Mail-order Bridegroom Part 40

"Sit down, darling. There's something we have to talk about.""Is it Dianne?" Roslyn asked anxiously."I thought she'd gone to bed?""It's something Dianne said." Olivia suddenly slumped forward and rested her face in her hands. "Marsh cut her off, but I don't know for how long.

Better I tell you myself."

Something in Roslyn seemed to snap.

"Come on, Mumma. Get it out!"

"It's about your piano tuition," Olivia said, looking around her dully.

"Of course it is!" Roslyn threw herself on the bed. "The Faulkners paid forit."

Olivia shrugged forlornly.

"Dame Agatha paid for it. It was something she wanted to do. She wanted to do it quietly. She believed you had a gift and she wanted to see itdeveloped." Olivia glanced towards her daughter, who, instead of lookinggrateful, was alight with outrage.

"Justine spoke tonight about her own family's musical abilities. I could have mentioned my own mother played the piano quite beautifully. She taughtme up until the time she died. I never had the heart to touch the pianoafter that. My father couldn't bear to listen to me, either. / knew beforeDame Agatha you had perfect pitch. But what could your father and I do? It was going to take all we had to send you away to school."

"For G.o.d's sake, Mumma, why didn't you tell me?"

Olivia looked mutely at her daughter for a moment. "You'd never have accepted the situation," she said finally.

"You'd have rejected Dame Agatha's offer. You wouldn't be able to playtoday. Think of that!"

"And they all know?" Roslyn felt the sting of humiliation in her throat.

"Charles knew," Olivia said in a guarded voice.

"He may have told Marsh later on. I'm certain neither of them would have told the girls, let alone Lady Faulkner. They were painfully aware of theirresentments. They wouldn't have wanted to add to them."

"That's all very well, but Di knows now. That's what she was getting at. I thought it was odd."

"What's odd is how she's turning into her mother!" Olivia said sharply.

"I would have thought marriage and the prospect of motherhood might make hermature, softer, more tolerant. Justine seems to have managed it, but Di hasthat same cutting way as her mother."

"What else did they pay for?" Roslyn asked. There was more. She could tell.

"Nothing. Until your father died. I did the best I could. Charles made upthe rest. He loved you."

"He loved you, Mumma!" Roslyn sprang up from the bed, a whirlwind opening upa floodgate of memories in her mother. Roslyn at all stages. Up in arms.Fighting the hurts.

"Please don't upset yourself, darling," Olivia begged. "Maybe he did.

Maybe he even said it. Once. We both had our honour. We'd made our commitments. If you're wondering about your piano, I paid for that entirelyout of my own money. "

"Oh, Mumma," Roslyn moaned, distressed.

"You worked very hard to help put yourself through university. I know what a grind it was. If I was forced to accept a helping hand, it was for yoursake, Rosa. You weren't an ordinary child. Your father was thrilled with his little girl. Charles used to say you were like a precious stone. You had to be polished. It would have been a crime not to."

"And in all these years Marsh hasn't spoken one word of it to me."

"Surely you don't blame him?" Olivia was a little frightened of something inRoslyn's tone."Marsh protected you as much as I did.""We were bought. Both of us, Faulkner possessions."Olivia looked stabbed to the heart."What a way of putting it, Rosa.You always were overly dramatic. It was not bought. I was alone, vulnerable, in need of help. The Faulkners have a big philanthropic programin place. They offer several scholars.h.i.+ps to gifted young people. Think of yourself as having received one. "

"Not from the Faulkners!" Roslyn said.

"So this is what I get for speaking out? Next time I'll shut my mouth. Youhave to resolve your ongoing feud with this family, Rosa.What chance have you and Marsh got with this love-hate? ""Maybe no chance at all!" Roslyn picked up a cus.h.i.+on and threw it."You're overreacting, Rosa." Olivia picked up the cus.h.i.+on and laid her aching head against it.

"It was Dame Agatha's wish to remain anonymous."

"You mean she knew I suffered from the sin of pride?"

' "Rosa, darling, we all knew that. Even Lady Faulkner couldn't break your

spirit and she tried. Don't throw Dame Agatha's kindness and generosity inher face. She meant only good to come of this, as did Charles. Neither of them wanted you to-feel under any obligation."

"I can't see how that's possible. I do."

CHAPTER SIX.

roslyn waited just long enough for her mother to retire before she found herway downstairs again to the study. She realised she was in an emotional,excitable mood, but she was driven to have this issue out with Marsh. She felt anger, disillusionment, pain and, above all, pity for her mother's lackof power and position in life. Her father's early tragic death had forcedthem into a life of dependency. She hated it. She had always hated it. She could never get rid of the inner distress however good her intentions. In a way she identified too much with her mother. It couldn't be an uncommon situation with a lone parent and lone child. Maybe she had even a.s.sumed herfather's role. She had certainly tried to fight her mother's battles, imposeher nature on her gentler mother, but she had never succeeded in inciting hermother to revolt. Her mother's love for Charles Faulkner had been the crucial factor in their staying on at Mac.u.mba. Not that she could blame her mother for anything, but Olivia's decision had forced them into living underthe power and protection of the family she had once called the Enemy.

Maybe things would have been better for her had she not been such a brightchild. She couldn't remember a time she hadn't wanted to better herself,intellectually, socially. She had spent all her school years striving. She had longed to be considered an equal by the Faulkner girls, covering herfrustrations with a quick, ironic wit they couldn't match. As for Marsh? Marsh was in her blood. Whether marriage was going to set all the wrongs right was another matter.

She rapped on the door of the study, opening it before he had a chance to respond.

"Rosa, my love!" He laid down his pen, his blue eyes embracing her.

"One of these nights I'm going to put you in my pocket and take you up to bed."

"Can we talk?" She crossed the room so swiftly the skirt of her rose-printed

chiffon dress swirled around her.

"d.a.m.n! I thought you'd come back to kiss me goodnight." He rose from behindthe desk and came round to her, his long arm gathering her up."Don't treat me with amus.e.m.e.nt," she warned him, tilting her dark head."Oh, my G.o.d, here we go again!" he said on a slow breath."What is it this time, rosebud?""All these years and you've never told me.""Ah, here it comes!""At least you're not going to pretend you don't know."He released her and sat back on the desk."All this melodrama, Rosa?There's nothing so terrible about it, is there? I a.s.sume you're talking about your piano lessons? ""I am."His sapphire eyes rested on her pa.s.sionate face."It wasn't Di. It must have been someone else.""Not one of your precious sisters. Mumma told me. She was waiting for me in my room.""Poor Liv!" He laughed shortly."She's got one scary daughter!""What a thing to say, and you want to marry me?""I didn't say / was scared of you, Rosa. You've met your match. Which doesn't mean I'm not expecting lots

of crisis situations. So Aggie paid foryour piano lessons? Don't read anything indebted into it. Aggie couldafford it and your parents couldn't."

"I should have been tod!"

"I'm inclined to agree, but all in all we were locked into an explosivehousehold.""You mean, your mother's reaction?""She would have used it, Rosa."She sank her teeth in her full, bottom lip."Yes, she would. Let's get to how your father subsidized my education."His expression a.s.sumed an arrogant cast."Your mother was all alone in the world. She had no family in this country.

No one outside of her friend, Ruth, to care about what happened to her. What did you think my father was going to do? Your father was killed in our employ. My father acted out of kindness and sympathy. Not that you were acharming kid, except when you felt like it, and then you could curl us botharound your little finger. You had more p.r.i.c.kles than a spiny anteater."

"I had to grow them for protection."

' "You're just spoiling for a fight, aren't you?" He put out his hand andlaid it along her cheek."Why didn't you tell me. Marsh? There was a time you could have told me anything and I would have accepted it.""Unhappily in the past tense." His expression tautened."For a long time I didn't know. My father didn't tell me everything. It was a private arrangement with your mother. You had to be given every chance.Helping you made him happy."Her brilliant eyes flashed upwards. Her tone was hard and steady."Are you sure it wasn't to get Mumma to sleep with him?"

Don' tV he said grimly.

"What do we really know what went on?"

"They had their honour."

"So Mumma says."

"Then why don't you accept it?"

"You can't know what it's been like growing up. I love my mother, but I was

never stupid. She wasted her life on an impossible dream. It's all so sad I

want to scream."

"Then go ahead!" He pulled her to him roughly, his nostrils flaring, a disturbing curve to his mouth.

"Scream if you have to, only let it out" It seemed like an invitation shecouldn't resist. A therapeutic answer to the pressure points that plaguedher. Her hands made fists. She pounded them against his hard, muscled chest.

"I hate you. Marsh," she gritted, which of course was nonsense.

Without Marsh she was half a person but she was awash with emotions Dianne's arrival had set loose.

It was as if a whip had flicked him, raising weals on his flesh.

"Maybe you have a right!"

The light gleamed queerly across his bronzed cheekbones, darkened his eyes to

an electric blue-violet. For a time he tolerated her pent-up railing, thenhe grew tired of it, bringing her fists together and holding them still."It's loving you want," he said thickly.

"Loving until you can't remember the hurt."

Even as his face-swam above her, Roslyn started to shudder. She made.

a grab for his arm, but he bent her body back in a supple arc, seeking the

magenta shadow at the base of her low, scoop-necked dress, moving lower over the sinuous chiffon so her flesh beneath its thin covering burned.

Sensation upon sensation was moving through her like

ever-widening rippleson a lake. There was so much between them; their shared history, theirpa.s.sionate loving, the deep resentments that suddenly flared up and set themon a collision course. Pa.s.sion and s.e.xual hostility was so intermingled itwas impossible to say where it was coming from.

She gasped as he allowed her up, turning his questing mouth on hers.

Her soft lips opened in overwhelming longing. Their tongues curled, mated, until it became such a pressure they had to break off to breathe deeply, then return to the intense sensual exploration that doubled the excitement with

every frantic moment. Marsh grasped a handful of her glistening hair, staredhard into her eyes."Sleep with me, Rosa. Now, tonight!"As if it hadn't been her fantasy more times than she could possibly count!

Yet she said in a kind of desperate rush,"We go up to your bedroom just like that?"He looked at her searchingly."You're ready. Do you think I don't know that?""Always ready for you. That's no secret.""A rosebud under spring rain." He ran his finger around the outline of her full lips."I can't take this waiting, Rosa. I'm a man, with all a man's needs!""Then you must try discipline." She shook her head. "I can't...!won't sleep with you until I'm your wife! "For a moment he looked at her, blue fire in his eyes, then he laughed, self-derision etched into the little brackets around his mouth.

"Them's fightin' words, Rosa," he drawled.

"I don't know that you're going to be able to pull it off."

"We had a bargain."

"Did we now! I said nothing about total abstinence.