The Longest Pleasure

by Anne Mather

  For her part, Helen had been too shocked to feel any immediate sense of blame. This was what she had dreaded, she thought sickly, coming upon Rafe in this way; and the additional proof of his friendship with Antonia was like a knife turning in her stomach. Ever since her conversation with Mrs Pride the night before, she had been struggling to convince herself that the housekeeper had exaggerated their association. She had known how Mrs Pride liked to gossip, and it was obvious that anything Rafe did now was bound to cause speculation. The last time she had seen Rafe and Antonia together, there had been no evidence of a lingering closeness, on his part at least and, in spite of the housekeeper’s conviction, Helen had succeeded in shelving any judgement.

  Now, however, she realised how naive she had been. The way Antonia turned to Rafe for help, the ease with which he handled her horse, their instinctive closeness—all spoke of an intimacy Helen could not fail to identify. And Antonia’s plaintive: ‘Darling!’ when Rafe rode towards the car only underlined their familiarity.

  Helen considered locking all the doors and refusing to put her window down, but that would have been childish. So instead, she did the opposite, thrusting open her door and getting out with every appearance of confidence.

  She was glad that once again she had taken some trouble over her appearance. It was always easier to face any situation if one knew one was looking one’s best, and the pale grey fringed suede skirt and matching thigh-length jacket were extremely flattering. She had lost weight since he had seen her last, but the loose folds of a dark red voile smock concealed it. The colour of the smock added warmth to her cheeks, too, and its upstanding collar was a perfect foil for the loosely-drawn chignon at her nape.

  Rafe swung down from the chestnut’s back to speak to her, but it was barely a concession. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’ he snarled, briefly at the mercy of his temper, and Helen found new strength in this unexpected display of emotion.

  ‘Mrs Pride invited me,’ she said, gaining a little support from the frame of the wing at her hip. Her eyes met his only fleetingly. ‘I’m not forbidden to cross your land, am I?’

  Rafe’s mouth compressed. ‘You were driving too fast.’

  ‘Was I?’

  ‘You could have run us down.’

  Helen glanced over his shoulder at Antonia, noticing that the other girl was still sitting on her horse. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘But you shouldn’t have charged out in front of me. Besides,’ she toyed with the fringe of her jacket, ‘you were never in any danger.’

  Rafe soothed the chestnut with a hand over its nose, his long fingers caressing the velvety muzzle. ‘What are you doing in these parts anyway?’ he demanded. ‘Surely you haven’t driven down from London, just to see Mrs Pride!’

  ‘No.’ Helen moistened her lips, her eyes glued to the sensual motion of his hand. He had such beautiful hands, she thought, her heart constricting at the memory of those hands upon her body. ‘I—had another reason for coming,’ she admitted, smearing her own damp palms along her sleeves. ‘You don’t object to my visiting the old lady, do you? I imagine she finds it rather lonely, now that she doesn’t have either my—grandmother or Miss Paget to talk to.’

  ‘Why should I?’ Rafe’s dark face was sombre and withdrawn. ‘You’ll come to the house afterwards, I suppose.’

  ‘I——’ Helen started to say she had no intention of calling at the house, but then something, Antonia’s watchful face perhaps, aroused a latent sense of defiance inside her. ‘All right,’ she agreed, as if that had been her object all along, and silenced her outraged conscience by ignoring it. She would like to see the improvements he had made, she told herself recklessly, refusing to consider what else she might be inviting. With a casual nod in Antonia’s direction, she got back into the car, and as soon as Rafe stepped back, she drove on towards the cottage.

  Mrs Pride took the news that she was going to the house without surprise. ‘It’s only right,’ she declared, pouring Helen another cup of tea. ‘I should have been surprised if you’d come all this way without having a word with Rafe. He is your cousin, after all, and just because he’s running the place now doesn’t mean you should stay away. I said to you, when your grandmother died, I said, Castle Howarth’s your home. It always will be, and goodness’ knows, it’ll be a change to see someone at the house who has a right to be there.’

  ‘Oh, Mrs Pride——’

  ‘Never mind saying “Oh, Mrs Pride” like I didn’t know what I was talking about. I mean it. It will do that brazen minx good to have some competition. She’ll be there, you know. You mark my words. If even half of what Connie says is true, Miss Markham’ll be taking up permanent residence there any day now!’

  With this conversation on her mind, Helen drove the short distance from Copse Cottage to the house in a state of some agitation. It had been all very well adopting a defiant stance that afternoon, when to some extent she had had the advantage. It was a different prospect to anticipate facing Rafe on his own ground, particularly if Antonia was with him, and successfully recovered from the afternoon’s fiasco.

  She saw with some relief that the house looked exactly the same as when she had left it. Whatever improvements had been made inside, nothing could alter the solid stone strength of its façade, and its ivy-clad walls were poignantly familiar.

  She parked the car on the forecourt and, taking a deep breath, got out. There was no sign that Rafe had any other visitors. The drive was singularly free of other vehicles. But remembering that Antonia had been on horseback, Helen supposed that was no guarantee.

  It was galling to have to use the heavy brass ring to gain admittance. But although she had still retained her keys, she suspected Rafe might have changed the locks, and she refused to risk making an idiot of herself by finding out.

  Connie Sellers opened the door to her, her eyes widening at the sight of their visitor. ‘Why—Miss Michaels,’ she exclaimed, without enthusiasm. ‘This is a surprise. Is Rafe expecting you?’

  Rafe! Helen took another deep breath. ‘He knows I’m coming, yes,’ she said, waiting for the other girl to move out of the doorway, but before she could voice the suggestion, Rafe appeared behind her.

  ‘That’s okay, Connie,’ he said, and his casual words were an unmistakable dismissal. ‘Come in, Helen,’ he added, as the maid retreated up the stairs. ‘Do you really need an invitation?’

  Helen hesitated only a moment before stepping into the narrow confines of the vestibule. Then, anticipating that Rafe would need to reach past her to close the door, she backed up against it, achieving the dual objective of putting some space between them and saving him the trouble.

  She guessed he had apprehended her intention by the way his eyes glittered in the light from the overhead chandelier. But he made no comment as he led the way up the stairs, and Helen’s attention was soon diverted by the improvements he had made.

  The long hallway had been redecorated. Gone was the drab paint and dowdy carpets. In their place, light, silk-hung walls formed a backcloth for a rich Turkish carpet, and all wooden surfaces had been re-stained and varnished. Even the ceiling had been attended to, the cracked plaster, Helen remembered, replaced with embossed linen.

  Not giving her a chance to make any comment, Rafe walked into the room that had been her grandmother’s sitting room when she was alive. The door was open, and as he evidently expected her to follow him, Helen complied. But she stopped short at the sight of Antonia Markham, lounging carelessly on a squashy leather sofa, and she thought how prudent Mrs Pride had been to forewarn her.

  The room itself was exquisite, but Helen only received an impression of its pale primrose walls, hung with paintings by Monet and Matisse, instead of the heavy oils that had been exhibited there in her grandmother’s day. Her whole attention was focussed on the young woman reclining on the couch and, although out of the corner of her eye she was aware that her grandmother’s desk still stood in its usual place, and that the character of the room hadn’t been c
hanged, it was impossible to appreciate its beauty.

  Antonia had evidently been home to change—unless she kept a wardrobe here, Helen amended dourly—and in place of the hacking-jacket and riding breeches she had been wearing that afternoon, she was elegantly attired in a black silk jersey sheath and little else. She looked very much at home, sitting on Rafe’s sofa, drinking a gin and tonic Rafe had no doubt made for her. She made Helen feel like an interloper—which had probably been her intention.

  ‘Well, well,’ she murmured, waving her glass in a gesture of acknowledgement. ‘The prodigal returns!’

  ‘Shut up, Toni,’ said Rafe, without heat. ‘Sit down, Helen. Can I get you a drink?’

  ‘I—oh, yes. Whatever you’re having,’ said Helen, torn by a mixture of emotions, the strongest of which, she was ashamed to admit, was jealousy. But finding Antonia here, already acting like the mistress of the manor, was more harrowing than she could ever have imagined. Rafe couldn’t be thinking of marrying Antonia, she told herself fiercely. He couldn’t! But she was not convinced.——,

  ‘Yes, sit down, Helen,’ Antonia remarked now, patting the cushion beside her. ‘It’s all right. I’ve forgiven you. Even if you did cause Moonlight to practically have hysterics this afternoon!’

  ‘Not to mention her rider,’ commented Rafe mockingly, and Antonia pulled a face at him.

  ‘Well——’ she exclaimed defensively. ‘It wasn’t my fault. You weren’t exactly overjoyed yourself.’

  ‘No.’ Rafe conceded the point, and then noticing that Helen was still standing he gave her a studied look. ‘Is something wrong?’

  ‘No.’ It was Helen’s turn to be defensive now. ‘I—was just observing the decor.’

  ‘Isn’t it divine?’ Antonia sounded smug. ‘So light and spacious. It was always such a gloomy room. Didn’t you think so?’

  ‘As a matter of fact, I always thought it was rather a cosy room,’ declared Helen, with more weight than conviction, and Rafe’s mouth twisted with resignation.

  ‘Here,’ he said, handing her a squat tumbler of gin over ice before proceeding to add tonic to the glass. ‘Say when.’

  ‘When,’ said Helen, almost at once, and then winced when she tasted the practically undiluted gin. ‘Hmm—lovely!’

  Rafe returned the tonic to the tray, and then, pushing his hands into the pockets of his cream corded trousers, he regarded her with disturbing intensity. His brown, brushed cotton sweat-shirt was zipped up to a kind of cowl neckline, the sleeves thrust back almost to his elbows, and Helen guessed the moisture at his hairline was a hangover from his shower. Had they showered together? she wondered tensely, but aware of Rafe’s eyes upon her, she stifled the thought. She felt guiltily as if he could read what she was thinking, and she hastily transferred her attention to the ormolu clock on the mantelshelf. Evidently the heating had been renewed, too, for the old clanking radiators had disappeared and in their place hot air vents provided a more than adequate alternative. Only the fireplace remained the same, with a handful of logs smouldering in the blackened grate.

  ‘I gather you’re not planning on driving back to London tonight,’ Rafe observed, as she persevered with the gin. ‘Are you staying with Mrs Pride?’

  ‘No.’ Helen’s tongue circled her lips. ‘No, as a matter of fact, I’m staying at the Plough, in Hazelhurst.’

  ‘Hazelhurst!’ put in Antonia in some surprise, but Rafe was not looking at her.

  ‘That’s miles away,’ he declared flatly. ‘You can’t stay at Hazelhurst!’

  ‘Why not?’ Helen was taken aback.

  ‘Look, I understand your reluctance to stay in the village,’ said Rafe evenly, ‘but there’s no reason why you shouldn’t stay here.’

  ‘Here!’ Helen was astounded, and Antonia gave a little squeak of anguish.

  ‘Yes, here,’ said Rafe, deaf to her protests. ‘I’ll return your question: why not?’

  Helen caught her breath. ‘With—with you and your—your mistress?’ she choked scornfully, stung into retaliation, and Rafe shrugged.

  ‘How about—with the woman I expect to marry,’ he countered, and Antonia’s petulance melted into a look of such smirking satisfaction that Helen felt physically sick.

  ‘I—I don’t believe that,’ she said, praying that it wasn’t true, but Antonia had already left her place on the couch to slide her arm possessively through Rafe’s.

  ‘Darling,’ she breathed huskily, rubbing herself against him. ‘Why didn’t you say?’

  ‘Because he can’t,’ blurted Helen at once, not even giving herself time to consider her words before they were uttered.

  ‘Can’t?’ exclaimed Antonia scornfully. ‘Who are you to tell me——’

  ‘Why can’t I?’ Rafe cut in sharply, his green eyes narrowly intent, and Helen knew a momentary twinge of terror as she met his suspicious gaze.

  ‘Because you can’t,’ she said, throwing caution to the winds and clinging to her glass like grim death. ‘You can’t marry anyone. Except me, that is. I—I’m pregnant!’

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  AFTERWARDS, Helen realised Rafe must have assumed that this was what she had meant when she had said she had another reason for coming to Wiltshire. At the time, her announcement had sounded so false to her own ears, she had been sure it must sound equally as false to theirs. But, evidently, she was a more convincing actress than she had thought.

  Antonia’s immediate reaction had been one of contempt that Helen should think she could saddle Rafe with the responsibility for her unborn child, and her scathing response was swift and malicious. ‘What’s the matter, Helen?’ she taunted mockingly. ‘Have you realised you were a little premature in giving Adam his marching orders? I heard you two had split up. Well, you’ll just have to hope he’s prepared to be generous——’

  ‘Can it, Toni, will you?’ Rafe was obviously trying to think—calculating dates, probably, thought Helen uneasily—and his tone was not friendly. ‘When did you find out?’

  ‘I—a week ago,’ lied Helen, her face burning, and Antonia, sensing something here that she had been unaware of, turned abruptly to stare at him.

  ‘Have you slept with her?’ she demanded of a grim-faced Rafe, and his almost indifferent acknowledgement momentarily left her speechless. But then, a stream of abuse spilled from her lips and Helen listened, appalled, at the other girl’s use of vocabulary. Her tirade was in no way tempered by the fact that Rafe ignored it, and in spite of her revulsion, Helen almost felt sorry for her.

  ‘When?’ Rafe was asking now. ‘When is the baby due?’ and Helen did some rapid arithmetic before saying nervously, ‘November!’

  ‘And is it yours?’ demanded Antonia, her anger giving way to a tearful petulance.

  Rafe lifted his shoulders in an insulting gesture. ‘It could be,’ he conceded, and now it was Helen’s turn to be affronted.

  ‘Of course it’s yours!’ she cried, carried away by emotion, and for a moment she half believed it herself.

  ‘I think you’d better leave us, Toni.’ Rafe said now, his face devoid of all expression. ‘Take the Range Rover. I’ll collect it in the morning.’

  ‘Can’t I stay?’ Antonia gazed at him appealingly. ‘Oh, I realise you want to speak to her in private, but I could wait——’

  ‘No, Antonia.’ Rafe’s denial was absolute. ‘I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Good night.’

  She reached up to kiss him, but he turned his face so that her lips only grazed his cheek, and her eyes were malevolent when they rested on Helen. ‘I’m only loaning him to you,’ she declared, risking Rafe’s condemnation, and then, with a forced smile of triumph, she sauntered out of the room.

  Rafe closed the door behind her with the weight of his body, and then turned the full force of his anger on Helen. ‘Well,’ he said harshly. ‘I hope you’re satisfied. You realise news of your condition will be all over the estate tomorrow!’

  Helen blanched. ‘Why should it be?’

  ‘Oh, come on �
��’ Rafe was impatient. ‘Antonia’s not going to keep a piece of news like this to herself. Either way you look at it, she’s got nothing to lose. If I choose to deny the child is mine, she’ll have blackened your reputation. And if it is mine, then she’ll have had some satisfaction in pre-empting an announcement.’

  Helen swallowed. ‘What do you mean—if the child is yours?’ She was committed now, and she had to go on. ‘I haven’t slept with Adam since the funeral!’

  ‘I only have your word for that.’

  ‘I don’t lie!’ Well, not about that anyway, she consoled herself unhappily.

  ‘Why not?’ Rafe pushed himself away from the door, and once again she took refuge in her drink.

  ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  Rafe’s nostrils flared. ‘All right. We’ll play it your way. Why haven’t you slept with Adam since the funeral?’

  Helen swallowed a mouthful of gin, and felt it burning down into her stomach. ‘Why do you think?’

  Rafe’s face didn’t change. ‘I’m asking you.’

  Helen sighed. ‘Adam and I have had—difficulties since I got back.’

  ‘What kind of difficulties?’

  He wasn’t making it easy for her. ‘Just—difficulties,’ she insisted awkwardly. ‘We split up two months ago.’

  ‘Two months ago?’ Rafe repeated her words without emphasis. ‘So it wasn’t because you had found out you were pregnant, or anything concrete like that?’

  ‘No.’ Helen didn’t understand his reasoning. ‘We just decided we were not—compatible.’

  ‘Not compatible,’ echoed Rafe, with annoying repetition. ‘And then, out of the blue, you discovered you were going to have a baby!’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘My baby.’

  ‘Yes.’