A Passionate Affair
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Anne Mather
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12
CHAPTER ONE
‘WHO did you say that man was?’
Cassandra tried not to give her words emphasis, but Liz was too highly attuned to the inflections in her tone to be deceived for long.
‘What man?’ she asked, turning a rather bemused face from her contemplation of the large square canvas in front of her, and Cassandra signalled with her eyes, the object of her enquiry evident. ‘Oh—you mean Jay Ravek!’ Liz’s mouth assumed a sardonic twist. ‘Darling, don’t think of it. Don’t even consider it. He’s far too uncivilised for you.’
‘Uncivilised?’ Discretion gave way to mild incredulity, as Cassandra allowed her gaze to rest briefly on the tall dark man presently in conversation with Damon Stafford, near the entrance to the gallery. She shrugged. ‘He looks highly civilised to me.’
‘Don’t they always?’ Liz adopted a thoughtful pose. ‘I mean,’ she went on, ‘who would think, looking at a tiger, looking at its lean symmetry, at its grace and beauty, that it was the most unscrupulous predator ever created?’
Cassandra sighed. ‘All right, Liz, you’ve made your point—about tigers, anyway. But just because you may be strongly into cats at the moment, that has no bearing on my question about Jay Ravek.’
‘Oh, but it does.’ Liz’s long-nailed fingers curved about her arm. ‘Cass, my love, I know what you’ve said, and believe me, I can guess how you feel. But getting involved with a man like Jay Ravek—’
‘Who said anything about getting involved?’ Cassandra’s brows arched impatiently. ‘Liz, you must stop treating me like a china doll! I’m not. I never have been. If I were, Mike would have broken me long ago.’
Liz studied her friend’s face with genuine concern. ‘But you’re not denying that Mike has left you with a—how shall I say it?—a chip on your shoulder, hasn’t he?’ She paused. ‘Not all men are like Mike, Cass. Remember that.’
‘I do remember it.’ Cassandra felt vaguely indignant that Liz should feel it necessary to speak to her in this way. ‘Look—if I’d let Mike poison my mind, I wouldn’t be interested in any other man, would I?’
‘No.’ Liz conceded that point. ‘But I just don’t want you to get hurt again, that’s all. And—well, Jay Ravek has quite a reputation for hurting people, women particularly.’
Cassandra expelled her breath quickly. ‘Liz, I only asked who the man was. I didn’t say I was going to climb into bed with him!’
Liz bowed her head. ‘All right, all right, I’m sorry!’ Her hand fell to her side. ‘But pick someone else to re-sharpen your claws on. Jay Ravek is not in your league.’
Cassandra wanted to protest that she was not the innocent Liz thought she was, but she doubted her friend would believe her. All Liz knew was that she had had one bad marriage, and the deeper implications of that statement had never been discussed between them. Liz had been too discreet to ask and Cassandra had felt too raw to tell her immediately after Mike’s death, and now, nine months later, the subject was too difficult to broach.
‘So—’ Liz changed the subject. ‘What do you think of Stafford’s work? I must admit I don’t really understand it, but he’s had such wonderful reviews it must be good.’
‘Not necessarily.’ Cassandra was still brooding over their earlier conversation. ‘Just because it’s received critical acclaim, it doesn’t mean it’s unequivocally good.’ She grimaced. ‘I think it’s ghastly, quite honestly. All those heads appearing from nowhere—it’s positively gruesome!’
‘That’s what I like, an honest opinion.’
The two girls started with equal degrees of disconcertment, but Cassandra’s confusion was compounded of embarrassment and a certain amount of apprehension. Damon Stafford was standing right behind them, his arms folded across his chest, his bearded face alight with amusement, and right beside him stood Jay Ravek.
‘Oh—Damon!’ Liz recovered her composure with immaculate ease, her wide mouth spreading in an apologetic smile. ‘You know what they say about eavesdroppers, don’t you, darling? And Cass was only being bitchy, weren’t you, love?’
Cassandra’s fingers clutched her bag more tightly. ‘I’m afraid I know nothing about modern art, Mr Stafford,’ she offered, intensely conscious of Jay Ravek’s dark eyes upon her. ‘You must forgive me if you think I was rude. Naturally my opinion is of no importance.’
‘On the contrary, Miss—er—’
‘Mrs,’ Cassandra corrected him formally. ‘Roland.’
‘Well, Mrs Roland,’ Damon Stafford smiled, ‘anyone will tell you, I’m always interested in the opinion of a beautiful woman.’
Cassandra blushed, she couldn’t help it, and Liz uttered a relieved laugh. ‘Very nicely put, Damon,’ she complimented him drily. ‘You really shouldn’t put people on the spot like that. It’s not nice.’
‘Oh, I’m sure Mrs Roland will forgive me.’ Damon glanced sideways at the man beside him, as if for confirmation, and then, turning back to Cassandra, he said: ‘Let me offer you some more champagne, Mrs Roland. Your glass appears to be empty.’
‘Thank you, but no.’ Cassandra covered the rim of her glass with her palm as Damon turned to summon one of the white-coated attendants circulating among the guests at the reception. ‘We—er—we were just leaving, weren’t we, Liz? I for one have to get back to work.’
‘What is your work, Mrs Roland?’
It was Jay Ravek who had spoken, and Cassandra’s tongue appeared, to moisten her upper lip as she was obliged to answer his question. ‘I’m an interior designer, Mr Ravek.’
It was not until after she had finished speaking that she realised she had used his name without thinking. The faint quirk of his mouth might have indicated his observance of that fact, but if he had been about to make a comment, Liz forestalled her.
‘And she’s very good at it, too,’ she declared, giving Cassandra a knowing smile that the other girl found quite annoying. ‘She only started the business six months ago, and already she’s gaining quite a reputation.’
‘Really?’ Damon sounded impressed, but Cassandra wanted to die of embarrassment.
‘It’s a very small business really,’ she insisted, giving Liz a quelling look, but her friend just arched her brows at her and was obviously unrepentant.
‘Perhaps I could contact you about my apartment,’ remarked Damon, pulling a notebook out of his pocket. ‘What did you say the name was? Roland? I’ll make a note of that.’
‘It’s Ro-Allen, actually,’ Liz inserted, looking over his shoulder. ‘Ro-Allen Interiors. Chris Allen is Cass’s partner. He has a brilliant eye for colour.’
‘Liz!’
Cassandra was furious, but Liz only shrugged her shoulders. ‘Contacts, darling—that’s what it’s all about. Don’t you agree, Mr Ravek? In your work, you must find I’m right.’
‘If you say so, Miss Lester.’ Jay Ravek’s lean face was sardonic. ‘However, we don’t all have your opportunities for contacting the right people.’
Liz’s rather pointed features seemed to sharpen, but she bit her tongue on what she would obviously have liked to retort, and took Cassandra’s arm. ‘Time to go, darling,’ she declared pleasantly. ‘We mustn’t outstay our welcome.’
‘You couldn’t do that,’ Damon replied gallantly. ‘I’ll look forward to reading your comments. Oh—’ he glanced at the man beside him again, ‘—and don’t be too hard on Jay, will you? You columnists have given him a pretty raw deal, one way and another.’
‘Perhaps it’s nothing more than he deserves,’ observed Liz with a tight smile. ‘Goodbye, Damon. Thanks for the champagne. It was delightful!’
The Seely Gallery occupied the upper floor of a building in South Molton Street, and the two girls emerged from the shadowy stairwell into the watery sunshine of a November afternoon. It wasn’t particularly cold, but it was damp, and Cassandra thrust her hands into the pockets of her suede coat and hunched her shoulders in a momentary shiver.
‘Bastard!’ said Liz, with unexpected fervour, and Cassandra gazed at her in surprise.
‘Who?’ she exclaimed, although she could guess. ‘Jay Ravek? Why? What did he say to upset you?’
‘It isn’t what he says, it’s what he doesn’t say,’ declared Liz venomously. ‘Arrogant swine! Making insinuations about my friends, about my family—’
‘Did he do that?’ Cassandra shook her head. ‘You really don’t like him, do you?’ She paused. ‘What does he do anyway?’
Liz stared at her disbelievingly. ‘You must have heard of him!’
‘No, I haven’t.’
‘But I assumed you’d recognised his name.’ Liz sighed. ‘He’s quite famous—or notorious, whatever way you look at it. He writes for the Post. He’s one of their correspondents, generally overseas—when he’s not in London, making it with every rich bird in town!’
Cassandra’s wide forehead furrowed. ‘Oh—yes, I seem to remember reading something about him.’
‘You would,’ agreed Liz grimly. ‘I told you, he’s bad news. So don’t go getting any ideas about him, because believe me, you’d regret it.’
Cassandra felt a recurring twinge of resentment. ‘Liz, I am over twenty-one. And I was married for five years. I know how to look after myself.’
‘Mike Roland was a choirboy compared to Jay Ravek,’ Liz retorted, turning up the collar of her fur jacket. ‘Take my word for it, kid. You don’t need another bad experience.’
Walking back to the studio in a mews off Great Portland Street, Cassandra had plenty of time to mull over the things Liz had said. She meant well, Cassandra supposed, but the ten years’ seniority Liz possessed always gave her the edge. They had known one another for more than seven years. They had met at an exhibition just like this one. But Cassandra couldn’t help wishing Liz would not always treat her as if she was incapable of handling her own life. She had made mistakes, of course, and her disastrous marriage to Mike Roland was still uppermost in her mind. But Mike was dead now, after all the heartache it had caused her, that period of her life was over and she badly wanted to forget it. Liz’s frequent references to her marriage prevented her from doing so, continually reminding her of her declared determination not to be fooled again. What Liz didn’t appear to understand was that just because she had had a bad time with Mike, and had no desire to repeat the experience, it did not mean she could not find the opposite sex attractive. She did. Or at least, some members of it. And Jay Ravek was certainly a very attractive member…
She found Chris Allen hunched over his drawing board when she entered the offices of Ro-Allen Interiors some fifteen minutes later. The air was thick with tobacco smoke and the inevitable cigarette drooped from the corner of his mouth. Cassandra breathed a sigh of protest and marched to the windows, flinging them wide despite the chilling afternoon air, and her partner turned to her resignedly, pressing the stub of the cigarette out in the dish already overflowing beside him.
‘You’ll kill yourself with those filthy things!’ exclaimed Cassandra, taking off her coat and hanging it on one of a row of hooks screwed to the wall behind her desk.
‘It’s my life,’ observed Chris laconically, sliding off his stool. ‘We can’t all be invited to champagne receptions, hobnobbing with the crème de la crème! Besides,’ he fumbled in his pocket for his pack of cigarettes, placing a fresh one between his lips, ‘they help me to concentrate, and right now, I need some inspiration.’
Cassandra, seated at her desk, looked up at the young man before her with grudging affection. She knew how hard he was working to make the business a success, and Liz had not been joking when she said he had a brilliant eye for colour. If Cassandra’s abilities lay in looking at a room and being able to judge its potentialities, Chris’s talent was for colouring her work, giving it life and beauty. His was the skill that combined furniture with fabric, and substantiated her spartan drawings with light and detail. At twenty-five, he was precisely ten months older than she was, and their association came from way back, when Cassandra, like him, was a student at the London School of Textile Design. Those were the days before Mike Roland came into her life, when she had still been uncertain of what she really wanted to do. At least her marriage to Mike had taught her that that kind of one-to-one relationship was not what she wanted, and although she would not have wished him dead, her freedom seemed particularly precious to her now.
‘So—’ Chris flicked his lighter and applied it to the end of his cigarette. ‘Was there anybody interesting at the reception? What did you think of Stafford’s work?’
Cassandra chose to answer his second question first. ‘Quite frankly, I thought his paintings were horrible,’ she admitted candidly. ‘I didn’t like them, and I certainly didn’t understand them.’
‘Shades of Hieronymus Bosch,’ remarked Chris drily, putting his lighter away, and at her look of incomprehension, he added: ‘He was a Dutch painter of the fifteenth or sixteenth century, I’m not sure which. But his work was very pessimistic, and I’ve heard it said that Stafford’s is the same.’
Cassandra’s lips twitched. ‘You’re very well informed.’
‘Not really.’ Chris made a deprecatory gesture. ‘He had a marvellous use of colour, which I admire, and which no one else has successfully been able to imitate. And besides,’ he shrugged irrepressively, ‘I watched a programme about him on television, a couple of nights ago.’
Cassandra made a face and flung a pencil at him as Chris ducked back to his drawing board. He laughed and resumed his seat, and leaving her own, Cassandra came to look over his shoulder.
‘Hey, that’s good!’ she exclaimed, pulling her spectacles out of their case and sliding them on to her nose so that she could look more closely. She had discovered she was long-sighted only two months before, when after a series of headaches she had sought professional advice. In consequence, she now wore wide hornrims when she was working, and their size gave an added charm to her pale oval features.
Chris glanced sideways at her, his blue eyes alight with enthusiasm. ‘Do you think so?’ he asked. ‘Do you really think so? You don’t think I’ve gone over the top with all this dark oak and heavy wallpaper?’
‘Of course not.’ Cassandra straightened, smiling down into his lean good-looking features. ‘Chris, they told us what they wanted. They want us to restore the house’s original character. They want oak panelling and figured damask. They want velvet curtains and leather-bound books in the library.’ She shook her head. ‘I don’t suppose it really matters what the books are. You could put The Decameron up there, and they’d never notice. But,’ she grimaced, ‘so long as they’re happy, and they’re prepared to pay for it—who are we to object?’
Chris pulled thoughtfully at his nose, a habit he had when he was worried, and then looked doubtfully up at her. ‘Is that really how you feel?’ he asked, with sudden gravity, and she turned away and walked back to her desk, as if she needed to consider her response.
‘No,’ she conceded at last, perching on the edge of her desk and chewing at the earpiece of the spectacles she had removed from her nose. ‘But, Chris,’ she sighed, ‘we can only offer advice. If people refuse to take it…’
‘I don’t like these kind of jobs,’ declared Chris flatly. ‘I prefer it when we’re given a free hand to use the ability that they’re paying for!’
‘Well, so do I,’ exclaimed Cassandra impatiently. ‘But we’re not in business to create works of art, Chris. And every now and then we have to take a job we don’t like.’
Chris hunched his shoulders. ‘Well, why the hell did the Steiners employ a firm of interior designers, if they already knew what they wanted? Why didn’t they just contract the job out to some painting and decorating company, who’d do a perfectly competent job—’
‘Chris, you know why. The Steiners like the idea of—’
‘—using our name, I know.’
‘Not just that.’ Cassandra was honest. ‘Any firm of interior designers would do just as well. Only—oh, I suppose they thought we might be more amenable.’
‘Because we’re just establishing ourselves,’ said Chris drily, and Cassandra nodded.
‘I guess so. Anyway, Liz said—’
‘Liz!’ Chris made a sound of derision. ‘Just tell Liz from me we’ll get our own commissions from now on, will you?’
‘Mmm.’
Cassandra’s thoughtful response was almost inaudible as she slid off the desk and walked round it to resume her seat. Chris’s indignation had struck a slightly distasteful chord in her memory, and she would have preferred not to remember Liz’s canvassing of her talents that afternoon. As well as rekindling her embarrassment, it brought Jay Ravek’s face too acutely to mind, and her own reactions to his dark intelligent features. She had found him attractive, but then what woman wouldn’t? He was tall, but not too tall; lean, but not skinny; and although he was not strictly handsome he possessed the kind of personal magnetism one could only describe as sex appeal. His eyes were almost black and deep-set, accentuating the heavy lids with their short thick lashes. His nose was straight between high cheek-bones, and his mouth with its thin upper lip and fuller lower one could look both cruel and sensuous.
Cassandra expelled her breath suddenly and pushed her spectacles back on to her nose. He had certainly made an impression, she thought, with a wry grimace. Liz would be horrified if she ever found out just how attractive Cassandra had found him, and her mother-hen qualities would be fully aroused at what she would see as the evidence of Cassandra’s vulnerability.
But it wasn’t true, Cassandra thought impatiently. Since Mike’s death she had met plenty of attractive men, not least Chris himself, who, despite his married state, had made it plain that he still found her as attractive as ever. If she had waited before committing herself to any further emotional entanglements, it was not because she was scared of getting hurt again. On the contrary, she doubted there was a man alive who could hurt her now. Her marriage to Mike had been a disaster, but it had also taught her more about relationships than any other experience could have done. She had entered into that marriage innocently, optimistically, eagerly—and within six months she had been shocked, bruised and disillusioned. Her immature expectations of what a marriage should be had been shattered by the kind of experiences she would have preferred to forget. Mike should never have got married. He liked the company of women far too much; and not just one woman, but many. Later, in her more cynical moments, Cassandra had wondered whether his constant search for satisfaction with women stemmed from his own inability to give satisfaction, and she had been grateful then for his accusations of her frigidity, which meant she was not obliged to suffer his attentions too often. She did not believe she was frigid, however. She had a perfectly normal interest in the opposite sex. If she had never truly enjoyed the act of love, that was not so unusual. She had friends with husbands and families who had confessed to a similar deficiency, which, she consoled herself, occurred most frequently with girls of a greater sensitivity. Her experiences were of the mind, rather than the body, she was convinced, and as she enjoyed kissing and caressing and the preliminaries of loveplay, she was unconcerned that so far as Freud was concerned she was unaroused.
It was seven o’clock before she left the office. Chris departed around six, and after he had gone, Cassandra abandoned her ideas for an office complex they had been invited to tender for, and gave herself up to the troublesome study of their accounts. Really, she thought, they would soon have to employ an accountant to keep the books in order. What with income tax returns and V.A.T. there seemed an inordinate amount of book-keeping to be done, and although the business was still in its embryo stages, someone had to ensure that they did not overreach themselves. At the moment, they had a good working relationship with a firm of interior decorators, who performed the function of translating hers and Chris’s designs into a tangible reality. But eventually Cassandra hoped to employ their own painters and plumbers and carpenters, and accomplish every project themselves, thus ruling out the necessity to rely on contracted labour.
When she finally put down her pen and switched off the pocket calculator, Cassandra’s head was buzzing with figures. She supposed that sooner or later she would get used to owing money that she herself was owed, but right now it seemed a terrifying deficit, and she massaged her temples wearily as she got up from her desk.
The studio-cum-office was situated over a pair of garages, which had once provided stabling for the horses of a bygone carriage era. Their entrance was via an iron staircase that ran up the side of the building, and after locking the door, Cassandra descended the stairs with a feeling of intense relief. It had been a long day, and she was tired, and she looked forward eagerly to putting her feet up on the couch and enjoying a T.V. dinner.
Her small Alfasud was parked in the mews, and she crossed the cobbled forecourt quickly and inserted her key in the lock. Chandler Mews was only dimly lit, and it had crossed her mind on several occasions that it was an ideal spot for muggers. But so far she had encountered no one but a stray cat, that even so had given her a nasty scare.
It was cold inside the car, but the engine fired without a hiccough, and she drove it smoothly out into Great Portland Street. At this hour of the evening, the traffic was not hectic, and she turned right towards Tottenham Court Road, and her flat near Russell Square.
She was lucky to have a flat so near to the office, and she never failed to feel grateful for Mike’s insurance, which had afforded her enough money to lease the flat and the studio, and provided the capital necessary to start the business. She had not wanted to take the money in the beginning. She had not felt she deserved it. But Mike’s mother had been adamant, and with her encouragement she had learned to appreciate her independence. She sometimes wondered whether Mrs Roland’s insistence that the money was hers and that she should take it without obligation stemmed from her own experiences with Mike’s father. Certainly, the elder Mr Roland had had little consideration for his wife, spending most of his time at the racetrack or on the golf course, and latterly, after his son’s involvement in racing, at the Formula One meetings. Unfortuately, he had died before Mike achieved any real success, and his winning of the French Grand Prix was overshadowed by his father’s death.
They were both widowed now, and it was through Mrs Roland that Cassandra had found her flat. Mike’s mother lived in an apartment in the same building, and while some of her friends had advised her not to live so closely with her in-laws, Cassandra had had no hesitation about accepting. She had never known her own mother and father. They had died when she was only a child, and she had been brought up by her mother’s cousin, a spinster lady with no aspirations to motherhood. Still, Aunt Esme, as she had preferred to be called, had done her best to give the girl a good home, and if it had been lacking in affection, it had at least given Cassandra her interest in art and design. Aunt Esme taught history at a girls’ school in Richmond, but in her spare time she devoured the art galleries, spending hours at the National Gallery or the Tate, reading avidly about painters and sculptors, their lives and their masterpieces, and the influences that coloured their work. It was during the course of these expeditions that Cassandra began to take notice of colour and texture, began to distinguish between the brush-strokes of a master and the amateurish offerings she produced. She learned that there was more to being an artist than the desire to set down on paper or canvas some face full of character, or a colourful London street scene. Her talent lay not in reproducing fine detail but in creating it, in blending together the imaginative with the functional to effect a design, both pleasing and practical. She was not an artist, she was a designer, using other people’s art to good advantage, and without Mike’s intervention in her life she might well have become a teacher, like Aunt Esme. As it was, she had given up her studies to marry Mike, and Aunt Esme had died before she achieved her ambition to have a studio of her own.
But Mike’s mother had nurtured that ambition. From the beginning she had encouraged Cassandra to think for herself, and since Mike’s death they had grown so much closer. It was strange, when there was no blood relationship between them, but Mrs Roland came much closer to being the mother she had never had than did Aunt Esme, and Cassandra had never regretted taking the flat which kept them in such close proximity.
Leaving her car in the basement garage, Cassandra took the lift up to the fourth floor with a sense of weariness out of all proportion to the day she had spent. It had seemed such an exhausting day somehow, and at the back of her mind was the suspicion that Jay Ravek had something to do with it. But that was ridiculous, she thought impatiently. She hardly knew the man. They had only exchanged the briefest of words. And yet she knew a nagging sense of disappointment that she would not be seeing him again. That was what was depressing her. He was the first man since Mike she might seriously consider having an affair with, and Liz had made that practically impossible by her vitriolic attitude. If she had not known better, she would have suspected Liz’s behaviour to be that of a jealous female, but that could not be so. Liz was a beautiful woman. She was never short of escorts. And if Jay Ravek was as dissolute as Liz said he was, he would obviously have been unable to resist the temptation.
Her flat was not large, consisting simply of a bedroom, a bathroom, a living-room and a kitchen. But it was the first real home of her own she had had, and Cassandra coveted the independence it proclaimed. It was not opulently furnished, but the choice of colours was hers, and the bright banners of green and orange revealed a character searching for its own identity.
Soft lamplight lit on a velvety orange sofa, splashing the rather austere stereo unit with warmth. Cassandra dropped her bag on to the couch, kicked off her shoes, and removed her coat before padding through to the small but stylish kitchen. She depressed the switch on the stereo unit as she passed, releasing the strains of John Lennon’s music into the apartment, and determinedly hummed to herself as she extracted her frozen dinner from the fridge. It would be foolish if she allowed thoughts of Jay Ravek to ruin what was left of the evening, she thought, putting the meal into the microwave oven to defrost before cooking. After all, her abstraction over him should warn her that he could be dangerous to her new-found peace of mind, and perhaps her first affair should be with someone who did not stir her emotions so deeply.
The telephone rang as she was making coffee, and leaving the pot percolating, she went to answer it. It was her mother-in-law, and Cassandra relaxed, perching on the arm of the sofa, and cradling the receiver against her ear.
‘You’re late, darling.’ Mrs Roland’s voice was warm with affection. ‘I called about half an hour ago, but you were still not home.’
‘I’ve been doing accounts,’ remarked Cassandra drily, and heard her mother-in-law’s sigh of understanding. ‘We really will have to employ an accountant soon. Even with a calculator, my arithmetic isn’t up to all the book-keeping we have to do.’
‘How about Paul Ludlum?’ suggested Mrs Roland at once. ‘His father was Henry’s accountant for years, and from what I hear, Paul has an excellent reputation. I could speak to him, if you like. Explain the situation. I’m sure he’s just the man you need.’
‘It sounds interesting,’ agreed Cassandra cautiously. ‘And it would take a load off my shoulders.’ She paused. ‘If we can afford it.’
‘Of course you can afford it, Cass.’ Mrs Roland was adamant. ‘You know how well the business is doing. I have every confidence in you.’
‘Well—thanks.’ Cassandra felt a glow of warmth inside. ‘You know, I’d never have had the nerve to do this without you.’
Mrs Roland chuckled. ‘It’s nice of you to say so, darling, but I don’t believe it. You’d have made it, sooner or later. Give yourself the credit, not me.’
‘Well, anyway—’ Cassandra let the sentence speak for itself, ‘I’m about to pour myself a cup of coffee. Would you like one?’
‘Oh, darling, I can’t.’ Mrs Roland was apologetic. ‘I’m just on my way out actually. You know—it’s my bridge evening.’ And as Cassandra acknowledged this with a rueful exclamation, she went on: ‘I only rang to let you know I took a phone call for you earlier.’
‘A phone call? For me?’ Cassandra felt the first twinges of alarm. ‘Who was it? And how did you happen to get the call?’
‘It was a Mr—Ravek,’ declared her mother-in-law, after a moment’s hesitation. ‘A client, I suppose. He’d found my telephone number in the book under this address, and I assume he expected it was yours. Do you know him?’
‘I’ve—met him.’ Cassandra’s sense of apprehension was fast giving way to a state of nervous excitement. ‘Did—er—did he say what he wanted?’
‘Well, he wanted to speak to you, of course,’ replied Mrs Roland at once. ‘You sound—strange, Cass. Who is he? A boy-friend?’
‘No!’ Cassandra’s response was vehement. ‘I—hardly know him.’ She paused. ‘Did he mention why he wanted to speak to me?’
‘No.’ Her mother-in-law considered for a moment. ‘He asked if you were available, and I explained that I was the wrong Mrs Roland, and he rang off.’
‘Oh, I see.’ Cassandra could hardly keep the disappointment out of her voice. Obviously he had discovered that there was a Mrs Roland listed as living in the building, and assumed it was her. When her mother-in-law explained his mistake, no doubt he had then presumed that she lived with her husband. And as she had only occupied this flat for a little over six months, her number was not in the book. But why had he rung her anyway? And why not at the office? The possibilities were endless, and none of them gave her any satisfaction right now.
‘I told him I’d give you the message,’ Mrs Roland was saying now, and Cassandra started: ‘What message?’
‘That he’d rung, of course,’ replied her mother-in-law patiently. ‘Cass, is there something wrong? This man’s not been bothering you, has he?’
‘Heavens, no!’ Cassandra’s laughter was slightly hysterical. ‘As I told you, I hardly know him. Er—Liz introduced us, today, at the Stafford reception. You remember—I told you I was going with her.’
‘I see.’ Mrs Roland sounded intrigued now. ‘So who is he? The name sounds foreign.’
‘Well, I don’t think he is.’ Cassandra felt a sense of relief at being able to talk about him. ‘He’s a journalist, so Liz says. For the Post.’
‘Ravek? Ravek?’ Mrs Roland said the name over. ‘You know, now I come to think of it, the name does sound vaguely familiar. Ravek!’ She said it again. ‘Yes, I have it. It’s Jay Ravek, isn’t it?’
‘He’s that well known, hmm?’ remarked Cassandra cynically, remembering Liz’s condemnation, but her mother-in-law gave an impatient exclamation.
‘No. No, you misunderstand me. I recall reading something about his mother, when she married Sir Giles Fielding—you know, the M.P. He was a barrister before he became interested in politics, and I believe I was introduced to him once at some dinner Henry and I attended. Anyway,’ she uttered an apologetic chuckle, ‘I’m digressing. What I really wanted to say was that his mother is Russian, her parents’ name was Ravekov, and they were émigrés at the end of the last war.’
Cassandra frowned. ‘But—if his father’s name is Fielding—’
‘It’s not.’ Mrs Roland sighed. ‘That’s why I remember it. Her son was born long before she became Lady Fielding.’
‘I see.’ Cassandra drew her lower lip between her teeth.
‘I haven’t trodden on any toes, have I, Cass?’ Her mother-in-law sounded concerned. ‘Darling, you mustn’t mind my gossiping. I’m sure he’s a very nice man.’
‘Liz doesn’t think so,’ said Cassandra flatly. ‘She said he was a bastard, and somehow I don’t think she meant what you did.’
Mrs Roland clicked her tongue. ‘I should hope not! One can hardly blame him for his parents’ behaviour.’
‘No.’ Cassandra felt irritated suddenly. ‘Well, he probably had a commission he wanted to discuss. If he needs to get in touch with me, he can easily do so at the office.’
‘Yes…’ Mrs Roland was thoughtful. ‘If you say so, dear.’
‘I do.’ Cassandra was eager now to put down the phone. ‘Have a nice evening, and I’ll probably see you tomorrow.’
‘Very well, Cass. Goodnight.’
‘Goodnight.’
With the telephone receiver restored to its rest, Cassandra lifted her head and caught a glimpse of her reflection in the mirror above the sideboard. She observed with some impatience that she had a smudge of ink on her chin, the result no doubt of supporting her head with the same hand that held her pen, and she rubbed at it absently as she contemplated what she had just learned. Why was Jay Ravek ringing her? What possible reason could he have? And why did it fill her with a sense of apprehension, when she had thought of him constantly since leaving the reception?
She sighed. It wasn’t as if she was a raving beauty or anything. She was reasonably tall and slim, and she had lost that angular thinness she had had while Mike was alive, but she was quite ordinary otherwise. She had naturally ash blonde hair, which was always an advantage, but she wore it short, a common enough style nowadays. She had nice skin, the kind that tanned in spite of her blonde hair, but her features were unremarkably regular, and only her eyes attracted any attention. They were large and green, with curling lashes that she darkened, but Mike used to say even they were deceptive. He said they promised so much, but offered so little, and she had never been able to understand why he had married her in the first place. He had had so many girls chasing him in his role as a racing driver, and during their more bitter arguments he had always thrown this up at her.
But that still didn’t explain why Jay Ravek wanted to speak to her. It was flattering, of course, and she would not have been human if she had not been curious, but her common sense told her that it might be simpler not to get involved, and perhaps her mother-in-law taking the call was just a blessing in disguise.
