The Three-Year Itch
Abbie, stunned into silence, remained where she was. She didn’t understand what had happened. One moment they had been sitting quietly having their supper and the next they were tearing emotional lumps off one another.
‘Well, you really made a mess of that, Abigail Lockwood,’ she told herself aloud. More of a mess than she would have thought possible. If she hadn’t known better, she would have thought he didn’t want her to have his child … But that was ridiculous. Grey loved to be around children. She had been the one who’d wanted to wait a while to give her career a chance. She almost wished she hadn’t been so successful …
With a sigh, she gathered the plates, cleared away and collected her bag from the hall. If he had decided to work, then so would she; while he dealt with his calls she could download her laptop onto the PC. But before that she would insist that he listen to her. He might still oppose the idea of starting a family, but at least he would know she had no intention of dumping her longed for baby with a nanny and de-parting for all corners of the globe at a moment’s notice. Hardly any wonder he was angry if he thought that was her intention.
Grey, on the telephone, stopped speaking and looked up as she entered the study, placing his hand over the receiver. ‘Give me a minute will you, Abbie?’ he asked. ‘This is—’ She didn’t wait to find out what it was, but backed out, closing the door behind her with a sharp snap.
‘Abbie?’ He found her a few minutes later, loading the washing machine.
‘Where’s your bag, Grey? You must have some washing if you’ve been away.’
‘In the bedroom. Abbie, about the phone call …’
She didn’t want to listen to him explaining why suddenly he had secrets where there had never been secrets before. She knew some of his work was highly confidential, but they had always shared a study; he trusted her discretion … Or maybe it wasn’t work at all. The thought leapt unbidden into her head. She straightened, pushed past him and crossed the hall to the bedroom, where she unzipped his bag and began to remove his clothes.
Then she collected the clothes they had so carelessly jettisoned while under the shower. Two pairs of wet jeans? She glanced at the pair she was already holding which had come from his bag. What kind of lawyer took jeans to a case conference, for heaven’s sake? Not Grey. He had a wardrobe full of sober, well-cut suits that he kept for the office. And as she scooped up the pair he had been wearing she caught the faintest scent of woodsmoke that clung to the cloth, reminding her of the cottage.
He was still in the kitchen standing in front of the washing machine when she returned, so that she had to ask him to move before she could load the clothes.
‘Excuse me, Grey,’ she said stiffly.
For a moment she thought he wasn’t going to move. Then he shrugged, shifted sideways. ‘Abbie, will you stop fussing about and let me explain?’ he demanded as she pushed in the clothes, keeping her eyes determinedly upon her task.
‘Explain? You wanted to make a private telephone call. What’s there to explain about that?’ Everything, she thought as she banged the door shut, set the programme, and when she turned away he was standing in front of her, blocking the way.
‘I know you’re angry with me for not wanting you to have a baby right now—’
‘Give the man a coconut,’ she interrupted flippantly as she tried to sidestep him. But it wasn’t true. She was angry with him for not wanting to talk about it, for not listening. It was so unlike him.
He caught her arm as she brushed past, held her at his side. ‘I’m sorry if I seemed as if I didn’t care. I do. And I will think about it … it’s just that it’s been a difficult couple of weeks.’
‘Difficult?’ She was immediately contrite. ‘What’s happened? Is it Robert?’ she asked, remembering the earlier telephone call.
‘Robert?’ At her mention of his brother his eyes narrowed.
‘You rang him earlier. I just wondered …’ She hesitated in the face of his guarded expression. ‘I thought perhaps Susan had been causing more trouble.’
‘No. It’s not Susan …’ He gave another of those awkward little shrugs that were so out of character. ‘I can’t explain right now.’
‘No?’ She stiffened abruptly. ‘Then I can’t understand. If you’ll excuse me, Grey?’ she said with polite formality. ‘It’s been a very long day, and if I don’t lie down right now, I think I might just fall down.’
He stared at her as if he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Well, that was fine with her. That made two of them who were having that kind of trouble today. He stepped back abruptly to let her pass, his jaw tight, a small angry muscle ticking away at the corner of his mouth. ‘Then I certainly won’t disturb you when I come to bed. Goodnight, Abbie.’
She made it to the bedroom before the tears stung her eyes. What on earth was happening to them? They had been married for three years. Three blissfully happy years. Of course they’d had rows. Loud, throwing-the-china rows on more than one occasion, rows that had lasted for seconds, blowing away the tensions, before the most glorious and lengthy reconciliations. But never a row like this, that you couldn’t put your finger on. A tight-lipped, hidden secrets, polite kind of row.
Something was wrong. She had sensed it from the moment of her arrival at the airport when he hadn’t been there to meet her. He would normally have checked the answering machine from his hotel while he was away. He’d had plenty of time to get her message last night. But he hadn’t. Something had happened while she was away. But what? She curbed the instinct to turn back and confront him. Demand to know. Things were bad enough.
True to his word, Grey didn’t disturb her when he came to bed. Despite the long hours of travelling, sleep eluded her, but hours later, when Grey finally came to bed, she closed her eyes, and whether he believed it or not he didn’t challenge her pretence. He didn’t put on the light, but quietly slipped out of his clothes and lowered himself gently into the bed beside her, and after a moment he turned his back.
She opened her eyes in the darkness and lay for hours, listening to his soft breathing and thinking about the plans she had made so eagerly on her journey home. Was it possible, she wondered miserably, that she had left the decision not to accept any more overseas jobs just one assignment too late?
She woke to a room still darkened by the heavy velvet curtains drawn across the window, but the sunlight was spilling in from the hallway and she knew instantly that it was late. She lay for a moment in the silent flat, knowing that she was alone and hating it. She had hoped that the morning would bring some kind of reconciliation. Neither of them had behaved exactly brilliantly, but they had both been tired last night and she was prepared to acknowledge that, while Grey might have been a little more receptive, she might have picked a better moment to suggest a total upheaval to their lives.
Instead he had left while she was asleep. Gone to his office without even saying goodbye. She had intended to stay at home that day, attend to wifely things. Shop, prepare a good meal. Reclaim her surroundings from two weeks of Grey’s bachelor housekeeping. Instead she found she had a need to reinforce herself as a person in her own right. And there was no better way of doing that than work.
She flung back the cover and slipped out of bed. But as she reached for her wrap she frowned. On the wall opposite the bed had hung a small Degas. Not a great painting—nothing that would set the galleries of the world at each other’s throats—but very pretty and very genuine. It was gone. Had they been burgled while she was away and he hadn’t wanted to frighten her? Was that why it had been a difficult week? Abbie flew to her jewellery box, locked in a small drawer in her dressing table, but it was there with all the pieces he had bought her during three happy years. She picked up the phone to call him at his office, then hesitated.
There was probably some perfectly logical explanation. Grey sometimes lent it to galleries for exhibition—maybe he had simply forgotten to mention it to her. They hadn’t exactly spent the evening in close conversation. She replaced the receiver. That was probably it, she decided. It would wait until he came home.
Trembling just a little, she went into the kitchen to make some tea. On the centre island, where she couldn’t possibly miss it, stood the silver bud-holder that Grey had bought her for their first wedding anniversary. In it was a red rose, a half-opened bud. And there was a note propped against the bud-holder—a plain sheet of paper, folded once. She opened it. ‘I thought you needed to sleep. I’ll see you this evening. Grey.’
That was all. No apology. But then he had taken the trouble to go out and find a rose for her before he drove into his City office. It wasn’t quite like buying a pint of milk from the corner shop. It couldn’t have been the easiest thing to find at seven-thirty in the morning. Yet why did she have the disturbing feeling that he might have found it a whole lot easier than waking her up and saying that he was sorry?
CHAPTER TWO
Two hours later Abbie, dressed in a loose-fitting pair of heavy slub silk trousers in her favourite bitter chocolate colour and a soft creamy peach top that glowed against her tanned skin and hair, bleached to a streaked blonde by the sun, was discussing the layout of her feature for the colour supplement of a major newspaper with her commissioning editor. Her photographs had been forwarded by courier and now the two of them were bent over the light box, deciding which ones to use.
‘You’ve done a great job, Abbie. This photograph of the mother getting into that tiny plane to fly up into the hills to start looking all over again—’
‘I tried to stop her. If only I could have gone with her …’
‘No. That’s the right place to end it. A touch of hope, bags of determination and courage. A mother alone, searching for her missing child. You deserve an award for this one.’
‘I don’t deserve anything, Steve,’ she said, suddenly disgusted with herself for being so pleased with the finished result. ‘I just hope she’s all right. Anything could happen to her up there and no one would ever know.’
Steve Morley gave her a sharp look. ‘You sound as if you’ve got just a little bit too emotionally involved in this one, Abbie. You were there to record what happened, not become responsible for the result. The woman has made her decision. It’s her daughter. And your story will make a difference …’
‘Will it? I wish I thought so.’
‘Trust me,’ he said firmly. ‘Come on, I’ll take you out to lunch.’
Trust. An emotive word. But without it there was nothing. Was too much time apart eroding that precious commodity between her and Grey? She would trust him with her life, and yet … and yet … There were too many gaps, too many empty spaces yawning dangerously between them. Baby or not, her mind was made up. She wouldn’t be going away again.
As they made their way down in the lift Steve distracted her by asking her where she would like to eat, and reluctantly she let go of her thoughts about the future to concentrate on more immediate concerns. ‘I’ve found this really good Indian restaurant,’ he continued, ‘but after two weeks on the sub-continent, I don’t suppose you’d be interested—’
‘You suppose right, Mr Morley,’ she interrupted, very firmly. Then she grinned. ‘Now, how good did you say that feature was?’
Steve groaned. ‘L’Escargot?’
‘L’Escargot,’ she affirmed with a grin. ‘Upstairs.’
Lunch was a light-hearted affair, with Steve bringing her up to date on what had been happening during her absence and offering several suggestions for future features.
‘How do you feel about a month in the States for us?’ He continued hurriedly as he saw she was about to object, ‘Human interest stuff in the deep South—Atlanta. It’s the sort of thing you’re particularly good at. Although since your charming husband got a decent price for his Degas at auction last week I don’t suppose you actually need the money,’ he added, with an offhand little shrug.
The Degas? Sold? Despite the whirl of conflicting emotions storming through her brain she wasn’t fooled by Steve Morley’s casual manner. He had hoped to take her unawares, provoke some unguarded response. If he thought the Lockwood family were in any sort of financial trouble he would want to know. It was probably the whole reason for this lunch. ‘You don’t normally cover the art market, do you, Steve?’ she asked, arching her fine brows in apparent surprise. ‘I mean, doesn’t that take brains …?’
He grinned, aware that he had been caught out, but was unrepentant. ‘I cover everything that has the Lockwood name attached to it, and if you’re ever seriously in need of funds, Abbie, I’m always deeply interested in brother Robert’s doings.’
‘I thought we had an agreement? You don’t ask me about Robert and I’ll continue to work for you.’
He shrugged. ‘It doesn’t hurt to remind you now and again that I’m always receptive to a change of heart.’
‘Forget it. And Atlanta. I’m not in the market for overseas work for a while.’
‘The old man getting a bit restive, is he?’ He had gone straight to the heart of the matter, and she had known Steve too long to attempt to string him some line.
‘Even the best marriage needs to be worked at, Steve.’
‘I won’t argue with that. I only wish my wife had been quite so dedicated.’ He shrugged. ‘And if the pretty piece I saw Grey having lunch with last week is anything to go by, I’d say you haven’t left it a day too long.’
‘Pretty piece?’ Abbie felt the smile freeze on her face.
Steve shrugged. ‘From what you said, I thought you must at least suspect something was up …’
‘Suspect something?’ It had been a moment’s shock, that was all. On top of everything else that had happened she should have been reeling. But if there was one thing of which she was absolutely certain it was this: if her husband had been lunching with another woman, there had to be some perfectly rational explanation. ‘Oh, Steve, really!’ she chided, even managing a small laugh to show him how ridiculous such an idea was. But she knew it would need more than that. Taking his hand between her fingers, she regarded him solemnly with large grey eyes. ‘Would you like me to tell you something that has just occurred to me?’ she asked. ‘Something rather amusing?’
Relieved that she was apparently not about to have hysterics, Steve smiled. ‘Fire away.’
‘It’s just that … well, I wondered what Grey would say if someone mentioned to him that they had seen me having lunch upstairs at L’Escargot with one of the best looking men in London.’ And she leaned forward and kissed him, very lightly on the lips, before releasing his hand. It was a reproach. A gentle one, but it wasn’t lost on her companion.
‘Ah,’ he said. ‘Point taken. I suppose I jumped to the most obvious conclusion because you were away … A bad habit. My only excuse is that I started out on a gossip column.’
‘It’s a bad habit that will cost you the biggest bowl of strawberries in this house,’ she replied sweetly.
‘Yes, ma’am,’ he said, summoning the waiter, but somehow they didn’t taste of anything very much, although she forced herself to eat every one. And when Steve dropped her off outside her home, she didn’t go straight inside, but walked across the road to a small park, occupied in the middle of the afternoon by nannies, identifiable only by their youth and the expensive coach-built prams they wheeled before them in the sunshine, and middle-aged ladies walking small, immaculately groomed dogs.
Surely she was right? Grey was straight down the line. If he had found someone else he would tell her. He could never have made love to her like he had yesterday if he was having an affair, could he? Except that he had never before made love to her in that desperate, almost angry way. And then, afterwards, he had left her without a backward glance.
Oh, that was ridiculous, she chided herself. She was feeling bruised by their row, that was all. But even as she sat in the sunshine, convincing herself of the fact that he loved her, she wondered why she felt the need to do so. They were the perfect couple, after all. Teased by their friends because they were always the first to leave a party, envied for the freedom they were able to give one another, the almost transparent trust.
And yet were things quite so perfect? Grey’s willingness to co-operate with a career that took her away regularly had always, to her, seemed a demonstration of how much he loved and trusted her. She had always rather pitied friends who hinted they would never leave a man that good-looking on his own for more than five minutes, let alone five days. But now little things that hadn’t seemed important suddenly took on a new significance. Grey had had a series of late nights working on a difficult case just before she went to Karachi. Yet he had once said that the need to work late betrayed one of two things: a man incompetent at his job, or a man unwilling to go home to his wife. And Grey was certainly not incompetent.
She caught herself, unable to believe the direction in which her mind was travelling. The fact that Steve had seen him having lunch with another woman meant nothing. She was probably a client, or a colleague. Even if she was nothing whatsoever to do with his work she trusted him, for heaven’s sake. It was certainly no more sinister than her lunch with Steve. The whole thing was utter nonsense. She was just edgy with him because of that stupid row. And if he had sold the Degas because of financial worries, that would certainly explain his reluctance to start a family, his reluctance for her to give up lucrative assignments. If only he had explained, trusted her. Trust. The word seemed to be everywhere today.
Happier, she was even willing to concede that his reaction to her immediate desire for a baby had been justified. She had been so full of her plans that she had expected him to leap into line without a thought. Well, she could start the necessary reorganisation of her life without making an issue of it. In fact she had already begun. No more overseas assignments.
She would tell him all about it when they were at the cottage. A couple of weeks at Ty Bach would give them a chance to talk when they were more relaxed, time to discuss the future properly. She should have waited until then to broach her plans. And, feeling considerably happier, Abbie stood up, dusted herself off and walked briskly back to the flat.
Yet Grey’s key in the lock just after six brought an unexpected nervous catch to her throat.
‘Abbie?’ He came to the kitchen doorway and leaned against the door, smiling a little as if pleased to see her there. ‘Hello.’
‘Hello.’ A little shy, just a little formal. ‘You’re early.’
‘Mmm,’ he agreed. ‘I asked the boss if I could leave early so that I could take my wife out.’
‘Idiot,’ she murmured, laughing softly. ‘You are the boss.’
‘Obviously a very good one …’ he said, walking across to her and resting his hands lightly about her waist. There was only the slightest tenseness about his eyes to betray what they both knew. That this was a peace overture. ‘I said yes.’
So that was the way he was going to deal with it. Pretend last night had never happened. Love means never having to say that you’re sorry? Maybe. She lifted her hands to his shoulders, raised herself a little on her toes and kissed him, very lightly. ‘Thank you for the rose.’
‘I’m glad you liked it.’ His face relaxed into a smile. ‘I risked life and limb climbing over the park railings to pick it for you.’
‘Grey!’ she gasped, her hand flying to her mouth at the idea of a sober-suited solicitor clambering over the park fence at dawn. ‘You didn’t!’ He lifted one brow. ‘Idiot!’ she exclaimed. ‘Suppose someone had seen you?’
‘If it made you happy it was worth the risk.’ He put one arm about her to draw her closer, and with his other hand he raked back the thick fringe of hair that grew over her brow and dropped a kiss there. ‘Besides, I know I could rely on you to bake me a sponge with a file in it and ingeniously smuggle it into jail. Your cakes are so heavy that no one would suspect a thing.’
‘Idiot!’ she repeated, but this time flinging a punch at his shoulder.
‘Possibly,’ he agreed. ‘And I’ve got something else.’ He produced a pair of theatre tickets from his inside pocket and held them before her eyes. ‘You did want to see this?’
‘Grey! How on earth did you manage to get hold of them?’ she demanded, eagerly reaching for them so that she could see for herself. ‘They’re like golddust.’
He smiled at her reaction. ‘You’ll have to retract the “idiot” first,’ he warned her, holding them tantalisingly out of her reach.
‘Unreservedly. Heavens, all this attention will go to my head,’ she said happily, leaning her head against his chest.
‘Oh? And who else has been spoiling you?’
‘Only Steve Morley. He took me out to lunch,’ she added, lifting her head to look into his eyes. Was she hoping for some immediate confession about his own lunch date? If so, she was disappointed.
‘Lucky Steve,’ he said, with just a touch of acid in his voice. It was not lost on Abbie. Grey had never said anything, but Abbie sensed a certain reserve in his enthusiasm for that particular journalist and his newspaper. But then, since they took particular relish in hounding his brother, Robert Lockwood, a politician and the most glamorous member of the government front benches—including the women—that was hardly surprising.
‘Did he take you somewhere nice?’ She told him and his brows rose to a satisfactory height. ‘Spoilt indeed,’ he said, releasing her and crossing to the fridge to extract a carton of juice. ‘He must have been very pleased with your feature.’
‘Very—in fact he immediately offered me a month in America.’
‘I’m impressed,’ he said, without much enthusiasm, as he tipped the juice into the glass.
‘And so you should be,’ she declared, and, just a little peeved by the lack of congratulations, didn’t bother to tell him that she had turned it down. ‘You’re apparently married to one hot property. Steve was talking about awards for the tug-of-love story.’
‘Just as well I didn’t leap at the chance of fatherhood, then.’ He sipped the juice. ‘So when will you be going?’
‘You wouldn’t mind?’ she asked, heart sinking just a little. ‘I’ve never been away that long before.’
‘We made a deal, Abbie. I’m not going to start coming the heavy husband now you’re on the brink of something special. You have to be available if you’re going to be a star.’
Being a star was becoming less attractive by the day. ‘I thought being good meant that you were able to pick and choose your assignments,’ she said. ‘Besides, what about our holiday? I’m looking forward to having you to myself for a couple of weeks.’
‘You’d trade two weeks at an isolated cottage in Wales for a month in the States?’ She would trade anything for two weeks alone with him, and it didn’t matter where, but he didn’t wait for her answer. ‘Anyway, there’s been a bit of a hitch about the cottage.’
‘Oh? I thought it was all arranged.’ Before she had gone away he had been full of plans. Most of them involving lying on the beach and doing absolutely nothing except making love for two weeks. He must have seen her disappointment, because he put down the glass and crossed to her.
‘I’m sorry, but Robert wants to use the cottage this summer, Abbie. It’s the one place the Press don’t know about; even if they found out, it’s hardly the easiest place to find, and the locals have a way of forgetting how to speak English when anybody starts getting nosy. He needs to spend some time with his family.’
Abbie felt a little stab of guilt. She had a very soft spot for her brother-in-law. Grey’s older brother was good-looking, brilliant—the youngest minister in the government. He should have been the happiest man alive. But he had a wife who kept him glued to her side with the threat of a scandal that would wipe out his career should he take one step to end their disastrous marriage. So he continued to play happy families for the benefit of the media, although he spent as much time as possible at his London flat and Jonathan, their son, was now at boarding-school.