images stunned her. Distaste caused nausea to rise up in her throat and almost choke her. What was wrong with her that she could feel like this about another couple and yet when it came to Jeremy … or any other man for that matter … she felt so intrinsically cold?
Gathering her thoughts together she asked to speak to Lucas and was told by the new housekeeper who introduced herself as Mrs James that he was away on business overnight.
‘Yes,’ she confirmed she did expect him back by the weekend, when Lindsay introduced herself. Forcing down her reluctance Lindsay asked to speak to Gwendolin. There was a small hesitant pause before Mrs James said uncertainly, ‘I’m afraid Mrs Armitage is not here either.’
Taking a chance, Lindsay arranged with Mrs James that she and Jeremy would arrive late Friday evening. As they had to go and visit Jeremy’s parents the following weekend, she would have to tell Lucas about her forthcoming engagement soon, and although she would have preferred to do so by ‘phone, Jeremy who was a stickler for everything that was proper and correct, would frown over her doing so.
It amazed her that after all this time the rift that had opened up between herself and Lucas that last summer, should still hurt her so much. She was six years older for goodness sake, no longer a teenager but an adult herself. At Gwendolin’s insistence she had always spent Christmas at home with them, but she had always found her visits uncomfortable occasions, longing for them to be over. Gwendolin was an extremely social person and the house always seemed to be packed with guests; friends of hers in the main, unknown to Lindsay and whom she did not find particularly convivial. Lucas always remained remote and cold towards her appearing, so it seemed to avoid her company, reminding her shamingly of Gwendolin’s assertions that he had found Lindsay’s feelings for him embarrassing and annoying. In many ways it did not surprise her that they had not had children—Gwendolin was the most unmaternal woman she had ever met, but Lucas, she remembered had always been good with them and she would have expected him to want a family of his own.
Sighing faintly as she replaced the receiver, she tried to concentrate on her work, but her mind kept wandering, replaying memories from her childhood, Lucas … playing tennis with her, coaching her … Lucas, helping her with her homework … The warmth he had always shown her and the loneliness she had felt when he went to university. She heard a door slam and realised that Caroline was back. Her flatmate poked her head round the study door, having knocked briefly.
‘Busy?’ she enquired, ‘Or do you fancy a coffee?’
‘I’d love one. I ought to be working,’ Lindsay admitted, ‘but I just can’t turn my mind to it.’
‘Mmm … I wonder why. Most unlike you.’ Caroline looked at her shrewdly. ‘Your inability to concentrate wouldn’t have anything to do with a certain cousin of mine would it?’
‘Sort of. We’re going down to see Jeremy’s parents the weekend after next,’ Lindsay told her, answering her unspoken question.
Caroline grimaced faintly and rolled her eyes. ‘Poor you. His mother’s a bit of a stickler. Jeremy’s the apple of her eye of course, and no girl could possibly be worthy of him. Of course you have got one thing in your favour.’
‘My money you mean?’ Lindsay stood up with fluid grace, kneading the tension knots at the back of her neck. ‘Mmm …’
‘Still you’re hardly springing a surprise on them,’ Caroline comforted. ‘Ma was saying the last time I went home that it was high time the pair of you got engaged. What about your family?’
‘Well there’s only Lucas of course,’ Lindsay told her. ‘Jeremy and I are going down to see him this weekend.’
‘Lucky you.’ Caroline dimpled a smile of feminine envy at her. ‘It’s just as well that he’s your stepbrother and safely married, otherwise poor Jeremy wouldn’t stand a chance.’ She saw Lindsay’s expression and grinned. ‘Oh come on Lin, surely even you can see that he’s living, breathing temptation to our poor vulnerable sex. The dreadful thing is that he doesn’t even seem to be aware of the effect he has on us. I wonder what he ever saw in Gwendolin.’
‘She’s very attractive,’ Lindsay responded weakly, feeling honour-bound to defend her stepsister-in-law.
‘Sure if you like icebergs,’ Caroline came back forthrightly, ‘I’m sure she doesn’t have an ounce of human warmth in her, and Lucas never strikes me as being a man who’s madly in love with his wife, does he you?’
‘He’s always been adept at hiding his feelings …’
‘Is that what it is? Sometimes I get the feeling he’s put them into cold storage,’ Caroline came back. ‘I wonder if he’s faithful to her?’
She saw her flat-mate’s expression and grimaced. ‘Okay, so he’s everything the perfect husband should be, but she’s very far from being the perfect wife. I didn’t say anything before but when I was in Gstaad this winter I saw her there … and not with Lucas.’
‘She’s a very keen skier,’ Lindsay told her a little stiffly, ‘Lucas is a busy man … perhaps he couldn’t get away. And anyway just because you saw her with another man that doesn’t mean …’
‘That she’s having an affair with him? Don’t you believe it,’ Caroline told her. ‘They might have had separate rooms and they might have been discreet but they were lovers all right … you can’t mistake the signs.’
‘Don’t tell me … I don’t want to hear any more,’ Lindsay wanted to plead, and like a warning bell, a comment of Lucas’ surfaced from the past. ‘You always want to avoid awkward situations Lindsay, but you can’t spend the rest of your life doing that. One day I hope you’re going to opt for pleasing yourself rather than simply pleasing others.’
And it was true. Intelligent; attractive, popular, she knew she was all of those things and yet deep inside herself she saw herself as a coward. As a child she had striven desperately hard after her mother’s death to please her father … to take the place of the woman they had both lost, and had always been nagged by the feeling that she had somehow failed; that the intelligence and stamina she had inherited from him, detracted, in his eyes, from her character and that he would have preferred her to be more like her delicate, hesitant mother. At school too, she had tried to please, breaking the pattern only that summer she had been sixteen, and then of course with Lucas. Lucas was the only person she suddenly realised, with whom she had been able to be properly herself. He had always encouraged her to state her own opinion, to argue with him if she felt so inclined. Lucas had never demanded that she fitted herself into any preconceived ideas he might have about her. But Lucas had changed when her father died; he had ceased being a beloved brother and mentor and become instead a remote, cold stranger, who no longer hugged or touched her in any way; who did not encourage her to talk to him and who eventually married Gwendolin, thus ensuring that there would be a gulf between them for ever. Was Caroline right? Was Gwen unfaithful to him? But why? She had never made any secret of her desire for Lucas. She had in fact pursued him relentlessly, so why break her marriage vows and take a lover?
‘Seeing Jeremy tonight?’ Caroline enquired, changing the subject. Lindsay shook her head. ‘I need an early night. I’m taking a break from the office next week, so I want to clear my desk first.’
‘Are you and Jeremy going away?’
Once again Lindsay shook her head. ‘No. I haven’t had a break yet this year. I thought I might do a little bit of shopping … unwind a bit, relax …’
‘Mmm
