stairs with all the enthusiasm of a French nobleman heading for the guillotine.
∗ ∗ ∗
She’d heard the crunch of gravel under tyres, heard the garage door slide open and closed, heard the murmur of his voice as he talked to the dog. And then silence.
He’d gone into the study, she realised, peering out of the bedroom window and seeing the spill of light across the drive.
Why hadn’t he come to bed?
Guilt?
Indifference?
It could have been either, because he surely wasn’t still working. She felt the crushing weight of sadness overwhelm her. She didn’t know him any more. It was like living with a stranger. He hardly spoke, all his utterances monosyllabic, and the dry wit which had been his trademark seemed to have been wiped away since Lottie’s birth.
And she couldn’t do it any more.
She heard the stairs creak, and turned on her side away from him. She heard the bathroom door close, water running, the click of the light switch as he came out then felt the mattress dip slightly.
‘Luce?’
His voice came softly to her in the darkness, deep and gruff, the word slightly slurred with tiredness.
She bit her lip. She wasn’t going to do this, wasn’t going to let him try and win her round. She knew what would happen if she spoke. He’d apologise, nuzzle her neck, kiss her, and then her traitorous body would forgive him everything and the moment would be lost, swept under the carpet as usual.
Well, not this time. This time they were going to talk about it.
Tomorrow. Without fail.
He lay beside her in the silence of the night, listening to the quiet, slightly uneven sound of her breathing.
She wasn’t asleep. He knew that, but he wasn’t going to push it. He was too tired to be reasonable, and they’d end up having an almighty row and flaying each other to shreds.
Except they hadn’t even done that recently.
They hadn’t done anything much together recently, and he couldn’t remember the last time he’d made love to her.
Weeks ago?
Months?
No. Surely not months.
He was too tired to work it out, but the hollow ache of regret in his chest was preventing him from sleeping, and he lay there, staring at the ghostly white moonlight filtering round the edge of the curtains, until exhaustion won and he finally fell asleep.
‘Did he come home?’
‘Not until very, very late,’ she told Emily. ‘Here, eat your toast. Megan’s had hers.’
She painstakingly spread butter onto the toast, then stuck the buttery knife into the chocolate spread and smeared it on the toast, precisely edge to edge, her tongue sticking slightly out of the side of her mouth in concentration. When it was all done to her satisfaction, she looked up and said, ‘So didn’t you go at all? Even later?’
‘No. It doesn’t matter.’
‘Yes, it does, Mummy. He broke a promise!’
She blinked away the tears and hugged her daughter. Their daughter. So like her father—the floppy dark hair, the slate blue eyes, the tilt of her lips—everything. Megan with her light brown curls and clear green eyes was the image of her mother, but Emily and Lottie were little clones of Andy, and just looking at them broke her heart.
Em was so straightforward, so honest and kind and loving, everything she’d fallen for in Andy. But now …
‘Where is he? Is he still sleeping?’
‘I think so. He came to bed very late, so I left him. What do you want to do today?’
‘Something with Daddy.’
‘Can we feed the ducks?’ Megan asked, glancing up from the dog’s bed where she was curled up with Stanley gently pulling his ears up into points. The patient dog loved Megan, and tolerated almost anything. ‘Stanley likes to feed the ducks.’
‘Only because you give him the bread,’ she said drily. ‘Yes, we can feed the ducks.’
‘I’ll go and wake Daddy up,’ Emily said, jumping down off her chair and sprinting for the stairs.
‘Em, no! Leave him to sleep—’
But it was too late. She heard voices on the landing, and realised Andy must already be up. The stairs creaked, and her heart began to thump a little harder, the impending confrontation that had been eating at her all night rearing its ugly head over the breakfast table.
‘Daddy, you have to say sorry to Mummy because you broke a promise,’ Em said, towing him into the kitchen, and Lucy looked up and met his stony gaze and her heart sank.
‘I had no choice. Didn’t Mummy explain that to you? She should have done. I can’t leave people to die, Em, promise or not. That’s my biggest promise, and it has to come first.’
‘Then you shouldn’t have promised Mummy.’
‘I would have thought our marriage vows were your biggest promise,’ Lucy said softly, and he felt a knife twist in his heart.
‘Don’t go there, Luce. That isn’t fair.’
‘Isn’t it?’
His glance flicked over the children warningly, and she nodded. ‘Girls, go and get washed and dressed.’
‘Are we feeding the ducks?’
‘Yes,’ Lucy said, and they pelted for the door.
‘I want to carry the bread—’
‘No, you give it all to Stanley—’
‘Are we feeding the ducks?’ he asked when their thundering footsteps had receded, and she shrugged.
‘I don’t know. I am, and they are. Are you going to deign to join us?’
‘Luce, that’s bloody unfair—
‘No, it’s not. You’re bloody unfair. And don’t swear in front of Lottie.’
He clamped his teeth together on the retort and turned to the kettle.
‘For heaven’s sake, Lucy, you’re being totally unreasonable. I didn’t have a choice, I let you know, I apologised—’
‘So that’s all right, is it? You apologised, so it makes it all OK? What about our marriage vows, Andy? Don’t they mean anything to you any more? Don’t I mean anything? Don’t we? Us, you and me, and the children we’ve had together? Because right now it doesn’t feel like it.
