The Colours of Love (27 page)

The night was pitch-black, a cloudy sky obscuring the moon and stars, but a light was still burning in the cottage, causing Esther to murmur ruefully, ‘Oh dear, it looks like Rose has waited up for us, and I told her not to. She needs her sleep.’

The two farm collies, Gyp and Badger, that slept in one of the hay barns came sniffing at their ankles to make sure all was well, but as Esther and Priscilla walked towards their cottage, the two dogs slunk away into the darkness.

They hadn’t reached the cottage when the door opened. Obviously the truck’s noisy old engine had alerted Rose to their arrival. But then Esther stopped dead, shocked to the core. She often marvelled afterwards that she hadn’t dropped Joy, because all feeling seemed to drain from her limbs as she stared into Monty’s handsome face.

He stood there in the doorway, still very much the gentleman and dressed as immaculately as always, and his voice was the same when he said, ‘Hello, Esther. I’m sorry to arrive unannounced like this, but I wanted to see you . . . ’

Chapter Sixteen

It was fifteen minutes later.

Joy was tucked up in her cot and fast asleep, and Rose had insisted on taking Esther’s bed for the night, so that Esther and Monty could have the front room of the tiny cottage to themselves to talk in privacy.

When Esther came down the stairs after settling Joy, she found Monty sitting bolt upright in his chair, his gaze riveted on her face. The first words he spoke to her were about Joy, and nothing he said could have hit her on the raw so completely, which was strange in view of their content.

But it wasn’t what he said exactly, more the note of wonderment – and, yes, relief – in his tone when he said softly, ‘She is beautiful. Our daughter, she really is quite lovely.’

Esther stared at him. Joy had awoken for a few moments when she’d been carried into the cottage, almost as though the child had sensed her mother’s turmoil and distress, and Esther had noticed the widening of Monty’s eyes as he’d gazed down into the exquisite face. For a moment she had seen her daughter as Monty was seeing her: the warm, coffee-coloured skin that was such an amazing backdrop for her huge, jade-green eyes with their thick lashes, her delicate features and her golden-brown curls. She had felt both resentment and alarm when she had seen Monty’s expression, and now this feeling was increased a hundredfold. Stiffly she walked across the tiny space and sat down opposite him in the old armchair in front of the fire, and the stiffness was reflected in her voice when she said, ‘My daughter, Monty. You made it perfectly clear two years ago how you felt about her. And me.’

Monty stared at his wife. When he had arrived at the farm just after lunch he hadn’t known if Esther was living there, but he had hoped the farmer might be able to give him an idea of where she had gone, if not.

The first person he had seen as he had climbed out of his car was Rose. She had been coming out of a barn a short distance from the farmhouse, and she had stopped dead, gazing at him with an open mouth and blinking eyes, as though she couldn’t believe what she was seeing.

So Esther
was
at the farm, he’d thought, his heart leaping in his chest, before the feeling of apprehension and dread that always accompanied thoughts of the child came into play. But the desire to see Esther had been eating him up for a long time, even before Theobald had begun to insist that he trace her whereabouts; and so he had used his charm on Rose and the farmer’s wife and had spent the afternoon in the farmhouse. Admittedly his charm hadn’t worked on Beryl, Vera and Lydia when they had come back from an hour or two at the village celebrations, but he hadn’t risen to any of their barbed comments and had kept his temper. Eventually, when the three girls had retired for the night, he walked across to the cottage with Rose and sat and waited for Esther there.

He had been very careful to say and do all the right things with Rose; he knew he needed Esther’s old nanny on his side, whether or not he decided to take Esther back, as Theobald was insisting. From what Rose had confided, it seemed Esther was devoted to the child, which he saw as the major problem, but he decided to see Esther first before he considered anything further.

And then she had come back; he had seen her face and had known he loved her more than ever, although she was not the young girl he’d left two years ago. She was very much a woman now, and he wanted the woman even more than he’d wanted the girl.

Gathering his thoughts, he said gently, ‘I know you’re angry with me, and you have every right to be, but looking back, I don’t think I was in my right mind when Joy was born. The war, everything I was going through, it takes a toll. And then, just after that, I was shot down’ – he held out his hands for her to see them clearly – ‘and for months on end I didn’t know much.’

There was no way she could find out the truth, he reassured himself silently, either about the fact that the incident had occurred a good time after the child’s arrival, or about the women he had had after he had left her.

‘Then came all the operations on these.’ He nodded at his bent and crippled fingers. ‘But at least they got them to a point where I can function relatively normally, drive and look after myself, and so on.’ He smiled bravely.

Esther said nothing, keeping her face blank with enormous effort, but behind the calm facade her mind was racing and her heart was thumping so hard it actually hurt.

‘I want us to go back to the way it was, Esther. And your father is prepared to meet you—’

‘My father is not known to you.’

‘I mean Theobald. He—’

‘I want nothing to do with him.’ She felt she was on solid ground here, at least. When Monty had been talking about his hands, she had imagined what he must have gone through and it was weakening her. She knew, from some of the things that Kenny had said, that Monty would have suffered the torments of the damned. She could see in his face that pain had aged him. ‘Let me make one thing absolutely clear, Monty. Theobald Wynford is no relation of mine, and I am thankful for it,’ she continued flatly. ‘I want no claim on him, and he has none on me.’

Reproachfully he said, ‘You don’t feel that is a little hard? He was the deceived, Esther. Not the deceiver.’

She didn’t deign to answer that. ‘Why are you here, Monty?’

‘I told you. I want us to be together again.’

‘That is impossible.’

‘Why? We are still man and wife, and there is the child to consider. Do you want her to grow up without a father?’

‘Better that than knowing that her father is ashamed of her. We both know how you feel. You made it abundantly clear two years ago.’

‘I’ve explained about that.’ In truth he had had the biggest shock of his life when he had seen the little girl today. She was the most exquisite child he had ever seen, and nothing like the little scrap he remembered on the day of her birth. True, she was still clearly not white, but with his mother gone, that didn’t matter so much. People would assume Esther had misbehaved and he had been magnanimous and forgiven her, and as long as he made sure there were no more children, who would ever know any different? But he could deal with that problem in the future. For now he had to convince Esther to come back to him. ‘I regretted it immediately and, but for the fact that I was shot down, I would have found you and made things right. You have to believe me, darling.’

Did she? Did she believe him? she asked herself, staring into the undeniably handsome face. If Monty had turned up on the doorstep a little while after Joy had been born, saying what he was saying now, she would have taken him back with open arms, she knew that. She would have been delirious with relief and happiness. But now? It was different.
She
was different.

‘You mentioned Theobald. You clearly have some contact with him, then?’ she said, aware that she was prevaricating about the main issue and the fact that she didn’t trust him. Because she didn’t, she thought with a dart of shock. Not at all.

In view of her earlier comments, Monty was aware she might not like his reply, but she had to know the situation. Carefully he said, ‘I work for him, Esther. My parents were killed when a bomb dropped on the London house, and it transpired they had huge debts, so there was nothing left after the creditors had been paid and everything was settled. Your father – Theobald,’ he corrected swiftly, ‘offered me a job, as I was family.’

Her face expressed her amazement. Monty hadn’t liked Theobald any more than she had, and after the way her so-called father had treated herself and Joy, she would have thought that would have been enough for Monty to have nothing more to do with him, if he did really still love her. As for the ‘family’ comment, Theobald did nothing out of the goodness of his heart. Stiffly she said, ‘I gather the Grant name still opens doors for him?’ She wasn’t stupid, and he needn’t treat her as though she was.

Monty shifted uncomfortably. ‘I suppose so.’

‘And you are happy to work for him? Knowing what he is really like – how foul he is?’

‘I didn’t really have much of a choice.’

‘Everyone has a choice, Monty, so don’t give me that.’

His face was burning now, the colour suffusing it almost scarlet. ‘I’ve explained why.’

‘Yes, you have.’ For the first time since he had come into her life she was seeing Monty without rose-coloured glasses. Why had she never noticed the weakness in his mouth, she asked herself, or how much he resembled his father? She had always wondered why Hubert hadn’t stood up to Clarissa, but now she saw the flaw that had been in the father was in the son. And if Hubert hadn’t been capable of wearing the metaphorical trousers in the relationship, maybe Clarissa had been forced to put them on and assume the role?

‘I’m your husband, Esther, and Joy’s father.’ Monty couldn’t believe what was happening. He had thought that, after some initial tears, she would fall on his neck in grateful happiness. He was offering her everything – support, stability, his name and protection – and her future would be secure. Couldn’t she see that? And she loved him. He knew she still loved him. She had been crazy about him. ‘Don’t you want us to be a family?’ he said softly. ‘As it was meant to be?’

She looked at him for a long moment before saying, with a touch of sadness, ‘No, Monty, I don’t.’

He felt the colour flooding his face again. ‘You don’t mean that. I know I hurt you and I’m sorry, but I’ve told you: it was a combination of the war and shock and—’

‘Your mother.’ Her chin had risen. ‘Don’t forget your mother, in your excuses. But she’s not to blame, not really.’

He closed his eyes for a second, lowering his head and turning it from side to side, before looking at her again. ‘You need time, I understand that. Once you have thought about this, you will see it is the best thing for all of us.’

There was a long pause and, when she made no reply, he said, ‘I love you, Esther, and I know you love me.’

She shook her head slowly. ‘No, Monty, I don’t. My love took a while to die, I admit that, but die it has.’

‘I will never believe that. You want to punish me.’

‘Strangely, no.’ She stood up, twisting her hands together before realizing what she was doing and bringing them to her sides. ‘We’re different people now, you must see that?’

‘I am the same.’

‘Then I can only say I didn’t know the real you when we got married.’

‘I’m not going to give up, Esther. You are my wife and your place is at my side, living the life you were born into, rather than existing in this’ – his nose wrinkled – ‘this pigsty. It’s one thing to do your bit for the war effort, but now . . . ’

How could she have thought she loved him? How could she have made such a terrible mistake? ‘Please leave, Monty.’

He stood up, rubbing his scarred hand tightly along his jawbone. For a moment she felt a dart of pity, before she told herself not to weaken. His suffering didn’t alter who he was.

‘I shall come back, Esther.’

‘I would prefer you not to. In fact’ – she took a deep breath – ‘I would like a divorce, Monty, now that the war is over.’

His eyes narrowed and his voice was very soft. ‘No.’

Esther blinked. For a moment the look on his face reminded her of Theobald. It was this that made her say, ‘Does he know you’re here? Theobald? Did you tell him you were coming to see me?’ Was he behind Monty’s change of heart?

Monty turned from her and walked to the door, opening it and then facing her again. ‘He knows. Furthermore, he’s prepared to let bygones be bygones.’ He didn’t add that Theobald’s take on the matter was that, if Esther came back into the fold and acted the good wife, it would do the business no harm; and the child could be kept in the background until she was shipped off to a boarding school somewhere in the south.

‘How big of him,’ said Esther, cuttingly.

‘You seem to forget that Harriet did him a great wrong when she deceived him. He was in shock – we all were – when the truth came out. You can’t blame him for reacting the way he did.’

‘Can’t I?’

She stared at him, and it was his eyes that fell away from hers as he muttered, ‘I thought you would be more reasonable.’

‘I’m sorry to disappoint you.’

Monty took a deep breath. ‘I don’t want to leave on bad terms. Please think over what I have said, and most of all that I love you. I have always loved you, and I will always love you. I won’t give you a divorce, Esther, not feeling the way I do. I want to be clear about that. I want you back as my wife, and I won’t stop until you are at my side, where you belong.’ His sheer audacity was breathtaking, and something of what she was feeling must have shown in her face because he murmured, ‘I know, I know. I failed you. But I’ll make it up to you. Remember how happy we were? The life we’d planned to have together? It can still happen. I’ll fight to make it happen.’

When she said nothing, he continued gently, ‘Goodbye for now, my darling,’ stepping outside and shutting the door behind him.

Esther stood quite still for a moment or two and then walked across the room and shot the bolts at the top and bottom of the door. They were stiff and rusty, rarely having been used, and she caught her finger on one of them. She looked at the spot of blood that had formed, and for a moment she wanted to cry. He had left her heart bleeding two years ago and, in spite of his fancy words, he seemed almost oblivious to how much he had hurt her then. At bottom, he still felt that he was completely justified.