no use, Niall. Perhaps it’s time we both accepted our marriage is over.’
The shock on Niall’s face was unmistakeable.
‘Divorce—is that what you want? Is life with me so unbearable?’
Yes, she wanted to shout. Living with you, living like this, knowing you don’t love me any more—if you ever did—is tearing me apart. But she just looked at him in silence. Perhaps if they had shouted, argued when things had started to go wrong, they might have been able to fashion some sort of life together. As it was, they had barely been speaking when she had miscarried.
‘No, I don’t want a divorce. Upstairs, just now, I promised Ella I’d never leave her. But we have to find a way of living together—for Ella’s sake. You can’t be happy either.’
‘Why did you marry me, Robina?’ Niall ground out. ‘I thought you wanted the same things I did. A home and a family.’
‘Instead you got landed with a woman who can’t have children and whose career is important.’ Despite her best intentions, Robina felt her voice rise. They stood glaring at each other.
‘Daddy, Robina.’ A small voice broke into the room. ‘Why are you shouting? Why are you angry? Did I do something wrong?’
‘No, oh no, Ella,’ Robina said, turning to the forlorn figure in the doorway. Niall held out his arms and Ella flew into them, burying her head in his shoulder.
‘You could never make me angry, pumpkin,’ he said. ‘Never, ever. Not in a hundred years. Not unless you don’t go to bed when I say so, or hide my newspaper or…’ He pretended to look cross.
Unconvinced, Ella lifted her head from his shoulder and looked him straight in the eyes. ‘Then you must be angry with Robina. What has she done?’ Her face crumpled. ‘You’re not going to divorce, are you? My friend Tommy’s parents are getting a divorce and he has to stay with his mummy during the week and go and live with his daddy at the weekends and he doesn’t have any friends where his daddy lives and his mummy is always crying and his daddy is always angry. That’s not going to happen to us, is it?’ She placed her small hands on either side of her father’s face. ‘Robina isn’t going to go away and leave us, is she, Daddy? Not like Mummy did. Robina promised me she would always be here for me.’
Niall looked at Robina across the top of his daughter’s head, the anguish in his eyes like a kick to her solar plexus. He was a proud man, and Robina knew he would never beg, but he was pleading with his eyes. Not because he wanted her to stay for himself but because he knew it would break his daughter’s heart if she left, and one thing Niall loved more than anything else in the world was Ella. She had thought that she had managed to reassure Ella, but she obviously hadn’t. Ella had taken her words literally. She’d always be here for her. And she wouldn’t break that promise, no matter how much living with a man who no longer loved her was eating her up inside.
‘We are not going to divorce, silly,’ Robina said firmly, aware of the relief in Niall’s eyes as she said the words. ‘Grown-ups argue sometimes, but then they make up and everything’s all right again.’ She flicked a glance in Niall’s direction, knowing he wouldn’t fail to notice the irony of her words. ‘We are a family and families stay together, just like I told you. Your mummy wouldn’t have left you if she’d had any choice and now I am here to look after you and love you for ever. Or at least until you are a big girl and have a family of your own.’
‘I’m glad,’ Ella said with a tentative smile. ‘Cos I’m never going to get married. I’m going to stay with you and Daddy for ever. Because I love Robina very much, Daddy. Not as much as my real mummy, but almost.’
The flash of anguish in Niall’s eyes made Robina’s heart twist.
‘And you love Robina too, don’t you, Daddy?’ Ella persisted. Robina realised she wasn’t going to give up until she had the reassurance she craved.
‘I married her, didn’t I?’ Niall said evasively. He tossed his daughter into the air. ‘Remember? You were there.’
Robina’s heart cracked a little more as she remembered their wedding day, only three months after they had met. The spring day brilliantly bright, not a cloud in the sky. The pipers, wearing full highland dress, playing them in and out of the small seventeenth-century church; dancing with Niall, who had held her close in his arms as if he couldn’t bear to let her go; everyone so happy for them, her silent toast to her absent family, and her dead father the only shadow on an otherwise perfect day. With her new family around her, and her new, exciting career ahead of her, she hadn’t thought it was possible to be so happy.
Oh, yes, he had married her. But how quickly it had all gone wrong. Niall had spent so much time at work and her career had taken up so much time that they had barely seen each other after the wedding. Slowly the doubts had started to creep in. Then in one awful series of events, it had all come crashing down. She closed her eyes against the familiar sweep of pain. Would she ever get used to the gut-wrenching sense of loss?
‘So why don’t we do anything together any more?’ It seemed Ella still wasn’t convinced. They had completely underestimated how much the sensitive child was picking up of the strain between them.
‘Robina and Daddy are busy,’ Niall replied. ‘But we still have the weekends. Last weekend we went to the zoo. Or have you forgotten?’ He wriggled his eyebrows at her in an attempt to make her laugh. But Ella was having none of it.
‘No, we don’t. Sometimes I have you, like at the zoo, and sometimes I have Robina—I mean Mummy—but I don’t have you together. And you just said we were a family.’
Niall’s eyes darkened when he heard Ella call Robina Mummy for the first time in his hearing. How did he feel about his daughter’s explicit acceptance of Robina? Did it make it that much harder for him to acknowledge their marriage had broken down? Possibly irretrievably? There was no way of knowing. The little girl had picked up on the tension between her parents and it had obviously been worrying her for a while. It shamed Robina that they had been too busy, too wrapped up in their own problems, to notice.
‘Then we will have to do something about that,’ Niall said firmly. ‘But right now it’s bedtime, pumpkin. Come on, let’s get you tucked in.’ And before Ella could protest further, he carried her out of the room and up the stairs.
Robina sank into her favourite chair and stared into the fire. Whatever she and Niall felt about each other, however angry they were, they needed to make sure Ella was happy. It wasn’t fair to let the child sense that they were having problems. And for the little girl to worry it was her fault! That was unforgivable.
In keeping with her mood, the wind hurled rain against the window and Robina wrapped her arms around her body in a bid to draw some warmth into her chilled soul.
‘She wants you to go up and say goodnight again.’ Niall’s voice came from the doorway. Despite his size he moved quietly.
Robina eased herself out of her chair. ‘Of course,’ she said.
But as she passed him he grabbed her wrist, forcing her to stop. The touch of his hand sent shock waves through her body. How long had it been since he had touched her?
‘If you want a divorce, I won’t stand in your way.’
‘Is that what you want?’ Robina said tiredly, not knowing if she had the strength to fight him any longer.
