The English Wife. Doreen Roberts

reason he’d bought the cottage in a remote village in England, so he could conduct his romances in complete assurance that I’d never find out.

      If so, then why the hell did he marry me? Why did he stay married to me if he didn’t love me?

      The questions were driving me crazy. I found it impossible to believe that the meticulous, distant man I’d lived with for so long could have led a double life of deceit and infidelity. I just couldn’t imagine him getting passionate over any woman. He certainly never showed much passion toward me.

      A thought struck me, and although I hated asking, I really needed to know. “Does this Eileen person know that Brandon died?”

      James wore his usual pained expression. “It’s not my place to inform Ms. Robbins. As the owner of the cottage, that will be up to you.”

      I stared at him for a long moment. I couldn’t be sure that Brandon had a personal relationship with this woman. I could be jumping to conclusions, condemning my husband without any grounds other than circumstantial evidence.

      On the other hand, if it was personal, I just couldn’t send her a blunt note telling her the man with whom she might be having an affair had died.

      Phone call? Perhaps. Even as I considered it, I knew I couldn’t do that, either. I couldn’t talk to the woman without knowing the answers.

      Which led to another burning question. Did she know about me?

      Suddenly, I’d had enough. I gathered up my purse and scrambled to my feet. “I’m sorry, I have to go. I’m needed at work.”

      James dropped the papers he’d held, and for the first time a flicker of anxiety crossed his face. “We’re not quite finished here, Marjorie. There are papers to sign, a few more concerns to go over, decisions to be made—”

      “Not now!”

      My sharp tone must have surprised him. He raised his eyebrows again and a red spot appeared in each cheek. He started to get up, but I waved a hand at him.

      “I’ll call you. I need time to think about everything.”

      To my horror I felt my control crumbling. I had to get out of there. Now, before I made a complete and utter fool of myself. I fled for the door, dragged it open and didn’t bother to close it behind me.

      Melanie, James’s pinched-face assistant, said something to me as I hurried past her desk, but I couldn’t look at her. I just kept going and didn’t stop until I reached my car in the crowded parking lot of the office complex.

      Tears spilled down my face as I got the door open and scrambled inside. My nice safe cushion had collapsed. Now that I no longer had to put up a brave front, I could give in to the pain that finally racked my body. I rested my arms on the wheel, buried my face in them and opened up the dam.

      I was nineteen and incredibly naive when I’d married Brandon. Ten years before that my father had stepped on a mine in Vietnam and my mother never recovered. She shut herself away from the world and her only daughter.

      I’d been lonely for too long when Brandon walked into the hotel where I worked as a desk clerk. He was new in town and I suggested a few good restaurants. To my surprise he invited me to join him for dinner, and I ended up helping him find a place to live.

      He was eight years older than me, good-looking, confident, sophisticated—all the things I wasn’t. He made me feel safe just by being with him. Looking back, I guess he was the protective father figure I’d missed so terribly during my formative years.

      There was something else, an air of sadness about him, as if he’d suffered some deep emotional trauma that he was determined to keep to himself, no matter how hard I tried to draw him out.

      It was that melancholy that convinced me I should marry him. I thought perhaps we could heal each other. I was wrong. I never could reach that inner part of him, and after a while I gave up trying.

      I asked him once why he’d married me. He’d given me that sad smile and murmured, “Because you needed me.” I’d had the feeling then that Brandon needed to be needed, and I was the first one to give him that.

      But not the last, if my suspicions were correct.

      When I reached the health club I did my best to mop up the ravages of my pity party, but I still looked as if I’d contracted some deadly disease. Blotched skin, bloodshot puffy eyes, red nose—crying always does that to me.

      Val sat at my desk in the throes of a heated discussion with a customer. The young blonde’s vivid orange sweats clashed horribly with the pale pink palm trees decorating the lobby. Usually our clientele had better taste than that.

      Their raised voices echoed far enough to turn the heads of some clients on the other side of the glass wall behind Val. I hurried over there, my own problems momentarily forgotten.

      Val’s relieved expression went a long way toward restoring some of my self-esteem as I explained to the irate customer that her payment had arrived too late to credit her last bill. I promised the matter would be taken care of immediately.

      As the young woman stalked off, Val rolled her eyes. “Thank God you got here. You know how useless I am at bookkeeping. The damn woman was getting hostile. I was just about to call security.”

      “We don’t have security.” I took the chair she’d just vacated and reached for the morning mail.

      “Well, we should get some. It’s times like these—” She broke off with a muttered exclamation. “Holy crap, Margie. What happened to you?”

      I’d avoided looking directly at her until now. I didn’t need a mirror to know why she stared at me as if I’d grown horns. “I’ll tell you later,” I mumbled.

      “You’ll tell me now.” She looked at the slim gold watch on her wrist. “Come one, let’s go eat.”

      “But I just got here.”

      “Yes, and over lunch you can tell me what you’ve been doing all morning to destroy your face.” She grabbed my arm and pulled me up off the chair.

      She was used to getting her own way, and since she was my boss I didn’t waste time arguing with her. I followed her to the cafeteria, miserably aware that she would not be satisfied until she’d wrung every last detail out of me.

      CHAPTER 2

      When it had become obvious Brandon and I would not be blessed with children, I’d taken accounting classes at business school and for years I’d worked for my dentist until he retired.

      When I saw the ad for a bookkeeper at a new health club, I couldn’t resist applying. I did it to show Brandon he wasn’t in total control of my life, but after talking to Val, it seemed such a happy place compared to the long faces at the dentist’s office, and I was overjoyed when she hired me. Brandon, of course, was horrified.

      Over the six years I worked for Val I learned a lot about running a business, and ended up taking over most of the paperwork involved. Val was ten years younger than me and happily divorced, with alimony that would have paid my mortgage twice over. She kept trying to get me physically trained. I absolutely refused. Cramming my body into skintight clothes and bouncing around among all those nubile goddesses was not my idea of a good time. I’d never have a figure like Val’s, no matter how much I sweated and starved. I’d accepted that, even if Val wouldn’t.

      Seated opposite me at a vinyl covered table in the club’s cafeteria, she studied my face. “We should be in a bar with a bottle of good Scotch. You look as if you could use one.”

      The idea was tempting. “I’ve had a bad morning.” The understatement of the century, but I wasn’t ready to share my suspicions about my late husband’s activities just yet.

      All around me young women in tight outfits were battling to be heard above each other’s chatter. The babble did nothing to soothe my frayed nerves. The price I paid for a free lunch.