For Better For Worse

Then she had been flattered; reassured; filled with gratitude and joy by his words.

Then…

Now, even with the width of the kitchen between them, she could smell the scent of another woman’s sex on him.

Fastidiously she increased the distance between them.

Was Nick having another affair? Last night he had denied it. And she had wanted him to deny it.

She had invested so much in this marriage, given so much to it. Too much?

How could she stay with him if he was having another affair, and yet how could she leave? Marriage was a lifetime commitment, and when problems arose within it they had to be worked at… or ignored? Her heart lurched. Was she really such a coward?

‘What’s wrong with you?’ Nick demanded sourly. ‘Not still sulking, are you?’

Protectively Fern turned to one side, reaching for the kettle, letting the straight swath of her hair swing across her face, obscuring her expression.

‘I’ve got a bit of news for you,’ Nick told her.

The surliness had gone from his voice now. It was lighter, triumphant… gloating almost. Her tension increased, but Fern suppressed it, concealing her reaction from him as instinctively as she had concealed her face. Inwardly her soul ached at what she was doing; for what their relationship had become.

‘It seems my saintly stepbrother is planning to buy Broughton House.’

Fern’s fingers tensed on the kettle-handle. She was glad she had her back to Nick.

‘Now I wonder what he wants with a place that size. All those bedrooms. A real family place…’

Fern could hear the ugly note of triumph quite clearly in his voice now. ‘Pity he hasn’t got a real family to put in it, isn’t it? Or maybe he’s thinking of acquiring one.

‘What is it, Fern? I haven’t said something to upset you, have I? Oh, I forgot—you’ve always been pretty keen on Broughton House yourself, haven’t you? You were always up there at one time… or so you claimed…’

‘I visited old Mrs Broughton occasionally, that’s all,’ Fern told him quietly.

Why did he insist on doing this to her? He knew as well as she did that there was no need… no point… He knew how bitterly she regretted what she had done.

‘Did you go to bed with him, Fern?’ he had asked her. ‘Did you?’ And she had wept silent tears which she knew had betrayed her.

‘He doesn’t want you, you know,’ he had told her, softly, gently almost, kinder to her now when he had the least reason to be than he had ever been. If he had shown her that kindness before, that compassion… would things have been any different?

How many men would still have wanted to remain married to her after that? Not many. A husband’s infidelity was one thing; a wife’s was something very different.

‘You’re my wife,’ he had told her when she had broken down and asked him why he wanted her to stay. ‘Marriage is forever, Fern. Isn’t that what your parents have always told you?’

She was his wife. He wanted their marriage… wanted her… needed her, so why was there this emptiness between them, this lack of harmony… this ugliness which eroded her pride and her self-respect?

‘I’m going up to have a shower,’ Nick told her.

To wash another woman’s scent off his body? Didn’t he realise that it was too late?

The kettle boiled and switched itself off.

So Adam was thinking of buying Broughton House… and of getting married.

Even though she was prepared for it—her body tensed against it—the pain was still sharp enough to make her catch her breath.

Adam was her brother-in-law; that was all, she reminded herself fiercely. Her stepbrother-in-law. Nothing more. Not now, not once… not ever.

Eleanor saw the advertisement while she was sitting in her dentist’s waiting-room flicking through a surprisingly current copy of Country Life.

It was the photograph that first caught her eye; the front of the house faced south and it had been photographed on a sunny day so that the stone walls were washed to a soft warm gold, the light glinting on the uneven leaded panes of the dormer attic windows.

The house looked settled, solid, permanent, safe and reassuring, offering a refuge from life’s turbulence… offering comfort.

She stared at the photograph for so long that at first she didn’t hear the receptionist call out her name.

Later, when she got home and discovered that in her haste to respond to the girl’s second clipped summons she had stuffed the magazine into her bag, she stifled her feelings of guilt and put the magazine down on her desk, intending to throw it away. But for some reason she didn’t… For some reason, later on in the day, taking a break from a particularly difficult translation of some Spanish documents for one of her clients, as she drank her cup of tea she found herself flicking through the magazine again, stopping when she reached the half-page ad featuring the house, reading the written details below the photograph briefly, her real attention focused on the photograph itself, on the warmth the house seemed to give off, the security… the sanctuary…

Sanctuary… The word dug into her conscience like a sharp thorn. What need did she have of any sanctuary? A happy second marriage, a successful career… two well-adjusted sons. She was one of the luckiest people she knew; everyone said so…

Everyone…

‘They want us… they want us… They want us!’ Zoe exulted, breaking free of Ben’s arm to perform a brief pirouette of triumph, laughing up at him as he caught hold of her, restraining her and shaking his head.

‘Don’t get too excited,’ he warned her. ‘This is only the first step. Now we’ve got to keep our fingers crossed that they can find the right place.’

He was frowning now with the seriousness which had initially attracted her to him and which sometimes she found heartachingly hard to fathom.

Why did he always seem to fear that life was waiting to deliver a blow? Why couldn’t he simply share her exultation? But she was being unfair; she knew that in his own way he did, and that, although he would die rather than admit it, this first step down the road they had plotted out for themselves was intensely important to him.

‘Benedict Fraser, Restaurateur of the Year,’ Zoe crowed, refusing to allow him to suppress her exhilaration. ‘I can see it now. “Benedict Fraser, ably aided by his ravishingly attractive and capable business manager, Ms Zoe Clinton, at their country house restaurant… quite definitely the success story of the year…"’

‘Hang on. We still have to find our country house,’ Benedict warned her. ‘Or at least our backer has to…’

‘Our backer… I still can’t believe it’s all happening. And all through you stepping in at the last minute and doing the catering for the Hargreaveses’ wedding.’

‘I’d never have done it if you hadn’t pushed me into it. Wedding breakfasts aren’t really my thing, and having to step in at the last minute like that… It’s all down to you.’

‘It’s not down to either of us,’ Zoe corrected him firmly. ‘We did it together. Both of us. We make a good team, Ben.’ She darted him a brief look and added softly, ‘In bed and out of it…’

As she had known it would, her reference to the sexual aspect of their relationship made him slightly embarrassed. For a man who was such a skilled and sensitive lover, he was oddly shy and uneasy about discussing sex. His upbringing, perhaps?

She shook her head, pushing the thought aside, not wanting it to spoil her own pleasure in their day.

‘How long do you think it will take Clive Hargreaves to find a suitable property?’

‘I don’t know. But he’s obviously already looking. I saw a pile of brochures on his desk when we were signing the contract.’

Zoe gave an ecstatic sigh. ‘We’re finally on our way. Nothing can stop us now… nothing. It’s all there waiting for us… everything we’ve wanted. Our own restaurant and the option of developing it into a small country hotel. You as the chef—the chef—and me managing the administration side of things. Just the way we dreamed.’