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Amanda put down the crossword puzzle she’d been staring at as if the clues were in Sanskrit, and went into the hall to meet her mother, trying to think of some placatory remark as she did so.
When the doorbell rang, she felt almost reprieved. It must be Mr Ambrose, she thought with relief. He’d promised in response to her urgency to ‘pop along as soon as maybe’ and see to her bedroom window. With luck, it might even be repaired before Mrs Conroy returned, and her mother need know nothing about it.
The last person she expected to see on the doorstep was Nigel.
If she’d had her wits about her, she would have slammed the door in his face, but, as she stood, gaping at him, he walked past her into the hall. He was rather pale, and there was a small muscle jumping at the corner of his mouth. He stood flicking his driving gloves against the palm of his hand.
He said, ‘Manda, I had to come here. I couldn’t keep away. We’ve both had time to think—to calm down. You’ve got to listen to me.’ He looked round. ‘Are you alone this time?’ The question was edged. He was asking if Malory had gone, she knew, yet she felt curiously reluctant to tell him she was alone in the house.
She lifted her chin. ‘I have someone fixing the bedroom window.’
‘Oh?’ His surprise was too elaborate. ‘Is it broken?’
She said thickly, ‘You know it is, because you did it. What with that and those phone calls, you really surpassed yourself last night.’
He looked away, flushing. ‘I know—I know’ he said heavily. ‘I think I must have gone slightly crazy. That’s one of the reasons I came here—to ask you to forgive me for all that rubbish.’
‘A brick through the window is hardly rubbish,’ she said angrily. ‘I could have been killed.’
‘I told you, I wasn’t thinking straight.’ He took a step towards her. ‘Darling, can’t we sit down and talk our problems out, quietly and sensibly?’
‘No, we can’t. I thought I’d made that clear already.’ Amanda stood her ground. ‘There’s nothing to discuss, Nigel. It’s finished between us— over for good.’
‘But when you said it you were too angry to listen to reason’ he said.
‘Reason?’ she echoed. ‘Nigel, I caught you making love to someone else—to your brother’s woman. What reason can there possibly be for that? What excuse?’
‘That’s what I’m here to explain.’ He spread his hands in appeal. ‘Manda, you have to let me defend myself. You can’t just—condemn me like this. We still love each other—you know that, darling.’
‘You have a very strange way of showing it,’ Amanda countered coldly. ‘But say what you have to say—if you must.’
He was silent for a moment. ‘You don’t have to tell me I’ve been a crass, insensitive fool. I know that. Since I met you, I always considered I was immune to temptation from other women. But it always existed.’ His mouth twisted in self-deprecation. ‘Rally-drivers have their groupies, too.’
‘But I can’t believe Clare was one of them.’
‘No,’ he conceded. ‘But she made all the running, once she realised who I was. She kept phoning me— throwing herself at me.’
‘So, she didn’t just happen to be at Calthorpe?’
‘No, she followed me there deliberately. I—I lied about that. She wouldn’t let me alone. She kept pestering me.’
‘Poor Nigel,’ Amanda said with irony. ‘How very trying for you. And, I suppose, in the end temptation just became too much. Or did she rape you?’
Dull colour rose in his face. ‘No, of course not. But I’m no saint, sweetheart. I have my weaknesses, and maybe it’s better for you to know about them before rather than after we’re married.’ As her lips parted in protest, he lifted his hand to halt whatever she was going to say. He said intensely, ‘Because you are going to marry me, darling. You must. You’re not going to let one stupid, spoiled little tart ruin our lives.’ As he said it, he smiled at her, the blue eyes suddenly ingenuous and appealing. ‘I need you, Manda.’
His hands reached for her, and she stepped back, away from him.
She said, ‘You talk as if your—fling with Clare were the only issue involved, but it isn’t. It’s the way you’ve acted since. Those beastly phone calls— my window.’
‘Darling.’ Nigel was still smiling. ‘I was beside myself—coming here and finding Malory with you was an awful jolt. I hung around for hours, waiting for him to leave.’ He shook his head. ‘When I realised he wasn’t leaving, I went a bit mad, thinking all kinds of crazy things.’ He laughed. ‘I had this image of him in bed with you—up in that room. Somehow, I convinced myself that it was true, that it was happening, and something—snapped.’ He gave a self-deprecatory sigh. ‘Guilty conscience, I suppose, but I had this idea he was spending the night with you to get his own back over Clare. As if a sexless nonentity like Malory could ever dream up such a scheme!’ He held out his hand to her. ‘And as if you’d let him, anyway. After all, if I couldn’t get near you, it’s hardly likely you’d sleep with Mal.‘
