"Or else what?"
Ruth looked at him helplessly.
"And don't give me that innocent stare!" he ex¬ploded. "Why didn't you wait for me and tell me to my face that you wanted out? Why run away?" He bore down on her and she flinched, faltering back against the wall, pressing herself against it, thankful for the scant support it provided.
"Because I'm a coward!" Ruth babbled. "I was scared so I did the first craven, cowardly thing I could think of. I ran home to my mum and dad!" Whose absence she fervently hoped would continue just long enough for her to get rid of him.
"You're well rid of me! I'm too gauche for you, too inexperienced. Do you think that any woman with her wits about her would run back to her parents the min¬ute she got cold feet?" She gave a laugh that sounded like a deranged shriek. "I know this means that you now have no respect for me, but I deserve it! I've behaved abominably. Okay? Is that good enough?" She chewed her bottom lip and frantically willed him to disappear.
This was not what Franco wanted to hear. It reeked of insincerity, although when he thought about it he wasn't too sure what he wanted to hear. Something less self-abnegating. But the bottom line was that she was telling him to get lost. She wasn't back in her home town dealing with a broken heart. She had wanted him out of her life and so she had used the quickest method and walked out. Without a backward glance.
He had opened his mouth to give her a piece of his mind, which she richly deserved as far as he was con¬cerned, when there was the sound of fumbling at the front door and two things happened at once.
Ruth gave a groan and sank elegantly to the ground, and a middle-aged couple walked through the door, their chatter drying up on their lips as they absorbed the scene that confronted them.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Ruth opened her eyes to the sight of her mother's worried face inches away from her own, and within seconds the nightmarish memory of why she was lying on the ground came flooding back. She gave a short cry of shock and tried to angle her head upwards to see whether Franco really was there, or whether it had all been some dreadful figment of her imagination. Some obscure pregnancy symptom, perhaps.
"Darling, now don't by and stand up. Not in your condition..."
"Shh!" Ruth hissed dramatically. She didn't have to look up after all to know that Franco had not been a convenient mirage brought on by a sudden attack of morning sickness. Just behind her mother, two pairs of shoes indicated four feet. Her father's and Franco's. She would have recognised those classy handmade Italian brogues anywhere.
She groaned softly and felt like finding temporary refuge in another attack of the vapors.
"Whatever happened, darling?" Her father's rotund face, now wreathed in lines of concern, joined her mother's, and Ruth smiled weakly at them both.
"I'm afraid that I'm to blame, sir."
In the fuss after she had passed out, she realised, introductions had not been made. Knowing her parents, they would barely have afforded the stranger a second look after they had seen their daughter swooning on the floor like a Victorian maiden in a melodrama. Now, they both looked up, and there were a few seconds of silence while they digested the man who had managed to shift into her line of vision and was looking down at her with what she loosely interpreted as a nasty smile.
She struggled up onto her elbows, frantically trying to work out what damage limitation exercise she could adopt, and his hands swiftly pulled her to her feet, fingers gripping hers hard enough for her to massage her hand as soon as he had released her. "Mrs. Jacobs, I do apologize for barging into your house like this." Franco, all dark, persuasive charm, extended his hand to the fair-haired woman staring at him with a perplexed frown. "How are you feeling?"
"I beg your pardon?"
"Fine!" Ruth inserted, blushing wildly and clasping her hands behind her back. "Mum's fine!"
"Ruthie, what are you talking about?" her mother asked, turning to her. "Have I missed something here? And shouldn't you be sitting down? We can't have you falling all over the place, can we?"
"No!" Ruth responded in a high voice. "Mum, this is Franco! Now, why don't I take him into the sitting room and you and Dad can..." her eyes flitted desperately from face to expectant face and settled on her father's "...can...check the progress of supper! The lamb's probably burnt to a crisp...!"
Her mother's expression was beginning to look depressingly alert, Ruth noticed, and she slid her arm around her parents in an attempt to cajole them into the right direction."
"Ruth..." her mother began to whisper, catching her eye and smiling delightedly. ooh, darling. I'm so pleased for you..."
"I'll be back in a moment!" Ruth trilled, pushing her parents towards the kitchen and looking over her shoulder to Franco. "Just wait in the sitting room, why don't you? It's just through there on the right."
"Is he who I think he is, darling?"
"Who's that?
"Who's that?" Having safely arrived at the kitchen with both parents in tow, Ruth leaned against the kitchen door and breathed deeply. Surely this had to be a nightmare? In a minute she would open her eyes, discover that it was eight in the morning and everything was as it should be. Real life, after all, didn't have this surreal quality of farce about it She sighed and looked at her parents.
"Yes," she admitted, "but he won't be staying. He...he...he's in the middle of doing something terribly dangerous, very espionage, and he literally had to sneak out under cover of darkness to get here. In fact, he was just on his way out when you came home!" fire palms of her hands were sweating so profusely that she had to surreptitiously wipe them on her jeans.
"Oh, no!" her mother said with dismay, edging towards the kitchen door...which Ruth resolutely barred.
"Darling, your mother and I really would like to meet your husband and I'm sure he partly came here to meet us. He seems a fair enough kind of chap."
"I absolutely refuse to let the man leave until we've at least had a word with him... And why are you behaving so oddly? You're as red as a beet-root, Ruthie!"
"I...it's a bit hot n the house, Mum," she stammered pressing herself against the door.
"Away! Away, away, away!" Her father shooed her, giving her gentle little pushes to dislodge her and then stepping aside so that both females could walk past him. For the first time ever Ruth speculated on the virtues of running away from home. Twenty-two might seem a bit old to be doing that kind of thing, but then, she thought giddily, how many twenty-two-year-olds had a deal with the horrendous situation staring her in the face?
She would be exposed as a liar in front of her parents and their hearts would b doubly broken. She would never be able to explain why she had lied in the first place and her deepest desire to keep her pregnancy under wraps would be smashed to smithereens.
Her only slim hope was to somehow get rid of Franco before either of her parents could blurt out her condition.
Perhaps they might imagine that he wasn't aware of it, in which case they would leave it to her to break the news in private.
Franco was lounging in the sitting room by the bay window, staring moodily outside at the impeccably maintained gardens, now shrouded in darkness. He turned around when they entered, his eyes seeking and finding Ruth's with the accuracy of laser-guided missiles.
"Well, old chap," her father said, beaming. "Thought we'd never get to meet you!" He strode across and shook Franco's hand vigorously, then he stood back, rocking on his heels, and inspected Franco with paternal thoroughness. "I gather it's been quite an exercise getting here in the first place!" He patted his shoulder heartily.
"Course, as the father of the most beautiful daughter on the face of the earth, I can happily appreciate why you did your utmost! Now, we know you can't stay for long, but surely you can stay long enough to have a quick glass with us...? Some wine, perhaps, or sherry? Might even have a couple of cans of lager; have we got a couple of cans of lager anywhere, darling? So what's it to be...?"