by Liz Fielding
‘Why didn’t you?’
‘It was my business. My responsibility.’ Hers…Then, as she saw his horrified expression, ‘You don’t have to worry, Adam. I don’t make a fortune, but I have enough bookings to meet my obligations. You won’t have to bail me out.’
‘What? No… I was just realising how much trouble you would have been in if I hadn’t come along this morning. If I hadn’t needed you so badly that I badgered you until you were forced to explain. You would have lost the lot.’
He wasn’t thinking about himself? The realisation that, as her husband, he’d be responsible for her debts.
He was just thinking about her.
‘It wouldn’t have been the end of the world,’ she said, putting the casserole on the table, the dish of potatoes baked in their jackets. Almost, but not quite. ‘Once the contents of the house were sold, I’d have been able to pay them back.’
He caught her wrist. ‘Promise me one thing, May,’ he said fiercely. ‘That, the minute you’re married, you instruct Jennings to do whatever if takes to break that entailment.’
‘It’s number one on my list,’ she assured him.
Not that there seemed much likelihood of her ever having a child of her own to put in this position. She hadn’t thought much about that particular emptiness in her life until today when Nancie had clung to her, smiled at her.
‘I’ll have to make a new will, anyway. Not that there’s anyone to leave the house to. I’m the last of the Coleridges.’
‘No cousins?’
‘Only three or four times removed.’
‘They’re still family and there’s nothing like the scent of an inheritance to bring long lost relatives out of the woodwork.’
‘Not to any purpose, in this case. I’ll leave it to a charity. At least that way I won’t feel as if I’ve cheated.’
‘Cheated?’
‘By marrying you just to keep the house.’
‘You’re not cheating anyone, May. If your grandfather hadn’t had a stroke you would have been married to Michael Linton.’
‘Maybe.’ She’d been so very young and he’d been so assured, so charming. So safe.
That was the one thing she could never say about Adam. Whether he was rescuing her from disaster, mucking out a rabbit cage or cleaning her wounds, as he had today, apparently oblivious to the fact that she was half naked, she had never felt safe with him.
Whenever she was near him she seemed to lose control of not just her breathing, but her ability to hold anything fragile, the carefully built protective barrier she’d erected around herself at school. One look and it crumbled.
She didn’t feel safe, but she did feel fizzingly alive and, while he might not have noticed the effect he had on her, his sister hadn’t missed it.
‘You had doubts?’ Adam asked, picking up on her lack of certainty.
‘Not then.’ At the time, marriage to Michael Linton had offered an escape. From her grandfather. From Maybridge. From the possibility of meeting Adam Wavell.
‘And now?’
‘Looking back, the whole thing seems like something out of a Jane Austen novel.’
‘While your grandfather’s will is more like something out of one of the more depressing novels of George Eliot.’
‘Yes, well, whatever happens to the house in the future, it won’t happen by default because I did nothing,’ she assured him as she gestured for him to sit down. ‘Actually, I’m sure the infallible Jake has it on his list but, just in case he’d missed it, you’ll have to make a new will, too.’
‘This is cheery.’
‘But essential,’ she said as she ladled meat onto a plate. ‘Marriage nullifies all previous wills, which means that, should you fall under a bus—’
‘Have you ever heard of someone falling under a bus?’ he asked.
‘Should you fall under a bus, the major part of your assets will come to me by default,’ she persisted, determined to make her point. ‘Not that I’d keep it,’ she assured him. ‘Obviously.’
‘Why obviously?’
‘You have a family.’
‘There’s always a downside,’ he said, taking the plate. ‘You’d get the assets, but you also get the bad debts.’
‘Adam!’
‘Would you entrust an international company to either my sister or my mother?’ he demanded.
‘Well, obviously—’
‘They’d sell out to the first person who offered them hard cash, whereas you, with your highly developed sense of duty and the Coleridge imperative to hold tight to what they have, would be a worthy steward of my estate.’
She assumed he was teasing—although that remark about the Coleridges’ firm grasp on their property had been barbed—but, as she offered him the dish of potatoes, his gaze was intent, his purpose serious.
‘You’ll get married, have children of your own,’ she protested.
‘I’m marrying you, Mary Louise. For better or worse.’
‘That’s a two-way promise,’ May said, equally intent.
Adam held the look for long seconds, as if testing her sincerity, before he nodded and took the dish.
‘Where’s Robbie?’ he asked, changing the subject. ‘Isn’t she eating with us?’
‘It’s quiz night at the pub,’ she said, serving herself. Not that she had much appetite. ‘She offered to give it a miss, but it’s semi-final night and her team are red-hot.’
‘She didn’t trust me alone with you? What is she going to do? Sleep across your door?’
‘Does she need to?’ she asked flippantly, but as she looked up their eyes met across the table and the air hummed once more with a tension that stretched back through the years.
All the pain, the shame she’d masked from him each time, despite every attempt to avoid one another, they’d found themselves face to face in public. Both of them achingly polite, while he’d looked at her as if breathing the same air hurt him.
CHAPTER EIGHT
ADAM’S hand was shaking slightly as he picked up his fork. Robbie was no fool, he thought. She didn’t trust him further than she could throw him and with good reason.
‘Help yourself to another beer,’ May prompted. ‘Whatever you want.’
‘I’m good, thanks,’ he said, then, spearing a piece of carrot, ‘I took a couple of carrots from the sack in the mud room and gave them to the donkey and his mate, by the way,’ he said in a desperate attempt to bring things back to the mundane. ‘I hope I didn’t mess up their diet.’
‘Everyone gets mugged by Jack and Dolly,’ she said, clearly glad to follow his lead away from dangerous territory. ‘They’re a double act. Inseparable, couldn’t be parted. And you’re looking at the original mug. The one who took them both in.’
‘I’ll bet they didn’t have to work anywhere near as hard as I did,’ he said. ‘One pitiful bleat from Dolly and I’ll bet you were putty in their hooves.’
‘Under normal circumstances I’d have been putty in yours,’ she replied. And then she blushed. ‘At least Jack keeps the paddock grazed.’
‘Not Dolly?’
‘She prefers bramble shoots, with a side snack of roses when no one’s looking.’ Maybe it was the mention of roses, but she leapt up. ‘Nancie’s awake,’ she said, pushing back her chair, grabbing the monitor from the table. ‘Help yourself,’ she said, waving at the table. ‘I’ve had enough.’
‘Enough’ had been little more than a mouthful, but she dashed from the room and he didn’t try to stop her. Not because he believed the baby needed instant attention, but because suddenly every word seemed loaded.
He finished eating, cleared both their plates and stacked them in the dishwasher. Covered the food. Filled the coffee maker and set it to drip. Then, when May still hadn’t appeared, he went upstairs to find her.
She was sitting in the dark, watching Nancie as she slept. The light from the landing touched her cheeks, made a halo of her hair.
‘May?’ he said softly.
She
looked up. ‘Adam. I’m sorry. I’m neglecting you,’ she said, getting up and, after a last look at Nancie, joining him. ‘There’s leftover crème brulée in the fridge…’
‘What happened to the lemon drizzle cake?’
‘The Christmas course ladies finished it when they had tea. I’m sorry. It was always your favourite.’
‘Was it? I don’t remember,’ he lied. ‘I’m making coffee.’
‘Well, good. You must make yourself at home. Have whatever you want. You’ll find the drinks cupboard in the library.’
‘Library?’ He managed a teasing note. ‘First a butler, now a library.’
‘It’s not a very big library. Do you want a tour of the house? I should probably introduce you to the ancestors.’
‘If you’re sure they won’t all turn in their graves.’
She looked up at him and for a moment he thought she was going to say something. But after a pause she turned and led the way down a fine staircase lined with portraits, naming each of them as she passed without looking. But then, near the bottom, she stopped by a fine portrait of a young woman.
‘This is a Romney portrait of Jane Coleridge,’ she said. ‘She’s the woman who Henry Coleridge had his arm twisted to marry. The cause of all the bother.’
‘You have the look of her,’ he said. The same colouring, the same soft curves, striking amber eyes.
‘Well, that would explain it,’ she said, moving on, showing him the rest of the house. The grand drawing and dining rooms, filled with the kind of furniture and paintings that would have the experts on one of those antiques television programmes drooling. There was a small sitting room, a room for a lady. And then there was the library with its vast desk, worn leather armchairs.
She crossed to the desk and opened a drawer.
‘These were Grandpa’s,’ she said, handing a large bunch of keys to him.
‘What are they all?’ he asked.
She took them from him and ran through them. ‘Front, back, cellar—although we don’t keep it locked these days. The gate to the park.’ There were half a dozen more before she said, ‘This one’s for the safe.’
‘The safe?’
She opened a false panel in one of the bookshelves to display a very old safe.
‘Family documents, my grandmother’s jewellery. Not much of that. She left it to my mother, and she sold most of it to fund Third World health care.’
Which was ironic, he thought, considering how she’d died. ‘Her wedding ring? Can I see it?’
She shrugged. ‘Of course.’ She took the keys from him, opened the safe, handed him a small velvet pouch.
He wasn’t sure what he’d expected. From her insistence that she wear it, he’d imagined something special, something worthy of a Coleridge, but what he tipped into his palm was a simple old-fashioned band of gold without so much as a date or initials inscribed on the inside.
It was a ring made to take the knocks of a lifetime. In the days when this had been forged, people didn’t run to the divorce courts at the first hint of trouble but stuck to the vows they’d sworn over it.
‘It’s not fancy,’ she said, as if she felt the need to apologise.
‘It’s your choice, May,’ he said, wishing he’d insisted on buying a ring of his own. But he’d obliterate its plainness with the flash of the ring he’d buy to lie alongside it. He kept that to himself, however, afraid she’d insist on wearing her grandmother’s engagement ring, too. Always assuming her mother hadn’t sold that. He didn’t ask, just removed the key to the back door and the park gate and added them to his own key ring, returning the rest to the drawer. ‘Can I borrow it? So that I make sure my own ring matches it.’
There was just the barest hesitation before she said, ‘Of course.’
‘I’ll take good care of it,’ he assured her. ‘Shall we have that coffee now? We have to make a decision on where we’re going to hold the wedding.’
‘There’s a fire in the morning room. I’ll bring it through.’
May took a moment as she laid the tray with cups, shortbread, half a dozen of the fudge balls she’d created for the Christmas market. Anything to delay the moment when she had to join him.
While she was with Adam, she was constantly distracted by memories, tripped up by innocent words that ripped through her.
Roses…
She’d never been able to see red roses without remembering Adam standing back from the door, shouting her name up at her window, oblivious to the approaching danger.
The bunch of red roses in his fist had exploded as her grandfather had turned the hose on him, hitting him in the chest and, for a terrible moment, she had thought it was his blood.
She’d tried to scream but the sound would not come through the thick, throat-closing fear that he was dead. It was only later, much later, when it was dark and everyone was asleep, that she’d crept outside to gather up the petals by the light of her torch.
Adam stretched out in front of the fire. His apartment was the height of luxury, everything simple, clean, uncluttered. It had been a dream back in the days when he’d been living in a cramped flat with his mother and his sister, the complete antithesis of this room, with its furniture in what could only be described as ‘country house’ condition. In other words, worn by centuries of use.
But the room had a relaxed, confident air. It invited you to sit, make yourself comfortable because, after all, if you’d made it this far into the inner sanctum, you were a welcome visitor.
He leapt up as May appeared with a tray, but she shook her head and said, ‘I can manage,’ as she put it on the sofa table. ‘Is it still black, no sugar?’
‘Yes…’ She remembered?
‘Would you like a piece of Robbie’s shortbread?’ She placed the cup beside him. Offered him the plate. ‘Or a piece of fudge?’
‘These are the sweets you make?’
‘This is a seasonal special. Christmas Snowball Surprise. White chocolate and cranberry fudge rolled in flaked coconut.’
He took one, bit into it and his mouth filled with an explosion of flavour, heat. ‘You forgot to mention the rum.’
‘That’s the surprise,’ she said, but her smile was weary and he saw, with something of a shock, that there were dark smudges beneath her eyes.
‘Are you all right, May?’ he asked when she didn’t move, didn’t pour herself a cup.
She eased her shoulder. ‘I’m a bit tired. I think the fall has finally caught up with me.’
‘Are you in pain?’ he asked, crossing to her, running his hands lightly over her shoulder and she winced. ‘You should have gone to Casualty. Had an X-ray.’
‘It’s just a strain,’ she assured him. ‘I’ll be fine after a soak.’ Then, before he could protest, ‘I’m afraid the television is rather old, but it works well enough. And don’t worry about security. Robbie will check the locks, set the alarm when she comes in.’
‘Where is her room?’ he asked.
That, at least, raised a smile from May. ‘Don’t worry. You won’t run into her in her curlers. She’s got her own self-contained apartment on the ground floor.’ She hesitated. ‘You’ve got everything you need?’
He nodded, touched her cheek. ‘Give me the monitor. I’ll take care of Nancie if she wakes.’
‘No. You’ve got a long flight tomorrow. You’ll be in enough trouble with jet lag without having a sleepless night.’
‘That’s why I’m here,’ he said.
‘Is it?’ She pushed a hand distractedly through her hair, as if she’d forgotten his promise to take the night shift. ‘There’s no need for that. You’ve done your hero stint with the furniture. What time are you leaving?’
‘The car will pick me up at nine.’
‘I hadn’t realised you were leaving so early.’ She looked at the coffee on the tray in front of her. ‘Another half an hour—’
‘There’ll be plenty of time to sort out the wedding details over breakfast. Go and soak your aches.’
Tossed his dirty linen in the basket. Soaked a few aches of his own away in the huge roll-top Victorian bath, no doubt the latest thing when it had been installed. Having a fully grown woman fall on you left its mark and he’d found a bruise that mirrored May’s aches on his own shoulder.
Then he’d stretched his naked limbs between the fine linen sheets on the four-poster bed, lay there, waiting for the sense of triumph to kick in. But, instead, all he could think about was May.
May not making a fuss, even though she’d clearly been in pain.
May trembling when he touched her. The hot, dark centre of her eyes in the moment before he’d kissed her. Wishing he was lying with his arms around her amongst the lace and frills, instead of the icy splendour of James Coleridge’s bed.
The phone startled May out of sleep and she practically fell out of bed, grabbing for it before it woke Nancie.
‘Hello?’
‘May…’
‘Saffy! Where are you? Are you safe?’
‘I’m okay. Is Nancie all right?’
‘She’s fine. Gorgeous, but what about you? Where are you? Why didn’t you come straight to me? You know I’d have helped you.’
‘I wasn’t sure. It’s been a long time…’
‘Come now. Adam’s desperate with worry. Let me get him—’
‘He’s there?’
‘He’s staying with Nancie,’ she said, keeping it simple. Explanations could wait. ‘Saffy? Saffy, I’ve got plenty of room. You should be with Nancie,’ she said quickly. But, before she’d finished, she was talking to herself.
She dialled one four seven one, to find out what number had called but the number had been withheld.
‘There was no point in disturbing you,’ May protested in response to his fury that she hadn’t bothered to come and tell him that his sister had called in the night. ‘There was nothing you could do.’