When the Devil Drives (22 page)

way.'

'Yes.' She could hear that awful brightness in her voice again. She

drank the rest of her coffee and reached for her bag. 'Well, I'm sure it's

not too late. You've never exactly lacked for female admirers.' Oh,

God, I sound so hideously prissy! 'So it's a fresh start for both of us,

and no recriminations.'

'I hope so.' As she rose, he got to his feet too. 'What are your

immediate plans?'

'I haven't given them much thought as yet,' She summoned a smile.

'I'll probably go back to the States. I liked it there.'

'Why run?' he said. "There's nothing to escape this time.'

Oh, yes, there is. The knowledge that you don't want me any more.

That you'll never kiss me or touch me again. The reality of you living

in this house, married to some rich man's suitable daughter.

She lifted her chin. 'And nothing to keep me here either.'

'Is that the truth?' he said. 'Tell me, Joanna, before I go on my knees to

you and beg you to stay.'

Her heart seemed to stop. 'The joke is over,' she said unsteadily. 'You

said so yourself.'

'I'm not joking, damn you!' He was deathly pale, a tiny muscle

working beside his mouth. 'I bought this house, hoping and praying

that it was for us both. I've dreamed of nothing else but you here

beside me. I'm even using the other bedroom, because I don't want to

sleep alone in that bed. When I wake up there, I want you, my wife, in

my arms.'

He looked at her, and she saw there were tears in his eyes. 'What's

past is done, Joanna. There's a lot we both have to regret, but that

doesn't necessarily cancel the future. Don't go, my darling. Don't

leave me. Because this time I'll follow, no matter how far it is.'

For a moment there was silence, then she took one uncertain step

towards him. In the next instant she was in his arms, held so tightly,

so passionately she could neither move nor breathe.

He said her name, his voice shaking, then he was kissing her deeply,

and without restraint, and she was responding, her heart on her lips.

In between kisses, they spoke the first words of the love neither could

bear to deny any longer. Half laughing, half crying, they reproached

each other.

'I thought you didn't want me any more.'

'I thought I'd lost you forever.'

'Why didn't you tell me? Why did you never say...?'

'Would you have believed me?'

'I believe you now.'

'Yes.'

He said the word, and she repeated it as if it were a vow.

Cal gathered her up in his arms and sat down on the sofa, cradling her

possessively against him as if he would never let her go.

'I've done this all wrong, of course,' he said, smothering the ghost of a

laugh against her hair. 'The plan was to get the cottage exactly as I

wanted it, then start courting you, very decorously, very seriously. I

thought my only chance was to convince you that, whatever might

have been said or done in the past, my intentions were now strictly

honourable.'

'What made you realise that?' Joanna stroked his cheek with fingers

that trembled.

'I think I'd always known it,' he said slowly. From the first time I saw

you, all those years ago—a scared kid in the back of a large car. When

we met again, as adults, I spotted you across the room at some party. I

didn't realise who you were at first, but there was this instant

recognition, which almost knocked me backwards. Here she is, I

thought, the woman I've been waiting for. Then someone told me

your name, and I felt as if my guts had been wrenched out.'

He laughed unsteadily. 'It seemed like life's supreme irony—to see

the girl you wanted above all others, and find out she was totally out

of reach. I had a couple of drinks and argued with myself. It was time

the feud was over and I knew it. Whatever the rights and wrongs of

the situation, honour had been more than satisfied, and maybe this

would be a good way to start repairing the fences, I told myself.

'So I wangled an introduction, and you looked at me as if I'd crawled

out from under a stone.' He groaned. 'It had taken a lot of courage to

come over to you, and I felt as if I'd been publicly slapped for my

efforts. So I decided if you wanted to play rough, it was all right with

me. That whatever you began, I could finish, and that one day, no

matter how long it took or what it cost, you were going to belong to

me completely.'

He looked at her wryly. 'I didn't bargain for the fact that you were

equally determined to keep me at bay. When you married Martin, I

nearly went insane. Your wedding night was the pits of my entire life.

I keep getting these pictures in my mind of the two of you

together—him holding you, touching you as I wanted to do. I drank

myself into a stupor trying to erase them.' Joanna stirred restively in

his arms. 'Cal-—'

'Let me finish, darling, please. I came close to hating you then. But,

all the same, something told me this wasn't the end of the story. I kept

telling myself—wait. Don't get mad, get even.' He paused. 'Then, of

course, Martin had his accident, poor bastard.'

'Cal.' Joanna's voice shook. 'There's something I've got to tell you—to

confess.'

'There's no need.' His hand gently stroked the sudden rigidity of her

shoulder and arm. 'Whatever you did, I was largely responsible for,

and God knows I'm not proud of that.'

'No.' She laid a finger on his lips, silencing him. 'I've got to tell you.

It's worse than you know.' She took a swift, painful breath. 'That was

no accident. I—I killed Martin.'

There was a silence. Cal's brows lifted. 'Literally?' he asked in a

matter-of-fact tone. 'What did you do to him—saw through the brakes

on the car?'

'Of course not!' She was horrified. 'But I might as well have done.'

There was another silence. She moistened dry lips with the tip of her

tongue. 'You say you want to marry me, but I don't think that's ever

going to be possible.'

'I agree it may not be easy at first. But both sides are going to have to

learn to accept it. I'm damned if we're going to drag this feud into

another generation.'

'It has nothing to do with the feud,' Joanna interrupted swiftly. 'It has

to do with me—with the kind of person I am. I ruined Martin's life

when I married him. I destroyed him.' Her hands twisted together, the

knuckles white. 'I meant it all for the best. I wanted to be a good wife

to him. Instead, I made him so wretched that he didn't want to live any

more.'

'Who the hell told you that?'

'He did. And his aunt confirmed it.' She swallowed. 'I can't risk doing

that to another human being. You must see that.'

Cal stared at her, his face suddenly grim. 'There's no danger of that.'

'You can't know that. I didn't know it when I married Martin. I

thought I'd be able to make him happy—to make our marriage work,

but I never could. And it was all my fault. I couldn't love him in the

way that he wanted.' She hesitated. 'In—that way.'

'Are you trying to tell me you don't love me in that way either?' He

spoke gently, but there was an agonised fierceness in his eyes.

'I don't know,' she said. 'I—just don't know. With Martin, I was

hopeless—useless. Nothing I tried to do made any difference. I didn't

know how to help him—how to reassure him. I felt so guilty anyway,

knowing I'd married him without being properly in love. I'd thought I

could pretend, at first anyway, but he guessed immediately. He

accused me...' Tears rose hot and thick in her throat. 'It was

dreadful—a nightmare that went on and on. And I couldn't make it

stop.' Her voice died away.

Cal was gazing at her, horrified understanding dawning on his face.

He said quietly, 'Joanna—are you saying that you and Martin

never...? That you're still a virgin?'

She nodded convulsively. 'Night after night, I tried, but nothing was

any good. He knew I didn't love him properly, and it—affected

him—his manhood.'

'And that's the burden you've been carrying all this time? All that

guilt—all that blame?' Cal shook his head. 'Oh, my sweet—my poor

little love.'

'It was -my fault,' she said intensely. 'When he went out that night, I

knew he was in a desperate state. I should have stopped him.'

'I doubt whether you could have done.' Cal's face was grave.

'But I should have tried,' she insisted. 'I was just using him, and he

knew it. The least I could have done was attempt to save him.'

'No, my darling.' Cal looked at her soberly. 'Martin, poor devil, was a

tragedy waiting to happen. Remember my telling you that we were at

school together? Well, there were question marks about him—about

his masculinity—even then. When you announced your engagement

to him, I told myself I must have been wrong, that we'd done him an

injustice. Now I suspect we were right all along.' He kissed her

quivering mouth very gently. 'Believe me, my darling, if you used

him, you were certainly a lifeline as far as he was concerned.'

'I don't understand.' Joanna frowned in bewilderment. 'Are you

implying that Martin was— was...?'

'Homosexual?' Cal supplied. 'Yes, I think he undoubtedly was, but

not overtly. That was the pity of it all. For some reason, it was

something he wasn't prepared to acknowledge, even to himself,

maybe through family pressure. His aunt, after all, was a formidable

woman with a closed mind. I think Martin made a conscious decision

to deny his own nature, because he was afraid. He wanted to be

straight, to shut the closet door and lead what he thought would be a

normal life. Only he found it wasn't going to be that simple.'

He put a strand of hair tenderly back from her face. 'Your guilt about

not loving him can have been nothing compared to what he felt when

he was actually living with you, trying to be your husband, and

failing. Marriage is an intimate relationship, mentally as well as

physically. He must have been terrified that you would guess the

truth. Eventually, there was nowhere left for him to hide.'

'Oh, my God!' Joanna shuddered, hiding her face on Cal's shoulder. 'If

only I'd known! Maybe I could have helped.'

Cal shook his head. 'Only if you could have made him face up to the

truth about himself, and I doubt if anyone could have done that. In the

end, he found a different sort of courage to solve his problems.' He

took her chin in his hand, making her look at him. 'But you, my

precious girl, have got to stop blaming yourself. Martin chose his own

path. Unfortunately it happened to cross yours just at the wrong

moment, that's all.'

'But I can't just—write him off.'

'Nor can you let him shadow your entire future.' Cal's voice was firm.

'Your relationship was a tragic mistake, I agree, but you seem to

forget it could just as easily have destroyed you, if you'd been in love

with him.'

Her face was still troubled. 'But if I fail you too...'

'You won't.' His hand traced a tantalising path down her slim body

from breast to thigh, and all her senses .surged in excited,

uncontrollable response and need. 'You see,' he told her gently,

'you're the other half of me.'

His arms tightened round her. 'The past has done too much harm

already. So let's start looking forward instead. You and I, my love, are

going to be quietly married by special licence just as soon as it can be

arranged. If there's any music to face, then we'll cope with it together,

after the wedding.'

'They may never accept it,' said Joanna. 'My father—Simon.'

'We'll give them every chance,' Cal promised. 'But it's time we

thought about ourselves—our wishes— our feelings.' He paused.

'Where do you want to spend our honeymoon?'

She smiled up at him, lovingly, lingeringly, the last wistfulness

fading from her eyes. 'Oh, somewhere quiet and romantic and not too

far away, with a four- poster bed.'

'I know the very place,' he whispered, and kissed her.