Marriage By Deception

He’d made it clear that their personal life had to be put on hold while she was in occupation.

‘I wouldn’t feel comfortable knowing that she was sleeping in the room opposite,’ he’d said, frowning.

Ros had stared at him. ‘Surely we don’t make that much noise?’

Colin had flushed slightly. ‘It’s not that. She’s young, and far too impressionable already. We should set her a good example.’

‘I’m sure she knows the facts of life,’ Ros had said drily. ‘She could probably give us some pointers.’

But Colin had not budged. ‘We’ve plenty of time to think about ourselves,’ he’d told her, dropping a kiss on her hair.

And that was how it had remained.

Suddenly restless, Ros got up from her desk and wandered across to the window, looking down at the tiny courtyard garden beneath, which was just beginning to peep into spring flower.

Her grandmother, Venetia Blake, had planted it all, making sure there were crocuses and narcissi to brighten the early months each year. She’d added the magnolia tree, too, and trained a passion flower along one wall. And in the summer there would be roses, and tubs of scented lavender.

Apart from pruning and weeding, there was little for Ros to do, but she enjoyed working there, and, although she was a practical girl, with no belief in ghosts, there were times when she felt that Venetia’s presence was near, and was comforted by it.

She wasn’t sure why she should need comfort. Her mother had been dead for five years when her father, David Craig, had met Molly, his second wife, herself a widow with a young daughter. Molly was attractive, cheerful and uncomplicated, and the transition had been remarkably painless. And Ros had never begrudged her father his new-found happiness. But inevitably she’d felt herself overshadowed by her new stepsister. Janie was both pretty and demanding, and, like most people who expect to be spoiled, she usually got her own way too.

For a moment Ros looked at her own reflection in the windowpanes, reviewing critically the smooth, light brown hair, and the hazel eyes set in a quiet pale-skinned face. The unremarkable sweater and skirt.

Beige hair, beige clothes, beige life, she thought with sudden impatience. Perhaps Janie was right.

Or perhaps she always felt vaguely unsettled when the younger girl was around.

Janie was only occupying Ros’s spare bedroom because their parents were off celebrating David Craig’s early retirement with a round-the-world trip of a lifetime.

‘You will look after her, won’t you, darling?’ Molly Craig had begged anxiously. ‘Stop her doing anything really silly?’

‘I’ll do my best,’ Ros had promised, but she had an uneasy feeling that Molly would regard responding to lonely hearts ads as rather more silly.

But what could she do? She was a writer, for heaven’s sake, not a nanny—or a minder. She needed her own space, and unbroken concentration for her work. Something Janie had never understood.

Ros had studied English at university, and had written her dissertation on aspects of popular fiction. As an exercise, she’d tried writing a romantic novel set at the time of the Norman Conquest, and, urged on by her tutor, had submitted the finished script to a literary agent. No one had been more surprised than herself when her book had sold to Mercury House and she’d found herself contracted to write two more, using her mother’s name, Rosamund Blake.

Her original plans for a teaching career had been shelved, and she’d settled down with enormous relish to the life of a successful novelist. She realised with hindsight it was what she’d been born for, and that she’d never have been truly happy doing anything else.

With the exception of marrying and raising a family, she hastily amended. But, unlike Janie, she was in no particular hurry.

And nor, it seemed, was Colin, although he talked about ‘one day’ quite a lot.

She’d met him two years ago at a neighbour’s drinks party, which he’d followed up with an invitation to dinner.

He was tall and fair, with a handsome, rather ruddy face, and an air of dependability. He lived in a self-contained flat at his parents’ house in Fulham, and worked for a large firm of accountants in the city, specialising in corporate taxation. In the summer he played cricket, and when winter came he switched to rugby, with the occasional game of squash.

He led, Ros thought, a very ordered life, and she had become part of that order. Which suited her very well, she told herself.

In any case, love was different for everyone. And she certainly didn’t want to be like Janie—swinging deliriously between bliss and despondency with every new man. Nor did she want to emulate one of her heroines and be swept off her feet by a handsome rogue, even if he did have a secret heart of gold. Fiction was one thing and real life quite another, and she had no intention of getting them mixed up.

Life with Colin would be safe and secure, she knew. He’d give her few anxieties, certainly, because he didn’t have the imagination for serious mischief…

She stopped dead, appalled at the disloyalty of the thought. Janie’s doing, no doubt, she decided grimly.

But, whatever her stepsister thought, she was contented. And not just contented, but happy. Very happy indeed, she told the beige reflection with a fierce nod of her head. After all, she had a perfect house, a perfect garden, and a settled relationship. What else could she possibly need?

She wondered, as she returned to her desk, why she’d needed to be quite so vehement about it all…

Usually she found it easy to lose herself in her work, but for once concentration was proving difficult. Her mind was buzzing, going off at all kinds of tangents, and eventually she switched off her computer and went downstairs to make herself some coffee.

Her study was on the top floor of her tall, narrow house in a terrace just off the Kings Road. The bedrooms and bathroom were on the floor below, with the ground floor occupied by her sitting room and dining area. The kitchen and another bathroom were in the basement.

On the way down, she looked in on Janie, but the room was deserted and there were a number of screwed-up balls of writing paper littering the carpet.

Ros retrieved one and smoothed it out. “‘Dear Lonely in London”,’ she read, with a groan. “‘I’m also alone, and waiting to meet the right person to make my life complete. Why don’t we get together and—”’ A violent dash, heavily scored into the paper, showed that Janie had run out of inspiration and patience at the same time.

Ros sighed as she continued on her way to the basement. She could only hope that ‘Lonely in London’ would indeed be swamped by replies, so that Janie’s would go unnoticed.

In the kitchen she found the debris of Janie’s own coffee-making, along with the remains of a hastily made sandwich and a note which read, ‘Gone to Pam’s’.

Ros’s lips tightened as she started clearing up. Pam was a former school buddy of Janie’s, and equally volatile. No wise counsels would be prevailing there.

Well, I can’t worry about it any more, she thought. My whole working day has been disrupted as it is.

Nor would she be able to work that evening, because she was going out to dinner with Colin. Which was something to look forward to, she reminded herself swiftly. So why did she suddenly feel so depressed?

‘Darling, is something the matter? You’ve hardly eaten a thing.’

Ros started guiltily, and put down the fork she’d been using to push a piece of meat round her plate.

‘I’m fine, really.’ She smiled with an effort. ‘Just not very hungry.’

‘Well, I know it couldn’t be the food,’ said Colin. ‘This must be the only place in London where you can still get decent, honest cooking at realistic prices.’

Ros stifled a sigh. Just for once, she mused, it might be nice to eat something wildly exotic at astronomical prices. But Colin didn’t like foreign food, or seafood, to which he was allergic, or garlic. Especially not garlic.

Which was why they came to this restaurant each week and had steak, sauté potatoes, and a green salad without dressing. Not forgetting a bottle of house red.

‘I hope you’re not dieting,’ he went on with mock severity. ‘You know I like a girl to have a healthy appetite.’

Whenever he said that, Ros thought, wincing, she had a vision of herself with bulging thighs and cheeks stuffed like a hamster’s.

‘Colin,’ she said suddenly. ‘Do you think I’m dull?’

‘What on earth are you talking about?’ He put down his knife and fork and stared at her. ‘I wouldn’t be here if I thought that.’

‘But if you saw me across a roomful of people would you come to me? Push them all aside to get to me because you couldn’t stay away?’