A Pretend Engagement. Jessica Steele

she’d read what it was all about. Apparently, and ‘allegedly’, in newspaper speak, which meant there was probably very little doubt about it, Leon Beaumont had been making out with one of his female executives—there was a picture to the side of one very elegant and attractive thirty or so brunette, name Antonia King—and her husband had got to hear of the liaison.

      Why Neville King was the one on the floor, a hand going to his recently thumped jaw, and not the other way round, was not stated. But Leon Beaumont looked angry enough to give him more of the same once the cuckolded husband managed to get to his feet.

      Varnie had lost interest. She didn’t think much of men who went around knocking other men to the ground—even if this particular pugilist was the employer her brother admired so much. Oh, where was Martin? If he didn’t soon arrive…

      She had checked her watch for the umpteenth time, and had known that if she were going to make that call to his office that she had better do it now. The firm’s switchboard would be closing in ten minutes. She had given it another three, and still no Martin.

      She’d had enough. He was supposed to be on holiday, for goodness’ sake. She’d taken out her phone—she would make just the one call, then she would switch her phone off too, ready for the flight.

      Glad she had thought to take a note of Martin’s number, a number she had never before called, Varnie had pressed out the digits. Martin had a new secretary; she hoped she wasn’t the sort who took off ten minutes early on a Friday night.

      She wasn’t. The telephonist had soon put her through.

      ‘Oh, hello,’ Varnie said brightly, conjuring up the female’s name from somewhere, ‘Is that Becky?’

      ‘That’s me,’ answered a sweet girlish voice.

      ‘Martin isn’t there by any chance, is he?’

      ‘Oh, no. He left ages ago!’ Becky replied, much to Varnie’s relief. But before she could thank her, say goodbye and switch off her phone, Becky was enthusiastically enquiring, ‘You and the children got to Kenilworth all right, then, Mrs Walker?’

      ‘I’m not…’ Mrs Walker! His mother? Children? ‘Mrs Walker?’ Varnie enquired evenly—five years in the hotel trade had taught her to mask any slight feeling of inner foreboding, even though she knew she had not the smallest need to feel in any way disquieted.

      ‘I’m sorry,’ Becky apologised at once. ‘You’re not Mrs Walker, are you?’ and, going on without pause, she excused, ‘Only, Mrs Walker—Melanie—and the children were in here just after lunch. She and the little ones were just going off to stay with her mother while her husband’s away on business.’

      Feeling shaken to the roots of her being, Varnie was speechless—and disbelieving! Her brain wasn’t taking in what it very much sounded as if Becky was trying to impart. ‘Er—Martin is married to Melanie?’ she managed when, knowing she must have misunderstood, she got her breath back.

      But, ‘That’s right,’ Becky answered cheerfully. ‘Such a happy couple together. Martin hated having to leave her, but business is business and—’

      Varnie abruptly ended the call. Without another word she switched off her phone and sat totally stunned. There was some mistake! There must be. For heaven’s sake, Martin had told her he loved her and that this trip, this two weeks, would be a time of them getting really close. She had been excited at the idea. Martin was always so busy that the only times they had been able to see each other had been when he’d been Cheltenham way on business and had stayed overnight at her parents’ hotel.

      Why, her parents had liked him! Had wished her well when she had explained that this trip was about her and Martin making up for all those weekends when he had been too busy to see her. Her parents knew all about busy weekends. The hotel business was a seven-days-a-week business.

      But doubt, small at first, suddenly started to creep in. Varnie pulled her suitcase nearer to her and tried to think of one single, solitary weekend that she’d had free at the same time as Martin. She could not think of one!

      The significance of that, when partnered up with his secretary Becky’s remarks just now, started to creep in. Was Martin busy every weekend—or was it that he had to spend his weekends with his wife and children? Children!

      Unable to take such thoughts sitting down, Varnie got abruptly to her feet. ‘Martin is married…?’ she had asked. ‘That’s right. Such a happy couple together.’ And don’t forget ‘the little ones’. And do not forget ‘Martin hated having to leave her’. Her—his wife!

      Varnie had moved two steps when she saw Martin, a huge grin on his face when he saw her, come dashing in. ‘I’m so sorry, my sweet darling,’ he apologised, simply oozing charm. ‘The traffic was a—’ He broke off when he saw that Varnie was looking more frosty than loving. ‘What—?’

      ‘Tell me straight,’ Varnie cut in. ‘Are you married?’

      ‘I—um…’ He started to bluster, and Varnie went cold. She had somehow fully expected a swift and outright denial. ‘Hey—what’s this?’ he asked, recovering, his boyish grin blasting out as he attempted to take a familiar hold of her arm.

      ‘Are you?’ Varnie insisted, while at the same time hating herself that, had he said no, she would still probably have believed him. ‘Are you?’ she repeated firmly.

      ‘Well—um…We’re separated.’ He quickly got himself together. ‘We’re going to divorce. I haven’t seen her in ages, but I’m planning to get my solicitor to contact hers the minute you and I get back to…’

      Varnie went from merely being cold to icy. She stooped to pick up her suitcase. ‘Goodbye, Martin,’ she said, and guessed that her expression must have told him that anything else he had to say could be said to the air, that she was not interested in him or his lies, because he did not try to stop her from leaving.

      Nor was she interested in anything else he had to say. She felt wretched. She felt sick. And she was having the hardest time in accepting just how easily she had been duped. How easily her parents, too, who were far more worldly-wise than she, had also been so taken in by Martin Walker’s smooth charm.

      Varnie went in search of her car with her mind in a turmoil.

      He was married! Martin Walker was a married man and—all too plainly—still living with his wife! He—they—had children! And her—he had been dating her!

      True, their dates had been more kind of snatched moments when he was in the Cheltenham area. But—she had been going to go away with him, for goodness’ sake.

      She felt frozen up inside and bitterly betrayed. He had fooled her, and he had fooled her parents.

      Her thoughts started to wander and she went back to when they had first met Martin. He had stayed overnight at their smart but modestly priced hotel. She had served him drinks in the bar and they had got talking. He was thirty-four, he had openly told her, and was working all hours trying to make a go of his own business. She had relayed that to her parents. They had approved. Hadn’t they done the same? Were they still not doing the same? And until the hotel, then recently put on the market, found a buyer, they would go on doing the same.

      Purchasers for small independent hotels were not that thick on the ground, and they had all still been beavering away three months later—with Martin Walker now a frequent overnight guest. He’d begun to take an interest in Varnie. She’d liked him. Her parents had smiled on when occasionally he would spend two consecutive nights at their hotel; they’d more or less left her to deal with him.

      Somehow she and Martin had become a couple. He would phone her daily, usually around three in the afternoon, when she was in the office typing up menus or doing some bookkeeping. Varnie made a point of being in the office at that time, though she was used to ‘filling in’ whenever some member of staff rang to say they had child-minding problems, toothache, or whatever misadventure had befallen them so they could not work