before she said, ‘That’s your problem.’
He brought the car to a standstill at the bottom of the wide, semi-circular stone steps which led up to the front door, and Marsha forced herself to look about her as though her heart didn’t feel as though it was being torn out by its roots. She had been almost demented with bitterness and pain when she had last left here, and certainly in no state to drive. She had hoped if she ever saw this place again she would be able to look at it with a measure of peace in her heart, but it wasn’t the case. She felt nearly as wretched with misery as she had then.
Taylor hadn’t answered her before he slid out of the car and walked round the bonnet to open her door, and now, as she took the hand he proferred and exited the Aston Martin, the haunting fragrance of lavender teased her nostrils. A bowling-green-smooth lawn bordered both sides of the curving drive, and the huge thatched house was framed by two cooper beech trees, their leaves glowing in the last of the sunlight, but it was the tiny hedges of lavender which ran from the bottom of the largest step in a wide half-moon shape right up to the corners of the house which produced the most evocative memory.
It had been this perfume which had remained with her the first time she had ever visited the house, on her second date with Taylor, and which had scented their nights in their big billowy bed when they had made love till dawn with the windows open to the scents and sounds of the night.
The pain which gripped her now wasn’t helped by the warm contact with his skin, which sent a hundred tiny needles of sensation shivering up her arm, and as soon as she was standing she extricated her hand from his.
‘You loved this place when the lavender was out.’ Taylor spoke quietly, his eyes tight on her pale face.
Her green eyes shot to meet hot amber. He had waited and planned to bring her here when the conditions were just right for maximum effect. She could read it in his face even if his words hadn’t confirmed it. The words she hissed at him would have shocked the motherly Hannah into a coma.
Taylor surveyed her flushed face thoughtfully. ‘Are you sure that last suggestion is anatomically possible?’
She glared at him. ‘You are the most manipulative, scheming, cunning man I’ve ever met.’
A corner of his mouth twitched. ‘Thank you. I think you’re pretty exceptional too.’
Suddenly the anger and resentment left her body in a great whoosh of sadness and regret for what might have been if he had been different. Or maybe if she had been different? If she had been bright and beautiful and sophisticated, like the women he had dated before he’d met her, maybe then he would have continued to love her and wouldn’t have needed anyone else. Maybe then she would have been enough for him?
She wasn’t aware of the expression on her face, or the droop to her mouth, so when he said, very softly, ‘I want you back, Fuzz. I don’t want a divorce,’ she stared at him for a moment, her breath catching in her throat at the matter-of-fact way he had spoken.
‘That…that’s impossible; you know it is.’ She took a step backwards away from him, her eyes wide.
He shook his head. ‘No, it isn’t. It’s incredibly simple. I tell my lawyer to go to hell and you do the same with yours.’
‘Nothing’s changed,’ she protested shakily.
‘Exactly.’ He eyed her sternly.
‘What I mean is—’
‘I know what you mean,’ he interrupted. ‘What I mean is I was faithful to you before you left and I’ve been faithful since. No women. Not one. That’s the bottom line.’
She stood straight and still, her chin high and her body language saying more than any words could have done.
He stared at her a moment more before saying quietly, ‘When I find out who whispered the sweet nothings in your ear, they’ll wish they’d never been born. Who was it, Fuzz? Who wanted to destroy us so badly they fed your insecurities with the very thing you most feared?’
‘What?’ She reached out to lean against the car, needing its solid support. If he had yelled at her she could have taken it in her stride, but the almost tender note in his voice frightened her to death. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m not insecure. Just because I’m not the sort of woman to turn a blind eye to—’
‘Insecurities which came into being when your mother dumped you in the hands of the social services,’ he interrupted again, his voice flat now, and holding a ruthlessness which was more typical of him. ‘Insecurities which grew in that damn awful place you were brought up in and which crippled you emotionally. The ones which told you no one could love you or want you or need you, not for ever anyway. Why would they when the one person in all the world who should love you beyond life gave you away like an unwanted gift?’
‘Stop it.’ Her face was as white as lint. Even her lips had lost their colour. ‘Why are you doing this?’
‘To kick-start the process of making you wake up,’ he said, no apology in his tone. ‘I’d been waiting eighteen months for it to happen naturally before I realised I could wait eighteen years—or eighty. I’m not that patient.’
‘I hate you.’ She stared at him, wounded beyond measure by the things he had said.
‘No, you don’t,’ he said evenly. ‘You just think you do.’
She was saved having to make a reply when the front door opened on a delighted screech of her name. ‘Marsha! Oh, Marsha, honey.’ Hannah’s plump bulk fairly flew down the steps, and the next moment Marsha was enfolded in a floral scented embrace that took the breath out of her lungs.
‘Don’t throttle her, woman.’
She was released to the sound of Taylor’s mordant voice and Hannah moved her back a little, staring into her face as she said, ‘You’re thinner. You’re too thin. You’re not eating enough.’
‘Oh, Hannah.’ It was as if she had only seen her the day before, Marsha thought wonderingly. The last eighteen months had been swept away in a moment of time and now she couldn’t prevent the tears flowing as she said, ‘I’ve missed you.’
Hannah hugged her again, and there was no reproach in her voice or manner when she said, ‘Not as much as I’ve missed you, child.’
They clung together a moment longer before Taylor’s voice brought them apart once more, saying, ‘Much as I hate to mention it, I’m starving. Can we continue the reunion inside?’
‘Oh, you, thinking of your stomach at a time like this,’ Hannah chided smilingly through her own tears.
Marsha walked up the steps and into the house with her arm in Hannah’s, and once in the beautifully light-oak panelled hall the Jamaican housekeeper pushed her in the direction of the drawing room, saying, ‘The cocktails are all ready. You go in and sit down a while, and I’ll call you through in a few minutes.’
‘Thank you, Hannah.’ It was Taylor who answered, taking Marsha’s arm as he led her into the gracious rose and pale lilac high-ceilinged room which had French windows opening out on to the grounds at the back of the house.
Marsha knew what she would see if she walked over to where antique lace was billowing gently in the slight
