back from the growingly explicit demands of his mouth and hands, so different from the gentle restraint he had displayed during the early days of their courtship.
Before he was sure of her, said a small icy voice in her brain.
If he’d really cared for her, wouldn’t he have been prepared to make allowances for her inexperience? she asked herself.
And more troubling still, he had never actually said in so many words that he loved her. He wanted to make love to her, in any way she would permit, but all he had said when she agreed to be his wife, was, ‘Darling Ash, I’ll try and make you happy.’
She’d been more than content with that at the time, but now it seemed a disturbing omission.
At first when she rang the doorbell at his flat, she thought he was still out somewhere, and she was just about to turn away in defeat when she heard the sound of movement inside.
The door opened, and they faced each other. He looked terrible, was her first thought. He was pale, and his eyes were bloodshot, and he seemed to be wearing a dressing gown, and nothing else.
She said anxiously, ‘Jago, are you ill?’ She took a step forward, to be arrested by the sour reek of spirits on his breath. It was something she hadn’t encountered before with him, and it alarmed her.
In his turn, he was staring at her as if he didn’t know who she was, and then she saw a dawning horror in his eyes.
And in the same instant heard a girl’s voice saying with plaintive impatience, ‘Sweetie, aren’t you ever coming back to bed? Get rid of whoever it is and …’ She appeared from the bedroom, wearing nothing but the coverlet from the bed draped round her, none too effectively.
The hand was round Ashley’s throat again, tightening, squeezing …
The girl came forward to Jago’s side. Her eyes, blue and hard as nails, flicked over Ashley dismissively.
‘They say three’s a crowd, don’t they, darling? Or is that the way you like it?’
Jago slumped against the door jamb with a muffled groan.
Ashley wanted to stamp her feet. She wanted to kick, to lash out with her hands, and tear with her nails, and scream. She wanted to damage them, both of them, physically. Mark them as they had smashed her emotionally.
Nausea rose, hot and acrid, in her throat, and she turned and ran down the stairs, not waiting for the lift, and out into the chill of the night air. She leaned against her car, retching miserably, uncaring who might see her or what conclusions they might draw. Then, as soon as she was sufficiently in control of herself, she climbed into the driving seat, and started the engine. She didn’t go home. She drove out of town, and down to the river, parking in the very spot where Jago had proposed to her, sitting white-faced and burning-eyed until dawn.
When she finally returned home, she brushed aside her father’s reproaches and anxious queries, saying merely that she’d had some thinking to do, and needed to be alone. When she’d added that she was no longer going to marry Jago she and Silas had the worst row of their lives.
‘But you can’t throw him over for some whim!’ he’d raged at her. ‘My God, girl, only last week you thought the sun, moon, and stars all shone out of him! And I need him. I need a strong man to run Landons after I’m gone. As your husband he can become chairman after me. As soon as I met him, I knew he was the right man.’
‘Right for me?’ she wanted to ask, wincing. ‘Or merely right for Landons?’ But she’d never voiced the query.
Her magnificent solitaire diamond ring she’d sent back to Jago by company messenger, with a note stating bleakly that she never wanted to see him or hear from him again.
And nor had she, Ashley thought wearily, until now. Until that phone call, like a bolt from the blue.
Not only was her company at risk. With Jago’s return, her precarious peace of mind was threatened. And that, frighteningly, seemed a great deal worse.
AFTER a while, when she felt a little calmer, she lifted the telephone and dialled.
‘Martin Witham, please,’ she told the receptionist who answered. ‘Tell him Miss Landon is calling.’
She was put through with flattering promptness.
‘Ashley!’ Martin sounded pleased and surprised. ‘Why on earth are you back so soon?’
‘Clearly, you haven’t been reading the financial pages,’ she said lightly. ‘Let’s just say a state of emergency’s been declared and it seemed better to return.’
‘My poor sweet!’ His voice was warm and concerned. ‘Want to tell me all about it over dinner at the Country Club tonight?’
She laughed. ‘That’s exactly what I hoped you’d say,’ she teased. ‘Pick me up at eight?’
‘I’ll be counting the minutes,’ he promised.
She felt better after that. His voice had reassured her, helping to take away the sour taste the earlier call had left.
She’d been seeing Martin for a couple of months, since he’d arrived from London to join a local firm of solicitors. After Jago, Ashley had tended to steer clear of any kind of involvement, but Martin had persuaded her to think again, although he had made it clear from the first that he was in no hurry to rush into any kind of serious relationship. He’d been divorced, he told her, and was still licking his wounds, but he would be glad of some female companionship.
It was an arrangement which suited them both very well. Since Silas’ death, Ashley had been lonelier than she cared to remember, and Martin’s friendship had buoyed her up, just when she needed it most.
And she needed him now, she thought ruefully.
Martin had not told her very much about his marriage, and she was equally reticent on the subject of her broken engagement. Now, she supposed, she would have to tell Martin that her ex-fiancé was back in town, throwing fresh attention on an episode she had hoped was behind her for ever.
She felt depression closing in on her like a cloud, and gave herself a swift mental shake. Sleep was what she needed, and food. She made herself an omelette in her compact kitchen, eating every scrap, then curled up on the living room sofa, emptying her mind, and relaxing her muscles until her intrinsic weariness had its way with her.
When she woke, she felt perceptibly better, refreshed and even relaxed. Which seemed, she thought, to bode well for the evening ahead. She applied her usual light make-up, sprayed herself lavishly with Amazone, then zipped herself into a new dress she’d bought on impulse during her West Indian holiday. It was the colour which had attracted her originally—a clear, vivid emerald, enhancing her eyes.
Her one beauty, she thought critically, as she turned and twisted in front of the mirror, trying to decide whether the dress was too extreme for the sedate delights of the County Club. Certainly, the crossover bodice plunged lower than anything she had worn before, and the back of the dress bared her from the brief halter round her neck almost to the base of her spine. For a moment,
