Fugitive Wife (9 page)

Wel, good evening, Miss Trevor. Don’t let me keep you from the social whirl. Or hasn’t Daddy got a prize-giving for you to attend

tonight?’

‘I’m not living at home any more. I―I have a flat.And my father’s in the States. Anything more you would like to know?’

His mouth twisted. ‘You have been busy while I’ve been away,’ he remarked. ‘What sparked off this sudden urge for emancipation?’

Briony was tempted to reply, ‘You did,’ but held her tongue.

‘You realy think of me as a child,’ she said slowly at last, her tone clouded by disappointment and bewilderment.

‘I try not to think of you at al.’ Logan leaned back in his chair, closing his eyes wearily. ‘It makes life much simpler.’

‘why?’

‘It’s not important!’ He shook his head and reached for his glass again.

‘You’ve had enough to drink,’ she said. ‘Logan please .’

‘Logan, please,’ he mimicked unpleasantly. ‘Just what the hel gives you the right to consider yourself my keeper?’

‘The fact that I care about you. That I care what happens to you,’ she said fiercely.

‘Am I supposed to be grateful for that?’ he lashed back. ‘We’re strangers, Miss Trevor, ships that pass in the night. Let’s keep it that way.’

‘You mean I have a choice?’ she enquired forlornly.

‘Why the hostility, Logan? What have I done?’

‘Nothing, love, nothing.’ He raised the glass to his lips and drank reflectively. ‘You exist, that’s al, and sometimes I tend to be too aware of the fact for my own peace of mind.’

‘Careful, Mr. Adair!’ It was her turn to mock. ‘That sounds dangerously like an admission.’ He smiled cynicaly. ‘Wel, don’t build on it, Miss Trevor.’

‘Why not? You made it clear more than once that you found me attractive, so why do I have to be shut out of your life so completely?’ She tried to smile. ‘Nothing heavy, Logan―but why?’

‘Because it’s better that way.’ He studied the remains of the whisky in his glass as if he was preparing a chemical analysis of it. ‘Do I realy have to enumerate the reasons? One—I’m too old for you. Two―your father may pay my salary, but he hates me and everything I stand

for. Three—you don’t know me, or anything about me. We don’t just inhabit different worlds, but different planets. Need I go on?’

‘Yes―if you intend to convince me.’ Tel me about Karen Welesley, she thought; Tel me that she’s your woman, and that she’s al you

want, and then I’l go. I’l be glad to go before I make an even bigger fool of myself than I’ve done already.

He said slowly, ‘What if I were to tel you that ever since I threw you out that afternoon, I’ve been kicking myself. At the time, I regarded it as one of the few chivalrous gestures of my life, now I tend to think that chivalry might better be confined to eunuchs. Perhaps they could cope with the consequences of it better than I have.’ He got to his feet. ‘Come here, Briony.’

She went slowly, standing in front of him submissively.

She had never felt so gauche or so unsure, but when his arms went round her she clung to him, closing her eyes, offering him her parted lips.

He wasn’t gentle, but his desire for her stopped just short of brutality, and she felt something wild and unknown deep within her respond to him. Whatever he’d have asked, she would have given gladly, unthinkingly, there and then, on the dusty carpet in the cluttered room, if that was what he wanted. She had never dreamed that such a need could exist, or that it ‘could be mutual. He was whispering her name as his mouth restlessly caressed her eyelids, her temples, her cheeks,the lobes of her ears, before returning to plunder her mouth again.

‘You taste as good as you smel.’ he said huskily at last, his hands tangled in her hair, as he regarded her, the aquamarine eyes hooded and slightly enigmatic.

‘It’s Civenchy,’ she said inanely, and felt a quiver of amusement go through him.

‘Naturaly.’ he said gravely. ‘And this is―madness.’ His voice sank to a whisper as he lowered his head towards her again, lifting her into his arms and carrying her towards the sofa. This time she made no protest as he began to unfasten the shin she was wearing, his lips lazily folowing the path of his hands.

‘You’re beautiful.’ he murmured at last. ‘And you don’t need this.’ Her bra joined her discarded shirt on the floor beside them. ‘Perfect.’

His hands were gentle on her as if he knew this was the first time she had yielded herself to so intimate a caress. ‘Like half-opened flowers-rosebuds.’ His lips teased her eroticaly, rousing her unawakened breasts to ful bloom, drowning her in a sensual dream from which she had no wish to recover.

The dingy surroundings had faded, and the only reality was the deepening pressure of Logan’s body against hers, and his hands moving on her softly as he began to rid her of the rest of her clothes.

When a door banged, it might have been in a different world. But the footsteps that were coming down the passage were real enough, and so was the door opening violently, and the laughing male voice exclaiming, ‘So you’re back, you bastard, are you … Oh, God!’

The sitting room door slammed shut. Logan jackknifed into a sitting position, cursing under his breath.

‘Who was that?’ Briony pressed her hands to suddenly burning cheeks. The intruder might not have seen everything, but he would have

had more than a shrewd idea of what was going on.

‘Tony. I share the flat with him.’ Logan got to his feet, straightening his own clothing. ‘He wasn’t due back until tomorrow, damn it, or I’d have taken the precaution of locking the door at least. We make a point of not intruding on each other when we’re―entertaining. It’s worked very wel―until this evening.’ He saw her looking at him and swore softly. ‘Don’t look like that, Briony. You must have

known―you can’t have believed you were the first one.’

‘Of course not!’ She huddled into the garments he had removed with such tender skil―a lifetime ago? ―avoiding his gaze.

‘And if he did recognise you, he can be persuaded to keep his mouth shut, if that’s what’s worrying you.’ Logan’s mouth twisted cynicaly.

‘It isn’t.’ Which wasn’t strictly true, she realised. It had taken her only one horrified moment after Tony’s retreat to realise the sidelong looks and muttered gossip which could be waiting for her at U.P.G. the folowing day. And it would be bound to get back to her father.

She knew it.

But the realy shattering realisation was that she had come within seconds of alowing herself to be seduced by a man she hardly knew, and that she would not have simply permitted such an occurrence but wanted it with al her body and soul and mind. Without Tony’s

interruption, she would have belonged completely to Logan by now and she knew it.

‘Briony.’ His voice was gentler than she had ever heard it, and his hands clasped her face, forcing her to look up at him. ‘It’s al right.

Everything’s al right. Nothing happened to you. Don’t hate me, and for God’s sake don’t start hating yourself.’

‘I don’t hate you.’ Her voice broke, and he kissed her trembling lips.

‘That’s good.’ He was smiling, but his eyes were troubled. ‘Don’t worry about getting out of here. I’l cal you a cab, and Tony wil be lying low in his room while you get clear.’

‘You’re turning me out?’ She could hardly believe her own words. Where was her pride? she asked herself wildly as humiliated colour

stained her cheeks.

‘As a temporary measure.’ He went over to the desk and handed her a memo pad and a pencil. ‘Write your flat number down and I’l cal

you there tomorrow.’

‘But Logan . .’

‘There are no “buts”. At least, not tonight. It’s not just Tony’s return, you know.’ He pushed a rueful hand through his hair. ‘I’ve probably got too much whisky in my bloodstream to do justice to either of us.’

‘It was so dreadful,’ she whispered. ‘Him bursting in like that.’

‘He feels dreadful too. He’s probably contemplating suicide at this very moment.’

‘That’s not true,’ she said passionately. ‘In spite of your early warning system, I’m not the first he’s caught you with. You more or less said so yourself?’

‘I think a discussion of what may or may not have happened in the past is pretty fruitless right now. I’l take you home.’ Logan went back to the desk, lifted the telephone and dialed a number.

Briony said stiffly, ‘It’s al right. You don’t have to come with me.’

‘Yes, I do.’ He ordered their taxi and replaced the receiver, He said, ‘I’m not going to touch you, Briony. I’m not even coming near you while I say this. But you’re not just any girl, and I wasn’t making a drunken pass because you were there and available. We could have something quite different going for us, and that’s why I’m glad that I’m taking you home now, and that I’l be phoning you tomorrow when I’m sober and thinking straight again. Perhaps you’d better do some hard thinking too, or you might suddenly find you were right in, out of your depth.’

She said with difficulty, her eyes filing with tears, ‘I think I love you, Logan.’

He did not move. He stayed where he was, leaning against the desk, and his mouth twisted a little.

He said lightly, ‘You catch on fast, Miss Trevor. Just be sure that you’re waiting by that phone tomorrow evening.’

Looking back on the period that folowed, Briony supposed she had never been happier in her life. Logan telephoned her as he promised and took her out to dinner.

But he made no further attempt to seduce her either then or on any of the other evenings which folowed.

She saw him at work too, and whenever possible he took her to lunch with him. She knew that everyone in the office was speculating about them, and she knew too that with her father due home from the States any day their romance was living on borrowed time. She had half expected a scene with Karen Welesley. but apart from giving her venomous looks on any occasion when they happened to encounter each

other, the older woman ignored Briony completely.

And Aunt Hes returned from Yorkshire, her head humming, as she herself said. with a new plot. She told Briony warmly that she was

looking wel. and was welcome to stay on at the flat for as long as she wanted, but Briony knew that as soon as her aunt began writing in earnest she would be in the way. She would have to find somewhere else to live.

She supposed she could go home. Word had reached U.P.G. that Sir Charles was delayed in the States and no one seemed exactly sure

when he would be returning.

‘Or I could move in with you.’ she said to Logan mischievously one night as they sat together in Aunt Hes’s drawing room, listening to records. ‘I hear Tony’s going back to Africa next week.’

‘You hear altogether too much.’ His tone was short ,and he sat up abruptly, dislodging her from where she had been dreaming with her head on his shoulder.

Briony was taken aback. ‘It was only a joke,’ she began.

‘Not an amusing one. I’ve never lived with a woman in my life, and I don’t intend to start now. It wouldn’t be fair.’

‘On whom?’ she asked rather indignantly.

‘On anyone involved,’ he snapped. ‘But particularly unfair to the girl. You’ve said yourself that Tony’s going abroad again next week. God knows where I’l be sent next. now I’ve finished that series of articles on Cambodia, or when, even. I could be away next week myself.

And what would you do then? Stay on at the flat and see which of us comes back first―Tony or myself?’

She gasped. ‘That’s a foul thing to say I’

‘Wel, it’s a foul idea. I share the flat with Tony because it suits us both. because of the sort of life we lead. But it’s not an arrangement which could be stretched to include a woman. It would lead to al sorts of problems.’

‘But surely,’ she stared at him. ‘you and Tony―you’l get married one day―one of you, or both.’

Logan shrugged. ‘Doubtful. Journalism isn’t the life for a married man. I’ve seen too many marriages crack up because the girl never knew from one day to the next where her husband was or what he was doing.’

‘I see.’ Briony got up from the sofa. ‘I’d better see about some coffee. Aunt Hes wil be home from the theatre soon.’

Logan said wearily, There’s time enough for that. Come back here, Briony. Look at me.’ His gaze narrowed as it rested on her face. ‘My views on marriage don’t please you. Do you disagree with them? Would you be content to live like that―in different parts of the world for most of our lives? Would it matter if I wasn’t there for anniversaries―for birthdays? What if we had children, and I was away when they were born? If they were il could you cope alone? God in heaven, Briony!’ His tone was derisive. ‘You’re eighteen years old, and very beautiful. You deserve better prospects for your future happiness than that.’

‘Do I?’ He was holding her arm, but she dragged herself free. ‘How kind of you to make the decision for me, Logan. How very

considerate. What I might want for myself is immaterial of course.’

‘No. it’s very material.’ He was very pale suddenly, and there was a kind of anguish in his eyes. ‘It has been since the moment I saw you.

God help us both. though I did try to fight it. But you’re so young Briony. How can you be sure what you want?’

‘I know I want you,’ she said. ‘I’m not just out of my depth, Logan. I’m drowning. Are you just going to stand there and let it happen?’

He groaned softly. ‘Love―you make things so hard for me. Everything I said that night at the flat stil stands. I am too old for you, and not just in age. Do you know what one of my first jobs on a newspaper was―a traffic accident. They were cutting someone out of a car with oxy-acetylene when I got there. He was already dead, and they were in a hurry. Do you know what burning flesh smels like, Briony? I

don’t think I’ve ever been so il in my life. And not only that. There’s so much about me that you don’t know. Al you’re realy aware of is that you want me to make love to you.’

‘Is that so wrong?’ she whispered.

‘No―on the contrary. But supposing there was something about me―something in my past that you found out about after we were

married. Something you couldn’t stomach.’

‘About you―or about your job?’ She was uncertain.