Tom and the Dazzling Fiona Ch. 02
He wanted to get married but she was doubtful.
This story is entirely fictional.
*
Tom Cassavettes's mother was what some would disparagingly call 'a typical upper class British woman'. As well as coming from a titled family she had been brought up in a staunch Church of England household where Sunday attendance at church was considered normal.
On this occasion her only son had his own reason for accompanying Margaret to morning service but was left with the feeling that he was being a touch hypocritical. Having over time lost his faith Tom eased his conscience by deciding that he was merely acceding to his mother's often repeated urgings. But of course it was all solely Fiona Napier's doing.
The dust having been thoroughly disturbed by the worshippers was being caught and coloured softly by the rays of sunlight spilling through the stained glass windows. The congregation was sparse, and the pews were upright, hard and uncomfortable, which was not helping Tom to concentrate.
His attention which was already wandering far from the service was now directed solely at Fiona who was perhaps six metres away in the front row.
Tom was transfixed by the vulnerable nape of her elegant neck which was being lit by yet another shaft of light. Her heavy ash blond hair was twisted up in a coil on her head and topped by a straw boater but his increasingly powerful day dream was suddenly broken by his mother's sibilant whisper.
"Tom, that beautiful blond girl, the vicar's daughter, I seem to remember that you spent quite a lot of time together just before you went up to University."
She half pointed, half nodded in the approximate direction that Tom's lustful gaze had been fixed for the last ten minutes. Did she suspect his state of love and admiration? Maybe she did for Margaret was pretty clued up and could keep her own council.
"She has bewitched all the young men hereabouts, but that's not surprising for she
has
grown into a very beautiful woman."
Tom listened mutely as Margaret moved on to make acerbic comments about the rest of the congregation, all in a voice that threatened to compete with the vicar's sonorous tones. She was easy company on an occasion such as this particularly when she never stopped for, nor required, a reply.
He had become convinced that monologues such as these were the province of all her class of Ladies whom he often met. They, without exception, had no notion of moderating the volume of their voices even when talking disparagingly of others.
Fiona smiled secretly at Tom as she returned from the communion rail all unseen by Margaret Cassavettes who was still receiving the
blood of Christ
. Fortunately he decoded the smile correctly and knew in an instant that it was his job to work out a way for them to be alone after the service.
"You go on ahead," he said as he helped Margaret up into her Range Rover. He was privately amused when she then kicked off her high heels and pushed her feet into the sensible flat shoes that lived under the driving seat. "I'll walk back across the churchyard."
Fiona tucked her hand in the crook of his arm as they strolled along the avenue of yew and thuja where it took her hardly a moment to return to the subject of last night's telephone conversation.
"Will you volunteer?"
"It is obviously my duty and my destiny, so yes. Bloody right I will."
She giggled and after a quick look around kissed him fleetingly on the lips. This brief second kiss after three years of erotic memories only served to stoke his desire and make him even more her slave.
"Where could we go?"
Tom was brought back to the present and pretended a bewilderment which he did not feel.
"For what?"
She sighed in exasperation and squeezed his arm against her breast.
"Thomas Cassavettes, you know very well what I'm talking about."
He laughed at her lack of humour but continued to poke fun.
"What about your room at the vicarage?"
"You must be joking" she replied in exasperation, then immediately realised that the joke was on her. "Stop it at once and be serious, I can't bear you making fun about this of all things."
"My parents are going back to town in the morning," he said immediately, regretting having upset Fiona and suddenly becoming fearful of her doing an about turn, "you could come round to Tremaine Place."
She thought about the daily staff and then discounted them. But the housekeeper was a very different matter.
"As long as Mrs Varco doesn't see me, she's so thick with my mother it's bound to get back to my parents."
"She's actually going to Chichester with your mother. There're having a day out together," now Tom had really surprised her, "on Tuesday. So if you can get the day off then we would have the house to ourselves."
Fiona was so pleased with this simple solution to what had at first seemed an insoluble puzzle that she actually danced around Tom before bestowing another soft kiss on his lips.
"See you on Tuesday then."
She was looking like the cat who'd got the cream when she went through the vicarage gate and gave him a final wave.
............
Tom watched Fiona emerge from the driving seat of her mother's little car with all the elegance of a finishing school pupil. Knees tight together and her back straight. She then disappeared from his sight to enter the house through the kitchens and he hurried to intercept her.
The alterations to Tremaine Place which had been initiated by Tom's Greek/American father had transformed the mansion. Tom knew that the Architect had been forced to fight hard with the listed building authorities and with the local town planners but because of his persistence they had got one hundred percent of what they wanted having wisely asked for far more in the initial application.
The building was now restored to its original appearance as an elegant mellow early eighteenth century stately home but had also become a comfortable country house with the large rectangular courtyard at the rear now completely glassed over to form both a conservatory and an indoor swimming pool.
