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CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER ONE
AS LINDSEY handed over her charge card at the supermarket checkout, her thoughts were not centred on the bill but on how she was going to tell her husband she had to go to Paris again. It was the second time this month, and Tim had barely got over his annoyance at her last trip.
It wasn’t as if she enjoyed going, but travelling to interview celebrities was part of her job as a television researcher, and if she wished to further her career there was no way she could refuse. Because of this she had just splashed out on an expensive bottle of wine, instead of the usual plonk, to accompany tonight’s meal. Tim would appreciate it, and hopefully would be in a better humour when she broke the news.
Balancing the carrier bags in one hand, she unlocked the front door with the other. A smell of burning fat greeted her and she sighed. Tim was cooking again!
Hurrying into a kitchen so tiny one couldn’t swing a cat in it, she saw him in the act of pouring a soggy black mess down the drain.
‘Hello, sweetheart,’ he greeted her, one hand raking back the errant lock of blond hair that was always falling across his forehead. ‘I thought I’d make the supper for a change, but I guess I misread the recipe!’
‘I wish you’d leave the cooking to me,’ Lindsey retorted. She was tired, cold and hungry, and her temper was at flash-point. With an effort she controlled it and moved towards the sink. ‘Fix me a drink, darling, and I’ll clean up,’ she said more gently.
‘Let’s have dinner out,’ Tim said, putting his arms around her.
As always, his touch excited her, even though she found his suggestion irritating. Had he forgotten they were supposed to be economising?
‘I’ve bought a stack of food,’ she pointed out.
‘It won’t go to waste. Come on, sweetheart, it will do you good to relax.’
‘I can relax better here. I’ve been out with a questionnaire the whole day.’
Tim frowned. ‘I hate the thought of you tramping round the freezing streets while I sit in a warm office doing nothing.’
‘Don’t be silly. I’m only “tramping the streets” until I’ve finished my survey. And you don’t do nothing all day—you work damned hard.’
‘As dogsbody to a drunk! Beats me why Turlow hasn’t been fired.’
‘He’s considered an institution,’ Lindsey said drily. ‘Though I heard a whisper that he’ll be through in a year. And if you play your cards carefully—’
‘I still won’t get his job. I haven’t enough experience to be political correspondent on a national daily.’
‘Turlow wouldn’t have chosen you as his assistant if he didn’t think you capable of taking over from him. What’s happened to your confidence? If you—’
Tim’s mouth on hers silenced her, and though she was still cold and tired she responded to his touch.
‘How hungry are you?’ He nuzzled his face in her neck and breathed in the scent of her.
‘For food, or—?’
‘For or.’
‘Getting hungrier by the second,’ she murmured, relaxing as he swung her into his arms and carried her into the bedroom, the one place where they were assured of perfect harmony.
Their coming together was quick and intense, expressing the fierce need they still aroused in each other, and with Tim’s manhood inside her Lindsey revelled in being the woman he loved, marvelling, as she so often did, that she was the one he had chosen to make his wife.
‘I love you,’ she whispered, running the tips of her fingers down his sweat-slicked skin. His sharp intake of breath and the swell of him inside her excited her, and she pressed her lips to the golden whorls of hair on his chest that arrowed down to his stomach.
Triggered by her touch, his thrusting movements grew stronger and he was no longer able to hold back, his body responding in a flash-flood of urgency that matched hers, sending them both spiralling among the stars, from which they seemed to descend a long time later.
Lindsey awoke first. Tim was lying on his side, an arm flung across her, his hand resting on her breast. Asleep, he looked younger than his twenty-six years. He often acted younger too, she reflected, then pushed aside the thought, feeling guilty for thinking it. Yet it was true. In every respect except years she was the more mature. Not surprising, given that she had spent most of her adolescence in an orphanage after her mother and stepfather had been killed in a motorway crash. It had been a tough grounding, and it had required determination and tenacity to escape from it and win a scholarship to university.
Even now she cringed at the memory of the raw, naïve young girl she had been. Luckily her outward appearance had not given her away. Tall and fashionably thin, with wild, dark red hair cascading past her shoulders, blazing green eyes and a naturally voluptuous red mouth that drew attention to her pale, creamy skin, she had looked every inch the confident feminist of the eighties.
Her aura of self-assurance had deceived Tim as well, and after their marriage she had made an effort to put the bitter memories of the past behind her, determined not to let them sour the happy present; and though there were occasional times when they returned to haunt her, she allowed no one to be party to her tears.
As if sensing her thoughts, Tim stirred in his sleep and pulled her close, and with a returning surge of tenderness Lindsey snuggled into the warmth of him and switched her mind back to how they had met.
It had been at a party in Cambridge—where else would two people of disparate backgrounds cross paths? Tim had grown up on the family estate in Somerset, near the town of Evebury where his father owned a successful engineering plant.
Within moments of seeing Lindsey across the room, Tim had pushed his way across to her. She had been flattered that the best-looking man in the room had eyes only for her, and felt as if she were Delilah and Jezebel rolled into one!
An hour later they were seated in a small but expensive restaurant on the outskirts of town—one that was way out of the price-range of herself and her friends—and Tim had teased her for weeks afterwards about her appearing more interested in the menu than him!
It was untrue, of course. Her concentration on the food had been a device to hide her discomfiture, for it was the first time she had been taken anywhere so elegant, and by someone who was clearly at home there. She had always dated men from her own background and avoided mixing with the rich set.
But with Tim it had been different. He had disarmed her with his warmth and natural charm, his innate good manners that made him treat her as if she were someone special. And to him she was special, her sharp tongue and fiery spirit a great contrast to the girls he usually escorted. Within days they were in love, spending every possible moment together, and regarding their hours apart as wasted ones.
‘You’re so caring about everything,’ he had commented on one occasion. ‘When I’m with you I see the world through your eyes.’
‘It isn’t such a comfortable world as yours,’ she had stated.
‘I know, and I’m sad for you. I want you to be happy always, Lindsey.’
Lindsey had wanted this too, but was afraid it was not to be, for she knew her happiness was with Tim and did not believe their relationship would turn into a permanent commitment. She had grown up in too tough a school to believe in fairy-tales, and Cinderella was strictly a story in a book. So she was dumbfounded when he’d asked her to marry him.
She had accepted instantly, and they were married shortly after they graduated, with a small reception given by Tim’s parents for their close family and a select few of their friends.
‘A big wedding wouldn’t be quite the thing,’ Mrs Ramsden had explained with a cool smile. ‘I mean, it isn’t as if you have any family to invite...’
The implication being that, even if she had, they would have felt out of place and been unacceptable. Mrs Ramsden had not expressed her antipathy to Lindsey in any concrete manner, but Lindsey had sensed it the instant they met. Mr Ramsden had tried to be friendly, but since his wife was the dominant personality she realised she would never have anything other than a constrained relationship with either of them.
To begin with the knowledge had distressed her, making her nervous of saying or doing the wrong thing. How she had envied Tim his genial social manner which enabled him to mix with people from every stratum, an ability that her relationship with him had shown her she did not possess. She felt alien with his friends, and was unable to relate to his political views and opinion of world events.
Yet their physical attraction for one another had been stronger than their dissimilarities, and as Tim’s love for her had deepened and his dependence on her grown, her self-confidence had reasserted itself; not that he was ever aware of her fears and doubts, for she was adept at concealing her innermost feelings.
Tim stirred in her arms, bringing her back to the present. ‘You have the most gorgeous eyes,’ he whispered, looking into their green depths.
‘I was thinking the same about yours,’ she smiled as he drew her closer, but resisted him as her closeness made him harden.
‘Not again?’ she teased, easing away and slipping out of bed.
‘Again and again! The more I have you, the more I need you.’
‘You’re just greedy!’
‘Mmm. But at least it doesn’t make me fat!’ He studied her as she slipped into an emerald silk wrap. The skirt swung round her shapely legs and the tightly cinched belt revealed the contours of her firm, high breasts and small waist. ‘All you need to complete the 1920s illusion is a long cigarette holder,’ he teased. ‘You look like a Scott Fitzgerald heroine.’
Pushing off the duvet, he followed her to the kitchen, grabbing a bathrobe en route. ‘I thought we were going to a restaurant?’
‘It’s a waste of money,’ she replied, deftly making a salad before putting a small French bread into the oven to crisp. She hummed to herself as she did so. Sex with Tim always made her feel good.
He watched her for a moment, then methodically set the table and opened the wine. ‘For someone who dislikes wasting money,’ he grinned, studying the label, ‘isn’t this extravagant? Or are we celebrating something?’
‘I felt like spoiling us,’ she replied, and from his pleased expression knew the Australian Shiraz was going to have the effect on him that she desired. But she would wait until he had drunk a couple of glasses before imparting her news.
She put slices of gammon under the grill, then made a four-egg omelette, her movements deft with long practice.
‘Get the coffee going, Tim.’
Whistling tunelessly, he did, then set out the cream and gold coffee-cups, a present from his mother. And how like his mother they were! Lindsey thought: elegant, fragile, yet extremely durable if handled carefully. Mrs Ramsden was used to a household of servants, and her two daughters and son had been equally cosseted. Now Tim was roughing it, according to his mother’s standards, and no doubt she blamed her daughter-in-law for it, though she had not put her feelings into words.
Discarding the unpleasant thought, Lindsey divided the omelette and gammon into two while Tim took the bread from the oven and poured the wine. The meal was simple but appetising and he did justice to it, though Lindsey, rehearsing how to tell him of her forthcoming trip, merely toyed with her food.
‘Not hungry?’ he asked.
‘Lovemaking has that effect on me,’ she said, knowing this would please him, and, seeing it did, she quickly took advantage of it. ‘I have to go to Paris for a few days. I was only told today.’
‘Not again!’ he exploded. ‘That’s the second time in three weeks.’
‘It isn’t for long,’ she placated.
‘That’s what you said last time, and you were away a week. Do you have to go, Lynnie?’
‘Yes. And I wish you wouldn’t call me that.’
‘Sorry, angel.’
She forced a smile. She hated the abbreviation because it was one her stepfather had used. She had been a scrawny eight-year-old when he had married her mother, but at twelve she had started to bloom, and he had begun hanging around her in a way that had instinctively frightened her. Even now she loathed thinking about it, and had never mentioned it to Tim.
‘Why not go down to Evebury while I’m away?’ she said aloud, hoping the suggestion would placate him. ‘You have several days due.’
‘I don’t enjoy going without you.’
She knew the reason too well and stifled her irritation. It would have been an opportunity to impress on his parents that he was making his own way, but he obviously couldn’t do it unless she was there to give him moral support.
‘I can’t take my father going on at me to join the business, and mother stoically holding back the tears,’ he explained.
Lindsey sniffed. ‘Pity they don’t realise how happy you are.’
‘Happy with you, darling, not with my job.’
Morosely Tim pushed back his chair and rose, and she feasted her eyes on him. Tall, slim and strikingly handsome, he had wide shoulders and athletically co-ordinated movements. His face reflected his patrician lineage: high cheekbones, wide forehead, and finely chiselled nose and mouth. His thick, dark blond hair was soft and faintly unruly, and unusually well-shaped eyebrows marked genial grey eyes. With his bathrobe knotted casually around his waist, he epitomised the well-bred man about town.
‘Why can’t they send someone else to Paris?’ he asked. ‘You aren’t their only researcher.’
‘They consider me one of their best,’ Lindsey admitted. ‘But I promise it will be the last time. I told Grace I don’t want to do any more out-of-town interviews.’
‘Well, if it’s really the last time...’
‘How was your day?’ she asked, anxious to change the subject.
‘I spent the morning editing Turlow’s article and the afternoon finding photographs for him. It’s a job anyone with a half-decent education could do. I’m wasting my degree.’
‘It would have been equally wasted if you’d gone to work in your family business.’
‘I never committed myself to working there.’ Tim was instantly on the defensive.
‘Your parents took it for granted, and if you hadn’t met me I think you’d have joined your father like a shot.’
‘Perhaps, but you’re more important to me than any job.’
‘Thank you, but I don’t fancy having it on my conscience that you aren’t doing what you want.’
‘Who the hell knows what I want?’ he questioned bitterly.
‘Well, at least you won’t waste your training if you stay on in Fleet Street.’
‘As a hack journalist?’
‘Give yourself a chance. I’m sure they’ll ask you to do Turlow’s column when he goes.’
‘Is that your ambition for me?’ Tim asked slowly. ‘To be a political leader writer?’
‘What’s wrong with it?’
‘Nothing. Except it isn’t my ambition. The thought of spending my life criticising what others have done—’
‘And putting forward your own views,’ Lindsey intervened silkily. ‘Imagine the influence you could have on public opinion.’
‘It would be years before anyone listened to me.’
‘You have to begin somewhere,’ Lindsey said irritably. ‘Or would you prefer to waste your talent going into the family business and being your father’s dogsbody?’
‘I’d hardly have been that. It’s not a one-man business, you know. It’s a sizeable engineering firm, and—’ Tim hesitated, then clamped his lips and said no more.
But Lindsey knew what he had held back, and, realising how important it was to clear the air, she finished the sentence for him.
‘And if you don’t join your father, he’ll eventually have to sell the company to somebody else, who probably won’t have the same caring attitude to the workforce.’
‘Exactly. So what’s wrong with that attitude?’
‘Nothing. Except that you aren’t interested in business, and your parents shouldn’t make you feel guilty because you don’t want to conform to their ideas. That’s why they don’t like me. Because they blame me for what they see as your disloyalty.’
‘That isn’t true. They don’t blame you, though I admit they’re upset that I’m not joining Ramsden Engineering.’
Lindsey bit back a sigh. She understood Tim’s dilemma but didn’t see how it could be solved, for if he toed the line it would mean returning to live in Evebury, and that would put untold strain on their marriage, for she knew she would never be happy living there.
‘Don’t look so upset,’ Tim said quickly, his words intimating knowledge of her feelings. ‘You’re my first loyalty, darling, and you always will be.’ Moving forward, he caught her round the waist and rubbed his cheek against hers, his passion, as always, very near the surface.
Lindsey’s breasts swelled at his touch, and she traced the nape of his neck with her fingertips, fiercely glad to know that, whatever their difficulties, their love would always overcome them.
CHAPTER TWO
LINDSEY flung down her pen and stretched her arms lazily above her head, easing her tired muscles. By dint of working long hours she was two days ahead of her schedule, which pleased her because she knew it would delight Tim.
She reached for the telephone, called Air France, and secured a reservation on an early evening flight to London. Replacing the receiver, she picked it up again to call Tim and tell him, then, smiling, put it down. How much nicer to surprise him!
With one eye on the clock, she continued transcribing material from her tape recorder on to her lap-top word processor. She had come to Paris to research the life of a famous French movie star who, twenty years earlier, at the age of forty, had married an out-of-work twenty-year-old French guitarist. Everyone had said it wouldn’t last, but they had been proved wrong, for not only were they still blissfully happy, but the guitarist was now one of the most popular musicians in France.
Lindsey knew that Grace Chapman, who was the programme’s producer and her immediate boss, would be delighted with the material she had obtained, for she had great aptitude in gathering information, and Grace had recently suggested she would let her appear in a documentary instead of being a backroom girl.
‘You have the looks, intelligence and personality to be a presenter,’ the woman had stated. ‘But telly fame means you’d become a target for every gossip columnist in Fleet Street, and you might not want that.’
‘They’d find nothing to gossip about in my life,’ Lindsey had replied.
‘I’ll put your name forward, then.’
Since Grace’s word carried enormous weight, Lindsey was delighted, yet she had not said a word to Tim, uncertain how would he feel if she suddenly became famous while he was still struggling. Perhaps it might be wiser to soft-pedal her prospects for another year.
Arriving at the airport with time to spare, she wandered into the duty-free shop and, spying Tim’s favourite aftershave, which even for her was wickedly expensive, she decided to buy some for him. The bottle she had given him for Christmas was down to the last inch, and she had noticed him using it sparingly.
Deciding in for a penny in for a pound, she also purchased a bottle of champagne as a nice way to mark her earlier than expected return. Tim’s favourite brand was Dom Perignon, but the cost was almost double the one she had chosen, and given the amount she had spent on the aftershave it was an extravagance she could ill afford.
Although the flight took only an hour, it was interminable to Lindsey as she envisaged Tim’s surprise and pleasure at seeing her. Would they drink the champagne before going to bed, or make love first? When they had been apart for more than a night, he was always impatient to possess her, and as she walked in he would gather her into his arms and carry her into the bedroom, his hunger such that there was no time for foreplay. But she was always wet and ready for him, and their coupling, though swift, was lusty and satisfying.
As her taxi drew to a halt outside the red-brick Edwardian house where they had their apartment, and she saw the light in the sitting-room of their second-floor apartment, she breathed a sigh of relief. Thank goodness Tim was home. In the last half-hour it had occurred to her that her desire to surprise him would backfire if he had gone to the films, or was visiting friends.
Hurrying up the stairs, she quietly unlocked the front door and noiselessly closed it. She wanted Tim’s surprise to be total when she walked into the sitting-room.
It certainly was! And a damned unpleasant one too, for he was on the sofa, locked in a passionate embrace with a voluptuous blonde.
Staring at them in shocked silence as they swiftly drew apart, her eyes took in the scene: open hamper stuffed with goodies in Harrods’ distinctive green wrapping, two glasses beside an empty champagne bottle—Dom Perignon, to add insult to injury—and black leather Gucci bag flung carelessly on the floor, beside matching low-heeled shoes. While the cat’s away, the rat did play! And with no expense spared for his new little sex-kitten!
‘Shall I go out and ring the bell?’ she finally managed, tight-lipped.
‘It isn’t what you imagine,’ the girl said.
‘Then it’s an award-winning imitation!’
‘Don’t be silly, Lindsey.’ Tim’s smile was a travesty, and he avoided her eyes as he began doing up the buttons of his shirt, which was undone to the waist. ‘Patsy is Peter’s sister—the best man at our wedding. Patsy wasn’t there because she was in Australia.’
‘I suppose she called in tonight to congratulate you?’ Lindsey’s tone was heavily sarcastic as she eyed the girl.
There was no denying she was stunning: silky, corn-coloured hair falling around slender shoulders, a full bust, small waist, and nicely rounded hips. As she gracefully rose, the long legs exposed by her black kid skirt were fabulous too.
‘Patsy and Peter grew up with me,’ Tim was saying. ‘Remember me telling you, darling?’
Lindsey had a vague memory of it, and jealousy mounted as she remembered her mother-in-law saying she had wanted Tim to marry someone like Patsy Selwyn, who hailed from a similar background.
‘Please don’t be angry with Tim,’ the girl said now, in a well-bred drawl. ‘This is more my fault than his.’
‘It takes two to tango,’ Lindsey bit out, throwing her husband a contemptuous look as he raked his hand through his tousled hair in an attempt to tidy it.
‘What I mean is, I’ve known Tim most of my life, and when I called him and heard you were away I came over with some food and bubbly—too much bubbly, I guess. That’s why—’
‘Thanks for the explanation,’ Lindsey drawled. ‘It’s made me feel a lot better.’
Patsy flushed and looked at Tim for help. But none came, and she lost patience. ‘For heaven’s sake, Lindsey! You’re making a mountain out of a molehill.’