An Interrupted Marriage (Silhouette Special Edition) (18 page)

“It isn’t Timbuktu!” she said. “I have done it before.”

“The last time you drove a car, you—”

“Crashed it into the sea,” she finished for him. “Actually,” she said, rather pleased with herself in retrospect, “that never even crossed my mind. I suppose there are some advantages to forgetting things like that.”

“
You
may have forgotten,” he said between shut teeth. “
I
haven’t! I’ve been worried sick the whole day.”

Realising the source of his white-faced fury, she felt her defensiveness melt away. “Magnus!” she said. “I’m sorry!”

He took her arm, moving her to one side, and slammed the door behind her, then took the other arm, so that she was trapped between him and the car. “So you bloody ought to be!” he said. “I could—”

His hands had tightened on her arms until they hurt, and his eyes flared with temper. She said, trying to wriggle from his hold,
“Magnus, don’t!”

A kind of shock replaced the temper, and he stepped back, releasing her, then swung away, thumping a hand against the garage wall, leaning on it with his back to her. His breathing was harsh, loud.

Jade said, “It was all right. I have to start living a normal life sometime, and I had—things to do. I didn’t mean to worry you.”

“Didn’t you.” His voice was muffled, his face still turned from her, his head bowed. Then he swung round, thrusting his hands into his pockets, his shoulder against the wall, almost as though he needed something to prop him up. “Well, you’ve done it. Very successfully. Next time I’ll try to remember that you’ve made it home safely before.” The temper had died, leaving his eyes curiously opaque. “Do you mind if I ask what
things
you had to do that were so important?”

Jade swallowed. “People to see.”

He didn’t move, but she had the impression that all his senses were alerted suddenly. “Oh?”

The question,
Who?
hung in the air. He said, “Patrick?”

Anger stirred in her. She said, “If I could, I would have gone to see Patrick
—yes!
Unfortunately I don’t know where to find him.”

His eyes had narrowed. He said softly, “But you’ve remembered something about him, haven’t you? Who he is. What he...was to you.”

Jade shook her head. “No. And Lida couldn’t help.”

“You’ve seen Lida.”

“That’s right. She doesn’t know any more about him than you do. Less, in fact.”

“Really.”

“Yes, really!” she flared. “I hoped she could tell me something about him, since you seemed to think she knew so much. All she knows is that I mentioned his name once. And said that he wasn’t—”

“Wasn’t—what?” The words emerged as though bitten off.

“I...don’t know,” Jade admitted. “Wasn’t married, or wasn’t...my lover.”

“Well, which?” Magnus asked, at last straightening away from the wall. “There is a difference, don’t you think?”

“Of course there’s a difference! I can’t tell you any more. I told you, I don’t know!”

“What you don’t know would fill a book, wouldn’t it?” he asked her derisively.

“Maybe it did!” she shot back. “But you burnt the book, didn’t you?”

He took his hands out of his pockets and spread them. “True. So we’re back to—page one, if you like.”

She stared at him, her back stiff, a pulse hammering at her temple. “A new beginning? I’m not sure if that’s possible, Magnus.”

“Neither am I.” His eyes had darkened, and his mouth was stern. He came towards her again, and without touching her, placed his hands on either side of her against the roof of the car, caging her between his arms. “But I should tell you now, Jade, that if you ever find Patrick, and if you want to go to him, I’ll fight you—and him—every inch of the way.”

“You can’t hold me against my will.” She met his eyes with defiance in hers.

“Maybe not,” he said, “but there are other ways. I’ll hold you, one way or another—or die in the attempt.”

She couldn’t drag her eyes away. He seemed to pin her with his brooding gaze, and for long seconds they were held by some invisible tension humming between them. Then it was broken by quick footsteps on the patio from the house, and Ginette’s light, pretty voice.

“Everything all right, Jade?”

Without haste, Magnus removed his hands and stepped aside, turning as Ginette appeared in the garage doorway.

“Oh!” she said. “Sorry! I didn’t realise you were both here. I heard the car, but you hadn’t come in, so I wondered if you were having a problem. The key sticks sometimes when you turn off the ignition. I forgot to warn you.”

“No problems,” Jade assured her.

“You haven’t mentioned that to me,” Magnus was saying.

Ginette gave him an apologetic smile. “Well, gift horses and that, you know. It’s only occasionally, and I didn’t want to bother you.”

Magnus said, “Give me the key, Jade, and I’ll try it out now.”

She handed it to him and walked towards the house. Ginette stayed behind, saying rather breathlessly, “It probably won’t do it now, but it’s just that I have to jiggle it a bit when—”

Jade went inside and shut the door. Mrs. Riordan called, “Ginette?”

Jade closed her eyes, contemplated calling Ginette, and decided against it. She moved towards the door of the small sitting-room. “It’s Jade, Mother Riordan. Can I do something for you?”

The older woman was sitting on the sofa, a newspaper open across her knees. “I wanted Ginette.”

“She’s...busy.”

“Busy?” Mrs. Riordan’s head went up. “She’s paid to attend to my needs.”

“There’s some trouble with the car. I think Magnus needs her to explain to him what it is. I’m sure she won’t be long.”

“I hope not. You’ve been away all day. Magnus was concerned.”

“I know, he told me. I’ve apologised for worrying him.”

“And Ginette had no right to let you have the car without consulting me.”

“She thought you were feeling too tired to want to go anywhere. Are you better now?”

“I’m as well as I ever am, thank you. Where did you go?”

“To see some friends.” As she saw the sceptical surprise in Mrs. Riordan’s eyes, Jade said, “I do have some, still.” She was tempted to see what her mother-in-law would say if she told her that she’d seen Annie, and asked her to come and stay. Firmly squelching the impulse, she offered instead, “Are you sure there’s nothing you want me to do?”

Grumpily, Mrs. Riordan said, “Help me up and hand me my sticks, then. I need to visit the toilet, and heaven knows how long that girl will be.”

Once on her feet, she insisted that she needed no further help. Watching her slow progress, Jade felt a rush of pity.

Contrary to instructions, she waited until the older woman returned, and helped settle her back on the sofa. When she went upstairs, Ginette and Magnus had still not re-entered the house.

* * *

Pleading tiredness after her day out, Jade went up to bed early. Once in her room, she realised that it was true she was tired. She took her green robe into the bathroom and had a shower, dried herself quickly and pulled on the robe before opening the bathroom door.

Magnus was standing by the bed, his hands thrust into his pockets. She stopped short in surprise.

“I didn’t mean to startle you,” he said. And then, “It is my room, too.”

“I...just wasn’t expecting you. I didn’t hear you come in.” And he never went to bed this early, himself. She advanced warily, then paused a few feet from him. Her nightgown was under the pillow, but she wasn’t going to get into it in front of him. She stood nervously fingering the belt of the robe. “What do you want, Magnus?”

His eyes were wandering over her as though he couldn’t help it. His mouth turned wry as his gaze returned to her face. “What do you think?”

Jade stiffened. “I told you, I’m tired.”

“Yes. I wasn’t sure if it was true, or just an excuse.”

She said, “It wasn’t meant to be an invitation!”

He shrugged slightly. “Too bad.”

She glanced towards the bed, and Magnus said, “Go ahead. I won’t insist on joining you, if you don’t want me to.”

He didn’t seem to be intending to leave. She moved jerkily towards the bed and lifted back the covers. As she slid beneath them, he said, “Aren’t you going to take off your robe?”

“Later.”

His brows rose in mild surprise, and then his mouth curved. “You’ve got nothing under it? Why so shy, Jade? I’ve seen you naked before—many times.”

She didn’t answer, and he said softly, “Maybe you’re right. I might find it difficult to exercise restraint.” To her surprise, he sat down on the side of the bed, turned toward her. “You’re
not
lying to me, are you—about not remembering Patrick?”

Jade shook her head. “I don’t remember that he was my lover. I...I think I did know someone by that name.”

His eyes were probing. “There doesn’t seem to be much point in trying to find him, then.”

“There does, to me.”

He frowned down at her. “Why stir up something that brought you nothing but pain and unhappiness?”

“Lida says he made me feel good—better.”

Of course she shouldn’t have said it. She sat, biting her lip, looking away from the sudden coldness of his eyes, the bitter twist of his mouth. “I mean,” she said hastily, “she told me I seemed more relaxed when I’d been with him.”

The silence was electric. Then he spoke at last, his voice butter-smooth. “Did she? You’re more relaxed when you’ve
been with
me, too. Lovemaking has that effect on you.”

Jade’s cheeks flamed, a pulse beating heavily in her throat. She started to say, “I don’t think—”
that’s what she meant,
but the final words died in her throat. It had, actually, been all too obviously exactly what Lida meant. She stopped, and said feebly, “There may have been other reasons.”

“You think so?” Obviously he didn’t. He stood up, looming over her. “Why keep on with this denial, Jade? I freely admit that I neglected you, that you had every reason to turn to someone else. We’ve agreed we’ll put it behind us now. The fact is, if he still wanted you, he’s presumably known where to find you—or at least could have found out easily enough. You’d do better to put him out of your mind now and concentrate on the future—our future.”

“I apparently
had
put him out of my mind,” Jade objected, “until you brought the subject up.”

“Yes, well—my mistake. Perhaps it would have been better if I’d known for certain that you didn’t remember anything of him.”

“Perhaps. But now I do. And I want to know the truth.”

“You know enough, surely?” His voice roughened. “What more do you need? You’ve had your chance, Jade. I gave you the option of a divorce when you first came home, and you chose to stay with me. We’ve come too far down the track to turn back now.”

He was right, but she reminded him, “You talk as though you were giving me the choice between him and you. But I didn’t know about Patrick then.”

His eyes became narrow, glittering slits in a granitelike face. “And now that you do, you think he might have been a better option?”

It was a ridiculous suggestion, and the unfairness of it roused her to anger. “You’re being quite unreasonable, Magnus! Surely you can understand that I—I
need
to fi—”
Find out the truth about him.

But Magnus gave her no chance to finish the sentence. He swooped so suddenly that she broke off in alarm and gasped as his hands fastened on her shoulders, dragging her towards him, one of his knees on the bed as he drew her level with him, giving her a small, hard shake. His eyes were blazing. “I understand that you’re bent on finding the man you were sleeping with behind my back! The man who made you pregnant and deserted you! Who had you so screwed up that when he left, you tried to kill yourself!” Ignoring her instinctive murmur of denial, he gave her another little shake. “Don’t tell me to be reasonable about that! And don’t tell me it’s what you need! I’d see you in hell before I’d let you go back to him. Do
you
understand that?” he snarled.

“For God’s sake, Magnus—” Jade stared back at him, mesmerized by the scarcely tempered savagery in his face, his voice, the unyielding grip of his hands through the flimsy green silk. “I just need to—”

He stopped her this time in a more devastating manner. His mouth on hers was an assault, an invasion, bearing her back on the pillows behind her, and when she pushed against him in protest he released her shoulders only to grasp her wrists, holding them down on either side of her head. He shifted so that he lay over her, his legs preventing her from kicking off the bedclothes, from any chance of escape or real resistance. His mouth was hot, and hard, and merciless until she made a small sound of protest in her throat. Then he removed it briefly and looked down into her shocked eyes, his own still glowing darkly with temper and with desire.

“This is what you need, Jade,” he told her, his voice low and rasping. “What we both need.” And as she started to argue, he captured her parted lips again under his, but with an erotic tenderness that took her by surprise. This time he coaxed and caressed her mouth with his lips, touching softly, then firmly, withdrawing to nibble gently at her upper lip, then her lower one, until he’d persuaded her to open her mouth to him. But, content not to take advantage of it straight away, he went on teasing, tasting, experimenting with lips and tongue and teeth, until her stiff, resisting body imperceptibly relaxed beneath him, her breath sighing into his mouth, her skin beginning to burn as hot little shivers ran across it.

Then he kissed her properly, deep and long, until the spiralling circles of need that arose from the pit of her stomach encircled her entire body, quickened her breathing and heated her blood.

At last he raised his head again, and kissed her jawline, her throat, nudged aside the edges of the robe to find the smooth, swelling curves of her breasts. “Tell me your needs now,” he whispered against her skin. “Tell me what you need, lovely Jade.”

Her eyes half closed against the sensations he was arousing with his mouth as it moved lower, she choked out, “Please—let go my hands, Magnus.”

He looked up at her for a moment, his gaze brilliant, his mouth taut, and released her wrists, using his own freed hands to open the robe completely, staring down at her. Then his eyes met hers again as one hand floated light as thistledown across her breasts, scarcely touching and yet effecting an instantaneous response that she couldn’t hide. He felt it, and smiled, then glanced down to confirm it before returning his eyes to her face. “Tell me,” he repeated, murmuring the words, his mouth barely moving.