sort of tree expert with the Forestry Commission who had now decided to branch out into a business of his own, growing and selling not only rare specimen trees, but also many native broadleaved trees, for which apparently there was a growing market both at home and abroad in these environmentally aware days.
Her parents had only met their new neighbour briefly, but Sara had gained the impression that her mother had rather taken him to her heart.
‘All on his own living in that great draughty place,’ was what she had said at Christmas, adding that she had invited him to join them for Christmas Day, but that he had apparently already made arrangements to spend the holiday with friends in the north-east of the country.
‘He’s not married, and has no family to speak of. Both his parents are dead, and his brother lives in Australia.’
How like her mother to wheedle so much information out of a stranger so very quickly, Sara reflected fondly. Not out of nosiness; her mother wasn’t like that. She was one of those people who was naturally concerned for and caring about her fellow man.
What would she have made of Ian had Sara ever taken him home? It came to her with a small unpleasant jolt of surprise that she knew without even having to consider the matter that her parents would not have taken to Ian; that he in turn would have treated them with that slightly disdainful contempt she had seen him use to such effect with anyone he considered neither important enough nor interesting enough to merit his attention.
She bit her lip, worrying at it without realising what she was doing.
But Ian wasn’t really like that. He was fun, clever, quick-witted…not…not shallow, vain and self-important. Or was he? Had she in her love for him been guilty of wearing rose-coloured glasses, of seeing in him the qualities she wanted to see and ignoring those which reflected less well on him, which actually existed?
If he was really the man she had wanted to believe he was, had allowed herself to believe he was, would he have been attracted to a woman like Anna, outwardly attractive in an obvious and rather overdone sort of way, but inwardly…?
Sara bit her lip again. She had no right to criticise Anna just because she… No doubt Ian saw a side of her that wasn’t discernible to her, another woman…a woman moreover who loved him. Jealousy wasn’t an attractive emotion, and she was hardly an impartial critic, she reminded herself sternly. And, anyway, what did it matter what she thought of Anna? Ian loved her. He had told her so himself.
Her body tensed as she remembered that awful day. A Monday morning. Ian had been away for the weekend to stay with ‘friends’. To stay with Anna, she had realised later. He had arrived halfway through the morning glowing with enthusiasm and excitement.
It had happened at last, he had told Sara exuberantly. He had at last met the woman with whom he wanted to spend the rest of his life…a woman like no other…
She remembered how she had listened, sick at heart, her body still as she forbade it to reveal the anguish she was suffering, her face averted from him as she fought to control her shock, her pain.
And then, when she had actually met Anna for the first time, she had realised what a fool she had been to ever imagine that Ian might come to love her. She and Anna were so completely different from one another. She was tall and slim, thin almost; Anna was shorter, and all voluptuous curves. She was shy, withdrawn almost, quiet and rather reserved; Anna was a self-publicist with no inhibitions about singing her own praises, advancing her own talents.
Where she preferred restraint, quiet clothes in classic colours and styles, Anna wore the kind of expensive designer outfits calculated to draw people’s attention.
Watching the way Ian looked at her, seeing the desire, the admiration in his eyes as he followed Anna’s every movement, Sara had recognised how truly foolish she had been in ever allowing herself to hope that there might come a day when Ian would turn to her, would look at her.
She was simply not his type. Oh, he might like her…he might praise her work, he might even flatter her as he had done over the years…and she might have been silly enough to use that flattery to build herself a tower of hope that any sensible woman would soon have realised had no foundation at all; but the reality was that, whether Anna had arrived in his life or not, Ian would never have found her, Sara, desirable.
Face it, she derided herself bitterly now. You just aren’t the kind of woman that men do desire.
She remembered how often her sister had teased her about her aloofness, had told her that she ought to relax more, have fun… ‘You always look so prim and proper,’ Jacqui had told her. ‘So neat and perfect that no man would ever dare to ruffle your hair or smudge your lipstick.’
She had wanted to protest then that that wasn’t true, but had been too hurt to do so. It wasn’t her fault if she wasn’t the curly, pretty, vivacious type.
She cringed inwardly, remembering how Anna had mocked her, telling her, ‘Honestly, you’re unbelievable. Quite the archetypal frustrated spinster type, dotingly in love with a man she can never have. I suppose you’re still even a virgin. Ian thinks it’s a huge joke, a woman of your age who hasn’t had a lover; but then, as he said, what red-blooded man would want you?’
Anna had smiled a cruel little smile as she casually threw these comments to her, malice glinting in her light blue eyes as they focused on Sara’s pale, set face.
Now, as she recalled her comments, Sara’s hands tightened on the steering-wheel, her knuckles gleaming white with tension. Up until this moment, she hadn’t allowed herself to think about that. To think about Anna and Ian— Ian whom she had loved so much and for so long—laughing about her, making fun of her.
She shuddered sickly, a rigour of tension and pain, and yet in the middle of her anguish there was still room for a small, cold voice that asked why, when she had had such a high opinion of Ian, she was not immediately and instantly rejecting the very idea that he would be so cruel, so callous about anyone? Never mind about her, someone whom he had known for so long, someone whom he had claimed to admire and care about.
She could accept that he couldn’t love her; why should he? Love wasn’t something that could be summoned on demand, nor banished equally easily, as she had good cause to know; but surely the Ian she had admired and liked so much, the Ian she had thought she had known so well, would never, ever have made fun of her, laughed so cruelly and tauntingly about her with anyone, even if that person was the woman he was going to marry. Surely the Ian she had thought she had known would have had the consideration, the kindness, the sheer compassion for even those members of the human race who were not known to him personally not to be able to entertain such small-mindedness.
The Ian she had thought she had known, even if he had known about her feelings, her love, would never have been able to behave in the way that Anna had described to her, and yet, when Anna had thrown her taunts at her, instead of immediately and automatically being able to rebuff them as being totally unworthy of Ian, totally impossible for a man of his calibre, all she had been able to do was to stand there sickly acknowledging the extent of her own folly, her own self-deceit.
And yet even now it wasn’t Ian she hated. It wasn’t Ian she despised.
No, those bitter, acid emotions were reserved for herself. Which was why she had had to come away. She dared not allow herself to weaken, to become even more foolish and contemptible by staying in London where it would be all too fatally easy to find some excuse to make contact with Ian…some excuse…any excuse…and she wasn’t going to allow that to happen. Dared not allow that to happen.
