Marriage Under Suspicion (3 page)

rimmed spectacles. She was taller than Kate, and built on more Junoesque lines, with a

mop of dark curly hair.

'Oh, don't be ridiculous,' Kate had said impatiently. 'I trust Ryan implicitly.'

Nevertheless, when Ryan got back she'd heard herself asking, 'How did you get on with

the publicist?'

'Grant?' Ryan had shaken his head. 'Nice lad, but I think I was his first author. We carried

each other.'

'Oh,' Kate had said, despising herself for feeling relieved.

The kettle whistled imperiously, bringing Kate back to the present with a start.

Not exactly the kind of trip down Memory Lane that I wanted, she reflected wryly as she

made her coffee.

And it must have been sparked off by her encounter with Peter Henderson. His questions

had re-opened several cans of worms which she'd thought closed for ever, and that was

vaguely disturbing.

So, she hadn't wanted Ryan to jettison his City career. She could hardly be blamed for

that. But no one was more delighted than herself when the gamble paid off.

We're both doing what we want. We have a wonderful life, and a strong marriage, she

told herself as she made her way back to the living area. Things really couldn't be better.

There was a small stack of mail beside the telephone, junk and bills by the look of it, she

thought, wrinkling her nose as she flicked through the envelopes. There was only one she

couldn't categorise quite so simply. An expensive cream laid envelope, typewritten, and

addressed quite starkly to 'Kate Lassiter', with a central London postmark.

Kate slit open the envelope and extracted the single sheet of paper it contained.

She unfolded the letter, reaching casually for her coffee cup as she did so.

There was no address, and no greeting. Just two lines in heavy black script. Seven words

which leapt off the page at her with a force that left her stunned.

“Your husband loves another woman.”

A Friend.

Kate felt totally numb. There was an odd roaring in her ears, while from a distance she

heard the tinkle of crockery, and flinched from the scalding splash of liquid on her feet

and legs.

She thought detachedly, I've dropped my coffee. I ought to get a cloth and clear it up

before it stains the floor. I ought...

But she couldn't move. All she could do was read those seven words over and over again,

until they danced in front of her eyes, reassembling themselves in strange meaningless

patterns.

She felt her fingers curl round the paper, crushing it, reducing it to a tight ball which she

threw, violently, as far as her strength allowed.

For a moment she stood, almost absently wiping her hands down the sides of her coffee-

stained skirt, then, with a little choking cry, she bolted up to the bathroom where she was

briefly and unpleasantly sick.

When the world had stopped revolving, she stripped off her clothes and showered, using

water almost hotter than she could bear, as if scouring herself of some physical

contamination.

Then she towelled herself dry, and re-dressed in leggings and a tunic.

She seemed to be looking at a ghost, she thought, as she combed her damp hair into

shape. A white-faced spectre with shocked, enormous eyes.

Downstairs, she fetched a dustpan and cleaning materials, and set about cleaning up the

spilled coffee, almost relishing the physical effort required to scrub at the stained

floorboards. The cream rug was marked too, she noticed, frowning, and that would have

to go to a specialist cleaning firm.

She stopped right there, with a tiny gasp. Her marriage was in ruins, and she was

worrying about a bloody rug?

She knelt staring into space, aware of a deep inner trembling. Knowing that it was

composed equally of anger and fear.

Heard her voice, hoarse and shaken, say, ‘It's not true. It can't be true, or I'd have known.

I'd have sensed something, surely. It's just a piece of random filth. Someone who hates

us. Who's jealous of our happiness.'

The conclusion made her flesh crawl, but it was definitely preferable to any other

possibility, she realised, grimacing painfully.

She got to her feet, and took the china fragments into the kitchen for disposal. The

champagne bottle in the waste bin jarred her. Before she could stop herself, she was

standing by the sink, lifting the flutes to the sunlight, studying them minutely for any tell-

tale signs of lipstick.

Oh, for heaven's sake, she derided herself. Don't let someone's malice turn you paranoid.

She put the glasses away, emptied the waste bin, and cleaned it meticulously. Then she

deliberately made herself another cup of coffee, and carried it through to the living area,

seating herself on one of the cream and maize striped sofas.

Normally, the panorama of the river fascinated her, the boats, the buildings which

crowded the banks, the play of light on the water. Now, she gazed at it unseeingly, her

mind running in aching circles, as she drank her coffee. It burned all the way down, but

the inner chill remained.

She thought, I don't want this to have happened. I want everything back the way it was

before...

In some ways, she wished she hadn't come home. That she'd accepted Peter Henderson's

offer and stayed for dinner in Gloucestershire.

But that would have made no difference. The letter would still have been there, awaiting

her eventual return.

She needed to find some way to deal with the situation. Work out some plan of action.

Yet she felt totally at a loss.

She could always go for straight confrontation, she acknowledged, frowning. Just hand

Ryan the letter and watch his reaction.

She put down the empty cup, and retrieved the crumpled ball of paper from its corner,

endeavouring to smooth out the creases.

I can't pretend to treat it lightly—make a joke of it, she thought. As soon as he sees what I

did to it, he'll know it mattered—that it upset me. I can't let him know that. Not until I'm

sure. One way or the other.

She stopped abruptly, with a small gasp, aware of how far and how fast she had come

from her original total disbelief.

She found herself remembering an article she'd read in a magazine at the hairdressers.

Titled 'His Cheating Heart', it had detailed some of the ways to check if a man was being

unfaithful. And one of the chief danger signs, she recalled, her heart lurching sickly, had

been long, unexplained absences.

She said aloud, huskily, almost desperately, "Ryan—where the hell are you?'

No, she thought, setting her jaw. She would not let herself think like this. Five years of

love and trust could not be destroyed by a single act of malice. She wouldn't allow it.

So she wouldn't mention the letter at all, she told herself, drawing a deep breath. In fact,

she would make believe she had never seen it. That it didn't exist. She would make no

wild accusations. Drop no veiled hints. She would act completely naturally, she thought

fiercely. But—she would also be on her guard.

She tore the letter in half, then into quarters, before reducing it to strips, and thence into a

mound of minute fragments which she piled onto a saucer and burned.

She flushed the ashes down the sink, and wished the words could be erased from her

mind with equal ease.

She chose a bottle of Ryan's favourite Bordeaux from the rack, and opened it. A nice,

wifely gesture to welcome him home, she thought, biting her lip. Except there was no

positive guarantee that he would be home...

If he didn't return, of course, that would be a whole new ball game. But she would deal

with that only when she had to.

She sat curled up on the sofa, sipping her wine, and watching television, aware of the

light fading from the sky above the river. But the words and images on the screen passed

her by, as if she were blind and deaf. Her mind was occupied only by her own heavy

thoughts.

It was with a sense of shock that she discovered that it was now completely dark, and

realised how long she must have been sitting there. She uncoiled herself stiffly, forcing

herself to move around the big room, switching on lamps, and drawing the voluminous

drapes across the windows. Closing out the night, and the thousands of lights which

twinkled at her like small prying eyes. Reinforcing the fact that she was still,

unaccountably, alone.

She thought, with anguish, He's not coming back. And how am I going to bear it...?

The sudden sharp rattle of a key in the door made her wheel round, her heart pounding.

She said with a gasp 'Ryan? Oh, Ryan, it's you.'

'You were expecting someone else?' He spoke lightly, but the glance he directed at her

across the intervening space was searching. He shut the door behind him, and put down

his briefcase.

'Of course not, but I was getting worried. I didn't know where you were.'

'I'm sorry, but I didn't know you'd be around to worry.' His brows lifted questioningly.

'To what do I owe this unexpected pleasure?'

He was wearing, she noticed, his favourite pale grey trousers, topped by a white shirt, a

silk tie in sombre jewel colours, and his black cashmere jacket. Not his usual casual

weekend gear at all.

She swallowed. 'Oh, the bride got cold feet and cancelled. A Special Occasions first. All

that lovely food, and the prettiest marquee in England, and no takers.' She realised she

was beginning to babble, and bit her lip.

Ah, well,' Ryan said lightly. 'It's probably a blessing in disguise. One less mistake to

chalk up to experience. One less digit to add to the divorce statistics.'

She stared at him, suddenly and totally arrested. ‘That's a very cynical viewpoint.'

'I thought I was just being realistic' He paused. 'Did it cause you a lot of problems?'

'Enough.' Kate shrugged. 'But it also gave me the weekend back.' She hesitated in her

turn. 'I did phone and leave a message. You must have been out all day.'

'Pretty well,' he nodded, discarding his jacket and tie and tossing them on to one of the

sofas.

Kate watched him release the top buttons of his shirt with a swift, primitive yearning.

How long was it since they'd last made love? It must be all of three weeks, she realised

with an inward grimace. Just before she'd been taken ill with that twenty-four-hour

tummy bug, when she thought back.

But I've been out a lot on business, she reminded herself defensively, and Ryan often

works late into the evening, so that I'm asleep when he comes to bed.

But not tonight, she promised herself. Tonight, she would take infinite care to stay awake.

She smiled at him. 'Would you like a glass of wine? I—I didn't know what to do about

food...?' She turned it into a question.

Ryan shook his head. 'I've eaten, thanks. But some wine would be good.'

She poured carefully, and handed him a glass. 'You look very smart.' She kept her tone

casual. 'Have you been with Quentin?'

He shook his head. 'No, I had some research to do.'

'Oh.' Kate refilled her own glass and sat down. 'I thought you did that on the Internet.'

'Not all of it.' He didn't come to sit beside her, but prowled restlessly round the room. He

paused by the phone. 'Have there been any other messages?'

'Apparently not.' Kate sipped her wine. 'Were you expecting anything in particular?'

'Not really,' he returned. 'There was some mail for you, by the way. Did you find it?'

'Yes,' she said. 'Oh, yes, thank you.'

He continued his pacing, then halted abruptly, his brows flicking together in a frown.

'What happened to the floor? And the rug?'

'That was me being clumsy.' She managed to laugh. 'I had a fight with a cup of coffee and

lost. Does it look too obvious and awful? I'll get the rug cleaned, and there's some special

stuff for the woodwork.'

'No, leave it,' Ryan said, his mouth twisting. 'I rather like the fact that we've actually put

our mark on the place at last. I'd begun to think we were going to pass through without

one blemish.'

‘Pass through?' Kate echoed. 'That's an odd thing to say.'

He shrugged. 'Just a figure of speech.'

'And it's not "the place",' she went on, with a touch of fierceness, feeling uneasy, wanting,

obscurely, to challenge him. 'It's a home. Our home.'

He laughed. 'Is it, my darling? I thought it was some kind of statement.'

'Can't it be both? Is it wrong for our environment to express who we are—our aspirations

and achievements?' She could hear her voice rising.

'That,' he said, 'might depend on the aspirations and achievements. Although no one,

seeing all this, could possibly doubt what a success we both are.' He lifted his glass in a

mocking toast, swallowing the rest of his wine. 'Quod erat demonstrandum.'

My God, she thought. We're almost quarrelling, and that's the last thing I want.