For Better for Worse

by Penny Jordan

The estate agent was helpful and efficient. They would send someone round in the morning to measure up and take photographs, he promised, although, given the present state of the market, he could not say quite how long the house might take to sell.

  Thanking him, Fern turned to leave, and then froze as, directly opposite her and just about to cross the street, she saw Adam.

  Time, movement seemed to slow down, accompanied by an icy mind-numbing tide of shocked anguish that flowed as pitilessly as poison through her veins. She saw him pause to check the traffic, his face and body in profile to her, his skin still tanned from his holiday with Lily and her parents, and still she stayed there, her body as tautly defensive as that of a crouched petrified animal, unable to speak, move, or do anything to avoid the inevitable moment when he turned and saw her.

  Only when it actually happened, when he looked at her, focused on her, changed the direction of his path to come towards her, was she sprung from the trap of paralysis and shock.

  Panic filled her, making her over-react wildly, rushing, running almost in the opposite direction, head down, muscles bunched and tense, heart pumping so fast that she could feel its fierceness shaking the cavity of her chest.

  Where she had been icy cold, now she was sickly hot, her body bathed in a flood of nervous perspiration, her legs shaking, her eyes almost blinded by the rush of angry tears which stung them.

  Behind her she heard Adam call her name; she was aware of people pausing to watch her, aware too of her own idiocy and folly, but these were distant awarenesses, numbed by the intensity of her need to escape, to get away.

  Ahead of her, a tall middle-aged dark-suited man stepped to one side out of the way of her flight, and as he did so she heard him exclaiming, ‘Adam! I was just on my way to your office…’

  Weakly, sickly she leaned against the door of her car.

  There was no need for her to run any further; Adam was not pursuing her any longer…

  It was only now, as her brain started to clear, and her overstrained body tried to deal with the effects of her shocked, terrified surge of adrenalin, that she fully appreciated how stupid she had been.

  It was one thing for her to know how afraid she was of seeing Adam, of listening to his inevitable expressions of sympathy and having to will herself into accepting that they were simply the same polite, concerned emotions he would have shown to any acquaintance in the same situation, that they had no personal significance or meaning; it was quite another to have behaved publicly in such a way that other people might question what had caused her stupid behaviour. Other people—and Adam himself.

  The sensible, the only reaction she should have shown ought simply to have been a calm and distancing acceptance of his sympathy.

  She felt the pain wrenching at her body as she tried to stifle the impact seeing him had had on her. How was it possible for her literally to ache with so much need and desire simply at the mere sight of him?

  She smiled grimly to herself. Who needed to see him? Just thinking about him could have that effect on her. Just thinking about him and remembering…

  That was over, finished, she reminded herself fiercely. She had a new life to live now… to look forward to.

  * * *

  Fern was late for the meeting at the Town Hall, primarily because she had been in two minds as to whether or not to go.

  In the end it had been that same niggle of doubt she had experienced earlier in the day which had finally motivated her; that and curiosity to know the identity of the writer of the article in the local rag which had sparked off so much interest, expressing, so it seemed, the hitherto unexpressed views of the majority of local people, that those who were supposed to serve their interests might not always do so.

  Whoever had written it had been very clever, she acknowledged, tapping into a vein of doubt and suspicion which seemed to run counter to the views people expressed publicly. It had been someone clever enough not merely to understand the darker side of human nature, but also to make use of it. Fern frowned. Why was it that she had the feeling that there was far more involved in tonight’s meeting than the apparently excellent cause of protecting Broughton House… a cause which after all she ought to be fully applauding…?

  The Town Hall was packed when she arrived, with standing room only at the back: further evidence of the skilful way public opinion and curiosity had been manipulated. Manipulated…?

  An hour later Fern knew exactly why she had felt that small niggle of doubt.

  It had been a shock to see Nick taking the platform to address the meeting and even more of one to hear the speech he gave.

  Knowing him as she did, she knew that the sentiments he was expressing, the passionate desire to preserve a place of local heritage and importance, the calm, skilful questioning of how far they could trust local officials who had unadmitted interests that ran counter to their duty to protect the local environment, were totally alien to Nick’s conception of life.

  Someone else had put those words in his mouth, those ideals… those morals. But who, and why?

  Nick’s motivation Fern already understood. She had recognised it immediately she saw him taking the stage. Although Adam had never actually been mentioned by name, no one in the hall, least of all herself, had any doubt that it was Adam whose morals and honesty were under discussion.

  Nick was very careful, of course… no one would be able to lay any charges against him, any accusations, either legal or moral. Whoever had written his speech for him had seen to that, and as she listened… and watched, Fern could see that what he was saying was finding a positive response with far more people than she would have expected.

  And it was partially her fault. She had been the one who had supplied Venice with the information about Gertrude Jekyll’s plans for the gardens, even if only accidentally, and she had also been guilty of doubting Adam herself; but standing here tonight listening to Nick, watching the faces of those around her, she knew she had been wrong to do so. Whatever Adam’s involvement with Broughton House, whatever his motivation, there could be nothing dishonest or underhand about them.

  Sick at heart, she slipped out of the hall before the meeting had ended, acknowledging that if she could so easily have doubted Adam initially, then how could she blame others for also doing so?

  Tonight Nick had been a powerful and convincing orator, and even if she had got up on the stage herself and revealed to everyone listening how much Nick hated his stepbrother, how much ill will and malice he bore him, she knew that very few of them would have believed her.

  * * *

  Standing in the darkness a few feet away from the door, Adam watched her go. Like Fern, he had been late in arriving at the meeting, primarily because of the meeting he had had with Clive earlier in the day.

  He frowned. It had been unfortunate that Clive had arrived early and prevented him from catching up with Fern.

  It has been a shock to come back from a business trip up to Gloucestershire to hear the gossip about the break-up of her marriage. He knew how she must be feeling… how much she loved Nick. Did she still love him as intensely, as protectively now that he had left her to go and live openly with another woman, publicly humiliating her? Of course she did. She was that kind of woman.

  He wondered if she herself had heard what people were saying… about the way Nick was claiming to have struggled to make the marriage work for some time, but that Fern had been uninterested and unresponsive… ‘More interested in being a housekeeper than a wife… a woman,’ had been one of the criticisms Adam had overheard.

  Had Venice been responsible for that, just as she most undoubtedly had been responsible for this evening’s metamorphosis of Nick into a caring, concerned environmentalist, passionately protective of local heritage?

  Nick’s less than subtle attack on himself had not escaped Adam’s attention, but he was not overly concerned about it. If people wanted him to step down from the local council then he was quite prepared to do so. He had never seen
his role there as some kind of perk-laden privilege to be abused for his own advantage, but rather a form of public duty and responsibility, and with the growth of his architectural practice he was finding it increasingly difficult to find time for everything he wanted to do. He was not going to be drawn into having a public quarrel with Nick, as he knew his stepbrother would have liked. He knew Nick far too well to allow him to goad him into lowering himself to match Nick’s standards. He would have to do something, of course, take some kind of action to ensure that Nick and everyone else realised that he wasn’t going to allow Nick to get away with attempting to damage his reputation and question his honesty, but that would have to wait; right now he had far more important and more personal matters on his mind.

  This last month’s holiday with the Jameses had been time he had ill been able to afford to spare, but Lily’s father had wanted to consult him about building a second villa on the plot of land he owned in Italy, and if it came to fruition it would be an interesting commission.

  Just as Clive’s proposals for the conversion of Broughton House would have been, but as Adam had warned Clive right from the start, he did not think he could morally advise Clive to go ahead when he himself felt that it would spoil the ambience and character of Broughton House to extend it as he wished.

  It had been a difficult decision to reach. The house would ultimately be sold, perhaps to some speculative builder who would hold on to it, hoping ultimately to get planning permission for its wholesale destruction. At least Clive had intended to maintain the existing house and the gardens. And of course there had been the added issue of the extra business the proposed hotel and restaurant would bring in to the area.

  Business and jobs. But in the end Adam had had to inform Clive that he felt he could not justify supporting any plans which would change the character of the house, and that even if as a councillor he abstained from voting on such planning permission, he still could not recommend to Clive as a client that he go ahead with costly plans making a bid for a property which he might then find had become useless to him when he was unable to get the necessary planning permission.

  Clive had thanked him for his honesty, telling him ruefully that he had begun to have his own doubts about the project.

  ‘Without any clear end to the recession, I’m not sure it would be wise to go in for such an ambitious scheme just at the moment.’

  ‘Mmm…’ Adam had agreed. ‘Quite a lot of recently opened country house hotels appear to be in financial difficulties, some to the extent of having to call in the receivers…’

  They had parted amicably, but too late for Adam to make the beginning of the meeting.

  And now, as he listened to Nick bringing his speech to an end, his mind was not on his stepbrother but on Fern.

  She had looked very distressed as she left the hall… very distressed and very alone, and no one had thought to go with her. She shouldn’t be alone at a time like this… he knew how vulnerable she was, how hurt and alone she must feel. She would not want his comfort, of course… she would probably be afraid that he might… of a repeat of…

  Even so he could not bear to think of her on her own, in that house she had shared with his wretched stepbrother, believing even in the face of all the evidence to the contrary that Nick loved her.

  Or had she perhaps known the truth but decided to ignore it, hoping… praying that her love for him would be enough to carry the marriage?

  Silently he walked out into the night. His car wasn’t parked very far away…

  * * *

  When Fern heard the knock on the door she went to answer it automatically, too stunned by the sight of Adam standing there on the doorstep to do anything to stop him when he walked in past her.

  ‘Adam…’

  If he had caught the note of despair and rejection in her voice he had chosen to ignore it.

  ‘I saw you leaving the meeting and I came to see if you were all right. You shouldn’t be here on your own like this.’

  He spoke the words under his breath, frowning as he glanced round the dim shadowiness of the hallway. ‘I know how you must be feeling, how much you must be hurt, but going to that meeting tonight… Fern, can’t you see that Nick doesn’t…?’

  Suddenly Fern had enough. She didn’t want Adam’s pity, his compassion… his belief, like everyone else’s, that she was stupid enough actually to regret Nick’s going… to want him back…

  ‘That Nick doesn’t what?’ she demanded fiercely. ‘That he doesn’t want me, that he doesn’t love me, that he prefers Venice’s bed and her undoubted skill in it to mine and my equally undoubted lack of it?’

  She turned on him, her eyes blazing. ‘Of course I can see those things, Adam. All of them and a lot more as well. Like the fact that Nick is weak, vain and manipulative… like the fact that he married me without loving me, lying to me even then. That he and Venice between them have made me not just an object of public curiosity and pity but of public amusement as well. The woman who would rather be a housekeeper than a wife… a woman. Oh, yes, I’ve heard the gossip, but it doesn’t matter any more, Adam, none of it. Just as Nick doesn’t matter any more either.’

  ‘Are you trying to tell me that you don’t love him any more?’

  His disbelief was obvious. Obvious and humiliating.

  ‘Do you honestly think that I could? That any woman could? Do you really think me so lacking in intelligence, Adam… so devoid of self-respect? I never loved Nick.’

  Suddenly it was a relief to say the words, to discard the burden of loathing and guilt that knowing that fact and yet being unable to express or admit it had caused her. There was relief also in being able to free herself of the label of a woman too emotionally vulnerable and intimidated to face up to the reality of what her marriage actually was.

  Adam was staring at her as though he had never seen her before, she recognised, pain twisting savagely in her heart as she acknowledged that this would be the final meeting between them and that they would part not as lovers, not even as friends, but as two people forever destined to be unknown to one another.

  ‘You don’t mean that…’

  His voice was hoarse… harsh… filled with rejection and anger, and Fern tensed in shock as he reached out and took hold of her, the fierceness of his grip threatening to bruise the soft flesh of her upper arm.

  ‘You don’t mean that, Fern,’ he repeated tersely.

  Fern refused to be quelled. Why, after all, should it matter to Adam what she felt or didn’t feel for Nick? She would be gone out of both their lives very soon now. There was no need for her to hold on to the protection of the deceit she had lived with so long.

  Her head lifted… as she looked at him, tensing her body away from his, the angle of her head proud and defiant, she told him fiercely, ‘I do mean it. I never loved him. Not before our marriage, not during it… not ever.’

  As she spoke, the defiance left her voice and flatness took its place. She found after all that she could not continue to look at Adam.

  ‘I married him because he wanted me to. Because he said he needed me… loved me… and I stayed married to him for those same reasons. Those and the fact that I believed it was my duty to do so. My duty and my responsibility towards my parents and the way they had brought me up. I forgot, or perhaps I never knew, that my first duty should have been to myself. Perhaps if I had remembered or known that, both Nick and I would have saved ourselves a lot of misery.

  ‘And for the record…’ She took a deep breath and before she could lose her courage told him quietly, ‘I had already told Nick our marriage was over before he left me for Venice. Not that I expect you to believe me. Why should you?’ she asked tiredly. ‘After all, we both know that in your heart of hearts you must prefer to believe that I did love Nick.’

  Silently she started to pull away from him, exhausted now, not just by the emotional intensity of what had just happened, but by all the strain and pressure of the preceding weeks as well.

&n
bsp; ‘Yes, you’re right. I would prefer to believe that,’ Adam agreed heavily.

  She had known it all along, of course, but somehow hearing Adam actually say the words hurt more devastatingly than she had believed possible. She had thought herself inured to pain, anaesthetised to it, somehow safely beyond it, but now she was discovering that she was wrong, and the agonised low-voiced moan she couldn’t control broke through the exhausted silence of the tired air of the hallway, replacing it with a tension so intense and stifling that to Fern it felt almost as though she could hardly breathe in the density of the emotion-congested atmosphere surrounding her.

  She took a step back into the open sitting-room doorway, grasping weakly for the door for support as she stumbled.

  ‘Fern…’

  She froze as Adam grabbed hold of her. He was holding her far too tightly, far too close to his own body. She could feel the panicky thud of her own heartbeat as she closed her eyes and tried to stifle behind their darkness the sharp image of his face.

  The scent of him surrounded her, male, musky, shockingly familiar; she hardly dared breathe because of the effect it was having on her.

  From somewhere she found the will-power to grit her teeth and demand feverishly, ‘Let me go!’

  To her astonishment, instead of complying with her demand, she heard Adam saying thickly, ‘No… I’ve let you go twice already, Fern, let you go and watched as you walked out of my arms and into Nick’s. There isn’t going to be a third time.’

  She opened her eyes and looked at him. The expression on his face made her body tremble. She started to say his name, but his hands were already cupping her face, his mouth, his head descending… his lips feathering gently, questioning, against her own.

  It couldn’t really be happening, of course. Adam couldn’t possibly have looked at her with so much love, so much need, so much anguished regret… just as he couldn’t possibly be holding her now, kissing her, whispering against her lips how much he loved her, wanted her, ached for her.

  Hazily she reached out to touch him, the warmth of his skin, the pulse beating beneath it, the thick, clean crispness of his hair; these were things, sensations, she could surely not be imagining.