"I"m afraid I"m not going to be able to make it this weekend after all."
CHAPTER NINE.
elspeth stared disbelievingly at the receiver.
"But Peter, we arranged--" " Look, I know what we arranged. " He sounded hara.s.sed, petulant almost, as though he was both irritated by her and nearly afraid of her.
"But something else has come up. Mother rang me last night. An old friend of the family, my G.o.dmother in actual fact, is coming down from Scotland for the weekend and naturally Mother wants me there. She"s bringing her daughter with her and, as Mother said, it would almost be an insult to them both if I weren"t there, and of course it would hopelessly upset Mother"s dinner-table numbers. She"s invited the Brigadier round to partner my G.o.dmother, and--" " And you of course will be partnering her daughter," Elspeth supplied for him, her voice suddenly acid.
"I see. And this, of course, is far more important than being here with me, despite the fact that we arranged this weekend weeks ago, despite the fact that I need you here."
Silence. She bit down hard on her lip, realising shockingly and furiously that she had been betrayed that as far as Peter was concerned his mother"s wishes, his mother"s needs, were far more important than her own, that his loyalty and for all she knew his love lay not with her, but with his mother.
It was a galling and extremely unpleasant realisation.
Swallowing her anger, she said as calmly as she could, "Peter, please, I need you here. I"m sure if you explained to your mother... After all, we are virtually on the point of being married--surely my claims on your time, on your--" She broke off. She could almost see him twitching, uncomfortably guiltily, shifting almost furtively in the chair by his desk.
"It"s only one weekend, Elspeth. You know I"m not a country person.
Quite honestly I don"t see why you needed to go rushing off to Cheshire in the first place, especially since your parents didn"t even have the decency to delay their departure until your arrival. If you ask me, that stepcousin of yours or whatever he is has them completely under his thumb. If they lose the entire business it will be their own fault. I tried to warn your father over the phone. "
Elspeth stiffened. This was news to her.
"You did what?" she asked dangerously.
"I"ve just told you. I tried to warn them, but of course your father wouldn"t listen."
"Peter, we agreed that nothing would be said about that until we had some concrete proof. We agreed."
"It was for their own benefit, Elspeth. And look, about this weekend--there"s really nothing to stop you from coming down to the south coast with me. I"m sure Mother would be delighted."
"Really? When my presence would put her dinner-table numbers out still further?" Elspeth enquired with acid sweetness.
"Peter, I"ve never asked you to do anything for me, but I"m asking you now. Please, please come up to Cheshire this weekend as we arranged."
She told herself that she wasn"t testing him or their relationship, that this had nothing to do with Carter or that kiss, nor with the deficiencies she was suddenly seeing in her relationship with Peter.
It was simply a matter of knowing where she stood with the man she was going to marry. It was not that she wanted to be more important to him than his mother, it was just--it was just that suddenly and sharply she ached for a little less practicality and a lot more pa.s.sion.
"Elspeth, don"t be ridiculous." He sounded testy and irritated.
"You know I can"t. I"ve already explained to you. Look, once you come back to London we"ll--" " No, Peter," she interrupted ruthlessly.
"Either you spend this weekend here with me, or our relationship"s over."
There was a silence, and then he bl.u.s.tered, "Look, Elspeth, this isn"t like you, and I"m certainly not going to give in to that kind of blackmail. I can"t let Mother down. I can understand that you want me with you." Was he actually preening himself because of what she had said? Was he actually enjoying refusing her?
"We"ll talk about it when you"re in a less emotional frame of mind."
"No, Peter," she told him steadily.
"We won"t talk about it, because I"ve just realised we no longer have anything to talk about. It"s over. Goodbye, Peter."
And she put the receiver down on him before he could say another word.
It was over; she and Peter were no longer a couple. She was no longer almost engaged, committed. Oddly, she felt neither pain nor relief, only a numbing emptiness, an awareness of a great yawning gap where her future had once been. There would be time later to feel hurt, betrayed, maybe even regret and remorse, but she knew already that there was no going back. That smugness she had heard in Peter"s voice, that sureness that he was in the right and that she would see it, that refusal to be aware of her feelings or her needs, had said more than any words. Had there even been a touch of relief behind his smugness when she had thrown that ultimatum at him?
She knew someone who would be pleased to hear that their relationship was over. Peter"s mother had never made any secret of the fact that she didn"t think Elspeth good enough for her only child. No doubt she would far rather see Peter married to some timid, nervous girl whom she could dominate in the same way she had always dominated her husband and son.
She was shivering, Elspeth suddenly realised;
and more than that, she felt distinctly odd, quite faint and lightheaded.
Somehow or other she made her way back to the kitchen, b.u.mping painfully into the table as she did so, making her way to the sink where she turned on the cold tap and held her wrists beneath its icy flood, hoping the cold water would revive her.
It was the approaching storm that was making her feel so unwell, she told herself stoically, blinking away the tears which had suddenly blurred her vision. Tears of shock, and the pain of discovering that someone she had believed would put her first in his life had actually put her a very poor second. And yet beneath those emotions ran a tiny thread of something else. Relief? Surely not. She had wanted to marry Peter. Less than three days away from him couldn"t have changed her so much that now she no longer did so.
Her head was aching unbearably, so much so that she could hardly think.
She raised her hand to ma.s.sage her temples and stiffened with atavistic fear as the distant hills were suddenly illuminated by a forked dart of lightning.
The storm was coming closer. She felt all her old childhood fear returning, intensified by the emotional trauma of recent events, so that her senses were pretematurally heightened and she was unable to exert her normal firm control over her reactions.
She was actually trembling, she realised as she turned on the tap and tried to pour herself a gla.s.s of water.
She felt physically sick from the pressure inside her head; every instinct she possessed urged her to seek sanctuary somewhere safe and dark, somewhere womb like she reflected a.n.a.lytically, somewhere where she could escape from her physical pain and be safe from the storm.
Somewhere where Peter"s defection would no longer hurt--not her heart, she acknowledged sadly, but her pride. It was her pride that was stung by his refusal to put their relationship first. Had she truly loved him? But then she had never. She bit her lip.
Love had never really formed an important part of their relationship.
She had liked Peter, admired his determination to succeed in his chosen career, had thought it would be enough for them to have similar goals, similar purposes in life. She had chosen him carefully and she had thought intelligently, and yet the very first time their relationship was tested he had failed her. How would she have felt if she had not made that discovery until after they were married? What was it she really wanted from a man? She closed her eyes, wincing as the thunder rolled closer.
"Close your eyes and think of something nice," her mother had once urged her compa.s.sionately during a particularly bad storm. Think of being warm, safe and protected. "
Out of habit more than anything else, she clung to those words now, using them almost like a mantra, but instead of visualising as she normally did somewhere safe and dark where she was protected from the wrath of the storm, the only mental images she had were ones of Carter"s arms holding her, Carter"s arms protecting her. Carter"s voice comforting her.
"No."
The protest broke from her lips as she wrenched herself away from the temptation of her own thoughts. Her heart was thumping far too quickly, and not just from fear--or at least not fear of the storm.
Was this why she had felt that tiny thread of release at the ending of her relationship with Peter? Because of Carter? Because of a man whom she knew to be untrustworthy, and yet who nevertheless aroused her in ways which she had thought in her ignorance belonged only to teenagers and the fevered imaginations of certain novelists?
Carter--where was he? Why didn"t he come back? The sky had filled with black clouds, the thunder rumbled closer, drawn, she suspected, by the awesome mystery of The Edge--that strange, magical place where locals said no birds ever sang and where Merlin was supposed to haunt the underground caverns.
She shivered violently, the tiny hairs on her arms lifting in frightened awareness of the force of the coming storm. She was trembling so much she could hardly move. When Carter came back-She tensed, remembering how furious he had been with her, how contemptuous.
No doubt when he came in and discovered her standing shivering with fright, and all because of a thunderstorm, he would be doubly contemptuous. She caught sight of a bottle of her mother"s elderberry wine standing on the dresser.
Perhaps a gla.s.s of that might steady her nerves a little. She walked across the kitchen and on the third attempt managed to pour some of the pale liquid into her gla.s.s. The gla.s.s she had picked up was the one she had used for her drink of water, and she had perhaps rather overfilled it, she recognised, taking a deep gulp.
The wine was instantly warming, relaxing the tensed muscles of her throat, filling the empty s.p.a.ce inside her with pleasant heat. She could almost feel it unlocking her over-tensed nerves, Elspeth decided, carefully carrying both the gla.s.s and the bottle over to the table and slumping into one of the chairs.