Fugitive Wife (10 page)

They’re practicaly indistinguishable.’ He took her gently in his arms. ‘I’m trying to tel you. Briony, that I hope I’m not the scum of the earth as your father thinks, but God knows I’m no Sir Lancelot either. I’ve done things I can look back on with a certain amount of pride, and others that I’ve loathed doing and loathed myself for doing them. That’s what the job is. That’s what I am. I don’t know whether you can take that.’

‘I don’t know either.’ She buried her face in his chest, delighting in the warm smel of him. ‘But I can’t be happy without you, Logan.’

‘You have to be as young as you are to be as certain as that,’ he said rather grimly.

‘Don’t you want to marry me. Logan?’ She looked up at him, deliberately veiling her eyes with her long lashes and alowing the tip of her tongue to penetrate her parted lips.

‘I know what I’d like to do to you right now, with or without benefit of clergy.’ Logan shook her slightly. ‘But not with your aunt’s arrival imminent. I suppose she’l give us her blessing. And we’l be married when your father gets home from America.’

Briony quivered slightly. ‘Couldn’t we be married now. Logan? Right away?’

‘No.’ His tone was very positive. ‘We see your father and we tel him first. He isn’t going to be pleased anyway, but he’d be even angrier if he came home and found you married already.’

In the event Briony could not imagine her father being capable of any more anger no matter what she had done. He was beside himself with rage. caling her every kind of a fool.

‘He’s not fit to associate with you, let alone marry you,’ he stormed. ‘I suppose he sees marriage to the Chairman’s daughter as the easy way to an editor’s job in the company. Wel, he’l soon realise his mistake!’

‘Logan isn’t interested in the editorial side of the newspaper production,’ Briony said wearily. It was a point they had discussed together quite extensively. ‘Daddy. I know he wouldn’t be your choice for me in a milion years, but can’t you be happy for me because I’m

happy?’

‘Happiness?’ Sir Charles gave a bark of disbelieving laughter. ‘A man like that is incapable of making any woman happy. He probably has women al over the world―and you’l be the legal wife in England. Wel don’t imagine for one instant that I’l lend my countenance to the marriage.’

There were inevitably newspaper stories when the news that Logan and Briony planned to wed leaked out, and before long the U.P.G.‘s

rivals were talking openly of the rift between Charles Trevor and his daughter. Sir Charles refused to give any interviews ‘or make any comment, and Briony folowed his example rigidly. The days before the wedding were like some terrible ordeal ,especialy as Logan was in Paris covering a trade conference and was not expected back until the day before the ceremony.

Aunt Hes, who had offered the cottage in Yorkshire as a honeymoon retreat, was sympathetic to Briony’s plight, but already becoming

preoccupied with her new book.

Briony began to wonder if anyone realy wished them wel for the future. Under the congratulations and good wishes at the office, she

thought she detected a polite scepticism about their chances of happiness, which bewildered her.

She was alone in the cuttings library at U.P.G. on her final day at work when Karen Welesley came in.

Briony glanced up, astonished, because it was unlike the women’s editor to perform a menial task like fetching any cuttings she might need herself.

Karen walked over and stood looking down at her and with a sinking heart Briony realised that this was the confrontation that she had dreaded.

‘So Logan has decided to opt for the boss’s daughter,’ Karen began, her tone strident. ‘How did you manage to trap him into it, dear? Let him get you pregnant?’

Her contemptuous glance skimmed Briony’s slim figure, resting pointedly on her abdomen.’ I hope your father decides to let bygones be bygones eventualy, or it wil al have been for nothing.’

Briony kept her voice steady. ‘I suppose you know what you’re talking about, Miss Welesley.’

‘Don’t play the innocent with me, darling, because It doesn’t wash. You wanted Logan from the moment you set eyes on him, and you

went after him.’ Karen’s voice was ugly. ‘Wel, now you’ve got him―but let’s see if you can keep him. I hope you didn’t promise him too many crumbs from Daddy’s table, because something tels me that you aren’t going to be able to deliver. Hard lines, Miss Trevor. You’l find Logan doesn’t appreciate being made a fool of any more than your father does. In fact you’ve stumbled from the hands of one ruthless man to another; And if I had to vote for which of them was the biggest bastard, I think I’d walk into Logan’s lobby. Good luck, sweetie―I think you’re going to need it.’

Briony sat sick and shaking after Karen had gone, leaving a strong hint of the strong musky perfume she wore in the air. Karen and Logan had been lovers, although she had tried very hard not to think about that, long before she, Briony, had come on the scene. It could be argued that Karen knew him better than most people. It could also be argued that she stil cared about him.

Certainly her attitude just now had been that of a jealous rather than an indifferent woman.

Ruthless, Briony thought, she said ruthless. And a bigger bastard than my father. And a long shiver ran down her spine.

Lying in bed, trying to snatch what warmth she could from the rapidly cooling hot water bottle, Briony wondered soberly if Karen’s words hadn’t provided the first serious crack in her precarious edifice of happiness. Yet it had been here in this very cottage that the whole fragile structure had come tumbling about her ears.’ Almost convulsively she turned on to her stomach, burying her face in the pilow, wiling herself to forget, to get some rest, so that in the morning she could go down, get her car started somehow and drive away from here

―anywhere.

She might have to spend this night under the same roof with Logan, but she would stay no longer. It was al too painfuly reminiscent of the honeymoon which had gone so horribly, painfuly wrong.

Yet where could she go where these memories would not pursue her? Lying in the chily darkness, Briony let herself go on remembering.

SHE had been able to bear everything about the wedding ―the fact that it had been conducted in a register office and not a church, the battery of press cameras she had to face when she came out with Logan after the ceremony, the fact that her father had kept his vow not to attend, and had not acknowledged her wedding day by so much as a telegram-because she knew that very soon she and Logan would be

alone together, heading north for the cottage, and the beginning of their life together.

It was late afternoon when they arrived at the house, a stil, hazy day, with clouds drifting low on the fels, and mist rising. She’d been slightly disappointed because she’d wanted to show Logan how beautiful the cottage could be in sunlight, but he’d laughed when she’d confessed as much, puling her to him and kissing her mouth before he picked her up and lifted her over the threshold in the time-honoured tradition.

‘It’s beautiful now,’ he’d said, and there was a tenderness and a promise mixed with the hunger in his voice.

Or had she only imagined it? she wondered drearily.

He’d brought the cases in, checked that the necessary food was in the kitchen, and that the cottage was ready for their occupation while she had stood in the centre of the living room, rigid with sudden shyness, because of the unfamiliarity of it al. She was happy, and she wanted him with al her heart and more, but there was a great step to be taken to bridge that gap between the impossible dream and total reality, and the thought of that step and al that was involved in it made her shake inside. She heard his footsteps coming down the stairs and she tensed al over again-she couldn’t help herself, and he came into the room and just stood there, watching her, but making no attempt to come close, to take her into his arms as she had half hoped, half feared that he would.

He said quietly, ‘There are steaks and the makings of a salad in the kitchen. I’m going off to find champagne somewhere.’ He smiled

slightly. ‘Unless you can think of a more appropriate drink?’

‘Hardly.’ Her voice sounded young and rather breathless. ‘Champagne would be wonderful.’

‘It’s al going to be wonderful.’ His gaze held hers for a moment, and she was tempted to say, ‘To hel with champagne. Stay with me,

Logan.’ But the moment passed and she smiled and nodded brightly.

He said, ‘I won’t be long.’

Briony heard the cottage door close and saw his tal figure going down the path to the gate. The mist was thickening and he was out of sight before he was even a , third of the way down the track. She stood at the window, watching, straining her eyes for a last. glimpse of him, as if it was somehow important, then she turned away and went slowly upstairs to start unpacking.

It was good to have something to do, something to think about as she took their clothes out of the cases and laid them side by side in the drawers of the old-fashioned chest in the bedroom. She found her nightgown, white and filmy, and laid it on the bed, but a protracted search refused to reveal any pyjamas for Logan, and she supposed with a feeling of embarrassment that he never bothered with them. It was just another case of the dream clashing with the reality, and the image of Logan as a romantic bridegroom clad in silk waiting

chivalrously downstairs while she undressed had never been a valid one, she knew. He had given her this time to herself, to get used to it al, and she should be grateful to him, but when he returned he would expect more than gratitude, much, much more, and she felt both

uncertain and inadequate. The air was cool in the bedroom, and she told herself that was why she was shivering a little.

She took a last look round, then headed downstairs to make the salad. She was just going into the living room when she heard someone coming up the path. Logan back so soon? She could hardly believe it, but she flung open the door to welcome him and found herself

confronted instead by a strange woman.

Aunt Hes hadn’t mentioned any newcomers to the vilage, and something told Briony that this woman wasn’t a local, anyway. There was an indefinable air of the city dweler about her. Her clothes were a little too smart, her shoes a little too elaborate for Kirkby Scar.

There was tension in the woman’s face, beneath the carefuly applied make-up, and the hands were clutching an expensive handbag so

tightly that her knuckles showed white.

She said, ‘Mrs Adair? Are you Mrs Adair?’

There was doubt in her voice as if she suspected she was the victim of a hoax. It was the first time Briony had been addressed by her married name, and it should have been a great occasion, but somehow it wasn’t. She supposed the woman must be a local after al,

because no one else knew they had come here.

They had carefuly let it be known in London that they were going abroad.

Briony said slowly, ‘Why, yes. Can I help you― Mrs …?’ She let her voice trail away on a question. If this woman was some sort of

welcoming committee, then she had to make her welcome, whatever her private feelings. And for no reason that she could explain, Briony wished with al her heart that this stranger would go away, or that Logan would return, preferably both.

‘My name is Chapman― Marina Chapman.’ She peered at Briony, and it was an unpleasant sensation. ‘You’ve heard the name,

perhaps?’

Briony thought rapidly. ‘1don’t think so.’ She lifted her shoulders apologeticaly. ‘I’m sorry. Should I have done so?’

‘Your—husband hasn’t mentioned me?’

‘No.’ Briony was trying to be polite, but her bewilderment was deepening. So this Mrs Chapman wasn’t a local busybody come to report on the newlyweds, or she would have said she was a friend of Aunt Hes’s.

‘No, probably not,’ Mrs Chapman’s lips twisted. ‘May I come in?’

Briony wanted to refuse. She had the strangest impulse to slam the door and close this woman out, but good manners insisted she should stand aside and let her walk past her into the house. She opened the parlour door and ushered her in. The room felt close and stil, and slightly chily. A fly was buzzing at the window and she went across to release it and admit some air, but dank mist swirled in, and she closed the casement again hastily.

She turned to face Mrs Chapman. ‘We’ve only just arrived, but I think there’s some coffee in the kitchen, or tea if you prefer. My husband isn’t here just now. He’s gone to fetch somethings that we forgot. I hope he won’t be long because the weather’s getting worse al the time.

I’d forgotten how quickly the mist could come down. Did you bring a car?’

She was aware that she was babbling, and that Mrs Chapman was standing just inside the parlour door, watching her steadily, her

expression almost inimical.

Anger came to Briony’s rescue. She said with sudden heat, ‘Look here, Mrs Chapman, I’d be glad if you could tel me what you want and then go. We are on our honeymoon.’

‘I’m quite aware of that, Mrs Adair. And I know your husband isn’t here because I watched him leave. I wanted to see you alone, you see.

I wanted to tel you the kind of man you’d married.’

Briony said, ‘You’d better go.’ She had some wild idea that Mrs Chapman might be one of Logan’s discarded mistresses, but she was

obviously much older than him and not a type that Briony thought would have had much appeal for him. She moved forward, but Mrs

Chapman was standing her ground between Briony and the door.

She was fumbling in her bag now, producing papers, newspaper cuttings, Briony saw.

‘Not until you’ve seen these.’ She threw them down on the table in the centre of the room, spiling them across its polished surface. Briony looked down at them, puzzled, her attention caught in spite of herself.

She began to read the ones on top. They seemed to concern an inquest on someone who had committed suicide, she realised. There was a picture of a man, probably the deceased, and other pictures too, some of a woman. This woman.