The Marriage Deal

In his turn, he was staring at her as if he didn’t know who she was, and then she saw a dawning horror in his eyes.

And in the same instant heard a girl’s voice saying with plaintive impatience, ‘Sweetie, aren’t you ever coming back to bed? Get rid of whoever it is and …’ She appeared from the bedroom, wearing nothing but the coverlet from the bed draped round her, none too effectively.

The hand was round Ashley’s throat again, tightening, squeezing …

The girl came forward to Jago’s side. Her eyes, blue and hard as nails, flicked over Ashley dismissively.

‘They say three’s a crowd, don’t they, darling? Or is that the way you like it?’

Jago slumped against the door jamb with a muffled groan.

Ashley wanted to stamp her feet. She wanted to kick, to lash out with her hands, and tear with her nails, and scream. She wanted to damage them, both of them, physically. Mark them as they had smashed her emotionally.

Nausea rose, hot and acrid, in her throat, and she turned and ran down the stairs, not waiting for the lift, and out into the chill of the night air. She leaned against her car, retching miserably, uncaring who might see her or what conclusions they might draw. Then, as soon as she was sufficiently in control of herself, she climbed into the driving seat, and started the engine. She didn’t go home. She drove out of town, and down to the river, parking in the very spot where Jago had proposed to her, sitting white-faced and burning-eyed until dawn.

When she finally returned home, she brushed aside her father’s reproaches and anxious queries, saying merely that she’d had some thinking to do, and needed to be alone. When she’d added that she was no longer going to marry Jago she and Silas had the worst row of their lives.

‘But you can’t throw him over for some whim!’ he’d raged at her. ‘My God, girl, only last week you thought the sun, moon, and stars all shone out of him! And I need him. I need a strong man to run Landons after I’m gone. As your husband he can become chairman after me. As soon as I met him, I knew he was the right man.’

‘Right for me?’ she wanted to ask, wincing. ‘Or merely right for Landons?’ But she’d never voiced the query.

Her magnificent solitaire diamond ring she’d sent back to Jago by company messenger, with a note stating bleakly that she never wanted to see him or hear from him again.

And nor had she, Ashley thought wearily, until now. Until that phone call, like a bolt from the blue.

Not only was her company at risk. With Jago’s return, her precarious peace of mind was threatened. And that, frighteningly, seemed a great deal worse.

CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_9e960889-c57a-5c70-8a3e-30ce0dc30c4e)

AFTER a while, when she felt a little calmer, she lifted the telephone and dialled.

‘Martin Witham, please,’ she told the receptionist who answered. ‘Tell him Miss Landon is calling.’

She was put through with flattering promptness.

‘Ashley!’ Martin sounded pleased and surprised. ‘Why on earth are you back so soon?’

‘Clearly, you haven’t been reading the financial pages,’ she said lightly. ‘Let’s just say a state of emergency’s been declared and it seemed better to return.’

‘My poor sweet!’ His voice was warm and concerned. ‘Want to tell me all about it over dinner at the Country Club tonight?’

She laughed. ‘That’s exactly what I hoped you’d say,’ she teased. ‘Pick me up at eight?’

‘I’ll be counting the minutes,’ he promised.

She felt better after that. His voice had reassured her, helping to take away the sour taste the earlier call had left.

She’d been seeing Martin for a couple of months, since he’d arrived from London to join a local firm of solicitors. After Jago, Ashley had tended to steer clear of any kind of involvement, but Martin had persuaded her to think again, although he had made it clear from the first that he was in no hurry to rush into any kind of serious relationship. He’d been divorced, he told her, and was still licking his wounds, but he would be glad of some female companionship.

It was an arrangement which suited them both very well. Since Silas’ death, Ashley had been lonelier than she cared to remember, and Martin’s friendship had buoyed her up, just when she needed it most.

And she needed him now, she thought ruefully.

Martin had not told her very much about his marriage, and she was equally reticent on the subject of her broken engagement. Now, she supposed, she would have to tell Martin that her ex-fiancé was back in town, throwing fresh attention on an episode she had hoped was behind her for ever.

She felt depression closing in on her like a cloud, and gave herself a swift mental shake. Sleep was what she needed, and food. She made herself an omelette in her compact kitchen, eating every scrap, then curled up on the living room sofa, emptying her mind, and relaxing her muscles until her intrinsic weariness had its way with her.

When she woke, she felt perceptibly better, refreshed and even relaxed. Which seemed, she thought, to bode well for the evening ahead. She applied her usual light make-up, sprayed herself lavishly with Amazone, then zipped herself into a new dress she’d bought on impulse during her West Indian holiday. It was the colour which had attracted her originally—a clear, vivid emerald, enhancing her eyes.

Her one beauty, she thought critically, as she turned and twisted in front of the mirror, trying to decide whether the dress was too extreme for the sedate delights of the County Club. Certainly, the crossover bodice plunged lower than anything she had worn before, and the back of the dress bared her from the brief halter round her neck almost to the base of her spine. For a moment, she was tempted to change into something more demure, something that reflected the muted businesslike image she tried to project these days. Then she tossed her head, making her glossy hair swing challengingly.

To hell with it, she thought recklessly. Since the night of Jago’s betrayal, she’d lived a kind of half-life. Perhaps it was only right that his return should signal her emergence from her self-imposed chrysalis—proclaiming to the world at large, as well as himself, that she no longer carried even the flicker of a torch for him.

She’d been a fool to react like that to his call, she told herself angrily. She should have been civil but indifferent, instead of letting him know he could still get under her skin. Well, she would know better at their next encounter—if there was one.

Martin’s expression when she admitted him to the flat was evidence, if she needed it, that her change of image was a success. And it reminded her too of how little thought she’d given to her appearance over the past couple of years.

‘The new me,’ she explained. ‘Do you approve?’

‘I’m not sure if “approve” is the word I’m looking for,’ Martin said carefully. ‘May I kiss you, or will it spoil your make-up?’

Ashley went readily into his arms. She was accustomed to the light embraces they exchanged on meeting and parting, and when Martin deliberately prolonged and deepened the kiss, she made no demur. Perhaps it wasn’t just the outer shell she needed to change, she thought, submitting passively to the ardent pressure of his mouth on hers.

She waited for some answering surge in her own blood, but it didn’t happen. Probably she was still too tired and caught off-balance by the past twenty-four hours to be able to conjure up much of a response, she excused herself, as they left for the Club.

It was already quite crowded when they arrived. Martin had booked a corner table, away from the dance floor where a three-piece band played quietly.

‘The usual wide choice, I see,’ he said wryly, handing her a menu. ‘Steak, steak, scampi or steak.’

Ashley smiled at him. ‘And I keep telling you that’s the height of sophistication in this neck of the woods,’ she teased.

‘So you do,’ he muttered. ‘What’s it to be, then?’

‘Melon, please, followed by a fillet steak rare to medium, and a side salad.’

‘And I’ll have the same,’ Martin told the waiter. His hand reached for Ashley’s across the table. ‘We never seem to ask for anything else. Maybe we should make it a standing order.’

‘Maybe,’ Ashley returned neutrally. She returned the pressure of his fingers, but his words troubled her, seeming to signal a permanence she wasn’t ready for. She was relieved when the conversation took a less personal turn. Martin was engaged in litigation work, and he gave a droll description of some of the cases he’d been defending while she way away.

Ashley leaned back in her chair, enjoying the fragrance of the white wine she had asked for as an aperitif, her eyes idly scanning the room as she did so.

‘And when the magistrate asked if he had anything to say, the idiot came back with “But the car always stalls if I drive at less than sixty, Your Worship”,’ Martin was saying, then his voice sharpened. ‘Ashley, what is it? Are you all right?’

Her whole body had tensed, and she could feel the blood draining from her face. Standing in the doorway, looking round the room, was Jago Marrick.

Her first, instinctive thought was how little he had changed in the intervening years. The breach between them had left no mark on him as it had on her, but then why should it? she asked herself bitterly. No doubt he’d regretted the loss of Landons, but he was a success in his own right as Silas had always predicted. Ashley had been nothing more to him than a means to an end.

But it was unfair, she thought, digging her nails into the palms of her hands, that his physical appeal should not have diminished. Outwardly, he was still the man she’d fallen so helplessly in love with.