Comparative Strangers

Comparative Strangers

Sara Craven

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Former journalist SARA CRAVEN published her first novel ‘Garden of Dreams’ for Mills & Boon in 1975. Apart from her writing (naturally!) her passions include reading, bridge, Italian cities, Greek islands, the French language and countryside, and her rescue Jack Russell/cross Button. She has appeared on several TV quiz shows and in 1997 became UK TV Mastermind champion. She lives near her family in Warwickshire – Shakespeare country.

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

About the Author

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Endpage

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

IT HAD RAINED during the week, and the river was in spate, crashing between its banks and hurling itself at the stone bridge as if it sought to sweep it away.

A torn-off branch from some tree came whirling downstream, carried helplessly along by the angry brown waters. From her vantage point on the bridge, Amanda watched as it submerged, drawn down by some unseen vortex, and her hands tightened on the stones of the parapet until the knuckles turned white.

A few seconds, said the small cold voice in her head, and then—oblivion. No more hurting. No more betrayal, cutting at you like a knife, slashing away at all that was warm and joyous and trusting in your life. Nothing.

The rush of the water, the roar of the wind in the trees, seemed to fill her head like a scream of outrage at the life which had turned against her.

She lifted her foot, searching for a hole, feeling the rough surface of the bridge ripping at her fragile tights, scraping her legs. Panting, she dragged herself up on to the parapet and crouched for a moment, closing her eyes against the swift giddiness which assailed her.

She thought, ridiculously, I hate heights.

Slowly, gingerly, she uncurled herself, and stood up. One step was all that she needed to take, she told herself, swaying slightly. Or perhaps the force of the wind would do it for her.

She felt herself lifted, snatched, and she screamed aloud as she realised she was falling, not forward towards the water, but back on to the bridge again.

From a thousand miles away, a man’s voice, drawling and vaguely familiar, said, ‘It isn’t as simple as that, believe me.’

She said a name in anguished disbelief, but it was lost in the inner tumult consuming her, overwhelming her, and consigning her at last to the dark forgetfulness she had sought.

She opened her eyes dazedly to movement and the noise of a car engine, found that she felt deathly sick, and closed her lids hastily.

Later, she became dimly aware of voices in the distance, and of the softness of cushions beneath her. The same familiar voice said, ‘Drink this,’ and she drank obediently, too weary to protest. Whatever liquid it was, it seemed to run down her throat like fire, but it dissolved away the last of her resistance, and she slept.

She woke to lamplight and firelight, and lay for a few puzzled moments, coming to terms with the fact that she was at home, lying on the sofa in her mother’s drawing-room.

She thought, drowsily, But I went to Calthorpe to be with Nigel. How did I get back here?

Memory hit her like a blow, and she sat up with a little stifled cry, her shocked eyes meeting the cool, level gaze of the man who sat on the opposite side of the fireplace.

She said, ‘You—Oh God, you …’ Then her voice broke, and she began to cry, her body shaking under the impact of deep, gulping sobs.

‘Why did you stop me?’ she wailed between paroxysms. ‘Why the hell did you stop me?’

He got up silently, handed her an immaculate white handkerchief from his breast pocket, and vanished.

Amanda buried her head in the cushions and wept until she had no more tears left. When she eventually lifted her head, he had come back into the room and was putting down a tray, laden with tea things, on to a table in front of her.

He said, conversationally, ‘They say tea is the best thing for shock. I wonder if it’s true?’

She said huskily, ‘I don’t want any bloody tea! What are you doing here, Malory?’

‘I followed you from Calthorpe,’ he said. ‘I had a feeling you were contemplating something foolish, and I thought I should stop you. That’s all.’

‘All?’ she echoed bitterly. ‘Didn’t it occur to you to mind your own business?’

‘You’re engaged to my younger brother,’ he said. ‘I felt that gave me—a kind of responsibility.’

‘Your half-brother.’

‘If you want to split hairs.’

‘And I’m no longer engaged to him.’

‘So I infer.’

It was that coolly precise way of speaking which had so often needled her about Malory. She supposed it came from a lifetime of analysing things in those damned laboratories of his. But she wasn’t a substance under his bloody microscope—and how dared he be so calm and matter of fact when he knew quite well her heart was breaking?

He poured out some tea and handed it to her. She would have liked to have thrown it over him, to see if that would ruffle that distant poise of his, but instead she sipped the hot brew, watching him sulkily over the rim of her cup. This was only the second time he’d been to the cottage, she realised, and he’d lost no time in finding his way around the kitchen.

She said, frowning, ‘How did we get in here, anyway?’ Her keys, she remembered painfully, were in the car, parked at the bridge.

‘Luckily, your cleaning woman was still here,’ he said. ‘I told her you weren’t feeling well, and I’d brought you home. I also said I’d stay with you until your mother returned.’

‘Then you’ll have a long wait,’ she said childishly. ‘Mother’s in London staying with a friend. That’s why …’ She stopped abruptly.

That was why I went to Calthorpe—to be with Nigel. Because it seemed prudish—ridiculous in this day and age—to hold back any longer, with the wedding so close now. Because I didn’t want any more rows—any more accusations about being impossibly old-fashioned, or not loving him enough to trust him.

But that wasn’t something she could confide in Malory, or anyone else, for that matter.

She thought of her mother, happily shopping for something to wear for her important role as mother of the bride, and felt another wellspring of grief rising inside her. Damming it back, she drank some more tea.

Malory said gravely, ‘You probably wouldn’t have drowned, you know. Just injured yourself quite badly.’

‘I can’t swim,’ she returned defiantly.

‘Perhaps not,’ he said. ‘But, when it came down to it, you’d have fought. You’re a survivor, Amanda. In fact, you were having second thoughts about jumping, even before I got to you.’

‘That’s not true,’ she said shakily, replacing her cup on the table. ‘I wanted to die. I still want to.’

‘Simply because you found Nigel cavorting in bed with another lady?’ He shook his head. ‘I think you’re made of stronger stuff than that, my child. I think, when you ran, you were hurt and confused and wanting, in some muddled way, to hit back at Nigel—to punish him—hurt him as he’d hurt you. I followed you, in the first instance, because I was worried about you driving in the state you were in. I thought you might crash the car.’

‘I didn’t see you.’

‘I didn’t intend you to,’ he said equably. ‘Would you like some more tea?’

She said an ungracious, ‘No,’ then added reluctantly, ‘Thank you,’ because she supposed he meant to be kind, although kindness wasn’t a quality she’d particularly associated with him before.

But then, she didn’t really know very much about him at all, except that he was Nigel’s older brother, and the head of Templeton Laboratories. When she had first met him, she’d been conscious of a vague disappointment, because she supposed she’d been expecting an older edition of Nigel, with the same outgoing charm and rakish good looks.

But Malory Templeton had been totally different, shorter than Nigel—barely six feet, she estimated—and built on a more slender scale, too. Their basic colouring was the same, they were both brown-haired and blue-eyed, but Malory’s skin was almost pale when contrasted with Nigel’s robust tan.

He had been quietly polite, his handshake firm as he greeted her, but Amanda had found his manner chilling, and was absurdly glad that he and Nigel inhabited such very different worlds. He was almost like Nigel’s shadow, she’d thought.

Now, at the worst moment of her life, their worlds seemed to have collided, and she felt uneasy about it.

She said abruptly, ‘What were you doing at Calthorpe, anyway? You don’t usually go to watch Nigel. You’re not interested in rally-driving. He told me so.’

‘I’m not,’ he said briefly, and there was a silence. At last he said, ‘I suppose I went there for a confrontation.’ His mouth twisted slightly. ‘You see, you’re not the only injured party in all this.’ His gaze met hers squarely. ‘The lady with Nigel was someone I’d come to think of as mine.’

Amanda’s lips parted in a soundless gasp, but she couldn’t think of a single thing to say.

He added pleasantly, ‘Or did you think the sole object of my affections was a test-tube?’

The blunt answer to that was ‘probably’, but she didn’t give it. Yet, if she was honest, it was difficult to imagine anyone as colourless as Malory Templeton being involved in a passionate, full-blooded affair.

She said stiltedly, ‘I’m sorry.’

‘So am I,’ he said. ‘But at least I had the advantage of suspecting what was going on. I didn’t just—walk in on it.’ He paused. ‘If I’d arrived there sooner, I might have been able to stop you.’

‘But you wouldn’t have been able to stop it happening,’ she said in a low voice, staring at the flames flickering round the logs in the hearth.

‘No,’ he agreed, and there was another silence.

At last, curiosity impelled her to say, ‘And what about you, Malory? Are you a survivor, too?’

He said drily, ‘Well, I’m not leaving here to look for another flooded river. My pride may be damaged, but my heart’s still intact. I hadn’t got anywhere near the stage of offering it—or my hand.’ He flicked a glance at Amanda’s fingers. ‘I note you’re no longer wearing your ring.’

‘I threw it at him,’ she confessed. She had bruised her knuckle wrenching the solitaire off. The slight pain had seemed the only reality in an increasingly nightmare situation: Nigel’s sex-flushed face turned unbelievingly towards the door, the glazed eyes focusing, his mouth gaping ridiculously, like a fish’s. All that, she thought, would haunt her for ever. A faint flush rose in her cheeks. That, and the image of the naked girl straddling him so ecstatically.

Malory said, ‘It would be far better not to think about it.’ He looked at her expressionlessly, and her colour deepened. Was he some kind of clairvoyant? she wondered angrily. It was bad enough that he was here, intruding on her life at all—prying into her misery. She didn’t want him trampling over her thoughts as well.

She said with faint defiance, ‘You have a better idea?’

‘I think you should change your skirt and stockings,’ he said unexpectedly. ‘The ones you’re wearing are in rather a mess, and you don’t want to look as if you’ve been through some kind of trauma when Nigel shows up.’

She gasped. ‘You think he’ll come here?’

‘I’d put money on it,’ he said laconically. ‘He’ll be coming to confess his fault and ask for absolution. But not,’ he added, ‘for penance.’

Amanda felt as if she was dreaming. She said, ‘You can’t be suggesting that I should overlook this—simply pretend it never happened and forgive him?’

‘I’m suggesting nothing. Just telling you what Nigel will expect. My stepmother, you see, always forgave him everything, so he’s grown up with the idea that none of his peccadilloes will ever be held against him.’

Amanda said hotly, ‘Sleeping with his brother’s girlfriend is hardly a—a whatever.’

‘I don’t think he’ll agree with you. It isn’t a serious relationship between them, you know. Just a little sexual romp, with some mutual guilt for added spice.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘I expected him some time ago, but no doubt he’s still preparing his defence.’

‘Defence?’ Amanda repeated. ‘What possible defence can there be?’

Malory considered for a moment. ‘Well, the best form of defence is supposed to be attack, so in his shoes I’d probably opt for that. I’d claim that you’d driven me to infidelity through sheer sexual frustration.’

Amanda sat very upright, and stared at him. She said, ‘How do you know that—I mean, that Nigel and I don’t—that we haven’t …’ She broke off, flushing furiously.

‘Because you have virginal eyes,’ Malory said almost casually, adding, ‘Quite a rarity these days.’

Amanda had always presumed he was as uninterested in her as she’d been in him. It was, therefore, disturbing to realise that, in fact, he’d been observing her so closely.

She took a breath. ‘That’s a—bloody chauvinist remark.’

‘Yes, isn’t it?’ he said cordially. ‘I’m not immune from the normal male responses, or faults, if you prefer.’ He paused. ‘You really think I’m a dull stick, don’t you, Amanda? Well, compared to Nigel, I suppose I am. And apparently Clare thought so, too.’

The faint bitterness in his voice wasn’t lost on her, penetrating momentarily her own unhappiness and resentment. But she didn’t want to know about this more human side of him. She preferred him civil, but aloof and bloodless, the way she’d always thought of him.

Twenty-four hours ago, she hadn’t known that Malory was involved even marginally with anyone. Now, the picture of this Clare with her beautiful face and lush, full-breasted nakedness seemed indelibly printed on her mind. As, no doubt, it was on Malory’s.

She got to her feet. ‘Well, I’ll go and change.’

He cast a slightly frowning glance at her legs. ‘And put some antiseptic on those scratches while you’re about it.’

She was tempted to salute smartly, but controlled herself. Instead, she was half astonished, half appalled to hear herself saying, with faint challenge, ‘Anyway, they’re not stockings. They’re tights.’

She’d expected to embarrass him, to see him avert his gaze hurriedly. But, deliberately, he allowed his scrutiny to intensify, to linger where her still-damp skirt clung to her thighs.

‘What a disappointment,’ he drawled. The frown had vanished, and the challenge was being returned, she realised, with interest. ‘Like most men, I much prefer stockings.’

She wanted to say, ‘Another chauvinist response,’ but she couldn’t because she was the one who was embarrassed now, knowing that she would stumble over the words. Or, indeed, anything she attempted to say.

The most dignified, in fact, the only course seemed to be a silent retreat upstairs.

In her bedroom, she took a long look at herself in the mirror, and grimaced. She’d dressed so carefully for that surprise reunion with Nigel. Now, the straight cream skirt was stained with damp and streaked with lichen, and she’d scuffed the toes of her new shoes, too.

And her skin was dreadful, she thought with a pang: blotchy with weeping, her eyes red and puffy.

If Nigel was really on his way here, she didn’t want to face him like this. In fact, she never wanted to see him again.

She stripped and put on her robe before crossing the narrow landing to the bathroom. She ran herself a warm bath, adding a capful of Savlon to the water before lowering herself into it.

In spite of the warmth, she found she was shivering. She supposed it was reaction to everything that had happened. She’d set out that day for Calthorpe, as nervous as a kitten, but burning with anticipation at the same time.

‘Love me,’ Nigel had pleaded hoarsely so many times. ‘Trust me.’

And she’d been prepared to do just that, telling herself it was absurd to attach so much importance to the symbolism of a white wedding—a wedding night. She loved Nigel, she wanted to give herself to him, and her mother’s departure for London, coupled with the few days’ leave allotted to her by her grateful, vacation-bound boss, had seemed to provide the ideal opportunity for her to prove to Nigel, once and for all, that she desired him just as much as he seemed to want her.

He had finished third in the rally, one of his best results ever, and she had rung the hotel where he was staying to congratulate him the previous evening, so she knew his room number.

But the planned surprise had rebounded on her, she thought, wincing, as the pain of his betrayal lashed at her again. She had never loved anyone else but Nigel. And now she never would. Never could.

She had first met Nigel just over a year ago, when the company she worked for had been helping sponsor a rally in the Lake District, and had held a lavish reception for the drivers. Amanda had been roped in to help, making sure that everyone mixed socially, and that the drinks circulated too.

She didn’t know what had made her look up at one point, but it had been to find Nigel watching her from the other side of the room. He had raised his glass in a silent and admiring toast, and she had turned away, blushing and biting her lip, wishing savagely that she had several more years’ maturity and a wealth of sophistication to draw on.

When he had made his way to her side, she hadn’t been able to believe it. He was already a name in rally circles—one of its young, rising stars, the papers said, although a few sports writers had commented in caustic terms on his good fortune in having the Templeton money to back up his ambitions.

Amanda had no illusions about herself. She was attractive enough, she supposed, if rather over-slender, with her green eyes, and a mane of reddish-chestnut hair which she kept tied back for work. But she had no wealthy background, nor any kind of star quality to compete with Nigel’s.

But, miraculously, that seemed to be what he wanted. And when, after a few months of wining, dining and dancing together, he’d asked her to marry him, she’d agreed without hesitation, hardly able to credit her good luck. And she’d been living in a fool’s paradise ever since, she reminded herself with angry bitterness.

She was brought out of her unhappy reverie with startling suddenness by an imperative rattling at the bathroom door.

Malory’s voice said sternly, ‘Are you in there, Amanda? What’s taking so long?’

‘I’m having a bath,’ she called back, remembering too late that she’d forgotten to lock the door, and looking round frantically for the nearest towel.

Through the panels of the door, his voice sounded grim. ‘As long as that’s all. I’m counting to ten, Amanda, and if you’re not out of there by then, I’m coming in.’

She realised he was concerned in case she was overdosing, or cutting her wrists with her own miniature razor, and a tiny bubble of hysteria welled up inside her.

But, meanwhile, the countdown seemed to be proceeding, and she hauled herself rapidly out of the cooling water, blotting the excess moisture from her body before tugging on her robe and knotting its sash firmly round her waist.

Malory had reached ‘Two!’ when she flung open the door and confronted him.

She said, ‘I don’t need a minder.’ She sounded altogether more uptight than she’d intended and, as his brows rose, made haste to modify her approach. ‘Malory, this afternoon I went slightly crazy. I don’t quite know what happened, but I do know that it’s not going to happen again.’

‘So will I please go and leave you to your own devices,’ he finished for her.

Amanda flushed. ‘Well—yes.’

He studied her for a moment, his face expressionless. Then he said, ‘Just as you wish,’ and, turning, went downstairs. She was brushing her hair in the bedroom when she heard his car drive away, and drew a breath of profound relief.

She couldn’t deny that he’d been very kind, but it irked her that it should ever have been necessary. She had behaved like the top hysterical idiot of all time, and that was quite bad enough, without having Malory Templeton observing the whole performance as if she was some specimen for dissection.

Of course, he’d had an emotional set-back of his own, although he’d seemed to take it pretty much in his stride. Amanda put down her brush. If she was honest, she decided, she couldn’t altogether blame Clare for chasing Nigel. He had a glamour that Malory totally lacked. Malory might be rich, and be the brains behind Templeton Laboratories, but in other ways he was pretty much of a nonentity. In fact, she found it difficult to recall exactly what he looked like. But what did that matter, she asked herself impatiently, when almost certainly she would never be obliged to see him again?

Nigel arrived an hour later. Amanda hadn’t heard his car, but the two imperative rings at the doorbell were his trademark and, reluctantly, she went to answer his summons.

Face and voice subdued, he said, ‘Hello, darling. Are you going to let me in?’

She stood silently aside to admit him to the hall.

His blue eyes surveyed her wryly, then he said, ‘Well, say it, love. Scream at me, hit me, tell me what a bastard I am. You’re perfectly justified to call me anything you want.’

Amanda was thankful to hear her own voice so steady. ‘What’s the point of calling you names? It won’t change a thing. I don’t know why you’ve come here, Nigel, but …’

‘Isn’t it obvious?’ he interrupted passionately. ‘I’m here because I love you, Manda. Oh, I know that must be hard for you to credit, after what you saw today, but it’s true all the same. This—Clare—doesn’t mean a thing to me. We had a few drinks last night—and everything snowballed.’

‘What was she doing there in the first place?’ Amanda asked quietly.

‘At Calthorpe?’ He shrugged. ‘Search me, love. Watching the closing stages of the rally, I suppose.’

She said, ‘But she was Malory’s girl, wasn’t she?’

Something flickered in his eyes, then he shrugged again. ‘They may have been seeing each other—who knows? Mal’s private life is a closed book to me, and I doubt whether he opens it very much himself, either. After all, he’s hardly a turn-on for any woman, in bed or out of it.’

The casual cruelty of it made her wince in swift distaste.

‘You shouldn’t say things like that about your own brother.’

‘Half-brother,’ he corrected, and she remembered picking Malory up on the same point—a lifetime ago, it seemed now. ‘But we’re not here to discuss Mal’s sexual proclivities, if he has any.’

‘Then why are we here?’ Amanda asked wearily.

‘To talk out this stupid mess, then put it behind us for ever,’ he said intensely. ‘For God’s sake, Manda, we have too much going for us to allow one idiotic slip on my part to come between us. After all, it’s you I want to marry, not some silly little slag.’

She heard herself say, ‘It’s not as simple as that …’ and heard yet another echo from her conversation with Malory.

‘But it is, or it could be if you’d let it.’ Nigel took a step towards her, his face darkening a little as she backed away. For a moment, a sharp tension enwrapped them both, then he relaxed deliberately, giving vent to a little sigh.

‘So, what do you want me to do?’ he demanded resignedly. ‘Plead with you? Grovel? Go on my knees? I will, if that’s what it takes. But just remember, Mandy, all this would never have happened if you’d been less of the icy little virgin.’