Dishonored (14 page)

“What about India?” she asked.

“You would come with me. We could get married before the end of my leave.” Phillip sensed her hesitation, it wasn’t what he
had anticipated. “India is an incredible opportunity, Janey, you’ve always wanted to go there, haven’t you?”

“Yes, but…”

“But what? Your job? Teaching a bunch of sixth-formers how to draw straight lines, the Sommerton Water-color Society, average-age
group—geriatric! Think of the painting you could do in India, Jane, thousands of years of culture for you to discover! You
would love it, I know!”

“You seem to have thought it all through,” she said, easing her hand away from him and standing up. She walked over to the
gap in the hedge and stared out at the field beyond. Phillip watched her for a few minutes, then he walked over and stood
behind her, encircling her with his arms. “I’ve had to,” he said quietly, “I’m thirty-five, I know what I want and I also
have just two weeks of my six-week leave left.”

“I see.”

Phillip gently turned her around to face him. “You said that before.”

“I know.”

He tilted her chin up. “Face me, Janey, look at me.” He pushed a strand of hair back and tucked it behind her ear. She immediately
responded to his touch. “Will you marry me, Jane Bennet?” he asked softly.

Jane looked at his eyes, cool and gray, she studied his face for a few moments, easily the most beautiful face she had ever
seen on a man and then she reached up and touched his cheek with affection. “Kiss me,” she answered. “Kiss me first.”

“And then?”

“And then we’ll see,” she said.

Brigadier John Bennet carefully closed the bedroom door behind him so as not to wake Caroline and glanced down at his watch,
the dial luminous in the dark; it was one
A.M.
He tied the belt of his dressing-gown and bent to put on his slippers. Then he crept down the stairs, missing the two at
the bottom that creaked, and walked across the hall to the sitting-room. He opened the door and peered inside.

“Janey?”

Jane was sitting on the floor by the fire. She turned and smiled at her father. “Come in, Daddy.”

“You all right?”

“Yes, yes I’m fine.”

He entered the room and came over to her, sitting down in the armchair. “I heard Phillip go but you didn’t come up.” He bent
and picked up the poker, stirring the last of the burning coals. “I wondered if you were all right.”

Jane smiled. “Thank you.” They were silent for a while.

“Did Phillip enjoy his evening, d’you think?”

“Yes, I think so.”

‘Was it a last-minute thing or did you just forget to tell your mother?”

Jane pulled her knees up and hugged them in close. She rested her chin on them. “It was a last-minute thing,” she said. “Phillip
wanted to speak to me.”

“Oh?”

Jane suddenly reached out and touched her father’s leg, laughing gently at him. “Oh, Daddy, you’re so predictable!”

“Am I?”

“Yes!” Her laughter slowly died. “Phillip has asked me to marry him,” she said after a while. “I would’ve told you first anyway.”

“I see.” John Bennet stirred the fire again, for something to do. “Are you in love with him, Janey?”

Jane shrugged, not knowing what to answer.

“Well, then I should think very carefully about it if I were you.”

Jane lifted her head. “Did you think I wouldn’t?”

“No, no of course not, but I do think that it’s very easy to be caught up in the romance of the moment, though.”

Jane was silent. She lay her head back on her knees and watched the dying fire. “I’m twenty-seven, Daddy,” she said quietly,
“it’s an opportunity that won’t come along again. He’s a wonderful man, he’d be a good husband. We’re good friends, Daddy,
we make a good partnership.” She suddenly looked up. “It’s an opportunity to travel, to do something with my life, to get
out of teaching and experience something! I don’t want to stay in Sussex all my life. Phillip is right, there’s so much I
can do in India and it’s not just India, Daddy, it’s a whole lifetime of things ahead of me if I marry Phillip!”

John held his tongue. He wanted to explain so much to her but he didn’t know how. “What about love?” he asked.

“I don’t know about love, how can I say if I love him or not, I’ve no experience in love, of anything like that, but I think
love can grow.”

“You don’t need experience, Janey,” John said. “You’d know if you loved him.” He leaned forward and held out his hands. Jane
took them and he squeezed her fingers. “I don’t want you to spend your life wondering what it might be like to truly love
someone, with your heart and soul, and I don’t want you to find that someone when it’s too late.” He dropped her hands and
looked away at the fire. Jane saw the color drain out of his face and realized with a jolt how old he was and how sad. She
wondered what he had missed in his life.

“Daddy, I know what I’m doing. Please believe me, I’m old enough to know what I want.”

“Do you, Janey, really know what you want?”

She looked straight at him. “Yes,” she said, “I do.”

Finally he stood up. “Well, I’ll leave you to make your decision then,” he said. “Good night, Jane darling.” He bent and Jane
reached up to kiss his cheek. “Think about it carefully.”

Jane nodded but when he reached the door she called him back. “I have thought about it, Daddy,” she said.

He turned. “And?”

“And I said yes,” she answered.

Without another word John Bennet opened the door and silently left the room. He understood but her decision filled him with
disappointment. No wealth of travel or opportunity could ever replace an all-consuming love and he hoped with his whole heart
that would be a truth she would never have to face.

I
T WAS ANOTHER
S
ATURDAY AFTERNOON, JUST ONE WEEK ON
and Jane found herself in Selfridges again, this time with Phillip, but still with the same lack of enthusiasm and commitment
to shopping. She sat opposite him in the restaurant, sipping her glass of wine, looking idly past his shoulder at the other
diners in the restaurant and wondering what on earth she was doing all of this for. She was getting married in a week’s time,
cream silk suit and small marquee in the garden, but as she listened to Phillip’s voice running through the final version
of their wedding list she felt very little excitement, she felt very little of anything, leaving most of that up to Clare,
who had enough zeal for all of them.

It wasn’t that she didn’t want to get married, she longed to be Mrs. Mills, to be on her way to India. It was more that the
occasion meant little to her, that she felt no emotion for it. She wanted it over and done with. She wanted to start her new
life.

“Are you happy with that, Janey?” Phillip had his pen poised over the list.

“Yes.” Jane dragged her eyes away from a rather odd-looking couple in the corner and looked at Phillip.

“And you think the Royal Doulton is better than the Spode, a bit more fashionable?”

She hadn’t a clue what he was talking about. “Yes.”

“Good! That’s settled then.” Phillip made a note on the list, crossed something out that Jane tried surreptitiously to read
and then glanced at his watch. “What time is Clare meeting you?”

“Oh, erm, one-thirty I think. I’m not sure.”

He corrected the sleeve of his jacket to exactly half an inch over his shirt cuff and smoothed his hair back. Jane watched
his movements with fascination. She had only just begun to notice how often he attended to himself, smoothing creases, adjusting
ties, jackets, trouser pleats. It made her feel self-conscious now when she had always been the type of woman not to notice
a run in her stocking until it had climbed the entire length of her leg and formed a gaping hole at the top. She patted her
own hair, gently forcing a loose strand back into the bun at the back. There were a number of things she had begun to notice
about Phillip but she pushed them from her mind. The creases will smooth out she told herself, love will grow stronger with
time.

Phillip reached for her hand. “Jane darling, would you mind terribly if I left on time, even if she’s not here?”

Jane shrugged. She didn’t mind at all, in fact she had a rather good novel in her bag and would be glad of the time to herself.

“You are good to me,” he said, and kissed her left hand, holding it up to the light so that her diamond engagement ring glittered.
A young woman on the next table noticed the gesture and smiled wistfully, whispering, “How romantic!” loudly to her mother.

Jane eased her hand away and bent for her bag. “What time’s your meeting?” she asked, taking the paperback out and laying
it on her lap under the table.

“Two-thirty.”

“Perhaps you should leave now,” she suggested. “You don’t want to be late.”

“Are you sure you don’t mind?”

“No of course not. Clare will be here shortly and I’ll just order another drink until she arrives.”

Phillip smiled, one of his most charming smiles. “All right then, I’ll get off.” He stood, came around to her side of the
table and bent to kiss her cheek. “See you tonight, then. What time do the Lythes want us?”

They were dining with some old friends of Jane’s parents in Cadogan Square. “Eight o’clock,” Jane said.

“Right, I’ll pick you up from Teddy and Clare’s at seven forty-five.”

It was just like him to be precise. Fifteen minutes for traveling across London, five minutes to park, five minutes to find
the house and at ten-past eight ring the door bell; perfect timing. Jane smiled to cover the tiniest flicker of irritation
she felt.

“See you later then,” she said, as he straightened, checked his jacket was in line and moved away from the table.

“Bye, darling.” He strode across the restaurant, stopped at the door to wave and disappeared from view. Jane took her book
out from under the table, opened it at the page she had marked and without another thought of Phillip, she bent her head and
started to read.

Suzanna lit a cigarette from the packet on her dressing-table. She inhaled deeply, blew the smoke out of the side of her mouth
and leaned forward to study her face in the mirror. I look good, she thought, I look really good and I’m ready for him. She
took another drag of her cigarette, reached for her bottle of Chanel and sprayed it generously over her throat and chest,
opening her robe to perfume her breasts and rubbing her hands over the flesh warming it to give off the scent. She was excited,
she felt better than she had done in weeks and tracing the tip of her nipple with her finger, she felt the warm glow of sex
spread through her whole body. God she’d missed him, she had missed him so much it hurt.

Suzy stood up. She slipped the robe off her shoulders and left it on the floor, walking naked to the bed and sitting on the
edge to pull on her sheer black stockings and lace suspender belt. She reached for her dress. It was a simple red shift dress
that fitted close to her body, cut to her shape exactly and she wore nothing except her stockings under it. She slid her feet
into her shoes, black suede stilettos, and walked through to the sitting-room.

Checking the fridge in the kitchen, she ran her eye over the champagne, the plate of smoked salmon and the small tin of beluga
caviar. She had brought in Phillip’s favorites, wanting to impress him, to spoil him in these few precious hours together.
She shut the fridge door and stretched up to the cupboard for a teacup. Just a small gulp of vodka, she thought, to calm my
nerves, and she unscrewed the top of the bottle, sloshing the colorless spirit into her cup. She drank it down in one. She
was nervous, excited, it was only natural that she would be. But it was Phillip who had made the first move, he had rung her,
asked to see her, and that in itself should give her confidence. Suzy took another cigarette from a packet on the sideboard.
She had taken to doing that, leaving packets everywhere so that she always had one ready, it reassured her to have them handy
all the time. She lit up and, taking a saucer to use as an ashtray, she walked back to the sitting-room and sat down to wait.
He should be here soon, she thought, glancing at her watch, but if he isn’t here by twenty-past two I’ll have another quick
drink to keep me calm.

Phillip paid the driver, looked up at the building and ran up the steps to the main doors. He buzzed Suzy, waited and then
let himself in as the door release went. He took the stairs to the sixth floor, a knot of tension in the pit of his stomach
making him unable to relax in the lift, and arrived at the flat only a little out of breath. Suzanna had left the door open
as she always did and he walked in, calling to her.

“I’m in here!” she answered from the sitting-room. He walked through.

“Hello, Suzy.” Phillip stood in the door and looked at her. She was the most beautiful woman he had ever known, long-limbed
and thin, her face and features, everything about her delicate almost to the point of frailty, but not quite. She stood, brushed
her hair off her face, her wonderful thick dark hair, and smiled at him.

“I’ve missed you,” she said.

Within seconds he had crossed the room and swept her into his arms. It wasn’t what he’d planned, he knew he had to stay calm,
aloof, but he couldn’t stop himself.

“Jesus, Suzy, I’ve missed you too!” He hugged her tight, his eyes closed, the smell of her, the feel of her overpowered him.
“You feel so good… You…” He kissed her hair. “You smell incredible.”

She pulled back and laughed. “Do I? Do I really?”

Phillip saw the doubt on her face despite the laughter. “Yes, you do.” He pulled her in to his body again and found her mouth.
He hadn’t wanted to touch her, he’d thought that he could do it without getting close, without complicating things. As she
kissed him, as their bodies melted together, he thought what a fool he’d been, things were complicated, they always had been.

Suzy ran her hands up under his jacket along the taut muscle of his back and opened her mouth to him, darting her tongue across
his lips, gently biting him. He moaned and held the hem of her dress, pulling it up over her hips. “My God… Suzy…” The feel of her naked body pressed against his clothes incited him. Holding her buttocks, he lifted her and she clenched
her legs around his hips, all the time their mouths locked together. He maneuvered her over to the sofa and leaned her back
so that she was perched half on, half off the edge. He eased himself away just far enough to unfasten his trousers, his fingers
fumbling with the belt, his heart pounding and with his other hand he ripped the neck of her dress, the sharp tearing sound,
the sudden violence of it making her jump. He shunted his body into place and bent his head, tearing his mouth away from hers,
down to her breasts, and she moaned, murmuring his name over and over again. He felt as if the moment would go on forever.
Then, gripping her hips, he pulled back, he looked at her face, at her eyes half closed, her mouth parted, the lips swollen,
and he said, “I love you, Suzy, I love you so much.” But it was the faintest whisper. He had lost the words, lost all thought,
all reason, everything except her. He took her then, thinking that nothing else mattered, unable to stop himself, caught up
in a physical power he neither wanted nor understood.