A Trial Marriage

by Anne Mather

  ‘Oh, Mrs Courtenay!’ Mrs Madigan stared at her in dismay. ‘Oh, how dreadful! If only you’d told me!’

  ‘I didn’t see any need to,’ replied Rachel dully. ‘I only intended being away overnight, and Jake wasn’t expected back until today.’

  ‘He got back in the early hours of yesterday morning.’

  ‘Yes. So he told me.’

  Mrs Madigan put a weary hand to her forehead. ‘I don’t think he’s slept since. When you weren’t here, he was frantic.’

  ‘Oh, God!’ Rachel got unsteadily to her feet and paced anxiously about the room. ‘He thought—he probably still thinks I was with Carl!’

  ‘Would you like some coffee, madam?’

  Mrs Madigan obviously needed something to do and to please her, Rachel nodded, although food was what she needed to fill the awful empty void inside her. But she knew she couldn’t swallow anything but liquids right now, and to fill in the time, she carried her case through to her bedroom. The temptation to enter Jake’s room was too strong to dismiss, and she opened his door tentatively, her eyes taking in the tumbled state of the bedroom. The bed had not been slept in, but his soiled clothes and a damp bath towel were strewn on the coverlet, silent witnesses to the shower he must have taken before he left.

  Automatically, she gathered the dirty shirt and underwear, resisting the desire to bury her face in them and weep, and pushed them into the linen basket in the bathroom. As she turned away, her eyes fell on the open razor still lying on the shelf above the basin, and a small brown bottle with the lid off that stood ominously beside it.

  She picked up the bottle unwillingly. It was empty, but when she tentatively sniffed the neck, a faint odour of geranium leaves assailed her nostrils. She frowned. She had read somewhere that narcotics were derived from certain species of plants and she looked at the label on the bottle. The name of the preparation was unfamiliar, but there was the inevitable warning which was more than familiar. A drug, then. But what drug—and why?

  Suddenly she recalled her conversation with Jake the night before. She had thought there was something odd about his voice, and now it seemed possible that he had been under the influence of some barbiturate.

  Her lips parted nervelessly. Dear God, barbiturates were killers when combined with alcohol, and Mrs Madigan had said Jake had been frantic. What if he had been drinking? She had seen for herself how alcohol affected him.

  Leaving the bedroom, she hurried to the kitchen, almost colliding with Mrs Madigan as she was preparing to carry a tray through to her.

  ‘Was Jake drinking?’ she asked, without preamble, and the housekeeper stared at her blankly.

  ‘Drinking?’

  ‘Yes. You know—whisky, beer; alcohol of any kind?’

  Mrs Madigan set down the tray again and looked doubtful. ‘I don’t know. He might have been.’ She shook her head. ‘Why?’

  Rachel was loath to tell her, but she had to tell somebody. She held up the empty bottle. ‘This contained some kind of drug. It’s empty now.’

  ‘Good heavens!’ Mrs Madigan stared at her. ‘You don’t think—you don’t thinks he might have done something—foolish?’

  ‘Something foolish?’ Rachel looked blank herself for a moment, before the full import of what the housekeeper was suggesting occurred to her. Then whole new terrifying possibilities occurred to her. ‘You don’t think——Oh, no! Mrs Madigan, I’m sure you’re wrong!’

  The housekeeper gave a hopeless shrug of her shoulders, and then she said: ‘At first I thought—well, I don’t know if I ought to tell you this, Mrs Courtenay …’

  ‘Tell me what?’ Rachel had no time to stand on ceremony. ‘Oh, go on, Mrs Madigan, do! What did you think?’

  ‘It was that call, Mrs Courtenay. The one this morning. From—from Princess Denise!’

  ‘Denise?’ Rachel stared at her aghast, and the other woman hurried on:

  ‘Yes.’ She looked uncomfortable. ‘Mr Courtenay mumbled something about—about her when he found you had gone. I thought—well, when he went out so early, I thought it might have something to do with her then when she rang I knew it hadn’t.’

  ‘Denise is in London?’ Rachel was stunned.

  ‘Apparently.’

  ‘But how? When?’

  ‘She flew in yesterday, so she said.’ Mrs Madigan sighed, then she said quietly: ‘You don’t have to worry about her, Mrs Courtenay. Mr Courtenay, he’s not interested in her! My goodness, when they were married there were some goings-on!’

  Rachel was trying to absorb what she had heard, and Mrs Madigan, mistaking her silence, added: ‘I know it’s not my place to say anything, Mrs Courtenay, and I haven’t—in the past. But now I think you ought to know that their marriage was not like yours, if you know what I mean. They lived separate lives. They had separate friends. Surely you comprehend my meaning!’

  Rachel blinked rapidly. ‘I’m beginning to.’ Then she mentally shook herself. ‘But if Jake’s not with Denise, where is he?’

  The slamming of the outer door of the apartment caused both of them to start violently, and Rachel’s anxious eyes went immediately to the housekeeper’s face.

  ‘It’s probably Ben,’ declared Mrs Madigan quellingly, but Rachel was brushing past her, hurrying through into the living room.

  Jake was descending the stairs from the landing when he saw her. He looked pale and tired, and weariness had etched deep lines beside his nose and mouth. For the first time since their marriage he looked older than his years, and Rachel’s heart went out to him.

  ‘Oh, Jake!’ she breathed tearfully, and forgetting her resentment of the night before, flew across the room and into his arms. Mrs Madigan, behind her, hastily withdrew, but although Jake’s arms closed about her briefly, pressing her hard against his taut body, a moment later he had propelled her away from him again, his fingers tight bands around her upper arms. He stared at her unsmilingly for a long minute, and then he said, with suppressed violence:

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me that Della was dead?’

  Rachel pressed her trembling lips together. ‘You didn’t give me a chance!’

  ‘You could have left word with Mrs Madigan.’

  ‘I—I didn’t think it Was necessary.’

  ‘So you’d let me beat Yates to within an inch of his life?’

  She gasped. ‘You didn’t!’

  He held her horrified stare for several more agonising seconds, then he shook his head. ‘No,’ he conceded at last. ‘But I might have done.’

  ‘Oh, Jake!’ She felt weak with reaction. ‘Jake, where have you been? I found that empty bottle of pills in the bathroom, and I thought——’ She broke off unsteadily. ‘I’ve been so worried!’

  ‘Have you?’ He shrugged. ‘Now you know what it’s like.’ Then he made an impatient gesture. ‘The bottle contained amphetamines, that’s all. You know—stimulants. To keep me awake. Do you have any idea how I felt?’

  ‘But it wasn’t my fault, Jake,’ she protested. ‘I didn’t know you were coming back. Carl …’ She faltered at the look in his eyes. ‘Carl rang and—and I just had to try to go to Della’s funeral. I told Mrs Madigan I was going to the hotel. I thought that would be enough.’

  ‘But you never got there.’

  ‘No. I …’ She sighed. ‘I tried to turn the car on a narrow road and I ended up in the ditch.’

  ‘So I hear.’

  ‘You hear?’

  ‘Yes.’ He straightened, releasing her arms, but she didn’t move away from him, just stood there in front of him rubbing the circulation back into her numbed limbs. ‘That’s one of the places I’ve been this morning. There—and the Tor Court.’

  ‘You’ve been to Torquay?’

  ‘Yes. I wanted to know where Yates was yesterday morning when I rang.’

  ‘But how did you know where I was?’

  ‘You forget, you made your call via the operator. I had it traced.’

  She gasped. ‘I didn’t know anyone could do that.’


  ‘They can’t. In the normal way.’ His lips twisted. ‘You’ve forgotten something else—I do have a little influence in certain areas.’

  She shook her head. ‘So you spoke to Mr Jopling.’

  ‘Yes. And to Mrs Jopling and their daughter—Beth, isn’t it?’ Rachel nodded, and he went on: ‘They assured me you had spent the last two nights at the Grey Goose.’

  His conversation was giving Rachel time to gather her scattered thoughts. ‘But,’ she recalled unevenly, ‘you said that if I didn’t tell you where I was …’ She halted, flushing. ‘Why did you come looking for me?’

  Jake gave her an old-fashioned look through narrowed eyes. ‘All right,’ he said flatly. ‘You can have your pound of flesh any time you want it.’

  Rachel frowned. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  Jake stared at her a moment longer, then he strode savagely across the room to stand staring broodingly down on the rooftops of London. ‘Very well,’ he said heavily. ‘I can’t deny it. I came because—well, whatever you’d done, whoever you were with—I had to tell you I couldn’t live without you.’

  Rachel turned to stare wonderingly at the broad expanse of his leather-covered shoulders presented to her. ‘Do—do you mean that?’

  He glanced at her then. ‘You know I do,’ he told her harshly. ‘Why else am I telling you so?’

  She took an involuntary step towards him. ‘But …’ She tugged uncertainly at a strand of hair on her shoulder. ‘Last night——’

  ‘Last night I was tired and I’d been drinking.’ He hunched his back. ‘I’d spent almost twenty-four hours trying to find you, and I was half off my head with worry! Mrs Madigan told me that Yates had phoned you, and I couldn’t think of any reason why you should have gone haring off down to Devon unless there was something between you two!’

  ‘Oh, Jake, that’s crazy!’

  ‘Is it? Is it?’ He turned fully to face her. ‘I wonder how crazy it would have seemed to you in my condition?’

  ‘Jake, I love you!’ she protested. ‘I do. I love you. There’s never been—there never will be anyone else.’

  He covered the space between them, but although she expected him to take her in his arms, he just stood looking at her. ‘There’s something else you don’t know,’ he began, but she shook her head.

  ‘I do,’ she interposed quickly. ‘Denise is in London, I know. She rang here earlier on this morning. Mrs Madigan told me.’

  ‘Denise!’ Jake uttered an expletive that Rachel wouldn’t have cared to repeat. ‘What in hell does Denise have to do with anything?’

  ‘But—I mean—I thought——’ Rachel looked confused. ‘I thought that was what you meant.’

  Jake half closed his eyes. ‘Rachel! Rachel! The whereabouts of my ex-wife are of no more interest to me than the whereabouts of Carl Yates to you! All right, I met her in San Francisco, I told you that. But we meet as—individuals; strangers, almost. My God, we only lived together for about a year of the five years we were married. She would tell you that herself if she was here. If she’s ringing me now, it’s about that house I told you about. I mean, let’s be frank, I do know a little more about finance than she does, and her solicitor happens to be a friend of mine. Does that clear it up?’

  ‘You make it sound so—ordinary,’ she exclaimed.

  ‘It is ordinary,’ he replied with a sigh. ‘Rachel, whatever my mother may have said to you, my infatuation with Denise—and that’s all it was—was very brief. It never worked. Denise knows that as well as I do. She probably was happier with her ageing prince than she ever was with me. I never fitted into her world, and she sure as hell never fitted into mine.’

  ‘But you—cared about her …’

  ‘I was young and foolish,’ he retorted. And then more soberly: ‘Perhaps as you are now.’

  ‘Oh, Jake, I’m not foolish. I know what I want.’

  Unable to keep away from him any longer, she stepped closer, sliding her arms around his waist and pressing her face against the buttoned fastening on his shirt. For a few moments they remained like that, Jake’s body stiff and unyielding against hers, and then his control seemed to snap and with a groan, he gathered her to him. One hard hand turned her face up to his, cupping the fragile hollows of her throat while his mouth played around the edge of hers, coaxing her lips apart before taking passionate possession.

  The kiss went on and on, and Rachel was breathless when he finally released her mouth to bury his face in her hair. Her hands were busy, too, unbuttoning his shirt, burrowing against him, secure in the knowledge that he wanted her as much as she wanted him. But eventually, with evident unwillingness, he pushed her away from him, holding her gently between his hands, smiling as her fingers clung to his lapels.

  ‘I still haven’t told you,’ he said, his voice revealing the disturbed state of his emotions. ‘Rachel, Della Faulkner-Stewart left you something in her will.’

  ‘What?’ Rachel blinked. ‘Oh, Jake!’

  He regarded her narrowly for a moment, and then he said: ‘Does it make a difference? Della was a wealthy woman, you know. How do you feel about being independent—financially, I mean?’

  Rachel shrugged. ‘Why should I feel any different?’ she asked, sighing. ‘But I wish she hadn’t done it, though.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Oh—well, I don’t need it, do I? I mean, there must be other people who would really benefit from suddenly acquiring a nest-egg. Mrs King—or Miss Hardy, for instance. Not me.’ She lifted her hand to stroke his cheek. ‘I have all I need.’

  ‘Oh, Rachel!’ He jerked her towards him urgently, crushing her mouth with his and making her body freely aware of the hardening intimacy of his. ‘I’m so glad you said that!’

  ‘Why?’ She drew back to look at him, and frowned when she saw he was smiling. ‘What is it? Did she leave me sixpence or something?’

  ‘My darling,’ he murmured huskily, ‘your legacy is downstairs in the car. About fifty pounds of excitable curl and muscle!’

  ‘Minstrel!’ exclaimed Rachel disbelievingly.

  ‘Minstrel,’ agreed Jake dryly. ‘Now we really will have to think seriously about buying that house in the country. I’m not having that animal tearing up this place.’

  Rachel’s laugh was soft. ‘You mean I can keep him? You don’t mind?’

  ‘Well, let’s say I’m inclined to be tolerant of anything if it pleases you,’ he told her ruefully. Then, more seriously: ‘Rachel, this trip has taught me more than a lesson. I think I needed it. It’s proved to me that what I feel about you is no fleeting thing, no casual infatuation, like I felt for Denise. I love you. And believe me, I’ve never said that to any woman and meant it. That’s why I’ve never said it to you before. I wanted to be sure—absolutely sure. And I am now.’ He broke off as she reached up to kiss him, and when he spoke again his voice was husky. ‘Rachel, be sure you mean it when you say you love me. I don’t think I could stand to lose you now.’

  ‘I mean it,’ she told him simply, but sincerely, winding her arms about his neck. ‘When you were away, I was only half alive. I want to be with you—and care for you—and have your children …’ She touched his cheek tenderly with her lips. ‘And I don’t care where we live as long as we’re together. I don’t think that’s infatuation, do you?’

  Jake hugged her closer. ‘I’m only sorry you had to learn about Denise from my mother,’ he muttered half impatiently. ‘I wanted to tell you myself before I left, but I chickened out at the last minute.’

  ‘Your father explained about that,’ she murmured, hoping Mrs Courtenay would forgive her for not bringing Sheila’s name into it right now. There would be time enough for that later. ‘But you still haven’t told me how you came to be home two days earlier than expected.’

  Jake smiled. ‘Quite simple really. I turned Sunday into a business meeting instead of a social one. After our conversation on Saturday evening, I just wanted to see you and explain.’

  She si
ghed, pressing her lips to the pulse beating in the hollow of his throat. ‘Mmm, I see.’ Her tongue appeared provocatively. ‘Your heart is pounding, darling, do you know that?’

  ‘Do you blame it?’ he demanded huskily, swinging her up into his arms, much of his weariness disappearing already. ‘Come on. Let’s go and give it something to really pound about, shall we?’

  And she had no objections to that.

  ISBN: 978-1-472-09941-9

  A TRIAL MARRIAGE

  © 1977 Anne Mather

  Published in Great Britain 2014

  by Mills & Boon, an imprint of Harlequin (UK) Limited

  Eton House, 18-24 Paradise Road, Richmond, Surrey TW9 1SR

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