The Sultan's Bride (18 page)

James gurgled with delight at
grabbing hold of Catherine’s leg and she looked down at him and smiled. 
‘There is something else.’

‘What is it?’ said her
mother.

‘
Arif
has changed things so that we could be
together,
Richard says I should consider his offer so that James can be with his
father.  I would be Sultana and with
Arif
.’

Sarah looked at her daughter.
‘Is that what you want?  You’ve worked so hard building a new life here
and I was sure that when Richard returned you two would find your way to each
other.’

Catherine sighed.  ‘When
I first came back everything here was so strange, a big part of me missed my
former life.  Being in
Ajara
is so different
Mama,
I would have anything I wanted.  Richard has been
my best friend and I did not hesitate to agree to marry him even though I knew
he had feelings I did not return but that has changed these past months while
he has been away and he is my love now.’

Nodding, Sarah reached for
Catherine’s hand.  ‘I can understand the attraction of
Ajara
but people like
Arif
never learn responsibility, not
really.  He is very young to be in charge of such a place and I am glad
you have those feelings for Richard now.  I would not want to lose you
again not so soon after being reunited with you.’

‘Nor I you Mama,’ Catherine
said, a wan smile breaking through her tears.  ‘This is James’ birthplace
and I love you and Papa so much I do not think that I could bear to leave you
either.’

‘Then I would suggest giving
him some time, he adores you Catherine.  It was obvious from the start how
he felt about you.  Just give him time to settle back in, he’ll soon
realise how much he misses you two and come to his senses.’

After Simpson’s visit,
Richard made his way up to his bedroom to get some sleep.  He was tired
and cranky after his confrontation with Catherine and just wanted to lose
himself in sleep.  He bitterly regretted his outburst hoping he hadn’t
inflamed the situation further but now the matter was in Catherine’s hands, he
would just have to wait for her decision.

The bedroom door was open and
he found on the bed a shift like the one
Alena
had
worn in
Ajara
.  Catherine must have been
sleeping in here he thought.  He wanted to cry thinking of her in his bed
with other men but exhausted he stripped and crawled into bed only to find that
his bed smelled of her scent.

Tired and confused he held
the shift to him and fell asleep, his dreams filled with the woman he loved.

In the weeks that followed
Catherine was miserable.  James was her only delight and he was growing so
fast and started to crawl.  It made her sad that Richard had missed such
an event and although he had brought over the rest of their things she had
stayed in her room rather than cause any type of scene.

Her parents didn’t talk to
either of them about the situation, they thought it would resolve itself if
they left it.  It was clear the pair loved each other but whatever it was
keeping them apart was not going away in a hurry.  She rejected the money
from
Arif
, it had all been put into an account at the
bank in her name but she refused to touch it.  It was for James,
everything for James now.

Mary, Beth and Clare did not
take kindly to Richard’s news that Catherine was no longer living in his
home.   The three of them had shown up a few days after she had left
for their usual weekly gathering, a tradition they had gotten into since he had
left.

It was an awkward situation
and they berated him for letting her go.  There was no avoiding it. 
He gave them Peter and Sarah Stanton’s address and sent them on their way with
a heavy heart.  These women who he trusted as his friend’s wives loved
Catherine as did everyone who met her seemingly.  It didn’t seem
appropriate to ask them if his wife had taken any lovers while he was away and
yet they were the ones most likely to know.

Even after being apart from
her for so long the house seemed so empty without her.  Everywhere he looked
reminded him of her and he had been surprised when Mr Simpson had told him she
had not been interested in the money from
Arif
.

  He’d taken everything
from the house that was hers or James to the Stanton house and she had avoided
him.  It was probably just as well he thought, if he saw her again he
might be swayed with those beautiful blue eyes with the impossible eyelashes,
the rosebud lips that he’d longed to kiss, that long dark curly he wanted to
tangle his fingers in.  Just the thought of her made him itch.

When the other women arrived
at the Stanton house Catherine greeted them with caution.  While they had
grown close she didn’t know which way they would go with her separated from
Richard but it soon became clear that they had no intention of letting her go
the way he had.  Their adventures in the market place had seen to that.

Her mother was out shopping
which made it easier for Catherine to talk to her friends and they were
horrified when they discovered why she was not living with Richard.  ‘You
were most faithful to him while he was away,’ Mary said, ‘If anything it was us
who were led astray but even then none of us
have
gone
back on our marriage vows.’

Catherine raised an eyebrow
knowing that Mary and Clare had been visiting the young man in the market at
least once a week since they’d discovered him.  Their ‘lessons’ in how to
use the phallus had been going for some time now.  She’d been amused by
this before, now it pained her that their husbands were blissfully unaware of
what was happening while she who had done no wrong was apart from the man she
loved.

‘I love Richard, I need to
make him see it’s him I want and prove to him somehow that I was a faithful
wife.  There is no way to prove it though,’ she said sadly. 

‘We all told him what we thought
of you being apart,’ said Beth, ‘That man is an idiot to not want you in his
bed with what you must know.’

‘Beth!’ said Clare, ‘That is
one of the reasons why Richard has pushed Catherine away.  There must be
some way to make him see how much you love him.’ 

‘I just don’t know,’ said
Catherine. 

‘Go to his house at night and
seduce him,’ said Clare gleefully.

Catherine sighed. ‘That’s
just
it,
I don’t know if he will be open to that given
how he feels.  Maybe this just won’t be fixed and we won’t reconcile.’ 

Mary hugged her.  ‘Don’t
think that way Catherine, Richard is missing you too I’m sure of it.’

‘I only wish that were true,
those last weeks when he was away I was desperate for him to come home. 
It was only when we were apart I realised just how much I loved him. Now he may
request to annul our marriage.’

Mary’s eyes widened.
‘How?
  There are no grounds, surely?’

‘Our marriage is
unconsummated,’ said Catherine, ‘I had hoped that would change when he came
home but instead he told me I had to leave and make my decision.  All I
can hope for is that when he comes to ask me for my decision at the end of the
winter that he still wants me.’

‘Whatever happens,’ Clare
said, ‘you know you have us, we won’t turn our backs on you.’  The others nodded
and crowded around Catherine, putting their arms around her.  Catherine
realised that her life was not that much different now, this was her harem.

 ‘I love you all,’ she
whispered. 

‘We love you too,’ said
Clare, ‘You are so much more than Richard’s wife to us
Catherine,
we’re all like sisters now.’

‘Please do not give him too
much trouble,’ Catherine said, ‘
If
we are meant to be
then we will find our way back to each other.  I can only hope and pray
for our reunion.’

Richard tried to avoid the
park.  It was the place he had spent the most time with Catherine and he
hoped she kept up her walks without
him,
it was good
for her and for James.  It didn’t stop him from walking the long way home
from the law office, hoping for a glimpse of her from the end of her street.

Sometimes he’d see a flash of
brown curls and think about her.   Keeping her from his mind was
hard.  When he worked from home he’d look out the window over to the park
as if in a trance hoping to see her for just one moment. Staying away from her
was the hardest thing he’d ever done.

He had to be hard hearted
now,
it was the only way to determine if she wanted him or
if her desire to return to her previous life in
Ajara
was greater.  This would force her to confront this and by the time the
seas were safe enough for her to sail if she was ready to book passage on the
first ship to Constantinople he would know what her decision was.

It started with the cold
Peter
caught,
he felt awful and quickly developed a
hacking cough.  Sarah fussed over him.  Her husband’s health had
never been the same since their trip to the east.  His daughter’s
disappearance and the distress over the collapse of the business had taken its
toll and he had prematurely aged.

Within days he was in bed,
fever burning and the doctor not able to do anything more.  ‘Keep him as
cool as you can,’ he’d say which wasn’t hard.  It was winter and the icy
blast of the north wind was freezing temperatures outside, the house was not
hard to warm but the mood in the house matched the weather.

Catherine tried to keep to
herself, isolating James from Peter to try to stop the spread of the illness
but it was too late and all too soon James was coughing, sometimes struggling
for breath and his little body burned with fever too.

She would pray at night to a
God she wasn’t sure she believed in but it brought her solace.  The
thought of losing her father was bad enough, to lose her precious
son,
Arif’s
gift to her would be
too much to bear.

James would lie in bed with
her at night, her arm around the little boy but she got no sleep. 
Listening to him breathing, sometimes strained kept her awake throughout the
night.  Catherine would get no rest while James was sick.

Then there was the worry for
her father, Catherine was acutely aware that her kidnapping had meant all her
parents had for all those years was each other and now it looked as though her
mother could lose her lifelong companion. 

Having the doctor visit
proved futile, he told them to keep Peter and James cool when they were
feverish and make sure they were comfortable but had no other advice to
give.  Sarah and Catherine soldiered on, hoping for the best and fearing
the worst.

Towards the end of the week
Mr Simpson arrived to check on the family, he was turned him away by Sarah
determined to not spread the illness outside of the house.  Catherine was
now ill too.

When Richard arrived in the
office he found a worried looking Mr Simpson. ‘Is something wrong?’ he
asked.  Nothing ever upset old Simpson.

‘It’s Peter Stanton,’ Simpson
said, ‘little James and Catherine, they’re all very ill.’ 

Richard paled. ‘What’s wrong
with them?’

‘Peter has apparently been
ill a few days, chills and a fever, he’s gone downhill so very quickly and
apparently James and Catherine have it too.’

‘Will they recover?’ he
asked, anxiety growing as he thought of James, he must have grown so much since
Richard last saw him but he was still so small and fragile. 

The old man shrugged. ‘I do
not know, and Sarah wouldn’t let me too close.  I have been praying ever
since.’

‘I have to go,’ Richard said,
already turning towards the door.

‘Of course,’ Simpson said,
‘Please let me know if I can help at all as well.  I’ve seen that family
go through so many bad things in the time I’ve known them. This is the last
thing they need.’

When Richard arrived in their
street he could see the undertaker’s cart outside.  Sarah was on the
doorstep talking to the man, she looked pale and tired and as he approached she
shook the undertaker’s hand and he left.  The sides of the cart were too
high for Richard to see into so he still didn’t know who had died or if any of
them had survived.

She was turning in towards
the front door when he called out to her.  Turning back she looked towards
him and he saw her shoulders shake as she started to crack from the pressure
she was under. Just a moment later and she was in his arms, crying on his
shoulder.  ‘Mrs Stanton, what’s happened?’ he asked, ‘Mr Stanton? 
James? Catherine?’ His voice cracked as he said the last name.

All she did was cry. ‘Peter?’
he asked in a whisper.  She shook her head.  ‘James?’ She sobbed
louder and he pulled her in tighter. 

‘Oh sweetheart,’ he said,
‘I’m so sorry.’ 

She let go. ‘James,’ she said
through her sobs, ‘James will be fine, he’s sleeping now but recovering. 
Catherine is still so very ill.’