Mrs Jacobs had made no secret of her desire for Candy to step into her shoes for years.
Altogether life had been good, apart from the irritation of David’s growing affection. Until today. When she had met him. She gazed vacantly into the dressing-table mirror, blind to the heart-shaped face with its huge, beautiful, heavily lashed eyes and delicately shaped mouth that gazed back at her from the misty reflection.
They were all ready and waiting when David called promptly at six, and the short journey to his parents’ home took no more than two minutes in his lovingly nurtured old banger. He seemed a trifle subdued, but that suited Candy, lost as she was in her own thoughts, and her parents were more than capable of keeping the conversation chugging along.
‘Mother has invited an old friend of yours, apparently.’ David’s voice was sheepish as he helped them off with their coats in the hall preparatory to going through to the spacious oak-beamed sitting-room at the back of the house.
‘Oh, yes?’ Candy was instantly suspicious. Mrs Clarke was the biggest gossip in the village, besides being the most unhappy, restless woman Candy had ever met. She adored intrigue, embroidering the most innocent of happenings in a way that could only be described as malicious, and inventing what was lacking. Her parents knew David’s parents on a social level, exchanging dinner invitations like the one tonight now and again, but she could never have termed them friends of the family.
As she stepped through the living-room door and the unmistakable deep, throaty voice met her ears she had the insane impulse to turn and run for a shaming, fleeting moment, before her chin came up and her face set in what her father often called the ‘battle zone’. That woman! She had invited Cameron Strythe here. Just to see the reaction of them all.
‘Vivien, Ernest and dear Candice.’ Mrs Clarke moved forward in a theatrical pose like an actress in a third-rate movie, her pointed, narrow face alive with hard curiosity. ‘How lovely to see you, and I think you know dear Cameron.’ She indicated the tall, silent figure behind her with an affected wave of her hand. Candy spared him a fleeting glance and, catching the stunned expression in those blue eyes, assumed correctly that he had had no idea who the dinner guests were either. She also noticed the beard had gone, leaving a faintly paler skin underneath to the rest of the hard, tanned face, and that some time in the afternoon he had had a haircut. The smart, indolent man standing to one side of their little throng was more recognisable as the old Cameron. It made it even easier to hate him.
‘He only got back last night,’ Mrs Clarke continued into the growing silence, her small black eyes flashing from one to the other in satisfied spite, ‘and we couldn’t leave him to eat alone on his first day back on English soil, could we?’ She gave the tinkling false laugh that always caused Candy’s teeth to grate. ‘I don’t suppose you realised he was home.’ The last was said to her mother, who was rooted to the spot just inside the door, and Candy came immediately to her rescue, forcing a light laugh as she took her mother’s arm and guided her to an easy-seat near by.
‘I met Cameron this afternoon, as it happens.’
‘You did?’ The harsh voice was quizzical, and as Candy turned to meet his eyes she saw there was a frankly appreciative gleam on his face as he took in her slim, full-breasted figure and heavy fall of silky red hair. ‘I obviously was too far away to see you.’
‘Not at all.’ Her big brown eyes were tight on his face now and no one present could fail to read their expression of cold, unmitigated dislike. ‘You threatened to shoot my dog, if you remember.’
The words hung for a moment in the breathless silence that had fallen on the assembled company, and then Mrs Clarke trilled her false laugh into the tense stillness. ‘Oh, Candice, you have such a strange sense of humour, always so contrary.’
‘You don’t believe me?’ She shot round on the unfortunate Mrs Clarke as though she had jetpropelled heels. ‘Ask him, then. Ask him what he did with his afternoon.’
‘That was you?’ He stared at the tall, beautifully groomed woman in front of him with something like disbelief on his face. ‘But you looked so different...’
‘I was muffled from head to foot in a duffel coat, scarf and Wellington boots, if you remember,’ she said icily, ‘but yes, it was me. And yes, that was my dog you threatened to destroy.’ Her eyes raked him slowly from head to foot and she allowed a small, contemptuous smile to play round her mouth for a moment. ‘You seem to have smartened up a little too.’
He stared at her for a long moment as his face took on the texture of cold granite and his eyes became glacial. ‘Well, well.’ There was savage derision in the grim voice now. ‘So this is little carrot-tops. You sure have changed, sweetheart.’
‘You bet your sweet life!’ She came back with the retort like a pistol shot, and for a moment their eyes clashed and held in a bitter battle of wills, with neither giving an inch. It was her father who defused the situation, taking Cameron’s arm in a light hold as he turned the younger man to face him.
‘It’s been a long time, Cam.’ He spoke the nickname with no false friendliness, merely the unaffected respect he showed to all his fellow human beings, and Candy saw Cameron take a long, deep breath before his body relaxed and a careful smile touched the firm mouth.
‘Too long.’ He included her mother in his glance, but Candy noticed the cold blue eyes didn’t rest on her for a second. ‘I was going to give you a call early tomorrow morning. I shall need your help in picking up some of the strings.’
‘No problem,’ her father returned easily. She stared at him in a mixture of anger and disappointment. Don’t talk to him, Dad, she wanted to scream. Hit him and walk out. Her father did neither of these things and there was obvious annoyance on Mrs Clarke’s face a few minutes later as she ushered them to the table. She had clearly been hoping for fireworks, Candy reflected bitterly, glancing at David as she sat down and noticing he studiously avoided catching her eye. Why hadn’t he warned them that Cameron was here? He must have known how painful the first meeting would be, especially with a crowd of onlookers. It was a stupid question; she knew the answer. Mummy’s little boy would do as he was told. She suddenly realised why his amorous attentions had irritated her so badly. There had been something almost apologetic in their content, holding the same meekness he displayed with his mother. Her decisive, forceful nature had rebelled instinctively.
‘And where have you been hiding yourself for the last ten years, Cameron?’ Mrs Clarke asked with artificial sweetness as they all began on their prawn cocktails.
‘I never hide, Mrs Clarke.’ He looked his hostess full in the face as he spoke and there was something in the dark, harsh voice that must have warned her he would stand no nonsense. She flushed hotly and bent to retrieve her napkin, which had fallen on the floor, her thin mouth tight with irritated annoyance.
‘Your father told me you worked on the oil-rigs for some time and then bought a farm in Australia.’ Again it was her father who stepped into the breach. ‘I understand you were on the way to making your fortune out there?’
‘Things went well,’ Cameron answered shortly. ‘I had some good men working for me.’ He obviously had no intention of discussing his private affairs at the dinner table, and Candy had to admit she didn’t blame him. She was trying to assimilate the knowledge that her father and Uncle Charles had discussed Cameron now and again, apparently with no animosity. She was beginning to feel she didn’t know her father at all.
‘What are your plans for the future?’ her mother asked quietly, and as Cameron turned to her he smiled his first genuine smile of the evening. Candy felt her heart give a strange
