Husband for Real

by Catherine George

  Rose got out her laptop and composed a brief, purposely formal letter, informing James Sinclair of her intention. Then, before she could change her mind, went out in the early evening quiet to post it. After the shops closed Chastlecombe always enjoyed a lull before it came to life again for Saturday night, and the only person Rose met was Elise Fox, who sold expensive clothes and jewellery at the other end of the cobbled arcade. After they’d chatted together for a few minutes Rose went back home, unlocked her private door, then stopped dead in her tracks. A fresh red rose lay on the floor. And it very definitely hadn’t been there when she’d left. Rose snatched up the flower with a shaking hand, her heart thumping as she looked up the stairs. Could someone have got in while she was out? No. Of course not. Her tormentor must have pushed the rose through the letter box while she was talking to Elise.

  Suddenly Rose lost her temper. The man might be intent on frightening her, but no way was she going to let him succeed. She slammed the door shut, stormed up the stairs and hurled the flower in the bin to join the other one. Then she unplugged the phone and turned her radio on at almost full volume while she made herself supper. And later that night, when Rose went to bed, she pushed the extra pillows away and switched off the light, determined to sleep.

  Sunday lunch with Minerva and her husband, Henry Beresford, was congenial as usual, and afterwards Minerva sent her husband off for a nap so she could catch up on shop talk with her niece. But instead of giving her aunt an update on business at the shop, after a few stops and starts Rose finally came out with her long overdue confession.

  Minerva, elegant in tailored trousers and dark blue roll-neck sweater, showing only a few threads of silver in her black Dryden hair, heard Rose out in astonished silence. ‘My poor child!’ she said at last, giving Rose a compassionate hug. ‘I knew there was something desperately wrong that summer, of course. But when you came back from Portugal you looked so much better I assumed you’d recovered from what I took to be a college romance gone wrong.’ Cobalt-blue eyes twinkled at Rose. ‘I’d had a few myself, remember. Though marriage was the last thing on the agenda with any of the wretches lusting after me. Anyway, don’t worry about it any more, pet. Henry will see to everything for you the minute you give him the go ahead.’

  Feeling as if a burden had been lifted, Rose decided to wait for a few days to give James Sinclair time to reply to her letter. If he didn’t, the following Monday she would instruct Henry to start divorce proceedings anyway. Decision made, she felt better. There were no more menacing phone calls, no more roses pushed through her letter box. Life, decided Rose, had returned to normal. On the Thursday evening she dealt with paperwork for an hour after shutting up shop, ate a substantial meal for once, and was just clearing away after supper when the bell rang below on her private door.

  Rose hesitated. At one time she would have run down to open it without a second thought. Instead she went into her bathroom, the only place with the necessary view. But under one of the artistic street lights in the cobbled courtyard the only thing visible was the top of an unknown male head, and a second ring of the doorbell sent her hurrying downstairs to open the door as far as the safety chain allowed.

  ‘Yes?’ she said, with a polite smile, her eyes widening in sudden shock when her visitor turned to face her. White streaks in thick black hair gave a fleeting impression of age quickly cancelled by a lean, instantly familiar face. And from the hot surge of excitement thrusting up inside her Rose realised that this was exactly what she’d hoped for when she’d written the letter. She stared at her visitor in wordless recognition, while ten years vanished in the wink of an eye. Then excitement gave way to remembered pain and humiliation, and her eyes narrowed in hostility as they met her visitor’s assessing gaze.

  ‘Hello, Rose,’ said James Sinclair at last. ‘I was in the area so I thought I’d take a chance on finding you in.’

  At the sound of his voice Rose recovered her own. ‘James Sinclair, no less.’ She gave a swift look round the arcade, and unhooked the chain. ‘I suppose you’d better come inside,’ she said coolly.

  ‘Thank you.’ He waited in the small entry until she’d locked and bolted the door, then followed as she led the way up to the sitting room.

  ‘Can I get you a drink?’ she asked, caught so much off guard she cursed James Sinclair for surprising her at the end of a working day. After all these years, it would have been good to have brushed her hair, at least, before coming face to face with him again.

  ‘Thank you. I’m not driving, so a finger of Scotch would be good if you have it.’

  Not driving. Was he staying at the King’s Head, then? Rose poured whisky into a tumbler, strangling a hysterical laugh at the idea of James Sinclair in the same hotel bed Anthony Garrett used.

  She handed over the glass, sat down in her usual chair and waved James to the sofa. ‘Do sit down,’ she said, icily polite.

  ‘May I take off my jacket?’ he asked, equally courteous.

  ‘Of course.’

  James unzipped a suede windbreaker, laid it aside and sat down, looking so much at ease Rose felt fiercely resentful. Instead of the city suit expected of the well-dressed banker, he wore a heavy fawn sweater with khaki canvas jeans, and looked altogether far more comfortable and relaxed than she felt he had any right to. But even at twenty-two James had always been self-contained. Except in bed.

  ‘You wear your hair shorter now,’ he commented, surprising her.

  Rose thrust it behind her ears impatiently. ‘So what brings you here, James? I never imagined you’d come in person when I wrote the letter.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Lack of time—and interest, maybe?’

  ‘I was due a break. And I own to a great deal of interest about your reasons for waiting so long to divorce me.’ He finished the contents of his glass, looking at her over the rim. ‘You could have done that any time this past five years with no problem. Why didn’t you?’

  Rose shrugged indifferently. ‘A very childish reason, I’m afraid. I always promised myself you’d have to ask first. I never bothered to research the subject, so I’ve only just found out you had no need to ask by this time.’

  James smiled. And she wished he hadn’t. The smile was familiar. So, to her dismay, was its effect on her.

  ‘For my own part I’ve never had the slightest desire for a divorce,’ he informed her.

  Rose raised a scornful eyebrow. ‘You surprise me. At one stage weren’t you worried I might start proceedings and demand half your worldly goods?’

  ‘By the time I had any worldly goods to speak of too much time had elapsed for you to do that. Actually,’ he added blandly, ‘I’ve always found it rather an advantage to be married.’

  ‘Saves trouble where women are concerned, I suppose.’

  ‘Exactly.’ He gazed at her in silence for a while, until Rose began to feel restive under the bright, searching scrutiny. ‘So tell me. Why do you want a divorce, Rose?’

  ‘For the obvious reason. I’m thinking of getting married. Again, I mean.’ Which was an outright lie. Anthony was the only one thinking of marriage.

  ‘Just thinking?’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘Does this mean you’re already co-habiting with someone?’

  ‘No,’ she said evenly. ‘I’ve tried that in the past. It was a mistake.’

  His face hardened. ‘Unflattering.’

  ‘I wasn’t referring to you, James.’ She smiled coldly. ‘Other men have featured in my life over the past ten years.’

  His eyes roved over her impersonally. ‘Which have been kinder to you than to me, Rose.’

  ‘Your hair surprised me,’ she admitted. ‘How long has it been like that?’

  ‘I wish I could be melodramatic and say the white streaks arrived overnight after you left me,’ he said sardonically, ‘but they started creeping in about five years ago. Not that I mind,’ he added. ‘They lend suitable gravitas to someone bent on a fast-track career in banking.’

  ‘You’re
determined to be the youngest chief executive ever, I suppose?’

  ‘Something like that.’ James eyed her assessingly. ‘How did you know where to contact me?’

  ‘Fabia Hargreaves—she was Dennison when I shared a flat with her—sent me a cutting about your promotion. So I just had to check you were still with the same bank before I wrote.’

  ‘I see.’ He looked round at the room. ‘You live here alone?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What happened to your aunt?’

  ‘Minerva surprised everyone by getting married last year. When she asked me if I fancied managing the shop for her I jumped at it. She still owns it, but to all intents and purposes it’s mine to run as I like.’

  He sat looking at her in silence for a while. ‘And is life in a small country town like this satisfying for you?’

  ‘Yes. I’d had enough city lights by the time I came back here. I’d lived in London ever since I left college. Which,’ Rose added, ‘is more than enough about me. So tell me, James, are you getting married, too?’

  ‘No. I was tricked into marriage once.’ The grey eyes were steely. ‘I rarely make the same mistake twice.’

  ‘I didn’t trick you,’ she said wearily.

  ‘That’s a lie, Miss Dryden.’ His mouth tightened. ‘I doubt you’ve ever called yourself Mrs Sinclair.’

  ‘Absolutely not.’

  There was silence in the room for a while, until at last Rose couldn’t help repeating her question. ‘What’s your real reason for coming here, James? We could have settled all this by letter.’

  He looked at her levelly. ‘When I saw your signature on that terse little missive it reminded me of unfinished business between us.’

  Suddenly the air crackled between them, all pretence of civility vanished.

  ‘It all seemed very final to me!’ Her eyes flashed malevolently. ‘You told me to get out of your life, so I did. What’s unfinished about that?’

  ‘I wasn’t thinking straight at the time,’ he rapped. ‘I was only twenty-two, for God’s sake—’

  ‘And I was only eighteen,’ she cut back. ‘No match for you at all. I would never have dreamed you could be so vicious.’

  His mouth tightened. ‘I was hurt, and angry, and so bloody disillusioned I hit out in the worst way I could think of.’

  ‘The very worst,’ she agreed stonily. ‘Your timing was diabolical. In the middle of my first-year exams. You’d done yours, of course. Belated congratulations, by the way. I heard you got your double first.’

  ‘And despite everything you passed your exams, too.’

  ‘Just. Which was something of a miracle under the circumstances. And such a struggle I didn’t do as well as forecast. I took off abroad for the entire summer to try and get over you.’ Her lip curled. ‘Looking back, it seems such utter nonsense now. That I could have let a man affect me so badly, I mean. But at the time all I wanted was to forget I’d ever met you, let alone married you.’

  ‘Did you succeed?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’ Rose gave him a frosty smile. ‘Hearts mend. Though nothing would have convinced me of that at the time.’

  ‘So where did you go? When I couldn’t find you I contacted your aunt, but she just said you were working abroad.’

  ‘Minerva knew someone who needed a nanny for the summer in Portugal. The family offered me the job, and, painful as it was in one way, I jumped at it, desperate to get away.’

  James Sinclair’s hard eyes narrowed. ‘Why was it painful?’

  Rose controlled herself with effort. ‘Sensitive soul, aren’t you? I had honestly believed I was expecting a baby shortly before, if you remember. When I found I wasn’t I was utterly shattered. And bitterly disappointed. Unlike you,’ she added bitterly. ‘You said some foul, unforgivable things last time we met.’

  His face set. ‘Would it make you feel better if I told you I regretted them later?’

  ‘Please don’t bother. It’s a very long time since any of that mattered in the slightest to me.’ Rose got up, sure he’d take the hint and go if she offered him another drink. ‘Can I give you a refill?’

  ‘Thank you.’ James surrendered his glass, ignoring the icy look she gave him as she took it. ‘Rose,’ he said slowly, when she’d given him a meagre half-inch of single malt, ‘hearing from you out of the blue reminded me of some loose ends I’d never tied up. I won’t pretend I’ve been thinking of you all the time over the years, but from time to time I’d remember, and wonder.’

  ‘About what, in particular?’

  ‘Don’t pretend you don’t know!’ His eyes speared hers. ‘Tell me the truth at last, Rose. Did you really set out to trap me?’

  ‘Oh, all that nonsense.’ Rose shrugged airily. ‘I certainly tried hard to make you fall in love with me, but there was no trap involved. The master plan was Cornelia Longford’s brainchild, in actual fact, but I plead guilty to carrying it out.’

  The cold eyes narrowed dangerously. ‘So you really did follow a plan!’

  ‘To the letter. Con worked out a sort of blueprint. Phase one, phase two, and so on. It all worked like the proverbial charm, too.’ She felt a surge of primitive satisfaction at the look on his face.

  ‘You deliberately baited your hook, and I swallowed it, line and sinker,’ he said in disgust.

  Secretly revelling in the effect her information had on her listener, Rose described the way her friends had gleaned information about the legendary Sinclair’s background and tastes so she could pretend common interests. ‘I must have been mad,’ she added wryly. ‘Up to then my sole effort at keeping fit was an occasional aerobics session. But Con insisted I went to the track to run into you accidentally.’

  ‘You actually took up running that early in the morning just to bump into me?’ he said blankly.

  ‘I blush to think of it now,’ she admitted. ‘Up to that time I’d only run for a bus. I pretended to like foreign films, too, which I didn’t all that much, and holidays on Skye, though I’d never actually been there. But perhaps you’ve forgotten all that.’

  ‘I remember every last thing,’ he said grimly. ‘My God, I’ve often thought since that I’d been too ready to condemn. But that poisonous little tick was right after all. You were guilty as charged.’

  ‘Who do you mean?’ she said swiftly.

  ‘Fair-haired twit, always mooning after you.’

  ‘So Miles was the culprit,’ said Rose with relief. ‘I’m so glad.’

  ‘Glad!’

  ‘At the time I suspected Fabia, even Con, because they were the only ones in the know.’

  ‘Your precious Miles managed to find out, too. He took great pleasure in cornering me to tell me about your plan,’ said James grimly. ‘I didn’t believe him at first, told him to get lost before I rearranged his face—’

  ‘But when you confronted me with it I confessed, of course, and topped it by giving you the glad news that you needn’t have married me after all,’ said Rose with a brittle smile.

  James finished the drink and stood up. ‘Oddly enough,’ he said, his eyes wintry, ‘I didn’t regret marrying you, Rose. I was crazy about you. But at that point I was so dog-tired from working my brains out I just couldn’t handle it when you hit me with the news about the false alarm only minutes after Miles had told me about your famous plan. It was a double body blow to every illusion I had. Which is why I went berserk.’

  Rose went to the door. ‘Look, James, I confess I did set out to make you fall in love with me. Though, heaven knows, it just seems like a silly student prank now.’ She turned to face him, her eyes as cold as his. ‘But think for a minute. No one can really make another human being fall in love. Not that you did that, of course. If you had you’d have listened to me, trusted me, and found out what really happened.’

  His eyes narrowed. ‘I’m listening now. I’ve come a long way to listen. So go on. Tell me your side of it.’

  ‘You know it already,’ she said impatiently. ‘I was late one month. I panicked.�
��

  ‘But you were taking contraceptive pills. Or told me you were.’

  ‘I was. Religiously. But, if you remember, I had a stomach bug which laid me low for a few days. I knew that could stop the pills from doing their job. So when—when my period was late, which had never happened before, I was in such a state I was convinced I was pregnant.’

  ‘But I thought the tests were pretty accurate.’

  Rose flushed hectically, and looked away. ‘It sounds brainless now, but it never occurred to me to get one. I was even throwing up by that stage—sheer nerves, as it turned out—so I was convinced. By the time I told you I was in a terrible state.’

  ‘And I was such a stiff-necked, high-minded idiot,’ said James without emotion, ‘that I did the time-honoured thing and married you the first moment I could. I was so shell-shocked I never even asked if you’d had a test.’

  Silence fell between them, lengthening until Rose’s nerves were stretched to breaking point by the time James spoke again.

  ‘One thing I’m still in the dark about, Rose. When you were concocting this famous plan, why the hell did you choose me?’

  ‘Oh I didn’t choose you.’ She gave him a patronising little smile. ‘In the beginning all three of us were going to try the plan out with different men, so we wrote names on bits of paper. I drew yours out of the hat.’

  ‘Good God!’ His brows drew together incredulously. ‘You mean that everything that happened was just by chance?’

  ‘Afraid so.’ There was little point, now, in admitting that she’d had an outsize crush on him long before Con’s famous plan. He was no more likely to believe her now than he would have back then, on the never-to-be forgotten day when he’d heard his quixotic chivalry had been unnecessary after all.

  ‘Amazing,’ said James, shrugging into his jacket. ‘Two lives changed out of all recognition by the luck of the draw.’

  ‘Fate has a strange sense of humour,’ agreed Rose coolly.

  James looked at her for a long, contemplative moment. ‘I’m glad I made the effort to come and see you. You’ve grown into your bones, Rose. You look good.’