‘This was going to be our home, yours and mine,’ he added grimly. ‘We would have carried on the family tradition.’
Fliss had been afraid of that, and she wondered if it would be too disloyal of her to feel some relief that the prospect had been put in jeopardy. Was Robert suggesting they would have lived here with his mother and his twin sisters? Dear God, she couldn’t have done that. It simply wasn’t on.
She also forbore from pointing out that the ‘family tradition’ he spoke about was barely twenty years old. As far as the villagers were concerned, they were still newcomers. Besides, James Hastings’ indiscretions were bound to put a halt to any delusions of grandeur.
‘Well,’ she said evenly, ‘whatever happens, I think we should start married life in a home of our own. Not here. We should choose our own place. Somewhere we can decorate and furnish as we like.’
Robert brought the swing to a sudden halt. ‘What’s wrong with the Grange?’
‘Nothing.’ Fliss realised she had to be tactful here. ‘But this is your mother’s home—at least, for the present. And—and it’s Liz and Dody’s home, too. Haven’t you just said so?’
Robert frowned, the deepening cleft between his blonde brows drawing attention to the fairness of his skin. Even in the height of summer, Robert’s flesh never changed colour. The sun might burn it sometimes, but he never got a tan.
Conversely, Fliss’s skin was of that creamy variety that browned easily. Unlike her hair, which was bleached by the sun’s rays, her arms and legs took on the healthy glow of honey. A fact that dismayed Mrs Hastings, who protected her own skin with almost fanatical zeal.
‘I don’t want to move,’ Robert declared now, his gaze moving over the acres of formal garden to where his sisters still squabbled on the tennis court. And it was true, the neatly trimmed hedges and rose gardens were a delight, particularly at this time of year.
‘Maybe you won’t have to,’ Fliss offered, stifling for the moment her own misgivings about living at Sutton Grange. ‘You’re endowing this woman—Rose Chen—with characteristics you can’t possibly know she possesses. She may be just as upset by the situation as you are. Didn’t you say Mr Davis was of the opinion that she hadn’t known the truth before your father’s will was read?’
Robert shrugged his shoulders. He was a tall man, inclined to sturdiness, and he had played rugby in his youth. In fact he was still a formidable opponent on the field. Yet, for all that, there was a certain weakness about his chin that had nothing to do with his good looks, and a sulkiness about his mouth that was presently all too apparent.
‘You don’t really believe that, Fliss, do you?’ he asked, and although his expression hadn’t changed his voice was softer. ‘Oh, hell, and this was supposed to be the happiest year of our lives. We were getting married at Christmas. I don’t know what’s going to happen now.’
He held out his hand towards her, and, not sorry to leave the concrete rim of the pond, Fliss allowed him to pull her on to his lap. The swing rocked gently now as he nuzzled his face against her shoulder, and she wished there were something she could say to ease his troubled thoughts.
‘There’s plenty of time,’ she comforted, putting her arm about his neck and cradling his head against her breast. Really, she thought, there had been occasions lately when she’d felt more like Robert’s mother than his girlfriend. He could appear totally helpless at times.
Well, perhaps that was an exaggeration, she conceded quickly, feeling his hand invading the camisole neckline of her dress. She shouldn’t mistake petulance for vulnerability. Robert was usually fairly adept at getting what he wanted, and who knew that he wouldn’t soon have the Chinese girl, his half-sister, Rose Chen, eating out of his hand?
She was about to put his hand away when one of the twins, Fliss thought it was Dody, came tearing across the lawn, and achieved her objective for her. ‘Rob! Rob!’ Dody was calling, her plump adolescent legs pumping urgently inside her biker’s shorts. ‘Rob, Mummy says you’ve got to come up to the terrace immediately. That woman’s arrived! Our—sister! And she’s brought ever such a gorgeous hunk with her!’
Even allowing for Dody’s tendency towards exaggeration, Fliss had to admit that Oliver Lynch was one of the most disturbing men she had ever laid eyes on. The most disturbing, she suspected, although that seemed a little disloyal towards Robert.
Nevertheless, Oliver Lynch did present a most imposing presence, and even Robert, at six feet exactly, had to look up at the older man. And he was much older, Fliss decided, using that acknowledgement as a means of reparation. He might not look it, but he had to be forty-one or -two, at least. To a polite question from Mrs Hastings, he had admitted to spending some time in Vietnam, and that war had been over for twenty years or more.
But the fact remained, he was disturbing, and attractive. He wasn’t handsome, as Robert was handsome. His features were too strongly moulded for that. But there was something very masculine—very sexual—about deep-set eyes, hollow cheekbones and a thin-lipped mouth. In some ways it was a cruel face, enhanced by the unconventional length of his hair. Long and black, he pushed it back with a careless hand, the rolled-back sleeves of his shirt exposing a long white scar that marked the flesh from elbow to wrist.
He not only looked disturbing, he disturbed her, thought Fliss uneasily, not really understanding why this should be so. She tried to tell herself it was because of Robert, that his association with the woman, Rose Chen, made him as much of a threat as she was, but that wasn’t it. If she was honest she would admit he disturbed her in a much more personal, purely visceral way. Just looking at him caused a curious pain to stir, down deep in her stomach. And when Rose Chen touched his arm, or his hand, as she did frequently—as if she needed to display her possession—Fliss looked away, as if the image offended her.
Of course it was all quite silly, she reproved herself half mockingly. She didn’t even know why she was giving him a second thought. It wasn’t as if she had any desire to change her comfortable existence. However petulant Robert might be, he was also tender and kind, and incredibly patient. Not characteristics she could apply to Oliver Lynch, she was sure.
From her position, curled up on one of the cushioned lounges at the far end of the terrace, she was able to observe the behaviour of the other people present without drawing attention to herself. They were all being amazingly civil, she thought, remembering how bitter Robert had been before their arrival. But then his mother hadn’t met Oliver Lynch then, nor been seduced by his southern courtesy and charm.
Forcing her attention away from Oliver Lynch, she wondered what her fiancé was really thinking. Tea had been served, and presently he was exchanging pleasantries about their journey with the woman, Rose Chen. No one could be more polite, or more facile, than an Englishman, Fliss reflected drily. Unless it was an American. There was no denying that Oliver Lynch was displaying his share of diplomacy.
She forced her mind back to the Chinese woman. Rose Chen—was that really her name?—was older, too, than they had expected. Was that why they were all being so civil to her? Had the realisation that she was not a young girl reassured Amanda Hastings of her own credibility?
Whatever, it was obvious that Mr Hastings’ affair with Rose Chen’s mother must have happened at least thirty years ago. Maybe thirty-five. Fliss couldn’t be absolutely certain. And if that was the case, Robert hadn’t even been born when his father took a mistress.
‘Do you think she’s his mistress?’
The whispered words so closely following Fliss’s thoughts, caused her to gaze at one of Robert’s sisters blankly.
‘Who?’ she answered, in an undertone, hoping no one else was listening to their exchange, and the twin—Liz, she thought—rolled her eyes impatiently.
‘Oliver Lynch, of course,’ she hissed, glancing surreptitiously over her shoulder. ‘Don’t tell me you haven’t thought about it, too. I saw you looking at him earlier.’
Fliss