An Interrupted Marriage (Silhouette Special Edition)

by Bright, Laurey;

  “Once you could bear me to.”

  She whispered, “I didn’t mean to—”

  “Forget it.”

  “But I am grateful,” she said stumblingly. She hadn’t thought she’d ever have to say that. Not to Magnus. It was the kind of thing that people who loved each other didn’t need to put into words.

  He took a sharp breath. Without moving he seemed to have withdrawn to a greater distance. “Gratitude is the last thing I want. You needn’t feel obligated to me in any way.”

  Obligated. Was that how he felt? “Your visits, the fact that you cared enough, helped me get well—”

  “‘In sickness and in health,’” he reminded her.

  “A duty?”

  The sound of the waves filled the pause that he allowed to elapse. “I happen to take the promises of the marriage service very seriously.”

  Jade gulped in a breath. She mustn’t scream at him. “Then why are you talking about divorce?”

  Magnus hesitated. Then he said, “It’s an option.”

  She wanted to dispute that, hotly. It had never been an option for her. So far as she was concerned, marriage was for life. Then she thought she was being selfish. And unrealistic. “I know that I’ve made things very difficult, that you’ve put up with tremendous pressures, made sacrifices that no man should be asked to make. I can’t blame you if you’ve found—” She couldn’t go any further, gagging on the words, someone else.

  And somewhere deep inside quiet rage mingled with the pain—rage that his love hadn’t withstood the test after all, hadn’t been strong enough to sustain itself.

  Magnus said harshly, “That’s not the point. I suppose I wasn’t entirely blameless—”

  “It wasn’t your fault.”

  “You’re generous. I wouldn’t have been surprised if you’d accused me of gross neglect, and laid all your...failures at my door.”

  “Failures?” Jade winced.

  Magnus said swiftly, “A bad choice of words. And not quite what I meant.”

  Jade swallowed. She accepted the apology, but the remark had wounded. Was their marriage one of the failures?

  Yesterday she’d have said it wasn’t. To be fair, she could hardly expect their relationship to pick up where it had left off—or rather, at some point before that. But naïvely, she’d supposed that since they had weathered the past couple of years, the readjustment would be relatively easy, that nothing now could part them or thwart their love.

  She’d been wrong, it seemed. Magnus had been chafing for his freedom—for how long she could only guess. What, then, had brought him to her side every weekend, and led him to bring her back to his home now? Guilt? Compassion? A sense of obligation, a determination to keep to the letter of his marriage vows until he had irrevocably cast them off? Had he felt trapped, wanting to free himself but bound by his conscience to wait until she could fend for herself?

  The paling moon had turned cold. Jade shivered in its merciless light. “I don’t know...how to answer you,” she said painfully. “I wasn’t prepared for this.”

  “I’d hoped to postpone this discussion, not spring it on you right away, but you have rather forced it on me.” He paused again. “We can’t just put the clock back, Jade.”

  To match his self-sacrifice, she ought to let him go without a murmur, as reparation for the time and the emotional investment he had expended on her, on helping her get well.

  She couldn’t. He was her husband and with her dying breath she would fight to win back his love, the love they had shared with such passion, and joy, and mutual commitment. They’d had more than sex to bind them. Much more. Impossible to believe that all that had died.

  He hadn’t moved, only a faint flutter of his shirt indicating that he’d taken a quick, silent breath.

  A chill shock swirling round her feet reminded her of the incoming tide. Magnus hadn’t seemed to notice, although his shoes were wet.

  She stepped back, feeling a little dizzy. “I don’t think I can deal with this at the moment. I am tired, after all,” she said truthfully. “I think I’ll take your advice and go to bed early. You needn’t come back to the house with me.”

  He accepted the hint, only moving a few feet from the foaming, hissing water, then remaining there as she hurried away from him across the sand.

  When she was sure he wouldn’t see the gesture in the darkness, Jade scrubbed furtively at the tears streaming down her face. She stumbled onto the flat surface of the lawn and continued across the cool, harsh grass to the house, not remembering her sandals until she’d reached the door. She barely hesitated then, before letting herself in quietly, creeping along the darkened passageway and bolting up the stairs.

  Thankful that no one had seen her, she shut herself into her room, and leaned on the door for a second or two before going to the bathroom. There she switched on the light and began sluicing her face with cold water.

  Her eyes were only slightly reddened when she looked at herself in the mirror, but her cheeks looked pale and pinched, showing the effects of shock.

  She laid her throbbing forehead against the cool glass, fighting down a sense of panic. She could cope. Everyone—she, the doctors, Magnus—had made sure she was thoroughly well before allowing her to return to Waititapu.

  They’d warned her that if she felt she was regressing, she must not delay in seeking help. But she knew in her bones that she was as strong now as any other woman—stronger than she’d been before. She’d come through this—they would come through it, she and Magnus. Their marriage would survive.

  * * *

  She didn’t know what time it was when Magnus returned to the house, but it was hours after she’d left him alone on the beach before he came upstairs. In spite of a feeling of utter weariness, Jade hadn’t slept. She heard him walk to her door, and pause there.

  Holding her breath, she waited. After a moment the door silently opened, and a shadow slipped through the gap, closing it behind him.

  She said quietly, “Magnus?”

  The shadow stilled. “I didn’t intend to wake you.”

  “I couldn’t sleep.”

  He moved forward, then stopped. “I found your shoes. Where do you want them?”

  “Oh.” She was emotionally drained, too much so to feel anything, even disappointment. “Leave them by the wardrobe—I’ll put them away in the morning. Thank you.”

  He stooped and straightened again, and seemed to hesitate. She held her breath, wanting to break the silence, unable to think of anything to say. It was all very different from the fantasies she’d indulged in when they’d said she was ready to leave the hospital.

  Then the moment passed, and he said, “Good night, Jade.”

  She watched him move towards the bathroom, saw the faint light that split the darkness as he opened the door. He closed it behind him, and was gone.

  * * *

  She woke late the next morning to a surreal sense of disconnection. Everything was very quiet, and instead of a curtained alcove, she was lying in a room that seemed at first sight vast. When she realised where it was, her eyes instinctively turned to the pillow next to her, finding it plump and untouched.

  Maybe she’d dreamed yesterday. Maybe she wasn’t home at all, but hallucinating. She sat up, clutching at the sheet, pushed back her hair and looked about her. She reached out and ran her fingers over the bedside table. The solid, grained wood seemed real enough.

  Now she heard the distant, constant susurration of the sea, and a seagull’s lifted scream. Downstairs a door snapped shut, and there was a faint hum that she identified as the sound of a vacuum cleaner.

  But it was the sandals neatly placed side-by-side in front of the wardrobe that convinced her.

  Yesterday, last night, hadn’t been a dream. Magnus had brought her home, and evaded her for the remainder of the afternoon by shutting himself in his study, and Mrs. Riordan had told her that she’d advised a divorce. The suggestion had scarcely impinged, because she’d never have
believed that Magnus would countenance the thought.

  And then Magnus, walking with her on the beach but not touching her, had said that it was “an option.” Magnus, her beloved, her husband, who had unfailingly and unstintingly given her all the support, and all the love—she’d thought—that she’d needed so badly, had hinted that he wanted a divorce.

  For long minutes she was tempted to huddle under the blankets again, deny everything to herself and hope that the pain, the regrets, the disbelief, would go away.

  But she knew where that could lead. Instead, she flung back the covers and made herself wash, and dress in jeans and a loose top, and comb her hair.

  Her face was still pale, the skin about her eyes faintly darkened. She rummaged in a drawer and found still usable foundation, blusher, eye shadow, and a defiantly bright lipstick. The wand of mascara had dried up. Since she’d left them here she’d scarcely cared enough to be bothered with more than an occasional dash of lipstick.

  She must find out if anyone was going to Warkworth. Apart from a haircut there were several things she needed.

  She made the bed with quick efficiency. It didn’t need much, looked scarcely used in fact. Not the way it would have been if Magnus had shared it last night...

  Closing her mind to the thought, she straightened with flushed cheeks and left the room. He would share her bed again one day. Somehow she would make sure of it.

  Downstairs, the door to Mrs. Riordan’s sitting-room was closed. Relieved, Jade made her way to the kitchen.

  There was no one there, the stainless-steel bench gleaming and the sink empty. A bowl of flowers stood on the window-ledge between unfamiliar looped net curtains with small orange spots. The café curtains printed with tiny blue tulips must have worn out.

  The dishwasher humming and swishing in one corner was new, too. The big old table with the handsomely turned legs in the centre of the room was the same, though, its scrubbed and scarred surface covered with a cheerful orange gingham cloth, and another bowl of flowers sat in the middle of it.

  Jade bent and sniffed at the frilled pinks. The scent somehow cheered her. She looked about and found the toaster with the bread bin beside it. And a new coffeemaker.

  When Mrs. Gaines came in Jade was sitting at the table with an empty cereal bowl and a plate of toast crumbs before her, sipping her way through a second cup of coffee.

  “Oh! Good morning.” The housekeeper stopped in the doorway.

  “I hope you don’t mind. I know breakfast was well over when I got up. I’ll wash my dishes and get out of your way.” Jade finished the coffee quickly, and rose.

  “Mr. Riordan said not to disturb you. The vacuum cleaner didn’t wake you? I only used it downstairs.”

  Jade had turned on the hot tap and was rinsing the dishes, placing the cup on the bench with the plates leaning on it. “You didn’t wake me.” She reached for a tea-towel, only to find that the rail on the wall had been replaced by a unit holding paper towels and plastic cling film. Dismissing an irrational dismay, she asked, “Where is the tea-towel kept now?”

  Mrs. Gaines opened a drawer and handed her one.

  “Do you need any help?” Jade asked. “I’m used to housework.” At the hospital the patients who were not too ill had been rostered to help with the cleaning. “Rehabilitation, they call it,” Annie had said, grinning at Jade from the corner of her mouth, a spray of untidy red curls springing free from the edges of the cotton scarf that was supposed to confine them. “Saving money, more like. Well, personally I’d rather be polishing floors than plaiting bloody baskets with Miss Ivan the Cherrible. That’s enough to send anyone nuts!”

  Jade smiled, remembering. Miss Cherrible, the occupational therapist, had been relentlessly kind and implacably cheerful, and a major irritant to Annie. Jade had to agree that at times the relative boredom of cleaning wards was preferable to the firmly maintained bonhomie of the therapy room.

  Magnus had been at first horrified and angry that she was wiping floors and changing beds and peeling the potatoes in the kitchen. Jade had to talk him out of complaining that the patients were being used as cheap labour. “I don’t mind,” she’d told him. “Really, it’s better to have something to pass the time, and at least it’s useful. You didn’t object to my doing housework and cooking at Waititapu.”

  “That’s an entirely different thing!” he’d exploded. “Waititapu was your home.”

  And then he’d fallen silent and grim-lipped when she laughed.

  * * *

  Mrs. Gaines seemed rather nonplussed by Jade’s offer of help. “It’s kind of you, Mrs.—er, Jade. But I have my routines, you know.”

  “Well, let me know if there’s anything I can do. Do you know where my husband is?”

  “Not exactly. He said he’d be back for lunch.”

  Magnus wasn’t in the house, then. “Lunch will be at twelve?”

  “Mrs. Riordan likes it dead on twelve. But I suppose if you wanted to change it—”

  Jade said hastily, “There’s no need to change anything.”

  When she re-entered the hall Ginette was closing the door of Mrs. Riordan’s sitting-room. This morning she wore a simple button-through frock in small green-and-white hounds-tooth checks, almost like a uniform. She smiled at Jade. “Hello. Have a good sleep?”

  “Too long,” Jade said briefly. Hesitating, she added, “I wondered if I ought to say good morning to Mrs. Riordan.”

  “She’s resting just now. She’ll read a couple of chapters and then drop off for a little while before lunch. I’ll come and wake her at about a quarter to twelve. It gives me time to do my aerobics, and take a walk down the drive to fetch the mail.”

  It seemed everyone had their routine. “I could get the mail,” Jade said. “I wouldn’t mind a walk.”

  “Oh, all right. The rural delivery van won’t be here until about half past eleven, though.”

  “That’s later than it used to be.”

  “Is it? I wouldn’t know. See you at lunch.” Flashing another dimpling smile, Ginette strolled off to her room.

  Jade let herself out of the big door facing away from the sea. The concrete terrace, newly painted a terracotta colour, ended in several steps down to a wide path skirting the house.

  She crossed the lawn to a gateway leading into a small fenced grove of trees and bushes, all natives, with a narrow gravelled path winding between them. The three kohuhu with crinkled, pink-edged leaves were almost twice her height, giving her a thrill of pleasure. When she’d planted them they had barely reached her waist. Another, shrubbier group with dark, wine-coloured leaves made a lovely foil, just as she’d pictured them.

  Purple hebe brushed her jeans as she passed. The golden kowhai had long since finished flowering, but among the saw-edged leaves of the rewarewa she spied a red, spidery blossom. The kauri still stood straight and slender.

  “For the grandchildren,” she’d told Magnus when he teased her about its notoriously slow growth habit. “And great-grandchildren.”

  “Mmm,” he’d said. “I suppose by then it might be a decent-sized tree.”

  Weeds had been allowed to spring up among the low creepers and ground-covers. Jade hauled some out, thinking that she’d have to get some tools later and do the job properly. But she managed to pile up quite a heap pulling them out by hand.

  A distant toot made her glance at her watch. That was probably the rural delivery van, signalling that there was mail in the box at the gate.

  She stood up from where she’d been kneeling on the ground, and dusted her jeans. But her hands were grubby, too, so it didn’t do a lot of good.

  She walked quickly down the drive, her feet scrunching on the gravel. Sunlight flittered through the moving leaves of the trees, dancing in dappled patches before her. A fantail looped through the air about her head, then retired to chirrup at her from a swaying, slender branch, regarding her with alert, unwinking eyes. She had a sudden sense of well-being, a lift of the heart.

  The re
d mailbox held several envelopes. None, of course, was for her, but she riffled through them all the same. Two were addressed to Miss Ginette Fairfield. Jade wondered if Ginette got a lot of mail. Was that why she’d apparently made a habit of collecting it?

  She went back to the house more slowly. Coming out of the shading trees of the drive, she saw Magnus seated on a tractor that had stopped by the fence surrounding the house. He wore a faded khaki shirt and trousers, one arm resting on the steering wheel as he grinned down at Ginette, who leaned on a fence post, smiling up at him.

  Ginette’s costume was a clinging pink satin leotard, worn with matching pink socks, and exercise shoes. Her breasts were rounded and full, her waist slim, and her hips trimly curved. A pink sweat-band confined her hair. An escapee from an exercise video, Jade thought, walking, unnoticed, towards them.

  As she did so Ginette laughed, pulled off the sweat-band and shook out her dark curls, then stepped back from the fence. Magnus lightly jumped down from the tractor and vaulted the fence with one hand on the post.

  He saw Jade, and the smile faded. Ginette, following his eyes, took another step back from him and waited.

  “Any mail for me?” she asked as Jade neared them.

  “Two.” Jade’s face felt stiff, but she managed a semblance of a smile. Ginette’s letters were on top of the pile, and she handed them over, noticing how grubby her hands still were, with dirt under the fingernails.

  Ginette glanced down at the envelopes. “I love getting letters, don’t you?”

  Did her tone sound forced? Jade quelled the thought. “You’re lucky. Do you want the rest, Magnus?”

  He took them from her. “You’ve been all the way to the gate?”

  “It’s still where the mailbox is.”

  “Are you sure that’s wise, in this heat?”

  “What do you think it will do to me? It’s not that hot under the trees. You’ve been working in it. And without a hat.”

  “I haven’t been ill.”

  Ginette said, “I’d better get changed before lunch. See you guys later.” She set off for the house at a quick jog, the gleaming, high-cut leotard emphasising the movement of smooth thighs and a firm, neat behind. Magnus looked after her for a second or so before pulling his gaze away.