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‘Susan?’ He glared at poor Mary as though she were to blame for the spoilt moment. ‘Same time as it does every year, I suppose,’ he said abruptly. ‘What’s the matter with the woman?’
‘I think she wants a word,’ Mary said apologetically, and Alex snorted crossly.
‘Tell her I’m eating,’ he said coldly, ignoring his empty plate with regal indifference as Mary scuttled away.
‘Party?’ Fabia’s heart had dropped like a stone.
‘Oh, haven’t I mentioned it?’ he said with a little frown of annoyance. ‘I meant to. It’s one of Isabella’s established laws that the whole of Cumbria congregates here on Boxing Day afternoon and unfortunately this year is no different.’
‘Oh.’ Fabia’s voice was very small.
‘We don’t do much Christmas afternoon,’ Alex said after the silence had stretched on and on interminably, ‘but I hear one of the big lakes near by is frozen and being used for skating at the moment. We can either watch TV here or go there, whichever you’d prefer?’ She caught his eyes fixed on her with a curious intensity as she glanced up but the next instant his expression had cleared into its usual remoteness.
‘I’d love to go and watch at least,’ she said eagerly, ‘but I can’t skate. I don’t know how.’
‘I’ll teach you,’ he said with a deep softness in his voice that brought a sudden hot flush to her face. ‘We’ve several pairs of old skates somewhere; I’m sure we can find a pair to fit you.’
In ten minutes they were in the car with two pairs of skates on the back seat. It had stopped snowing but the sky was heavy and white and the air bitingly cold, all nature transfixed in its arctic grip. It was the start of a wonderful afternoon. When they arrived at the lakeside Fabia had the strangest impression that she had stepped back into Victorian times. The i
ce was alive with brightly coloured figures muffled to the eyebrows in long skirts and warm trousers and on the bank a man was selling hot roasted chestnuts, his glowing brazier vivid against the white snow.
The very air was intoxicating and Fabia made a sudden decision to take this afternoon, just this one, for herself, to enjoy this time with the tall handsome man at her side as though there had been no past and would be no future. Just the glorious present in all its poignant sweetness.
She discovered, to her delight, that she was a natural skater, and with Alex’s arm about her waist and his hand holding hers in a firm supportive grip she found herself flying over the ice like a bird, gaining confidence every minute.
As the sky began to turn a soft rosy red they stopped for a cone of hot chestnuts, warming their hands in the heat of the brazier as they chatted to the other couples standing near by. She noticed that several of the women’s eyes turned again and again to the tall and darkly vital man at her side but each time she glanced up into his face the golden-brown gaze was fixed on her, and when one of the women, more daring than the others, suggested they all swap partners for a time, he firmly declined, stating that as this was Fabia’s first time on the ice he would trust her with no one but himself.
Even as the thrill of satisfaction shivered along her spine she found that other self cautioning her carefully, warning her silently that this was still Alexander Cade—just another facet that she hadn’t seen before.
‘I would have thought you would have liked to skate with that little redhead for a while,’ she said lightly as they returned to the ice turned pink by the sky’s fire overhead.
‘Why?’ he asked baldly, his eyes narrowed against the cold.
‘Why?’ The direct question floored her temporarily. ‘Well...’ She paused again. ‘She’s a very good skater,’ she finished a little aggressively.
‘Oh, I see,’ he drawled softly, ‘a very good skater? Maybe I prefer to stumble about with a very poor skater.’ There was a coldness in the mocking taunt that warned her to leave the subject of the redhead alone, and after a few moments Alex began to show her how to spin and weave, laughing with her as in his efforts to save her from falling they both finished up in a heap on the ice.
‘Nice state of affairs, this,’ he grumbled laughingly as he helped her up from the ice, brushing the white flakes from her coat and adjusting her scarf more cosily round her face. She found little gestures like this almost unbearably painful, awakening as they did a whole host of abandoned dreams. There was something in his tenderness, his caring, that was more seductive than any lovemaking.
‘You’re a very complex man, aren’t you, Alex?’ she said softly, resisting his attempt to draw her back into the whirling arc of skaters. ‘I wish I knew which was the real you.’
‘The real me?’ There was an expression of genuine bewilderment on his face. ‘You’ve seen the real me, Fabia. What you see is what you get.’
‘I don’t believe that.’ There was no amusement in her face now as she looked up into the dark golden gaze. ‘I’ve heard you can be ruthless in business and I’ve seen you in action in the social scene, remember. All that doesn’t tie up with...’ She paused, uncertain of whether to continue.
‘With the family man?’ He had known how the sentence would finish. ‘I thought you had more sense than that, Fabia. Of course I can’t wear my heart on my sleeve when I’m conducting business negotiations; that side of my life is completely separate. As for my public face...that’s what it is, a face. I put it on when necessary, it’s as simple as that.’
‘And the women?’ She had to ask. ‘Do you fool them the way you fool everyone else?’
‘You’re deliberately misunderstanding me.’ He drew her away from the crowd and off the ice to a more secluded spot. ‘If you are asking me if there have been women in my life then yes, Fabia, there have. Have, in the past. Each one meant something at the time although there was no great love story, I admit, but I have no intention of apologising to you or anyone else.’ His eyes held hers intently. ‘I’m a man, angel-face, an ordinary man with normal needs. I haven’t lived like a monk but the things that are reported in the papers are absolute rubbish. If only a small fraction of them were true I’d probably be dead by now with physical exhaustion! I don’t show everyone the real me, I grant you, but can you honestly say you do? That anyone does? There are very few people that one meets in a lifetime who really reach the core.’
‘Oh, come on, Alex.’ She took a step backwards as she spoke, away from his hand holding hers. The reference to the women he had known had hurt more than she would have thought possible in spite of her prompting it. ‘On the one hand you are part of the jet-set and you said yourself you work hard and play hard—’
‘There’s nothing wrong with that,’ he interrupted harshly, ‘and I resent the term jet-set. It implies something I am not. First and foremost I control my business empire, and that takes a great deal of time and effort. I have neither the time nor the inclination to waste my talents, and I do have a certain flair for the cut and thrust of my occupation, whether you believe it or not.’ His face was cold and proud now and his big body stiff with pride. ‘That is a separate part of my life, as I have said. It doesn’t mean that ultimately I don’t want what every man wants: a loving wife, happy home, children and so on.’
‘You really believe that’s what most men want?’ she asked bitterly as a whole host of burning memories swept over her. ‘Then your experience of the male sex must be very different from mine.’
‘Unfortunately some men are arrogant and foolish,’ he said slowly. ‘They will discard a pearl along with the common stones in their avid search for the deception of experience. And some of the most heartless men I’ve known didn’t have a penny to their names, incidentally.’
