A Marriage To Remember

‘Can we just get out of here?’ she said agitatedly, pushing back the swathe of long straight hair that had fallen over the slenderness of one shoulder—hair as black as a raven’s wing.

‘But—’

‘Now, Mark!’ Maggi insisted firmly, snapping shut her guitar case before picking it up in preparation for leaving the room she had retreated to after leaving the stage seconds ago.

He still didn’t move, smiling at her sympathetically, well aware of the strain she had been under tonight. ‘I understand how you feel, Maggi.’ He squeezed her arm. ‘But Adam can’t be here—’

‘I’m telling you he is!’ she bit out between gritted teeth, deep blue eyes flashing a warning of just how close to breaking point she was. In fact, if they didn’t get out of this club soon, she was going to scream! Adam was here somewhere—she just knew he was—and he was the last person she wanted to see tonight, of all nights. ‘I know how unlikely it is,’ she acknowledged heavily. ‘How ridiculous it sounds. But, believe me, he is here!’

She’d had trouble believing it herself as she was singing, had thought it was perhaps just her imagination; after all, in the past Adam had always been with her when she sang. In fact, it had seemed strange to her, at the start of this evening, that he wasn’t there. But she had been wrong about that; he had been here, and she had become more and more convinced of that as the minutes passed. She had barely been able to suppress her panic in order to finish her spot on stage, and she desperately wanted to get away now, didn’t want to actually be put in a position where she would have to see him. Knowing he was here was enough...!

Mark frowned again. ‘But listen to that audience, Maggi.’ The applause could still be heard from the adjoining club-room. ‘They want you back on stage.’

The audience, a welcoming audience earlier this evening, were going wild, calling her name, demanding she come back and sing them another song. But she couldn’t do it. Not now she was convinced Adam was out there too.

She shook her head, her small, heart-shaped face as pale as alabaster against the framing blackness of her hair. ‘Maybe tomorrow night, Mark,’ she dismissed huskily. ‘I’ve had enough for one evening.’

It had been a strain for her, going back in front of an audience after all this time, which was why this particular venue, as opposed to a big concert hall, had been chosen in the first place: a music festival in a small town in the north of England, where her name could be lost amongst those of other artists appearing in the three-day event. The venues were informal— clubs, pubs, meeting-rooms—with several concerts taking place at the same time. It was exactly the right sort of place for Maggi to make her first public reappearance.

Or at least it would have been—if she hadn’t been utterly convinced that Adam was out there in the audience. Watching her. The very last person she wanted near her during her first public appearance for three years!

Mark looked at her closely, finally nodding his agreement to their leaving as he recognised the signs of strain around her eyes and mouth. ‘You’ve done well for your first night, Maggi,’ he told her with bright encouragement as they turned to leave. ‘But you’ll do even better tomorrow night—because by then it will be all around the festival that you’re back and greater than ever!’ he said confidently.

She wasn’t too sure about the latter, although she had to concede that the audience had been an appreciative one. She had been very nervous when she’d begun her spot for the evening, but from the onset had felt the audience’s warmth reaching out to her, welcoming her, and that nervousness had almost completely disappeared as they’d clapped and cheered after each song. Yes; this festival had been a good choice as a place for her to resume her career.

If only she didn’t have that nagging, uneasy feeling inside her that told her Adam was near...

Mark covered her own numbed silence on the journey back to their hotel by talking all the time, obviously pleased with the way the evening had gone. He had good reason to be; without his help and constant encouragement this evening would probably never have happened. Mark had been her emotional support over the last few years, always there when she needed a boost to her flagging morale; for his sake alone she was pleased that this appearance seemed to have gone so well.

They had chosen to stay in a big impersonal hotel just outside of town rather than in one of the busier places actually in the centre, where, for all that she had disappeared from the music scene for the last three years, it was likely she would be recognised by people attending the festival. She was nervous enough already, without having to put on a front for people who might want to talk to her.

‘The key to your suite, Miss Fennell?’ The receptionist gave her a bright, welcoming smile before turning to take the key from the hook behind her. ‘Oh, and something arrived for you earlier, but I’m afraid you had already left the hotel when it was delivered...’

Maggi paled as the other woman turned back to hand her a long, cellophane-wrapped box decorated with a red ribbon, already able to guess, from its appearance alone, exactly what it contained. A single red rose...

‘Thank you.’ Mark was the one to almost snatch the box out of the receptionist’s hands, clasping Maggi’s elbow with his other hand as he walked her over to the lift, looking down at her in concern as he did so.

Her eyes were huge in the paleness of her face, deeply blue and haunted. She was expressionless, too shocked to feel anything at this precise moment in time. It hadn’t been her imagination at all that Adam was here. He really was. The rose proved that.

Always, in the past, on the night of a performance, Adam would arrange for a single red rose to be delivered to her dressing-room at the start of the evening. As he had arranged for one to be brought to her hotel this evening...

He knew where she was staying!

Her expression was panicked as she turned to the man at her side. ‘Mark—’

‘It’s all right, Maggi,’ he soothed as he let them both into the suite. ‘It’s only a rose.’ Even as he spoke he smoothly dropped the red-ribbon-wrapped box into the bin just inside the sitting-room. ‘As easily disposed of as that,’ he added with satisfaction.

Maggi conceded that the flower might be easily disposed of, but she knew the man who’d sent it wasn’t. At least, the memory of him wasn’t. She had spent the last three years attempting to bury every memory of him—and the single act of sending her a red rose had brought all those memories flooding back. And the pain that went along with them.

Mark watched her as she slowly sat down in one of the armchairs. He was a tall, dark-haired man, a couple of years older than Maggi’s own twenty-six.

‘Maggi, don’t let him ruin this for you.’ Mark came down on his haunches beside her chair to take her hands into his much larger ones. Her fingers were chilled against his, despite the relative warmth of the autumn evening. ‘God knows, he’s already taken enough from you!’ he added with grim fierceness.

She swallowed hard, trying to rid herself of feelings of nausea. While there had still been some doubt, while she had been able to half convince herself she was imagining Adam’s presence tonight, to tell herself she had just thought he was there because he always had been in the past, she had been able to keep her emotions under control. But now there was no doubt...!

She looked at Mark with haunted eyes. ‘Why is he here, Mark?’ Her voice was huskily soft, filled with pain.

His hands tightened about hers. ‘Why was he ever anywhere?’ he returned bitterly, shaking his head. ‘If not to cause trouble?’

‘But why?’ she groaned brokenly. ‘What did I ever do to him that he should want to hurt me again now?’

She hadn’t seen or heard from Adam in three years, and yet the first time she made a public appearance... How could he do this to her, after all he had already done in the past?

‘That’s it, Maggi,’ Mark encouraged as he saw the flash of anger that suddenly lightened her eyes. ‘Don’t get sad, get mad! That bastard has caused you enough damage without trying to ruin this for you too!’

Mark was right, and despite her nervousness earlier this evening, about appearing in public again, she had also been looking forward to it in a way, to seeing if she could really still do it. And she had. She could!

That red rose might have shaken her, but Mark was also right when he said she couldn’t let that take any of her earlier triumph away from her. She had another two days of the festival to get through, when, she admitted, there was a possibility of bumping into Adam. But she was at least aware of his presence now, was prepared for it, even if she accepted that facing him again would probably be the hardest thing she would ever have to do in her life.

But she could do it. She had survived, had got through the initial difficulty of this evening too; she could certainly get through seeing Adam again.

She squared her shoulders determinedly, giving Mark a bright smile. ‘Let’s order a bottle of champagne to celebrate this evening!’ She stood up, determined to shake off the despondency that had fallen upon them both since they had seen the rose.

Mark stood up too, grinning, obviously relieved she had decided to rise to the occasion. ‘I thought you would never ask!’

They were both acting a role. Maggi accepted that, knew that with the worry of Adam’s presence somewhere in the area neither of them particularly felt like celebrating anything. But it was a role both of them were going to play, and, without another glance at the box containing the rose, Maggi telephoned Room Service to order the champagne.

Thoughts of Adam could come later, when she couldn’t put them off any longer. For the moment she only wanted to think of the success of the evening just gone. And to share that success with Mark.

‘The place is packed, Maggi!’ Mark told her excitedly the following evening as she stood waiting to go out on stage.

She could hear the sound of the audience talking loudly together as they waited for her to make an appearance, knew by the volume of noise that the large civic hall, where she was to perform tonight, must indeed be very full.

‘I told you this was what would happen once people heard of your success last night,’ Mark continued happily. ‘You’re on your way back, Maggi!’ He gave her a hug.

Her way back to where? That was what she was starting to worry about. She had been working hard towards this weekend—a long, uphill struggle that she had finally won. But if it meant she might have to see Adam again...

That was something that had never even entered her head, not at the beginning, or during those past months of planning. She’d had no reason to suppose he would want to see her again, any more than she wanted to see him. But last night he had sent that red rose...

And tonight, before she and Mark had left the hotel, there had been another rose, letting her know more forcefully than anything else could have done that Adam knew she was singing again this evening.

‘Try to look more cheerful about it,’ Mark reproved her now frowningly. ‘This is what you’ve worked so hard for.’

He was right; she knew he was. She couldn’t let Adam spoil this for her. As he had spoilt so many things before...

She had been in trepidation earlier today that Adam might turn up at the hotel looking for her. But the time had passed in relative peace, their food delivered by Room Service, she and Mark only leaving the suite for a couple of hours this afternoon to go and luxuriate in the hotel pool—and she had started to relax.

But would Adam be out there again tonight? It was logical to assume he probably would be; it was listed in the festival’s weekend programme exactly when and where she would be playing over the three-day period. It was the thought of him standing silently in the audience watching her, when she couldn’t see him—as she still felt sure he had been last night!—that was so unnerving to her. The second single rose that had been delivered to the hotel earlier seemed to be a promise of that, despite Mark’s protestations that she should just forget about it, forget about Adam. He knew better than most how she had tried to do that—he must also know how impossible she had found it to do!