An Interrupted Marriage (Silhouette Special Edition) (4 page)

Mrs. Riordan hadn’t mellowed, either—the reverse, if anything. Before, she had usually accepted Jade’s presence with dignified tolerance if little warmth. This afternoon she had shown real dislike and antagonism. Although she’d made a reasonable recovery from the stroke she’d suffered after her husband’s death, the after-effects, coupled with the pain from her chronic arthritis, had left her highly irritable, and that obviously had not improved with time.

Mrs. Gaines came in to clear the plates and place a dessert decorated with cream and strawberries on the table. When Mrs. Riordan had helped herself and Magnus passed the bowl to her, Jade shook her head. “I’ve had enough, really. I’ll just wait for coffee.” It was true she was feeling unusually well fed. The meat and vegetables, while plain and wholesome, had been deliciously fresh and neither overcooked nor barely warm.

Mrs. Riordan said, “Nonsense. Give her some pudding, Magnus. It’ll do her good.”

Jade felt her hands fasten hard on the seat of her chair. “I don’t want pudding, thank you,” she said clearly. “Pass it to Ginette, Magnus.”

She met his eyes, held them with hers. And after a moment he silently placed the bowl on the other side of the table in front of the nurse.

Ginette said brightly, “I wish I had your willpower, Jade. Mrs. Gaines makes such superb sweets and cakes.”

“It’s not willpower,” Jade said, her stomach churning with tension. “I’ll have to get used to eating good food again.”

“I thought the food was all right?” Magnus said, his voice sharp. “You told me it was.”

“It was wholesome and adequate,” Jade said wearily. “There wasn’t anything wrong with it.”

Ginette, pushing the bowl towards Magnus, made a sympathetic face. “Food cooked in bulk does tend to be bland and stodgy. And keeping it warm dries it out.”

Jade said, “Exactly.”

Thankfully, the others soon finished their dessert, and Mrs. Gaines brought in coffee and the plate of chocolate biscuits with which Mrs. Riordan liked to finish the evening meal. No one commented this time when Jade declined to take one.

She was glad when they were able to leave the table. Magnus went round to push his mother’s wheelchair. She said, “Take me to my sitting-room, Magnus, thank you.”

He obeyed without comment, Ginette following along behind, and Jade stood uncertainly at the doorway of the dining-room. Mrs. Gaines came hurrying along from the kitchen, a large tray in her hands. Moving aside for her, Jade said, “Can I help?”

“That’s all right, Mrs. Riordan. I can manage,” the woman said.

“You’d better call me Jade, don’t you think? We could have some confusion, otherwise.”

“If you like,” the housekeeper agreed equably. Unexpectedly, she added, “My name’s Netta.”

“Thank you.”

Magnus came out of his mother’s room. He said, “Do you want to sit in the lounge for a while, Jade? Ginette may join us later.”

“I was hoping to talk to you,” she said. “Could we go for a walk?”

“In the dark?”

They’d often walked in the dark before, arms about each other in the moonlight, with the spent sea swaying and hushing beside them and the night air cooling their skin. Sometimes they’d even swum together, naked in the concealing blackness, and sometimes they’d made love on the beach, spreading towels or discarded clothing beneath them, and later laughing together at the gritty sand that nevertheless clung to their damp limbs and had to be washed off in the waves.

“We can find our way,” Jade said. “Can’t we?”

Some expression lit his eyes for a moment, and she thought he, too, was remembering. But he quickly doused it. “All right,” he said. “Will you be warm enough?” He eyed the short sleeves of her dress, the scooped neckline.

“It can’t be that cold outside.” She turned towards the door so that he had no choice but to follow.

They walked side by side, their feet making no sound on the cushioning grass. She wanted to hook her arm into his, but he seemed distant, almost a stranger, keeping nearly a foot of space between them, his hands thrust into his pockets.

The water gleamed in the light of an egg-shaped orange moon. Jade paused at the top of the sand to take off her shoes while Magnus waited, his eyes on her but his body half-turned away. When she ran down the slope, her feet sinking into the soft, now cooled sand, he followed more slowly, joining her at the bottom.

“What did you want to talk about?” he asked her as they found the firmer part of the beach and walked parallel to the restless, white-glimmering waves.

“Us,” Jade said. It was a large subject that might occupy the rest of their lives.

Magnus said, “I know it’s necessary, but...tonight?”

Jade took a quick step ahead so that she could turn and face him. She said provocatively, “You have a better idea?”

He didn’t laugh, or reach for her, or react visibly in any way. Perhaps the moon didn’t give enough light for him to read the flirtatious challenge in her eyes, the curve of her lips. Standing rock-still, he said, “You’ve only just got here. Wouldn’t it be wiser to postpone any heavy discussions for a day or two? Give yourself a chance to adjust?”

“Myself,” she said, “or you?”

“Both of us, perhaps.”

“Magnus—why have you moved out of our room?”

It seemed a long time before he answered. “I thought...you might prefer it.”

Her heart thudding uncomfortably, Jade said, “Prefer to sleep apart from you?”

He seemed to be studying her carefully. “You wouldn’t?”

Jade made a helpless gesture, not understanding him. “You’re my husband, Magnus.”

“Yes,” Magnus said, and then he added, unbelievably, “Has it occurred to you that since we’ve spent the requisite two years living apart, it would be quite easy to get a divorce?”

D
ivorce?
The word echoed in her head, louder than the sound of the breakers rolling in from the sea. His mother had advised Magnus to divorce her, she remembered. Apparently he was ready to take the advice.

And he was still speaking, his voice composed, even. “Sharing a room would muddy the waters as far as the court is concerned. You hadn’t considered that?”

Jade opened her mouth, her lips moved. Her voice seemed distant, hardly her own. “No, I hadn’t. The thought never crossed my mind.” She felt numb. Somewhere there was an enormous pain waiting to crash over her, but for the moment the numbness mercifully held it at bay.

“Never?”

Jade shook her head. It was difficult to say anything. Had she been stupid? It was entirely possible that Magnus had found someone else. Not only possible, probable. She ought to have expected this.

Who is she?
was the question screaming in her mind, but her lips refused to form the words. Instead she said, grasping at random thoughts, “You’ve been so faithful!” Immediately shaking her head, she amended, “I mean, you visited so regularly.”

“Once you could bear me to.”

She whispered, “I didn’t mean to—”

“Forget it.”

“But I am grateful,” she said stumblingly. She hadn’t thought she’d ever have to say that. Not to Magnus. It was the kind of thing that people who loved each other didn’t need to put into words.

He took a sharp breath. Without moving he seemed to have withdrawn to a greater distance. “Gratitude is the last thing I want. You needn’t feel obligated to me in any way.”

Obligated. Was that how he felt? “Your visits, the fact that you cared enough, helped me get well—”

“‘In sickness and in health,’” he reminded her.

“A duty?”

The sound of the waves filled the pause that he allowed to elapse. “I happen to take the promises of the marriage service very seriously.”

Jade gulped in a breath. She mustn’t scream at him.
“Then why are you talking about divorce?”

Magnus hesitated. Then he said, “It’s an option.”

She wanted to dispute that, hotly. It had never been an option for her. So far as she was concerned, marriage was for life. Then she thought she was being selfish. And unrealistic. “I know that I’ve made things very difficult, that you’ve put up with tremendous pressures, made sacrifices that no man should be asked to make. I can’t blame you if you’ve found—” She couldn’t go any further, gagging on the words,
someone else.

And somewhere deep inside quiet rage mingled with the pain—rage that his love hadn’t withstood the test after all, hadn’t been strong enough to sustain itself.

Magnus said harshly, “That’s not the point. I suppose I wasn’t entirely blameless—”

“It wasn’t your fault.”

“You’re generous. I wouldn’t have been surprised if you’d accused me of gross neglect, and laid all your...failures at my door.”

“Failures?” Jade winced.

Magnus said swiftly, “A bad choice of words. And not quite what I meant.”

Jade swallowed. She accepted the apology, but the remark had wounded. Was their marriage one of the failures?

Yesterday she’d have said it wasn’t. To be fair, she could hardly expect their relationship to pick up where it had left off—or rather, at some point before that. But naïvely, she’d supposed that since they had weathered the past couple of years, the readjustment would be relatively easy, that nothing now could part them or thwart their love.

She’d been wrong, it seemed. Magnus had been chafing for his freedom—for how long she could only guess. What, then, had brought him to her side every weekend, and led him to bring her back to his home now? Guilt? Compassion? A sense of obligation, a determination to keep to the letter of his marriage vows until he had irrevocably cast them off? Had he felt trapped, wanting to free himself but bound by his conscience to wait until she could fend for herself?

The paling moon had turned cold. Jade shivered in its merciless light. “I don’t know...how to answer you,” she said painfully. “I wasn’t prepared for this.”

“I’d hoped to postpone this discussion, not spring it on you right away, but you have rather forced it on me.” He paused again. “We can’t just put the clock back, Jade.”

To match his self-sacrifice, she ought to let him go without a murmur, as reparation for the time and the emotional investment he had expended on her, on helping her get well.

She couldn’t. He was her husband and with her dying breath she would fight to win back his love, the love they had shared with such passion, and joy, and mutual commitment. They’d had more than sex to bind them. Much more. Impossible to believe that all that had died.

He hadn’t moved, only a faint flutter of his shirt indicating that he’d taken a quick, silent breath.

A chill shock swirling round her feet reminded her of the incoming tide. Magnus hadn’t seemed to notice, although his shoes were wet.

She stepped back, feeling a little dizzy. “I don’t think I can deal with this at the moment. I
am
tired, after all,” she said truthfully. “I think I’ll take your advice and go to bed early. You needn’t come back to the house with me.”

He accepted the hint, only moving a few feet from the foaming, hissing water, then remaining there as she hurried away from him across the sand.

When she was sure he wouldn’t see the gesture in the darkness, Jade scrubbed furtively at the tears streaming down her face. She stumbled onto the flat surface of the lawn and continued across the cool, harsh grass to the house, not remembering her sandals until she’d reached the door. She barely hesitated then, before letting herself in quietly, creeping along the darkened passageway and bolting up the stairs.

Thankful that no one had seen her, she shut herself into her room, and leaned on the door for a second or two before going to the bathroom. There she switched on the light and began sluicing her face with cold water.

Her eyes were only slightly reddened when she looked at herself in the mirror, but her cheeks looked pale and pinched, showing the effects of shock.

She laid her throbbing forehead against the cool glass, fighting down a sense of panic. She could cope. Everyone—she, the doctors, Magnus—had made sure she was thoroughly well before allowing her to return to Waititapu.

They’d warned her that if she felt she was regressing, she must not delay in seeking help. But she knew in her bones that she was as strong now as any other woman—stronger than she’d been before. She’d come through this—
they
would come through it, she and Magnus. Their marriage would survive.

* * *

She didn’t know what time it was when Magnus returned to the house, but it was hours after she’d left him alone on the beach before he came upstairs. In spite of a feeling of utter weariness, Jade hadn’t slept. She heard him walk to her door, and pause there.

Holding her breath, she waited. After a moment the door silently opened, and a shadow slipped through the gap, closing it behind him.

She said quietly, “Magnus?”

The shadow stilled. “I didn’t intend to wake you.”

“I couldn’t sleep.”

He moved forward, then stopped. “I found your shoes. Where do you want them?”

“Oh.” She was emotionally drained, too much so to feel anything, even disappointment. “Leave them by the wardrobe—I’ll put them away in the morning. Thank you.”

He stooped and straightened again, and seemed to hesitate. She held her breath, wanting to break the silence, unable to think of anything to say. It was all very different from the fantasies she’d indulged in when they’d said she was ready to leave the hospital.

Then the moment passed, and he said, “Good night, Jade.”

She watched him move towards the bathroom, saw the faint light that split the darkness as he opened the door. He closed it behind him, and was gone.

* * *

She woke late the next morning to a surreal sense of disconnection. Everything was very quiet, and instead of a curtained alcove, she was lying in a room that seemed at first sight vast. When she realised where it was, her eyes instinctively turned to the pillow next to her, finding it plump and untouched.

Maybe she’d dreamed yesterday. Maybe she wasn’t home at all, but hallucinating. She sat up, clutching at the sheet, pushed back her hair and looked about her. She reached out and ran her fingers over the bedside table. The solid, grained wood seemed real enough.

Now she heard the distant, constant susurration of the sea, and a seagull’s lifted scream. Downstairs a door snapped shut, and there was a faint hum that she identified as the sound of a vacuum cleaner.

But it was the sandals neatly placed side-by-side in front of the wardrobe that convinced her.

Yesterday, last night, hadn’t been a dream. Magnus had brought her home, and evaded her for the remainder of the afternoon by shutting himself in his study, and Mrs. Riordan had told her that she’d advised a divorce. The suggestion had scarcely impinged, because she’d never have believed that Magnus would countenance the thought.

And then Magnus, walking with her on the beach but not touching her, had said that it was “an option.” Magnus, her beloved, her husband, who had unfailingly and unstintingly given her all the support, and all the love—she’d thought—that she’d needed so badly, had hinted that he wanted a divorce.

For long minutes she was tempted to huddle under the blankets again, deny everything to herself and hope that the pain, the regrets, the disbelief, would go away.

But she knew where that could lead. Instead, she flung back the covers and made herself wash, and dress in jeans and a loose top, and comb her hair.

Her face was still pale, the skin about her eyes faintly darkened. She rummaged in a drawer and found still usable foundation, blusher, eye shadow, and a defiantly bright lipstick. The wand of mascara had dried up. Since she’d left them here she’d scarcely cared enough to be bothered with more than an occasional dash of lipstick.

She must find out if anyone was going to Warkworth. Apart from a haircut there were several things she needed.

She made the bed with quick efficiency. It didn’t need much, looked scarcely used in fact. Not the way it would have been if Magnus had shared it last night...

Closing her mind to the thought, she straightened with flushed cheeks and left the room. He would share her bed again one day. Somehow she would make sure of it.

Downstairs, the door to Mrs. Riordan’s sitting-room was closed. Relieved, Jade made her way to the kitchen.

There was no one there, the stainless-steel bench gleaming and the sink empty. A bowl of flowers stood on the window-ledge between unfamiliar looped net curtains with small orange spots. The café curtains printed with tiny blue tulips must have worn out.

The dishwasher humming and swishing in one corner was new, too. The big old table with the handsomely turned legs in the centre of the room was the same, though, its scrubbed and scarred surface covered with a cheerful orange gingham cloth, and another bowl of flowers sat in the middle of it.

Jade bent and sniffed at the frilled pinks. The scent somehow cheered her. She looked about and found the toaster with the bread bin beside it. And a new coffeemaker.

When Mrs. Gaines came in Jade was sitting at the table with an empty cereal bowl and a plate of toast crumbs before her, sipping her way through a second cup of coffee.

“Oh! Good morning.” The housekeeper stopped in the doorway.

“I hope you don’t mind. I know breakfast was well over when I got up. I’ll wash my dishes and get out of your way.” Jade finished the coffee quickly, and rose.

“Mr. Riordan said not to disturb you. The vacuum cleaner didn’t wake you? I only used it downstairs.”

Jade had turned on the hot tap and was rinsing the dishes, placing the cup on the bench with the plates leaning on it. “You didn’t wake me.” She reached for a tea-towel, only to find that the rail on the wall had been replaced by a unit holding paper towels and plastic cling film. Dismissing an irrational dismay, she asked, “Where is the tea-towel kept now?”

Mrs. Gaines opened a drawer and handed her one.

“Do you need any help?” Jade asked. “I’m used to housework.” At the hospital the patients who were not too ill had been rostered to help with the cleaning.
“Rehabilitation, they call it,”
Annie had said, grinning at Jade from the corner of her mouth, a spray of untidy red curls springing free from the edges of the cotton scarf that was supposed to confine them.
“Saving money, more like. Well, personally I’d rather be polishing floors than plaiting bloody baskets with Miss Ivan the Cherrible. That’s enough to send anyone nuts!”

Jade smiled, remembering. Miss Cherrible, the occupational therapist, had been relentlessly kind and implacably cheerful, and a major irritant to Annie. Jade had to agree that at times the relative boredom of cleaning wards was preferable to the firmly maintained
bonhomie
of the therapy room.

Magnus had been at first horrified and angry that she was wiping floors and changing beds and peeling the potatoes in the kitchen. Jade had to talk him out of complaining that the patients were being used as cheap labour. “I don’t mind,” she’d told him. “Really, it’s better to have something to pass the time, and at least it’s useful. You didn’t object to my doing housework and cooking at Waititapu.”

“That’s an entirely different thing!” he’d exploded. “Waititapu was your home.”

And then he’d fallen silent and grim-lipped when she laughed.

* * *

Mrs. Gaines seemed rather nonplussed by Jade’s offer of help. “It’s kind of you, Mrs.—er, Jade. But I have my routines, you know.”

“Well, let me know if there’s anything I can do. Do you know where my husband is?”

“Not exactly. He said he’d be back for lunch.”

Magnus wasn’t in the house, then. “Lunch will be at twelve?”

“Mrs. Riordan likes it dead on twelve. But I suppose if you wanted to change it—”

Jade said hastily, “There’s no need to change anything.”

When she re-entered the hall Ginette was closing the door of Mrs. Riordan’s sitting-room. This morning she wore a simple button-through frock in small green-and-white hounds-tooth checks, almost like a uniform. She smiled at Jade. “Hello. Have a good sleep?”