Levelling The Score

She made her way to the larger of the cottage’s two sitting-rooms, and pushed open the door. In the dim light she could see that the furniture was swathed in covers. The air smelled cold and faintly stale, and she went over to open one of the windows.

Simon was right, there was little point in her driving back to London tonight, and yet she still felt a small prickle of unease at the thought of being alone here with him. It was ironic really, when for so many years she had been filled with foolishly romantic dreams of just such an event.

How old had she been when she had become infatuated with him? Fifteen? Fifteen! Why deceive herself? she asked herself ironically. She could remember exactly when it had happened. It had been here at this very house, the summer she was fifteen. Simon had made an unexpected visit and she had been sitting in the garden when he arrived. Tall and bronzed from his French Riviera holiday, where he had been crewing on a friend’s yacht, she had watched him come towards her. Jenna had been alone at the time, Susie and her parents having gone into the nearest town to do some shopping.

Her heart had almost seemed to stop beating, lurching into her throat. She hadn’t been able to speak or even breathe …

Thank heavens she had managed to keep her feelings to herself, and that no one had ever guessed how she felt. Once or twice she had felt a thrill of fear at the thought that Simon might have realised, but apart from the odd teasing comment, delivered in much the same brotherly manner he used towards Susie, he had rarely even spoken to her.

The arrival of his latest, equally tall and tanned girlfriend had brought home to her the impossibility of her romantic yearnings, and when towards the end of the holiday she and Susie had become engaged in a heated conversation about how they wanted to spend the rest of their lives, Elena had laughed in derision when Jenna had mentioned her own wish to settle down and have a family.

‘You see, Simon,’ she had said laughingly, ‘you should always avoid quiet, plain little girls, they always have marriage on their minds.’

Jenna had been hurt by the older girl’s cruel remark, but after all there had been nothing personal in it. Since her arrival they had hardly seen anything of her or Simon. They went out together every day in Simon’s small sports car, returning only briefly at supper time to eat and change to go out again.

Her infatuation for Simon had died quite quickly, but it had left her with a curious antipathy towards him, an unease when in his company that made her restless and on edge.

She heard him coming back, and heard him swear as he stumbled into something.

‘I’ve found the lamps, but there doesn’t seem to be any fuel for them.’

‘It’s in the garage,’ Jenna told him.

He cursed again.

‘Only a woman could do something as idiotic as that! Why on earth isn’t it with the lamps?’

‘Because I believe your father considered that it was safer to fill and light the lamps outside than in the confined space of the cellar,’ Jenna told him coldly.

‘Ah, I see … Very well then, I consider myself well and truly put in my place, and take back everything I have said about your sex, Jenna. Will that do? Have I made amends?’

‘I’ll go upstairs and see if I can sort out some bedding,’ Jenna told him, ignoring his taunting remark. ‘I wonder if your mother still keeps those sleeping-bags down here?’

‘I don’t know. It must be a couple of years since anyone was last down. My father was talking about selling the place.’

Jenna only just managed to suppress her instinctive protest, reminding herself that whatever Susie’s family might choose to do with their cottage was really no concern of hers. But so many of the happier memories of her childhood centred round this weathered, unprotected dwelling. She was being sentimental, she told herself as she went upstairs and made her way to the small walk-in airing cupboard.

Without any proper light it was impossible to find what she was looking for, so she resigned herself to await Simon’s return.

He wasn’t long. She heard the door bang as he came inside, and then saw the glow from the two lamps he was carrying.

He brought one up to her, leaving the other at the foot of the stairs.

‘Here, this what you’re after?’ he asked, tugging on the neatly folded, familiar sleeping-bags.

‘Yes, I thought it would make more sense to use these than to bother making up the beds.’

‘I agree. I was having a root in the kitchen before you arrived. I think I’ve managed to locate a jar of instant coffee and some powdered milk. Mrs M must leave it here for when she comes to do her monthly check.’

Mrs Magellan was the wife of the local garage proprietor. She had a key for the cottage and came up once a month to clean and check that all was in order.

‘I thought I’d use Susie’s and my room,’ Jenna suggested, handing Simon one of the sleeping-bags, and turning away from him.

She and Susie had shared the smallest bedroom, tucked up under the eaves, and she headed for it instinctively.

She only realised that Simon had followed her when she saw the golden glow of the lamp reflecting against the polished wood of the door.

She turned the handle and the lamp illuminated the interior of the small room. The two single beds that once occupied it had been dismantled and an ominous dark stain covered part of the ceiling.

‘Damn! I forgot … Dad did say something about the roof losing some slates during a bad storm. Let’s hope that the damage is just restricted to this room.’

It wasn’t … Out of the cottage’s four bedrooms, only one remained damp free.

It would, of course, have to be Simon’s, although his single bed had gone and in its place was the double bed that had once been in his parents’ room.

‘Well, Jenna,’ Simon announced when they had both surveyed the room in silence, ‘it looks that at long last all your girlish dreams are going to come true and you get to spend the night with me … I take it that you will … er … behave like a lady?’

Jenna could have hit him. All those years when she thought she had successfully hidden that embarrassing teenage crush from him, and now he casually let her know that she hadn’t! What was more, he actually dared to taunt her with the fact, and to add insult to injury.

‘Don’t worry, Simon,’ she told him with acid sweetness. ‘I’m rather fussy about whom I sleep with—one has to be these days. You’ll be quite safe … I’ll sleep downstairs.’

‘Oh, well, at least you won’t be alone,’ he responded comfortingly. ‘From the signs I saw in the kitchen, it looks like a whole colony of mice have taken up residence. I suppose they must have come in from the fields.’

All her life Jenna had had an irrational fear of the small, furry creatures and now immediately she tensed, visions of an entire army of them frolicking over her recumbent form as she slept tormenting her. She shuddered.

‘You’re lying to me.’

Simon’s eyebrows rose.

‘Why on earth should I? You don’t actually think I have evil designs upon you, do you?’

Put like that it sounded ridiculous. Of course he didn’t want her, she knew that, but she also knew that for some reason he seemed to delight in tormenting her. Tormenting her? How could lying on the same mattress while securely wrapped up in her own sleeping-bag possibly torment her?

‘Look, I’m shattered. You make whatever arrangements you choose, Jenna, but if you’ll excuse me I want to get some sleep.’

‘Do you want to take the lamp or …’

Reluctantly she picked up her sleeping-bag and walked over to the bed.

Behind her she heard the bedroom door swing shut and for some ridiculous reason she felt as though she had walked into a well-sprung trap.

‘I’ll let you have first go at the bathroom,’ Simon offered magnanimously, ‘but I warn you, the water is like ice.’

It came from an underground well and Jenna shivered in remembered dread of its icy sting.

She went down to the car to fetch her overnight case, acknowledging the impossibility of using the two shaped seats as a makeshift bed. She was aching all over with tension and tiredness.

She heard Simon moving about in the kitchen as she walked in.

‘Fancy a cup of cocoa? I’ve found some at the back of the cupboard, although heaven only knows what it will taste like with dried milk.’

She was thirsty, and perhaps it would be as well if, for this one night at least, she put her resentment of him behind her.

‘Yes, please.’

‘OK. I’ll bring it up when it’s ready.’

By the time she heard his footsteps on the stairs, she was undressed and tucked up inside her sleeping-bag. It occurred to her that in anyone other than Simon she could have taken his delay as a gentlemanly acknowledgement of her modesty, but since when had Simon ever bothered to take her feelings into account over anything?

The cocoa was surprisingly good, warming her chilled hands as she cradled the mug.

Simon disappeared into the bathroom, and was gone long enough for her to finish her drink and snuggle down into her sleeping bag.

She felt the bed dip and heard the rustle of the nylon fabric as he made himself comfortable, and then the room was plunged into darkness as he extinguished the light.

Some time during the night she dreamed that she was freezing cold, ploughing through numbing wastes of snow, and then deliciously she was warm again. She smiled in her sleep, completely unaware of the fact that the reason she was now so warm was that Simon had unzipped their separate sleeping-bags and then zipped them together to provide extra warmth.

It also brought Jenna into much closer contact with his warm body as he lay against her back!

CHAPTER THREE

JENNA heard the noise distantly, as no more than an irritating intrusion into the pleasant rosiness of her dream. She wriggled comfortably and burrowed deeper into the sleeping-bag, relishing the solid wall of warmth at her back, and then when the noise grew more intrusive she opened her eyes, blinking reluctantly in the brilliance of the early morning sunshine.

It took her several seconds to grasp what was going on. She remembered getting into bed all right, and she remembered the sleeping-bag as well, but she also distinctly recalled cocooning herself into it alone, and now for some reason it seemed to have stretched to include …

She tensed and turned over.

Simon!

He was still asleep, looking absurdly young, even with a dark overnight growth of beard.

‘I don’t know who it is in there, but you’re on private property …’

The bedroom door opened unceremoniously, and Mrs Magellan stood there, glaring belligerently at the bed.

The way her expression changed as she recognised both its occupants could in other circumstances have been amusing, but right at this moment Jenna felt more like a naughty schoolgirl caught in an underhand activity.

‘Well, I never! Miss Jenna … And Master Simon …’ A disapproving frown pleated Mrs Magellan’s forehead. ‘Well, when I saw those two cars parked outside, I thought you must be some of those hippies … I never thought …’

Her frown deepened, and Jenna wondered despairingly how on earth she was going to be able to explain the long and complicated story that was the truth.

She kicked Simon ruthlessly and hard on the shin. He was the one who had got them into this mess, she fumed, and he could jolly well get them out of it! He was the one with the trained legal brain, after all—the brilliant barrister so fluently capable of putting forward a good defence.

She kicked him again. He muttered something unintelligible and then opened his eyes.

‘My God, Mrs M!’ He sat bolt upright, exposing a good deal of hair-darkened masculine torso.

‘Mrs Magellan wants to know what we’re doing here, Simon,’ Jenna told him.

‘Ah …’

Jenna could have sworn that he was amused, though no sign of undesirable levity showed in his face.

‘Well …’

‘I’m sure it’s not for me to question a fully grown man about his morals, Mr Simon, but I should think your mother would have something to say to this … and with Miss Jenna as well …’

‘Yes, well, you see, Mrs M, Jenna and I—we’re going to get married … and Jenna being the sentimental sort wanted to come down here to the place where she first fell in love with me. You know what girls are …’

At his side, Jenna seethed in bitter silence. How dared he do this to her! Why couldn’t he simply have told Mrs Magellan the truth?

‘Of course, we had intended to have separate rooms, but we didn’t realise there’d been so much rain damage …’

‘Oh, well, since the pair of you are getting married, I suppose it’s all right … but it’s not what I would have expected of you, Miss Jenna … I’ll go downstairs now and let you both get up. I dare say you’ll be wanting to get back to London once you’ve had a bite of breakfast.’

The moment the older woman had closed the door behind her, Jenna rounded on Simon.

‘What on earth made you tell her we were getting married?’ she demanded furiously. ‘Why didn’t you tell her the truth?’

‘I didn’t think she’d believe it. I thought I did quite well on the spur of the moment,’ he added thoughtfully. ‘Very well, in fact …’

Jenna wasn’t to be mollified.

‘You know what a gossip she is! It will be all round the village by tonight …’

‘So what? Come on, Jenna,’ he drawled, looking into her shuttered, angry face. ‘It could be worse. I could have let her go on thinking that the pair of us had sneaked down here for a spot of illicit sex, instead of which I did the gentlemanly thing and …’

‘Lied to her! Gave her a totally false impression of our relationship!’ Jenna fumed.

‘What’s wrong? It will never get any further than the village. Your boyfriend isn’t likely to find out, if that’s what’s bothering you.’

‘It isn’t,’ Jenna announced shortly. ‘I just don’t like being involved in any sort of deceitfulness,’ she told him virtuously.

His eyebrows lifted.

‘And of course, lying to me about Susie’s whereabouts in no way constituted any form of deceit?’ he suggested softly.

Jenna wanted to hit him. In fact she was reaching out to do so, when he moved away from her and she became aware that all he was wearing appeared to be a minute pair of briefs.

‘And that’s another thing,’ she told him bitterly. ‘When I went to bed last night, I was lying alone, in my own sleeping-bag.’

‘Mm … You woke me up during the night complaining that you were cold, clinging on to me for dear life. The only way I could shut you up was to zip both bags together.’

Jenna was about to make a heated retort when she had a sudden and extremely disturbing memory of dreaming about snow. She bit down hard on her bottom lip, cursing the tricks that the subconscious mind could play.

‘Look, there’s nothing to get so worked up about. To listen to you anyone would think this is the first time you’ve been to bed with a man.’

He said it so casually that Jenna was stricken into silence. Although he didn’t know it, it was, but there was something so shaming about still being a virgin at twenty-four years of age that she kept it a deep and dark secret.

And the problem was that the longer her virginal state continued, the harder it was going to be to get rid of it.

‘Do you want first go at the bathroom, or shall I go down first and appease Mrs M?’

‘With what?’ Jenna snapped. ‘More lies?’

Even so, she made no objection when he got out of bed, other than to quickly turn her head, averting her eyes from his nearly nude body.

The last time she had seen him wearing so little had been the summer of her adolescent crush, but he had filled out since then, the youth’s body becoming that of a man. Her stomach lurched protestingly as her senses logged the flat hardness of his belly and the tensile, muscular strength of his thighs. He leaned over her, picking up his clothes and she tensed, wishing that he wouldn’t come so close to her. Such man-to-woman intimacy was quite obviously so familiar to him as breathing, while she … while she was rendered as gauche and nervous as a schoolgirl, she mocked herself acidly.

As he moved away from her, she heard him saying laconically, ‘It’s all right, Jenna. I don’t think looking at another man constitutes an act of unfaithfulness.’

Thank God Simon thought she was involved in a sexual relationship with Craig. Otherwise … Otherwise what? Otherwise nothing, she told herself firmly, waiting until she heard him going downstairs before snatching up her own clothes and heading for the bathroom.

It was over an hour before they could escape Mrs Magellan’s determination to provide them with a fitting breakfast, and her questions about the latest news on their families, but at last they were free to go.

Jenna hated the way Simon insisted on accompanying her out to Craig’s car. Quite what Mrs M made of a pair of lovers who arrived at their destination in separate vehicles she had no idea, but no doubt were she to ask, Simon would have a response suitably lacking in truth and reality for her.

‘You’re supposed to be madly in love with me darling—remember?’ he taunted her as she tried to pull away from his constraining hand.

‘Perhaps my lack of conviction springs from the fact that it’s a role I find it quite impossible to visualise myself in,’ Jenna told him tartly.

‘Really! You do surprise me. Can this be the same Jenna who used to follow my every movement with yearning, lovelorn glances?’

Jenna stopped abruptly.

‘Why you …’ She swung around, furious that he should be callous enough to refer to her youthful crush. Her heel caught in a tussock of grass as she moved, and she felt it give way beneath her.

As she fought to regain her balance she saw Simon reaching out towards her. For some reason, she thought that he was going to kiss her, and she was instantly filled with a sense of blind panic, pushing him away.

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