'Can you forgive me, Leigh?' Now that he was no longer touching her foot she felt insecure. 'I did ask a moment ago, and thought you said you would. Did I imagine it, I wonder?'
'Forgive?' Her voice, her eyes grew dreamy; she felt they had been here before, then remembered the reception and the same question. It had all started again from there.
'You want your pound of flesh?' The firm mouth curved slightly. 'I can't say I blame you. I'm not used to apologies, Leigh, but then neither am I used to making such a complete fool of myself. As a lawyer, I should be extremely sceptical of circumstantial evidence, so it's quite humbling to realise how I could have jumped to so many idiotic conclusions.'
He shrugged, raised his hands and looked about him for a moment, before returning all his attention to her. 'Here, in the garden of a country vicarage, I ask myself how I could have done it-it seems impossible that I reached the conclusions I did. Put it down...' He paused, his eyes searching her features with a flaying intensity which made her quiver. Put it down to... quite insane jealousy.'
The blood drained from her head then, her mind a surging confusion of thoughts and fears. That this man, this man above anyone, should think, should have imagined... A sob forced its way from her throat, a tear slid from the comer of her eye and down her cheek. And yet... Jealousy? The insane kind? There was a perversity here; there was intense pain yet a stirring hope...
'Leigh, don't.' The anguish in his voice was something with which she could identify and sympathise. 'For God's sake don't. I can't bear it if I make things worse for you.' A distracted hand raked through the dark hair. 'Sooner than that I would go away now, leave you in peace and never interfere in your life again. I can't begin to understand how I could have believed... you and Kyle...'
'And that other one.' Reminding him was irresistible; even as she spoke she felt the healing process begin, helped, perhaps, by the touch of self-derision. 'Don't forget you accused me of an affair with that naval man----' his name refused to come to mind at the moment' -simply on the grounds that he was married-or so you believed.'
'Well!' He had the grace to look embarrassed. 'You remember, I explained-I was half out of my mind with jealousy. Seeing you, all cool perfection, telling me it was not my business-and I knew that already-imagining you with them... It didn't matter that I had no rights; that had no effect on my feelings. I just hated the thought of you with either of them.' His laugh had a bitter note. 'Or with anyone, come to that.' Turning away, he leaned against the tree close to her. 'I suppose, even if... the man in your life, the one you told me about, if he turns out to be the most eligible man in the whole of Europe, it will make no difference. I'll hate him with all the passion I devoted to Kyle Lessor.'
'What?' Things were moving too quickly for her...
'Yes.' He laughed briefly. 'Sounds crazy, doesn't it? I surprised myself with the strength of my feelings. I had always thought of myself as a fairly rational man but the last few weeks have made me revise that opinion. Possibly that's not a bad thing for a lawyer-we ought to be aware that, even in the most ordered lives, something can happen to knock you completely off-course.'
It was as if her brain had jammed in neutral; she couldn't seem to get on to his wavelength. 'I'm still trying to decide what on earth you're saying. Is it...is it something to do with James Brereton?' Then, when his face took on the blankness that she herself was experiencing, it seemed the ideal moment to seize her chance. "The naval officer? The one you added to my list of...lovers?' she accused him innocently.
'Oh, that.' His expression was one of shamefaced guilt. 'Well, I suppose I ought to expect you to pile on the agony, and I'm not complaining, don't think that, but as to the special man in your life, you were quite open about it when I came to your flat that day.' A faint narrowing of her eyes indicated increased watchfulness, and he saw colour come and go in her face. 'Is it so painful for you to discuss it? "Ashamed" was the word you used at the time. I remember it well,' he added, with a faint smile which did little to conceal his bitterness.
'Neither of those things.' Now she was beginning to understand what had previously been so confused, but it was vital to damp down the wilder excesses of hope and expectation which she felt bubbling up. But everything he had said, every word uttered, did seem to point in one direction. Nevertheless, she determined to exercise great control in her reply-already there had been too many misunderstandings. Take your time, she told herself; don't rush. But, unable to trust herself, she concentrated her attention on the book in her hand, sliding a finger once or twice along the length of the glossy spine.
Lying here, so close to him, her heart hammering with wild, exultant strokes, she knew with total certainty that she wanted this man, longed for him with all the urgency of a passionate nature. It didn't matter if there had been a dozen Gillian Places; the past was over and nothing was going to stop her reaching out and seizing what she wanted. She would use all the skill and guile and determination of a man-eater if that was what it took. She had had time to study methods recently; now she decided to hunt with the best of them.
'And,' he prompted at last, invading her thoughts, 'if neither applies, then what?'
'Oh...' A sudden loss of control defeated all the easy resolve of a moment before; words tumbled out without consideration. 'I'm lying- of course I am.' The eyes she raised to his were darkly brilliant, sparkling with insecure tears. 'I find it both painful and shaming, but not-----' feverishly she caught at her lip '-not exactly for the reasons I gave you then. Maybe--' she choked on a shaky smile '-maybe it's time for me to ask you to forgive...'
'Go on.' If she had been less involved in her own emotions, less troubled by the tremors caused by his oh, so persuasive tones, she might have seen that he too was f hiding control less than easy, that his hands were clenched to stop bun reaching out. 'Go on, Leigh.' This was the skilled advocate at his most seductive. 'I know you can't have done anything so terrible, anything that needs forgiveness...'
"That day in Paris...after...after...' Hot colour stained her face. 'When you followed me.' Regaining control now, she spoke with an appearance of detachment. 'When I said I was involved with someone else, it wasn't true. There was no one else. Not that it seemed to matter, since you were all too ready to believe-----'
'And why did I believe, Leigh?' He raked a hand through his hair, spoke through his teeth. 'Ask yourself that, for God's sake.' For what seemed a lifetime they stared at each other, then she saw him close his eyes, press a clenched fist to his forehead as if determined to force comprehension. 'But why in heaven's name did you lie about it? That's what I can't understand.'
It was a moment before she answered, searching for the right words for herself as much as for him. 'I suppose it was mostly that I wanted to pay you back. For Oxford. For the years in between and...' She faltered, struck by the idea that so much spontaneous self-examination might be unwise. There was little doubt that it contradicted all her decisions of a moment before. 'And, even more than that, perhaps-perhaps,' she emphasised, as if she too was questioning her reasons, 'it had something to do with pride.
'You see-----' she drew in one deep, shuddering breath, then looked at him with something like accusation '-I had convinced myself that I was safe, in complete charge of my own destiny, that never again would any man-not just you,' she threw in almost apologetically, 'snap his fingers and-----' the tip of her tongue passed over her lips '-and then I'd wake up in his bed. I thought I was so strong, so much in control of my life, and then to find... Here I was, twenty-five years old, so much more experienced and yet making the same elementary mistakes I had made when I was a student. Surely you can see that that was enough to make anyone feel ashamed?' Searching his face, she waited for a reply, and when he said nothing, just stood there looking down at her, she grew all nervous and jumpy again. 'Well, can't you?'
'Experienced?' It was exasperating that he should ignore most of what she had said and pick up on a single indiscreet word. 'That's what you said just now, and it could mean such a lot or it could mean nothing at all...'
Anger shook her. Men could be so transparent, and she resented being questioned on this subject just as much as she had the last time it had come up. 'If you're asking about my sex-life, then don't. Don't,' she insisted as he seemed about to speak, and somehow, even lying there, she gave the impression that if she had been standing on her feet one of them would have been stamped. 'Not unless and until you are prepared for me to do likewise. I very much doubt if your life has been entirely chaste since Oxford and-----'