Take What You Want

But for once her father and stepmother were immune from her desperate appeals, and even Robert seemed cool and aloof, unwilling to offer her his support. She had to go, and for the first term she spent every night in tears, impervious to the sympathy offered her by would-be confidantes.

Gradually, though, she began to realise that crying was not going to get her anywhere. Her most sensible plan would be to work especially hard, pass every examination in sight and get back to Conwynneth as soon as she possibly could.

But while she worked her way through school, word reached her that Robert’s career was expanding. He was an intelligent man and he had been offered a better position with a London-based firm of constructional engineers with world wide connections. He leased an apartment in London and then went on his first overseas assignment to Central Africa. It meant that when Sophie went home for two lots of holidays she didn’t see him at all, and she spent the time mooching about the house, refusing even to join Simon and his friends on a camping expedition to the Lake District. She knew that her parents were concerned about her, but hoped they didn’t know what was depressing her.

She took her Ordinary Level examinations at fifteen and succeeded in getting eleven passes, much to the delight and admiration of her family and her teachers. The Christmas holidays that followed, Robert was home again and joining his family for the festivities, and his congratulations meant more to her than anyone else’s had done. And it was during those holidays that Robert had kissed her …

Her fingers curled into her palms. The Kembles had had guests for Christmas, friends of her father’s from London, two couples and their five children. She suspected her father had invited them deliberately in an effort to arouse her from the apathy she had shown in the summer vacation. But with Robert staying in the house, Sophie was far from apathetic.

The other teenagers, a girl of sixteen and four boys whose ages ranged from thirteen to eighteen, were all right, but so far as Sophie was concerned they were pretty callow compared to her handsome stepbrothers. Even Simon, who at twenty-three was now teaching at the junior school in Conwynneth, was a more interesting proposition. Sophie had been brought up with adults and consequently her tastes were more mature. She enjoyed pop music, of course, and talking about current teenage idols, but thanks to Robert she was equally at home with Mahler and Isaac Stern.

Over the festive occasion, she joined in all the fun and games instituted in the main for the younger people’s benefit, but all the while she was intensely conscious of Robert in the background—and the girl he had brought with him from London. She was a secretary, so her stepmother had told her, working in the London office of the company which employed Robert; but Sophie didn’t like her.

Not that she had any concrete reasons for not doing so. None she could put her finger on, that was. On the contrary, Emma, as the girl was called, was pretty and friendly, no different from a dozen other girls Robert had brought to Penn Warren during the years of Sophie’s adolescence.

But there was something about the way she looked at Robert that troubled Sophie. At times she caught Emma watching him with a purely speculative gleam in her eyes, and she had the distinct suspicion that Emma would not be so easy to shake off. And then something happened which drove all other considerations out of her mind …

On Christmas Eve and Christmas Day the Kembles and their guests had enjoyed the family festivities, but on Boxing Night they always had a party. Several people from the village were invited including the local vet and his wife, some farmers and their wives, and even the vicar put in an appearance. There was lots to eat and drink and the long buffet tables which Laura and Mrs. Forrest, her daily, had arranged groaned beneath the weight of cold chickens and turkey, ham and tongue, pies and pastries of all kinds. An enormous dish of trifle was flanked by an equally enormous plum pudding, and there was wine and punch as well as all kinds of spirits.

Sophie wore the dress her parents had given her for Christmas. It was her first long dress, apart from a couple of hostess gowns she had used for parties at school, and as it was made of honey-brown velvet it gave her a golden look. A holiday in Spain with her parents three months ago had left a golden tan on her skin and as she wore little make-up apart from eyeshadow and an apricot lip salve her whole appearance toned with the dress. Her hair was long now, but as straight as ever, which fortunately was fashionable. When she surveyed herself in her mirror before going downstairs she knew she looked adult, and the look in Robert’s eyes when he had first seen her had sent the blood rushing madly through her veins. Then he had assumed his usual affectionate tolerance towards her and told her she would have all the boys chasing her. It was not what she had wanted to hear, but Emma’s quickly disguised envy had made up in some strange way for her stepbrother’s apparent indifference.

From time to time during the course of the evening, she had thought she felt-Robert’s eyes upon her, but every time she turned to look at him he was talking to someone else. He didn’t even ask her for a dance, and she hid her disappointment as she had always done by teasing Simon. Not that Simon seemed to mind. On the contrary, when he held her close on the dance floor Sophie sensed that he was not just pretending to enjoy it. His behaviour obviously piqued the other girls there, older girls like Vicky Page, the vet’s daughter, who was attracted by both the doctor’s stepsons.

It was quite late when Sophie realised that Robert had disappeared, and her heart pounded as she looked round for Emma. But Emma was still there, dancing with Harold Venables, a farmer from Apsdale, and she breathed a sigh of relief.

As though her stepmother had just become aware that Robert was missing, too, Laura approached her and Simon at that moment and said: ‘Simon, be a darling and dance with Vicky, won’t you? She’s been looking at you with cow’s eyes for the last hour and a half. And you, Sophie—go and find Robert! He’s probably in your father’s study. You know how he gets bored at these affairs.’

So Sophie had left the party and gone along the hall to her father’s study, and sure enough, Robert was there, stretched out in her father’s chair, his feet resting lazily on the desk, reading a manual on structural engineering. He looked up when she entered the room and his eyes were wary.

‘Your mother sent me to find you,’ Sophie had said, feeling rather like an intruder.

Robert did not bother to get up but sat there regarding her with steady grey eyes. ‘Did she?’

‘Yes.’ Sophie had hovered uncertainly by the door. ‘Are you coming back to join the rest of us?’

‘I don’t think so, thanks.’

He had returned his attentions to the book as though that was the end of the matter, and Sophie had been annoyed. He had dismissed her without even a word of apology.

With a determined set to her mouth she had entered the study and closed the door and walked round the desk to where he was stretched out. When he eventually became aware of her standing there in front of him, he had looked up again and said resignedly: ‘Run away and enjoy yourself, Sophie. I’m perfectly happy here. I’ve no intention of getting myself plastered when I have to drive back to London in the morning.’

Sophie had stared at him angrily, upset at the realisation that he would be leaving in a few hours and it might be months before she saw him again. ‘Don’t you think you’re being rather boorish?’ she had demanded. ‘Sitting here alone like some temperamental prima donna!’

Robert had smiled at this, a lazy mocking smile that did nothing for her temper. Controlling a desire to slap his lean intelligent face, she had said: ‘You haven’t even danced with me!’

Robert’s eyes had flickered then. ‘You have boys of your own age to dance with,’ he pointed out. ‘And besides, Simon is more than eager to accommodate you.’

Sophie had really lost her temper then and she had snatched the book from him and thrown it aside, grasping his hands and trying to pull him up out of the chair. But he had resisted, dragging her down instead, down on to his knee, on to the hard muscles of his thighs, and he had kissed her in an urgent adult way that had sent the blood flaming along her veins and her senses spinning. Under that passionate assault her lips had parted and her fingers had slid up to his neck where the thick dark hair brushed his collar. When he had finally let her go, her legs had been like jelly and his face had been pale and shaken. He had muttered a rough apology and left her, and she had known then that things between them could never be the same again.

She had not seen Robert again before he left for London. The following morning she had intended to be up early, but exhaustion after the strenuous evening had taken its toll and by the time she came downstairs both Robert and Emma had gone.

Her faint hopes that she might see him before returning to boarding school were dashed by a telephone call to her stepmother informing them that Robert was leaving for the Far East at the end of the week, and she had returned to school feeling more depressed than before.

But all that had been eighteen months ago now. During that time Sophie had matured considerably, and although the holidays she had spent with her parents had been at times when Robert was away on some job or other, she had consoled herself with the thought that he was giving her time to grow up before involving himself more deeply. After all, she had had the sense to realise that their parents would never have countenanced any kind of a relationship between them while she was still at school. But now her schooldays were over. She had six months to decide whether or not to apply for university entrance next year, and during those six months …

She sighed, raising her shoulders in a little self-satisfied gesture before letting them fall again. A lot could happen in six months and in less than an hour she would see Robert again.

She turned back from the window and encountered the admiring gaze of one of the soldiers. The message in his eyes was unmistakable and it gave her a warm feeling inside to know that she was attractive. Surely Robert must see the difference in her, the way her breasts had swelled, the narrowness of her waist, the provocative curve of her hips. Laura had promised these holidays that she would buy her a whole new wardrobe suitable to a young woman who had successfully gained three ‘A’ levels and who was leaving the school portals for good. She intended to buy some long feminine clothes, skirts and dresses and trouser suits, that accentuated her femininity rather than detracted from it.

She looked out of the window again and her stomach plunged. The tracks were widening out into shunting yards, they passed a signal box that indicated that Hereford station was not too far distant. Glory, they were almost there!

She looked down at her feet. Her two cases stood side by side along with the school briefcase which contained all her books. She had had quite a struggle along Paddington station until a friendly porter, busy with the pigskin luggage of a rather haughty-looking middle-aged woman, had taken pity on her and hefted her cases on to his trolley and deposited them by the open door of the second class compartment for no charge, much to his employer’s annoyance.

‘Can I give you a hand?’

It was one of the soldiers. They were running into Hereford station now and Sophie’s attention was diverted from scanning the platform with heightening excitement.

‘What—oh, well, I’m sure I can manage,’ she demurred, half impatiently, but the young man was persistent.

‘It’s no trouble,’ he insisted, shaking his head. ‘We all get out here. Is someone meeting you?’

Sophie cast a hasty look at the barrier as the train slowed. ‘I should think so.’

The soldier grinned, ‘We should be so lucky!’

She smiled at this, and then with a lurch the train ground to a halt and she rolled down the window and lent out to open the door.

They were among the first to emerge into the humid, diesel-clogged air of late afternoon. The two soldiers had taken charge of a suitcase each and Sophie was left with only her briefcase to carry. Their attentions had distracted her and she was fumbling for her ticket when a cool, masculine voice said: ‘Hello, Sophie. It’s good to see you again.’

Sophie looked up, her colour rising, her hands beginning to tremble uncontrollably. She hadn’t see his approach and she felt a ridiculous sense of resentment towards the two soldiers who had deprived her of that. But he hadn’t changed—at least, not a lot. He was perhaps a little leaner than she remembered, and had his grey eyes always had that steel edge to them? His tanned features bore witness to the months he had spent in warmer climes, and his hair was thicker and fell in a heavy swathe across his forehead. Heavy-lidded eyes, narrow cheekbones, a mouth that right now looked thin and uncompromising. And tall—dwarfing even her five feet six inches. He was wearing tightfitting jeans and an open-necked denim shirt and he exuded an aura of strength and disturbing masculinity. And yet for all that, she sensed that he was suppressing anger. But why? Did he imagine she had picked up the two soldiers who were now exchanging glances and clearly wishing they had not offered their services?

Sophie made a helpless little movement of her shoulders. This was not how she had planned their reunion to be. She had waited over a year for this. She would not allow anyone to spoil it.

With a determination born of desperation she dropped her briefcase and ignoring everyone but Robert, she stepped close to him and threw her arms round his neck, pressing her lips to his mouth. Because of the unexpectedness of her action, Robert’s hands came up automatically to close around her forearms to prevent them from overbalancing, but within seconds their pressure had hardened and he was thrusting her roughly away from him.

‘Sophie!’ he muttered angrily, and the two soldiers set down her cases and with embarrassed smiles walked on. ‘Sophie, for God’s sake!’ He raked a hand through his hair and cast a swift look around them to assure himself that they were not under observation.

Sophie was unrepentant. In spite of his anger, just for a moment Robert’s mouth had responded to hers, and it was sufficient to convince her that he was not indifferent to her. So she smiled, a lovely, confident smile that widened her mouth and filled her green eyes with tawny lights. ‘What did you expect?’ she asked mockingly. ‘That we should shake hands?’

Robert looked down at her impatiently. ‘Is this all your luggage?’

Sophie glanced round. ‘Mmm.’ Then she looked up at him again. ‘Aren’t you glad to see me, Robert?’

He made an irritated gesture. ‘Of course I’m glad to see you, Sophie. I already said so.’ He picked up the two cases. ‘Can you manage the briefcase?’

Sophie sighed and obediently picked it up. ‘Yes, I can manage, thank you.’

Robert cast another unsmiling look in her direction and then strode away down the platform so that she had, perforce, to hurry to keep up with him. Once through the barrier, he led the way outside and halted beside a steel grey sports saloon parked in the yard. It was even more humid outside beneath the lowering clouds that were threatening rain, but to Sophie it was heaven to be back home again.