by Jane Corrie
Her eyes were wary, even though she was forced to give him a grin. 'How on earth did you know where I was?' she queried, voicing the thought uppermost in her mind.
He smiled back at her. `Tony—er—the chef. Didn't get round to surnames,' he told her. 'I overheard Mark badgering him for your address, so I guessed he knew where you were. Er—we had a little talk yesterday, and Hey_ presto! I decide to take on the role of matchmaker ! '
Jenny looked away quickly. It looked as if Dilys's uncle was now indulging in daydreams. She swallowed; who knows, she might have inherited the trait from him in the first place, she thought hysterically, concentrating on that one thought to take her mind away from what he was inferring.
'I take it you do love Mark?' he demanded, while
she was still searching for something to say to his earlier comments.
The question made her glance down at him swiftly. 'Why ... I ...' she stammered.
`This is no time to hedge,' he advised her sternly. `But I'm willing to bet my last dollar that you do, so you'd be wasting your breath in denying it. So—he hurt you—so maybe it's pride that's holding you back, but pride's a bad master and no substitute for happiness.'
Jenny flushed and looked away again. 'Very well,' she answered in a low voice. 'But there's more to it than that,' she added wearily.
Silas patted her arm. 'Guessed there might be,' he said slowly. 'Whatever it is, surely it's not worth making three people suffer, is it?' he asked.
Her billowing hair hid her face as she shook her head silently, in bewilderment rather than agreement.
Silas sighed loudly, and Jenny had a feeling he would like to shake her, but all he said was, 'You'll have to work it out with Mark. Running away never solved anything, you know, although,' he mused, 'it finished my doubts about the way Mark felt about you. Dilys hadn't a hope.'
He was silent for a few seconds before he spoke again, then he began with, 'I guess that was my fault —what happened back there, I mean. I ought to have clamped down on her years ago. I was downright ashamed of the way she shanghaied Mark into proposing. to her.' He sighed again, a much heavier sit Oh, she loves him all right. She's just not
learnt she can't have everything she wants, and it's a hard lesson for her. I've never denied her anything in the past,' he shrugged his lean shoulders. 'Not that she was all that demanding, you understand, only with the sort of things kids want, but she always had the best.'
Jenny's sympathetic eyes met his as she nodded quickly. 'I did understand,' she said gently. 'I didn't approve, of course, of what she did, but she was going home the following day, wasn't she, and I suppose everything reached a climax for her. She was very unhappy.'
Silas looked at her consideringly for a second. 'You know,' he drawled, 'you're quite something. I can guess the way she plagued you after the fire. She'd have taken her misery out on you in an effort to excuse herself from her action. She used to do the same sort of thing when she was young. She knew she was in the wrong, and it was her way of saying sorry.' He shook his head again. 'She sure goes about things in a cock-eyed way, but that doesn't make her a bad girl. Even though I say it myself, she's pretty nice deep down. As for this affair with Mark, I've got to put the record straight—for her sake, as well as Mark's. She's got herself in too deep to retract, and she can be as stubborn as a mule if she wants a thing bad enough.'
As Jenny listened, her eyes followed the skyline ahead of her. Silas was only telling her what she already knew, and she couldn't understand why he had bothered to seek her out if it was only to confirm her own thinking on the matter.
'There's just one way out,' he said suddenly, making Jenny turn to look at him swiftly. 'And I've a feeling the little monkey is half hoping we'll take it.'
'We?' echoed Jenny, with a nasty feeling that he was including her in whatever the way out might be.
His answer confirmed her worst fears. 'We,' he said firmly. 'Or rather, you,' he added, very unkindly, Jenny thought.
'Dilys says that she'll only release Mark from the engagement if you take her place,' he added calmly, so calmly, in fact, that Jenny wondered if she had heard aright.
'If ' she began, sounding almost breathless as
the enormity of what he was proposing reached through to her dazed senses, and swallowed. 'Just like that!' she squeaked. 'And what exactly am I expected to do? Rush back and throw myself in his arms, in the ... in the hope that he'll have me?' she asked incredulously.
'Oh, he'll have you all right,' asserted Silas with a broad grin. 'He lacks the opportunity, that's all. He's under an obligation to marry Dilys, so he can't ask you to marry him, as Dilys knows very well. I can see what she was getting at, though. She loves him enough to let him go to the one person he wants. It's as simple as that. I also have a sneaking feeling that she's praying you'll not play ball. She's had time to weigh up the situation between you and Mark. She knows that Mark's still in love with you, and I think she's kidded herself into believing that you want nothing to do with him, and that you'll not lift a finger to do anything about it.'
Jenny experienced a wave of cold fury at the way these people were trying to organise her life. How dared they? As for Mark Chanter ! 'So Mark sent you here to tell me this, did he?' she asked in a deceptively mild voice that gave no hint of her inner fury.
'Hell, no ! ' he postulated indignantly, too taken back by her assumption to realise that he had indulged in the ungentlemanly habit of swearing, even if it was a mild expression of his feelings on the matter. 'That's not his way, and you should have known that. I only came by the knowledge by accident, as you might say. I overheard what Dilys said to him before I took her to the airport.' He scratched his chin in thought. 'I guess Mark was trying to make her see sense, but she wasn't having any of it. She was too wound up to notice that I was standing outside the door waiting for her.'
He gave Jenny a wry smile. 'She'll be gone about ten days. I reckon. So it's up to you, now,' he advised her hopefully. 'And don't,' he added firmly, as Jenny was about to state her feelings on the matter quite categorically, 'tell me you don't know how to go about it. You're a woman, aren't you? and the man's in love with you. Just flutter those lovely eyelashes at him, and he'll take it from there. He's not a man to let the grass grow under his feet.'
Of this Jenny was in no doubt at all, having once experienced such a relationship with Mark, but she did have doubts of whether she could successfully act the vamp, or indeed if she wanted to. Silas didn't seem to realise what he was asking of her. It was her
life, and here he was, calmly stating that she should return to Peacock's Walk and present herself to Mark as if it had suddenly occurred to her that she couldn't live without him, and please would he marry her!
Her eyes widened as she tried to imagine the scene, and she closed them hurriedly as a few other possibilities entered her mind. Supposing for one moment she did just that, and Mark turned her down! —and what was worse, took great pleasure in doing so! She shook her head adamantly; 'No,' she got out vehemently. 'It's out of the question!'
Silas surveyed her sadly for a second or two. 'You disappoint me,' he said gloomily. 'I was sure mad at Dilys but at least she had the nerve to fight for the man she wanted. I guess I made a mistake about you. Okay,' he lifted his hand in a gesture of resignation, 'have it your way. So Mark will marry Dilys. He'll be trapped for life. Dilys won't have the happiness she's trying to steal for herself—and you? What about you?' he demanded. 'You'll spend the rest of your life wishing you'd had the courage to take up the challenge I've given you. If you can stand by and let that happen, then I guess Dilys was right, and you don't care one jot for Mark.'
Jenny looked down at her feet, unable to meet Silas's gaze. Then, as if the words were forced from her, she said in a low voice, 'I'll think about it.' That was all she said, not trusting herself to commit herself any further, but it seemed to satisfy Silas.
'You do just that,' he said mildly. The exasperation was gone from his voice now.
To her surprise,
not to mention relief, he changed the conversation by asking her if she thought there would be a spare bed at her hotel for him, for just that one night.
Jenny knew there was, but she wasn't too sure she ought to tell him this. He might have a notion of staying on a few days in an effort to persuade her to his way of thinking, and she needed time to think. Time to work up the courage he had accused her of not possessing, and goodness knows he was quite right in this. The very thought of complying with his outrageous demand gave her butterflies in her stomach, and in no way could she envisage herself taking such a role on. It just wasn't her, and she miserably wished Silas hadn't laid it on the line so baldly. That she would land up spending the rest of her life regretting her inability to take what chance fate had offered her was almost a certainty, and was too bleak to entertain right then.
That night Jenny hardly got any sleep. Silas had been successful in obtaining a room for the night, and she was sure he would expect to hear her decision before he left the next day. In any case, she could see no point in using delaying tactics. Between now and breakfast time the following morning, she would have to make up her mind one way or the other.
Coward-like, she toyed with the idea of somehow letting Mark know where she was, and leaving it all up to him. From her point of view it would be a much better way of handling things. If Silas was wrong in thinking Mark would snap up the chance of marrying her, then she had nothing to worry
about—he simply would not contact her—but he had badgered Tony for her address, that much was certain.
It was while she was working out her approach to Mark, and what she would say to him, that she realised that she had made up her mind. She would do what Silas wanted her to do, and what deep in her heart she knew she had to do. When Mark had told her that she owed him, she had refused to accept the charge, but it was true, more true than he knew, because of the letter that she had kept from him.
It would be one way of easing her conscience, and even if he turned her down, she would have tried to put things right. It was not going to be easy, and she miserably wished she had as much courage as Dilys had had when it came to fighting for what she wanted; but if Dilys could sink her pride and make an all-out effort to ensnare him, she ought to be prepared to do the same.
The only saving grace lay in her feminine intuition that told her to go ahead, and Silas's dry comment of, 'You're a woman, aren't you?' In other words she had a built-in armoury with which to argue her case, particularly with a susceptible male, for the attraction was still there between them, just as strong and just as fatal as it had been before.
At breakfast the following morning an extremely tired Jenny met Silas's questing eyes with a curt nod that told him all he wanted to know. He gave her hand a squeeze as he said happily, `Atta-girl, I knew I could depend on you.'
Nothing more was said on the subject, but it was
taken for granted that she would accompany him to Peacock's Walk that same day. If she had been asked later what she had been given for breakfast that morning, Jenny could not have said, she was too preoccupied with her thoughts to appreciate what was placed on the table in front of her, although she did make an effort and went through the motions of attempting to do the meal justice.
It was the same with the journey back to Peacock's Walk shortly after breakfast. Silas kept her entertained with stories of his youth, never once mentioning either Dilys or Mark, and for this Jenny was grateful. The miles slipped by as the car Silas had hired ate up the distance from Dorset to Sussex.
When they finally reached their destination in the late afternoon, Jenny's anxious eyes strained ahead of her as the car swept round the driveway that led to the hotel entrance. She knew her sudden return would cause some speculation among the staff, and dreaded meeting Tony or Dodie before she had thought up some plausible excuse for her return. Of course, she could just tell the truth: 'I've come to ask Mark Chanter to marry me ! ' and swallowed painfully at the thought—no matter how one put it, it was the plain simple truth, and beyond that one thought, her mind refused to function. -
Her only hope lay in the unlikely event of no one witnessing her arrival. It might then be possible to have a word with Mark—and what a 'word' she gulped. --
It was as well that Silas had placed his hand on her arm as they walked towards the entrance lobby
at this point, for Jenny's courage failed her and she came to a dead stop, unable to go back or go on, and only the gentle insistent pressure of Silas's hand on her arm forced her to go forward again.
For once, fate smiled kindly on her, for the lobby was deserted as they walked through to reception, and only then did Jenny realise that her fears of meeting a member of staff were groundless, as the redecorating of the hotel meant only a skeleton staff in attendance, and no receptionist at the desk. There was only Tony and Dodie, and neither would be likely to be working anywhere near the reception area.
In her apprehensive state of mind, Jenny had forgotten that the hotel had closed down until the work to be carried out had been completed, which, she thought sardonically, just went to show what sort of a state she was in. Supposing Mark had left too, what then? The question was in her eyes as she turned to look at Silas as they walked past the desk, now covered with a dust sheet, and towards the office.
`He'll be in the office,' Silas assured her soothingly, and gave her arm a slight squeeze when they reached the office door. 'I'll be in the kitchen scrounging some liquid refreshment,' he told her as he opened the door for her, giving her no chance of changing her mind. He then gave her a slight push into the office, grinned at her, and firmly closed the door behind her.
All that Jenny had thought she might say, or had rehearsed in her silent vigil of the previous
night, now deserted her as she stood uncertainly near the door, ready for flight at the slightest provocation. Her apprehensive eyes were on Mark's dark head as he bent over some paper work on his desk. For one awful minute it looked as if she would have to make her presence known, and she couldn't think how to begin the conversation—at least, not the kind of conversation Silas had thought would be so easy.
She jumped when he spoke. 'Forgotten something, have you?' Mark asked mildly, his grey eyes now studying her, yet there was something in the back of his that made her heart beat faster, and before she knew it she had answered, 'Yes, you,' in a low, but firm voice, and swallowed quickly as the full impact of her words hit her. She hadn't intended to put it so baldly—even Dilys could have done better than that!
There was an imperceptible widening of his eyes as he digested her words, then it was gone in a flash, but he kept watching her with a still, waiting expression. 'And ...?' he prompted inexorably.
Jenny swallowed again. She might just as well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb, she told herself miserably. 'I accept your proposal,' she gabbled out before her courage deserted her, feeling as if she was stepping off a ledge into a precipice.
He could have said, 'What proposal?' she told herself, and denied that he had proposed again, or he could say that she was a little late in taking him up on it. In fact there were so many things that he could say that she gave up the speculation. She could
only stand there feeling utterly lost and miserable and wishing with all her heart that he would simply get up and take her in his arms again, and tell her that he loved her.
Jenny was disappointed on all counts, since his reaction was not what she had anticipated, and her heart was heavy as she saw him quickly glance away from her and study the desk blotter in front of him. 'Silas has been talking, I gather,' he said in a voice that held a tinge of bitterness in it. 'I thought that he might have heard Dilys's farewell to me that day,' he said slowly, and glanced up at the now flushed Jenny, and startled her out of her acute embarrassment by giving a curt nod. 'So be it!' he said harshly. 'And there will be no second thoughts for either of us—understand that for a start,' he assured her as she looked at him apprehensively.
She was even more apprehensive as she watched him slowly unfold his long lean length from his chair and move towards her. There was a certain amount of purpose in his eyes that made her take a step back, although a few minutes ago she had wanted him to take her in his arms. If he had only held his arms out to her, she would have to run into them. It shouldn't be like this, she thought frantically.
'Come now,' he said in a soft almost silky voice, 'is this the way to behave with your fiancé? You've apparently forgotten quite a lot.'
The next moment Jenny felt herself pulled forward into his arms with a force that slightly winded her, and while she was recovering her breath he
gave her a kiss that melted her bones and made her want to fling her arms about his neck as she had once done, but some inner caution held her back.
She badly needed time to adjust herself to events, and Mark knew it, by his drawled, 'You've got some homework to do, haven't you?' as he kissed her again.
This time the kiss was not only dominating but hungry. It told of yearning, and took the form of a punishment, as his hard lips pounded her soft ones.
The caution she had felt earlier was stronger now, and Jenny bewilderedly accepted the punishment he was giving her. She hadn't known quite what to expect, but it hadn't been this. His hold was not gentle or loverlike; it was more of a victor subjecting his captive into total surrender. Triumphant, yet masterful, making her want to cry out, 'Not like this, Mark—please not like this!'
The words, however, were never uttered as she had no opportunity to voice such a plea as his lips gave her no, respite. When his lips finally left hers, the hold he had on her added to her discomfiture, for she could scarcely breathe, being clamped hard against his body.
'When I said you would come to me, this was not the way I wanted it,' he grated out as his lips roamed her wide forehead. 'But there's no going back now. We marry as soon as I can arrange it.'
