Love Me

Episode 17

Yes, in some ways I do Jack had agreed steadily. ‘Not, I hardly need say,

because I think you are in any way socially inferior to Kelly. I know your

family background,David, and your lineage, and if there’s any shortfall of social

acceptability here it’s far more on Kelly’s side than yours. But I hope you know

me well enough to know that that kind of attitude is totally abhorrent to me. No,

my concern lies in a rather different direction and, in all honesty, it’s Kelly I

should more properly be speaking to and not you, but...well, she isn’t my sister,

there’s no blood tie between us, and teenage girls and their emotions are, I’m

afraid, somewhat outside my own limited experience. So...the truth is that Kelly

believes herself in love with you with all the ferocity that teenagers do believe in

such things. For your sake as much as for hers I feel that such feelings are best

not...encouraged. She’s young and very vulnerable and I should hate to see her

hurt...to see either of you hurt,’ he had amended gently when he had seen David’s

expression.

‘What the hell do you think I’m going to do to her?’ David had exploded. ‘Take her to bed and...?’

‘Is it really so impossible that you might be tempted to?’ Jack had asked him

quietly. ‘I’m not criticising or condemning, David; physically she’s mature and she

loves you—or believes she does—’

‘She’s got a crush on me that she’ll soon grow out of, David had interrupted

him grimly. ‘That’s what you want me to say, isn’t it? And I should keep my

hands off her until she does grow out of it...out of me... But what if I feel

differently, Jack? What if I want...?’ He had shaken his head, angry with himself

as well as with Jack. More angry with himself than he was with Jack who he

knew was only doing what he saw as his duty by his sister.

‘You’re right, she’s a child still, and the sooner she grows up and forgets all

about me the better,’ David had told him hardily. ‘And as for taking her to bed,’ he

had thrown at Jack as he turned to leave, ‘well, there’s always a cure for that.’

And so there had been, for a while at least, until he had grown sickened and

shamed by the emptiness of the s****l encounters he was sharing with women

who meant as little to him emotionally as he did to them. And, even with that

form of release, keeping the promise he had made to Jack and himself hadn’t

been easy. There had been times, far too many of them, when he had nearly

weakened, like when he had fished her out of the muddy lake and taken her back

to his cottage. Oh, God, the temptation then to take what she was so innocently

offering him, to take on the role not so much of seducer as sorcerer, transmuting

the frail strength of her youthful crush on him into the enduring bond of real

adult love.

But, despite the temptation which kissing her had presented, somehow he had

always managed to tell himself of the differences that lay between them in age,

experience and in prospects. He loved his job and wouldn’t have wanted to

change it for anything or anyone, but there was no denying that to expect a girl,

brought up as Kelly had been with every conceivable luxury, to move into the

kind of accommodation estate managers normally occupied, to live the often

lonely lifestyle that would be hers when he was working... He just couldn’t do it.

Had she been older, wiser...poorer...it might have been different. And so he had

resisted the temptation to give in to her desire and his own love, and he had

praised himself for his selflessness, until the fateful day he had taken her Jack’s

cheque.

To see her there, outside her flat, dressed only in a man’s shirt—a shirt

through which, with the hot summer sunshine slanting down on her, he could see

quite plainly the shape and fullness of her breasts and even the dark aureoles of her n*****s—to watch her with another man, a man who he had immediately

assumed was her lover, had created within him an anger, a bitterness, a jealousy

that had rent wide apart his self-control.

To discover later, too late, that there had been no other lover, to realise what

he had done and why, had filled him with such self-loathing that he could hardly

endure the weight of his own guilt.

‘I love you,’ Kelly had told him innocently. ‘I want us to be together.

He had spent the previous week with Jack discussing ways and means in

which they could reduce the cost of running the estate. Amongst them had been

his own suggestion that they rent out his cottage and that he move into rooms in

the main house. He knew that if Jack accepted his suggestion he wouldn’t even

have a proper home to offer her. He could just imagine how her mother would

react to that, to the idea of her daughter living in rooms above the stables of the

house where she had been brought up. And Kelly was still so young, still so ...still at university with the whole of her life in front of her. What right had

he to use what had happened between them to tie her to him? No, better to let her

think that he didn’t want her than to have her turn to him some or even 8 years

down the line to tell him that she had made a mistake; to accuse him of putting

his own emotions before her needs, of taking advantage of her youth and

inexperience.

And he’d been glad he had done so when she had dropped the bombshell

about her relationship with Jayne.

Somehow that was something he had just not expected, but he had seen from

the expression in her eyes and the vehemence in her voice that she meant every

word she was saying. And so he had walked away, telling himself that it was for

the best for her, best that somehow, some time, some way he should learn how to

forget her.

But, of course, he had never done so.

And now here she was, back in his life, a woman now and not a girl, and what

a woman, how much of a woman, the woman whom he loved—and who hated

him.

It had hurt him more than he could bear that she should think he would

actually try to cheat anyone... Did her precious Nichols know how lucky he was or

how much he, David, would give simply to hold her in his arms and hear her

telling him that she loved him? He would give everything he had, everything he

was... What a fool he was. She didn’t love him, she loathed him Watching her just now on his way back from checking on the fences, on the

look-out for potential poachers, he had ached so badly for her, so very, very

badly. There was no point in him going to bed; soon the false dawn would be

lightening the night sky, and besides, there was only one reason he wanted to be

in bed right now and it had nothing to do with sleeping or being alone.

Kissing her tonight had opened the floodgates on his love for her and his body

still ached with the longing it had evoked. How the hell he was going to get

through the next few months he had no idea. Grimly he turned away from the

house and the temptation of Kelly’s bedroom, Kelly’s bed, Kelly herself Helloit’s me, Nichols.’

Kelly smiled warmly as she recognised her boss’s voice.

Nichols,’ she responded, ‘how are you?’

‘Fine, I guess. Listen, I’ve got to come over to Europe on some other

business and I thought whilst I was there I’d drive up to and see how

you’re getting on with city .’

Kelly laughed. She wasn’t in the least deceived. Nichols was like a child with a

new toy whenever he acquired a new property, saying every time that he wasn’t

going to visit it again until all the renovation work had been complete and then

being totally unable to resist checking on how things were going. Or not so

much checking on how things were going, but sneaking another look, like a

child sneaking a look at a hidden-away New year present just to check that it

was still there and that he was actually going to receive it. As Kelly well knew,

no matter how many properties Nichols acquired, he still continued to fall in love

with new ones, and city was well worth falling in love with.

This morning she had an appointment with the firm who were going to work

on the restoration of the carving and the plasterwork. Based in Australia, the

artisans the firm employed had all completed their training at the same European

firm that Kelly had used when renovating the palazzo. She had seen samples

and photographs of their work and knew that no matter how expensive they

might be—and they would be—they were the right people to work on city hall.

‘When are you arriving?’ she asked Nichols, still smiling.

‘I’m booked on today’s Concorde,’ he told her.

Kelly heard the door to the small office she had organised for herself at

City Hall open behind her, but she didn’t turn round. She didn’t need to; she

knew from the reaction of her own body that it was David who had walked in.

Ever since the night he had kissed her and they had argued, they had treated one

another with cold distance. She had gone downstairs that morning to discover a

neat file of papers and bank statements awaiting her which proved conclusively

that David had paid for the work done on the Rectory himself.

She had apologised, very formally and very curtly, and then pointed out that

he wouldn’t have been the first client to take advantage of Nichol’s generosity.