anything more than a passing phase.'
Roz nodded serenely. 'Eve's generally right.'
'Then why…?'
'Leave it, Charles,' she shook her head at him. 'It was all a long time ago and I can't see why you should be interested.' She picked up the menu and became involved in a choice. 'I wonder which will be better, steak or beef Wellington? Steak, I think, they can't disguise that, and I'll have it with mushrooms.' This time he did take the hint, so that by the time they had arrived at the sweet course she had almost forgotten how bad-tempered she was. The cream of asparagus soup was rich and soothing, the steak was thick and satisfying and the wine Charles had chosen was red and very dry.
Charles wasn't being objectionable; he sat quietly, paying little attention to his food, almost watching her eat, and just for the moment she was moderately happy with her world. She speared the last piece of her steak and then stopped with it halfway to her mouth. Stephen had just entered, and with a youngish girl, a blonde whose wide eyes were aglow with admiration and adoration. Roz had seen that glow in other eyes; she suspected that, seven years ago, her own might have looked just the same, and she gave an inward groan.
She glanced at her watch, nearly nine o'clock and then she looked back at Stephen and his companion who were being escorted to a table near the centre of the room. Charles followed her gaze.
'Jealous?' he queried, but she ignored him, reaching instead for her handbag, only to be stopped by his hand on her wrist. 'Sit down and finish your dinner.'
'No,' it burst from her in a savage whisper, 'I won't!'
'Yes, you will, Roz.' His tone was almost as savage as hers had been, but it lacked the smouldering violence. 'It's time you got over your youthful infatuation, and this is the first step towards it.'
'No,' she said again. 'Oh, hell, Charles! You've got it all wrong, you don't understand…' How could she explain that it wasn't jealousy, not as he would understand it? It was the thought of Eve, at home and waiting, a table laid, a meal prepared. She tried to put it into words. 'Eve will be expecting him, she'll have dinner ready. It will probably be all spoiled by now and…'
'And you're not there to hold her hand?' His dark eyes surveyed her without any compassion. 'Don't be a fool, he'll probably have phoned her to say he'll be late. If you go home now with that look of doom on your face…'
'I want to go home.' She was stubborn about it.
Any other escort would have been suitably concerned, but not Charles, he was unmoved. 'Go, then! You've tw
o options, you can walk or get a taxi, because I'm not taking you. Whichever you do, you won't arrive there a moment sooner than if you stay here and drive back with me.'
Her eyes sparkled with wrath, but she was spared saying any of the hot words which were bubbling in her throat by the arrival of the waiter with two portions of apple pie and a jug of cream. She would have liked to call Charles a pig and a bastard and any other unpleasant name she could lay her tongue to, but she was forced to smile sweetly and be silent. The dishes were set on the table, the waiter fussed about the condition of her dessert spoon and thoughtfully changed it for another one from a store of spare cutlery so that by the time she had started on her sweet she had simmered down. Charles's next words sent her back to boiling point.
'Marry me, Roz. I'm willing to overlook your girlish indiscretions.'
The waiter was still hovering, so she turned her face into a mask of non-expression and spoke with hardly a movement of her lips.
'How patronising can you get? What are you, some institution for the rehabilitation of fallen women? You overlook!'
'All right, I won't overlook it, I'll consider it as a mistake, and forgive you for being a little fool.' His lips twitched and there was a spark of humour in his eyes. 'Everybody makes mistakes and the wise ones learn from them. I'll credit you with above average intelligence.'
'Magnanimous!' Roz choked on her anger, while deep inside her a reluctant amusement stirred. 'And am I to overlook your past as well? Your secretary-cum-mistress who's lived with you for five years? You've the cheek of the devil, you remind me of—'
'…A guttersnipe?' he interrupted. 'But that's what I am! Are you going to be snobbish about it?'
Colour suffused her face. 'I'm not a snob! And I wasn't going to say "guttersnipe" either. I was going to liken you to one of those sweet, fast-talking market traders; like the barrow boys in Petticoat Lane, give them just a second and they'll talk you into buying anything.'
'Does that mean that given the chance, I could talk you into marrying me?' Charles looked relieved. 'Because I like your response, and you have responded. No, don't start denying it, you'd be telling lies. And I've the idea that if the relationship was regularised it would be a response worth having. Underneath that cool, charming exterior there's a passionate wench hiding, and, if marriage is what it takes to set her free, you've got it.'
Roz stirred her coffee and recklessly accepted his offer of brandy.
'Unusual!' He raised an eyebrow slightly. 'I've never known you to drink more than a couple of glasses of wine.'
'Dutch courage,' she informed him cheerfully as the brandy slid warmly down into her stomach.
'No need, Roz. When I have you, we're both going to be stone cold sober, and it won't be on the back seat of a car. And speaking of cars,' his hand silenced her protest, 'I think we could go now. Your brother-in-law is fascinating, or should I say overwhelming his little friend with his god-like aura, they haven't seen us so far, and if we go quietly they'll never know we were here.'
When Charles pulled the car off the road and under the shadow of some trees, Roz was not disturbed. Charles had said not in the back seat of the car and she believed him, but there was his remark about her response, and she wanted to be quite sure about it herself, she wasn't going to take his word for it. Responses altered with one's mood, and just at present her mood wasn't a very good one. Her temper had disappeared and she found herself filled with an aching regret—for what, she didn't know. She would let Charles kiss her and analyse her own response, but the moment he went beyond the bounds…
Ten minutes later she pulled away from him, bitterly aware that not once in that time had she thought about his secretary, not once. Which just showed the depths to which she had sunk!
'Leave me alone, Charles,' she spoke through the painful knot of tears in her throat. 'You've made your point, but it doesn't alter anything much. You've a low opinion of me and mine of myself isn't much higher. Leave me a little self-esteem, please; I don't think I can live without it.'
The house was in darkness when they arrived and Roz peeped into the master bedroom on the way to her own. Eve was sitting up in bed, reading a book by the dim light of the bedside lamp.
'You'll try your eyes doing that.' Roz was severe.
'So?' Eve smiled at her in the dim light. 'It's a good book and I want to finish it; my eyes will recover. Are you going to bed now, because if you are and you hear a noise later on, it'll be Stephen coming in late. He rang earlier to say he was still stuck with his post-grad girl and it was going to take a long time. Had a nice day?'
'Lovely!' Roz infused her tone with a spurious warmth. 'You'll have to come with us next time, Charles is very good company. Goodnight, love,' and she closed the door quietly behind her before making her way along the corridor to her own room.
CHAPTER FOUR
After a night which seemed to have consisted of tossing and turning in between periods of deep and muddled thought, Roz, in a three-year-old cotton dress, came downstairs and made her way to the kitchen, arriving there a little later than usual. She had done her face after a fashion, a little tinted foundation and a cursory smear of lipstick; her hair was well brushed but tied back with a piece of ribbon which had seen better days and the dress, because of its age, was slightly faded and rather limp from frequent washings. Roz didn't care, she was not out to impress!
As she came to the bottom of the stairs the postman rattled the knocker and she crossed the hall to retrieve the bundle of letters which had plopped on the doormat. Riffling through the envelopes with busy fingers, she selected the one addressed to herself and pushed it into the pocket of her dress, then carried the remainder into the well equipped but old-fashioned kitchen where, for once, everybody seemed to have gathered.
Stephen was, as usual, eating abstractedly while he read the paper; Eve, downstairs early for the first time, was spooning cereal into Gilly's ever-open mouth; little Freda was stoically wading through something which went snap, crackle and pop, while reciting the alphabet backwards and Charles was sipping a cup of coffee.
As Roz entered, Charles looked up and gave her a quiet glance before he rose to draw out a chair for her.
'Sleep well?' he queried in a low murmur which only she could hear.
'Like a baby!' she answered, and hoped that her make-up was sufficient to disguise the faint violet shadows underneath her eyes.
Stephen grunted a greeting and Eve passed her a cup of coffee in between shovelling spoonfuls into Gilly's mouth, and Roz dropped the pile of mail on the table. She was waiting for a few minutes alone with her sister and the intervening period was going to pass with excruciating slowness, she could tell by the way in which Stephen abandoned his paper and sorted through the letters to select the big fat one with the United States stamp and then to toss the remainder across to Eve.
Freda spilled milk down her blouse front and had to be wiped clean; Gilly demanded more cereal, more milk, more toast, more juice until Roz was convinced the child would burst and then, when the kitchen was relatively free of breakfasters, Charles having gone for a walk in the garden, Eve started preparing the baby's bottles, loading the dishwasher and the washing machine while she tut-tutted over the amount of milky food which had been dropped or spat out on to the floor tiles.
'Oh, leave it, Eve.' Roz was feeling rather ragged, her nearly sleepless night had made her irritable. 'The daily will be here within a few minutes, she'll see to it. I want to talk to you.'
Eve nodded serenely. 'Come upstairs, then, it's nearly time for Jasper's bottle. We can have a chat while he's guzzling it.'
Once in the bedroom, Roz flopped down on to a bedside rug and drew her knees up to her chin while she watched Eve collect all the paraphernalia which Jasper needed and install herself in a low chair with the baby on her lap. For a little while she did things to his rear end, ignoring his wails of protest, and then she offered the bottle to his other end and the cries died away into silence. He sucked on it fierc
ely as though he was dying of starvation and Eve crooned to him softly.
'I've had an offer,' Roz said baldly. 'An offer of marriage.'
If she expected cries of joy or surprise from her sister, she was doomed to disappointment. Eve looked up, still crooning.
'Why tell me? You've never told me before, and you must have had other offers; or are the men in London too choosy for words?'
'In London,' Roz grinned, 'there's a lot of competition.'
'So?' Eve raised her eyebrows. 'I still ask, why tell me? It's Charles, I suppose.'
'Mmm,' Roz frowned. 'What should I do, Eve?'
'Why ask me?' Eve grinned back at her. 'You've never asked me before. Sorry to sound repetitious, but you haven't, have you?'
'No-o.' It was a reluctant admission. 'But I didn't need to, not then. Those times, I knew it was "No".'
'And this time you're not so sure?'
'Something like that,' Roz admitted ruefully. 'On the other two occasions, I'd already made up my mind before the question was asked, so I knew what to say; but this time it's more difficult. The question came as a bit of a surprise and I'm not at all sure if I have a mind to make up!'
'Then in that state of mind or non-mind, you ought to say "No" or "Wait a bit".' Eve was judicious. 'Have you given it any thought?'
'All night!' Roz pleated the hem of her dress between thin, nervous fingers. 'I arrived at precisely nowhere!'
'Then how can I help, you silly girl?' Eve returned her attention to Jasper, who was going red in the face. She removed the bottle from his mouth and put him up over her shoulder to rub his back, he made a rude noise and his mother chuckled. 'Coarse little thing, isn't he? But never mind, he'll grow out of it. Roz,' she shook her head, 'I can't tell you what to do, I'm not in your shoes, and with the best will in the world…'
'…you're no use at all,' Roz grimaced dreadfully. 'I come to you for advice and help and I get nothing!'
'It's your life.' Eve became very serious. 'There's plenty of people who would be only too glad to offer advice, but I'm not one of them. You have to make your own mistakes, that way you'll have only yourself to blame if something goes wrong. I can only tell you one thing, and that is—when you get to the stage when you're willing to give him anything he wants, with no strings attached, then you'd better get married, because I don't think you're one of the modern types who could bear to be a live-in girl-friend. You're a bit of a puritan and, also, you have a tidy mind.'
Tame a Proud Heart Page 5
