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'I don't know whether love lasts for ever or not,' Luke said fiercely, 'I only know it isn't possible for me to marry Baba now. She's too nice for me to do that to her—I'd really be cheating her if I went through with marrying her. It's my fault; I went into our engagement without meaning a damn thing I said to her. I thought it was enough to enjoy being with her, I didn't expect there were ever be anything else. I was ready to settle for second best, I thought I'd make her happy and that that was all that mattered. If I'd known… but I didn't, how could I have guessed that you were just around the next corner?'
'Don't!' Judith said sharply, getting up abruptly. She wanted to hear what he was saying, but she wanted it too much, her own intensity frightened her.
Luke leapt up too and caught her before she could move; his arms round her. She felt the heavy beating of hi heart against her breasts; her body shuddered in his nearness.
'I'm a different person now,' he told her. 'Before I met you my whole life was like a millpond, nothing bothered me, it was so peaceful and ordinary. I had it all neatly arranged; I went to the office in my car every morning and had meetings with people or went through business with my secretary. I read my paper and over lunch I talked to whoever I was with, then I went back to the office and got on with more work, and I went home and showered and changed and had dinner, in or oat. Theatres, board-rooms, planes to the States or Switzerland or Tokyo. Every day I was busy and every day it was the same; nothing stirred on the surface of my millpond. I was perfectly contented. The only flaw in my life was that I'd never got around to getting married, so I decided to do something about that. I wanted children, I promised my mother I'd give her same grandchildren. It seemed simple enough. Find a nice girt marry her and get on with living the way I always had. As soon as I started looking around I saw Baba and thought: she'll do.' He moved his cheek slowly against Judith's wet hair. 'It serves me right for being such an arrogant, stupid fool. I wasn't really bothered whether Baba loved me or not; she was suitable, she'd do, I'm rich, I can buy whatever I want. That's how I thought, and I deserve the trouble I've bought myself.'
'I won't argue with that,' Judith said huskily. She was aching to put her arms round his neck, she didn't want him to talk, she wanted him to touch her and she was longing to touch him, her hands were trembling with a desire to stroke his strong face, move over the muscular tanned chest which was touching her.
'You hit my millpond like a tidal wave—I'm still crashing about, ' Luke told her, his arms tightening. 'I guess I knew I loved you when we were playing croquet here that day; when you laugh it makes me feel so crazily happy. I didn't want that day to end. I didn't want you to go. While I've been away I've counted the hours until I could ring you again; hearing your voice was the only thing that kept me from flying back here and abandoning the negotiations. I'd have offended those guys over there and blown a hole right in the middle of my current plans, but if I hadn't been able to talk to you every day I'd have risked all that and come back to you.'
'Luke, don't,' she whispered. 'This isn't doing any good; the fact is you're engaged to Baba, she has no idea you aren't in love with her, and even if you did break off your engagement, I couldn't possibly marry you—Baba would never forgive me, I'd never forgive myself for having stolen you from her.'
He put a hand under her chin, forcing her head up so that he could see her face. 'You can't steal what never belonged to her in the first place. I didn't love her.'
'She doesn't know that. She thinks you do—and she loves you; she told me she was crazy about you.'
Luke's face paled and stiffened.
'Baba would be so hurt,' Judith said unhappily. 'I couldn't do that to her, Luke. I'd never be able to live with it. I'm just not that sort of person. My conscience would give me no peace, we wouldn't be happy.'
'Darling,' he muttered, the word pleading, forced out of him and so deep that his voice sounded agonised.
'Let me go, Luke,' she asked as levelly as she could. The physical contact was torture, she couldn't take any more of it.
He looked at her in silence for a moment, his fingers biting into the soft skin under her chin.
'I must go,' she whispered. 'I must.'
'Not yet,' Luke said thickly. His head lowered, his mouth met hers with a demand she couldn't fight off and, in spite of her attempt to remain passive under that angry kiss, she felt her lips parting, quivering in response. The next second her eyes were closing, her body melting in a pleasure whose intensity defeated all her reasoned defences against him.
This will be the last time, she told herself; never again. Giving herself that promise made it disastrously easy for her to give in to her own feelings; she touched Luke at last, openly caressing the strong shoulders and powerful chest. An arm slid round his neck, she curved closer, stroking the ends of his thick hair where they lay damply against the nape of his neck. Luke slid her strap down and she felt his hand take possession of her naked breast; her skin burned as he touched it, the warm flesh filling with excited blood, and an intense sexual hunger ran through her entire body. Trembling, she pulled her head back, almost too breathless to speak, shaking her head as she pulled up her bikini strap again. 'No; Luke, no!'
His hands dropped away, she heard him breathing audibly, sharply. Judith walked away unsteadily. It seemed to take her years to get back to the house; Luke didn't follow her. She went upstairs and got changed, brushed her hair slowly with a shaking hand and put on some new make-up. Before she drove back to London she would have to say goodbye to Mrs Doulton and she didn't know how she was going to face her; she was terrified that Luke's mother might be able to read what had just happened in her face. It was a terrible relief to find Fanny lurking about outside Mrs Doulton's room and be told in a sulky voice that Mrs Doulton was asleep.
'Will you give her my love and say I had to get back? ' Judith asked with a pretence of calm.
Fanny grudgingly agreed. Judith turned away from the other woman's sharp eyes. Fanny had stared at her; she couldn't guess, of course, how should she? But Judith felt uneasy under that penetrating stare.
She drove back to London much faster than she normally drove; she wanted to be sure of getting back before Luke could catch up with her. She didn't think he would follow, but she wasn't a hundred per cent sure about it and she was in no fit state to face any more confrontation. Next time she might not have the courage
to walk away.
Her flat seemed small and very quiet. She sat curled up on her bed for a few moments, thinking about Luke; it was still too new, too unbelievable, to be thought about without numb incredulity. Everything he had said, every look in his face, had been burned into her memory, it might be all she had to carry with her into a blank future. She put her hands over her face. He loves me, she thought. It can't be true, I want it to be true so much—her heart turned over and over, she was one minute icy cold, the next feverishly hot. Judith had spent her whole life forcing herself to accept reality, she wasn't ready, now, to believe that dreams could become reality. In her mind there was a sharp division between the two of them—dreams were moonlit passages between day and day, they were the secret crevices of the mind where she hid what she would not think about in her waking hours. For weeks now she had met Luke in her stupid dreams and woken up to know just what a fool she was, how could she allow herself to accept that he was, after all, within her reach? She could be happy—if she chose, but only by taking happiness from someone else. The price was too high.
It was dusk, almost night, and the moths began to tap at the windows as she switched on the light and forgot to draw the curtains. Her thoughts fluttered helplessly, like that, trying to force their way through the implacable glass between pain and joy.
To make herself feel normal, she rang her grandmother. 'Did you have a good day in Kent?' Mrs Murry asked, completely unaware of the turmoil inside Judith.
'It was quite hot,' Judith told her. 'They have a swimming pool—we all swam.'
'We? I thought you said Mrs Doulton was bedridden.'
'Her daughter Angela was there, with her husband and their children. She's expecting a third baby.' Judith talked about Angela for a while, her voice was still breathless and shaky, but she hoped her grandmother might not pick that up.
'What exactly is wrong with Mrs Doulton?' Mrs Murry asked.
'I'm not sure—she has a very weak heart, she told, me. but she also has some sort of hip trouble, I think she had an operation on her hip a few months ago and it went wrong. She doesn't talk about her illness much and I don't like to ask too many questions. She's always so cheerful and lively, it's hard to believe she's seriously ill, but Luke…' She stopped because even saying his name had dangers, she was afraid of what she might betray to her grandmother.
