Return Match

It was good to see Fanny rallying from her depression and taking an interest in something once more and Lucy willingly complied, leaving the others to make their way to the dining-room while she hurried to the kitchen.

Everyone was seated when she went in with the asparagus.

The furniture in this room had been her mother’s, and if the Sheraton dining chairs were rather scratched and worn, they were still undeniably elegant.

‘Asparagus … Very English,’ Saul commented as Lucy served him. ‘From here?’

‘From the Dower House’s garden, yes,’ she agreed, making it plain to him that the asparagus was not from the Manor. In point of fact the vegetable garden attached to the Dower House was better stocked and cared for—a legacy from one of their tenants who had been a keen gardener.

She had the satisfaction of seeing the faint tide of colour creep up under his skin as he digested her remark.

‘Lucy, really,’ Fanny reproached her. ‘There’s no need for that. I’m sure that Saul wouldn’t have minded in the least had the asparagus come from the Manor.’

The smile she directed towards him was one she had always used to good effect on her husband, and, watching Saul respond to it, Lucy wondered a little bleakly if she herself wouldn’t be well advised to adopt a few feminine wiles.

Not once had Saul smiled at her like that. Not once had he smiled at her at all.

‘This is really delicious.’

He was looking at Fanny, who coloured modestly but said nothing.

Oliver, seated beside Lucy, frowned watching the by-play and then said sturdily, ‘Mum didn’t cook it—Lucy does all the cooking.’

She was aware of Saul looking at her, but refused to look back, concentrating on her food until she felt the concentration of his gaze slacken.

Fanny she saw was frowning slightly, not pleased by her son’s comment. ‘Poor Lucy has had to take charge of so much,’ she told Saul, giving her stepdaughter a little smile. ‘I’m afraid I’ve been so prostrate with misery that I haven’t been able to do a thing.’

For a moment Lucy had to stifle a wild desire to remind her stepmother that never once since the start of her marriage had she shown the slightest interest in running the Manor, but she stifled it at birth, telling herself that she was being unfair. Fanny was Fanny and that was that.

‘I’ll go and get the main course,’ she said calmly instead, quickly collecting the plates and heading for the door.

Saul reached it before her, his forearm touching her body as he leaned across her to open the door.

A frisson of sensation shivered through her, so unexpected as to be faintly shocking, and she drew back from him as though her skin burned.

‘Am I correct in thinking I recognise the Sheraton?’

No one else could overhear the remark because Saul had his back to the room and she was almost through the door.

‘Yes,’ she agreed curtly. ‘It belonged to my mother and she willed it to me.’

There! Let him make what he liked of that!

The remainder of the meal passed all too slowly for Lucy. She was aware of Saul and Fanny conversing, but made no attempt to take part in their conversation. Saul praised the salmon and its accompanying sauce, looking at her this time, but she made no response. His remark about the furniture still hurt. Hurt? She examined the word covertly. Why should she feel hurt? Anger would be far more appropriate.

‘Do you see much of Neville these days?’

The unexpected question caught her off guard and, remembering how she and Neville had treated him that summer, she coloured a little.

‘Oh Neville’s a regular visitor,’ Fanny answered for her, giving her a teasing smile. ‘Although she always denies it I suspect Lucy has a soft spot for him. Of course he’s a very popular young man, more so since he’s taken over his father’s position in the business. Did you know about his connection with Holker’s, the publishers? He was most helpful to Lucy with her book, wasn’t he darling?’

Lucy felt her spirits plummet. It was all too easy to guess at the conclusions Saul had arrived at from Fanny’s artless speech.

‘It was my uncle who recommended Bennett’s to me, not Neville,’ she reminded her stepmother. ‘We don’t see quite so much of Neville as we once did.’ she added, looking directly at Saul, ‘but he does come down occasionally.’

He ignored her last statement to comment, with what she was sure was faked admiration, ‘So you’re writing a book. I’m most impressed Lucy. What’s it about?’

As though he, too, had sensed the derision behind the surface pleasantry of the words, Oliver answered for her.

‘It’s all about the Martin family … And Lucy spends hours in the library reading all about them. It’s going to be really good when it’s finished.’

Fanny laughed indulgently. ‘Really, Oliver darling. He quite dotes on Lucy,’ she told Saul over the latter’s head. ‘Sometimes I feel quite jealous. But then of course the children have been spending so much time with her recently. And then of course, living here … in her house.’

There was a sudden silence while Lucy gazed incredulously at her stepmother. Did Fanny resent the fact that the Dower House had been left to her?

She frowned, shocked by the thought, swiftly banishing it. It was because Saul was here that she was having these unfair thoughts.

‘Tell me more about this book of yours.’

Saul’s question caught her off guard, a faint frown pleating her forehead as she looked at him.

‘There isn’t very much to tell really. I’ve finished the draft of the first book, and I’m due to go to London next week to discuss it with the publishers.’

‘Mmm. What is it exactly? A history of the Martin family?’

‘No … not really, although I have used family papers and diaries as a background. It’s a fiction work not a factual one, but by using the family documents I’ve been able to give it a strongly factual framework.’

He was looking at her in rather an odd way and rather belatedly Lucy realised that she had betrayed herself into her usual enthusiasm for her project. Instilling some of her earlier coldness into her voice she added, ‘Of course, if you would rather that I don’t use the library at the Manor from now on I shall understand.’

‘Magnanimous of you.’

His dry tone made her flush as she realised how easily the cool voice she had used as a defence could be misconstrued as being rather haughty and supercilious.

She remembered now, too, how she and Neville had mocked his American accent, so different from their own British accents. How silly she had been to think it would be easy to wipe out the slights of the past. It was plain to her now that Saul felt nothing but contempt for her, and would doubtless laugh in her face if she were to attempt to apologise.

All in all she was extremely glad when he stood up and said that he had to leave.

‘I have to go into Winchester to see the solicitors; apparently there’s still a few loose ends to tie up.’

His smile when he left was for Fanny, not her, and it amazed her to realise how much that hurt.

CHAPTER THREE

FOR the rest of the week Lucy took care to avoid going anywhere near the main house and was rewarded by seeing nothing of Saul.

Tara had seen him, though, and the little girl appeared to have developed a rather unlikely case of hero-worship for him. George Martin had not been the sort of man to cherish his daughters and the feeling of desolation that bloomed inside her whenever Tara peppered her conversation with ‘Saul said …’ was an extremely disturbing one. Surely she couldn’t be jealous? And if so, what of? The fact that Tara seemed to be transferring some of her dependence from her to Saul? Or the fact that Tara had found the solid male refuge a tiny part of herself had always secretly yearned for and been denied? It was impossible to give herself an answer.

Saul had been living at the house for five days when Fanny announced that she was spending the day in Winchester.

Lucy looked at her over her coffee cup. Both children had finished breakfast and were outside playing.

‘Do you want to take my car?’

Fanny shook her head. ‘No, it’s all right. Saul’s taking me.’

Slowly Lucy lowered her coffee cup, keeping her attention on it. As far as she was aware, Saul had not been down to the Dower House since that first visit, which must mean that Fanny had gone to see him. But without mentioning it to her?

Silly to feel hurt and yet she did. She and Fanny had always got on well together despite their very different temperaments, and never in a thousand years could she imagine Fanny deliberately deceiving her.

‘I wanted to talk to him about the children’s trusts.’

Numbly Lucy realised how defensive her stepmother sounded.

‘After all, Saul is the head of the family now, Lucy.’

The head of the family? What on earth was Fanny implying? Lucy knew how muddle-headed she could be, but surely she could not possibly believe that Saul owed them that sort of responsibility?

‘He was very kind and understanding,’ Fanny added. ‘And he’s taking me to see Mr Patterson, so that he can explain everything to me.’

‘But Fanny, he already has.’

Philip Patterson, the family solicitor, had visited them on several occasions, just before and then after George Martin’s death to explain at length the ramifications of his will and the trust he had set up for Oliver and Tara.

‘Yes, but he spoke to you, not me,’ Fanny said stubbornly.

Lucy frowned. ‘But Fanny, you were there with me …’

Across the table Fanny shrugged petulantly.

‘Well yes. But I was so upset about your father. I couldn’t take any of it in.’

There was a small silence while Lucy tried to assimilate her feeling of alienation and then Fanny said defiantly, ‘I know you don’t like Saul, Lucy, and that you resent him taking your father’s place, but that doesn’t mean the rest of us have to share your feelings.’

The unfairness of the criticism really hurt. So much so that for one awful moment she almost thought she might burst into tears. It was the unexpected direction from which the blow came rather than its weight, she told herself as she struggled to suppress the bleak desolation enveloping her. And Fanny was wrong; she did not dislike Saul.

‘Luckily Saul’s aware of how you feel about him. He told me he found you very anti when he came over that summer. I explained to him that it was quite natural really … what with you being aware that you couldn’t inherit and that he would. It was bound to make you resent him.’

Lucy opened her mouth and closed it quickly, swallowing back the hot words of denial springing to her lips. She was angry, more angry than she could remember being for a long time. How dare Fanny make such careless assumptions about her feelings and actions, and even worse how dare she pass them on to Saul as though they were fact! It seemed to be a long time before she had control of herself sufficiently to say calmly,

‘You’re quite wrong, Fanny. I neither resent nor dislike Saul.’ She wanted to explain to her stepmother her guilt over the past, but it was impossible to find the words, especially now when her anger still formed a hard lump in her throat.

An hour later, when Saul arrived, Lucy learned that the children were also included in the outing.

She didn’t go downstairs, unable to trust her own reactions if she were to come face to face with him now. One thing was clear though. She could not allow this ridiculous belief that she resented him for inheriting the house to stand. When she felt calmer she would have to go and see him and explain the truth. She had been horrified by Fanny’s careless revelation of what had been said, and the pride which had held her back from making an open apology for her foolishness all those years ago, when she realised he was not prepared to meet her equally openly, would have to be sacrificed to the truth. She was not going to allow him to go on thinking that she was stupid and small-minded enough to resent him owning the Manor.

From her own bedroom she heard the children racing about, doors slamming and then the expensive purr of Saul’s car as he drove away.

Standing by her bedroom window, watching the car disappearing down the drive, she was once again swept by acute desolation. Could it possibly be a delayed reaction to her father’s death? At the time she had been almost too busy to weep. And then there had been the shock of discovering that Oliver …

If anyone should resent Saul, it ought to be Oliver, but then in reality why should he? Her father had left Oliver more than well provided for, whereas Saul’s inheritance was more of a burden than an asset.

The sunny morning had turned dull, and by lunch time it had started to rain. Lucy spent the afternoon in the comfortable sitting-room-cum-study which she had made her own terrain, sewing labels on to Oliver’s new school clothes.

At half past four she heard the car, and although her body tensed, vibrating as though someone had touched a nerve, she made no move to get up.

The study door opened and she composed her face into a calm smile as she turned her head to the door.

But it was not Fanny and the children who came in, it was Saul. Her face felt as though it was caked in ice and about to crack, a violent tremor shuddering through her muscles.

Saul paused for a moment in the doorway, and her heart thudded as though suddenly struck a giant blow.

‘I startled you. I’m sorry. Fanny asked me to call in on my way home to tell you that she and the children won’t be back until after dinner. They ran into an old friend of your father’s in Winchester, Colonel Bishop, and he invited them back to dine with him.’

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