Forsaking All Others. SUSANNE MCCARTHY

into his lip.

      “Bitch!” He let her go, anger flaring in his eyes. A small trickle of blood had appeared at the corner of his mouth, and she stared at it in horror.

      “I…I’m…sorry. I didn’t mean…to hurt you,” she stammered, pain twisting in her heart. “But you…shouldn’t have done that.”

      “No, I shouldn’t,” he conceded on a harsh note of anger. “You’re the woman who stood at the altar with my cousin not more than a few hours ago, vowing to forsake all others. You didn’t manage to keep it up for very long, did you?”

      She drew in a long, deep breath, struggling to control the ragged beat of her heart. “Please don’t ever touch me again,” she insisted with fierce dignity. “I’m Jeremy’s wife, and I intend to do everything I can to make him happy. I don’t care whether you believe me or not—time will prove that I mean what I say.”

      And, turning him an aloof shoulder, she gathered up the rustling silk folds of her wedding-dress and hurried away, back through the quiet shadows of the garden to the safety of the bright, crowded marquee.

       CHAPTER THREE

      MADDY turned away from the window—but the guilty memory of that kiss still haunted her heart, as it had for almost nine years. She had known as she had run from the rose-walk that she had made a terrible mistake by marrying Jeremy—but as she had slipped back into the marquee he had spotted her, darting over to catch her up in his arms, and she had known that she couldn’t tell him.

      She had tried—she really had—to make him happy. Maybe if she hadn’t got pregnant so quickly…But all too soon she had been suffering morning sickness that had lasted for most of the day, and then the discomfort of swollen ankles which had forced her to rest with her feet up for a good deal of the time.

      She hadn’t seen much of Leo; after his engagement to Saskia had ended he had gone back to America for almost a year, and even after his return they had met only at family gatherings, where he had never been more than distant and polite towards her—she could almost have believed that that kiss had been the product of her own fevered imagination.

      Sometimes she had wondered if Jeremy sensed something, try as she might to hide it from him. Maybe that had been why things had started to go wrong…? But no—it had been his unwillingness to face up to the realities of life, to the constant demands of a small baby, to the need to spend money on boring things like repairs to the roof instead of a shiny new car.

      And ultimately if had been finding one of Saskia’s earrings on the back seat of his car, and his sheepish admission that he had been having an affair with her on and off for most of the time they had been married.

      She had almost been expecting something of the kind, but that it had been Saskia had been the worst blow of all. Suddenly more than ten years of her own history seemed to have been cast into a different light, showing up all the glaring faults in that friendship that had been one of the few things she had had to hold on to. She had been able to forgive, but not to forget, and in the end they had agreed quite amicably that they couldn’t go on.

      And now she was going to have to deal with all those unresolved feelings that had lain dormant for so long. It had taken her about two seconds to realise that Leo still had the same devastating effect on her—and only a little longer to realise that he still regarded her with the same thinly veiled contempt.

      The sound of voices downstairs in the hall warned her that Jeremy’s sister had returned; she pulled a wry face, but she was going to have to face her sooner or later, so it might as well be now. Drawing in a long, steadying breath, she crossed the room and opened the bedroom door. At least she had the slight advantage of being the one descending the stairs—even when she had lived here, Julia had somehow always managed to make her feel as though she was an interloper in this house, that she had no right to be here. This time she was going to have to assert herself right from the beginning.

      Jeremy’s sister was only a few years older than herself, but her imperious manner had always made her appear much older. Her voice, as she handed out instructions to Mrs Harris about what to cook for dinner, had the quality of cut glass. Halfway down the stairs, Maddy paused for effect, armoured with a cool dignity that nine years ago she would have given anything to possess.

      “Good afternoon, Julia,” she greeted her, pleased to note that her voice was well under control.

      The older woman glanced up, her expression registering a faint surprise. “Madeleine…!” She recovered herself quickly. “You managed to find the time to come over, then?” she enquired with stiff cordiality. “Is Jamie with you?”

      Maddy refused to allow herself to be needled. “Yes, he’s here—he’s down in the kitchen, playing with his kitten.” With a flicker of surprise, she recognised the two children who had arrived with her sister-in-law. “Goodness, it’s…Aubrey and Venetia, isn’t it? How you’ve grown!”

      “It’s a long time since you’ve seen them,” Julia reminded her with a touch of asperity. “Run along downstairs, you two,” she added briskly to the children. “And don’t make a nuisance of yourselves.”

      Aubrey, the older of the two—he would be about ten now, by Maddy’s reckoning—slanted his mother a look of cool insolence that would have earned Jamie a good smack, and with a small shrug of his shoulders which implied that his mother’s injunction was insultingly juvenile for one of his mature years strolled away in the direction of the kitchen door. Venetia, meanwhile—a plain, dumpy child of the same age as Jamie—pouted and put her thumb in her mouth, clutching at her mother’s skirt.