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But they were both behaving out of character, she admitted wryly. It wasn't her nature to allow casual sexual excitement to take over. She had more respect for her body than that. Not that it had taken over, of course. Not yet, a small inner voice said snidely. Not yet.
Finding the rock where she had left her shoes, she stuffed her feet into them and only then permitted herself to look round. Luke was not following her, as she had apprehensively anticipated, but was moving away down the beach, his easy stride taking him far away.
Hopefully, that would be the last she would see of him, she thought with weak relief. This afternoon she would be taking herself off for what remained of the weekend. She needed time to calm down before she tackled Norman over the way he had so sneakily manipulated her over Monk's Hall. Their whole future together was on the line, and she had
to think sensibly, to get things into perspective, before she tossed it aside in a moment of anger.
'Where on earth have you been?' Joan shot out of the front door as Annie parked the runabout. 'The auction was over hours ago!'
Reluctant to face Norman while she was still in an evil mood, Annie had taken her time. She had driven into town and phoned Cassie from a call-box. Her friendship with Cassandra Wilkes went back years. They had shared a couple of rooms in Clerkenwell while Annie had been at secretarial college.
At nearly eighteen Annie had plucked up the courage to tell her mother that she was leaving, striking out on her own. She had been tired of the enforced role of number one fan and ego-booster, of being carted around from one glitzy hotel to another, rarely staying anywhere longer than it took for a film to be shot or a play to complete its run. Tired of being pushed into the background because she had suddenly developed a beauty of her own and Willa Kennedy didn't like to have beautiful women around her—and that included her own daughter.
At that time Annie's new-found independence had been a bit scary, her veneer of self-confidence wafer-thin. And Cassie, older by four years, had been just the sort of friend she had needed. Cassie still worked and lived in London, now having an apartment in Chelsea, where Annie knew she was always welcome.
But when she got through to her friend on the phone, Cassie had said, her voice distorted by static on the line, 'Come by all means. Only I'm off on holiday—you only just caught me. But if you want a day or two in town you're welcome. I'll leave the key with the guy downstairs, but next time, buster, make sure you come when I can enjoy your company!'
Annie had been disappointed at first, but soon realised that it might be better to spend the short time available on her own. Together, she and Cassie tended to sit up half the night, giggling and gossiping and catching up on all the news. Time was short: Annie needed to be back in Seabourne on Monday morning when she and Norman were due to spend a couple of days interviewing Professor Rhys and taking the photographs needed to illustrate that section of the book.
Aware now that Joan was regarding her with cold impatience, Annie walked reluctantly towards the bungalow. She would simply tell Norman she fancied a day in town—no need to tell him that Cassie would be away, and that she'd be spending the time trying to decide if marrying him was the right thing to do. Until today she'd had no significant doubts at all.
'You certainly know when to make yourself scarce!' Joan's mouth was a disapproving slash, but her eyes were glittering with something that looked remarkably like excitement. She made no move to let Annie pass; it was almost as if the older woman were barring the way, refusing to let her over the threshold.
'Why, have I missed something?' Annie spoke tartly, in no mood at the moment for Joan's antics.
Ever since she and Norman had become engaged she had worried over Joan's suddenly antagonistic behaviour. Now she had far more important things to occupy her mind and she said, 'Excuse me, Joan,' trying to walk past the housekeeper's solid figure, but stopped in her tracks when Joan answered, sounding almost triumphant, 'There's been an accident.'
'Norman?' Annie's face went pale, the faint scattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose standing out starkly. 'What happened?'
She had spent the afternoon grumbling at him in her mind—when she hadn't been mentally occupied with Luke! And all the time he had been…?
'He hurt his back.' Joan folded her arms in front of her, standing her ground. 'We came back from shopping and while I was washing up after lunch he went in the garden. The next thing I knew he was calling for me. He'd tried to move the garden seat and cricked his back. Dr Beddowes doesn't think it's a disc, but he's ordered him to bed, flat on his back for the duration. It's been all go, I can tell you.'
'It must have been,' Annie agreed drily, relieved that it was nothing worse. She pushed past Joan, but the housekeeper's voice stopped her.
'I wouldn't disturb him if I were you. He's asleep. After I'd called the doctor out, and he'd examined him, I managed to get him to bed. The poor soul was in agony, couldn't even bend to take his own shoes and socks off!' Her grey eyes taunted, but Annie shrugged coolly.
'I'm sure you made him as comfortable as possible. Thank you.'
Joan nodded, her posture important. 'If you want something to eat, there's some salad. Help yourself—I'm going to unearth the sunray lamp, and I sent Luke to the chemist for something for me to rub on Norman's back.'
She bustled away, and Annie thought, You'll enjoy rubbing his back, won't you? And fussing around him and making yourself indispensable. And she was more than ever sure that she'd been right in thinking that Joan had been in love with Norman for years and that jealousy had turned a kindly, cheerful woman into a shrew.
And why was Luke still hanging around? She had imagined he'd be eager to get out of this one-horse town to hand the planning and development details of Monk's Hall over to his hirelings. She wondered if he'd bother to say goodbye before he finally left, and hoped he wouldn't. Even so, there was a stupid ache just beneath her breastbone at the thought of never actually seeing him again.
Her perverse thoughts both surprised and dismayed her. Her fiancé was lying in bed, probably in pain, and she had carelessly handed his care over to Joan, without one qualm, and had immediately turned her entire attention to the hateful Luke. There had to be something very wrong with her!
Perplexed by her own contrary attitude, and determined to do something about it, she went to her room to comb the tangles out of her hair before looking in on Norman. She decided she wouldn't mention Monk's Hall until later, until he was over the shock of being confined to bed, and she would sympathise with him over his accident, because she owed him that, at least. And then she would have to cancel the interviews with Professor Rhys, and she wouldn't avail herself of Cassie's flat because she could do whatever thinking she had to do here.
She was calmer now, and her initial fear that Norman's accident had been something far worse than a cricked back had brought home to her just how fond of him she was.
They were fond of each other, but was fondness enough? She caught sight of her reflected frown and sighed. She simply didn't know any more. And she had been so sure. They had both agreed that passionate love had no place in their lives, and that a marriage based on mutual fondness and respect, on compatible interests, on a normal need for companionship and children—when Annie felt ready for motherhood—was far more sensible than a union based on the transitory lusts of the flesh.
Norman's biggest regret was that his first wife hadn't been able to give him children, and Annie wanted a family of her own to love. But was Norman the right father for her children?
The doubts simply wouldn't go away. Did she really want to spend the rest of her life with Norman? Or would she always be looking for strengths in him she now knew he didn't possess? And would even the simplest display of honest-to-goodness emotion be forever taboo?
Norman was lying flat on his back, looking sorry for himself.
