‘Psychoanalyst now are we?’ Valerie jeered, her expression bitter. ‘Actually I’m fine. Llew is dead. Naroom will soon be sold. It was never really my home. More her shrine. No need for us to put up a pretence anymore. But don’t kid yourself. The conflicts we’ve had over the years have been caused by your pushing me or your sister to the limit. I wasn’t your darling mummy. You were such an assertive child, always demanding your father’s attention. You took your demands to the next stage with your husband. Small wonder he left you.’
‘Oh go jump, Val!’ Allegra had come to the end of her tether. ‘I left Mark. But don’t let’s upset your mind-set.’
‘Mark told me you made him feel alienated,’ Valerie persisted.
‘Since when did you become Mark’s champion?’ Allegra asked wearily. ‘He’s ancient history, Val.’
The expression on Valerie’s face was one of primitive antagonism. ‘Alienation was the cause of much of his unhappiness and his turning to someone else.’
Allegra groaned with frustration. ‘You’re talking through your hat. It was more than someone else, Val.’
‘I bet you had your little flings as well,’ Valerie quickly countered. ‘You demand constant admiration.’
‘None of which has ever been handed out by you. Some stepmothers are wonderful. Heaps of them! But your crowning achievement has been picking on me. All your love has been given to your own child. I had to lean heavily on Dad. You set out early to drive a wedge between me and Chloe. You bred your own resentment into her. As for my marriage, I respected my vows.’
Valerie gave a mocking smile. ‘The reason I understand exactly what Mark meant when he said you alienated him is because you alienate me.’
‘Then I’m sorry!’ Allegra threw up her hands, thinking her stepmother’s problems with her would never be resolved until the family—such as it was—split up. Her father had held them all together. Now he was gone. ‘I have to get changed,’ she said, moving towards the door. ‘Rory Compton should be here soon.’
‘Set to fascinate him, are we?’ Valerie called after her.
The facade of caring stepmother was rapidly crumbling.
In her bedroom Allegra changed out of the loose dress she’d been wearing since breakfast into a cool top with a gypsy style skirt that created a breeze around her legs. She slung a silver studded belt around her narrow waist and hunted up a pair of turquoise sandals to match her outfit. It was second nature to her to try to look her best no matter how she felt. For one thing her job as Fashion Editor on a glossy magazine demanded it. Besides, looking good gave her the extra confidence she needed. It helped her present her best face to the world.
Inside, these days, she felt totally derailed. Her beloved father gone. The only person in the world who had truly loved her. Val coming out into the open, spitting chips! No husband to be there for her. What does a woman do when she can’t keep her husband of three years faithful? So much for beauty! She had thought in her naivete, she and Mark would be together for life—Mark the father of her children—but she and Mark had been marching to a very different tune. Fidelity simply wasn’t in his nature, though he had given every outward semblance of it for quite a while. That was until she received in the mail a batch of photographs, stunning evidence of her husband’s betrayal. They were sent anonymously of course. Not a single word accompanied them as though the photographs said it all; which indeed they did. They were from someone who didn’t so much care about her pain as showing Mark up for what he was. Allegra had always had the idea that person was a woman. Someone who may have been a former lover of Mark’s and now hated him.
Mark’s explanation when she had confronted him with them had been quite extraordinary. He had acted calm, as though he couldn’t quite grasp her devastating shock.
‘It’s long over, Ally!’ He’d assured her in his smooth, convincing stockbroker’s voice. ‘It meant absolutely nothing. All it did was relieve a physical ache at the time. Let’s face it, my darling, I don’t get as much sex from you, as I want, though I have to admit it increases your allure. Why do women make such a big deal about men having extra needs? It’s you I love. You’re my wife. No other woman can touch you. I’ll never leave you and you’ll never leave me. I’d be devastated if you did.’
She was the one who was devastated but, God help her, she had forgiven him. It was too early in their marriage to call it a day. She certainly couldn’t go home to Val to seek advice and comfort. She told herself lots of people make mistakes. She made herself believe it had been Mark’s only infidelity. In retrospect, of course it hadn’t been. Mark was addicted to sex like another man might have been addicted to golf. It was a necessary relaxation, a fix. Mark was handsome, charming, successful, generous. Especially with his favours.
In the beginning he had been a tender, sensitive, romantic lover, eager to please her. She realised now what he had been doing was gradually trying to break her in to his little ways she found vaguely demeaning, though she tried to understand where he was coming from. It wasn’t as though there was much harm in what he wanted her to do it. It wasn’t even over-poweringly sensual. But she couldn’t help feeling titillating little games were ridiculous. Certainly they didn’t turn her on.
‘Sweetheart, you’re not a bit of fun!’
Seeing how she felt, he backed off. Overnight he rectified his behaviour, which had never been evident during their courtship, returning to the considerate, caring lover. She’d believed like a fool they had come to an understanding. Nothing further was going to be allowed to disrupt their lives. Only Mark secretly moved back to the kind of women who were up for the kind of sexual kicks he craved. The other women turned out to be married women from their own circle. Why had she been so shocked? Faithless friends made faithless lovers. All of them had been exceedingly careful, not wanting exposure or even to break up their existing marriages. There was no wild partying, no staying out overnight, much less for long weekends. Their marriage might have survived for quite a bit longer only she had returned home from work unexpectedly early one afternoon only to find Mark and a married friend of theirs chasing one another around the bedroom.
Incredibly she hadn’t been laid low. She hadn’t screamed or cried or yelled at the woman to get dressed and get the hell out of her house. For a moment she had very nearly laughed. They looked so ridiculous staring back at her. Like a pair of startled kangaroos caught in the headlights of a four-wheel drive.
‘Goodness, Penny, I scarcely recognised you without your clothes!’
Then she had turned about and walked straight out of the house, booking into a hotel.
So here she was at twenty-seven, a betrayed wife. A betrayed ex-wife. And having a hard time coming to terms with what a fool she had been. She had truly believed Mark was a man of integrity. Yet love or what she thought had been love had flown out the window. Indeed it had all but taken wing when she had first received those compromising photographs with her clever handsome husband caught in the act, his unflattering position preventing her from seeing his partner-in-crime’s face. At one stage, as she bent over the photographs, she had the weirdest notion that partner could have been Chloe—something about the slight plumpness of the legs, what she could see of the woman’s body?—but quickly rejected the idea, disgusted with herself for even allowing such a notion to cross her mind. Chloe would never do such a thing. Chloe was far too honourable.
Incredibly Mark had tried desperately to save their marriage, saying she was making something out of nothing. Just how did one define nothing? A man wasn’t intended to remain monogamous, he said. Everyone knew that. Smart women accepted it; turned a blind eye.
He obviously didn’t want to consider the innumerable crimes of passion that hit the headlines. He continued to hold to the line he ‘adored’ her. He knew he had a problem of sorts, but he would seek counselling if that’s what she wanted. They would go together.
She had declined