A Savage Adoration

'Your parents happen to be old friends, and I'm damned if I'm going to give that friendship up just to suit you.'

She watched his jaw clench as he grated the words out at her, and then suddenly he turned to her, his body relaxing slightly as he appealed, 'Look, Christy, what is it? We used to be such good friends… I accept that times, and people, change, but I can't understand this… this antipathy you have towards me.'

He couldn't understand? A wave of anger shook her. He had destroyed her world and now it seemed he couldn't even remember doing it.

'No, I'm sure you can't,' she agreed tautly. 'But the days are long gone when I grovelled at your feet, Dominic, glad of every little scrap of attention you threw my way. Let's just say that I've grown up, shall we, and leave it at that.'

As she walked away from him and back to the car she could hardly believe that he had actually forgotten what had happened. Bitterness mingled with her anger. How could she ever have been so stupid as to invest him with all the virtues of some chivalrous knight? The Dominic she had loved had never really existed; he had simply been a figment of her imagination. It was ridiculous that she should feel so… so betrayed that he couldn't remember what he had done to her, but she did.

This time as she walked towards the house carrying her boxes of food he made no attempt to speak to her, simply preceding her into the old-fashioned kitchen and showing her where she could put everything.

'You don't have to do this, you know,' he told her when she had finished. 'I can get someone else to act as committee secretary.'

'Yes, I'm sure you can, but as I told my father, it will stop my secretarial skills from getting rusty. Don't flatter yourself that the fact that I have to come into contact with you affects my decisions on how I live my life, Dominic. It's simply that you're someone I'd rather not see unless I have to.'

'So I see. Well, if that's the case, you have my promise that I won't encroach on our old friendship. I had hoped…' He shrugged and turned away from her, but not before she had seen the bitterness twisting his mouth.

Dominic, bitter? But why? And what had he meant about him not encroaching on their old friendship? Surely he was the one who didn't want her encroaching on it, just as he had made plain to her eight years ago?

Feeling thoroughly confused, Christy headed back to her father's car. It was almost as though Dominic was trying to pretend that he wanted to be friends with her. But why? She wondered whether he was ashamed of the way he had treated her. But if that was the case, why didn't he say so; why pretend that he couldn't even remember that it had happened? It was like a jigsaw puzzle with all the vital pieces missing. For eight years she had harboured her resentment and dislike of him, and on hearing that he was back in Setondale she had expected that he would want as little contact with her as she did with him, and yet today he had implied that he wanted to resurrect their friendship.

At seven o'clock that evening, having made sure that her mother had everything she wanted, Christy and her father set out for the Vicarage. The temperature had dropped again, but the full moon had brought a clear sky with no threat of snow.

'We will have some yet, though,' her father predicted as he drove down the lane.

Little pockets from the previous week's snowfall still lingered in hollows and by the roadside, and Christy was glad she wasn't driving when she felt the car start to slide once or twice.

They were the first to arrive, and Christy went straight to the kitchen, leaving her father and Dominic to talk. The anger against Dominic which had sustained her for so long seemed to have dissipated, leaving her feeling on edge and unsure of herself. She felt uncomfortable being near him, constantly tense and apprehensive, although why she was no longer sure. It was obvious to her now that he wasn't going to resurrect the past, as she had dreaded him doing, so why did she suffer from this inability to relax, even to breathe properly, when he was around?

During her years in London she had learned to deal with many difficult and fraught situations. Not even when she had had to refuse David had she experienced this degree of nervous constraint. It was almost as though Dominic possessed some special sort of power over her that made her intensely and uncomfortably aware of him. Even now, with the thickness of two walls separating them, she was acutely conscious of his presence. She didn't even need to look at him when he spoke to visualise his expressions. She could have drawn his every feature perfectly from memory. She shivered suddenly, and told herself it was the old stone house that made her feel so cold.

'Coffee ready?' her father called cheerfully, coming into the kitchen. 'The others seem to have arrived together.'

'It will only be a minute ; I'll bring it through into the library.'

As she already knew, the Vicarage had four main downstairs rooms in addition to the large and old-fashioned kitchen. There was a huge drawing-room, which the Vicar had never used; a dining-room, a comfortable sitting-room, and then the library. The library had always been her favourite room, with its smell of leather book bindings and dusty parchments. It overlooked the rear grounds of the house, and three of the walls were lined from floor to ceiling with mahogany bookcases. The Vicarage and the living that went with it had originally been in the gift of the Anthony family, and the house had been built for a younger son who had joined the clergy, hence its generous proportions.

Carrying the tray of coffee, Christy nudged open the door with her foot. Several pairs of eyes studied her entrance, but only two of them drew her attention. The first belonged to Dominic, and she felt the colour bloom under her skin as she realised how instinctively she had looked for him. There was a curious expression in the grey eyes, and if she hadn't known better she might have thought it was pleasure.

Angrily she dragged her glance away from Dominic's, and found that she was being stared at rather hostilely by a pair of cold blue eyes set in a sculptured but rather hard face which she deduced belonged to Lady Anthony's god-daughter.

'Ah, there you are, my dear.' Her father got up to relieve her of the tray, but Dominic beat him to it, which was rather strange as he had been seated furthest away from her.

'I think you know everyone, don't you, with

the exception of Amanda, and Mr Bryant?'

Amanda Hayes' cold blue eyes acknowledged the introduction without making any attempt to make Christy feel welcome. Wondering what on earth she had done to merit the other woman's patent hostility, Christy turned her attention to the older man seated with John Howard, their bank manager.

Somewhere in his fifties, he had the lean, predatory look of a man who challenged life head on, and Christy could easily visualise him in the role of a successful businessman.

Having made sure that everyone had something to eat and drink, she looked for somewhere to sit, and to her disquiet found that the only empty chair was one next to Dominic. Since he was obviously chairing the meeting she supposed it made good sense that she should sit next to him, but she saw from the narrow-eyed look that Amanda gave her that the other woman was equally displeased with the seating arrangements.

So that was the reason for her hostility, Christy thought as she sat down. Amanda couldn't know Dominic very well if she thought that she was any threat to her.

The next two hours passed so quickly that Christy had no time for any private mental meanderings. Her fingers flew over the notepad as she faithfully recorded the details of the meeting. Their first task, Dominic informed them, was to find somewhere suitable to convert into a clinic.

'I believe I've found the ideal place—a pair of Victorian semis that are up for sale in Setondale itself.'