drew a deep breath. ‘And why’s that?’
‘Because your stepfather trusted me. He appointed me executor of his will—’
‘Nick,’ interrupted Abigail. ‘Philip died well over a year ago. You fulfilled all your obligations as executor then. I inherited Philip’s estate—end of story. We are no longer bound by even the most tenuous of ties. We need never see each other again.’
‘No, I don’t suppose we do.’ He gave her a long, considering look. ‘But here I am.’
‘Here you are,’ she said dully, a sharp pang of apprehension overwhelming her as she tried to imagine never seeing him again.
There was silence in the car as it purred through the narrow, frosty lanes, and Abigail tried to tell herself that the unsettling feelings his appearance had provoked were simply a reaction to her husband’s death. And a reminder of her youth, of simpler times, when the outside world had not seemed such a big and hostile place. Because I was cosseted and protected from it, Abigail recognised as she stared at the ploughed fields, where frost like icing sugar glittered thickly.
‘What made you decide to sell all the shares that Philip left you?’ asked Nick suddenly.
The question was so unexpected that Abigail started as though he had tipped icy water over her head. ‘How did you know that?’
He gave her an impatient look. ‘Oh, come on, Abby—I know you wouldn’t exactly qualify as businesswoman of the year, but you can’t be that naive! If shares are floated on the stock market, then it isn’t exactly a state secret, is it?’
‘N-no,’ answered Abigail uncertainly. She would just as easily have ridden a rocket to the moon as been able to talk with any degree of knowledge on the subject of stocks and shares; she had left all that kind of thing to Orlando. Because that, more than anything, had kept him off her back. In more ways than one. A dull flush crept into her cheeks.
‘It just surprised me, that’s all,’ said Nick, giving her a shrewd look. ‘Just as it surprised me that you sold the New York apartment earlier in the year,’
Abigail tasted the bitter flavour of memory in her mouth, the utter chaos of the last year coming back to torment her. ‘Yes, the New York apartment,’ she echoed, in a hollow kind of whisper. ‘Sold.’
‘There’s no need to sound so horrified.’ Nick threw her a strange glance. ‘You knew all about the sale, of course?’
‘How could I not know?’ she queried. ‘It was my flat, wasn’t it? And my inheritance.’
His dark, enigmatic face looked almost pitying. ‘Poor little rich girl,’ he murmured, and turned his dark profile to the car window to survey briefly the English winter landscape. The fat flakes of snow had multiplied and now there were whole armies of them, swirling down to settle on the iron-hard ground.
‘In theory it was your inheritance,’ he continued relentlessly. ‘But when you married dear Orlando, of course, what was yours became his, and what was his became yours. That’s what I love about marriage,’ he added sarcastically. ‘The total trust involved.’
‘You cynical—’
‘Not to mention the fundamental inequality of the equation,’ he carried on relentlessly. ‘Orlando got half your substantial fortune, and you got half Orlando’s debts.’ He gave her a bland smile. ‘Or did you do the decent thing and get rid of them for him? It’s such a strain to begin a marriage with money problems pressing down on you, wouldn’t you say, Abby?’
‘Shut up!’ she yelled heatedly, turning in times of stress to the simple insults of their youth. ‘Just shut up, will you?’
‘Make me,’ he suggested softly.
She did not see the danger in his challenge. ‘Too right I will!’ Abigail lunged at him, hurling herself across the back seat of the car to land half on top of him, with her hands curled up into tiny fists.
She hit him over and over again, pummelling at the solid wall of his chest, calling him every name under the sun, scarcely aware of what she was doing or saying, until at last he captured both hands in one large, firm hand and held them away from him. She became suddenly aware that her face was very close to his, and that her heart was pounding inside her head. And that his lips were parted, almost as if ... as if...
The flicker of desire she felt was immediately obliterated by despair and Abby quickly shut her eyes. When she opened them again it was to find Nick staring down at her repressively, still grasping her hands tightly within his.
‘That’s enough, Abby,’ he told her sternly. ‘Understand? Enough!’
She shook her head, the thick, honey-coloured hair swaying wildly. ‘No! It is not enough!’ she retorted, her voice cracking with the strain of the last few days ... the last few months... ‘Oh, God, Nick...Nick...’
‘I know,’ he said quietly. ‘It’s all right, Abby. I know.’
‘No, you don’t!’ she wailed, as the memory of her marriage slammed home to crush her spirit yet again. ‘You can’t possibly know! No one can!’
‘I know that you need to cry,’ he told her, softly and very deliberately, and drew her into his arms. ‘I know that if you bottle it up much longer, then you’ll explode.’
‘Oh, Nick,’ she moaned, and, burying her face in his immaculate shoulder, Abigail dissolved into helpless, sobbing tears.
ABIGAIL did not move her head away from Nick’s shoulder, and he let her cry until there were no tears left, until her sobs became dry, exhausted gasps.
He took a large, beautifully pressed handkerchief from his pocket and silently handed it to her, but her hands were trembling so much from the flood of raw emotion that she could barely hold onto it. Abigail waved his hand away distractedly.
‘Here,’ he said, frowning. ‘Let me.’ His touch was almost gentle as he pushed stray strands of hair from her wet cheeks and then dried die tears away.
Abigail felt foolish and vulnerable. And Nick was the last person in the world she would have chosen to witness her breaking down in a full flood of hysterical tears.
‘Better now?’ he queried, after a moment or two.
‘Yes. Thank you.’
‘Then let’s go.’ Nick rapped on the smoked-glass panel which divided them from the driver, and it was only then that Abigail noticed the car had pulled over onto the side of the road.
‘W-why did we stop?’ she sniffed as the car pulled away.
‘I didn’t think that you’d want an audience while you wept,’ he said matter-of-factly. ‘And certainly not an audience consisting of that crowd up at the house,’ he added disparagingly.
Abigail blew her nose rather more noisily than usual. ‘They’re Orlando’s friends,’ she objected automatically, more because it was the habit of a lifetime,
