Sweet Sanctuary (9 page)

Kate looked away from the probing, too clearsighted eyes. She hoped Helen was not reading too much into her stammered reply. The sudden question had taken her by surprise.

But Helen was examining the plate of home-made cakes, choosing a slice of butter-iced sponge after a moment, and transferring it to her own plate.

Picking up her fork, she murmured, "Do help yourself!"

Kate hurriedly took a jam tart. It tasted of sawdust and she ate it automatically.

After a moment Helen resumed her theme. "Nick was considered our local Lothario for ages. He took out various girls, but it never seemed serious. Then he met Sylvia—or rather Sylvia made up her mind that Nick would do for her. She'd known him for years, of course, in a distant sort of way. She'd been playing the field, just as Nick had—a new boy-friend every week. None of them were rich enough, so she singled Nick out and soon had him in a corner."

Kate stared at her plate. "You make it sound more like a fight than a love affair!"

"I've never believed Sylvia capable of any honest emotion," Helen said coolly.

"You really don't like her, do you?"

There was a little pauses Helen grinned, lifting her slim shoulders in a shrug. "Never could stand the sight of her—I hate being patronised."

"She's very beautiful."

"She knows it? That's most of the trouble—she's like the Lady of Shalott. She's looked into the mirror for so long that she couldn't bear the sight of life itself. She's self-obsessed."

Kate pushed her plate away. "Poor Nick!" She said it lightly, but her heart was heavy.

"Oh, yes, poor Nick—marriage with Sylvia will be perfect hell, I imagine." Helen frowned. "Unless somebody enlightens him about her, before the knot is tied."

Kate hardly heard her. She was staring across the room, her brown eyes wide and vulnerable. Nick had just come into the Copper Kettle. He was closing the door, his back towards her, and for a brief second Kate could look at him without being observed.

Then he turned, and she felt her heart begin to thud against her ribs, so that she was scared someone would hear it. Her throat felt dry and rough. Her hands were damp with sudden nerves.

What's the matter with me? she asked herself irritably. I'm behaving like a schoolgirl. Vaguely she recalled what Helen had said—was that what was happening to her, was she infatuated with Nicholas, as Helen had been at sixteen?

She brushed the thought away angrily. With an effort she looked at him, smiling calmly.

He stood in front of her, staring at her, the grey glance skimming from her shining brown head to her elegant new shoes. Then he grinned at Helen. "Are you responsible for this transformation? She's a different girl!"

"You approve?" Helen watched him curiously.

Nicholas open his mouth, then closed it again. An odd expression passed over his face. After a moment, he smiled. "You're to be congratulated. You've altered her beyond belief."

Helen laughed. "You'll soon have young men queuing up at Sanctuary for the honour of taking her out!"

Nicholas sat down suddenly. "No doubt," he agreed brusquely.

Nick was very quiet as he drove back to Sanctuary. From beneath her half-closed lids Kate watched him, sidelong, his profile silhouetted against the pale dusk of the evening sky. The spring sunshine had evaporated. The dew was falling. A faint, delicious odour still clung to hedge and field, that untraceable scent of spring which is compounded of flowers, new grass and burgeoning leaf.

In this shadowy atmosphere Nick looked suddenly unfamiliar once more. She remembered, with a pang, how he had seemed to her when they first met. How inexplicable are our first impressions, and how hard to pin down later, when constant contact has erased that first clear imprint. How had she seen him then? The executive type, smooth and well-groomed, with a sardonic expression?

Well, she thought wryly, watching him, that was still what he looked like to the casual stranger, no doubt. He was wearing his office clothes, well-tailored, expensive and breathing an air of success. The dark hair was brushed down. The eyes, staring at the road ahead, were a wintry grey as they contemplated some mental problem or other. His well-cut mouth had a sardonic twist to it at this moment, too, as if those thoughts were ironic and made him contemptuous.

Only now she knew what lay beneath this off-putting exterior. He could shed this skin with a shrug of his broad shoulders. The man about town, the successful architect, could in a second become a countryman, casually dressed and relaxed, tolerant, easygoing and charming.

Which was the real man? she wondered suddenly. Was Nick really happier at Sanctuary, in his old clothes, tramping over the fields with Punch, Patch and Poppy? Or was this the real Nick, this elegant stranger with the cool, withdrawn expression, who drove without speaking to her and was a hundred miles from here in his thoughts?

Perhaps that was the real reason for his involvement with Sylvia, that relationship which so disturbed his aunt? Was the Nick who loved Sylvia this man now seated beside her? Was that the real man? Had his aunt lost contact with him while she sought comfort in her dream world at Sanctuary, caring for the animals she rescued because she could no longer cope with the realities of life with Nick?

Kate had never been able to understand why the warm, amiable man who loved his aunt had fallen in love with so hard, so cold a creature as Sylvia.

She had believed until now that the shell Nick assumed when he left Sanctuary was merely a discardable disguise. Now she wondered if, perhaps, the shell were not the real man and the man his aunt thought she knew were truly a disguise.

She shook her head, grimacing. Her thoughts buzzed in her head like bees in a hollow tree.

Nick laughed. She jumped and looked at him with wide eyes. He smiled at her, his face so warmly familiar that her heart leapt in relief and delight.

"You looked so funny! You've been making the most amazing faces and mumbling away…"

She was alarmed. "What did I say?"

"No idea! It was quite incoherent. I thought you'd fallen asleep and I was going to shake you when I saw you shaking yourself." He grinned at her.

"I was trying to work something out," she said evasively.

"Money worries? Anything I can do to help?" He was instantly alert, his eyes concerned.

She shook her head. "Nothing like that."

"Like to tell me about it?"

"Thank you, but it wasn't really that sort of problem."

He shot her a sideways glance. "You…you haven't been worrying about us, have you?" He was flushed suddenly. He turned his head back and stared ahead into the dusk. "I mean, I hope I didn't upset you when I kissed you. I lost my temper. I meant to apologise before, but I couldn't get round to it."

"It didn't bother me at all," she said in a manner meant to sound lightly casual, but which came out somehow rather snubbing.

Nick laughed again, but harshly. "I'm glad."

He did not sound glad, she noted unhappily. He sounded… But she turned away from the thought as from, something that hurt.

"All the same," he went on after a moment, "you must take what I said about Jimmy seriously. I did mean that."

Yes, she thought, you meant
that
. But you didn't mean that kiss, the kiss so stupidly given and so irrevocably received.

"Do you hear me, Kate?" He looked at her angrily, frowning. "Jimmy is a flirt. You seem to get on well with Helen. She knows Jimmy only too well. Ask her if you don't believe me."

"I don't need to do that," she said quietly. She had already recognised Jimmy. Flirts were not that hard to recognise, even for someone as inexperienced as herself. She had not been prepared to listen to Nick, that was all. She had not wanted him to lecture her as though… as though she were a
child
. That had been the painful point. Who wants to be considered a child when they are fully aware of their womanhood?

Nick had misunderstood her, however. His face darkened again. "You don't need to? Of course, I forgot how much you want experience! I only hope you won't have to pay too highly for it. Nothing is cheap today, you know."

The harshness of his tone was bitter to her. She did not answer him. It hurt too much to quarrel with him.

After a moment he sighed. "I really don't know what's wrong with me! I seem to be turning into a surly bear. I'm sorry, Kate. I meant well."

"I know," she whispered, smiling without looking at him.

"Pax?"

She smiled and nodded. "Pax."

He took one hand off the wheel and briefly touched her hands where they lay in her lap. The contact sent an electric shock up her arm to her heart. Never in her life before had she been so aware of the effect emotion can have on the body. Her mind and her body had been separate until now. Suddenly every tiny emotion caused a reaction physically. She was conscious of every pulse in her body, every nerve-end, every beat of her heart. She was even more conscious of Nicholas. His separate intake of breath, his tiny movements, reacted in her. She felt as though there was a physical link between them, as though his blood pumped along her veins too, his breath filled her lungs.

"You're at it again," he said, making her jump violently.

"What?" She blinked at him.

"Dreaming and grimacing… You must have the most horrific daydreams since King Kong!"

She laughed, with an effort.

He braked at the gates of Sanctuary, making her sit up in surprise. The lane was empty. There was no other vehicle in sight. The twilight had given a magic significance to every branch, every blade of grass. A pale, fading light irradiated the sky, in the east, and a thin moon swam in a web of transparent cloud. The birds were sleepily calling from their invisible nests. A cloud of midges hovered under one of the trees, rising and falling in a dark cluster.

"Would you like to see the house I've bought for Aunt Elaine?" Nicholas sounded hopeful.

"Well, perhaps it is a bit late…" she said doubtfully. She did not think she could bear much more of his company. She was terrified of betraying herself to him.

"It wouldn't take long," he pleaded.

She hesitated. Nicholas was out of the car in a second and opening her door. She still sat there, uncertain what to do. He bent and extricated her from her seat with a strong, deft arm. Before she could think of anything to say or do, she was walking across the road and in at the small gate of a little cottage.

The garden was overgrown, but she could see, even by the dim dying light, that there were hosts of spring flowers hidden among the weeds and brown brambles. Daffodils, tulips and hyacinths raised strangled heads in the gloom. A lilac tree leaned against the small white fence. Rose bushes reared up here and there, their thorny fingers scraping against the cottage walls as the wind blew.

Nicholas unlocked the front door and ushered her inside. He switched on the light in the hall. It was tiny, the wallpaper a gay splodge of many flowers, giving it the appearance of a mad garden.

The stairs led up on the right. On the left were two doors. Nicholas opened the nearest and waved her onward.

"The parlour—very cosy when it's furnished, as I remember. It was two small rooms. The last owners knocked it into one room, and I prefer it now. What do you think?"