So even then... he had been planning to get rid of her. He had had what he wanted from her just as Kevin Riley had taunted her, and now he wanted her out of his life. Well, she felt exactly the same.
She wasn’t going to allow any man to use her as a means of gratifying his sexuality, no matter how much she might love him.
As he drove towards her parents’ house, Debra a silent and somehow hostile passenger at his side, Marsh ached to be able to turn the car round and take her back home with him, but how could he?
How could he criticise her for rejecting him, for blaming him for what had happened? He couldn’t stop blaming himself either.
If only he had thought, before so carelessly going out for that milk, he might have worked out for himself the possibility of Kevin Riley’s guessing where she was, but he had been so high on happiness and love that he hadn’t been able to think of anything else but that love, and how she had felt in his arms, how she had touched and responded to him, how after her initial hesitation and self-consciousness she had allowed him to coax her into abandoning herself so completely and to him so arousingly into her own sensuality.
He hadn’t been able to think of anything other than being with her, watching her as she woke up, seeing the awareness dawn in her eyes and then slowly and thoroughly loving her all over again, but now that was all gone, destroyed by his own carelessness.
Of course she must resent him. Of course she must blame him. After he had removed Kevin Riley from the bedroom, all he had wanted to do was to hold her and to reassure her, to wipe from her eyes the glazed, sick look he had seen there, but she wouldn’t let him anywhere near her.
She had rejected him totally and completely. It was just sex, she had told him coldly, and, even though he had known she was lying, he had also recognised that there was no way she was going to allow him through the defences she had thrown up against him.
And how could he blame her? He had let her down in one of the worst ways a man could betray a woman. He had told her he would keep her safe and he had not been able to do so. He should have been there to protect and safeguard her and he knew he would never be able to forgive himself for the fact that he had not been.
It made no difference that the sexes were supposedly equal, that women these days had no desire at all to be considered as either weak or helpless, and that was certainly not how he saw them. He respected them, accepted their right to define their own lives, and to be treated with the same respect he would accord another man, but nothing could dislodge that centuries-old atavistic feeling that, as
a man, he should have been there to protect the woman he loved. It had nothing to do with seeing her in any way as an inferior and everything to do with the fact that he loved and cherished her and that despite that he had not been aware that she was in danger.
What had happened to her diminished his own respect for himself as a man, and he was not in the least surprised that she was so hostile to him, so bitter and rejecting.
CHAPTER EIGHT
‘Are you sure you won’t stay, just for a cup of tea?’ Debra’s mother pressed as she looked anxiously from Debra’s remote, expressionless face to Marsh’s strained one.
Marsh shook his head and thanked her, turning towards Debra, who immediately stepped back from him.
As she saw the look in his eyes she felt her own heart tighten a little in sympathy for him, but Debra was her child and her prime urge was to comfort and protect her, and so she immediately stepped between them, leaving her husband to escort Marsh to the door and to thank him for all he had done, while she gently ushered Debra towards the stairs.
‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ Debra said woodenly when they were alone. ‘I just want to forget it ever happened; to put it all behind me.’
Wisely her mother said nothing, but later she voiced her anxiety to Don and to Leigh, who had called round to see if there was anything she could do to help.
‘You might try to persuade Debra to go out with you and buy some new clothes. According to Marsh, all she’s got is what she’s wearing.’
‘Marsh brought her home?’ Leigh asked speculatively.
Immediately Debra’s mother shook her head. ‘He was so kind to her, Leigh, so gentle with her, and yet it was obvious she couldn’t bear him anywhere near her.’
‘She’s had a very bad shock,’ Leigh comforted her. ‘And shock affects people in different ways.’
‘Has Dr Morris seen her?’
‘No. She says she doesn’t need to see him; that all she wants is to put the whole thing behind her and to get on with her life. Perhaps you could talk to her.’
‘Not yet,’ Leigh said gently. ‘Let’s give her a little time on her own first, shall we?’
‘I liked that last outfit, and the bright colours look good for summer.’
‘And they might brighten me up mentally as well as visually, is that it?’ Debra suggested grimly to her stepsister.
Leigh gave her a thoughtful, clear-eyed look. ‘Do you feel in need of mentally brightening up?’ she asked her gently, and then, putting aside the skirt she had been examining, she came over to where Debra was standing.
‘Look, love, I know how hard on you all this has been, and no one can blame you for feeling the way you do, but, well, don’t you think you’d feel better if you talked about it instead of bottling it all up inside you?’
Debra shook her head.