Charlotte Lamb - Pagan Encounter Read online

  CHAPTER ONE

  LEIGH sipped her drink, listening politely for the third time to a lengthy description of how her Uncle George had found his way across country to the church. Partly, serious, he was beginning to get confused as he narrated the route, and across the room he was being observed with a watchful eye by his wife, who caught Leigh's glance and winked.

  A moment later she joined them, smiling at Leigh, her small, thin face indulgent as she slid an arm through her husband's, saying, 'I really think it's time we thought about getting back to the children, George. It's getting late.'

  Slightly owlish, he looked at her affectionately. 'Who's driving, Maureen?'

  'I am,' she said firmly, and for a moment their eyes met in a little smile, before George put down his glass and said regretfully, 'Nice to have seen you again, Leigh. I hope we meet up again before you get married.'

  She smiled back, and Maureen, kissing her, whispered, "When is the wedding, darling? Send me a present list in good time, won't you?'

  When they had gone, making warm goodbyes to the bride and groom, Leigh stood observing her family with a thoughtful eye. They were a widespread but united group, cheerful, noisy and thoroughly enjoying this chance to retail the gossip of the last months to each other. They met at weddings and christenings, and took the opportunity to catch up with each other's lives. Sometimes a year would pass before they met again, and on these family occasions they chatted eagerly to each other of what had happened since the last time they met. There were the usual intimacies between various branches of the family, who met more often, and these tended to congregate in little clumps, eyeing the rest curiously. Children ran about the large room, shouting, their mothers vainly pursuing them. The voices rose in a swell of chatter, punctuated by laughter. Outside the summer sky was blue, and Leigh could see the white sway of pear blossom in the wind.

  Just as she finished her drink she saw her cousin Ann at the far end of the room by the open door into the garden, and began to walk towards her, smiling. For several summers she and Ann had spent their holidays together as children at a small house in Cornwall which their parents had shared as a holiday home. The close relationship had continued off and on for the rest of their adolescence, but during the past year she had seen very little of Ann, who had got a job in London with the large newspaper organisation, World Gazette, which owned both a daily paper and several magazines.

  Rather tall, with a pale-skinned oval face and wide, long-lashed blue eyes, Leigh had a natural elegance which gave her graceful, slender body a style and flair which made her catch the eye. Her long, sleek pale blonde hair was woven into a smooth chignon at the back of her head, emphasising the cool proportions of her features.

  She was not unaware of the glances which followed her across the room, and smiled as she caught familiar faces among the crowd, stopping to speak to several relatives whom she recognised.

  In the peacock blue suit she was wearing she stood out among the floral hats and pastels of her relatives, and several appreciative male glances followed her.

  'Ann!'

  The small, dark girl she spoke to turned with a curious, haunted expression in her brown eyes and gave her a stiff-lipped smile.

  'Hallo, Leigh.'

  Leigh frowned. 'You don't look well. Is something wrong?' She studied her cousin's face closely, reading lines of strain in the soft cheeks and around the warm eyes.

  Ann tried to smile again, but her lips trembled. 'Oh, I...Her voice died away and she turned and dived hurriedly out through the open door into the garden beyond. Anxiously Leigh followed her and found her standing under the pear tree, her dark head against the rough bark of the trunk. A few white petals floated down to rest on her hair like confetti.

  'What is it?' Leigh asked gently, resting a comforting hand upon the other girl's thin shoulder.

  'I'm fine,' Ann said huskily.

  'You sound it,' said Leigh, smiling at the bent head. Looking around, she saw nowhere to sit, so with a grimace she sat down on the neatly mowed grass and patted the ground. 'Come on, sit down and tell me about it.'

  Ann sighed and slowly sat down, leaning her back against the pear tree. 'I ... I've got the sack,' she whispered.

  Leigh looked at her in surprise. 'But I thought you were very good at your job. You seemed so happy working there.'

  Ann's face seemed to break into a crumpled heap. Her eyes filled with tears and a sob came from her throat. 'I was,' she whispered shakily.

  Leigh put an arm around her. There were three years between them. During their childhood she had been the natural leader, dominating the younger child, and had become accustomed to protecting Ann. The attitude held firm today. The younger girl was still the same helpless, emotional, tender-hearted Ann she had known in childhood.

  'What went wrong?' she asked now, patting the heaving shoulders gently.

  'I made the mistake of taking him seriously,' Ann said in sudden bitterness. 'I had been warned, but I was silly enough not to listen.'

  Leigh's smooth brow creased in a frown. 'Who is he?' she asked carefully, staring at the tear wet little face.

  'Matt!' The way Ann said the name was pathetic. Leigh could sense it even gave her pleasure to hear it on her lips, although she was crying as she said it.

  'Matt?'

  Ann looked at her, her lips trembling! 'Mattieson Hume,' she said. 'My boss.'

  Leigh's eyes widened in astonishment as she stared at her. She had heard of Mattieson Hume, the head of World Gazette, but Ann's age and inexperience had left her imagining that her cousin worked there in some very junior capacity in which she would never be likely to come in contact with the great man himself. She thought carefully about the implications of Ann's muttered words, her blue eyes cool.

  'You'd better start from the beginning.' she said slowly. 'What were you doing at World Gazette?'

  Ann made a little face. 'Working in the typing pool,' she admitted. 'Matt has a secretary, Miss Harrison ... she's fabulously good-looking. But she's getting married next month herself. When she's busy Matt borrows a girl from the pool to work for him. That's how I met him. He called me in to type out some notes for him one afternoon. I couldn't finish them before five-thirty, so I worked on for an hour.' Her brown eyes swam with tears. 'I wanted to please him.'

  Leigh's mouth tightened. 'And did you?'

  'He was very nice to me when he came into the office and found I'd finished them,'

  said Ann, brushing a hand over her eyes. 'His dinner date had been cancelled, so he asked me if I'd like to eat out with him.'

  Leigh coolly watched the warm glow in the girl's face. 'And after that?'

  Ann sighed. 'He hardly seemed to notice me for weeks, then one night I was working late again, and he took me out afterwards.' She gave Leigh a secretive, bright-eyed look.

  'He kissed me in the car before we said goodnight Oh. Leigh, you can't imagine how I felt!'

  Can't I, thought Leigh grimly, watching the soft face glowing at her.

  Ann seemed to be lost in dreamy reverie, her eyes on the blue sky. Leigh observed her for a few moments, then asked quietly, 'and then?'

  Ann began to flush. 'Oh ... several times we had a date. He used to ask me suddenly out of the blue.'

  "And you always want?' Leigh murmured grimly.

  'I was crazy about him,' Ann said protestingly, as though being accused of something.

  And he knew it, Leigh thought, her pink mouth tight. Aloud, she asked, 'So when did this romance start to go wrong?'

  Ann looked down, her lips trembling. 'He ... he'd spoken to me about taking it all seriously,' she whispered. "He said he hoped I wasn't building our friendship up unto something big.' />
  'Which you were,' Leigh interpreted.

  'I told him I knew we were just friends,' Ann said defiantly. 'It was just an occasional date, nothing more.' Her brown eyes met Leigh's assessing look. 'I thought that in time it would be different. He liked me, Leigh--I could tell. He kissed me so nicely, and he bought me flowers and chocolates. He said I was very pretty, and his eyes said it too.'

  Damn him, thought Leigh, watching the lines of strain around the girl's eyes and mouth.

  'When did it all blow up?' she asked gently.

  Ann sighed. 'There was a lot of gossip in the typing pool, you see.'

  I bet there was, Leigh thought.

  'Some of it must have got through to Matt. He overheard some girls talking, I think.

  Anyway, he told me we must stop seeing each other. H-He said a pl-pleasant friendship was being turned into a great r-romance.' Her voice broke several times as she spoke.

  'You mean he sacked you to stop the gossip?' Leigh's voice was hard.

  Ann gave a tremulous little laugh. 'Oh, no. He didn't sack me then.' She gave Leigh a faintly anxious look. 'I thought, you see, that he'd change his mind. I thought in time we'd start seeing each other again.' Her mouth quivered. 'But then Cathy Lord came along ...'

  There had to be a counter-attraction, of course, thought Leigh cynically. 'Cathy Lord?'

  she asked Ann. 'Who's she?'

  'Her father is one of the directors of World Gazette,' Ann said hopelessly. 'She's pretty, sophisticated and very well off. She drives a red Jag and wears fabulous clothes.'

  'And Mattieson Hume started to date her,' Leigh murmured. He would, of course.

  'Oh, Leigh!' Ann began to sob, her face buried in her small pale hands. 'I was so miserable, I lost my head.'

  'What did you do?' Leigh asked, frowning.

  Ann whispered through her fingers, her voice muffled. 'I...I went to see him after work one night. There ... there was a scene. I got upset and I shouted. Next day I was transferred to one of the magazines. I start there next Monday.' Her body shook. 'Just like that.'

  'So he didn't actually sack you, but transferred you?' Leigh asked.

  'Just because I love him,' Ann wailed. 'He made me fall in love with him and then he dropped me like a hot brick!'

  Leigh sighed. 'Darling, look at it this way ... you're well out of it. The man's obviously a bastard. Chalk it up to experience and forget him.'

  'I can't,' wailed Ann, her eyes full of desperation. 'You don't understand, Leigh. I love him!'

  'Poor Ann,' said Leigh, her cool face full of sympathy. Ann had always been so vulnerable, eager and exposed to life, taking knocks hard, warmly responsive to offered affection. Her parents had three older children and Ann had been the one who was slightly left out of things, too young to join the others at first, and then later, when they had grown up and married, remaining the last child at home, a little spoilt by her parents for a while, but always the odd man out.

  Leigh had taken her under her wing when they were young, and she felt a protective impulse towards her even now. The only daughter of parents who were busy, capable and level-headed, Leigh had grown up differently. Learning at an early age to be independent, she had a strong sense of self-preservation where emotion was concerned. She had gone through a wild attack of love at seventeen, taking it badly, as she had measles ten years before. Recovering in time, she had decided calmly to defend herself in future against such excesses. Emotion was destructive, she thought, looking at Ann's pathetic little face. Poor kid! She was suffering like some dumb animal, unable to fight back, still in a heady trance over the bastard, while he, no doubt, was congratulating himself on escaping from the situation without bother.

  A tall young man in a dark suit and crisp white shirt, a white carnation in his buttonhole, came wandering down the garden towards them. Leigh discreetly waved him out of sight, shaking her head. He made a loving, indulgent face at her and walked back into the house. A smile lingered on her face before she turned back again to Ann.

  'You'll get over it in time, you know,' she said comfortingly. 'I know it's hard to accept that now, but you will.'

  'You don't understand,' said Ann, her glance suddenly pricking with hostility. 'Girls like you collect men in hordes. You've always been able to twist them around your little finger, Leigh, and none of them has ever hurt you, have they? How can you guess how I'm feeling?'

  Leigh did not look offended. She had met the same attitude before among her friends. They looked no deeper than the cool, glossy surface of her appearance, and Leigh's innate sense of personal privacy made it impossible for her to tell anyone about the violent emotional shock she had received as an adolescent. On holiday with her parents she had met a sophisticated older man with a roving eye, been totally swept off her feet by him and lived in a fool's paradise for two weeks before she discovered that he had a wife tucked away in the background. The discovery had come in time to prevent her making a complete fool of herself, but only Leigh had known that it would only have been a matter of time before she gave way to the ceaseless battery of her lover's desire for her.

  The mere memory of her own helpless, infatuated passion for the man could make her lips tighten furiously even now.

  'Do you resent my looks, Ann?' she asked her cousin gently. 'We can't ask to be born with or without attraction, you know.'

  'Resent you?' Ann made a little grimace. 'No, of course not. If I'm truthful, I envy you.

  If I were as beautiful and sophisticated as you are, Leigh, I'd make Matt suffer the way I'm suffering now. But I can't. I'm too ordinary.' She gave a childish gulp. 'He was only amusing himself with me, I realise that now. I suppose I'll get over it in time. I must have been crazy to think someone like him would look twice at someone like me.'

  'Nonsense. You're a very pretty girl,' said Leigh, drying her eyes firmly with a clean handkerchief. 'When you haven't been crying, that is.' Her smile gently teased, and Ann gave a soft hiccup of laughter.

  'He'll marry Cathy Lord, of course,' she went on, still obsessed by her favourite topic.

  'Her family have pots of money, so it's very suitable. He was afraid I would spoil things if any gossip started. Cathy Lord isn't the sort of girl who would stand for it.' Ann looked bitterly it the blue sky. 'She's the sort of girl who's had everything all her life and expects to be given whatever she wants. If she thought Matt was flirting with another girl, >he'd be furious, and break off with him. She was even jealous of Miss Harrison, and everyone knows Barbara Harrison is madly in love with her fiance.'

  Leigh gently brushed the white petals from Ann's dark bead. She kissed her cheek.

  'There are plenty of other fish in the sea. Forget him.'

  They walked back into the wedding and the young man who had wandered into the garden earlier at once handed them glasses of bubbly champagne. His brown eyes rested on Leigh's face as he smiled at her.

  Leigh glanced sideways at him, giving him a meaningful jerk of the head in Ann's direction as some other guess began to dance. His mouth dented wryly, but he turned to Ann and asked, 'The music is infectious, isn't it? Feel like dancing?'

  Ann looked at Leigh, half rueful. Leigh smiled at her. The young man took Ann's glass away and slid off with her in his arms, Leigh's eyes following them in satisfaction. She watched as Philip talked, his brown eyes warm on the other girl's small pale face.

  Gradually the lines of strain left Ann's mouth and eyes. She began to smile slightly and her body lost that stiff rigidity. Philip could charm the birds from the trees when he cared to exert himself, thought Leigh. When the dance ended he returned alone, having bestowed Ann safely with another young male guest. Together Philip and Leigh watched as the girl revolved in his arms later. It would take time, Leigh thought wryly, but the heart would heal.

  Driving home later she stretched beside Philip in his car, her mind on Ann, a dark fury in her eyes as she thought of the ruthless selfishness of the man who had hurt her.

  Philip gave her a qu
estioning look. 'You haven't heard a damned word I said. What's wrong?'

  'Something Ann told me,' she said, telling him about Mattieson Hume, her tongue scathing.

  'Taking a girl out for a few dinner dates hardly makes him a close relation to Bluebeard,' Philip observed with masculine tolerance.

  'He must have known what effect he would have on an unsophisticated kid like Ann,'

  Leigh snapped back. 'I know the type. I've no doubt it fed his ego to watch how starry-eyed she got. If he wanted some fun, why pick on an innocent child like Ann? Poor kid! Her mistake was in letting him get under her skin in the first place.'

  Philip's face grew faintly pale. 'You'd never do that, would you, Leigh? Let a man get under your skin.'

  'Not if I could help it,' she said, her mouth firm.

  He stared ahead at the road in silence. After a few moments he said, half to himself, 'Why the hell I put up with it I don't know.'

  She was taken aback by the violence of his tone. 'What?'

  'You, my cold-headed, offhand darling,' he said bitterly. 'Why the hell are you marrying me, Leigh?'

  'You asked me to,' she said coolly. 'Did you want me I to refuse?'

  'God knows,' he said explosively.

  She raised the perfect dark line of her eyebrows. 'Are you talking seriously, Phil? Or is this just a brief tantrum?'

  He suddenly pulled the car off the road into a layby and turned to face her, his arm along the back of the seat. He was an attractive man, she thought, her eyes calmly tracing his features. She had approved of his looks from their first meeting, and, as she got to know him better, she had increasingly approved of the man behind them.

  'Just listen to me for a moment, Leigh,' he said breathlessly. 'Are you seriously happy with the way things are between us?'

  She frowned at the sober tone of his voice and his brown eyes watched her face, a look of eagerness burning in them.

  "Are you trying to hint that you've changed your mind, Phil?' she asked him quietly. 'Do you want to end our engagement?'

  There was growing pallor under his skin. 'If I said I wasn't sure, Leigh? What would you say?'