by Penny Jordan
Trembling, she looked away from the mirror, her face flushing with guilty heat. What on earth was she doing? She had made a pact with herself years ago that she would never allow herself to give in to that kind of temptation. To do so was surely to break her marriage vows just as much as though she had…
The last thing she felt like doing tonight was going to a dinner party, especially this one.
For a start she barely knew Venice Dunstant. She was one of Nick’s clients, the widow of an extremely wealthy local entrepreneur who had been much older than she was.
There had been a lot of gossip locally about her when she had originally married Bill.
Venice. Was that really her name, or had she simply appropriated it in the same way she had appropriated Bill Dunstant?
They had met on holiday. Bill, a widower of just over sixty, had gone away on his doctor’s advice to recuperate after a heart attack. He had met Venice and married her within weeks of knowing her. They had been married just over two years when he had suffered his second and fatal heart attack, leaving Venice an extremely wealthy widow.
It had only been since his death that Nick had become involved with her. She had consulted him in his capacity as an insurance broker.
Prior to her husband’s death, she had not been seen very much locally, apparently preferring to spend most of her time in London, but she was now becoming much more active in local affairs.
It had been she who had persuaded Nick to join the exclusive and very expensive new leisure complex which had recently opened.
‘You ought to try exercising a bit more yourself,’ he had commented critically to Fern only the other evening, eyeing her too slender body with obvious disapproval. ‘Venice goes to classes almost every day, and she plays tennis as well.’
Fern had refrained from pointing out that, unlike Venice, she was not in a position to afford the kind of fees demanded by the leisure club, and that, even if she had been able to do so, her mother’s illness and Nick’s own insistence that in view of the fact that he supported her financially it was her duty to ensure that she put his wishes first meant that she wasn’t free to enjoy the luxury of so many hours of personal freedom and self-indulgence.
Nick talked a lot about Venice. Too much? She frowned, her stomach muscles tensing. Was she guilty of being overly suspicious… too untrusting, imagining things which didn’t exist… like another woman’s scent on his skin?
Physically Nick was a very attractive man; a man, moreover, who knew how to make himself appealing to women, as she well knew.
The soft thickness of his blond hair, the boyish charm of his smile, the deep blue of his eyes, all added to his air of masculine appeal. Of just slightly above average height rather than tall, his body lean and slim, unlike Adam who was both tall and broad, and who looked what he was—a maturely male man—Nick looked slightly younger than his age. A fact of which he was secretly proud and tended to subtly emphasise.
Her husband could be described as a vain man, Fern acknowledged, who at thirty still cultivated the same aura of boyish appeal he had had when she first met him.
Nick could be very persuasive when he chose, as she well knew.
She had lost count of the number of times she had given way beneath the weight of his coaxing, dreading the sullen accusations which would follow if she did not.
When had she first realised that she didn’t love him any longer; that she had in fact probably never really loved him, but had simply allowed him to persuade her that she did, flattered by his attention, aware of how anxious her parents were to see her happily and safely married, convinced by both Nick and them that marriage to him was the right thing for her?
She had genuinely believed she did love him then, she told herself miserably. Had genuinely believed that he needed and loved her. Why should she not have done? He had told her often enough how much he wanted her in his life…
And if, after their hurried courtship, she had bewilderedly discovered that his interpretation of loving and needing did not match hers, well, she had kept her thoughts to herself, reminding herself of the vows she had made, telling herself that she was expecting too much, hampered by the restrictions imposed on her by her upbringing from confiding in anyone else, much less seeking their help or advice.
The fact that she was not very sexually responsive to Nick she knew must be her fault, and she had struggled guiltily to overcome her lack of enthusiasm, miserably conscious of how much she must be disappointing Nick, of how he, as much as she, must dread the silent sexual intimacy they shared, which invariably resulted in her being left feeling tense and on edge, glad that it was over and yet guiltily unhappy at the same time as she lay there sleepless and dry-eyed, staring at the rejecting silence of Nick’s back.
No wonder he turned away from her the moment it was over, no wonder he complained that she didn’t know how to behave like a real woman. No wonder that eighteen months into their marriage he had had an affair with someone else.
What was a wonder was that she had been so shocked, so disbelieving when she had first found out. Nick was her husband… they were married… had exchanged vows! Other people’s marriages might involve a breaking of those vows, but not hers… And on top of her shock, underlining and heightening it, had been her awareness of how upset her parents would be if her marriage broke up… or how she had somehow let them down, broken faith with the standards they had set her.
It was over two years ago now and yet she could remember the events of that day as clearly as though it had only just happened. The arrival of the woman after Nick had gone to work, her own unsuspecting surprise at seeing her… the woman’s tension slowly communicating itself to her as she refused the cup of coffee Fern had offered, wheeling round to confront her, nervously smoking the cigarette she had just lit.
Fern remembered how afterwards she had been surprised at Nick’s choice, knowing how much he loathed people smoking—an odd, disconnected, sharply clear thought which had somehow lodged itself in her brain while other, far more important ones had been held tensely at bay.
She and Nick were lovers, the woman had told her, angrily claiming that she knew that Fern must be aware of the situation; that she, Fern, was deliberately holding on to Nick when she knew he no longer wanted her.
Shock and pride had prevented Fern from telling her the truth: that she had had no idea of what was going on.
Eventually the woman had left. Fern had watched her drive away, her body, her emotions, her mind almost completely numbed. She remembered walking upstairs and opening her wardrobe doors, removing a suitcase and starting to pack her things.
Then the phone had started to ring. She had gone downstairs intending to answer it, but instead she had walked right past it, through the back door which she had left unlocked and open, and out into the street.
She had no recollection of doing any of this… nor of how she had walked right into town… nor of what her purpose might have been in doing so.
It had been Adam who had found her, who had saved her from public humiliation, only to cause her to suffer later the most profound and intense personal humiliation—but that was something she could still not bear to think about, not now… not ever… He had taken her home—his home, not hers. She had started to cry, bewildered and shocked by the trauma which had overwhelmed her. She had started to tell him about Nick’s affair… her shock… things she would never normally have dreamed of confiding to him.
Her days of confiding in Adam had ended with her marriage to his stepbrother, no matter that once it had been Adam who she had thought was her friend. Adam… Adam she had known first, not Nick.
But, as she had discovered when she met Nick, the Adam she had thought she knew must have been a figment of her own imagination.
‘You didn’t really think Adam was interested in you sexually, did you?’ Nick had asked her incredulously. ‘Oh, Fern.’ He had laughed gently as he gave her a little shake. ‘Did you really think…? Adam already has a
girlfriend… or rather a woman friend. It’s a very discreet relationship. Adam prefers it that way… it leaves his options open, if you know what I mean. I suppose I shouldn’t criticise. After all, a man in his position, reasonably well off and with the kind of reputation Adam’s built up for himself as a local do-gooder… he has to be seen to toe the moral line, even if what he does in private… He’s something of a secret stud, my stepbrother. But you’re quite safe from him, Fern. He likes his sexual partners to be women, not little girls… Little virgins…’
She could remember now how humiliated she had felt… how humiliated and self-conscious she had been from then on whenever she saw Adam. Had he actually discussed her with Nick… told Nick…? In fact, she had felt so uncomfortable, so betrayed almost, that she had deliberately started to avoid seeing him. And yet he had never given her any indication… done or said anything…
It had hurt her to know, though, as she now did know because of Nick’s revelations, that Adam had probably been quite aware of the silly crush she had had on him. Aware of it and no doubt amused by it, discussing it probably with the unknown woman who shared his bed, the woman who Nick had implied was a world away from her own silly immaturity.
In the trauma of her shock, though, she had not had the strength to erect her normal defences against Adam. She had simply let him take her home with him, sit her down and gently coax from her what had happened.
She had started to cry, she remembered. And that was when it had happened… when she had broken faith with all that her parents had taught her to respect and revere, when she had done something that was far, far worse than Nick’s merely sexual betrayal of her.
Even now she could not bear to think about it, pushing the memory fiercely out of sight, willing herself not to allow even a chink of light into that seething darkness of spirit and emotion into which she had locked the memories away.
She had known afterwards, of course, that there was no going back, that her marriage to Nick was over, but she hadn’t said anything to Adam.
How could she, when she knew that he had simply acted out of pity, had just reacted as any man would have done to what she had said… what she had done?
She had insisted on returning home, even though Adam had tried to dissuade her. ‘At least let me drive you,’ he had said, but she had shaken her head, unable to bear to look at him, backing away from him in her panic in case he reached out and touched her, so shocked and ashamed by her own behaviour, her own wantonness, that all she had wanted to do was to escape from him and from it, taking advantage of the quirk of fate that decreed that his phone should start to ring just as he reached out towards her, distracting him long enough for her to turn and run.
He had come after her, calling out her name, but it was too late, she was already outside in the street, knowing that with others to see them, others who knew who both of them were and what their relationship to one another was, Adam could hardly run after her and force her physically back into the house.
And besides, why should he really want to? Despite the concern he seemed to feel for her, secretly he must surely have been only too relieved that she was leaving, saving him the necessity of pointing out to her that she had misunderstood… that he had never intended…
The phone had been ringing as she got home, but she had ignored it, knowing that it would be Adam. Instead she had gone straight upstairs to where her suitcase still lay open on the bed.
Methodically she had started to remove her clothes from the wardrobe and pack them into it, rehearsing what she was going to say to Nick, how she was going to tell him that she knew about his affair, knew he loved someone else; knew that their marriage had to end.
He had arrived home ten minutes later, returning much earlier than usual, and she had seen immediately from his expression that he knew his lover had been to see her.
She had opened her mouth to tell him that she was leaving but he’d forestalled her, bursting into an impassioned speech, reaching out to take hold of her, scarcely seeming to notice the way she tensed and flinched back from his touch.
‘Fern… Fern… I’m so sorry. I never meant you to find out. She never meant anything to me, you must believe that,’ he told her huskily.
He went on to beg her not to leave him, to tell her how much he still loved and needed her, to plead and cajole, making her head ache with the voluble force of his arguments and insistence.
‘Think what this will do to your parents,’ he said as he looked at her half-packed suitcase. ‘You know how much it would hurt and upset them. Do you really want to do that to them, Fern, and all over a silly little fling that never meant anything important?
‘You’re so naïve… you see everything in black and white. How many marriages do you think would survive if every woman who learned that her husband had made a small mistake actually left him? I never intended it to happen, but, well, let’s be honest—sexually…’ He gave a small shrug. ‘She made me feel wanted,’ he told her, giving her his little-boy-lost smile. ‘She made me feel that I was important to her. She wanted me, Fern. Oh, I know it isn’t your fault that you aren’t very responsive sexually, and believe me I do understand, but I am a man with all the normal male urges, and she…’
She felt sick then, sick and too filled with loathing and disgust to say anything, to do anything other than merely stand there and listen to him, knowing that he was right, knowing how upset her parents would be, how shocked, how devastated… how difficult they would find it to understand.
‘I still need you,’ Nick insisted. ‘We can put things right… try again. Please, Fern. You must give me a second chance.’
In the end she gave in. What other option did she have? she asked herself bewilderedly. Nick loved her; he needed her; her parents would neither understand nor approve if she left him, and she herself was bitterly aware of her own guilt, her own betrayal of the vows she had made and had fully intended to keep.
Nick was right, she did owe it to him to give their marriage a second chance. But even as she was giving in, agreeing, aware of the huge weight of reasons why she ought to be pleased that he wanted to stay with her, she still felt an unfamiliar dangerous flare of panic and anger, a sense almost of being trapped and imprisoned.
She suppressed it, of course, quickly smothering it with the tight blanket of her parents’ teachings and her own awareness of what she owed it to them and to Nick to do.
But that night in bed, after he had made love to her and she had lain dry-eyed and tense beside him, she knew she had to tell him about Adam.
The next morning she tried to do so.
‘What do you mean, you can’t stay with me?’ he demanded angrily. ‘Look, Fern, I’ve already told you, it… she meant nothing. It was just sex, that’s all, just sex.’
‘It isn’t that,’ she whispered miserably. ‘It’s me. I…’
Something in her expression must have given her away, because she heard him curse and then demand aggressively, ‘It’s Adam, isn’t it? Well, if you think I’m going to let you leave me for him…’
‘It isn’t like that,’ she protested, horrified by what he was saying. ‘Adam isn’t… doesn’t…’
She wasn’t able to continue, her voice breaking under the strain of what she was feeling, but Nick grabbed hold of her arm, insisting fiercely, ‘Oh, no, you aren’t stopping there. Adam isn’t… doesn’t what, Fern? Adam doesn’t want to fuck you? Don’t lie to me, Fern. I know how much he…’
He stopped then, releasing her so roughly that she half fell against the kitchen table.
‘I’m not letting you go,’ he repeated flatly. ‘You’ve made a commitment to me, to our marriage, and if you think…’
He paused, watching her as she crouched against the table, her body shaking with shock and tension, tears slowly filling her eyes as her self-control started to splinter.
Suddenly his voice softened and became almost cajoling.
‘Think, Fern. Think of how your parents would feel if w
e broke up… if I had to tell them that you’ve been unfaithful to me with Adam. How long have you been seeing him? How often?’
She stopped him immediately, the words falling over one another as she tried to explain what had happened, how upset she had been, how Adam had found her. How…
‘You mean you did it just to pay me back… because of my affair,’ Nick interrupted her before she could finish what she was saying. For some reason he had started to smile, his voice and body relaxing. ‘Did you tell Adam that?’ he asked her softly. ‘Did he know you were coming back here to me?’
‘I didn’t tell him anything. Just that… just about her coming here…’
He was still smiling at her, almost crooning at her as he reached out to her, apparently unable to sense the tension and resistance in her body as he pulled her into his arms.
‘Fern, Fern, don’t you see? The only reason you went to Adam was because you wanted to get back at me. Of course I’m upset… jealous… hurt—what man wouldn’t be? But I do understand. You love me… and because of that you wanted to hurt me… to pay me back for hurting you. But it’s all over now and we’re still together. And we’re going to stay together. Let’s both put the past behind us and make a fresh start… give our marriage a second chance. I want to. Don’t you?’
What could she say? How could she refuse to accept the olive branch he was offering her? How many other husbands would be as generous… as forgiving? She owed it to him… to her parents… to the way they had brought her up and the standards they had inculcated in her, to do what he was suggesting.
‘Yes,’ she agreed listlessly. ‘Yes, I do.’ And yet somehow saying the words had hurt her throat, straining the muscles, making them ache with the same weary despair that had also invaded her body…
* * *
‘Fern, what the hell are you doing? Aren’t you ready yet?’
Guiltily Fern hurried towards the bedroom door, stepping back from it just in time as Nick thrust it open and walked in.