Return to Love

by Patricia Robins

Genres: Romance

Synopsis

Sally Marsden must rebuild her career and her personal life when a car accident leaves her both physically and emotionally scarred. Sally once had everything she wanted: a promising career as a model and a photographer boyfriend. That is, until the accident which subjects her to months of hospital treatment for facial injuries, and leaves Mike Chancery too guilt-ridden to continue their relationship. With her career cut short, a skiing holiday in the Austrian Alps provides a change of perspective. A young ski instructor, Johann, starts to play a minor role in Sally's recovery...but then, by an unfortunate coincidence, Mike arrives at the same resort. Heartache, jealousy and love become interwoven, and it seems the idyllic Alpine resort Sally has chosen is set for an emotional showdown.

Release date: January 29, 2015

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Print pages: 400

Sample

She sat with the left side of her face to the carriage window. She had done so automatically. The concealment of the deep red scar was part of her normal pattern of behaviour now. The habit had not taken so long to form. Now, two years after the accident, her choice of position whenever she was in the presence of other people unconsciously placed the unscarred side of her face to them.

The boat train taking Sally Marsden and her friend, Bobbie Crowther, to Dover from Victoria, passed through a tunnel as it neared the coast. For a moment the window glass, darkened outside, assumed a mirror-like quality and Sally’s slim body stiffened. One hand reached quickly to her cheek, covering the disfigurement of which she was now instantly aware.

The happy, carefree mood which had engulfed her since their departure an hour earlier, left her to be replaced by the old familiar despair. The skiing holiday in Austria, to which she had so looked forward for months, once again assumed the proportions of a nightmare. There would be so many people to face; to stare at her; to ask questions perhaps; to offer sympathy; pity. How much easier to have stayed at home, in the flat where Bobbie alone could see her. Bobbie was far too familiar with her disfigurement even to notice it any more. She, Sally, could relax with Bobbie; and at work where she had her own tiny box-like little office next door to dear, kind old Mr Saunders, the lawyer. He never stared! And Cocky, the lad who brought in the mail and the tea, was far too self-conscious about the terrible state of acne from which he suffered to be bothered about her.

Sally glanced at the other passengers in the carriage. There were two business men with briefcases, one lost in his newspaper, the other checking some lists. Neither was concerned with her. Nor was the middle-aged woman on her right who had fallen asleep shortly after leaving London. Opposite her, Bobbie was deep in a paperback, her round freckled face absorbed, the reddish hair falling over one eye, obscuring half her face.

Sally’s hand went to her own hair. Long, fair, smooth and silky, it hung like a curtain across the damaged cheek. As it was, she could hide behind that curtain of hair and unless a wind blew it away from her face or she forgot and swept it back thoughtlessly behind one ear, no one noticed the scar.

‘You’ve got such a THING about it!’ Bobbie had reproved her so often that the words were all but meaningless now. ‘You shouldn’t be so conscious of it. No one notices it. They only stare because you’re so pretty.’

Sally drew a long sigh. It was true that she had been pretty – once. Three years ago, she had been able to accept that people stared at her because they found something attractive in her large green eyes or in the tilt of her nose or the shape of her face. She was not conceited but even at school it had been impossible to avoid this knowledge when all her friends told her she ought to be a model with her looks and figure. Then, meeting Mike, being swept off her feet by him, being turned into a top model almost overnight – she had accepted the simple fact of her beauty gratefully. Since the accident she had read through the scrap-book of cuttings Aunt Margaret had kept religiously throughout the fantastic year of her success. ‘A seventeen-year-old with the poise of a woman ten years older!’ ‘Young, fresh, beautiful, dreamy, mysterious!’ ‘Eyes like an Egyptian Princess and a figure that puts Madonna to shame!’ There were so many! Exaggerated, no doubt, but flattering. Not that the printed words meant anything to her in those days – not when she had Mike’s voice at her ear telling her how beautiful she seemed to him. That was all that mattered – that he admired her; that he loved her; needed her; wanted her.

Sally’s hands clenched in her lap as she sat now oblivious to the train, the carriage, to Bobbie, remembering the accident that had changed her life so completely. It was the night Mike had said he was in love with her, wanted to share his life with her, would marry her. He’d made a great deal of money because of her – his work with Sally was in ever-increasing demand and his own career as a fashion photographer was at last established. She believed he had ‘created’ her, but Mike always said it was the other way round. ‘We’re on our way to the top,’ he had said confidently. ‘You and me, babe. We’ve done it!’ Mike had a new white Porsche parked outside his flat and he wanted to go out and celebrate. Somewhere in the suburbs of London, Mike had taken a corner too sharply. The car skidded on the wet road and they had hit a parked car head-on …

Sally shivered. She did not want to remember yet again those first terrible weeks in hospital; the finding out how badly her face had been cut; the slow painful discovery that it might be months, even years, before plastic surgery could right the damage. Perhaps hardest of all to bear was Mike’s terrible remorse. His visits to the hospital – at first so desperately, eagerly awaited, became each time a little more painful. He refused to accept that the accident was not altogether his fault; that if it had not been raining so heavily the car might not have skidded, that the owner of the other car should not have parked it so near the turning. The case was heard in court and Mike judged guilty. He was driving too fast and he had been drinking – not much but enough to hold against him. It reinforced his belief in his own guilt and he tortured himself and Sally with self-recriminations.

Aunt Margaret insisted upon engaging a lawyer – old Mr Saunders – for Sally. Aunt Margaret said she must, whether she wished it or not (and she was still a minor), claim against Mike for damages she had received in the accident. Nothing Sally said to her aunt, who was also her guardian, could dissuade her from taking a case against Mike. His insurance company, not he, would pay, she said over and over again. Sally must realise that her career as a model would cease – at any rate for a year or two. She would be many months in hospital on and off, having plastic surgery. She would need money.

Mike agreed. He wanted to give her everything he owned. Anything to make up for the ugly scar that ran down her cheek, slightly puckering one corner of her mouth.

For several weeks he did no work. Sally at last persuaded him to use another model to take over her own commitments. Mike gave Sally’s work to Jess – a young half Indian girl he had known before he met Sally. Gradually Mike’s visits became scarcer. Sally knew he was frantically busy catching up on lost time and tried not to be hurt. When he did come, he was as loving as ever but always with that tormented look of guilt on his face. She hoped each time before he came into the room that this next time he saw her, his eyes would not go to her face. If he could only forget – just for a few minutes – what he had done to her! Then she, too, might be able to forget it; to relegate it to the role of unimportance. But it was important to him and, through him, to her. She began to find little ways to hide her face from him, altering her hair style; keeping the visitor’s chair on the other side of the bed; hunching her knees and cupping both cheeks with her hands.

It was Aunt Margaret who brought things to a head.

‘You’re always in floods of tears after his visits, Sally! I can’t bear to see you so unhappy. What’s wrong?’

That was when she realised for the first time that she must let Mike go. He was bound to her now not from love but from guilt. He was ashamed of what he had done to her and made her ashamed of herself. As to the girl, Jess – Mike had once said: ‘It’s because we are in love we work so perfectly together, Sally. You anticipate my needs and I am in tune with your moods. It’s like a painter with his model – the closer they are in spirit, in body, in thought, the more perfectly can he reproduce her. A photographer feels the same way.’

Now he was working in close harmony with Jess. How long before he needed to be close to her? Perhaps already he had held her in his arms, kissed her? Made love to her?

Knowing she would never be able to model again she told him she had accepted the fact that they no longer had a future together. He had sworn he still loved her; that he would never love anyone else, yet in the end, he had stopped visiting her. In a way, she had been happier then for his visits were too much of a strain and she loved him far, far too much to be able to bear each tiny step away from her.

There had followed a period of convalescence with Aunt Margaret in her little cottage in Sussex. Then the first of the plastic surgery operations in East Grinstead hospital. Sally had welcomed the pain and discomfort – it helped her to forget the worse pain of a life without Mike. Aunt Margaret had got her a job with Mr Saunders – the perfect job since apart from her modelling, which Mike had taught her, she had nothing but her secretarial qualifications. And Mr Saunders’ dingy little offices in the Temple offered a refuge, a hiding place, from the stares of the world. In a firm or factory or other big concern, she would have been forced to face people.

Three months ago the case against Mike had been heard. The judge, kindly and sympathetic, had nevertheless insisted upon seeing Sally’s scar. The day had been an ordeal – one she would have forfeited willingly, but Aunt Margaret had been satisfied with the outcome. Sally had been awarded full compensation and the judge had suggested that as soon as possible, Sally should go on holiday and try to forget the whole unfortunate affair. Aunt Margaret had advised her to invest the large sum of money awarded, but agreed with the judge that Sally should keep back enough to pay for a really good holiday.

Because of her former fame as a model, the press had been present and Sally had had to contend with publicity she had once craved but now abhorred. For days afterwards, she woke at night in a cold sweat, trying in her nightmare to avoid the flash of photographers’ bulbs.

She now lived in a tiny two-roomed flat with Bobbie – an old school friend. It was Bobbie who thought up the idea of a skiing holiday. She brought home the pamphlets and booklets and swamped Sally with literature and admonitions that she should do what the judge said – have a really good holiday.

‘You’re far too thin and pale and nervy, Sal. You need a holiday – a complete change. You need to get out and about and have a good time. Do you realise you haven’t seen anyone but me, Aunt Margaret and that stuffy old boss of yours in months! I’d give my right arm to have the chance of a holiday and here you are shaking your head and saying “no”. I wish I had the chance!’

So Sally had conceived the idea of going with Bobbie – for her friend’s sake rather than her own. Bobbie had been so patient, so understanding; always trying to include her on double dates yet never forcing her against her will; going with her to the theatre or cinema or for Sunday walks in Kew Gardens or just staying home in the flat to keep her company. Bobbie was the perfect, unselfish, undemanding friend.

‘I must try to enjoy myself – for Bobbie’s sake!’ Sally told herself as the train came to an abrupt halt just outside Dover.

It began to reverse and travel downwards towards the harbour. Bobbie put down her book and glanced eagerly out of the window.

‘We’re nearly there!’ she cried. ‘Isn’t it exciting, Sal? I’ve never been abroad before, I can hardly believe it’s really and truly about to happen!’

Sally smiled but as she did so, she pulled the soft curtain of fair hair a little further forward over her cheek, and adopting a fashionable style, tied the pink silk scarf over her head and round her throat.

They found their way, with the rest of the passengers from the train, through customs on to the cross-Channel ferry. The boat was only half full and they found seats on B Deck in the lounge without any trouble. They both wanted to buy duty-free perfume so, as soon as it was permitted, they made their way, following the signs, to the ship’s shop. As Sally was paying for hers, using her English currency to do so, a young man on her right-hand side spoke to her.

‘Do you know if I can get my duty-free spirits here?’ he asked.

Without thinking, Sally swung round to reply to him but his gaze had turned to the row of bottles behind her and without looking at her again he hurried away before Sally could speak.

The hot colour flooded her cheeks. In her mind there was no doubt that the man had been thoroughly disconcerted by the sight of the scar on her face. In the pre-accident days, she had become accustomed to boys and men trying to strike up an acquaintance with her. It had always amused Mike – and made him just a little jealous – to see how instantly she attracted the opposite sex. Now it was all different … and the incident, unimportant enough in itself, flung her back into a depression that even Bobbie’s determined good spirits could not revive. She wished desperately that she had stayed at home. Nothing could have been more stupid than to lay herself open to situations such as this. It was pointless for Bobbie to say: ‘I think he was trying to pick you up, Sal!’ The man himself and his motives were irrelevant. The only salient fact was that he had run away – as most people must want to run away when they saw her scarred face.

Sally joined Bobbie in the self-service café for tea. They had been warned by the travel agency that there was no restaurant on the night train that would carry them to Austria and they intended buying sandwiches and cheese and biscuits for their supper to eat later on the train. When they had discussed it in the privacy of the flat, the idea of picnicking in a sleeper had seemed such fun. Now Sally could raise no enthusiasm. For Bobbie’s sake she tried to seem cheerful, and at the same time, keep the scarf more firmly round her face. The one careless moment at the shop had put her on her guard. She would not let it slip again until she and Bobbie were safely alone in the sleeper.

It was nearly seven in the evening before they were exploring the third-class compartment on the all-night train to Zürs. Because it was only half full, they had the carriage to themselves and the friendly French attendant tol. . .