THE morning dragged by. Had she been on her own Genista might have entertained herself by taking a walk through the glorious Lakeland countryside, but she was not alone. Her eyes kept straying to the window which overlooked the wooded hillside, but there was no sign of Luke.
Where had he gone when he left their room? The thought of her response to his lovemaking brought a fresh stab of pain. How could she have been so blind to her own danger? How could she not have realised what was happening to her? In a less worldly age she might have described her feelings for him as ‘love at first sight’, but because such naïveté was the object of mockery amongst her contemporaries, she had wilfully deceived herself that the immediate awareness she had felt had been strong dislike. How could any woman who professed to dislike a man respond to his lovemaking the way she had responded to Luke?
He returned shortly before lunch; a meal which was eaten almost completely in silence.
‘I’ve decided that we might as well return to London,’ he announced abruptly when they had been served with their coffee. Something had happened during his walk to change him. The eyes which rested on her averted profile were completely impersonal, his attitude towards her that of a coolly polite stranger. No longer did the burning intensity of his gaze trigger off shivers of awareness, scorching her flesh where it alighted upon it. He smiled mirthlessly, lifting his cup to his mouth. ‘It wasn’t my original intention, but in the circumstances it seems the best course of action—for both of us.’
Genista went upstairs to pack, leaving Luke to settle their bill. She had closed her own case and was staring at his, wondering whether her newly married status meant that he would expect her to adopt the duties of a normal wife, when he walked in, calmly settling the matter for her by opening the wardrobe and withdrawing the clothes he had hung there. He packed methodically, with a precision that spoke of long practice. No doubt in the early days of building up his business he must have travelled widely, and probably not always alone.
Jealousy knifed agonisingly through her. How many other women had known the pleasure she had found in his arms? It was something she would be wiser not to think about, but it was impossible not to. How many of them had he loved? Or had there only been one—Verity? Verity who had gone off with his brother-in-law because she preferred being a rich man’s mistress to a poor man’s wife.
‘Ready?’
She nodded numbly, following him out of the room. On the threshold she was unable to resist one backward glance. In these impersonal surroundings she had come to full womanhood; had experienced ecstacy and pain; had learned the difference between mere infatuation—which was what she had felt for Richard—and love.
It was late afternoon when they reached the out-skirts of London. Luke had said not one word about their future together, and Genista felt as though her forehead was in the grip of an iron band, which tightened increasingly painfully as the silence between them stretched into a tension that plucked at her overwrought nerve ends.
‘I want to call at the office,’ Luke told her as he turned off the motorway. ‘There are some papers I want to pick up.’
Everything was the same—but different. It was hard to believe that the last time she had entered these offices she had entered them as a single woman, unaware of what lay ahead of her.
Bob looked up from his desk as they walked in. Most of the staff had already left, and he did a double-take as he saw them.
‘We weren’t expecting you back. How did it go?’
Jilly walked out of her office, and grinned at them. Luke asked her if she could get him a file, and while they talked, Genista managed to ask Bob about Elaine. His face was grave.
‘She has to have major surgery. The surgeon wants to be sure that they remove the growth completely.’ He looked close to tears, and Genista laid a sympathetic hand on his arm, feeling almost maternal.
‘They can do wonderful things these days,’ she comforted him.
He smiled bleakly. ‘I know. It isn’t the operation I’m worried about—it’s afterwards—when Elaine realises what it means. I had to give consent for the operation. Before she went in she begged me not to let them remove her…anything, but the surgeon told me that if they didn’t she could die. Oh God, Genista!’ He covered his face with his hands, his shoulders bowed and shaking, and Genista placed her arms round him instinctively, putting her cheek comfortingly against his hair.
‘You’ve done the right thing, I’m sure of it. The operation will be a shock to her, but once she realises that you still love her, that you still feel the same…’
‘Of course I do.’ Bob’s voice was rough. ‘Love isn’t something you turn on and off like a tap.’
‘Have you told Bob our good news?’
Neither of them had heard Luke approach the desk. Genista looked up, frightened by the black fury in his eyes. How he must hate her, now that he had discovered the truth. He had thought her a sophisticated woman of the world, well schooled in everything it took to please a man, instead of which he had discovered that she was an inexperienced virgin. No wonder he was looking at her as though he wanted to murder her!
‘What news?’ Jilly asked gaily, coming to join them. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve finally got Genista to declare a truce in this war she’s declared against the male sex.’
‘I hope so,’ Luke replied dryly, ‘otherwise it doesn’t say much for the success of our marriage.’
‘Marriage!’ Bob and Jilly uttered the word in disbelieving unison. ‘You’re married? Oh, Genista, how could you without telling me?’ Jilly wailed. ‘I want to know all about it. What did you wear? When was it all decided? You dark horse, you, spinning me that line about disliking Luke, and all the time…Do you know, she even had me convinced that she didn’t know how you felt about her,’ she complained to Luke. ‘But I could see that you’d fallen for her like a ton of bricks the moment you set eyes on her.’
‘Perceptive of you.’
Was she the only one who was aware of the sarcastic inflection behind the words? Genista wondered miserably. Jilly’s ecstatic chatter filled the awkward silence Luke’s announcement had provoked. Bob congratulated them stiltedly, and Genista knew that his thoughts were on Elaine. Poor Bob! She wished there was some way she could help him.
‘You’ll be giving up your job, of course?’ Jilly mused. ‘Does Luke have a flat in London? Nice, but hardly suitable for children,’ she added, betraying quite plainly the direction her thoughts were taking.
‘You’re ahead of us there,’ Luke responded lightly. ‘But as it happens I don’t live in London. I have a house about fifty miles away. It’s in the country, and the pleasure of returning to it after a day cooped up in an office more than makes up for the travelling involved.’
‘And now it will be even more pleasurable because you’ll have Genista to go home to,’ Jilly murmured. ‘You’ve always loved the country, haven’t you, Gen? She’s a small town girl at heart—but then I expect you already know that?’
‘We haven’t had a lot of time to catch up on each other’s backgrounds,’ Luke replied succinctly. ‘We’ve been too involved with more immediate concerns.’
Jilly laughed delightedly when Genista coloured.
‘Well, I think it’s wonderful. My only complaint is that I didn’t get an invitation to the wedding.’
‘It was a very quiet ceremony,’ Genista told her quietly. ‘We were married by Luke’s godfather, in the Lake District.’
‘What did you wear?’ Jilly demanded. ‘I want to know all the details.’
‘A pale green silk suit,’ Luke said promptly before Genista could answer. His arm circled her waist, holding her against him, the look in his eyes full of tenderness as he added softly, ‘And very beautiful she looked in it too.’
It was only to keep up appearances, of course, but even so, her heart pounded with dizzy pleasure for a briefly betraying moment before she reminded herself sternly that it meant nothing.
‘Green silk? Oh, not that gorgeous outfit you bought the other week, Gen?’ Jilly exclaimed. ‘The one you were going to wear for the christening?’
Genista could feel Luke watching her, and the tiny scraps of paper which had once been his cheque seemed to burn a hole in her handbag.
‘Thrifty as well as beautiful!’
The light words held an undercurrent of steel that made Genista dread the time when they were alone. Luke had specified that she was not to wear clothes paid for by anyone else, and neither had she done, so why should he be annoyed because she had not used his cheque?
‘You’re very quiet, Bob?’
Genista frowned a little at the challenge in the quietly spoken words. Was Luke trying subtly to remind her of the weapon he still held? He need not have done.
‘Old age creeping up on me, I suppose,’ Bob replied lightly. ‘Genista knows I wish her all the happiness in the world. She deserves it, and I suspect it’s very selfish of me to worry about how I’m going to replace her.’
‘Very,’ Luke agreed coolly. ‘But I’m afraid you’ll have to. Genista will have more than enough to do running our home, and no newly married man wants to find his wife dropping with exhaustion every evening.’
The pointed comment made Genista’s cheeks burn. Jilly winked at her and hissed conspiratorially, ‘Lucky thing! What I wouldn’t give to be waiting for Luke to come home to me every night!’
They left shortly afterwards. Luke tossed the files he had collected on to the back seat of the Maserati as he opened the passenger door.
This time the silence between them seemed to have an added ingredient of hostility, and Genista’s head began to throb painfully with the tension gripping her body.
They drove east, along the M4 in the direction of Bath, the countryside rolling and unfamiliar. Some forty miles outside London Luke took a slip road off the motorway and in the gathering dusk Genista gained only a vague impression of high hedges and narrow winding roads.
Luke switched on the cassette player and the strains of Debussy filled the car. Genista tried to relax her tense muscles, but it was impossible. The intimacy of the car seemed to close over her, like a thick, muffling blanket. Luke, on the other hand, appeared completely relaxed. She stole a look at his remote profile. He was concentrating on the road ahead, but the anger which had seemed to grip him as they left the office had gone. His shirt was open at the throat and memories of how his body had felt beneath her urgent fingers poured over her.
‘What’s wrong? Have I suddenly grown another head?’
She looked away quickly, hating herself for being caught out staring at him. She was like a miser, greedily studying his gold, storing up memories for the time when he might no longer be able to look upon the real article.
They were deep in the country. In front of them a Tudor farmhouse materialised out of the dusk, the black and white façade of the upper storeys picked out by the new moon.
The house had an air of serenity that soothed Genista’s bruised heart. It seemed to reach out and embrace her, and she wondered idly to whom it belonged. Some rich landowner, no doubt. From the front it resembled an ‘E’ without the middle, the two outer wings like arms protecting the main body of the building.
As the Maserati purred throatily towards the locked gates she started in surprise. Luke flicked a switch inside the car and they opened automatically. This time Genista did not look away when he returned her stare.
‘This is your home?’
‘Well, I’m certainly not taking you to someone else’s.’
‘But…but it’s beautiful,’ she said weakly.
His smile mocked her confusion. ‘What did you expect? Some Victorian monstrosity tarted up by a fashionable interior designer? I saw this house for the first time twenty years ago when I was still at school, and I vowed then that one day it would be mine. You could call it a case of love at first sight.’
‘I’m surprised you believe in such things.’
The words slipped out, tinged with pain. Such a short time ago she wouldn’t have believed in it herself, but now she knew better.
‘But then you don’t really know me, do you? Luke said coolly. ‘Love isn’t something that happens according to plan. It obeys no laws but its own. Surely you must have noticed how incongruously it strikes? How…cruelly? After all, that’s something you’ve had first-hand experience of yourself, isn’t it?’
For a moment Genista thought he had guessed how she felt about him. Her face went paper-white, her lips parting tremulously in quick denial, and then she realised that he was probably referring to her parents. He couldn’t know how she felt; she had been at such pains to hide it from him.
He stopped the car in front of the house, gravel crunching underfoot as he walked round to her door and opened it for her.
The house was all in darkness.
‘Someone comes in to clean for me every morning, and leave a meal prepared if I’m dining at home, but I prefer not to have live-in help. I enjoy my privacy.’
He touched a light switch and the square hall was immediately illuminated with light. Genista stared around, her eyes widening with pleasure. The hall was panelled, the wood glowing mellowly with the patina of the years. Underfoot on the parquet floor lay silky Persian rugs, glowing richly. On a table beneath a portrait stood a huge brass bowl full of crimson roses.
‘The sitting room is through there,’ Luke murmured, touching her arm. ‘It’s the library really, but I prefer it to the drawing room, which I find too large when I’m on my own. I left instructions for a buffet meal to be left for us. I’ll just go and bring in the cases.’
Genista was in the library, examining some of the books on the shelves when he returned. The room was furnished comfortably rather than luxuriously, and she had an immediate sense of being at home.
‘I expect you do a good deal of business entertaining here,’ she commented when Luke walked in.
He shrugged off his jacket and walked over to a glass-fronted cabinet removing a bottle and two glasses.
‘This is my home, not a conference centre,’ he told her harshly as he poured the golden amber liquid into the crystal. ‘I didn’t buy the house as a tax deductible investment, if that’s what you mean. When I want to do business I use my office—that’s what it’s for. When I want to relax I come home. It may be that I have to call upon you occassionally to entertain for me, but it will be occasionally—you won’t have to work for your keep if that’s what’s worrying you. And talking about “keep”.’ He picked up one of the glasses and brought it across to her. ‘Malt whisky—drink it, you look pale, it will do you good…For the duration of our marriage I’ll make you an allowance. Although I don’t expect you to act as my social secretary, you will have certain…responsibilities. You’ll need clothes…’
‘I don’t want your money!’ Genista put down her glass, its contents untouched, her voice tight with anger. ‘I have plenty of money for my wants. I don’t want yours, Luke.’
‘But nevertheless you will take it.’ A muscle twitched in his jaw, and his fingers were clenched round the precious crystal. ‘You destroyed the cheque I gave you to buy a wedding outfit—your pride refused to allow you to wear something I had paid for. Well, I have my pride too, Genista, and just as long as you’re my wife, I will keep you. Is that understood?’
For a moment she contemplated defying him, but the look in his eyes warned her that it would be wiser not to.
‘I suppose I’ll be allowed to keep my car,’ she responded sarcastically at length.
‘What would you do if I said “no?” Keep within the bounds of this house like a prisoner rather than touch anything I might have given you? I don’t carry the plague, you know, Genista. I won’t contaminate you.’
‘You already have.’
She said it so quietly that she thought he hadn’t heard her, until the brittle sound of glass breaking brought her head up in shocked protest. His glass lay shattered in the hearth in a dozen pieces, his face white with fury.
‘Damn you, you won’t let me forget, will you?’ he swore. ‘What am I supposed to do? Pay a penance for the rest of my life because I took your virginity? What is it you hate the most, Genista? The fact that I wasn’t Bob, or the fact that you enjoyed it, despite that?’
‘You’re dispicable!’
‘Despicable or not, I’m still your husband. Remember that, won’t you?’
When the door slammed behind him Genista sank into the nearest chair. She heard the throaty roar of the Maserati as it roared away, although it was several seconds before she realised that Luke had left her completely alone in her new home. She waited half an hour and when he did not return she rose on shaky legs and started to explore her new surroundings.
Across the hall from the library was the drawing room, a beautifully proportioned room, which had obviously been remodelled during the Georgian era. The high, moulded ceiling and graceful marble fireplace drew a faint sigh of appreciation from her. The room was decorated in shades of palest green, and beautiful though it was she could quite see why Luke might prefer the library for relaxing in. It was much more a family room. A family! She stopped like someone transfixed. Where on earth were her errant thoughts leading? Any family that filled this beautiful house would not be hers and Luke’s, but the thought of the children he might father on another woman left her raw with a pain that lacerated her already tender heart.
Behind the library was a formal dining room, elegant antique furniture gleaming under the lights of the chandelier. Genista closed the double doors quietly, trying not to imagine that huge mahogany table filled with a large family.
The kitchen had been completely modernised, but in a way that completely kept its traditional appeal. There was a note on the table saying that a salad and a cooked chicken had been left in the fridge.
Genista did not feel hungry. Her ears were alert for the first sound of the returning Maserati. When it did not come she went back to the library, reluctant to explore upstairs, as though she were a visitor who must await the invitation of the owner.
She was curled up asleep in a chair in the library, when something wakened her. She stiffened, tensing as she heard the front door open, and slow footsteps crossing the hall. The door handle turned, and she held her breath. It was gone two o’clock in the morning. Where had Luke been?
He opened the door and stood by it, swaying slightly, his eyes glittering dangerously over her sleepy features.
‘Waiting for me like a dutiful wife?’ His voice was faintly slurred, and alarm clawed at Genista as she realised that he had been drinking.
‘Why, I wonder? Not because you were lonely in bed without me? Or was it? You wanted me this morning, Genista, no matter how much those flashing eyes of yours want to deny it. Oh, you’re safe enough now,’ he muttered. ‘There’s a certain something to be said for alcohol—it blunts one’s desire. Shocked?’ His raw mockery caught at her nerves. ‘You ought to be grateful that you’re being spared my unwanted advances; that I’m not defiling you by further exhibitions of my lust. You hate me, don’t you? Don’t you?’ he demanded ferociously. ‘I took your virginity, and you haven’t got the guts to admit that you enjoyed the experience, so instead you blame me—hating me.’
‘If you’ll just tell me which is my room.’ She daren’t provoke him any further by retaliating. He was in a dangerously volatile mood, and even in the knowledge of her love, she shuddered at the thought of how he might use her in his present savage mood.
‘Take your pick. You can even share mine, but you won’t want to do that, will you, Genista? Who knows, you might actually turn to me one fine night and behave like a woman, and that would never do, would it? No one must be allowed to touch what’s being sacrificed on the altar to your love for Bob. You stupid little fool!’ His voice roughened suddenly, his hands grasping her shoulders and wrenching her out of the chair. ‘Are you going to spend the whole of your life in love with a man who doesn’t want you?’
Genista looked him straight in the eyes.
After all, it was the truth, but the man she loved wasn’t Bob. It was Luke. He let her go without a word. Her case was too heavy to carry upstairs, so she unzipped it and removed the silk cheongsam; too exhausted to search through it for anything else. The dress would do as a robe. All she wanted to do was to sleep—and to forget.
The first door she opened revealed a bedroom decorated in strongly male colours, and even without the silk dressing gown on the bed she would have guessed it was Luke’s. She closed the door, her heart hammering with pain and went to the room farthest away from his and switched on the light.
It was obviously a guestroom, decorated prettily in soft pinks, with its own private bathroom. Genista undressed quickly, showering briefly before sliding beneath the cool cotton sheets.
A telephone ringing somewhere woke her. Someone must have answered it, because the shrill sound was cut off in mid-peal. She opened her eyes and looked round. The sun was streaming in through her window. She climbed out of bed and crossed over to it, pulling aside the curtains to stare out at the lovingly restored Elizabethan gardens below.
‘Genista!’ There was a brief tap on the door and she barely had time to pull on her silk robe before Luke walked in.
He was already dressed in jeans and a thin cotton shirt, all signs of the previous evening’s drinking gone.
‘That was my sister on the phone,’ he announced without preamble. ‘She’s heard about our wedding from Amy, and she’s on her way over to see us. She should be here later this afternoon. Apparently a crisis has blown up.’
His eyes were on the silk robe, and Genista had the feeling that for a moment something had made him forget completely what he had been about to say. Seconds later she knew the reason why.
‘It’s Lucy’s half term, and Marina wants us to look after her. When you get to know my sister better you’ll come to realise that she has a blithe disregard of other people’s plans, but when it comes to roping them into hers…but on this occasion I feel I owe it to her to help. Philip’s been in touch with her. He wants her back.’ He turned away abruptly, and Genista had no difficulty in guessing where his thoughts lay. Barely forty-eight hours after he had tied himself to her he had learned that the woman he really loved was free. Perhaps she had found after all that mere wealth did not make up for love; or perhaps Verity had come to realise that with Luke she could have both! The bitchiness of the thought dismayed her.
‘Marina isn’t sure how Lucy will take it. It’s her own damned silly fault, I warned her about not pumping Lucy’s head full of silly tales about her father, but Marina wouldn’t listen. Now she’s afraid Lucy will reject Philip. The situation between them is still at a very difficult stage, and she feels that she and Philip need time alone together.’
‘I expect she’s right,’ Genista agreed, her heart sinking. She felt completely unequal to coping with a precocious fourteen-year-old with emotional problems.
‘Marina will bring Lucy up here from her school. She’s a nice kid, despite her upbringing. Sensible too, but she’s at that age where they feel things intensely. I don’t want her to grow up with the idea that there’s no such thing as a happy marriage.’
‘What are you trying to say?’
‘That for the duration of Lucy’s stay, you’ll share my room. I’ve put your case in there. You can unpack while I make breakfast. I’m well aware that her visit gives you the perfect opportunity to get back at me, but I’m not asking for your co-operation for my sake—it’s for hers. She worshipped her father, and she took it hard when he left.’
Genista touched her dry lips with the tip of her tongue. A wild idea had suddenly occurred to her.
‘All right,’ she agreed huskily. ‘But there’s one condition.’
Luke’s eyes held hers.
‘For as long as Lucy stays here I’ll act the part of the deliriously happy new bride, but once she’s gone, I want you to start divorce proceedings. You blackmailed me into this marriage, and if I have to I’ll blackmail you into letting me out of it.’
‘I see.’
It was impossible to judge his reactions from the even words. ‘So. Now we both know where we stand. I owe Marina this much, I suppose. After all, I was the one who introduced Philip to Verity.’
A Verity who was now free, Genista reminded herself sickly. No wonder Luke wasn’t raising any objections to her desire to be free!
‘Very well, but if you cheat on me, our agreement will be rescinded, Genista.’
‘I’ll go and unpack my things.’
He was standing by the door, and she had to breathe in to squeeze past him. She could smell the clean fragrance of his cologne and for one mad moment she wanted to reach up and touch him, to press her body against him and feel his vital, compelling response.
‘Mrs Meadows will be here soon. You might warn her about Lucy’s impending arrival.’ He walked towards her bed, twitching back the covers she had just disturbed. ‘I don’t want any gossip in the village,’ he told her harshly. ‘It might get to Lucy’s ears.’
‘I’ll make the bed when I’m dressed.’
They were enemies. She could feel it in the silence which stretched between them, and she had to blink fiercely to prevent tears from forming.
* * *
It was shortly after four o’clock that the Citroën pulled up in front of the house in a spurt of gravel, disgorging an elegant dark-haired woman whom Genista would have recognised anywhere as Luke’s sister, and a fair-haired teenager, still dressed in what was obviously her school uniform. She looked so vulnerable and young that Genista’s heart went out to her. Had Marina told her daughter about her father’s return?
‘Luke, you wretch, how dare you get married without telling me? You do realise that you’ve robbed Lucy of her only chance of being a bridesmaid, don’t you?’ Marian called lightly as she walked into the house. Seen at closer quarters, she had a brittle quality, a nervous tension which communicated itself instantly to Genista. Despite her elegance, the older woman was nervous of Luke? She glanced covertly at her husband. He was frowning faintly, his attention focused not on Marina but on Lucy, who was hanging back slightly, her expression uncertain.
‘Lucy would have hated being a bridesmaid,’ he said decisively. ‘How was school, little one?’
‘Filthy!’
It was instantly obvious to Genista that uncle and niece shared a rapport which did not exist between mother and daughter. Physically they were not alike, until Lucy smiled, and then her wry expression bore a startling resemblance to her uncle’s sardonic grimace.
‘But she’s looking forward to spending her half-term with you,’ Marina interposed quickly, turning to Genista. ‘Luke is a gem. Lucy often spends her half-terms with him. It’s so convenient. Coming over to France means that she loses a day each way, and it just isn’t worth it for the shorter breaks.’
Genista smiled politely, but secretly she felt a little surprised by Marina’s attitude towards her child. It was scarcely maternal.
‘I can’t stay long, Luke,’ she was saying quickly—too quickly, it seemed to Genista, as though she expected Luke to protest. ‘Lucy, run upstairs and unpack. I want to speak to your uncle, and I have to leave right after dinner.’
‘She’s a teenager, not a child, Marina,’ Luke said mildly when Lucy had gone. ‘Have you told her about Philip?’
‘I intended to, but as yet I haven’t had the chance,’ Marina began evasively.
‘And as you plan to leave us right after dinner you won’t have the opportunity to—right?’ Luke enquired sardonically.
‘Oh, Luke, it will come so much better from you,’ Marina pleaded. ‘I just can’t tell her. My nerves…’
‘You shouldn’t have pumped her full of all that rubbish about Philip in the first place,’ Luke said dryly, ‘You’re a fool, Marina.’
‘That’s a fine way to talk to your sister!’ Marina took umbrage instantly. ‘It isn’t often I ask you to help me, Luke. It’s only a small thing, after all.’
‘You think so?’ If anything his voice was even drier. ‘Leaving us with a sensitive teenager at the very start of our honeymoon, and expecting us to break the news to her that the father her mother has been reviling without cessation for the last four years is suddenly about to be welcomed back into the fold? I wonder if Philip really knows what he’s letting himself in for?’
‘That’s a foul thing to say!’ Marina’s voice broke on the last word, and to Genista’s dismay she saw tears in the older woman’s eyes. ‘I’m going up to my room.’
‘There’s no need to look at me as though I’ve just taken a starving child’s crust,’ Luke said curtly when his sister had gone. ‘Marina isn’t averse to turning on the tears if she thinks it will get her her own way.’
‘She is your sister,’ Genista pointed out mildly.
‘I know, and that’s one of the reasons I could never find it in my heart to really hate Philip. Poor devil!’
‘He must love Marina if he’s going back to her. Will you tell Lucy?’
‘I expect I’ll have to. Marina is quite capable of leaving without doing and them calmly leaving Lucy to find out the truth for herself the next time she goes home. Marina was spoiled by our parents and as a result she seems to expect everyone to treat her indulgently. I hope Philip knows what he’s doing.’
Suspecting that Marina was the type of woman who always changed for dinner, Genista went up stairs while Luke was busy in the library. They might have to share a room, but she was determined that they would spend as little time in it together as they could.
She was seated in front of the dressing table mirror applying her eye-shadow when she heard the faint tap on the door. She was wearing only a towelling wrap over her underclothes and she frowned, hesitating.
‘It’s Marina—may I come in?’
For a moment she felt deep disappointment. Had she been hoping it was Luke? He was hardly likely to knock on his own bedroom door. No doubt he was as anxious to avoid any intimacy with her as she was with him—although for completely different reasons. While she feared that his proximity might force her to betray her feelings for him, he felt only boredom for her sexual inexperience. He had expected to find in her a woman whose knowledge of lovemaking matched his own, and instead he had discovered that she knew next to nothing about the art of pleasing a man—apart from what he had taught her!
‘Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t realise you weren’t dressed,’ Marina apologised. ‘Where’s Luke—downstairs?’
‘He’s in the library,’ Genista told her. ‘Did you want to talk to him?’
‘Not unless he’s in a far more accommodating mood than he was earlier,’ Marina said frankly. ‘I sometimes think he forgets that I’m five years older than he is. He’s let his success as a businessman go to his head. All that nonsense about your being on your honeymoon!’ She glanced covertly at Genista. ‘We’re both women of the world, my dear—I know my brother, and he’s no monk. One only has to think of that bitch Verity to know that—he had a lucky escape there. She would have taken him for every penny he owned—and will still probably try, if I know her. Now that she no longer has Philip to batten on to, she’s bound to try and get Luke under her thumb again. He doted on her, you know…’ She broke off as though realising that they were hardly sentiments likely to appeal to a newly married bride, adding hurriedly, ‘But of course, Luke would never take her back. He’s gone so hard—he would never forgive her. Now, as I was saying, all this foolishness about the pair of you being on your honeymoon. I’m sure you won’t take it amiss when I say that where my brother is concerned, playing by the rules is not his forte, and nowadays…’
‘Everyone anticipates their marriage vows—is that what you were about to say?’ Luke interposed smoothly, startling them both. ‘Wrong, my dear sister. I didn’t know Genista long enough beforehand to do so, even had she been willing. You’re letting your cynicism cloud your judgement. As it happens, my wife was as pure and untouched as Lucy.’
From Marina’s briefly assessing glance, Genista suspected that the other woman was surprised by Luke’s revelations. She herself felt ready to die with embarrassment. How dared Luke discuss her like this!
‘A virgin?’ Marina’s eyes rounded. ‘I suppose I should have known. Nothing but the best for my brother—and certainly no second or third-hand goods! Verity wouldn’t get a look in now, would she?’
‘You’re embarrassing Genista,’ Luke said coolly, ‘and insulting me. I married Genista for no other reason than that I love her.’
He was an excellent actor, Genista thought bitterly. Marina stared at him in silence.
‘And now, if you’ll leave, I shall get changed for dinner, after which we shall discuss what is and is not to be said to Lucy.’
On the pretext of wanting to check the table, Genista left the bedroom shortly after Marina had gone. Luke was paused in the middle of unbuttoning his shirt and glanced at her sardonically.
‘Running away?’ he jeered. ‘From what, I wonder? Me, or yourself?’
Genista found Lucy in the dining room. The girl had changed out of her uniform into a pretty cotton dress. She smiled rather hesitantly, reminding Genista once again of Luke.
‘I’m sorry Mother has thrust me upon you like this,’ she began apologetically. Her manner was adult, but the fingers twisting nervously together were not, and Genista smiled reassuringly.
‘Nonsense! Luke loves having you here, I know that!’
Her lie was rewarded with a relieved smile.
‘Mother is the end sometimes. She just doesn’t think.’ Lucy walked towards the window, her back hunched faintly defensively. ‘I know all about her and Father getting together again. He writes to me, you see, although I haven’t told her. It wasn’t really disloyal. It’s just that she gets in such a state about him. I was going to tell Uncle Luke about it, only with Father and Verity…‘
‘I’m sure he would have understood,’ Genista soothed, feeling a sudden spurt of anger at the carelessness of adults. How could Lucy’s parents have thrust such heavy burdens on her young shoulders? ‘It’s only right that you should care for your father as well as your mother. You must be pleased about the way things have turned out.’
‘I want to be,’ Lucy admitted, ‘but I’m frightened—in case they part again,’ she explained quickly. ‘You see, mother is so…so volatile, and Father gets cross with her. I think that’s why he left with Verity in the first place. I know it’s wrong of me to say this, but it was she who enticed Father, and I’m not just saying that to defend him. She thought he had more money than Luke. You did know that she and Luke were engaged?’ she asked hesitantly.
‘Oh yes, I know all about that.’ Whatever else happened Genista wouldn’t add to Lucy’s burdens. ‘I suggest you wait for Luke to come downstairs, and then have a word with him. We can delay dinner for a few minutes. I think he’ll be relieved to hear that you already know about your parents’ reconciliation.’
‘Mother was just going to leave me here for him to tell, was she? Poor Uncle Luke!’
Genista deliberately waylaid Marina when she came downstairs, and when Lucy disappeared in the direction of the library, returning ten minutes later with Luke, her face wreathed in smiles, Genista felt an involuntary pang of envy. How nice to be Lucy and know with complete confidence that whatever her problems she could take them to Luke in the sure knowledge that they would be solved.
She noticed, however, that Luke said nothing to his sister about Lucy’s confidences, and judged that this was his way of punishing her for what she suspected he considered to be depletion of her maternal duties. How would he punish her if he ever discovered she had been foolish enough to fall in love with him? ‘Watch out for Verity, my dear,’ Marina warned Genista in a low voice as they walked out to her car after dinner. ‘I know Luke is in love with you, but Verity is a very determined woman—and an extremely beautiful one.’
In love with her! If only she knew, Genista thought miserably as the Citroën drove away. A chill little breeze played over her bare arms and she shivered slightly.
‘You’re cold. Better get back inside,’ Luke said impersonally. ‘I have some work to do, so I’ll leave you and Lucy to get acquainted. I’ve promised her a shopping spree while she’s here. It will give you both something to occupy yourselves with.’
‘How very kind,’ Genista said sarcastically. ‘Is that the only way you know of satisfying a woman, Luke? Buying her things?’
He turned, and she shivered under the look in his eyes, but refused to let it daunt her. Lucy was waiting for them by the door, and she glanced quickly at them.
‘Fancy a game of Scrabble?’ Luke suggested.
She looked uncertainly from Luke to Genista and guessing what she was thinking Genista said gaily, ‘I’d love it—how about you, Lucy?’
She told herself it wasn’t because of what Luke had said about putting on a loving front; it was for Lucy, who had already been hurt enough by the adults in her life, and she made a vow that for the duration of Lucy’s stay she would do everything in her power to preserve the façade of a happy marriage.