“And so do I. Children deserve honesty and respect. Another lesson I’ve learnt too late.” He leant back on the pillow, gazing out of the window to a view of almost solid rock, broken up only here and there with patches of growth. “Strikes me that child’s grown up in a house so full of lies and artifice she’s hungry for truth, even if it is difficult. She’s learnt to shut herself away, disconnect herself from the world, like you have. Like I did. And it’s partly my fault she’s lived through what she has and believed it to be normal. I want you to protect her, Rose, but don’t lie to her. Don’t let her be shut away from the world like we were. There is too much joy in it to be missed. And that is the last thing I wanted for either of you.”
“Do you think I’ve ruined her?” Rose asked him. “I let her live that way. I believed she was immune to it all, because everything that happened, happened out of sight. It’s only since we got here, since I’ve seen her stop living constantly on the edge of her seat, that I’ve realized she went through it just as much as I did. I should have left so much earlier, the day she was born, long before she was born. Why didn’t I? Why wasn’t I strong enough?”
“I don’t think you should dwell on that,” John said, studying her face. “Maddie’s damaged, yes, and so are you. But you have a lifetime to repair that damage, and that’s what you need to focus on now. That’s what I need to know that you will be focusing on after I’m gone.”
Rose nodded. “I promise,” she said.
“I had hoped to die looking at the mountain peak,” he said drowsily, returning his gaze to the window. “Not its grubby roots.”
“I’m sorry,” Rose said.
“Don’t be.” John smiled at her, reaching for her hand. “I can’t manage the stairs all of a sudden and there it is. There’s nothing to be done about it. Thank you for making this neglected old room as pleasant as you have.”
Rose said nothing, sitting on the edge of the bed as she looked out the window at the wall of rock outside.
“Feeling trapped?” John asked her. “You know you don’t have to stay, don’t you? I don’t expect you to. You are under no obligation.”
“Yes,” Rose said, “I do feel trapped, but not by you or your mountain. I’m just trying to come to terms with the life that I have, the one that closes doors as soon as it opens them. That’s what I feel trapped by: my fate to only ever have who or what I want for the shortest of times. You, Mum, a happy marriage . . .” Frasier, she added silently.
“Don’t say that,” John said. “You have Maddie, and she is quite the most interesting child I’ve ever met. And although your mother is gone, and I soon will be, you will always have us. I wonder if I’ll see her again, afterwards. I do hope so. I would very much like to apologize to her for being such an arse.”
“I don’t think you’ll have to,” Rose said. “Mum forgave you long before she died. It was her own frailties that she never let up on.”
“Then I’ll apologize for that,” John said drowsily, his eyes fluttering. “I never met a finer woman than your mother. If I could have just loved her enough then I would have been a very happy man.”
He breathed out a long rattling breath as he drifted into sleep, and Rose waited for his chest to rise and fall again twice before she felt able to get up and go back to the living room.
Tilda was gone. Only Frasier remained, standing by the kitchen sink, looking out the window, the afternoon sunshine lighting up his face with golden promise, making him look very young, just exactly as he had the first time Rose had met him. She stood for a moment watching him, wishing she was free to go to him, touch his cheek and kiss him, just as she longed to do. Perhaps her feelings for him had been nothing more than pipe dreams when she arrived, but now, oddly perhaps, since he’d withdrawn romantically she found she still loved him so much it ached and pulsated in every limb, every fiber of her body.
“Hello,” she said for want of anything better to say and needing to make her presence known somehow.
“Hello.” Frasier turned to her and smiled. “Tilda went. She said to call her if you needed anything. I think she finds this all rather hard, keeping her distance, being stalwart. She’s trying awfully hard to do the right thing by you.”
“I know,” Rose said. “I know I need to do the same for her, and I will.”
“I told her about the exhibition,” Frasier went on. “She thinks it’s a great idea and on that front I have cleared the schedule and got the PR people ready. So now we need to talk to your father, to get him to allow me to remove the work, photograph it, frame it, hang it, get it ready to be discovered.” He hesitated, smiling ruefully. “I was thinking that perhaps that part would come better from you?”
“Me?” Rose said, feeling daunted by the prospect. “I’m not sure. I promised Dad I wouldn’t look at his work before he was ready to show it to me. And I haven’t broken that promise yet. I think it should come from you.”
“Or how about both of us,” Frasier said warmly, “presenting a united front. And we can recruit Maddie too. He’s bound to be less angry with her as a buffer.”
Rose grinned. “He’d be glad to know that we are still intimidated by him.”
“I always will be,” Frasier said fondly. “I’ve never met another man like him.”
The two of them stood there in the late afternoon sunshine, smiling at each other for a moment longer, sensing the gulf of years stretching between them, now seemingly impossible to bridge.
“I should go,” Frasier said. “I’ve got this dinner.”
“Cecily will be waiting,” Rose added.
“No.” Frasier hesitated. “I ended things with Cecily. It wasn’t right to string her along. I didn’t love her, not as much as a man should love a woman. And judging by her reaction, I don’t think she loved me more than life itself either. If anything, she was almost relieved.”
“Oh,” Rose said, uncertain how to react. “It’s just I thought after . . . what happened.”
There was a difficult silence, neither of them knowing quite what to say next.
“I’ll be down tomorrow,” Frasier said finally. “I will be here every single day that I can be for your father, for as long as it takes.”
After a moment, Frasier came to her and kissed her lightly on the cheek. “Goodbye, Rose.”
Rose waited for his car to disappear round the track before she let herself cry.
• • •
At some point after Frasier left, she must have fallen asleep, if only for a few minutes, sitting in her father’s chair, the sunshine dappling on her cheek. Rose woke up with a start, certain she had forgotten something and, more than that, that something was terribly wrong. Sitting up abruptly, she felt her heart pounding fiercely in her chest, gripped by an instinctive fear that she knew was real.
Her first instinct was to go to John’s room, where, after a moment’s inspection, she reassured herself he was just still sleeping, his chest rising and falling steadily. And then she heard it, just a snatch of voice carried by a breeze through the open window. It was Maddie’s voice, and although Rose heard it for only a second she was certain that Maddie sounded afraid.
Remembering that her daughter had been in the barn alone for over an hour, Rose panicked, racing toward the building, but Maddie was nowhere to be seen. The open door, swinging on its hinges in the increasingly brisk wind, slammed shut in a series of nerve-shattering bangs. Turning wildly on her heel, Rose scanned the empty yard, whipping round frantically to study the hillside for any sign of Maddie in her brightly spotted sundress, afraid that the little girl had taken her newfound freedom to heart and gone by herself for a walk.
“No!” Rose gasped. Maddie’s shout came from inside the barn, but not from the first room; that had been empty. She must be in the room where John dried his work. Her heart in her mouth, Rose rushed back, pausing for a fraction to see the padlock that normally kept the door locked had been forced open, but the door was pulled shut.
Sick with fear, R
ose flung the door open to see her daughter staring defiantly up at her father, who was standing in front of her, his hands on her shoulders. He was speaking, but so quietly Rose didn’t catch a word of it before he looked up and saw her. He turned towards her smiling, one hand still possessively gripping Maddie.
Rose took a ragged breath, her body urging her to run as fast as she could, her heart keeping her rooted to the spot where, a meter away, she was certain her daughter was in danger. Richard had finally found them, and he was very, very angry.
She stood for several seconds staring at him, the set of his shoulders, the incline of his head as he talked to Maddie, trying to decipher his mood as she had a thousand times before. To anyone who didn’t know him the way Rose did, watching him now, he seemed completely relaxed, at ease.
But Rose knew better. She knew that no one could do a better job of hiding away his rage behind a pleasant smile and a polite tone than her husband. Maddie, on the other hand, was harder to read. She looked calm, determined even, but her fists were tightly clenched, and although she was standing perfectly still, Rose could see that every sinew of the little girl was repelled and desperate to be away from her father’s touch.
There was nothing for it, Rose realized, struggling to control the fear that gripped her. She could not run away; there was nowhere to hide. This was the moment when she had to face him. Now she would find out if she really had what it took to stand on her own two feet, to protect her daughter, to be the woman she needed to be finally to be free of him.
“Rose,” Richard greeted her, no doubt seeing the look on Maddie’s face as she approached. “I found our daughter alone and unattended in a barn, a building literally chock-full of death traps. Not the most responsible of parenting, if you don’t mind my saying. Not that I’m in the least bit surprised. By the look of what you’ve done to your hair you really have lost it this time. You look ridiculous.”
“Why did you break into this room?” Rose asked him, keeping her gaze locked on him, afraid that if she stopped looking at him, even for one second, something might happen that she couldn’t prevent.
“I didn’t,” said Richard, while Maddie’s flinch as the tips of his fingers whitened on her bare shoulder revealed the real truth. “The door was already open.”
Why did he come here and, instead of coming to find and confront her, take Maddie somewhere he thought no one would see and hear them? What dreadful way had he been planning to take his revenge on her?
“Maddie, come here,” Rose said as calmly as she could, holding out her arms to her daughter, who took a step towards her but was prevented from coming farther by her father’s hand.
“What are you doing?” Rose asked him as calmly as she was able, drawing on her years of practice of not letting him see she was afraid, even if he already knew it.
“I’ve missed my little girl,” Richard said, his tone so cold, so devoid of any affection that Rose wondered if he’d ever loved their daughter at all, if all that too had been just another charade to add to his carefully constructed replica of the perfect family man. Her maternal instinct flaring fiercely, Rose went to Maddie and took her arm in one hand, the other detaching his hand from her shoulder with relative ease. Richard seemed amused by her efforts, but not intimidated.
Rose backed away towards the door, sheltering Maddie against her body, noticing the red fingerprints on her skin that would soon turn to bruises.
“What do you want, Richard?” she asked him.
“I’m rather surprised that you have to ask me that,” he said, his smile icy. “You run away, for no reason, with my child, without telling me where you are or how she is. Am I expected just to give up without looking for you, when you know I love you both so much and that your place is at home with me?”
“I didn’t run away for no reason.” Rose forced herself to speak, despite feeling paralyzed by the fear that came from knowing what her husband had been, and was, capable of. The longer she kept him talking like this, the better chance she would have of finding a way out, of getting Maddie away. Rose knew that this polite conversation was a thin veneer, scarcely concealing the fury that simmered below, and if Richard was willing to intimidate his daughter to get his own way, there was no telling what else he would do. It seemed that her bid for freedom had eroded what little self-control he’d had. Now he felt justified in doing what he must to regain control, and Rose knew with heart-stopping certainty that he was waiting for his chance to crush her in whatever way he could. She also knew that there was a very real chance she might not be able to escape him.
Think of Maddie, she told herself, tensing every sinew of her body, refusing to allow herself to shake in front of him. Save Maddie.
“I left you, Richard, and you know perfectly well why,” she said.
Richard’s eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly, and then he smiled that awful smile so laden with menace that Rose knew only too well. It was her final warning.
“I’ve missed you too, Rose, I can’t wait for the chance for us to get reacquainted,” Richard said, walking slowly towards them.
“Maddie, go to Granddad,” Rose said urgently, pushing her daughter towards the door, putting her body between the exit and Richard. “Go and tell him where I am.”
“But . . .” Maddie hesitated by the door, torn between wanting to run and a reluctance to leave her mother.
“Go!” Rose told her, as steadily as she was able to, unable to muster a smile. “I will be fine.” The last thing Rose wanted was to be parted from her daughter, but she could not use her as a human shield and they could not stay here in this stalemate forever. If Richard was going to strike, it was best that it was when Maddie wasn’t there. Maddie took one last look at her mother and ran, the outer barn door slamming shut in the wind that raged outside, rattling the rafters and beams of the barn.
Rose turned back to Richard and braced herself for what was to come, her relief at getting Maddie out of immediate danger short-lived. The rational part of her mind told her this was her husband, and she’d been married to him for years; it wasn’t as if he was going to kill her. But another, more primal part of her knew with awful certainty that something had broken in Richard, that what little restraint he’d had before was gone and now he was capable of anything.
“Shall we?” he said, gripping her arm the moment that Maddie left, dragging her farther inside the room and pushing the door shut again.
“Don’t touch me,” Rose said fiercely, shaking free of his grasp with some effort, feeling the imprints of his grip on her tender arm. She glared at him, gratified to see that her show of temper surprised him, not that it would do her much good. In one maneuver, he had her trapped inside the room and was blocking her way to the door.
“You don’t get to touch me anymore, Richard,” she said boldly. He wasn’t used to her standing up to him, being anything but compliant and meek. Perhaps if she showed him how strong she had become he would back down. It was a faint hope, but the only thing Rose could think of at that moment.
“Don’t I?” Richard said, watching her and seeming to take a great deal of pleasure in her predicament. “We’ll see about that, won’t we?”
“Look,” Rose said, fighting to keep her composure, her voice strong and loud, struggling to say anything, do anything that would defuse the situation, “if you just think, for a minute . . . see what you are doing. It doesn’t have to be this way. We don’t have to hate each other. Let’s just do the right thing. Let’s get divorced and you can see Maddie. I won’t stand in your way. I just want—”
“Nice try,” Richard said, slowly closing the gap between them. “It’s too late for that now. I want my family back in my house. I want you and my daughter back in my home where you belong. And when I’m ready, you’ll go inside, you’ll pack your things, and we’ll leave. But first, I think it’s time we had a little reunion, don’t you?”
“No.” Rose shook her head, pressing her lips together to stop her teeth from chattering. �
�No, Richard, please don’t—”
“Don’t argue with me, Rose,” Richard said, dangerously close to losing his cool.
“Why?” Rose asked him desperately, trying to circle round him toward the door. “Why do this? When you haven’t loved me for years, if you ever did. When all you do is trap and torment me, even hurting your own child, because you can’t wait to punish me for something I will never understand. Why?”
“How many times do I have to tell you?” Richard asked her angrily. “You belong to me. You owe me. I rescued you, Rose. I picked you up at your lowest, most pathetic point, and I gave you a life, a husband, a family, a home. And now you are going to repay me for all the strain and stress you’ve put me through. You’re going to make me feel better, like a good wife should.”
Richard backed her against a wall, his sour breath filling her nostrils, making her want to gag.
“Just do exactly as I say,” he murmured as he closed the gap between them.
On the last two words he closed in on her, trapping her against the wall of the barn with an arm either side of her head.
Gritting her teeth, Rose was determined not to show him fear, not to show him even a glimpse of the sickening dread she felt coursing through her, knowing all too well what would come next.
“No,” she told Richard, determined to meet his eye. “I will never do what you want me to, never ever again.”
With whiplike precision Richard hit her sharply across the face, sending her cheek smashing into the barn wall with the force of the blow. Rose blinked, fighting the darkness that suddenly crowded the edge of her vision, stumbling sideways, momentarily dazed as stars swam in front of her eyes. Adrenaline was the only thing stopping her from passing out—that and the knowledge that, no matter what happened, she couldn’t leave Maddie and John to Richard’s mercy.
“See what you made me do?” Richard asked her. “Me, who has never laid a finger on you in anger. And now you’ve made me hurt you. I hope you are ashamed, Rose. You should be.”
The Runaway Wife Page 33