Ignoring the sudden angry line of his mouth, she had stridden away, her feet crunching on the gravel as she made for the garages. From deep inside the house she had caught the sound of childish, gurgling laughter and she'd had to fight hard to control the insane impulse to hurl herself into Charles's arms and beg him not to leave her.
Aware of those brooding grey eyes on her back, she had forced herself on, her head high, telling herself that, despite her other shortcomings, Zanna was a good mother. Throughout the last dreadful two days she had observed the care the other woman lavished on the child and Beth had to rub that fact in, that and every other known piece of information, rub it in until it hurt, because that was the only way she could prevent herself from begging Charles to stay with her.
And the deeper the pain the more likely she was to regain the pride she had thrown away when she had agreed to be his wife, she had assured herself, steeling every nerve and muscle to open the door of the Metro Charles had provided her with shortly after their marriage, the car she hadn't had the guts to drive since the accident.
'Are you saying you want to come back into partnership?' Allie asked now, returning with two mugs of tea, and Beth shook her head, making herself smile as she took one of them and sank down on the sofa.
'Not necessarily.' The Helpline Agency, which they'd started together, was run from here, not ten miles away from South Park, and Beth didn't want to be this close.
Working locally, she wouldn't be able to avoid seeing Charles and Zanna and their son from time to time. Besides, her parents still lived in the village although her father had retired from medical practice a year ago, and they would expect her to visit them regularly, and every time she did she would have to drive right past the impressive gates of the South Park estate.
'Well, I can't see the lord of the manor allowing his wife to scrub floors, clean offices, cook for private dinner parties or dance attendance on a senile old lady,' Allie grinned, flicking through a much thumbed leather-bound book. 'Though you're not qualified for nursing duties, of course. And I can't see—'
'Anything in the secretarial line? That I am qualified for,' Beth put in, hoping she didn't sound too desperate. She needed to earn her living, be independent, and a part-time post, which was what the agency specialised in, would tide her over until she could find something permanent, as far away from here as was possible to get.
'Sorry.' Allie wrinkled her nose. 'Plenty last week, but nothing this. There's only one, and that's not suitable.'
'Pity.' Beth took a sip of scalding tea, trying to hide her deep disappointment. Nothing was ever easy, and walking straight into a job as she had hoped was, apparently, not on. She would have to get right away and look for permanent work. Not so simple. She could take the car, of course, since it had been a birthday gift, but she wouldn't, on principle, touch a penny of the generous allowance Charles paid into her private account. Finding affordable accommodation while she looked for work could be a headache.
And because Allie was astute, highly adept at picking up vibrations, Beth decided she had to show an interest, and she managed idly, 'So what's so unsuitable about the only position you appear to be unable to fill?' and had to force herself to keep her cool when Allie dismissed,
'It's in France. An English writer living in Boulogne—he moved there years ago, apparently, buying and renovating a small farmhouse a few kilometres inland.' Allie bit unrepentantly into her third chocolate biscuit and said through a mouthful of crumbs, 'It sounds a peach of a job. His permanent English secretary did a runner with a German hunk she met at Le Touquet and left him stranded. He wants a temp to take over while he hunts for another permanent lady—someone on the wrong side of fifty, and prim with it, so he says!' She tapped the open book in front of her reflectively. 'Betty Mayhew—you remember her, of course—is dead keen. And if he's still unsuited by the time she finishes her stint with Comtech, she can have a stab at it.'
'Betty was always good at getting what she wanted,' Beth reminded Allie smoothly, recalling the vibrantly attractive blonde who seemed to sail through life, and men-friends, with insouciant ease. She had been one of the first secretaries she and Allie had signed up all that time ago, and if she'd set her sights on a spell in north-west France then, for once, she was going to be disappointed.
Bitchy! she scolded herself tartly, then added decisively, 'Pity to miss out with a new client. I'll go. And don't think I've lost all my skills,' she admonished, deliberately misinterpreting her friend's pole-axed stare. 'I've done a fair bit of work for Charles, off and on; I've kept up to date, believe me.'
'Oh, I do,' Allie came right back. 'I do. But will Charles mind having an absentee wife? And don't think he can come up with something flash and buy a helicopter to ferry you home at five on the dot each evening,' she grinned. 'Part of the trouble my client is having is because he often finds he works best at night and has been known to wake his secretary in the small hours to take masses of dictation!'
Beth shrugged, avoiding Allie's eyes, telling her, 'That won't be a problem. Charles has to spend a great deal of time away from home himself,' and that was the truth. Since the accident he'd been away more often than not. 'He won't mind at all if I'm away for a few weeks.' And that was true, too. He and Zanna would be very happy if she were to make herself scarce. They wouldn't want her to hang around, making scenes, once they'd explained what was going on. And she didn't want that either. She would beat a dignified retreat. It was, after all, the only thing she could do.
She stood up gracefully, her natural poise coming to her aid. Allie could make what she liked of the situation and one day she, Beth, would tell her friend the truth behind it all. But not yet. She wasn't strong enough to face the sympathy, the 'I told you so's'. And she was more than thankful that her parents were away, taking the world cruise they'd promised themselves when her father had retired.
'Give me a ring tomorrow, would you?' she asked. 'After you've fixed everything.'
'I can do better than that,' Allie said, her brown eyes serious. 'If you can promise me that Charles Savage of South Park doesn't live up to his name and come to beat me up for sending his wife abroad.'
'That's about the last thing he'd do.' Beth made herself smile, aching inside because she knew the reverse was true. Charles would probably send Allie champagne and flowers for months for so opportunely helping him to rid himself of a wife he no longer wanted, the wife he had never pretended to love.
'If you say so!' But Allie was already reaching for the phone, punching numbers and, five minutes later, after intense conversation, she replaced the receiver and told Beth, 'He's weak with relief, or so he tells me. He has work piling up to the ceiling and you can't get there soon enough.' She scribbled rapidly on a card and handed it over to Beth. 'His address and phone number. If you get lost, you're to ring and he'll come to your rescue. And the same applies if you want meeting at Boulogne. Shall you fly, or cross by ferry?'
'Take the car on the ferry.' Beth tucked the pasteboard into her handbag and rose to go. If she was going to be completely independent then she might as well start now, and, although her heart was beating like a drum as she turned the Metro through South Park's gateposts, her soft mouth was set in lines of sheer determination, her green eyes cool.
Charles had made no secret of his reason for marrying her. He had wanted an heir, a family to enjoy all he had achieved. That he had distanced himself from her, emotionally and physically, after she had lost their child and the prognosis for her ever conceiving again had been unhopeful, had come as no surprise. What did surprise her, in retrospect, was her stupidity in agreeing to marry him in the first place. She had been besotted, she thought grimly, young enough and gullible enough to believe that she could teach him to love her.
But then, she excused as she garaged the car and locked it behind her, she hadn't known that Zanna would come back, bringing their love-child along with her. How could she have known? She would have run a mile if she had
been able to look into the future because, although she had been prepared to fight for Charles Savage's love, she didn't stand the ghost of a chance when Zanna was around. She never had done, and never would, and her strength lay in recognising that miserable and unalterable fact of life.
Her head was high as she walked through the hall and up the stairs. The whole house felt empty, very silent. Maybe Harry was still having his afternoon sleep and Charles and Zanna were taking advantage of it. She tried to tell herself she didn't care, but knew she did. The pain was almost too much to bear.
But she had to hold on. Had to pretend she was leaving of her own free will. Entering her room, she began to pack methodically, forcing herself to stay calm because if she let go, only for an instant, she would fall to pieces. And when she was ready to leave she would find Charles, say her piece and go, and that would be that. But it didn't work out like that, things never did, because Charles walked in through her door, making her jump out of her skin, and she spun round on her heels, her hand to her throat, her face running with fire.
And he said tautly, his austerely attractive features hard, 'Do you have a few free moments to spare for Zanna and me, yet?'
Beth shuddered suddenly, her whole body going cold. Ignoring the initial sarcasm coming from him, she saw his smoky eyes narrow as they fell on the open suitcase, and she got in quickly, 'I don't particularly want to hear whatever it is you and Zanna feel you want to say. It can't be important.' She turned her back on him, not willing for him to read the misery on her face.
She had to walk away from him before he got the chance to throw her out of his life; it was the only way she could salvage her pride, regain her self-respect. She wouldn't let herself crawl, or weep. Not in front of him, especially not when his old and only love was somewhere near—with the son the two of them had created together.
She heard the sudden angry hiss of indrawn breath a mere millisecond before his hard hands clamped down on her shoulders, dragging her round to face him, and her chin tilted up rebelliously as he grated blackly, 'What the hell's got into you?'
She could have told him, but wouldn't give him the satisfaction, or the opportunity to put his love, his need for Zanna and his son, into words. She could bear anything but that.
'Please let me go.' The heat from those strong fingers seared her skin through the thin fabric of her blouse, threatening to rob her of all her hard-won poise, and when his grip merely tightened she ground out quickly, hoping his anger at her refusal to listen to what he and his precious Zanna had to tell her would prevent him from guessing just how much his touch affected her, 'If you'll stop mauling me, I'll say what's on my mind.'
At the acid inflexion of her tone his hands dropped to his sides, his mouth going hard. It had worked like a charm, and if he thought his very touch disgusted her then that was a bonus. And she said tightly, before her will-power deserted her completely, 'I don't need to tell you how our marriage has been disintegrating these past few months.' She didn't specify dates, although she could have done, to the day. She couldn't bear to remind him, or herself, of the tragedy that had marked his loss of interest in her. 'I think it's best if we have a trial separation.'
She turned from him then, forcing herself to make her movements smooth and sure, taking a pile of lingerie from her dresser and adding it to the contents of her suitcase. Her heart was beating with a heavy, sickly rhythm, but he couldn't know that, and, although she couldn't see him, she was fully aware of the tense watchful look in those narrowed gunfighter's eyes, the tension that would be holding that powerfully crafted body rigid.
'Is that what you want?' There was a tightness in that deep husky voice that, had she not known better, she could have imagined to be pain. But she did know better, she reminded herself scornfully. He might not love her, and he assuredly wasn't planning on being faithful, but he wasn't an uncaring man and might be concerned about her future welfare.
Beth nodded, unable to speak for the moment because this was goodbye, wasn't it? Goodbye to the man she had always loved, to the future they might have had together had things worked out differently. Swallowing the painful lump in her throat, she bent to snap her case shut, the wings of her short, sleekly styled hair falling forwards to hide her face as she struggled to find her voice.
And then she managed, 'It is. I've got a job to go to, so you have no need to worry, and I suggest we get in touch in a month or two, to finalise things.' By then the whole locale would know she had gone, that Zanna had replaced her, returned to where she belonged. And by that time, although she knew she would never get over the pain, she would have created her own life away from him, gained in self-respect. And something bitter, deep inside her, made her add, 'And don't slam the door as you leave. It might wake Harry.'
'We might as well call it a day.' William Templeton dragged his fingers through his wiry light-brown hair, his craggy face drawn with fatigue. 'And thank you, Beth. We've done some good work—I can feel it in my bones.' His radiant smile suddenly flashed, transforming his plain, craggy features and Beth smiled back, she couldn't help herself; he was that kind of man.
She could even forgive him for knocking her up at four this morning, his fertile mind bursting with ideas for the mid section of his current book which had proved, up until then, a sticking point.
'Coffee?' Beth closed her shorthand notebook and laid it down beside the ancient electric typewriter on the cluttered desk, but William shook his head.
'I'm going to crash out for a couple of hours, and I suggest you do the same. If you're still asleep at noon I'll make lunch and wake you. OK?'
She nodded absently as he bumbled out of the book-filled study, physical tiredness and the relief of achievement making him look older than his forty years, making his chunky body in the worn old cords and battered sweater sag. And, momentarily, her green eyes softened.
During the ten days she'd been at the old farmhouse she had grown to like and respect the author. Despite his enormous commercial success he gave no signs of self-importance and although he worked her hard he was fair, paying excellent wages, insisting that she took plenty of time off to make up for his erratic working methods.
But although she had worked at full stretch for the last five hours, taking down his rapid-fire dictation, she was in no mood to go back to bed. She wouldn't sleep, she would simply lie there, prey to the thoughts she was still struggling to keep at bay.
Ten days wasn't nearly enough time to recover from the trauma of losing Charles, she told herself as she took herself off upstairs to shower in the slope-ceilinged bathroom beneath the eaves. She doubted if she would ever recover but hoped that, with time, she would come to terms with it, would be able to get on with her life without having to guard her thoughts and emotions so completely.
Coming to France had been the best thing she could have done, she assured herself as, dressed now in a full emerald-green cotton skirt and a navy sleeveless top, she made and drank some coffee in the heavily beamed farmhouse kitchen.
William, bless him, kept her hard at work, leaving her little time to fret. On her arrival he had greeted her as if she were a saviour and her self-esteem had been further enhanced when he'd praised her lavishly for the way she had tackled the piles of dogeared hand-written manuscript that had accumulated since he had been without a secretary.
But Mariette Voisin, who came in most days to tackle the housework, would be arriving at any moment and, although the elderly French woman spoke only garbled English, she was incorrigibly curious and subjected Beth to a barrage of almost unintelligible questions at every opportunity, so she rinsed out the earthenware coffee-cup she had been using and slipped out into the morning sunshine.
The converted farmhouse lay in a leafy hollow along a tangle of narrow lanes between Boulogne and Le Wast and when Beth had eventually managed to find it, that first day, she had known it would be the perfect place to hide.
Hide from whom? she scorned, kicking out at one of the
pebbles that littered the dusty lane. No need to hide when no one would come looking. Charles would be only too thankful that she had voluntarily removed herself from his life.
Frowning, she pushed the intrusive thoughts of him out of her mind, deliberately trying to relax. Crouched over her shorthand notebook for five long hours made her body crave air and exercise and here, in these lovely sun-drenched lanes with the thick forest trees never far away, was the perfect place to take it. And suddenly, as often seemed to happen in this enchanted land, she rounded a bend and came across a hidden hump-backed stone bridge which spanned a dancing stream, and leant there, catching her breath, grateful for the shade of the overhanging trees.
Then, as the sound of an engine disarranged the sleepy pattern of birdsong and bees, she flattened herself against the parapet, leaving as much passing space as possible on the narrow track, then turned as the vehicle stopped behind her, probably a tourist, bemused by the seemingly aimless wandering of the lanes.
But the polite half-smile died on her soft lips and her heart flipped, stopped, then raced on. And Charles said from the open car window, 'Get in.'
She couldn't move. She literally couldn't move a muscle. She didn't know what he was doing here, how he had found her, why he had bothered. She opened her mouth, but no words came, and she just knew she must look like a dying fish, and that made hot colour run from the slash of her V neckline to the roots of her hair; then she heard him mutter a violent expletive as he slid out of the car to tower over her.
'Don't give me that blank stare, woman. We have met before.' His teeth closed with a snap, his eyes raking her pale face. 'I'm the man you married, remember? Promising to love, honour and obey. So get in the car.'
His strong hands were clenched at his sides, bunched against the black denim of his jeans. He looked as if he would like to shake her until her head dropped off, and she pushed the word 'no' past her dry lips and saw his mouth go tight, the skin growing taut across the hard cheekbones and aggressive jaw.
Savage Obsession Page 3