The Ultimate Surrender

‘As you never seem to cease delighting in reinforcing to me,’ Marcus agreed curtly. ‘Polly, has it ever occurred to you—?’ He stopped.

‘Has what ever occurred to me?’ she pressed him. But he simply shook his head and told her grimly, ‘It doesn’t matter.’

No, she wanted to correct him, I’m what doesn’t matter to you, Marcus…me. But somehow she found the strength not to do so.

On her return to the house Polly went straight to the kitchen. Polly loved cooking, and its pleasure for her came from a deeply rooted nurturing instinct.

‘Ma, you should have had half a dozen children, not just one,’ Briony often told her.

Perhaps it was true; perhaps the love she poured into Fraser House and their guests was simply a form of displacement therapy, an outlet for the love and caring she no longer had her beloved Richard to give.

Paradoxically, perhaps Marcus was like herself, someone who, whilst enjoying and insisting on top-quality health-protecting, wholesome food, was not a gourmet, which was probably why, at forty-two, he still had the superbly fit and muscled body of a man half his age—as Polly had good cause to know. The last time he had been home she had hurried down to the swimming pool intent on having her early-morning swim before getting down to prepare the guests’ breakfasts, and as she had approached the pool she had realised that Marcus had beaten her to it.

Reluctantly impressed, she had watched as he completed a length in a stunningly effective and fast crawl before turning at the far end of the pool to see her watching him. Quickly she’d started to walk back to the exit but, to her chagrin, Marcus had hauled himself out of the water and come after her, stopping her before she could leave.

‘Nice swimsuit,’ had been his drawlingly derogatory comment as he had surveyed her. ‘What is it—one of Briony’s schoolfriend’s cast-offs?’

Furious with him for his rudeness, and herself for allowing herself to be provoked, she had compressed her mouth, refusing to make any verbal response even though she’d known her heightened colour had given away her real feelings.

Perhaps her swimming costume was a little bit old-fashioned, a plain, serviceable affair which she had originally bought when Briony had been a little girl and she had been taking her for swimming lessons; but the bikini Briony had insisted on her buying for their last holiday together was, in Polly’s maternal opinion, far too brief and revealing—little more than a few scraps of black satinised cotton edged in a dull gold, and certainly far too sophisticated for a businesslike early-morning swim.

Distractedly she had watched the downward path of the droplets of water coursing their way through the sleek dark pelt of Marcus’s body hair, across the flat, hard-packed muscles of his chest and stomach, and then…

It hadn’t been until Marcus had oh, so deliberately wrapped the towel he was carrying around his hips that she’d realised just how hard she had been staring at him, and where, and her face had flushed an even deeper hue of pink as he had asked her, ‘What is it Polly? Have you forgotten what a man looks like, or is this…’ his hand had reached out and touched the hot skin of her face ‘…because you have remembered?’ And then, before she could say anything he had challenged her, ‘Do you think if your positions had been reversed that Richard would have clung so unnaturally to his widowhood or his celibacy?’

‘Celibacy is easy when you…when there’s only one man you love—only one man you want,’ she had managed to retort; and, after all, it had been and still was the truth.

CHAPTER THREE

‘AHA! I thought so. No way are you wearing that.’ Briony pounced, coming into Polly’s bedroom just as she was zipping up the plain, faithful black dress she’d decided to wear for Briony’s dinner party.

The meal was in the capable if somewhat nervous hands of her young trainee chef, Andrew, and before coming upstairs to get ready she had gone into the conservatory where they were going to be dining to check that everything was in order.

The round table, rather smaller and far more intimate than the long dining table in the dining room, gleamed with crystal and silver, and the conservatory itself was illuminated by the dozen or more heavy floor-standing candelabra which Polly always lit for such occasions.

The simple muslin drapes which had been unfastened to cover the windows added to the wonderful delicacy of the room creating a glimmering, misty, low-lit effect which, as Polly already knew, did wonders for female complexions and—so she had been reliably informed—male libidos!

As she’d come upstairs she had congratulated herself with amused tenderness that Briony was bound to be pleased with her efforts, but it seemed now that she had congratulated herself a little too soon.

‘What on earth do you mean?’ she responded. ‘I always wear this dress for dinner parties.’

‘Exactly,’ Briony agreed. ‘It’s the kind of dull, anonymous thing that all fifty-something women play safe with.’

‘Er…well, yes,’ Polly agreed. ‘That’s why I bought it.’

‘But, Mum, you aren’t fifty-something, and anyway if Marcus sees you in it he will go mad. He told me the last time you wore it that I ought to burn it.’

‘Oh, he did, did he?’ Polly said grimly. ‘Well, in that case…’

‘Oh, help, I shouldn’t have said that, should I?’ Briony yelped. ‘What is it with you and Uncle Marcus these days, Mum? You know, when I was little I used to pretend that Uncle Marcus was my father and I used to close my eyes and make a wish that you and he would get married.’

‘Never,’ Polly told her instantly. ‘Never. I…’

‘Mmm; that’s exactly what Uncle Marcus said too,’ Briony murmured, adding, ‘Anyway, never mind about all that now…Look what I’ve got for you.’

Triumphantly she produced the bag she had been holding behind her back and, with a flourish, removed its contents.

‘You can’t possibly be expecting me to wear that,’ Polly protested faintly as she saw the tiny tube-like piece of fabric her daughter was holding in front of her.

‘Oh, but I am,’ Briony grinned.

‘It won’t fit me,’ Polly told her positively.

‘Yes, it will; it stretches,’ Briony informed her smugly, proving her point by gently pulling out the sheer black fabric with its delicate sprinkling of small jet beads.

‘Briony, there’s no way I can wear that.’ Polly gasped in shock as she saw how see-through the fabric actually was.

‘Relax, Mum,’ Briony laughed. ‘There’s an underslip that goes with it. It’s perfectly respectable, I promise you. Come on, take that horrid old thing off and let me see this on you.’