Past All Forgetting (10 page)

As she stepped forward reluctantly, a large car purred through the puddles already beginning to collect between the cobbles of the market square and drew up beside the kerb in front of her.

The rear door swung open.

'Janna.' Sir Robert's slightly peevish tone came to her ears. 'Don't stand there getting soaked, lass. Get in.'

She had no choice but to comply, although a confrontation with Colin's father was the last thing in the world she would have chosen at that particular moment. Mustering a smile and a brief word of thanks, she climbed in beside him, and sank back into the affluent aroma of leather and good cigars.

He gave the chauffeur his orders, then turned to look at her.

'Well, this is a fine how-d'ye-do, I must say. I warned you what would come of your shilly-shallying, my girl.'

'You've heard, then,' she prevaricated.

'Well, of course I've heard,' he riposted tetchily. 'Who would Colin tell first, if not me, I'd like to know? After all, I did have a personal concern in the matter.'

'So did I,' Janna told him drily, and he sent her an irritated look.

'Now don't start going all feminine on me, Janna—I had enough of that to put up with from Colin's mother, God rest her soul,' he added perfunctorily. 'I never could make her see that in matters of business, she sometimes had to take a back seat. I thought you would have more sense.'

'I'm sorry.' Janna's own irritation was aroused. 'I didn't realise Carrisbeck House was a business proposition. I'd got the impression it was going to be my home.'

'Of course
it
was going to be your damned home, but you don't imagine I was going to spend that kind of brass, just to put a roof over your head, do you? Colin needs a place like that to entertain our clients. I thought he'd explained all that to you.'

'Yes, he explained,' she acknowledged wearily. 'This conversation seems a little pointless under the circumstances, don't you think?'

'I don't intend to let the matter rest—not by a long chalk.' Sir Robert's usually pugnacious expression took on a look of new determination. 'Everyone has their price. I don't suppose this Tempest chap is any different.'

Janna hesitated. 'I don't think he's interested in money.'

'Then he's a fool.' Sir Robert sent her a narrow look. 'And how is it you're so knowledgeable on the subject?'

There was no point in trying to dodge the issue. Sir Robert had seen her emerging from the White Hart, and was just as capable as the, next man, if not more so, of putting two and two together.

'Because I've just been to see him, and he told me Colin had made him an offer—asked him to change his mind. He said he had refused.'

'So you went to see what you could do.' Sir Robert's tone was unexpectedly congratulatory. 'Well, Janna, you've surprised me, lass, I must say. I never thought you had that sort of initiative in you, and I think the more of you for it. Knew him before, did you?' His voice might be casual, but the glance he shot her was anything but.

Janna strove for a light touch. 'Oh, Rian Tempest was one of our childhood gods locally.' She gave a brittle laugh. 'I was just one of a string of tiresome kids trailing round after him. He—he hardly remembered me.'

Another deception, she thought tiredly, for which she would ultimately have to pay. What was the price she wondered, for buying time?

'And what sort of reaction did you get? Did he strike you that he might become amenable, if the circumstances were right?' 

Janna hesitated, but honesty won. 'No, he didn't,' she said at last. 'I got the impression that he wanted the house and means to hang on to it.'

'Damnation,' Sir Robert muttered. 'It's beyond, me. If he wanted the house that badly, and his uncle knew it, why the hell didn't the old man leave it to him in his will? It's the obvious course. There's something fishy going on there, Janna, you mark my words, and I mean to get to the bottom of it.'

'Oh no!' The appalled words had escaped before Janna could prevent them. Aware of Sir Robert's eyes, surprised and suddenly suspicious, she sought hurriedly to cover herself. 'I—I'm sure you're wrong. Rian—Rian was doing a very difficult and dangerous job. The Colonel may have felt he might not survive to receive his inheritance. And he was always—independent.'

'Hm.' Sir Robert was clearly not impressed by the lameness of her arguments. He sat in silence for a few moments, staring into space, rousing himself as the car drew up outside Janna's gate. 'Well, here you are, lass, and I've saved you a wetting. Don't bother your head any more about the house. I'll take it from here. I'm not a man who's easily worsted. You'll grant me that, I think.'

Janna woodenly agreed. She had other less charitable ways of expressing it, and she knew a shiver of fear as she watched the car draw away. She felt trapped, caught between Rian's vengeance and Sir Robert's ruthlessness.

And as she walked up the path towards the house, she remembered with a sinking heart that she had left the library books she had taken as an alibi in Rian's hotel room. He had not only won the first round hands down, but she had presented him with a weapon to use against her in the second.

The next few days passed uneventfully, and Janna forced herself to put her personal problems to the back of her mind, and prepare some work for next term. She retrieved the script of her Nativity play from the suitcase on top of the wardrobe, updating it and making a few cuts at the same time. She would have to discuss the choice of carols to go with it with Beth who taught music throughout the school, she thought. Mrs Parsons always preferred them to include at least one modern carol which the children had to learn along with the traditional favourites.

She had already decided to give the children a project in which they found out as much as they could about Christmas in other lands, and she spent some time collecting material for this, and making the big loose-leaf books in which the children would write and draw their findings.

She saw Colin, of course. He took her out for a drink one evening, and another night they went out to dinner at a fifteenth century inn in a neighbouring village, but it was useless to pretend that everything was just the same between them. For one thing, he never mentioned the house, and when she once tentatively raised the subject, told her dismissively that he did not wish to discuss it any further. Janna was distressed by this. She had no means of knowing whether Sir Robert had told him of her abortive visit to Rian, and what construction had been placed on this. In addition, it made her uneasy to feel that their relationship for the first time contained a no-go area. What would happen once they were married if Colin refused to discuss with her the points on which they were at variance? Would it mean a lifetime of uncomfortable silences? she thought, stealing a glance at his unyielding profile as they drove home one night. She had always described Colin's chin to herself as 'firm'. Now she was beginning ruefully to wonder if 'stubborn' might not be a better description. She had always consoled herself in the past with the thought that Colin must be more like his mother than his father, but now she was no longer so sure. It was as if this business over the house had thrown a whole new and disturbing light over their relationship, and if Colin would not talk to her about it, how could it be resolved?

At her most pessimistic, she told herself that it did not matter anyhow. That whatever she did would be doomed to failure because of Rian, who had the power to destroy their relationship anyway.

That night when Colin took her in his arms, she dung to him, trying to reassure herself. 

'Colin, you do still love me?' She could hardly recognise herself in the halting words.

He looked at her, plain astonished. '
Janna
.' He bent and kissed her. His mouth was warm and pleasurable, and she returned his kiss with unwonted ardour. For one crazy moment, she found herself hoping that her passion might set light to his own, and that he would lose all control of himself and make love to her. If once she belonged to him completely, a voice argued within her, then she was certain he would never leave her, no matter what might happen. She was sure of him then. Besides, there might be a child to bind them even more closely.

And there was more. Colin's lips, Colin's body might block out all those, other memories which had returned to torment her. She was ashamed of the wanton way her senses had yielded to Rian. She tried to convince herself that these adolescent fevers were behind her now, but he had shown her in a few brief moments just how vulnerable she was.

But it was Colin she wanted, she thought wildly. She needed to know that she could respond to him in the same way. That he could set her passion blazing, and provide its ultimate fulfilment.

For one reeling minute, before sanity returned, she could have cried with disappointment as Colin's mouth left hers, and he set her gently but firmly away from him.

'Has that convinced you?' he asked tenderly, and with a hint of indulgence in his voice.

She swallowed. If she obeyed her instinct and said 'no' what would he do? Would he understand? It frightened her to think she could not be sure, and yet she was committed to him.

He touched the curve of her throat caressingly with his forefinger. 'Silly girl! I've chosen you, you know that, and very soon you're going to be my wife.'

'Not that soon.' She spoke constrainedly, conscious of the forbidden topic of the house creating new tension. Before they could be married they had to find somewhere to live —somewhere else to live.

'Sooner than you think.' He pulled her close to him again, resting his lips on her hair. 'I'm sorry I've been a bit of a swine lately, darling. I think it's partly this waiting that's getting me down. Engagements are hell—everyone says so, and I'd really thought that we could set the date at last. It was a hell of a disappointment to—lose out like that. Do you understand?'

'Yes.' Relief flooded through her. How could she have doubted him? she thought, afire with happiness. She put up her hand and stroked his cheek. Her voice was warm and soft as she said, 'But we don't have to wait, Colin.  If we love each other, that's all that matters.' She twisted in his arms slightly and looked up at him, trying to ascertain the expression on his face in the dimness of the car. 'Darling, you know what I'm trying to say.'

'Oh, Janna,' he said on a long sigh, and she realised with a pang of dismay that there was no passion in his voice, no jubilance. 'You can't really mean it. At least, I hope you don't. All my life, I've had this ideal. My wife, my bride coming to me down the aisle in white—not because it's the fashionable thing to do, but because white is the—virginal colour. It means so much to me, Janna, knowing that when we're together on our wedding night, it will be for the first time, and that no other man will have touched you as I will. That's why although the waiting is hard, it isn't unbearable, because I know that will be my reward eventually.' He kissed her hair softly. 'Don't tempt me, darling. Don't ask me to do anything that might spoil this dream.' She sat suddenly rigid in his arms, conscious of feeling humiliated. She had offered herself to Colin, and he had refused.

When she spoke, her voice trembled. 'And you, Colin? When we're together on this ideal—wedding night you have planned—will it be the first time for you as well? Or don't your principles demand male virginity as well?'

He lifted his head sharply and looked down at her. She could sense his displeasure even before he spoke.

'I thought you would also understand, Janna—that you would be mature enough to know that—a certain amount of experience is—necessary for a man.'

'But not for a woman.' Anger allied to the fading humiliation took her out of his arms, and as far away from him as she could get in the car. 'Hurrah for the double standard!'

'Don't be ridiculous,' he said flatly. 'You know as well as I do that there's always far more involved for a woman than there is for a man…' He paused as if embarrassed. 'A man can have any number of casual affairs without them meaning very much at all. But no girl could—no decent girl, that is.'

'I see.' She leaned her head wearily against the cool glass of the passenger window. 'So if I had—strayed, your whole attitude towards me would alter?'

'I see no point in this discussion,' he said stiffly. 'I'm perfectly well aware that you've done nothing of the kind. You don't imagine that things would have proceeded this far between us, if I'd ever imagined… oh, hell and damnation, darling, you know; what I'm trying to say.'

'I think so. You're saying that while I remain untouched by human hand—or feelings, apparently—then I'll continue to live up to your ideal of womanhood. What would you say, I wonder, if I told you you were all wrong about me?

That I'm just as capable of erring off the straight and narrow path as anyone else? What then?

He was very still. 'Are you telling me that you've had a —a sexual relationship with another man?' he demanded at last.

She noticed that he did not use the words 'love affair'.

'No, Colin,' she gave a forced smile. 'My argument is purely hypothetical. I'm stilly apparently, as you wish me to be.'

'Then what the devil has all this been about?' He gave a short exasperated laugh. 'God, Janna, I don't understand you this evening.'

'No,' she said quietly. 'And to understand all is to forgive all. Isn't that what they say? Colin, are you sure you want our engagement to continue?'

'Oh, my sweet!' He drew her into his arms again, kissing her averted face. 'I love you, you silly girl,' he whispered against her ear. 'And I respect you. Don't despise me for that. The waiting will be worth it, I promise you. I'll make everything so wonderful for you, darling. We'll be so happy. Trust me?'

She wanted to tell him that it was not a question of her trusting him, but the reverse. Instead she allowed him to kiss her, and said goodnight.

But how much did his love really mean? she asked herself, lying sleepless later that night. Why couldn't he have said that he loved her no matter what she might have done? That the past was meaningless, and that all that mattered was their future together. Could love really operate within the strict limits he seemed to have set?