Hostile engagement

by Jessica Steele

  `Who is Vera Stanfield?' Lucy asked bluntly, her footwear the least of her worries at that moment.

  There was a silence that stretched between them for so long that she thought Jud wasn't going to answer her, then he said, 'Vera Stanfield is Carol Stanfield's mother.'

  `Carol's mother?' she questioned, startled. She wanted to know more, much more, but she doubted Jud would tell her anything he didn't think it necessary for her to know.

  But to her surprise Jud gave in to her obvious mystification. 'Vera Stanfield and my mother have known each other for years-they were at school together. They married round about the same time and what one did the other seemed to do too. They're very close friends,' he informed her, 'and share each other's joys 'and woes. When I arrived Vera Stanfield was very upset, so I believe, that she wasn't able to produce offspring too—but that's the way it goes, and sad though it is, after ten barren years Vera and her husband adopted a baby.'

  `Carol,' Lucy put in, her confused thoughts temporarily ousted by a feeling of instant sympathy for the unknown Vera Stanfield who had so yearned for a baby.

  `Carol,' Jud confirmed. 'And what a delight she turned out to be.'

  Some of Lucy's sympathy ebbed at the warm note in Jud's voice. Surely he hadn't ... She tried to blank the thought off, but it persisted-the thought that left a nasty taste in her mouth that Jud had betrayed the trust Mrs Stanfield must have in him, the thought that he had taken her daughter ...

  `Before your mind becomes tangled up in mucky imaginings,' Jud broke into her thoughts coldly, 'I'll tell you now that Carol and I have never had an affair.'

  Lucy had no answer to that. Furious she might be that he had read her mind so accurately, but she wouldn't forgive him for that 'mucky imaginings'. What else was she to think—the girl had been wearing her ring, and all the information she had had prior to his sudden announcement to the contrary had led her to believe Carol had indeed

  shared his bed at some time or another.

  Since his remark had successfully silenced her, Jud went on : 'I've said Carol is a delight, and so she is—a bit scatterbrained maybe, but a delightful child nonetheless.'

  Lucy did some quick mental arithmetic. Jud had told her he was thirty-five, so if. Carol had arrived ten years after him, then Carol must be twenty-five. A delightful child, he had said—Carol was three years older than she was. Lucy remembered the girl with the friendly smile and realised then that probably since Jud had known Carol from the time she had been an infant, she would always appear to him to be no more than a child.

  They walked on, neither saying anything as Lucy tried to sort out her confused thoughts. A picture of her brother flashed through her mind. Rupert was the same age as Carol—a man in his own right-but she never thought of him as that, he was just the brother she had grown up with; perhaps that was how Jud regarded Carol. Lucy found the oddest pleasure in that thought and didn't know why. She shrugged thoughts of Rupert away and returned to the subject Jud must have thought finished with-there were still one or two questions that needed to be cleared up, and she considered that even as his mock-fiancée, she was entitled to have a few answers.

  * * *

  CHAPTER FIVE

  HER feet firmly rooted to the ground, Lucy came to a standstill. The more she thought about her mock engagement the more confused she became, and suddenly she wasn't going to go another step until Jud had told her what she wanted to, know. They hadn't been walking fast, just strolling up the sloping path. Jud must have been miles away with his own thoughts, but when he realised she was no longer with him he retraced his steps and came back to join her, a look of mild enquiry on his face.

  `Would you mind, Jud Hemming, telling me what exactly I'm doing being engaged to you?'

  `I thought you knew.' His tone was as mild as his look, but that didn't put her off. She knew if there was anything devious going on—and the thought that it was was growing larger by the minute—then she knew his quick-thinking brain would be doing some rapid calculations behind that bland mask.

  `That's just it-I don't know,' she said, a determined look on her face.

  Jud looked at her briefly, then turned to a bench nearby where the not-so-fit could take a breather before going on, and led her over to it. When they were both sitting down he glanced her way 'again, but Lucy didn't wait for whatever clever remark he had thought up to flatten. her with, but plunged straight in.

  `I agreed to this farce because I. believed that by showing you were engaged to me you would be extracting yourself from a very clinging female who couldn't see your affair was finished, and also in order to reclaim a ring that's rightfully mine anyway,' she told him, stating the facts as she

  * * *

  saw them, pausing only when it looked as though Jud was going to insert something. She gave him a hasty glance, but he looked quite imperturbable and had nothing to say, it seemed, except an extremely polite :

  `Do carry on,

  Lucy had no need of further invitation. 'I thought it was a straightforward deal between the two of us—naturally I felt sorry for Carol ...'

  `Naturally,' he put in.

  Lucy ignored him. 'I thought no one need know but the, three of us ...'

  `You reckoned without your brother.'

  That was below the belt, Lucy considered, but having got so far she was determined not to be put off. 'Yes, well—' she said, barely hesitating, 'That's beside the point.' She knew it wasn't, if Rupert had been able to keep the information to himself she wouldn't be here now. 'Now you tell me that you and Carol have never—never ...'

  `If you're looking for the correct term, try "Gone to bed with each other",' Jud inserted mockingly.

  `Well, if you haven't—and by the sound of it you regard Carol as no more than you would a sister—then would you mind telling me what I'm doing playing the part of your fiancée?' Lucy came to a storming, heated finish and glared at him as she thought she detected a slight twitching at the corner of his mouth.

  When he looked at her stern-faced, she knew she had mistaken that anything she had said had remotely amused him. 'You're right, my feelings for Carol are those of an elder brother, and perhaps I did give you the wrong idea about her and me-but,' he added quite calmly, 'it was you who took it for granted she was my fiancée when you came to the Hall that night-I never once claimed a relationship of that sort with her.'

  Lucy tried to think back to what exactly had been said, and found she was too worked up to remember clearly. Yes,

  she had thought him engaged to Carol, had probably said as much, but ... 'All right, I'll give you that,' she had to allow. But if Carol wasn't interested in you—that way—that still doesn't explain this.' She thrust her hand with the ring firmly on her engagement finger in front of him.

  `There you have it,' he said obscurely.

  `What ...?' Lucy asked shortly, and found herself unanswered as Jud left her to work it out for herself. 'There you have it', he'd said. What did she have? Lucy backtracked over their conversation.

  Jud had said he and Carol had not slept together, that he thought of Carol as he might a sister--Lucy puzzled away and could make nothing of what had been said to make it necessary for Jud to appear to be engaged until, about to ask him to explain, he looked at her and, reluctantly it seemed, told her what her confused brain refused to work out.

  `You remarked, I believe, "but if Carol isn't interested in you in that way".'

  And then Lucy had it. 'Oh,' she said, and couldn't for the moment think of anything smarter than that to say. `You mean that while your feelings for Carol are not romantically inclined-she, without any assistance from you, thinks herself in love with you.'

  `I'm afraid so,' Jud said slowly, then opening up, 'I've told her flatly she's wasting her time.' Lucy could just imagine how cruel Jud would be in putting that across, and winced for the poor girl. But the young minx came back with "Where there's life there's hope".'

  `So to stop Carol thinking there was a chance with you, you tol
d her you were engaged.' Lucy spoke her thoughts aloud. She couldn't help feeling sorry for the girl who had left the Hall straightaway and gone to lick her wounds in private. But how did she come to be wearing my ring? Did you just leave it lying around and ...'

  `You must think me very careless,' Jud broke in

  smoothly, and went on to tell her, 'Originally I bought the ring for my mother's birthday next month-she's very fond of antique jewellery,' Lucy winced to think she had deprived Jud's mother of something she would have loved. Not to worry,' Jud said on seeing her expression, 'I shall look around for something she'll like equally well.' He watched as Lucy's face cleared then went on, 'When I examined the ring I thought one of the stones wasn't as secure as it might have been, so I left it with a London firm of jewellers to have it checked over—Carol arranged to come and stay while my mother was at the Hall and since I hadn't any immediate plans to go to London I sent Carol the jewellers' receipt and asked her to collect the ring and bring it with her when she came. She arrived late on Sunday night and gave me the ring after my mother had gone to bed the following evening.'

  `And in the meantime you'd been to the village hall and I'd seen my ring on Carol's finger when she came into the cloakroom,' Lucy inserted.

  Jud inclined his head in agreement. 'Carol must have been overtaken by some imp of mischief and put it on in between going to collect my mother's wrap and meeting us back at the door—she certainly didn't have it on when she joined us.

  He had explained everything very smoothly, re-affirmed that the sole reason for their engagement was to stop Carol from thinking she would ever become Mrs Judson Hemming, and Lucy felt a little foolish for having brought the subject up at all when it was only slightly different from the original reason for the engagement anyway—the difference being that whereas before she had thought Carol was a girlfriend Jud had grown tired of and was using the engagement as a means of getting rid of her, she now knew he had never had an affair with the girl and that his action in getting engaged had been purely to try and stop Carol thinking romantically about him. Carol might be hurt for a

  while, Lucy mused, but wasn't Jud right? Wasn't it better, with Jud's feelings for her being those of a brother, that she should discover now she was wasting her time rather than spend her youth in hoping for something that could never be?

  Feeling uneasy that Jud wasn't the villain she had been so ready to believe he was, Lucy got up from the bench and, unable to look at him, found he had followed suit and was turning her back the way they had come.

  Dinner that evening passed without mishap. Lucy had showered and changed into a pale green kaftan with darker green embroidery picked out on all the hemlines. She saw Jud's glance flick over her when she joined him and Mrs Hemming for a pre-dinner drink and knew she was looking good, but for all she could read from his expression she might just as well be dressed in a piece of old sacking.

  Talk over the meal was fairly general, though at one stage Jud thought to hope his mother had found Mrs Stanfield well when she had telephoned her.

  `Yes, she's fine. Carol had nipped off to Tenerife—such a lively child,' she explained, turning to Lucy. 'I expect Jud has told you about Vera and Carol?'

  `Yes, he has,' Lucy smiled back, and refused to look in Jud's direction.

  `Carol came to stay at the Hall over the Bank Holiday,' Mrs Hemming went on, 'but like the butterfly creature she is, she didn't stay long.'

  It was obvious that Mrs Hemming had a deep affection for Carol and with the indulgence of long acquaintance, could see nothing wrong in the fact that Carol had suddenly taken it into her head to leave the Hall after so brief a stay. Lucy sincerely hoped the other girl was beginning to get over her hurt.

  Mrs Hemming decided to go to bed shortly after the meal, and Lucy thought she would follow suit—the last thing she wanted was to be left alone with Jud. She stirred

  in her seat, aware that Jud's eyes were on her, but before she could voice her intention to go to bed too, she heard Jud saying teasingly :

  `I don't know whether you're truly tired, Mother, or just being tactful.'

  `I am tired, Jud,' Mrs Hemming said severely, but Lucy could see a twinkle in her eye that belied the sternness, and thought fleetingly, why, she's very like Jud when she looks like that, though for the life of her she couldn't ever remember Jud's eyes twinkling. 'I was young and in love myself once,' Mrs Hemming recalled, a gentle expression ousting all severity. 'I don't suppose you will mind being left alone with each other.'

  After that, it was impossible for Lucy to carry out her intention of going to bed, and after Mrs Hemming had left she subsided back in her chair wondering how long she would have to sit it out before she could make her escape. She wondered what, if anything, she and Jud would find to talk about which wouldn't end up with her on the receiving end of his stinging sarcasm, for she doubted that such a cold man as she knew him to be would put himself out to be pleasant now there would be no one there to act as witness.

  After handing her a glass of gin and tonic, Jud took the chair facing her. 'Is your drink to your liking?' he enquired —she had asked for more tonic water than gin.

  Lucy took a sip and told him it was, 'Just right, thanks,' then searched round in her mind for some subject of conversation that might get her through the next hour. 'Do you often go to Germany?' she asked, that question being the best she could come up with, and if Jud realised she was bent on being the perfect guest, there was nothing in his face to show it amused him.

  `I visit various parts of the globe in my business,' he told her, letting her know his trip had not been purely for pleasure, and matching his mood to hers, which surprised

  her, went on to tell her, in the manner of a perfect host, about the various countries he had been to, drawing from her the admission that she had been to some of those places herself.

  Lucy found his conversation interesting. Not once had either of them said a word that would get the other to fire back, and it was with wonder that on flicking a glance to her wrist when a break in the conversation occurred, that she saw it was half past eleven.

  `Good heavens !' she exclaimed, having thought the hands might be creeping round to half past ten and that there would only be another half an hour to go before she could decently make her escape, 'it's half past eleven.' As she spoke she stood up.

  `It wasn't nearly as bad as you thought it was going to be, was it?' Jud said smoothly, as he rose to his feet and came to stand looking down into her dark brown eyes.

  So he knew she had been on edge at the thought of having to spend an hour solely in his company. 'You can be fairly tolerable when you make the effort,' she came back coolly, letting him know she had been aware that while a guest in his mother's house they had both been on their best behaviour.

  She saw his lips twitch at her remark, and without wanting to, found her own mouth turning up at the corners as she looked up at him. She saw his glance go to her mouth, and watched while all amusement went from his face.

  `I think it's time you were in bed,' he observed abruptly, giving her a tight look and turning away. 'You seem to be very slightly at risk.'

  `At risk?' she queried, feeling a sudden tingle in her veins at the tenseness that had so quickly come between them. What had his look meant—did he mean she ran the risk of being kissed? She stayed where she was when all reason told her she should go.

  Jud turned to face her, his face once more expressionless.

  `You're in danger of letting that acid little tongue of yours have its way,' he supplied calmly.

  Lucy wasn't quite sure how she got out of the room, was aware of giving him a quietly spoken, terse, 'Goodnight,' which wasn't answered, had no recollection of negotiating the stairs, and only came to life when realising she was automatically preparing for bed. She felt oddly let down, disappointed even, which was ridiculous. She hadn't wanted him to kiss her, had she, for goodness' sake? Of course she hadn't—why, the very idea was preposterous! Just because she'd spe
nt a pleasant hour and a half with him ... Pleasant? Well yes, she supposed it had been pleasant, she admitted grudgingly; the time had sped quickly by anyhow. But she had had other such evenings with many people and had never thought to be kissed at the end of it. Perhaps she'd had too much to drink, was her next thought, only she knew she hadn't, for when Jud had offered to refill her glass she had declined, and you really couldn't lose your sense of proportion on one small gin and a lot of tonic, could you?

  When Lucy got up the next morning she was able to scoff at her imaginings of the night before. Honestly, she mused, she must have been knocked off balance by the fact that Jud had bothered to play host at all with no one around to see.

  Jud had already gone out, she was informed by Lottie when she joined the housekeeper in the kitchen. It was still early yet and Mrs Hemming wasn't down. 'I'd like her to stay in bed for as long as she will,' Lottie told Lucy, and went on to explain that it had recently been discovered that Mrs Hemming had a slight heart complaint. 'Nothing too serious,' Lottie told her. 'It was only discovered when she went down with an attack of 'flu. Jud has been on at her ever since to move into a bungalow—he's not at all happy about her climbing the stairs, but Mrs Hemming can be as stubborn as Jud when she makes up her mind to anything.'

  Lucy's thoughts were still with Mrs Hemming and her slight heart condition, when Lottie said if she would like to go into the dining room she would bring her breakfast to her, and mindful of the extra work Lottie would have with her and Jud staying for the weekend, Lucy straightaway offered to make her own breakfast and asked could she eat it in the kitchen.