“Well done, jolly good.” Lizzie fell into the room and searched the wall for a switch, blinking a bit when the light actually flicked on. “Gosh, will you look at that?” she drawled, waving an expansive hand at the pink and green floral fabrics that seemed to cover every surface. “Bloody killer decor, dontcha think?”
Bruno grinned. “Bloody killer,” he agreed. “Well, I’ll say good night then. See you in the morning, not too early, right?”
Lizzie turned and grabbed Bruno’s hand. “Wait,” she cried. “Don’t go. I — I can’t get this flaming dress off without help. Besides, you promised.”
“Promised?”
“A night of pure pleashure. Remember?”
“Bloody hell, don’t do this to me,” Bruno groaned. But Lizzie had already thrown herself against his compact body in its dazzling white shirt and cummerbund. In the course of the drive home, she’d made up her mind that she’d better sleep with Bruno. It was pointless not to, really. James thought she was going to. Erin thought she was going to. The whole of Laingtree probably thought she was going to. She might just as well go ahead and put everybody out of their misery.
Bruno stood rigid for a moment, apparently resisting. Lizzie hoped he was frozen in the grips of a moral dilemma, not frozen by acute embarrassment and reluctance. At last, he slipped his hand into the gaping slit of her zip, which was now open again from armpit to hip.
“I’ve been wanting to do this all night,” he murmured, riffling his cool fingertips along her side.
Without warning, Lizzie doubled over at the waist, like a mousetrap closing. She collapsed onto the carpet and lay in a fetal position, arms clamped to her sides.
“God, Lizzie, what’s the matter?” Bruno kneeled down beside her, appalled.
“It’s — it’s nothing,” she managed to utter. “ Just — just don’t
tickle
me. Please.” Then she reached up and pulled him down beside her.
Lizzie was aware of the weight of an arm across her body as she woke up. Relief whooshed through her. She’d been having the most terrible, convoluted dream. How lovely to find herself back in her bed in Mill House, with James beside her snoring softly. What on earth could she have eaten to give herself such a monstrous nightmare? Sonja Jenkins had been in it, with a whole new body; also, some predatory American female who wanted to steal James off her. And she’d been living in some ramshackle old farmhouse in Kent, ripping up nettles as a hobby.
Blue cheese, probably. It had always been a failing of hers.
She turned over languidly in bed, opening her eyes a slit.
Hang on. The sheets were wrong. She’d never owned sheets with a flower motif on them in her life.
Her eyes flew fully open and she found herself staring into the sleeping face of a man with curly dark hair.
Bruno.
Lizzie sat bolt upright in bed, clutching the sprigged sheets to her naked bosom. “Aaaargh,” she groaned, clapping a hand to her head. Not a nightmare, then. Reality.
Shit, shit, shit.
Perhaps she’d been in an accident; her head felt as if someone had driven over it with a car. Yes, that must be it. She and Bruno had been in a car accident and they were in the hospital together. In the same bed. Naked.
No, for pity’s sake, it couldn’t be that.
Then she remembered.
Oh dear. Oh dear, oh dear.
She’d burned her bridges. Well and truly burned them.
Lizzie eased herself cautiously out of bed, keeping a weather eye on the sleeping form of Bruno. She didn’t want him to wake up until at least one of them had some clothes on. As she slid off the bed, the sheet seemed to slide with her and Bruno was suddenly exposed in all his glory.
Gosh, rather a nice body.
Lizzie flicked the sheet over him hastily, grabbed the lilac silk dress from the floor where it lay in a heap, wrapped it around her like a sarong, and scuttled off to the bathroom.
Closing the door softly, she stumbled over to the washbasin and looked at herself in the mirror. Little piggy eyes, lost in the swollen folds of her eyelids, stared back at her in bloodshot horror.
She splashed her face hastily with cold water, then looked again. No discernible improvement. Creeping back into the bedroom, she managed to retrieve her overnight bag. As she was easing herself out of the room again, Bruno suddenly turned over and muttered something that sounded like “Smelly bear.” He was losing the sheet again. Lizzie tore her eyes away and locked herself up in the bathroom.
Digging in her toiletry bag, she found some eyedrops and an aspirin. She downed the pill with three glasses of water from the tooth mug, then turned the shower on full blast and stood under it with her eyes closed, grimly relishing the way the jets of water pummeled her body. By the time she’d slapped some makeup on her face and dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, she was beginning to feel almost human again.
A sudden knock on the door nearly made her jump out of her skin. “Did you leave any hot water for me?” Bruno called.
She took a deep breath and opened the door. Steam blossomed into the bedroom where Bruno stood, dressed in shorts and a T-shirt, hugging his elbows as if he were cold, and grinning lazily through his stubble.
Lizzie went hot with embarrassment.
“Morning,” she croaked. Clearing her throat, she tried again. “Did you — ah — sleep well?”
“Like a baby,” said Bruno. “You?”
“Very well, thanks. Only now I have sort of a headache. It’s pretty bad, actually.”
Bruno walked over and ruffled her hair. “Commonly known as a hangover,” he said kindly. “You had quite a lot of wine last night.”
Lizzie jumped away from his hand like a nervous horse. “Look, you go ahead and shower. I have to dash. I want to pick up the twins so we can get out of here. It’s already nine.”
He gave her a measuring look. “Okay,” he said after a moment. “I’ll see you later.”
Gunning the car along the narrow lanes toward the manor, Lizzie felt sick with nerves. She couldn’t get over the fact that she, a married woman, had slept with a man who wasn’t her husband. It wasn’t that she didn’t like Bruno. She liked him a lot. In fact, maybe what she felt was
more
than just liking.
But still. She was
married
. She was a
mother
.
And damn it all, up until now, whatever she’d done to bring about the death of her marriage, at least she’d always been certain that she stood on the moral high ground. More or less. If you discounted that episode when she’d given her mother-in-law’s party guests a synchronized swimming demonstration in her cocktail dress. Because, strictly speaking, you couldn’t really put a high moral spin on that particular incident. And perhaps the incident with the head massager also fell into
somewhat
ambiguous moral territory. Not to mention one or two other small infringements. Still, she’d never had anything but the best of intentions.
But things were a little murky all of a sudden.
To Lizzie’s infinite relief, her father-in-law, not Lady Evelyn, answered the door at the manor. “Lord, you don’t look very well, my dear,” he said immediately, peering at her through his monocle. “Come in and have a cup of tea. The children are outside with a babysitter. Evelyn’s of the old school — doesn’t believe a man can manage children, so she got somebody in for this morning. She’s at some sort of powwow with the vicar.”
Poor vicar.
Roger herded her gently into the amber drawing room and onto an armchair.
“There, sit down. I’ll just ask for the tea. No, on second thought, let’s have coffee.” Lady Evelyn employed a succession of au pairs, usually Australian, to help in the kitchen — but none of them ever stayed very long. Lizzie had no idea who was currently in charge of the Aga stove and enormous blackened kettle.
Roger was back within minutes. He sat down close by and said, “Come now, tell me about the wedding.”
But Lizzie said, “Why would Lady Evelyn go to the trouble of getting a babysitter if she’s already got the au pair?”
Roger gave a rueful shrug. “Anja has her work cut out today. Cleaning silver for some shindig this evening.”
“A Sunday dinner party?”
Roger sighed deeply. “That’s right. A little gathering for that American girl who’s staying at the cottage. You must have met her?” He looked at Lizzie rather sharply from under craggy eyebrows.
“Erin Wilde. I met her.” Lizzie bit her bottom lip. “She was — the one before me, wasn’t she?”
Roger didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “Yes, she had her claws in James for a while, years ago. Evelyn can’t stand her, of course, but — well, she’s trying to put a good face on things.”
Lizzie pulled a pretty good face herself. “She probably thinks Erin’s at least one step up from me.”
“Ptuh,” said Roger. “She
abhors
Erin’s manners, but she half suspects that back in California the woman actually comes out of a drawer very near the top, if not the top drawer itself. It’s a real treat, seeing her try to ‘place’ Erin. She can’t do it in the usual way — family, schools, accent, house. So she’s only got money to go on, and Erin was born filthy rich. All terribly confusing for poor Evelyn.”
He was trying to make her see the funny side. It
was
mildly amusing to think of Lady Evelyn’s gut-level snobbery being forcibly redirected by her intellect, like a bloodhound being dragged off the wrong trail. But not amusing enough to raise a smile.
“What I don’t understand is why Erin is staying in
our
house,” Lizzie muttered. “There’s no shortage of bed-and-breakfasts, surely? Why did James have to book her in
there
?”
“Ah, here’s the coffee.” Roger stood up and took the tray from a harassed looking young woman with a shiny face. “Thanks, Anja. How’s the silver coming?”
“Very slow,” the au pair said unhappily. “There is much.” Lizzie thought her accent might be Dutch.
Roger pulled a sympathetic face. “Rather you than me,” he said. “Lizzie, this is Anja. Anja, Lizzie. Lizzie has the good fortune to be Alex and Ellie’s mother.”
Anja’s face lit up for a moment. “They are so sweet children,” she said.
“Thanks. They have their moments.”
“I go back to polish,” Anja said.
As she walked out, Lizzie turned back to Roger, who was clattering mugs.
“So?” she asked. “Why is Erin Wilde at Mill House? Why would James choose our own
house
to put her up?”
Roger shrugged. “Auld lang syne, possibly,” he said. “Did nobody ever tell you that she helped James raise the money to buy the place from me?”
Lizzie felt as if she’d just accidentally swallowed a bucketful of ice cubes.
“Sorry? What?”
Her father-in-law heaved a sigh that seemed to come from somewhere very low. “Yes, in retrospect it was a very poor idea, I’m afraid. You see, I wouldn’t let the boy have the house for nothing, as Evelyn would’ve liked. I wanted him to work for it, so he’d value it better.”
Lizzie nodded. She knew the concept. If she made Alex and Ellie earn gold stars toward a toy they wanted, they seemed to appreciate the piece of plastic junk a lot more than if she simply handed it to them.
“I just didn’t know about Erin Wilde at the time. She wasn’t part of the equation,” Roger said regretfully. “I thought he’d have to go hat in hand to the banks, maybe ask one or two of his chums to make an investment. I didn’t realize he had this real estate princess in the wings. Her old man made a fortune selling clapboard houses on some beach on the California coastline back in the sixties, I gather. To her, the down payment on Mill House must have been a mere bagatelle, but it put James in her debt.”
“Surely he paid her back?” Lizzie’s voice sounded hoarse and scratchy, and she hastily cleared her throat.
“Oh, he paid her back all right, with interest,” Roger said. “Still, the effect remains. The sense of obligation. Drink some coffee, my dear. Don’t let it go cold.”
Lizzie took a large gulp and nearly scalded her throat. She gave a strangled yell and fanned at her open mouth, as if she half expected to be breathing fire.
“Easy, easy,” said Roger. “Here, have some milk.”
She chugged the milk straight out of the white porcelain jug. It was blissfully cold and soothing. Somehow, as she set the empty jug back down on the tray, she felt she was losing her tenuous hold on her dignity. She straightened her shoulders and composed her face.
“So do you think Erin Wilde feels at all — possessive about Mill House?” she asked as calmly as she could.
“Possessive is a strong word.” Roger sipped his own coffee cautiously. “But not really strong enough to describe any feeling entertained by Miss Wilde, I shouldn’t think. It’s obvious she still feels highly territorial about the place. And — I’m sorry to say, quite territorial about James too.”
She and Roger sat in silence for a while, both deep in unpleasant thought, finishing off their coffee. At last, Lizzie surprised herself by blurting out, “Roger, I can’t help thinking he must have been seeing her for quite some time. I mean, he wouldn’t call and ask her to a wedding out of the blue, would he?”
Roger raised his eyebrows and lifted his monocle to get a better look at her flustered red face. “My dear,” he said slowly, “James wasn’t unfaithful to you. He told me so, and I believe him. Whatever is happening between him and Erin, it’s new.”
Lizzie felt rebuked. She shouldn’t have raised the question at all. Naturally, Roger wouldn’t admit that James might have lied to him.
Come to think of it, lying wasn’t really James’s forte.
But if he hadn’t been having an affair with Erin all along, then he must have cold-called her. She tried to imagine James picking up the phone, dialing California, putting on a sexy voice, and asking a woman he hadn’t seen in years to come spend a dirty weekend with him.
Putting down her mug, she gave her head a good shake. “Anyway . . . you reckon the children are in the lower garden?”
Roger stood up and brushed imaginary fluff from the shoulders of his elegantly rumpled linen shirt. “Let’s go and find them, shall we?”
Lizzie’s heart lifted. No matter what else went wrong in her life, at least she could count on Ellie and Alex for unconditional love.