Читать книгу Never A Bride - Diana Hamilton - Страница 6

“ONLY one thing”. The only opt-out Jake would accept was if one or other of them fell in love.

Claire fastened her seat belt as Jake slid into the driver’s seat. She didn’t look at him, concentrated instead on waving goodbye to Liz and Sal, doing her best to look relaxed and cheerful.

For some reason the couple of days they’d spent at Lark Cottage had been a strain. Normally, it was no such thing. Claire valued any time she was able to spend with Liz, and her pretend marriage hadn’t been a problem before because Jake had the ability to make everyone relax. When it suited him, that was. And it always suited him when he was around Liz.

So she couldn’t put her edginess down to him, or only obliquely. The only reason she’d agreed to marry him had been to secure her mother’s future welfare. But, for him, the fact that he’d no longer be supporting Liz didn’t count. He’d made that abundantly clear. And what troubled her was the stupid, surging relief she’d felt when he’d slept it out!

‘Still adamant about not staying on at Lither ton until I join you for Christmas?’ Jake asked tautly as he smoothly negotiated the big car through the tangled network of narrow country lanes that would, in around twenty minutes, bring them to the Winter family home.

She shrugged, biting down on her lip, staring fixedly ahead. She was all churned up inside, her emotions warring. She didn’t want to stay on at Lither ton without him; she had already acknowledged that much. And when she’d believed that Liz’s legacy would inevitably lead to the end of their marriage she had been—well, ‘disconsolate’ was the word she thought she was looking for.

It would be madness to allow herself to become dependent on his company. Sooner or later the marriage would end, and probably sooner, if his indiscreet relationship with the principessa was anything to go by.

Without being aware of it she had allowed herself to be drawn into the false security of dependency. It was time she did something about it. And so she told him with a lightness she was far from feeling, ‘No, I’ve had second thoughts. Long walks in the fresh air, coming back to roaring log fires and Emma’s marvellous cooking—just what I need.’ And she cursed herself for feeling so miserable because she’d done the right thing, committed herself to two whole weeks without him. Which only went to show how uncomfortably real the danger was becoming.

She opened her eyes very wide at the look of frowning suspicion he darted her then closed them on a spasm of unadulterated pain when he returned his attention back to the road and told her, ‘Good. I’m glad you’ve seen sense. There’d be no point in your kicking around on your own in London. I’ll be in Rome, plunging into some rather exciting unfinished business.’

The voluptuous principessa, of course. And did he have to be so crude about it? Any other time he would have wanted her there with him, arranging meetings, sitting in on them wearing her secretarial hat, acting as a sounding board for his involved thought-processes as they shared a nightcap together back at the hotel.

But not this time. And she didn’t have to be a mind-reader to know why.

Half reluctantly, she turned her head and allowed her eyes to dwell briefly on his savagely handsome profile. Was he aware that the rot had set in, that his indiscretions were pointing the way to the final break-up, that he had at last found a woman for whom he was happy to throw caution out of the window?

She looked quickly away again, misery darkening her eyes. In agreeing to stay on with his sister and her husband she had done exactly the right thing. The process of weaning herself away from him was about to begin.

* * *

Litherton Court had been in the Winter family for generations. The sturdy stone house, built in the reign of Elizabeth Tudor, looked particularly lovely on this bright, crisp morning, Claire thought as she emerged from the copse, looking down on the house in its smooth green hollow of land.

Sunlight glittered on the tiny panes set in elegant mullions and made the pale building stone look warm and mellow. Claire wondered, not for the first time, how Jake could have turned his back on the property, handing it and the vast estates over to Emma when she’d married Frank.

But it was impossible to imagine the restless, dynamic Jake Winter settling down to run a country estate, she acknowledged, pushing her hands deeper into the pockets of her sheepskin coat. And that being the case, what could be more natural than his handing over his inheritance when Emma married? When he had been twenty-five and already a force to be reckoned with in the business world, and Emma a sheltered eighteen, their parents had been killed in a motorway pile-up. The double blow had traumatised them both, particularly Emma. It had taken her a long time to get over it and Jake had become very protective of her. Until the advent of the principessa Claire had believed that Emma was the only female under sixty Jake had any tenderness or respect for. The way women had always thrown themselves at him had made him cynical. So did he know he was ready to fall in love, ready to make a lasting, worthwhile commitment? An expert at second-guessing other people’s moves, correctly judging their motivations, had he recognized his own slip for what it was—a willingness, in the case of this one special woman, to give the world at large advance notice of his intentions?

If it had been a slip then it had been a deliberate one. No one could ever accuse him of being a man who didn’t know what he was doing. During the two years of their marriage he must have had the occasional short-lived affair; he was too virilely male not to have done. But there had never been a breath of scandal, never a hint.

So this was different.

Her fine brows knotted together, she set her booted feet on the downward track, heading back towards the house. How many times during the five days since he had left for Rome had she worried away at the conjectures that kept rearing up inside her head? Was he with Lorella Giancotti now, at this very moment? Was he explaining about his paper marriage—something that had been their secret up until now? Making plans, promising to get an annulment very soon, asking her to marry him?

With a savage spurt of temper she kicked out at the loose stones in her path, sending them skittering. The decisions he made about his private life didn’t matter, did they? She had entered into marriage for purely practical reasons, with her eyes wide open. In spite of his offhanded denials, she had always known that this was on the cards, accepted that he would fall in love one day and ask her for an annulment. So why did she feel as if her whole world was falling apart?

Because the breakdown of their marriage would mean the end of her job, she answered herself staunchly as she unlatched the gate in the high stone wall that surrounded the gardens proper, keeping them separate from the rest of the estate.

Relief poured through her like a flood of sweet warm water and she whistled cheerfully for the two young Labradors and the pensioned-off sheepdog who had accompanied her on her morning walk, smiling as they bounded towards her. She had heard Emma say that she could never have too many dogs and they seemed to be all over the house, curled up in armchairs and sofas, heaps of them on the rug in front of the Aga, basking in the warmth. And because Frank was devoted to his prettily plump wife he tolerated them cheerfully.

Ushering the dogs through the gate, she closed it securely behind her, feeling light-hearted for the first time in days.

She loved her job, thrived on the challenges and hassles, the praise Jake gave so generously, the companionship that inevitably built up when you worked so closely with someone you admired and respected. But she certainly couldn’t keep it after they separated. It would look very odd to the rest of the world if she were to continue to work for her ex-husband after he remarried.

So the prospect of losing her job had to be responsible for the bleak mood she’d been in ever since she’d seen that photograph and realized the implications behind his first ever indiscretion. And before that, even, beginning when Liz had told her about that legacy and she’d thought—wrongly, as it happened—that Jake would terminate their agreement because the conditions were no longer being met and he, above anything, was an honorable man.

And the relief that she had worked it all out must have shown on her face because when she walked into the big, cosy kitchen Emma, heating milk on the Aga to add to the mid-morning coffee, turned and said, ‘What’s happened to cheer you up? You’ve been looking like a wet Sunday since Jake left. I said you were missing the brute but Frank thought you were sickening for something.’

Claire didn’t like to think she was so transparent, but she hid her unease with a smiling shrug and offered, ‘Fresh air and exercise does wonders! It’s a beautiful morning and you don’t feel the cold if you keep moving. The dogs enjoyed it, too.’

Thankfully, the mention of dogs deflected her, as it had been meant to do. Emma petted and crooned over the dogs which had just returned, sitting at her feet, pink tongues lolling. Claire rescued the milk.

She and Emma had taken an instant liking to each other the first time they’d met. Jake had insisted she spend that first Christmas here. They’d just got ‘engaged’—one of the shortest on record—and he’d brought her down to meet the only family he had. And last Christmas they’d been here as a married couple, he giving the same reason she had for their preference for separate rooms, and they would be here together again this year. For the very last time, she expected.

Jake always spent the festive season at Lither ton, and was openly impatient for Emma to provide him with nieces and nephews for him to spoil and play with. But Emma was in no hurry to oblige. She had her dogs and her husband, not to mention the absorbing business of running the big estate like clockwork, with the occasional input from Frank, who was Jake’s personal accountant, handling his impressively massive portfolio.

Claire deeply regretted being unable to let her sister-in-law get really close. Emma was open and bright and bubbly and would have liked nothing better than to have long heart-to-heart chats with her brother’s wife, but Claire, recognizing the dangers in that, put on an act of reserve and refused to be drawn. No one but she and Jake knew what a sham their marriage was. They both wanted to keep it that way.

‘There’s just the two of us today,’ Emma remarked as Claire finished making the coffee. ‘Frank’s spending the day with Liz. He’d have asked you along too, but they’ll be spending the time talking investments. Boring!’ She pretended an exaggerated yawn and Claire’s mouth twisted in a wry smile. One of the first things Jake had done after they’d arrived at Lither ton was to tell Frank of Liz’s newly acquired wealth.

‘At the moment it’s swilling around in her bank account. I want you to go and see her. You can do better than that for her.’ His tone had implied ‘or else’, and that was typical of the type of man he was. Claire pushed him quickly out of her mind and the wall-mounted phone rang.

She was already—more or less successfully—thinking of her marriage in the past tense so when she realised Emma was talking to Jake the shock made her stomach curl up in a ball and turn to ice. And they were obviously talking about her, because Emma was saying, ‘No. Only to do some Christmas shopping. She borrowed one of the cars and took off for the day.’

Claire watched the puzzled frown gather between her sister-in-law’s eyes and just knew he was checking up on her. He was still suspicious about the phone call he’d interrupted, and that made her coldly angry because who was he to poke and pry into her affairs when his was splashed all over the papers? He would want their marriage to end when the time was right for him. He wouldn’t want her jumping the gun, painting him in the guise of a cuckolded husband!

‘Of course I didn’t go with her,’ Emma was saying, running out of patience. ‘I always get mine done early, you know that. No. No— Look, she’s right here; ask her yourself.’

She handed Claire the receiver with an upward hunch of her shoulders and Claire managed coolly, ‘Ask me what?’

The tiny ensuing silence was electrifying and, for no reason that she could fathom, her heart began to beat like a drum gone out of control; then cold anger took over as he told her without an atom of shame, ‘Just checking up on how my wife spends her time. Get all your shopping done, did you? Or perhaps you forgot something vital? Find you have to spend yet another day in town?’

If theirs had been a normal marriage she would have thought he was harboring deep suspicions, half believing she was seeing someone else, was blisteringly jealous. As it was, she knew he was simply anxious not to be made to look a fool.

She hated it when they were like this together. Up until his return from Rome they had got along fine, becoming really close companions. Squashing the impulse to reassure him, because getting back on to a best friends footing again would only make the inevitable break-up much more difficult, she gushed, ‘Now however did you guess? Such a bore! Was there anything else you wanted to check up on, or can I go? My coffee’s getting cold.’

‘No, you may not go.’ The tone of his voice set all the nerves in her body on edge. It was the tone she had heard him use when dealing out reprimands to underlings who had earned his displeasure. He had never used it to her before. And now that clipped, arrogant voice was telling her, ‘I’m buying a property in Have ling. The agent will deliver the keys to you in the morning. As soon as he does, I want you to drive over there and wait for me. I should arrive around lunchtime. Got that?’

She answered, ‘Yes,’ but was talking to silence. Her face went red. He’d put the phone down, just like that! How dared he treat her as if she were a mere employee he’d suddenly lost patience with?

But an employee was all she was, all she had ever been, she reminded herself with a swift return to rationality, and maybe the brisk arrogance he’d used on her for the very first time was his way of easing them apart, phasing out the strange but special relationship they’d had.

‘What was that all about?’ Emma wanted to know. ‘I’ve never heard him so snappy—someone been giving him a bad time?’ She was cutting fruit cake and suddenly looked deadly serious. ‘You? Before he left he asked me to keep an eye on you,’ she went on slowly, as if thinking things out and not liking the conclusions she was reaching. ‘He said he was worried about you. You’d got overtired, I must make sure you had plenty of rest and didn’t go racketing round on your own. But just then he sounded on edge, as if there was a lot more to it than that. Is there?’