A Wife on Paper

She wasn’t even surprised that he had taken the time from his busy life to fly in from whatever distant part of the world he currently called home to attend his half-brother’s funeral.

He was a man who took the formalities very seriously. He believed that every t should be properly crossed, every i firmly dotted. He’d made no secret of his disapproval of her and Steven’s decision not to do the ‘decent’ thing and get married. Demonstrated it by his absence from their lives.

As if it was any of his business.

No, what truly astonished her was that he had the nerve to show up at all after three years in which they hadn’t seen or heard from him. She hadn’t cared for herself, but for Steven…

Poor Steven…

Thankfully, she didn’t have to make an effort to hide her feelings as their gazes briefly met over the heads of the gathered mourners. Her face was frozen into a white mask. Nothing showed. There was nothing to show. Just a gaping hollow, an emptiness yawning in front of her. She knew if she allowed herself to think, to feel, she’d never get through this, but as she walked past him, looking neither to left nor right, he said her name, very softly.

‘Francesca…’

Softly. Almost tenderly. As if he cared. And the ache in her throat intensified. The mask threatened to crack…

Anger saved her. Hot, shocking, like a charge of lightning.

How dared he come here today? How dared he make a show of offering her sympathy when he hadn’t bothered to so much as lift a telephone when Steven was alive and it would have actually meant something?

Did he expect her to stop? Listen to his empty condolences? Allow him to take her arm, sit beside her in church as if he gave a damn…?

Just for appearances.

‘Hypocrite,’ she replied as, looking neither to left nor right, she swept past him.

She looked brittle. Insubstantial. Like spun glass. Altered out of all recognition from the vital young woman who’d changed his life in a moment with just one look.

Thin watery sunlight filtered through the October sky to light up her pale hair, emphasise the translucence of her skin, as she stood by the church doorway, shaking hands with those who’d taken the time to come and pay their respects. Inviting them back to the house. Cool, composed, apparently in control. The only moment when she’d seemed real, herself, had been that quick angry flush to her cheeks when he’d spoken her name. The rest was all just a role she was playing, he thought, a performance to get her through the nightmare.

One tap and she’d shatter…

He hung back, waiting until the others had moved off, before he stepped out of the shadows of the porch. She knew he was there, but he’d given her the chance to walk away, ignore him. But she was waiting for him to say his piece. Maybe she hoped he’d explain, but what could he say?

The words for what he was feeling hadn’t yet been invented. The loss, the pain, the regret that the last time he’d seen his brother, Steve had been at his worst. It had been deliberate, of course. A ploy to make him angry. And he’d risen self-righteously to the bait…

Neither of them had come out of it with any glory.

But she’d lost the man she loved. The father of her child. How much worse must it be for her…

He stepped forward. ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t get here sooner, Francesca.’

‘Ten days. Time enough to have got from almost anywhere, I would have thought.’

He wanted to ask her why she’d left it so late. Too late.

‘I wish I could have relieved you of the burden of organising this.’ His voice seemed to belong to someone else. Someone cold, distant…

‘Oh, please. Don’t apologise. Your secretary rang, offering to help— I imagine Steven’s lawyer must have called your office—but a funeral is a family thing. Not something for strangers.’

He wasn’t talking about the funeral, but the months before that, when Steve had been dying and he’d been on the other side of the world, unaware of the tragedy about to overtake them all. By the time the message that his brother was running out of time had reached him, it was too late.

‘It took me days to get to any kind of landing strip when the message came through about Steve.’ He sounded, even to himself, as if he were making excuses. ‘I’ve come straight from the airport.’

Finally she turned to look at him. Acknowledge him.

‘You really needn’t have bothered. We’ve managed perfectly well without you for the last three years. The last six months changed nothing.’

Her voice was cold, too. Every word an ice dagger striking at his heart. But this wasn’t about him. His feelings.

Right now all he cared about was her. He wanted to say that she was all he’d cared about for the last three years. Instead he said, ‘Are you going to be all right?’

‘All right?’ She repeated the words carefully, as if testing them. Trying to divine his meaning. ‘In what way could I possibly be “all right”? Steven is dead. Toby’s daddy is dead…’

‘Financially,’ he said, pressing on, even though he knew that he was making things immeasurably worse. Or perhaps not. How could they possibly be worse?

Her silver-grey eyes regarded him with utter disdain. ‘I should have known your only concern would be for the practicalities. Ensuring that I did it by the book. It isn’t feelings that matter with you, is it, Guy? It’s appearances.’

Which answered that question.

Smothering the pain, he pressed on. ‘Practicalities have to be addressed, Francesca.’

Listen to him! He should be putting his arms around her, offering her comfort, taking a little for himself, but since that was denied him he was talking like a lawyer. If he’d been a lawyer there would be some excuse…

‘Please don’t concern yourself about us, Guy. By your standards I’m about as “all right” as it’s possible to be. The house. Life insurance… That is what you mean, isn’t it?’ With that, she turned and crossed to the waiting limousine. The driver held the door for her, but she didn’t get in, just stood there for a moment, head bowed, as if gathering herself for the ordeal ahead. After a moment or two she straightened, glanced back at him, then with a lift of her shoulders she said, ‘I suppose you’d better come back to the house. For appearances.’

Then she climbed into the car and waited for him to follow her.

He didn’t mistake her invitation for a thaw but he abandoned the car that had been waiting for him at the airport without hesitation.

‘Thank you,’ he said as he joined her.

‘I don’t want your thanks. He was your brother. I haven’t forgotten that, even if you did.’ And she shifted to the farthest end of the seat, putting the maximum distance between them, not that he had any intention of crowding her. Offering comfort that she clearly didn’t want—at least, not from him. But he had to say something.

‘I’m sorry I wasn’t here.’

That earned him another look to freeze his heart. ‘That’s just guilt talking, Guy. If you’d cared about him you wouldn’t have stayed away. Why did you do that?’ For a long moment she challenged him. Then, in the shadowy interior of the limousine, he saw a faint colour smudge her pale cheeks before, with the smallest lift of her shoulders, she let it go. ‘The cancer was virulent. Faster than anyone anticipated. I asked him if he wanted me to call you, but he said there was plenty of time.’

Instinctively he reached to hold her, comfort her as he’d hold anyone in distress, but her eyes flashed a warning. It was like hitting a force field at speed. Shocking. Painful.

He’d intended only to reassure her but realised that anything he did or said would simply fuel her resentment that he was alive, while the man she loved was dead. She clearly thought him capable of feeling nothing but guilt. And that only at a stretch.

‘He was so sure that you’d come,’ she said.

‘I’m not clairvoyant.’

‘No. Just absent.’

He bit back the need to defend himself. She needed to strike out at someone and he was a handy target. If he could do nothing else for her, he could take the blame.