The Marriage Resolution

It irked her a little to be told she should crouch eagerly at Hugo’s feet, as though he were some sort of master and she his pupil. In fact, it irked her rather more than just a little, she admitted. She might not have completed her degree course—her father’s death had put an end to that—and she had certainly not been able to go on to obtain her doctorate, but what she had learned both from her father and through her own ‘hands-on’ experience had more than equipped her to deal proficiently and, she believed, even creatively with the complexities and demands of her own work. So far as she was concerned she certainly did not need Hugo’s advice or instruction on how to manage her business.

‘You’ve got a definite flair for finance,’ her father had told her approvingly, and Dee knew without being immodest that he had been quite right.

She also knew she had a reputation locally for being not just astute but also extremely shrewd. Her father, on the other hand, had been almost too ready to trust in other people’s honesty, to believe that they were as genuine and philanthropic as he himself had been, which was why…

‘Dee, you aren’t listening to me,’ Peter was complaining tetchily.

‘Oh, Peter, I’m sorry,’ Dee apologised soothingly.

‘I was just saying about Hugo, and about how you would be well-advised to seek his advice. I know your father was very proud of you, Dee, and that he meant it for the best when he left you in charge of his business affairs, but personally I’ve always felt that it’s a very heavy burden for you to carry. If you’d married it might have been different. A woman needs a man to lean on,’ Peter opined.

Dee forced herself not to protest. Peter meant well, she reminded herself. It was just that he was so out of step with modern times. It didn’t help, of course, that he had never married, and so had never had a wife or daughter of his own.

‘By the way, did you ever find out what had happened to that Julian Cox character?’ Peter asked her.

Immediately Dee froze.

‘Julian Cox? No…why do you ask?’ Warily she waited for his response.

‘No reason; it was just that Hugo and I were talking over old times and I remembered how badly your father was taken in by Cox. That was before we knew the truth about him, of course. Your father confessed to me—’

‘My father barely knew Julian,’ Dee denied fiercely. ‘And he certainly had no need to confess anything to anyone!’

‘Maybe not, but they were on a couple of charity committees together. I remember your father being very impressed by some of Julian’s ideas for raising money,’ Peter insisted stubbornly. ‘It was such a tragedy, your father dying when he did. To lose his life like that, and in such a senseless accident…’

Dee’s mouth had gone dry. She always hated talking about her father’s death. As Peter was saying, it had been a tragic, senseless way to die.

‘Hugo said as much himself…’

Dee felt as though her heart might stop beating.

‘You were discussing my father’s death with Hugo?’

The sharp, shocked tone of her voice caused Peter to look uncertainly at her.

‘Hugo brought it up. We were talking about your father’s charity work.’

Dee tried to force herself to relax. Her heart was thudding heavily as anxiety-induced adrenalin was released into her bloodstream.

‘I’m a little bit concerned about this bee you’ve got in your bonnet about these young people, Dee,’ Peter was saying now, a little bit reprovingly. ‘I’m not sure that your father would have approved of what you’re trying to do. Being philanthropic is all very well, but these youngsters…’ He paused and cocked his head. ‘I applaud your concern for them, but, my dear, I really don’t think I can agree that we should fund the kind of thing you’ve got in mind.’

Dee’s heart started to sink. She had always known it would be difficult to convince Peter to support what she wanted to do, and the last thing she wanted to do now was to upset him by arguing with him. She had no idea how serious his condition might be, and she suspected that any attempt on her part to find out would be met with strong opposition from Dr Jane Harper. If it were Hugo, now, who wanted to know…! She was being unfair, Dee warned herself mentally—unfair and immature. But that didn’t mean that she wasn’t right!

‘What exactly is Hugo doing in Lexminster?’ she asked Peter, trying to give his thoughts a new direction.

‘It’s business,’ Peter told her vaguely.

‘Business?’ Dee raised her eyebrows. ‘I thought you said his work involved lobbying politicians for international support for his aid programme.’

‘Yes. It does,’ Peter agreed. ‘But Lexminster University has access to certain foundation funds which have been donated over the years to be used as the university sees fit.’

‘For charitable causes,’ Dee agreed. She knew all about such foundations.

‘Hugo hopes to get the university to agree to donate all or part of them to his aid programme.’

‘But I thought they were supposed to be used to benefit university scholars’ projects.’

‘Hugo was a university scholar,’ Peter reminded her simply. Yes, he had been, and Peter was on the committee that dealt with the disbursement of those funds, as Dee already knew. She started to frown. Was Hugo’s desire to move in with Peter and take care of him as altruistic as it had initially seemed? The Hugo she had known would certainly never have stooped to such tactics. But then the Hugo she had known would never have worn a Savile Row suit, nor a subtly expensive and discreet cologne that smelled of fresh mountain air just warmed by a hint of citrus.

Dee was becoming increasingly alarmed at the thought of leaving Peter on his own with Hugo, but she sensed that it wouldn’t be wise to express her doubts. From what Peter had already said to her it was obvious that for him Hugo could do no wrong.

Dee was frowning over this unpalatable knowledge when she heard someone knocking on the front door.

‘That will be Hugo!’ Peter exclaimed with evident pleasure. ‘You’d better go and let him in.’

Yes, and no doubt lie prone in the hallway so that he could wipe his boots on her, Dee decided acidly as she got up off the bed.

CHAPTER THREE

‘HOW’S Peter?’ Hugo asked Dee tersely as she opened the door to him.

‘He seems a lot better, although I’m sure that Dr Jane Harper would be delighted to give you a much more professional opinion if you wanted one,’ Dee responded wryly, forcing herself not to wince as Hugo’s glance swept her from head to foot with open dislike.

‘It’s odd how one’s memory can play tricks on one. I had a distinct memory of you being an intelligent woman, Dee.’

‘Well, I’m certainly intelligent enough to wonder what it is that makes you so anxious to help Peter.’

As Dee stressed the word ‘you’ she could see the anger flashing like lightning in Hugo’s eyes. It gave her an odd, sharp stab of pain-tipped pleasure to know that she had drawn such a reaction from him, even whilst she had to force herself to blot out of her memory the knowledge that once there had been a time when that lightning look had been born of the urgency of his desire for her, instead of the urgency of his ire against her.

‘I am anxious to help him, as you put it, because it concerns me that he should so obviously be on his own,’ Hugo replied pointedly.

‘He isn’t on his own; he’s got me,’ Dee protested fiercely.

Immediately Hugo’s eyebrows rose.

‘Oh…? He told me that the last time he had seen you was over two weeks ago.’

Angrily Dee frowned.

‘I try to see him as often as I can, but—’

‘Other people have a prior claim on your time?’ Hugo suggested. ‘Be honest, Dee, you couldn’t have moved in here to take care of him, could you?’

‘He could have come to Rye with me,’ Dee protested, without answering his question. ‘And if you hadn’t been here he would have.’

‘He would? Yes, I’m sure he would. But would that have been what he really wanted? He wants to stay here, Dee. This is his home. His books, his things, his memories…his life…are all here.’

‘Maybe, but you can’t stay with him for ever, can you, Hugo? And what’s going to happen to him once you’ve gone?’

‘Since, for the foreseeable future, I’m going to be based in the UK, there’s nothing to stop me from making my home here in Lexminster if I choose to do so. It’s convenient for the airport and—’

‘You’re planning to live permanently in Lexminster…?’

Dee couldn’t help her consternation from showing in her voice, and she knew that Hugo had recognised it from the look he gave her.

‘What’s wrong?’ he taunted her. ‘Don’t you like the thought of me living here?’

‘No, I don’t,’ Dee told him truthfully, too driven by the way he was goading her and the shock of what he had just told her to be cautious or careful. ‘I don’t like it at all.’

‘Oh, and why not, I wonder? Or can I guess? Could it have something to do with this…?’

And then, before she could guess what he intended to do, he had dropped the hold-all he was carrying and pinned her back against the wall, his hands hard and strong on her body as he held her arms, his body so close to her own that she could feel its fierce male heat engulfing her.

Once, being held like this by him would have thrilled and excited her, her awareness of the danger he was inciting only heightening her intense desire for him. The sex between them had been so passionately explosive that for years after he had gone she had still dreamed about it…and about him, waking up drenched in perspiration, longing for him, aching for him; and now, like a faint reflection of those feelings, she could feel her body starting to shudder and her nipples starting to harden beneath the practical protection of her jumper.

‘Cashmere…Do you know how many Third World people the cost of this would feed…?’ she heard Hugo murmuring contemptuously as his fingers touched the soft fabric of her sleeve. His mouth was only centi-metres from her own, and Dee knew that merely to breathe would bring it even closer, but she still couldn’t resist the urge to verbally defend herself. After all, it wasn’t as if he was any less expensively dressed.

‘It was a present,’ she told him angrily. ‘From a friend.’

‘A friend…’ Hugo’s eyebrows rose. ‘A friend, and not your husband?’

‘I don’t have a husband,’ Dee gritted furiously.

‘No husband!’

Something hot and dangerous flared in his eyes and Dee started to panic, but it was too late. The damage had already been done, the tinder lit.

‘No husband,’ Hugo repeated thickly. ‘What did he do, Dee? Refuse to play the game your way…just like I did…?’

‘No. I—’

Dee gave a gasp and then made a small shocked sound as the pressure of Hugo’s mouth on her own prevented her from saying anything else.

It had been so long since she had been kissed like this. So long since she had been kissed at all. So long since she had felt…Hungrily her mouth opened under Hugo’s, and equally hungrily her hands reached for him.

She was reacting to him as though she was starving for him…dying for him, Dee recognised as she fought to control the primeval flood of her own desire. Her reaction to him must be something to do with all her dredging up of the past, she decided dizzily. It couldn’t be because she still wanted him, not after all these years…Years when she had been willingly and easily celibate…years when the last thing she had ever imagined herself doing was something like this. He was kissing her properly now, releasing her arms to cup her face.

Dee gave a gasping moan beneath her breath as his tongue traced the shape of her lips. If he kept on kissing her like this…Beneath her sweater she could feel the taut ache in her breasts—an ache that was already spreading wantonly even deeper through her body.

Against her mouth Hugo was saying tauntingly, ‘No husband, you say. Well, it certainly shows.’

Immediately Dee came to her senses. Angrily she pushed him away, managing to lever herself off the wall as she did so.

‘I’ve heard the rumours about women of a certain age, with their biological clocks ticking away, but…’

‘But you prefer them slightly younger…around Dr Jane’s age, no doubt,’ was the only reply that Dee’s shaking lips could frame.

She was totally stunned by her own behaviour, her own reaction, her own feelings. What on earth had she thought she was doing? She felt as though she had been subjected to a whirlwind which had sprung up out of nowhere, leaving her…devastated.

‘What I prefer is…my business,’ he told her quietly, and then, whilst she was still trying to pull herself together, he demanded curtly, ‘How long have you been divorced?’

‘Divorced!’ Dee stared at him. ‘I’m not divorced,’ she told him weakly. She saw the look on his face and then added angrily, ‘I’m not divorced because I have never been married.’

‘Not married? But I was told…I heard…’ He was frowning at her. ‘I heard that you’d married your cousin and that you had a daughter…’

Dee thought quickly. Two of her cousins had married, and they did have a daughter of nine now, but she didn’t tell Hugo so, simply shrugging instead, and informing him dismissively, ‘Well, I’m afraid you heard wrong. That’s what listening to gossip does for you,’ she added pointedly. ‘I’m not married, I don’t have a daughter, and I’m most certainly not a victim of my biological clock.’ Two truths—one fib. But she was determined that Hugo wasn’t going to know that!

‘You wanted children so much. I can remember that that was one of the things we used to argue about. I wanted us to wait until we’d had a few years together before we started a family, but you were insistent that you wanted a baby almost straight away, just as soon as we were married.’

As he spoke automatically Dee reached for the bare place on her ring finger which had once carried his special ring—a family heirloom he had given her to mark their commitment to one another.

‘So that’s two things we still have in common,’ she said. ‘Neither of us is married and neither of us has children.’

‘Three things, in fact, when you count…’ He was looking at her mouth, Dee recognised, and beneath her sweater the ache in her breasts became an open yearning pulse.

‘Three…?’ she managed to question croakily, ignoring the savage tug of her own newly awakened sexuality.

‘Mmm…both of us are involved in fundraising for charitable organisations. I’d better go up and see Peter,’ he added calmly.

‘Er, yes…I…’ She was behaving as foolishly as though she were still the teenage girl he had knocked off her bicycle as he’d come flying round the corner on his way to one of Peter’s meetings—a meeting he had never actually attended. By the time he had picked her up and carefully checked her over for bruises or any other damage, and then insisted on taking her for a restorative cup of coffee, Peter’s meeting had been over—but their love affair had just been beginning.

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