Guilty Love. CHARLOTTE LAMB

      Barty subsided. ‘Right...right...you do that,’ he said, and fell asleep shortly afterwards, suddenly, leaving Linzi beside him, wide awake and dark-eyed. She didn’t get back to sleep for hours.

      When she woke up, it was broad daylight and she was alone in the bed. For a second she couldn’t remember what had happened the night before. She looked at the clock in alarm—had she overslept? Was she going to be late for work? It was nearly ten o’clock and she jumped up, only to realise it was Saturday and she didn’t have to work.

      She heard noises in the kitchen, and began to remember last night, her colour draining away, her eyes darkening. She was going to have to leave her job. She had promised Barty, and she would have to keep her word.

      Ritchie wasn’t going to be pleased; it wasn’t going to be easy telling him. Well, once she had she would never see him again, so what did it matter what he thought? But it did. Her lip trembled and she put a hand to her mouth. She didn’t want to go. She would miss him...

      Stop that! she angrily told herself. You have no right to miss him—you’re Barty’s wife and he needs you. Forget Ritchie Calhoun, he’s no concern of yours. If you are starting to have feelings about him it’s just as well you’re giving up the job.

      A moment later Barty came in, wearing a black and red towelling robe under which he was naked, carrying a tray of tea and toast.

      She sat up, pushing back her dishevelled silvery hair, and Barty halted, staring at her. His face stiffened, went white, his eyes ringed with puffy shadow.

      ‘Oh, Linzi, what have I done to you?’ he whispered. ‘Your poor little face...’

      She looked at him uncertainly, not quite sure how his mood would swing.

      He carried the tea and toast over to the bedside table, put the tray down and sat beside her, dropping his head into his hands. ‘I didn’t even remember this morning. Can you believe that? I didn’t even remember doing anything to you.’

      She could believe it. It wasn’t the first time he had blotted out the events of the night before.

      He slowly lifted his head. ‘I am sorry, Linzi, bitterly sorry...I’ll try, I’ll really try, not to let anything like this happen again.’ His hazel eyes seemed so sincere; dark with regret and sadness.

      She nodded, her mouth quivering.

      Leaning over, he kissed her bruised cheekbone lingeringly. ‘I won’t ask you to forgive me, I know I don’t deserve it...but just say you know I never meant to hurt you like that? You know I love you, don’t you, Linzi?’ There was despair in his eyes. ‘You won’t leave me, will you?’

      You didn’t walk out on someone you had loved just because fate had played a dirty trick on them. It wasn’t Barty’s fault that he was no longer the man she had married; he hadn’t asked to be crippled like this, to suffer these black moods, burst out in violent rage without warning. She knew he loved her.

      ‘I won’t go,’ she promised.

      ‘I’ll never drink like that again, never,’ he said, and she wished she could believe him. Oh, he meant it, right now, at this minute—he had meant it many times before when he made this same promise, although never before had he been so violent.

      At least he was sober enough to listen now, so she repeated, ‘Barty, there is nothing going on between me and Ritchie Calhoun, I swear that to you—but, all the same, I will give notice on Monday.’

      ‘No, don’t,’ he said, and she looked at him in disbelief, her eyes wide. ‘I believe you, Linzi, of course there’s nothing going on between you and your boss. It’s just my crazy jealousy, but I’m going to be different from now on. I won’t ever let that happen again.’

      When she saw herself in the mirror in the bathroom later she was shocked. Her face was badly bruised, along the cheekbone, above the eye, around the mouth—she looked terrible. Last night, she hadn’t realised just how badly Barty had beaten her. No wonder he had looked shaken when he came in with the tea and toast.

      Maybe it would finally snap him out of this dangerous cycle of mood swings? Linzi closed her eyes and prayed. Oh, please, let him stop drinking, let him be the Barty I knew and loved and married. Take away this dangerous stranger, who sometimes seems to hate me; and give me back my love.

      When she went into work the following Monday everyone stared. ‘Linzi, your face! What on earth happened?’

      She had a story ready. ‘I tripped coming downstairs, I was lucky not to break any bones.’

      She sounded so casual, laughing, that they all seemed to believe her. Ritchie Calhoun wasn’t there, he was working out of the office that morning, but he walked in later, just before she was due to leave for home.

      She had forgotten her bruises and looked up in surprise as her office door opened and he appeared.

      He was smiling, but the smile died as he saw her face. ‘Good God!’ he broke out, his brows dragging together.

      She remembered then, and put a defensive hand up to her cheek, bit her lip. ‘Oh...I...’ For a second she couldn’t remember the lie she had invented for everyone else who had asked. Stammering, she finally managed to say, ‘I fell downstairs. It isn’t as bad as it looks.’

      Ritchie strode over to her desk and she flinched as if he might hit her, and saw the flash of his grey eyes as he observed the betraying little movement.

      ‘Well, it looks terrible!’ he said and pushed her hand down, touching her cheek with his own hand.

      She began to tremble, her body pulsating fiercely. His skin was cool against her hot face; he gently touched the bruise and seemed to draw the pain out of it, then his fingertips slid down her cheek to explore her bruised and swollen mouth.

      She drew a long, deep, shaky breath. He touched her so lightly, like the brush of a moth in the night; her skin tingled afterwards. It was hard to believe that so tough a man could be so gentle.

      ‘Have you seen a doctor?’ Ritchie brusquely demanded, as if accusing her of something, and she was snapped out of her trance-like mood.

      ‘No, of course not, it isn’t that serious.’

      ‘I think it is,’ he snapped.

      ‘It happened two days ago! If I had anything seriously wrong with me I’d have noticed by now!’

      ‘Two days ago?’ he repeated. ‘On Friday night?’

      ‘Yes,’ she said, wishing he wouldn’t stare. It was like being under a searchlight; there was nowhere for her to hide, no way of disguising from him what she was feeling.

      ‘When you got home, after we worked late?’

      The question hit her like a bolt from the blue and she went white then red as she realised he had guessed what had really happened.

      She invented rapidly, feverishly. ‘On the way home,’ she said. ‘As I got out of the car. I tripped and hit my head on a wall.’

      Drily he reminded her, ‘You said you fell over coming downstairs—which was it?’

      ‘What is this? An interrogation?’ she threw back at him resentfully.

      He sat down on the edge of her desk and watched her closely. ‘Isn’t it time you talked about it, Linzi? What’s going on? And don’t insult my intelligence by telling me nothing is...we both know that isn’t true. You aren’t happy, something is very wrong with your marriage, and now you start coming in to work with bruises on your face? It would help to talk about it, you know.’

      ‘No, it wouldn’t,’ she said. ‘It wouldn’t help at all. Please drop the subject, Mr Calhoun. My private life is none of your business.’

      ‘Maybe I’m making it my business!’ he retorted, his face grim.

      ‘In that case I’ll have