Newlyweds of Convenience

CHAPTER SEVEN

THE wine waiter was hovering, wanting Torr to taste the wine, pouring it into their glasses with great ceremony and fussing around with their table. He seemed to take a long time about it.

When he was finally satisfied, and had taken himself off, Torr swirled the wine in his glass and stared broodingly down into it.

‘I still don’t understand how you can love someone who could treat you like that,’ he said to Mallory.

‘I didn’t know what he would do when I fell in love with him,’ she pointed out. ‘I had no idea that he was capable of dishonesty. Of course I knew Steve had his weaknesses, but he was so handsome, and such fun, and…oh, I was always so happy when I was with him,’ she remembered with a sad smile. ‘I overlooked his faults because of the way he made me feel. With Steve, everything seemed possible. He had a way of sweeping you along with his ideas. I suppose they weren’t always very practical, but he made them sound irresistible.’

‘Like all the best con men,’ Torr commented austerely.

‘Perhaps,’ she acknowledged. ‘All I know is that when Steve suggested we went into business together, restoring old properties, it seemed to make perfect sense. Steve would do the building work and I would do the interior design. At first we did very well, and if we’d stuck with that everything would have been fine. But it wasn’t enough for Steve. He started to get restless.’

‘Or greedy?’

‘Or greedy,’ Mallory agreed evenly. ‘He started talking about buying up the old warehouses down by the river and renovating them as luxury apartments. I was doubtful at first-it seemed beyond our scope-but Steve was very persuasive, and before I knew what had happened I believed in that project more than anyone else. It was all going to be so exciting.’

She smiled wistfully, remembering how eagerly she had pored over the plans with Steve. Had he been planning even then to dump her and run off with the money? He must have been.

‘You certainly had me convinced when you told me about it,’ said Torr.

The memory of how cynically Steve had set her up to persuade Torr to invest in the project still made Mallory wince.

‘We didn’t have enough start-up capital. The bank lent us some, but Steve said that we needed another investor, and we knew how successful you’d been in your own property businesses. When you asked me to design the interior of your new house, it all seemed to be falling perfectly into place…’

‘And it did-for Steve,’ Torr added dryly. ‘It didn’t work so well for the rest of us, though, did it?’

‘No,’ she said on a sigh.

‘Do you know where he is now?’

Mallory shook her head. ‘The police found out he’d got a ferry from Dover, but he could be anywhere on the continent. He’ll have a new girlfriend now,’ she said a little bitterly. ‘Steve’s not the kind of man to go without a woman for long.

‘Do you know what the worst thing is?’ she confessed. ‘It’s not knowing what he was really thinking all the time we were together. Did he really intend to marry me? Did he care about me at all? Or was he planning his scam all along? I had so many happy memories, and now I don’t know which ones to believe or not. How could I not have suspected that something was wrong? I keep telling myself I should have guessed what was going on, and I feel so guilty about all those people like you, who lost money because I was too stupid to see Steve for what he really was.’

‘It wasn’t your fault,’ said Torr. ‘Some people are very good at playing a part and then changing roles when it suits them. My ex-wife was like that. I’m not normally a gullible man, but she had me beat. Before we were married I would have sworn that she had the sweetest personality you could ever come across.

‘Ha!’ He gave a snort of mirthless laughter. ‘Lynn took me for everything she could get, and by the time she’d finished with me I couldn’t understand how I could ever have been fool enough to believe her. It wasn’t even as if I was very young-that might at least have been some excuse. I’d already been round the block a few times and made my first million-which I realised, in retrospect, was all that attracted Lynn to me. I was pretty stupid not to have seen that one coming!’

‘And yet you married me, knowing that I was marrying you for exactly the same reason,’ Mallory pointed out.

‘It was different with you. You’ve never pretended to feel something you don’t.’

Did it count if you were pretending not to feel something you did feel? Mallory wondered, thinking about how adamantly she had denied feeling jealous of Sheena that morning. Perhaps it was best not to go there, though. This might be the most openly they had ever talked to each other, but she didn’t have to confess everything, did she?

‘Still, I’m surprised the experience didn’t put you off marriage,’ she said.

‘It’s the reason I’m not sentimental about marriage,’ Torr said, picking up the bottle and leaning over to top up her glass before the wine waiter could come fussing back. ‘Lynn certainly disillusioned me about that. At least I knew you weren’t going to pretend that you loved me. A practical arrangement suited me, and it was what you needed too. It’s much easier if neither of you has any expectations.’

‘Is it?’ Mallory said a little sadly.

Torr looked at her with that dark blue gaze that seemed to see so much more than she wanted it to. ‘You don’t sound sure.’

‘It’s just…’ Avoiding his eyes, she turned the stem of her glass between her hands. ‘Don’t you ever have regrets?’ she asked on an impulse.

‘About our marriage? No.’

You could always rely on Torr for an uncompromising answer.

‘You don’t ever wish that things could be different?’ she persisted. ‘That you could have married the woman you love and spent your life with her instead of with someone who doesn’t love you?’

Something flickered at the back of his eyes and was gone. ‘That’s just a dream,’ he said. ‘There’s no point in wishing for something you can’t have. It’s better to deal with what you’ve got, and we’ve got each other-for now, at least. Our marriage may not be very romantic, but I think it’s successful, don’t you?’

‘It depends what you mean by successful,’ said Mallory doubtfully.

‘We’re both getting what we want out of it. You’re paying off your debts; I’ve got some practical support. It’s not a whirl of romance, I agree, but it’s working. As long as we both put something into the marriage, and both get something out, then, yes, I’d say it was a success.’

But we don’t sleep together, Mallory wanted to shout. We don’t love each other. How can it be a successful marriage?

But she didn’t. Perhaps, after all, Torr was right, and they had a partnership that gave them both what they needed. Perhaps that was enough.

She could see the waitress approaching with two plates. Sitting back in her chair, she pushed her cutlery back into place and put on a smile she didn’t feel. ‘Maybe when we’re divorced you can find her and tell her how you feel,’ she suggested helpfully. ‘You might find that you can have your dream after all.’

Torr’s eyes were dark and blue as they looked at her across the table. ‘Maybe,’ he said.

It was dark when they got back to Kincaillie the next evening, just as it had been the night of their arrival, but this time there was no storm to rage around the car. To Mallory the blackness felt less threatening, and the looming castle walls in the headlights less creepy. It would be too much to say that it felt like coming home, but nonetheless she was surprised at how familiar the kitchen seemed, and how pleased she was to get back.

The range had retained some heat, and once Torr had lit a fire everything began to look…not cosy, no, but more welcoming at least. In the bedroom, Mallory plugged in the radiator she had bought, and clicked on the new bedside lamps. In their soft yellow light the improvement was instant. When she had made the curtains and unrolled the new rug, the whole room would look positively inviting.

It would be very different going to bed now.

Although perhaps not that different. She would still be going to bed with Torr.

Mallory would rather have stuck pins in her eyes than admit it to him, but she had missed him the night before. The hotel room had been wonderfully warm, but the bed had felt big and empty, and she hadn’t been able to get comfortable. The truth, as she had admitted to herself at about three in the morning, was that she had felt lonely on her own.

She’d had Charlie for company, of course, although sometimes rather more than she’d wanted. It had been a treat for him to be able to sleep in the same room as her, and every now and then he’d put his front paws on the bed, whimpered with excitement and tried to lick her face. And if he hadn’t been doing that, he’d been snoring loudly, and reminding Mallory just why she usually made him sleep in the kitchen. She loved him dearly, but he wasn’t a restful companion at night, it had to be said.

Mallory had thumped her pillow and sighed, wondering if she would ever get a good night’s sleep again. She couldn’t sleep with Torr, and now it seemed she couldn’t sleep without him either.

The bed really did look inviting now, she thought, standing back and admiring the effect of the new lamps. She was weary after the long drive back to Kincaillie, and the thought of snuggling down under the duvet and settling against Torr’s hard, warm body was dangerously appealing. The realisation that she was looking forward to sleeping with him again was unsettling, even disturbing, and Mallory did her best to shrug it off. She was just tired, she told herself. She was looking forward to a long sleep, that was all.

‘I never thought I would admit it, but I’m shopped out,’ she said to Torr as they unpacked the perishables they had bought at their last stop. They had done a major supermarket shop, stocking up on all the basics, and as many fruit and vegetables as they thought would keep fresh for a while, as well as some luxuries, including a ready-made meal that went straight into the range to heat up when they got in.

‘Just as well,’ said Torr, stacking milk in the old chest freezer. ‘If we do many more shops like that we won’t be able to afford to have the roof done! We’ll have to make do with what we can get in Carraig for a while now.’

‘We really need to try and grow as much as we can ourselves. I’m all fired up now I’ve bought my book on growing vegetables,’ Mallory told him. ‘I’m going to start digging a patch to plant those seed potatoes I bought tomorrow.’

‘I thought you were painting tomorrow?’

‘That’s true.’ She was dying to get going on the bathroom, but if she didn’t start planting vegetables soon it would be too late. ‘I’ll paint in the morning,’ she decided, ‘and garden in the afternoon.’

Torr raised an eyebrow. ‘You don’t need to knock yourself out,’ he said, and something in his tone made Mallory flush. She was obviously sounding too keen.

‘That was what we agreed as part of our new deal,’ she reminded him stiffly.

He didn’t reply for a moment. ‘Ah, yes,’ he said at last. ‘You’re working to repay your debts so you can leave in a year’s time with a clear conscience.’

Mallory bit her lip. She hadn’t been thinking about leaving, but if she denied it he would start to wonder why she was getting so enthused about planting vegetables she would probably never eat.

And he wouldn’t wonder nearly as much as she would.

So she told herself that repaying her debts according to the terms of their deal was all she cared about.

It certainly gave her a good excuse to work really hard for the next few weeks. She had bought paint in Inverness, and cleverly gave each room a character of its own just by careful choice of colour, so the bedroom was warm and restful, the bathroom cool and calm and the kitchen fresh and bright.

Having done much of the preparation in advance, it didn’t take her that long to slap on some paint, and she spent the rest of the time in the kitchen garden, where she’d started by clearing that one small patch. Mallory was surprised at how addictive she found it, and she got quite ambitious. She planted potatoes and beans, leeks and purple sprouting broccoli, peas and spinach, and once they were in she kept clearing one patch at a time, marvelling at what she found. There were great clumps of parsley and mint that had gone to seed, coarse rhubarb and chard, and a fine collection of old fruit bushes-blackcurrants, redcurrants, raspberries and gooseberries-that had grown woody.

Every night she would pore over the book she had bought, but the best advice came from Dougal, one of the roofers, who turned out to be a keen gardener. Dougal had a seamed, weathered face, and could obviously hardly bear to see her making mistakes. Every chance he could, he would climb down the scaffolding and stand over her in the garden, sucking his teeth and shaking his head.

‘You’ll no be getting a decent crop of potatoes now,’ he told her. ‘You’re much too late to be putting them in.’ He wagged a stubby finger at her. ‘Next year, now, you start in February.’

Mallory listened humbly. Dougal told her how to chit seed potatoes, how to grow carrots from seed, how to prepare soil, and he identified all sorts of plants that she had thought were weeds and had been planning to dig up.

‘It’s like Gardeners’ Question Time whenever I come in here,’ grumbled Torr one day, watching Dougal return reluctantly to the roof after finishing his mug of tea. ‘He spends more time in the garden than he does on the roof!’

Mallory pulled off her gardening gloves and put a hand to the small of her back. ‘I don’t know what I would have done without him,’ she said. ‘I can tell he thinks I’m too silly for words, but he’s showed me how to do all sorts of useful things. I’m going to start early so I can grow a really good variety next year.’

‘Don’t put in too much,’ Torr said. ‘Your year will be up before next summer. There’s no point in planting vegetables if you’re not going to be here to eat them.’

Without giving Mallory a chance to reply, he walked off, leaving her to stare after him in consternation. They had been getting on so well recently that his blunt reminder was like a slap in the face. It wasn’t that she had forgotten that she would be leaving in a year’s time, or that she had changed her mind, but she just hadn’t been thinking about it. She hadn’t been thinking about Steve either. She had just been painting and digging and walking Charlie and not thinking about anything very much. In spite of all her hard work, it had been a strangely restful time.

Now Torr had unsettled her again. She didn’t want to think about leaving, not yet. Much better to take each day at a time, Mallory told herself, and let the future take care of itself for now. She would just keep on tending the garden, and helping Torr with the mammoth job of bringing Kincaillie back to life, and she would worry about what she was going to do when the year was up.

Dougal and his fellow roofers drove back to the pub in Carraig every night. It seemed a long drive to do, there and back every day, but when Mallory asked Dougal if they wouldn’t rather camp at Kincaillie, he told her they had didn’t like to rough it unless they absolutely had to.

Absurdly, she felt almost hurt that the men would drive all the way to Carraig rather than stay at Kincaillie. ‘It’s not as if it’s that bad,’ she said to Torr when she told him about it as he came into the kitchen at the end of a rare sunny day, having washed and changed.

‘You’ve changed your tune, haven’t you?’ he said, with a somewhat sardonic glance.

Mallory was stirring a sauce on top of the range. She tapped the wooden spoon on the side of the pan and rested it on the edge.

‘You’ve got to admit that things have improved since we arrived,’ she said, turning to lean back against the welcome warmth of the range. It might be May, but even when the sun shone the heat rarely penetrated the thick castle walls.

Torr let his eyes travel slowly round the kitchen, noting as if for the first time how much things had changed. Music played from small speakers, and appetising smells drifted from the pot on the range. Mallory was a bright figure, leaning there in jeans and a scarlet cardigan, her dark hair tumbling to her shoulders and her face vivid.

The walls had been freshly painted in a bold colour. She had made fabric blinds that cut out the blackness outside and made the whole room seem cosier. The armchairs in front of the fire were covered by new brightly coloured throws, and the table between them was scattered with books and magazines. Now that they had a standard light each they could actually read them at night now, while the music played and the fire burned low.

Given what a huge room it was, it had taken surprisingly little for Mallory to change the whole atmosphere.

‘You’re right,’ he said as his eyes returned to hers. ‘Things have improved a lot.’

Reaching into the fridge, he poured them both a glass of wine. ‘Seriously,’ he said as handed one to Mallory, ‘it all looks great.’

She took the compliment with a word of thanks. ‘Do you really like it?’ she asked almost shyly. It was always so hard to know what Torr was really thinking.

‘I do. I can’t believe the difference you’ve made.’ He looked her straight in the eye. ‘Thank you,’ he said.

‘There’s no need to thank me. It’s just…’

‘Part of the deal. I know,’ Torr finished for her. ‘Still, you’ve worked really hard, and now everything is so much more comfortable. I want you to know that I appreciate it.’

Mallory was pleased, but his praise made her feel awkward at the same time. ‘You’re working just as hard,’ she pointed out, thinking of the long hours he spent in the rest of the castle. ‘It’ll just take longer for you to see any real results.’

‘That’s for sure,’ he said, with a brief, wry smile. ‘But it’s different for me. I’ve got an investment in what I’m doing because my future’s here.’

‘I’m investing in paying my debts,’ Mallory reminded him. ‘Besides,’ she went on, trying to lighten the atmosphere, ‘working is the only way to stay warm round here!’

Torr looked at her. ‘It’s not quite the only way,’ he said slowly, and even though she resisted, letting her gaze skitter desperately round the kitchen, something dragged it back to his until brown eyes and blue eyes locked into place so definitely that she almost expected to hear a click.

There were other ways to keep warm, of course there were, but as she stood there staring back at Torr, the only one Mallory could think of was going to bed and making love. What was more, she was convinced that Torr was thinking exactly the same thing. She wasn’t sure how she knew, but the air between them was suddenly tight, so tight that her breath shortened. To her dismay, she could picture it all too vividly-falling into bed together, kissing hungrily, hands fumbling for each other. Mallory felt warm just thinking about it.

More than warm, in fact.

If he suggested it, what would she say?

She would say yes.

The realisation made Mallory’s heart jerk, and she moistened her lips. ‘Like what?’ she asked huskily. Invitingly? She couldn’t decide whether she wanted Torr to think that or not.

‘Dancing, for instance,’ he said.

Dancing? Mallory felt as if he had chucked a bucket of water over her. He had been thinking about dancing when she…No, don’t even go there, she told herself fiercely, but it was too late to stop the flush of mortification staining her cheeks. Good Lord, short of hanging out a neon sign she could hardly have made it more obvious that she had been thinking about something completely different!

‘Are you suggesting a tango round the table?’ she managed, pleased to hear that her voice sounded almost normal, with just the expected hint of surprise at the idea of Torr dancing at all.

The corner of his mouth flickered in appreciation of the picture. ‘No, I’m not really the tango type,’ he said. ‘I forgot to tell you that when I went in to Carraig yesterday everyone was talking about the ceilidh on Saturday. They made a point of inviting us along.’

‘A caylee?’ Mallory echoed doubtfully, trying to echo his pronunciation. ‘That’s Scottish country dancing, isn’t it?’

‘Music and dancing, yes.’ Torr nodded. ‘You’ll enjoy it. Everyone always does, even if they wouldn’t normally be seen dead dancing. It’ll be a chance for you to meet some of our neighbours, too.’

‘What? In case I ever want to pop round for a cup of sugar or a quick coffee?’ said Mallory, who was still feeling edgy after misinterpreting his look so humiliatingly. ‘Our nearest neighbours must be at least fifteen miles away-hardly handy for a chat over the fence.’

‘It’s all relative,’ he pointed out. ‘You never know, you might make some friends. I said we’d go, anyway.’

So on Saturday evening Mallory had a bath and washed the dirt of the garden out of her hair. Torr had said that it wouldn’t be a formal affair, which was just as well as she had left most of her smart evening clothes in storage in Ellsborough, but she wanted to make a bit of an effort.

For the neighbours, she reminded herself.

She found a soft, swirly skirt and a vibrant pink blouse with three-quarter length sleeves, which she cinched at the waist with a wide belt. She would just have to hope that it looked all right. The next time she went to Inverness, she decided, she was going to get a full-length mirror.

As it was, she had to inspect her reflection as best she could in the bathroom mirror. She had dried her hair so that it fell in soft waves to her shoulders, and she was wearing make-up for the first time in ages. She looked just the same, Mallory thought with surprise. She felt so different now from when she had first come to Kincaillie that she had somehow expected it to show in her face.

Perhaps the changes were more visible than she had thought, though. Torr was sitting at the kitchen table, reading a paper while he waited for her, but when Mallory went in he looked almost startled. He got slowly to his feet.

‘You’ve changed,’ he said.

‘Of course I’ve changed! I can hardly go dancing in my old gardening clothes!’

‘No, I meant…you’ve changed,’ he said. He studied her, as if contrasting his pale bride with her stark eyes and withdrawn expression with the vivid woman in front of him. ‘You look…better,’ he said inadequately.

Mallory thought about what he had said. ‘I feel better,’ she admitted honestly.

‘I suppose that’s because you don’t feel trapped into our marriage any more.’ Torr was folding up the paper, searching for his car keys, not looking at her any more, and his voice was curt and careless.

She watched him with a slight frown. Was that why she felt better? It must be. ‘I suppose it is,’ she said.

They left Charlie in the kitchen, knowing that the moment they’d gone he would be up on one of the chairs and making himself comfortable.

For some reason the atmosphere between them felt strained again as they made their way out to the car.

It was long, clear May evening, windless for once, and the sea gleamed like a sheet of copper. The hills in the distance were a smudgy violet beneath a sky washed with the gold of a slowly setting sun. Mallory stopped with one hand on the car door, caught by the luminous light, noticing the setting as if for the first time.

‘It’s beautiful,’ she said, sounding almost puzzled.

Torr was momentarily forgotten as she gazed at the scene. She had never thought of this landscape as beautiful before. It had always seemed so barren, so intimidating in its savage grandeur, a mighty battlefield between the scarred mountains and the ceaseless wind and sea. But now all was still and a magical hush lay over it, and she could see at last how you might come to love it.

If you were going to stay more than a year.

‘Yes,’ Torr agreed, but when she turned her head he wasn’t looking at the sea or the hills beyond. He was looking at her as she stood with her face lifted to the setting sun.

‘You are too,’ he said gruffly, opening his door so that his words were almost lost. ‘I should have said before.’

Mallory’s heart clenched like a fist in her chest. ‘Thank you,’ she said after a moment, which seemed like a better option than, Why don’t you kiss me if you think I’m beautiful? A more sensible option, anyway.

He was her husband. He thought she was beautiful. Mallory sat next to Torr, her pulse booming in the dark, enclosed space of the car. She was burningly aware of his hand on the gearstick, of his massive, reassuring presence. The light from the dashboard illuminated his cheekbone, the edge of his mouth, the line of his jaw, and every time her eyes slid sideways to rest on his profile she felt hollow and slightly sick.

He was her husband. She ought to be able to lean across and put a hand on his thigh. They would share a bed when they went home tonight, but she ought to be able to turn to her husband for more than warmth. She ought to be able to press her lips to his throat, to trail her fingers down his stomach, to kiss her way along his jaw and whisper in his ear.

If he thought she was beautiful, he ought to want her to do that, surely?

Mallory swallowed, half terrified by the train of her thoughts. Torr had made it clear enough that he didn’t want that. No sex, no passion, no excitement. That was what he had said. No touching other than in the interests of warmth.

But if he really did think she was beautiful…

Mallory was appalled at herself. She seemed to be in the grip of something beyond her control, so that no matter how often she reminded herself that it would be better to keep things the way they were, her imagination would simply sweep all sensible thoughts of the future aside and leave her next to him in the darkness, where nothing mattered but the longing thumping deep inside her and clenching at the base of her spine.

When Torr parked outside the pub in Carraig and switched off the engine, Mallory was almost disorientated. The sharp air helped clear her head at least, and she was able to smile and greet people at the ceilidh even though she was still quivering with awareness. She knew every time Torr smiled or shook hands, every time he so much as turned his head.

He seemed to have met a surprising number of people in the area already, which was puzzling when she remembered how grimly unapproachable he had always seemed in Ellsborough. The Scots seemed to like his austere style, though. Or perhaps, like her, it was him who had changed.

The village hall was very plainly decorated. A buffet was laid out at one end of the room, and uncomfortable-looking chairs were ranged along the walls. Dragging her mind away from Torr for a moment, Mallory did wonder if it was going to be an excruciating evening, but once the musicians started tuning, things began to look up.

The music was impossible to resist, and in spite of herself Mallory’s foot started tapping. As the first set started to form, she hoped Torr might ask her to dance, but he was talking to the doctor’s wife, and in the end it was the vet who swept her onto the floor.

‘I’ve got no idea what I’m doing,’ she warned him, and he grinned at her.

‘It doesn’t matter. You’ll pick it up as we go along.’

Had Torr even noticed that she’d gone? Mallory wondered crossly, and was then even more miffed when she saw him inviting the doctor’s wife to dance.

The dancing was great fun. Mallory whooped and swung and tapped her feet along with everyone else, but she was aware of Torr the whole evening. Like her, he had a different partner for every dance, so it wasn’t as if she were jealous. It wasn’t that kind of dancing, and one of the great things about the ceilidh, she learned, was that you danced with anybody and everybody.

Still, he might have asked her, Mallory couldn’t help thinking. She was his wife, after all. Every now and then they would meet in the dance, and their hands would clasp as they passed down the line, or swung each other round, and each time his touch send a jolt of awareness through her. There was a steady thumping building up inside her, and her mouth dried whenever she looked at him.

That was what came of sharing a bed with someone, of starting to notice him. Now she was reduced to lusting after her own husband, and was unable to do anything about it, thought Mallory, mortified. Ridiculous.

And yet, was it so impossible? They were alone, and neither of them was involved with anyone else, however much they might want to be. God, they were even married! How much more justification did they need? And surely anything would be better than the charged atmosphere in the bedroom every night, lying there and not touching when all they could think about was how it would feel if they did?

Correction: all she could think about. Be honest, now, Mallory told herself. The fact was that she had no idea what Torr was thinking about in bed. He certainly didn’t seem to have any trouble dropping off to sleep. Maybe he was quite happy with the way things were. Maybe he didn’t want her at all.

But how would she know if she didn’t ask?

Mallory twirled and stepped and swung up and down the line, and wondered if she had the courage to face rejection and find out.

She danced all evening, and was hot and tired by the time the tempo changed to slow, to mark the last dance. The music was soft and haunting, and she stepped aside. You couldn’t dance to music like this with a stranger.

Suddenly Torr was there, holding out his hand. ‘My dance, I think,’ he said.

Mallory looked at his hand for a long moment, and then, with a sense of taking an irrevocable step, she put her own in it.