Penny Jordan Collection(78)

                ‘You did,’ he told her promptly, and then relented when he saw her face.

                ‘Mollie talked to me...made me think...see...’

                ‘Mollie? But she never said a word when she rang me—’ Sylvie began indignantly, and then stopped. ‘Oh, Ran,’ she whispered, ‘I can’t bear to think how close we came to...to not having this...not having one another.’

                ‘It wouldn’t have ended here,’ Ran comforted her.

                ‘I don’t know what Lloyd’s going to say when I tell him that I’ve changed my mind and I want to stay at Haverton...’

                ‘For ever,’ Ran told her.

                ‘For ever,’ Sylvie agreed.

                ‘Let’s go inside,’ Ran said abruptly, ‘I want to hold you...make love with you...show you how much I love you...how much I need you.’

                Ten minutes later, as she lay in his arms on his bed, tracing the strong shape of his nose, she told him huskily, ‘There’s only ever been you, Ran. I couldn’t bear...didn’t want...’

                ‘Do you think it’s been any different for me?’ he demanded rawly.

                Uncertainly Sylvie looked at him.

                ‘But you’re a man,’ she protested. ‘There was always someone...one of your sophisticated women-friends...’

                ‘Friends, yes,’ Ran agreed, ‘but lovers, no. Oh, I had some meaningless encounters in the early days, but I’ve not slept with anyone for a long time. It isn’t so very much different for a man, Sylvie, not when he loves a woman the way I love you. Perhaps that was part of the reason why... Will it be a boy or a girl, do you think?’

                ‘I don’t know,’ Sylvie answered. ‘What I do know, though, is that he or she will be a creation of our love.’

                ‘We shall have to marry quickly and quietly,’ Ran told her. ‘Your mother won’t like that...’

                ‘I’d like to be married at Otel Place,’ Sylvie said softly. ‘Where we first met. I do like this room, Ran,’ she added dreamily. ‘It’s very you.’

                ‘Do you? I’m very glad to hear that since from now on you’re going to be seeing an awful lot of it,’ Ran told her mock-solemnly before drawing her down against him and cupping her face so that he could kiss her.

                * * *

                They were married five weeks later at Otel Place with just their immediate family in attendance and, of course, Lloyd, whom Sylvie had especially wanted to be there.

                Alex gave her away whilst her mother, who had been overjoyed to discover that she was to marry Ran, sobbed into her handkerchief. Alex and Mollie’s child was their only attendant, carrying the ring with solemn determination on a velvet cushion embroidered with Ran’s family’s arms. Sylvie’s dress was cream and gold.

                ‘White has never suited me,’ she had told Mollie, adding, tongue-in-cheek, ‘Besides, it wouldn’t be appropriate.’

                ‘I should hope not,’ Mollie had agreed. ‘After the years you and Ran have been apart, I’m surprised he let you out of bed long enough to get married,’ she’d added forthrightly.