Permission To Love

After Sheila had married her father they had never taken on another housekeeper, Sheila preferred to manage with help from the village, and at the time she had not properly understood Lucas’ grim, ‘That you’re not!’

Which only went to prove how much of a child she actually had been. No. It had taken Gwendolin to open her eyes to the truth. People were talking about her and Lucas, she had told Lindsay spitefully. And when she had asked why, Gwendolin had pointed out that they weren’t related by blood. ‘I’ve seen the way you look at him,’ she had added nastily. ‘Poor Lucas, he must find it difficult to deal with such a mammoth crush. It isn’t fair to him at all of your father to have landed him with the responsibility of you. And what about when he marries?’

Lucas married? A coldness had crept through her limbs. ‘What’s the matter,’ Gwendolin had demanded acidly. ‘Surely you realise that Lucas is an extremely virile man? Naturally he will marry … and when he does you can hardly suppose his wife will want a teenage stepsister on her hands.’

Lindsay knew without having to hear it in so many words that when Gwendolin talked of Lucas’ wife, it was herself she had in mind. A deep pain tore through Lindsay when she turned the conversation over in her mind later. She didn’t want to lose Lucas as well … not so soon after losing her father and Sheila, and marriage would take him away from her … she knew that.

Gwendolin hadn’t been content to leave matters there. She had told Lindsay in Lucas’ hearing that people were starting to talk … that there were those who thought it wrong for a teenage girl to live so closely with a man who after all was no blood relation to her. Lindsay had been instantly defensive. ‘Lucas might not be my brother,’ she had cried painfully, ‘but I love him as one …’ Can’t you see, she had wanted to say, he’s all I’ve got left, but the words had stuck in her throat, and later on when Lucas had changed from the warm, smiling man she knew into a grim-faced stranger she had been filled with dread.

At first when he had insisted on taking her out with him when he went visiting their neighbours she had thought it was because he wanted her company, but her pleasure had turned to pain when she realised the truth. He was trying to get her married and off his hands.

He gave her the ultimatum the night after Richard Browne had approached him for permission to marry her. Either she accepted Richard or she went to finishing school.

His treatment of her had hurt her bitterly. Where was the Lucas she knew and loved? All her appeals to him met with stubborn resistance. He had even flinched away from her when she tried to touch him, his eyes cold and hard. ‘You can’t stay here alone with me,’ he had told her bluntly.

It was then that she had grown up. ‘Not quite six months ago you were telling me to take charge of my own life, Lucas,’ she had reminded him coolly.

His smile had been openly derisive. ‘That was before I realised how incapable of doing so you are. You’ve been brought up almost from birth to fulfil one purpose and one alone Lindsay. Your father had made it plain what he expects me to do … I owe him too much to ignore his wishes.’

‘But I don’t want to go to finishing school and I don’t want to marry Richard.’

He had looked at her broodingly after her passionate outburst and then asked, ‘So, what do you want to do.’

What might have happened if she hadn’t said those next foolish words? There was no knowing. ‘I want to stay here with you,’ she had told him emotionally.

His whole expression had changed, hardening, rejecting her silent plea for understanding.

‘What as Lindsay?’ he had demanded harshly, ‘My bed-mate? Because that’s what everyone will think you are. Look at yourself.’ He had spun her round so that she could see her own reflection in the mirror. ‘Although you may not know it yet there’s a potent streak of sensuality in your nature. You might be innocent, but you don’t look it, and if we continue to live here alone, your reputation will be ruined.’

There were so many things she could have said—they could have got a housekeeper … they could have … but what was the use of thinking that now. His announcement had shocked her, stunned her into silence and pain. All she was aware of was his rejection. Did he, like Gwendolin, think she harboured some secret love for him. Was that why he was so keen to get rid of her. Pain heaped up on pain and suddenly all she wanted to do was to be free … free to escape from Lucas and from her pain.

She had left that night, taking with her a suitcase and Post Office savings book.

It hadn’t taken Lucas long to track her down to the dingy lodgings which were all she had managed to afford. One look at his grimly angry face as he opened the door and stared at her had killed for all time any childish longing she might still have had that she could run into the safe harbour of his arms and that everything would be made all right.

‘Pack your things, I’m taking you home.’ That was all he said to her, and it wasn’t until he had got her back to Dorset that he broke the shattering news to her that he was going to marry Gwendolin. Of course she knew that Gwendolin wanted him. The look in the older woman’s eyes when she looked at him was openly obvious, embarrassingly so, but although Lucas had had plenty of girlfriends, Lindsay had never seen him single Gwendolin out for any special attention, but now he was telling her he was going to marry her. Remembering Gwendolin’s claim that no wife of Lucas’ would want her around, she announced grimly that he had wasted his time in bringing her back because the moment the wedding was over she was going to leave.

They had argued about it up until the wedding and beyond. Lucas had even postponed having a honeymoon because he did not trust her not to run away while he was gone. After he had married, his temper had become even more savage, and Lindsay had suffered several verbal maulings from him because he eventually conceded that it might be best for her to live away from home. He had suggested university, but by that stage she was in no mood to fall in with any of his suggestions and so had insisted on London. What a trial she must have been to him. It was no wonder he was always so cool and distant to her on the rare occasions when she did go back. Her father had left the house to them jointly … but she never thought of it as home now. Gwendolin had brought in a firm of designers once she and Lucas were married, and although the results were very stylish Lindsay found them cold and unappealing. But now she would have to go back. Lucas would have to know she was getting married and Jeremy was right. It would be both silly and childish to leave him to find out second or even third hand. And what was more, it would be cowardly too, Lindsay admitted. She had been avoiding facing Lucas for far too long.

CHAPTER TWO

THE soft Dorset burr of the woman who answered the telephone was unfamiliar to her. Gwendolin had employed a live-in couple from Barbados when she and Lucas were first married, and Lindsay wondered if perhaps they had left. If so, she was not surprised. In her opinion Gwendolin had overworked them unmercifully. But never when Lucas was there. No, Lindsay had learned early on in her relationship with the older woman that Gwendolin presented a far different face to those whom she wanted to impress than she did to those she didn’t, and Lindsay herself, and her staff were patently among those she did not.

At first when Lucas had announced that he was to marry Gwendolin she had been shocked, and yes hurt somehow, although she knew the latter emotion to be an unreasonable one. Of course it was natural that Lucas should want to marry. He had had many girlfriends, some of whom she had liked in a luke-warm sort of way and some of whom she had not, but at the time he had made his announcement to her she had been almost overwhelmed by something approaching revulsion that he should even contemplate marrying Gwendolin. For one thing she had pursued him so blatantly that Lindsay had been sure Lucas would reject her on those grounds alone. For another it was widely gossiped locally that Gwen had had more than one affair. She had been no inexperienced girl when she married Lucas, and Lindsay vividly remembered her own sense of inadequacy and embarrassment when Gwendolin had once mocked her for her own inexperience. She shivered slightly even now, not wanting to picture Lucas and Gwen as lovers, but unable to stop herself from doing so, images of Lucas’ athletic naked body sensually entwined with that of his dark-haired wife. The sensations aroused by the images stunned her. Distaste caused nausea to rise up in her throat and almost choke her. What was wrong with her that she could feel like this about another couple and yet when it came to Jeremy … or any other man for that matter … she felt so intrinsically cold?

Gathering her thoughts together she asked to speak to Lucas and was told by the new housekeeper who introduced herself as Mrs James that he was away on business overnight.

‘Yes,’ she confirmed she did expect him back by the weekend, when Lindsay introduced herself. Forcing down her reluctance Lindsay asked to speak to Gwendolin. There was a small hesitant pause before Mrs James said uncertainly, ‘I’m afraid Mrs Armitage is not here either.’

Taking a chance, Lindsay arranged with Mrs James that she and Jeremy would arrive late Friday evening. As they had to go and visit Jeremy’s parents the following weekend, she would have to tell Lucas about her forthcoming engagement soon, and although she would have preferred to do so by ‘phone, Jeremy who was a stickler for everything that was proper and correct, would frown over her doing so.

It amazed her that after all this time the rift that had opened up between herself and Lucas that last summer, should still hurt her so much. She was six years older for goodness sake, no longer a teenager but an adult herself. At Gwendolin’s insistence she had always spent Christmas at home with them, but she had always found her visits uncomfortable occasions, longing for them to be over. Gwendolin was an extremely social person and the house always seemed to be packed with guests; friends of hers in the main, unknown to Lindsay and whom she did not find particularly convivial. Lucas always remained remote and cold towards her appearing, so it seemed to avoid her company, reminding her shamingly of Gwendolin’s assertions that he had found Lindsay’s feelings for him embarrassing and annoying. In many ways it did not surprise her that they had not had children—Gwendolin was the most unmaternal woman she had ever met, but Lucas, she remembered had always been good with them and she would have expected him to want a family of his own.

Sighing faintly as she replaced the receiver, she tried to concentrate on her work, but her mind kept wandering, replaying memories from her childhood, Lucas … playing tennis with her, coaching her … Lucas, helping her with her homework … The warmth he had always shown her and the loneliness she had felt when he went to university. She heard a door slam and realised that Caroline was back. Her flatmate poked her head round the study door, having knocked briefly.

‘Busy?’ she enquired, ‘Or do you fancy a coffee?’

‘I’d love one. I ought to be working,’ Lindsay admitted, ‘but I just can’t turn my mind to it.’

‘Mmm … I wonder why. Most unlike you.’ Caroline looked at her shrewdly. ‘Your inability to concentrate wouldn’t have anything to do with a certain cousin of mine would it?’

‘Sort of. We’re going down to see Jeremy’s parents the weekend after next,’ Lindsay told her, answering her unspoken question.

Caroline grimaced faintly and rolled her eyes. ‘Poor you. His mother’s a bit of a stickler. Jeremy’s the apple of her eye of course, and no girl could possibly be worthy of him. Of course you have got one thing in your favour.’

‘My money you mean?’ Lindsay stood up with fluid grace, kneading the tension knots at the back of her neck. ‘Mmm …’

‘Still you’re hardly springing a surprise on them,’ Caroline comforted. ‘Ma was saying the last time I went home that it was high time the pair of you got engaged. What about your family?’

‘Well there’s only Lucas of course,’ Lindsay told her. ‘Jeremy and I are going down to see him this weekend.’

‘Lucky you.’ Caroline dimpled a smile of feminine envy at her. ‘It’s just as well that he’s your stepbrother and safely married, otherwise poor Jeremy wouldn’t stand a chance.’ She saw Lindsay’s expression and grinned. ‘Oh come on Lin, surely even you can see that he’s living, breathing temptation to our poor vulnerable sex. The dreadful thing is that he doesn’t even seem to be aware of the effect he has on us. I wonder what he ever saw in Gwendolin.’

‘She’s very attractive,’ Lindsay responded weakly, feeling honour-bound to defend her stepsister-in-law.

‘Sure if you like icebergs,’ Caroline came back forthrightly, ‘I’m sure she doesn’t have an ounce of human warmth in her, and Lucas never strikes me as being a man who’s madly in love with his wife, does he you?’

‘He’s always been adept at hiding his feelings …’

‘Is that what it is? Sometimes I get the feeling he’s put them into cold storage,’ Caroline came back. ‘I wonder if he’s faithful to her?’

She saw her flat-mate’s expression and grimaced. ‘Okay, so he’s everything the perfect husband should be, but she’s very far from being the perfect wife. I didn’t say anything before but when I was in Gstaad this winter I saw her there … and not with Lucas.’

‘She’s a very keen skier,’ Lindsay told her a little stiffly, ‘Lucas is a busy man … perhaps he couldn’t get away. And anyway just because you saw her with another man that doesn’t mean …’

‘That she’s having an affair with him? Don’t you believe it,’ Caroline told her. ‘They might have had separate rooms and they might have been discreet but they were lovers all right … you can’t mistake the signs.’

‘Don’t tell me … I don’t want to hear any more,’ Lindsay wanted to plead, and like a warning bell, a comment of Lucas’ surfaced from the past. ‘You always want to avoid awkward situations Lindsay, but you can’t spend the rest of your life doing that. One day I hope you’re going to opt for pleasing yourself rather than simply pleasing others.’

And it was true. Intelligent; attractive, popular, she knew she was all of those things and yet deep inside herself she saw herself as a coward. As a child she had striven desperately hard after her mother’s death to please her father … to take the place of the woman they had both lost, and had always been nagged by the feeling that she had somehow failed; that the intelligence and stamina she had inherited from him, detracted, in his eyes, from her character and that he would have preferred her to be more like her delicate, hesitant mother. At school too, she had tried to please, breaking the pattern only that summer she had been sixteen, and then of course with Lucas. Lucas was the only person she suddenly realised, with whom she had been able to be properly herself. He had always encouraged her to state her own opinion, to argue with him if she felt so inclined. Lucas had never demanded that she fitted herself into any preconceived ideas he might have about her. But Lucas had changed when her father died; he had ceased being a beloved brother and mentor and become instead a remote, cold stranger, who no longer hugged or touched her in any way; who did not encourage her to talk to him and who eventually married Gwendolin, thus ensuring that there would be a gulf between them for ever. Was Caroline right? Was Gwen unfaithful to him? But why? She had never made any secret of her desire for Lucas. She had in fact pursued him relentlessly, so why break her marriage vows and take a lover?

‘Seeing Jeremy tonight?’ Caroline enquired, changing the subject. Lindsay shook her head. ‘I need an early night. I’m taking a break from the office next week, so I want to clear my desk first.’

‘Are you and Jeremy going away?’

Once again Lindsay shook her head. ‘No. I haven’t had a break yet this year. I thought I might do a little bit of shopping … unwind a bit, relax …’

‘Mmm … well I’d better fly. Simon’s taking me to dinner, and if I don’t get a move on I won’t be ready.’

Simon was the new man in Caroline’s life. Her menfriends lasted on average a matter of weeks rather than months, and unlike Lindsay she was constantly falling in and out of love.

LINDSAY finished work early on Friday afternoon and returned home to pack. She had almost finished when the ‘phone rang. Her nerves tensed totally unexpectedly, and until she picked up the receiver and heard Jeremy’s familiar voice she didn’t realise that her tension had been in case the caller was Lucas.

‘Lindsay I’ve got some bad news,’ Jeremy began without preamble. ‘I’m not going to be able to make it this weekend. Something’s come up and I have to fly up to Scotland to see a client.’

There had been several occasions recently when Jeremy had had to work at the weekend, and as Lindsay suppressed her annoyance she heard him saying, ‘Look why don’t you go home as planned—after all, you’re going to want to tell your brother about our engagement before we make it public. My parents will want to put a notice in the Times, once we’ve made things official next weekend.’

What Jeremy was saying made good sense, Lindsay knew that and yet she was filled with an intense feeling of reluctance to do as he suggested. She didn’t want to see Lucas without the protection of Jeremy’s presence, but why?

Shaking aside her nebulous fears, she spoke to Jeremy for several more minutes, eventually agreeing that she would go ahead as they had planned.

Once she had replaced the receiver she wandered into her bedroom wondering what to wear for the journey, and eventually settling on an attractive soft green wool crêpe pleated skirt with a toning sweater. The green reinforced the unusual tawniness of her eyes, and her skin which tanned well, glowed softly golden. They had had a good spring and early summer, and the sun had bleached her hair slightly adding natural highlights, but as she applied her make-up with deft, practised strokes Lindsay was unaware of her own attractions. She didn’t want to go home, she recognised unhappily, but she had to … It’s only for one weekend, she reminded herself, and yet inwardly she was dreading it; dreading seeing Lucas … and of course Gwendolin.

She left London an hour later, driving the Escort car she had bought for herself several months earlier. By most people’s standards she and Jeremy could live quite comfortably on their joint salaries, but of course Jeremy had responsibilities towards the estate—heavy and expensive responsibilities, which she suspected were the main reason he was marrying her. What did she want, she asked herself in exasperated impatience as she automatically turned her car in the direction of her home. She didn’t love Jeremy passionately herself and yet here she was questioning his own lack of passion for her. Hadn’t she accepted yet, in spite of all the evidence to support it, that she was simply not a woman with deeply passionate sexual feelings?

The late afternoon traffic was heavy and she forced herself to switch her attention from her unprofitable thoughts to her driving.

As she drove westward, Lindsay found the traffic gradually thinning out and when she took the familiar turning off the motorway several miles before Bath, she had the narrow road almost all to herself.

Almost all too soon she was driving through the familiar villages, the last one, Hinton St Jude, still as chocolate box pretty as ever with its thatched roofed cottages, their front gardens a rich blaze of colour. It was only a couple of miles from the village to the house, a small square Georgian building set in attractive parklands.

The electrically operated gates stood open and Lindsay’s stomach muscles clenched as she drove through. She was dreading the weekend more and more with every moment that passed.

She parked her car in front of the house, a little surprised to find the gravel parking area otherwise empty. Climbing out of the car without pausing to check her make-up or hair she walked up to the front door. It still seemed strange to be knocking on the door of what was legally at least still her home, but Gwendolin had made it quite plain shortly after her marriage that Lessings was now her home, and that as its mistress she expected Lindsay to behave as a guest.

Five minutes went by without any sign of anyone coming to answer her knock. She still had her old keys—it had seemed foolish to keep them but for some reason she had, and feeling more like an intruder than a member of the household, she fished through her bag for the front door keys, wondering as she inserted them into the lock if they would still work or if Gwendolin had had the locks changed. The door swung open easily as the key fitted, and once she was inside the hall, a wave of nostalgia overwhelmed her as she breathed in the unmistakable scents of pot-pourri and wax polish. In her mother’s and then Sheila’s day the house had always smelled like this, and it had been a smell she loved, but Gwendolin hated it, describing it as medieval, and the bowls of pot-pourri and the old fashioned beeswax had been banished. Now it seemed both were back.

Standing at the foot of the stairs, Lindsay called out experimentally, but there was no response. The distinct feeling that she was alone in the house would not leave her, and she walked slowly into the kitchen. Where was everyone?

A note was propped up conspicuously on the refectory table, and Lindsay picked it up skimming through it. At least she now had an explanation for the housekeeper’s absence. It seemed her sister had been involved in a car accident and she had been called in to take care of her. But where was Gwen? Her sister-in-law, Lindsay remembered had an extremely active social life, but even so she felt a tiny prick of annoyance that there was no one here to welcome her. She left the kitchen and wandered back through the hall into the immaculate drawing room. Gwen had called in a team of interior designers shortly after her marriage, and Lindsay had never liked the cold sophisticated rooms they had created. She had preferred the faded chintzes of her mother’s and Sheila’s time, and she grimaced in faint distaste at the sterile purity of the now almost all white and chrome room.

As she remembered the only room the designers had not been allowed to touch were the kitchen and Lucas’ study, and her old bedroom.

Lucas! Her stomach felt as though it had suddenly been twisted painfully, her nerves so on edge that she felt acute nausea. Where was he? At work no doubt at this time of day. Her mouth hardened slightly. Couldn’t he even be bothered to come home to welcome her? Welcome her? A harsh bitter laugh escaped her compressed lips and echoed into the thick silence. That would be the day. No doubt he was as anxious to get his weekend over with as she was herself.

And yet, almost without volition her footsteps led her in the direction of his study. The door was half open and Lindsay walked in, a puzzled frown creasing her forehead as she saw the neat pile of correspondence on his desk. She walked closer and saw on the top of one pile a neatly written note in what she now recognised as the housekeeper’s handwriting. ‘Miss Lindsay ‘phoned’, it read, ‘she and a friend are coming down for the weekend. I have put Miss Lindsay in her old room and her friend in the guest suite.’

Lindsay thought quickly. Did this mean that Lucas didn’t know she was coming down this weekend? But why would the housekeeper leave a note for Lucas? Why not simply tell Gwen? Frowning deeply Lindsay made her way back to the kitchen and filled the kettle. While she was waiting for it to boil she pondered on what she ought to do. Plainly whatever business had taken Lucas away from home had delayed him and the housekeeper had not had an opportunity to inform him of her visit. On the other hand it was equally plain that he was expected home imminently—the fridge was full of food for one thing. Although it was tempting to simply get back in her car and return to London all she would be doing was putting off the eventual ordeal. She hadn’t realised until now how much she had been nerving herself for this meeting. If she left without seeing Lucas she would have it all to live through again. The kettle boiled and Lindsay automatically went through the motions of making herself a pot of tea. She would take it upstairs with her and have a shower. That might help her to relax. At least she knew where she was sleeping. If, when Gwen came back she objected to the way she, Lindsay, had made herself at home, well she had only herself to blame for not being on hand to receive her. Her mind made up Lindsay poured her tea and went back into the hall.