Marriage on Trial

by Lee Wilkinson

  She watched his long, lean hands as he began to butter the crisp, golden toast, and remembered them touching her, caressing her, moving over her body with sensuous appreciation, bringing a singing delight wherever they touched.

  ‘Marmalade or honey?’

  His query made her jump. She took a deep, gasping breath, like a swimmer who’d been under water too long. ‘I don’t want any toast.’

  Carefully, he said, ‘If you’re still set on ending our marriage, we need to talk, and over breakfast is as good a time as any.’

  His light tone failing to disguise his air of purpose, he added, ‘As I’ve mentioned before, I don’t like eating alone… So may I suggest you decide between marmalade and honey, and start drinking your tea before it gets cold?’

  It seemed that in this, as in most things, he intended to have his way.

  ‘Marmalade,’ she said, and picked up her cup. The sooner they had talked, the sooner he would leave.

  As though she’d spoken the thought aloud, he remarked, ‘I don’t want to be too late getting away. I’m going to Saltmarsh. You remember Saltmarsh?’

  ‘Yes,’ she admitted in a stifled voice.

  ‘You didn’t seem to last night.’

  He appeared to be waiting for a response of some kind, and as though the words were dragged out of her she found herself saying, ‘I’ve never been back there.’

  ‘Not even when my father was desperately ill and asking to see you.’

  ‘I—I didn’t know…’

  ‘It seems he moved heaven and earth to try to find you.’

  ‘Is he…?’

  ‘He died six months ago.’

  Elizabeth swallowed hard. ‘I’m sorry.’ Then, lifting her chin, she added, ‘Whether you believe it or not, I was genuinely fond of him.’

  That was less than the truth. In the comparatively short time she had been Henry Durville’s secretary he had become like a father to her.

  ‘The regard appears to have been mutual,’ Quinn observed wryly. ‘He left you half his estate…. His solicitors have been trying to trace you.’

  CHAPTER FOUR

  ELIZABETH’S jaw dropped. ‘What?’

  ‘He left you half his estate,’ Quinn repeated flatly.

  ‘Are you sure?’ She felt stunned.

  ‘Quite sure. Surprisingly, as we hadn’t been on speaking terms since you ran away, he made me his executor…

  ‘Apart from Saltmarsh House and some family jewellery, which was willed to me, and a substantial legacy for his housekeeper, everything was split between you and Piery.’

  ‘Oh, no,’ she whispered. If she’d ever treasured any faint hope of convincing Quinn he’d been wrong about her, it had just died.

  Lifting a face that looked ashen, she insisted, ‘I don’t want his money. I never did want it. You can have it back. He should have left it to you in the first place.’

  Quinn shook his head. ‘Even if we hadn’t fallen out he knew perfectly well that I had no need of it.’

  ‘Then Piery must have it.’

  ‘Piery has quite enough.’ Seeing she was about to protest, Quinn went on, ‘If it puts your mind at rest, I made sure Piery was financially secure when Henry turned him out.’

  Startled, she asked, ‘Why on earth did Henry turn Piery out? What had he done?’

  ‘During the bust-up, he actually used the phrase “There’s no fool like an old fool” in front of Henry.’

  ‘You don’t mean Piery thought…?’

  ‘That Henry was besotted? What else was he to think?’

  Oh, dear God, Elizabeth thought despairingly, it was worse than she’d ever imagined. Wringing her hands, she burst out, ‘Well, I don’t care who the money goes to, but I won’t take it.’

  A cynical twist to his lips, Quinn said, ‘You may change your mind if Beaumont changes his.’

  ‘If I don’t marry Richard I’m quite capable of supporting myself.’

  ‘I don’t doubt it. But Henry left you that money. He wanted you to have it.’

  ‘No, I can’t take it.’

  ‘Then you’ll have to contact his solicitors and tell them how to dispose of it. In the meantime,’ he added carefully, ‘there’s one item of jewellery that I hope you’ll be prepared to accept.’

  Seeing she was about to refuse, he continued, ‘When Henry was on his deathbed—’

  ‘You were there?’

  ‘They sent for both Piery and myself. Though the family had been split for so long it seemed he wanted to make it up before he died.

  ‘Unfortunately, by the time we got there, a further stroke, in a series of strokes, meant he was unable to speak or write intelligibly. But he made me understand that he wanted you to have this particular brooch. So if you did think anything of him…’ Quinn left the sentence unfinished.

  ‘Who did it belong to?’

  ‘When I did a spot of delving I found it had been in the family since the early sixteen hundreds. I presume that, as you were helping my father write the family history, you know that the Durvilles first made their fortune as shipbuilders and shipowners before becoming merchant bankers?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Watching her face like a hawk, he continued, ‘Well, it seems the brooch belonged to the wife of Christopher Durville, who helped to build, and actually sailed with, the Mayflower.’

  ‘Oh, but I couldn’t take anything as—’

  ‘Before you start to argue, may I point out that it’s probably because of its historical connections that he wanted you to have it? And there are no other close female relatives who might conceivably want it.

  ‘As you probably know, Henry had only the one brother, my mother has been dead for well over twenty years, and Piery’s mother ran away with another man.’

  With a bleak smile, he added, ‘For one reason or another we seem unable to keep our women in this family.’

  Wincing at his bitterness, she said, ‘Though I’m not really a relative, if Henry wanted to give me the brooch, I’ll be pleased to have it.’

  A look that she was unable to decipher crossed Quinn’s dark face. ‘Then as soon as you’re ready we’ll go.’

  Startled, she asked, ‘Go? Go where?’

  ‘Saltmarsh.’

  ‘No, I can’t go with you.’

  She couldn’t bring herself to return to the place where once, before the bottom had dropped out of her world, she’d been so very happy.

  ‘Apart from picking up the brooch, there are some other things I’d like you to look through.’

  ‘I don’t really—’

  ‘All of them belong to you.’

  As she began to shake her head, he said, ‘Because everything happened so quickly, you left quite a few personal possessions at the house.’

  In a stifled voice, she said, ‘Perhaps you could let me have the brooch. There’s nothing else I want.’

  ‘Nothing?’

  ‘Nothing at all.’

  His face hardened. ‘Are you sure about that? I can give you—’

  Feeling unbearably pressured, she cried a shade wildly, ‘I’ve told you, I don’t want anything else from you.’

  ‘Not even that freedom you were on about?’

  She caught her breath. ‘Do you mean you’ll be willing to have the marriage annulled?’

  He glanced at her from beneath long, dark lashes. ‘I might be. On one condition.’

  ‘What condition?’

  ‘That you come down to Saltmarsh with me.’

  Why was he so determined to have her go with him to Saltmarsh? Elizabeth wondered with a shiver. What could he hope to gain? Maybe nothing. Perhaps it was simply to feed his ego, to prove his power over her?

  Well, whatever his reasons, she wouldn’t go, wouldn’t allow him to blackmail her like this. She would call his bluff and tell him to do his worst.

  But if he wasn’t bluffing, though he couldn’t prevent her getting an annulment, he could no doubt make things lengthy and difficult…

  Watchin
g the conflicting emotions chase across her face, Quinn said levelly, ‘The choice is yours.’

  Unable to make it, Elizabeth found herself playing for time. ‘Who lives there now?’

  ‘Only the housekeeper. After my father died I let the rest of the staff go.’ Casually, Quinn went on, ‘Before I return home I’m hoping to get the place cleared of all personal stuff.’

  With a sudden feeling of dismay, she asked sharply, ‘Surely you don’t mean you’re thinking of putting it up for sale?’

  ‘Why not? Other than the housekeeper, who’s been at Saltmarsh House for the past thirty years, no one seems interested in living there. And thanks to the legacy my father left her Mrs Wickstead will soon be able to retire comfortably.

  ‘When Piery got married—’

  ‘Piery got married?’

  ‘Three months ago, to Gemma Buchan, the youngest daughter of Lord Buchan.’

  So that explained why Piery had been at the charity do, Elizabeth thought irrelevantly; Lady Beaumont and Lady Buchan were old friends.

  ‘As I was saying,’ Quinn went on, ‘when Piery got married I offered to give him Saltmarsh House. But he has to be in town most days, and he didn’t think commuting was practicable. I can’t say I blame him. However, it does mean that the house is standing virtually empty.’

  ‘But why sell it? You can’t need the money.’

  ‘What’s the point of keeping it?’

  ‘Henry would never have parted with it. He loved the old place…’

  Then, with a kind of desperation, she said, ‘Doesn’t the fact that it’s been in the Durville family for generations mean anything to you? I know you’ve chosen to live in the States for most of your life, but surely you—’

  ‘Do you know why I chose to live in the States?’ Quinn broke in curtly.

  She shook her head.

  ‘Then perhaps it’s time I told you about my childhood. When my mother and father met, she was eighteen and he was thirty-three. To all intents and purposes he was a confirmed bachelor, but a few weeks later they were married.

  ‘She died when I was just four and a half, leaving my father and me alone. The following autumn he met and fell deeply in love with a dark-haired slip of a girl called Beth. She refused to marry him, but she agreed to come and live with us. She was beautiful and kind and I worshipped her. I felt sure she loved me, and I was just starting to feel secure again when one day she kissed me goodbye and left.

  ‘The following year, and probably out of loneliness, my father married a redhead named Helen. But this time things were very different. I disliked my new stepmother, and she disliked me.

  ‘I can’t say I blame her; I was an awkward, surly child, and jealous as hell…’

  Why had Quinn elected to tell her all that, Elizabeth wondered helplessly, when it was no longer any concern of hers…?

  But he was going on. ‘When Piery was born, things went from bad to worse. He seemed to get all the attention, and, feeling even more unloved and unwanted, I became almost impossible to live with.

  ‘One day, when I’d been particularly difficult, Helen told my father that she couldn’t stand it any longer. Either I went or she did.’

  Quinn, who had been speaking quite dispassionately, smiled bleakly at Elizabeth’s appalled expression.

  ‘Oh, yes, I was young and foolish enough to hope he might want to keep me. It wasn’t until I got a lot older that I realized what an impossible situation he’d been faced with.

  ‘In the event he decided that, young as I was, the only thing he could do was pack me off to a boarding-school. But then my uncle William, who had joined the Boston branch of the family and married an American, offered to take me for a while. My father gave me the choice, and I chose to go to Boston.

  ‘It was a happy choice. My aunt and uncle, who hadn’t been able to have a family of their own, gave me the kind of love and care every child needs, and became in effect my parents.

  ‘When Helen left Piery and my father for another man, they asked me if I wanted to go home. I said no. As far as I was concerned, Boston was my home. I didn’t come back to England, not even for a visit, until I was grown up.’

  His voice holding a hint of challenge, he asked, ‘Now do you still expect me to care about the house?’

  ‘I can quite understand how you might still be angry and embittered,’ Elizabeth said carefully.

  ‘Ah, but I’m not. And don’t go thinking I hated either Piery or my father…’

  A sudden bleakness assailed her. No, recalling what he’d done to help and protect them, she would never have thought that.

  ‘Though after all those years we were virtual strangers and we all had hang-ups—I felt resentful, my father felt guilty, and Piery was jealous in his turn—we soon got on very well.

  ‘By the time you came on the scene, though we didn’t meet often, we were as close as any normal family.’

  And unwittingly she had wrecked that closeness.

  A razor-sharp edge to his tone, Quinn added, ‘Though perhaps that’s hardly the right word to use in connection with our family. It isn’t normal for a father and son to fall in love with the same woman.’

  ‘And it isn’t true!’

  ‘You can’t deny that my father was in love with you… And even I, who in the circumstances ought to have had a great deal more sense, ended up totally bewitched.’

  But that was a complete misinterpretation. Henry had been fond of her, which wasn’t the same as being in love; and Quinn, despite what he’d just said, had never cared twopence for her.

  ‘It isn’t true,’ she repeated.

  ‘Isn’t it?’

  Elizabeth felt hopeless and defeated. What was the point of arguing? It was just a waste of breath. Wearily, she said, ‘Anyway, it’s all over and done with. Henry’s gone, and our marriage will soon be annulled.’

  His smile enigmatic, he reminded her, ‘That depends on whether or not you come to Saltmarsh with me.’

  Every atom of her being rebelled at the thought. How could she bear to go back and stir up all the painful memories that lay in wait there? Especially with Quinn watching her, aware of everything she was thinking and feeling.

  But for Richard’s sake, as well as her own, she wanted everything to be smooth and straightforward. It was even conceivable that if things moved quickly enough she would be free in time to plan a spring wedding.

  Supposing Richard was still willing to marry her when he knew the truth.

  Though whether he was or not, Elizabeth thought decidedly, she wanted this mockery of a marriage to be over and done with. Wanted Quinn out of her life as soon as possible.

  If, to achieve that, she had to give in to his demands and go with him, then she would do it. They would only be there a short while, and Mrs Wickstead, a comfortable, homely woman, was still living in the house, so they wouldn’t be alone…

  Taking a deep breath, she agreed, ‘Very well, I’ll come,’ and watched for any overt sign of triumph.

  But, his face impassive, he said, ‘As you may recall, it has to be low tide to get across the causeway, so to be on the safe side we’d better not lose any time.’

  Carefully, she suggested, ‘Then if you wouldn’t mind waiting downstairs I’ll be as quick as I can.’

  Smiling wryly at her studious politeness, he picked up the tray, and a moment later the latch clicked behind him.

  Hurrying to the bathroom, Elizabeth cleaned her teeth and showered. When she returned to the bedroom she found the pillows and neatly folded blankets Quinn had used the previous night piled at the foot of her bed.

  As quickly as possible, she coiled up her hair and dressed to make a statement, all the while striving to persuade herself that she was doing the right thing. But, some sixth sense warning of danger, she was unable to dispel an inner conviction that she was acting like a fool.

  When she made her way downstairs, Quinn was nowhere to be seen. Opening the door, she found that he was waiting by the car. Wearing an ol
ive-green jacket over his sweater, his dark hair curling a little in the damp, misty air, he looked much younger than his thirty-two years, and disturbingly attractive.

  Feeling her heart rate quicken, she made an effort to pull herself together while his gaze travelled over her, taking in her businesslike grey suit and silk blouse, her smart leather court shoes and shoulder-bag, her neat chignon.

  A glint in his eye, he commented, ‘I can see you’re all dressed for a casual day at the coast.’

  Ignoring the sarcasm, she asked levelly, ‘Do you still have my key?’ and breathed a sigh of relief when he handed it over like a lamb.

  He would no doubt bring her home, and this time she would take care, not only to keep him on the doorstep, but to retain possession of the key.

  Dropping it into her bag, she closed the door behind her, and let him help her into the front passenger seat of the Mercedes.

  Only as they were drawing away did she realize that she’d forgotten to replace her watch. Oh, well, it was too late to go back now.

  Traffic seemed especially heavy, and it took them longer to get clear of London than might have been anticipated. But, in spite of his earlier stated wish not to lose any time, once they were under way Quinn showed no sign of impatience.

  His well-shaped hands easy on the wheel, he drove in silence as they headed north-east through an unremarkable countryside of low plateaus with rugged edges.

  Uncomfortably aware of him, of that muscular thigh so close to hers, she stared fixedly out of the window.

  ‘Fascinating scenery,’ Quinn remarked sardonically.

  She lifted her softly rounded chin. ‘I like Essex.’

  ‘Did you like living on Saltmarsh island with a boy of eighteen and an elderly man in a wheelchair?’

  Gritting her teeth, she refused to answer.

  Quinn gave her a sidelong glance and changed tack. ‘As you were helping Henry dig out the family history I suppose you know a fair bit about the island?’

  She strove to speak evenly. ‘I know that over the centuries, though there’s no record of more than the one dwelling on it, the seaward side has been built up and partially embanked as a defence against the tides.’

  ‘And the house?’