Ridiculously they hadn't even discussed what he did for a living. A small smile touched her mouth. Whatever it was it was scarcely important as long as it made him happy. Everything he had said to her implied that when he did return to America he would ask her to go with him, and she knew that she would have some hard thinking ahead of her if he did. She had a responsibility to Oliver and Tara from which she could not wholly abdicate, but she was no suffering martyr and had no intentions of sacrificing her own happiness to assume the duties which should by rights be Fanny's.
No, something could be worked out. It would have to be, she decided grimly, her full lips tightening briefly as she dwelt on the scenes that were likely to occur with her emotional stepmother. It didn't matter what scenes Fanny caused; her love for Saul came first.
Love! The taste of the word made her go dizzy with pleasure. Her feelings for Saul had transformed her from a level-headed young woman into a starry-eyed child, full of wonderment and joy. Her hitherto sedate view of what happiness was had been totally overthrown. It was like discovering that the rare, shimmering mirage was real after all and moreover could be reached out to and touched.
Reluctantly she dragged her mind away from Saul and on to her work, and yet, as she concentrated on the outline for her second book, with maddening insistence her central male character kept appearing to her as Saul.
In the end she gave in to her desire to paint a verbal portrait of him, knowing when she had finished and read through what she had just written that she had breathed so much life into the character that no one could ever believe he was simply a work of fiction.
True to his promise Saul was back for twelve and she was out of her seat and halfway towards the library door the moment she heard his footsteps outside.
The phone rang while he was kissing her and he disengaged reluctantly, holding her within the curve of his arm as he picked up the receiver.
As she watched his mouth grew taut, his eyebrows drawing together in a faint frown.
'OK Ma, I get the picture,' he said abruptly at last. 'But it's impossible for me to get back right now.'
He was silent again, listening to whatever it was his mother had to say. His mother! Lucy had never met her father's sister. Were they alike at all? What would she think of Saul's involvement with her? Was she one of those impressively organised American matriachs who already had a suitable partner picked out for her son?
'No, I don't know how long I'll be-as long as it takes.' He listened again briefly, and then replaced the receiver.
'Problems?' Lucy asked him worriedly.
Her weight was supported against his body and she liked that, liked the feeling of permanence and safety that emanated from him. He felt as steady as a rock-and as hard. The thought briefly made her feel cold. Saul would be a dangerous man to cross, she recognised, seeing in the way he was frowning the irritation of a man used to making his own decisions about his life, without having them queried or crossed.
'A hiccup in my stepfather's business affairs and my mother wants me to return home to sort them out.'
He saw her faint frown and explained, 'I work for him.'
That explained how he was able to take so much time off, Lucy realised, wondering again what it was that he did.
'I'm an accountant-of sorts,' he added curtly, and she realised that his work was not something he wanted to discuss.
'Will you have to go back?'
'Not right away.'
The tension in the muscles of his arm where it lay against her body comforted and yet alarmed her. He didn't want to upset her by saying he might have to go, but she sensed that it was quite possible.
It was still too soon for him to ask her to go with him-at least as his lover-and she prayed feverishly that whatever the problem was at home, it would be solved without the necessity of him having to rush back.
'Are you any closer to finding a buyer for this place?' she asked him, trying to change the subject. Disposing of the Manor must be a burden to him when he obviously had so many responsibilities at home.
'There are one or two possibilities,' he told her cautiously, 'but one always has to be aware as a foreigner that the locals might be trying to gain an advantage. How do you really feel about losing this place, Lucy?' he asked her abruptly. 'You must feel some attachment to it.'
'Yes, but probably only in the way that you do,' she agreed mildly. 'After all it isn't as though it really belongs … ' She broke off, appalled by her near indiscretion. How close she had been then to blurting out the secret of Oliver's birth. She risked a look into Saul's face, anticipating his curiosity, but instead his expression was curiously blank, his arm instantly slackening to release her.
As he turned away from her he said evenly, 'How delightfully British you are at times, Lucy. I see that you do after all consider me something of an interloper here.'
She was horrified by the way he had misinterpreted her words. 'No … no, Saul,' she appealed to him. 'You're quite wrong. I don't see you as an interloper at all.'
'But neither do you see me as the rightful owner here, is that it?'
What could she say? Legally he was the rightful owner, but she knew he did not have the soul-deep feeling for the place that her father had had and which he had passed on to Oliver, in whom she sensed the same emotion, young though he was. But how could she break the promise she had made to her father and tell Saul this? And what good would it do anyway? Saul might even think she was trying to manipulate him into doing something for Oliver.
When she was silent he laughed shortly, turning round to glare at her as he said harshly, 'What a pity you didn't fulfil your father's hopes for you, Lucy, and marry money.' He saw her expression and jeered softly. 'Oh come on, surely you aren't going to tell me you don't know? Even my mother knew, although she flatly refused to help him when he asked her to launch you on the American season and introduce you to a few potential millionaires. The days are gone when they were willing to part with their money in exchange for an aristocratic wife. No doubt he was hoping that your wealthy husband would buy this place from me after his demise, thus securing it for his grandchildren.'
Lucy was completely stunned by what he was saying. He was making it up, he must be; her father had never once said a word of this to her.
'You think I'm lying don't you?' Saul demanded almost savagely. 'Well I'm not-ask my mother. I think you were about seventeen when your father made his first approach.'
Seventeen! Lucy thought back weakly. Fanny had still been married then. And who knew? Perhaps her father, who had always had a penchant for crazy schemes, had dreamed up something along the lines Saul was suggesting.
'I don't think you're lying Saul.' She said it quietly so that he wouldn't mistake the conviction in her voice. 'It sounds just like the sort of thing my father would do. If I seemed disbelieving it was because he never mentioned any of this to me. I know he hoped Fanny would give him a son; and as you say he was almost obsessed with the idea of keeping the house for his own heirs.'
'Almost?' Saul derided bitterly.
'Very well then, totally.'
A certain bleakness shadowed her eyes as she remembered how she had suffered from her father's obsession. A sensitive child, it had not taken her long to recognise that she was not the child he had wanted-not a son.
As though he knew her thoughts Saul gave a kind of groan and came towards her, taking her in his arms, holding her fiercely.
'Forgive me. I had no right to say any of those things to you. The plain fact is that I'm jealous-jealous of the loyalty you give your father-and half scared to death that I'll have to go home before I can persuade you to come with me.'
His admission soothed away the hurt. She turned her face up eagerly, her lips parting in soft invitation.
It was a long time before he released her, his voice faintly shaky as he asked, 'Do I take it that that means that you would come?'
'Anywhere-with you,' Lucy told him, sighing the words against his throat, her eyes closing in bliss as she tasted the masculine flavour of him. It was true. She would follow him to the ends of the earth if he asked it of her. It was too late for pretence now. She was deeply, crazily in love with him-he was the only thing that mattered and if he left her now she thought she might go crazy with the agony of losing him. It was a novel sensation for her, and one that would once have terrified her, but which she now revelled in, knowing that she wasn't alone, that he shared her feelings.