Façade

by Jessica Steele

  'We were waiting to see the owner of this place,' he mumbled, 'but—but it will do another day.'

  Cynthia too had got the message, and did not appear to take very kindly to the idea of being physically ejected on to the pavement. Though, even while blanching, she had to try one last stab before she scuttled off with her husband.

  'She…' she couldn't resist.

  'Do I see you in court?' challenged Ellis, everything about him saying that he had never gone in for making idle threats.

  'Damn you!' seethed Cynthia, but she knew she was beaten as she hurried away.

  Impatience was still in Ellis's face as he closed the door with a snap. Sorrel knew it before she heard him mutter, 'My God!'

  She guessed when he turned to stare sternly at her that it was her time to be sorted out. She still did not know how she was going to be able to take it, but she was grateful to him that he had not gone to town on her while the Armitages were present.

  'I'm—s-sorry you had to—to be—involved in—in that,' she apologised. It had nauseated her, and by the stern look of him, Ellis had not found it very pleasant either.

  'I'm glad I was here,' he replied shortly. 'It isn't in you to gutter-fight.'

  'Because I didn't defend myself, you mean?' she asked, and knew as she asked it that she had left herself wide open for him to demand what defence did she have.

  But she was to be startled again. For Ellis did not seem to need to hear her defence! He seemed to know, without her having to tell him, that it was not in any way as Cynthia had told it! For all he said was:

  'That screeching shrew would never have let you get a word in anyway.' And, when Sorrel was still expecting to be trounced, she was to be dumbfounded that as Ellis looked at her, he had nothing more to say than, 'You're still pale—will you be all right if I leave? I can drop you off at your fiat if you like.'

  'I'm—fine,' she managed quietly, her heart starting to drum at the thought that, just like that—no third degree, no questions or recriminations—Ellis would leave or drop her off at her flat, the matter done with, nothing more to be said, and—not a contemptuous look for her in sight! 'I've—g-got my car not far away,' she added, a choky sensation coming to her as some truth pushed at her and tried to get through.

  His hand went to the door handle, that same look on his face that had been there that first night in her new flat when he had kissed her farewell and accepted that she did not want to see him again. And as she sensed the truth pushing to get nearer and nearer to the surface, it saw her wanting to stop him before he went through that door and out of her life.

  'Why…?' she found her husky voice to halt him when, as if in slow motion, that door handle began to turn. Unmoving, Ellis looked at her, his face stern still as he waited to hear what she had started to say. 'Why did you do what you just did?' she asked in a confused rush. 'B-back me, I mean—against Cynthia Armitage— just now.'

  His hand fell away from the handle, but he did not move from his position by the door. And his face was unsmiling when, looking steadily at her, he said:

  'Over eight years ago, I fell in love with an honest seventeen-year-old, more sensitive than I saw at the time.' Drumming ceased to be the word to describe what Sorrel's heart was doing then. 'At twenty-five,' he went on, his gaze still fully on her, 'that girl may have changed her outer covering, but that honest person she always was is still there.'

  His blind belief in her honesty turned Sorrel's legs to jelly. Something inside her seemed to snap then, and she was clutching harder than ever on to the back of the chaise-longue, as the words faltered from her:

  'Do you…' her voice broke, and she had to swallow hard before she could try again, 'do you still—love—that girl? D-do you still love her now—now that—that you've heard that she's—no better than your ex-fiancée?'

  The serious look on his face gave her no indication of what he would answer. And yet his answer was suddenly so very important to her—if it was the answer she wanted.

  'Need you ask?' he replied. Which just wasn't enough. She had to have more. If she was to crash through the barrier that had been eight years in the building, this barrier she had made, then she had to have more.

  'Was it—your feelings for me that made you go into bat for me without knowing what—if any—defence I had?' she asked haltingly. But she had all the answer she could want in his reply.

  'Because I was not in love with Wenda Sykes, I never found it necessary to look beyond the obvious for what she did. With you,' said Ellis, 'my love is such that it doesn't need to hear any defence.' 'You still—trust me—my honesty, after hearing all— all that Cynthia Armitage has said?' she just had to question, unable as she was then to take in the fact that he should love her so much.

  'I trust and love you,' stated Ellis, his voice gone harsh, a look coming to him of a man who couldn't take much more. His hand had again gone to the door handle, as, 'Goodbye, Sorrel,' he said tightly, 'I hope you find whatever it is you're looking for in life.'

  'Ellis!'

  He had his back to her, but she couldn't let him go. He froze as she called his name, but did not turn, but waited as, a ton weight lifting from her, Sorrel saw how blindly he had trusted her, and as courage surged up in her, she saw how completely she could trust him. He had hurt her so bitterly once, but all of a sudden, she just knew that he would never knowingly hurt her again.

  'Ellis,' she said again, to keep him there, terrified now that he would go out of her life before she had got it all together. There were still some answers outstanding, but if she was ever to find happiness, she saw then that she had to trust him as blindly as he had trusted her. 'Oh, Ellis,' she said on a shaky breath, 'I think I've just found what I'm looking for.'

  His back was still to her, and with tears of hope, feeling the trust in him that she had been searching for suddenly there in her, Sorrel put all her faith in that trust as she said:

  'Ellis, you wouldn't—marry me, would you?'

  Through her tears she saw shock take him as beneath his suiting his shoulders jerked rigid. What she had just asked was the last thing he had expected to hear, she knew. But when, slowly, he turned and through tears shimmering in her eyes she saw his expression was little short of grim, Sorrel knew that she had to stay in there with her trust, even when, not coming any nearer, he questioned bluntly:

  'Why?'

  She wished he would smile. Wished that the corner of his mouth would quirk in that haunting way it sometimes did. But there was not a smile about him, nothing there to help her out but the trust she had suddenly found that said he would not reject her a second time. Holding firmly on to that trust, Sorrel blinked back tears.

  'A-at seventeen,' she told him, 'I was head over heels in love with you.'

  Ellis's face had a strained, taut look, the skin seemed stretched over his cheekbones, his voice gritty, as he questioned, 'And now? What do you feel for me now?'

  'And now—' she began, not wanting him standing coldly over by the door. She wanted to be in his arms. Quite desperately did she need to be in his arms as she told him, 'I love you with the whole of my heart.' She saw a pulse begin to beat in his temple, and it was all starting to pour out from her then. 'I knew when I met you again at the Drurys' that I'd never stopped loving you. Even as I tried to tell myself I was cured of you, I…' she stopped, and when he made no move to come and take her into his arms, she was faltering again as a sudden thought came. 'If—if you don't want marriage,' she said, remembering how the thought of marriage had appalled him eight years ago, 'then—then that's all right by me.'

  'You're saying that you'd be mine without marriage?' he frowned the question.

  'If that's what you want,' she replied solemnly, and was in panic again, but only briefly, when he replied:

  'I want neither you nor marriage, if all this—your offering yourself to me—stems from nothing more than gratitude for what happened just now with that Armitage bitch.' Her flutter of panic squashed, Sorrel heard that Ellis's
voice had gone harsh again, as he asked grimly, 'Is it to do with that?'

  As honest as he expected her to be, Sorrel shook her head. 'I was horrified when you came in through that door,' she confessed. 'I knew Cynthia Armitage would just love an audience she could revile me in front of. Your claiming to be my friend made it doubly certain that she'd make as much as she could out of her father leaving me some money. He was a dear man,' she told him, 'but I was terrified that when she had told you her version of the way it was, I would see nothing but loathing and contempt in your eyes for me. But,' Sorrel went on, not a word of interruption coming from Ellis as he insisted on finding out if it was from love or gratitude that she had offered herself to him, 'but— while being grateful, of course, that you didn't range yourself on her side, when blindly you trusted me so much that you didn't believe I could be like she was making out I was, I suddenly knew that I—could trust you. That—that I could tell you about my love for you, because…'

  'Come here.'

  His face stern still, Ellis had cut her off. But his 'Come here' was a command, and Sorrel obeyed it. She had said she trusted him, and it was so. Without hesitation she left the spot where she had taken root, came from the chaise-longue and walked over to the door.

  She stopped walking when she was about a foot away from him, her eyes unblinking on his when for long hard seconds dark eyes searched her face. If he truly loved her, she thought, he would take her in his arms.

  When one hand did leave his side, her heart fluttered crazily. But Ellis did not take her in his arms. At the sound of footsteps nearing the door his hand took hold of her upper arm.

  'We're going to be interrupted,' he said tensely. 'I've waited too long to want anyone barging…' he broke off as the door handle turned, and his face was unsmiling as he asked, 'Are you going to come with me?'

  Her heart beats erratic, even if Ellis had not answered her proposal, Sorrel was not in a mind to return to the girl who had hidden away behind a false front.

  'Anywhere,' she replied, and felt the fingers on her arm tighten, all her trust there in that one word.

  Ellis moved at speed then. 'I'll ring you,' he tossed at the man Charles who had entered the room without Sorrel being fully aware of it. And she was through the door and out of the gallery, and seated beside Ellis in his Jaguar, with no thought in her head to wonder where he was taking her, or to remember that her own car was parked not too far away.

  When Ellis pulled up in front of an exclusive-looking apartment block and hurried her inside, she knew that it was to his flat he had brought her.

  Though not one word did he have to say to her until he had turned his key in the lock of his apartment door and had ushered her through it. With his hand on her arm again, he took her with him into his sitting room. Then he halted her in front of a deep, wide couch.

  For long wordless moments Ellis just looked at her. Then, his expression unsmiling still, his hands came up to her hair, his fingers searching to find the pins that secured her chignon.

  Without demur, her heart wildly racing, Sorrel stood while he released every last pin. But only when her hair was cascading around her shoulders did he speak.

  'Now,' he said, a look of satisfaction relieving his severe expression, 'now you look more like my little Sorrella.'

  'You—used to call me that—in the old days,' Sorrel reminded him, her nerves jumping, her voice staccato.

  'I've forgotten nothing about you—or the old days,' he replied. But then, to her utter relief, as his voice went throaty, so the words broke from him, 'For God's sake come here!' and Ellis was not waiting for her to move, but had hauled her into his arms, those arms becoming tight bands around her, as he said, 'Have you any idea what sheer unremitting hell these last five weeks have been?'

  'If they've been th-the same for you as they've been for me,' Sorrel answered, all hurt and pain washing away from her to be held so securely in his arms, 'then hell doesn't begin to cover it.'

  There was no pretence in what she had said. No pretence in the honest love-filled eyes that looked at him when Ellis pulled back to see her face. Time stood still then, as for uncounted moments she just looked at him while he devoured her every feature. She as content just to stand quietly within the circle of his arms, as Ellis seemed to need, and be content, just to hold her.

  Unmoving, she stood when after a while, as if he could not believe that she was there with him, he raised a hand to touch her cheek, to stroke that hand gently down the side of her face.

  A groan broke from him then, and he just had to kiss her. It was a kiss that lengthened. A kiss, as Sorrel held back nothing and entwined her arms around him, that was to leave her breathless.

  As she sank with him down on to the couch, joy broke in her to hear the fractured, 'My—love,' that left him. Then Ellis was claiming her lips again like a man starved for that possession. More uncounted minutes passed, for Sorrel had been starved too and was as hungry for his touch as he was hungry to have her unrestrained response.

  With his body close to hers on the couch, she felt one of his hands in her hair, that hand caressing down her face, to her throat, at her breast. 'Oh, Ellis!' she sighed, and had both his arms around her as he pressed her to him and kissed her mouth, his mouth then trailing kisses over the flush of ever-increasing passion on her face.

  Her hand, straying up to touch his face, had him taking hold of that hand, his eyes holding a warm light as they looked into hers. It was then that she saw the quirk she loved so much come to the corner of his mouth when, his voice husky in his throat, he said softly:

  'If you intend to carry on in this way, Miss Maitland, then I really think I shall have to do something about your proposal—without delay.'

  Glorying that, as if those eight years had never been, Ellis could so easily tease a smile from her, all at once Sorrel realised that although he had been showing signs of thoroughly welcoming the way she had reacted to his kisses, that fully responding had not been the only area in which she had been not a little forward.

  A little more colour had pinkened her face when, taking a gulping breath, she just had to ask, 'Do you— want to marry me, Ellis?' And as anxiety started to rush in, without giving him time to answer, she was saying quickly, 'You don't have to if…' His mouth coming down over hers effectively cut off the rest of her sentence.

  But Sorrel had her answer when, after moments of being able to do nothing but respond fully to him again, his voice gruff from the soaring passion they shared, suddenly Ellis had pulled her to sit up. And having let some daylight between their two bodies, he said:

  'My need to hold you, to make love to you, will have to wait. I've put you through too much hell in the past to take you now with doubts still in your mind.'

  'I don't…' She would have told him of her newfound trust in him then, that her doubts were not doubts about her trust in him. But Ellis silenced her, though he could not deny his need to hold her as, with an arm about her shoulders, he sat half turned so he could look at her, and said:

  'Of course I want to marry you, woman. I've always wanted to marry you.' Going on to make her eyes go wide as he revealed, 'It was always my intention to marry you, way back when you were a teenager.' His eyes went bleak, but only for a moment as he told her, 'You have no idea of my agony in thinking I'd left it too late.'

  Her wide eyes fixed on his, Sorrel recalled how he had said that he had always loved her. And with that renewed trust in her for him, there was peace in her heart at last. For her trust in him was complete that even if she could not understand how that could be— that he had always loved her—if he had said it was so, then she believed him.

  But that he loved her, was there in the way he looked at her, she saw. There in the way, when it looked a moment ago as though he would make love to her until she was fully his, he had drawn back for her sake, for the sake of the doubts he thought she still nursed.

  Even though he had so cruelly dismissed her, yet was maintaining now that he had meant t
o marry her even then, Sorrel trusted his word. Trusted his love. So that with that trust in her strong, it was more from remembering how he had heard every word of Rod proposing marriage to her, than from questioning his statement that he thought he had left it too late, that she smiled into his eyes and said:

  'You thought, that night when you blatantly eavesdropped when Rod Drury asked me to marry him, that I was going to say "yes"?'

  'Don't remind me,' said Ellis. 'I came the nearest I ever came to going into heart failure that night.' His fingers seemed unable to resist stroking down her cheek as. 'How I managed to stay put I shall never know,' he owned. 'There were moments of silence when I was sure he was kissing you. Black jealous murder was in my heart then, so that it was all I could do not to come and tell him for you that if you were going to marry anyone, it was going to be nobody but me.'

  'Oh, Ellis!' she sighed, loving every word he was telling her. 'That almost makes up for the jealousy that made me want to scratch the eyes out of that blonde you danced too many times with at the Drurys' wedding anniversary party.'

  'It worked, then,' he said, his grin flushing out her grin, as with happiness bubbling over, she accused:

  'You devil—you tried to make me jealous on purpose?'

  'I was ready by then to try anything,' he admitted. 'I'd been as mad as hell with you, but when I'd cooled down I was certain that—despite what you said—on that night I almost made you mine there'd been nothing pre-thought-out in your response. But I knew, by the time I'd analysed everything, that the next time I saw you the barrier you were insisting on raising would have grown higher.'

  'Oh, darling,' Sorrel cried softly, 'have I given you such a very hard time?'

  'Don't, my love,' he answered swiftly. 'When I think of the dreadful suffering I've caused you…' He broke off, and seemed then unable to go on, for he cradled her to him, his hold tender, and for long moments nothing more was said.