Savage Courtship

‘You can have all you want. I haven’t brought my thumbscrews with me. In fact, have I ever forced a confidence out of you, Vanessa?’

‘You’re always doing it!’ she countered explosively.

‘Ah, but by stealth, never by force.’

She gave him a look of immense frustration, aware that he was right. While they had been closeted together over the judge’s disordered manuscript she had revealed far more about herself than she had intended, since talking about herself was the only proven way of stemming his tide of threatening confidences about himself.

She didn’t want to be lured into curiosity about the velvety-dark contradictions of his character. She certainly didn’t want to know that he had worn glasses since he was twelve years old, and that they had fogged up when he had received his first French kiss from a girl when he was fifteen...although she had found herself thinking that perhaps that explained why he had taken them off when he had kissed her!

She didn’t want to know those other things about him that touched her heart: that his childhood had been restricted by parental expectations to the point of oppression—an imperious father whose rigid, exacting standards of excellence had raised his son to expect nothing less of himself than perfection and a mother whose social expectations of him had been every bit as stringent and repressive. One didn’t express emotions openly in the Savage family circle, one acted with dignity at all times. One doled out affection when it was earned by correct behaviour or academic excellence.

Benedict had learned the lessons of his early childhood well. On the surface he had been the perfect son. He had never rebelled as a teenager, he had performed to expectation at school and at home. He had dutifully joined his father’s architectural firm when he had graduated from university and carried on the conservative family tradition, regarding homes and possessions and even people as profitable investments rather than emotional attachments.

Underneath, though, other forces had been at work, the intellectual curiosity and ruthlessly competitive ambition that his father had relentlessly encouraged constantly thwarted by the restrictions imposed by his status within the firm. As the years had passed he’d come to realise that his father’s expectations for him, far from being infinite, were quite claustrophobically finite—the pinnacle of Benedict’s professional success was to be the inheritance of the company when his father retired and his duty then would be the continuation of the Savage dynasty.

By the age of twenty-eight, Benedict had come to a full recognition that he was not the man his father wanted him to be, and never would be. He wanted more and he wanted it on his own terms.

The split had been achieved with customary Savage dignity, a frigid debate in which both men had obdurately refused to compromise. No emotional outbursts, no public washing of dirty linen, merely a cleverly managed PR announcement that had poured cold water on the choice rumours of a family rift. Benedict had continued to see his parents occasionally on a social basis, although he was left in no doubt from his mother that she was deeply disappointed in him and would deny him the warmth of her approval until he had got over his childish fit of rebellion against his father and returned to the family fold.

Benedict had commented wryly that since his mother’s approval was never very warm anyway he could live comfortably without it.

However, understanding him more didn’t make him any easier for Vanessa to deal with.

‘I think I’ve had enough fresh air now,’ she said desperately, and began to march back down the way she’d come.

Predictably, Benedict matched her stride for stride but he was watching her instead of his footing and a rock shifted beneath his leather shoe, causing him to skid off into a small hollow of sea-water, soaking the cuff of his black trousers.

Vanessa, whose hand had darted out instinctively when he stumbled, snatched it away hastily as he smiled warmly at her in gratitude.

‘Thank you, Nessa.’

‘Walking over rocks in shoes like that is asking for trouble,’ she said, quickening her gait to escape the potency of that stunning smile. ‘And now I’ll have to send those trousers to be dry-cleaned. Why didn’t you wear something practical, like jeans?’

‘I didn’t know what we were going to be doing,’ he said equably. ‘And I don’t own any jeans.’

That seemed so inconceivable to one of her generation that she stared at him in wonder. ‘What do you relax in?’ Then she remembered who it was she was talking to. ‘Oh, yes, that’s right; you don’t have time to relax.’

‘Until now there was no need,’ he commented. ‘Perhaps you can teach me to relax, Vanessa.’

She ignored him, remaining stubbornly silent until she reached the car. There she halted, frowning as she saw a vaguely familiar wicker hamper sitting by the front wheel.

‘Where did that come from?’

‘Kate. It’s a picnic.’

‘Picnic?’

‘Kate said you told her you were going to the beach and then took off before she could pack you some lunch. She said you often had sandwiches on the beach when the weather was fine. She thought you might have had things on your mind and just forgot to ask.’

Vanessa cursed the over-developed sense of responsibility that had made it impossible for her to take off without letting someone know where she could be found

. However, she welcomed the realisation that the hollowness in the region of her stomach might not be entirely due to Benedict’s unsettling effect on her nervous system.

‘I’m not hungry.’

His look was one of amused scepticism. ‘Well, I am, so you can just sit and watch me eat before we go.’

‘We?’ She suddenly noticed that hers was the only car parked along the whole foreshore. ‘Where’s your car?’