A Reason For Marriage

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‘The inference being far too charming for me, I take it.’

She could tell without looking at him that his mouth had twisted slightly just as she could hear the mocking amusement in his voice.

‘Too charming. Too innocent, and far, far too vulnerable, Jake,’ she said as coldly as she could. ‘But then I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you any of that. What does worry me a little is that she’s also intelligent. What will you do when she discovers it, I wonder?’

‘Bitch.’ The insult was laconic, without heat or emotion. ‘Still living alone, are you?’

The question was careless and uncaring, flicking her on the raw as it underlined the solitariness of her life.

‘That’s the way I prefer it,’ she told him coldly.

‘Still the ambitious career-woman. I thought it might have palled by now. Strange how I never realised all the time you were growing up that you had such a strong streak of ambition.’

‘Why should you? I certainly never recognised a good many very obvious traits in you.’

He moved in front of her, frowning at the biting contempt in her voice.

‘Such as?’ he invited softly.

It was too much. She had already endured enough tonight, her head was pounding violently. He knew exactly what he’d done to her, so why make her say it? Did he enjoy tormenting her?

‘I don’t want to talk about it.’ She got up too quickly, his proximity to her suddenly claustrophobic. In her panic she tried to push past him and found that his body blocked the way. Closing her eyes against the onslaught of pain in her head she swayed dangerously and put out a hand to save herself. Everything was whirling madly out of control, the only point of reality in her disordered world the sure, firm sound of Jake’s voice, and she clung to it like a drowning man to a life-raft, willingly letting herself sag against his body as she felt his arms go round her and her mind abandon her completely.

Dimly she was conscious of being picked up, of being carried, of Jake’s suddenly increased heartbeat. She could hear Beth asking anxious questions, and Jake’s reassuringly measured reply.

‘Don’t worry, she always did push herself too hard. It’s probably just jet-lag catching up on her. Which is her room Beth?’

And then as she closed her eyes and surrendered to the luxury of being in his arms she heard him saying, ‘No, it’s okay, you stay down here, I don’t think she’s actually fainted. More of a dizzy spell really. She’ll be okay.’

They were going upstairs, Jake moving swiftly. He had carried her like this once before, the first time he had made love to her. All at once her stomach clenched on a fierce burst of pain. She didn’t want to remember that time now. How thrilled and yet frightened she had been, how gentle and tender Jake’s lovemaking. But it was pointless remembering it, it had all only been an illusion, something deliberately created to deceive, and neither her pride nor her self-respect had ever recovered from the fact that it had deceived, very successfully.

Indeed if it hadn’t been for Wanda she would never have found out, would now have been married to Jake for five years, would probably be the mother of his children. So why didn’t she feel relief instead of dull misery? Would she really have preferred not to know, to have married him anyway? Angered by her own weakness, she tried to push the memories away. They were inside her bedroom now. She opened her eyes cautiously, hurriedly closing them again as she felt the room sway. It was her own fault, she thought guiltily, she had eaten next to nothing on the flight from New York, and very little since. No wonder she had no strength, no resistance.

Past and present started to merge dizzily together, loosening her hold on reality, confusing her to the point where she wasn’t sure of anything other than the fact that she was in Jake’s arms. She felt him lower her on to the bed, and opened her eyes, blinking as she was caught in the cool green beam of his.

‘Jake.’

Her whole body trembled with the effort of speaking his name, weak tears almost blinding her as she saw that she had been unsuccessful in banishing the hard coldness from his eyes. She was eighteen again and desperately in love. She reached out, imploring, her breath ejected from her lungs in a shocked whimper as Jake drew back, holding her away so savagely she thought he might crush her fragile bones.

‘What is it you want from me, Jamie?’

His voice had an unfamiliar raggedness to it, a harsh echo of an old pain that disturbed and confused her. Her tongue touched the dry contours of her mouth, her stomach cramping in nervous protest. She felt lightheaded and dizzy, unable to formulate any words that would make any sense. Somewhere at the back of her mind trembled a warning that she was doing something incredibly foolish, but she was not prepared to listen to it. All she could think of was how much she ached and yearned for this man sitting beside her, and looking at her as though for some reason he wanted to strangle her.

Confusion hazed her mind, trapping her back in the past, her eyes unknowingly eloquent and pleading as she looked at him.

‘Jamie, for God’s sake.’ His fingers snapped back from her wrists as though her skin burned. ‘What in hell’s name are you playing at now?’

He was moving away from her and she didn’t want him to go. Panic and pain tore at her with knife-sharp claws, a whirling black emptiness was engulfing her, through which she cried out his name in sharp anguish.

Momentarily the darkness parted and she felt the heat of Jake’s body against her own, his mouth on hers, swiftly answering the plea in her voice. Mindlessly, voluptuously she gave herself up to the pleasure of touching and kissing him, her tongue feverishly tracing the well remembered shape of his lips, her heart thudding frantically against her ribs.

‘JAMIE?’

The sound of Beth’s hesitant voice brought her abruptly awake. Confused, she glanced around, stunned to discover that it was daylight. ‘How are you feeling?’ Beth approached the bed anxiously. ‘I wanted to call the doctor last night, but Jake said it wasn’t necessary. He says you had a bout of these fainting attacks during your teens.’

‘Yes, I did,’ she responded almost absently, her mind struggling to assimilate the bewildering confusion of images and half-memories surging through her. Jake had carried her upstairs last night, he had been angry with her, they had argued; her face flamed hotly as she had a sudden, too-vivid memory of something else. Her mind must be playing tricks on her. She couldn’t have really kissed him… She closed her eyes, shuddering slightly.

‘Jamie.’

‘I’m fine, just a little weak…’

‘Jake said you were asleep when he left you. He told me not to disturb you last night. It’s just as well he was here. I had no idea you were subject to these attacks.’

Jamie wanted to tell her that she wasn’t, that her faintness had been brought on by a headache and the acute tension engendered by Jake’s presence, but wisely she said nothing. Her heart was still pounding fiercely, her thoughts tormented by that hazy memory of Jake’s mouth against her own as she used all the skill he had taught her to soften its hard outline. Dear God, surely she could not have done such a thing? It must surely be her imagination playing tricks on her. How on earth was she ever going to face Jake again if…

Other memories began to surface. Jake had tricked her into agreeing to go home at Christmas. But why? He could want her company as little as she wanted his. He had claimed that Mark and her mother missed her. Her mouth tightened. Was that why he wanted her there, or was it simply so that he could torment her further?

‘What did you think of Amanda?’ Beth asked eagerly, sitting down on the edge of the bed, as Jamie struggled to sit up. ‘She’s nice, isn’t she?’

‘Far too nice for Jake,’ Jamie replied promptly, wishing she hadn’t been so curt when she saw Beth’s surprised expression. ‘She was telling me last night that she isn’t at all keen on the idea of getting married yet, to anyone,’ she told Beth by way of explanation. ‘I get the impression she’s scared stiff that between them her father and Jake will force her into it.’

‘Oh no, surely not? Jake would never do anything like that. Why, if he wants to get married he could find any number of women who’d jump at the chance.’

‘Ex-mistresses, you mean?’ Jamie said sarcastically. ‘Jake’s too proud for that, Beth. He’ll want a wife he can mould and dominate. An innocent, untainted by any other man sexually or mentally. I’m sure in his eyes Amanda would make him an excellent wife. She’s an only child and her father is a very wealthy man.’

‘I know you and Jake don’t get on, but surely that isn’t really how you see him, is it?’ Beth was plainly troubled. “I know he can be strong-willed and arrogant, but…’

‘No buts, Beth,’ Jamie told her wearily. ‘Jake’s cool-headed enough to decide what he wants out of life and then to go out and get it without bothering himself over trivial little details like emotions and feelings.’

Plainly perplexed by her cousin’s bitterness, Beth stood up. ‘I just came to see if you were awake. I’ll go and make you a cup of tea now. Are you sure you’re feeling all right?’

Nodding her head, Jamie turned her face into the pillow. All right was the last thing she felt. No amount of determination had protected her from the savage reality of seeing Jake. It was the same every time and it got worse, not better. She shuddered as she tried to eject from her mind the tormentingly hazy memory of being in his arms; of wantonly pressing herself up against his body, of betraying herself to him in the most humiliating way possible. Sweat broke out on her forehead, sickness cramping through her stomach. Please God, let it not be true, let that mocking elusive memory belong to the more distant past, or better still her imagination. She could not, would not endure the torment of Jake knowing that her years of cool indifference towards him were nothing more than a brittle barrier behind which she hid her love.

CHAPTER THREE

ANOTHER day over—thank God. Sighing faintly, Jamie locked the door of the office behind her and hurried out into the cold early November darkness.

They had been busy recently, but that was not the reason for the lines of tension creasing her forehead and the overstrained look in her eyes. Even Ralph, her partner, had commented that she was not her normal cool, calm self. She had Jake to thank for that, she thought angrily, her soft mouth twisting.

Only last week she had received an ecstatic letter from her mother telling her how thrilled she and Mark were that she was going to be able to get home for Christmas—Jake had told them, apparently.

Trust him. He was tying her up in knots, making it impossible for her to find an excuse for not going home. How ill was Mark? A deeper frown touched her forehead. Whenever she asked her mother about her stepfather the replies she received were reassuring but evasive. Very mild angina was how her mother had described Mark’s condition, but what if it were more than that, what if… Panic and dread clutched her heart at the thought of anything happening to her stepfather, if he was more seriously ill than she was being told and something should happen to him. She knew that she would never forgive herself if Mark died without her having seen him.

Even so the situation was an impossible one. If only Jake did not live so close to Queensmeade. Because he had taken over the running of the factory he was constantly in and out of Queensmeade discussing business with his father, and unless she knew specifically that he was going to be away she had purposely not gone home, unable to bear the thought of facing him in the place where she had once known such foolish joy.

How typical it was of Jake’s arrogance that he should expect her to put the past calmly behind her and behave as though nothing had happened. If Wanda hadn’t opened her eyes to the truth she would have been married to him and it would have been too late. They had planned to tell Mark and her mother how they felt about one another on their return from holiday. Jake had been talking about a Christmas wedding. How naïve she had been to think he actually loved her, and how clever he had been to keep her in the dark as to his real feelings.

What hurt her most was not that she had loved him, but that she had trusted him as well, had looked up to him and adored him all through their childhood—and been too bedazzled by the wonder of this demigod, whom she had worshipped all her life, actually loving her, to have the wit to question the reality of an experienced and very male man in his mid-twenties falling passionately in love with an inexperienced teenager he had known all his life.

But if Wanda had not told her would she have been any better off? she wondered cynically, dodging down into the underground. She enjoyed her work—when she was working—but the PR side of the business, so necessary to keep commissions rolling in, was something she preferred to leave to Ralph. Wouldn’t she have been equally content to run the business as a small and probably only marginally profitable sideline, occupying most of her time as Jake’s wife and the mother of his children?

She was not ambitious and never had been, which did not mean that she thought of herself as in any way inferior or subservient to any man. Her mother had shown her that it was possible for a woman to be all those things that were ‘feminine’ and yet to retain her independence and self-worth at the same time. She had seen for herself that for all his wealth and power Mark was as dependent on her mother as she was on him, perhaps more so. Any emotions one felt for another human being to some extent made one vulnerable, dependent. Some of her female acquaintances would have a field-day if they could read her mind, she thought wryly, as she stepped off the train and joined the surge of fellow commuters pressing up the escalators.

The wind had picked up since she had left the office and it whipped icily at her exposed ankles as she hurried towards her small Victorian house. She had bought it with the small amount of money her father had left her, when it had been in a dilapidated and very run-down state. Now five years later it was an undeniable advertisement for the company’s work.

She let herself into the small hall and snapped on the lights. The plain French-blue carpet soothed her eyes, the soft butter-yellow dragged walls banishing the cold dampness of the November night.

Because the house was small she had opted for the same colour-scheme throughout, taking advantage of her knowledge of all the different paint finishes to achieve contrasting effects in each room.

As always, the first thing she did when she got home was to go upstairs to her bedroom, to shed the formality of her coolly efficient business suit.

Like the rest of the house the room was decorated in yellows, and French-blues, but in this room the yellow was toned down to buttermilk, the creamy glazed cotton fabric that covered the bed and windows sprigged with small flowers. Draped curtains hung from a circlet in the ceiling to frame the bedhead, both curtains and bedspread edged in a plain blue fabric that matched the carpet exactly. Jamie had spent weeks hunting for that particular shade of blue, and she was very pleased with the effect, although she knew her bedroom hinted at a more frivolous and feminine personality than most people thought she had.

On one wall, fitted wardrobes were cleverly concealed by panels covered in the floral fabric, the wall-lights casting a warm golden glow on the room.

The house only had two bedrooms but each had its own bathroom. Jamie had opted for plain golds and yellows in hers to tone in with her bedroom, while the guestroom had a rather more ambitious traditional Victorian brass and mahogany decor that suited the high-ceilinged room.

Her evening ritual was always the same, and it struck her as she took off her clothes and quickly showered that she was becoming set in her ways, old-maidish almost. Shrugging the thought aside—she had no desire to marry—she dried herself and dressed again in a bright green tracksuit.

Downstairs in the kitchen she prepared herself a snack of scrambled eggs and a mug of coffee, taking it on a tray into the small study-cum-sitting-room at the back of the house.

Curling up into a comfortable easy chair, she ate her supper, absently watching television.

It was only here in her own domain that she was able to relax, but even here she didn’t feel as safe as she once had. Safe? The thought made her frown. What on earth was she frightened of? Jake? There was no need, surely. All right, so he was forcing her to go home for Christmas, but not for his benefit. Jake had no desire for her company. She had nothing to fear from him in either the emotional or the sexual sense because she already knew he didn’t want her.

No, what she had to fear was herself, she acknowledged wryly. That and her dread that she would not be able to keep her feelings for him to herself if she was forced into his company too often. That was the real reason she could not go home, it had nothing to do with resentment or dislike, and everything to do with the fact that no matter how much she tried, she simply could not dislodge him from her heart.

She was just on the point of deciding she would have an early night when the front doorbell rang.

Since she was not expecting anyone she frowned, a mental image of Jake flashing through her brain, as though somehow by thinking about him she had conjured him up outside her door.

Only it wasn’t Jake who faced her when she opened the door. It was Amanda, and she barely had time to recognise her sharp disappointment before the younger girl erupted into a frantic plea to be allowed to come in.

As she automatically stepped back, Jamie’s eyes widened as she took in the girl’s soaking jeans and jacket. Her blonde hair was plastered to her skull. Remembering her suggestion that she come and visit her while she and her mother were shopping, for a moment Jamie was nonplussed by the younger girl’s appearance. From what she had learned of Amanda’s parents, she didn’t think her mother was the sort of woman who would take her daughter out shopping dressed in faded jeans and an old anorak.

‘I had to come. There wasn’t anywhere else.’ A shiver interrupted the frantic high-pitched words, and Jamie felt her initial astonishment harden into sharp unease. Now that she looked more closely she saw that Amanda was close to hysteria, alternately shivering and crying.

Gently she led her into the study, sitting her down by the fire while she went upstairs to get clean warm towels.

‘Dry your hair and get out of those wet things,’ she instructed calmly, handing her a towelling robe and the towels. ‘I’ll go and make us both a cup of coffee.’

By the time she came back with the two mugs, Amanda was huddled in front of the fire in the robe. As she handed her her coffee Jamie saw how her fingers trembled. She had lost weight too, she thought, studying her, and there was a tension in her blue eyes that hadn’t been there before.

‘I take it that you aren’t in London shopping with your mother,’ she said wryly, sitting down opposite her.

Amanda shot her a look of guilty despair before shaking her head. ‘No. I’ve…I’ve left home.’

Left home! Why on earth should she be so surprised? Jamie wondered ironically. She ought to have guessed the moment she opened the door to her.

‘I see.’ She was thinking quickly. ‘Do your parents know where you are?’

Again Amanda shook her head. ‘No. And I don’t want them to know, otherwise they’ll come for me and my father will make me marry Jake.’

More tears fell, while Jamie tried to assimilate this last bombshell.

‘Make you…’

‘Yes. We had the most terrible argument about it last week. I like Jake, Jamie, but I don’t want to marry him. I don’t want to marry anyone yet, I want to be free, to travel, to make something of myself. My father just can’t see that I don’t want to be a pampered, cushioned doll like my mother. I’m not that sort, I want to be independent.’