Conveniently His Omnibus(17)

She was still talking to Sophy but it was Jon who answered, his expression unreadable as he drawled, ‘Not very long...not long enough, in fact.’

Sophy could feel the brown eyes darting speculatively from Jon’s face to her own. In time she might quite get to like this petite brunette, but at the moment she was too uncomfortably aware of her speculation and her interest in Jon. My God, she thought despairingly, what was she turning into? A woman who was jealous of every mere look her husband received from other women? She must be going mad, suffering from some sort of sickness brought on by the heat. Or perhaps that frustration Jon had accused her of not so very long ago?

‘There’s an old friend here of yours that you simply must meet, darling.’ Their hostess was talking to Jon now, holding on to his arm in a way that made Sophy’s fingers curl into tiny talons.

‘Roy, over here a minute, darling,’ she called to her husband, and Sophy watched the burly fair-haired man detach himself from a small group.

He looked older than Jon although Sophy recognised that they must be around the same age, clever hazel eyes studying her gravely as he shook her hand.

‘So you are Jon’s wife? You’re a lucky man, Jon, she’s lovely.’

‘Hey enough of that,’ Andrea threatened lightly, punching him on the arm. ‘Just remember you are married to me...’

‘Ah, you’re jealous.’ They were simply playing a game...but Jon could have said the same words to her and they would have been all too true.

‘I think you’ll find you know most of the people here,’ Roy was saying to Jon. ‘What can I get you to drink?’

‘Get him a drink later, love,’ Andrea interrupted. ‘Jon, there’s a very special friend of yours here tonight. An old flame,’ she added, winking at Sophy, as though to show it was still a game, but Sophy could feel herself tense. Jon had tensed too, his jaw hardening fractionally, his eyes closing slightly, such minor changes, that she suspected only she was aware of what they portended.

‘Oh...?’ He wasn’t giving anything away in his voice either, Sophy recognised, watching him frown in the hesitant mild manner she had once thought typified the man himself and which she was now coming to know was simply a form of camouflage. What was Jon protecting himself from? Her mouth felt dry, her body tensing almost to the point of pain.

‘Yes... Lorraine. You must remember her, Jon. Heavens, you and she were an item for a couple of terms at least. She used to be absolutely crazy about you.’

‘But Jon managed to resist all her wiles, didn’t you, my friend?’ Roy was chuckling, ignoring his wife’s frown. ‘Just as well too, otherwise Lorraine would have had you neatly trapped in matrimony and then I would never have been able to meet this lovely lady.’ He kissed Sophy’s fingers gallantly as he spoke.

‘We were all a little in love with Jon when he was at university,’ Andrea told Sophy with a small smile. ‘He was so different from the other under-grads, far more sophisticated and just that little bit withdrawn. It made him seem very exciting and out of reach...challengingly so, I’m afraid. We used to chase after him quite unfairly. All you wanted to do was to be left alone to get on with your work, didn’t you, darling?’ she added to Jon.

Roy laughed. ‘Says you,’ he teased his wife. ‘How do you think he got that jaded, world-weary air you found so tantalising in the first place? It certainly wasn’t by sitting up burning the midnight oil over his books!’

Jon looked distinctly uncomfortable. He tugged at his bow tie as though it were strangling him, but this time Sophy was not deceived. He was not really embarrassed. He was simply pretending he was. If she looked at his eyes, they were cool and faintly aloof, not embarrassed at all.

‘Well you must come and say hello to Lorraine or she’ll never forgive me,’ Andrea insisted, drawing Jon away from Roy and Sophy.

Silently, Sophy watched them go.

‘You mustn’t mind my wife.’ Roy sounded kind and faintly uncomfortable. ‘She’s right when she said that most of the girls in our crowd had a thing about Jon. Poor guy, he was forced to live like a hermit in the end, just to get rid of them. In those days girls had just discovered sex,’ he told Sophy with a grin. ‘It was a difficult time for us men, being the pursued instead of the pursuers.’

‘I’m sure,’ Sophy agreed copying his bantering mood. ‘It must have been hell.’

Roy was easy to talk to but that didn’t stop her glance following Jon’s dark head, watching it bend towards the blonde woman he had stopped beside. Andrea drifted off and left them, Roy was still talking and she must have been making the right responses but inside she was tormented by jealousy. What were they saying? Was this perhaps the one love of Jon’s life? She ached to be with them; to hear what was being said, and was given her chance when someone else came up to talk to Roy. She walked unsteadily away, moving towards Jon. He turned as she reached him, surprise and something else—anger perhaps—flickering across his face.

‘Lorraine, this is my wife, Sophy.’

There was no mistaking the expression in the other woman’s eyes, it was vitriolic. So much so that Sophy found herself taking a step backwards.

‘I think I see Peter Lewis over there. I’d like to introduce you to him, Sophy.’ Skilfully Jon drew her away from Lorraine, leaving Sophy wondering if what they had been saying before she arrived was something for their own ears alone.

At eleven she began to feel tired. Jon was locked in conversation with Roy in the latter’s study, so Andrea had told her. Although everyone seemed friendly, Sophy was disinclined to talk. She wanted to go home. She wanted to be alone with Jon.

‘Deserted you already, has he?’

She recognised Lorraine’s metallic voice instantly, turning to face the older woman.

‘So Jon has finally married! My dear, how on earth did you manage it?’ She laughed when she saw Sophy’s face tighten. ‘Oh come on. I know him, Jon may look like an extraordinarily attractive member of the male species but looks are all there is. Sexually he’s a disaster area—I should know, I spent months trying to get him into bed with me when we were at university together and when I did...God, what a non-event!’

Why was Lorraine telling her all this? Sophy wondered, listening to her.

The glossy red lips curled in open mockery. ‘Oh, come on...you must know it’s true. I know quite well that Jon’s been living like a monk since he left Cambridge. He always did have a hang-up about sex, and you must be aware of it, unless, of course, you haven’t actually been lovers.’

Sophy felt acutely sick. She knew what Lorraine was doing now. The woman hated Jon, Sophy could see that hatred shining in her eyes but she couldn’t know the truth, Sophy told herself, she was simply probing, looking for a weak spot in Jon’s armour, trying to find a way to humiliate him, as perhaps, Jon had once humiliated her. Illuminatingly she wondered if she had possibly hit on the truth. Could Lorraine, like Louise, have been one of those women who had thought to seduce Jon and found the task impossible? She looked at the blonde, noting the hard eyes and arrogant pose. Lorraine was attractive, there was no denying that. At twenty-one or two she would have been beautiful...and probably even more arrogant, certainly arrogant enough to swear vengeance against any man foolish enough to reject her.

She managed a slight frown. ‘I’m sorry,’ she began apologetically, ‘but—’

‘Oh, come on, my dear,’ Lorraine interrupted her impatiently. ‘Don’t give me that, I know Jon hasn’t changed. He was sexless at twenty-two and he’s sexless now.’

‘I’m afraid you’re quite wrong.’ Suddenly, soaringly she felt gloriously strong, glad to do something for Jon...to protect him from this woman’s malice. She even managed to smile freely for the first time that evening. ‘I can’t speak for Jon’s past, of course,’ she shrugged delicately, ‘but I can certainly tell you that as his wife I have no complaints.’

‘But then maybe, darling, you aren’t his wife...at least not in the way that really counts.’

Heavens, Lorraine was persistent—and thick skinned—Sophy thought wryly, but she was not going to let her get the better of their exchange.

‘You mean you don’t think we’ve made love?’ Sophy raised her eyebrows and laughed openly. ‘Oh, but we have.’ She allowed her voice to become soft and dreamy, watching Lorraine’s mouth harden and the colour leave her skin.

‘I don’t believe you.’ Her voice was harsh, and for a moment Sophy felt sorry for her but then she remembered what Lorraine was trying to do to Jon.

‘Then I shall have to make you,’ she said quietly. ‘What is it you want to hear, Lorraine? How Jon makes me feel when he touches me? How I feel when I touch him? Those are very intimate details to discuss with a stranger but what I can tell you is that in his arms I feel more of a woman than I’ve ever felt before in my life. Under his touch my body burns and aches for his possession. I would have gone willingly to his bed, marriage or no marriage. When his body possesses mine...’ She caught the faintly strangled gasp the other woman made as she stepped back, raising her hands as though Sophy’s words were blows, retreating to the other side of the patio to glare at her with patent venom.