‘Are you still sick?’ demanded Richard curtly.
‘No.’
‘Then stop acting like a spoilt brat and eat,’ he growled under his breath.
Emma flung him a stormy look and said nothing. At the far end of the table on the opposite side she had just realised that Amanda Morris was sitting watching her, looking like an advertisement for aluminium cooking foil in a long, textured dress of silver lamé with matching dangling earrings. For an instant the two women’s eyes met and held and Emma felt a suffocating sense of despair rise inside her. She’s won, she thought dismally; she’s won. Why did Richard ever have to give way to her? Fortunately the last course was now finished and Emma was soon able to leave the table. But the ordeal was not over. There was still the ball to come.
The ballroom at Dunsford House ran the full length of the building and was regarded as a masterpiece of late Georgian colonial architecture, but Emma had no eyes to spare for its graceful proportions or for the ornately upholstered chairs which stood around the walls. The moment they entered the room, the band struck up the first waltz and Richard’s hand closed on hers in a hard, hurting grip.
‘Would you like to dance, Emma?’ he asked in a tone that made it more of an order than a request.
‘No, thank you,’ said Emma coldly. ‘Why don’t you ask Amanda?’
Richard’s mouth hardened and a stormy light burned in his blue eyes.
‘Perhaps I will,’ he retorted.
And, turning his back on her, he strode across the room to where Amanda was seated on the opposite side. A moment later they were whirling gracefully round the dance-floor.
Emma didn’t wait to see any more. It was quite obvious that Richard had made his choice and there was nothing to be gained by staying around to be humiliated further. Threading her way through the crowd, she broke free into the entrance hall, hurried across to the impromptu cloakroom which was set up in the small front parlour and retrieved her wrap. Then, almost running now, she hurried out on to the front steps of the house and spoke to one of the young doorkeepers who was still on duty outside.
‘I have a driver waiting for me in a grey limousine in a side-street just around the corner. Could you ask him to come and fetch me now, please? I want to go home.’
The drive back to Vaucluse was a nightmare. All she could see in her head was the indelible picture of Amanda, clasped in Richard’s arms, whirling around the ballroom to the strains of a Strauss waltz. By now Emma was beyond tears, but a mysterious ache seemed to grip her entire body. When the limousine finally drew to a halt at the foot of the drive next to her house, she found that she was thinking and planning like a hunted animal. Pulling a folded fifty-dollar note from her purse, she thrust it into the hand of the young driver.
‘I want you to park in the shadows behind the conservatory over there,’ she said, pointing across the terrace. ‘I’m just going inside to pack a few things. I’ll be out within ten minutes or so. Have the car turned round and ready to leave at a moment’s notice.’
The young chauffeur looked baffled, but nodded. As she plunged her key into the lock and entered the house, Emma had a frantic, apprehensive flash of certainty that Richard would come in pursuit of her. She tried to tell herself that the fear was ridiculous. After all, it was hardly likely that Richard would drag himself away from his precious Amanda just to come and track his wife down. But if he did she didn’t want to see him. She wanted to be away from here long before he arrived. Unfortunately, her foreboding was sound.
Most of her possessions were already packed, but she had just changed into a simple jersey suit and was stuffing more clothes into a suitcase when she heard the familiar sound of Richard’s BMW hurtling down the drive. Springing to her feet, she slammed the suitcase shut, grabbed a coat and prepared to leave. But it was already too late. Richard was standing in the bedroom doorway, his breath coming in a shallow, rapid rhythm as if he had just run up the stairs. His eyes were narrowed angrily and his whole body seemed to radiate antagonism.
‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ he growled, prowling across the room to her with the tread of a jungle cat.
‘Leaving,’ said Emma tersely.
‘Oh, no, you’re not. You’re staying right here where you belong.’
The suitcase in Emma’s hand was becoming unbearably heavy and she flung it down with an angry crash.
‘You’ve got a hide, Richard!’ she stormed. ‘You think you can just snap your fingers and I’ll come running back to you like a puppy, don’t you? Well, I don’t have to take this kind of nonsense from you. I’m leaving.’
Unclenching her cramped fingers for a moment, she made a snatch at the suitcase. But Richard was too quick for her. He grabbed it away and held it out of her reach.
‘Would you mind telling me why?’ he demanded in a low, menacing voice.
Emma gave a mirthless sneer of laughter.
‘I would have thought even a towering intellectual genius like my husband could have figured that out!’ she retorted. ‘After all, wasn’t that exactly what you wanted me to do? Isn’t that why you sent your girlfriend round to me this morning with an airline ticket?’
Richard looked stunned.
‘What are you talking about?’ he demanded.
Emma rummaged inside the handbag which was hanging from her shoulder and brandished the red document at him.
‘This! Your precious Amanda brought it round this morning.’
‘She’s not my precious Amanda,’ snarled Richard.
‘Oh, pull the other leg, Richard, it’s got bells on.’
‘Look, Emma, Amanda is not my girlfriend! And I know nothing about this bloody airline ticket. What I do know is that you’ve been acting like a spoilt prima donna ever since yesterday.’
‘Prima donna? Prima donna?’ shrieked Emma. ‘All right, so I’m a prima donna because I don’t like my husband bringing his mistress home to my house!’
‘She is not my mistress,’ said Richard through his teeth.
Emma fought hard to control her ragged breathing.
‘Oh, isn’t she? Then why did you tell me you were thinking of marrying her?’
Richard ground his teeth.
‘To make you jealous! Amanda and I have been professional colleagues until now, never anything more, I swear it.’
Emma flashed him a cold, incredulous look.
‘Then why was she in my sitting-room telling you that she loved you yesterday?’
Richard’s face took on a hunted expression. He ran his fingers through his tousled, curly hair in a baffled gesture.
‘Apparently she’s been carrying a torch for me for the last two years,’ he said in a quieter voice. ‘I had no idea about it until she came to see me yesterday. She spilled out all this nonsense about being in love with me. But I’ve never done anything to encourage her. Truly.’
His voice held such raw sincerity that Emma wavered with a tormented expression on her face. Then she looked down at her own wrist and saw that she was still wearing the gold and ruby bracelet that had caused so much trouble between them in the past. At once the whole agonising episode of the Blue Mountains came hurtling vividly back to her.
‘I don’t believe you,’ she said coldly. ‘It’s just as it was in the first year we were married. You’re such a smooth operator, Richard, that I never even know when you’re lying. I would never have known that you were taking that other woman off to the Blue Mountains if you hadn’t lost my bracelet there.’
‘Blue Mountains? Bracelet?’ echoed Richard in a baffled voice. ‘What are you talking about, Emma?’
‘This,’ cried Emma.
With an angry gasp she unfastened the catch, wrenched the piece of jewellery off and flung it at him. Instinctively, he fielded it and stared down at his palm with a baffled expression.
‘It’s the bracelet you showed me yesterday. Is there something special about it?’
By now Emma
’s heart was hammering so violently that she could feel the blood pounding in her ears and her breath was coming in long, dragging gulps.
‘You don’t even remember. You bastard! You bastard! All right, I’ll refresh your memory. After we had that quarrel about whether my father deliberately made you go broke, you stormed out in a huff and stayed away for five days. Didn’t you?’
‘That’s true,’ agreed Richard warily.
‘Right,’ continued Emma, gaining speed. ‘And while you were gone you took some other woman up to the Blue Mountains for a weekend.’
‘Where did you get this nonsense?’ demanded Richard in an enraged voice.
‘It’s not nonsense! It’s true. What made it even worse, you gave her my bracelet. My bracelet that was my father’s gift to me on my eighteenth birthday! I hardly ever wore it because it was too ornate but it still had sentimental value. You were the only one who knew that and you gave it away to somebody else.’
‘Emma, you’re losing your mind,’ said Richard patiently. ‘It never happened.’
‘It did!’ Emma stamped her foot. ‘What you hadn’t planned on was that your little fluffball would lose the bracelet in the motel you stayed at. The Norfolk Pines Motor Inn. The manager phoned me the next day and told me the maid had found it under the double bed while she was cleaning the room. I was mystified. I told him it couldn’t be mine because I hadn’t been there. He read me back the details from the register. Mr and Mrs Richard Fielding, 968 Cross Street, Woolloomooloo had stayed there the previous night. My address, my name! You took somebody else there posing as your wife and gave her my bracelet and you thought I’d never even miss it.’
‘Like hell I did! I’ve never stayed in the Blue Mountains in my life.’
‘Richard, I went up there and identified the bracelet! I had insurance photos to prove it was mine! If you’re going to he to me, you’ve got to do better than that.’
Richard stepped back a couple of paces and looked down at the bracelet in his hand with a stunned expression.
‘I don’t understand. I spent the whole five days after I walked out of our place on the telephone at my sister Christina’s flat, trying to organise a bridging loan so I wouldn’t go broke. I didn’t have time to breathe, let alone seduce some mythical woman.’
Emma’s voice was heavy with sarcasm.
‘So I suppose you’ll say next that you didn’t have time to read my letter, won’t you, darling?’ she demanded.
‘Letter?’
‘Don’t give me that, Richard! Don’t lie and twist things and pretend you never received it. I gave it to my father to hand deliver and he swore he found you in your office and gave it to you.’
‘Did he now?’ said Richard softly. ‘And what did it say, Emma?’
Emma tried twice to speak and failed. She knew the letter by heart, but at first she could not force herself to say the words aloud. At last she spoke in a flat, expressionless voice that robbed them of all emotion. ‘Dear Richard, I’ll never understand why you had to turn to another woman and it breaks my heart to think of it. All the same, I love you. I can’t bear to live without you. Please come back and make a fresh start with me. Please, please, please. Emma.’
Richard passed his hand over his brow.
‘You wrote that? You thought I betrayed you and you still wrote that to me?’
Emma choked back a low, hoarse sob.
‘Stupid, wasn’t it? That was back in the days when I believed in love and happy endings. I was such a fool!’
‘Don’t say that,’ urged Richard, taking a step towards her.
She backed away like a cornered animal.
‘I will say it! I was a fool to think love would change anything. I loved you, Richard, I loved you so much I could hardly bear it. When I found out you’d been un-faithful to me, even then I wouldn’t give up, but swallowing my pride and begging didn’t bring you back, did it?’
Richard shook his head in a dazed fashion.
‘I don’t understand half of this, Emma,’ he said. ‘But I do know one thing. It’s not too late for us.’
‘Yes, it is!’ shouted Emma. ‘I don’t care what you say, Richard, I’m quitting. I’m going as far away as possible and I’m going to start a new life with my child.’
The colour drained out of Richard’s face. He stood completely motionless as though he had been frozen to the spot.
‘Did you say your child?’ he breathed.
‘Yes, Richard,’ she hissed. ‘And since it’s your child, too, I suppose I’ll eventually have to grant you access to it, but don’t expect me to have any more to do with you than I can possibly help. If I had my way, I’d never set eyes on you again as long as I live. Well, I guess this is goodbye. I hope you and Amanda will be very happy!’
Her sudden lunge took him off guard. Not even bothering to grab her suitcase, she ran for the stairs.
‘Emma, come back!’ he roared.
Not likely, she thought, hurtling down them at breakneck speed. I’ve got my passport, my ticket and my traveller’s cheques right here in this bag and I don’t need anything else from you. Ever.
Blundering through the sun-room in the dark, she reached the conservatory door and fumbled at the key with frantic, clumsy fingers. A moment later and she had pulled it softly closed behind her. A quick dash through the scented, leafy darkness between the rows of plants and her fingers closed again on another door-handle. This time it was the outside door. She emerged into the fitful shadows where the limousine stood waiting and wrenched open the back door of the vehicle. Collapsing into the back seat, she took a long, unsteady breath.
‘Take me to the airport,’ she ordered.
CHAPTER NINE
THE palm trees rustled gently in the warm, tropical breeze and through the open doorway the sweet scent of frangipani drifted on the air. In the distance Emma could hear the muted sounds of laughter and splashes from one of the swimming-pools. Otherwise there was silence. Leaning forward, she picked up a wedge of pineapple from the luscious array of tropical fruits in front of her and began mechanically to eat. The fruit was juicy and sweet, but eating it was an effort—everything was an effort these days. Only the thought of the unborn child she carried inside her forced her to go through the motions of chewing and swallowing. Sooner or later she knew she would have to return to Sydney and confront Richard, deal with the pain of seeking a divorce. But for the present she was content to remain here in Bali, feeling as if she was in sanctuary, protected from the ugliness of the real world. In the three days since she had arrived here, she had scarcely even gone outside except to stroll on the moonlit beach at night and to swim in the pool early in the morning when there was little chance of having to talk to anyone else. One day she would have to begin putting her shattered life back together, but not now. Not yet. A sudden footfall sounded on the stone floor of the balcony outside and she glanced up to see a hotel employee standing beneath a swag of hanging crimson bougainvillaea. His even white teeth flashed in a hesitant smile and he knocked on the already open front door.
‘Yes?’ said Emma encouragingly.
He stepped forward.
‘Your car for Penelokan is ready, madam. The driver is here,’ he chanted, as if repeating a lesson learnt by heart.
Emma gave him a mystified frown.
‘There must be some mistake,’ she began. ‘I didn’t order—’
‘I will bring him, madam,’ promised the bellboy.
He scuttled out of sight among the shrubbery and a moment later a new figure stepped into view. A tall, blond man with a muscular physique and the most vivid, searing blue eyes Emma had ever seen in her life. A current of disbelief flared through her entire body as she watched him stride up the stairs with the bellboy in his wake carrying two suitcases.
‘Richard,’ she breathed.
Without taking his eyes off her, Richard stepped inside the bungalow, tipped the bellboy and ushered him off the premises. Then
he calmly shut the door and turned to face her. Her first involuntary surge of delight gave way to panic and alarm. She retreated across the room and stared at him coldly.
‘Go away, Richard,’ she gabbled. ‘I have nothing to say to you.’
Ignoring her words, he advanced on her with an urgent, burning light in his eyes. Then suddenly he caught her by the arms and gazed down at her earnestly.
‘But I have something to say to you,’ he said in a low, hoarse voice. ‘And it’s this. I love you, Emma. I’ve never stopped loving you. I want you to come back as my wife. And this time it’s genuine.’
Her green eyes flicked sceptically up to meet his.
‘Is this because of the baby?’ she asked.
‘No, it’s not because of the baby! It’s because of you. I can’t bear to live without you.’
Her face contorted at the words she had once longed to hear. But she had been through too much disillusionment to believe them.
‘That’s nice,’ she said in a brittle voice. ‘But I can’t bear to live with you. And I’m not prepared to share you with Amanda.’
Richard swore under his breath.
‘You don’t have to,’ he insisted. ‘I’ve never made love to Amanda in my life. Anyway, she’s on her way to New York now with a fat severance payment. Once I found out how she had telephoned you from Gosford and visited you at our house, I told her she’d have to leave. I couldn’t allow her to go on telling you such appalling lies and hurting you so much.’
Emma stiffened and stared up at him suspiciously.
‘Lies? What do you mean, Richard? Are you telling me you didn’t spend the night in Gosford with her?’
Richard gave a short laugh.
‘Oh, yes, I did. But we were knee-deep in black coffee and legal documents the entire time. There wasn’t a candlelit dinner or a feather bed in sight. And I had no idea that she telephoned you about it. Heaven knows I tried often enough, but the phone seemed to be off the hook the entire night.’
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