Fugitive Wife (16 page)

‘Go to hel,’ she said very slowly and distinctly.

‘I’l come back from there too, if I have to,’ he said. ‘Now say the words to me, Briony. It doesn’t even matter if you don’t mean them at the moment. I’l attend to that when I come back.’

‘You mean if you come back, don’t you?’ she said with al the cruelty she could muster. ‘Please don’t bother on my account, Logan.

You’re not the only one who’s found consolation. Now, wil you get out?’

He was staring at her as if he had never seen her before, the aquamarine eyes narrowed and incredulous.

Then he gave a swift, shaken laugh. ‘Yes, I’l go, he said. ‘And gladly, you little bitch.’

The front door slammed behind him. Briony made her way slowly over to the foot of the stairs and sank down on to the bottom step,

clinging on to the elegant curve of the newel post as a drowning man might cling to a piece of wreckage. After a long time she heard herself cry out―a sound that might have been his name.

A STRANGE grey light was filtering into the room when Briony awoke. For a moment she could not work out where she was―then

everything came rushing back to her. She had disarranged the curtains slightly in her wanderings the night before and she could see that although no snow was actualy faling at the moment, the clouds were ful of it.

She shivered, huddling further under the covers for a warmth she did not find. Presently she would have to get up and dress and go

downstairs, and it was not a prospect she relished. Or, she supposed, she could stay there in bed and not go down at al, except that hunger would drive her down eventualy, even if Logan didn’t.

His arrival the previous night stil seemed like a figment of a nightmare, but she was awake now, and the bad dream like the snow was stil there and threatening her.

She sighed. It was a horrible coincidence that they should both have chosen the same bolt-hole, but it was no more than that, and as it was certain that neither of them could get away immediately, then the only thing was to bear the situation as gracefuly as possible.

Two civilised people, she began―and then stopped.

There had been very little that was civilised about her relationship with Logan since their il-fated wedding. She couldn’t rely on civilisation to get her out of this mess.

For the first time, she regretted that the cottage wasn’t on the telephone, always supposing the lines were stil working. She would have been tempted to phone London and persuade Christopher to come in a helicopter and rescue her.

Christopher. She winced slightly. There was another problem. She knew now that she had alowed herself to think back over the past year that her feelings for him were lukewarm at best. And yet he was confidently expecting her to divorce Logan and marry him as soon as

possible. It was to escape his none-too-subtle promptings as wel as her father’s that she had fled.

And why had she run away? To think, that was why.

To clear her mind and decide what she had to do. What it was best for her to do. And al she had succeeded in doing was recaling a lot of memories which would have best been left buried in her subconscious, and muddling herself completely, She hardly knew who she was any more, let alone what she wanted.

She glanced at her watch and grimaced. It was already past nine o’clock, and time she presented herself downstairs.

The last thing she wanted was Logan coming in search of her. She got out of bed and put on her housecoat and slippers, then went along to the bathroom. In spite of its size it was more like a refrigerator than anything else, but the water in the taps was warm and Briony reminded herself that she should be thankful for smal mercies.

Back in her room, she hesitated for a moment over her choice of clothes, before deciding to wear the jeans and sweater she had arrived in.

She had more feminine clothes with her, but her femininity was something she wanted to understate in the present situation.

As she went downstairs she could hear the sound of Logan’s typewriter tapping away furiously behind the closed door of the parlour. It seemed he realy had come there to write.

The living room fire was burning steadily, wel banked up with logs and smal coal, and when Briony had made herself some coffee, she

carried it to the chair by the fire.

It was going, she thought grimly, to be a long day.

It began snowing again about an hour later, and she watched the feathery flakes whirling down with renewed dismay. She’d never been to the cottage so late in the year before, so she had no real idea how bad things could get, but it seemed as if they might be snowed up here for days, if not weeks. She stifled a groan at the thought, then tensed because she had heard the parlour door open. She snatched a book from the shelf beside the fireplace and was sitting, apparently absorbed in reading, when the living room door opened and Logan came in.

‘Good morning.’ His tone was as casual as if they had been strangers staying in the same hotel, she thought furiously. ‘I’m going to make some coffee. Do you want some?’

‘I’ve just had a cup. thanks.’ She was aware how stilted her voice sounded.

‘As you wish.’ He went through into the kitchen whistling softly through his teeth and she heard him filing the kettle and switching it on.

She’d imagined he would remain out there while he waited for it to boil, so his voice just behind her came as a shock, and she jumped.

‘Good book?’ he inquired conversationaly.

‘Excelent.’

‘An old favourite of yours? One that you know wel?’

‘Not particularly. Why?’ She didn’t even know what it was. She had just grabbed the nearest and opened it without looking. .

‘Because you have it upside down,’ he said smoothly.

He reached over her shoulder, took the book from her nerveless hand and gave it back to her the right way up.

‘Thank you,’ she said, quivering with temper.

‘Not at al.’ He whistled appreciatively. ‘My Spiritual Mission among the Indians of the Amazon Basin by the Reverend Bertram Gleason,’

he read aloud. ‘Perhaps you’d prefer it the way it was.’

She smiled palidly, mentaly consigning both him and the unknown missionary to a hotter place than the Amazon basin. For a few moments she was desperately aware of him stil standing behind her chair, then at last he moved away back into the kitchen and she relaxed visibly.

When Logan came back with his coffee she was standing by the window.

‘I think it’s getting worse,’ she said bleakly.

‘I’m sure it is.’ He gulped down some of the hot coffee, wincing slightly. ‘The forecast is bad too.’

‘You’ve heard it?’

‘I brought a radio with me.’ He crushed the dawning hope in her face. ‘But no spare batteries. so I’m afraid I can’t offer to lend it to you for your entertainment. There might come a time when we need to hear the forecast or the news.’

‘Yes, of course;’ she said stiffly. She couldn’t tel him that she was almost desperate for some kind of cheerful noise to come between herself and her thoughts. It was so hushed in the cottage, its isolation emphasised by the muffling blanket al around them, that she was conscious of the slightest sound―the dislodgement of a piece of coal in the grate, the tick of the clock, the distant tap of the typewriter. Al of them seemed to underline how alone she was, and how unprotected. Which was not a train of thought she had any desire to pursue.

Logan said abruptly, ‘What time are we eating?’

‘I beg your pardon?’

He sighed impatiently. ‘What―time―is—lunch?’ he speled out with unnecessary elaboration.

‘Are you expecting me to cook for you?’ she demanded indignantly.

He shrugged. ‘It seems the most obvious course, unless you’re fasting. Look on it as a wifely duty―one of the many you’ve neglected

since our marriage.’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘Satisfy that one, and I might forgo the others.’

‘Please don’t make jokes,’ she said between her teeth.

‘Who said I was joking?’ he said pleasantly, and went back to the parlour. She waited for the sound of the typewriter, then she went out of the living room and upstairs to the guest room. The mattress felt cold to the touch, but not damp, and she fetched sheets and blankets and made up a bed. She supposed that by rights she should offer Logan the main bedroom as he was renting the place from her aunt, but

judging by the mood he was in this morning that didn’t seem a very good idea.

She went down to the kitchen and surveyed the store cupboards. On the face of it, they had plenty of supplies, and when the bread ran out she could always supplement their diet by baking scones and soda bread. It seemed that the down-to-earth cookery lessons she’d been

given at school were likely to stand her in better stead here than the course she had undertaken in London.

After some thought, she peeled and boiled some potatoes, then made some pastry, combining the cooked potato and a tin of stewed steak under the pastry crust.

Tinned peas would have to do, she decided, dismissing nostalgic thoughts of baby carrots and broccoli spears, and they would have fresh fruit for dessert. There had been some apples and oranges among the provisions delivered by Mrs Barnes the previous night.

When the pie was almost ready she laid a tray with a knife and fork, and added a glass of water, then carried it through to the parlour. For no particular reason that she could define, she knocked before entering, and heard Logan say ‘Come in’ above the incessant noise of the typewriter.

He glanced at the tray. ‘Aren’t you eating?’

‘Yes. I thought you’d prefer to have yours in here.’

‘Then you thought wrong.’ he said. He got up from the table and stretched. ‘I need a break, anyway.’ She had no choice but to turn and retreat back to the living room, where she had laid a place for herself on the table by the window. Reluctantly, she set Logan’s knife and fork in the opposite place, then went to fetch the pie and the vegetables.

She had been hungry, but having to sit at the same table with him destroyed her appetite. She merely picked at her smal portion of pie, and hoped he would not notice. He himself ate heartily, she noticed rather crossly.

As he took a second helping he said rather drily, ‘I’m sorry if my greed shocks you, Briony, but when I was on the run in Azabia I never knew where my next meal was coming from―or if there was even going to be a next meal.’

She asked, ‘Exactly how did you get away, Logan?’

He smiled at her. ‘I’l give you a signed copy of the book when it comes out. You can read al about it.’

‘You’re writing about it, but you don’t want to discuss it?’ she asked wonderingly.

‘That’s right.’ He took an apple and cut it into quarters.

‘You can cal the book an exorcism if you like. I hope it wil drive my demons away, but I can’t be sure.’ She stared at him, taking her first good long look.

Realy seeing him for the first time since his return. He was thinner, but she’d noticed that before, and al his features seemed more sharply defined in some odd way, their lines harsher and more prominent, as if they had been recast in some deeper and-more bitter mould. He looks older, she thought, and bleaker, and yet I surely couldn’t have expected him to go through an experience like being on the run with a price on his head and emerge unscathed.

‘What are you doing? Seeing if the scars show?’ he asked, and she flushed.

‘I suppose so. You’ve―changed.’

‘No doubt you feel there was plenty of room for improvement.’ he murmured mockingly. ‘Do you want me to tel you that you’ve changed

too?’

She shrugged silently. She wasn’t sure she wanted him to tel her anything at al about herself. Personal subjects were best avoided in the circumstances, she thought.

‘You’re more beautiful, of course,’ he said. ‘But that was to be expected. You’d be lovelier stil if you relaxed more. You have a wary, slightly hunted look about you.’

‘How strange,’ she said cooly. ‘I was thinking exactly the same about you.’

‘But I have every reason to look like that.’ He finished the last of his apple. ‘What’s your excuse?’

She colected the dirty plates and took them into the kitchen. Logan folowed, lounging in the doorway while she ran water into the sink and added washing up liquid. The water was hotter than she’d intended, and she winced slightly as she snatched at the steaming plates and put them in the drying rack.

‘You should wear gloves,’ Logan said abruptly. He came across to her side. ‘You’l spoil your hands .’ His voice brok off and she saw that he was looking at the bareness of her left hand. Briony heard herself swalow.

In the silence of the kitchen, it seemed a deafening sound.

He took her hand and studied it. ‘You were wearing it,’ he said half to himself. ‘It was one of the first things I noticed as you came down the stairs that first night in London. And now you’re not. Why?’

‘Does it matter?’ She twisted out of his grasp, reaching for a towel to dry her hands, making sure there was several feet of space between them.

‘Of course it bloody matters! While you thought you were a widow you wore your ring. Now you know that you’re stil a wife, you’ve

taken it off. It makes no sense.’

She shrugged again. ‘Perhaps I wore it out of respect ―or habit. I realy can’t remember.’ But she’d been aware of it al the time, she thought, and more than aware of how much Christopher and her father hated seeing it on her hand. She had supposed that if she accepted Christopher’s proposal and his ring, then she would transfer Logan’s wedding ring to her other hand. ‘But wearing it now would be sheer hypocrisy,’ she went on, lifting her chin as she met his narrowed gaze. ‘I’m not your wife, Logan, and I never have been. We went through a ceremony together, that was al.’

‘Don’t you dare say that was al!’ The aquamarine eyes were blazing now. ‘I remember, even if you don’t, how it was with us as we drove here that day. God in heaven, Briony, you melted into my arms, and your mouth tasted like al the roses that have ever been since the beginning of time.’

‘Please stop it,’ she said sharply. There’s no point in talking like that. We were different people then.’