Conveniently His Omnibus(8)

‘It’s my fault, I’m afraid, Mrs Marley.’

For the first time since seeing Chris she became conscious of Jon standing beside her.

‘Your... Oh!’ There was no mistaking the displeasure in her mother’s voice and Sophy felt her guilt turn into quiet despair.

‘Where’s Father?’ she asked, scanning the garden.

‘He’s showing Felicity, my wife, the new rose arbour he’s building,’ Chris answered easily. ‘I rather think I shall have to watch my wife, Mrs Marley,’ he added charmingly to Sophy’s mother, ‘I do believe she’s falling rather hard for your husband.’

Listening to her mother’s girlish trill of laughter, Sophy was overwhelmed by a familiar feeling of alienation. She didn’t fit in here in this neat overtidy garden...in this peaceful English family scene. Chris was more at home here than she was, she thought bitterly, and her mother more pleased by his company than she ever was by hers.

‘Nonsense, you foolish boy,’ she chided Chris. ‘Anyone can see that Felicity only has eyes for you. She’s so much in love with you.’

She could almost see Chris preening himself under her mother’s flattery and suddenly Sophy felt the most acute dislike for him. She had fallen out of love with him a long time ago but this dislike was a new and gloriously freeing thing, giving her the courage to say calmly, ‘Mother, there’s something I—’

‘I think I should be the one to break our news to your parents, Sophy.’

The deep and commanding tones of Jon’s voice broke through her own, silencing her. She blinked and turned round to study him, wondering at this sudden assumption of masculine authority, half expecting to see someone else standing behind her. But no, it was still Jon, looking thoroughly hot and uncomfortable in his baggy cords and thick woollen shirt, his glasses catching the sunlight and obscuring his eyes from her.

Their voices had obviously carried down the garden, and Sophy watched her father walking towards them accompanied by Chris’s wife. She was every bit as pretty as her mother had said but Sophy felt no envy for her, only a certain wry sympathy. Unless he had changed dramatically, Chris did not have it in him to be loyal and loving to one woman, even one as lovely as this. Her pregnancy barely showed, her light summer dress showing off her summer tan.

‘Darling, let me introduce you to an old friend of mine.’ Irritatingly it was Chris who took charge of the proceedings, drawing his wife towards him.

‘Oh, not another old flame, darling....’ The fluttery voice was unexpectedly hard, and instantly Sophy revised her opinion. Chris’s wife was not the delicate little flower she looked. On the contrary, she was every bit as hard as Chris himself, she thought inwardly, taking the hand the other girl extended.

‘Heavens, aren’t you tall!’ Innocent blue eyes slid upwards over Sophy’s body. ‘You must be almost six foot.’

‘Five-ten actually.’ From somewhere Sophy managed to summon a cool smile. Six foot made her sound like a giantess—a freak almost.

‘And this,’ Chris was looking past Sophy now to Jon and the children. His mouth curled in a dazzling smile, laughter lighting his eyes as he looked at Jon. ‘You can only be Sophy’s boss!’ His glance swept derisively over Jon’s appearance, and Sophy could almost see him comparing it with his own. The immaculate white cotton jeans, the cotton knit jumper in blues and greens banded with white...the elegantly cool casualness of his appearance in comparison to Jon’s.

Chris’s rudeness did not surprise her, but the blindingly fierce stab of mingled anger and protectiveness she felt, did. She reached out instinctively to take Jon’s hand in her own, unaware of the deeply gold glitter in her eyes as she said firmly, ‘And my husband. That’s what we came to tell you... Jon and I were married this morning.’

‘Married!’ Her mother looked shocked and disbelieving, and Sophy was furious with her when she cried out, ‘Oh, Sophy...no...how could you do this to us?’ her eyes dropping immediately to her daughter’s tautly flat stomach.

Fury kicked sharply beneath her heart as Sophy realised what her mother was thinking.

‘Sophy is not pregnant, Mrs Marley.’ She was still holding Jon’s hand and the firmness with which he squeezed her fingers was intensely reassuring. She was beginning to feel as though she had strayed into a bad dream. She had known her parents would not be pleased...but that her mother should actually think she was pregnant. She was burning with embarrassment on her parents’ behalf. Neither of them had made the slightest attempt to put Jon at ease or to make him feel welcome.

‘Then why such a rush?’ her mother complained. ‘Why didn’t you say anything the last time you were here?’ She looked suspiciously from her daughter’s flushed face to the one of the man behind her. ‘I know what it is,’ she said shrilly. ‘You’ve married her so that you’ll have someone to look after those children. I told you he was making use of you.’

Sophy couldn’t endure it. She turned blindly towards Jon saying huskily, ‘I think we’d better leave,’ but the hard pressure of his hand holding hers held her back.

‘You do your daughter a severe injustice, Mrs Marley,’ he said very gently. ‘I married Sophy quite simply because I love her.’

Even her mother fell silent at that, rallying enough to add huffily, ‘Well, I still think you should have told us, Sophy. I can’t understand why you should have got married in such a hole-and-corner fashion at all...and in such a rush!’

‘Because I want to be with Jon and the children, Mother,’ she managed evenly. ‘That was why.’

‘Well you can’t expect your father and me not to be shocked. Not even to tell us about the wedding—’

‘I had the most wonderful wedding,’ Felicity cut in cattily. ‘Five hundred guests and a marquee on the lawn at home. Mummy said it was her dream come true for me.’

‘Good old Sophy! Married, eh?’ Chris was eyeing her with open mockery. ‘I never thought I’d see the day. You know, old boy, I once actually bet Sophy that she’d never find a man to marry her.’

‘Well, you see, you were wrong.’

Was she imagining the faint rasp beneath Jon’s mild tone? She must be, Sophy thought, her skin suddenly burning with furious anger as she heard Chris saying quite distinctly to his wife, ‘Not as wrong as all that.’ He turned to Jon and taunted smilingly, ‘She told you about our little bet, then, did she?’

‘She may have mentioned it.’ Jon looked totally vague and disinterested. ‘But it was a very long time ago, wasn’t it?’ He said it so mildly that there seemed to be no outward reason why Chris should colour so hotly until Jon added equally mildly, ‘Really I’m surprised you even remember it. Sophy can’t have been more than nineteen or so at the time.’

The children were pressing quietly against her side, and Sophy turned to her mother pinning a smile on her face.

‘I think we’d better leave now, Mother. Jon has to fly to Nassau in the morning.’

‘Jon has to...’ Chris’s eyebrows rose. ‘Dear me, how very unromantic but then no doubt as you’re both living in the same house you’ve already had ample opportunity to—’

‘Become lovers?’ Jon seemed totally oblivious to Chris’s malice. ‘Oh, about the same opportunity as any other couple of our age and situation in life,’ he agreed cheerfully.

‘Mummy would never have agreed with me living with Chris before we were married,’ Felicity chipped in dulcetly, earning an approving glance from her mother, Sophy noted.

‘No?’ Really, it was quite incredible how Jon’s face changed when he removed his glasses. He had been in the act of polishing them when Felicity spoke and there was quite definitely something almost satanic about the way his eyebrow rose and his mouth curled as he looked across at the other girl.

‘And we were engaged for twelve months.’

‘A wildly passionate romance.’

Sophy couldn’t believe her ears. Chris was red to the tips of his ears and an unbecoming tightness had formed round Felicity’s bowlike mouth. Sophy was quite sure that Felicity and Chris had been lovers well before the date of their marriage; how could it be otherwise when Chris was such a highly sexed man. She had no doubt that the little act Felicity was putting on was purely for her parents’ benefit.

‘I think we’d better leave.’

Neither of her parents made any attempt to stop them going but Sophy didn’t realise that Jon had misinterpreted the reason for her tiny sigh of relief, as they got in the car and he said in an unusually clipped tone. ‘Don’t let it bother you, Sophy. The loss is theirs, not yours. Good heavens,’ he muttered in a much more Jon-like tone, ‘can’t they see that you’re worth a dozen of that stupid, vain little butterfly?’

Wryly she smiled across at him, and said huskily. ‘Thanks...for everything.’ She was remembering how he had claimed that he loved her, protecting her from Chris’s malice.

* * *

ALL FOUR OF THEM were subdued on the way back, although it wasn’t until the children were in bed and they were alone that Jon again raised the subject of her parents.