Passionate Protectors?. Maggie Cox

bored into her midriff and she’d been doubled over, gasping for air and sanity, when he’d stormed out of the duplex.

      Of course, he’d apologised when he’d come back. He’d made the excuse of stress at the office, of being madly jealous of any man who spoke to her, of his own uncontrollable temper. He’d sworn it would never happen again, showered her with expensive presents until she’d been convinced of his regret.

      Until the next time…

      But she didn’t want to think about that now; didn’t want to consider what a naïve fool she had been, or how easily Max had managed to persuade her that she was actually to blame for his outbursts. In the beginning, desperate to make her marriage work—for her mother’s sake as well as her own—she’d seized any excuse to explain his violence. The truth was, she hadn’t been able to believe what was happening to her. She’d deluded herself that once Max realised she wasn’t interested in any other man he’d come to his senses.

      It hadn’t happened. The violence had just got worse and there’d been nothing she could do. Max had made it very clear that he would never let her go, and she’d had the very real fear that if she did try to free herself he would turn his anger on her mother.

      She was glad now that they’d had no children. Max would have had no compunction about using them in his unequal struggle for possession. Besides which, she realised now that his jealousy would never have allowed a third person to dilute the complete submission he demanded of her.

      Thrusting these thoughts aside, she got to her feet and crossed to the small pile of clothes Matt had left on the loveseat. There were jeans, which she judged might fit her very well, a couple of tee shirts, two changes of cheap underwear, the kind that was available in supermarkets, and a pair of trainers.

      She pressed her lips together after she had examined the clothes, her eyes filling with tears suddenly at his kindness. This presumably was the ‘gift’ he’d brought her, only to find her cowering behind the bathroom door. She’d been so afraid of him seeing her, of him finding out what Max had done to her, but now she was glad he knew. It was such a relief to have someone she could talk to, someone who wouldn’t judge her. And, although she’d admitted nothing, she suspected Matt knew exactly what had been going on.

      Sooner or later, she knew, she would have to go back, but please God not yet. Whatever excuse she gave, Max was never going to believe her version of events. Apart from anything else, she had shamed and humiliated him—or at least that was how he would see it. He was never going to forgive her for that.

      Trying to ignore the inevitable, Sara carried the jeans and one of the tee shirts into the bathroom and took off her dress. The voile dress had been new, bought to go to the art exhibition Max had been planning to visit the evening when fate had overtaken both of them. It was strange to think it was the dress that had led to Max’s accident. But then, it was on such simple things as these that her marriage had foundered.

      As she hung the dress on the back of the bathroom door she thought how foolish she’d been to think that Max might like it. He hadn’t chosen it, and for a long time now he had chosen all her clothes. But he had encouraged her to attend the fashion show with the wife of one of his colleagues, and, after seeing it modelled, Sara had fallen in love with its style and elegance.

      Its style and elegance! Sara’s lips curled in painful remembrance. Max hadn’t thought it was either stylish or elegant. He’d said it was the kind of dress only a tart would wear, that she’d chosen it because she’d wanted to flaunt herself. She was quite sure that if he hadn’t fallen down the stairs he’d have torn the garment off her, and she wished now that she’d taken the time to grab a change of clothes before fleeing from the apartment. She didn’t like the dress now; she hated it. She took a breath. Hated him! God help her.

      The jeans were a little big, but that didn’t matter. At least they weren’t tight on her hip. The tee shirt was cropped and ended a daring inch above her navel, which she worried about a little. But then she remembered Max wasn’t going to see her. For now she could please herself what she wore.

      The trainers fitted beautifully. Sara guessed Matt must have checked the size of her shoes before buying them. Whatever, she looked infinitely better. She felt almost her old self as she went downstairs at lunchtime.

      The first person she encountered was Mrs Webb. The housekeeper was setting the table in the dining room again and Sara halted uncertainly, not sure she wanted to face another grilling.

      But Mrs Webb had seen her and, straightening, she arched her brows appreciatively. ‘You look nice,’ she said, with none of the animosity that she’d exhibited earlier. ‘Matt’s got good taste.’

      Sara gave a rueful smile, realising there was no point in pretending that she’d brought the garments with her. ‘Where is—Matt?’ she asked, for want of anything else to say, and the housekeeper returned to her task.

      ‘He’s in his office, study, whatever you want to call it.’ She sounded indulgent. ‘He said to tell you to go ahead and have lunch without him. I believe he’s got a lot of work to catch up on, and he’s got to pick Rosie up at three o’clock.’

      Sara came a little further into the room. ‘I didn’t realise he was writing a book at the moment,’ she said, feeling a familiar sense of inadequacy. ‘I should apologise. I’ve taken up so much of his time.’

      ‘Did I say he was complaining?’ The older woman gave her a sideways glance. ‘If you ask me, he’s more than happy to have you here. Writing can be a lonely existence. And since Hester retired he’s had to make do with Rosie’s and my company.’

      ‘Hester.’ Sara remembered the little girl mentioning that name yesterday afternoon when she’d been trying to prove how grown up she was. ‘Who—who is Hester?’

      ‘She used to be Rosie’s nanny,’ explained Mrs Webb, straightening from the table again. ‘She came north with Matt when he bought this place. She was from around here originally, just as he was.’

      Sara nodded. ‘But she left?’

      ‘She retired,’ replied the housekeeper, heading for the door. ‘Now, you sit yourself down. I’ll be back in a minute with your meal.’

      Sara would have liked to ask if she could just have her meal in the kitchen, as she’d done the day before, but she was chary of getting too familiar with Mrs Webb. She didn’t know what Matt had told her, if anything, and until she did it was probably safer to maintain a certain detachment.

      The housekeeper returned with an appetising dish of lasagne and new bread, fresh out of the oven. She advised Sara to help herself and, although her appetite had been virtually non-existent since she left London, Sara found to her surprise that she was hungry.

      She refused the glass of wine Mrs Webb offered, however. A diet cola was far more appealing, and by the time the housekeeper returned to see how she was doing she’d made a modest dent in the pasta.

      ‘That was delicious,’ she said, feeling pleased with herself. ‘Did you make it?’

      ‘Well, I didn’t buy it,’ remarked Mrs Webb drily. ‘I don’t hold with all those ready-made meals, although I suppose if you’re a working girl you can’t always spend half the day in the kitchen, can you?’

      ‘No, I suppose not.’

      Sara thought longingly of those occasions when she’d made a meal for her mother and herself. But that was in the days before Max came on the scene; before he’d come to the school to present a cheque to the governors to equip a new gymnasium and decided she was going to be the next Mrs Bradbury. Before Sara’s mother had seen him as her last chance to escape from what she regarded as the near-poverty that had dogged her married life.

      ‘So—can I get you anything else?’ asked Mrs Webb, gathering the plates together. ‘Some ice cream, perhaps?’

      ‘Nothing else, thanks.’ Sara took a deep breath, once again dispelling Max’s image from her mind. ‘Do you think Matt would