Realising that her daughter was both upset and on edge, Sarah Marsden wisely refrained from questioning her at length, suggesting instead that she have an early night.
'You're the one who's supposed to be the invalid, not me,' Christy protested with a wan smile.
'I don't know. Your father said that Dominic sounded most concerned when he rang up. I must admit I expected you to come home in a far more battered and bruised state than you have.'
Her bruises were there all right, but they were all inside, Christy, reflected ruefully.
'Why didn't Dominic come in with you? He knows that he's always welcome.'
'Lady Anthony had invited him round for supper.' An invitation which he had originally refused.
'At her god-daughter's behest, no doubt. Dominic is a very attractive man.' She paused, almost as though expecting Christy to deny it, but she wasn't that good a liar. She got up off the bed, trembling slightly as she remembered the passion with which Dominic had kissed her. If Amanda had been the one in his arms, she doubted that the other woman would have run away from him like a frightened child. What was the matter with her? she asked herself crossly as she prepared for bed. She had done the right thing; the only thing in the circumstances. She loved him too much to settle for a brief affair, no matter how passionate.
For over a week she saw nothing of Dominic, and she told herself that she was glad. The snow her father had prophesied fell heavily one night, smothering the countryside in a soft white blanket. A fierce frost on top of the snow kept them virtually housebound, but Christy discovered, after the second occasion on which she deliberately kept out of the way when her mother was due for her daily visit from the doctor, that Dominic had as little desire to see her as she had him, because it was not he who called to see her mother, but his partner.
She had already typed up the notes she had taken at the committee meeting, and telephone calls from both the Major and Lady Anthony had confirmed that they were going ahead with their plans for the masked ball.
As soon as the weather conditions permitted, Christy went with her father to Newcastle and spent the morning in a small, dusty stationers, tucked away down a side street, where the proprietor had to move aside huge bundles of out-of-date legal stationery before he could find for her a book containing sample invitation cards. Bearing in mind the nature of the event, and the probable reaction of Amanda Hayes to anything she might choose, she deliberately decided on the largest and most formal card available and left her order with the shop. Her father, who had business of his own to conduct with a fellow solicitor in the city, had suggested that they have lunch together in a small restaurant that had always been one of her favourites as a child. It had changed hands several times since Christy had first dined in it, and the pretty soft peach and french blue décor chosen by the latest proprietors was very warming on such a cold and miserable day.
The building was an old one, and the proprietors had made the most of its low-ceilinged, beamed interior. A good fire burned in the grate, and when Christy gave her name, she was informed that her father had not yet arrived, and offered a comfortable seat in one of the huge leather chairs in the bar area.
She had just ordered a drink when the door opened and another couple came in. Her heart seemed to stand still, gripped in an intolerable vice of pain as she recognised Dominic and Amanda, the latter clinging possessively to Dominic's arm.
He looked at Christy without smiling, his eyes grim and forbidding. Tears rose up inside her, forcing her to look away, her bottom lip caught up in her small teeth. Her surroundings blurred dangerously as she looked frantically into the fire, willing her tears to subside. She couldn't break down in front of them like this. Dominic was right. She hadn't grown up; she was behaving in a way that would have disgraced an eighteen-year-old, never mind a woman of twenty-five.
'My goodness, what a small world,' Amanda commented in an affected drawl. 'But then, I suppose in such a backwater one has to expect to run into people one knows. Are you alone?'
Her disparaging glance suggested that she must be, and Christy had difficulty in summoning a voice polite enough to answer her.
'No, I'm waiting for my father. I came with him this morning so that I could order the invitations for the ball.'
'Oh, you should have left that to me. Mummy uses this marvellous man in London…'
The artificial voice grated on Christy's too-tender nerves. She told herself that there was something faintly ridiculous about a grown woman in her late twenties referring to her parent as 'Mummy'.
'Darling, I'm just dying for a drink,' Amanda continued. 'Something civilised. I'll let you choose for me. You know what I like.'
It took all her willpower for Christy not to look away as Amanda batted her eyelashes at Dominic. A little grimly she wondered when the other woman would realise that she was overdoing things a little and that Dominic was not in the least remotely interested in Christy herself. She would have thought that the cool way in which he had acknowledged her presence would have been enough. The look of rejection and dislike in his eyes had surely been explicit enough even for someone as patently dim as Amanda appeared to be.
While Dominic went over to the small bar, Amanda leaned forward maliciously. 'What do you plan to wear for the ball? I thought I might have something new made. My godmother suggested that I go to David again… David Emanuel, that is. His designs are simply super.'
Christy only just managed to bite back the tart comment that there was absolutely no need for her to underline the disparity in their financial and social positions with such name-dropping. Fortunately, before she could give rein to her acid thoughts, Dominic was back. Without even having to look at him, Christy was acutely conscious of him, and of the way he chose to sit down on Amanda's far side—as far away from her as possible. He had no need to underline the fact that he wanted nothing more to do with her, she thought wretchedly; that much was already abundantly clear.
Since their last meeting she had had time to think properly about what he had said to her, and to accept the truth of his heated comments. Of course he could not have made love to her; of course he had been morally bound to turn her down; and of course now she could understand why he had felt it so incumbent upon him to frighten her with the reality of where her foolishness might have led.
What perhaps both of them had underestimated had been the intensity of her feelings for him. Whereas she had no doubt now that he had only meant to shake her into a realisation of what she was doing to herself, he had actually instilled in her such an intensity of doubt and self-loathing that he had effectively paralysed her instinctive responses.
'I was just telling Christy that I'll have to go to London to arrange to have a new gown made for the ball.' Amanda pouted provocatively and smiled at him. 'Why don't you come with me, darling? It will do you good to have a break. You work far too hard.'
The despairing sickness inside her seemed to bloom and grow as Christy was forced to listen to their conversation. She turned away, not wanting to hear Dominic's reply, so thoroughly relieved to see her father walk into the restaurant that she almost spilled her drink as she got up to greet him.
'Hello, Dominic. I didn't expect to see you here.'
'I had to come to Newcastle on business.'
'And I'm afraid I came with him to distract him,' Amanda cooed. Christy could see that it was on the tip of her father's tongue to suggest that they all lunched together, and she knew that to watch Amanda flirting with Dominic over the lunch table was more than she could endure. She had always been blessed with a particularly vivid imagination, and she didn't need any prompting from Amanda to guess that the two of them were lovers. A man with the strong sexual drive she had sensed when Dominic had kissed her would not deny himself the company of an attractive and willing woman for very long—and why should he?
'Dad… if you don't mind, I'd rather go straight home than eat. I'm not… I'm not terribly hungry.'