The Ultimate Betrayal

‘Caught you red-handed!’ she accused her six-yearold, who had his hand lost in the biscuit barrel. Rachel sent him a fierce look while he went red, then sighed an impatient, ‘Oh, go on then—and take one for Kate— but no crumbs in the beds!’ she called after him as Sammy shot off with a whoop of triumph before she could change her mind.

The kitchen was big and homely, big enough to house the netted play-pen hugging one corner of the room. She popped Michael into it and gave him something messy to suck at while she went back to the phone.

‘Right,’ she said, dragging the twisted telephone cord behind her as she went to make herself comfortable on the bottom stair. ‘Are you still there, Mandy?’

‘Yes.’ The answer was gruff and terse. ‘Why don’t you employ someone to help you with those kids?’ Mandy asked irritably. ‘They’re an absolute pain in the neck sometimes!’

‘I’ll tell Daniel you said that,’ Rachel threatened, not taking offence. So Mandy was not the maternal type; she could accept that. Rachel was very maternal, and was not ashamed to admit it. ‘And we do employ help,’ she defended that criticism. ‘It’s just that I like the house to myself in the evenings, that’s all. Live-in help feels as though you’ve got permanent guests. I can’t relax around them.’

‘Become any more relaxed,’ Mandy mocked acidly, ‘and you’ll be asleep! For goodness’ sake, Rachel! Will you stop emulating Sleeping Beauty and wake up?’

‘Wake up to what?’ She frowned, totally bewildered as to why Mandy felt this sudden need to attack her.

A harsh sigh rattled down the line to her eardrum. ‘Rachel,’ she said, ‘where is Daniel tonight?’

The frown deepened. ‘Working late,’ she answered.

‘He’s been doing a lot of that recently, hasn’t he?’

‘Well, yes—but he’s been very busy with that takeover thing with Harveys. You know about it, don’t you?’ she prompted. ‘I’m sure I heard you both discussing it the last time you came to dinner…’

‘The Harvey thing was over months ago, Rachel!’ Mandy sighed.

Months? Had it really been months since Mandy had come to dinner? Rachel pouted, thinking back. Michael had been about—three months old, she recalled. That was three months ago! My God, where had the days, weeks—months gone to?

‘Hey!’ she exclaimed. ‘You’ll have to come to dinner again soon. I hadn’t realised it was so long since I’d seen you! I’ll talk to Daniel and see which night would be—’

‘Rachel!’ The sheer exasperation in Mandy’s voice cut her short. ‘For goodness sake—I didn’t call you to wheedle a dinner invitation out of you! Though your dinners are worth attending when you bother to put one on,’ she added, with yet more criticism spicing her tone. ‘Not that I know how you find the time, what with a house and three crazy kids to take care of, not to mention a selfish swine like…’

She was off on her usual soap-box, Rachel acknowledged, switching off. Mandy hated the way Rachel liked to run her home virtually singlehanded, and she thought Daniel contributed little or nothing. She did not understand how busy he was, how hard it had been for him to scramble his way to the top and support a young family at the same time. Nor did she understand that Rachel did not mind the long hours he had to work, that she understood that he was doing it for them, herself and the children, for their future security.

‘…and I just can’t let it go on any longer without telling you, Rachel. You are my friend, after all, not him. And it’s time someone woke you up to what’s going on under your very nose…’

‘Hey, back up a little, will you?’ Rachel had switched her attention back to what Mandy was saying only to find she had completely lost the thread of the conversation. ‘I think I missed something there along the way. What’s going on right under my nose that you think I should know about?’

‘See?’ Mandy cried impatiently. ‘There you go again! Switching off when someone is trying to tell you something important. Wake up, for God’s sake, Rachel. Wake up!’

‘Wake up to what?’ Like Mandy, she was beginning to get impatient herself.

‘To that bastard you’re married to!’ Mandy cried. ‘Dammit, Rachel—he’s playing you for a fool! He isn’t working late. He’s out with another woman!’

The words cracked like a whip, bringing Rachel jerking to her feet. ‘What, tonight?’ she heard herself say stupidly.

‘No, not tonight in particular,’ Mandy answered heavily, obviously thinking the question as stupid as Rachel thought it. ‘Some nights,’ she adjusted. ‘I don’t know how often! I just know that he is having an affair, and all of London seems to know about it except for you!’

Silence. Rachel was having difficulty functioning on any conscious level. Her breath was lying frozen inside her lungs, as pins and needles—like a deadening drug administered to ward off impending shock—gathered in her throat and made their tingling way down to her feet.

‘I’m so sorry, Rachel…’ Sensing her shock, Mandy’s. voice softened and became husky. ‘Don’t think I’m enjoying this, no matter how…’ She had been going to say how much she resented Daniel and would enjoy seeing the mighty fall. But she managed to restrain herself. Mandy disliked Daniel. Daniel disliked Mandy. Neither of them had ever made a secret of the fact that they put up with each other only for Rachel’s sake. ‘And don’t think I’m telling you this without being sure of my facts,’ she added defiantly to Rachel’s continuing silence. ‘They’ve been seen around town. In restaurants—you know—being too intimate with each other for a business relationship. But worse than that, I’ve seen them with my own eyes. My latest has a flat in the same building as Lydia Marsden,’ she explained. ‘I’ve seen them coming and going…’

Rachel had stopped listening. Her mind had turned entirely inwards, seeing things—pointers that made everything Mandy was saying just too probable to be dismissed as malicious gossip. Things she should have picked up on weeks ago, but she had been too busy, too wrapped up in her own hectic routine to notice, too trusting of the man whose love for herself and the children she had never questioned.

But she was seeing now. His frequent grim moods recently. The way he snapped at her and the children, the many times he had remained downstairs in his study working instead of coming to bed with her—making love with her.

Sickness swam like a wave over her, making her sway, close her eyes, see other times when he had tried to make love with her only to find her too tired and unresponsive. Weeks—months—of bitter frustration when she had been willing enough to give but he had been unwilling to take without knowing he was giving back in return.

But she’d thought they’d sorted that problem out! She’d thought over the last week or two—since Michael had been sleeping through the night and she had been feeling more rested—that everything was getting back to normal again.

And it was only a few nights ago that they had made love so beautifully that Daniel had trembled in her arms afterwards…

God…!

‘Rachel…’

No! She couldn’t listen to any more. ‘I have to go,’ she said huskily. ‘Michael needs me.’ Couldn’t, because she was remembering one other pointer that was far more damning than any weak points of irritability or even poor sexual performances! She was remembering the delicate scent of an expensive perfume emanating from one of his shirts one morning as she prepared it for washing. It had clung to the fine white cotton, all over it. The collar, the shoulders, the two front sections. It had been the same delicate scent she had smelled but not quite picked up on each time she had kissed him when he came home at night—on his late nights. On his lean cheek. In his hair.

Fool!

‘No—Rachel, please wait. I—’

The receiver dropped noisily on to its rest and she sank, leaden-bodied, back on to the stairs. Seeing Daniel. Daniel with another woman. Daniel having an affair. Daniel making love, drowning in another woman’s…

She retched nauseously, a hand going up to cover her mouth, turning into a white-knuckled fist to press her cold and trembling lips painfully against her clenched teeth.

The phone began ringing again. A tired cry coming from the kitchen joined the shrill sound, and she stood up, a strange kind of calmness settling over her as she first picked up the receiver, then dropped it immediately back on its rest. Then, with that same odd calmness which actually spoke of reeling shock, she lifted it off again and left it off, then walked towards the kitchen.

Michael went straight to sleep after his feed. He curled himself up into his habitual ball with his padded bottom stuck up in the air and his small teddy tucked beneath his chubby cheek. Rachel stood for a long time just staring down at him—not really seeing him, not seeing anything much.

Her mind seemed to have gone a complete blank.

She checked the twins’ rooms as she passed by. Sammy was fast asleep with his covers kicked off as usual, arms thrown out across his pillow in abandonment. She bent to drop a soft kiss on her eldest son’s cheek before gently pulling the covers over him. Sam was more like his father than the other two, dark-haired and determined-chinned. Tall for his age, too, and sturdy. Daniel had looked like him at that age; she had seen snaps of him in his mother’s photograph album. And Sam showed a stubbornness of purpose in that six-year-old face—just like his adored father.

Her heart wrenched, but she ignored the ugly feeling, turning instead to go to the other room where she stood staring down at the sleeping figure of her daughter. Kate was a different proposition entirely from her twin. You could come into this room in the morning almost guaranteed to find her sleeping in exactly the same position you had left her in the night before. Kate, with her silky hair like sunshine on her pillow. The apple of her father’s eye. She could wheedle more out of Daniel than anyone else in the family could. He openly and unashamedly adored his blue-eyed princess. And the precocious little madam knew it—and exploited it to its fullest degree.

Would Daniel so much as consider doing anything which could hurt his little girl? Or lower his stature in the eyes of his adoring eldest son? Would he dare place all of this in jeopardy over something so basic as sex?

Sex? A terrifying shiver went skittering down her spine. Maybe it was more than sex. Maybe he couldn’t help himself. Maybe it was love—the real thing. Love. The kind of love men were willing to betray everything for.

Maybe this was all just a stupid lie. A dark and cancerous bloody lie! And she was doing him the worst indignity of all by even considering it as the truth!

Then she remembered the perfume. And the times he had stayed out all night—blaming it on the Harvey contract.

The damned Harvey contract.

She reeled away and walked blindly out of Kate’s room and across the landing into their bedroom where, only last week, they had found each other again. Made love beautifully for the first time in months.

Last week. So what had happened last week to make him suddenly turn to her again? She had made an effort; that was what had happened. She’d been worried about the way their relationship was going, and she’d made an effort. Sent the children to stay with his mother for the night. Cooked his favourite meal, laid the table with their best china and lit candles, and greeted him home in a slinky black dress and with a kiss that promised so much…

So much, in fact, that she’d not even noticed the clenching of his jaw and the sudden twitch of that little nerve beside his mouth which was always a dead giveaway that he was labouring under severe stress. But she noticed it now, with aching hindsight. She closed her eyes tightly in the silence of their bedroom and saw his lean face clench, his tanned skin pale, that little nerve begin to work as she wound her arms around his neck and leaned provocatively against him.