The Ultimate Surrender

‘Such noble sentiments,’ Marcus scoffed, ‘and so very naive. Richard may have been your husband, Polly, but I suspect he never really awakened you as a lover, because if he had—’

‘How dare you?’ she almost screamed at him, backing away from him like a threatened hind fearing the approach of the hunter. ‘Of course Richard was my lover. How else do you think that Briony…?’

She stopped, almost choking on her own tears, suddenly realising that Briony could see and hear everything they were saying to one another.

‘He was your husband, yes, and you conceived his child, yes, but that was a long time ago and in many ways Richard was only a boy,’ Marcus agreed flatly, before continuing in a soft, almost mesmeric voice, ‘But look at you now; you’re trembling like a virgin confronted with her first experience of an adult man and all because I kissed you. Is that how a woman who has experienced a lover’s—a man’s—passion would react?’

He started to shake his head but Polly wasn’t prepared to listen to any more. Reaching out protectively to draw Briony closer to her, she told him shakily, ‘You have no right to say such things to me. I loved, still love, always will love Richard more than someone like you could possibly understand.’

The look he gave her before he walked past her and out of the room lived with her for a long time afterwards, long after Marcus himself had left again on his travels.

Well, at least Briony had been right about one thing, Polly reflected a couple of hours later, her kitchen cupboards restored to their normal immaculate order: the hotel was relatively quiet at the moment. Not that she minded. They had a very busy season coming up, with Christmas to contend with. They had guests who regularly booked themselves into Fraser House for Christmas and the New Year, and if the conversion of Marcus’s room was finished in time for the Christmas season they had a respectably long list of guests already for their occupancy. Christmas at Fraser House was, Polly acknowledged with her customary modesty, something a little bit special.

Yes, she was glad that Marcus had decided to give up his rooms here, she told herself firmly as she glanced round her now immaculate kitchen, and not just because of the extra guests it would allow them to have. The architect they had hired had made the suggestion that the stable block could perhaps be renovated and extended to provide even more rooms, but for once Polly had demurred, explaining that she felt it would detract from the hotel’s unique ‘feel’ if they expanded too much. A little to her surprise, Marcus had actually endorsed her opinion. She hadn’t as yet been to see the house he had bought nearby, although Briony had, returning to tell her mother enthusiastically that it was ‘ace’.

Built in the early days of Victoria’s reign it had originally been a part of the Fraser estate, built to house the widowed mother of the then owner.

Whilst not a dower house in the traditional sense of the word—Fraser House was not a great house in the style of Chatsworth and its ilk—it had been built in a similar if later style to that of the main house and was less than a mile away from it. After the end of the First World War the family had sold off the house, but now the opportunity had arisen for Marcus to buy it back along with the small acreage of land which had been sold with it.

In some ways Polly quite envied him the opportunity to bring the pretty ivy-clad house back to life again—its last owner had been elderly and after her death the house had been left empty for some time whilst her executors decided what to do with it.

Its five bedrooms and spacious ground floor meant that it would make an ideal family house. Was Marcus perhaps thinking of settling down at long last? At forty-two he was very visibly in the prime of his life. His career and financial future were assured, his physical appearance such that no right-thinking, intelligent, heterosexual woman would hesitate to snatch him up as potential-mate material and father to her unborn children. The current scientific evidence was that a woman naturally and instinctively chose the strongest and best-looking mate she could find in order to secure the best genes possible and thus the best chance of survival for her offspring. And no doubt Marcus would be similarly influenced when he chose the woman he wanted to marry. She would be young, intelligent and, of course, stunningly beautiful. According to Briony, her candidate filled all of those requirements.

Lost in thought, Polly made her way slowly to what had always been her favourite spot in the house’s grounds—a small dell surrounded by mature trees and with its own natural pond. It was off limits to their guests and could only be reached by a narrow private footpath. It was a spot that Richard had loved, and his last gift to her before his death had been a painting of it done in the spring when the bluebells were out. Now it was autumn and the trees were shedding their leaves, giving the small, enclosed space a haunting, almost melancholy air that was so much in tune with her own mood that Polly could feel her always easily aroused emotions bringing unwanted tears to her eyes.

She had brought so many of her problems and her heartaches, large and small to this spot over the years, but none had come anywhere near the magnitude of the agonising despair she was suffering now.

So much in her life was changing…Briony had already left home and was quickly becoming an adult and no longer in need of her in the way she had once been. Her staff were so well trained that sometimes she felt almost as though they didn’t need her either. And then there was Marcus…

Marcus…

She closed her eyes and leaned against the thick trunk of one of the trees.

Of course she had always known that one day Marcus would get married.

Hadn’t she?

That he would meet someone…fall in love with them…

‘Polly.’

Her eyelids swept up in shock, revealing the tears dampening her eyes as she stared in mute distress at the man who had been the focus of her thoughts.

‘What are you doing out here without a coat?’ she could hear him demanding disapprovingly. He, of course, was wearing a coat—or rather a jacket…the soft, well-worn leather one that she and Briony had bought him together one year for his birthday.

‘Marcus,’ she croaked when she had managed to find her voice, and then shivered, idiotically justifying his sharp criticism of her.

‘You are cold,’ she heard him say grimly. ‘Here, take this…’

Before she could stop him he was removing his jacket and wrapping it around her. It drowned her, its warmth enveloping her—and not just its warmth. Weakly Polly closed her eyes as her vulnerable senses were assaulted by the unmistakable scent of him.

‘No, I don’t want it,’ she denied, thrusting it off and turning her back on him as she walked quickly away from him.

She could hear the faint exclamation of exasperation he made as he bent to retrieve it, and she wasn’t surprised when he told her irritably, ‘Don’t be so damn childish, Polly. I do realise, you know, how much you resent having to accept anything from me. There’s no need for you to reinforce that fact—especially not in such a self-defeating way.’

‘That’s not fair.’ Polly defended herself quickly. ‘And it’s not true either. I’ve always been aware of how much both Briony and I owe you, and I’m very grateful for everything that you’ve done for us.’

When he didn’t make any response she added incon-sequentially, ‘This was always one of Richard’s favourite places…’

‘Yes, I know,’ Marcus agreed curtly—so curtly that Polly turned round to face him properly. His face was wearing that austere, withdrawn expression that made him seem so distant and disapproving.

‘He loved to paint here,’ Polly continued protectively. ‘And…’

‘And you keep the painting he gave you of this place in that nun-like cell you call your bedroom…’

‘It isn’t a cell,’ Polly protested, outraged.

‘No, you’re right, it isn’t,’ Marcus agreed tersely. ‘It’s more like a shrine…a shrine to a man—a boy—who would have been appalled by your maudlin determination to turn him into some kind of plaster saint…’

Polly could feel herself starting to tremble. Why was it always like this? Why was it always like this between them? Why did they argue so much…fight so viciously? Why, when he obviously disliked and resented her so much, had Marcus done so much for her? But she already knew the answer to that conundrum. First it had been for Richard and then, after his death, for Briony.

‘Richard was my husband,’ she reminded him with a small quiver in her voice.

‘Was…Was, Polly,’ Marcus emphasised savagely. ‘Richard is dead and has been for a very long time.’

‘Briony wants me to give a private dinner party,’ she told him quickly. ‘She—’

‘Yes, I know.’ Marcus interrupted her shortly. Uncertainly Polly searched his face. What exactly had Briony told him—that she had found the woman she thought would make him the perfect wife? It wouldn’t surprise her. Marcus would accept things from Briony that she could never imagine him accepting from someone else. They were on the same wavelength, so much in tune with one another that…that they made her feel excluded, envious…Envious? Of her own daughter…? Fiercely Polly resisted her thoughts.

‘I have to go back,’ she told Marcus jerkily, her body tensing when he fell into step beside her as she headed for the footpath. Just as she reached it she tried to distance herself from him, gasping in shock as a small branch from one of the trees became entangled in her hair.

‘Keep still,’ Marcus instructed her, immediately realising what had happened and reaching out to free her.

He was standing far too close to her, Polly recognised weakly. Far too close. She was beginning to feel dizzy…light-headed…

‘Keep still,’ Marcus repeated irritably as he tried to tug her hair free. She felt engulfed by him, surrounded by him as he moved closer to her whilst he worked patiently to free her.

Standing this close to him was almost like being in a lover’s embrace with him…Polly could feel her skin starting to prickle with nervous tension. She could hardly breathe and if he didn’t free her soon and move away from her she knew she was going to panic and do something really stupid.

‘There. You’re free now.’

Free…For one wild moment Polly actually contemplated telling him how impossible it was for her ever to be free of the unwanted burden she carried, but just in time she stopped herself, her ‘Thank you’ short and sharp, as though the words hurt her throat.

Her head was beginning to ache, but not because of her pulled hair and no way near as much as her heart.

Marcus provoked her, irritated her, angered her more than anyone else she knew, sometimes she felt that the hostility between them was such that she could almost reach out and feel it. But only she knew how much, how desperately she needed to cling onto that anger and hostility…how much she needed the defence it gave her.

‘There’s no need to walk back with me,’ she told him tersely. ‘I can manage.’