Second Best Husband Part 8

She could of course have insisted on remaining independent, but thetruth was that she enjoyed his company too much to do so, just as sheenjoyed those evenings when work kept her at the manor until quite late,and Stuart insisted on making supper for them both.

The evenings were growing lighter now, which meant that Stuart was outworking on the estate for longer and longer periods of time, so thatoften during the day she found she was seeing less of him, althoughthere were frequently occasions when he would arrive unexpectedly at thehouse and invade the office, demanding her company outside, so that hecould show her some new aspect of his work which she hadn't yet seen.

She had grown so used to these excursions that she now kept a spare pairof Wellingtons and her old Barbour up at the manor, ready to put on whenshe accompanied him outside.

Every morning Stuart received a delivery of national papers whichincluded The Times, and Sara normally glanced through these while shewas having her lunch.

Initially it had been her intention to go home at lunchtime, since shewas conscious of the fact that in addition to being his place of workthe manor was also Stuart's home, and that, no matter how politely hemight deny it, he could well prefer not to find her curled up in a chairin front of the range eating her lunch on those occasions when he cameback to the house for his.

However, within a couple of weeks of her starting to work for him he hadtold her one day that if it was the thought of his presencein the houseintruding into her lunch-hour and her free time which was pre ventingher from staying then he was quite pre pared not to return to the houseduring the day.

By the time she had a.s.sured him that this was most definitely not thecase she had also discovered that she had agreed that yes, it would befar more sensible for her to stay on at the manor during her lunch-hour,so that she was on hand to answer the phone should it ring.

On this particular day she had found a very relevant and absorbingarticle in The Times on the global greenhouse effect, and thedevastation wreaked by the previous spring's storm son wooded areas ofthe country. Mention was made in the article of the fact that it was nowpossible to replace storm-damaged trees with mature broad leavedspecimens, and it was just as Sara was searching for a pen to mark thearticle for Stuart's attention that she happened to glance at theopposite page.

Why, out of all the notices on that page, her glance should immediatelyfall on the announcement of Anna's and lan's engagement and forth comingmarriage, she really had no idea, but once she had seen it she remainedtransfixed in her chair, unable to drag her gaze away from the heavyblack print.

She heard the back door opening as Stuart came in, but lacked thewill-power to look up from the paper. She could feel her whole bodytrembling, but knew that she wasn't cold.

She heard Stuart speak to her, and was distantly aware of the sharpeningconcern in his voice as he repeated her name and then came stridingacross to where she was sitting, demanding," Sara, what is it? What'swrong?"

The sound of his voice, the concern that roughened it, her awareness ofhis proximity, of the warmth and comfort of his physical presence, brokethrough her icy guard. She could feel the numbness which had frozen herwhen she'd read the announcement giving way to a deep welling ofemotional release; to tears which clogged her throat and filled hereyes, so that when she tried to focus on him he gave a sharpexclamation, and then reached for her, homing in on what she had readbefore firmly removing the newspaper from her grasp and flinging it downon to the table before taking her in his arms as though it weresomething he had done on so many previous occasions that it was anautomatic unthinking response to her pain.

As though it were the most natural thing in the world, Sara clung tohim, allowing him to draw her to her feet and wrap her in his arms,gently rocking her against him as he soothed her with rough words ofcompa.s.sion and comfort.

" The man's a fool," she heard him saying grittily.

" He must be, to prefer someone else, anyone else to you..."

That made her laugh, albeit rather shakily, as she struggled to deny hischampionship.

" What is it? What's wrong?" he demanded, as he felt her shaking herhead.

" It isn't lan's fault that he loves Anna and not me," she told him.

" The blame's mine, for allowing myself to believe..." She bit her Up,unable to admit even to him how much the cruel truths Anna had told had hurt her and still continued to hurt her.

" Itisn't just the fact that he's marrying some one else, is it?" heasked her perceptively.

Sara stared at him, her eyes wide and questioning How had he known?

He was still holding her, her body pressed into the warmth of his as shearched her back so that she could look at him.

" How did you know?" She broke off, flushing a little.

" I... It's the things Anna said to me. Realities... truths." She gave asmall shudder and felt his arms tighten as though he wanted to absorbthe pain from her.

" What realities? What truths?"

She turned her head away from' him and into his shoulder. Caution andshyness made her hesitate a fraction before responding to him, but theshock of seeing the announcement had weakened her de fences strengthenedher fears, her self- doubts.

" When Anna... when she told me that Ian... that she and Ian knew how I felt about him, she laughed at me; told me that even if Ian had notfallen in love with her he would never have wanted me. That no man would ever want me... because... because... because I was s.e.xless... undesirable..." She broke off, her voice thickening with emotion, herhead virtually resting on Stuart's shoulder. She couldn't bear to lookat him, dreading the pity she suspected she would see in his eyes. Hehad become more than an employer to her now. He had become a friend, avery good friend. her first really close male friend, but, while shesensed that he would view her revelations with sympathy and compa.s.sion,she now felt embarra.s.sed and confused by the fact that she had madethem. What was happening to her? Had she really changed so much in sucha short s.p.a.ce of time? The woman she had always thought herself to bewould never have dreamed of confiding such information to anyone, muchless a man, and yet curiously, despite her embarra.s.sment, there was asense of relief, of release in having done so. a sense of havingjettisoned a burden which had grown progressively heavier.

" And you believed her?"

The rough disbelief in his voice jolted her into turning her head tolook enquiringly at him.

" Can't you see? She wanted to hurt you. She was tying to you."

" No. I--' " She was lying to you," Stuart insisted.

" And I can prove it to you.

You're not s.e.xless, Sara. Nor undesirable. In fact."

She felt the tremor that tensed his body, confusion shocking through heras he muttered something under his breath and then lifted one of hishands from her body to her face, sliding it along her jaw, angling herface towards hi sown.

" Does this feel as if you're undesirable?" he demanded thickly againsther mouth, and then he was kissing her with a sensual roughness thatswept away her resistance.

Once, a long dme ago, she had dreamed of being kissed like this, herlover a faceless, formless figment of her teenage imagination, histouch, his kiss unknown and unexperienced, and yet she had known that itcould be like this; that one day it would be like this. that one day hewould come into her life, and that when he did his touch, his kiss wouldset a light to her s.e.xuality, burning away her virginal fears andapprehensions; and then she had met Ian, and had put away such childishdaydreams, focusing instead on the reality of the person with whom Shehad fallen in love.

In those early years when she had first met him, she had ached for Ianto kiss her, yearned for his touch, imagining that when he did so itwould be as it had been in her daydreams, and yet when eventually he haddone so the reality had fallen so far short of what she had imagined shewould feel that she had immediately decided that the fault lay with herin foolishly believing that it could be possible for a mere kiss tothrill her so much that it would be a complete ravishment of all of herbeing; that it would open for her a magic doorway through which shewould step into a place that was a feast of all the senses.

Instead she had found lan's kiss practised and polished, but somehowunexciting.

She remembered this now while her senses spun and her heart leapt inshocked recognition of all that she was experiencing. She remembered aswell how she bad loyally denied reality and deceived herself intobelieving that lan'skiss had been all that she had wanted it to be.

She remembered also how she had waited for him to follow it up with anavowal of his growing feelings for her and how cheated she had feltwhen, although he continued to tease and kiss her on odd occasions, hehad never tried to take their relationship any further.

His treatment of her had left her feeling cheated and insecure. unsureof herself and her femininity. guilty because she wanted so much morefrom him than he seemed to want to give. blaming herself with hindsightfor not giving him more encouragement, clinging stupidly to her hopethat one day things would change, that one day he would love her.

For so long she had existed on mere crumbs that she might have felt thatthe feast of pleasure she was now experiencing was too rich a diet forher system, but her senses were overriding her mental warning ofcaution, hungrily feeding on the pleasure Stuart was giving them.

He hadn't done anything other than kiss her, but her body was respondingto him as intensely as though he had touched it so intimately that noneof its secrets was unknown to him.

That knowledge shocked her into tensing within his hold, causing him tolift his mouth from hers, and demand hoa.r.s.ely," Try telling me now thatyou don't believe you're desirable."

She moved restlessly against him, confused and shocked by what hadhappened.

" There was no need," she began helplessly, hating the thought that hepitied her so much that he had somehow or other forced himself tosimulate a desire for her which she knew he could not possibly feel." Onthe contrary, there was every need," he told her flatly, confirming herfear.

She wriggled free of him, and turned her back to him.

" It was kind of you, but..." Her stifled voice broke.

" Kind of me!" She winced as Stuart swore.

" Are you really so obsessed by him that you can't see, don't know...?

What is it you're hoping for, Sara? That he's going to change his mind?

That he's going to come looking for you, begging you?"

" No... No, of course I'm not," she denied truth fully, flinching backfrom the pain his curt words were causing her.

" I'm not a fool. I know that isn't going to happen. I know I've got toget on with my life.

I'd even begun to decide that Margaret was right when she told me Iought to look round for some like-minded man to settle down with.

Someone who, like me, wants a family and is pre pared to accept ' "Second-best?" Stuart supplied brutally for her, making her wince again.

" Not necessarily," she told him unevenly, providing we were honest withone another right from, the start. providing we both knew and understoodthat ' " That you loved someone else. Do you really want children somuch?"

She paused, and then looked at him and said simply and bravely," Yes.

Yes, I do."

There was a small pause, and then he said heavily," I've got to get backto the men, but first--' He reached over to the table and picked up thepaper, ripping the page carrying the announcement in two and then in half.a.gain, and then opening the door of the range and throwing thescrewed-up sections into its heat.

" Why don't you take the rest of the day off?" he suggested gruffly,when the resultant flames had died.

Sara shook her head.

" No. I won't, if you don't mind. I'll be better off keeping myselfoccupied."

Oddly, once he had gone and she was back in the office, supposedlycompiling information regarding the various stages of growth in thenewly planted nursery beds, it wasn't Ian who kept interrupting herwork, and causing her to stare unseeingly into s.p.a.ce, but Stuart himself.

Once she touched her mouth with curious, trembling fingers, her bodygoing hot and softly fluid as her senses conjured up for her thesensations she had experienced when he'd kissed her.

She was still trembling minutes later even though she had s.n.a.t.c.hed herhand away from her mouth as guiltily as a small child caught with itsfingers in the biscuit barrel.

She couldn't understand what was happening to her, couldn't reach outand take a firm grasp of the at times nebulous, and at other timesastonishingly powerful and strong feelings she was ex D periencing sothat she could hold on to them and subject them to the calming influenceof logical a.n.a.lysis.

She couldn't understand why it was that when Stuart kissed her--Stuartwhom she had come to regard as a fn end and companion--she should feelthis powerful upsurge of desire and s.e.xual responsiveness, of almostswooning need to experience even more intimacy with him, while when Ianhad kissed her--lan whom she loved-- she was left with a sharp sense ofdisappointment, of an awareness of dissatisfaction and emptiness.

At half-past five, when Stuart hadn't returned, she was guiltilyconscious of the fact that her work output had fallen far below her ownhigh standards, and that she had spent by far the major proportion ofher mental energy in trying to solve the mystery of why Stuart's touch,Stuart's kiss should affect her in the way it did.

At six o'clock she tidied up her desk and got ready to go home, cowardlyaware that half of her was anxious and confused at the thought of seeingStuart while her senses were still so disturbed, still so aware of howhe made her feel when he kissed her.

The other half, even more worryingly, was urging her to wait, to delay,to busy herself with tasks that would keep her here in Stuart's homeuntil the onset of dusk drove him inside.

Why? Because she was anxious to ensure that what had happened earlierwas not going to have an adverse effect on their working relationship?

Or because she wanted. needed physically and emotionally to see him, tobe with him, to.

Quickly she cut off her thoughts before they could encourage her downwhat caution warned her could be a very dangerous path.

Over supper she was so engrossed in her own thoughts that her mother hadto address the same question to her several times before she heard it.

" I'm sorry," she apologised.

" I was miles away."

" Not missing London, are you, dear?" her mother asked her anxiously.

" We're enjoying having you here at home so much, but..."

" No, I'm not missing London at all," Sara a.s.sured them, half surprisedto realise how truthfully she had spoken. She had adapted to living andworking here in the country far faster than she would have expected, hadshe ever actually stopped to contemplate the issue.

Of course every time she thought about Ian and Anna, and most especiallyabout Anna's cruel revelations, she burned inwardly with pain andanguish, that pain as sharp as though someone had poured salt on anunhealed wound.

Only wasn't salt supposed to have a cleaning, cauterising effect onwounds--hadn't it once been a remedy for them?

Was the very sharpness of her pain somehow or other actually helping herto separate herself from the past? Was the thought of being somewherewhere she might inadvertently come into contact with Ian and Anna somuch an anathema to her that it made her revolt against the thought ofreturning to London?

But London was a very big place; the chances of her actually coming intocontact with Ian and his fiancee were so remote. So what was it that was keeping her here in Shropshire? The comfort and protection of her home.the warmth of her parents' love. the fact that she had a new andabsorbing job?

Yes, all of these could contribute to her desire to stay, to prolong hersabbatical from her real' life, but none of them could surely beresponsible for the deep atavistic thrill of fear-c.u.m-rejection that hadgripped her at the mere suggestion that she might want to return toLondon.

After all, London was the place where she had spent most of her adultlife; where she had lived and worked very happily for the last decade.

Was it purely because of Ian and Anna that she now found that the verylast thing she wanted to do was to return there? After all, she hadfriends there, a pleasant social life, access to all manner of eventsthat could not be catered for in a small rural environment.

Later on that night when she ought to have been asleep the questionreturned to vex her.

Outside the full moon beamed its light into her room through thecurtains; she could hear the calls of the nocturnal creatures who likeher seemed to be made restless by its subtle power. Why, when her motherhad asked her if she wanted to return to London, had she experiencedsuch intense revulsion such sharp awareness of how much she dreaded theprospect and how little she wanted to return?

And why, when Stuart had kissed her, had she experienced all theemotions, all the vivid intense feelings which she had never experiencedin lan's arms?

Worrying questions to which she could not find any satisfactory or acceptable answers, questions which kept her awake and restless untilwell into the early hours of the morning.

CHAPTER SEVEN.

stuart was avoiding her, Sara was sure of it. It was all very well forhim to tell her that the sudden spell of exceptionally warm and dryweather meant that the nursery plantation in particular needed constantmonitoring and attention; he still had to return to the house at sometime or another. And yet no matter how early she arrived, or how lateshe stayed, ostensibly keeping on top of the greater volume of workarising from a sudden upsurge in demand for the trees, Stuart neverseemed to be there.

It had been at her suggestion that he had placed additional advertisingin several monthly magazines, including Country Life, and even she hadbeen surprised at the volume of enquiries this advertising had brought.

Was it because of that kiss that they no longer shared those long andamazingly wide-ranging conversations she had enjoyed so much?

Miserably she acknowledged how much she was missing Stuart's company,and then, over a week after that highly charged scene, he walked intothe office halfway through the afternoon, his face so set and strainedthat at first she imagined there had been some kind of accident.

She was halfway out of her chair, exclaiming anxiously," Stuart, what'swrong?" when he shook his head, telling her tersely," Nothing, it'sjust..." He stopped and turned his back on her, going to stand in frontof the win dow, so that his body blocked out the light, turning the smallstudy shadowy and somehow very intimate.