Читать книгу In Bed With...Collection - Emma Darcy, Emma Darcy - Страница 52
ОглавлениеD-DAY, as Maggie thought of it, could not have been more sparkling. The morning was bathed in brilliant sunshine, the sky and harbour bright blue, not a cloud anywhere, no smear of city pollution. It could have been midsummer instead of autumn. It was the kind of day to make one say, “God’s in His heaven, all’s right with the world.”
Except it wasn’t all right for Maggie.
She tried to brighten herself up by wearing yellow. When she went down to breakfast, Beau was already at the table, perusing a newspaper. Sedgewick was refilling his glass with orange juice. The “Good mornings” exchanged rang with good cheer, sincerely so on Sedgewick’s part.
Beau looked tired around the eyes, as though he hadn’t slept any better than she had. The strain of this entrapped situation was beginning to show, Maggie thought, her heart sinking even lower at the prospect of the news to come...the news which would almost certainly blast this beautiful day and bring the winds of change.
“Jeffrey is preparing a special treat this morning,” Sedgewick informed them as he poured her a glass of juice.
Maggie’s stomach hosted so many butterflies she didn’t feel like eating anything.
“He is an exceptionally good chef,” Beau remarked.
And well he might, Maggie thought, considering the stream of treats that had been coming from the kitchen all week. In Sedgewick’s opinion, good food promoted good humour and the butler was leaving no stone unturned in encouraging what he now saw as a promising relationship. Jeffrey undoubtedly had orders to soothe with excellence and titillate with innovation.
“He considers himself an artist, Master Beau,” Sedgewick answered, beaming benevolent approval at the reformed wild child.
“So what gourmet delight is he producing this morning?” Beau asked with a show of eager interest.
Was it forced? Maggie wondered. How could his stomach not be in knots? Was he confident of taking any outcome in his stride?
“Jeffrey has a friend, sir, who comes from Louisiana. I understand the dish is a favourite there. Fried green tomatoes. Quite delectable, sir. I have sampled it. I promise you are sure to enjoy it.”
“Green tomatoes?” Maggie questioned.
“Yes, indeed. Slices of them coated in a golden crust which has a subtle taste of garlic and onion.”
Garlic was the last thing Maggie needed this morning.
“Tell Jeffrey we await the pleasure,” Beau said, apparently relishing a new eating experience. His eyes were twinkling, despite the look of fatigue on his face. His happy air of anticipation was absolutely incomprehensible to Maggie.
Sedgewick served her with her usual fruit compote and sailed off to the kitchen to deliver the good news. She picked up her spoon and stared at the fruit—slices of peach, pear and mango. Easy enough to slide down, she thought. Maybe she should leave them until after the fried green tomatoes. They might kill the aftertaste of garlic and settle any queeziness in her stomach.
“That yellow dress looks wonderful on you, Maggie,” Beau said warmly. “I must say it’s very heart-lifting to see.”
The compliment startled her. She looked at him, wondering what he meant by it.
He offered an appealing smile. “I do hope it means I’m forgiven for my trespasses.”
Her mind remained blank, unable to find any connection to what he was saying.
“I was sitting here, dreading the possibility you might appear in your jeans, ready for a quick take off,” he explained.
Finally it clicked. He was thinking of their meeting in the library, the morning after...when she’d offered to leave then and there, only agreeing to stay until the results were known and they were clear of the pregnancy fear.
“You don’t want me to go...no matter what?’ she tested, wary of taking anything for granted with him.
“Absolutely not,” he answered firmly.
Her heart hopped, skipped and jumped. His niceness to her over this past week couldn’t have been a pretence. Why would he invite a longer pretence than he had to? Maybe he really had begun to like her as a person. Or...maybe he was still feeling guilty about not treating her as his grandfather would have wanted, still doing penance for his trespasses.
Before she could form a question that might ascertain his motives, Mr. Polly intruded, carrying in a basket of roses, his weather-beaten face wreathed in pleasure.
“Please excuse me, Master Beau...”
“Of course, Mr. Polly.”
“...Prize blooms, these are. I told Mr. Vivian they would be this year. He said to enter them in the Royal Easter Show if they came out this good.”
“Well, go right ahead and do it,” Beau encouraged. “They look like winners to me.”
“Double Delight,” Mr. Polly almost crooned as he held one up for them to admire. “That’s what they’re called. Because of the red and white in the petals.”
“What a perfect rose!” Maggie exclaimed.
“Perfect for you, Nanny Stowe. I thought you might like these for your room.”
He was such a sweetie. “How kind! They’re so beautiful!” she said warmly.
“I’ll take them to Mrs. Featherfield to put them in water for you. And may I say, you’ve always been a Double Delight, Nanny Stowe.” He looked meaningly at Beau. ”I felt sure you would see a prize in them, sir. Thank you for your permission to put an entry in the show.”
Maggie felt herself colouring red on white as the head gardener took his leave of them, having delivered a remark which had the subtlety of a sledgehammer. She quickly picked up her spoon and delved into the fruit compote, hoping Beau was oblivious to her being labelled as a prize worth recognising. To her, the whole staff were embarrassingly obvious with wanting the chance for their relationship to develop into a happy-ever-after and secure future for everyone.
“You see? My life here wouldn’t be worth living if you left, Maggie,” Beau said in dry amusement.
Reluctantly she met his gaze and he grinned at her as he expounded on the situation. “Sedgewick would order Jeffrey to dish up slops for each meal. I’d be sent to coventry by Mrs. Featherfield. Wallace would undoubtedly ensure the grumpiest, bumpiest ride in the Rolls. And Mr. Polly would grow thorns.”
She couldn’t grin back. It wasn’t funny. “They’ve been with your grandfather a long time, Beau,” she reminded him. “They’re frightened of change. You should understand that before deciding on whatever course you’ll take.”
He weighed her words. “You care about them.”
“They’ve all contributed to giving me the best part of my life. Of course, I care about them. They’re good people. With the kindest of hearts.”
“All the more reason for you to stay on then.”
Maggie wasn’t sure of that. It could be prolonging hopes that were better cut dead so they didn’t obscure the realities to be faced.
“We’ll see,” she said noncommittally.
The reasons Beau was giving were centred on him—his comfort—not on any feelings for her. The hope that had danced through her bloodstream a few minutes ago, fell limply by the wayside. She ate the fruit without thinking about it, without even tasting it.
Sedgewick returned. The fried green tomatoes were served. Beau was suitably complimentary about the Louisiana dish. Maggie made agreeable murmurs and washed the glug in her mouth down with coffee. Nothing more of any importance was said.
After breakfast, Maggie excused herself to see to the roses Mr. Polly had left with Mrs. Featherfield.
“I’ll be in the library,” Beau said pointedly.
Where the fax machine was, Maggie thought, and found herself trembling. She clenched her hands, stiffened her spine and sternly told herself she would cope with everything better once she knew the test result.
In the end, she didn’t join Beau in the library, waiting for the news. She simply couldn’t bear to be with him. Having arranged the perfect Double Delight blooms in a vase, she carried it up to her suite, placed it on her dressing table, then wandered around the bedroom that had once seemed like a place fit for a princess.
It still was, but it no longer made her feel like a princess. The rosewood antique furniture was beautiful, gleaming with a perfect polish and set off with ornate brass handles. The pink silk canopy above the bed was splendidly draped, adding its richness to the rose print bedspread. Deeply sashed pink curtains dressed the French doors, falling into luxurious pools on a floor thickly carpeted in the palest of green. She loved it all. She had been very happy here. Yet now she felt outside it.
She stopped in front of the cheval mirror and stared at her reflection. Vivian’s re-imaged Maggie Stowe looked back at her. Strange how the outer shell could almost make one believe the inner self had been changed, too, but it wasn’t really so. Right now this image superimposed a lot of other Maggie Stowes but they still existed in her heart.
There was the unpolished, uncultured young woman Vivian had met. Maggie could still see her peering through the added gloss and style...a streetwise survivor who’d learnt most of the games people played and how to duck or slide past them. Life wasn’t easy without paper qualifications. Exploitation was not uncommon in the casual job market, especially when the employee had no family to back her up and no easy recourse to the law. Maggie never let herself get caught in webs like that. Just a touch of it and she moved on.
The mirror shimmered as her vision reached further into the past...to the fear-filled girl/woman who’d found safe refuge with Zabini’s Circus as she struggled to come to terms with a world teeming with all sorts of different people and different places and different ways of life. Impossible to have envisaged what she’d meet once she left the restricted world of the compound.
Her mind flicked at the suppressed memories of that earlier life...the discipline, the subservience, the constant demand to respect the good teachings, the secret growth of resistance, rebellion, and the need to keep it hidden until she was old enough, grown up enough to escape.
You with the red curls, cast your eyes down, girl!
Maggie saw herself at six, a thin child, all eyes and hair. She couldn’t hide her hair. Confining it in a plait had made it less obvious. But she’d learnt the lesson of casting her eyes down because it hid her thoughts and feelings.
She’d learnt the wisdom in the kind advice from her first housemother who had probably recognised a rebellious spirit...best to bow the head, best to obey, best to keep in line, best not to bring any notice to herself. That way she could live in her mind, in the dream worlds she kept to herself.
She couldn’t remember when she’d begun to believe there had to be a bigger, better life outside the compound. The fence was to keep them protected from bad things, they were told. But the grown-ups came and went. They didn’t seem to mind going out there to whatever existed beyond the fence. When she was grown up enough she would go and find out for herself.
And she had.
Then she knew the fence hadn’t been about protection at all. It had been about power. And the compound had been a prison, although supposedly a benevolent one. She’d never let anything become a prison again. The sense of anything closing in on her set nerves jangling. Freedom had become an important value in her life. Or maybe it always had been...something genetic that not even the commune discipline could crush out of her.
Where had these genes come from? If her mother and father had ever lived in the compound, she’d never recognised them and they’d never acknowledged her. None of the grown-ups she’d seen had red hair, although she realised that was not conclusive. Who were they...the man and woman who had created the person she was?
The mirror didn’t give up those answers.
They were forever lost to Maggie.
Her mind slowly swam up through the layers of the past, back to the reflection in front of her...Vivian’s sculpture from the material she’d been, the material she still was within the different shaping. It had been Vivian who had held her together like this. Without him... it was getting harder to hold on to it, to keep believing it was real.
The faithful four—Sedgewick, Mrs. Featherfield, Wallace, Mr. Polly—were trying to hold on to it, but it wasn’t the same without Vivian. Beau didn’t believe in her. That was the crux of it. He didn’t see what his grandfather had seen and Vivian’s Maggie Stowe was beginning to lose her reality.
She moved away from the mirror and sat down on the edge of the bed, wrapped in a sense of hiatus as she waited for the news which would form decisions and directions for her. Eventually a knock came on the door and Beau called out to her. His voice echoed through her head, forcing a set of instructions to form.
Get up.
She pushed herself onto her feet.
Go and open the door to him.
Her legs were shaky. She felt sick, dizzy. The news he was bringing to her carried such enormous import. She sat down again, trembling.
Another knock. Another call. It had to be answered. She took a deep breath, trying to ease the fierce grip of tension. Words still had to be forced.
“Come in.”
The old training suddenly slid out and took over. She sat very still, her fingers interlaced on her lap, head bent, eyes cast down, mental shield up. No one could get at her that way. She could take in what she needed to and leave out the rest.
She heard Beau come in and close the door behind him. It didn’t occur to her it might be inappropriate to invite him into her bedroom. In her mind she wasn’t really anywhere...just waiting.
He didn’t say anything. She felt his eyes on her, scrutinising, assessing, felt his approach, the energy of him coming closer and closer, saw his feet, pressing into the thick carpet in front of her. He held out a sheet of fax paper for her to read. It took several moments for her to focus her eyes on the typewritten message.
The test result was positive.
