Beyond Compare

When he didn’t say anything, she rushed on desperately, ‘I don’t suppose you like me mentioning it. Men hate talking about their feelings, don’t they? But… I thought it would help to know that—that I do understand. It can’t be easy for you—living here as well.’

Howard had already told her that he intended to give up his job and work for his new father-in-law to be. Rosamund didn’t like London, he had told her, and Holly knew why. Rosamund preferred to be a large fish in a very small pond than risk swimming in the much deeper and more anonymous seas of London.

Drew had his back to her. He was putting her case in the Land Rover. His voice muffled, he responded briefly, ‘That’s thoughtful of you, Holly, to think of me. You must be going through a bad time yourself at the moment…’

‘Well, yes, I can’t pretend it didn’t come as a shock,’ she admitted frankly. ‘Not that I’d tell anyone else that,’ she added with firm pride. As far as the rest of their friends were concerned, she was going to give the appearance of quite happily accepting the engagement. After all, she did have her pride. ‘But I know it won’t last. They’re so totally wrong for one another. Rosamund is so hard and grasping, while Howard—’ She broke off and flushed in embarrassment, all too conscious of the fact that she had just been less than kind about the woman Drew loved, but apart from lifting one thick and surprisingly well-shaped eyebrow, as though inviting her to continue, Drew made no comment.

‘I’m sorry about that,’ she mumbled, still embarrassed. ‘I shouldn’t have said anything.’

‘Why not, if that’s the way you feel?’ Drew responded with commendable tolerance. ‘I’ll have to lift you into the Land Rover. You’ll never make it in that skirt.’

It was true, she wouldn’t. The skirt was brand new, and very short and straight, in line with the new autumn fashions. It curved very pleasingly along the feminine lines of Holly’s neat little waist and hips, stopping just half-way down to her pretty knees, and the only way she could have climbed into the Land Rover in it would have been either by ripping the seams or by removing it completely, neither of which she wanted to do.

‘I’m afraid I’m rather heavy,’ she apologised self-consciously as she walked towards him.

Howard liked slim girls. He had often commented on her own hearty appetite and curving figure, and Holly was all too well aware that she did not have the sylph-like figure of Rosamund.

‘You think so?’ Drew asked, lifting her effortlessly. ‘Believe me, after heaving sheep and bags of feed into this thing, lifting you is nothing.’

Holly wondered doubtfully if he was trying to pay her a compliment. If he was, she was even less surprised at Rosamund’s defection.

Even so, there was something comfortingly reassuring about the strength in Drew’s arms as he carefully lifted her into the passenger seat. As she bent forward slightly to tuck her head under the top of the door, one dark wing of hair brushed his face.

He tensed instantly and so did Holly, not sure what was wrong, until she realised that holding her had probably brought home to him that he had lost Rosamund, and she looked at him compassionately and said earnestly, ‘Oh, Drew, it’s awful, isn’t it? I miss Howard so much, and you must feel the same way about Rosamund.’

The tears she had fought valiantly to control all week weren’t far away, but she couldn’t cry all over Drew. It just wasn’t fair.

‘There’s no one else in London then, who might take his place?’ he asked casually.

She shook her head, horrified by the suggestion. ‘No. No… There never has been. It’s always been Howard. Just as it’s always been Rosamund for you. I remember how you used to wait for her coming out of school, after you’d left… Do you? You used to be there when we got off the bus.’

‘Yes, I did, didn’t I?’ he agreed blandly, and as he moved his head slightly Holly thought she caught that same odd glint in his eyes again, as though something both amused and infuriated him at the same time.

Once he was sure she was safely in her seat, he went back to the car, found the triangle, put it up and then came back, swinging himself into the driver’s seat and slamming the door shut.

‘Sorry about the state of this,’ he apologised above the noise of the engine, ‘but I wasn’t expecting to rescue a damsel in distress.’

Holly giggled. Howard would never have said anything like that. He was thoroughly modern in every way, and never even opened the covers of a book unless it was a brilliant exposé on some unfortunate personality and very much in vogue. She doubted if he had ever read a fairy story in his life, and if he had he certainly wouldn’t admit to it. It struck her that it was a long time since Howard had made her laugh, much less shared that laughter, but she banished the disloyal thought firmly.

‘Here we are,’ Drew announced, turning into a cobbled farmyard.

Holly had visited the farm occasionally. To her, it had always been an exciting, fascinating place, but once they had all reached their late teens, Rosamund, Howard and one or two of the others had expressed disdain for such bucolic pursuits, and Holly had loyally said nothing rather than criticise Howard’s views.

Now, though, she felt the familiar frisson of pleasure she had felt as a girl as the Land Rover stopped and the yard was busy with a flurry of dogs, hens and geese, all of them making a considerable amount of noise.

A terrifyingly loud bellow far too near at hand made her jump, and Drew chuckled. ‘It’s all right, that’s just Ben.’

‘Ben?’

‘Benjamin Leonard Brahmin the Tenth. My prize bull,’ he informed her with a grin. ‘He’s tied up in one of the cattle sheds, and very resentful about it, too.’

‘Tied up? Oh, Drew, you haven’t gone in for all that intensive farming, have you?’

Her disappointment showed in her face. Drew’s father had grown mainly crops and kept a small dairy herd, and Holly had fond memories of the chickens who had scratched round the yard, and the goats kept by Drew’s mother. She hated the thought of the farm being converted into high-intensity units, with battery hens and tethered goats.

‘No, but Ben has fulfilled his duties for the summer, so I’ve brought him in to give him and the cows a rest.’

He saw the realisation dawn in her eyes and watched as her face flushed a warm pink.

‘So you can still do that,’ he said softly, making her blush even harder. Howard was always criticising her for being so easily embarrassed, but she couldn’t help it.

Avoiding Drew’s eyes, she tried to get out of the Land Rover.

‘Hang on,’ he told her, ‘I’ll lift you down.’

He did, and then, to her surprise, he didn’t put her down, but strode across the yard with her in his arms.

‘Drew!’ she protested.

‘You can’t walk on these cobbles in those heels,’ he pointed out calmly. ‘You’ll either break them or break your ankle. Put your arms round my neck, would you, Holly?’ he commanded casually.

She obeyed him automatically, wondering absently why it was that she always felt so at home with Drew, so comfortable. When Howard put his arms round her her heart started thumping, and her pulses raced.

But when he kissed her all that excitement disappeared somehow.

She frowned unhappily, not wanting to dwell on such unpalatable truths. She and Howard had never been lovers, not because she hadn’t wanted him to make love to her, but because, for some reason or another, they never seemed to find the time or the place. Their dates were always short, snatched affairs sandwiched into their mutually busy lives; and on those rare occasions when they had had both the time and the opportunity to make love, Howard had always made some excuse to leave.

Of course, when she had lived at home it had been impossible for them to be lovers, her parents had very old-fashioned ideas; but she had fully expected that this would change once she was living in London.

Sadly, she leaned her head into the comforting warmth of Drew’s chest. Was that another advantage that Rosamund had over her? Did she have the power to excite and arouse Howard’s desire?

Whenever she had plucked up the courage to ask him about it, he had grown angry with her, and pointed out that they had known one another a long time, that she ought to be pleased that he respected and cared for her too much to see her merely as a partner for sex. Making love was something that would happen in its own good time, he added, and because she loved him she had accepted what he had said, although she had to acknowledge with painful honesty that five years was a long time to wait for a man to desire you.

‘Something wrong?’

They had reached the back door, and Drew shifted her weight slightly, nestling her against his chest as he opened it.

‘I was just thinking about Howard and Rosamund. Drew, can I ask you something?’

They were in the kitchen now, and Holly was amazed to see how much it had changed. Gone were the shabby cupboards and ancient gas stove she remembered Drew’s mother using, and in their place were new units in plain unstained or varnished wood, and a modern Aga in golden sunny yellow.

‘This is nice,’ she approved, giving the units a professional inspection. ‘Who made them for you?’

‘I did,’ Drew told her, surprising her, adding in a dry voice, ‘It’s something to do in the winter.’

‘You made these? But, Drew, they’re marvellous! Dragged and then varnished, and perhaps even stencilled-well, you wouldn’t get much change out of twenty thousand pounds for that kind of kitchen.’

‘Yes… I thought of getting someone to do something like that,’ Drew told her, surprising her even further, ‘but I just haven’t got round to it.’

Decorative paint finishes were one of Holly’s specialities, and she itched to get to work on the clean, untouched wood, but she remembered that she had wanted to ask him something.

He was still carrying her, even though they were now safely inside the kitchen, and she was glad because their intimacy gave her the courage to ask the question which had been burning an acid brand on her heart ever since Howard had told her he was engaged to Rosamund.

Turning her head even further into his chest, she asked in a muted voice, ‘When you and Rosamund made love, was it… was it like it is in the books? You know…’

Drew had gone very still. She shouldn’t have asked him, Holly acknowledged, cursing her rashness. She gave a little shiver of tension and lifted her head to apologise.

Close to, the bones of his face looked hard and masculine, the brown skin drawn firmly over them. His eyes behind the obscuring frame of his glasses were golden brown… like sherry, she realised with an odd start, puzzled that she had never noticed their distinctive colour before. But then, come to think of it, she had never been this close to him before. He was still holding her, and not even breathing heavily, as though her weight were the mere nothing he had claimed.

‘Why do you ask?’ he said quietly. ‘You’ve never struck me as the kind of girl who wants to pry into people’s personal lives, so it must be because you fear that Howard will make an unfavourable comparison between you and Rosamund. Is that it, Holly? Are you worried that Howard will compare your lovemaking to Rosamund’s, to your disadvantage?’

She hung her head. She had not expected his comprehension to be so acute.

‘Yes,’ she acknowledged in a small voice.

She felt his chest lift as he drew in a deep breath, and then expelled it in a faint sigh.

‘I wonder—am I to infer from that, that when you and Howard made love it was not “like it is in books”?’ he asked drily.

‘Well, not exactly.’ She ducked her head, not wanting him to look directly at her. ‘I shouldn’t have asked. It was… it was silly of me.’

‘But understandable,’ Drew commented, further astonishing her when he added obliquely, ‘To the best of my knowledge, the only books Neston has ever opened were text books! We men are at a disadvantage when it comes to pleasing women sexually,’ he told her calmly. ‘We can’t always be sure what does please you unless you tell us, and you can be remarkably reticent about doing just that.’

‘Oh, Drew, I keep forgetting that this is just as bad for you as it is for me. It must be awful for you, wondering if Rosamund…’

She broke off, confused and cross with herself for her thoughtlessness, but Drew didn’t seem to mind. Quite calmly he finished for her, ‘If Rosamund is comparing my lovemaking to Neston’s, do you mean?’

‘Well, I don’t suppose you’ll have had as much experience as Howard,’ she comforted. ‘I mean, living here… and always only going out with Rosamund.’

‘Neston has only ever gone out with you,’ he pointed out mildly. ‘So there shouldn’t be much difference.’

‘Well, no. But Howard has dated other girls. Oh, he’s always told me about them,’ she hastened to add. ‘And of course, when he was at university and I was still at school it was only natural that he should be tempted, and then when he was working abroad for a year… Besides, men do like to…’

‘Experiment,’ Drew suggested.

‘Er—yes.’

‘And yet it seems that you never enjoyed the benefit of these experiments, or have I misunderstood?’ he questioned with deceptive mildness.

He hadn’t, and she could only flush defensively and miserably, and say huskily, ‘Could you put me down, please? I must ring the garage.’

‘I’ll do that for you,’ he told her easily, carefully putting her on a convenient stool. ‘You just sit there.’

The telephone was obviously not in the kitchen. He came back within a few minutes, his face grave.

‘No luck, I’m afraid. The garage doesn’t have a spare, and they say that they doubt they will be able to get one before Monday at the earliest, and maybe not even then.’

‘Oh, no! Well I’ll just have to try somewhere else.’

‘At this time on a Friday? By the time they get out here it will be gone five.’

‘Well, I’ll have to find a twenty-four-hour service garage.’

‘Well, yes… but they mainly operate on motorways. Aren’t you in the AA or something?’

‘No,’ she told him miserably. It was something she had been meaning to do, but just not got round to. ‘Oh, what on earth am I going to do? I can manage to walk to the village from here, but to get to the party tomorrow night and then back to London on Monday…’

‘I’ve got a suggestion,’ Drew told her easily. ‘I can probably tow the car back here with the Land Rover. You could spend the weekend here, and I could give you a lift to and from the party tomorrow. Then on Monday morning I could drive you into Chester to get the train. When your car is fixed, I’ll give you a ring and you can come up and collect it.’

‘Oh, Drew! I couldn’t put you to so much trouble. Besides, I’m booked in at the Dog and Duck.’

‘Mrs Matthews won’t mind.’

It occurred to Holly that Drew could just as easily have suggested driving her into the village and then collecting her en route for the party tomorrow, but she suspected that he had very little free time, and she was reluctant to suggest it.

‘Well, if you’re sure I won’t be any trouble…’

‘Quite sure,’ he told her briefly. ‘Wait here, I’ll go outside and bring your stuff in, and then I’ll go and get your car. Oh, I’d better show you where you can sleep first. It’s this way.’

He walked across the room and opened a door, pausing when Holly hesitated.

‘Shouldn’t we… that is, will your mother mind?’

‘My mother?’ he frowned and then his frown cleared. ‘Oh, I see… My mother doesn’t live here any more, Holly. She remarried two years ago and she’s living in Chester now. But even if she wasn’t, I’m sure she wouldn’t mind.’

‘I see. And… and your brothers and sister?’

‘All away as well,’ Drew told her cheerfully. ‘Ah… I see what it is. You’re worried about being here alone with me.’

He sounded almost approving, but even so Holly hastily corrected him. ‘Heavens, no! Nothing like that. Men and women live together all the time in London now without… without being sexually involved.’

Even to her own ears her voice sounded overbright, although what she had said was perfectly true. True it might be, but that didn’t alter her own inner conviction that her own parents would most definitely not approve of what she was doing.

This was the nineteen eighties, she told herself firmly, and besides, she and Drew were doing nothing wrong. They were not lovers, nor ever likely to be.

‘Holly, if you’d rather not stay…’

‘Oh, no,’ she told him quickly. ‘If people choose to leap to the wrong conclusion, that’s their affair, isn’t it? I mean, you and I know that… well…’

‘That we’re not lovers,’ Drew supplied for her.

His head was turned toward her but, because of the sun streaming in through the window and blinding her, she was unable to see his face. Still, something about the soft way in which he said the words made her muscles tense slightly, as though they were preparing to ward off danger.

Seconds later she, Holly, was telling herself that she must learn to relax. What possible danger could she be in from Drew, of all people? Why, only less than half an hour ago she had been thinking how very safe and comfortable she felt with him. Just because she was going to spend a couple of nights alone with him, there was no reason for her to get all nervous and het up.

‘Have you made any other alterations?’ she asked him as he opened the door and she followed him into an inner hall.

An ancient oak staircase led upstairs, the wood worn by countless generations of hands and feet. It felt warm to her touch, and pleasantly smooth.

‘Some. I’ve installed two new bathrooms, and built some wardrobes in my own and the guest bedrooms. What I need now is a decorator, but somehow or other…’

Somehow or other he had lost heart, she thought sympathetically, and no wonder. He would have been modernising the house for Rosamund, and she felt a fierce thrill of resentment against the other woman for hurting him as she must have done. Drew was far too nice for a woman like Rosamund. She wanted to tell him as much, but she stopped herself just in time. He couldn’t help loving Rosamund any more than she could help loving Howard.

‘You know, I’m surprised he had the gall to invite you to this do,’ he commented, as he led the way down a long corridor linking the bedrooms together. On one side of it were a series of closed doors, and on the other windows which overlooked the fields. Holly paused and studied the landscape.

‘Oh, you’ve kept the water meadow!’ she exclaimed with pleasure.

The field in question was steep and marshy, with a small river running through it. Holly remembered that at one time Drew had seriously considered having it drained. She had pleaded with him not to, loving the wild flowers that grew among the rushes in springtime.

‘It would have been prohibitively expensive, and besides, I can sell the rushes now. Someone’s set up in business in the village, making traditional baskets, and chair seats, that kind of thing, and he comes and cuts the rushes when they’re ready. Why did you come, Holly?’ he pressed, returning to his earlier comment.

‘I had to.’ She turned to look at him, her eyes bright and defiant. ‘He’ll come back to me, Drew. I know he will. If I could just make him see how wrong Rosamund is for him. Jan—my boss—suggested I should find a man to bring with me. You know, to make Howard jealous.’

‘But you decided not to?’ he questioned, giving her a sharp look.

‘Well, I didn’t have much option. I don’t know any men, really, other than Howard,’ she admitted honestly.

‘Mmm.’ He turned away from her and opened a door.

Sunlight flooded the pretty room through the dormer window set into the sloping roof.

‘Oh, Drew, it’s lovely!’

‘Bathroom’s next door,’ he told her laconically. ‘It isn’t exactly en suite, but you’ll have it to yourself, since I use the one off my own room which is at the other end of the house.’

How tactful and considerate he was. Impulsively, she reached up and kissed him on the cheek. He went as still as a statue, and dark red colour flooded her face as she realised what she had done.

‘I’m sorry, Drew,’ she apologised falteringly. ‘I never thought…’

Of course, being kissed by any woman was bound to remind him of Rosamund. She felt exactly the same way and she ought to have realised.

‘I’d better go and get your car before it starts to go dark.’

CHAPTER TWO

‘DREW, I’M SO nervous. I don’t think I want to go.’

Holly was standing in the kitchen, wearing her new dress, her hair freshly washed, her face made-up, but all her courage had deserted her, and she didn’t think she was going to be able to face Howard and Rosamund.

‘You’ve got to,’ Drew told her bluntly. ‘Too many people know you’re here.’

It was true. Only this morning the postman had given her a cheery welcome, saying that he had heard from Mrs Matthews about her car and that she was staying at the farm. Knowing him, by now all her old friends would have heard she was home.

The party was going to be very formal, and initially she had been rather stunned by the sight of Drew in his dinnersuit. For one thing she hadn’t expected him to own a dinnersuit, but, when she had naïvely said as much, he had gravely informed her that he had had to buy one in order to attend the local Young Farmers’ ‘dos’.

He was even wearing a fashionable wing-collared shirt, so crisply laundered that it could have rivalled one of Howard’s. However, as she glanced downwards Holly forgot her doubts about attending the party and exclaimed, ‘Drew, you’re wearing green socks.’

‘Am I?’ He looked completely unperturbed. ‘I’d better go up and change them. It would help if you came with me and supervised.’ He saw her face and said quietly, ‘I’m colour-blind, Holly. Don’t you remember? Or at least, partially colour-blind. I could spend the rest of the evening up there trying to find the right pair.’

Of course, now that he mentioned it, she did remember him once saying to her about his inability to differentiate between certain colours.

‘To tell the truth,’ he confided as they went upstairs, ‘that’s one of the reasons I’ve hesitated about redecorating. I’m terrified of choosing the wrong colours.’

‘Oh, but surely Rosamund would have chosen those?’

At her side Drew heaved a sigh that lifted his chest and made her wonder absently how wide it was… certainly much wider than Howard’s. Howard’s chest was inclined to be uncomfortably bony, but then Howard didn’t have the benefit of working outside, she told herself loyally.

‘Perhaps once,’ Drew agreed mournfully. ‘Although she never really liked this house.’

‘I suppose she thought it wasn’t good enough for her,’ Holly said wrathfully, remember Rosamund’s snobbery.

At her side, Drew gave her a considering look which she didn’t see. ‘No, I suppose not.’

‘She must be blind,’ Holly told him roundly. ‘I think it’s lovely, but I suppose Rosamund would prefer one of those horrid little boxy things her father used to build.’

Ignoring her reference to the way in which Rosamund’s father had made his money, Drew agreed.

‘Yes, I think she would. She says old houses are dirty.’

Yes, Holly could just imagine her saying it, too.

‘That’s all she knows. Why, with a little bit of thought and care this house could be far more attractive than that awful place her father built.’

‘Do you think so?’ Drew commented doubtfully.

Resenting this aspersion on her knowledge and ability, Holly said firmly, ‘Yes. Yes, I do. In fact, I could prove it to you, Drew. You know I work for an interior designer now. Decorative paint finishes are my specialty. You know, dragging, sponging, marbling… that kind of thing. Perhaps you haven’t heard of them,’ she added kindly, ‘but they’re very much in demand.’