An Interrupted Marriage (Silhouette Special Edition) (20 page)

He was there in less than five minutes, the big car skidding to a halt outside, the back door of the house exploding inwards without ceremony moments later. His eyes went straight to Jade, sweeping over her in one lightning, comprehensive glance. Then he halted in the middle of the floor as though he’d just run into a stone wall. “You’re all right,” he said.

“Told you she was,” Mr. Beazley said.

“It was my fault,” Madeline owned bravely. “Monty’s, anyway. He jumped out in front of her car.”

“It’s okay, Maddy,” he said absently, without moving his eyes from Jade.

Mr. Beazley cleared his throat. “You’d better take a look at the car—”

“Later.” He looked away from Jade at last, his gaze encompassing them all. “Thanks for looking after my wife. I’ll take her home now.”

He held out his hand, and she stood up uncertainly. He looked as though he was leashing something dangerous that threatened to get out of control. As she hesitated, he leaned forward and scooped her hand into his, scarcely giving her time to thank her hostess before he whisked her out of the room and into his car.

He gave her a hard glance as he climbed in beside her before he turned the key and set the car in motion. They didn’t speak until he had driven into the garage at Waititapu. Only when he turned to her as he snapped open his safety belt, she said, “I’m sorry about the car. Will the insurance cover it?”

“Don’t worry about that.” He paused, looking at her. “You got a fright, obviously. Is that all that’s wrong?”

Her hands were clenched in her lap, her back rigid. “I...thought—” she swallowed, her eyes wide open and staring in front of her at the blank wall of the garage “—just for a second, I felt I was going into the sea... It was only a ditch, but I could see the sky, the rocks...the water coming over the windscreen....”

“You remembered the crash,” he said.

Jade shuddered. “Yes.... And, Magnus—I know now that I didn’t deliberately do it. I remember parking near the edge, getting out of the car, and standing on the cliff. I was upset, confused...I can remember clearly thinking that if I just jumped, it would all be over....”

Magnus drew in a breath, but was silent.

“But I didn’t do it,” Jade said. “I knew it was a coward’s way out, and there was the baby....”

“So what happened?” He’d turned to look at her, she could feel his gaze, but hers remained fixed.

“I got back in the car, started it up, but...I wasn’t concentrating, I know I was crying and my vision was blurred. And I must have parked too close to the edge. I had trouble with the gear, and when I thought it was in reverse, it must have been in fifth—I’d had the same problem a couple of times when I first began to drive that car. It jumped forward, and I couldn’t do anything—I felt the wheels lurch over the edge, and—” She bent her head, her face hidden in her hands as she took a deep, shuddering breath.

Magnus leaned over and unfastened her safety belt and took her shoulders in his hands to make her face him. His eyes held hers. “It’s over, Jade. All that’s over now. Put it out of your mind. Come along, I’ll take you inside.”

* * *

At dinner he said to Ginette, “I’m afraid the Toyota will be out of commission for a few days. If you need anything let me know.”

Mrs. Riordan said, “What’s wrong with it? Jade was driving it this afternoon, wasn’t she? Did you have some trouble?” she asked, turning to Jade.

Magnus explained briefly, and his mother frowned. “Perhaps you shouldn’t allow Jade to drive,” she suggested, “if she’s going to panic so easily.”

“I didn’t panic,” Jade said evenly. “I might have made an error of judgement, not seeing the ditch, but I didn’t want the horse kicking the car. It wouldn’t have done either of them any good.”

“Driving it into the ditch doesn’t seem to have done the car much good,” Mrs. Riordan pointed out.

Inwardly, Jade sighed. “No,” she had to agree. “In hindsight perhaps it wasn’t the best thing to do.” Though she didn’t know what else she could have done at the time.

Mrs. Riordan looked vindicated, and Jade noticed that Magnus seemed slightly amused. He said, “You need a car of your own, Jade.”

Surprised and pleased, she stammered, “They’re very expensive. I can do without one.”

He gave her a look that she couldn’t read and said, “We’ll talk about it later.”

* * *

As they prepared for bed, she said, “It was my fault the insurance lapsed on my car before I wrecked it—otherwise I’d have been able to buy a new one.”

“I’ll buy it. If nothing else, it will mean one less cause of friction between my mother and you,” he added rather wearily.

Jade bit her lip. “I’m sorry we can’t get on better.”

He shrugged out of his shirt, throwing it down on the bed. “Well, another few months and you won’t need to try—at least on a day-to-day basis.”

“What do you mean?” Jade paused on her way to the bathroom.

“I hope that by then I’ll be able to hand over completely to the farm manager,” he explained. “We can afford an extra worker to help out, now. Laurence will be here, too, in the holidays, over some of the busiest times. And in another year he’ll have completed his degree and be able to take over. Of course if he wants my advice it’ll always be available, but I intend to move out of Waititapu.”

“Move out?” Her heart was thundering.

“Yes.” He was looking at her intently. “Did you think I was going to keep you here forever?”

“It’s your home.”

“It was. My home is with you, Jade. We’ve never had a home of our own, have we? A place where we can be alone? That’s another thing we might start shopping for soon. You’d better start thinking about what sort of house you want. Why are you looking at me like that?”

She didn’t know how she was looking, but she felt a quite strange combination of a cautious happiness mingled with, perhaps, a kind of trepidation. Buying a home together would be a confirmation of their commitment to the future. A future that they would work out alone together, without the constraints of the presence of his family and other people in the same house. “I think that would be a good idea,” she said inadequately.

Later, when he took her into his arms, she found herself responding to him without the familiar small ache of resentment that had previously marred the undoubted pleasure his lovemaking brought her.

Perhaps, she thought afterwards, listening to his steady breathing as she lay wakeful in the darkness, that was a hopeful sign.

* * *

Laurence and Andrew arrived home for the holidays. Laurence was a husky young man, broader and considerably more mature than the gangly sixteen-year-old she had first met here at Waititapu. Andrew had been a grubby-faced twelve-year-old then; now he was a handsome teenager sporting a dashing haircut and topping Jade’s height by several inches.

Andrew’s greeting was a casual “Hi, Jade. Glad you’re back.” And Laurence kissed her cheek and smiled down at her, but with a hint of reserve. Whether he was recalling his youthful infatuation or had been regaled by his twin sister with the story of Jade’s supposed infidelity, she couldn’t ask. Perhaps both were causes for embarrassment.

The day after their arrival, Magnus said at breakfast, “I’m going to Auckland this afternoon to meet a client. I won’t have a lot of spare time, but anyone who wants a couple of hours in the city is welcome to come with me.”

Laurence wanted to go, and Jade said, “I’d like to visit Annie.”

“At the hospital?” Magnus enquired.

“No, she’s living in a house in the city. I saw her last time I was in Auckland.”

“You never mentioned it.”

She’d told him about seeing Lida, and it hadn’t seemed the time to mention Annie. She shrugged.

“How is she?” he asked.

“She was fine. Hoping that this time she’ll be able to stay out of hospital.”

“Great. I’ll drop you off there, then, before I go to my appointment. So, Laurence, where do you want to go?”

Laurence was planning to look at a cheap computer deal he’d seen advertised, with an eye to running a new farm management program on it. While they discussed its possible advantages, Jade slipped out of the room. She knocked on the door of Mrs. Riordan’s room, and went in. “Magnus is taking Laurence and me to Auckland this afternoon,” she said. “Is there anything you’d like me to get for you?”

“If I need anything, Ginette can get it, or take me shopping with her,” Mrs. Riordan said. She was sitting in her wheelchair today, staring out of the window at the sea view. Ginette was still in the dining-room. Following her gaze, Jade said, “You never go as far as the beach, do you? I’m sure we could help get you there, if you wanted—”

“Thank you, I have no desire to go to the beach.”

“I see,” Jade said quietly. “I’m sorry if I’ve intruded on your privacy.”

As she made to leave, the imperious voice said, “Wait, Jade!”

She turned enquiringly, and Mrs. Riordan glared at her for a moment or two. Then she said stiffly, “For all your faults, you’re a kindhearted girl. And too easily hurt.”

It was probably the nearest thing to an apology she was likely to get, Jade thought. “It’s all right. I wasn’t taking offence.”

“No, you don’t, do you?” Mrs. Riordan said thoughtfully. “Perhaps you should have when you first came here.” She added, “I know you pitied me. I hated that most of all.”

“I’m sorry about that.” Jade was astonished at the admission. “But it would hardly have helped if I’d shouted at you.”

“Did you want to?”

“Sometimes,” Jade said cautiously.

“You hid it well. I decided you had no character at all.”

“Did you?” Jade smiled faintly. “You were wrong.”

Mrs. Riordan gave her a penetrating stare. “Magnus is a strong character. He doesn’t tolerate weakness well.”

“Maybe he’s learned to,” Jade dared to suggest. When she married him, she would have agreed with that assessment. She’d known that he admired her strength, her practicality. It was why she’d hidden from him any sign of frailty, any hint that the burden of helping him care for his home, his business, his family, was more than she could bear. She hadn’t wanted to disappoint him in any way.

Face it, she’d been afraid that he would love her less.

“Maybe he has,” Mrs. Riordan said. “He must be extremely fond of you.”

Jade smiled again at the grudging puzzlement in her voice. “I hope so.”

“I would never have thought Magnus would tolerate—”

She broke off as Ginette breezed into the room. Just as well, perhaps, Jade thought grimly. She turned. “I’ll leave you, then. Let me know if you think of anything you want.”

* * *

Annie answered the door herself, enveloping Jade in an enthusiastic hug. “It’s great to see you again. You’re looking better than ever.”

“So are you!” Jade eyed Annie’s hair, newly cut in a becoming bob that showed up its fiery thickness and made the most of the curl. “That looks terrific! And the clothes, too—”

Annie grinned, preening ostentatiously. She was wearing a pair of jeans that hugged her rounded behind, and a silk-look shirt casually tied at her waist, instead of one of the shapeless, too-long dresses that Jade was accustomed to. “I’m trying to impress my new shrink. He’s quite dishy. A vast improvement on old Half-Specs Turton. Said he’d be here this afternoon.”

“If I’ve picked a bad time—”

“No! A couple of hours or so, you said? He isn’t due until four. Come and say hello to the others, and then we’ll go to my room.”

There were two other women and two men in the house, all of whom Jade had met on her previous visit, and she stopped briefly in the big lounge to greet them.

“You’re still having therapy, then?” Jade asked as Annie led the way to her room.

“Once a week we have a visiting therapist to conduct a group session. And we can request a private session if we want.” Annie rolled her eyes. “I want!”

“Apart from being ‘dishy,’” Jade said, amused, “is he any good?”

“I reckon! He’s just got back from two years’ study overseas, catching up with the latest methods. And he talks to us about them, even asks our opinion. He reckons we know more than some of the doctors about our own problems, and we should have some say in our treatment. This guy treats us like human beings.”

Impressed, Jade said, “He sounds brilliant.”

“He is. I think I scared him a bit last time, though.” Annie grinned. “Showed him a poem I’d written about him.”

Astonished, Jade said, “I didn’t know you wrote poetry!”

“I don’t—I mean, I didn’t. Only he reckons it’s ‘a healing exercise’ to write down your thoughts and feelings, whether it’s poetry or letters or just a private journal that you never show anyone. So I thought, what the heck, why not a poem? Anyway, when I showed it to him he got all very solemn and pink and said something about people developing a dependency on a therapist, ‘specially one of the opposite sex, and it was normal but of course not to be taken seriously. And then he said he doubted I was in need of therapy any more, anyway. He reckoned I seemed perfectly sane to him—so how about
that?
“

“I’d agree,” Jade said, taking a seat on the only chair as Annie bounced onto the bed. “I don’t believe there’s anything wrong with you.”

“Aw, shucks!” Annie put on a gloomy clown face. “I suppose I could say I’m the Queen of Sheba—or how about this?” She dropped her jaw, crossed her eyes and nodded her head idiotically. “Think that might convince him?”

Jade laughed. “Maybe. But it would hardly attract him, if that’s what you want to do!”

Annie reverted to herself. “Guess I might as well give up. What professional psychotherapist is going to ever get involved with a professional psycho?”

“They’re not supposed to, ethically speaking, are they?” Jade suggested.

“I s’pose not. And Patrick’d never do anything unethical—”

“Patrick?”

“He doesn’t like to be called Pat. Or Paddy. Y’know, he’s not really my type—” Annie broke off. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing.” Jade swallowed, the racing pulse in her temple beginning to steady. She tried to concentrate her thoughts. “Did he work at the hospital before he went overseas?”

“No, never. He had his own private practice somewhere, I think. Why? You don’t know him, do you?”