The Token Wife

by Sara Craven

  She wandered barefoot into the kitchen and extracted a bottle of mineral water from the fridge, uncapping it and drinking thirstily, then placing the chilly glass against her forehead.

  However much she was dreading the coming party, it would still be good to get out of the stifling city and breathe some country air, she thought, leaning against the counter-top. Maybe it would help her to think more clearly too.

  She still wasn’t sure what reception she would get from Lady Perrin. Alex had formally told his grandmother he was married, but so far there had been no reaction, and she wasn’t sure if that was a good sign or bad. In fact she wasn’t sure of very much at all except her own unhappiness, she thought, her heart like a stone in her chest.

  As she tossed the empty bottle into the bin the door buzzer sounded, signalling that her dress had arrived, which was one less thing to worry about, she told herself, starting up the passage.

  She had fallen in love with the deep red taffeta confection with its boned strapless bodice, and smooth bell of a skirt, as soon as she’d seen it. Its classic lines enhanced her slenderness, and the colour lent warmth to her pale skin, giving in turn a much-needed boost to her confidence.

  She would never be Alex’s wife in any real sense, she thought, but at least, for one night, she would look the part. And, if nothing else, she would make him proud of her.

  She threw open the door, confidently expecting to see a messenger carrying a beribboned box. Instead she found herself taking a step backwards, her hand going to her throat.

  She said, her voice sharp with disbelief, ‘David?’

  ‘Hello, Lou,’ David Sanders said awkwardly. ‘It’s good to see you.’

  She wished she could say the same, but it was impossible. She’d never expected to see him again. Never wanted to either, she realised.

  She swallowed, taking a firm hold on herself. ‘What are you doing here? How—how did you find me?’

  ‘Ellie still had Fabian’s address in her organiser,’ he said. ‘May I come in?’

  She’d already responded with automatic politeness, standing to one side to admit him, before it struck her forcibly that it was the last thing she really wanted and that she should, instead, have told him to get lost.

  Biting her lip, she followed him to the living room, where he stood looking around him appraisingly.

  ‘Well,’ he commented, ‘you’ve certainly fallen on your feet.’

  Louise was astounded to hear a faint note of injury in his voice. She gave him an inimical look. ‘As opposed to flat on my face?’ she queried. ‘Or was that what you intended?’

  ‘No, of course not,’ he protested uncomfortably. He paused. ‘Oh, God, Lou.’ He shook his head. ‘It’s all such a bloody mess.’

  ‘Is it?’

  ‘You must know that it is. I’ve been such an idiot.’

  Louise moved restively, regretting even more that she’d allowed him into the flat. And this was the man that, only a short time before, she had planned to marry. Now his presence was an embarrassment—a thorn in her side. How quickly things could change.

  Anxious to be rid of him, she said, ‘David, I have things to do. What do you want exactly?’

  ‘I need to apologise,’ he said intensely. ‘To tell you that going off with Ellie was the biggest mistake of my life, and beg you to forgive me.’

  She shrugged. ‘Consider yourself forgiven,’ she told him curtly. ‘Now, perhaps, you’ll go. You should never have come here in the first place.’

  ‘But we can’t just leave it like that,’ he objected. He sounded almost startled. ‘You can’t be happy, married to that bastard. And Ellie and I are through, or very nearly,’ he added despondently. ‘She and my mother can’t stand the sight of each other, and she says my present salary is a joke, so she’s insisting that I sell the house and get a job in London so that she can go back to work at Trentham Osborne.’

  He sighed. ‘She’s changed completely. When we first met, she was so sweet—so fragile. I just fell—headlong. Now all she seems to think about is money. I suppose that’s the result of associating with someone like Alex Fabian,’ he added, giving his surroundings a look that combined envy with loathing.

  Louise frowned. ‘But she certainly didn’t want to marry him,’ she pointed out. ‘She told me herself that he scared her.’

  David shrugged. ‘Maybe she’s decided she’d rather be scared than bored,’ he countered wanly. ‘Or perhaps she was just miffed because Fabian had his own agenda, and wouldn’t dance to her tune. Anyway, she certainly misses the high life. And she despises me because I can’t afford to take her to the places he did.’

  ‘I find that hard to believe.’ Louise frowned. ‘Although Alex has always said I didn’t know Ellie as well as I thought.’

  ‘Did any of us?’ David asked glumly. ‘Life’s been sheer hell since we got back. My mother never stops complaining. Half my friends won’t speak to me.’

  ‘Am I supposed to feel sorry for you?’

  ‘I can’t expect that,’ he said heavily. ‘But hearing that you’d married Fabian was simply the final straw. Something—died in me, I think.’

  ‘That sounds like a line from the drama group’s last production,’ Louise told him coldly. ‘And my marriage is no concern of yours.’

  ‘But you’re so wrong.’ He gave her a pathetic look. ‘We had a good thing going for us, Lou. We could have made it. Besides,’ he added, with a startling shift in direction, ‘what are you going to do when Fabian gets tired of you, and you’re kicked into touch?’

  ‘Oh, that’s all settled,’ she said over-brightly, resisting the impulse to wrap defensive arms round her body and howl. ‘I shall travel the world as a rich divorcee.’

  ‘But not alone,’ he said quickly. ‘You’ll never need to do that, Lou.’

  She stared at him open-mouthed. ‘You surely can’t be suggesting yourself as travelling companion?’

  ‘Why not?’ His voice was eager. ‘I’ve admitted I’ve been a fool, and that must count for something. So, Lou—darling Lou—why shouldn’t we make a fresh start?’

  She said wearily, ‘For more reasons than I care to enumerate. And my name is Louise. My husband prefers it.’

  ‘Husband,’ he said with contempt. ‘He’s no more a husband to you than he would have been to Ellie.’

  ‘And you,’ Louise flashed back, ‘know only what Ellie’s told you.’ She went to the door. ‘David, I think you should leave. Now.’

  ‘I’ve upset you,’ he said. ‘Just turning up like this. I should have written to you, or rung first, but I was just so desperate to see you—to put things right. Because I know that, if you give me the chance, I can make you happy.’

  ‘On the contrary,’ Louise said coldly. ‘I think we’ve both had a lucky escape.’ She paused, adding levelly, ‘You need to remember, David, that you and Ellie were sufficiently in love a few weeks ago to run away together. You may just be going through a bad patch at the moment.’

  ‘It was just a silly infatuation,’ David said. ‘I see that now.’

  Louise moved restively. ‘Whatever,’ she said. ‘I’m really not interested.’

  ‘Sweetheart,’ he said coaxingly, ‘you don’t mean that. You can’t have forgotten what we were to each other.’

  ‘A habit,’ she said, ‘that is now broken. So let’s leave it like that.’

  ‘But how can I,’ he demanded, ‘when you’re the only woman I’m ever going to want? Please don’t send me away, Lou. I should never have let you go, and I know that, given the chance, I can make it work. You look amazing,’ he added huskily.

  ‘The only amazing thing about me is that I’m actually listening to this drivel.’ Louise marched to the front door and flung it open, standing beside it, stony-faced.

  ‘My God,’ he said. ‘I never thought you could be so hard. That’s what he’s done to you, isn’t it?’

  ‘A few other factors were also involved.’ She lifted her chin. ‘Goodbye, David.’
/>
  He gave her one last sorrowful look, and left. Louise closed the door behind him with deliberate firmness, and stood for a moment looking at its blank panels.

  I should be in a terrible state, she thought. The man I planned to marry has just grovelled to me, and begged me to go back to him. And, in view of what I know about Alex, I should be at least—torn. And yet I know beyond all doubt that I wouldn’t have David back, if he came gift-wrapped, with a cash bonus.

  She began to unzip her pale yellow linen dress as she walked down to her room. She adjusted the shower temperature to cool, then stripped off her underwear and stepped under the refreshing torrent of water, letting it cascade over her hair, and down her body.

  David wanted her, and Alex never would. There was a terrible irony in that, she thought, lifting her face so that the power-driven droplets mingled with the tears she could no longer hold back. Standing motionless until she had regained some measure of control.

  When she’d dried herself, and given her hair a swift towelling, she slipped on her white broderie-anglaise robe. It was pointless trying to alter the immutable, she thought. She would only become more hurt than she was already.

  Far better to devote herself to practicalities like packing for the weekend. And telephoning the shop about her dress, which should be here by now, she reminded herself.

  Still barefoot, she went up the hallway to the living room, only to come to an abrupt halt in the doorway. It was a day for shocks, she thought, swallowing. Because Alex was there, standing on the other side of the room by the window, his back towards her.

  She was all set to beat a retreat, convinced she hadn’t made a sound, but he turned instantly, his brows snapping together as he surveyed her.

  Louise returned his gaze, her chin lifted. She had no idea what could have brought him back at this time in the afternoon—unless, of course, he’d come to tell her that their token marriage was over. That he and Cindy Crosby could no longer bear to live apart.

  Please God, don’t let me grovel like David, she whispered silently. Don’t let me beg for mercy. Isn’t it bad enough that I’m standing here with bare feet and damp hair?

  That too potent image of them standing together on the steps of the hotel where they’d been making love flashed into her mind, and flooded her face with indignant, painful colour.

  But anger was good. Anger was infinitely safer than hurt—and need.

  The green eyes narrowed. He said softly, ‘Hello, darling. You seem—surprised to see me.’

  ‘I was having a shower. I didn’t hear you come in.’ She hesitated. ‘And you’re quite right. I wasn’t expecting you.’

  ‘I hope my return hasn’t inconvenienced you in any way.’ His tone was silky.

  ‘This is your home,’ Louise returned. ‘You’re entitled to come and go as you please. I thought we’d established that.’

  ‘Do you usually take showers in the middle of the afternoon?’

  ‘Sometimes, when it’s as hot as this.’ Absurd to feel defensive, yet she did, just the same. ‘Why do you ask?’

  He shrugged, his smile glittering at her like ice. ‘Just natural curiosity, my sweet, about how you spend your time when I’m not around.’

  ‘I could ask you the same thing,’ she countered.

  ‘Then why don’t you?’

  She bit her lip. ‘Perhaps because I already know the answer.’ She was on thin ice, but she couldn’t help herself.

  ‘I wonder if you do,’ he murmured.

  There was an odd silence, and a tension in the air that made her skin tingle suddenly.

  Could he actually be feeling concern about telling her his decision? she wondered. Yet the vibrations she was picking up seemed in some strange way to be more angry than anxious. As if he was controlling his temper with immense effort.

  Louise felt as if she was on the scaffold waiting for the axe to fall, and decided she couldn’t bear it any longer. That she had to force an open confrontation, whatever the cost.

  She swallowed. ‘Did—did you come back for a particular reason?’ She paused, trying to read his expression and failing. ‘You—you have something you want to say to me?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ he said. ‘But it will keep for another time.’

  He walked across the room, tossing his discarded jacket over the arm of a chair, loosening his tie. He sat down on one of the sofas, stretching long legs in front of him with apparent indolence. But still, she realised, watching her with that hooded, enigmatic gaze. Making her suspect that, under the relaxed pose, he was really as tense as a coiled spring.

  He said, ‘Is that a new dressing gown?’

  ‘I bought it last week.’ And why are we discussing trivialities like this? Why don’t you tell me what’s really on your mind?

  ‘Ah,’ Alex said. ‘I thought I hadn’t seen it before. Because I’m sure I should have remembered such a charming—and seductive piece of nonsense.’

  He was smiling as he spoke, and she had to fight an impulse to tighten the sash round her slender waist, wishing with all her heart that she were fully dressed. Because his smile, and the cool, watchful intensity of his stare, was beginning to alarm her.

  ‘But then,’ she returned with a creditable assumption of calm, ‘you’re here so seldom these days.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said softly. ‘And that has clearly been a mistake which I shall have to rectify.’ He paused. ‘And, as I’m here now, why don’t you sit down and let us enjoy a pleasant marital chat, the way that husbands and wives do?’

  ‘Because we don’t really fall within that category.’ Louise tried to speak lightly. To ignore the fact that she was shaking inside. ‘Also, I have things to do.’

  ‘Ah,’ he said, his brows lifting. ‘And, no doubt, places to go, and people to see.’

  ‘I’m going away with you,’ she said. ‘To meet your grandmother, and assure her that you’ve turned into a model husband. So I need to pack.’ She touched her dry lips with the tip of her tongue. ‘Also to call the shop and ask why my dress for her party hasn’t arrived yet.’

  ‘Nothing too urgent, then,’ he said. He pointed to the sofa opposite. ‘So, join me.’ His smile glinted at her. ‘Or do I have to fetch you?’

  No, she thought. He certainly did not have to do that.

  She obeyed reluctantly, sitting bolt upright, carefully arranging her broderie-anglaise skirts around her legs with nervous hands.

  Alex leaned back, lacing his fingers behind his head. ‘You seem on edge, my sweet,’ he remarked. ‘Do you find my presence so daunting?’

  She shrugged defensively. ‘No—I’m still a little taken aback to find you here in the middle of a working day.’

  ‘Perhaps I felt in need of some female company,’ he drawled. ‘Is that so surprising?’

  Hurt wrenched at her. If that was indeed the case, why hadn’t he stayed with Cindy Crosby, as he’d had every opportunity to do?

  She sent him a burning look. ‘Astonishing, frankly.’ She paused. ‘I can’t imagine I’d be your first choice for that, or even on the A list.’

  ‘You do yourself an injustice, darling.’ He looked back at her meditatively. ‘So—tell me about your day.’

  Louise fidgeted with a fold of her skirt. ‘I hardly think you’d be interested.’

  ‘Try me,’ he invited softly. ‘Run through some of the highlights. The key moments.’

  Oh, God, Louise thought, her throat tightening. He must have spotted me in that taxi. He knows that I saw him—that I’m well aware he’s still Cindy Crosby’s lover, and he wants to know what I’m going to do about it. He needs to check my reaction, in case I’m planning to be trouble.

  She ticked off on her fingers. ‘I got up after you left. I had breakfast. I put on a yellow dress that you also haven’t seen. And I had lunch with Andie.’ She forced a smile. ‘It’s great news about the baby, isn’t it?’

  ‘The best,’ he said. ‘And after lunch?’

  ‘I came home.’ No, she thought, in truth
I came back to this expensive, luxurious shell which merely masquerades as a home. ‘And the rest you know,’ she went on, trying for insouciance. ‘Not exactly world-shattering, is it?’

  ‘That might depend,’ Alex said slowly, ‘on how you see your world. But is that really all, my sweet? You’re sure you haven’t forgotten something? Some—encounter, maybe?’

  She could not believe he was being so cruel. That he could actually taunt her with the knowledge that he was still Cindy Crosby’s lover.

  Her hands clenched together in her lap, as she fought an inward battle for calm, and courage. ‘If I have,’ she said, keeping her voice level, ‘it’s because it’s really not important. Because it doesn’t alter the essence of the bargain we made.’

  She lifted her chin. ‘We—we are both free agents, at least in private. And nothing that’s happened is going to change the way I behave towards you in public this weekend. I promise you that. I’ll—play my part, as agreed. You’ll have nothing to complain about.’

  There was a long, deafening silence, then Alex said quietly, ‘I see. Then may I suggest that next time you decide to entertain your lover for a little afternoon delight, you warn me in advance? I’d hate to be guilty of some tactless intrusion—as I might have been today.’

  ‘My lover?’ Louise repeated, stunned. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘I saw the lift come down from the penthouse,’ he said, ‘and David Sanders leave it. And please don’t tell me I made a mistake, because I recognised him from the photograph in your bedroom at the cottage.

  ‘He was naturally far too preoccupied to notice me,’ he added bitingly. ‘But then I’m certain you’d assured him I was safely at work a few miles away, so he wouldn’t have expected to see me. Any more than you did, my sweet.’

  He paused. ‘A word of advice. Avoid taking a bath or shower in the middle of the day. It tends to arouse suspicion.’ His smile was hard. ‘Besides, it’s not essential. I’m hardly likely to taste him on your skin, am I, darling?’

  Her head fell back in shock, as if he’d struck her.

  ‘You—you are daring to accuse me?’ Her voice was low and trembling. ‘You think David came here—for that?’