‘They’re in the morning-room,’ he said.
Now that the ambition that had sustained her for ten long years was about to be realised, Perdita found she didn’t dare move. Instead, she stared at him as though she had never seen a man before. His image wavered and blurred. Colour leached from her skin as the floor tilted beneath her feet.
‘Perdital’ he said sharply.
Shivering, she was swept up in his arms and carried across the hall and into another room. He put her down on a sofa and ordered, ‘Don’t move. I’ll get you some brandy.’
Perdita closed her eyes. Almost immediately she heard whispering, and lifted heavy lashes to see the two girls coming across the room to her.
She’d always known they weren’t identical; what she hadn’t expected was for them to be quite so different.
One was a willowy creature with long limbs and a face whose bones had come straight from her mother, whereas her sister was small and sleek and—seeking the right word to describe her, Perdita could only find merry. Her eyes twinkled, she smiled with heart-lifting brightness, and her expression was alert and alive and vital, a contrast to the grave thoughtfulness of the other girl. The taller of the two had blue eyes whereas the other’s, Perdita was shaken to see, were the same green as hers; both had hair that was gloriously, unashamedly red, but the taller had straight, shoulder-length locks and the shorter’s curled around her piquant face.
‘Hello,’ Perdita said, smiling at them. Her heart clattered noisily, almost suffocating her. The last time she had seen them they had been seven days old, and she had been numb with despair, her throat raw from weeping. Something of the same agony of spirit racked her now, desolation and a sense of bitter deprivation, of loneliness so intense she’d had to repress it to be able to bear it.
‘Hello,’ they chorused, then looked at each other, said, ‘Tennyson,’ and linked little fingers, shutting their eyes as they made a wish.
The age-old ritual soothed something in Perdita’s heart. She said, ‘I hope your wish comes true.’
‘So do we,’ the shorter one said cheekily. She looked Perdita over with open interest and said, ‘Don’t you feel well?’
‘No, I—’
‘She almost fell at my feet.’ Luke appeared with a small glass of brandy. ‘Here, drink it down,’ he said.
‘I feel much better already.’
‘Drink it.’
She opened her mouth and the girls giggled. ‘You’d better do what he says,’ the shorter advised. ‘Mummy used to say when he gets that note in his voice he means to be obeyed.’
Perdita knew their names, even knew that the taller one was Olivia and the shorter Rosalind, but until Luke introduced them with the same austere courtesy he used for adult women she had always thought of them as Tara and Melissa. By the time she had adjusted to this they were all sitting down and the girls were looking at her with interest and a certain astonishment.
‘I know who you are,’ Rosalind said eagerly. ‘You’re a model, aren’t you? You’re the Adventurous Woman.’
A famous, old-established firm of cosmetic makers had rejuvenated its rather stuffy image with an advertising campaign that had aroused an enormous amount of interest. The Adventurous Woman concept had boosted sales to delirious, unexpected heights, doing wonders for the bank balances of the company, the advertising agency and Perdita.
‘I used to be,’ she said, setting the barely tasted brandy down on the small side table. “Not any more. I’m retired.’
She didn’t look at Luke but she felt his keen attention; her skin tightened.
Rosalind laughed. ‘You look too young to be retired. Didn’t you like being a model?’
‘Some of it was fun,’ Perdita admitted. ‘But a lot of it is pretty boring, just flicking your head around for photographers. And it was very hard work. Still, I didn’t go to university and get qualifications, so I had to take what I could get.’
They had Natalie’s exquisite manners. They talked freely and pleasantly, of their grandmother, of school, they asked questions about places she had been to, and Perdita found herself telling funny little anecdotes, absurdly thrilled when they laughed and commented. Occasionally she had to prompt them, but they were infinitely more confident than she had been at the same age.
Although afraid to let any emotions other than the most superficial pleasure in their company show through, Perdita gave herself up to an exquisite heartache.
After an hour Luke intervened smoothly, and she found herself being escorted to the door. The girls wanted to come too, but when Luke refused they gave in without demur, saying their farewells with a poised charm that was so like their dead mother that Perdita had to look away in case they saw the tears in her eyes.
He walked down the path with her, waiting until they got to the car before saying abruptly, ‘I hope you’re satisfied.’
Nodding, face averted, she put out a hand to open the door.
‘And I have your promise that you won’t contact them in any way?’
Again her head moved.
He said on a steely note, ‘Look at me, Perdita,’ and his hand caught her chin and tilted her face.
Through the mist of her tears the forceful, uncompromising contours of his face were indistinct, only the pale glitter of his eyes burning clear and brilliant.
For a moment time froze. Then she gave a great sob, and he said furiously, ‘God, Perdita, don’t—’
‘I’m sorry,’ she wept. ‘It’s nothing. I’ll be all right soon.’
‘I can’t let you go like that.’ But he released her.
His reluctance enveloped her, palpable and disabling. Shivering, she tried to open the door of the car.
‘You can’t drive in that state,’ he said curtly.
She let the handle go to scrabble for a handkerchief, finally found the one that lurked in the bottom of her bag, and blew her nose. Fresh tears welled up, but she fought them back. She had to get out of here before she really lost control and started to bellow like a kid with a lost toy.
‘Goodbye,’ she said thickly, and this time she managed to drag the door open and get in. Luke said something but she shook her head and started the engine and took off along the drive, her hands gripping the wheel as though it was the only stable thing in her life. Just before the trees cut off the house her eyes flicked to the rear vision mirror; she registered that he hadn’t moved, and was still looking after her like a tall, angry god of olden times.
She held out until she got back to the motel and there, casting herself on to the green and brown and orange sunflowers of the duvet, she wept. Eventually, when her head was aching and her throat raw, the preceding almost sleepless weeks finally caught up with her; from tears she slid straight to unconsciousness.
Some time later she woke with a jolt to the sound of knocking and a voice calling her name with an urgency
