Dragons Lair

‘I’m sure it would.’ Mr Bristow came round the desk to shake hands cordially with her at the door. ‘Divorce is a messy business, Miss Greer, at the best of times. If there is a chance of reducing the unpleasantness to any extent, then I think you should take it.’

Davina’s thoughts were in total confusion as she emerged from the offices to the warmth of the summer afternoon outside. Officially, she had the rest of the afternoon off, and she supposed she should go home where her mother would be eager to hear what had happened. But she would be expecting to hear that Gethyn had agreed to the divorce and that a date had already been set for the hearing, Davina thought wryly. What had actually transpired would be much less acceptable. Besides, this was one of her mother’s bridge afternoons, and Davina had no wish for her private affairs to feature over the tea-cups once the game was over.

She paused irresolutely on the crowded pavement, then hailed a passing taxi, telling the driver to take her to the Park. At least she would be delaying the inevitable recriminations for a while. Also the stuffy atmosphere in Mr Bristow’s room seemed to have given her a slight headache and she wanted to be able to think clearly.

She had been completely taken aback by Mr Bristow’s suggestion that she should seek Gethyn out and ask him to allow the divorce to go ahead. He had made it all sound so civilised and reasonable, she thought blankly, but then he had not had to suffer those few brief weeks of her marriage to Gethyn.

People said, didn’t they, that to marry in haste was to repent at leisure. Well, she could vouch for the truth of that. Her marriage had been the wild, extravagant impulse of an hour and almost as soon regretted. And now her two years of repentance were drawing to an end and she could be free again—but only if Gethyn agreed. This was what stuck in her throat—this dependence on the whim of a man she had not even seen for two years. That, and the knowledge that he was probably maintaining this silence deliberately to annoy and worry her. There could be no other reason. He had no more wish to continue this nominal relationship than she had.

She paid off the driver and walked slowly into the Park. There were people everywhere and the sun shone down out of a cloudless sky, but Davina felt cold and alone.

Perhaps this hadn’t been such a good idea after all, she thought, skirting a pair of lovers entwined on the grass and oblivious of everything but each other. Once—a long time ago—she and Gethyn had lain like that in this very park and let the world walk indulgently past them. She bit her lip, remembering how he had overcome her reluctance, her protests, drawing her down beside him with compelling hands, his eyes narrowed against the sun laughing up at her, reducing her scruples to absurdity.

Then his mouth had found hers and she was lost, caught in a web of delight from which not even the thought of her mother’s shocked disapproval of such conduct could release her. His lips had explored her face, her throat and shoulders, rousing her nerve-endings to rapturous life. She had been amazed by the ardour of her own response, scared by the feelings his lightest touch could evoke. It had been Gethyn who had moved away first, she recalled painfully, levering himself away from her and sitting for a moment, his head buried in his hands. Then he had looked up and seen her, watching him anxiously, her face flushed, her eyes enormous, her mouth blurred and swollen a little from his passion, and the harshness of his dark face had softened momentarily.

‘Come on.’ He got lithely to his feet. ‘Let’s get out of here before we get arrested.’

The following day, over lunch, he had abruptly asked her to marry him. And she, bewitched by his lovemaking into a frank longing to belong to him completely, had eagerly agreed. It was only later—a long time later—that it occurred to her that he had never said he loved her.

Davina quickened her steps, instinctively fighting the torment that she had released upon herself with these memories. What a child she had been, she lashed herself derisively. No doubt Gethyn had supposed that at nineteen she shared the slick, knowing sophistication of most of her contemporaries. Her eager innocence must have come as an unwelcome surprise to him.

Her mother’s opposition to the marriage had been instant and hostile.

‘You can’t marry him,’ Mrs Greer said, her face white and pinched. ‘A man like that! He must be twice your age, and he’s positively uncouth.’

‘He’s a writer—a poet.’ Davina had tried to reason with her. ‘I know he doesn’t correspond with your idea of one—but he’s famous already …’

‘On the strength of two novels and a few poems,’ her mother had sneered. ‘A television celebrity—until the next nine-day wonder comes along, and then he’ll soon be forgotten about.’

‘Uncle Philip doesn’t think so.’

‘Of course your uncle would defend him.’ Mrs Greer smiled thinly. ‘He’s his publisher, after all. Oh God, I wish you’d never gone to that party, then you would never have met him.’

‘Oh, but I would.’ Davina lifted her head, her eyes shining. ‘It was fate.’

‘Fate!’ her mother scoffed angrily, and turned away. ‘Well, you won’t marry with my consent, Davina.’

‘Then we’ll marry without it,’ Davina said angrily, and saw her mother flinch. Compunction overcame her then, and she went to her, laying a hand on her arm. ‘Mother, if you would just get to know Gethyn—properly.’

‘As you do, I suppose,’ Mrs Greer returned impatiently. ‘How long has this—whirlwind courtship lasted? Three weeks? Do you really imagine that’s a sufficient period of time to find out about a man with whom you intend to spend the rest of your life? If you must continue with this —relationship, why not just become engaged? At least one can withdraw from an engagement honourably before too much harm is done—but marriage!’ Mrs Greer shuddered.

‘I don’t want to withdraw from it,’ Davina said desperately. ‘And neither does Gethyn.’

Her mother’s lip curled. ‘That I can well understand. He’s doing very well for himself, after all. A miner’s son from some obscure pit village in Wales, marrying his publisher’s niece. Another rung on the ladder from rags to riches. Of course he wants to go through with it. He’d be a fool not to. No doubt by now someone will have told him about the money that’s to come to you from your father’s estate when you’re twenty-five, and that will be an added incentive.’

There was a long silence, and then Davina said huskily, ‘That—that’s an appalling thing to say.’

‘The truth often does hurt,’ he mother returned inimically.

Mrs Greer had not attended the ceremony at Caxton Hall a few days later. Uncle Philip had been there, however, with Gethyn’s agent Alec Marks to act as the other witness. It had been swift and rather impersonal and very far from the sort of wedding she had once day-dreamed about when she was younger. Gethyn was different too in a dark formal suit which contrasted strangely with the denims and dark roll-collared sweaters she was accustomed to seeing him wear.

That was what he had been wearing the first time she saw him at the party Uncle Philip had given to launch his new volume of poetry. Poems were often considered by publishers to be a drug on the market, and yet this book would sell, her uncle knew, because Gethyn Lloyd had written it.

The first thing Davina had thought when she set eyes on him was that he didn’t look at all like the star of the show. She had been at many such parties in the past, and writers often, she found, behaved either with a becoming diffidence or an excessive eagerness to please when confronted by the media men, or sometimes both. Not so Gethyn Lloyd.

He hadn’t been the tallest man in the room, yet he had seemed so. There was something about his lean, muscular body, the dark harsh lines of his face, that made the other men seem positively effete. He stood a little apart, gazing broodingly into the glass he held, his dark brows drawn frowningly together above that hawk’s beak of a nose which surely must have been broken at some stage in his career. Then he had looked up suddenly, so suddenly that she had been unable to avert her gaze in time, and his cool green eyes had locked startlingly with hers. And the firm sensual lines of his mouth had relaxed into a smile—not the hurtful mockery she had come so painfully to know later—but with a charm that made her heart turn over.

He came to her side, dealing summarily with a woman journalist from a popular daily who tried to detain him. His eyes swept over her, missing nothing, she thought dazedly, from the dark auburn hair piled smoothly on top of her shapely head to the silver buckles on the shoes just visible beneath the deep plum velvet trousers.

‘I don’t know who you are, but I’d like to take you to dinner tonight.’ His voice was low and resonant, with an underlying lilt which was undeniably attractive.

She smiled. ‘Perhaps you’ll change your mind when you learn my identity,’ she said lightly. ‘I’m Davina Greer.’

He studied her reflectively for a moment, then swung to look at Philip Greer, deep in conversation at the opposite end of the room. ‘Daughter? You’re not much alike.’

‘Niece—and I’m supposed to resemble my mother’s side of the family.’

‘Hm.’ That devastating green glance was on her again, assessing the candour of her hazel eyes under their long sweep of lashes, the high delicacy of her cheekbones and the sweet vulnerable curve of her mouth. ‘Then I must meet her. They say, don’t they, that if you want to know what your girl will look like in years to come, take a look at her mother.’

‘Do they?’ She lifted her brows coolly, trying to conceal the instinctive tremor that had gone through her when he’d said ‘your girl’. ‘I’ve never heard that before.’

‘Oh, I’ve a fund of such information,’ he said softly. ‘Stick with me, lovely, and you could learn a lot.’

She was on her guard instantly, aware that there was an implication in his words that put them squarely into the category of doubtful remarks, to be dealt with by cool politeness. She gave him a formal smile, and changed the subject.

‘Will you be in London long, Mr Lloyd?’

‘Long enough.’ His eyes never left her face. ‘And at least until I’ve persuaded you to have dinner with me.’

‘You’re very persistent,’ she said helplessly.

‘I’ve been accused of worse things,’ he returned laconically. He put out a finger and lifted her chin slightly, forcing her to look at him. ‘What’s the matter? Surely I can’t be the first man who’s fancied you?’

No, she thought, but you’re the first man I’ve ever—fancied, and I don’t know what to do. I’m frightened.

She smiled again, moved slightly so that his hand was no longer even fractionally against her skin. ‘Well, hardly.’

‘So what’s the problem, lovely?’

She managed to meet his gaze. ‘Nothing, I suppose. Thank you, Mr Lloyd. I’d like to have dinner with you.’

Which was a tame way to describe this sweet insidious excitement which was beginning to take possession of her.

‘Good.’ He drained the contents of his glass. ‘Shall we go?’

She stared at him. ‘But the party—it isn’t over yet.’

‘It is as far as I’m concerned. I’ve answered all their questions. Now I’m leaving them in peace to drink and talk at each other, and that’s what they really want to do. Most of them only came here today anyway because someone in the higher echelons suddenly decided that poetry might be trendy. Besides, there’s always a story in me—a miner’s son who can actually string words together like a real person.’