Sinful Nights: The Six-Month Marriage\Injured Innocent\Loving (36 page)

‘Joel said we were to let you rest,’ Louise announced, releasing Joel to run over to Lissa, clambering on to her knee and cuddling into her. She was discovering in her elder niece a very deep need to exhibit her affections physically, and Lissa responded to her unspoken plea for reassurance, hugging and kissing her.

‘We went for a walk,’ Emma announced as Joel placed her in her high chair.

Mrs Fuller served them breakfast, and Lissa felt relieved when she was simply given two slices of dried toast. Joel raised his eyebrows.

‘I’m not hungry,’ Lissa told him hastily, avoiding his eyes, and grateful for the housekeeper when she kept silent, merely exchanging a thoughtful glance with her over Joel’s downbent head. She had dreaded facing him this morning after the way she was sure she must have betrayed herself to him last night, but now she had something even more worrying on her mind. What on earth would she do if she was pregnant?

Stop thinking about it, she cautioned herself, it’s probably nothing … too much rich food last night. She ought to have been reassured, but somehow she was not.

When he looked at her again there was a strange bitter
tension in his eyes, a tightness to his mouth that took her back to that night almost ten years ago. Unknowingly she flinched, pushing her plate away, shivering slightly, aware of Joel getting up and coming towards her, and almost cringing away from him as he did so. How could she bear to have him touch her now when she knew that every time he did, it was another woman he had in his heart.

The phone rang shrilly, the sound harsh and challenging. Joel frowned, glanced at her, and then walked across the kitchen to pick up the receiver. Once he had moved away from her Lissa was conscious of an easing of the constriction in her muscles. Louise and Emma were both far too young yet to be aware of the strained atmosphere between the adults, but Mrs Fuller must have noticed it. If only she had known about Marisa before she agreed to marry Joel! Even loving him as she now admitted she did, she would not have done so. While she had thought there was no other woman in his life she had hoped, ridiculously no doubt, that somehow a miracle would occur and Joel would eventually turn to her with more than mere physical desire and compassion.

Compassion! She checked a bitter little laugh. There had been precious little of that between them these last few days. In fact if she hadn’t seen that other side of him she would never have believed it existed.

‘Lissa.’

She turned at the sound of Joel’s voice, abrupt and grim. ‘It’s for you,’ he told her, holding out the receiver. ‘Guess.’

Simon? Ringing her, but why, Lissa wondered, automatically getting up and walking over to the phone.

Joel moved away the moment she reached him. He looked angry, she noticed, his mouth compressed. A spurt of defiant anger welled up inside her. If it was permissible for him to have his affair with Marisa then what right had he to look so annoyed simply because another man telephoned her.

She turned her back on him, holding the receiver close to her ear.

‘Lissa is that you?’

‘Yes, Simon.’

‘Look, I’m just ringing to apologise for the other day. I know I was out of line.’

Lissa listened absently to his apologies, conscious all the time of Joel’s presence in the room.

‘How about lunch one day just to show that I’m forgiven,’ Simon suggested.

‘Lunch?’ Lissa turned round and met the coldly condemning look in Joel’s eyes. She took a deep breath. ‘Yes, why not,’ she agreed gaily. ‘I’ll give you a ring, shall I?’

They chatted for several more minutes, although when she eventually replaced the receiver, she couldn’t have said what they talked about. A feeling of almost frightening exhilaration had lifted her out of her previous misery, and she knew it came from knowing that at least if she did not have the power to move Joel to love, she could move him to anger. She was flirting with danger, she warned herself as she sat down again, avoiding Joel’s eyes, but why not? Joel didn’t want her himself …
so why should he get angry because he thought someone else did.

She already knew the answer to that question, Lissa reminded herself.

Joel had made it plain enough when they married that he expected and intended to have her fidelity. But then she had expected something in return from him. Not love perhaps, but loyalty at least … an attempt to preserve the fiction that they had married because in part he cared for her. She had not expected to have his mistress flaunted openly in front of her without any show of concern about how she might feel.

She had half expected Joel to tackle her about Simon’s phone call, but in the event he said nothing, and somehow that was worse.

As the days passed Lissa had the distinctly unpleasant sensation of something hanging ominously over her, a sensation too uncomfortably reminiscent of her childhood for her to bear it easily. She was also still suffering from nausea, and an acute nervous tension, which she knew she was communicating to Louise. The little girl had become clinging and petulant, and while Lissa fully understood and sympathised with her insecurity, the constant succession of broken nights they were enduring with Louise’s recurrent nightmares were beginning to take their toll on her. Joel was so cold and distant towards her that she could hardly believe that they had ever really been lovers. He spent far more time away from the house, often going out in the evening and returning late. Lissa never questioned him as to where
he had been, her stubborn pride refusing to allow her to let him see how much he was hurting her.

One week went by and then another. She had lost weight and there were dark circles under her eyes. Mrs Fuller who could not have failed to notice the atmosphere that existed between Joel and herself, and his constant absences, said nothing, but Lissa was acutely aware of her silent sympathy. It struck her that being a local Mrs Fuller might be quite aware of Joel’s relationship with Marisa, and that too stung her pride.

She had intended to start Louise at playschool, but she herself felt far too lethargic to do anything about it. The last week in March, the temperature suddenly dropped several degrees, and Joel, for once appearing for dinner remarked that he felt they could expect snow. He frowned slightly as he said it, and Lissa guessed he was thinking of the safety of the stock.

Lissa had never realised until these last few weeks how lonely and cold a double bed could be when it was shared with a man one loved who felt nothing but indifference tinged with anger in return.

‘Are you … are you planning on going out again tonight?’ She wished she hadn’t voiced the impulsive question when he frowned. For a moment she thought he didn’t intend to reply and then he said suavely, ‘Why, had you got something planned yourself?’

His blatant indifference and coldness towards her defeated her. She wanted to talk to him, to plead with him to discuss the state of their marriage and what future if any he envisaged for them. The sudden change in his attitude towards her was still something she hadn’t really
come to terms with. There were days when she felt completely muddled, unable to understand why he had changed from the tender considerate lover to whom she had given her heart and body to this cold, withdrawn man he was now. Maybe it was because he felt guilty about making love to her, seeing it as a betrayal of his love for Marisa? Maybe it was as she had originally thought, that he feared she would read into his lovemaking a greater emotional commitment than he was prepared to give her. Either way there was only one way she would learn the truth and that was for him to tell her, but he continually blocked all her attempts to talk seriously to him on any subject other than the children. What hurt almost more than all the rest put together was that to the girls he was still the same loving, compassionate person he had been right from the very start, underlining for her, if she had needed that doing … that it was
her
and
her
alone that brought out the cold distance in him she was now experiencing.

Lissa went to bed early while Joel was still out. She heard him come in and move about the bedroom, preparing for bed. Lying beneath the bedclothes she trembled with aching tension longing for him to turn to her and take her in his arms, but knew even as she did so that she was longing for the impossible. She closed her eyes, squeezing back weak tears. Sooner or later she would have to tell him of her suspicions that she was carrying his child. What would his reaction be? It was impossible to doubt his love for Louise and Emma, and in other circumstances, had she been Marisa for instance, she had little doubt that the news would have
overjoyed him. But she was not Marisa, and the fact that she was to have his child would create another tie between them … a tie she was sure he would not want. She bit down hard on her bottom lip. If she
was
pregnant there was nothing she wanted more than to have his child … but how could she bring it into the world knowing how Joel felt about her?

The first thing Lissa noticed when she woke up was the pure clarity of the light streaming in through the curtains. As she sat up and glanced curiously towards the window, Joel walked in from the bathroom. His hair clung damply to his scalp, moisture beading his bare chest. He had wrapped a towel round his hips and Lissa felt the beginnings of reactionary sensations erupt inside her. It was a physical effort to drag her gaze away from him. Her heart was thudding heavily, her mouth dry.

‘I see it snowed during the night,’ Joel commented, flicking back a curtain, his comment explaining the unfamiliar brightness. ‘Only a couple of inches by the looks of it, but there’s more on the way. We’ll need to make arrangements for feeding the stock in case it gets worse.’

Over breakfast, Louise’s excitement about the snowfall successfully covered the empty silence between them, Mrs Fuller coming and going with toast and coffee. Lissa noticed the dry crackers on her own plate and the weak cup of tea. Thankfully most mornings Joel had left their bedroom before she actually got up, and so far had not noticed her brief bouts of nausea. She couldn’t go on ignoring her symptoms any longer, though, she
admitted, deftly preventing Emma from overturning her cereal bowl. She would have to make an appointment to see the doctor.

Once that mental decision had been made it was easier to ring the local surgery and make an appointment, which she did as soon as Joel had left the house. She couldn’t go on for much longer with the present situation, and nor could she tell Joel of her suspicions without making any attempt to have them confirmed.

Mrs Fuller had gone out to do some shopping, taking both girls with her, and when the receptionist offered her an almost immediate appointment, Lissa took it.

As she stepped outside it started to snow again, small flurries at first, increasing in density so that by the time she had reached the main road it was snowing quite heavily. Fortunately there was very little traffic on the road, but when she skidded slightly on one sharp bend Lissa began to wish someone else was driving. Living in London had blinded her to the dangers of adverse weather conditions, and her stomach muscles tensed protestingly as she switched her windscreen wipers on to fast in order to clear her window. The doctor’s surgery was in the nearest town, in the opposite direction from the small village where Mrs Fuller had taken the girls, and the road to it was a narrow, little used one.

It was nearly an hour before Lissa reached the small market town. She found an empty space in the surgery car park, and hurried on jelly-like legs towards the building.

She wasn’t kept waiting very long. The partner she saw was new to her, a pleasant, quietly spoken woman
in her mid-forties, who briskly confirmed her own suspicions. ‘We shan’t know for definite of course, until we get the results back,’ she added, ‘but from what you’ve told me there seems little doubt that you are pregnant.’

She went on to discuss pregnancy in general with Lissa and advised her to ring her in a couple of days when they should have obtained the results of her test.

Although she had been in the surgery less than half an hour it had been long enough for the roof and bonnet of her car to become covered in snow, as were her tyre tracks. Huddling deeper into her jacket Lissa unlocked her door and climbed in, trying not to dread too much the drive back home.

A cold, biting wind had sprung up while she was inside, whirling the heavily falling snow into a blinding storm. Crawling along in a low gear Lissa prayed that she would reach home safely. Several times she skidded but on each occasion she managed to control the car before any damage was done. When at last she was on the familiar half mile or so of road that led to Winterly’s gates relief poured over her, relaxing her tense muscles. She was just about to turn into the entrance when a Land-Rover turned the corner beyond the gate, heading towards her from the opposite direction. She braked instinctively, gasping with shock as she felt her car start to slide towards the stone wall that encircled the park, knowing that she was helpless to prevent the collision.

Her seatbelt pulled tightly against her body as her front wheels dropped into the ditch, the bonnet of her car screeching horribly against the stones. Part of her was
conscious of doors slamming and footsteps coming towards her, but until her door was wrenched open and Joel bent down and across her, releasing her seatbelt mechanism, she hadn’t realised he was in the Land-Rover.

‘What the hell did you brake for?’ he demanded grittily, almost pulling her bodily out of the car. ‘We’d seen you coming and we were waiting for you to turn into the drive. Didn’t it strike you that the Land-Rover is far easier to control in weather conditions like these?’

‘I didn’t think … I just reacted instinctively,’ Lissa admitted huskily. Now that the initial shock of the impact had worn off she was beginning to feel distinctly odd … only too glad of the hardness of Joel’s chest behind her, as he half carried and half dragged her away from her car.

‘Where the hell have you been, anyway?’

Conscious of the fact that Joel’s companion—one of the tenant farmers—was watching them, Lissa shook her head, closing her eyes on a sudden wave of sickness. She must have gone completely limp in Joel’s grasp because instantly his arms tightened round her, and she heard him swearing under his breath as he swung her up off the ground and carried her towards the Land-Rover.