Untamed

Kathy had called to see her this afternoon, although Keilly still felt far from up to seeing visitors, but knowing she would have to tell her cousin about Rod Bartlett’s proposed visit. As she had known she would be, Kathy was almost hysterical at the thought of it.

‘He may not come,’ she blew her nose noisily, armed with her second box of tissues in as many days, her nose a bright unattractive red. ‘Rick only said it was a possibility.’

Kathy still looked worried, her beautiful face marred by the deep frown to her brow. Her hair was the colour of golden sunlight, long and glowing just past her shoulders, her figure tall and willowy, her choice of clothes always impeccable, the cream tailored suit and rust coloured blouse with its tied-bow neckline suiting her perfectly, making the brown of her eyes look like deep sherry. Kathy was as beautiful inside as she was out, and Keilly had loved her as a sister from the moment she had come to live here. She wished there was something she could do to help her cousin now, but there wasn’t.

‘Did this Rick talk as if he really knew?’ Kathy chewed on her bottom lip, uncaring that she removed the dark orange lip-gloss in the process.

She shrugged. ‘He seemed to have contacts in the right places.’ She had kept her mind clear of thoughts of Rick, not allowing herself to even think about him and the way she had behaved with him on the beach. She hadn’t expected him to telephone her immediately he got to London, but this was the third day after his departure and still he hadn’t called. But at least she had been reassured by the fact that no story appeared about her in the newspapers. If that could be reassuring. She still doubted that she would ever see him again—and that was what she didn’t want to think of. ‘And he knew the woman who did the original Rod Bartlett interview.’ She had no doubt that Rick knew a lot of women, with his easy charm and ability to make the woman he happened to be with feel like someone special in his life he was sure to!

She had thought a lot of her own response to him, and she was no nearer to fully understanding her reaction to him. Oh she knew her fiery response had been the result of an experienced lover, she just didn’t understand why it had happened with Rick, a complete stranger until that night. Other men she had been out with in the past had shown the same physical experience, but always with them she had been able to say no. Her refusal not to let their relationship go any further had only been a gesture on her part, they both knew he had been the one to decide they shouldn’t make love. That was what worried her. She wanted Rick to come back, and yet she feared what might happen if he did, feared her own fate could be that of her mother’s.

Kathy gave a worried sigh. ‘What will I do if Rod does come back here?’ she frowned. ‘How will I face him?’

Her eyes widened indignantly. ‘I would have thought it would be the other way round,’ she said archly. ‘He was the one who seduced you, remember?’

‘Well of course,’ her cousin dismissed shortly. ‘But that doesn’t make it any less embarrassing for me.’

Keilly could understand that, could still remember Kathy’s distress on her wedding morning six years ago. She had been her cousin’s only bridesmaid, had been helping Kathy get out the snowy white dress she was to wear that afternoon when the other girl had suddenly burst into tears.

‘It’s no good,’ she cried. ‘I can’t go through with it.’

Keilly had held her consolingly, smiling her understanding with this sudden attack of nerves. ‘It’s all right, love,’ she soothed. ‘All brides feel like this.’

‘No, they don’t,’ Kathy wailed. ‘Oh God, I wish I were dead!’

‘Kathy!’

‘Well I do,’ her cousin stood up to move restlessly about the room, ‘I love Peter so much, and I—I have no right to marry him.’

‘Of course you do——’

‘No, I don’t,’ Kathy shook her head, her hands clenched tightly in front of her. ‘I have no right to wear white today either.’

Sixteen-year-old Keilly had frowned her puzzlement. ‘What do you mean?’

‘You can’t be that innocent!’ Kathy snapped. ‘It’s usually only virgins that wear white, so it must be obvious that I’m not one!’

Keilly stared at her in stunned disbelief. The two girls had been the best of friends for the last nine years, had confided everything in each other, and never once had Kathy said anything like this before. ‘You and Peter——’

‘No, not Peter and me,’ her cousin groaned her unhappiness. ‘Do you think I would be in this state if it were Peter who had been my lover?’

Keilly paled. ‘Someone else…?’

‘Yes,’ Kathy sat down heavily.

She swallowed hard, finding it difficult to take all this in. ‘But you and Peter have been going out together for years, when could you have— When you were at college in London!’ she suddenly realised. ‘Is that when it happened, Kathy?’

‘Yes,’ her cousin groaned, her eyes shadowed with pain. ‘He was so good looking, so—so fascinating. All the girls were after him,’ she revealed shakily. ‘I could hardly believe it when he singled me out for his attention.’

‘But who was he?’

‘Rod Bartlett,’ Kathy revealed with trembling reluctance.

‘The film star?’ she was astounded at the idea.

‘He wasn’t then, at least only in a small way. He was just starting out, the parts he was being given getting better all the time. He used to live here, Keilly, don’t you remember?’ She didn’t wait for an answer but continued tautly. ‘That was how I became friendly with him in London. We were introduced at a party, one of those parties where everyone just turns up whether they’re invited or not. Rod found it amusing that we came from the same town and had never really known each other. He may never have realised I existed when he lived in Selchurch,’ she remembered bitterly. ‘But I certainly knew him. All the girls did; he was popular even then. I thought I was in love with him, and I believed he felt the same way,’ she blinked back the tears.

‘Yes?’ Keilly prompted, never having seen her cousin like this before.

Kathy moved restlessly to her feet, moving to stare sightlessly out of the window. ‘Isn’t it obvious?’ she rasped shrilly. ‘He seduced me by telling me he loved me, by making me believe we would get married.’ She breathed a ragged sigh. ‘I didn’t see him again for a few weeks after that, and then I heard—then I heard he had moved in with Veronica King,’ she revealed brokenly. ‘I wanted to die! Thank God nothing—came of our making love,’ she trembled. ‘Or I think I would have died.’

‘You mean a baby?’ Keilly gasped, paling.

Kathy’s hand shook as she moved it to her hair. ‘Yes. He didn’t use anything, and I—I suppose he assumed I was on the pill.’ She gave a harsh, humourless laugh. ‘I’m sure he didn’t intentionally run the risk of a paternity suit being brought against him,’ she derided bitterly, her gaze suddenly clashing with Keilly’s stricken one. ‘I’m sorry, love, but now you know why I’m not entitled to wear that white gown Mum insisted I buy, why I’m not a suitable wife for Peter.’

Keilly didn’t know what to say, what words of comfort could help her cousin through this crisis in her life. Kathy had only confirmed to her what she had known all her young life, men were takers, thought nothing of deliberately lying to get a woman into bed with them. Rod Bartlett was the one who should have felt guilty, not Kathy!

‘Sleeping with one man, because you thought you loved him, doesn’t make you promiscuous, Kathy,’ she spoke softly. ‘I’m sure Peter is understanding enough, mature enough, to realise that.’

Dark brown eyes shadowed over. ‘You think I should tell him?’

She shrugged. ‘He’s going to know tonight anyway,’ she sighed.

‘But I would be married to him by then!’

‘And guilt-stricken, as you are now,’ Keilly reminded gently. ‘You have to tell him, Kathy, and now, before the wedding this afternoon.’

‘So that he has a chance to back out,’ Kathy groaned miserably.

‘I’m sure he won’t do that.’ Peter Carmichael was one of the kindest, most understanding men Keilly had ever known, and he loved Kathy enough to forgive her anything.

‘Are you?’ Kathy said bitterly.

‘Darling, you were deceived,’ she soothed, feeling the elder one at that moment. ‘Rod Bartlett lied to you just to get you into bed with him. You can’t be punished for that.’

‘Do you really think Peter will see it that way?’ she asked uncertainly. ‘I couldn’t bear it if I lost him now.’

‘Talk to him,’ she encouraged, completely confident of Peter’s reaction.

Kathy had telephoned Peter and arranged to meet him immediately, and when Keilly saw the adoration glowing in Peter’s eyes as his bride walked down the aisle towards him she knew she had been right to trust in him, that he had understood.

The young couple had shared a very happy marriage the last six years, had five-year-old Heather as living proof of their love. That Rod Bartlett should now upset the even tenor of Kathy’s life again ten years after treating her so callously was despicable.

‘He may not even remember you——’

‘Is that supposed to console me?’ Kathy snapped. ‘Oh I suppose you’re right,’ she sighed. ‘Why should a man like that remember one little virgin he seduced ten years ago? But I remember him, Keilly, if he should remember me…’ she trailed off worriedly. ‘He could make things very uncomfortable for me.’

‘I’m sure Peter would stand by you, after all, he knows there was someone in your past.’