Reunited: Marriage In A Million

Claire, suddenly the focus of their attention, gave an awkward little shrug. ‘It must be this place, or maybe it’s just that here life is pared down to the basics. The next marker, the next drink of water, the next meal. Meeting with the people who exist here on the bare essentials.’ She took Belle’s needle, threaded it, began to work on the torn trousers. ‘There are no distractions, none of the day-to-day white noise of life to block out stuff you’d rather not think about and with nothing else to keep it occupied, the mind throws up stuff you’ve put in your memory’s deep storage facility. Not wanted in this life.’

‘Who did you lose, Claire?’ Simone, pale beneath the tan that no amount of sun screen could entirely block in the thin air, almost whispered the words.

‘My husband. Ethan. A decent, hard-working man…’

‘I had no idea you’d been married,’ Belle said.

Claire looked at her ringless hand, flexed her fingers, then with a little shiver said, ‘As far as the world is concerned, it never happened. One messy little marriage discreetly dissolved with a stroke of a lawyer’s pen.’

‘It can’t have been that simple.’

‘Oh, you’d be surprised just how simple money can make things.’ Then, ‘In my defence, I was twenty-one years old and desperate to get away from my father. He isn’t that easy to escape. He paid my husband to disappear and I was weak, I let him.’

‘Twenty-one? You were practically a kid.’

Claire lifted her head, straightened her back. ‘Old enough to have known better. To have been stronger.’ Then, ‘He’s been on my mind a lot lately. Ethan. I guess it’s all part of this.’ Her gesture took in the tent, their surroundings. ‘I work for my father, but as far as the rest of his staff are concerned I’m a joke, a pampered princess with a make-work job whose only concern is the next manicure, the latest pair of designer shoes. I came on this charity ride to shake up that image, to prove, to myself at least, that I’m better than that.’

‘And finding Ethan would help?’ Belle asked. ‘He did take the money and run,’ she pointed out.

‘Why wouldn’t he? I didn’t do anything, say anything to stop him.’ She shook her head. ‘It would undermine a man’s confidence, something like that, don’t you think? I need to find him, make sure that he’s all right.’ She swallowed. ‘More than that. I need him to forgive me. If he can find it in his heart to do that, then maybe I’ll be able to forgive myself.’

Simone, who’d been increasingly quiet, covered her mouth with her hand to stifle a moan. ‘Forgive yourself? Who will forgive me?’ As Claire, all concern, reached out to her, took her hand, a sob escaped her and then it all came pouring out of her, like a breached dam. A story so terrible that it made Belle’s own loss seem almost bearable.

For a heartbeat, after she’d finished her story, there was total silence as Simone waited, her eyes anticipating horrified rejection. As one, Belle and Claire put their arms around her, held her.

‘I can’t believe I told you that,’ she said finally, when she could speak. ‘I can’t believe you still want to know me.’

‘I can’t believe you’ve kept it bottled up for so long,’ Claire said tenderly.

‘Some secrets are so bad that it takes something special for us to be able to find the words,’ Belle said quietly. ‘It seems that each of us needs to walk back a way, make our peace with the past.’

‘This journey we’re on isn’t going to be over when we fall into a hot bath, crawl between clean sheets, is it?’ Claire whispered. ‘This has just been the beginning.’

‘The easy bit.’ Belle swallowed, feeling a little as if she’d just stepped off the edge of a precipice.

‘But at least we won’t be alone. We’ll have each other.’

‘Will we? You’ll be home in America, Simone will be back in Australia and I’ll be in England, looking for Daisy. She could be anywhere.’ Then, ‘I could be anywhere.’

Belle closed her eyes and for a moment the fear was so great that all she wanted to do was turn the clock back to the second before she stopped on the road and looked back. If she just kept facing forward, moving forward, she wouldn’t see the demons snapping at her heels. Then, as if sensing her fear, Claire took one of her hands, Simone the other.

‘It’s not just Daisy I have to find,’ she said, turning her hands to grasp them. ‘I’ve been living behind this image for so long that I’m not sure who I am any more. I need to be on my own. To get away from all the pretence.’

‘Belle…’ Simone regarded her with concern. ‘Don’t do anything rash. Ivo could help you.’

She shook her head.

‘I’ve used him as a prop for long enough. Some journeys you have to take alone.’

‘Not alone,’ Claire quickly assured her. ‘You’ll have us.’

‘If you have to do this, Belle, we’ll be there for you.’ Simone straightened. ‘For each other. Support, encouragement, a cyber-shoulder to cry on and with three time-zones we’ll have 24/7 coverage!’

They both looked to Belle and the three of them clasped hands, too choked to speak.

Belle hadn’t told anyone when to expect her. If she’d phoned ahead, the television company would have sent a car or Ivo’s sister would have despatched the chauffeur to pick her up. But having made the decision to cut her ties with both marriage and job, it seemed hypocritical to use either of them.

Or maybe just stupid, she thought as she abandoned the endless queue for taxis and headed down into the underground to catch a train into London.

She’d have to turn up for work until her contract expired at the end of the month.

She pulled a face at this reminder that her agent—right now pulling out all the stops as he negotiated a new contract for her—was someone else she was going to have to face…who was never going to understand.

She wasn’t sure she understood herself. It had all seemed so clear up in the mountains, so simple when she’d made that life-changing pact with Claire and Simone and they’d sealed it with their last bar of chocolate.

Back in London, faced with reality, she felt very alone and she shivered as, with a rush of air, the train pulled in to the station.

She climbed aboard, settled into a corner and automatically took out a book to avoid direct eye contact with the passengers opposite. Scarcely necessary. Who would recognise her, bundled up against the raw November chill, no make-up, her hair covered in a scarf twisted around like a turban to disguise the damage wrought by six weeks without the attention of her stylist?

How easily one slid from instantly recognisable celebrity to some woman no one would glance at twice on the underground.

Without the constant attention of those people whose job it was to polish her appearance, the lifestyle magazines, the safety net of her marriage, her career, who would she be?

What would it take for her to fall right off the face of civilisation, the way her mother had? One bad decision, one wrong turning and she, too, could be spiralling downward…

Fear crawled over her, prickling her skin, bringing her out in a cold sweat, and an urge to abandon all her grand ideals, crawl back into the comfort zone of the life she had and be grateful for it, overwhelmed her.

Daisy didn’t need her.

In all likelihood she’d forgotten she even existed. What would be the point of selfishly blundering in, disturbing her doubtless perfect life with memories they’d all rather bury, just to ease her own conscience?

Wouldn’t the selfless thing be to trace her, find out what she needed and help her anonymously, from a distance, the way she had always supported charities that helped street kids?

Daisy was nineteen, at university in all likelihood. She’d probably die of embarrassment to be confronted by a sister whose success was due solely to the size of her bosom, the huskiness in her voice.

Worse, once the press found out about her sister—and it was inevitable that they would—they’d keep digging until they had it all.

No teenager needed that and there were other ways to redeem herself. Daisy would need somewhere to live. She could fix that for her somehow. Ivo would know…

She caught herself.

Not Ivo. Her. She’d find out.

She exited from the underground station to the relative peace of Saturday morning in the capital before the shops had opened and was immediately confronted by a man selling The Big Issue—the badge of the homeless. She fought, as she always had to, the desperate urge to run away and instead forced herself to stand, take out the money to buy a copy of the magazine, shake her head when he offered her change. Wish him good luck before hailing a passing black cab and making her escape. Pushing away the thought that she could have done more.

The driver nodded as she leaned in to give her address. ‘Welcome back, Miss Davenport.’

The immediate recognition was a balm, warming her, making her feel safe. ‘The disguise isn’t working, then?’ she said, relaxing into a smile.

‘You’d have to wear a paper bag over your head, miss.’ Then, when she’d given him her address, climbed in the back, ‘The missus’ll be chuffed when I tell her I had you in the back. She’s been following your bike ride. Sponsored you herself.’

‘How kind. What’s her name?’

She made a mental note so that she could mention her donation when she went back on air on Monday, chatted for a few minutes, then fished the cellphone out of her pocket and turned it on.

It hunted for a local network, then beeped, warning her that she had seventeen new messages.

‘Please call…’ from her agent.

‘Please call…’ from the director of her show. ‘Please call…Please call…’ The reassuring template messages of her life. And, just like that, the fear, never far below the surface, dissipated.

Smiling, she flicked the button to next and found herself reading, ‘I wish you were my sister, Belle. Good luck. Hugs.’ Not a template message, not business, but a ‘care’ message from Claire, sent before she’d boarded her own plane back to the States.

The next, from Simone, said, ‘Are you as scared as me?’ Scared? Simone? Brilliant, successful, practically perfect Simone who, like her, like Claire, had a dark secret that haunted her.

She’d left them in the departure lounge at the airport in Hong Kong and it had felt as if she was tearing off an arm to leave them. And now they’d reached out and touched her just at the point at which her resolve was on the point of crumbling. For a moment she was too shaken to move.

‘We’re here, Miss Davenport,’ the driver said and she looked up, realised that the cab had stopped.

‘One moment.’ She quickly thumbed in her reply to Claire. ‘I wish you were, too!’. True. If Claire were her sister she wouldn’t be faced with this.

To Simone she began, ‘We don’t have to do this…’ Except that wasn’t what Simone wanted from her. What they’d all signed up to. She wanted, deserved, encouragement, the mutual support they’d promised each other. Not permission to bottle out at the first faint-heart moment from someone who was looking for an excuse to do the same.

A week ago in the clear, clean air of the Himalayas, in the company of two women who, for the first time in her adult life she’d been able to open up to, confide in, be totally honest with, she’d felt as if she’d seen a glimpse of something rare, something special that could be hers if only she had the courage to reach for it.

The minute she’d set foot in London, all the horrors of her childhood seemed to reach out from the pavement to grab at her, haul her back where she belonged and, terrified, she couldn’t wait to scuttle back into the safety of her gilded cage, pulling the door shut behind her.

She looked at the phone and realised that whatever message she sent now, fight or flee, would set the course of the rest of her life.

She closed her eyes, put herself back in the place she’d been a few days ago, then wrote a new message.

‘Scared witless, but we can do this.’ And hit send.

A fine sentiment, she thought as she climbed from the cab and stood, clutching her rucksack, outside the Belgravia town house that had been her husband’s family home for generations.

Now all she had to do was prove it.

CHAPTER TWO

BELLE walked through the open front door and, if her heart could have sunk any lower, the view through the dining room doors to the chaos of caterers and florists in full cry would have sent it to her boots. She’d arrived in the middle of preparations for one of Ivo’s power-broking dinners that her sister-in-law would be directing with the same concentration and attention to detail as a five-star general planning a campaign.

About to toss in the proverbial hand grenade, she kept her head down and headed straight for the library, where she knew she’d find her husband.

The fact that it was barely past nine o’clock on a Saturday morning made no difference to Ivo Grenville, only that he’d be working at home rather than at his office.

He didn’t look up as she opened the door, giving her a precious few seconds to look at him, imprint the memory.

One elbow was propped on the desk, his forehead resting on long fingers, his world reduced to the document in front of him.

He had this ability to focus totally on one thing to the exclusion of everything else, whether it was acquiring a new company, a conversation in the lift with his lowliest employee, making love to his wife. He did everything with the same attention to detail, intensity, perfectionism. If, just once, he’d cracked, had an off-day like the rest of the human race, seemed fallible…

The ache in her throat intensified as, with a pang of tenderness she saw the dark hollows at his temple, a touch of silver that she hadn’t noticed before threaded through the thick cowlick of dark hair that slid across his hand. He was tired, she thought. He drove himself too hard, working hours that would be considered inhuman if he’d expected his staff to emulate him, and she longed to be able to just go to him, put her arms around him, silently soothe away the stress…

Just be a wife.

He dragged his hand down over his face, long fingers pinching the bridge of his nose as, eyes closed, he gathered himself to continue.

Then, maybe remembering the sound of the door opening, he looked up and caught her flat-footed, without her defences in place.

‘Belle?’ He rose slowly to his feet, saying her name as if he couldn’t believe it was her. Not that surprising. He’d never seen her looking like this before. The advantage of not sharing a bedroom with her husband was that he never saw her with morning hair, skin crumpled from a night with her face in a pillow. Definitely not in clothes she’d been travelling in for the better part of twenty-four hours, with nothing on her face to hide behind but a thin film of moisturiser. It was little wonder that for a moment he appeared uncharacteristically lost. ‘I didn’t expect you until tomorrow.’

Not exactly an accusation of thoughtlessness, but a very long way from expressing delight that she was home a day early.

‘I switched to an earlier flight.’

‘How did you get from the airport?’ That was all the time it took him to gather himself, concentrate on the practicalities. ‘If you’d called, Miranda would have sent the car.’

Not him, but his ever present, ever helpful little sister. Always there. As focused and perfect as Ivo himself. Too rich to have to bother with building a career, she was simply marking time until some man—heaven help him—who met her requirements in breeding, who was her equal in wealth, realised that she would make the perfect wife.

It was Miranda, not her, who was the chatelaine here, running her brother’s social diary and his house with pinpoint precision. The person the staff looked to for their orders.

Who’d had a separate suite ready for her when they’d returned from their honeymoon so that her 4:00 a.m. starts wouldn’t disturb Ivo.

That was the inviolable rule of the house. Nothing must be allowed to disturb Ivo.

Not even his wife.

Little wonder, Belle thought, that she’d always felt more like a guest here. Tolerated for the one thing she could give him that not even the most brilliant sister could deliver.

Even now she had to fight the programmed need to apologise for her lapse of good manners in arriving before she was expected. The truth was that she hadn’t rung to tell Ivo the change to her schedule because to call would be to hope that just this once he’d drive down to Heathrow himself, join the crowd of eager husbands and wives waiting for that first glimpse of a loved one as they spilled out into the arrivals hall. Just as she’d hoped that he would, despite what she’d told Claire and Simone, fly to Hong Kong to meet her.

Her heart just wouldn’t quit hoping.

But his momentary lapse from absolute certainty had given her the necessary few seconds to gather herself, restore the protective shell she wore to disguise her true feelings, and she was able to shrug and say, ‘It seemed less bother to get the train. No,’ she said quickly, as he finally abandoned his papers, stopping him before he could touch her, kiss her. ‘I’ve been travelling for twenty-four hours. I’m not fit to be touched.’

For a moment he looked as if he might dispute that. For the second time she glimpsed a suggestion of hesitation, uncertainty. She was usually the one hovering on the edge of the unspoken word, afraid that the slightest hint of emotional need would bring the whole edifice of her marriage crashing down about her ears.

Outside, in the real world, wearing her Belle Davenport persona, she wasn’t like that. She could play that part without thinking.

And at night, in the privacy of her room where, with one touch, the brittle politeness melted away, his distance dissolving in the heat of a passion that reduced their world to a population of two, it seemed anything was possible.

But afterwards there was no tenderness, no small talk about their day. He was not interested in her world, had no desire to discuss his own concerns with her. Felt no need to sleep with his arms around her, holding her close for comfort, but left her to her early morning alarm call while he, undisturbed, got on with his real life.

It was the role of wife—beyond the basics of the bedroom—that she’d never been able to fully master. But then, with Miranda immovably entrenched in every other aspect of the role, there had never truly been a vacancy for a wife. Only a concubine.

Hard as this was going to be, she knew it could not be as difficult as staying. ‘Can we talk, Ivo?’

‘Talk?’ His frown was barely perceptible, but it was there. ‘Now?’

‘Yes, now.’

‘Don’t you want to sort yourself out? Take a shower?’ He glanced back at his desk. He didn’t have to say the words; it was plain that he had more important things to do.

‘For heaven’s sake, Ivo, it’s Saturday,’ she snapped, losing patience, needing to be done with this. Get it over. ‘The stock markets are closed.’

‘This isn’t…’ he began. Then, ‘It’ll take ten minutes, fifteen at the most.’

She’d been away for weeks. Any other man would have dropped whatever he was doing, eager to see her, talk to her, ask how she was, how it had been. Tell her that he was glad to have her home. If he’d done that, she thought, the words sitting like a lump in her throat would have dissolved, evaporated. She could not have said them. But for Ivo business always came first, while she was an inconvenience, a constant reminder of his one weakness…

‘Why don’t you go up? I’ll be there just as soon as I’ve finished this,’ he suggested and, without waiting, he turned back to his desk. ‘We can talk then.’

No. That wasn’t how it worked. Not that he wouldn’t come. Fifteen minutes from now she’d be in the shower and he’d join her there, demonstrating with his body, as he never could with words, exactly how much he’d missed her.

The only thing they wouldn’t do was talk.

Afterwards, after the drugging pleasures of his body that would drive everything from her mind, she’d wake, as always alone—he’d have gone back to work—and there would be some trinket left at the bedside: something rare and beautiful, befitting her status as his wife, an acknowledgement that he’d been selfish, unreasonable about the Himalayan trip. She would wear whatever it was at dinner, a wordless acceptance of his unspoken apology.

Not today, she promised herself, her hand tightening around the tiny cellphone in her pocket—a direct connection to Simone, Claire. Women who knew more about her than her own husband. They’d spent every free minute of the last few days talking about their lives, the past, the future; they had listened, understood, cared about her in ways he never could. With them to support her she would find the strength to break out of the compartment he’d made for her. He might be satisfied with this relationship—and why wouldn’t he be?—but she needed more, much more…

‘No, Ivo.’ Already, in his head, back with whatever project she’d interrupted, he didn’t seem to hear her. ‘I’m afraid it won’t.’ He stopped, turned slowly. ‘Wait.’

His skin was taut across his face, emphasising the high cheekbones, the aristocratic nose, a mouth that could reduce her to mindless, whimpering jelly and, looking at him, Belle found it achingly hard to say the words that would put an end to her marriage.

He did nothing to help her but, keeping his distance, the tips of his fingers resting on the corner of his desk, a barrier between them, he waited, still and silent, for her to speak. It was almost, she thought, as if he knew what she was going to say. If so, he knew more than she did.

‘This is difficult,’ she began.

‘Then…then my advice is to keep it simple.’ His voice, usually crisp and incisive, was slightly blurred. Or maybe it was him that was blurred behind a veil of something she was very afraid might be tears.

‘Yes,’ she said, and blinked to clear her vision. No tears. She’d learned a long time ago not to show that kind of weakness. ‘Yes,’ she said again. This was not something that could be wrapped up in soft words. Somehow made less painful with padding. Simple, direct, to the point, with no possibility of misunderstanding. That was the way to do it. ‘I’m sorry but I can’t live with you any more, Ivo. I’m setting you free of our deal.’

‘Free?’

‘We said, didn’t we, that it wasn’t a till-death-us-do-part deal. That either of us could walk away at any time.’ Then, when he did not respond, ‘I’m walking away, Ivo.’

Predicting his reaction to such a bald announcement had been beyond her, but if she’d hoped that his cool façade would finally crack, she’d have been disappointed. There was no visible reaction. He looked neither shocked nor surprised, but then he’d made a life’s work of being unreadable, keeping the world guessing. The fact that he could do it to her confirmed everything she had known about her marriage, but until last week had been too weak to confront.

His response, when it finally came, was practical rather than emotional. ‘Where will you go?’

That was it?

Not, ‘Why?’ Or did he believe he already knew the answer to that? Assumed that the only reason she would leave him was because she’d found someone else? The thought sickened her…

‘Does it matter?’ she asked abruptly.

‘Yes, it matters…’ He bit off the words, shook his head. ‘Manda will need to know where to forward your mail.’

On the point of saying something very rude about his sister, she stopped herself. This was not Miranda’s fault. And she was not hiding from him, running away. Just distancing herself. For both their sakes. ‘The tenants moved out of my flat last month,’ she explained. ‘I’ll stay there.’

‘That won’t do—’

‘It’s what I want,’ she cut in before he could take over and set about organising accommodation that he considered more acceptable for someone who bore his name.

He didn’t look happy about it, but he let it go and said, ‘Very well.’ Then, ‘Is that it?’