‘That you came here last night and we made love?’ Jake offered coolly, plainly not sharing her dislike of putting her thoughts into words. ‘Why not, that’s what happened isn’t it? You came here…’
‘To explain to you about the article,’ Kate broke in angrily. ‘I…’
‘Had no intention of going to bed with me? I don’t recall you protesting any too much, Kate, in fact…’ he smiled, but the gesture was completely without warmth of feeling, ‘last night was the best it’s ever been between us. Last night, for once in your life, you were a woman, Kate. Why? What were you hoping to discover from me?’
‘Nothing!’ She practically screamed the word at him. Why wouldn’t he believe her? ‘Is it so impossible to accept that I might simply have…’ loved you, she had been going to say, but she held back the betraying admission and submitted instead, ‘wanted you?’
For a moment she held her breath as Jake stared at her. ‘Perhaps,’ he agreed at last. ‘I certainly wanted you. I haven’t touched a woman in the time we’ve been apart—I couldn’t. That’s what you did to me, Kate.’
His admission shivered across her skin, but it wasn’t love she read in his eyes as he turned towards her; they were cold and empty, regarding her as they might a stranger, and all her hopes that he might love her died. He didn’t. He couldn’t and talk so calmly about last night. If anything their lovemaking had simply been a catharsis; and now he was completely free of her. How could it be otherwise when he had virtually given Harold Barnes permission to name them as lovers? He must know what that would do to her standing in the community; to her relationship with her co-antinuclear campaigners.
‘What’s the matter, Kate?’ he asked softly. ‘Realising what will happen to your credibility when Barnes gets round to publishing today’s little revelation? Well, join the club. Have you any idea what it did to me when you persisted in making public your anti-nuclear stance?’ he demanded savagely. ‘When I applied for the job in the States, it was all down there on my record. And do you know what, Kate? They considered your presence in my life was a weakness; that you might bring pressure to bear on me that would make me crack, perhaps even sabotage my work!’
‘But you were soon able to put them right on that score,’ Kate challenged back, refusing to yield to the terrible anguish possessing her. ‘You told them how little my opinions mattered to you. I was just a stupid female!’
She was going to cry, she knew she was, and she whirled round, fleeing before he had time to realise what she was doing, slamming the front door behind her. Jake made no attempt to follow her, but it wasn’t until she was halfway home that she remembered he still hadn’t had any breakfast.
Although Meg witnessed her return she was tactful enough not to ask any questions. A trip to London to show the new spring patterns for their jumpers was a welcome break in her week, although Kate found her thoughts returning time and time again to the Dales while she was away. Her sweaters had now established themselves, and she was more than happy with her orders, her business concluded a day earlier than she had anticipated.
On impulse she telephoned her godmother in the South of France, feeling an absurd desire to weep when she heard Lyla’s familiar girlish tones. ‘Kate darling, how are you?’
When Kate explained that she was in London, Lyla begged her to stay for another day. ‘I’m booked on a flight later this afternoon. You know I always like to spend a few days in London after Christmas before I go to St Moritz.’
Kate knew that her godmother paid an annual visit to a luxury health spa just outside London every year at this time and hid a small grin. Dear Lyla, she was someone who never changed. Promising to meet her at Heathrow, Kate rang down to reception and was lucky enough to be able to extend her stay without any problem.
It was snowing when she went to Heathrow, but it wasn’t the pretty, fresh snow of the Dales, and the coldness had a raw, damp quality to it that invaded every bone.
Lyla emerged into the Arrivals hall dressed in lavish sables, her blonde hair immaculately coiffured, her enviable size ten figure hidden beneath the embracing folds of sable, her face unchanged, as unlined as a wax doll’s. She kissed Kate enthusiastically, chiding her as they walked towards the exit. ‘Kate, you’ve lost weight,’ she reproved.
‘I thought a woman could never be too thin,’ Kate said dryly. Lyla in a maternal mood was something she wasn’t used to.
True to form Lyla had booked a suite at the Dorchester. Kate went there with her, and promised to stay on for dinner. ‘Although I haven’t anything remotely evening-ish with me,’ she warned.
‘I can lend you something. You’ve lost so much weight you’ll be able to fit into it.’
‘Something’ turned out to be a Dior model, and when Kate raised her eyebrows, Lyla said evasively, ‘Yes, I know…but it was a present. Kate… Kate, I’m thinking of getting married again.’
Kate dropped the eyeshadow she had been applying to her lids and turned to stare at her. Although she was used to the procession of men through her godmother’s life, it was several years since her last divorce.
‘Married?’ she echoed.
‘Umm,’ Lyla nodded briskly. ‘You’ll like him. He’s German, fabulously wealthy, but more important than that, very, very kind. I never told you much about my first husband…’ She grimaced faintly. ‘I’m not going to burden you with the details now, but it wasn’t a happy relationship. He was forty when we married, I was eighteen, and a very young eighteen at that. My parents were quite wealthy and he was on the verge of bankruptcy. At first it wasn’t too bad. I had my parents to turn to and your mother, but then my parents died; the money ran out, and Ralph became…violent…’ Her hand was shaking, and Kate, who could never remember her pretty foolish godmother ever betraying any sign of unhappiness or misery in the past, felt an overwhelming protective rush of love for her.
‘It’s all in the past now,’ Lyla continued bravely, ‘but when Ralph died—well, I went a little off the rails.’ She pulled a face, laughing at herself and the old-fashioned expression she had used. ‘Six months after Ralph died, so did a distant cousin of his, and I inherited everything. For a while I went a little mad; perhaps I even used all those nice young men as a means of punishing Ralph for the past, I don’t know, but then I met Jake’s father. He was widowed at the time and he wanted to marry me. I agreed—wrongly, because I didn’t love him. Jake was about fifteen at the time, and I could tell he resented me.’ She paused, and glanced appealingly at Kate. ‘Here comes the bit I least want to tell you, darling. I’m afraid I did a very foolish thing. You see, my…my way of life had rather gone to my head. There’d been so many charming young men that I couldn’t see why Jake shouldn’t succumb just as easily. I wanted to punish him, you see, for showing his contempt of me, only I’m afraid it didn’t work out like that. Jake most emphatically did not want me. In fact at fifteen he was far more assured than many young men of eighteen or twenty. He made me feel so small and cheap, Ka
te. He despised me utterly because of his father…’ She sighed. ‘Of course I left. What else could I do? It was a considerable shock to run across him again like that when you were with me…’
‘You intimated that he wanted to protect me from you,’ Kate interrupted, sympathising with her god-mother, even while she could understand how Jake must have felt.
‘Yes. When he discovered that I was your sole guardian he accused me of corrupting you as I’d tried to do him. Of course by then I was over my wild phase, but arguing with Jake was like arguing with stone, and I’m afraid I still resented him. I let him think that he was right.’
‘And that’s when he decided to marry me?’
‘I used to think so,’ Lyla agreed, ‘and I’m afraid I might be to blame for your marriage breaking up, because I told you about it—you always were such a sensitive child. I could have cut my tongue out afterwards, but it was too late. Instead I went to Jake, and told him what I’d done. We had a long talk, and came much closer to understanding one another. He told me that he loved you, but that he felt that you were too young for marriage—not in years but in terms of experience. He was torn between wanting you and wanting what was best for you. He always did have a painfully active conscience. When you parted we kept in touch and…’
‘You told him where I was living.’
‘Yes,’ Lyla admitted. ‘Did I do wrong?’
‘I don’t know.’ Gradually it all came out and Kate found herself confiding in her godmother, sparing herself nothing, admitting how much her own immaturity had blinded her to reason.
‘I still love him, more than ever if that’s possible, because I’m not blinded by my own prejudice any more. I recognise now that love between two human beings is more important than anything else, but that it has to be nurtured; that it’s possible to love and have differing opinions on outside subjects.’
‘Most women have an instinct that leads them to protect, and to denounce war,’ Lyla comforted her. ‘I’m sure when you explain Jake will understand. The fact that he’s given up his research work for a different type of job must mean something.’