After lunch Johnny and Randal changed into their riding clothes to go to the stables. Pippa curled up on a couch in the sitting room and watched a TV programme.
While Johnny was putting on his boots, Randal said quietly to her, ‘You’re sure you won’t come?’
She shook her head, keeping her face blank. ‘I’d rather stay here and rest.’
He hesitated, eyeing her shrewdly. ‘I hope you aren’t planning to bolt again? You will be here when we get back?’
She tossed her hair back, making a face. ‘Oh, don’t be tiresome! Just go, will you?’
Johnny appeared before Randal had the chance to say anything else, and the two of them left.
As soon as they had gone Pippa hurried into her bedroom and packed everything. She could not stay here; she had a sense of impending disaster. It was blindingly obvious that if she didn’t get away she would find herself being stampeded into marrying Randal, and every time she thought about that violent alarm bells went off inside her head and heart.
She took her case down to Reception and asked them to get her a taxi to the nearest railway station.
‘Will the other members of your party be staying on, or are they leaving too?’ the receptionist asked, looking at her suspiciously, obviously wondering if she was bolting without paying the bill.
‘Yes, they’re staying tonight, but they’ve gone riding at the local stables. They should be back in a couple of hours. Their luggage is all upstairs.’
The receptionist rang a taxi firm, then told her, ‘The cab should be here in ten minutes.’
She sat down and waited, gazing out into the hotel grounds. The trees tossed restlessly in the brisk wind but the sun was shining and wallflowers in a large raised bed sent waves of strong scent into the hotel foyer.
The taxi arrived and drove her to the railway station. She was lucky; there was a train to London only a quarter of an hour later. She got to town in time to catch her connecting train into Essex and was back at her cottage by six.
Her nerves were on edge, wondering if Randal would ring, but the evening passed without hearing from him.
She made herself scrambled egg on toast for supper and went to bed quite early, feeling absolutely exhausted. She woke up in the night crying, tears pouring down her face after a dream she couldn’t remember at all except that it had left her with a sense of terrible loss and loneliness.
She got up and went downstairs, made herself hot chocolate and took it back to bed, sat up against banked pillows sipping it, trying to remember what her dream had been about. She couldn’t track it down, though, just remember the feelings.
The trouble was, her mind was in confusion: torn, divided, constantly swinging between dread of seeing Randal again, of having to face his insistence that she must marry him, and a yearning to be with him, to be in his arms, in his bed.
He was right, of course; now that she had got to know Johnny she liked him, was already fond of him. Randal had shrewdly guessed that that would happen. By introducing her to his son he had hoped to disarm her and he had done it. She knew she no longer resented Johnny’s place in his father’s affections, no longer wanted Randal to put her first at his son’s expense. How could she want to supplant that poor, sad little boy, whose mother couldn’t be bothered with him, who had been starved of Renata’s affection all his short life?
Johnny was a lively, intelligent child who mostly hid his emotional problems, but Pippa had learnt that they existed, had seen the boy’s hurt response to his mother’s rejection.
No, she no longer wanted to come first with Randal. Johnny needed his father’s love as much as she did.
But she still couldn’t marry Randal. She had been puzzled at first, hadn’t been able to work out why she was so scared, but in the silence of that spring night she faced up to the reasons. She couldn’t take the risk. It was that simple. She was scared. Marrying Randal would be like bungee jumping off a cliff, afraid the rope would break, afraid she would hit the ground and be killed or horribly maimed.
She had been emotionally maimed last time. Four years ago she had had the guts to walk away from him, but she had been damaged by doing it. When they’d met again she had rationalised her instinctive need for flight, for getting away from him, had told herself it was because he had chosen his wife and child over her before and she needed a man who would put her first every time, but now she knew it hadn’t been that at all.
She was simply afraid of getting hurt again. It was a case of the burnt child fearing the fire. She couldn’t take the risk.
Finishing her hot chocolate, she switched off the lamp and lay down in the dark. She must clear her mind of Randal, mustn’t let herself think about him, must not keep turning over thoughts of him. She had to get some sleep. She was so tired. And no more dreams!
The answer was to think of something else. A holiday! That would keep her mind busy. Where should she go? Spain? Italy? At this time of year anywhere in the Mediterranean would be wonderful—not too hot, not too crowded. She must go to a travel agent and book herself two weeks in some lovely place.
She would probably go to a seaside resort, but one which could offer fascinating places to visit too. Somehow Italy seemed to her at this moment to offer more. She would get a brochure and choose somewhere. Anywhere, it didn’t matter where, because she knew nothing much about Italy. Wherever she went it would be new and exciting.
She must have fallen asleep quite quickly because the next time
