Never Leave Me (40 page)

Her burnished black hair was swept high on her head in a perfectly plain knot. There were pearls at her ears and throat. Her dress was of ivory silk, the neckline softly cowled, the skirt swirling around her knees in a river of tiny, impeccably executed pleats. Her stockings were sheer, her ivory kid pumps teeteringly high, and over her arm was a short, chocolate-mink jacket that he had bought her after Lucy's birth.

There was unfettered pleasure in his eyes as she sat down opposite him. ‘You look ravishing,' he said as he smelled the clean, sweet fragrance of her hair and the underlying note of her French perfume. He reached out, taking her hand in his. ‘Let's not bother with lunch,' he said, his voice thickening. ‘Let's drive home and make love.'

She dropped her eyes from his immediately and he cursed himself for a fool. For months now he had kept his passion on a tight rein, fearful that by giving full vent to it he would drive her away from him. The intoxicating pleasure he had felt when she had entered the restaurant, shrivelled and died. He felt cold and sick inside, certain that she didn't love him. That she had never loved him. He forced an easy grin.

‘Perhaps not,' he said, leaning back against the banquette and picking up the leather-bound menu. ‘It would make a dreadful mess of your hair.'

She laughed and beneath her laughter he heard her relief and the cold, hard knot deep in his belly tightened. She had married him in haste and she was too warm-hearted, too generous-natured, to tell him so. He had suspected it for months. Ever since she had been pregnant with Lucy. Now he was sure of it.

‘A Caesar salad, escargots, and two tournedos Rossini,' he said tersely to the waiter who hovered at his side. ‘And a bottle of Burgundy.'

He was angry. Angry with her. Angry with himself. What God-almighty ego had persuaded him that he had only to tell her that she would learn to love him for it to become the truth? Beneath the immaculate cut of his lightweight business suit the lean, tanned contours of his body tensed. He could confront her with it, as he had nearly confronted her once before. And if she admitted it, what then? Was he prepared to say goodbye to her? To allow her to return to France with Dominic and Lucy? To pretend that their marriage had never existed?

He drained the whisky he had been drinking and ordered another. He couldn't do it. He had fallen in love with her within minutes of meeting her, and he still loved her. He loved her so much he would happily die for her and under no circumstances would he do anything,
anything
, that would drive her from him. His hand tightened around his glass. He knew what the first thing was he had to do. He had to stop driving her further and further away from him with his physical demands. He had to settle for what she gave freely. Her friendship. Her affection.

‘What did you buy for Melanie's christening present?' he asked, forcing his voice to be negligent, to betray none of his inner torment.

‘An antique silver mug,' she said, her eyes flying to his, uncertain as to whether or not he was disappointed that she had not returned home with him.

‘Did you have it engraved?' he asked, aware that his knuckles were white. God in heaven, as if he cared what she had bought for the Brandons! Luke's face burned in his memory. Luke at the cháteau, telling him that he intended marrying Lisette. Luke, who had lived with her for months at Valmy while he had been fighting his way through the hell of the Ardennes. Luke, who had been with her when Dominic was born. Who had loved her then and who still loved her. He fought the memories down. To dwell on thoughts of Luke Brandon was to go mad.

‘Let's go up to Lake Tahoe at the weekend,' he said, pushing his barely touched plate of escargots away from him. ‘We haven't been for months and Dominic enjoys it up there.'

Her eyes shone. ‘That would be lovely, Greg. The woods around the lake remind me of the beech woods at Valmy.'

Despite his pain Greg laughed. ‘There's not the remotest similarity between the redwood forests north and west of Tahoe, and the chocolate box beech woods at Valmy, sweetheart. Normandy itself could be dropped into the forests up there and quite easily be lost.'

‘Big is not always best,' she said with husky laughter, glad that the moment of awkwardness between them had faded. ‘Just because the Tahoe and Eldorado forests
remind
me of Valmy's beech woods, does not mean that they are as
beautiful
as Valmy's beech woods!'

They had gone to Lake Tahoe and in the succeeding months they visited the Napa Valley, Salt Lake, La Jolla, and Mexico. The agency continued to flourish. When he went on business trips to New York, Lisette accompanied him. They employed another nanny to help Simonette. They entertained on an even bigger and grander scale. The success of Dering Advertising made them newsworthy. Greg was a millionaire. He was young, handsome. Their photographs appeared with increasing frequency in newspapers and magazines. They were a stunning couple: Greg with his tousled shock of sun-bleached hair, his powerful shoulders, his easy manner; Lisette, with her dark vibrancy, her captivating French accent, her exquisite grace. They were a couple who had everything. A couple who were envied wherever they went.

‘I can only help you if you trust me, Mrs Dering,' Dr Helen Rossman had said, leaning back in her leather swivel chair and surveying Lisette with interest.

‘I do trust you,' Lisette said, the roof of her mouth dry. She hadn't known what to expect from a psychiatrist. It had taken months for her to pluck up the courage to make an appointment and now she had she knew that she was on the defensive. She didn't want to tell this stranger about her intimate life with Greg. ‘I'm sorry,' she said, rising to her feet. ‘I've made a mistake. I shouldn't have come. Forgive me for taking up your time, Dr Rossman.'

‘Not at all,' Dr Rossman said, unperturbed. ‘But as you are paying for the hour of my time that you have booked, it seems a shame to waste it. Why not sit in silence for a little while. Silence is so very hard to come by, isn't it?'

Lisette looked at her doubtfully but sat back in her very comfortable chair. It was impossible to guess how old Helen Rossman was. She could have been anything from thirty-five to fifty. She wore no make-up, made no concessions to femininity at all. Her hair was dust-coloured, pulled tightly away from her face in an unbecoming bun.

The silence began to grate on Lisette's nerves. ‘It isn't a psychiatrist I need at all,' she said suddenly. ‘I'm not mad. I don't need to find out what is wrong with me, I already know. I really am wasting your time, Dr Rossman.' She began once again to rise to her feet.

Dr Rossman smiled. ‘Please tell me,' she said. ‘I'm very interested.'

Lisette closed her eyes for a moment and then said, ‘I love my husband. I love him desperately. But I freeze when he touches me. I can't give him the physical love he deserves, or the physical love that I need.'

‘Were you once able to do so?' Dr Rossman asked, picking up a pencil and surveying the tip thoughtfully before laying it down again.

‘Yes. At first. When we were in Paris.'

‘You said that you knew what was wrong with you, Mrs Dering. Does that mean you know why your responses have changed?

Lisette's heart-shaped face was taut. Her hands tightened in her lap. Apart from her father and Luke, she had never spoken of Dieter to anyone. She was not sure that she could do so now. She took a deep, steadying breath. ‘I am a Frenchwoman, Dr Rossman. I met my husband when he landed with the Allies on D-Day. We were married six weeks later.' She paused. The room remained silent. Dr Rossman seemed to be intently studying the pattern on the floor-to-ceiling curtains. ‘A few hours after we were married, he returned to his battalion and I did not see him again for ten months.' She passed a hand unsteadily across her eyes. ‘When he returned I had a three-month-old baby. My husband was thrilled. Delighted. He said his sister had been a seven-month baby. He didn't give me the chance to explain …'

The silence this time was longer. Dr Rossman waited. Her interest seemed to have shifted from the curtains to the pattern on the carpet.

‘The baby wasn't his. I had meant to tell him. I intended to tell him …'

Again there was silence. ‘But you never did,' Dr Rossman prompted at last.

Lisette shook her head. ‘My baby's father was a German. My husband was among the first to liberate Dachau. He would never have understood. If I had told him. I would have lost him.'

‘I see,' Dr Rossman, said, doodling idly on a sheet of paper. ‘When did you begin to feel the weight of your deception?'

‘When I came to America. When I saw my mother-in-law's joy at believing herself to be a grandmother. When I heard my husband introducing Dominic as his son.' She leaned forward, her eyes burning. ‘I understand
why
I feel guilty, Dr Rossman! But why should it affect me in this way? Why should it sexually freeze me?'

Helen Rossman's eyes were compassionate. ‘Because you are afraid,' she said gently. ‘You are afraid of the moment of orgasm. Afraid of losing control. To lose control would be to render yourself powerless against your driving need to tell your husband the truth. In the moment of orgasm there is no control. There is an emotional and physical explosion. A loss of identity and sense of separate being. A momentary disintegration of self. It is then that your subconscious knows you would be vulnerable. Then that you would break down and tell him the truth. And to prevent that happening, your subconscious mind is protecting you. It is not allowing such a moment to occur. It is, as you so accurately describe it, freezing you. Removing you from danger.'

Lisette stared at her, appalled. ‘Then there is nothing I can do?'

Dr Rossman continued to doodle lightly on her notepad. ‘Many women have the same problem, or a similar problem, Mrs Dering. A woman does not always know who the father of her child is. She has an affair. There are sexual relations between herself and her lover. Between herself and her husband. She becomes pregnant. In those circumstances most women if they have decided to carry the child, have one of two decisions to make. To continue the marriage, or to terminate it and begin a new life with their lover. Either way, they have to convince themselves that the child they are carrying is the child of the man they have chosen to stay with. And they do so. They have, after all, a fifty-fifty chance of being right.'

Lisette's eyes flew wide. ‘But that is terrible!'

‘Perhaps, but it is reality. It is a way of maintaining sanity. Of coping. The human mind is very flexible, Mrs Dering. We believe what we want to believe and, in believing it, it becomes the truth.'

‘But I
know
!' Lisette protested, rising abruptly to her feet. ‘There is no fifty-fifty chance that Dominic is Greg's child! He isn't. He's Dieter's son! I can't lie to myself like that! It isn't possible!'

‘Then you must tell your husband the truth. I cannot remove the guilt you feel. Only you can do that. But I would advise you not to free yourself of your burden until you are quite sure that you are strong enough to live with the possible consequences.'

Lisette drove south of the city, parking the car at the side of the freeway, walking for hour after hour on a deserted stretch of beach, the sea wind tugging at her hair. Her visit to Dr Rossman had resolved nothing. She understood her frigidity a little better, but that was all. She could not free herself of it. It was the prison she had entered of her own volition on that far distant day when Greg had stood magnificently naked in the room above the stables and had first held Dominic in his arms.

Greg knew that most men would have sought satisfaction elsewhere. There were times when the temptation came but he ruthlessly suppressed it. He loved Lisette. He was damned if he was going to cheapen that love by squandering it elsewhere.

In the years after Lucy's birth he had steeled himself to approach her sexually less and less. The effort had nearly killed him. Only the knowledge that the less frequently he made demands on her, the more relaxed she became, gave him the strength to continue.

He had known that he stood no hope of success unless they slept separately. Even now, years later, he could remember the raw agony he had felt when he had suggested that they have separate bedrooms. He had wanted to see shock on her face. Horror. He had wanted her to say immediately that such an arrangement was unthinkable. She hadn't. She had stood very still, sand clinging to her sandals from one of her long walks on the beach, her hair windblown, her eyes so dark he could read no expression in them.

‘You said you had been sleeping badly and I thought …'

‘Yes,' she had said, quickly. Too quickly. ‘I understand.'

She had been wearing a sweater of rich cornflower blue over a pair of white slacks. The desire to touch her, to hold her, had been almost more than he could bear. ‘It was just a thought, Lisette. We don't have to. Not if you don't want to.' He had stepped towards her, intending to crush her against him, to tell her that it was the last thing in the world he wanted.

She had turned away from him swiftly. ‘I think it's a good idea.' she had said, her eyes avoiding his. ‘I don't sleep well and I know how it must disturb you. I'll move your things for you tomorrow.'

It was then that all his doubts had crystallized into certainty. He had spun on his heel, striding swiftly from the room, not trusting himself to remain.

‘Papa is not very well,' she said, her brows puckering into a frown as she read the latest letter from France. ‘Mama says it's a slight stroke. She wants him to move to Paris for good, not just for the winter months, but he's refusing. He says no power on earth will remove him from Valmy.'

Greg looked across at her. They were sitting on the patio, watching as Dominic and his friends did spring dives into the pool. Whenever a letter came from Valmy she was pensive and he knew that no matter how hard she tried to hide it, she was longing for rain-washed skies and apple orchards and deep-shaded, high-hedged country lanes. He frowned. It had been six years since their last visit. Dering Advertising was flourishing and could survive quite well without him for five or six weeks, but Frank Warner was due to appear before the House Committee of UnAmerican Activities and he had promised to give him all the support he could.