'Tell me why you ran away, Leigh.'
'I don't accept that I ran away... I left because-----' she bit fiercely at her lower lip '-because I was ashamed.' Tears sparkled blatantly now on her long lashes. 'It's as simple as that.'
'Ashamed?' Clearly it was not what he had expected to hear, any more than she had planned to say it, and her mind raced madly in search of the next logical step... 'But why, in heaven's name? Why?'
'Oh, Patrick.' How she managed to speak his name in that particular tone-amused condescension with a touch of impatience-she couldn't explain, but she had found the perfect cover for her tortured emotions. 'I wonder if you'll believe me if I say I've never been promiscuous?' The word very nearly stuck in her throat. 'I've always had just one relationship at a time, and I felt...ashamed at what happened last night. It was so unfair.' Even to her own ears the stream of lies sounded utterly genuine and convincing. To you, to me-oh, to all of us, really...'
The silence now seemed endless, and his voice, when at last he spoke, was flat, emotionless. 'Ashamed?'
'I told you, didn't I, that you wouldn't like it?'
'And--' the sneer in his voice made her shake with self-disgust '-who is he, this invisible lover who mustn't be betrayed?'
'That is a question you have no right to ask. I wouldn't dream of asking about your-----' She glared, bit her lip, unwilling to be too exact in her comments, even though there was one name she longed to throw at him.
'Damn you.' Turning away in obvious fury, he swung back just as she was allowing her misery to show. He took a step closer, searching her features as she fought for composure. 'I wonder if it has occurred to you at all, Leigh-----' all at once, he was remarkably detached, cool in a way that only increased her misery '-that there is a chance----' his words were slow in coming, as if each one was being carefully weighed, as if he was performing an unpleasant duty which was none the less affording him some sadistic pleasure '-I would have thought, that you might be pregnant...?'
Her eyes widened in shock as he forced her to recognise the fear that she had spent the entire day trying to chase from her mind, one she wouldn't admit to... 'No.' Her clenched fist came out and hit the table; her tears were almost uncontrollable. 'No!' she repeated, with still more defiant energy.
He continued where he had left off, as if she hadn't spoken. 'If you were to f hid that you were carrying my child, I would expect-no, more than that, I would demand-that you tell me.'
There was a struggle then; she had to wait for composure so that she could find a calm voice. 'The possibility does not exist-you must just take my word for that. No matter what your opinion of me, I'm not so stupid, so irresponsible ...'
'No? Well, take it from me, Leigh, I have strong opinions about certain things, and I would never collude with you in getting rid of-----'
'Then maybe...' She was in such emotional distress now that she was barely aware of what she was saying. 'Maybe you should have considered these things before. Then there would have been no need for you to rush across Paris making threats...'
'Was that what I was doing?' He spoke with such weary regret that she was instantly stabbed with remorse. 'It wasn't at all what I meant, but of course...you're entirely right. Before the event was the time to be aware of possible consequences, only... like you, Leigh, but for entirely different reasons... I hadn't meant it to happen. No matter what my inclination, it was enough for the moment...'
'You hadn't meant it to happen!' Anger and misery brought the burst of accusation which would doubtless have been better repressed. 'How can you expect me to believe that?'
Frowning, looking at her intently, he nodded slowly. 'Maybe because it's the truth. Simple as that.'
'You must take me for a fool.' Biting furiously at her lip, she whirled away, staring through the window, with its panoramic view of roofs and trees, but seeing nothing. 'A complete fool.' Shivering, she wrapped her arms about herself and turned, about to face him with her angry accusation.
'No.' His calmness was an insult, when it must have been apparent to him that she was suffering, that he was the source of her suffering. 'I've always known you to be a highly intelligent, rational woman, not a fool...'
'A fool where-----' How close she had come to making the fatal error of saying 'you'. She managed just in time to change it to, 'Where men are concerned.' In the present circumstances that still wasn't particularly clever.
'Ah!' To her ears the single exclamation was an acceptance of her supposed lifestyle, but before she could react he continued, 'You still haven't explained what you were hinting at. There was, unless I'm wildly misinterpreting, the suggestion that I had planned-----'
'And of course you didn't.' Sarcasm could be so very satisfying, and though it was a pity that it had come to the stage of trading insults there was a certain relief in letting him know how clearly, even if it was retrospectively, she had seen through his plotting.
If she hadn't been so completely overwhelmed by her emotions, so totally dominated by her sensual yearnings, last night need never have happened. She would have summed up the situation the moment her foot stepped on to his luxurious carpet, the instant her ears were assaulted-or insidiously caressed might be a better description-by that erotic music. Even now she could hardly believe she had been so gullible.
'All those soft lights.' It was difficult to subdue her urge to spit the words out at him. 'So much sweet music.' She managed a faint smile, an amused lift of an eyebrow. 'Rachmaninov, am I not right? Are you telling me they were all mere coincidence?'
The expression on his face was inscrutable and somehow deeply wounding. 'What a devious little mind you have.' He gave a short, contemptuous laugh. 'Have you changed so much, I wonder?' He paused; she listened to the violent beating of her heart. 'Or is it merely my memory of you...?' Then he said, more briskly, 'You still haven't explained how I was supposed to know who was going to be there, or is that irrelevant? Was I so crazed, do you suppose, that I might have pounced on whoever turned up?'
'Holly could easily have mentioned my name.'
'She could have, but she didn't. In fact I knew nothing of the invitation until I got home and found the message on the machine, and believe it or not my first instinct was to refuse, since I had a pile of work to catch up on. Come to think of it, it seems a great pity that I didn't stick to my original inclination-don't you agree? Oh, and by the way, the lights, the sweet music-that's another thing you got all wrong. The flats have a series of security devices; one of them switches things off and on at irregular intervals. But you are right on one thing: it was Rachmaninov. Not my choice, in fact, but one of the rather sentimental pieces which tend to appeal to the electronic companies.'
They stood there looking at each other for a long time, then he turned away with a sigh.
'Anyway, to go back to something that you said some time ago, you're probably right on that top-I ought not to have come rushing over here raising Cain. Especially, I ought not to have asked impertinent questions about your private life, and for that I ask your forgiveness. Now the only thing left is for me to go.' He reached the hall and turned. 'But Leigh-----' the eyes searching her face were so intense and probing that his next words should not have been surprising '-that girl I once mentioned to you-I'm beginning to wonder if she ever existed.'
When the door had closed behind him, she stood for a while staring blankly at the smooth pale wood, remembering only his final words, the ones that had reached down into the core of her being, searing, wounding. You might have thought that he too...that he had suffered through the years of separation, though she knew he could never have endured as she had.
But, possibly for the first time, she admitted a tiny doubt about her own position. If she had been less determined to protect her own pride, if she had been less abrasive, less resolved to hide her own loneliness, then-who could say?-they might have ended up as friends, Bt least.
Except, she reminded herself, before she could go far along that regretful road, she could never forgive the betrayal with Gillian Place. But, in spite of everything, some of the sting had gone even from that. It was impossible to whip up the anger and indignation which had once come so easily, and which had probably hurt her more than anything else.
And, in any case, wasn't that what love came down to in the end? Certainly it was what many people believed. Everyone had human weaknesses, relied on those who truly loved them to pardon. To forgive.