The Disobedient Wife

No. There had been the long-standing Teeny Roberts to cook and clean. He hadn’t intended her to do all that—even if she had had the time. And perhaps that might have been the problem, in part…

‘As for Lauren, she did rather throw herself at him,’ Chrissie reminded her. ‘And a man with his looks is going to get that every day of the week! It would take a monk to resist that constant barrage from the opposite sex. And I’m not prepared to believe he was even having an affair with her. He’s never actually admitted it, has he?’

No, he hadn’t, Kendal thought. But she had found those receipts in his study from the hotel where they had stayed when he had told her simply that he was away working, had led her to believe he’d gone alone. Oh, they’d been under separate names—and in separate rooms—it was true. But then anything else wouldn’t have looked too good if those receipts had wound up in his accounts office for Ralph to find! Only they hadn’t needed to. Being caught together in Jarrad’s office, as they had been by her brother-in-law that night, was all the evidence that mattered!

‘He’s never actually denied it either.’ How could he? When such a denial would have been a blatant lie! ‘I don’t know how you can defend him, Chrissie! After what he did to Ralph!’

Chrissie lowered her gaze, looking so unhappy suddenly that Kendal wished she hadn’t said anything.

‘I’m sorry,’ was all she could utter, wishing she could wave a magic wand and make everything all right, for her sister at least.

‘Oh, that’s all right. I’m getting used to it now,’ Chrissie expressed resignedly, although Kendal knew she was just putting on a brave face. ‘Perhaps he did fire Ralph because he thought he was checking up on him. I don’t know,’ she went on to remark disconsolately. ‘But I think a lot of the blame for what happened has to rest with Ralph himself.’

She glanced away, picking distractedly at the edging of one of the plump multi-floral scatter cushions, looking decidedly uneasy. ‘I think it got to the stage where he couldn’t—couldn’t cope with—things…’

‘What sort of things?’ Kendal enquired, frowning. She knew her sister wasn’t the easiest of people to live with.

‘Oh…just things in general,’ Chrissie remarked evasively, continuing to pick at the blanket-stitched cushion with unusual agitation. But then Matthew ran up to her, waving one of his little striped socks, and laughingly she hauled him up onto her lap.

‘Anyway, what I’m saying is I don’t think you should blame him entirely for Ralph losing his job—even if you’d like to.’ She was bent in concentration over the gurgling Matthew, diligently pulling the sock over a tiny foot. ‘And what if he did have one fling? It isn’t the end of the world. And perhaps he did feel neglected. After all, the more he told you he didn’t like you working, the more contracts you seemed determined to take on just to show him—out of sheer defiance.’

Kendal bit her lip. Did Chrissie really think that?

‘I did it for my own sanity,’ was all she could say. Because the truth was that if she hadn’t resumed her profession after Matthew had been born—plunged herself wholeheartedly into her work—she would have gone mad, crazy with doubt and suspicion.

It had been bad enough that she hadn’t felt needed in the home, without Lauren constantly flaunting her success and her very enviable working relationship with Jarrad whenever Kendal, with silent reluctance, had had to preside over dinner parties that included the other woman. It had only just been bearable at first, when she had had her own job, her own career. But those years of domesticity and studying when she had been looking after her sister hadn’t prepared her for the condescending confidence of women like Lauren Westgate.

Consequently, when she’d surrendered her self-sufficiency to have Matthew, and had been insecure as a new mother, Lauren’s belittling remarks about women who were ‘stuck at home’, and Kendal being ‘just a housewife’—coupled with Jarrad suddenly spending more and more time away from home—had all helped drive her back into the safe, secure world of her beloved decor and design. She had wanted to prove herself, and not only to herself but to her husband and the world that she could be just as shining and successful in her own way as Lauren Westgate could. And not only that, but that she could be a success—needed—as a wife and mother as well. And all she had got for her trouble—her foolish, impetuous naivety—was the proverbial slap in the face when her efforts only succeeded in driving her husband right into the other woman’s arms!

‘Anyway,’ she attempted to say lightly. ‘I suppose it’s only natural you should defend him, knowing what you think of women with children working!’

Chrissie clung fervently to the belief that being a housewife and mother was a full-time job, and Kendal knew her sister had settled down enough to take on both roles with avid dedication, which made that last miscarriage and subsequent break-up of her own marriage such a tragedy.

With one shriek their attention was drawn to Matthew who, having pulled off the sock which had been painstakingly restored to his foot, now held it up triumphantly. He squealed a protest as Chrissie tried to clasp him to her, grizzling until she released him, so that he could run on unsteady little legs across the carpet, arms outstretched, to his mother.

‘You’re a scamp!’ Kendal breathed, hauling him up onto her lap. ‘First Chrissie. Now me. You don’t know who you want, do you?’

‘Kissie,’ he gurgled in his baby mimicry, then rewarded Kendal with a chop to the nose with his little flying fist, still tightly clenched around the sock.

Both girls laughed.

‘I don’t know where you get your energy from,’ Chrissie told him as he strained round to look at her, and stuck a determined little foot into Kendal’s groin in the process.

‘Oh, I do,’ Kendal exhaled, wincing, putting a hand under his bottom to transfer him gently to a less sensitive area of her body. He shrieked a protest at even that small amount of restraint. ‘Believe me, I certainly do!’

Because, whether she wanted to admit it to anyone else or not, she couldn’t help but admit to herself that he was very much Jarrad’s child. From that crop of brown hair—growing darker by the day—to the very feet of the long little body that determined that one day he would be tall, like his father, to that burgeoning self-sufficiency that was apparent even in his babyhood. She almost imagined she could already feel that restless determination and energy in him that was so characteristic of Jarrad Mitchell—so characteristic it scared her that she might never be free of the man’s memory.

The only part of her it seemed her son had inherited was those green-flecked, big, beguiling eyes—eyes that Jarrad had once jokingly announced could ‘smite a man at twenty paces’. And with that combination of physical assets and character Kendal could see that Matthew was already destined to break a few hearts.

‘Just like his dad,’ Chrissie supplied—reading her thoughts again, Kendal thought, startled, until she realised her sister was still referring to something they had been saying a moment ago.

‘No, not like his dad,’ she couldn’t help responding nevertheless, on the smallest note of panic, and she clutched her son tightly to her—ignoring his flailing fists now, his straining efforts to free himself—as though she would protect him from the world and anything that threatened to taint him with the same ability to hurt and wound as Jarrad Mitchell had hurt and wounded her. As, similarly, her own father had hurt and destroyed her mother.

‘I’ve got to take that job, Chrissie,’ she breathed over her son’s angry, lemon-clad little shoulder. I’ve got to get away from him. And more determinedly, aloud again, she uttered, ‘I’ve got to go.’

CHAPTER TWO

AFTER dropping Matthew off with her child minder later that afternoon, Kendal drove out to see some clients for whom she had agreed to do some freelance work, her first since coming back to London. The woman and her husband had approached her through her old firm, having been pleased with the work she had done for them in the past.

She hated leaving her son, particularly twice in one day, because every time she watched him toddle away from her it was like losing a part of herself. But she knew what the alternative would mean—being beholden to Jarrad. Oh, she didn’t mind that for Matthew’s sake, because she knew her husband wouldn’t stop short of providing more than a generous allowance for his son.

But she needed to keep herself too. The savings she had accumulated before leaving the matrimonial home a year ago were now nearly exhausted, and there was no way that she intended to take any money from a man who not only flaunted his mistress openly in her face but who could be so callous as to do what he had done to Ralph—because it had been callous, no matter what Chrissie said.

Forcing herself to forget Jarrad, she focused her thoughts on the job ahead. She had her sketchbook, notepad, colour charts…

She made a quick note in her mind of everything she would need, after negotiating one particularly busy junction, and by the time she pulled onto the drive of the large mock-Georgian house she was mentally as well as physically prepared.

Jill and Peter Arkwright were a middle-aged couple, with two golden Retrievers who sat obediently looking at Kendal from a hopeful distance as she nibbled the oversized slice of rich sponge cake that Jill had insisted Kendal have with her coffee. At the same time, diligently she sketched her plan for the ornamental mouldings and alcoves she had suggested for the lounge, to help take the squareness off the large room.

By the time she left she had a very clear picture of what they needed. An overall classic but country feel that would give the prestigious yet modern estate house some individuality.

Keen to get started, so that the job would be completed if Jarrad did back down and let her take Matthew away—which she very much doubted—she drove straight back home, deciding to pick the little boy up within the hour. In the meantime she had colours to decide on, fabrics to order, painting contractors and carpenters to organise.

Home was a furnished ground-floor flat in an Edwardian terraced house which she was renting on a month-to-month basis until she knew what her definite plans were, therefore the furnishings weren’t at all what she would have chosen herself. It was, however, situated in a quiet street, in a reasonably quiet suburb of the city.

As it was a pleasingly warm day she had the French windows open while she worked, and was enjoying the lucid song of a blackbird above the more distant sounds of afternoon traffic, above the sudden low drone of a car pulling up somewhere along the road.

She answered the phone breezily when it rang. ‘Kendal Mitchell.’

’How did you get on with the Arkwrights?’

The pleasant male voice brought an instant smile to her lips.

‘Tony! Hi!’

‘Was she still as generous with the cake rations?’

Kendal laughed. ‘You’d better believe it!’ She liked Tony Beeson. They were roughly the same age and had worked together at the same design firm until Kendal had married. In fact Tony still worked for them, and it was he who had told her about the job that was going in the States, after visiting his brother’s family in Philadelphia.

‘Made up your mind yet whether you’re going to be leaving us?’ He sounded tentative. In a way he had opened this opportunity for her, but, now that it looked as if it might materialise, Kendal knew he didn’t really want her to go.

‘Not yet,’ she parried, not wanting to go into detail. Tony knew she was separated, but that was all. She didn’t see any point in discussing the obstructions that Jarrad might throw in her way.

‘Have you ever thought about a partnership?’ Tony surprised her by suddenly asking.

Kendal frowned, hesitated. ‘A partnership?’

‘Yes, dumbo. A partnership. You and me. Just say the word and I’d come with you. We’d make a very good team, you know, with your creative flair and my cock-eyed business sense. What do you say? Just the two of us?’