Ishbel's Party

by Stacy Absalon

  'Oh, I'm sure I'll be all right when I get going,' she claimed, seeing her treat being withdrawn when she had to admit to his implacable expression, 'I don't have anything else.'

  'Nonsense, you must have.' Impatiently he strode to her wardrobe and snatched open the door, his mouth tightening when his disbelieving gaze took in the paucity of the few shabby garments hanging there. 'Is this all?' He broke off as, riffling through them, he came to the silk caftan. 'And how did this exotic garment stray in here?'

  His voice had hardened as if all his earlier suspicion of her was back, and yet why? she wondered, inexplicably wounded, when his fiancée's wardrobe must. contain dozens of far more expensive and elaborate dresses than that?

  She lifted her chin. 'Impractical, isn't it? But it was generously meant. I found it in the luggage that was sent back from Beirut after I was injured, a get-well present from my colleagues there.'

  A trace of colour stained Fraser's cheekbones as he put the caftan back wordlessly, making no attempt to apologise for the nasty thoughts she knew had been crossing his mind. 'You don't even have a sweater?' he asked, closing the wardrobe door.

  'You've seen everything I own,' she snapped, still annoyed with him, 'unless you wish to examine my underwear.'

  Is that an invitation, Bethan?' He advanced towards her, a wicked gleam in his eyes, and she backed away, disconcerted by his sudden change of mood.

  In the drawer, I meant,' she amended hastily, and swallowed hard as, still advancing on her he began to peel off his heavy sweater. Surely he didn't mean to—His devilish grin told her he had read her thoughts as he held the sweater out to her.

  'Sorry to disappoint you, but far from undressing you I was going to suggest you borrow this.'

  'I—I didn't—I wasn't ' she choked helplessly, her

  cheeks flaming. She had seen him in many moods, hostile, accusing, even pitying, and after his suspicions of only moments ago, this sudden switch to flirtatiousness threw her into utter confusion.

  The soft wool of his sweater brushed against her hands but he didn't release his hold on it, dropping it himself over her head, smiling as it swamped her, though he couldn't know what it was doing to her, feeling it still warm from the heat of his body, impregnated with the intoxicating male smell of him. She stood like a puppet, fighting her senses as he folded up the long sleeves to let her hands emerge and turned down the heavy rollneck to free her chin, and the sudden descent of his mouth on hers took her utterly by surprise, too stunned by the sheer unexpectedness of it to either respond or reject him.

  He drew back, a strange, unreadable expression on his face. 'Anyone would think you'd never been kissed since the last time I kissed you ten years ago,' he said harshly, no lightness in his mood now.

  Still too stunned to move, the expression on her suddenly burning face gave her away.

  'My God! I don't believe you have! Bethan

  He was coming too close to discovering her true feelings and convulsively she pulled away from him. told you before,' she said flatly. 'There's been no room in my life for such things.'

  For one heart-stopping moment she thought he was going to drag her back into his arms and prove her a liar, but he only grabbed her wrist and fairly dragged her out of the room.

  She could still feel his anger when they reached the stables where the two horses were already saddled and waiting for them, but somehow she didn't feel that this time his anger was directed at her but rather at himself. And so it should be, she told herself, her own anger rising at his unprincipled behaviour. He had no right to flirt with her, much less kiss her, when he was engaged to marry Siriol Miles.

  But in spite of the overcast morning she found she couldn't sustain her anger with the horse moving rhythmically beneath her and the cool wind in her hair. They skirted the perimeter of the vineyard, Fraser explaining how the vines had to be sprayed every two weeks against various pests and diseases that could attack them until they began to flower sometime in July, when mildew would become the greatest menace, and how the young shoots had to be tied in as they grew to prevent them being snapped off by the wind. Bethan listened with interest, prompting him with questions of her own.

  `I'd no idea there were any vineyards in Britain,' she confessed, 'so what gave you the idea of starting one?'

  `Not. me, Uncle Henry. Lorna's late husband,' he elucidated at her blank expression. 'And it's by no means the only one. Vines were grown in England back in Roman times and continued to be cultivated through history—though they received a set-back at the dissolution of the monasteries in the sixteenth century—until the First World War killed them off. It was just after the last war that two enterprising gentlemen—a Mr Barrington-Brock and a Mr Hyams—started the revival of viticulture in England, and since then there's been a tremendous upsurge of interest. There must be getting on for two hundred commercial vineyards in

  this country now, not to mention I don't know how many private ones. Research into new varieties of vines suitable to our climate has made it a much less dicey business than it once was.'

  I suppose it must be a profitable undertaking for you to devote your time to it.' She was aware of the mocking look he slanted at her and flushed. 'Well, I seem to remember the farm at Merrifields was very prosperous. You wouldn't have given that up unless—'

  Who says I've given it up?'

  Her flush deepened. I'm sorry. I thought ' She

  broke off in embarrassed confusion, then apologised again. I'm sorry, it's none of my business.'

  Fraser ignored her disclaimer. 'All the Laurie interests are run centrally by Laurie Holdings Ltd, of which I'm the managing director. That includes the original farm at Merrifields, this vineyard, a deer-farm where we raise venison for the table and meat-distributing and exporting business. I also play a part in the promotion of English wines.'

  I—I see.' Bethan wondered why he was telling her all this. 'I don't suppose you can spend much time at Merrifields then.'

  No. My father and my uncle are semi-retired now and one of my cousins looks after the operation there. You won't find it changed much, though.'

  He spoke as if there was the possibility of her seeing it again. Bethan knew nothing could be less likely and kept silent, the memory of her last visit there too painfully acute.

  And as if he could see into her mind Fraser reached over and took her reins, forcing her to a stop. 'Bethan, for God's sake, what happened that night?' His voice was strained, something in his eyes as they searched her face almost like pain. 'I wouldn't believe them at first when they told me—thought there must be some confusion over names. Damn it, I'd never known you to

  drink, apart from the odd glass of sherry or wine, and I know Ishbel was only serving up an innocuous punch that night. And in any case you weren't the sort to let someone lead you into that kind of reckless stupidity as Ishbel might have been led. So what happened that particular night to make you hit the bottle? Something must have done to bring about such an uncharacteristic change.'

  She was all too aware of the clasp of his hands, of his leg pressed hard up against hers as she sat rigid with tension. It was little comfort that he believed that one catastrophic bout of drunkenness was uncharacteristic, when the only explanation she had ever been able to come up with for her behaviour that night of had been her misery at his rejection of her in the summerhouse.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  BETHAN shuddered. How could she tell him that? Everything in her revolted against allowing him to know just how deeply that long-ago rejection had hurt her, and anyway, he might think she -was trying to excuse herself, shift the blame.

  'I don't know.' The words came out on an agonised sigh. 'I don't remember anything about .' And that was the truth, because she still had no recollection of anything that had happened after Fraser had left her in the summerhouse to rejoin his girlfriend. 'I don't remember drinking anything, I don't remember taking Mark's car, I don't even remember hitting that child. It's all a blank until I woke up in ho
spital the next day with a policeman at my bedside, and they told me what I'd done.' She shuddered again and raised wide, haunted green eyes to his face. 'Don't you see, it seems to make what I did so much worse, because I can't remember.'

  His hands tightened over hers in a crushing grip and the expression in his own eyes was almost as haunted. 'Bethan, it wasn't because of '

  She tensed, dreading the question she was sure was coming, then to her profound relief he released her hands and drew away. But if you can't remember ...' He urged his horse on, but it was several moments before she could pull herself together sufficiently to follow.

  The rest of the ride was completed in silence, Fraser seeming preoccupied with thoughts that from the expression on his face were not pleasant ones, and Bethan afraid that to remind him of her presence might provoke more unanswerable questions.

  They had to pass the garage that housed Fraser's Mercedes and Lorna's Rover to reach the stables, and as if that sparked off a new train of thought Fraser said abruptly as he dismounted, `Do you still drive?'

  `Nor Bethan shook her head.

  'You've never driven since ?' Fraser stood

  looking up at her, his reins looped over his arm.

  'What do you think?' She looked away, her hands gripping the front edge of the saddle tightly. 'Oh, there have been occasions when I've had to drive—a Land Rover out in the African bush—but nowhere where there was a chance of doing anyone any harm.'

  The hands that seized her round the waist were strong and hard, and though she protested that she would rather dismount unaided, he plucked her out of the saddle as if she weighed no more than a child. And though he didn't release her at once his grip slackened as her feet touched the ground so that it would have been easy for her to move away. Only, seduced by his nearness, Bethan didn't move, couldn't move, could hardly even breathe, trapped like a fly in the spider's web of his attraction.

  But when she dared to raise her eyes to his face, he wasn't even looking at her but at something beyond her.

  Siriol, just the girl I want to see.' Fraser took the reins from Bethan's nerveless fingers as she drew a long, shuddering breath. 'You're going into Framlingham this morning, aren't you? Will you take Bethan along with you? She needs to buy some warmer clothes.'

  His words and the faintly hostile way Siriol was staring at her reminded Bethan she was still wearing Fraser's sweater and she would have peeled it off on the spot had he not forcibly restrained her. 'Not now, you silly girl. Keep it on till you get back to the house. Do you want to get a chill on top of everything else?'

  Bethan looked at Siriol apologetically. 'It was very kind of Fraser to lend it to me when I had nothing warm enough to wear.'

  Siriol nodded a stiff acknowledgment and turned at once to Fraser. 'You didn't tell me you were taking Bethan riding this morning.' Her voice betrayed her jealousy, and Bethan wanted to cry out that there was no need for it.

  'A gentle amble to the bottom of the vineyard and back through Copp's Meadow? You don't call that a ride.' Fraser's eyes gleamed at Bethan mockingly and she knew he was remembering her hell-for-leather style of horsemanship of years ago when her only ambition had been to outstrip him. 'Both horses still have a gallop in them. Hop up, Siriol, and we'll let them stretch their legs up on the common.'

  It was as if someone had turned a light on inside Siriol as she sprang lithely into the saddle Bethan had just vacated. 'Ten o'clock suit you, Bethan? I'll pick you up then. 'Bye.' Without waiting for an answer she cantered out of the yard, Fraser following close behind, leaving Bethan feeling unjustifiably lonely and forlorn.

  The weather had brightened considerably by the time Siriol's small cream sports-car swept into the drive and tooted imperiously, though the brisk wind still drove scudding clouds across the sun from time to time. Siriol's buoyant mood at Fraser's invitation to ride with him seemed to have deserted her again, and the younger girl swung between forced cheerfulness and preoccupied silence on the drive through the lush country lanes. It was Saturday and the small market town was busy so they had to drive round the narrow streets before they found a space to park and eventually finished up near the castle.

  Siriol recommended what she considered to be the best shop Framlingham had to offer, but with a doubtful glance at the younger girl's stylish linen dress and matching jacket, Bethan protested that she needed something warm and hard-wearing and definitely not expensive.

  'Oh, I don't shop there myself,' Siriol admitted

  blithely. 'At least, only occasionally for things like jeans and tights. But I'm sure they'll be able to fix you up.'

  Smiling without rancour at her companion's unintentionally crushing remark, Bethan allowed herself to be overruled, and half an hour later she had selected a couple of sweaters—one thick and one much lighter—a pair of warmer trousers that would go with either of them and much more fashionably cut than any she already owned, and a woollen blazer-style jacket.

  Siriol was riffling along a dress-rack while Bethan paid for her puchases and drew out a cotton sundress in a lovely shade of sea-green.

  'Thinking of buying it?' Bethan asked.

  'It's very pretty.' Siriol was looking at it covetously. 'Pity it's not my size. It would fit you, though, and it's just your colour.' She said it reluctantly, as if she regretted it as soon as the words were spoken.

  It was indeed a pretty dress, but with both the back and the front scooped out low, Bethan knew it wasn't for her and shook her head regretfully. 'No, I don't think so, Siriol.'

  Oddly Siriol looked pleased at her refusal to be tempted, and contrarily Bethan found herself wanting very much to have something pretty she could change into in the evenings. Her eyes travelled on along the rail, stopping at a black silk shirt. 'But something like this . .' She reached it off the rail. 'This wouldn't put anyone off their food, would it?'

  Of course Siriol didn't know what she was talking about and Bethan felt obliged to explain. 'My back was burned in that bomb blast, that's why I could never wear anything as revealing as that green dress.'

  Siriol's mouth and eyes rounded, but before she could comment, the assistant, seeing another sale, said helpfully, 'There's a black skirt that'll go perfectly with that blouse.'

  And it did, a skirt of fine Indian crimped cotton that clung to her hips but swirled around her legs as she

  moved. 'My, that really does something for you!' The assistant was back again, clasping a gold belt round her waist and urging her into high-heeled black sandals.

  Bethan stared at the woman reflected in the mirror and it was like looking at a stranger, someone almost—beautiful! The body of the blouse was opaque and hid her disfigurement, but the full sleeves were of a fine chiffon that revealed the gleam of her skin and the plunging vee neckline was softened by ruffles of the same fabric. A surge of amazed excitement brought a glow to skin that looked almost opalescent against the black and gave a glitter to her green eyes, while her halo of hair looked as if it had been burnished.

  Bethan found herself paying for her new finery in a daze, unaware that Siriol had grown steadily more silent. 'Now, what about your errands?' Bethan said as they left the shop.

  Siriol looked at her blankly for a moment as if her thoughts had been elsewhere. 'Oh, that doesn't matter,' she muttered. 'Let's have a coffee, shall we?'

  She led the way to a nearby café but it was crowded and they had to share a table, and Bethan had barely time to drink her coffee before Siriol was urging her out again and straight back to the car-park.

  Her parcels safely in the boot, Bethan looked up at the outer walls of the castle as she waited for Siriol to unlock the passenger door, wishing she could have explored it while she was so close and wondering what was quaintly odd about it. And then she realised most of the towers were topped by tall, decorated chimney-pots that looked as if they dated back to Tudor times, something she didn't recall having seen on a ruined castle before.

  But for all her hurry, Siriol made no attempt to start the
engine when at last Bethan was sitting beside her. She sat gripping the steering-wheel staring straight ahead, her young body so stiff with tension her knuckles gleamed white. Bethan glanced at her

  curiously, hesitant about breaking in on the other girl's

  preoccupation. 'Is there something wrong, Siriol?' she

  eventually asked. 'You seem worried about something.'

  For several seconds Siriol sat unmoving as if she hadn't heard, then turning her head she looked directly at Bethan. 'Shouldn't I be?' she challenged, her dark eyes defensive, uncertain. It was only when she recognised Bethan's bewilderment as genuine that she hunched her shoulders, letting her defensive gaze fall to her hands where she began to twist her engagement ring.

  'I'm sorry, maybe I've got things wrong,' she muttered. 'I hope I've got things wrong, only—Bethan, I've got to ask. Just what was there between you and Fraser when you knew him before?'

  Bethan drew in an audible breath while the question seemed to echo and re-echo round her brain. 'Nothing!' she got out at last in a strangled voice.

  But Siriol seized on her hesitation, not realising Bethan had been too surprised and shaken to know quite how to answer. 'You don't really expect me to believe that, do you? I may be a lot younger than Fraser but I'm neither stupid nor blind. He—he's different since you came here, sort of edgy, angry even. At first I thought it was because he didn't like you, but lately ...' There was a despairing catch in her voice. 'He hardly seems o see me any more when you're there. He

  Bethan knew she had to stop this. Putting a hand on the other girl's arm she said fiercely, 'Don't! Believe me, you're upsetting yourself over nothing. Fraser's never thought of me in the way you seem to imagine.'

  'Am I imagining it?' Siriol looked very young and defenceless as she searched Bethan's face. 'Are you honestly saying there was never anything between you and Fraser?'