tense with rejection.
There was none of the glossy sophistication that he had expected about her. She was dressed in jeans and what looked like a man’s shirt, one hand lifted to push a strand of soft fair hair out of her eyes. She was wearing gardening gloves and there was a smear of dirt along one cheekbone, a fork in the ground at her feet. Her skin, free of make-up, looked clear and soft, and without even realising what he was doing Saul suddenly discovered that his thumb was touching her face.
But it wasn’t the living warmth of a woman’s flesh he could feel, just the hard glossy texture of the print.
He withdrew his hand as though the print had scorched him.
GUILTILY aware of how long it had been since she had last seen Lucy, and of the discomfited look on Giles’s face whenever she mentioned his wife to him, on Saturday afternoon, knowing that Giles would be playing golf and that Lucy would be on her own, Davina decided to call round and see her.
She had done nothing wrong, she assured herself as she drove through the village. It was her duty to do all she could to protect the livelihoods of those who worked for Carey’s, and without Giles’s help she could not do that.
But Giles was Lucy’s husband, and one of the reasons she had been able to persuade Giles to stay on had been his feelings for her. Feelings which neither of them had discussed … admitted, but which both of them knew were there. Did Lucy know as well?
Davina’s heart sank. The last thing she wanted to do was to hurt anyone, and she genuinely liked Lucy. Oh, she knew that there were those in their small, tight-knit local circle who disapproved of her; Lucy wasn’t like them. She was flamboyant, outspoken, turbulent and passionate. She was also extremely attractive, Davina reflected as she drove through the soft Cheshire countryside.
And extremely unhappy?
Davina pushed the thought away. Lucy’s obvious disenchantment with her life and with her husband had nothing to do with her. Lucy was not a woman’s woman. She had no interest in cosy, gossipy chats over cups of coffee, comfortable womanly discussions on the failings of men in general and husbands in particular, rueful, sometimes too dangerously honest admissions that there came a point in a relationship when sex was no longer its prime motivating force, when, as one long-married wife had once put it in Davina’s hearing, she ‘got more excitement out of watching Neighbours than making love with her husband’.
Lucy was openly, too openly sometimes, scornful of that kind of female intimacy. Lucy was different, and, because she was different, other women found her dangerous.
Davina didn’t find her dangerous. Davina liked her, and when Giles had first come to work for Carey’s Davina had envied her. Things had been different then. She had not yet met Matt, and Lucy and Giles had been so obviously, so passionately, so blindingly in love with one another that it had made Davina’s empty heart ache just to see them.
She remembered calling round early one afternoon just after they had moved in. Giles had come to answer the door, his face flushed, his hair untidy, apologising for keeping her waiting, and then behind him on the landing Davina had seen Lucy, and she had known immediately that she had interrupted them making love.
She had felt so envious then, so alone.
And now she felt guilty, even though she told herself she had nothing to feel guilty about.
Davina parked her car on the Cheshire brick herringbone-patterned drive and walked up to the front door.
She remembered the first time she had visited the house and how stunned she had been by the way Lucy had decorated and furnished it. The whole house had seemed to sing with harmonious colour and warmth, soft peaches and terracottas which complemented Lucy’s dark red hair, cool blues and greens and creams, the colour of her eyes and skin; the house was Lucy, Davina had thought, right down to the femininity of the soft cushions and the voluptuous way in which she had used her fabrics. It was a house in which even on the greyest of days the sun always seemed to be shining.
Today the sun was shining, but when Lucy opened the door Davina was shocked to see how pale she looked, how withdrawn her manner was in stark contrast to her normal ebullience.
‘Lucy, it’s been ages since I saw you,’ Davina told her nervously. ‘It’s the company. It seems to eat into my time.’ As she followed Lucy into the kitchen Davina was aware that she was speaking too fast, gabbling almost.
‘Funny, that’s always Giles’s excuse,’ Lucy told her harshly. ‘The company. Odd that you never seemed very interested in it while Gregory was alive, isn’t it?’
There was outright hostility in her voice now and Davina’s heart sank. This was what she had been dreading; that Lucy would resent her for persuading Giles to stay on.
‘Lucy, I know how you must feel,’ she began awkwardly. ‘But——’
‘Do you? I don’t think so,’ Lucy interrupted her bitterly. ‘You aren’t the one who has to sit here alone all day waiting for your husband to come home, are you? Why are you so anxious to hold on to Carey’s, Davina? You never cared about it while Gregory was alive.’
‘I didn’t realise then the problems they were having,’ Davina told her. On that subject at least she could be totally honest with Lucy. She owed it to her to be totally honest with her. ‘I have to try to keep Carey’s going, Lucy. I can’t let the company close down.’
‘Why not? You’re financially secure, aren’t you?’
Davina winced at the accusation in her voice. ‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘It isn’t the money, Lucy. It isn’t for me …’
‘Then who is it for?’ Lucy asked sarcastically. ‘Giles?’
Davina winced again.
‘If Carey’s closes, over two hundred people will lose their jobs, and there are no other jobs for them to go to.’
‘Giles can get another job,’ Lucy told her stubbornly. ‘Giles isn’t free to throw his career chances away for Carey’s, Davina. Giles is my husband.’
‘I know that.’ Davina couldn’t look at her. She could see how angry Lucy was, how upset, but there was more than anger in her eyes; there was pain, as well as vulnerability. Davina wasn’t used to seeing Lucy vulnerable, and doing so now made her ache a little inside.
She had always envied Lucy slightly, envied her insouciance, her self-confidence, her brilliant, glowing sensuality, her way of living life to its fullest, and most of all, if she was honest, she had envied Lucy the love that existed between her and Giles. Not because she had wanted Giles for herself, never that … No, what she had envied Lucy was the state of being loved, of being wanted, needed, of being the centre of someone’s world.
Once she had known a little of what that was like, once and very, very briefly, but what she had known had merely been a shadow of the brilliance of the love that Lucy and Giles had seemed to share.
What had happened to them? What had happened to that love? She could understand why Lucy was resentful and angry that Giles was staying on at Carey’s, but surely she must know that it was Giles’s very nature to stick loyally to those to whom he believed he owed that loyalty?
‘I was wondering if you fancied a day in Chester, shopping?’ Davina asked her, trying to change the subject to something less painful.
‘Shopping? While Carey’s goes bankrupt and people lose their jobs?’ Lucy demanded gibingly.
Davina flushed, with irritation, not guilt. Lucy was being deliberately difficult … childish almost. For the first time Davina realised that there was still a lot of the child about Lucy, and that it was this combination of a child’s faroucheness and a woman’s sexuality that made her so powerfully appealing.
She