She could, of course, always back down and admit defeat; she could tell Guy French to inform the publishers that she was backing out of the contract. They wouldn’t sue her she felt sure and with withdrawal would stop Guy from hounding her. There were other books she could write… Moodily, she stared out of the window. Her flat was one of several in a small, anonymous, purpose-built block, with nothing to distinguish it from its fellows. Once, as teenagers, she and Lucy had talked of the lives they would lead as adults, of the homes they would have. She remembered quite sharply telling Lucy that she would fill hers with fresh flowers, full of colour and scent.
Fresh flowers! It had been years since she had last bought any…the wreath for her parents’ funeral.
Impatient with herself, Campion went to get her coat and her car keys, and then headed for her local supermarket.
CHAPTER TWO
SHE must have been mad to have attempted this long journey so late in the evening, Campion admitted bitterly as she stared out into the dark night.
Somehow, out here in the middle of Wales, the darkness seemed so much more intense than it had in London. Almost it felt as though it was pressing in on her, surrounding her. She shivered despite the warmth inside the car, wondering why it was she should be so much more aware of the fact that it was late November, and the weather wet and cold and very inhospitable, than she had been when she had first left.
Perhaps because when she’d left her mind had been full of Guy French, and how angry he would be when he found that she had escaped.
So he thought he could force her to complete the book by taking on a secretary, did he? Scornfully she grimaced to herself. Well, he would soon learn his mistake!
She came to a crossroads and slowed down to check the signpost, sighing faintly as she realised that it, like so many others she had driven past, had been a victim of the Welsh language lobby.
Luckily, she had had the foresight to buy a map that gave both the Welsh and the English names for the many tiny villages dotted about the Pembroke.
At night, the terrain might seem inhospitable but, as she remembered from short summer weekends she had spent here with Helena, the coastline was one of the most beautiful she had ever seen, with mile upon mile of unspoiled countryside, and narrow, winding roads, between deep banks of hedges that were vaguely reminiscent of Cornwall and Dorset at their very best.
Helena’s cottage was rather remote, several miles away from the nearest village, in fact, down a narrow, unmade-up road. She had been left it by a distant relative, and had some claim to Welsh blood. She had spent childhood holidays in the area, and had been able to supply Campion with many interesting facts about it.
The Welsh scornfully referred to Pembroke as being more English than England itself, and certainly a succession of English monarchs had been very generous to friends and foes alike when it came to handing out these once rich Welsh lands.
Sir Philip Sidney, the famous Elizabethan poet and soldier, had been Earl of Pembroke, and there had been others; some sent here as a reward, some as a punishment.
Her imagination suddenly took fire, and she found herself wondering what it would have been like to have been dismissed to this far part of the country, especially for a young girl, more used to the elegance of court living. A girl like Lynsey, for instance.
Within seconds, Campion was totally involved in the plot she was weaving inside her head. She reached automatically for the small tape recorder she always carried with her, the words flowing almost too quickly as she fought to keep pace with her thoughts.
Why was it that she found it so incredibly easy and exciting to imagine the emotions of her young heroine in this context, but, when it came to making her fall in love and having a sexual relationship, her brain just froze?
Impatient with herself, she pressed harder on the accelerator. Nearly there now, surely. She glanced at the dashboard clock. One in the morning, but she didn’t feel tired; at least, not mentally tired. Her brain had gone into overdrive, and she was itching to sit down at her typewriter and work. It w
ould mean altering several chapters she had already done, but that wouldn’t be any problem, and it would add an extra dimension to her book.
Angrily, she dismissed the sudden memory she had of Guy telling her that her manuscript lacked a very important dimension. What was she trying to do? Prove to him that she could make the book work without the sexual content he deemed so necessary? And so it would, she told herself mutinously. But, deep down inside herself, she knew it was not just the lack of sexuality to her heroine, but the lack of emotional responsiveness to the men around her that made the book seem so flat. Campion was not a fool, some of the most emotionally and mentally stimulating books ever written—books that caught the imagination and held it fast, books that conveyed a quality of realism and involvement that no one could deny—did so without any reference description of physical lovemaking between the main characters. But what they had, and what her manuscript lacked, was the special, vibrant awareness of the characters’ sexuality. A vibrant awareness which she herself had never experienced, other than that one briefly painful episode with Craig.
She was so deeply immersed in her private thoughts that she almost missed the turn-off for the cottage. Braking quickly, she turned into the unmade-up lane.
Surely it had not been as pitted with pot-holes the last time she’d driven down it? Her body lurched against the restraining seat-belt as she tried to avoid the worst of the holes. Muddy water splashed up over her car as she drove straight into one of them, and she cursed mildly.
Although Helena was in Greece, recuperating from a severe bout of pleurisy, her housekeeper had been quite happy to supply Campion with the keys for the cottage. Campion knew Mabel quite well, and the small, dour Scotswoman had warned her that the cottage was not really equipped for winter living.
Campion hadn’t been put off, and anyway she wouldn’t be staying there very long. She had to be back in London in a month for the book tour, which was a week or so before Christmas, and then she would be spending Christmas with Lucy and Howard. If it was anything like their usual Christmas house-parties, it would be a very sybaritic experience indeed. Howard liked his home comforts—the more luxurious, the better.
The car’s headlights picked out the low, rambling shape of the cottage, and thankfully she eased her aching leg off the accelerator.
Now she really was tired. It would be bliss to get into a really hot bath and then just drop into bed, but she suspected the luxury of a bath would have to wait for another day. If she remembered correctly, the house was equipped with an immersion heater, but it would take too long to heat water tonight.
Thank goodness she had had the sense to pack a few basic necessities into one bag. She could take that in with her now, and the rest of the unpacking could wait until the morning.
Carefully easing her aching body out from behind the wheel, Campion found the bag, and a carton of typing paper. Locking the car, she made her way to the cottage.
The lock on the door must have been oiled recently, because the key turned easily in it, and the door yawned open of its own accord, making a creaking sound that made the hair on her scalp prickle, until she remembered that Helena had often laughed about this and other small idiosyncrasies that the cottage possessed.
It was very old, and had once been part of a large local estate, probably a small farmhouse. Helena’s great-grandparents had lived here all their married lives, and then Helena had inherited it from a great-aunt when she had died.