LITMIR.BIZ

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I’ve dropped my coffee. I ought to get a cloth and clear it up before it stains the floor. I ought . . .

      But she couldn’t move. All she could do was read those seven words over and over again, until they danced in front of her eyes, reassembling themselves in strange meaningless patterns.

      She felt her fingers curl round the paper, crushing it, reducing it to a tight ball which she threw, violently, as far as her strength allowed.

      For a moment she stood, almost absently wiping her hands down the sides of her coffee-stained skirt, then, with a little choking cry, she bolted up to the bathroom where she was briefly and unpleasantly sick.

      When the world had stopped revolving, she stripped off her clothes and showered, using water almost hotter than she could bear, as if scouring herself of some physical contamination.

      Then she towelled herself dry, and re-dressed in leggings and a tunic.

      She seemed to be looking at a ghost, she thought, as she combed her damp hair into shape. A white-faced spectre with shocked, enormous eyes.

      Downstairs, she fetched a dustpan and cleaning materials, and set about cleaning up the spilled coffee, almost relishing the physical effort required to scrub at the stained floorboards. The cream rug was marked too, she noticed, frowning, and that would have to go to a specialist cleaning firm.

      She stopped right there, with a tiny gasp. Her marriage was in ruins, and she was worrying about a bloody rug?

      She knelt staring into space, aware of a deep inner trembling. Knowing that it was composed equally of anger and fear.

      Heard her voice, hoarse and shaken, say, ‘It’s not true. It can’t be true, or I’d have known. I’d have sensed something, surely. It’s just a piece of random filth. Someone who hates us. Who’s jealous of our happiness.’

      The conclusion made her flesh crawl, but it was infinitely preferable to any other possibility, she realised, grimacing painfully.

      She got to her feet, and took the china fragments into the kitchen for disposal. The champagne bottle in the wastebin jarred her. Before she could stop herself, she was standing by the sink, lifting the flutes to the sunlight, studying them minutely for any tell-tale signs of lipstick.

      Oh, for heaven’s sake, she derided herself. Don’t let someone’s malice turn you paranoid.

      She put the glasses away, emptied the wastebin, and cleaned it meticulously. Then she deliberately made herself another cup of coffee, and carried it through to the living area, seating herself on one of the cream and maize striped sofas.

      Normally, the panorama of the river fascinated her, the boats, the buildings which crowded the banks, the play of light on the water. Now, she gazed at it unseeingly, her mind running in aching circles, as she drank her coffee. It burned all the way down, but the inner chill remained.

      She thought, I don’t want this to have happened. I want everything back the way it was before . . .

      In some ways, she wished she hadn’t come home. That she’d accepted Peter Henderson’s offer and stayed for dinner in Gloucestershire.

      But that would have made no difference. The letter would still have been there, awaiting her eventual return.

      She needed to find some way to deal with the situation. Work out some plan of action. Yet she felt totally at a loss.

      She could always go for straight confrontation, she acknowledged, frowning. Just hand Ryan the letter and watch his reaction.

      She put down the empty cup, and retrieved the crumpled ball of paper from its corner, endeavouring to smooth out the creases.

      I can’t pretend to treat it lightly—make a joke of it, she thought. As soon as he sees what I did to it, he’ll know it mattered—that it upset me. I can’t let him know that. Not until I’m sure. One way or the other.

      She stopped abruptly, with a small gasp, aware of how far and how fast she had come from her original total disbelief.

      She found herself remembering an article she’d read in a magazine at the hairdressers. Titled ‘His Cheating Heart’, it had detailed some of the ways to check if a man was being unfaithful. And one of the chief danger signs, she recalled, her heart lurching sickly, had been long, unexplained absences.

      She said aloud, huskily, almost desperately, ‘Ryan—where the hell are you?’

      No, she thought, setting her jaw. She would not let herself think like this. Five years of love and trust could not be destroyed by a single act of malice. She wouldn’t allow it.

      So she wouldn’t mention the letter at all, she told herself, drawing a deep breath. In fact, she would make believe she had never seen it. That it didn’t exist. She would make no wild accusations. Drop no veiled hints. She would act completely naturally, she thought fiercely. But—she would also be on her guard.

      She tore the letter in half, then into quarters, before reducing it to strips, and thence into a mound of minute fragments which she piled onto a saucer and burned.

      She flushed the ashes down the sink, and wished the words could be erased from her mind with equal ease.

      She chose a bottle of Ryan’s favourite Bordeaux from the rack, and opened it. A nice, wifely gesture to welcome him home, she thought, biting her lip. Except there was no positive guarantee that he would be home . . .

      If he didn’t return, of course, that would be a whole new ball game. But she would deal with that only when she had to.

      She sat curled up on the sofa, sipping her wine, and watching television, aware of the light fading from the sky above the river. But the words and images on the screen passed her by, as if she were blind and deaf. Her mind was occupied only by her own heavy thoughts.

      It was with a sense of shock that she discovered that it was now completely dark, and realised how long she must have been sitting there. She uncoiled herself stiffly, forcing herself to move around the big room, switching on lamps, and drawing the voluminous drapes across the windows. Closing out the night, and the thousands of lights which twinkled at her like small prying eyes. Reinforcing the fact that she was still, unaccountably, alone.

      She thought, with anguish, He’s not coming back. And how am I going to bear it . . . ?

      The sudden sharp rattle of a key in the door made her wheel round, her heart pounding.

      She said with a gasp ‘Ryan? Oh, Ryan, it’s you.’

      ‘You were expecting someone else?’ He spoke lightly, but the glance he directed at her across the intervening space was searching. He shut the door behind him, and put down his briefcase.

      ‘Of course not, but I was getting worried. I didn’t know where you were.’

      ‘I’m sorry, but I didn’t know you’d be around to worry.’ His brows lifted questioningly. ‘To what do I owe this unexpected pleasure?’

      He was wearing, she noticed, his favourite pale grey trousers, topped by a white shirt, a silk tie in sombre jewel colours, and his black cashmere jacket. Not his usual casual weekend gear at all.

      She swallowed. ‘Oh, the bride got cold feet and cancelled. A Special Occasions first. All that lovely food, and the prettiest marquee in England, and no takers.’ She realised she was beginning to babble, and bit her lip.

      ‘Ah, well,’ Ryan said lightly. ‘It’s probably a blessing in disguise. One less mistake to chalk up to experience. One less digit to add to the divorce statistics.’

      She stared at him, suddenly and totally arrested. ‘That’s a very cynical viewpoint.’

      ‘I thought I was just being realistic.’ He paused. ‘Did it cause you a lot of problems?’

      ‘Enough.’ Kate shrugged. ‘But it also gave me the weekend back.’ She hesitated in her turn. ‘I did phone and leave a message. You must have been out all day.’

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