‘Can we leave things as they stand at the moment? The parents have invited a neighbour over for dinner tomorrow. He’s something of a big noise locally, and it would upset them …’
‘And your mother’s table arrangements?’ Tamara suggested wryly.
‘You owe me that at least,’ Malcolm pressed on doggedly. ‘My parents are bound to know that it’s you who broke off our engagement if I tell them this weekend—I’d hardly bring you down here if it was a mutual arrangement—so I’d prefer to wait to announce the news to them until after we get back to London.’
In the circumstances Tamara could hardly refuse. With great reluctance and even greater distaste she slid the solitaire back on her finger.
At least Malcolm had accepted her decision without argument—had perhaps been secretly relieved by it.
‘So that’s settled, then,’ Malcolm exclaimed in evident relief. ‘Good—I don’t want Zachary Fletcher laughing at me behind my back. I had enough of that when we were at school.’
Tamara felt as though all the breath had been dragged out of her lungs. It was fortunate that Malcolm wasn’t looking at her at that moment, because had he been, he must surely have realised the truth.
‘Zachary Fletcher?’ Did her voice actually tremble as much as it seemed to do to her?
‘Yes. He lives several miles away—he inherited a great barn of a place from his uncle. He was in the Army for a while, I don’t know what he’s doing with himself at the moment. The only reason the parents have invited him over is because they hope to persuade him to allow the hunt over his land.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘I’m going up to bed. Remember, Tamara, as far as everyone else is concerned we’re still engaged—at least until this weekend is over.’
Alone in the drawing room, Tamara suppressed the waves of hysterical laughter bubbling up inside her.
Of all the cruel ironies of fate! Zachary Fletcher a close neighbour of Malcolm’s parents. She and Zachary Fletcher facing one another across Mrs Mellors heavy Victorian dining table making polite conversation; Zachary Fletcher, who had promised he would never tell her fiancé what had happened. Zachary Fletcher, who must not discover that she had broken her engagement in case he thought it was because she expected something from him!
CHAPTER SEVEN
ZACHARY here! Even now Tamara could hardly believe it. She knew he had arrived, because she had heard the purr of a car across the gravel outside and then the ring of the front doorbell.
She had spent the day in a constant state of tension; it was just as well that neither of Malcolm’s parents were in the least perceptive, otherwise they must have surely realised that something was wrong.
She and Malcolm had gone for a walk after lunch—the Mellors were firm believers in the beneficial effect of fresh air and Tamara had been urged outside to ‘get some colour back into her face,’ as Malcolm’s mother put it, adding rather maliciously that perhaps it was the new make-up Tamara was affecting that had had such a disastrous result on her complexion.
Tamara had bitten hard on her tongue and told herself that this was the last weekend she would have to spend with Malcolm’s parents and surely she could endure it without quarrelling with them. A walk had been the last thing she had felt like after lunch—in point of fact she had felt decidedly queasy. The Mellors were fond of rich food and Tamara had noticed a tendency to nausea since her return from the Caribbean and put it down to the after-effects of her illness. The island doctor had explained to her that the poison injected by the spider had very similar properties to modern paralysing drugs, combined with a powerful numbing effect similar to a tranquilliser. He had also made it frighteningly clear to her just how close she had come to losing her life; telling her that if it hadn’t been for Zachary’s prompt action she would have died.
And now, having told herself that it was over and that he was gone from her life, she was to see him again. The very thought was enough to make her fingers tremble violently as she tried to apply her make-up.
Oh God, she thought wearily, she could not go down there and face him. She couldn’t! But she had to. If she disappeared now and by some mischance Zach mentioned that he too had been on St Stephen’s at the same time as she had been there, Malcolm was bound to put two and two together and come to the conclusion that her departure—and possibly the termination of their engagement—had something to do with Zach, and Tamara could not bear that to happen. If was bad enough having to cope with the anguish of knowing that Zach despised her, without having him realise that she had fallen in love with him.
And so, she forced herself to concentrate on the task of applying her make-up as Pierre had so painstakingly taught her—not make-up but warpaint, she thought half hysterically. Warpaint to make her look braver than she was.
The Mellors were sticklers for punctuality and knowing this Tamara was ready on the dot of eight, wearing her new silver-lavender dress, her face carefully made up and her nails frosted a soft rose, her hair cascading to her shoulders in a sleek bell.
In the doorway she paused and then re-traced her steps, with a final flourish of bravado spraying the outrageously expensive perfume she had bought for herself on the pulse points at her wrists, throat and the backs of her knees, and then as a last thought picked up a silver mesh shawl to drape round her shoulders, as she knew from chilly experience that the Mellors were careful of their heating bills and often the large drawing room could be almost cold, especially when one was sitting down.
The others were already in the drawing room. Tina, the girl from the village who came up to help Mrs Briggs with the cooking and serve the meals when the Mellors entertained, was proffering a glass of sherry to Zach, her expression almost fatuously bemused.
No one had seen Tamara yet and she had a cowardly impulse to leave now and damn the consequences, and then Malcolm looked up and came towards her. Formal clothes became his rather too solid frame, his fair hair gleaming under the lights.
‘Ah, there you are, darling!’ he exclaimed, curving her towards him with an unexpectedly proprietorial air. ‘Umm, you smell nice, what is it?’
‘L’Heure Bleue,’ Tamara replied automatically, her eyes leaping the chasm that lay beyond herself and Zach, her feelings clearly betrayed in them for a brief second before she caught herself up and turned away to accept a glass of dry sherry from Tina, with a composure that half of her unwillingly admired while the other half stood aside and mocked that it could not possibly last.
‘What a pretty frock, my dear,’ Malcolm’s mother exclaimed, ‘and such an unusual colour. I don’t believe I’ve seen you wearing it before. In my day engaged girls didn’t work as they do nowadays, of course, but I can still remember saving my pin money to buy things for my bottom drawer. Of course, things are very different now …’
How would she have felt if she genuinely loved Malcolm? Tamara wondered wryly. As mothers-in-law went, hers would certainly have been a formidable adversary.
‘Zachary,’ Colonel Mellors interrupted, ‘let me introduce you to our daughter-in-law to be. Tamara my dear, meet Zachary Fletcher, one of our closest neighbours.’
‘Mr Fletcher.’
Again she marvelled at the even tone of her voice; at the cool steadiness of her fingers as they barely touched Zach’s, her eyes sliding warily away.