A backlog of work at the factory kept him late there most evenings, although he always tried to get back in time to read the girls a story. Heather was slowly starting to relax with him, and once or twice Claire even thought she saw a glimmer of anticipation in the little girl’s eyes when he walked through the back door. And Lucy was uninhibitedly in favour of the marriage. Jay was her hero, and she worshipped him with an unashamed adoration.
Already it was November. Christmas loomed on the horizon, and unless she wanted the house to be in a total state of uproar over the Christmas holiday she would have to get a move on with her plans for the house, Claire realised as she picked up the brochures Jay had brought for her.
After supper jay disappeared into his study, and Claire curled up on the leather couch, her feet tucked up underneath her as she browsed through the leaflets. There was a range of Victorian reproduction sanitaryware, which she thought was bound to impress the Americans, and she put the details on one side, turning to concentrate on the photographs of various types of reproduction plasterwork.
The large drawing room would lend itself very nicely to that sort of embellishment, and although not strictly Georgian, the house was old enough, the rooms high-ceilinged enough to take that sort of decorative detail. The thought struck her that she could probably get some sort of inspiration as to how to use the mouldings to best effect by studying photographs of original Adam-style rooms.
Jay had pointed out to her that although several firms manufactured similar products, they prided themselves on genuinely making an effort to reproduce even the finest detail of the original plasterwork, just as modern furniture makers were now using the original pattern books of men such as Chippendale and Hepplewhite, so that they could reproduce furniture which was comparable in quality and workmanship with the original. There was nothing either cheap or tacky about their products, Jay had told Claire, and the methods they used to make them reflected as far as possible the workmanship which had gone into the originals.
It seemed to Claire, as she studied the photographs of various mock room-settings, that both the drawing-room and dining-room could become showpieces for Jay’s products, while the panelling cold surely be an attractive addition to Jay’s study?
As she worked through the literature, she made various notes, jotting down ideas that occurred to her for new colour schemes. Here in the sitting-room she had set her heart on a comfortable country house atmosphere with deeply cushioned settees in modern chintz, and colour-washed walls. A pretty, soft golden yellow perhaps … something warm and sunny. She wanted a room that people could be at leisure in. Somewhere where the girls could play, and Jay could relax.
She glanced at the clock, stunned to see that it was almost half past eleven. It was time she went to bed. She tidied up the papers, and then got up, yawning.
As she took her coffee cup to the kitchen she saw that there was still a light on in the study. On impulse she knocked briefly and opened the door.
Jay was sitting behind his desk, his tie loose and the top buttons of his shirt unfastened. His hair looked as though he had been pushing his fingers through it.
‘Hello, still up?’
‘Mmm. I got rather involved in my room planning. I’m going to bed now, though. Do you fancy a cup of coffee?’
‘Yes, please. I’ve got quite a lot to do yet; I could do with something to keep me awake. Did you come to any conclusions—about how we could use our products?’
‘Oh, yes, I’ve got loads of ideas … while we’re in Bath I’ll have to look round at fabric shops, that sort of thing. What is worrying me, though, is finding someone to install it properly.’
‘Oh, we’ve got our own team to do that. We don’t take the risk of having it installed by anyone else. I’ll take you down to the factory while we’re in Bath and you can meet them.’ He frowned suddenly and picked up his pen, fiddling with it.
It was an unusual gesture for him. He was normally so very decisive and assured.
‘What is it?’ Claire asked.
‘I was just thinking. If you’re re-planning the bedrooms, it might be an idea for us to have interconnecting ones—I don’t want any of our male guests getting the wrong idea.’
He meant that he didn’t want his male pride hurt by others knowing that they didn’t have a sexual relationship, Claire surmised, but she realised she was wrong when he said harshly, ‘I don’t want a repeat performance of what happened with Susie, Claire. I don’t intend to lose you as well. If we have rooms at the opposite end of the house, you’re bound to get some opportunist who’s going to think that sexually you’re as available as Susie was. Neither of us wants that.’
She felt uncomfortably guilty when she realised that his concern had been as much for her as for himself. Every day, it seemed she learned more about him, and the more she learned, the more she wondered how on earth Susie could have not loved him. Surely, if a woman could love a man it must be this one: he was caring and kind, attractive, considerate—and strong enough to lean on if one was the leaning type.
But he no longer wanted a woman’s love, she reminded herself as she went to make them both a cup of coffee, so really it was just as well that she was incapable of giving him it.
IN THE SCRAMBLE TO GET the girls and herself ready for an early start, mercifully Claire hadn’t had much time to worry about the commitment she was about to make.
However, once she was inside the car, she had all the time in the world to worry about what she was doing.
Jay was a skilled but careful driver; the girls were both occupied with giggles and private chatter in the back; the music drifting from the stereo was designed to calm and relax; yet as the miles went by Claire found herself growing more and more tense, more and more convinced that she was doing the wrong thing, that she was, in fact, mad even to consider marrying. How on earth could it work?
‘Stop worrying; everything will be fine, you’ll see. Just think, in twenty-five years from today, you and I will be celebrating our silver wedding.’
His uncanny ability to divine her thoughts unnerved her. Unlike her, Jay seemed to have no doubts about the wisdom or the stability of their marriage, but then he already had something to compare it with, something to work towards, while she …
It was too late for second thoughts, Claire told herself firmly. She had already made a commitment to Heather, even though she hadn’t yet made one to Jay, and on that count alone it was too late for going back.
Even so, she still found it hard to relax. Panic cramped through her stomach, an apprehension quite unlike any of her previous experiences enveloping her.
All the local weather seers had predicted a bad winter, and looking at the rolling countryside, held fast in the iron grip of a frost which turned the golden stubble monochrome, and lay across the bareness of the hedges like icing sugar, Claire could well believe that they were right.
In summer it was pretty countryside, but now the lavish display of autumn leaves had gone, and without the starkness that made harsher countryside look magnificent and awesome in winter, the bare fields only looked melancholic—or was that simply her imagination?