Singing in the Wilderness (15 page)

‘Well then—’ she began.

He grinned at her. ‘We’ll take it as it comes, little one!’ He pushed her fringe back from her brow and she knew he was not entirely displeased. ‘If you show me what it was that caught your eye in that shop over there, I might even buy it for you,’ he added sardonically. And he bent forward and dropped a quick kiss right on the tip of her nose.

CHAPTER
VIII

Stephanie was in her element packing up the Range Rover they were to take on tour with them. It was something that she knew she could do well and she found it a calming experience after all that had happened to her in the last few days. She could almost imagine that she was still the same person she had always known herself to be, except when she caught sight of the gold band on her finger and, with a little jump of the heart, realised that she was not, but somebody very different. She was now Mrs. Casimir Ruddock, sharing that name with a man she hardly knew and who seemed to be more distant every time she set eyes on him.

The strangest part of the whole business was that she had been able to feel nothing at all herself. She hadn’t resented the fact that Amber had known all about Cas’s plan to marry her before she did herself; she hadn’t even minded when she found out that it had been the other girl who had made all the arrangements for the ceremony in the Armenian Cathedral. All Stephanie had had to do was obey the various instructions that everyone combined to give her. If she was asked to give a blood sample, she gave a blood sample, though she hadn’t the faintest idea what it was for. All she was told was that it was a necessary preliminary when Americans entered the state of matrimony and that as Cas was an American she had to give a blood sample too. She filled in the forms that were put in front of her, signed her name what seemed like hundreds of times, and came close to having hysterics when Amber tried to coach her in her part of the brief marriage ceremony.

‘You’d better write it out for me and I’ll learn it by rote,’ she had said at last, repentant of the fuss she was making. Even Amber was beginning to look rather frayed, and it couldn’t have been easy for her, helping the man she was obviously in love with to marry another girl.

‘
Oh, Stephanie, I can’t! I have never learned to write English! I know only the Armenian script—and the Arabic, of course! You will have to say it after me again
and again until it sounds right!’

‘I don’t think we should be married in church at all!’ Stephanie had responded bleakly. ‘I can’t think why I agreed to go through with this!’

‘Because you are in love with him, perhaps!’ Amber had snapped, her patience exhausted. ‘Is it so difficult to learn a few words that express that love? I should have thought it worth a little trouble to become Cas’s wife!’

‘You don’t understand!’

‘Don’t I?’ Amber had laughed a decidedly brittle laugh. ‘Me, I understand very well! You want everything to come from him, all the time!
He
must be loving and understand you, but you can be as temperamental as you like, blowing hot and cold without any thought for how he must be feeling!’

‘He doesn’t love me!’

Amber gave her a look of pure contempt. ‘One does not love a child!’

‘But I want—’

‘It’s a woman that Cas needs. He needs the comfort of a wife, and children of his own. Why don’t you think about that
?
He is hoping you will make a home for him, not a battleground for scoring points because you can’t have your own way all the time!’

Stephanie had thought that a bit severe. ‘I only want him to love me!’ she had protested.

‘Be thankful that you can love him,’ Amber had advised her. ‘You resent it because you think he decides everything for you and you are afraid he will ride roughshod over you, no? But, believe me, there are some of us who would give anything to have their man able to take his place as head of the household and not to have to do everything themselves! It has always been the dream of my life to be able to be myself, and not be the breadwinner and the taxpayer as well!’ She had brushed the tears carefully off her long, mascaraed eyelashes with a snowy white handkerchief. ‘Never mind, soon I will go home and then everything will be better!’

Stephanie had been busy with her own thoughts. ‘Do you think Cas wants children
?
’ she had asked.

‘Why don’t you ask him?’ Amber had retorted. ‘You both express the wish to have children in the marriage
c
eremonial, so it would be well to know before you promise to bear his children, don’t you think?’

Stephanie had agreed with her absolutely, but only she knew the impossibility of asking Cas anything of the sort. Their conversation had become increasingly impersonal in the last few days.

Nor had it got any better as their wedding had drawn nearer. It had seemed to Stephanie that one day she had weakly given way to his demand to marry her, and the next they were standing side by side amongst the rather dark pictures that covered the inside walls of the Armenian Cathedral, both of them making their responses in a language that neither of them understood. There had been a dreamlike quality about the whole affair, as though nothing had been quite real, a dream that had taken on a nightmare aspect when they had finally been left alone together.

‘How are things going at the office?’ she had asked him stiffly.

‘Fatemeh seems to be managing quite well.’

‘So you haven’t missed me at all?’ Stephanie had reproached him.

‘
I didn
’
t say that.’ He looked at her for a long moment. ‘I haven’t had time to do anything very much. I wanted to get a few things settled before we set off on tour.’

Stephanie sighed. He hadn’t even kissed her when he had been invited to do so when they had come out
o
f the church. He hadn’t so much as touched her all day. She looked up at his stern mouth and wondered what there was about it that she wanted him to notice her so badly, indeed, wanted him to make her blood sing in her veins as he had before. Was he never willingly going to touch her again
?

‘
What sort of thing?’ she asked in an aggrieved voice.

Cas had opened himself a can of beer and began to drink it, without troubling to find himself a glass. Stephanie’s heart sank as she watched him. He could not have made it clearer that he had no intention of kissing her then. If he had, he would have had something else to drink!

‘
You
’
d only make yourself miserable worrying about it if you knew,’ he had drawled. He had taken another long
swig of beer. ‘We’ll be on the road for four days, honey. Why don’t you set about making up a list of the supplies we need and I’ll help you stow them away in the Range Rover?’

She had known that all he had wanted was to keep her occupied and out of his hair, but she had been quite unable to resist the challenge of showing how well she could manage such a task, and she had set about it with enthusiasm, enjoying herself for the first time that day.

The Range Rover was already very well equipped. Stephanie had been impressed by the amount of stuff Cas kept by him as a matter of course. There were a couple of sleeping-bags, both of them wider than any she had ever seen before, and both of them very well used. She wondered who had used the second one on previous occasions, knowing even as she did so that she was being foolish to taunt herself by speculating on her new husband’s romantic past.

The cooking equipment was far more sophisticated than she had expected as well. There were a couple of burners as well as a grill, which opened up all sorts of possibilities as to what she might be able to cook on it. ‘Having fun?’ Cas asked her.

She jumped and looked round and to her relief he was no longer looking at her as though he hated her. On the contrary, the amused affection was back in his blue eyes and he was looking as relaxed and as much at his ease as she had ever seen him.

‘Is this a company car?’ she asked him.

‘No, it’s my own. I brought it over from the States
with me.’

‘It’s British,’ she said with satisfaction.

‘I guess I have a penchant for British luxuries.’

‘And American know-how
?
’

‘Could be,’ he agreed. ‘How about you?’

She looked him straight in the face. ‘I’m waiting to
find out,’ she said.

He didn’t pretend not to understand her.
‘
It
’
s something you’d better be sure about before we make a mistake we can’t rectify. What’s the rush, honey?’

Stephanie turned back to the stove, fiddling with the taps between her fingers. ‘I can’t think why you married
me?’ she said.

‘But then you’re not very sure of yourself at all, are you?’ he countered. ‘Why don’t you concentrate on working out your own motives first? I can wait.’

She was silent for a moment, then she said, ‘You don’t have to wait because of me. You don’t have to treat me like a child.’

‘I just think it’s something that can easily get out of hand,’ he answered wryly. ‘I want you very badly, sweetheart, but I don’t feel that now is the right time for us. I want it to be perfect for you too, and I don’t think it will be while you’ve got this other business on your mind, and while you’re uncertain of me. You haven’t been able to forget that I was sent here to replace your father, have you? It must have occurred to you that I might have been behind his going in some way. Me and who else
?
’

‘No!’ she exclaimed passionately. ‘It isn’t true! Oh, Cas, how could you think I could think such a thing of you?’

‘Didn’t you
?
’

She could tell that he didn’t believe her and she stood up to convince him the better, banging her head on the top of the door. ‘I’ve never doubted you!’ she declared angrily.

He put his arms right round her, lifting her down on to the pavement beside him, rubbing her head with surprisingly gentle fingers.

‘Then you should have done!’

‘Why? You said I could trust you. You
told
me to!’

‘Let’s hope you’re always so obedient,’ he teased her. He sounded amused, and more paternal than loverlike.

‘I try to keep my promises,’ she said to his chest. How much she would have liked to have leaned against
him
and to have had his arms close round her, shutting out the rest of the world.

‘Ah, but did you know what you were promising
?
’

‘Fat chance I had of not knowing!’ Stephanie retorted. ‘I had Amber coaching me, don’t forget! She’s a perfectionist, that girl! I don’t know how she could, feeling as she does about you!’

He stopped rubbing her head. ‘And just what do you
m
ean by that?’

‘You know very well!’

‘I wonder if you do,’ he said finally. ‘Amber doesn
’
t
often talk about her affairs.’

‘She didn’t have to
say
anything!’ Stephanie retorted.

‘No, she didn’t. But she likes you, so she might have said something. Did she?’

‘
Me
!’

He gave her a quick hug. ‘Just enough to make you
jealous
?
’

She was, of course, but that he should know it was too much for her. ‘Why should I be jealous?’ she demanded. But her voice shook, betraying her, and she hid her face in his shoulder, abandoning herself to the truth. ‘She’s so beautiful! And I want you to love me!’

She felt his shock as if it had been in her own body. ‘Stephanie, are you absolutely sure?’ he asked her.

She nodded helplessly. ‘I’ve always wanted it!’

‘Look, honey, this is important. I know you’re physically attracted to me, but how committed do you want to be?’

She shrugged her shoulders. ‘I’m your wife, she said simply.

He caressed her cheek, pushing her head back to meet his gaze. ‘I hope it’ll always be enough for you,’ he said, and he kissed her very gently full on the mouth.

They finished packing the Range Rover together after that. Stephanie, her mood ebullient, checked off the stores of food on her list and then sat back, watching Cas put it away, marvelling at the easy way he lifted the heavy boxes into the back of the vehicle.

‘Were you always big?’ she asked him. ‘What a
Rugby player was lost in you!’

He paused in what he was doing. ‘I made out okay in my college football team,’ he told her. He grinned reminiscently. ‘It was the best way of getting the girls to come around, apart from the glory of being the star of one’s class. I liked the girls even better than I liked the team!’

She decided she didn’t want to hear about it.
‘
You would have been safer on the Rugger field,’ she said.
‘We don’t have cheer-leaders and other inessentials to distract us from the really important matter in hand!’

‘How often did you play?’

She opened her eyes wide. ‘Have you ever seen a Rugby match?’

‘Sure,’ he said. ‘Full of bodily contact, so I was told!’

‘Well then, it’s a man’s game. Women don’t play Rugger!’

His mouth twitched. ‘Pity,’ he murmured.

She giggled. ‘Women play Soccer nowadays!’ Her eyes glinted with mischief. ‘And of course we play all your American games. I played them all at school. Basketball, only we call it netball; and baseball, only we call that rounders. I was very good—’

‘It sounds to me as though your experience of playing games has been very limited if those were the only games you played at school,’ he drawled.

‘Cas!’

‘You’d better watch out,’ he went on, taking base advantage of her confusion. ‘I learned some pretty fancy footwork in my time! You won’t escape me easily if I set my mind on having my way with you!’

‘How do you know I’m not playing on your team?’ she countered.

‘So that’s the league you’re aiming at
?
’ he murmured.

‘Oh, Cas, don’t tease me! Why else did you marry me
?
I know I’m not—’ She broke off, bitterly aware of what she had been about to say. But there were some things that were better not said, especially to one’s husband when one was almost sure that he was in love with somebody else. ‘I believe in aiming high!’ She caught herself up, lifting her chin to show herself as much as him that she was not afraid of him, or anyone else.

He held out his hand to her, lifting hers to his lips. ‘I think we’d better go inside, sweetheart. How will you like to be back in the apartment you shared with your father?’

‘I shall miss looking out at the dome of the Madrasseh. It’s my favourite of them all.’

His arm about her shoulders was both possessive and disturbing. As a married lady you’ll have less time to day-dream at your window. What else will you miss
?
’

‘It’s never really seemed mine,’ she confessed. ‘One doesn’t get very involved with a hotel bedroom, and it didn’t seem much more than that to me. I prefer your apartment. It has a much better cooker.’

‘You would know,’ he agreed. ‘You haven’t seen it, though, since you moved out of it, have you
?
Not until today?’

She shook her head. ‘Have you let it get into a terrible
mess
?
’

‘You’ll have to judge that for yourself!’

She wouldn’t have minded if he had. She was besotted enough to have thought it fun to clear up after him. She would have the place clean, tidy, and respectable in a jiffy, and she would enjoy doing it.

But when he opened the door and ushered her inside, it was not chaos that met her eyes, but flowers everywhere and her own suitcases neatly standing within the door.

‘I thought you might want to unpack your own things, he said, ‘but you won’t need anything right now that I can’t supply, will you?’

She couldn’t answer him. She had never seen such riches as those banks of flowers. Nobody had ever made such an open-handed gesture to her before!

‘Oh, Cas, you shouldn’t
splurge
—’

He stopped her mouth with a finger. ‘I’ll splurge all I like when it comes to my own wife, honey. It would be more gracious to thank me, rather than to stand there adding up the cost, like the housewifely soul that you are!’

‘Oh, Cas, I was not!’ she denied. ‘Only it’s too much! A few flowers—’

‘Don’t you like them?’

‘You know I do!’ She flung her arms round his neck. ‘I wish I were exotic enough to live up to them, but of course I like them!’ She touched his cheek with the palm of her hand and reached up to offer him her lips. ‘I wish I could have given you something too,’ she whispered. I didn’t even think of getting anything for you!’

‘Why should you
?
It’s the man who woos the woman, not the other way round!’

She stared up at him, her eyes dark. ‘But I thought—
’

‘It’s too late to ask me to wait now, little Stephanie,’ he murmured against her lips. ‘You’ve gone out of your way to convince me it isn’t necessary, and I want to know that you’re mine. I’ve wanted to make love to you ever since I bumped into you in the square, and now that you’re my wife—’