Читать книгу Christmas In Bluebell Cove - Abigail Gordon - Страница 7

IT HAD been a mistake coming back to Bluebell Cove for Christmas, Francine Lomax thought as she stood on the snow-covered path of the house that she hadn’t set foot in for months.

When she unlocked the door there was silence inside, no one to greet her, which wasn’t surprising as they hadn’t known she was coming. She bent and picked up a trainer left lying in the middle of the hall, putting it into a nearby cupboard. Then she gathered together the last delivery of mail before Christmas which was lying behind the door, and placed it on the hall table in a neat pile. There was a letter from Ethan’s solicitor amongst it and her insides trembled at its implications.

A doll belonging to Kirstie was sitting upright on the bottom step of the stairs and the choking feeling that she kept getting was back. It was all so familiar, yet she felt like a stranger in her own home.

Her baggage was still outside in the hire car that she’d picked up at the airport, and as she went to bring it in Francine was aware that there was music and laughter coming from somewhere not too far away, the sound of people enjoying themselves.

There might be silence in the house, but there were those out there who were making the most of the festive season and she was reminded of the vow she’d made to herself not to put the blight on the children’s Christmas by arriving without warning and bringing her melancholy with her.

When she’d carried her suitcases upstairs she put them in the spare room where she would be sleeping and then went down again to await the arrival of her husband and children.

She’d been missing Ben and Kirstie dreadfully and their father too because it had been so much longer since she’d seen him, but she had only herself to blame for that. The last thing Ethan had wanted was for her to go stomping off to live in Paris, in contrast to being just a frequent visitor as had been the case when her parents had been alive, and as Christmas had approached she’d begun to wish she hadn’t agreed to the children coming back to Bluebell Cove so early to spend it with their father.

Yet that was how it was going to have to be because of the rift between Ethan and herself that was getting wider all the time, so wide that the divorce she’d asked for was under way with wheels slowly turning in the background.

Bitterness had soured a marriage that had been happy and fulfilling until she’d lost her parents tragically in a coach crash while they had been holidaying in the Balkans. As a result she had inherited her childhood home in France, and ever since had been desperate to live there.

The marriage might have stood a better chance if tiny cracks hadn’t already been appearing in it ever since Ethan had taken over as head of The Tides Medical Practice that cared for the health and well-being of the inhabitants of Bluebell Cove. He had seemed prepared to put his commitment to his new position before everything else.

His acceptance of the responsibility had come about because of the early retirement due to poor health of the woman who had given her life to the practice and had felt that Ethan was the only person she could trust to continue the work there to the same high standards as herself.

But the niggles that had sometimes arisen because of that had been as nothing compared to his reaction to the heart-breaking homesickness that had overtaken her at the loss of her parents and swept her into the situation that now existed between them. So if the revellers out there were full of the Christmas spirit, she wasn’t.

She could still hear the music somewhere nearby and supposed it was possible that her family might be involved in whatever was happening out there on a snowy Christmas Eve.

Snuggling back into the winter coat that she’d travelled in and zipping up fashionable boots that had the stamp of Paris on them, she decided to go and see what was taking place in the direction of the square where a big spruce that was decorated and illuminated every year at Christmas time.

Standing in the shadows, she saw that those present were lined up in pairs behind a man and woman who looked as if they were dressed as bride and groom.

It was odd, to say the least, but sure enough Ethan and the children were there with Kirstie and Ben partnering each other for what was about to take place, her daughter bright eyed and excited in a stylish pink dress that she hadn’t seen before, and her son ill at ease.

Ethan was partnering a tall slender girl with brown hair, brown eyes and very pale skin. The last time Francine had seen Phoebe Howard she’d been pregnant, facing up nervously to the prospect of becoming a single mother, but she looked happy enough at the moment.

He was looking down at her, smiling at something she’d said, and Francine thought that if Ethan was finding comfort in the arms of another woman it wasn’t surprising. He’d had no joy in hers for many long months.

Neither he nor the children had noticed her, they were too engrossed in the moment, and she continued to stay out of sight, registering as she did so that the smiling bride was Jenna Balfour, the daughter of the woman who had been in charge of the village medical practice before Ethan had taken over. Incredibly her bridegroom was Lucas Devereux, of all people, her husband’s closest friend.

At that moment the local school’s band struck up and the two of them began to dance through the village in the direction of the headland overlooking the sea, with the rest of the revellers following behind.

Tears pricked Francine’s eyes. She’d been happy here for twelve years with Ethan and the children as they’d come along. Bluebell Cove was a beautiful place with countryside in abundance and the mighty Atlantic close by.

But ever since she’d inherited the house in France it had been there that she wanted to be, and although Ethan had understood, it hadn’t stopped him from reminding her frequently that he’d just taken on a huge commitment by becoming senior partner in the village practice.

That he owed it to Barbara Balfour to keep the faith. In other words, he didn’t intend to leave Bluebell Cove and move to France on the sudden whim of his grieving wife.

There had been no hint of what was to come on his part when she’d first suggested it. He’d been reasonable and understanding, promising they would have lots of holidays there. But as the months had gone by she hadn’t changed her mind about living there permanently, insisting he owed her that because hadn’t she spent twelve years in Bluebell Cove for his sake?

In the end he’d wearied of being told he was selfish and after one more heated exchange of words she’d gone, taking the children with her.

That had really tipped the balance of Ethan’s patience and concern. He loved them just as much as she did, he’d told her coldly, would expect to see them regularly, and all her hopes that he might relent and follow them had turned out to be futile.

For Kirstie and Ben there’d been no problem. They’d always liked visiting their grandparents in France, and as their parents had kept their disenchantment with each other from them as much as possible, going to live in the charming house on the outskirts of Paris had been an exciting interlude in their lives.

They’d settled in at the school where she’d enrolled them without any problems, having picked up the language over the years on their visits to their grandparents, and life would have been perfect if only Ethan had been there with them.

The headland was graced by another huge Christmas tree and those at the front of the line of dancers had already whirled around it and were on their way back to where they’d started from, which meant that in a very short time her family was going to become aware of her presence.

Kirstie was the first to see her as she and Ben drew near, and her delighted cry of ‘Maman!’ stopped her husband in his tracks and brought her children out of the ranks and into her waiting arms.

She could see above their heads that Ethan had started dancing again and was almost out of sight without even greeting her. Maybe it was to remind her that their life together was coming to its close, that she’d got what she wanted, a return to her roots that he wasn’t going to be part of.

When she looked up he was observing her above the heads of the now dispersing dancers and the choking feeling was there again. He was still the only man who made her pulse leap, with hair dark and crisply curling and eyes blue as the sea on a summer day as its tides came and went on the sandy beach below the headland.

He’d lost weight. They both had over past months, but tall and trimly proportioned he would still make heads turn when he walked past, His women patients who wished he had a more important role in their lives than that of G.P. wouldn’t be having any second thoughts regarding that.

There was no sign of Phoebe and she breathed a sigh of relief. The last thing they needed was an audience at their first meeting in months. She hadn’t expected it to be like this.

She’d imagined him opening the door of the house they’d once shared and being able to tell in those first moments of meeting just how pleased or otherwise he was to see her standing there, but this was nothing like that. Lots of folk they knew were milling around them in the snow-covered square.

As their glances met she felt tension pulling at her nerve ends. But in a grim sort of way it was as if her distaste for the circumstances of their meeting was being diverted by the sound of a woman’s voice asking anxiously from behind, ‘What’s the matter, Bradley?’ to be followed by a terrified plea of ‘Somebody help us, please!’

She swivelled round quickly and saw Bradley Somerton, the elderly organist who performed at the village church on Sundays, being supported by his wife, who was the one crying for help. He was gasping for breath with face purple, eyes bulging, and was choking. His mouth was wide open and she could see that his tongue was swollen and blocking the airway.

‘Go and fetch Dad!’ she cried to the children, and as they sprinted off she asked the organist’s wife what he’d been eating to cause such a situation. At the same time she took hold of him, pulled him upright, and from behind gave him the treatment for a choking fit, arms tightly locked at the top of the rib cage and a sudden strong compression. It often did the trick, but not this time. No food or anything else came shooting from his mouth.

‘He’s allergic to seafood!’ his wife cried, ‘but he didn’t eat anything like that at the wedding reception, which is where we had our last meal.’

A shadow fell across them and Ethan was there. ‘Help me to lay him flat, Francine,’ he said urgently, ‘and then find something to prop his feet on to raise them.’ He turned to the man’s horrified wife. ‘Has he got the emergency syringe of adrenaline with him that he’s supposed to carry at all times?’

‘Jacket pocket!’ she cried, and within seconds he was injecting the lifesaving medication into the limp figure lying in the snow.

‘It’s anaphylactic shock,’ he told Francine grimly, ‘and unless the injection relieves the constriction of the lungs and airways in the next few seconds, we’re going to lose him. We’ve been along this road once before, but the attack wasn’t as severe as this. I might have to go to the surgery to get further supplies of the adrenaline if he doesn’t respond. It’s fortunate that it’s just across the way. Can you ring for an ambulance? Even if he comes round all right from the one injection, I don’t want to take any risks.’

She’d been checking the man’s pulse and heartbeat, which were pounding out of control, and nodded at the request, explaining as she did so, ‘I didn’t get the chance before. Thank God you were near and knew his case history. But this kind of thing comes on almost immediately after eating food that the person is allergic to, so what has he been eating that his wife doesn’t know about?’

‘Bradley didn’t partner me in the dancing,’ his wife explained weakly. ‘So maybe he’s been to the stall that’s selling food and drinks over there.’

The two doctors were only half listening. Francine was making the phone call and Ethan was watching keenly as the choking began to slowly subside and the tongue began to go forward once more leaving the airways clearer.

He gave a sigh of relief. The whole incident had taken just a matter of minutes, seconds almost, but if he and Francine hadn’t been there…

She was switching her phone off and placing a comforting arm around the shoulders of the organist’s wife and he thought for a moment that it had been almost like how it used to be with the two of them caring for the folks in Bluebell Cove.

He was still doing that, but she wasn’t, and as he noted thankfully that the stricken man’s heartbeat and pulse had stabilised he wondered what had brought her back to the place where she’d once been happy and contented.

When the ambulance had left, the children had gone to seek out their friends and for Francine and Ethan the brief feeling of togetherness that the incident had created hung between them like a question mark.

She was pale and shaking after the urgency of the situation, the need to act fast because a life had been at stake, and he placed his arm around her shoulders, held her close for a second and said gently, ‘What a homecoming for you, Francine. Do you think that you and I deserve top marks for effort now that Bradley will live to see another day? We were right back on line like we used to be, weren’t we?’

‘Yes, professionally maybe,’ she agreed stiltedly as panic took hold at the thought of him describing her presence back in his life as a homecoming, ‘Though I’m only here on a visit.’

‘Why didn’t you let me know you were coming?’ he asked, his voice tightening with disappointment.

‘It was on impulse, a last-minute thing. I felt I just had to be with the children at Christmas,’ she said awkwardly, knowing that she’d not kept to the arrangements they’d agreed on regarding who Kirstie and Ben should be with and when. ‘I’ve put my things in the spare room. I hope that’s all right.’

‘No, it isn’t!’ he gritted. ‘Take the master bedroom. I’ll sleep in the spare room. The house is still your home as far as I’m concerned. So shall we go there instead of making a spectacle of ourselves in front of what is left of the wedding party?’

‘Jenna and Lucas saw you trying to keep out of sight for some reason best known only to yourself and said to tell you that you’re invited to the evening reception, which starts in an hour at the Enderbys’ farmhouse.’

Kirstie and Ben weren’t far away and he went on to explain, ‘Needless to say, the children and I are going as I was best man for Lucas, and Kirstie was Jenna’s bridesmaid.’

He looked across at the children, who were engrossed in throwing snowballs, and said, ‘Don’t spoil their Christmas, Francine.’

She swallowed hard. Kirstie had been a bridesmaid and Ethan best man for his friend and she hadn’t been there, and now he was warning her not to spoil their Christmas. Was this what she’d come to? Was his opinion of her now as low as that?

Yet she’d had to tell herself the same thing, not to let the huge well of misery inside her loose on those she loved.

As they walked towards the house she said, to try and placate him, ‘I haven’t stopped loving this place, you know, Ethan.’

‘But not enough to live in it,’ he commented dryly.

‘I haven’t crossed the Channel to have all my shortcomings pointed out.’

‘No, you haven’t. Forget I said that.’

He wasn’t to know that now she’d got what she wanted and was living in the beautiful house near Paris that had been her home during her childhood and early teens, she felt as if the price she was paying to live there permanently was too high, and she’d get the feeling of choking and breathlessness that came with panic.

She hadn’t stopped to think things through properly when in hurt and anger she’d asked for a divorce, and now that it was under way and she was installed there, she was floundering instead of rejoicing, feeling that Ethan would never forgive her for the way she’d cared only about her own needs.

‘I don’t want us to change bedrooms,’ she told him when they arrived back at the house. ‘I’ll be fine in the spare room. I didn’t come to cause any upheaval and in keeping with that will give the wedding reception a miss, I think. Something tells me I won’t be flavour of the month amongst your friends and the surgery crowd. I left them in the lurch when I went chasing off to France, didn’t I, even though I was only a part-time G.P.?’

‘You’ve got to come, Maman,’ Kirstie pleaded. ‘There will be lots of nice things to eat and music and dancing.’

‘I will stay with Maman,’ Ben said quickly, as an escape from something he wasn’t looking forward to presented itself.

Ethan shook his head. ‘No, Ben. There will be plenty of time for you to be with your mother over Christmas. You have been invited and are going, just as you would have been if she was still in France.’

‘I’ll come,’ Francine said hastily, and as Ben’s expression brightened she thought it didn’t matter how people felt about her as long as the children were content.

Kirstie was keeping the pink dress on. She obviously adored it. Ben had changed into jeans and a sweater, replacing the suit he’d worn for the wedding, and Ethan was still in his outfit as best man.

It remained for her to find something to wear, Francine thought, which meant unpacking her cases or rummaging around to see what she’d left behind in the wardrobe when she’d departed all those months ago.

There was an evening dress there of pale turquoise silk that Ethan had always liked her in. Low cut with a hooped skirt, it fitted better than it had ever done because of the weight she’d lost, and at the same time emphasised the dark chestnut of her hair and her beautiful green eyes.

When she went downstairs to where the three of them were waiting for her Ethan said, ‘Did you have to wear that, Francine? The dress belongs to another life.’

‘Do you want me to take it off, then?’ she asked, with the feeling that so far she hadn’t done anything right.

‘No, of course not, we need to be off. I’m still in my role as best man until the evening is over.’

As he drove them along snow-covered lanes beside hedgerows touched by winter’s frosty fingers, to the big farmhouse where the afternoon reception had already taken place, Ethan was wondering what really lay behind Francine’s sudden appearance.

They’d agreed that the children should come to him from the middle of December until after New Year, and now she was here beside him looking pale and drawn with dark shadows under her eyes.

If only things had been different between them he would be holding his petite French wife close and wanting to put right what was wrong, but those days were gone for ever. The split was hurting beyond telling, and for his own part he was living with the knowledge that if he’d been prepared to leave the practice the two of them would still be together.

But torn two ways, he’d felt he owed it to Barbara Balfour to keep to the present arrangement. She had placed her life’s work in his capable hands. For as far back as anyone could remember she’d provided those who lived in Bluebell Cove with first-class medical care and was now a semi-invalid, barely able to walk and relying on him to carry on the good work.

He and Francine had met at university where they’d both been studying medicine. They’d fallen madly in love, had had a fairy-tale wedding in Paris, and for twelve years she’d seemed content living on the Devon coast in beautiful Bluebell Cove.

They’d joined the practice originally as newly qualified G.P.s and she’d taken time out to have the children, returning when they were older on a part-time arrangement.

He’d known that she’d been homesick sometimes and had understood, agreeing that they should spend holidays and weekends with her parents whenever possible, but homesickness had never been the big issue that it was now.

It had been losing them and their house becoming hers that had made Francine want to go back home to live at the very time when there was nothing to go back for, or so he’d thought, but he hadn’t taken into account the property on the outskirts of Paris.

Heartbroken, it had been her only comfort when those who’d lived in it had been taken from her. In the end it had won the struggle for her affection and he’d thought despairingly that he must be the only man living whose marriage had been destroyed by a house. Not because of adultery, or incompatibility, but by an attractive detached dwelling near Paris.

The farmhouse had just come into sight in a blaze of light, and as Ethan pulled up on the drive Francine thought this was what Bluebell Cove was all about, friends and neighbours looking out for each other, a caring community in a coastal setting that had welcomed her into its midst as a young French bride all those years ago.

The wedding couple were just inside the hallway, waiting to greet their guests as they arrived, and when Jenna saw Francine she beamed across at her in welcoming warmth and exclaimed, ‘Francine, how lovely to see you!’

From Jenna’s new husband there was just a cool nod and she got the message. Lucas would have seen what she’d done to Ethan and crossed her off his ‘people I like’ list, and she was prepared to accept that on the premise that maybe he’d never been so homesick he couldn’t think straight.

During the evening people came up and said how nice it was to see her there. No one asked any questions, but it was there in their manner, an awkwardness that came from curiosity unsatisfied and a desire to cause no embarrassment for the respected head of the village practice.

There was one person it didn’t apply to, however—the woman who had done the job for many years previously that Ethan was doing now. ‘So you’ve come back to us,’ Barbara Balfour said unsmilingly when they came face to face, ‘and not before time. I’m glad to see that you’ve found some sense.’

‘I’m just visiting for Christmas, Dr. Balfour,’ she told her politely. ‘I live in Paris now.’

‘I see!’ was the cold reply. ‘And you’ve taken the children with you. Ethan doesn’t deserve any of it.’

He wasn’t around at that moment. Her husband was dancing with his daughter. Only Ben was with her and his mind was on other things as he observed the banquet that would shortly be available to everyone.

‘Jenna is a lovely bride. I’m sorry I missed the service this afternoon,’ she said smoothly, as if she hadn’t just been taken to task. ‘And now if you’ll excuse me…’ Moving away, she hurried towards the cloakroom before the tears she was holding back began to fall.

When the dance was over Ethan and Kirstie went to where Ben was standing still transfixed by the food and his father asked, ‘Where’s your mother, Ben?’

‘Er, I don’t know,’ he replied. ‘She was talking to Dr Balfour and then she went.’

‘Went where?’

‘I don’t know.’

It added up, Ethan thought grimly. Francine talking to sharp-tongued Barbara and then disappearing. She must have gone home.

‘I won’t be long,’ he told them both. ‘I’m going to find her.’

As he hurried out into the lamp-lit gardens his step faltered. She was standing beside an ornamental pool, looking down into it sombrely, and he sighed. Francine had been right, he thought. It would have been better if she hadn’t come.

If he’d been there when Barbara had accosted her he wouldn’t have allowed it, but he hadn’t been and where everyone else had been pleasant enough, that wasn’t her style.

‘Do you want to go home?’ he asked when he reached her side.

She shook her head, ‘No, Ethan. I’m sure I deserved to hear what Barbara had to say. You told me not to spoil the children’s Christmas and I won’t. I just came out to get a breath of air, that’s all. Let’s go back inside.’

For the rest of the evening she was how she used to be. Smiling and relaxed. Dancing with the children in turn and laughing when Ben said, ‘I don’t mind dancing with you, Maman, but I don’t want to do it with soppy girls.’

‘What about you and Kirstie dancing all the way to the headland?’ she teased. ‘You didn’t mind that, did you?’

‘No, not really, but Dad said I had to because he wanted to dance with Phoebe.’

‘Oh, I see.’ And she felt she did.

Phoebe Howard was a lovely, uncomplicated girl who, the story went, had been deserted by her partner when pregnant. It was understandable that she might be attracted to someone like Ethan, and that he should be attracted to her after what she’d done to him over the last few months.

Yet Phoebe wasn’t there tonight and it wouldn’t be because she hadn’t been asked. Surgery staff would have been invited because the bride worked there and the district nurse would be included, but as Phoebe would still be on maternity leave and didn’t live locally, maybe she didn’t want to spend too much time away from the baby.

On the other hand, it could be that the young single mother had seen her when she’d danced back to the square with Ethan and had gone because she’d observed that his wife had turned up.

It was time to leave, the wedding couple were starting their honeymoon in the morning and Ethan was having a last word with Lucas before they left regarding him being in charge of his property while they were away.

On their return his friend would be bringing Jenna to The Old Chart House next door to theirs, which Lucas had bought and refurbished when he’d come to live in the village.

When Ethan joined them and the four of them went to where he’d parked the car there was silence amongst them. Kirstie and Ben were tired because it had been a long and exciting day. Ethan was contemplating the misery of spending the night with Francine in the spare room, and she was envying the wedding couple for the freshness and simplicity of their love.

Theirs had been like that for a long time, hadn’t lost the magic, until Ethan had taken charge of the practice and been so keen to make a success of it that she’d thought a few times that she and the children came second, just as Jenna and her father had come second to it during Barbara Balbour’s reign.

She’d been twenty-eight and Ethan thirty years old when they’d had a fairy-tale wedding in a church in Paris, and now the precious thing that they’d had was dying because neither of them would give way to the other.

The children were in bed and after making sure they were settled with no televisions being switched on or mobile phones being used, Francine came downstairs to find Ethan making coffee in the kitchen.

‘Thanks,’ she said awkwardly as he passed hers to her. ‘I’ll take mine upstairs if you don’t mind.’

He shrugged. ‘Suit yourself. I’ll be going to bed myself soon. It’s been a long day, but I want to get the turkey in the oven first so that it will be almost cooked by the time I get up.’

‘Yes, of course,’ she murmured, feeling like an outsider in her own home, though it wasn’t her home, was it? She’d forfeited the right to call it that when she’d gone to live in France.

With her foot on the bottom step of the stairs he was about to remind her of that fact by calling, ‘The clean sheets are where they always were, though not as immaculately laundered maybe.’

As she lay sleepless between the sheets that he’d described she heard voices and laughter outside the window. In the next moment the beautiful words of a well-known Christmas carol were being sung and tears threatened again.

It was as if the fates were reminding her of what she’d thrown away by bringing to her notice every aspect of the enchantment of Bluebell Cove at Christmas. So far there’d been the dancing through the village, a Christmas wedding and now the carol singers.

In the middle of the night she could smell the turkey cooking quite strongly and wondered if the oven setting was too high. On impulse she crept downstairs in her nightdress to check on it.

It was a mistake. When she opened the kitchen door Ethan was there, basting the turkey. She turned to make a swift exit but he’d seen her and asked, ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Er, nothing,’ she said hurriedly, ‘I just thought that it might be cooking too quickly.’

‘I see,’ he said evenly. ‘Well, you can sleep easy as I’ve just turned the heat down, so go back to bed, Francine. Remember you’re visiting. I’m in charge.’

She turned and went back up the stairs with the message crystal clear that she had overstepped the mark by butting into their Christmas.

‘I’m in the way, aren’t I?’ she said the next morning while the children were opening their presents. ‘I’ll go as soon as there is a flight. There should be some on Boxing Day.’

‘I thought you came because you wanted to be with Kirstie and Ben over Christmas and New Year,’ he said levelly. ‘There is no rush as far as I’m concerned. Just don’t get any ideas about taking over now that you’re here. As I told you last night, I’m in charge. I’ve had to be whether I wanted to or not.’

As he watched the colour drain from her face he was ashamed for letting his hurt manifest itself so clearly. Whatever Francine did, he would never stop loving her. He’d been just as inflexible in what he saw as his priorities as she’d been in hers when their difference of opinions had started to take a stranglehold on their marriage, so at least he should be civil.

At that moment Ben came dashing in, carrying the sledge that had been one of his father’s presents to him. ‘It’s great, Dad!’ he said. ‘Can I go and try it out?’

‘Yes, take Kirstie with you?’ he told him. ‘She’ll want to have a try.’

‘Not now she won’t. She’s too excited by what Maman has brought for her.’

‘And what might that be?’ Ethan asked.

‘Fancy boots and a necklace.’ He turned to his mother, ‘The telescope is great, Maman.’

‘And so are both of you, my darlings,’ she said softly as he went chasing off to try the sledge.

At that moment Kirstie appeared, still in her pyjamas and wearing the boots and necklace. They smiled at the vision she presented and it was almost like old times for a moment.

Francine had come down to breakfast in a robe and slippers, not wanting to miss the children opening their presents, and now, with the memory of having been made to feel surplus and in the way, she went back upstairs to get showered and changed.

It was a strange sort of day, alternating between happy moments with the children and long silences when Ethan and she were alone. She’d noted that the turkey was cooked to perfection and wished she’d not interfered the previous night, and in keeping with her general feeling of being in the way broke the silence between them at one point to ask, ‘Have you invited anyone round for Christmas dinner?’

‘Such as?’ he asked with dark brows rising.

‘Er, Phoebe and her baby perhaps?’

‘Phoebe Howard. Why would I do that? She does have family to be with, you know.’

‘She was your partner when everyone was dancing through the village.’

‘So? I had to find someone, and as she’s been to see me at the surgery with depression a few times I thought it might cheer her up if I asked her to join me.’

‘Ah! That is what Ben must have meant when he said you made him dance with Kirstie because you wanted to partner Phoebe.’

She saw his jaw line tighten and when he spoke again his voice was even colder than it had been in the kitchen in the middle of the night. ‘Do you honestly think I would consider replacing you after so short a time?’ he said. ‘I valued our marriage more than anything on earth—you were the one to cast it aside like an old shoe.’

‘Surely you see there was more to it than that, Ethan,’ she reminded him in a low voice. ‘Our differences of opinion were too big to ignore, and now that I’m here will you please let me help with whatever has to be done instead of shutting me out.’

‘All right.’ he agreed sombrely. ‘We’re both of the opinion that we don’t want to spoil the children’s Christmas so maybe it is best that you do help out.’

‘Thanks for that, and I’m sorry I jumped to the wrong conclusions about you and Phoebe. It was just that I thought you deserved someone special to fill the gap I’ve left and that she might be it.’

He didn’t reply. If he had done he would have told her that the gap she referred to would never be filled…that he didn’t want patronising. He knew what he deserved and it was her, back in his life where she belonged. But it was too late for that. The marriage would soon be over. The solicitor’s letter amongst the Christmas mail had confirmed that the divorce proceedings were progressing satisfactorily.

When she came downstairs later she was holding a gift-wrapped parcel and offering it to him said, ‘I didn’t want to give you this earlier as I was concerned that the children’s excitement might be spoiled if you refused to accept it.’

‘But it’s all right if I refuse it now, is it?’ he enquired quizzically.

‘I’d rather you didn’t, but it’s up to you,’ she said, and went back upstairs with the feeling that she’d made things worse again.

Yet there was light in the darkness. Shortly afterwards he came up after her, wearing the cashmere sweater she’d bought for him in Paris and been doubtful she would ever see him in it, and announced, ‘If you look in the top drawer of the dressing table in the master bedroom you’ll find a belated birthday gift and something for Christmas that have been waiting for you to show up, so that you might receive them in a less impersonal way than in the mail.’

‘And you can’t be bothered to give them to me personally?’ she asked as a lump came up in her throat.

‘Why, Francine? Would you want me to?’ he asked gravely, and thought he was punishing her again because even in the present circumstances to have her beside him in the flesh was bringing joy to his soul.

‘Yes, so either that or leave them where they are,’ she replied, and went to gaze out of the bedroom window.

When she turned she could hear him going back downstairs and when next she saw him he had his cook’s apron over the sweater and was preparing to serve soup and a sandwich for lunch to appease their appetites until the main meal in the evening.