Colin was a slim man but very fit, an inch under six feet. She was a light-boned five-three, her body weight constantly dropping as she lost appetite. She had learned from her beautiful, gracious mother how to be a good cook, a good hostess, a good homemaker, but Colin had never been satisfied with her. There was no way she could please him. Not even in bed, which was crazy, because he couldn’t get enough of her. Sex, too, was a way of controlling her.
“Just as well you’re beautiful, Laura,” he’d taunted her, and she was too hurting, too demoralized to fight back. “Because you’re bloody useless in bed. You don’t know the first thing about pleasing a man. You need to get out a few books. You act so guilty you’re like some frigid little nun.”
She was frigid now. With him. Mentally and emotionally removing herself as much as she possibly could from the act. Was this marriage, or rape? She felt demeaned, defiled, humiliated beyond all telling, her mind bent on strategies for escape even as she lived with the underlying fear he would find her wherever she went.
Laura realized with dread she knew her strange husband better than anyone, outside his mother, who would probably defend her son to the death.
They’d met by chance. Overnight the whole tenor of her quiet, studious life had changed. He had bombarded her with attention: fine restaurants, red roses, chocolates, champagne, books he wanted her to read—he never read them himself. He was so charming, so attentive, so handsome and cultured, and their romance had flowered.
She had realized too late she was simply filling the deep void left by the premature death of her beloved father in a road accident when she was seventeen.
The stage had been set. She’d ceded him power. A virgin still, because she’d wanted to be absolutely sure she was giving herself to someone she loved and who loved her, she’d been ridiculously high-minded. She thought of herself now as having been incredibly naïve.
She’d been studying classical piano—very motivated, self-disciplined, a born musician. Her parents had always been so proud of her and her accomplishment. She’d worked hard to give something back to them.
Her father’s death had been a tremendous blow to her and her mother, striking grief into their souls. She’d been an only child, living a near idyllic existence.
She grew up overnight.
Strangely, her mother had adjusted to their loss much more quickly than she had. Her mother had confided she couldn’t face life being alone. She’d had one happy marriage, a marvellous partner. She desired another. It wasn’t a betrayal of Laura’s father. She had his memory locked away in her heart. It was a recognition of the great joys a happy marriage could bring.
Her mother had eventually found a good, caring man, a fellow guest at a wedding. Six months later her mother had married her sheep farmer and gone to settle with her new husband in the South Island of New Zealand, a most beautiful part of the world.
Laura had stayed behind, though they’d both wanted her to join them. Laura believed the marriage would develop better if her mother and her new husband were left alone. She could always visit.
She’d already graduated from the Conservatorium and started on a Doctorate of Music at the university. She’d taken private pupils as well, for experience and to supplement her income—though her father had left her and her mother well provided for. Her father had been absolutely wonderful. She’d had to struggle to survive without him. And she’d been struggling ever since.
She hadn’t taken a fine man like her father for a husband. She had taken Colin, a man with serious problems, a man who took pleasure in hurting her.
The first time she’d met him was at a concert given by a visiting piano virtuoso, a wonderfully gifted woman who really made the keyboard sound. Colin had remarked in a patronising aside that no woman pianist could ever hope to match a man. She should have told him he’d do better to stick to surgery, where he could play God. Colin, the dyed-in-the-wool chauvinist. She should have been warned then.
As chance or malign fate had it, they’d each attended the concert on their own. She and a girlfriend had had tickets, but her friend had had to cancel at the last minute through sickness. In the intermission Colin had shifted in his seat to seek her opinion, smiling with open pleasure and admiration into her eyes. He had suggested a glass of champagne in the foyer.
It was the first time ever she’d allowed herself to be “picked up”, as she thought of it, but he had seemed eminently respectable, especially when he’d told her he was a doctor from a well-known medical family.
After the performance they had gone on to have coffee at a popular night spot. There she had opened up as she’d never done before. She had been lonely. That was the reason. Still cast as the beloved, indulged only child at twenty-two. Her life, in a sense, had been cloistered.
She recognised it all now. She’d been in a very vulnerable situation, badly missing her mother and father. Colin had seemed so sympathetic. She supposed because of her father she gravitated towards older men. Also Colin loved music, which she had intended to make her profession.
She soon learned Colin had only pretended to love music. In actual fact it meant little to him. A friend had given him the ticket. At a rare loose end, he had decided to go along. He was a man of culture after all. That was the image he liked to project.
Their meeting, he told her exhaustively, had been destiny. She had been there waiting for him to come and carry her off to a new life together. She’d thought he meant they were perfectly matched. She couldn’t count the number of times he’d told her she looked beautiful. Before their marriage.
“Your long gleaming dark hair, your green eyes, white skin! The gentle haunting beauty I admire above all!”
What he had really been saying was he thought she would be not only easy to control, but exquisite to torment.
If only she’d been older. Had known more about life. If only her father had lived. If only her mother hadn’t remarried and gone away. The endless ifs.
She hadn’t been ready for commitment. She’d needed a little time. But Colin had swept her off her feet. He was already in his early thirties, which he perceived as exactly the right age for a man to marry. She was an innocent ten years his junior.
Colin had accomplished their whirlwind engagement within three months. His parents—she’d had to hide from herself the fact she couldn’t like them—seemed to recognise she was the sort of young woman their adored son wanted. Someone he could dominate. Certainly someone who would look up to him and allow herself to be moulded by his hand.
Her mother and stepfather had journeyed from New Zealand to meet Colin a scant fortnight before the wedding. Her mother had been genuinely delighted with her prospective son-in-law. Colin had gone all out to be charming. Craig hadn’t been quite so forthcoming, simply saying it was very obvious Colin was “very much in love with his lovely, gifted, fiancée.”
The wedding had been lavish. The planning having been taken out of her control by Sonia Morcombe. Their whole future had stretched ahead of them.
The abuse had started on their honeymoon, profoundly shocking her. She’d gone into a stupefied withdrawal, wondering if she was going to end up dead when all he seemed to want to do was take her to bed.
She mustn’t flirt with every man she met. She mustn’t be provocative in her conversation. She mustn’t smile and tilt her head, so. The accusations had never finished; his temper had snapped so easily. She had been overwhelmed by terror and—incredibly—remorse. Maybe she was being unconsciously provocative? Maybe she was doing what he was saying?
She knew she was attractive to men. Her looks had seen to that. Even her girlfriend, Ellie, teased her endlessly about her “certain smile”. “What a come-on, Laura!”
She, herself, was at a loss to know why.
“You’re