‘He probably wrote it years ago. She’s always made a fuss about every nanny they had, and she hoards all her love letters. Did you notice the date?’
Harriet shook her head.
‘Well then. I had dinner with Cory last night. He’s in a pretty bad shape.’
‘He’s in London?’ asked Harriet, turning red then white. ‘Did he mention me?’
Kit conceded a grin. ‘I’ve never known Cory really boring before. He’s convinced he messed everything up by trying to pull you, then letting you go off with Simon.’
‘Oh, God!’ said Harriet with a sob. ‘What am I going to do?’
Kit got to his feet. ‘You’d better go round to his house at once and ask him to take you back.’
‘I can’t! What can I say to him?’
‘I should tell him the truth — that you love him. I’ll get you a taxi. Don’t worry about William. We’ll look after him for an hour or two.’
Chapter Twenty-five
In the taxi, she desperately tried to keep her hands steady as she re-did her face, spilling scent and foundation all over her bag. Now they were entering Chiltern Street; there was the familiar dark blue house. Oh wait, she wanted to say, I haven’t put any mascara on. Then she thought, how silly to worry about mascara at a time like this!
She rang the bell and waited, hands clammy, throat dry, her heart pounding like surf. When Cory opened the door he seemed about to tell her to go to hell, then he realized who she was and just stared at her in amazement. She stared back unable to speak. For a moment, she thought he was going to take her in his arms, then he stood back to let her come in. They went upstairs to the room where he’d first interviewed her. He seemed to have grown taller and thinner, paler too — the haughty, inscrutable face heavily shadowed and tired. There was an embarrassed silence; then he said, ‘Sit down. How are you?’
Harriet perched on the edge of one of the yellow silk armchairs. Her legs wouldn’t hold her up any longer.
‘I’m all right.’
‘And William?’
‘He’s lovely.’
She refused when he offered her a cigarette, her hands were shaking too much.
‘How’s it going, you and Simon?’ he asked in a matter-of-fact voice, as he concentrated on lighting his own cigarette.
‘I’m not with Simon, I never have been — only for a couple of hours that Saturday night. I realized then we were completely washed-up. Didn’t Noel give you my letter?’
He shook his head slowly. He didn’t seem interested in explanations. ‘Where are you now?’
‘At home.’
‘Made it up with your parents? That’s good.’
‘I came up to London to look for a job,’ she lied.
‘Why don’t you come back?’ He paused. ‘The children are desolate without you.’
‘And you?’ she wanted to cry.
He was playing with a green glass paperweight on his desk. ‘If you were to come back,’ he said carefully, ‘there wouldn’t be any funny business. I shall be abroad for most of the rest of the year.’
‘No!’ she interrupted him with a violence that brought her to her feet, face-to-face with him. ‘I couldn’t come back on those terms.’
‘I see,’ he said in a flat voice.
She went over to the window and looked out at the young leaves of the plane tree, glinting white in the setting sun. Her throat felt like sand. She was trying to summon up courage to do the most difficult thing she’d ever done in her life.
‘For someone who’s too clever by three-quarters,’ she said in a shaking voice, ‘you’re awfully dumb, where women are concerned. Don’t you see, if I were living in the same house, and you were away all the time, and never laid a finger on me, I’d die of frustration?’
Cory looked up — the weary eyes suddenly alert.
‘Don’t you understand,’ she went on slowly, ‘that I only ran away because Noel said she was coming back to you, and I just couldn’t take it?’
‘Go on, go on,’ he said, his face as white as hers.
‘Don’t you understand,’ she sobbed, ‘that I love you? Love you more than anything else in the world. And I can’t live without you!’
She didn’t need to say any more. He was across the room, the great arms she had been waiting for closed round her, and he was kissing her so fiercely she almost lost consciousness.
Then he said despairingly, ‘Oh, darling Harriet. I love you. But it wouldn’t work. I’m too old and tired and bitter for you.’
‘You’re not,’ she jibbered. ‘Just thinking about you turns me to jelly,’ she went on. ‘I’ve never been crazy over anyone as I am over you.’
Cory stared down at her, at the parted lips, the burning eyes, the flushed cheeks, the dishevelled hair.
‘Hey,’ he said wonderingly. ‘You do love me, don’t you? What the hell am I going to do about it?’
‘You will do something, won’t you?’ she said nuzzling against him, so he could feel the frantic beating of her heart.
‘Be careful,’ he said, trying to smile.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I’m beginning to feel as though I can be consoled,’ and he kissed her forehead, and then her cheeks, salt with tears, and then her lips.
‘Oh, darling,’ he muttered. ‘Don’t give me time to be ashamed of what I’m doing. I’m going to keep you. What else can I do, when you’re so adorable? But you don’t know what you’re in for. I shall make a bloody awful husband.’
Harriet leapt away in horror. ‘I didn’t mean that! You don’t have to marry me.’
Cory smiled. ‘You’re not the only one who’s allowed to dictate terms. You’ve just said you’ll never come back to Yorkshire unless I devote every minute of the day to laying fingers on you.’
Harriet blushed. ‘I never said that.’
‘So if I take you, it’s for good. For ever and ever.’
She was trembling now, really perturbed.
‘But I forced you into it.’
He sat down and pulled her onto his knee.
‘Sweetheart,’ he said very gently. ‘I know what a shy, reserved person you are, except when you get sloshed at Hunt Balls, and I know what it cost you to come here and tell me you loved me. But if you knew what it meant to me, for the first time in ten years, the miracle of hearing the girl I love tell me she loves me, and really mean it.
‘It’s strange,’ he went on, pushing her hair back from her forehead. ‘I can’t even place the moment I started loving you. It’s so mixed up with convincing myself I was acting for your own good — dragging you away from Billy, bawling you out for going out with Kit, because he was a wolf, trying to persuade you not to go off with Simon because he’d make you a rotten husband, but all the time I must have been eaten up with jealousy because I wanted you for myself. I got so used to being hung-up on Noel, I never believed I could love anyone else, and then you ran away and the house was like a morgue. I knew I ought to give you and Simon a chance, but after five days I couldn’t stand it any longer, so I came South. And. . look.’
He pulled a packet of cigarettes out of his pocket, on which was scribbled a telephone number.
‘That’s Simon’s number,’ said Harriet.
He nodded. ‘I was going to ring up and try to persuade you to come back.’
And then Harriet realized that this awkward, difficult, beautiful man really did love her.
‘Oh, I’m so happy,’ she said, bursting into tears and flinging her arms round his neck. ‘You’re really over Noel?’
‘Really, really. She’s like measles — you don’t catch her twice.’
Harriet giggled. ‘That sounds more like Kit. Where is she now?’