Conflict Of Hearts

by Liz Fielding

  ‘I waited-’

  Noah turned, and she wondered if he had heard. His expression told her nothing as he bestowed a dazzling smile upon her. The ability to act, she thought, must run in the family. ‘Enjoying yourself, darling?’ he murmured.

  She forced herself to smile back. ‘I’m having a wonderful time. Darling,’ she added as Noah’s eyes prompted her.

  ‘You always did love the opera,’ Peter said as he turned away. ‘I was going to bring you myself once.’

  ‘For my eighteenth birthday.’

  ‘Was it?’ He frowned. ‘Why—?’

  ‘You went to Italy for the summer. You didn’t come back in time.’ It was getting easier, she found, to force the smiles. ‘You sent me a postcard.’

  ‘Florence is wonderful’, he had written. ‘I’m staying an extra week. You should have come with me’. And she had cried herself to sleep for a week because she had wanted to, more than anything else in the world. And he had forgotten his promise to take her to Covent Garden for her birthday. He hadn’t even remembered to send her a card.

  They arrived at their box and Noah ushered them all inside. There were chocolates and flowers—white roses for Fran, red for Lizzie—and exquisite, silk-embroidered programmes that Francesca exclaimed over.

  ‘Will you sit here, Francesca?’ Noah held the chair for her. ‘And Elizabeth—you here, between us.’ He took her hand and did not release it even when she was seated, entwining her fingers between his as if he could not bear to let them go. It was the tender gesture of a man in love, not to be missed, and Peter did not miss it. He took the remaining chair on the other side of his wife without comment, his mouth a tight, disapproving line.

  The minute the lights went down Lizzie snatched her hand away. Undaunted, Noah draped his arm across the back of her chair. But she no longer cared. As the overture swelled she leaned forward, determined not to miss a note. There was no reason why she shouldn’t enjoy the performance on stage, even if the one being enacted in the tight little world of their box made her feel slightly sick.

  The music came at her in great waves, washing over her with drama, colour and passion, and for a while she could forget the dreadful day. It was something of a shock, when the lights came on for the interval, to find herself back in the awkward little circle.

  ‘You and Noah seem to be quite an item,’ Fran said as she whisked a comb through a soft cloud of dark hair in the powder room. ‘To be honest, what with Peter’s mother being so tight-lipped and you looking pretty knocked back this afternoon... I thought that you and Peter might have had something going...’

  Lizzie swallowed. ‘Is that why you married him before you flew to London?’ She managed a pretty convincing laugh. She was proud of herself. ‘Just in case he had a girl back home?’

  ‘We’ve been married two months, Lizzie.’ And to her astonishment Fran blushed. ‘It was a rush job.’ Confused thoughts crowded into Lizzie’s head. Two months? That long? He’d been rushed into marrying this girl? He hadn’t known that she was free...

  ‘You’re pregnant?’

  ‘The baby miscarried,’ Fran said, ‘two days after the wedding.’ Her face clouded at this painful memory. Then she touched her waist protectively. ‘But maybe this time...’ Then she smiled at Lizzie. ‘I haven’t told Peter this time. He was so disappointed before...’

  Unable to decide whether everything was infinitely worse or infinitely better, Lizzie kept smiling somehow. ‘I hope everything will go well this time. Mrs Hallam will be thrilled to be a grandmother. She’s been so looking forward—’ Lizzie stopped before Fran wondered why she would have been discussing grandchildren with Mrs Hallam. ‘But I thought you were married within the last day or two,’ she said. ‘Peter’s mother never said a word when I saw her last week.’

  ‘She didn’t know. Your father’s invitation arrived, and Peter thought it was a good opportunity to come over and tell his parents face to face.’

  She should have been shocked, but oddly she was not. It didn’t surprise her at all that Peber had opted to introduce his new wife to his parents surrounded by the entire village, thus avoiding a private and very sticky confrontation with his father. ‘They were very kind,’ Fran continued, ‘considering...’

  ‘Mrs Hallam is a dear. She’ll soon get over the surprise. Especially once you tell her the good news.’ She would have to. They all would.

  ‘I wish I could be so sure.’

  ‘Believe me, she’s the kindest woman.’

  Francesca smiled, obviously reassured to some extent. ‘So,’ she asked, ‘when are you and Noah going to set a date?’

  Lizzie was jolted out of her dark thoughts. ‘Noah and I?’ She stared at their reflections in the mirror, the contrast between her sophisticated black dress and Fran’s scarlet frills. Fran might be her senior by two or three years, an investment analyst with a job at one of the world’s great banks, but at the moment it was ‘little’ Lizzie French who looked the older, the wiser of the two. She felt it by a hundred years.

  ‘Noah’s not the marrying kind, Fran.’ And the ripple of laughter that followed deserved an Academy award. ‘But the sex is great.’ And with that simple lie she let go of Peter and all the dreams she had cherished since he had fished her out of the village pond when she was six.

  They were both laughing when they finally joined the men in the crush bar. Noah gave Lizzie a sharp look as he handed her the fruit juice she had asked for.

  ‘What on earth have you two been talking about for so long?’ Peter asked a little edgily.

  ‘Girl-talk, honey,’ Fran said, looping her arm in his and giving it a little squeeze. ‘Lizzie has been telling me a few things about you that she thought I ought to know.’

  ‘Really?’ Noah asked, deeply interested. ‘What sort of things?’ Lizzie and Fran exchanged a glance and burst out laughing again. ‘Don’t rush your drinks, you two,’ Noah said to Fran and Peter as the bell rang. ‘You’ve got a couple of minutes.’ And he took Lizzie’s glass from her and placed it on the bar.

  His grip on her elbow was deceptively firm as he steered her back to their box. ‘You didn’t waste any time making friends with the bride,’ he said angrily, closing the door behind them.

  ‘I like her,’ she said.

  ‘And it’s so much easier to be near the husband when the wife likes you.’

  Lizzie sighed. ‘Doesn’t all that moral outrage stick in your throat, Noah? You’re no angel.’

  ‘I’ve never messed with anyone’s marriage.’

  ‘A bit complicated, I expect, for someone of your advanced years.’

  ‘I manage,’ he said through gritted teeth, and without warning jerked her into his arms. ‘I manage very well.’

  No... The word formed on her lips but never disturbed the rose-scented air. Down in the auditorium the noise level began to rise as people returned to their seats, but up in the box, screened by the looped velvet curtains, the only sound was the tiniest gasp as his lips brushed hers with a teasing lightness that sent a fizz of adrenalin racing through her body.

  No! The word panicked in her head, but her body wasn’t listening. Instead her lids fluttered down over a pair of startled blue eyes and her own lips parted on a little sigh.

  His tongue touched hers, for a moment lingered, tasting the sweetness of her mouth, then stroked masterfully along the length of it, sparking an electrifying response that carried her away on a roller coaster of wild sensations—shocking new feelings that made the blood sing in her veins. He tasted male—strong and exciting and dangerous. And she needed someone to love her, hold her, make her forget... Her lungs filled with the scent of him, and for a brief, crazy moment she was responding with unashamed passion.

  ‘Should we have knocked?’ Fran’s amusement drove them apart, but far from being embarrassed Noah laughed softly, deep down in his throat, and dropped another light kiss upon Lizzie’s mouth.

  ‘It’s the Puccini factor, Fran. Elizabeth tends to get rather carried
away. She listens to him in bed...’ He regarded her flaming cheeks without compassion. ‘Don’t you darling?’ he insisted, his voice gentle but his eyes flint-hard.

  She reached up and touched his cheek with the tips of her fingers. ‘You’ve never complained,’ she observed, and thoroughly enjoyed the jolt of surprise that widened his grey eyes. ‘Have you, darling?’

  ‘Perhaps you should know that I prefer Mozart,’ he murmured, for her ears alone, and handed her back to her seat as, mercifully, the lights dimmed to disguise her heated cheeks.

  Only when the curtain came down on the final act and she let out a long, slow breath did she realise that she was clutching Noah’s hand, her fingers gripping so tightly that he was unable to withdraw it without disturbing her concentration. She just managed to stop herself from snatching her hand away. Then she saw the marks that her nails had made.

  ‘Oh, Noah, I’m sorry.’

  ‘Are you?’ His voice was hardly audible, but he clearly thought that she had done it on purpose. ‘Perhaps you should kiss it better,’ he suggested, offering his palm.

  Aware that Fran and Peter were watching this exchange with fascination, she touched his hand lightly with her finger. ‘Later—I promise,’ she murmured. Then the curtain was drawn back and the audience erupted in enthusiastic applause.

  ‘Thank you so much, Noah, for the most wonderful evening,’ Fran said as they collected their belongings.

  ‘It isn’t over unless you want it to be. I’ve a table booked at Annabel’s.’

  Dismay swept over Lizzie. She had done everything that he had asked of her—more. More than he would ever know. But it was as if he was intent on punishing her. She had been up since dawn, she was tired, and her head was stuffed with a day full of misery. But as Fran exclaimed with delight she knew that she had no choice but to play his game until the bitter end.

  The crowd was beginning to thin a little, and Harper had the car waiting for them at the kerb as they emerged from the theatre. Noah helped Fran into the back, then Lizzie. Peter followed. ‘I don’t take up quite as much space as you, Noah,’ he said. ‘You’ll be more comfortable in the front.’

  Noah conceded gracefully but Lizzie, confined against Peter, sincerely wished he hadn’t. With painful intensity the ride brought back memories of other times when they had squashed together in the back of someone’s car, to go to a party, or to the cinema in Melchester. Then his arm would have been around her and he would have been laughing at something she had said. Now, as they swept through Trafalgar Square, he leaned across to Fran to point out the sights, knocking Lizzie’s bag from her lap.

  He retrieved it after a moment’s fumbling on the floor of the car and handed it back to her. ‘Sorry, Lizzie.’

  ‘No problem,’ she said. And somehow those four words said it all.

  It was a relief when the car came to a halt in Berkeley Square. Then they were enveloped in the noisy atmosphere of the nightclub and speech was no longer a necessity. The champagne was broached, Noah proposed a toast to the newlyweds, then Fran pulled Peter onto the dance floor and they disappeared in the throng.

  ‘In every relationship they say that one partner loves and the other is loved,’ Noah remarked. ‘I’d say Peter is a man who likes to be loved.’

  ‘Then he should be happy with Fran. She loves him enough for two.’

  ‘For some men that just isn’t enough.’

  ‘You should know.’

  He ignored her remark, flipping open her evening bag to extract a small folded piece of paper between two fingers. ‘Neat trick, but not very original.’ He offered her the paper. ‘What does he say?’

  Lizzie shrank back, too horrified by the implication of the note even to touch it.

  ‘I’ll hazard a guess, shall I?’ He stared at the paper as if he could see through it. “I must see you”—’ he looked up ‘—closely followed by instructions on how to achieve that aim. Of course—’ he shrugged ‘—I may be wrong.’

  She snatched the note from his fingers and dropped it into an ashtray. Then she tore a match from the complimentary book on the table, struck it and touched the flame to the paper. It burned briefly, the thin curl of smoke sharp in her nostrils, before it crumpled to ash. ‘Now we’ll never know, will we?’

  Lizzie no longer needed Noah to drive her. Francesca had been easy to convince that they were lovers. Now she must be sure that Peter believed it too. Believed that even if he had been free she would no longer have been interested. She tried desperately to remember what she had said to him when he had arrived at the wedding.

  ‘Just as well it was a short note,’ Noah said drily, interrupting her thoughts, ‘or you might have set off the sprinkler system. Shall we dance?’ It wasn’t an invitation to be taken lightly or refused. He was already on his feet, and she rose, too tired to go through with the ritual protest.

  He folded her in his arms and they moved in time to the music. It wasn’t dancing—the floor was too crowded for anything that positive—but it served his purpose. His hand at her back gathered her in against his lithe body, demonstrating quite effectively to anyone who was interested that she belonged to him. She didn’t resist. Peter might be watching. Instead she put her arms about Noah’s neck and leaned against him, resting her head against his shoulder.

  For a while they moved together to the slow rhythm of the music and Lizzie felt an unexpected charge of excitement against the warmth of his body, his thighs moving against hers, his hands caressing her back. She leaned back in his arms and stared up at him.

  ‘Kiss me, Noah,’ she invited huskily.

  He regarded her from dark, heavy-lidded eyes. ‘You think making him jealous will bring him back?’ His voice was soft, dangerous. She shook her head, too close to tears now to speak.

  ‘Just kiss me.’

  He hesitated, then briefly his lips touched hers, and in that moment she understood what was meant by ‘rebound’. If they hadn’t been in a crowded nightclub at that moment, she would willingly have fallen into Noah’s bed.

  ‘Elizabeth?’ His fingers touched her cheek. ‘You’re crying.’

  ‘Everyone cries at weddings, Noah. Didn’t you know that?’ She allowed him to mop her cheeks. It wouldn’t do for Peter to suspect that she was anything but deliriously happy. But she had come to the end of her tether, and when they arrived back at their table to find Fran and Peter waiting for them, she was leaning against Noah more than convincingly.

  ‘I’m afraid jet lag has caught up with us, Noah. I hope you don’t mind us deserting you?’ Peter said, apparently unable even to look at Lizzie.

  ‘On the contrary—it’s been a long day all round. We’ll drop you at your hotel.’

  As they pulled up in Albemarle Street Fran said, ‘Can we meet some time this week, Lizzie? Perhaps go shopping?’ Lizzie hesitated. She liked Fran, but wasn’t sure that she could cope with the complications of such a friendship.

  ‘Make it Thursday,’ Noah intervened. ‘Elizabeth will take you to Fortnum’s and indoctrinate you in the art of the British tea ceremony. And I’ve a new exhibition opening in the evening. You can both come and join us for dinner afterwards.’

  The sun was already high when Mrs Harper finally drew back the curtains to let in the day. ‘I’m sorry to wake you, Miss Lizzie, but Mr Jordan said not to leave you any later.’

  ‘What time is it?’ She struggled up from the pillow, blinking sleepily through heavy eyes, her head throbbing.

  ‘Just after ten. Mr Jordan had his breakfast hours ago and he’s gone down to the gallery, so I’ve brought you a tray and the papers. There’s a lovely picture of Miss Olivia... I’ll have to get used to calling her Mrs French now, won’t I?’ She laughed a little self-consciously. ‘And your father, of course. Such a distinguished man. It’s in that one—’ she indicated one of the papers ‘—and one of you and Mr Jordan in those two.’ She straightened. ‘He said to tell you that he’ll be taking you out to lunch.’

  ‘Did he?’ Then she
supposed he would. He seemed to get everything he wanted, but the sooner she found somewhere to live the better, she thought, picking up the first of the papers. The marriage of a well-known actress always interested the Press, and there had been a group of photographers outside the church. Noah, too, was a favourite, but she was surprised that they had printed a photograph of her.

  Mrs Harper withdrew, and Lizzie poured herself a cup of tea and began to leaf through. The wedding had made a bit of a splash on the inside pages, but there was no picture of her, or Noah. She shrugged and flicked through the second paper. But it wasn’t a photograph of the wedding that caught her eye.

  It was a photograph of Noah, his hand at her back, escorting her into the theatre. There was a brief caption—‘Noah Jordan arriving at a charity gala last night with his house guest, the beautiful Elizabeth French.’ She remembered that he had paused briefly to exchange a word with someone, introduce her. There had been so many flashes that she had not noticed a camera pointed specifically at them.

  Her brows drew together in a tiny frown. The photograph made her look different somehow. The soft material of the black dress emphasised her figure as it clung to curves that she had always thought rather boyish, and the jewels at her throat and ears added to the illusion of sophisticated womanhood.

  If it had been a photograph of another woman she would have been convinced that they were—House guest! It didn’t take much intelligence to work out who had told the journalist that. It was one thing convincing Peter and Fran that they were lovers; did he have to invite the whole world to share in the deception?

  With a little snap of anger she dropped the paper. She went into the bathroom and stood under a fierce shower jet until she felt more like herself. Then she dressed in a pair of blue jeans and a plain white T-shirt and, leaving her hair loose about her shoulders, surveyed her reflection.

  ‘The beautiful Elizabeth French’ indeed! Not this morning, with eyes red-rimmed from the hours spent shedding tears into her pillow. A little make-up helped. But it would be Lizzie French that Noah took out to lunch today, not some femme fatale that he had created out of Olivia’s leftovers.