The Tender Flame (17 page)

‘Just as it never occurred to you to shut me up when I gossiped to you.'

‘Are we arguing again, Jan?' he asked with a delicately speculative lift of one eyebrow.

‘Of course not,' Jan said in a most argumentative voice, and immediately burst out laughing. ‘We do tend to strike sparks off each other,' she admitted.

‘I won't
argue
with that,' he said with amusing emphasis.

‘Just when did you have this conversation with Sylvia about me?'

‘You know when. That time I came to fetch you back from your parents'. I bumped into her on your doorstep, and as we were both at a loose end I took her out for a meal. I mentioned it to you at the time.'

‘I thought you might have seen her since.' She wished she hadn't said that. It sounded as though she were jealous.

A point that did not slip by unnoticed. The evidence of this was apparent in the bright intelligence which came to his eye, a sharp twinkling force that had a pungent edge to it.

‘Would you care to dance?' was the question his lips formed. His eyes conveyed a subtly different message, that was more in the nature of a challenge. ‘Dare you dance with me?'

She
had never seen him in this form before. It was nice, but it made her feel as though she was biting into ginger.

He was the best looking man in the place; come to that he was the best looking man she had ever seen, and he was looking at her in a way that gave her the shakes.

She walked on to the dance floor with a peculiar feeling of breathless excitement marking her apprehension. But the tightness of her breath was nothing to the hold David put on her. He held her closer than the shell is to the egg. She wasn't just dancing with him, she was melting into him. She wished she could get a grasp of the shakes. She liked to be in control of her own emotions, not bending vulnerably to his.

She knew what he was doing, but not why he was doing it. His half-slitted glance was appreciative of her womanliness as he lazily savoured her complaisance. It was as if he had sensed a responsiveness in her mood, and had worked on it to bring her to this thought-paralysing state of helplessness. As a husband he would often be impossible; but as a lover he would be perfect. He had the power to manipulate a woman; he would know exactly what to do to heighten her desire to their mutual delight and pleasure.

‘I was right in what I said to that woman in the café, earlier today,' he said tenderly in her ear. ‘You are a handful of woman. A
delectable
handful. Is it improper of me to say this to you?'

‘No,' she croaked.

‘Then why are you blushing?'

‘Am I?' she said. She could hardly tell him that she was blushing at her own thoughts. At the intimacies her mind had conjured up in disquieting detail.

She saw the look in his eyes—smile or triumphant gleam?—she wasn't sure which but she could make a pretty good guess. And she knew to her deepening dismay that she couldn't even claim these thoughts as her own. To the last intimate detail, he had projected them into her head.

She objected to the idea of being this malleable in any man's hands. It was tantamount to giving herself to him to do with as he pleased without a qualifying clause. If the man loved her enough, that would justify her susceptibility, because he would put her first. The right kind of love would be a giving love, not a taking love. It would protect, not hurt. Warm, not consume.

But . . . she was getting confused . . . love? Love is a tender flame. Shared mistrust cannot ignite it, and it doesn't flare into wild antagonism at every turn and twist of thought. Undeniably there was something between them, and she had always known that it would taunt just so far before reaching a point from which there was no drawing back. Whatever it
was
on his part, on her part it was love. She could never honour truth again if she didn't own up to that. Her physical urges were a strong match to his, but she knew that in her it was an impulse that came straight from the heart. She was a woman and so her heart had to be touched before her senses were alerted. He was a man, and men aren't quite so fastidious.

The music ended. They walked back to their table and resumed their places in silence. It was probably silly of her to harbour the comforting notion that he seemed to be as shaken as she was.

‘Well,' he said, picking her hand off the table and holding it.

Her heart contracted at the look in his eyes. A look like that must surely come straight from his heart. Nobody, not even David, was skilful enough to manufacture it from the senses.

He turned her hand over and placed his on top of it so that they lay palm to palm. His longer fingers caressed the sensitive area on the inside of her wrist. She was frightened, not of him but of herself, and alarmed that his touch could pinpoint so much feeling in her.

‘It's all wrong, Jan. I shouldn't say a word to you before I've explained everything to you. It's putting the cart before the horse.'

She couldn't condemn him for that. She'd always had the unfortunate knack of putting
things
in reverse order herself, and she had made no exception when it came to her feelings for him. Because of what gossip said, she hated him before she knew him. Because of some strange power he wielded over her, she loved him before she liked him.

‘Sooner or later you are going to marry me. It would make it easier for me if it were sooner.'

‘Hasn't anybody ever told you that a man should honour a girl with a tender, questing proposal?' she said, choking over the unexpectedness and abruptness of it.

‘Hasn't anybody ever told you that a man regards marriage as a bitter confiscation of his freedom? The fact that I'm prepared to give mine up should be enough.'

He was like a little boy, she thought. Touchingly unsure, brusquely hesitant, for all his tough words.

‘I don't know what to say.'

‘Yes will do.'

‘Yes.'

‘There. That wasn't very difficult, was it?'

She laughed joyously, shook her head disbelievingly. She thought that if David didn't take her out of here quickly she would exhibit a complete lack of control and rush round the table and into his arms.

It was deflating, shattering, to see David abandon her hand for his knife and fork and calmly begin to eat the meal she couldn't
remember
being ordered, never mind being set before them.

He made her feel warm again by saying: ‘How quickly can you eat? If we got up to go out leaving our food untouched, Danielle would beat us to the door to ask why.' His eyes flicked across to the piano. ‘I'm afraid she's coming over in any case. Probably to ask what we find more interesting than the food we have delayed eating for too long. All will be forgiven when I tell her.'

For some inexplicable reason, Jan didn't want Danielle to be told, not just yet. She wanted to keep it safe and secret. David had put the cart before the horse. He'd proposed without doing the courting and the cosseting. Until he'd done the courting and the cosseting she wouldn't feel properly engaged; she wouldn't feel safe. She knew she was being trivial and unreasonable, and to make up she gave David a lovely smile of reassurance.

And, anyway, Danielle was a woman, and there are some things a woman doesn't have to be told, at least not in so many words. The shining radiance in Jan's eyes was blazoning the news to the world.

‘Jan had just consented to be my wife,' David said, sounding smug and pompous.

‘I'm so pleased,' Danielle bubbled with absolute sincerity. ‘It will make it easier for you, David.'

Jan frowned. David had used much the
same
wording. ‘Sooner or later you are going to marry me.' And then he had said: ‘It would make it easier for me if it were sooner.' What she had taken to be his meaning had put a blush to her cheeks. But Danielle couldn't mean the same thing.

Danielle said: ‘I must sit down before I fall down. And I had you marked as a person of high intelligence, Jan. How can you take on this bitter old cynic?'

Unperturbed by Danielle's seemingly unfavourable opinion of him, knowing she was only teasing, David snapped his fingers to alert a waiter. ‘Bring another glass, please. You'll take a drink with us, Danielle?'

‘Yes, but not this,' she said, delicately wrinkling her nose at the wine on the table and tapping the bottle with a shimmering blue-pink fingernail.

‘According to your wine waiter, it's the best in the house. And at the price you charge for it, it should be,' David said, quirking an amused eyebrow at her.

‘Oh, it is. There's nothing wrong with the wine. It is of an excellent year, but it is not appropriate for the occasion. Bring champagne,' she said to the waiter. ‘The best we have. Only the finest champagne is good enough to toast your happiness. I'm truly delighted for you both. He's quite a nice bitter old cynic once you get used to him, as you must know, Jan.' She leaned forward and
touched
David's arm. There were tears in her eyes as she said: ‘We have both known a bad time. Yours is now behind you. Let it be that way, my friend, by remembering only what was good. Don't let yesterday's bitterness spoil your beautiful tomorrow.'

She went on to say something about it being in bad taste to stir up unhappy memories, but she was doing it in David and Jan's best interest. ‘It is necessary to your happiness to forgive, David,' she beseeched.

Jan's mind harked back to the conversation she'd had with Danielle in that café in Didsford. Danielle had recalled memories of Annabel from two viewpoints, hers and David's. They both remembered Annabel in a different way. To one of them she was a monster, taking everything, giving nothing; cruel, destructive, even from the grave. The other saw her as a naughty child—thoughtless, but not intentionally cruel, a victim of her own incredible beauty. Annabel had borne a child by Danielle's fiancé, and Jan had naturally thought that hers would be the harsher memory, and that David's would be tempered by love and therefore he would have kinder thoughts of Annabel. But Danielle was saying that it was David who harboured the bitter memory and until he let it go he would not be able to find true happiness.

‘You haven't a drop of bitterness or resentment in you, have you Danielle?' David
said.

‘Why should I have? I shall always be grateful for the happiness Stephen gave me. Now that he's dead, I want him to rest at peace. I have no quarrel with the living. The only person I would hurt by keeping my vengeance alive would be myself. Would it right the wrong if I vented my anger on a child who didn't ask to be born? No blame can be attached to Stephanie. She must not suffer for the mess we made of things.'

So Danielle knew about Stephanie. Somehow this did not surprise Jan.

‘Ah! Here is the champagne,' Danielle said. The moment hers was poured she lifted her glass, but did not touch it to her lips. ‘To you both. Champagne is such a happy drink. It laughs and bubbles in the glass.'

Let our life together be like that, Jan thought. David had suffered pain and humiliation. From this moment let it be laughter and happiness. With the plea, a gentle little sigh seemed to ease itself round her heart. She had no warning that her relief was premature. She thought what a beautiful person Danielle was, beautiful inside as well as outside. She was so happy for them. Chattering away, planning.

‘You'll have to get married quickly, you know, to make it right with the authorities. The promise of a marriage won't be enough, and I'm sure that you, Jan, won't mind
forgoing
the sort of massive wedding that takes ages to arrange, when a quickie job will tie the knot just as securely and at the same time ensure that everything goes smoothly with Stephanie's adoption. I can, and do, sympathise with Mrs. Grant, but it's wrong of her to deny Stephanie the right to grow up in a young household. After all, you have never denied her the opportunity of seeing Stephanie. And it isn't as if Stephanie would benefit financially from belonging to Mrs. Grant because the money has all gone and she is living in pathetically reduced . . .' Her exuberance faded as she saw, too late, David's frown and Jan's dismay. ‘What is it? Oh, David, don't tell me you haven't told her?'

‘No, I'm afraid not. I hadn't got round to it yet.'

‘But you should have done. Oh,
David.
I am so sorry. I did not mean to be indiscreet. I assumed, because you'd proposed, that you would have told Jan
everything.
What can I say?'

‘Nothing more, please,' David said in a quiet voice. ‘Just go. Don't worry,' he added in a kinder tone. ‘No harm has been done.'

‘I hope not,' Danielle said, her eyes trailing unhappily from David to Jan. ‘I will see you later,
chérie
.'

As soon as Danielle went, Jan said: ‘I don't understand this talk about the authorities. What did Danielle mean?'

‘I
will explain,' he said tersely, ‘but not here. I think the evening has just folded up on us. I'll take you home, and explain it all to you there.'

‘Very well,' said Jan, rising with dignity and walking away from the table where the untouched champagne continued to sparkle and bubble in the glasses, but now the atmosphere was more consistent with the ice in the bucket. Her fault, she knew. David looked irritated and annoyed, but he wasn't cold towards her, although he didn't offer to take her hand as they walked to the car.

Conversation was sparse on the journey home, again her fault. Her mind was numb to everything but the strange wording of David's proposal. ‘Sooner or later you are going to marry me. It would make it easier for me if it were sooner.' She had thought his stilted brusqueness had stemmed from shyness. But when he told Danielle she had said, ‘It will make it easier for you, David.' She wanted him to marry her because he loved her, not to make it easier for him, whatever that could mean. It was something to do with Stephanie, obviously.