A Perfect Marriage (30 page)

She carried the water back to the other room, and knelt by Kate's side. "Get your head up slowly-not too fastand see if you can drink some of this." Max had followed her and was standing by the door. Her look over Kate's head warned him not to come closer.

She was relieved to see that the girl had some colour back now. Obediently, Kate drank half the water, and said, "Thank you. I feel much better now." Her gaze lit on Celine's figure again as she handed back the glass, and she gave a small shiver.

Celine stood up, using a hand on the arm of the chair for leverage, and placed the glass carefully on a side table. "You'd better sit there for a while," she said. "Are you by any chance pregnant?"

Kate blinked at her in shock,
then
shook her head. "No!
Definitely not!"
Apparently the idea horrified her, too.

Relief flooded through Celine. "Was it me or Max you came to see?"

,
,You
." Kate swallowed. "I s-saw Max's car
outside,
and nearly went away again. But I wanted to talk to you. I didn't think I could screw up the courage to try again."

Deliberately, Celine raised her eyes to Max, still standing in the doorway. Kate turned her head and her lips parted soundlessly.

Max strolled forward and said quietly, "Hello, Kate. I'm sorry you're not well."

Her luscious mouth trembled. "Are you?"

Watching Max, Celine saw his face contract, the brows coming together. "Why are you here?" he asked.

  
 
The girl's hands twisted together,
then
she looked down and clamped them in her lap. "I wanted to talk to your wife."

Max was standing between her and Celine.

Celine moved to one side and dropped into a chair. It didn't seem right for both of them to be looming over their unexpected visitor. She said, speaking to Kate, "Do you want him to go?"

Kate looked at her, then at Max, and gave a little shake of her head. "It doesn't matter now."

Max took a step back, bringing him nearer to Celine, almost beside her chair. "Kate, do you really think this is a good idea?" he asked.

She scarcely glanced at him, returning an intense gaze to Celine. "He told me you couldn't have babies," she announced baldly.

"Kate!" Max moved almost threateningly towards her. Celine said, "Let her talk, Max."

 
'That's why he came back to you, isn't it?
Because you'd got yourself pregnant!"

"I did have help," Celine remarked mildly.

"I suppose he was sleeping with you all along-all the time he was with me. You told me," she added, lifting stricken eyes to Max, "that you weren't! You said all that was over between you, even before you moved out!"

Max's face was still pale. He seemed almost to wince.

To Celine, Kate said, "I was going to ask you to let him
go "

"Let him go?"

"Yes. I thought if I could talk to you, explain how much we love each other, try to make you understand-" Max said roughly, "Kate, please-"

Her voice
rose
a fraction. "He said he loved me! He said you'd never been in love with him, anyway. And you were so cold and distant you'd hardly notice that he'd gone-" "Really?" Was that what he'd thought? "I didn't exactly-" Max interjected.

"That's what you meant!" Kate threw at him. Turning back to Celine, she went on, "And when he told you he was leaving, you laughed at him."

That was true, Celine thought. Hadn't Max recognised the desperation behind her bitter laughter, the near hysteria of it?

"He said you wouldn't make it hard for us because you didn't care enough. You never had."

Celine momentarily closed her eyes.

"But if you didn't care, why did you keep holding him?"

"I'm sorry," Celine said, "I don't understand."

"There was always something," Kate cried accusingly. "He was forever running after you, even your father! Why did Max have to help him shift to the old folks' home?"

"It's a flat, actually. Max volunteered-I didn't ask him to do it."

"Maybe not, but I bet you hinted."

Max swore. "This has gone far enough! Actually, Celine's perfectly right. She never asked me for a thing. Everything I've done for her was my idea. Pack it in, Kate. I don't know what you hoped to achieve-"

"I told you-your freedom!"

"From me," Celine supplied, her eyebrows lifting ironically as she looked at Max.

"Kate, I tried to explain to you," Max said, his brows coming heavily together. "It's not the way you think-"

"No," Kate said bleakly. "I didn't realise that she-that your wife held a trump card. That the woman you told me you weren't sleeping with was having your baby. Oh, God, I've been such a fool!" She put a hand over her eyes and turned away, gulping down a sob.

"If it makes any difference, it was only one time," Celine told her. "Neither of us planned it."

Max said, "Celine, you don't have to-"

"It's all right," she answered without looking at him. A long time ago, and even more so recently, she had been just as wrenchingly hurt and humiliated, felt just as betrayed as this girl was feeling now. "It wasn't premeditated," she as-

  
 
sured
Kate. "And he couldn't have foreseen that this would come of it."

Kate had managed to swallow her tears. "Did you?" "Did I . . . ?" Celine was confused.

"Did you ... foresee you'd get pregnant? Why haven't you had a baby in all those years? You're supposed to be unable to conceive, and then suddenly, bingo! One night and that's it?" Her voice rose in disbelief. "Max said you both wanted a family-but did you? Or were you secretly on the pill?"

Celine heard the hiss of Max's indrawn breath. "No, I wasn't," she answered quietly. "It just ... happened." She couldn't really blame Kate for the suspicion in the tearwashed eyes. "Luck," she said. "I wasn't out to trap Max into coming back to me."

Patently unconvinced, Kate said insolently, "You are sure it's his?" Turning back to Max, she added, "You told me she had a boyfriend."

"Stop it, Kate!" Max's voice was harshly angry. "I know I've hurt you dreadfully," he said, "and I'm sorry for it. Whatever you want to throw at me, I probably deserve ten times over. But I can't and won't allow you to attack Celine, understand?"

Watching her face, Celine doubted that he'd ever spoken to Kate in that tone before. "But ...you loved me!" the girl said with stubborn despair, fresh tears swimming in her eyes. "You did!"

Max raked a hand into his hair. "No," he said. "I thought I did, God forgive me. You're a beautiful, talented young woman, Kate, and for a while I let that dazzle me. First it was blind emotion, and then ... I'm afraid it was partly a sense of indebtedness, because you'd ... given your heart
and.
..
and
yourself to me. Don't ever think I took that lightly... I'm very aware of what it meant to you."

He glanced fleetingly at Celine, and then looked back at the dazed, bewildered girl before him. "Please believe that it meant a great deal to me at the time." He took a long, unsteady breath. "I was the fool, Kate, not you. I wronged you, and I wronged my wife, who is the best friend I've
ever
 
had
, and who didn't deserve it any more than you did. Through my stupid, blind selfishness I've hurt you both, abominably and unforgivably. There's no way I can make that up to you. I'm going to spend the rest of my life making it up to Celine, if she'll let me."

He was still looking at Kate, not moving, but Celine felt as though he'd put his hand in hers. She watched Kate's tragic young face and felt a tug of compassion.

"I love you," Kate whispered despairingly.

Max's jaw clenched. Celine could see the willpower he was exerting not to turn away. "I'm sorry I'm not worthy of it, Kate. There'll be someone else one day who you'll love even more.
Someone who is free to love you as you deserve, wholeheartedly.
Of course," he added with a ghost of a wry smile, as she shook her head, "you can't imagine it right now. You don't think that you can ever feel as intensely again. But please don't shut your heart to the possibility. I did that, and it was the greatest mistake of my life."

There was a fraught silence before Kate unlocked her tightly entwined hands and stood up. Her face was colourless, and her lips trembled, but her voice was steady and her chin high and firmly set. "I-I suppose I'd better go, then." She didn't look at either of them, her shoulders consciously straight as she walked to the door.

Celine got up and followed her. Kate paused in the doorway to look at Max, who hadn't moved. "Goodbye, Max."

"Goodbye, Katie," he said gently.

She bit her lower lip and walked to the front door.

Celine hurried forward and opened it for her. "Will you be all right?" she asked as Kate dashed a hand across her eyes. "Maybe you should have a cup of tea."

Kate looked at her with dull surprise.
"Tea?
No. Thanks, I'm all right."

Quelling an urge to take the girl in her arms and comfort her, Celine said, "Take care."

"You're not really a cold person, are you?" Kate said slowly, making an unexpected discovery. "Do you love Max?"

"Yes. I do. ..
rather
desperately, I've discovered."

The smooth young throat moved as Kate swallowed down her tears. "I'm ... sorry," she said, removing her wondering gaze from Celine's face. "I misunderstood."

"We all did," Celine told her, and watched her walk away down the drive without looking back.

Celine shut the door and leaned back against it, briefly closing her eyes.

As she opened them again Max came out of the lounge and looked across at her. "Are you okay?"

"Yes." She straightened and said, "I suppose my coffee's cold."

He looked disconcerted, as if he didn't at first know what she was talking about. Then he said, "I'll make you some fresh, if you like."

"Don't bother." She walked into the lounge and picked up the half-emptied water glass.

"I'll take that," Max said, removing it from her hand. "And make some fresh coffee. You look all in. Why don't you sit down and relax?"

She did feel tired now, drained of energy, of the ability even to think clearly. It had been an emotional quarter hour or so. As Max left the room she sank down on the sofa. Leaning back on the cushions, she closed her eyes again.

She didn't hear Max come into the room, but the aroma of hot coffee alerted her. She sat up and took the cup from him. He had made another for himself, too, and he sat in the chair she'd used before, regarding her perhaps a little warily through a faint mist of steam.

"I'm sorry about that," he said. "Kate..."

"It's all right. I've been through it myself.
Poor girl.
I remember thinking my world had ended."

"Do you ever think about Mike Parrish these days?" Celine shook her head.
"Hardly ever.
A waste of youth ful passion, that was." She turned her cup idly in her hands.

"Do you still think about Juliet?"

"Occasionally.
She's a rather nice memory, and I still feel
a certain
sadness that she died so young. But the hurt stopped a long time ago."

 
He took some coffee, then nursed the cup, his eyes
un
seeing as they gazed past her, a line between his brows. "She'll be all right," Celine said softly. "
Your
Kate. She's young, and she's no weak-kneed wimp. It took courage to come here-and even more to leave with dignity."

He cast
her a
rueful smile. "How did you know what I was thinking?"

"It wasn't hard to guess. I expect you'll be thinking of her for some time to come."

She saw he meant to deny it, but couldn't. "I guess I will," he said finally. "That's a penance I'll have to bear." "I think I'm glad it was her," she murmured. "What?" He looked baffled.

"Nothing."
There were things Celine wanted to ask him, but where could she start? Max seemed withdrawn, unap proachable. She felt as though she was groping through a dim room towards the light outside, not knowing what lay in her way ready to trip her and send her falling.

In the end all the questions remained unspoken. Max took the cups to the kitchen and then said, "You probably need an early night. Shall I make you something to eat before I go?"

Celine shook her head. She had the impression that he was anxious to leave.

Over the next few weeks Celine reminded herself time after time that Max had returned to her of his own free will, that he had been the one to break off with Kate, not the other way round as she'd first thought. But always she came to the same sticking point. He'd done it because of the baby.

Not for her sake, for the sake of their child. It shouldn't matter, but it did.

He'd told Kate he didn't love her, he'd only thought so. Was it true? Or had he decided that was the only way to thoroughly burn his boats, so that Kate wouldn't tempt him to break his resolution? That kind of ruthlessness was like him.

He'd expressed his sorrow for hurting both Kate and his wife-my best friend, he'd called Celine.

  
 
Wife, best friend-many women would be perfectly happy with that description. Why wasn't she?
Crying for the moon again.

Although the weather had improved and jonquils had started flowering in the garden, Celine tended to feel lethargic. When Max suggested dinner out one cool, blustery evening, she countered with an offer of dinner at home. "I'll light the fire," she said, "and we can eat in front of it."

They used to do that in the early days of their marriage, usually with a take-away meal, but over the years the habit had lapsed to an increasingly rare treat.

"Don't bother cooking," Max said. "I'll bring something. Do you have any preference?"

"Chicken," she said.

"Spicy, crumbed, Chinese, Indonesian?"

"Any kind.
Not too spicy, though. The baby might ob