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At last, he lifted his head. ‘Like kissing a statue,’ he said insolently. ‘But I suppose that’s what marriage to my dear brother does to a woman. See you around, sweetheart.’ He patted her cheek, and started away across the lawn.
Amanda stayed where she was, watching him go.
So, it had happened at last, she thought. The moment she’d dreaded. The moment she’d longed for. She’d seen Nigel again, known his touch, and his kiss. And, in spite of her brave words to herself, she’d waited for her starved body to go up in flames.
Only—she hadn’t. All she’d been aware of was a certain clinical curiosity about her own lack of response, and a very definite distaste for the feel of his lips sucking at hers—his attempts to push his tongue into her mouth.
All the time I’ve been afraid, she thought won-deringly, but of what? There’s nothing left in me for Nigel—nothing at all. And yet he was my whole life.
She closed the windows and locked them, her hands shaking. There had to be a reason why she’d fallen so completely out of love with Nigel. And suddenly, shatteringly, she knew what it was.
She looked almost bewilderedly round the quiet room. She’d fled here for sanctuary, to this beautiful, tranquil house, or so she’d thought. But the house, however lovely, had only been a shell.
I didn’t know it, she thought, but I was running here to Malory all the time. Even then, I must have loved him, long before I knew I wanted him. Before I even knew what wanting could be.
She looked at the bowl of flowers, and it blurred into a mass of indistinct colour.
Well, she knew now, and the knowledge was like an open wound in her soul, because she was neither loved nor desired in return. And she had to live with that for the rest of her life.
CHAPTER NINE
The reception was at its height. Amanda moved between the laughing, chattering groups of people, her outward smiling serenity belying the torrent of emotion within her. Her life might be in tatters, but the evening was a success, and she had to be satisfied with that, as Malory undoubtedly was.
She was conscious of his presence all the time— aware of every move he made. His understated elegance in dinner-jacket and black tie took her by the throat. She wondered almost hysterically how she could ever have thought him ordinary. Or had she, even then, been fighting an attraction she did not wholly comprehend?
‘Hello, Mrs Templeton.’ A familiar face materiat her side, smiling at her. ‘I’m Peter Wilton. We met at the company dinner.‘
‘I remember,’ she said instantly. ‘You told me about Chromazyn. How’s it going?’
He looked momentarily astonished. ‘Hasn’t Dr Templeton told you? The monitored tests are proceeding extraordinarily well. No unexpected side-effects, or any other disasters, touch wood.’
Amanda laughed. ‘Now there’s an unscientific reaction,’ she teased.
‘Oh, I’m all for a little superstition,’ he said, grinning back at her. ‘All medicine has an element of magic, after all. And sometimes we need all the help we can get. And a fair amount of luck, too’ He paused. ‘So many drugs have been hailed as breakthroughs—miracles one day and condemned the next, often with damaging lawsuits attached. Hopefully, that won’t happen to Chromazyn.’
They exchanged a few more words, then Amanda turned away, to find her path blocked by Malory, who had been standing a few feet away from her.
He’d been late back from the laboratories that evening, and had only arrived downstairs in his evening clothes in time to greet their first guests, so they’d hardly had a chance to say two words to each other. And he hadn’t been able to pay her the pleasantly distant compliment on her appearance that he usually did on these occasions.
Now, suddenly, they were face to face. His eyes were narrowed as he surveyed her in the square-necked midnight-blue dress which she knew, without conceit, gave her the look of a medieval princess, moulding itself to her slender figure down to the hips, where the floor-length skirt flared slightly, the effect heightened by a draped sash belt, embroidered in gold. Her uncertain, rather shy smile died on her lips, as her stunned mind registered the swift, dark stain of colour along his cheekbones, the stark, burning hunger which blazed momentarily in his face, then was hidden behind the normal polite mask.
As he turned on his heel, and walked away, she found she was gasping. He wasn’t indifferent to her, she thought shakily. He wasn’t. That brief, unguarded moment had been too revealing. He still wanted her. After all—in spite of everything—he did want her. She grabbed a glass from a passing tray, and took a swift gulp of champagne.
