Worthy of Marriage

by Anne Weale

  ‘I think I might do that,’ he said, handing over the car keys.

  They hadn’t gone far before she saw that he was asleep, his head turned towards the window, showing the high slanting line of his cheekbone and the hard angle of his jaw. The fleeting glances she could spare from her attention to the road printed on her mind’s eyes the shape of his eyelashes, neither straight not curly but something in between.

  Careful to take bends slowly so that he wouldn’t roll, and to avoid any bumps that might jolt him, she wondered what she could rustle up for his supper.

  Grey was still soundly asleep when they arrived at No 12. She had to shake him awake with a hand on his shoulder.

  He gave a murmur of protest, turning his head towards her, then slowly opening his eyes.

  ‘Time to wake up. We’re back,’ she said quietly, seeing that it would take time for him to surface from the deep sleep induced by a broken night.

  For some seconds his expression was puzzled as if he couldn’t remember who she was. Then recognition came back and, with it, a sudden glitter akin, but not quite the same, to the fiery look in his eyes before he had kissed her.

  Lucia drew in her breath, half expecting him to reach for her. But just then some local children went past. They were speaking Valenciano, a language less easy on the ear than Spanish. Their loud voices were a discordant intrusion. By the time they had passed, Grey was fully awake and unbuckling his seat belt. The electric moment was over.

  After Lucia had unlocked the front door and they had entered the hall, he looked at his watch and said, ‘Why don’t we both catch an hour’s sleep and then go out for supper?’

  It seemed to her an excellent idea. By now she was beginning to droop. The thought of lying down and closing her eyes was alluring.

  ‘OK…let’s do that. Does your watch have an alarm?’

  He nodded. ‘I’ll set it for seven-thirty, then have a shower and be ready to leave around eight…if that suits you?’ he added.

  ‘Perfectly. I’ll see you later.’

  She went upstairs, took off her shirt and skirt and fell into bed.

  At one minute to eight she went down and found him opening a bottle of rosado from the fridge.

  ‘An appetiser before we set out,’ he said. ‘Did you have a good sleep?’

  ‘Marvellous. Did you?’

  ‘Great. I like that dress.’

  The compliment startled her, but she tried not to show it. ‘Thank you.’

  She concluded he had decided to be nicer to her, at least as long as his mother was in hospital.

  He handed her a glass of the sunset-pink wine. ‘Let’s take our drinks outside. Any ideas about where we might go to eat?’

  ‘There’s a place at the top of the road on the other side of the church. We could walk there. Then we don’t have to worry about drinking and driving.’

  ‘In that case you’d better take a wrap. It may be cooler later.’

  It was during dinner, after her third glass of wine, that she said, ‘Grey, I’ve never apologised to you for what I did. I would like you to know that I really am very sorry.’

  He put down his knife and fork and leaned back in his chair, looking at her with an expression she could not interpret.

  ‘You don’t have to abase yourself, Lucia. You’ve already paid for what you did.’

  ‘I thought you felt I’d got off pretty lightly.’

  ‘I may have thought that at first. I didn’t know you then. Now I think that, for someone like you, it was too harsh a sentence.’

  ‘You do?’ she said, in surprise.

  Grey was still looking at her with that intent but inscrutable gaze. ‘At the time of your trial I was too angry to consider the case dispassionately. I’d been made to look a fool…and you know how sensitive the male ego is,’ he added, with the flicker of a smile.

  ‘Some male egos,’ she agreed. ‘But I don’t think you have an ego that needs to be constantly buttered. You were right to be angry. I behaved very badly. I’m ashamed of it now, but then…well, it’s no use making excuses for myself. In my heart of hearts I always knew something was wrong, but I chose to close my mind to it.’

  ‘Tell me about it,’ he said. ‘From what I know about you now, I’m sure that, before this happened, you never did a dishonest thing in your life.’

  ‘I don’t think I did…no. I was brought up to be honest. If I’d found a wallet in the street, I would have taken it to the police. I wouldn’t have lied except to spare someone’s feelings. But when it came to the crunch…when my honesty was tested…I failed.’

  ‘Your defending counsel said you needed money for your father. At the time I thought that was a cooked-up sob story.’

  ‘It was true,’ she said, in a low voice. ‘Dad’s doctor admitted to me that the drugs he needed were available but they were very expensive. They could be prescribed in some parts of the country, but not in others…not in the place where we lived. The only way to obtain them was as a private patient. I thought it was worth a try, so I blocked out the suspicion that the pastiches I was painting were being passed off as originals.’

  ‘In your place I’d have done the same,’ said Grey. ‘If I didn’t have any money and my mother or sisters needed some expensive treatment, I’d rob a bank if I had to. Desperate circumstances lead to desperate measures. It’s intolerable that you should have been placed in that position. The best available treatment should be available to everyone, no matter what it costs.’

  ‘I could have mortgaged the house,’ she said. ‘But it would have been difficult to do without Dad knowing about it, and I knew he wouldn’t agree. He was resigned to dying. He could be very obstinate. In the end, of course, he did die…so it was all for nothing.’

  The waiter came back. ‘Terminado?’ he asked.

  The food had been served on the cold plates that seemed to be customary in Spain. Lucia had eaten her fish and courgettes but left the chips that appeared to be a standard accompaniment.

  ‘Sí, gracias.’

  Grey put his knife and fork together and indicated that he, too, had finished eating.

  Before taking the plates away, the waiter recited a list of puddings which Grey translated for her.

  ‘Pears in wine for me, please,’ said Lucia.

  When the waiter had gone, Grey refilled their glasses. Then he rested his left elbow on the edge of the table and put his hand in a characteristic position; his thumb under his chin, his forefinger up by his cheekbone and his second finger masking his upper lip. He appeared to be making a close study of the weave of the white linen tablecloth. She wondered what he was thinking.

  Grey was thinking about Lucia’s remark ‘…so it was all for nothing’ and the proverb ‘’Tis an ill wind that blows nobody any good’.

  Had it not been for her father’s illness and what had followed, she would not be sitting here on the other side of the table, the candlelight emphasising the silky sheen of her hair, the bloom of sunshine and open air days on her skin, the soft fullness of her lips.

  Her apology, obviously sincere, had crumbled the last of his resistance to her. He could no longer deny that he was within a hair’s-breadth of being hopelessly in love with her.

  But even if she had come to like him better than at the beginning of their acquaintance, he had no evidence that she felt more than liking. That she had responded to his kiss proved little beyond the fact that she was a warm-blooded woman who had had no man in her life for a long time.

  Now circumstances had conspired to place them in a situation where it would be hard for him to control his desire for her. His common sense told him he must. His libido said, What the hell! Go for it! The two conflicting sides of his nature were in a precarious balance that could tip either way.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  TO LUCIA, watching him but poised to look away if her scrutiny disturbed his train of thought, whatever it might be, he had never looked more attractive than by the softly-diffused light of the thick
white wax candle burning inside a slightly tinted glass shade.

  Not all Spanish people, she had discovered, had the dark brown eyes of the stereotypical Spaniard. That many did indicated how much interbreeding there had been with the Moors who had ruled much of Spain for many centuries. But everywhere there were Spaniards with eyes of other colours and Grey, with his dark hair and fast-tanning skin, could easily pass for a native of this country. Though many of the elderly people were noticeably short and often had the bandy legs that indicated poor nutrition when they were young, their children and grandchildren had grown up in happier times and were tall and well-built like Grey.

  She was admiring his broad shoulders under the casual but perfectly-fitting cotton shirt he was wearing, when he looked up and caught her eye.

  ‘Have you thought about the future yet? What you might do when you’re ready to resume your career?’

  Did the question imply that, despite what had seemed a détente in the cold war between them, he still wanted her out of Larchwood and his family circle?

  ‘Not yet. As long as your mother finds me useful, I’m happy to stay. I’m not keen to go back to commercial art, but that seems the only safe way to make a living.’

  Her pears and his flan arrived. She had thought his choice would be a pastry or sponge cake filled with fruit, but it turned out to be what in England was called crème caramel.

  ‘Good, I hoped it would be home-made,’ said Grey. ‘Sometimes they produce factory-made stuff in a plastic pot, but this is the real McCoy.’

  Lucia’s pears still had their stalks attached to them from which the thinly sliced fruit was arranged like a pair of fans.

  ‘How would you feel about running an art gallery?’ Grey asked her.

  ‘I don’t think I’m qualified…and who would employ me, with my history?’ she added.

  ‘Some people might consider your history a commercial asset,’ he said, at his most sardonic. ‘You are interested in pictures. You know a lot about them. The business side—book-keeping and so on—you could easily pick up.’

  ‘Do you know of someone who is looking for a gallery-minder?’

  ‘Not immediately, but possibly in the future.’

  ‘I know beggars can’t be choosers, but I really wouldn’t want to work in London, or any big city. Larchwood has given me a taste for life in the country.’

  ‘The gallery I’m thinking about—at present it’s only on the drawing board and may not materialise—would be in a village or small town. If you were interested, I could put in a word for you.’

  ‘Thank you, but at the moment I’m committed to working for your mother. If she didn’t need me any more, then I’d have to look for something else. But I’m hoping that tomorrow they’ll tell her it was just a blip that won’t make a drastic difference to the way she wants to live her life.’

  ‘I hope so too,’ he agreed. ‘But it may be that, for everyone’s peace of mind, she will have to confine her travels to the British Isles, or even closer to home.’

  ‘Did the doctor advance any theories about what the trouble might be?’ Lucia asked.

  ‘He thinks she may have had a transient ischaemic attack. It’s caused by minute fragments of blood or cholesterol that clot in the brain and disperse of their own accord. Or similar symptoms can be caused if the vertebral arteries that run up the spine to the neck are obstructed, for example by looking upwards. Was she doing that before it happened?’

  Lucia shook her head. ‘Not that I remember.’ After a pause, she added, ‘As Rosemary is slim and doesn’t smoke, I wouldn’t have thought she was likely to have high blood pressure.’

  ‘Stress can cause hypertension. I think she was pretty stressed while Dad was alive. He wasn’t an easy man to live with, especially as he got older. Perfectionists seldom are.’

  ‘Would you call yourself a perfectionist?’

  He considered the question before answering it. ‘Yes,’ he said finally. ‘But the difference between me and Dad is that I’m not a control freak. I expect the people who work for me to give one hundred per cent of their energies to their jobs during working hours. But outside the office I don’t want to run anyone’s life…contrary to the impression you may have had when we met at Larchwood,’ he added dryly.

  ‘Actually I admired you for being protective towards your mother, even if—had you won the argument—it would have deprived me of what you called “a cushy number”.’

  Remembering the circumstances in which he had made that remark—not during his first tirade in the drawing room, but looming over her while she lay in the bath—she found her colour rising.

  Obviously Grey understood the reason for her discomfiture. ‘Have you forgiven me for invading your privacy and catching you looking like a submerged Lorelei?’ he asked, with a teasing gleam in his eyes that made her heart lurch.

  Looking down at her plate to avoid that disturbing look, she said, ‘I was angry with you at the time. Barging in like that seemed to demonstrate your utter contempt for me.’

  ‘At the time that was what I felt. I was wrong. I’m sorry.’

  Even without looking at him, she knew that he was sincere. When she did look up and meet his eyes, the expression in them made her unstable heart turn over. She had never expected Grey to look at her with such kindness that it could almost be taken for tenderness. Almost.

  ‘Thank you…thank you for saying that,’ she said in a low voice, trying not to show how deeply his words had moved her.

  ‘Now that we’ve both apologised and reached a better understanding, our relationship should run more smoothly in future. Let’s drink to that.’

  He raised his glass, waiting for her to raise hers.

  ‘And to your mother’s return to good health,’ said Lucia.

  ‘To that also.’ He touched the side of his glass lightly against hers and they both drank some more wine, watching each other over the rims of their glasses.

  The waiter came back. ‘Café?’

  A timely interruption, thought Grey. ‘Would you like coffee, Lucia?’

  ‘Yes, please. Café con leche for me.’

  For himself Grey ordered a cortado, a small cup of strong black coffee. He glanced around the restaurant, tonight not even half full, trying to distract himself from the image still in his mind of Lucia’s beautiful body stretched out in the bath.

  The memory of it was as clear as if it had happened yesterday. Vividly, in his mind’s eye, he could still see her soft breasts, her navel, the tangle of curls concealing her Mount of Venus, the lines of her long smooth thighs. Her body had excited him then. It aroused him even more now that he knew what she was like as a person.

  That was another matter they would have to address: what had happened on the last night of his previous visit. It could not be ignored, but how was he to explain that it could not be repeated, except on terms that she would find unacceptable and he was not happy about?

  In the past his ‘no strings’ relationships with women hadn’t bothered him. But that was then and this was now. Lucia wasn’t a woman who, like the others, could use a man for her pleasure and, when it was over, forget about him.

  If not totally innocent, she was certainly extremely vulnerable. The last thing he wanted was to embroil her in a relationship that had no future. The idea of causing her more pain was repugnant to him. Yet he wanted her. Wanted her powerfully and urgently.

  The coffee came and, with it, a little dish of thin mint chocolates in dark brown paper sleeves. Lucia was intuitively aware that Grey still had something on his mind. He had seemed to turn his attention to the other diners but, as they were all members of the ‘expat’ retirement community who inhabited this part of Spain in large numbers, she couldn’t believe he was really much interested in them.

  In the light of their newly-established rapprochement, she decided to take a chance and ask him to clarify a remark that had been on her mind since the last time he was here.

  ‘Grey, the night you kissed
me, you said something about the way things stood between us. I wasn’t sure what you meant.’

  It seemed to her that, for a split second, he was startled by her frankness. She had surprised herself by bringing it into the open in such a calm, casual way.

  ‘That’s something I had intended to discuss with you,’ he said. ‘That you’ve raised it yourself makes it easier. What I meant, to be blunt about it, was that we’re both aware of the attraction between us. It was inevitable, I suppose. We’re single. We’re neither of us in a relationship. We’ve been thrown together a good deal. Given those factors, it isn’t surprising that we feel a mutual desire to go to bed together.’ He paused, his grey eyes intent. ‘Would you agree?’

  Was he asking her to confirm that the desire was mutual, or that it wasn’t surprising it should have arisen? Where was all this leading? Was he about to proposition her? To suggest that, given the freedom of his mother’s absence, they should end the evening in his bed?

  ‘I’d agree that you’re a very attractive man and any woman who spent time with you would be increasingly aware of it,’ she said carefully. ‘I know a lot of people think nothing of going to bed with other people simply because they fancy them. Personally, I don’t think that’s such a good idea. I think physical love should be kept for…important relationships.’

  Grey drank some coffee. His hand was rock-steady, she noticed. Out of sight, on her lap, hers were trembling slightly. Even talking to him about making love played havoc with her normal controls.

  ‘That’s what I meant,’ he said. ‘But a serious relationship isn’t possible for me at present. There are reasons why I want to stay out of…involvements. So I think it’s best for us to ignore any feelings that go beyond friendship.’

  ‘It was you, not I, who went beyond that boundary,’ Lucia said coldly.

  ‘With some provocation,’ he reminded her. ‘Don’t be angry…or offended. I wish it could be otherwise, but unfortunately it can’t. For us to become…involved could only lead to painful complications.’