That Tender Feeling (16 page)

Miles's air of discomfort on meeting Edward earlier in the day was considerably less noticeable, yet there was still something that puzzled her. Just before they walked away, Miles's eyes seemed to flash a message at her that she couldn't understand. She must remember to ask him what it was all about.

At a later point in the evening, as she was talking to Hannah, Ros was amused to see Hannah looking at Edward Banks with the same kind of approving interest in her eye that had been in his when he'd looked at her.

‘Your friend is a very good-looking man,' Hannah said.

‘My friend?'

‘Well, he certainly befriended you over that incident with Jarvis. It was looking nasty until he intervened.'

‘You saw that? Jarvis isn't a good loser. He wanted us to get back together. I should have said no, very firmly, and kept on saying no, and nothing else, until he was convinced. I unwisely let him know there is someone else.'

‘I knew it! I could tell that something about you was different when you walked in yesterday. So why don't I feel pleased for you?'

‘Because you sense things. You always know that bit more than you're told, or so it seems. There's no future for us.'

‘You mean there's some obstacle that prevents you from marrying?'

‘He doesn't believe in marriage. That's an obstacle, I suppose. But that isn't it. I don't know whether you know any of this or not, but my father tried to phone me. When he couldn't get hold of me, he phoned Miles and asked him to pass on a message. A man he was working with contracted some obscure illness for which there's no cure. He said there was a chance that he might look me up. I presume my father prompted this thinking that the man could use some company, the idea being for me to cheer him up.'

‘Only you went a step further than that?'

‘Yes. I fell in love with him. Would you blame me for . . . well . . . snatching what happiness with him I can?'

‘I think you are going to be hurt. But no, I wouldn't blame you. I would like to think I'd be the same myself. Miles told me about your father's phone call, of course. We were both terribly sickened. Look, Rosalynd, I must go and do my hostess bit. We'll talk about this later, m'm?'

People were now beginning to drift away. Once again, Edward Banks sought Ros out.

‘Before I go, I just want you to know how much I've enjoyed this evening and what a pleasure it's been to meet you.'

Meet you, he said. Not see you again.

‘So we hadn't met before today?'

‘No. Did you think we had?'

‘Yes. You didn't approach me like a stranger.'

‘That's because you don't seem like a stranger to me. I've heard so much about you from you-know-who that I felt we were old acquaintances. All that's been said about you is true. You
are
a lady of beauty, charm and talent.'

‘Miles goes on too much. I don't aspire to beauty, and neither am I all that talented. I'm only a glorified home economist.'

‘Yes, Miles is very proud of you, too,' he said, making her wonder who else had been singing her praises. ‘Your modesty becomes you. But you're rather more than that. Author of a very successful string of cookbooks, television personality.'

She declaimed, ‘Hardly that. I was asked to tape a show before a selected studio audience. They liked me. So I was invited back to complete the series. I've just one more program to record. The audience ratings when it's screened will say whether I'm asked back again or not. I'm not sure that I want it, anyway. I prize my obscurity.'

‘I'm confident that the choice will be yours. If I'm around, I'll be sure to watch out for you.'

‘Oh, are you going away?'

He pursed his mouth. ‘Two days ago, I would have given a decisive yes. Now there's a slender chance that I might be staying my allotted time, after all.'

* * *

The last guest had departed. Hannah yawned delicately behind her hand, gracious to the end. ‘Leave the clearing up, Rosalynd. I'll do it tomorrow.'

She meant that her cleaning lady would do it the next day. Imagining the poor woman coming in to all this mess, Ros said, ‘I want to do it. You've done enough. Put your feet up, and watch someone else work.'

‘Don't I always? I'm a past master at the gentle art of delegation, but if you insist,' Hannah said. Ending on a smug note, she added, ‘Didn't everything go beautifully?'

‘Nothing unusual about that,' Ros said with the utmost sincerity. ‘Your parties are always rather special.'

‘But of course!' Hannah smiled. ‘That's because we're special people, don't you agree, Miles?'

‘I invariably do agree with you, Hannah, dear. In this instance, the chief accolade must go to Edward Banks. The courage of that guy. Makes you feel sort of humble. I know if that sentence hung over me, I wouldn't be as genial. A bear with a sore thumb would have nothing on me.'

‘Sentence?' Ros queried. ‘He's not in trouble with the law, is he?' Miles and Hannah exchanged telling looks. The air was electric.

Miles let out his breath in a rush. ‘I thought you were doing so well. I've been praising you to myself all evening and wondering how you managed to be so perfectly natural with him. I even tried to follow your example. And now I see it wasn't a bit of good acting at all. You didn't know!'

Hannah was suddenly sitting up, looking very tense as she scrutinized Ros's face. ‘Is that true?'

Her head was spinning. She remembered Miles's using that expression before and completed it in her mind. Under sentence
of death.
‘I must have had too much to drink,' she said. ‘I'm not usually this much of a cloth head.'

‘I'll vouch for that,' Hannah said, ‘but not for the reason you've given. You've hardly touched a drop all evening.'

‘Oh—you take note of what your guests drink, do you?'

‘You know better than that. Providing they're not driving themselves home, they can drink themselves insensible for all I care. I know you. Half a glass and that's your limit. Stop dodging the issue.'

‘Sorry. I'm a coward. I think I've reasoned it out, but . . . it's so wonderful that I can't believe it's true. Not that it's so wonderful for Edward if it is true. Because . . . he is the man my father phoned about'—her eyes shot pleadingly to Miles—‘isn't he?'

‘Yes. I can't make head, tail or middle of your confusion. It doesn't make sense why you don't know. I told you his name when you phoned from Yorkshire.'

Miles had known from the beginning. That's why he'd been so distressed when he'd first met Edward. He hadn't known what line to take.

‘I didn't catch his name. The connection was so bad I only heard half of what you said. When I phoned you back later to find out the bits I'd missed, I'd already met Cliff, and everything fitted. He had just come back from Saudi Arabia, and he was on sick leave. He told me he'd got malaria, but I didn't believe him. I thought that was just a cover-up. I was firmly convinced in my mind that he was the man my father phoned about.'

‘But your father isn't in Saudi Arabia. He's in Australia,' Miles corrected.

‘I know that now. Australia. Saudi Arabia. It's easy to mistake one for the other on a bad line, and that's what I did. With disastrous consequences. Poor Edward.' Her brow went thoughtful. ‘I've just remembered something rather odd that Edward said. On thinking about it, it could be hopeful. We were talking about the series I'm doing for television. He said he'd watch out for it if he were still around. I asked him if he was going away, and he said that two days ago he would have said yes but now there was a slender chance that he might not be going. Do you know what he meant by that, Miles?'

‘Yes. He confided in me. Having come to terms with the other, he's trying not to build his hopes up too high in case it doesn't come off, but apparently there's some new treatment they want to try him on. A new wonder drug that's only recently come on the market.'

‘I hope it works. I'll pray for it. It's got to work.'

‘He'll have to go into the hospital for a while; they want him under constant observation. I said I'd visit him. Now you can fill me in on something that's got me guessing.'

‘What's that?'

‘Who is Cliff?'

‘Now you're the one who's not being very bright,' Hannah chipped in on a chiding note. ‘It's as obvious as the nose on your face who he is.'

‘It isn't to me.'

‘Cliff is the reason for the stars shining bright enough to blind you in this little girl's eyes. He is the man she has fallen in love with.'

‘I didn't know Ros had fallen in love with anyone. I thought she was still falling out of love with Jarvis. No one tells me anything,' he grumbled.

‘Why should they? You only have control of her business interests. Rosalynd's private life is her own affair. Go to bed, Miles.'

He got to his feet. He'd spotted the gleam in his sister's eye and knew from past experience there was little use in resisting her domination, although at the door he did turn and say: ‘Take your own advice, Hannah, and don't pry.'

‘Shoo. I never pry. I show kindly concern. There's a difference.'

The door closed behind him. Hannah turned to Ros.

‘Where do you go from here?'

‘Back to Yorkshire for my things. Apart from the bits and bobs I've brought with me to cover this trip, everything I possess is up there. Then I'll do a smart U-turn and come back here. Not to stay as a permanency, I need a place of my own. But I'd be grateful if you'd put me up for a day or two, until I find somewhere. Will you?'

‘You don't have to ask. You're always welcome here, but why?'

‘Could it be because I'm not a lot of trouble and try to be the perfect guest?'

‘Not that why, you idiot. Presuming that Cliff is staying in Yorkshire. Is he?'

‘Yes, to the best of my knowledge,' Ros qualified. ‘I've gone off jumping to conclusions.'

‘I don't blame you for that. But I do blame you for the other. Why, now that everything is right and he isn't going to die, are you going to put all that distance between you?'

‘You're a very astute woman, Hannah. I think you've a good idea why.' She wasn't going to confuse the issue even further with a lengthy explanation about the mix-up of the cottages, which meant they were living under the same roof, and so she admitted simply, ‘We haven't made love yet, not all the way, but it nearly happened. I wanted it to happen, and I resolved that when I returned, I'd see that it did happen.'

‘Should I be shocked, Rosalynd? Is that what you expect me to be? I'm not.'

But Ros was shocked. It sounded so bold, so brazen. ‘That was before, when I thought he was going to die. I couldn't now . . . and if I went back to stay, it would be difficult not to . . . because . . .' She thought that perhaps she would do a bit more explaining. So, after all, she went right back to the beginning and told Hannah about the repairs being carried out on the wrong cottage and how she had gone to seek a bed for the night with a friendly neighbor, only to find Cliff in residence and not his grandmother. ‘My own cottage isn't habitable yet, and the repairs can't get under way until the weather picks up, whenever that will be. I can't go back and live under the same roof as him, not now everything's changed. Before, it was no good my wanting marriage, I couldn't expect it of a man who didn't have a future to offer me. But Cliff has a future. He could marry me if he wanted to. There's no obstruction apart from his refusal to enter into a commitment. I feel so angry with him, and I'm going to feel a lot angrier when I get over my relief that he's not going to die.'

‘You said you wanted it to happen between you. Do you still want it? Truthfully now.'

‘Yes.'

‘Correct me if I'm wrong, but as I see it, you want the same thing that you are condemning him for wanting.'

‘It's not like that.'

‘Isn't it? What is it like, then?'

Ros knew what was behind the interrogation, what Hannah was hinting at. She felt her cheeks going pink, and she couldn't think what to say; no plausible explanation would come to mind to justify why her lust was any different from Cliff's lust. ‘It's . . . different. Because I want to legalize it, that's why,' she finished triumphantly.

‘Everything's got to be tidy, hasn't it, Rosalynd? It's all right if it's tidy. It was all right when you thought Cliff was going to die. You could fool yourself that you were giving yourself to him as an act of supreme and unimpeachable self-sacrifice. The doing of it was above reproach because the motive behind it was of such a highly commendable nature. Now that you can't redeem your desire on that score, you're looking for another tidy way out. Marriage.'

‘That's unfair. Haven't you been listening? I've wanted marriage from the beginning. I thought he couldn't plan for the future because he didn't have a future to plan for. That's what's making me so furious.'

‘I don't see why it should. You've admitted to me that he's been straight with you. He hasn't tried to take you in.'

‘No.' Ros frowned. ‘I've taken myself in, and that's worse. I set out to seduce him! He told me I'd be getting a rotten bargain. My virginity for his lust. He told me he couldn't give me a commitment. I thought he was being very noble and selfless in turning me down. And stop smiling, Hannah, it isn't funny.'

‘No, dear. Sorry. Did he really turn you down?'

‘He was pretty feeble about it. He soon made it clear that he was willing to be worked on to change his mind. I've been so gullible. The toad even told me he was a toad. Well . . . frog actually . . . practically the same.'