He moved further into the bedroom, holding out the jacket for her to see. ‘Look, both elbows are becoming so rubbed it won’t take long for everyone to notice. Shouldn’t my new evening suit be ready by now? We ought to have ordered it earlier. I’ll look like a pauper in this.’
‘Where’s your other one?’ she asked, coming over to examine the sleeves. ‘The one I bought for you a couple of months ago?’
She didn’t mind buying him things. She loved buying him things, seeing his young face light up, to immediately grow solemn as he apologized for not being able to afford whatever it was himself. All he had was that poor apology of an inheritance his parents had so niggardly provided when he had turned twenty-one – not enough for a flea to live on. She bought him things because she loved him. She’d buy him the moon if she could.
‘The lapel got stained with that caviar, you remember. And we forgot to have it cleaned. But I can’t go in this one.’
‘No, you can’t.’ She thought a while. ‘Then we’ll go right now and gee them up – tell them we’ll cancel it if it’s not ready by tomorrow morning.’
It was wonderful to see his glum face brighten as he came towards her, letting the jacket fall to the floor.
‘You’re so good to me. Honestly I don’t deserve you,’ he said, like some young kid.
Then far from a young kid, he took her in his arms, holding her to him, pressing his lips to hers as he eased her backwards against the edge of the bed to lower her body on to it, his own holding her there, moments later to have her gasping beneath his expert love-making.
No one, not even Anthony, had ever made her feel like this. Inflamed by his energy, she knew she would give him her last sou to have him take possession of her as he was doing now.
He would never know how he had changed her life. No more attending charity committees, attempting to fill her time, counting the hours when she was alone as she had done after leaving Anthony; no more horrible dreams – they disappeared the moment Ronald moved in permanently on her persuasion just two weeks after that first Christmas; no more trying to plan parties all on her own. She still threw her famous dinner parties and evening parties but more often now she attended other people’s, she and he together.
Out almost every evening, afternoons, weekends, it didn’t matter that he’d hardly a penny to his name while his parents lived half way across the world, well and comfortably off, not one thought for him. He’d never explained why and she never asked, feeling it was probably too painful for him to recall much less talk about, though sometimes she felt curiosity eating at her.
When on one occasion she had tried to question him, that gentle character of his seemed suddenly to change, his face becoming set, his lips tight and grim and his lovely brown eyes hard until she felt alarmed and said no more. Moments later he was his sweet, gentle self again. She never tried to probe again. It was best to let sleeping dogs lie as it were.
What did hurt was seeing him so grateful for everything she did for him, for the things she bought him. She continually found herself assuring him that she enjoyed – no, more than that – loved spending money on him and not to worry about it.
‘I adore doing it, buying you things,’ she told him, ‘seeing how happy you look. I get so much pleasure from the pleasure on your face, my darling. So please, my love, don’t deny me that.’
‘I won’t. But it’s not fair.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous, darling, you deserve it for the joy you’ve given me, the happiness I get out of it, knowing how you were treated in your life.’
He would nod soberly and say no more, sometimes falling quiet which would worry her a little.
But he’d soon perk up and become his old self once more. That was another thing. He never sulked for long, seldom stayed in the doldrums for long. And he made her feel young again. She loved it when his youth showed through. Yet it was his very youthful moments that changed her. He made her feel like a girl in her teens, the two of them going here, there and everywhere, running about like kids playing chase, getting up to silly antics, laughing, always laughing.
It was only when they were alone in bed that maturity took over – in the way he made love; in the way he never allowed himself to be so carried away as to overlook taking care of the precautions needed. Though he usually made it light-hearted, getting her to help him with what was needed; it became a procedure which usually ended in the senses of both being heightened almost to breaking point in their need for each other. Life was so wonderful. He was so good for her. With him nothing would ever go wrong. She was a wealthy woman, lucky with her investments and making money enough for them both.
There’d been a time when she had thought her life was over, that she’d never be happy again. That was now a thing of the past. If she ever thought of Anthony, she’d immediately shrug the thought off, thrust aside that brief second of anger and think of her life now. She was happy. Anthony could do whatever he liked, be wherever he liked, go with whoever he liked; it was no longer any of her business.
Then out of the blue… ‘I ran into your
