A Perfect Marriage (14 page)

  
 
In the mirror her eyes looked dark and mystic, her face delicately flushed. The light shone on her hair, picking up, as Sophie had promised, gold and amber glints.

She tried to see herself as Max had. Was it possible that he'd found her more attractive than he remembered? That somehow the sight of her had unsettled him, even made him doubt his feelings for Kate?

Celine shook her head. Don't assume too much, she warned herself. She might have surprised him by looking more glamorous and more desirable than he'd come to expect, but Max was far from shallow. A new hairdo and a low-cut dress weren't enough to change his feelings or bring him to her feet.

He was madly in love with Kate. She mustn't lose sight of that. But ... his reactions did give her food for thought.

A couple of days later Celine phoned Roland Jackson and arranged to meet him at his house just after five. He was waiting for her when she arrived.

"I like the place because the rooms are a decent size," he explained, "but it's about fifty years old. The outside has been quite well maintained, though it needs a coat of paint. I can do that, all right, but I've no idea what to do inside. My wife used to take care of all that- I'm divorced."

"I see." As he pushed open the front door for them, she looked down a wide but dim passageway.

"I think this is the original wallpaper," he told her, waving a hand. The paper was speckled with brown, and peel ing
The
other rooms were equally neglected. "But
it's
sound," Roland told her, stamping gently on the bare boards of one of the bedroom floors. "I used to do a bit of building, so I know what to look for."

After touring the whole house, Celine said, "I'd love to take it in hand, it could be a beautiful home, but the kitchen and bathroom should be totally remodelled, and the other rooms at least repapered. I'd like to keep some of the cupboards, but they'll have to be stripped-I should think
there
 
are
at least three or four layers of paint on that wood. If you can afford it-"

"I want the job done properly. I expected it to be expensive."

"We must talk about what you like and don't like, and what use you want to make of the rooms. And any ideas you have."

Celine went home feeling almost cheerful. Roland seemed able to afford pretty much what he wanted, and it promised to be a lucrative commission, besides being a challenge to her skills.

The mail that morning had contained several bills that she'd readdressed to Max. For several years she'd been using her own earnings for most of her clothes and personal needs, but lately she'd begun to feel uncomfortable about him paying for her electricity and phone calls when he no longer lived in the house.

She voiced that thought to him when he rang her to enquire about an account that seemed to be overdue, but he brushed off her tentative offer to take over the payments. "We can sort out those things later," he said. "I'm quite happy with the arrangement meantime."

"Is Kate?" she asked.

After a moment's cool silence, he said, "I'm not married to Kate yet." Then he added, "Anyway, I don't think you can afford to pay all the household expenses on your own."

"Dad helps out, and I make money from the decorating
: ,

"Still, it's only intermittent, isn't it? You can't be sure of a steady income."

"I'm working on it. I have another commission."

"Good. We'll still leave things, as they are for now, though."

Shopping for a sixtieth birthday present for Max's mother, Celine found herself standing shoulder to shoulder at a cosmetics counter with Honoria Harding.

"Celine!"
Honoria cried, a pair of outrageously large, bright cerise earrings swinging violently as she swivelled her head. "I haven't seen you in ages. You look wonderful! Are you growing your hair? I remember when we first met in Rarotonga you had lovely long hair. I always thought it was a shame you cut it." She broke off to take a parcel and her credit card from the shop assistant. "Thanks. What are you looking for, Celine? They have this stunning new makeup range-" She turned back to the girl behind the counter. "Show my friend the
Spellbound
special, would you? They're having a cut-price promotion," she explained to Celine, "to introduce it."

Between the saleswoman, who swung into her pitch instantly with the skill of practice, and Honoria, whose idea of a good time Max had once said was to spend the greatest amount of money in the shortest possible time, Celine had no chance. By the time she was settled at a table in a nearby café with Honoria, she was holding a silver-printed bag containing not only a complete set of scented bath salts, toilet soap and talcum powder with a large fluffy towel and matching hand towel for Nancy's birthday, but also a number of assorted containers bearing the Spellbound logo.

"And how's darling Max?" Honoria asked, choosing a filled pastry case from the assortment before her.

She ought to be getting used to this, Celine told herself as she unclenched her teeth. "You haven't heard," she said. "We've split up."

"No!" Honoria dropped the tart back onto the plate. "Oh, Celine, I had no idea. Last time I saw you the two of you seemed just the same as when we first met you on your honeymoon! What went wrong?"

She had told no one about Kate Payne. Max had promised her a period of grace, and she'd been grateful for it. But now, with Honoria's shocked and sympathetic gaze on her, she said baldly, "He's found another woman."

"Max? Oh, well..." Honoria's tone held a mixture of disgust and resignation. "He is a man, I suppose. How old is he now?"

"Thirty-seven-nearly thirty-eight."

Honoria nodded wisely. "That's the age for it, all right. How old is the floozy?"

Despite herself, Celine couldn't help smiling.
"Twentyfive.
But she's not really a floozy. She's a high-powered lawyer who works with him."

"Twenty-five, huh?"
Honoria nodded again, unsurprised.

"He ... he wants to marry her."

Honoria snorted. "Give it time. He'll grow out of itTom did."

"Tom left you?"

"Not exactly.
He was having an affair with his secretary and I threw him out. That brought him to his senses, I can tell you."

"Max has already walked out. I didn't even have to ask him to go."

"Hmm.
Is he living with her?"

"Not yet.
Not openly, anyway."

"So what are you going to do about it?"

"What can I do?"

Honoria gave her a pitying look. She leaned across the table. "If you want him back, hon, you've got to get out there and fight her for him."

Experimenting with the new makeup that evening at her dressing table, Celine remembered Honoria's advice. "If you want him back-"

Did she want Max back, at any price, on any terms?

She'd been so busy hurting, and bottling up her anger, hanging on grimly -to some semblance of dignity and selfrespect, that she'd never sat down and thought about what exactly she did want. Except the impossible, to have everything remain as it had been.

Max had told his mother that he didn't think Celine would have him back. He thought he knew her well enough to predict that.

  
 
He'd deliberately burnt his boats, then, by walking away from her. She knew his decision to leave had been no impetuous action. Max had always known exactly what he wanted, and gone after it single-mindedly. Now he wanted Kate, and he was prepared to discard his marriage to get her.

He'd said he hoped that Celine and he would remain friends. Did he find it as difficult to imagine a life without her as she did without him? But friendship wasn't what she wanted.

And why, she thought with a hot surge of resentment, should Max assume he could have it both ways? She was his wife, and if she wasn't going to be his wife for much longer, she wouldn't damn well be his friend, either!

Telling him so wouldn't make a scrap of difference, she supposed. She'd have to adopt a more effective strategy.

She put down the makeup brush she'd been wielding and looked at
herself
in the mirror. She'd used rather more eye makeup than she usually did, and outlined her lips with a lip pencil before colouring them, so that her mouth was more clearly defined. The dusky rose lipstick the saleswoman had pressed on her suited her, and the eyeshadow, a soft shade between violet and brown, lent her eyes a slumbrous look. She picked up a small container of dusky rose blusher and applied some of the colour to the skin over her cheekbones. The shape of her face looked instantly different, as if it had acquired interesting new contours.

She didn't think for a moment that a change of makeup would bring Max crawling back to her, she wasn't that stupid. What it would do was help her to face him with some confidence next time they met.

Which, she realised, would probably be at Nancy's birthday dinner. Michelle had insisted that Nancy would want her to attend, and to bring her father along. "He's known Mum and Dad forever, after all. You won't mind Max being there, will you?" she'd asked. "You two aren't going to start throwing the plates at each other?"

"No," Celine assured her. Neither of them could imagine Max throwing plates at anyone. And obviously
Mi
 
chelle
thought Celine equally incapable of it. "But," she added cautiously, "perhaps Max will want to bring someone-"

"It's a family occasion, for family only. Mum specifically asked for it to be that way."

"Then I'm not sure-"

"You're family," Michelle told her firmly. "You're Mum's goddaughter and Maxine's godmother, besides being still legally married to Max. So you're coming, aren't you?"

Ted declined the invitation, surprising Celine.

"Why don't you want to go?" she pressed him. "I'm sure Nancy will be pleased to have you there. You must be one of her oldest friends."

"Your mother was her friend, and I don't want to be reminded of your mother just now. Somehow, losing Dora has brought it all back too clearly. And you know I'm not one for going out to restaurants and such. I'd rather spend a quiet evening alone. Just give Nancy my best wishes. She'll understand."

Max had arranged for Celine's car to be fixed and delivered to her after the Chatswoods' party, so she was surprised when he phoned and asked her if she'd like a lift to his parents' house. About to tell him she'd drive herself, she recalled Honoria Harding's advice and said, "Thank you. What time shall I expect you?"

She heard the door chime as she was fixing her hair. Max was a few minutes early, and she was having some trouble getting her hair into the style Sophie had shown her last time she'd visited the salon.

Inclined to hurry, she made herself slow down, although her fingers were trembling. Her father would let Max in. She was going to look her very best tonight, and if it meant keeping Max waiting, so be it. She wondered how he felt, having to ring the doorbell of his own house and wait to be invited inside.

  
 
Carefully she inserted the last pins, and picked up a hand mirror to see the back of her hair. She checked her makeup without haste, slipped a pair of garnet earrings into her lobes and stood up to inspect
herself
.

Extravagantly, she'd bought another new dress, a dramatic tomato-red silk, a colour she seldom wore, but it suited her.

The wide, stiffened collar framed her shoulders and neck, and dipped in front to the shallow hollow between her breasts. Large buttons fastened all the way down the front. There was no belt because it was cut on slim lines, and she had to leave the bottom two buttons undone to allow her to walk with freedom because the skirt fitted snugly over her hips and thighs.

Sheer nylon encased her legs, and she had dark red highheeled pumps on her feet. A whisper of the new eyeshadow on each lid, finished with navy eyeliner and mascara, enhanced her eyes.

She felt like a teenager on her first date-nervous, excited,
anticipatory
. Her cheeks didn't really need the blusher that she'd touched them with.

Downstairs, Max was talking to her father in the lounge. As she entered the room she had the satisfaction of seeing a look almost of shock cross his face when he rose from his chair.

She didn't apologise for keeping him waiting.

He took her elbow to guide her out to the car, and as he opened the door for her he cast
her a
searching glance. When he slid in beside her, he looked at her again, fumbling for the ignition key. "You look very nice," he said quietly.

"Nice?" She swivelled her head to 'look at him, brows raised.

His fingers had found the key, but he didn't turn it immediately. "Beautiful," he said, making her blood suddenly run faster.

"You approve, then?" This dress was defiantly sexier than the one he'd been so censorious about before.

 
He smiled as though acknowledging a hit, but didn't answer as he started the engine and moved off.

The car stopped in the gateway while he checked for traffic. As they turned onto the road, she asked casually, "How's Kate?"

"Very well," he replied formally.

"She doesn't object to you taking me to this party?"

"I didn't ask her permission."

Did that mean she didn't know? Celine wondered. "Does your family know about her now?"

"Yes. My mother... doesn't want to meet her yet. She needs a little time to adjust to what's happened."

She wasn't the only one, Celine told him silently. And perhaps some of us don't want to adjust. Supposing she just decided not to? "What about Michelle?"

His lips twisted wryly. "Michelle is very loyal ... to you. I'm not sure if she'll be speaking to me tonight."

"I'll talk to her if you like." It distressed her to think of Michelle and Max being at odds. Theirs was a close-knit family.

"Magnanimous of you," Max said, "but don't worry about it. She'll come round when she meets Kate."