The Four of Us (37 page)

‘He's fifty-six,' Artemis heard herself say, her voice sounding as if it were coming from a great distance. How many other spectators were assuming that her husband and Serena Campbell-Thynne were an item? And how long had their behaviour led to such an assumption being made?

She looked at the small groups of people nearest to her. Were they not coming up to her, acknowledging her presence and greeting her because they were embarrassed at her having put in an appearance when Rupert and Serena were playing together? Or, like the woman still standing by her side, were they completely oblivious to her identity? She hadn't, after all, attended a polo match in years. She'd never set eyes on Serena Campbell-Thynne before. And Serena Campbell-Thynne hadn't, as yet, set eyes on her.

In the fourth chukka Rupert's team failed to score and the opposing team scored twice.

In the fifth they were lagging behind by two goals.

Artemis didn't know why she was still standing watching Rupert and Serena shout frenzied encouragement to each other as they galloped and turned at dizzying speed. It was as if she were rooted to the spot. As if she couldn't turn away no matter how much she wanted to.

Why did she always think that it wouldn't happen again? Why was she always taken by hideous, ghastly surprise? His first affair had taken place only months after Destiny's death. His last – and most serious – had ended three years ago. It had been with Lydia Gerard, the wife of one of Francis Sheringham's old friends. Lydia was the daughter of a duke and, knowing Rupert as she did, she had been convinced that if James Gerard had divorced Lydia, she, too, would have found herself in the divorce courts. The prospect of having a duke for a father-in-law, rather than a construction magnate, would have been more than Rupert could have resisted.

The eight players were cantering off the field again for a brief respite before the final chukka. Artemis had lost track of the score. Rupert's team could be winning, she didn't know. She only knew that if, as well as being a superb horsewoman, Serena Campbell-Thynne was listed in
Burke's Peerage
, then she, Artemis, could well be facing another huge threat to her marriage.

Her family background had always mortified Rupert. In their early days together he had managed to gloss over it, but as time had gone on he had found it a social liability to have a father-in-law whose name was synonymous with building sites. And though her not being keen on horses and riding hadn't been an issue in the years when he'd thought her the most beautiful girl he'd ever seen, they'd soon became an issue when she began putting on weight.

‘Here we go again,' the woman at her side said, with satisfaction. ‘Last chukka and the pinks are going to have to score twice to win.'

Dimly, through her misery, Artemis was aware that as the riders rode back on to the field the atmosphere was electric. Why, when all that was happening was that eight players, on eight ponies, were whacking a ball about, she couldn't begin to imagine.

‘Oh! Shame!' the woman cried out passionately. ‘Did you see how Serena was ridden-off then?'

Artemis had seen a member of the opposing team barge his pony against Serena's, drastically altering the direction in which she was galloping. She hadn't known the technical term for what he'd done, but she had fiercely hoped he would send her flying out of the saddle.

Seconds later Rupert was hooking mallets with the offending rider, shouting insults at him as he did so.

Another four or five minutes and the chukka – and the match – was going to be over. What was she going to do then? Walk back to her car and drive home, pretending that nothing had been said to her? Or was she going to walk over to Rupert and remind Serena Campbell-Thynne – and anyone else who might be watching – that Rupert was a married man?

‘To your left, Serry!' she suddenly heard Rupert shout.

‘He's got a clear ride to goal,' the woman beside her said, informative as ever. ‘Is she going to pass to him? Oh, yes! Good girl! I said they made a brilliant team, didn't I?'

Everyone else watching seemed to think the same. No one was lounging against the bonnets of cars or jeeps now. Everyone was on their feet and as Serena passed the ball to him and Rupert cantered after it, there was a roar of approval.

From the urgency of it, Artemis gathered that there must have been goals that she hadn't registered and that, if Rupert scored now, his team would have won.

She saw him raise his mallet, hitting the ball with every ounce of his strength. As it went flying between the posts and as the whistle blew to end the match, there was a storm of cheering.

‘Well, that was a spectacular finish, wasn't it?' the woman said, beaming across at her. ‘My name is Olwyn Kent, by the way. My son, Lance, was in Rupert Gower's team.'

‘And mine is Artemis Gower,' Artemis said, her eyes on Rupert as he cantered triumphantly up to Serena, leaning across so that he could hug her shoulders, her mind made up as to what it was she was going to do. ‘I'm Rupert's wife.'

Olwyn Kent's jaw dropped in appalled horror.

Artemis didn't wait to hear any clumsy attempts at damage limitation. She began walking away, towards where the presentation to the winning team was to take place, aware that, even though she stood out like a sore thumb in her polka-dotted navy silk dress, Rupert still hadn't registered her presence.

He'd dismounted and, in his pink shirt, white jodhpurs and riding boots, he looked spectacularly handsome. Olwyn Kent had been right. He did look to be in his mid-forties, not his midfifties. True, there was a flash of silver at his temples, but the rest of his hair was still raven dark and constant sporting activity had kept him lean and supple. She could well understand why young women kept falling for him.

There was a fresh burst of applause as he walked across to accept the trophy. Artemis watched, as if watching a stranger. This was a side of his life she had excluded herself from years ago when they had adopted Orlando and Sholto and she'd again become a full-time mother. Because of Rupert's position as a merchant banker, they had always entertained on a massive scale and, because she had wanted to do so, she had always done the cooking herself, just as she had always looked after Orlando and Sholto herself. It had been a way of life she'd found great satisfaction in, but the debit side had been that she hadn't had the time or inclination to be an adoring supporter at polo matches.

Over the years there had been numerous young women who, where Rupert was concerned, had fulfilled that role for her. Finding out about them had always caused her intense misery, but none of them had proved to be a serious threat to her marriage. Only Lydia Gerard, with her near royal family links, had achieved that.

And now there was Serena Campbell-Thynne, whose father was a former chairman of the Guards Polo Club – and whether Serena would be a major grief to her or not was impossible to tell.

For the moment, though, she was going to behave as if Serena didn't exist. Avoiding emotional showdowns where Rupert might be pushed to make a choice between her and the girlfriend of the moment was how she had survived. It had kept her thirty-two-year marriage intact when the marriages of nearly every other woman she knew of her age, had long ago ended in divorce.

As Rupert lowered the trophy he'd been holding high, she took a deep, steadying breath and stepped directly into his line of vision.

If he was appalled or embarrassed at realizing she must have seen his over friendly behaviour towards Serena, he did a spectacular job of not showing it.

‘Just what the hell,' he said through gritted teeth, as she walked up to him, ‘are you doing here?'

‘It's so long since I saw you play and … and I wanted to make up for our having such a nasty row last night,' she said, uncomfortably aware that if she'd known last night that one of his reasons for wanting to go to Brazil was so that he could spend time with Serena Campbell-Thynne she would have been even more adamant that he should, instead, be spending his month's holiday with her, in Corfu.

A youth walked a lathered pony between the two of them. Artemis, who had never been able to come to terms with just how big a pony could be, stepped back quickly, going over on the same ankle that had let her down earlier.

Holding the trophy with one hand, he hooked the thumb of his other hand into the waistband of his very snug-fitting jodhpurs, saying exasperatedly, ‘You'd have done better to have worn boots or trainers, Artemis. This isn't Windsor Park or Hurlingham.'

‘Yes.' She was well aware of her fashion faux pas. ‘So I'd noticed.'

The pony no longer separated them, but he didn't make a move towards her. The gap between them was only three or four feet, but to Artemis it was a chasm she felt completely unable to bridge.

Why couldn't he be nice to her? Why did she always have to try to please him and placate him? When she'd first fallen in love with him, she'd thought his olive-skinned good looks and offhand, saturnine manner very Heathcliff and romantic. Now, at moments like this, she found his manner both confusing and intimidating.

‘I thought perhaps we could spend the rest of the day together,' she said, trying to sound happy and unconcerned. Trying to sound normal.

He looked vaguely amused. ‘At the stables?' his eyes flicked over her fussily stylish dress. ‘I don't think so, Artemis, do you?'

As she struggled to find an answer that might lighten the atmosphere between them, she saw, out of the corner of her eyes, that a tall, lithe, blond-haired, jodhpured figure was strolling towards them.

She sucked in her breath. Serena must have guessed, or been told by now, that Rupert was talking to his wife and her walking across to join them was shockingly bad manners.

She rearranged her smile, preparing to launch into a freezingly cool ‘I'm Rupert's wife and I'm very pleased to meet you'speech that would, hopefully, take the wind completely out of Serena's sails.

She wasn't given the opportunity, because Serena didn't so much as give her a glance. ‘What a great match that was, Ru,' she said, walking directly up to Rupert and slipping her arm through his. ‘I'm soaking with sweat, absolutely dripping.'

She ran a finger down Rupert's perspiration-sheened neck and then, turning to face her, she very slowly and very provocatively licked the perspiration from her finger.

Artemis made a strangled sound deep in her throat.

Serena smiled lazily at her. ‘And you are Artemis?' She tilted her head quizzically, obviously finding it amusing that Rupert was married to someone overweight, inappropriately dressed and old enough to be her mother.

The nervous tension in the pit of Artemis's stomach was replaced by anger so all consuming she thought she was going to explode.

‘I'm Mrs Gower to you! And don't
ever
touch my husband like that again in front of me!' Absolutely convinced that Rupert would be as appalled at Serena Campbell-Thynne's brazenly crude behaviour as she was, her eyes flew to his, expecting support.

To her stunned disbelief, there was none forthcoming.

Without troubling to remove Serena's hand from his arm or to crush her with a look, as he could crush most people, he merely said, ‘You can see the situation, Artemis. This isn't the place I would have chosen to come out into the open about things, but you'd have had to know some time, and so it might as well be now. I'm in love with Serry, and I'm going to marry her. The best thing you can do is to go home. I'll tell the boys, there's no need for you to do that.'

Artemis stared at him goggle eyed, not trusting her ears. He couldn't have said what she thought he'd said. He couldn't possibly be ending their life together – ending thirty-two years of marriage – on a polo field, in full view of hundreds of people!

He was.

The way he and Serena were facing her, standing together as a couple, told her he was.

She felt her head swim and knew she was on the verge of fainting. Aware that if she did she was too heavy to be picked up and carried and would, instead, be left lying in an undignified heap until she should recover consciousness, she sucked in deep gasps of air.

‘You
bastard
! she hissed, when the world steadied enough for her to speak. ‘You complete and utter
bastard
!'

He breathed in hard. ‘For God's sake, Artemis,' he said, impatiently. ‘There's no need for such over-the-top drama. We came to the end of the road years ago. Stop behaving like a fish-wife. This isn't your father's birthplace. You're not in Rotherhithe now.'

The contempt in his voice completely undid her. She was making a spectacle of herself in public, and all for no good reason. The only way to deal with the nightmare scene she'd found herself in was to exit from it fast. That way, something might still be salvaged.

As her eyes met his, she knew she was fooling herself. Rupert had meant everything he had said about their marriage being finally over. She'd lost him and, as she turned blindly away, stumbling in her distress, she wondered wildly if she'd ever had him in the first place, or if her entire marriage had been nothing but a long, pathetic sham.

People were making way for her, but she couldn't see clearly and then, seemingly out of nowhere, Olwyn Kent was at her side.

‘Tell me where you live and I'll drive you home,' she said, taking hold of her arm as she stumbled yet again, this time on a divot kicked up by a pony.

‘Thank you.' She was crying, not desperately or tragically, but silently and without hope. ‘How could he do it?' As Olwyn steered her steadfastly towards the field of parked cars, tears spilled down her cheeks and on to her dress. ‘How could he do it here? In front of everyone? In front of
her
?'

‘Because when you said he was a bastard you were right. And because he wants to pretend that he's years younger than he really is and having a wife in her twenties will enable him to achieve his fantasy.'