Conveniently His Omnibus (8 page)

‘No, of course not,’ she assured the little girl swiftly. ‘Whatever gave you that idea?’

‘I’m not sure.’ She screwed her eyes up and then said slowly, ‘P’haps because at tea time it just felt like you had quarrelled...all stiff and sharp somehow.’

‘Well, I promise you we haven’t,’ Sophy reassured her kissing the curly head, feeling guilty because she was the one responsible for the atmosphere Alex had so accurately described.

She had to apologise to Jon, she acknowledged mentally as she tucked both children up in bed, and kissed them good night. She had been wrong to say the things she had to him and then to flounce off in a huff. After all why should she expect him to...to behave like a real husband?

She pressed her fingers to her temples which were throbbing with tension and pain. What had she been hoping for when she ran inside like that? That Jon might follow her...that he might... What?

Telling herself that there was nothing to be achieved by putting off the evil moment she went back downstairs. Jon was in the study. She knocked briefly and then went in, her eyes immediately going to the letter in front of him, recognising it as the one which had arrived from Nassau that morning.

‘This is from Harry Silver,’ he told her. ‘Confirming his visit. He’ll be bringing his wife with him. I thought we might have them here to dinner.’

‘Jon, I must talk to you.’ How stiff and unnatural her voice sounded. She could see Jon frowning and her heartbeat suddenly increased, thudding nervously into her chest wall. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said miserably, ‘and I owe you an apology... I shouldn’t have spoken to you the way I did...I was wrong.’

‘Yes, you were,’ he agreed evenly, standing up and coming round the front of the desk. There was a look in his eyes she found hard to recognise, but instinctively she took a step backwards, only to find that Jon was right in front of her. ‘Very wrong,’ he murmured softly reaching out and pulling her into his arms. ‘I’m not a computer, Sophy...and I
am
capable of feelings. These feelings.’

His mouth moved on hers with unerring instinct, caressing, arousing...seducing her own, she recognised in stunned bewilderment as it parted eagerly responding to the warm exploration of his lips like the thirsty earth soaking up rain. The bruises Chris had inflicted were forgotten, her whole body felt hollow and light, empty of everything but the sensation of Jon’s mouth on her own. He was kissing her in a way she had always dreamed of being kissed, she acknowledged hazily, with an expertise and knowledge she had never imagined he would own. Immediately she tensed but Jon wouldn’t let her go.

‘Oh, no,’ he whispered, transferring his mouth from her lips to her ear. ‘You don’t get out of this so easily, Sophy.’ One hand left her body to cup her face, firmly but without the pain Chris had inflicted on her.

He had removed his glasses and this close to, his eyes were an unbelievable blue...not sapphire and not navy but something in between, she thought hazily, unable to tear her own away from them. Jon was still speaking and it took several seconds for her to register the words.

‘After all,’ he said silkily, ‘wasn’t it this you wanted when you lashed out at me earlier?’

Instantly she felt sick and shaken. Did he honestly believe that of her; that she had deliberately tried to incite him to...to this?

She shook her head, the bitter denial bursting from her throat before she could silence it.

For a second he said nothing, then she felt his hold slacken slightly, his eyes shuttered as he released her and stepped slightly away. Immediately she shivered, feeling bereft...aching for the warmth of his arms around her once more.

‘Forgive me.’ His voice was harsher than she had ever known it. ‘I obviously mistook anger for frustration.’

Frustration? Slowly his meaning dawned and a scarlet wave of anger scalded its way over her skin. Did he actually think she had deliberately tried to incite him to...to make love to her...because she was suffering from frustration because he had interrupted her with Chris? That she wanted
him
to finish what Chris had started? The thought made her feel acutely sick and for the second time that day she was bitterly angry with him.

Tears stung her eyes but she refused to let them fall.

‘You couldn’t be more wrong,’ she told him thickly. ‘I wasn’t lying to you when I said Chris attacked me, and as for thinking I wanted you to...to finish what he had started....’ She swallowed hard on the nausea clutching her stomach. ‘You’re doing both of us an injustice. I can’t think why you married me, Jon, if that’s the sort of woman you think I am. I’m tired, Jon,’ she told him listlessly as the surge of anger drained away, leaving her feeling exhausted both emotionally and physically. ‘I think it must be this hot weather that’s making everyone so on edge. I’m going to bed.’

She hesitated by the door, consumed by a totally crazy desire to turn round and go back, to beg him to take her back in his arms and kiss her again but somehow she found the strength to resist it.

Upstairs she was too tired even to start undressing. She caught a glimpse of her reflection in her mirror and stared at her swollen mouth touching it tentatively with her fingertips. When Jon had kissed her she had experienced sensations so totally alien and yet so totally known that she was still shocked by them. But not as shocked as she had been by Jon’s assured experience. When she had thought about him kissing her she had imagined his touch would be hesitant, unsure and perhaps rather clumsy but his mouth had moved on hers with wholly masculine authority, subtly demanding, revealing a wealth of experience she had never expected him to have. For a man who openly expressed a lack of interest in sex, Jon had revealed a totally unexpected degree of expertise. And she wasn’t sure she liked it. Where and with whom had he gained that expertise? Had he once perhaps been deeply in love? So deeply in love that it had made him eschew all further emotional or physical involvement? She shivered slightly, faintly disturbed by the discovery than Jon was not what she had thought him to be...that there was obviously much of himself that he kept hidden. But why had he kissed her?

That was a question to which she could not find an answer other than perhaps out of male pride because she had verbally challenged his sexuality.

Yes...she decided finally, that must be it. Yet didn’t that explanation too, indicate that Jon was not the totally non-sexual, mild man she had always believed him to be? Had she simply deceived herself or had he deliberately deceived her and if so, why? Why present an image to her that was, at least partially, false? That was something she was too tired to even try and analyse. Tomorrow, she told herself sleepily, as she prepared for bed, she would try to unravel these mysteries tomorrow.

* * *

I
N
THE
MORNING
Sophy overslept slightly and, much to the children’s disappointment, opted not to use the new car to take them to school. After explaining that she needed to drive it by herself to get used to it first, she managed to placate them.

She had promised to drive Jon into Cambridge when she had dropped the children off and had decided to combine it with a shopping trip.

‘We could meet for lunch.’ Jon suggested, as she was parking. ‘Unless of course you won’t have time.’

Sophy had been dreading being alone with him after what had happened the previous evening but he was his normal mild, calm self, and she had even been able to persuade herself that most of last night’s heart searchings had been prompted by nothing more than her own imagination. After all, it was not perhaps surprising that she should enjoy his kiss. She had wanted him to touch her for long enough.

‘Er...no. Lunch would be lovely,’ she stammered, realising that Jon was waiting for her response.

‘Good.’

The smile he gave her made her heart lurch drunkenly and, for some stupid reason, she simply sat in the car and watched him walk away, unable to take her eyes off his lean, lithe body. He was wearing his new clothes as though he had always worn them and watching the way more than one woman turned to observe his long legged progress down the street, Sophy found herself wishing she had left him to his baggy cords and shapeless shirts. She didn’t want other women looking at him, she realised with a sharp pang. She didn’t want them admiring the masculine lines of his body, the breadth of his shoulders beneath the fine cotton of his shirt...

Like someone moving slowly in a dream, she shook her head, trying to disperse it, forcing herself to get out of the car and lock it.

Her shopping didn’t take her long, and she was finished in plenty of time to get to the office where she had arranged to meet Jon. So much time in fact that when she found herself studying an attractive lemon sundress in a shop window, she gave in to the temptation to go inside and try it on.

It fitted her perfectly, enhancing the golden gleam of her skin and bringing out the red highlights in her hair. Tiny shoe-string straps tied on her shoulders in provocative bows, a broad stiffened belt emphasising the narrowness of her waist, before the skirt flared out over a slightly stiffened underskirt.

‘It might have been made for you,’ the assistant said, truthfully.

‘I’ll take it...’ Sophy took a deep breath, ‘and I’ll keep it on...’

The other girl’s eyes twinkled. ‘Mmm...well I certainly think he’ll appreciate it, whoever he is.’

‘My husband.’ The admission was made almost before she was aware of it and angry colour flooded her skin. Of course she wasn’t buying this dress for Jon’s benefit! She was buying it because it was cool and she was hot...and besides it was time she had some pretty things and...

Impatiently she waited for the girl to take her cheque and put her things into a bag, regretting now her impulsive decision to wear the dress but too embarrassed to do anything about it.

She found Jon waiting for her when she got to the office. He opened the door for her and, as the strong midday sunlight fell on his face, she realised he looked tired. Lines of strain harshened the shape of his mouth and for some reason he looked almost unfamiliar; harder, more male. As though she were seeing him properly for the first time Sophy stared at him, confused. He in turn was studying her, looking at her with such an air of open appraisal that the sundress, so pretty and cool in the shop, now seemed somehow provocative and dangerous.

‘It’s such a hot day I thought we’d eat at the Mill.’

The restaurant he named was on the river and very popular. Sophy doubted that they would be able to get a table but she was anxious to escape the tense atmosphere of the small office. It seemed to be stifling her. It must be the heat, she thought dizzily as they went outside but even in the fresh air the tension remained.

In the narrow streets the heat was like a thick blanket, clogging her throat when she tried to breathe. Far too acutely conscious of Jon at her side, she started to walk faster, arriving at the car hot and out of breath. In contrast Jon looked cool and lazily at ease. But was he? Some sixth sense made her study him more closely. A tiny pulse flickered unevenly under his skin. This constraint between them was a new thing, and one she did not know how to handle. Almost overnight Jon had turned from a kind, unthreatening man whom she liked very much and was fond of in a sisterly fashion, into a stranger, for whom her feelings were anything but sisterly.

Her face burned as she remembered his laconic accusation the previous evening. She had goaded him deliberately, she recognised that now. She wanted him to react physically to her comments but not because of Chris. All the feelings she had been fighting so hard to suppress flooded through her as she started the car. Why did she have to discover them now, when it was too late? Why had she not realised before their marriage that she was vulnerable to Jon’s attraction? Was it because they were married that she was seeing him in this new light?

The questions buzzed in her tired brain like swarming wasps, making her stall the car and have to restart it, whilst Jon sat silently at her side.

To her surprise he had booked a table for them at the Mill. Not outside where everyone else seemed to be eating but in the dim coolness of the mill itself. Once a working flour mill, the building had been enterprisingly converted into a restaurant some years ago. Recently it had been taken over by a young couple with an enthusiasm for wholesome natural food, which was attractively presented.

Sophy ordered unenthusiastically, knowing that she was far too wrought up to enjoy her meal. Her throat seemed to have closed to an aching tightness, her whole body in the grip of an unfamiliar tension. She wanted to be with Jon and yet she didn’t. Being alone with him made her feel nervous and on edge. Something she had never experienced in his company before, but a feeling she was familiar with nevertheless. She had experienced it every time she had dated a man she liked and whom she had thought might help her to overcome the stigma that Chris had labelled her with. It was the utmost stupidity to want Jon physically, she told herself despairingly, and it was not even as though he wanted her.

She managed no more than a few bites of both her first and main courses, refusing a sweet, and playing with her cup of coffee whilst Jon buttered biscuits and helped himself to the Stilton.

Why had she ever thought him clumsy? she wondered absently, watching the neat methodical movement of his hands. In moments she was totally absorbed in watching him, in wondering what it would be like to feel those long fingers against her skin...

‘Sophy.’

She looked up, confused by the sudden curling ache in the pit of her stomach, her breath catching suddenly, trapped deep in her lungs as she saw the way he was looking at her.

‘Jon?’

‘Some boxes are better never opened, Pandora,’ he said quietly in answer to her unspoken question, ‘but it’s too late for going back now.’

Sophy moistened her dry lips with the tip of her tongue, dreading what he might be going to say. She had seen in that look they had just exchanged a recognition of the desire he had stirred within her, and was ashamed of her own betrayal.