was making the bed now, gritting her teeth and getting on with the job because it was the only thing left in the room to do.
‘It can’t go on any longer.’ He appealed for common sense. ‘You must see that! Kate has noticed, which means she’ll be on the alert from now on, watching, calculating how long you stay in Michael’s room when—’
‘And we must not upset your darling Kate, must we?’ she flashed, then almost cried out in horror at herself. How could she be feeling jealous of her own child! Blindly, horribly jealous of that poor sweet child who possessed her father’s love by right!
‘Uncalled for, Rachel,’ Daniel grimly rebuked, and she agreed, sickeningly so.
The bed was made. Now she could get out of…
‘Let me just explain about Lydia,’ Daniel said carefully. ‘She isn’t—’
‘Are you planning on being here for the rest of the day?’
That threw him. It shut him up about his precious Lydia, too. ‘Yes.’ He frowned in puzzlement. ‘Why?’
‘Because I want to go out, and if you’re here it saves me having to ask your mother to come and mind the children.’ Why she had said that, Rachel had no idea. It had not been a conscious decision to go anywhere. But, once said, she found the idea of being on her own for a while—completely on her own—something that was suddenly vital to her sanity.
She made a dive for the wardrobe, trembling in her sudden urgency to get out of the house and away from them all. She dragged out the first thing that came to hand—her rainproof anorak. Daniel seemed momentarily stunned, and just stood there staring at her for the time it took her to shrug the coat on.
Then he sprang to life. ‘If you want to go out somewhere, Rachel, you only had to say so!’
The zip was being stubborn and she stood, head bent, grappling with it. It was so hot in here today! Struggling with the zip was making her hot. Was it possible to suffocate in one’s emotions? she wondered frantically. Because that was what she felt she was doing. People closing her in, walls…feelings.
‘Give me ten minutes while I get dressed myself, then we’ll all go out together…’
Shoes! She hadn’t put on any shoes! On another jerk, she was crouching on the floor and scrabbling around in the bottom of her wardrobe while Daniel seemed glued to the spot in stunned confusion.
She found her black leather boots and sat down on the carpet to pull them on, tucking the bottoms of her narrow jeans inside with fingers that shook.
‘Rachel…don’t do this!’ It must have hit him then that she really meant to go out alone because his voice was rough and urgent. ‘You’ve never gone out without us before,’ he rasped. ‘Wait until we can all…’
She was vaguely listening to him, though only from behind a wall of dark self-absorption. But one small part of what he had said got through. Daniel was right, and she never did go anywhere without one or all of them accompanying her! If it wasn’t Daniel, then it was the children—or his mother! All her adult life she had lived beneath the protective wing of others. Her parents first, her more outward-going friends, Daniel! Mostly Daniel.
She was almost twenty-five years old, for God’s sake! And here she was, a dowdy little housewife with three children and a husband who…
‘I’m going alone!’ she raked at him. ‘It won’t hurt you to have the children to yourself for once!’
‘I never said it would!’ he sighed impatiently. ‘But Rachel, you’ve never—’
‘Exactly!’ Jumping up she spun away from him when he made a grab for her, concern raking at his taut face. ‘While you’ve been busy making your fortune, chasing your personal rainbows and having your affairs,’ she threw at him bitterly, ‘I’ve been quietly sitting here in this damned house—stagnating!’
‘Don’t be stupid!’ He made another lunge for her wrist and caught it this time. ‘This is ridiculous. You’re behaving like a child! It—’
‘But that’s just it, Daniel, don’t you see?’ she cried, appealing for his understanding even while rebellion ran crazily through her veins. ‘That is exactly what I am— a child! A very spoiled, very overprotected child! I never grew up because I’ve never been given the chance to grow up! I was seventeen when I married you!’ she choked out wretchedly. ‘Still at school! And, before you came along, my parents used to wrap me in cotton wool! My God, what a shock it must have been to them when they discovered their sweet little innocent daughter had been sleeping with the big bad wolf without them knowing it!’
He laughed; she knew he couldn’t help it because her description of himself was so damned accurate that it was either laugh or weep.
‘So, I get pregnant,’ she went on tightly, ‘and swap one set of parents for another set—you and your mother!’
‘Now that’s not true, Rachel,’ Daniel protested. ‘I’ve never looked on you as a child. I—’
‘Liar!’ she declared. ‘You damned hypocritical liar! And you know what makes you a liar, Daniel?’ she demanded shrilly. ‘It’s the way you’re beginning to panic because I want to spend some time on my own—because it could be Kate making the demand by the way you’re reacting!’
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