The double doors to the formal dining room were still open. As she slowed then paused to watch the hive of activity, she felt more than a little like a child who’d sneaked downstairs to watch from a distance the grown-ups’ party.
The long dining table was as much of a work of art itself as the massive chandelier that lit it. The place settings all arranged with geometric precision, the napkins all perfectly aligned, the glasses gleaming, it groaned with the weight of silver and crystal.
As she stepped into the room, one of the team of florists that had spent the afternoon filling the house with more than the normal quota of massive formal flower arrangements saw Mari and smiled a little nervously.
‘Is there a problem, Mrs Rey-Defoe?’
The woman, a girl who was probably her own age, was waiting for her approval. The idea was somehow more shocking than the prospect of hosting a dinner party where the glittering guest list included several diplomats, a Hollywood A-lister, the witty writer of a political column and a scarily famous athlete.
Mari smiled. ‘Everything looks marvellous. I wish I had your talent. All I can do is throw some flowers in a vase and hope for the best.’
‘Oh, the natural look is very in at the moment.’
They both laughed, and as the conversation progressed it turned out that the girl had been brought up in a village near to where Mari’s foster parents lived. They chatted a while before Mari, conscious of the time, made her way reluctantly towards the curving staircase.
Her hand was on the smooth curving banister when she felt the change in the air and the familiar prickle on the back of her neck. She turned her head and knew he’d be standing there. Seb, already dressed for dinner and looking incredible enough to make her sensitive stomach do a double backflip. He was standing framed in the doorway of one of the many rooms that fed directly off the hallway. Through the open door she could see the book-lined walls of the library, which he used as a study.
Her fingers tightened, knuckles white on the banister. If theirs had been a normal relationship, she would have gone over and straightened his tie, which was of course already straight—everything about Seb was always immaculate, a fact that should not have made her throat ache but it did.
Hormones. The word, she reflected, had become a bit of a mantra. Every time she had a confused thought or feeling she fell back on the excuse. She was saying it a lot at the moment.
* * *
Seb watched the animation he had seen in her face as she’d laughed and chatted with the florist fade, replaced with a wariness that she seemed to reserve specially for him.
‘I was just going to get ready,’ she said defensively.
He shrugged, not concerned that she would keep him waiting, or that she would look anything less than incredible. Most of the women he knew would have spent half the day getting ready for a formal event, but he’d seen Mari step out of the shower, pull on the first thing that came to hand, run her fingers through her hair, gloss her lips with something clear and shiny that tasted of strawberries and look breathtaking.
‘It was just the florist lived near the village where my foster parents...’
He dragged his eyes from the temptation of her strawberry lips and cut across her rambling defence with a flash of anger. ‘You think I have a problem with you talking to someone who arranges flowers? Do you really think I’m such a snob?’
‘Not a snob, no,’ she admitted.
He treated everyone the same, which didn’t mean he hung out with the staff; apart from a handful of close friends, he appeared to keep everyone at a distance regardless of their social standing. And he didn’t seem to notice how hard people worked to please him, and they did. She’d seen it time and time again—they went the extra mile to get his approval.
Had she become one of them?
‘So you’d be fine with me seeing Annie socially... The gardener or the cook or the—?’ She paused and dragged in a deep sustaining breath thinking, Calm, Mari, calm.
‘I think they would be uncomfortable with the situation. Whether you like it or not, your position—’
Anger, sudden and hot, spurted up. He didn’t have a clue! ‘What position?’ she blurted, and saw shock in his face but she couldn’t stop herself. Weeks of saying the right thing had made her feel like a ticking bomb.
‘I’ve been stuck in this place all week.’ Her hand lifted in a graceful gesture encompassing the stately elegance around them. ‘The only time I see you is in bed. I miss my work...the children. I’m lonely. I’m bored...’ She clamped her lips over the quiver of embarrassing self-pity and steeled herself for his response, fully expecting him to point out that there were no bars on the windows, there was no bolt on the doors.
In her head she could hear him saying, If it’s so bad, what’s keeping you here?
Would she be brave enough to answer him honestly, admit that she stayed for him?
To be near him.
To hear his voice.
Would she ever be brave enough to admit that she loved him?
Well, she didn’t find out, because once again she had made the mistake of thinking she could anticipate his reaction.
Lonely—the catch in her voice, all his internal debate, all his endless mental pro and con lists suddenly meant nothing, because he could see himself losing her. As he imagined her walking out of the door, out of his life, the knot in his stomach was fear. He called himself all the insults in his vocabulary, which was extensive, and still they didn’t begin to describe what an utter fool he’d been.
His first mistake had been thinking he could take emotions out of marriage; on paper it had equalled no tensions. He had wanted his life to resemble the clear, uncluttered lines of his desk—neat rows, square edges, controlled, no mess—and it could. It had been, but as he looked into Mari’s stormy, beautiful face, he made a life-changing discovery—he no longer wanted it to.
Love— He had avoided even thinking the word. Love was what had changed everything, had changed him.
He didn’t want a suitable bride, someone who said the right things and agreed with everything he said. He wanted Mari. Not the Mari that said what she thought he wanted to hear, but the one who blurted out the first thing that came into her head and argued the hind leg off a donkey just for the hell of it—he wanted his Mari back!
‘You are totally wrong.’
Hanging on the banister, she took two steps up then, unable to stop herself, one down, but she didn’t lower her wary guard as she struggled to read beyond the cool detachment of his manner, to read the expression in his deep-set eyes.
‘I am?’
‘About me and us... Your position is...’ He stopped, his dark brows twitching into a straight line as he framed his suspicious question. ‘Has anyone here treated you with less than respect?’
The negative shake of her head lessened the explosive quality of his hard stare; the nerve in the hollow of his clenched cheek stopped jumping.
‘We should stay married.’
‘I know, because of the baby,’ she said dully.
‘Because you are you and I am...’ He sucked in a deep breath, then let it out slowly before saying in a voice that vibrated with emotion, ‘Lonely.’
Mari watched in disbelief as, having dropped the unexploded conversational bomb at her feet, he turned to go back into the study, pausing to call casually over his shoulder, ‘Join me here for a drink when you’re ready—tonic, lime and lots of ice?’
The door closed.