A Whirlwind Marriage. Helen Brooks

to the beautiful drawing room to stand in front of the ornate fireplace above which hung their huge wedding portrait.

      She ignored the young, glowing-faced girl on Zeke’s arm and stared instead at the tall dark figure of her husband, at the midnight-black hair cut severely short, which just emphasised his rugged appeal tenfold when added to the harsh, handsome face, the jawline square and uncompromising.

      But it was his eyes that had first enchanted her that day two years ago. Grey, and of a warm smoky quality, they had floored her. Absolutely floored her. They still did.

      When she had looked into his eyes during the early days of their relationship it hadn’t mattered that they came from vastly different worlds. Zeke from a rags-to-riches background and a childhood devoid of love and stability, and she from a steady, non-eventful middle-class upbringing full of love and family values.

      She had been only twenty when she’d met Zeke and had been sexually unawakened; he had had relationships with women from the age of sixteen and had been a cynical and worldly-wise thirty-five.

      He hadn’t kissed her until their second date, however, the evening after the first day they’d met. But when he had drawn her into his arms in the intimate shadows inside her garden gate she had known why the fumbling attentions of her previous boyfriends had merely irritated and slightly disgusted her.

      The subtle, spicy flavour of his aftershave, the hard lean body and devastating male sensuality had shaken her to her roots. By the time the kiss had finished she’d been trembling with passion and excitement, her heartbeat thudding in her ears and the blood rushing through her veins like hot mulled wine.

      ‘You’re special, Marianne.’ Zeke had pulled her closer into him as he had spoken, wrapping his arms around her as if to bind her to him. ‘Very, very special.’

      She hadn’t been able to speak, she’d barely been able to stand, and when his mouth had taken hers again in a kiss that was powerful and hungry she’d responded wildly, knowing she hadn’t really been alive until that moment.

      She had known by the end of that first week that she loved him and that she couldn’t live without him, the intensity of her love as frightening as it was thrilling.

      The bath sheet slipped a little and she caught it to her, her eyes never leaving the cool, handsome face of her husband.

      And when she had married him she had given him all of herself—body, soul and spirit—withholding nothing. Fool, fool, fool.

      Pat was waiting for her when Marianne walked into the elegant and tranquil confines of Rochelle’s, and she was glad she had thought to ring in advance and reserve a table for two in her name. Or rather Zeke’s name, she thought a trifle bitterly. The magic name that opened myriad doors.

      ‘Annie!’ Pat bounced to her feet, her thick brown curls bobbing as she waved enthusiastically, as though the restaurant was crowded and busy instead of being virtually empty. In another half an hour, though, that would all change, and by one o’clock every table would be occupied. But for now it was blessedly quiet and private.

      ‘Oh, Pat, it’s so good to see you,’ Marianne breathed as the two exchanged a bear hug.

      ‘And you.’ Pat grinned at her as they sat down, and then, as the waiter appeared at their side like a rabbit out of a hat, she said, ‘You still drinking the same? Dry martini, wasn’t it?’

      ‘I prefer a glass of wine these days.’ She didn’t add that Zeke had educated her on good wines until now she could hold her own with the best wine waiter. ‘Red is your preference, isn’t it?’

      Pat nodded. ‘Not much changes,’ she said with a wry grimace.

      Oh, if only that were true. Marianne selected a superior bottle of wine that she knew from experience was soft and mellow with a warm oak flavour, and then, once the two girls were alone again, she said softly, ‘You look terrific, Pat.’

      ‘So do you.’ Pat’s pretty, pert face was unusually soft as she surveyed Marianne’s slender, finely boned figure and beautiful heart-shaped face, the huge cornflower-blue eyes, small straight nose and full mouth framed by a mass of luxuriant silver-blonde hair that hung in silky waves to below Marianne’s shoulderblades. ‘But you’re too thin, if you don’t mind me saying so, and with you that means you’re worrying or unhappy about something. You’ve never eaten for comfort like me, have you?’

      Marianne shook her head slowly. You never got any pussy-footing around with Pat, and after all the sycophantic boot-lickers that tried to attach themselves to Zeke’s brilliant black star, her friend’s frankness was refreshing to say the least.

      ‘So, what gives?’ Pat asked gently.

      The return of the wine waiter delayed Marianne’s answer somewhat, but once they were sitting with an enormous glass of red wine and an embossed menu in front of each of them, Marianne said without any preamble, ‘It’s all such a mess, Pat—me, Zeke, everything. I thought…I thought it was going to be so different. I knew his work was a big part of his life, and that’s all right, it is really, but he doesn’t seem to understand that I need something to do. I can’t just be content with keeping house and lunches with the wives of his friends and shopping afternoons and organising dinner parties and so on. I’m not made like that.’

      ‘Nor me,’ Pat said with a shudder.

      ‘He’s expected all the compromise to be on my side. I’ve had to fit completely into his world, and he hasn’t made the slightest attempt to fit into mine. He doesn’t want me to work, says I don’t need to, and even when I tried to set up some voluntary work at the local hospital he made it so difficult I finished up letting it go. The apartment…I feel it’s a prison, I hate it, and he promised before we got married that we’d leave there as soon as we found somewhere more suitable for bringing up a family.’

      ‘A family?’ Pat queried carefully.

      Marianne stared at her miserably. ‘It just hasn’t happened,’ she said quietly. ‘The first twelve months it didn’t matter, but then I started to worry, so we went for tests and everything’s fine, apparently, but still no baby. And this constant city life, it’s stifling me, Pat. Choking me.’

      ‘Have you told him all this?’ said Pat, watching her closely.

      Marianne nodded. ‘But he has an answer for everything, he’s that sort of man, and I always end up feeling in the wrong. The doctor at the hospital…he thought I wasn’t getting pregnant because I was stressed, and when he said that it was more reason for Zeke to say he doesn’t want me to do anything outside the home. I tried to tell him it was because I was being locked away from the outside I was stressed, but he wouldn’t accept it.’

      ‘Because he didn’t want to,’ Pat said astutely. She’d had a taste of Zeke Buchanan’s single-mindedness when he had all but shut her out of Marianne’s life once they were married.

      ‘I still love him, Pat.’ Marianne was staring down into her glass as she spoke and missed Pat’s green eyes narrowing shrewdly on her unhappy face. ‘But then last night we had a terrible row.’

      She raised her head then, and the stark misery in the azure blue eyes took Pat’s breath away. But before she could say anything the waiter was at their side for their lunch order, and once he had gone Marianne changed the subject, insisting on hearing all Pat’s news, and how she was progressing in her job as surgery nurse at the local veterinary practice in Bridgeton.

      It was as they finished their first course it happened. Pat had just eaten the last mouthful of her avocado and prawn cocktail—one of Rochelle’s specialities—and had leant forward across the table, saying quietly, ‘Annie, have you told your father how things are?’ when she became aware her friend’s eyes were transfixed at a point over her shoulder.

      ‘Oh, Pat.’ It was the merest thread of a whisper, but as Pat made to turn in her chair Marianne said urgently, ‘No, don’t turn round, whatever you do, and talk—talk about anything, quickly.’

      Pat