The Ultimate Surrender

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‘Such noble sentiments,’ Marcus scoffed, ‘and so very naive. Richard may have been your husband, Polly, but I suspect he never really awakened you as a lover, because if he had—’

‘How dare you?’ she almost screamed at him, backing away from him like a threatened hind fearing the approach of the hunter. ‘Of course Richard was my lover. How else do you think that Briony…?’

She stopped, almost choking on her own tears, suddenly realising that Briony could see and hear everything they were saying to one another.

‘He was your husband, yes, and you conceived his child, yes, but that was a long time ago and in many ways Richard was only a boy,’ Marcus agreed flatly, before continuing in a soft, almost mesmeric voice, ‘But look at you now; you’re trembling like a virgin confronted with her first experience of an adult man and all because I kissed you. Is that how a woman who has experienced a lover’s—a man’s—passion would react?’

He started to shake his head but Polly wasn’t prepared to listen to any more. Reaching out protectively to draw Briony closer to her, she told him shakily, ‘You have no right to say such things to me. I loved, still love, always will love Richard more than someone like you could possibly understand.’

The look he gave her before he walked past her and out of the room lived with her for a long time afterwards, long after Marcus himself had left again on his travels.

Well, at least Briony had been right about one thing, Polly reflected a couple of hours later, her kitchen cupboards restored to their normal immaculate order: the hotel was relatively quiet at the moment. Not that she minded. They had a very busy season coming up, with Christmas to contend with. They had guests who regularly booked themselves into Fraser House for Christmas and the New Year, and if the conversion of Marcus’s room was finished in time for the Christmas season they had a respectably long list of guests already for their occupancy. Christmas at Fraser House was, Polly acknowledged with her customary modesty, something a little bit special.

Yes, she was glad that Marcus had decided to give up his rooms here, she told herself firmly as she glanced round her now immaculate kitchen, and not just because of the extra guests it would allow them to have. The architect they had hired had made the suggestion that the stable block could perhaps be renovated and extended to provide even more rooms, but for once Polly had demurred, explaining that she felt it would detract from the hotel’s unique ‘feel’ if they expanded too much. A little to her surprise, Marcus had actually endorsed her opinion. She hadn’t as yet been to see the house he had bought nearby, although Briony had, returning to tell her mother enthusiastically that it was ‘ace’.

Built in the early days of Victoria’s reign it had originally been a part of the Fraser estate, built to house the widowed mother of the then owner.

Whilst not a dower house in the traditional sense of the word—Fraser House was not a great house in the style of Chatsworth and its ilk—it had been built in a similar if later style to that of the main house and was less than a mile away from it. After the end of the First World War the family had sold off the house, but now the opportunity had arisen for Marcus to buy it back along with the small acreage of land which had been sold with it.

In some ways Polly quite envied him the opportunity to bring the pretty ivy-clad house back to life again—its last owner had been elderly and after her death the house had been left empty for some time whilst her executors decided what to do with it.

Its five bedrooms and spacious ground floor meant that it would make an ideal family house. Was Marcus perhaps thinking of settling down at long last? At forty-two he was very visibly in the prime of his life. His career and financial future were assured, his physical appearance such that no right-thinking, intelligent, heterosexual woman would hesitate to snatch him up as potential-mate material and father to her unborn children. The current scientific evidence was that a woman naturally and instinctively chose the strongest and best-looking mate she could find in order to secure the best genes possible and thus the best chance of survival for her offspring. And no doubt Marcus would be similarly influenced when he chose the woman he wanted to marry. She would be young, intelligent and, of course, stunningly beautiful. According to Briony, her candidate filled all of those requirements.

Lost in thought, Polly made her way slowly to what had always been her favourite spot in the house’s grounds—a small dell surrounded by mature trees and with its own natural pond. It was off limits to their guests and could only be reached by a narrow private footpath. It was a spot that Richard had loved, and his last gift to her before his death had been a painting of it done in the spring when the bluebells were out. Now it was autumn and the trees were shedding their leaves, giving the small, enclosed space a haunting, almost melancholy air that was so much in tune with her own mood that Polly could feel her always easily aroused emotions bringing unwanted tears to her eyes.

She had brought so many of her problems and her heartaches, large and small to this spot over the years, but none had come anywhere near the magnitude of the agonising despair she was suffering now.

So much in her life was changing…Briony had already left home and was quickly becoming an adult and no longer in need of her in the way she had once been. Her staff were so well trained that sometimes she felt almost as though they didn’t need her either. And then there was Marcus…

Marcus…

She closed her eyes and leaned against the thick trunk of one of the trees.

Of course she had always known that one day Marcus would get married.

Hadn’t she?

That he would meet someone…fall in love with them…

‘Polly.’

Her eyelids swept up in shock, revealing the tears dampening her eyes as she stared in mute distress at the man who had been the focus of her thoughts.

‘What are you doing out here without a coat?’ she could hear him demanding disapprovingly. He, of course, was wearing a coat—or rather a jacket…the soft, well-worn leather one that she and Briony had bought him together one year for his birthday.

‘Marcus,’ she croaked when she had managed to find her voice, and then shivered, idiotically justifying his sharp criticism of her.

‘You are cold,’ she heard him say grimly. ‘Here, take this…’

Before she could stop him he was removing his jacket and wrapping it around her. It drowned her, its warmth enveloping her—and not just its warmth. Weakly Polly closed her eyes as her vulnerable senses were assaulted by the unmistakable scent of him.

‘No, I don’t want it,’ she denied, thrusting it off and turning her back on him as she walked quickly away from him.

She could hear the faint exclamation of exasperation he made as he bent to retrieve it, and she wasn’t surprised when he told her irritably, ‘Don’t be so damn childish, Polly. I do realise, you know, how much you resent having to accept anything from me. There’s no need for you to reinforce that fact—especially not in such a self-defeating way.’

‘That’s not fair.’ Polly defended herself quickly. ‘And it’s not true either. I’ve always been aware of how much both Briony and I owe you, and I’m very grateful for everything that you’ve done for us.’

When he didn’t make any response she added incon-sequentially, ‘This was always one of Richard’s favourite places…’

‘Yes, I know,’ Marcus agreed curtly—so curtly that Polly turned round to face him properly. His face was wearing that austere, withdrawn expression that made him seem so distant and disapproving.

‘He loved to paint here,’ Polly continued protectively. ‘And…’

‘And you keep the painting he gave you of this place in that nun-like cell you call your bedroom…’

‘It isn’t a cell,’ Polly protested, outraged.

‘No, you’re right, it isn’t,’ Marcus agreed tersely. ‘It’s more like a shrine…a shrine to a man—a boy—who would have been appalled by your maudlin determination to turn him into some kind of plaster saint…’

Polly could feel herself starting to tremble. Why was it always like this? Why was it always like this between them? Why did they argue so much…fight so viciously? Why, when he obviously disliked and resented her so much, had Marcus done so much for her? But she already knew the answer to that conundrum. First it had been for Richard and then, after his death, for Briony.

‘Richard was my husband,’ she reminded him with a small quiver in her voice.

‘Was…Was, Polly,’ Marcus emphasised savagely. ‘Richard is dead and has been for a very long time.’

‘Briony wants me to give a private dinner party,’ she told him quickly. ‘She—’

‘Yes, I know.’ Marcus interrupted her shortly. Uncertainly Polly searched his face. What exactly had Briony told him—that she had found the woman she thought would make him the perfect wife? It wouldn’t surprise her. Marcus would accept things from Briony that she could never imagine him accepting from someone else. They were on the same wavelength, so much in tune with one another that…that they made her feel excluded, envious…Envious? Of her own daughter…? Fiercely Polly resisted her thoughts.

‘I have to go back,’ she told Marcus jerkily, her body tensing when he fell into step beside her as she headed for the footpath. Just as she reached it she tried to distance herself from him, gasping in shock as a small branch from one of the trees became entangled in her hair.

‘Keep still,’ Marcus instructed her, immediately realising what had happened and reaching out to free her.

He was standing far too close to her, Polly recognised weakly. Far too close. She was beginning to feel dizzy…light-headed…

‘Keep still,’ Marcus repeated irritably as he tried to tug her hair free. She felt engulfed by him, surrounded by him as he moved closer to her whilst he worked patiently to free her.

Standing this close to him was almost like being in a lover’s embrace with him…Polly could feel her skin starting to prickle with nervous tension. She could hardly breathe and if he didn’t free her soon and move away from her she knew she was going to panic and do something really stupid.

‘There. You’re free now.’

Free…For one wild moment Polly actually contemplated telling him how impossible it was for her ever to be free of the unwanted burden she carried, but just in time she stopped herself, her ‘Thank you’ short and sharp, as though the words hurt her throat.

Her head was beginning to ache, but not because of her pulled hair and no way near as much as her heart.

Marcus provoked her, irritated her, angered her more than anyone else she knew, sometimes she felt that the hostility between them was such that she could almost reach out and feel it. But only she knew how much, how desperately she needed to cling onto that anger and hostility…how much she needed the defence it gave her.

‘There’s no need to walk back with me,’ she told him tersely. ‘I can manage.’

‘As you never seem to cease delighting in reinforcing to me,’ Marcus agreed curtly. ‘Polly, has it ever occurred to you—?’ He stopped.

‘Has what ever occurred to me?’ she pressed him. But he simply shook his head and told her grimly, ‘It doesn’t matter.’

No, she wanted to correct him, I’m what doesn’t matter to you, Marcus…me. But somehow she found the strength not to do so.

On her return to the house Polly went straight to the kitchen. Polly loved cooking, and its pleasure for her came from a deeply rooted nurturing instinct.

‘Ma, you should have had half a dozen children, not just one,’ Briony often told her.

Perhaps it was true; perhaps the love she poured into Fraser House and their guests was simply a form of displacement therapy, an outlet for the love and caring she no longer had her beloved Richard to give.

Paradoxically, perhaps Marcus was like herself, someone who, whilst enjoying and insisting on top-quality health-protecting, wholesome food, was not a gourmet, which was probably why, at forty-two, he still had the superbly fit and muscled body of a man half his age—as Polly had good cause to know. The last time he had been home she had hurried down to the swimming pool intent on having her early-morning swim before getting down to prepare the guests’ breakfasts, and as she had approached the pool she had realised that Marcus had beaten her to it.

Reluctantly impressed, she had watched as he completed a length in a stunningly effective and fast crawl before turning at the far end of the pool to see her watching him. Quickly she’d started to walk back to the exit but, to her chagrin, Marcus had hauled himself out of the water and come after her, stopping her before she could leave.

‘Nice swimsuit,’ had been his drawlingly derogatory comment as he had surveyed her. ‘What is it—one of Briony’s schoolfriend’s cast-offs?’

Furious with him for his rudeness, and herself for allowing herself to be provoked, she had compressed her mouth, refusing to make any verbal response even though she’d known her heightened colour had given away her real feelings.

Perhaps her swimming costume was a little bit old-fashioned, a plain, serviceable affair which she had originally bought when Briony had been a little girl and she had been taking her for swimming lessons; but the bikini Briony had insisted on her buying for their last holiday together was, in Polly’s maternal opinion, far too brief and revealing—little more than a few scraps of black satinised cotton edged in a dull gold, and certainly far too sophisticated for a businesslike early-morning swim.

Distractedly she had watched the downward path of the droplets of water coursing their way through the sleek dark pelt of Marcus’s body hair, across the flat, hard-packed muscles of his chest and stomach, and then…

It hadn’t been until Marcus had oh, so deliberately wrapped the towel he was carrying around his hips that she’d realised just how hard she had been staring at him, and where, and her face had flushed an even deeper hue of pink as he had asked her, ‘What is it Polly? Have you forgotten what a man looks like, or is this…’ his hand had reached out and touched the hot skin of her face ‘…because you have remembered?’ And then, before she could say anything he had challenged her, ‘Do you think if your positions had been reversed that Richard would have clung so unnaturally to his widowhood or his celibacy?’

‘Celibacy is easy when you…when there’s only one man you love—only one man you want,’ she had managed to retort; and, after all, it had been and still was the truth.

CHAPTER THREE

‘AHA! I thought so. No way are you wearing that.’ Briony pounced, coming into Polly’s bedroom just as she was zipping up the plain, faithful black dress she’d decided to wear for Briony’s dinner party.

The meal was in the capable if somewhat nervous hands of her young trainee chef, Andrew, and before coming upstairs to get ready she had gone into the conservatory where they were going to be dining to check that everything was in order.

The round table, rather smaller and far more intimate than the long dining table in the dining room, gleamed with crystal and silver, and the conservatory itself was illuminated by the dozen or more heavy floor-standing candelabra which Polly always lit for such occasions.

The simple muslin drapes which had been unfastened to cover the windows added to the wonderful delicacy of the room creating a glimmering, misty, low-lit effect which, as Polly already knew, did wonders for female complexions and—so she had been reliably informed—male libidos!

As she’d come upstairs she had congratulated herself with amused tenderness that Briony was bound to be pleased with her efforts, but it seemed now that she had congratulated herself a little too soon.

‘What on earth do you mean?’ she responded. ‘I always wear this dress for dinner parties.’

‘Exactly,’ Briony agreed. ‘It’s the kind of dull, anonymous thing that all fifty-something women play safe with.’

‘Er…well, yes,’ Polly agreed. ‘That’s why I bought it.’

‘But, Mum, you aren’t fifty-something, and anyway if Marcus sees you in it he will go mad. He told me the last time you wore it that I ought to burn it.’

‘Oh, he did, did he?’ Polly said grimly. ‘Well, in that case…’

‘Oh, help, I shouldn’t have said that, should I?’ Briony yelped. ‘What is it with you and Uncle Marcus these days, Mum? You know, when I was little I used to pretend that Uncle Marcus was my father and I used to close my eyes and make a wish that you and he would get married.’

‘Never,’ Polly told her instantly. ‘Never. I…’

‘Mmm; that’s exactly what Uncle Marcus said too,’ Briony murmured, adding, ‘Anyway, never mind about all that now…Look what I’ve got for you.’

Triumphantly she produced the bag she had been holding behind her back and, with a flourish, removed its contents.

‘You can’t possibly be expecting me to wear that,’ Polly protested faintly as she saw the tiny tube-like piece of fabric her daughter was holding in front of her.

‘Oh, but I am,’ Briony grinned.

‘It won’t fit me,’ Polly told her positively.

‘Yes, it will; it stretches,’ Briony informed her smugly, proving her point by gently pulling out the sheer black fabric with its delicate sprinkling of small jet beads.

‘Briony, there’s no way I can wear that.’ Polly gasped in shock as she saw how see-through the fabric actually was.

‘Relax, Mum,’ Briony laughed. ‘There’s an underslip that goes with it. It’s perfectly respectable, I promise you. Come on, take that horrid old thing off and let me see this on you.’