Chapter 4 - Beyond Compare

Holly rang Jan from Drew’s office, a comfortable, shabby room which was down a passage that led into the yard.

‘Hang on a minute,’ Jan demanded, when she had given her a breathless account of all that had happened. ‘I’ve only been up for half an hour, Holly, and I’m not quite capable of grasping all that lot in one go. Explain properly.’

And so she did, hesitating a little as she got to the point where she had suggested to Drew that they pretend to be lovers.

‘And he agreed?’ Jan said doubtfully.

‘Well, he’s desperately in love with Rosamund,’ Holly told her quickly. ‘He wants me to stay on, Jan. And I’d like to. I’ve got plenty of holidays due to me. He’s even got a commission for me.’

She went on to explain to Jan about the kitchen.

‘Well, I must admit all this rather ties in with something Luke and I were discussing the other night. I’m thinking—only thinking, mind—of starting up an outlet in the north, Holly, and what I have in mind is for you to take charge of it for me. It would involve a lot of work. You’d have to canvass around to find the right spot, and then there’d be discussions with the bank and our accountants. If you like, while you are going to spend some time up there, you could start looking around, get a feel for the market. Of course, we’d make you a partner in the business, and we’d talk about splitting the profits of the new outlet, but first I need to know if you’re interested.’

‘Interested? Jan, I’m stunned! I’m not a designer.’

‘Maybe not, but you’re very good with people, Holly, and the clients like you, which is important. They find you simpatico and they’re not afraid to tell you what they want, which makes them come back, rather than simply smiling and saying it’s wonderful, when in truth they hate what we’ve done. Look, don’t make any decision right now. Have a think about it while you’re up there. I can easily spare you for a month.’ She hesitated and then warned doubtfully, ‘Don’t set too much store on this plan of yours, will you, love?’

‘You mean, you don’t think I’ll get Howard back,’ Holly interrupted her in a quiet voice.

‘Oh, Holly, I know you think you love him, but believe me, you’re better off without him. Tell me more about this Drew,’ Jan pressed her curiously.

Holly did, and at such length that when Jan came off the telephone she was grinning to herself.

‘What was that all about?’ Luke demanded, coming into the room in time to catch the tail-end of the phone call and his wife’s expression.

‘Nothing much. Holly wants to take up her holiday allocation. I’ve had a word with her about the new outlet and asked her to have a canvass round.’

‘And that makes you grin like a Cheshire cat?’

‘No,’ Jan told him, but refused to be drawn any further.

‘Did you manage to get through to your boss?’ Drew asked half an hour later, walking into the kitchen and bending to remove his muddy Wellingtons.

‘Yes. She’s quite happy for me to stay. And guess what?’

Quickly she explained to him Jan’s proposition, wondering why it was that she found it so much easier to talk to Drew than she ever had to Howard. Howard had found her job boring and had made no attempt to pretend otherwise, cutting her off when she talked about it so that he could instead talk about his own business life. Sometimes she had felt almost resentful because she enjoyed her work, and Howard’s lack of interest in it detracted from her own sense of self-satisfaction in what she did.

Drew, on the other hand, seemed gratifyingly interested, even coming up with one or two suggestions as to where a good outlet might be.

‘Chester is the obvious choice, but it’s very pricey. There’s Knutsford, of course—and then Nantwich.’

‘Nantwich?’

‘Mmm. I’ll have to see if I can arrange some time off, and I’ll drive you round, if you like.’

‘Oh, Drew, would you?’

‘Why not? After all, it will all help to reinforce the image, won’t it?’

‘The image?’

‘Of the pair of us as inseparable lovers.’

‘Oh, yes.’ Holly was mortified to discover that in her excitement she had almost forgotten about that.

They were still talking about Jan’s proposed new venture and Holly’s role in it when they set out for lunch an hour later.

Holly was wearing a new skirt of tartan, with a toning sweater in the same dark blues and greens of the skirt, and over it an acid-yellow jacket which picked out the acid yellow line of the tartan.

It suited her, and had been an expensive buy, at least as far as she was concerned, and bought on impulse, even though she had known that Howard wouldn’t like it.

Drew did, though, his complimentary praise bringing a happy glow to her cheeks.

Like her, he was casually dressed, but in a way that made her all too well aware of what he meant when he said that he needed a woman’s advice and help.

There was nothing specially wrong with the beige cords, other than the fact that they didn’t do justice to his physique; mainly, Holly suspected, because they had been designed for someone far more generously proportioned around the hips than Drew, and she wondered rather wistfully what he would look like in a pair of well-cut, stone-washed jeans,

As though the cords weren’t bad enough, he had chosen to wear with them a garish checked shirt in red and green, and over it a blue sweater.

She thought of Howard’s carefully chosen separates and immaculately tailored suits and made herself vow that, in appearance at least, Drew would be able to rival Howard before she was finished with him.

She would need more clothes herself in view of the length of her stay. Jan had a spare key for her flat and had promised to send some things on to her, but in the meantime it might be as well if she bought a new pair of jeans. She could wear them while she was working on Drew’s kitchen.

She hadn’t checked with him yet what kind of colour scheme he had in mind, and when she mentioned this he shrugged his shoulders and said indifferently, ‘I’ll leave that up to you.’

‘But, Drew, presumably you designed the kitchen for Rosamund. Does she have a favourite colour?’

He took his attention off the road and looked at her. ‘Baby pink,’ he told her flatly, ‘and if you dare to paint my kitchen that colour, I shall wring your neck.’

Holly could only agree with him, but she was surprised at his attitude. She had rather gained the impression that if Rosamund had wanted the kitchen painted all the colours of the rainbow, he would have been delighted to oblige her.

‘Yellow would be pretty and fresh—with just a hint of blue…perhaps in the stencilling. Or I could simply lime the oak and leave it as it is. That would be more austere, but very effective.’

‘Do something that you would like if it was your own kitchen,’ Drew told her.

‘But you might not like it,’ she protested.

He turned his head and smiled at her. ‘Just as long as it isn’t baby pink, I’ll like it,’ he assured her.

The pub was obviously a popular venue for people to gather for either lunch or a drink. Jane and Guy were standing in the bar when Drew ushered her in. She liked the way he kept her close to his side, she reflected as she fell back, slightly awed by the busy press of people. It made her feel safe and protected. Jane waved to her, and called them over.

‘Everyone’s all agog over the news about you and Drew,’ she told Holly cheerfully while Drew went to the bar. ‘You’ve caused quite a bombshell. Oh, heavens, here’s Rosamund and Howard. That’s odd. Rosy doesn’t normally come slumming here. Rookery Hall or the Grosvenor is more her scene. Are you two lunching?’

‘Yes, we are,’ Drew announced firmly, arriving with their drinks, ‘and as we’re a little bit late, I think we’d better go through.’

He started to usher Holly away almost immediately, and she wondered if he realised that he was missing an ideal opportunity to show Rosamund that he wasn’t pining for her.

She tried to tell him as much, but the level of conversation around them was so high that by the time she had got her message across they were already in the dining-room.

A rather odd look crossed his face when she told him that Howard and Rosamund had arrived, and if Holly hadn’t known better she could almost have thought that he was annoyed at their presence.

They were given an attractive table in the window, overlooking the fields to the rear of the pub.

Holly followed Drew’s recommendation and ordered the traditional roast beef, and while she waited for their soup to arrive she kept looking anxiously toward the door.

‘Stop looking so anxious,’ Drew told her curtly. ‘They won’t come in here. Rosamund won’t eat anything that isn’t served raw and decorated with kiwi fruit.’

The dry way he said it made Holly look closely at him. His comment had almost been sarcastic, something she wouldn’t have expected, given his feelings for Rosamund. He was probably just trying to pretend he wasn’t affected by their break-up, she decided sympathetically.

The dining-room was busy, and the waiter came up to their table to explain in a flustered manner that there was no more home-made soup left.

‘There’s pate, or a seafood mousse…’

‘Either sounds delicious,’ Holly assured him with a sunny smile, at pains to let him know that she understood that the absence of the soup wasn’t his fault, and then she realised that Drew was watching her closely.

‘What’s wrong?’ she asked him uncertainly, flushing a little. ‘Have I got a smut on my nose?’

‘No.’

‘Then why are you looking at me like that?’

‘I was just reflecting how very pleasant and relaxing it is to be with a woman who treats everyone around her with such consideration.’

Holly blushed a deeper pink at his praise; it gave her a warm glow deep inside, a happy feeling of well-being she hadn’t experienced in a long, long time… and certainly not with Howard. At least, not recently.

‘It’s only a bowl of soup,’ she told him honestly.

‘Mmm…but I know women who’d have raised the roof, just for the pure hell of it.’

Women, or one woman? She could quite easily see Rosamund doing just that.

The waiter brought them the pate, with another apologetic smile.

It was delicious and Holly told him as much when he came to collect their plates and serve the main course.

There was a warm, happy atmosphere in the cosy, low-beamed room; several tables were occupied by family groups, including children, all of whom were cheerfully well behaved.

This was what she missed in London, she acknowledged: this sense of belonging, of being part of a community.

‘Don’t think about him,’ Drew advised her harshly.

She stared at him and suddenly realised what he meant.

‘I wasn’t,’ she said honestly. ‘I was thinking how much I’ve missed all this.’

‘I’ve never really been able to see you as a city girl.’

‘Needs must,’ Holly said lightly. ‘I needed a job—’ she shrugged comprehensively ‘—but I must say I’m thrilled about Jan’s suggestion.’

‘She obviously thinks very highly of you. Tell me some more about your work.’

‘Oh, no. It’s your turn to tell me about yours,’ Holly told him.

‘There isn’t much to tell. I left school at sixteen when my father died, as you know. It was hard going at first, but I was lucky enough to have the advice of a family friend. My stepfather now, actually. He encouraged me to take a night-school course. That opened my eyes to a great deal, showed me where my father had been going wrong.’

‘So the farm’s profitable now?’ Holly asked him.

‘Profitable enough to pay your fees,’ he teased her.

Immediately Holly put down her knife and fork and said firmly, ‘There won’t be any fees, Drew—not unless you let me pay you board and lodging.’

‘All right, firebrand, calm down. I’d forgotten how feisty you can be,’ he added with a chuckle.

Feisty? Her? Privately, Holly always considered herself boringly calm and dull.

‘Do you really see me as feisty, Drew?’ she asked doubtfully.

‘Does it matter how I see you? I thought Neston’s opinion was the only one that counted.’

Suddenly he seemed to have withdrawn from her, and she shivered slightly, as though the sun had gone in, leaving her feeling exposed and cold. Oddly enough, his opinion did matter, although she could not for the world have said why. Perhaps it was because she knew instinctively that Drew would never lie, that his responses would always be honest, no matter what the cost to others or himself.

‘Pudding?’ he asked her.

She shook her head. ‘After that lot, I’ll hardly be able to move as it is.’

‘Coffee, then, and a liqueur?’

‘No liqueur, but coffee—yes, please.’

It came as a shock to discover that they were the last people left in the dining-room. Drew had been making her laugh with his wry stories of the mistakes he had made when he first took over the farm, and the waiters looked over in their direction several times when Holly’s bubbling laughter rang out, giving her trim form admiring glances, to which she was oblivious but of which Drew took due note.

She had never realised before that Drew had such a good sense of humour, and was moreover able to laugh at himself and his own errors. It encouraged her to tell him some of her own tales of things that had gone wrong in her early days working for Jan.

It was sad that she had never shared this warm camaraderie with Howard, she reflected as she refused a final cup of coffee and waited for Drew to pay the bill.

But then, she was in love with Howard, while Drew… well, Drew was a friend, his sex an immaterial part of their relationship.

Or was it? Traitorously, she remembered the tiny tingle of sensation his touch had evoked within her, firmly dismissing it as she tried to concentrate instead on recalling the feelings that Howard aroused in her. Astoundingly, that special mixture of despair and delight she always connected with Howard eluded her. She knew she loved him. She had always loved him, but she couldn’t conjure up the magical memory of how she felt when he was with her.

‘Ready to leave?’

She smiled warmly at Drew, enjoying the courteous way he pulled back her chair for her and escorted her out of the room.

Howard thought such attentions old-fashioned and unnecessary. Women were equal to men these days and therefore quite capable of opening their own doors and so on. Sometimes Holly wondered if Howard was quite as approving of women’s equality as he said. She had noticed on more than one occasion that he could be sneeringly unkind about some of the older career women he came across in his work.

There were still a few cars in the car park, proof perhaps that the pub’s opening and closing hours were slightly more elastic than those of its city brethren, Holly reflected, as they headed for the Range Rover.

It was a lovely afternoon, autumnal and rich with the colours and scents of the season.

A brand new Jaguar saloon was parked next to the Range Rover, and Holly’s heart did a nosedive as she recognised Howard and Rosamund standing next to it. They had obviously been chatting with the couple who were just getting into a scarlet Porsche parked several yards away.

Of course, Rosamund would have wealthy friends, and Howard would like that, Holly thought miserably. He had always been far more impressed by wealth and position than she was herself.

She pinned a bright smile to her face as they approached the other couple. It hurt to see Howard—her Howard—with someone else. Especially a someone else who was wearing his ring, especially a someone else like Rosamund.

On Howard’s face was that same half-sulky, half-defiant expression it had worn when he had told her the news about his engagement, and Drew for once seemed unaware of her distress, almost purposefully distancing himself from her, so that she shivered, missing the warmth and reassurance of him at her side.

As she drew level with the other couple, Rosamund turned her and gave her a taunting look, and then to Holly’s anguish she turned round and slid her arms around Howard, pressing her body the length of his with open sexuality, kissing him in a way that made Holly’s face burn, so intimate was it. She had never seen people kiss like that in public before, and, inside, her self-confidence and belief in her own sexuality shrivelled a little more. Howard had never kissed her like that.

As she turned away from the embracing couple she heard Rosamund’s low, satisfied laughter. Her face burning, she climbed into the Range Rover without a word, but her feelings showed quite clearly in her eyes, dark with misery and anguish.

They drove several miles in silence, and then Drew said harshly, ‘It was only a kiss, Holly, and staged more for our benefit than their mutual enjoyment.’

She ignored the latter part of his statement and turned her head so that she could look at him, her eyes showing her deep inner torment.

‘Yes, but he’s never kissed me like that. No one has,’ she added in a low voice. Her head bent forward, her hair masking her face, and revealing the slender arch of her throat.

Drew made no comment. But then, what comment could he make? He could hardly claim that Howard had felt passion for her when she realised all too well now that he had not. His lack of desire to make love to her had not sprung from a mutual lack of a high sex drive, but from uninterest in her sexually. She could see it now.

When they got back to the farm, Drew announced that he had to go and check on the stock. Holly offered to go with him, but he shook his head, and so instead she went up to her room, and got out the sketch book she always carried with her, trying to concentrate on a colour scheme for the kitchen.

For once her mind wouldn’t focus on her work. She went downstairs again and wandered around the kitchen, stroking the wooden units, enjoying the sensation of their smoothness beneath her fingertips.

They felt warm and hard…rather like Drew’s face, only then she had been touching blood and bone and had been conscious of the pulse of life beneath the warmth of his flesh, of the very maleness of him in contrast to her own femininity.

When Drew came back in, she was staring into space, sitting motionless in front of the window. He gave her a brief, assessing look and then said quietly, ‘Why don’t I light a fire in the sitting-room, and we can spend the evening discussing where we should start our search for your new premises? I’ve got plenty of maps.’

‘You mean, instead of discussing how we’re going to break Howard and Rosamund’s engagement,’ Holly countered in a hard, bitter voice she barely recognised as her own. She turned to him her eyes flashing fire and resentment. ‘You don’t need to wrap me in cotton wool, Drew. I can see the truth for myself. Howard never felt for me what he feels for Rosamund. The whole thing was a stupid idea… I might as well go right back to London.’

‘You can’t,’ Drew told her steadily. ‘It’s too late for that. You’ve made a commitment… Not just to help me, but to help Jan as well.’

He was right. She couldn’t behave like a spoilt child and announce that she wasn’t going to stay because she had realised in the space of three or four awful seconds that Howard didn’t desire her.

‘You’re not still brooding about that kiss, are you?’ Drew asked her quietly.

She refused to look at him, and said in a muffled voice, ‘Wouldn’t you be? Oh, Drew, what’s wrong with me?’ she wailed, suddenly unable to control her misery any longer. ‘What is it about me that makes me so undesirable?’

He put down the basket of logs he had brought in and walked over to her, his hands gentle on her shoulders as he turned her to face him.

‘Oh, Holly, you aren’t undesirable,’ he told her firmly. ‘Far from it. Shall I prove it to you?’ he asked her in a different voice, a voice free of any hint of amusement or mockery, but laced instead with a soft suggestion of sensuality that made her look disbelievingly at him.

Her mouth trembled slightly and Drew reached out and touched it with the hard pad of his thumb, drawing it over the softness of her bottom lip. A curious sensation shot through her, her body suddenly so weak that she was glad of the protective strength of Drew’s arm when he pulled her gently against his own body.

He had discarded his jacket and she could feel the hardness of his muscles beneath the thinness of his shirt. His heartbeat was steady and reassuring; the clean, cold scent of fresh air clung to him, and, even as she recognised the peculiarity of being held like this by him when she was in love with someone else, her lips were parting moistly in obedience to the teasing pressure of his thumb. It rubbed gently against the edge of her teeth, and she had to suppress a sudden urge to nibble at the hard pad of flesh.

A forlorn awareness of how kind he was being in trying to reassure her swept over her, and she tried to protest to him that it was unnecessary, and that anyway she already knew that he did not desire her, but the words were never said because his mouth was touching hers.

She made a soft protest which made him tighten the firm hold of his arm so that she could feel the buckle of his belt digging into her, and the hand which had caressed her lips cupped her jaw, its fingers sliding into her hair, caressing the vulnerable flesh below her ear, and making her shudder discernibly, and press herself deeper into his embrace.

Deep in his throat, Drew made a soft, growling sound of satisfaction that brought her skin out in goose-bumps, and his lips, which had until then only been gently persuasive on her own, hardened and demanded in a way that made her forget everything bar the exciting sensations he was arousing in her.

Howard had never kissed her like this; never nibbled tormentingly at her lips; never teased their moist softness with his tongue; never held her or touched her as though she was infinitely desirable and precious.

She felt the increased thud of Drew’s heart, and her own picked up the fierce beat; she felt his hand on her throat and parted her lips in obedience to the demands of his mouth.

‘Open your eyes,’ Drew whispered, and dazedly she did so, shocked to see the hot, dark colour burning his cheekbones, and the aroused glitter of his eyes. ‘See what you do to me,’ he whispered against her mouth. ‘See how you make me feel, Holly.’

And before she could stop him, his hand slid down her spine, arching her into the hollow of his thighs so that she could feel his body’s physical arousal.

Holly trembled, too shocked to do anything other than simply lean against him, the reality of his desire turning her so weak that she couldn’t move.

This wasn’t right. Drew didn’t love her, nor she him…but he made her feel alive and feminine, needed in a way that Howard had never made her feel, her confused mind admitted.

She looked at him, his face so close to hers that she could see quite clearly the darker band of gold around each iris, and the thick black fan of his eyelashes, so long that she ached to reach out and touch them.

‘Drew,’ she protested shakily, her eyes clouding with tears of shock and fear. What was happening to her? It was wrong that she should feel like this, wrong that Drew should arouse her to desire without them sharing love. She had always believed that she would only feel desire where she felt love, and now, within the space of a few seconds, Drew had shown her how different reality was.

‘I want you, Holly, and I could quite easily make you want me, too.’

‘No!’ She tensed in protest.

‘Yes,’ Drew told her grimly and, before she could stop him, his hand swept up over her body to cup her breast, his thumb unerringly finding the hard, tight pinnacle that betrayed the truth.

She drew in a sobbing breath of panic and distress, and begged huskily, ‘Drew, please don’t. It isn’t right… We don’t—we don’t love one another.’

‘No,’ he agreed, slowly releasing her, his eyes shadowed from her by the thick sweep of his lashes, his voice harsh and faintly biting, ‘No, maybe not, but never let me hear you saying that you aren’t desirable again, Holly, because it just isn’t true.’

‘But Howard doesn’t desire me,’ she protested miserably, and caught her breath on a stunned gasp as she saw the almost savage anger darken his face.

‘And Neston is, of course, the only man of any importance in the entire male world!’

The biting sarcasm of the comment caught her off guard. She wasn’t used to such sarcasm from Drew, and she stepped back from him uncertainly.

‘I’m sorry, Holly,’ he apologised, instantly contrite, and guiltily she recognised that this whole thing was as difficult for him as it was for her. More so, because he must surely have experienced a very full sex-life with Rosamund. So full, perhaps, that it was his frustration and longing for her that had caused his apparent desire for herself. She smiled wanly.

‘I know you were only trying to help,’ she said quietly. ‘I’m sorry I’m being so stupid. If you’d like me to leave…’

For a moment she thought he was going to agree. An odd look of despair combined with grimness crossed his face, but he mastered it and turned to her with a calm smile, ‘Without decorating my kitchen? Come on, Holly, remember faint heart…’

‘Never won fair maid. Yes, I know. I suppose it is too soon to give up hope yet,’ she agreed, but what she didn’t tell him was that she was only just beginning to realise that the Howard she loved—that the Howard she thought she had known—was now proving to be little more than a creation of her own daydreams.