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'It's real,' Ross said in a hard voice. 'So you came down here to mend a broken heart?'
'I came to escape from an intolerable situation,' she said, not liking the tone of his voice. 'Fanny and Guy went around smelling like orange blossom all day. I couldn't stand it.'
'A sad story,' he said mockingly.
'If you'd ever been in love you wouldn't use that tone of voice,' she said angrily.
'What makes you think I haven't?' he asked sardonically.
She raised wide eyes to his face. 'Well, have you? You've just heard my life story. Is there to be no quid pro quo?'
'Quid pro quo,' he murmured, grinning. 'A fair return, in other words? Why not? You satisfied my curiosity, and you've been impressively discreet yourself, despite everything. Well, then, yes, I've been in love…once or twice, as a matter of fact. When I was eighteen with a girl I met at college—a fellow student, who was kind but distant, and wanted to pursue her career, not marry me. I fell out of love as fast as I fell in, to tell the truth.'
She sighed. 'I know what you mean. Sometimes I wonder if love exists at all. I've been briefly in love now and then—it was fun, but very temporary.' Then she looked at him, smiling. 'Sorry, I interrupted. What was the other time you fell in love?'
He looked at her, hard. 'You don't know?'
'Why should I?' She was puzzled.
'Oh, village gossip, for one thing,' he said.
'I don't listen to it, and anyway, there hasn't been any.'
'Oh, there's gossip,' he said tartly. 'You just haven't heard it.' He moved towards the window, stood, his hands in his pockets, staring out. 'I met her at a dance. She was very beautiful and sweet, with big innocent blue eyes, like a child. I was knocked for six. It was obvious to everyone that I was serious, I suppose, and her family took it for granted that we would marry. We saw each other all the time, and gradually I…well, it sounds brutally hard, but I found that she bored me. She was silly, shallow, rather selfish. She came to stay at my home. My family approved of the marriage. But I felt I had to make it plain to her that I'd changed my mind. I told her one night…she cried and begged me to… Oh, hell, it was murder! She was in debt. Her family had spent money on clothes for her, money they couldn't afford…I was sorry for her. I offered to pay her bills, but I would not marry her.'
Emma was very still, shocked by the story, wondering if the girl in question was Amanda Craig, but then surely it could not be, for Amanda lived at Queen's Daumaury, and must have plenty of money.
Ross went on harshly, 'I was glad to get to bed that night, I can tell you. Around midnight I was woken up, though. It was her—she'd come to plead with me once more. She began to cry, to sob loudly. She ran out of my room, and I followed her, trying to comfort her. She ran into her own room and I turned back, but she began to scream like a train whistle. The next moment there were half a dozen people staring accusingly at me, and she appeared, her nightdress torn on the shoulder, her hair all over the place, accusing me of attempted seduction…'
Emma was indignant. 'Well, what a beastly trick!'
He swung, looked at her closely, his grey eyes searching her face. 'Thank you,' he said deeply.
'For what?' She was puzzled.
'For believing me.'
'Of course I believe you,' she said warmly. 'No one who knew you would believe that you were capable of forcible seduction of a girl under your own roof!'
'My…my family believed it,' Ross said in a harsh voice.
'They didn't?'
'They not only believed her story, they threw me out on the strength of it, and regarded me as a monster.'
'What, Judith, too?' She was incredulous.
'Not Judith, no. She always said the story was laughable.'
'Mrs Pat wouldn't believe it, either,' said Emma thoughtfully, remembering certain cryptic remarks, and now able to interpret them in the light of Ross's explanation. She gave him a little grin. 'No wonder you didn't want me moving into the cottage unless you had a chaperone! Once bitten, twice shy!'
He nodded. 'It was nothing personal, you understand. Just a sense of self-preservation.'
'I can well understand it!' She shuddered. 'It leaves a nasty taste in the mouth, although in a way I feel sorry for her. She may have been in love with you and felt so desperate she lost her mind, temporarily, and prepared to do anything to keep you.'
He grimaced. 'If you loved someone would you do "anything"? I've never accepted this modern theory that "love" excuses any crime, however beastly. From what you just told me about yourself and this Guy of yours, I imagine you would draw the line at stooping so low, too.'
Emma sighed. 'Perhaps I wasn't as much in love with Guy as this girl with you? Who knows?'
