‘SO YOU STILL haven’t been able to talk to George?’ Livvy asked Gale anxiously.
As the kitchen door opened and Richard Field walked into the room, she pressed the receiver closer to her ear.
It was almost a week now since they had both arrived at the farmhouse, and she was growing increasingly anxious for the situation to be resolved. Not because Richard Field disturbed her personally; not because she found that she was disconcertingly aware of him as a man, and not even because of the unfamiliar feelings and emotions she was experiencing. No, it was none of those things; it was for Gale’s sake that she wanted things sorted out, she assured herself firmly.
Even so, she found that she was turning round slightly, watching as Richard crossed over to the other side of the kitchen and proceeded to start making some coffee.
‘George did telephone last night—from Japan,’ she heard Gale telling her, ‘but he rang off before I could tackle him about the farmhouse. I’ve a good mind to go and see Robert Forrest myself and ask him what he thinks he’s playing at. George has a responsibility towards us as well as to his work.’
Livvy frowned as she caught the unfamiliar tremor in her cousin’s voice. The situation was obviously placing far more of a strain on Gale than she had initially been prepared to admit.
‘Livvy, I just don’t know what to do,’ Gale told her, confirming her suspicions. ‘George has never behaved like this before. He’s always put us first. I know his job’s important…But he missed the boys’ parents’ day. He’s never done that before…I went, of course, but I could tell how upset they both were by his absence. Roderick even asked me if…if George and I were going to get a divorce. I told him we weren’t, but for all the time George is spending at home these days we might as well already be divorced.’
Beneath Gale’s anger, Livvy could sense her bewilderment and pain. Her cousin needed her husband far more than she wanted to admit, Livvy recognised.
‘He’s still there, I suppose,’ she asked Livvy, changing the subject. ‘I hope you’ve made it clear to him that there’s no way he can buy the farmhouse without my agreement. Really, the man must have the hide of a rhinoceros to persist in staying when…’
‘He knows the situation, Gale,’ Livvy cut her cousin off, all too conscious that Richard Field could probably hear what Gale was saying.
‘Mmm…Well, I shall have a thing or two to say to George about what he’s done when he does eventually come home. He should have discussed it with me first—giving the man a key and not saying a word to me about it…without giving any consideration at all to the situation he’s placed you in.’
‘George didn’t know that I would be staying here, Gale,’ Livvy felt bound to remind her cousin. ‘I think I’ve managed to get everything sorted out with the plumber,’ she added, wanting to get Gale off the subject of Richard Field. ‘I’ve asked him to send the estimates direct to you. It sounds as though it’s going to be rather expensive,’ she warned Gale. ‘Perhaps in the circumstances you should wait…’
‘As I’m having to wait for George to come home,’ Gale demanded crossly. ‘No, thanks. I’ll ring you just as soon as I’ve spoken to him and found out what’s going on,’ she added. ‘I must go now. I’m taking Roderick to his tennis lesson in half an hour.’
‘That was Gale,’ Livvy told Richard Field unnecessarily after she had replaced the receiver. There was no need for her to explain her actions, nor to feel uncomfortable about them, and yet, idiotically, she did.
The smell of his freshly brewed coffee tantalised her taste-buds; without discussing it or drawing up any formal rules, they had somehow managed to evolve a routine which brought them into as little contact with one another as possible.
Richard Field spent most of his time away from the farmhouse, exploring the region, Livvy assumed, but today for some reason he had not gone out.
‘How is she?’
The question caught her off guard. She stared at him in surprise, searching his face for some sign of the irritation and dislike she had previously seen him exhibit when he talked about her cousin but, a little to her surprise, she could find no evidence of it.
‘She’s f…She’s very upset and worried,’ she told him quietly, pushing to one side the polite fib she had been about to voice. ‘I think she’s just beginning to recognise how much she needs George. The boys are missing him too…I think she must be getting pretty desperate. She was talking about getting in touch with George’s boss herself…’
She paused as she saw the quick frown he gave her.
‘She’s desperate to talk to George,’ she told him defensively. ‘Surely you can understand that? I know you don’t have a very high opinion of the female sex, but Gale is George’s wife and she has every right…’
She tensed with indignation as he turned away from her. He might at least have the courtesy to hear her out instead of turning his back on her and walking away, even if he didn’t like what she was saying, but to her surprise, before she could protest at his rudeness, he had reached for a clean mug and was filling it with a second cup of coffee…When he turned back towards her, handing it to her, her jaw dropped slightly.
‘Here,’ he told her wryly. ‘If we’re going to have an in-depth argument on the subject of the rights that go with marriage in general, and your cousin’s application of them in particular, then you might as well fortify yourself with this. If nothing else, it will give me an opportunity to have my say while you’re drinking it.’
Livvy gaped at him. It almost sounded as though he actually enjoyed the thought of arguing with her…of being with her.
‘There is nothing for us to argue about,’ she told him loftily, as she tried to control the dizzy, heady feeling that was threatening what should have been far more rational thoughts. ‘It’s Gale’s right as George’s wife to expect him to discuss his plans with her. To share…’
‘To share…It’s easy to see that you’ve never been married nor involved in a long-term relationship. Ask anyone who has; they’ll soon tell you that only foolish idealists believe that marriage is about sharing; the reality is that it’s about power, power and control. Up until now, Gale has controlled George and their relationship, and now she’s afraid that George might be escaping from her control she’s starting to panic.’
‘That’s not true,’ Livvy countered hotly. His cynicism appalled her. What must his own marriage have been like, for him to hold such views? Not a happy one, obviously. ‘Gale loves and needs George. She might not always show it…it might not be obvious on the surface…she might have seemed to be the stronger one, the more powerful one,’ she added as she caught the small sound of derision he made, ‘but in reality…’
‘In reality, what? She treats him like a child, orders him around and generally publicly humiliates him. Is that how she shows her need and love for him?’
‘All right, she might sometimes seem to be slightly domineering,’ Livvy admitted reluctantly, ‘but that’s only on the surface. Underneath…’
‘You’re obviously a hopeless romantic,’ he told her roughly. ‘You have to be if you think that.’
A hopeless romantic. Less than a week ago he had been accusing her of having a very different personality. As though he too was remembering that, he suddenly added abruptly, ‘Mind you, you do have a vested interest in taking your cousin’s side, don’t you? You are both women.’
‘I’m not taking her side,’ Livvy told him. ‘I’m just trying to point out that deep down she needs George.’
‘Financially perhaps, but—’
‘It isn’t anything to do with money,’ Livvy interrupted him angrily. ‘It’s emotionally that Gale needs George, although I don’t suppose someone like you could ever understand that. You seem to be obsessed by money, determined to believe that it’s the pivot of a relationship. Well, I for one would never put money before…’
‘Before what?’ he challenged her softly.
Livvy stared at him, suddenly aware of how dangerously off the subject she had travelled and on to ground which she was discovering was riddled with hidden pot-holes and quagmires.
Even so, she refused to be cowed by the hard, mocking look he was giving her. Lifting her chin, she told him firmly, ‘Before my feelings.’
He laughed. ‘So what would make you commit yourself exclusively to one man. Love?’
The cynicism in his eyes made her heart ache, but she was not going to back down, no matter how much he derided her.
‘As a matter of fact, yes,’ she told him bravely.
He stared at her for a long time before saying roughly, ‘You’re either a fool or a liar, and knowing what I do know about your sex…’
He didn’t finish his sentence. He had no need to, Livvy reflected bitterly half an hour later as she drove her car down the farmhouse lane, still seething with the intensity of the emotions he had aroused in her.
What on earth had prompted her to expose herself to him like that? She had known before she opened her mouth what his reaction would be.
He might seem to have discarded his initial judgement of her as a promiscuous flirt, but she suspected that nothing could shift his entrenched and biased views of her sex.
As she turned out on to the main road, she admitted that she herself had been guilty of some bias. He had not liked it at all when she had met his final challenge by saying that, just because his own marriage had failed, it didn’t mean that there was no such thing as a happy, successful marriage.
‘What do you know about my marriage?’ he had demanded aggressively.
‘Nothing,’ she had admitted, ‘other than what you’ve told me. But it obviously didn’t work. Your wife…’
‘My wife left me for another man?’ he interrupted her harshly. ‘My wife only married me for one reason, and that reason was nothing to do with “love”. She had the divorce settlement worked out before the ink on the licence was even dry.’
His bitterness had silenced Livvy, her eyes softening with a compassion she couldn’t conceal. No matter how much she disagreed with his views and his attitude, it was impossible not to feel sympathy for the pain she could sense lying beneath his harsh words.
‘You must have loved her.’
The soft words were said before she could recall them, and she knew at once that they were a mistake, an intrusion…a potential catalyst to the powerful emotions he was fighting to control.
‘Loved her?’ His eyes had glittered dark with disillusionment and pain. ‘Loved her? No, but I thought I was in love, and she with me. I was wrong, though. What I had thought was “being in love” was in reality closer to lust—mere physical desire—but I was too young, and too idealistic, to recognise it at the time.’
The tone of his voice had made Livvy shiver. The words, ‘Then why did you marry her?’ stuck to her tongue like burrs to an animal’s fur, but despite their irritation she refused to utter them, caution overwhelming curiosity.
‘I know what you’re thinking,’ he told her. ‘Go ahead, why don’t you ask?’
Livvy had flushed at the scorn in his voice. ‘It isn’t any of my business,’ she told him quietly, putting down her coffee-mug and preparing to turn away.
‘No, you’re damn right it isn’t,’ he had agreed, ‘but I’ll tell you anyway…Sexually she was the most…’
Livvy hadn’t been able to stop herself; she had felt herself starting to flush, a deep burn of embarrassed and uncomfortable colour invading her body. It hurt hearing him talk like this, she had recognised. She had felt degraded somehow, not just by what he was saying, but by her own recognition of that sharp, plunging knife-turn stab of jealousy she had felt, that bitter awareness that she was not the kind of woman he could ever describe in those kind of terms, that her sexuality could ever have the power to entrap and hold a man against his will; and, along with her recognition of her pain and the reasons for it, had come bewilderment at her own reactions, at her even momentarily wanting to have that kind of sexual power, at wanting to be able to make him ache and burn with desire for her.
It had only lasted a second or so, a dangerous surge of primitive madness, soon banished to its rightful place.
She was not that kind of woman, nor did she really have any desire to be; and surely, if Richard Field had been foolish enough to get caught in that kind of trap, then he was not…
Not what? she asked herself shakily now. Not the kind of man who could appeal to her? Not the kind of man she could desire? Not the kind of man she could love?
She did her shopping, dawdling over it for as long as she could, stopping to have lunch in a café that overlooked a tree-lined square.
A small family were sitting at the next table to hers, the mother young and pretty, bloomingly pregnant, her two daughters, in the manner of Continental children, beautifully dressed and already touchingly and innocently aware of their femininity, allying themselves to their mother as they copied her actions, while at the same time enjoying flirting with their father while their mother looked on indulgently.
‘I hope this one will be a boy,’ Livvy heard her saying ruefully to her husband as she patted her stomach. ‘I think I already have enough rivals.’
‘A boy, another girl, I don’t mind, just so long as you are well and happy,’ her husband responded, leaning forward to touch her.
They looked so happy. It was a pity that Richard Field wasn’t here with her to see them. With her? A small shiver shot through her. She was becoming dangerously obsessed with the man.
‘What if you fall in love?’ Jenny had teased her.
She had denied it, and in doing so had perhaps tempted fate?
But surely fate could not be cruel enough to allow her to fall in love with someone like Richard Field. And surely she had far too much sense?
She delayed going back to the farmhouse for as long as she could. Richard Field was on the telephone when she got back.
Tactfully, she didn’t linger in the kitchen, placing her shopping on the table and then heading for the door without unpacking it. She could do that later when he had finished.
He had his back towards her and he was speaking quietly in monosyllables, as though he didn’t want her to overhear what he was saying.
For some reason, that irked her. He had a right to want to keep his conversation private, of course, but there was no need for him to act as though she was the sort of person who was going to try deliberately to eavesdrop.
Because of the siting of the phone, she had to walk past him to get into the hall, but she kept as much distance between them as she could, intending to make it plain that she had no interest in either who he was talking to or what he was talking about, but naturally, since she had to walk within a foot or so of him, she couldn’t help overhearing his low-voiced curt, ‘No…I don’t think that would be a good idea,’ and could recognise that the person on the other end of the line was a man.
However, it wasn’t until she was upstairs in her own room that she realised why his voice had been oddly familiar.
When she did, she put down her hairbrush and raced downstairs.
Richard was still in the kitchen but he had finished his call.
‘That was George, wasn’t it?’ she demanded without preamble. ‘On the phone just now, you were speaking with George?’
Her anxiety for Gale fuelled her sense of outrage.
‘Why was he ringing you?’ she asked him, something she would never normally have done. ‘Did you tell him how upset Gale is…how worried…?’
‘Don’t you think that’s something Gale is perfectly capable of telling him herself?’
So it had been George. Livvy sat down, her voice quivering huskily with anger as she reminded him,
‘How can she? He’s in Japan and apparently so busy that he hasn’t got time to speak to her properly. He had time to speak to you, though, didn’t he?’
Disillusionment shadowed her voice. ‘I suppose he wanted to know whether or not you’ve decided to buy this place,’ she said dully, talking more to herself than to him. It shocked her that George, whom she had always thought of as so steady and reliable, was behaving like this, even though her conscience prompted her to acknowledge that Gale was perhaps not the easiest woman to live with, and that Richard had been right when he had told her that Gale was inclined to treat her husband more like another child than a man.
‘Gale needs George,’ she said unsteadily. ‘And so do the boys. Can’t you see what you’re doing by encouraging him to behave like this? Just because you’ve got a grudge against the female sex, that’s no reason for you to…to try to destroy Gale’s marriage. You’re not a man…you’re a spoiled child. You—’
She didn’t get any further. He was hauling her out of her seat, his hands locked round her arms, his body blocking her escape, even if she could have pulled away from him.
‘So I’m not a man?’
It had been there between them all week, smouldering dangerously like a peat fire, just waiting for something to fan it into an open conflagration. And she had just supplied that something.
She tried to stop him, to make her protest, both verbally and physically, but deep down inside her there was some reckless, wanton part of her that actually gloried in what she had done, feeding on the shock of frightening excitement that ran through her.
When he kissed her, although neither of them acknowledged it, both of them knew that what was happening had nothing to do with the challenge she had given him and that it was simply an excuse, a sop to the convention demanded by their minds and their stubborn rejection of the deeper, far more primitive needs which really motivated them.
This time her mouth was aware of the taste and texture of his, aware of it and hungry for it, the hands she had curled into tight fists to push him away straightening, flattening against his chest, feeling its heat, moving exploratively over him, no longer pushing him away, exploration giving way to something that was far more of a caress. And all the time he was kissing her, holding her, his hands, like hers, spread flat against her skin, moving down over her back and on to her hips.
She tensed for a moment as he drew her closer to him, shivering as she recognised that the reason for her hesitation was not because she didn’t want to experience the physical knowledge of his arousal, but because she did.
She trembled as she took that final self-betraying step, the small moan she made in her throat a surrender, not so much to him, but to her own feelings. He couldn’t know how alien all this was to her, how aloof she had always held herself from such casual intimacy, how bemused she had felt when friends had tried to explain to her how such sexual intensity felt, how it could overwhelm common sense, caution, and even reality. No, he couldn’t know any of these things, and he wasn’t going to know. Let him think that, like him, she was simply overwhelmed by the ferocity of the sexual tension which had built up between them.
She felt his hand on her breast and instinctively moved her body to accommodate its touch. A fierce shudder of pleasure ripped through her. She moved closer towards him, shivering as he responded by deepening his kiss, his free hand burrowing under her hair, holding her against his mouth as though he was afraid that she might try to break away.
His mouth tasted of coffee and wine, caressing hers, probing hotly. Her hands curled frantically into his skin as she reacted to the need he was generating.
She had never felt like this before…never…never wanted, ached, needed, hungered for a man with this wanton, tormenting urgency.
She felt his hand slide down her neck, searching for the top of her zip, and wanted to tear herself free of her clothes, to feel his hands on her naked flesh, touching her, stroking her, caressing her.
Somewhere in the distance she heard a sound. Muzzily, she opened her eyes. It was the cat, she recognised. She had just jumped in through the window.
Dizzily she focused slowly on him. His pupils were huge and dark, his expression almost ecstatic, drugged…
Her heart missed a beat and then kicked heavily against her ribs. Looking at him, seeing him, watching him, seeing the need she could already feel in his body was so powerfully erotic that she could feel her body responding to it.
‘God, I want you.’
She heard him mutter the words and knew they were only an echo of her own need.
She looked at his mouth, watching as it formed the words, and then reached up and touched it with her fingertip, trembling as she felt his lips caress it. Soon now he would pick her up, take her upstairs, undress her and…
She froze as she heard the van driving into the yard. Instantly Richard released her, a dark flush staining his skin as he stepped back from her.
‘It’s Monsieur Dubois,’ she heard herself saying, but she could scarcely recognise her own voice, it sounded so strained and unfamiliar.
Now what on earth had she been doing? How on earth could she have let him…encouraged him…?
A wave of mortification burned through her, her body hot and then cold as the full impact of her own behaviour hit her. It gave her very little comfort to realise that Richard was as stunned and shaken by what had happened between them as she was.
It gave her no sense of triumph to know that physically he was as vulnerable to his desire for her as she had been to hers for him, not even when she could see that, far from revelling in what had happened, he actually looked visibly disturbed, his face drained now that the initial burn of colour had gone.
While he was outside dealing with the farmer, she retreated to her own room. If she had any sense, she would be packing her things now, she admitted to herself, not standing staring into space, but how could she leave when she had given Gale her promise that she would stay? And surely she owed it to her cousin at least to make some attempt to find out if Richard had told George how anxious Gale was to speak to him?
Or was it too late for that? What had happened to her cousin’s marriage, that her husband could take time to ring a casual friend and yet could not apparently find time to speak to his wife?