A Passionate Affair. Elizabeth Power

touches like the ecru throw and tumbled cushions of soft ash-gold, stone and cream for the sofa as she had lived there.

      The slim built-in wardrobe to one side of the front door, which held all her clothes, meant she had to be selective in what she bought, and the kitchen was only large enough to house the smallest of fridges, along with the built-in hob and oven, but Marsha didn’t mind the lack of space. The bedsit was her retreat, somewhere she could shut the rest of the world out whenever she wanted to.

      Her miniature garden was in the form of a Juliet balcony opening out from the windows, and although it could only hold one small wicker chair, along with a profusion of scented plants, she spent a good deal of her free time there in the warmer months, reading, dozing and looking out over the rooftops.

      She loved her home. Marsha walked across to the windows now, opening them wide and letting the scents from the small balcony drift into the room. And now Taylor was going to come here, and that would spoil everything. She did not want him in her hideaway. She didn’t want him in her life.

      The hum of evening traffic from the busy main street beyond the cul-de-sac the house was situated in was louder now the windows were open. Normally Marsha didn’t even hear the sound, so used had she become to the background noise. Tonight, though, it registered on her consciousness, and she found herself wondering what Taylor would make of the bedsit. The downstairs cloakroom in his lovely home deep in Harrow was about the same size as her entire living space.

      ‘I don’t care what he thinks.’ She spoke out loud, flexing her shoulders as though to dislodge a weight there. ‘And there is absolutely no way I am going out to dinner with him.’

      So saying, she roused herself and walked into the kitchen, fixing herself a mug of milky chocolate which she took out on to the balcony. She sat down with a sigh, curling up on the big soft cushion in the wicker chair as she gazed out into space, a frown between her eyes.

      Thirty minutes later and she had had a shower, and her hair was bundled under a soft handtowel as she stood surveying her meagre wardrobe.

      She was only going to dinner with him to prevent a scene, she assured herself silently. A scene which would undoubtedly occur if Taylor did not get his own way. But this was strictly a one-off, something she would make perfectly clear to him, as well as letting him know she was counting the days until the divorce when all ties would be cut for good.

      She pulled a pair of slinky, slightly flared pants in a misty silver colour from the wardrobe, teaming them with a bolero-style silk jacket in pale green. They were the newest items of clothing she possessed, bought for a cocktail party she had attended a month or so before. After placing the clothes on the back of the sofa she walked over to the full-length mirror on the back of the wardrobe door, staring at herself long and hard for a moment or two.

      How could Taylor imagine, even for one single second, that there was any hope for them after what he had done? But then she had walked away from Taylor, rather than it being the other way round, something he would have found insupportable. To her knowledge, no woman had ever ended a relationship with him before—it had always been Taylor who had ditched them. Which was probably why his ego had been big enough to think he could have his cake and eat it.

      This last reflection brought Marsha’s lips into a thin line as she pictured the ‘cake’ in question. Tanya West—a voluptuous redhead with the body of Marilyn Monroe and the face of an angel. And according to Susan, Taylor’s sister, Tanya hadn’t been the first little dalliance he’d indulged in since his marriage.

      She whipped the towel off her head, beginning to blow dry her hair into a soft silky bob and all the time denying the hurt and anger which had flared up at the thought of the other woman.

      She was still denying it when the buzzer next to the door sounded forty minutes later. Pressing the little switch, she stared at Taylor’s face—small and very far away—as she said, ‘I’ll be down in just a second.’ She didn’t open the front door of the building, deciding he could think what he liked.

      One last swift glance in the mirror told her she was looking cool and controlled, despite the way her heart was pounding, and she offered up a quick prayer that the illusion would hold during the time she was with Taylor. He had to understand she wasn’t the same gullible fool who had been so besotted with him she hadn’t seen what was in front of her nose. She had thought he’d accepted that when she had left him and refused to see him eighteen months ago, especially in view of the fact there had been no objection from his solicitor—to her knowledge—when she had filed for divorce.

      Locking the door of the bedsit behind her, she made for the stairs, careful how she descended in the high strappy sandals she was wearing, and it was as she approached the ground floor that she heard the unmistakable sound of Taylor’s voice talking to someone inside the house. Someone had let him into the hall. She froze for a moment on the stairs, her ears straining to hear whom he was speaking to.

      Mrs Tate-Collins. As Marsha identified the other voice she raised her eyes heavenwards. Her landlady was a sweetie-pie, but the elderly lady really belonged in a powder and crinoline age, where men were gallant and noble and all women were prone to attacks of the vapours. Mrs Tate-Collins had told her once of her privileged upbringing and her private education at home and then an establishment for well brought up young gentlewomen. When Marsha had said she had been raised in a children’s home after her single-parent mother had abandoned her when she was two years old the other woman had stared at her as though she was a creature from another planet. Not that she hadn’t been sympathetic, Marsha qualified, but it had been plain the other woman was out of her depth with such an alien concept. How Mrs Tate-Collins was going to cope with finding out Miss Gosling was really Mrs Kane, Marsha didn’t know.

      ‘Ah, here she is, Mr Kane,’ Mrs Tate-Collins trilled as Marsha came into view. ‘And looking very lovely.’

      Marsha gave what she hoped was a neutral smile. ‘Thank you,’ she said directly to the other woman, before glancing at Taylor, whereupon the smile iced over. ‘I told you I’d be straight down,’ she said evenly. ‘There was no need to come in.’

      ‘Oh, I was just on my way across the hall after seeing Miss Gordon when your young man rang,’ Mrs Tate-Collins chimed in before Taylor could speak, turning to him as she added, ‘That’s the lady who lives on this floor, you know, the poor thing. She had a fall the other day and it has shaken her up a little, so I took her a drop of soup and a roll to save her having to think about supper. She is getting on a bit, bless her.’

      Marsha saw Taylor gaze into the lined face of the small wizened woman in front of him, who looked ninety if a day, but his voice was perfectly serious when he said, ‘That was kind of you, Mrs Tate-Collins.’

      ‘Shall we go?’ It was clear Taylor hadn’t got round to mentioning their marital status, which suited her just fine, and she was anxious to get him out of the door before her landlady started another cosy chat. ‘Goodbye, Mrs Tate-Collins,’ she added briskly.

      ‘Oh, goodbye, dear.’

      It was a little surprised, but in view of the fact Marsha had gripped Taylor’s arm with one hand and opened the front door with the other, virtually pushing him on to the top step, she really couldn’t blame her landlady.

      ‘She’ll think you can’t wait to have your wicked way with me.’ Once they had descended the eight steps and were on the pavement Taylor raised an amused eyebrow at her.

      Up to this moment she had successfully fought acknowledging how drop-dead gorgeous he looked, but as her heart missed a couple of beats she said stiffly, ‘Mrs Tate-Collins would never think anything so vulgar.’

      ‘Really? I thought she had a little twinkle in her eye.’

      Any female, whatever her age, would have a twinkle in her eye when she looked at Taylor. That was the effect he had on the whole of womankind. ‘I think not,’ she said crisply. ‘And before we move from here I want to make it perfectly plain that I have agreed to this meeting under sufferance, and only because I want the divorce to go through with the minimum of disruption.’

      Taylor