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And to make matters worse, each time she looked at him, it was to discover that he was watching her, a half smile playing about his lips as if he had discerned her inner struggle and was amused by it.
So she did her best to ignore him, and pretend that the buzz of talk and laughter around him did not exist, although she couldn’t help but be aware of the almost electric excitement his presence engendered. But he was bound to leave soon, she told herself. A suburban wedding couldn’t hold his interest or confine the air of restless energy which characterised him for very much longer.
Not for the first time, she wondered why he had accepted the invitation. The dinner service he had bought as a wedding present was displayed with the other gifts, so no other gesture was necessary. Alison’s parents had issued the invitations, of course, and had been cock-a-hoop when he had accepted, but Kate knew that Jon had not been pleased, although he’d said nothing in the light of Alison’s jubilation.
She had watched her stepbrother watching Matt kiss the bride, seen the rigidity of his features, and her heart had ached for him. Matt had been in Venezuela until the previous day, and had dashed back specially, she heard Alison’s mother smugly proclaiming to a coterie of her friends.
‘Why did he bother?’ she asked herself savagely.
She had avoided him, and the inevitable introductions, since the reception began. She had no wish to become one of the admiring throng, she told herself, although even her mother who was not easily impressed had been won over, she noticed.
But at an intimate gathering like a wedding reception, she couldn’t hope to keep out of his way for ever.
She was chatting to Simon, the best man, when she became suddenly aware that he was beside them. She was immediately irritated by Simon’s deference, stopping in mid-sentence to turn to Matt Lincoln.
‘Can I get you another drink, Mr Lincoln?’
‘No, thanks.’ Matt Lincoln shook his head, smiling. ‘Jet-lag and alcohol don’t mix too well.’ He nodded towards the adjoining room where a small band had been playing softly during the reception. ‘But some gentle exercise could be just what I need.’ He looked down at Kate. ‘We haven’t actually met, but I’m sure this is our dance.’
The tenor of the music had changed, she realised as she took in what he had said. The energetic disco beat had changed to a slower dreamy rhythm, and people were moving closer, holding each other as they danced.
He would expect to put his arms round her, she realised, a kind of sick panic rising inside her at the prospect.
Her voice sounded thick as she said, ‘I don’t want to dance, Mr Lincoln. Why don’t you ask one of your devoted fans? I’m sure any one of them would be only too delighted.’
The blue eyes narrowed slightly but he was still smiling. ‘I can’t really debate that without sounding like a slob. But the point doesn’t arise, because the fact is I’ve asked you—Miss er …’
‘Marston,’ Simon supplied helpfully. ‘Kate Marston.’
‘Kate,’ Matt Lincoln repeated musingly. ‘A nice old-fashioned name.’
She said hotly, ‘Please don’t patronise me, Mr Lincoln. I’m not the subject of one of your programmes. And here’s another fact, as you’re so keen on them—I’m turning down your invitation.’
She’d never been so deliberately rude to anyone in her life, and she was aware of Simon gaping.
For a long moment, Matt Lincoln stood looking at her as she felt the betrayal of embarrassed colour rising in her cheeks, then he said coolly, ‘I beg your pardon for having annoyed you.’ And turned away.
‘My God,’ Simon said helplessly. ‘That was a bit strong, wasn’t it?’
Kate lifted her chin defiantly, crushing down an unexpected feeling of shame. ‘I don’t think any lasting damage has been done—not to an ego like his!’
Simon was looking at her as if she was a stranger who had suddenly developed horns and a tail. ‘But he only wanted to dance with you, Kate. Hell’s bells, you couldn’t have cut him off more sharply if he’d made a heavy pass!’
‘Well, I find his conviction that he’s God’s gift to women a bit strong too,’ Kate retorted. ‘Men like that are an abomination. One smile, an invitation to dance—and they expect you to—to roll over and beg!’
‘Well—roll over anyway,’ said Simon with a mock leer. ‘I didn’t know you were such a feminist, Kate.’
‘I’m not,’ she said shortly. ‘But he—his whole approach—reminded me of—of someone I used to know.’
‘Did you give him a hard time too?’ Kate wondered if the alarm she heard in Simon’s voice was altogether feigned.
She gave him a placatory smile. ‘No.’ She glanced round. ‘I think Alison’s ready to go up and change. I’d better help her.’
‘Fine,’ Simon agreed, and she realised ruefully as she left the room in Alison’s wake that he was probably regretting that he had to spend the evening with her. And she wasn’t altogether sure she could blame him.
By the time they came downstairs again, Matt Lincoln had left, to Alison’s momentary pouting disappointment. Kate could only feel relief. She had almost been tempted to remain upstairs packing away the discarded wedding dress and tidying up generally rather than face him again.
She had imagined he had passed out of her life for ever. Now, it seemed, he was back with a vengeance.
Her steps began to slow. She had been walking aimlessly in no particular direction, or so she had thought. Now, as the glass and concrete block of the National Television building reared up in front of her, she wasn’t so sure.
Was this what they called a Freudian slip? she asked herself wryly.
She stood staring up at the building, hating the way all those windows seemed to stare back like so many blank eyes, then gave herself a swift mental shake. She was doing no earthly good drifting round London, worrying about something for which there might be a perfectly innocent explanation.
The best thing she could do was go back to the studio and get on with her own work, her own life.
In other words, mind her own business.
The studio was one large attic room of a tall Edwardian house. It had windows on two sides and a skylight, and Kate loved it. There was another attic across the narrow passage, and this she used as a bedsitter, sharing the bathroom on the floor below with the family who owned the house, Felix who was a newspaper photographer, his wife Maria and their two children. It was an arrangement that suited them all.
As Kate unlocked the front door and went in, Maria’s voice called from the kitchen, ‘How was the drunken lunch?’
Kate put her head round the kitchen door. ‘Remarkably sober,’ she said. ‘Something smells wonderful.’
Maria grimaced. ‘Not really.’ She waved a spoon. ‘Just an ordinary little meat sauce to go with spaghetti—it being the end of the month and all—but I think you’ll be amused by its precocity. Want to join us, or are you too full of caviare and champagne?’
‘I’d love to,’ Kate said regretfully, and meant it, because Maria was generally an inspired cook even with the most average ingredients. ‘But I thought I would go home this evening. It’s been some time since I saw them all.’
‘Fine,’ Maria said amiably. She gave Kate a narrow look. ‘There’s nothing wrong, is there?’
‘Of course not.’ Kate achieved a laugh. ‘I do go home occasionally, you know!’
‘I didn’t mean that. I just thought you looked a bit fraught, that’s all,’ said Maria, stirring her sauce, and lowering the flame beneath the pan.
‘Oh,’ Kate pulled a face, cursing her landlady’s perspicacity. ‘It’s just this new book—there could be problems. Nothing that I can’t handle, of course.’
‘Of course,’ Maria agreed. ‘Well, enjoy yourself this evening.’
Kate’s mother was delighted to get her phone call. ‘Darling, how marvellous! Jon and Alison are coming over too. It’ll be a real family party.’
‘Yes, won’t it?’ Kate agreed. She replaced her receiver slowly. She had intended to do some subtle probing, now it seemed she was going to be able to see them together and judge the state of their relationship for herself.
And probably Alison would be bubbling over with the story of her wonderful lunch, she told herself forcefully.
Her stepfather greeted her at the door with a warm hug.
‘You’ve lost weight, my girl.’ He held her at arms’ length and stared at her critically.
Kate wrinkled her nose at him. ‘That’s what you always say. I only wish it was true.’
‘Well, at least you’ll get a decent meal inside you tonight,’ he said triumphantly. ‘Steak and kidney pie and all the trimmings. How’s work going? Any interesting commissions?’
He poured sherry, and they took it into the kitchen and talked to Kate’s mother as she bustled around, putting the last touches to the meal. She was a woman who had always found her fulfilment in caring for her family, and they’d often teased her about it, calling her ‘an endangered species’, which she accepted with unruffled calm.
Watching her, seeing her pleasure in the preparations she was making, Kate found herself thinking, ‘Oh, let everything be all right! She and Dad love Jon. They’re so proud of him. If anything went wrong in his marriage, they’d be so hurt, so bewildered.’
They heard his car pull on to the drive at the side of the house, and presently he came in. He was smiling and carrying a bunch of flowers for his stepmother, but Kate thought he looked tired.
He said ruefully, ‘I’m on my own, I’m afraid. Ally sends love and apologies, but she’s going to have an early night. She’s got a splitting headache.’
‘Oh.’ Mrs Herbert looked downcast. ‘I wonder what’s caused that?’
Hangover? Kate supplied silently. Guilty conscience? Or had they had a blazing row, perhaps?
‘Hi, love,’ Jon bent and kissed her cheek. ‘Anything exciting in your life?’
She shrugged. ‘Depends on your view of excitement.’ Keeping her voice casual, she added, ‘I had lunch at Père Nicolas today.’
Jon whistled appreciatively. ‘Very impressive! I hope you weren’t paying.’
‘Oh, Kate!’ her mother wailed. ‘Then you won’t want another big meal. What am I going to do with all this pie?’
‘I’m starving,’ Kate assured her. ‘No restaurant food could ever compare with yours, you know that.’
She would eat the dinner in front of her if it killed her, she promised herself. And it probably would, because she’d been counting on Jon saying something on the lines of ‘Now there’s a coincidence. Alison was lunching there too.’ Whereas it was evident that he knew nothing at all about Alison’s midday activities. Oh hell, she thought. Hell and damnation!
She finished everything on her plate with a struggle, and it was no consolation to note that Jon didn’t have much of an appetite either. He talked cheerfully about the office, making them laugh with his story of a client who was always house-hunting, then finding some fatal flaw with the property of his dreams just before the contracts were due to be signed.
‘And his own house is sold, so if he doesn’t make up his mind soon, he could end up in a tent on the common,’ he added with a gesture of mock despair.
‘Talking of dream houses,’ his father said. ‘How’s the decorating at your place coming along?’
Jon helped himself to cheese. ‘It’s rather ground to a halt at the moment,’ he said, after a pause.
Mrs Herbert was piling used dishes on to a tray. ‘But Alison was so keen, so full of plans when you bought it.’ She laughed. ‘I got the impression that she was into interior decoration in a big way.’
Jon said wryly, ‘I think that was before she discovered how much there was to do, and what graft it was.’ He paused. ‘As a matter of fact, she’s talking about going out to work again.’
‘Getting her old job back?’ his father asked.
‘No.’ Jon’s denial was altogether too swift and too forceful, and he tempered it with a laugh. ‘I mean, those sort of opportunities only come along once in a lifetime. I’m afraid she’ll have to settle for something rather more humdrum.’
Kate pushed her chair back and rose. ‘Leave the dishes,’ she told her mother, ‘I’ll do them.’
‘And I’ll help.’ Jon got up too.
Mrs Herbert smiled at them both affectionately. ‘Just like old times,’ she said.
Kate filled the sink with hot water, and whisked the washing up liquid into a lather.
Casually she said, ‘Has Ally any idea what kind of job she wants?’
‘We haven’t really discussed it in any detail.’ His voice sounded awkward. ‘I don’t think she’ll find it very easy, with so many people out of work. And it isn’t as if she needs the money—I don’t keep her short of cash.’ He stopped. ‘I’m sorry, Kate, I shouldn’t burden you with our problems. I suppose we’re experiencing the “period of adjustment” that all couples go through.’
‘You don’t want her to work again,’ said Kate.
He sighed. ‘No, I don’t. And I thought she didn’t either, or so she always said before we were married. At first, she seemed absorbed in the house.’ His mouth tightened. ‘I suppose after working for a man like Lincoln, domestic life with me must seem very tame.’
Feeling her way carefully, Kate said, ‘But I thought—Alison said something about starting a family as soon as possible.’
‘That’s right,’ he said flatly. ‘But it hasn’t happened yet. Hell, we’ve only been married a year, there isn’t that much damned hurry. But I suppose if she gets a job, it will have to be put off indefinitely. She seems to have decided that’s what she’d prefer,’ he added bitterly.
Kate swallowed. ‘Well, she did have a pretty high-powered career. And I suppose with her contacts in television, it’s not impossible …’
‘Over my dead body,’ said Jon, with stark emphasis. The weary look had deepened on his face. ‘If she wants to work, I won’t stop her, but she’s not going back within a mile of Matt Lincoln. I was sick of the sound of his name before we were married. I’m not living with it now.’ He took a dry tea towel out of a drawer. ‘It’s ironic, isn’t it? We did Othello at school, and I had no sympathy for him at all. I kept thinking what a fool he was to get so stirred up by jealousy, and for so little reason. And now I’m exactly in the same boat!’ He gave a shaky laugh. ‘I can’t even stay in the sitting room when he’s on television!’
Kate mopped at an already clean plate as if she was trying to remove the pattern. ‘Isn’t that rather—irrational? After all, you don’t know that there was ever anything between them.’
‘As I’ve told myself a hundred times.’ Jon sounded defeated. ‘But it makes no damned difference at all. He’s the sort of man women go for. He’s got it all, looks, charm, charisma—and don’t let anyone tell you that success isn’t an aphrodisiac,’ he added savagely. ‘You met him at the wedding, didn’t you? You saw the effect he had on everyone.’
Kate bent her head. ‘Yes, I met him,’ she agreed colourlessly.
‘And didn’t like him?’ Jon gave her a curious look. ‘My God, that must make you one in a million!’
‘Perhaps.’ Kate moved her shoulders. ‘Actually, he reminded me of someone.’
‘He did?’
She nodded. ‘Drew Wakefield.’
‘Him?’ Jon frowned a little. ‘Yes, I see what you mean. But I thought you’d forgotten all about him.’
‘You don’t forget about someone like Drew,’ she said bitterly. ‘Being involved with him is like being in a bad accident. You can be left with scars.’
‘Kate,’ Jon’s eyes were gentle, ‘that was over a long time ago. Let it go.’
She emptied the water out of the sink. ‘Can you let Matt Lincoln go?’
He said wryly, ‘Touché.’ Then he sighed. ‘What fools we both are!’
She nodded. ‘The coffee’s ready. Why don’t you take the tray through while I finish up here.’
When she was alone, she moved slowly, wiping down surfaces, and restoring the kitchen to its usual pristine condition.
It had been unfair of her, she thought, to aim that taunt at Jon, because although he didn’t know it yet, Matt Lincoln was still very much part of his life. She only wished it were otherwise.
She rinsed out the cloth she’d been using and hung it to dry, staring out of the kitchen window at the dark garden beyond.
