A Wedding Worth Waiting For

Farne Maitland could afford to laugh, of course. No doubt he had women queuing up to go out with him. Without question, he already had his Saturday evening planned.

Somehow, that notion did not sit well with her. For goodness’ sake, she scoffed. As if she cared in the slightest that sophisticated Farne Maitland had a date tomorrow with some equally sophisticated female. Perish the thought!

It took her a long while to get off to sleep that night But when previously she had known full well that the strife between her parents was the reason for her wake-fulness—nightmares in childhood—she could not in all truthfulness say now that the hostility between her parents was the cause for her sleeplessness that night. Somehow, having conjured up a picture of Farne Maitland out wining and dining some ravishing sophisticate tomorrow, she did not seem able to budge the scene from her head!

Karrie was able to scorn such imaginings when she got up the next morning. Good gracious, as if she gave a button whom he dated that night. So why did she think of him so often? She pushed him out of her head, and continued to do so until just after ten that morning, when the phone rang. Expecting that the call might be for her father, who was out, as was her mother—though not together—she went to answer it—and got the shock of her life. The caller, staggeringly, was none other than the man who had occupied more than enough time in her head!

‘Hello?’ she said.

‘Farne Maitland,’ he announced himself, and, while her heart seemed to jerk straight out of her body, Karrie began to doubt her hearing—had he said ‘Farne Maitland’? How on earth had he got her number? He was going on, confident apparently, from that one word ‘hello’ that he was speaking to the right person, ‘I expect you’ve got a date tonight?’

Her mouth went dry. Was he asking her out? She swallowed. ‘Been stood up?’ she queried lightly.

She just knew he was smiling, fancied she could hear laughter in his voice, when he countered, ‘Would I make you second best, Karrie?’

So, as well as finding out her phone number, he—having supposed she would instantly know who he was—had bothered to find out her first name as well! There was laughter in her voice too—she just could not suppress it. ‘So you want me to break my date for tonight?’ she asked.

‘I’ll call for you at seven,’ he stated. And Karrie was left staring at the telephone in her hand

For ageless seconds she stood staring at the telephone. She couldn’t believe it! She had a date with Farne Maitland that night! Would you believe it? Would you believe not only did he know her first name and her telephone number, but, since he intended to call for her at seven, he had obviously found out where she lived too!

Suddenly a smile, a joyous smile, beamed across her face—hadn’t she feared he would never again ask her out?

CHAPTER TWO

FEARED? Feared that Farne Maitland would never again ask her out? Karrie could not believe she had actually thought ‘feared’! What rot! What utter rot!

Still, all the same, she owned she was quite looking forward to going out with him that night. Oh! What was she going to do about Travis? Normally she would never have broken a date with one man to go out with another. Oh, heavens, was her thinking going haywire or what?

Half an hour later she felt on a more even keel and did what she had to do rather than what she should have done. What she should have done was to somehow make contact with Farne Maitland and tell him she was not going out with him—though how she didn’t know, when she had no idea of where he lived, much less his phone number. What she did do was go over to the phone and dial Travis Watson’s number.

‘Are you going to be very put out if I tell you I can’t make tonight?’ she asked.

‘Karrie!’ he wailed, and followed on swiftly. ‘You’re going out with somebody else?’

‘Oh, Travis, don’t make me feel guilty.’

‘You should!’

‘You’re my friend, my very good friend, but not my boyfriend.’

‘You’re saying a good friend wouldn’t mind being passed over for something better?’

‘Travis!’

‘Oh, all right. Come to tea tomorrow.’

‘Without fail,’ she promised.

‘I love you,’ he said.

‘I love you too—as a brother.’

Karrie came away from the phone wishing Travis would meet someone really special and that they would fall mutually in love. He was nice, really nice. He deserved someone special. And with that thought—‘someone special’—Farne Maitland was in her head again.

Her mother came home at lunchtime, but not her father. Karrie dared to ask where he was. ‘He didn’t say—but he’ll be cooking up some business deal somewhere. I wonder why he doesn’t take his bed to his office; he’s always there!’ Margery Dalton complained bitterly. ‘Are you out tonight?’

‘To dinner, I think.’

‘You don’t know?’

‘He didn’t say.’

‘Travis?’

‘I’m having tea with Travis Watson tomorrow,’ Karrie said. ‘I’m going out with a man called Farne Maitland tonight.’

‘Farne Maitland?’ Her mother weighed the name up. It meant nothing to her. ‘Is he new or have I met him before?’

‘I met him on Tuesday, at work,’ Karrie replied. ‘Though he doesn’t work at Irving and Small,’ she tacked on hastily. ‘That is, he...’ Suddenly she felt all shy and flustered just talking about him. ‘He works for their parent company,’ she added, and quickly changed the subject to enquire, ‘Have you anything planned for tonight?’

‘I’ve a good murder story to read—though I wouldn’t mind planning one,’ she volunteered, and even though Karrie knew that her mother meant her father, she had to laugh.

Karrie was no longer smiling when, that evening, dressed in a short-sleeved above the knee black dress that was a perfect foil for her delicate colouring, she waited for Farne Maitland to arrive. By then self-doubt had begun to creep in. Normally she was quite confident about herself. But she didn’t normally go in for dating such men as Farne. Would he find her gauche, too unsophisticated?

Oh, she wished that she’d never said yes! Her sense of humour asserted itself when she realised she couldn’t actually remember saying yes. Or, for that matter, agreeing she would go out with him at all. Her confidence started to return—it would serve him right if she wasn’t in when he called.

From her bedroom window she saw a long black car purr smoothly into the drive and elegantly wind its way to the front of the house. Butterflies entered her tummy, her confidence flying as, taking up her small evening bag, she left her room and went down the stairs.

Once in the hall she stood composing herself as she waited for Farne Maitland to ring the bell—he’d think her more than eager if she had the door open before he’d got within yards of it.

The bell sounded. She swallowed and suddenly felt extraordinarily hot. She went forward and pulled back the stout front door, some kind of greeting hovering on her lips. But as she stared at the tall man, with that darkish hair and those piercing blue eyes, her voice died on her. He too seemed stuck for words, though she discounted that a moment later.

He surveyed her from where he stood, and then the most devastating smile winged its way from him to her and, his tone light, he said, ‘I refuse to believe there is anything false about you, Mr and Mrs Dalton’s daughter, but, tell me truly, did your hair become that fantastic colour completely unaided?’

Her insides went all marshmallowy, but from somewhere she found an equally light tone to reply, ‘I would never lie to you, Mr and Mrs Maitland’s son. It’s never seen a chemical dye. My father’s not in at the moment, but come in and meet my mother.’

Still feeling a little shaky, Karrie turned about and led the way into the graceful drawing room. Though Bernard Dalton was rarely, if ever, on the receiving end of it, her mother had charm. She conversed pleasantly with Farne who, with abundant charm of his own, chatted in return until, all courtesies dealt with, he commented, ‘I’ve a table booked for eight.’ And, her mother, acquainted with the fact that Karrie would not be ravenous for a sandwich when she got home, said goodbye.

That was when Karrie discovered that she had worried needlessly about being unsophisticated. For Farne Maitland seemed to enjoy her company as much as she enjoyed his, and from the start there was never a moment when he allowed her to feel gauche or awkward.

‘Have you lived here long?’ he enquired as he steered his car down the drive.

‘All my life—I was born in this house,’ she replied.

‘You find it convenient for getting in and out of London daily?’

‘Far from it,’ she smiled, starting to feel more and more relaxed. ‘But that’s where my job is.’

‘I’m glad,’ he responded.

‘Glad?’ Why was he glad it took her an hour each way to get to and from her place of work?

‘Glad you no longer work for your father.’

‘Is there anything you don’t know?’ Honestly! His research into her background hadn’t stopped at just finding out her first name, address and telephone number!

‘What’s the point of taking the responsibility of being on the corporation’s board if I can’t take advantage of the perks of the job?’ he grinned.

Her heart flipped over. My word, was he something else again! ‘I expect you’re always checking the files of Irving and Small’s personnel department?’ she suggested.

Farne took his glance briefly off the road and gave her a warm look. ‘You’re the one and only—and I wouldn’t lie to you,’ he said softly, and something wondrous which she couldn’t give a name to started happening inside her. His eyes were back on the road when he asked, ‘Are you going to forgive me that—in complete confidence, in case it worries you—I had the director of Personnel fax me your application form and CV yesterday?’

Wow! Karrie took a steadying breath. ‘Do I get to see your curriculum vitae?’

‘Ask anything you want to know,’ he offered, and she could not help but be impressed by his utter openness.

Her dinner with him went splendidly. Farne had a table reserved for them at a discreet, stylish—and, she suspected, very expensive—eating establishment in London. And, true to his word, he unhesitatingly answered every question she put to him. Although, since she didn’t want him to gain the impression that she was over-eager to know everything about him, she made her questions as impersonal as she could.

‘Do you live in London?’ she asked.

‘I’ve a house here,’ he answered.

‘You should have said. I could have—’ She broke off, the I could have met you here left unsaid.

But she had to laugh when he stated, ‘We didn’t have much of a telephone conversation, did we?’ And added, to her startlement, ‘I was afraid if I stayed to say more you might find a reason not to come out with me.

Her eyes widened, she stared at him. ‘I... You... You’ve never been turned down yet, have you?’ she challenged. Forget her accusation that he’d been stood up. She didn’t believe it for a moment.

‘Oh, ye of short memory,’ Farne reproached her. ‘Have you forgotten how, only last Tuesday, you preferred to wash your most remarkable hair rather than go out with me?’

‘Ah!’ she said, and smiled, and looked at him as he, unsmiling, looked back at her.

‘Devastating!’ he murmured.

‘I know,’ she replied, trying to pretend that her backbone hadn’t just turned to so much water. ‘But I do my best. So, you live in London, you work in London, where do you go for holidays?’

‘Holidays? What are those?’

‘It’s tough at the top,’ she offered.

‘Heartless woman. Where do you go?’ he wanted to know.

It was eleven o‘clock before she knew it, and they hadn’t had coffee yet! ‘Can you believe that?’ she gasped.

‘May I hope you’ve enjoyed the evening as much as I?’ he asked, as an attentive waiter appeared just then, bearing the coffee.

‘It’s been wonderful,’ Karrie answered truthfully, and didn’t want it to end.

‘Would you like to go on to a club?’ Farne suggested.

But Karrie, having been quite truthful about the evening being wonderful, suddenly started to feel a little concerned that it should be so. First dates were often stilted, difficult experiences. First dates. Would he ask her out again?—oh, she did hope so. She closed her mind to such thinking. ‘I don’t think so,’ she refused nicely. It had gone eleven now. Farne had to drive her home yet, and then get back to his place. And while, okay, he might be able to cope effortlessly with arriving home with the morning milk delivery, if this evening got any more wonderful she was going to have one dickens of a job keeping her feet down on the ground.

Disappointingly, he did not press her, but accepted her decision without question. Without, she noted, looking in any way disappointed himself.

They drove to her parents’ house in comparative silence—so different from the way they had been tonight—and Karrie started to wonder if maybe she was the only one who thought the whole evening so marvellous.

Farne had seemed to be enjoying himself, though, and, as he’d indicated, he hadn’t hung back from answering anything she wanted to know. She had learned that he was an only child, like herself, and that his parents lived in Dorset. Also that from the age of seven he had been sent to boarding school.

That piece of information had shaken her a little at first. It had somehow seemed quite dreadful to her that anyone should think of packing any child as young as seven off to school and away from home. Although, on thinking about it, thinking about her own childhood, fraught by angry rows and arguments, those times she had put her fingers in her ears hoping not to hear them, she just had to pause to consider which of them had had the happier childhood. Still, all the same—boarding school at the tender age of seven!

‘You’re very quiet, Karrie?’ Farne suddenly broke into her thoughts.

‘You’d hate it if I sang.’

She sensed he was smiling, but because she was suddenly unsure about more or less absolutely everything—very unlike her; perhaps she was going down with something—Karrie said nothing more until Farne had driven up to her door. On detecting movement, the security lights of her home switched on, and as Farne left the driver’s seat so Karrie got out of the car too.

‘Thank you for a very pleasant evening,’ she said sincerely, and, still feeling a mass of uncertainty, she offered her right hand.

Farne glanced down at it but, instead of shaking hands with her, he took hold of her right hand in his left one, and caught hold of her other hand too. ‘It seems,’ he said, holding both her hands in his, his eyes on her face, ‘that I shall have to let you go.’

Karrie opened her mouth to make some kind of comment. But there were no words there, and she closed it again. Farne still had hold of her hands—she was going nowhere.

Then suddenly her heart started to drum, for his head was coming nearer. She stood there, unmoving, as gently Farne touched his lips to hers. It was an exquisite, tender kiss.

And over all too soon. As was the evening over. For a moment she felt his hold on her hands tighten, then he was stepping back and letting go of her. Having already said her thanks for the evening, there was nothing more for her to say. She turned from him, at a total loss to know if she or Farne had been the one to put her door key in the lock.

Without a word, she went in. She closed the door and when, an age later, or so it seemed, she heard his car start up and move off, she moved too. Silently, softly, her head in the clouds, the feel of Farne’s hands still on hers, the feel of his marvellous mouth still on hers, she dreamily started to climb the stairs.

She got ready for bed, touching her fingertips to her mouth where his tender kiss had touched. She got into bed, and closed her eyes. Again, dreamily, she thought of him. Farne Maitland. She had been out for the evening many, many times, but that evening, she had to own, had ranked as extremely special.

Her dreamy mood seemed to extend over into Sunday. Farne Maitland was still in her head as she showered, threw on a pair of trousers and a tee shirt, and went down the stairs. She headed for the kitchen. Her mother had help with the domestic work three mornings a week, but not at the weekend.

‘Good morning!’ she greeted her mother brightly. ‘Need any help?’

Her mother was busy cooking bacon and eggs for her husband, and, as always, she refused any offer of assistance. But her eyes left what she was doing and fastened on her daughter. ‘How did your evening go?’ she asked, and was unsmiling.

Somehow, and Karrie realised it was ridiculous, her evening suddenly seemed very private, and not to be shared with anyone. She gave herself a mental shake. For crying out loud—this was her mother!

‘Fine!’ she understated with a smile, and went on to babble on about where she and Farne had dined and what they had eaten. Her voice tailed off, however, when she became aware that her mother was looking just a mite concerned. ‘What...?’

Margery Dalton began speaking at the same time. ‘He, Farne Maitland, seems—different from your usual boyfriends,’ she said carefully.

He was hardly a ‘boyfriend’, but Karrie had to agree he was certainly different from anyone else she had ever been out with. ‘He is,’ she answered quietly.

‘Oh, Karrie, I fear so for you!’ her mother suddenly cried, every bit as though she had lain awake all night worrying about her.

Karrie was quite taken aback, but attempted to rouse her mother’s sense of humour anyway. ‘That’s your job,’ she teased.

But Margery Dalton, the bacon she was cooking forgotten, seemed to have worked herself up into something of a state. ‘He seems more—worldly than any of the...’

‘Oh, Mum.’ Karrie tried to quieten her mother’s anxiety. ‘If you’re using Travis Watson as a yardstick—everybody’s more worldly than Travis.’

‘But Travis is safe—and you’re as unworldly as he is. With this new man of yours, he won’t be content to...’

‘Mum, I probably will never see him again.’ Karrie, thought it politic to end the conversation.

‘You will.’ How could her parent sound so positive? Karrie wished she could be that confident herself! ‘Promise me, Karrie, that you won’t do anything silly,’ her mother urged in a sudden rush.

‘Silly?’ Karrie had no idea what her mother meant for a moment. But it did not take long for conversations she’d had with Margery Dalton over the past six years to come back all at once and make her meaning exceedingly clear. Silly as in getting herself pregnant!

‘Oh, you’ve no need to worry about...’ Her voice faded—she could see that her mother was looking extremely upset. Karrie smiled. ‘I promise,’ she said, without further hesitation—her mother had enough to contend with without being caused further grief if Karrie didn’t give her her word. At last she got a smile out of her mother.

They met up as a family when breakfast was ready—her father was in a grumpy mood as he complained, ‘This bacon’s frizzled!’

Margery Dalton charged straight into battle. ‘Don’t eat it, then!’ she bit back.

Bernard Dalton gave his wife a venomous look and, not taking her orders, crunched his way through his breakfast and left the two women in his household to get on with their own thoughts.

Farne had kissed her, Karrie mused dreamily, kissed her and squeezed her hands. Prior to that he’d stood with her, holding both her hands. ‘It seems that I shall have to let you go’ he’d said. Did that mean anything—or nothing?

Nothing, of course, you chump! What did you think it meant? Well, precisely nothing, she supposed, but... Would he ring her next week, perhaps the week after? He’d left it four days before ringing her yesterday. Today was Sunday. Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, she counted. Would he ring her on Wednesday? Oh, she did hope so. But perhaps he wouldn’t ring at all.

The fact that she must be looking as bleak as she felt at that thought was borne out when her father, looking her way, asked sharply, ‘What’s the matter with you? Are you sickening for something?’

Karrie glanced at him, becoming at once aware that his questions had caused her mother to look at her too. With both parents studying her, Karrie knew a desperate need to be by herself.

‘I’ve never felt better,’ she answered brightly—and as soon as she could she went up to the solitude of her room.

Once there, she faced that her father had not been so very wide of the mark when he had questioned what was the matter with her, and asked, ‘Are you sickening for something?’ She was. Something wonderous was going on inside her which she hadn’t been able to give a name to. She, was falling in love. Oh, my word!

With Farne Maitland in her head the whole of the time, it had gone eleven before Karrie realised it. Aware that she couldn’t stay in her room for much longer if she didn’t want her mother coming up to check if her father had been right and there was something the matter with her, Karrie knew she would have to go downstairs. The problem with that, though, was that her father was far too observant, and, should he glance her way and find her, in some unguarded moment, looking anxious or dreamy, then he wouldn’t keep it to himself. Her mother would then be on to her. But, for Karrie, this fragile emotion that was gaining strength was, in its infancy, intensely private, and therefore not to be spoken of or shared.

It was a sunny summer’s day, so she decided to risk the twice-a-week gardener’s wrath and do some weeding. Changing her slip-on shoes for a pair of plimsolls that had seen better days, she pulled back her hair and secured it in rubber bands in two bunches, and reckoned she looked workmanlike enough for her task outside.

‘It’s a shame to stay indoors on such a lovely day!’ she announced, popping her head round the drawing room door, where her silent parents were absorbed by the Sunday papers. ‘I thought I’d tidy up the rose bed.’

The rose bed was tidy already, she saw. But she decided to tidy it anyway, and was soon on her knees totally caught up—in thoughts of Farne Maitland.

Her concentration was briefly disturbed when, around fifteen minutes later, her father steered his car round from the rear of the house where the garages were. He wound down a window as he passed and commented, ‘Old Stan will have your hide if you mess that up,’—Old Stan being the gardener—and went on down the drive.

Karrie smiled and waved to her father, and tried to concentrate once more on her weeding. Never had an evening sped by so quickly. They’d talked and talked, she and Farne, and she hadn’t felt gauche or unsophisticated in his sophisticated company once. She supposed it said a lot for the man himself that he’d made her feel so comfortable with him. Oh, she’d just die if he never phoned again. Even while she knew there would be nothing in the world she could do about it if he didn’t ring her, she fell to wondering—did he like her? Just a tiny bit? He must do, mustn’t he? Otherwise he wouldn’t have phoned her in the first place. Oh, she did so hope that nothing she’d said or done had put him off. Had she...?

Her thoughts at that moment were suspended after the sound of a car purring into the drive broke into them. Thinking that it was her father, returning from wherever he’d been, Karrie looked up—and got the shock of her life!

It was not her father’s car which made its elegant way up to the top of the drive and which halted outside her front door. But the long, sleek black car in which she had been a passenger only last evening!

At first Karrie thought that she’d had Farne so much on her mind that she was imagining that he was there. But no, as the man in his mid-thirties extracted his long length from the vehicle and, having spotted her, began to make his way over to her, she could see for herself that it was none other than Farne Maitland!

Hurriedly she scrambled to her feet. She wanted to call out a greeting, but her voice seemed to have died on her. Had she left something in his car? Her brain went dead too—she couldn’t remember. Had he called on her to return whatever it was?