The Dutiful Wife

by Penny Jordan

  Normally when they had dinner out in the evening it was because they were dining with business associates, and the time spent getting ready was a precious time of shared intimacy during which they discussed the events of their separate days and what they hoped to achieve from the evening ahead. Tonight, though, the normal comfortable familiarity of their shared routine—Saul stepping out of the shower to tell her something, her immediate response to his proximity and nudity making her smile at her own love and desire for him, his teasing comments on seeing her expression, about her being welcome to share his shower—which was the stuff of their married life, the warp and weft of what bonded and held them together, only reinforced her guilt and despair.

  She should not be in this dreadful situation. She had, after all, done nothing to deliberately cause it. She had not secretly wished for it or in any way encouraged it. Being pregnant was the last thing she wanted. The last thing she could be. But she was.

  ‘You smell nice. New scent?’ Saul asked, emerging from the bathroom with a towel wrapped round his hips to come up behind her and kiss the nape of her neck, exposed because she had clipped up her hair for her own shower.

  His compliment had Giselle freezing. Her scent hadn’t changed—it was the same one she always wore—but obviously she smelled different because of the hormonal changes within her body. A feeling familiar from her childhood gripped her. A feeling of sick panic and helplessness at being in a frightening situation over which she herself had no control. Now, as then, her first longing was for someone to turn to, someone to help her, but as before there was no one, and she was once again alone with the horror of her situation.

  Perhaps it was no mere coincidence that the first dress she automatically reached for out of the wardrobe which held her evening clothes was black—the colour of mourning—a sliver of a matt jersey in which the pleats and folds, once on the female human body, took on the subtle sensuality that was the designer’s hallmark.

  Giselle hesitated, her hand on the hanger, but then Saul called out, ‘Table’s booked for eight, and it’s seven now,’ causing her to remove the dress from the cupboard and pull it on.

  ‘Nice,’ Saul approved, coming into her dressing room just as she was stepping into a pair of high-heeled black sandals.

  ‘It’s Donna Karan,’ Giselle answered him, her lips oddly stiff as they formed the words, as though speaking normally was a new task she was having to learn.

  ‘No,’ Saul corrected her softly. ‘It’s you.’

  Sensing that he was about to kiss her, Giselle pulled away from him. She did not deserve Saul’s praise, she didn’t deserve his kisses, and she certainly did not deserve his love.

  It was just gone eight o’clock when they walked into the fashionable restaurant on Berkeley Street, with its designer interior. The restaurant operated a no reservations policy, but since they dined there regularly and it was mid-week they had no trouble in getting their favourite table, which afforded them both privacy and an opportunity to view the restaurant and the other diners if they wished.

  Having refused Saul’s offer of a drink in the bar before they went to their table, Giselle knew that she was going to have trouble managing to eat, but that she must do so or risk arousing Saul’s suspicions. Suspicions. Even the language she was using in her most private thoughts was the language of deceit and guilt, she acknowledged, and no wonder. She was, after all, being deceitful, and she was guilty. Not of getting pregnant. No part of her had wanted that.

  She had gone over and over again inside her head how it might have happened, and the only explanation she could come up with was that the sickness she had suffered after Aldo’s death must have somehow negated the effect of her contraceptive pills. If she had paid attention to that then she might have avoided what she was going through now. But she hadn’t, and now she was going to be forced to pay a terrible price. She and the child she was carrying.

  Her heart jumped inside her chest, her agitation causing her to knock a piece of cutlery onto the floor. When a waiter swooped to replace it Giselle tried to still the frantic thumping beat of her heart. Her pregnancy would have to be terminated—secretly, and soon. Not just because Saul did not want a child but because of her, because of the shocking and dark secret she held locked away within herself, within her genes. She could not and would not bring into the world a child who would suffer what she had had to suffer—a child who would carry the burden of the darkness that lay within her and which she could do nothing about.

  Saul watched as Giselle toyed with her food. She started nervously whenever he spoke to her, and at other times was so deep in her own thoughts that she was barely aware of him having spoken to her at all.

  Something was wrong, Saul knew. Her whole manner reminded him of the way she had been when they had first become intimate, when she had still carried with her the fear of abandonment she had suffered as a result of her parents’ deaths.

  Although the bar stayed open until two a.m. it was only just gone eleven when they left the restaurant and Saul hailed a taxi to take them home.

  Saul waited until they were preparing for bed before saying, quietly but firmly, ‘Something’s wrong. Something’s upsetting you. What is it?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Giselle denied instantly, and then, knowing that her denial would not satisfy Saul, added, ‘I’m just a bit concerned about my great-aunt.’

  ‘Would you like me to come up to Yorkshire with you when you go to see her?’

  ‘No!’ Giselle refused, horrified by the thought. She intended to use some of the time when Saul thought she was with her great-aunt to end her pregnancy. ‘I mean, there’s no need for you to do that. Not when you’ve already got so much to do,’ she amended, fearful that her frantic no might arouse Saul’s suspicions. ‘I feel guilty about being so far away from her now that we’re going to be based permanently at the palace,’ she added truthfully, since she did worry about the distance between Arezzio and Yorkshire.

  ‘There is nothing to stop us from having your great-aunt come to live with us. We could easily provide her with her own quarters, and help when she needs it. In fact I think it would be a good idea. She has a formidable brain, and I certainly enjoy her company. She plays a far better game of chess than you do,’ he teased.

  She managed to produce a wan smile in response to his teasing, even though her heart was thumping with fresh anxiety.

  ‘I’ll sound her out about moving, although I’m not sure she’ll want to. She’s made friends with so many of the other residents of the retirement home that she might not want to move.’

  Was that really why she didn’t want to disturb her great-aunt? Or was she afraid that her great-aunt might let something slip that would reveal her secret to Saul? After all, her great-aunt believed that he already knew the truth, and it would be easy for her to discuss Giselle’s childhood and its secrets with Saul without realising that she had not disclosed them to him.

  Hating herself for what she was thinking, Giselle walked into her dressing room, where she stepped out of her heels and then removed her dress, before opening the connecting door into the large bathroom that she and Saul shared.

  With its double wetroom, two basins and a large round tub the bathroom was a sybarite’s heaven. From the bath it was possible to look out of the one-way glass wall into the courtyard garden outside. When it was dark, as it was now, it was illuminated with clever and discreet outdoor lighting that highlighted olive trees and statues, as well as a fountain, and normally there was nothing Giselle enjoyed more than relaxing there. The bath had a shelf that one could sit on, and powerful water jets that could be activated when wanted. She and Saul had enjoyed many a sensual prelude to their lovemaking there, but tonight lovemaking was the last thing she felt she wanted. She didn’t deserve the warmth and comfort of Saul’s love, and she was terrified that in his arms she might break down and tell him what could not be told.

  So instead of a luxurious and sensual soak she opted for a brisk shower, s
tepping out of it quickly when Saul stepped in, biting her lip when she saw the look of surprise in his eyes as she rejected his movement towards her.

  For the first time in her married life Giselle did something she would never have imagined she would want to do—and that was to feign sleep when Saul got into bed, keeping her back to him and her eyes firmly closed. If he touched her now she was afraid that she would break down and throw herself on his mercy.

  ‘Giselle?’

  She froze when she felt the warmth of Saul’s body against her back and heard his voice in her ear.

  ‘I know you aren’t asleep.’

  ‘I want to go to sleep, though,’ she told him truthfully. ‘It’s been a long day and I’m very tired.’

  Giselle had never turned her back on him in bed before. They might not make full passionate love every night, but they always touched and kissed and slept close to one another. Inexplicably, she wanted to keep her distance from him. By saying she was very tired Saul knew she meant that she didn’t want him to touch her, and something inside him reacted with alpha-male determination at what translated as a rejection of him.

  ‘Perhaps I should try to change your mind?’ he suggested, moving closer to her, murmuring the words against the curve of her ear after stroking his hand beneath her hair and lifting it, so that his breath heated the oh, so sensitive and sensual flesh behind her ear.

  The temptation to relax back into him and then to turn round into his arms was so intense that it threatened to overwhelm her. Giselle’s flesh was so well attuned to his touch, so desirous of it, that it was already responding to the warmth of his breath. Tiny tremors of arousal were already shivering down her nerve-endings. But that pleasure couldn’t reach the cold lump of despair pressed against her heart. It couldn’t melt the icy terror that lay in the pit of her stomach. She couldn’t give herself to Saul, take from him the pleasure she knew he would give her, and not suffer even more guilt. It would be wrong of her to enjoy anything now, never mind the intimacy of lovemaking, in the circumstances that now engulfed her. She didn’t deserve to push her deceit to one side in order to bask in the warmth of Saul’s love and be held in his arms. What she really and truly deserved was the cold and icy wasteland of his contempt and rejection.

  Saul’s hand was on her waist. Soon he would be cupping her breast, fondling her nipple, teasing and tormenting her into turning round into his arms so that she could wrap her own around him and kiss him with all the passion she felt for him. But that must not happen.

  ‘Not now, Saul. I really am tired,’ she forced herself to say curtly, and she pulled away from him so that she was lying right on the edge of their large bed, with her back to him in a pose that was stiff with rejection.

  She could feel the mattress move as Saul moved back to his own side of the bed leaving a wasteland of cold emptiness between them. Giselle badly wanted to cry, but she felt that she did not deserve the relief of tears.

  It had been almost dawn before she had finally fallen into a nightmare-ridden sleep, during which she had heard a small baby crying somewhere out of sight. In her nightmare she had searched room after room for the child, only to eventually see her mother wheeling it away in a pram. She had cried out to her to stop, but her mother had only turned to look at her, screaming, ‘It’s your fault!’ before she and the child had disappeared. Now the nightmare had woken her, her body bathed in sweat even whilst she shivered at the same time. She was afraid to go back to sleep after that, but finally she must have done, because when she woke again it was to find that it was gone nine o’clock in the morning and there was no sign of Saul—not even one of the loving little notes he normally left for her when he had to leave before she had woken up.

  Giselle had no enthusiasm for getting up and dressed; she would far rather have stayed where she was, with the bedclothes pulled over her head, blotting out the reality of her life. But nature would not allow her to do that. Her head was thumping with a bad headache. She knew there would be some tablets in the bathroom cabinet, but as soon as she thought of taking them an inner voice reminded her that she was pregnant. For the baby’s sake she should not take any medication not approved by a doctor.

  For the baby’s sake? There was not going to be a baby. There could not, must not be a baby—for its sake as well as her own. She remembered her nightmare, and the painful piercing cry of the child who had disappeared. Her whole body began to shake.

  She mustn’t think of that. She must be strong. She must not waver. Wasn’t there something about unpleasant deeds? If they must be done then they should be done swiftly? She certainly could not afford to waste too much time. She was, she estimated, about fourteen weeks pregnant.

  She needed to do what had to be done speedily. She must find a doctor—not her own private GP, who was also Saul’s, but someone else. What did one do in such circumstances? There were clinics, she knew, and telephone helplines. Her headache grew worse, a sickening, thudding pounding in her temples, and for the first time she did feel head-swimmingly nauseous. This nausea, though, was caused by her emotions and not her physical condition, she was sure.

  Lethargically she pushed back the bedclothes and made her way into the bathroom, where she showered quickly, barely able to bring herself to touch her body even though her stomach was still flat and her waist still narrow.

  Half an hour later she was seated in front of her computer, checking the details of her internet search, which had given her the addresses of several private clinics.

  A telephone call to one of them informed her that the first appointment they could offer her to speak with a doctor and the necessary counsellor was not until later in the week. The other clinics said much the same thing, so in the end she went back to the first clinic and made the appointment with them.

  Once they had discharged her—afterwards—she would travel up to Yorkshire to see her great-aunt, although her stay there would be shorter than Saul was going to believe it was. She booked herself into a different hotel from the one she normally used—one rather more anonymous. How long would things take? She had no idea.

  In the meantime before her appointment there were things she needed to do. Get some cash, for one—enough cash to pay the clinic bill.

  Saul couldn’t concentrate on the e-mail he was supposed to be reading. He couldn’t concentrate on anything, he admitted, whilst his mind refused to stop focusing on what had happened last night. Giselle had never turned away from him in bed before. Normally she wanted them to be close, to sleep entwined, and she had often commented a little bashfully on how much she enjoyed waking up in the night to find that he had thrown one leg over her in his sleep, as though to keep her there at his side.

  ‘It makes me feel needed and a part of you,’ she had told him. But it now seemed, or at least last night it had seemed, that she quite definitely did not want to feel either of those things.

  He pushed away his laptop and stood up, his action drawing the attention of Moira, his PA, who came into his office.

  ‘I’ve just remembered that I left some papers I need at home,’ he told her untruthfully. ‘I need to go back and get them.’

  ‘But what about your appointment?’ Moira asked him.

  ‘Cancel it.’ Saul reached for his suit jacket, the movement of the strong muscles of his torso catching the eye of the smartly dressed junior executive walking through the foyer below Saul’s glass-fronted mezzanine office and causing her to contrast Saul’s exciting maleness with the metrosexual softness of her current boyfriend’s less than honed body.

  Alpha-men might be arrogant and demanding, entrenched in their maleness with all that that meant, but there was no denying their sexual appeal, she acknowledged, with a small sigh of envy for her boss’s wife—the wife to whom everyone knew he was devoted. That was the thing. Once you’d tamed an alpha-male and he had decided on commitment he was yours for life.

  Upstairs Saul, oblivious to her existence, closed his laptop and put it into its leather case, r
eaching for his BlackBerry as he did so. His intention was to tell Giselle that he was on his way home. But then he paused and just looked at the phone, before restoring it to his pocket.

  Why? Why was he not phoning Giselle? Surely not because he thought that if he didn’t he would catch her out in some way? Saul didn’t much like the direction his thoughts were taking and what it said about him—any more than he liked the instinctive hard edged alpha-male egotism that was pushing aside the far less judgemental, questioning and downright suspicious side of his nature that marriage to Giselle had encouraged within him. But Giselle’s behaviour last night had been so out of character—like her suggestion that she came to the UK on her own. She had been justifiably angry about his deathbed promise to Aldo—made without consulting her. Did that mean…? What? That she no longer loved him? That she would be unfaithful to him? That she wasn’t honest enough to discuss her feelings with him? If there was one thing that Saul could not tolerate it was dishonesty. In anyone.

  Giselle was in the bedroom when Saul unlocked the front door and silently glanced into the other empty rooms before making his way there. She was dressed and ready to go out, and would indeed have already left the house prior to Saul’s arrival if she hadn’t been distracted by the fact that the packaging from the pregnancy testing kits and the kits themselves were still in her handbag. She would have to discard everything discreetly—secretly, she corrected herself, with sharp dislike of her own ongoing need for deception. Her fingers closed round one of the positive tests. Unable to stop herself, she took it out of her handbag, driven by her longing for things to be different to look at it again, as though by doing so she could somehow change what it said and undo everything that it meant.