Sinful Nights(85)

It took another hour for them to fight the way through the rest of their  presents, while Claire tidied up and collected the discarded wrappings.

She had kept back the filing system she had bought for Jay until last.  He had already opened the Roger and Gallet toilet water she had bought  him and unwrapped the navy jacquard sweater with its design in olive and  maroon, and she held her breath as he now unwrapped her last gift.

For a moment the expression on his face confused her. He looked so strange that she wondered if she had somehow angered him.

If you don't like it  … ' she began, tentatively, but he shook his head.

I love it,' he said simply. Come here.'

She got up unsteadily, wondering what it was he wanted. Was he perhaps  going to kiss her, the way he had done the girls? Her heart thudded  shakily at the prospect, but when she reached him, although he took hold  of her hand, it was just to tug her down beside him.

Here's my present to you,' he said softly, handing her a long rectangular parcel.

Claire frowned. She had already received several presents from him,  including one of perfume, and an American cookery book, that a brief  glance had told her she was going to enjoy. There had also been a much  coveted decorators' directory she had glimpsed in the window of an  exclusive book shop in Bath, and, rather surprisingly, a silky camisole  in softest peach, lavishly trimmed with lace.

Open it!' demanded Lucy impatiently.

All they had left to open were their large presents, hidden behind the  tree, and so, bemusedly, Claire started to unwrap her gift. Inside the  paper was a dark leather-covered jewellers' box edged in gold. Claire  felt her stomach clench in shock as she fumbled with the fastening and  got it open. On the bed of dark velvet lay a necklet of milky pearls,  supporting a heart-shaped emerald surrounded by diamonds. It was the  most exquisite thing she had ever seen, and she touched it tentatively,  too stunned for words.

Jay  …  it's  … ' She looked up at him and swallowed. You shouldn't have bought me this! It must have cost a fortune!'    

 



 

The emerald reminded me of you,' he said quietly. Cool, and as clear  and honest as a mountain spring that refreshes and revives. Beautiful  and rare.' He saw she was abut to interrupt and said softly, You are  all those things to me, Claire, and if it had cost ten times what it  did, it still wouldn't be adequate recompense for all that you've done.'

Recompense. She tasted the word and found it bitter. She didn't want to  be recompensed. She wanted  …  she wanted to be loved, she realised  shockingly, unaware that her face had lost all its colour, or that her  eyes had a blind terror in their depths.

She heard Jay's sharply indrawn breath, but didn't connect it with her  own reaction to his gift, and then Lucy was saying excitedly, Aren't  you going to kiss him, Mummy?' And somehow, reacting automatically, she  was touching her cold lips to his warm skin, and feeling his sharp  recoil with a pain that hurt so much, she couldn't believe she had ever  thought she had known pain before.

It was a relief to escape to the kitchen to see to the lunch. Jay took  the girls outside on their new sledge, while she worked like an  automaton, wondering why it was that she should be condemned to loving a  man who could give her only gratitude. And he wouldn't even want to  give her that, if he knew the truth. In that moment she knew that she  must conceal for ever how she felt about him. If she didn't  …  if she  didn't their marriage would be a nightmare. He wouldn't divorce her for  the girls' sake, but if she told him how she felt she would lose his  friendship, lose those precious confidences he gave her, those evenings  together when he talked to her about his work, when she felt as though  they met as equals. She would lose all that, without any hope of ever  gaining what she really wanted. And what did she want? For him to love  her, yes, but how-in the way that he loved the girls, or in the way that  he had loved his first wife?

Did she want his tenderness or his passion? She didn't know, she had  only known in that blinding moment of revelation that she loved him  totally.





CHAPTER NINE


WELL, HERE WE ARE, LADIES-Dallas!'

The faint air of constraint that had sprung up between them after  Christmas Day still lingered, despite her forcedly cheerful attempts to  dispel it and appear normal, and Claire couldn't help noticing how  careful Jay was not to touch her as they disembarked from the plane that  had brought them from Heathrow.

She didn't think Jay had actually guessed how she felt about him, but  she knew that he sensed something. She often found him watching her in  an assessing, almost withdrawn way. Assessing and finding wanting,  perhaps? A cold fear dug icy fingers into the pit of her stomach.

Are you all right?' he queried.

Just getting used to feeling firm ground underneath my feet again.'

The Goldbergs had sent a chauffeur-driven car to pick them up, and as  they drove from the airport and through the city itself Jay pointed out  several landmarks to them. It was the flatness of the countryside and  the expected and yet awesome vastness of everything that she noticed  most, Claire thought as she listened to the girls' excited chatter.

She knew that the Goldbergs owned a house on the outskirts of Dallas and  that it was here that Jay's firm had done the work which had won them  the contract for John Goldberg's prestigious building developments.

The Goldberg house was built in what Jay had described as a Neo-Colonial  style, and featured a large enclosed patio in the manner of the French  Creole houses of St Louis. Claire was looking forward to seeing it, but  the ten-foot-high brick wall and the security guard on the gates came as  rather an unpleasant shock. The man was cordiality itself as he let  them through, but Claire couldn't repress a small shiver as she noticed  the gun he was wearing.

John's a millionaire,' Jay told her quietly, and these days I'm afraid that means taking certain security precautions.'

Claire knew that the Goldbergs had two almost grown-up children: a son at Yale and a daughter at Vassar.

The long drive curved through immaculately kept gardens, with sprinkler  systems to keep the lawns green and fresh, and the house stood at the  end of the drive, its long, symmetrical windows gazing out over the  grounds.

A double flight of marble steps led up to the colonnaded Palladian-style  entrance. The car stopped, and the chauffeur opened the doors. Claire  noticed how subdued the girls were as the four of them climbed the  steps.

I had no idea it would be so big!' she whispered to Jay as they approached the front door.

She just had time to catch his grin, and to hear him whisper in a mock  American drawl, Honey, this is Texas,' before the massive double doors  were opened.    

 



 

The couple who came out to greet them could have starred in any  glamorous American soap opera. John Goldberg was tall, his face tanned,  his hair just touched with distinguished wings of silver. Celeste  Goldberg was petite and blonde. Her silk pants and top shrieked Milan,  and there could be no doubting that those pearl and diamond earrings she  was wearing were real. Even so, her smile of welcome was warm and  genuine, her manner towards the girls, instantly putting them at ease.

They were ushered into a rectangular hallway; a flight of marble steps  at the far end rose to a galleried landing. The soft, green-washed walls  were embellished with gilded plasterwork, which Claire instantly  recognised.

It looks wonderful!' she told Jay impulsively.

We certainly think so,' said Celeste. And so do all our friends. We've  given you a suite of rooms overlooking the patio; I'll show you to them  now. I know you must be tired.'

Claire was. In fact, she was finding it hard to understand why sitting  still for so long should be able to induce such numbing exhaustion.

It's this way.'

Claire and the girls followed their hostess upstairs, while Jay lingered  to talk to John Goldberg. At the top of the stairs a pair of double  doors in white and gold opened out on to a galleried walkway that went  all the way round an unroofed quadrangle.

All the bedrooms have access to the pool and patio area from this  gallery,' Celeste told Claire, indicating a flight of steps that went  down to the ground below.

As she gazed over the iron railings, Claire could see the rich blue  shimmer of the pool. Built in a traditional shape, it was ornamented  with a piece of marble statuary, and the patio itself was flagged in  white marble diamond-shaped tiles, interspersed with smaller dark blue  ones to match the tiles in the pool. White marble columns supported the  walkway and a wide variety of exotic climbing plants curled green  tendrils around them. The whole effect was one of cool richness, right  down to the birds Claire could not see, but could hear singing.

It's a recording,' Celeste told her, laughing when Claire commented on  it. John wanted to create the old St Louis-style family patio, but I  drew the line at caged birds, so this was a compromise. We do have a  much larger pool and barbecue area in the grounds, of course; but we  only use it when we're having large parties. John had a tented pavilion  area made next to it where we can put down a dance floor and serve a  buffet. Ah-this is your suite here.'