Wife to a Stranger

by Clair, Daphne

  ‘Capri!’ He waved, and ran lightly across the sand, blue eyes devouring her all the while. ‘Capri, you’re back! I heard you’d been in that train crash in Australia.’

  He reached her and grasped her shoulders, apparently not noticing her instinctive recoil. ‘Why didn’t you call me? Are you okay?’ he asked her, the vivid eyes searching her face. ‘I’ve been so worried.’

  ‘I’m okay,’ she said automatically, detaching herself with a little difficulty from his hold. ‘I was lucky. I’m sorry…I…do I know you?’ she blurted out.

  ‘Know me?’ The man blinked, then laughed uncertainly.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she repeated. ‘I was injured in the crash and it’s affected my memory. Forgive me, but I don’t remember you at all.’

  ‘You don’t remember me?’ He stared at her. ‘Darling, I’m Gabriel! Gabriel Blake?’

  He waited for her to make the connection. Absurdly, she had an impulse to say, How do you do? Instead she shook her head in polite regret.

  ‘I don’t believe this,’ the man said. ‘Are you playing one of your games with me?’

  ‘I’m not playing,’ she said thinly. ‘I have amnesia.’

  ‘Amnesia!’

  ‘I’m afraid so. I really don’t have any idea who you are. Obviously we knew each other—’

  His eyes glittered. ‘Knew each other? God, yes! We knew each other very well, darling—biblically.’

  The world seemed to rock. She felt her temples grow cold. Biblically?

  Sexually.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  IT COULDN’T be true.

  ‘No!’ Instinctively she denied the implication.

  Gabriel Blake stared at her. ‘You’re serious, aren’t you?’ he said at last. ‘You really don’t remember me?’

  Capri moistened her lips. ‘I remember very little of my life before the accident. We’re hoping it will… improve.’

  ‘We? That husband of yours—did you remember him?’

  ‘Yes.’ It was a relief to be able to say so.

  His face darkened stormily. ‘But not me.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she heard herself say again.

  ‘Nothing?’ He frowned, glanced over his shoulder, and lifted his hands to take her face between them, then brought his mouth down to hers.

  She pulled violently away. ‘Please don’t touch me!’

  His face flushed and his lips took on a stubborn pout. ‘That’s not what you used to say! What the hell’s got into you?’

  ‘I told you! I…I don’t remember you.’ Distractedly she pushed back her hair. ‘Look, if you’ll excuse me, I really want to go home.’

  ‘Well, don’t let me stop you.’ He stepped aside, his face the picture of chagrin.

  But she had hardly passed him when he said, ‘Capri!’

  Reluctantly she turned, and he came close to her again. The anger had left his face. ‘If this is true, just remember I’m here if you need me.’ He touched her arm, then let his hand drop to his side. ‘I love you. More than Rolfe ever did.’

  ‘He’s being very good to me.’

  Gabriel’s lips curled disdainfully. His gaze suddenly sharpened. ‘You’re not sleeping with him, are you? That bastard hasn’t wormed his way back into your bed?’

  ‘He’s my husband.’ She was trembling again.

  ‘Does that mean you are sleeping with him?’ His voice had risen.

  Blood thrummed at her temples. ‘It’s none of your business!’

  She backed from him, but he came after her, seizing her arms again. ‘How much do you remember of your relationship with him?’ he asked fiercely. ‘Did he tell you the two of you haven’t shared a bed in months?’

  ‘Let me go!’ She struggled out of his grasp and ran. The soft sand impeded her, and gradually she slowed to a walk, glancing behind her to see Gabriel Blake standing where she had left him, frustration in every line of his body. At the far end of the beach the hopeful fisherman still stood with his rod and line.

  Her heart beat uncomfortably fast, and there was a suffocating feeling in her throat.

  Had she been having an affair behind Rolfe’s back?

  Every instinct rejected against the idea. But she had no idea what kind of relationship her marriage had been. Or what other relationships she might have had.

  Even adulterous ones?

  What would have led her to that?

  Rolfe had been kind, patient—loving—since she’d left the hospital. Yet she sensed that something had been amiss in their marriage, and Rolfe admitted he’d been blind to her needs. More than once she’d seen glimpses of some latent anger in him. What might he do if that anger was unleashed, no longer hidden behind a façade of concern and consideration?

  Had he driven her into another man’s arms?

  Unfair, she acknowledged immediately, ploughing her way up the sandy bank before the house. If she was an unfaithful wife, the guilt was hers. But she found it impossible to believe she’d ever cheated on him.

  Why should Gabriel Blake lie? That made no sense. He’d been genuinely shocked, she was sure, at her blank non-recognition, and he’d hardly had time to think up a story like that. Besides, what possible reason would he have to do so?

  At the door she took off her sand-covered canvas pumps and shook them out before entering the house. Everything was quiet. If she hadn’t left Rolfe in his office she’d have thought she was alone.

  Should she confront him with her disturbing new… knowledge?

  It wasn’t knowledge, it was hearsay.

  Everything in her rejected the possibility that it might be true, and yet she had no defence, no way to prove her innocence.

  Hesitantly, she walked along the passageway and paused at the office door before tapping on the panel.

  It was a moment before Rolfe called, ‘Come in.’

  His gaze was fixed on the screen of the computer on his desk, but he looked up at her and smiled. ‘How was your walk?’

  ‘All right. It’s a long beach.’

  The smile fading, Rolfe said, ‘You look a bit whacked. You walked too far.’ He got up to come round the desk.

  Capri advanced into the room and stood with her hands gripping the back of an upholstered visitor’s chair that stood between them. ‘I…met someone.’

  ‘One of the neighbours?’

  ‘I suppose so. Gabriel Blake.’

  ‘Oh, Gabriel.’ A faintly contemptuous note entered his voice. Was it her imagination, or had his eyes sharpened under the watchful lids? He stepped closer and rested his own hand on the chair-back. Capri removed hers.

  Rolfe frowned. ‘Has meeting him upset you?’

  ‘Why should it upset me?’ She was hedging, feeling her way.

  His eyes searched hers, and she looked away. ‘Did you know him?’

  Capri shook her head.

  ‘Then at a guess,’ he said grimly, ‘I’d say you felt somewhat…awkward.’

  He told me we’d been having an affair. She looked at her husband’s face and swallowed the words. Even if it was true, the last person to ask must surely be Rolfe. If he didn’t know, it would be a cruel blow to a man who had shown her nothing but tenderness and understanding since…Well, she thought wryly, ever since she could remember, Stalling again, she asked, ‘What do you know about him?’

  Rolfe retreated to lean on the desk, folding his arms. ‘He’s an artist, of sorts.’

  ‘Of sorts?’

  ‘He has family money—at least so I’ve been told—and he’s able to please himself about how often and how hard he works. I believe he’s talented, but I have the feeling he might do better if he didn’t have the cushion of wealth to fall back on.’

  ‘You think all artists should be starving in garrets?’

  Rolfe gave a short laugh. ‘I guess I may have a slight bias.’

  ‘Oh…? Why?’ She watched him cautiously.

  ‘Maybe because I’m jealous.’

  Capri’s heart gave one hard thud. ‘Jealous?’ she
repeated uncertainly.

  Shrugging, Rolfe straightened, picked up a hexagonal glass paperweight from the desk, inspected it as if he’d never seen it before, and put it down again. ‘I’ve worked like a dog for what I’ve got and he doesn’t need to. Mean-spirited of me, isn’t it?’

  Watching the self-deprecating smile in his eyes, she said, ‘I don’t think you’re a mean-spirited man, Rolfe.’

  ‘Thank you.’ He came closer to her, and touched her cheek. ‘You’re being very sweet these days, Capri.’

  His hand lingered, and she suppressed an urge to turn her head and nestle her cheek into his palm. ‘Wasn’t I, before?’

  The smile deepened, and he slipped his hand under her hair, his fingers gently massaging her skin. ‘I certainly thought so when we met.’

  ‘And…later?’

  He looked rueful. ‘We had our ups and downs, like every married couple. It takes time to adjust to each other. But I’m sure your essential nature hasn’t changed.’

  She was sure of it too. Which made it all the more puzzling that she felt such revulsion at the idea that she might have deceived him with Gabriel Blake. If she felt this way now, what could have led her to enter into an adulterous affair?

  Consumed by a wave of guilt, and afraid of what Rolfe might read in her eyes, she lowered her lashes and stirred under his hand.

  He dropped it and stood back. ‘What are you planning to do now?’

  ‘I don’t know. Would you like me to make you a coffee? It must be morning tea time.’

  ‘I don’t often bother with it. But thanks all the same.’

  ‘What about lunch?’

  He hesitated. ‘I’ll join you. About twelve-thirty, all right?’

  ‘I’ll make something.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  He seemed surprised, and she asked, ‘Don’t I usually?’

  Rolfe smiled. ‘Not usually, no.’

  ‘What do we do, then?’

  ‘You generally have fruit and yoghurt, or go out to lunch with a woman friend. And I make myself a cheese or ham sandwich. Sometimes we used to go down the road and have lunch together at the garden centre café when I was home, but I don’t suppose—’

  ‘That sounds nice.’ She vaguely recalled seeing a garden centre as they drove into town, with a display of pink and red impatiens along the road frontage shaded by silver birches. ‘Did we do that often—have lunch there?’

  ‘Not so much lately.’

  ‘There’ll be people I know—used to know—there?’

  He hesitated. ‘Very possibly.’

  The thought was a little nerve-racking, but if she didn’t try to stimulate her wayward memory what hope did she have of it ever functioning normally again? ‘There’s no point in skulking about the house, avoiding contact with other people.’

  And right now, with the disturbing disclosure that she was possibly an unfaithful wife lodged like a thorn in her mind, the prospect of lunching with Rolfe alone was almost alarming. She had a quite irrational fear of blurting out something she might regret. ‘But perhaps you don’t have the time?’ she suggested.

  ‘That’s okay,’ he said at last. ‘We’ll go to the café if it’s what you’d like.’

  She made herself a coffee while she went uneasily over and over the morning’s brief conversation with Gabriel Blake.

  He’d been her lover, he said.

  He was a handsome man, and obviously capable of passion. And of gentleness. He’d been angry and incredulous that she didn’t remember him, but later had offered help, reminded her he’d be there for her if she needed him. Said he loved her.

  A volatile person, she guessed, one who might be wildly attractive to certain types of women.

  Her type of woman?

  Again she slammed up against that wall. What sort of woman was she?

  Could she be deceitful, disloyal, capable of lying to her husband, of secretly sleeping with another man?

  Somewhere in the distance a bell burred. Uncertainly, Capri left the kitchen to make her way to the main door.

  Rolfe came out of his office, a slightly harassed look on his face.

  ‘I’ll get it,’ she told him.

  She opened the door to an elderly couple, the woman small and white-haired, the man taller but stooped, both regarding her through identical gold-rimmed spectacles.

  The woman held a bouquet of mixed garden flowers, the man a basket full of fruit.

  ‘There you are, dear!’ the woman said, beaming. ‘You’re up and about, then.’

  ‘Yes,’ Capri agreed.

  ‘We heard you’d been in that dreadful train crash. We thought you might like some flowers and fruit from our garden.’ She held out the flowers.

  Capri accepted them, sniffing the mixed perfumes. ‘That’s very kind.’

  ‘Not at all,’ the elderly man said. ‘What are neighbours for?’

  ‘Oh, you’re neighbours?’

  The two exchanged a glance. ‘Fred and Myra Venables, dear,’ the woman said. ‘From across the way.’

  ‘Please, do come in.’ Capri stepped back invitingly, clutching the flowers. ‘I’ve just made coffee—perhaps you’d like some.’

  After she’d seen the couple off almost an hour later, she found a vase for the flowers and placed them on one of the tables in the lounge. She stood for a while before the big window, contemplating the hypnotic beauty of the sea, then went along to her bedroom to freshen up and change from jeans into a dress.

  She was emerging when Rolfe came out of his office again, his eyes taking in the figure-skimming green cotton dress that he’d bought for her. ‘I’ll just be a few minutes.’

  When he rejoined her, smelling of a fresh, woody soap or aftershave, he put a light hand on her back and guided her to the door. ‘I suppose you wouldn’t like to walk?’ He glanced down at her high-heeled cream leather sandals.

  ‘I could change my shoes. How far is it?’

  ‘About ten minutes away on foot.’

  ‘I’ll change.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘I’ll only take a minute,’ she promised.

  She came back in thirty seconds, with the bronze lowheeled pumps on her feet.

  ‘You had visitors,’ he said as he closed the door behind them.

  ‘Mr and Mrs Venables.’

  ‘You coped all right? They’re a nice old couple, although I know you think they’re a nosy pair.’

  ‘They take an interest in what’s going on, but I don’t think they’d indulge in vicious gossip. They brought me flowers and fruit. Have you got a lot of work done this morning?’

  ‘A fair amount. You haven’t had another go at your design program?’

  ‘No.’ She’d had no desire to try.

  ‘You always did work in fits and starts,’ he assured her. ‘When you have a new idea maybe you’ll pick it up again quite easily.’

  ‘Maybe,’ she echoed.

  They reached the bower-like café set among flowers and trees, an obviously popular venue for lunches.

  ‘I’ll have a wedge of pineapple and sweet potato pie, with a salad,’ Rolfe announced after cursorily studying the menu. ‘What about you?’ he queried across the table. ‘The smoked salmon and asparagus roll?’

  ‘How did you know?’ Capri asked, having just made up her mind.

  ‘It’s what you nearly always order here.’

  ‘Am I that predictable?’

  ‘Sometimes you surprise me.’ He paused. ‘A lot, these last few days.’

  The waitress took the order and bustled away. Capri looked about, studying the faces of the other patrons intently.

  ‘Anyone you know?’ Rolfe was watching her with almost equal intentness.

  She shook her head.

  ‘Don’t sweat it,’ he said easily. ‘There’s no rush.’

  ‘Capri!’ A feminine voice intruded. ‘Capri—I didn’t know you were home! How are you?’

  A tall, very pretty brunette accompanied by a stocky, baldin
g man stopped beside them.

  As Capri looked up Rolfe reached over the table and grasped one of her hands in his. ‘Hello, Thea. Capri is still recovering from the accident, but—’

  The woman glanced at him and turned again to Capri. ‘It must have been awful, you poor thing! But you’re looking good.’

  ‘It’s affected her memory,’ Rolfe explained. ‘Capri, Thea and Ted are good friends of ours.’

  ‘Oh, she can’t have forgotten us!’ The woman peered at Capri.

  ‘I’m afraid so,’ Capri confessed. ‘It’s supposed to be a short-term thing.’

  ‘Good heavens! That’s awful!’ Thea was obviously shocked, and stood awkwardly, at a loss for what to say next.

  The waitress arrived with the meals, and Ted drew Thea away, promising to ‘Catch up with you later’.

  ‘You all right?’ Rolfe asked.

  Her smile was lifeless. ‘Yes. It’s going to happen fairly often, isn’t it?’

  ‘Shall I spread the word so we don’t need to explain all the time?’

  ‘I think Mr and Mrs Venables might do that for us. In the nicest possible way.’ They’d been all clucking sympathy this morning, without disguising their natural curiosity.

  ‘You could be right.’ Laughter wiped the habitually vigilant look from his face. She smiled at him, her spirits lifting.

  A flare of awareness lit his eyes, and a tautness settled about his cheekbones.

  Catching her breath, she dragged her gaze away, pretending to be absorbed in the food on her plate.

  They ate without talking much, and when she’d declined a sweet and they’d had coffee, Rolfe pushed back his chair. ‘Shall we go?’

  ‘All right.’ She cast a wistful look at the inviting gravel paths dividing neatly sorted rows of plants outside.

  ‘You want to look around?’ Rolfe asked.

  ‘Do you have time?’

  ‘I’m my own boss. Not too long, though.’

  They strolled along the paths, pausing often to admire a flowering shrub or one with particularly pretty foliage. She knew the names of some, but a couple of times she had to inspect the labels.

  ‘You’re having quite a good time, aren’t you?’ Rolfe commented as she turned the label on a six-foot prunus smothered in pink blossom.