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Good Husband Material
Trisha Ashley
Another warm, wise and witty offering from Sunday Times bestseller Trisha Ashley.James is everything Tish has ever wanted in a husband – she’s married a man who even her mother approves of. He’s handsome, dependable, and will make an excellent father – unlike Tish’s first love, the disreputable Fergal. Her teenage sweetheart abandoned her for a music career and now lives a typical celebrity lifestyle. Fergal broke her heart – James helped mend it.Now, they’ve bought a cottage in the country. The next step – kids and a lifetime of domestic bliss. Well, that’s the plan. And even if James has a slight tendency to view the village pub as a second home, their relationship is still in pretty good shape after seven years of marriage. So why is marriage to Mr Right making her long for Mr Wrong?
TRISHA ASHLEY
Good Husband Material
Copyright
AVON
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
77–85 Fulham Palace Road
Hammersmith, London W6 8JB
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
First published in Great Britain by Judy Piatkus (Publishers) Ltd in 2000
This edition published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers in 2013
Copyright © Trisha Ashley 2000
Trisha Ashley asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9781847562814
Ebook Edition © March 2013 ISBN: 9780007494088
Version: 2014-07-25
Dedication
For Mary Turner Long, with love.
Table of Contents
Cover (#ubc79e2a8-466d-5bc2-9f2d-a1f474c1bf0f)
Title Page (#u983ea10e-1eb5-50b4-b6b8-9755443fe23c)
Copyright (#u05fb40e9-6451-50f9-a649-21d05d5db1be)
Dedication (#ulink_52116e06-ad6a-55c3-bceb-7a31d060e7d3)
Prologue (#u2dc6b1e7-3d0c-513b-aa60-5035378a24f4)
Chapter 1: A Dream of a Man (#ua789ce81-f8cc-5e91-b3df-9e2ca0dad3a2)
Chapter 2: Home, James (#ude0d916a-421a-5b5b-ae93-598f3c2cdc91)
Chapter 3: Painted Out (#u2b14f518-3ad0-5264-a63f-f7f8583fe7ec)
Chapter 4: Wild in the Country (#ue926d6b2-517b-5ff4-9fc8-9a6399498a5e)
Chapter 5: The Bourgeois Bitch (#u6fd4cb93-17c3-5b46-a6dc-ae94fdc46a9d)
Chapter 6: The Posy Profligate (#u99a2b7bb-19e8-5585-8237-4fc12ef65097)
Chapter 7: Drained (#u6dfd89f0-6397-5494-8832-d89dfc6047b1)
Chapter 8: Busted Flush (#u9b68d781-6bef-5995-a92f-8ac205dd4105)
Chapter 9: Nutthill Nutria (#u5dbd889b-f587-57c5-80b9-c76ae1fee3ad)
Chapter 10: Just Award (#ub9fbb54d-b0d9-5c84-b5fe-955e6df2bed4)
Chapter 11: Nasty in the Woodshed (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 12: Mayday! (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 13: And the Beet Goes on (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 14: In the Drink (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 15: Brief Encounter (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 16: Cat’s Paw (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 17: A Fête Worse than Death (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 18: Fencing (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 19: One Big Ham (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 20: No Change (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 21: Through a Glass, Darkly (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 22: Bugged (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 23: Love Goes West (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 24: Reciprocations (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 25: Blood and Roses (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 26: Pregnant Pause (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 27: Similar Conditions (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 28: Bonfire of the Vanities (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 29: The Great Castrator (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 30: Pupped (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 31: The Least Little Thing (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 32: Tie-dyed (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 33: Christmas Spirit (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 34: Twinkle,Twinkle (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 35: Uncertain Appetites (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 36: Guilt-edged (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 37: The Sweet Wine of Love (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 38: Unlicensed Behaviour (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 39: Dress Optional (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 40: Sold a Pup (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 41: Green-Eyed Men (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 42: Mirror, Signal, Manoeuvre (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 43: Out of the Dark (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 44: Aftershock (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 45: Issues (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 46: Alignments (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 47: Photo Finish (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 48: Besieged (#litres_trial_promo)
Keep Reading (#litres_trial_promo)
Acknowledgements (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)
Also by the Author (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
Prologue
‘The lyrics of the new Goneril single, ‘Red-Headed Woman’, taken from the album of the same name, show a searing agony of loss and grief. Singer/songwriter Fergal Rocco plumbs new depths of helpless agony and despair in a voice that seems to have been created for that very purpose.’
New Musical Express
Fergal: 1986
My first brief glimpse of Tish seems to have been indelibly imprinted on the inside of my eyelids, for even after almost twelve years and God-knows-how-many women, I only have to close my eyes and there she is: a dryad poised far above me in the shivering green oak leaves, stretching forward with one hand reaching out, her expression intent.
Then the sharp crack as the branch gives way beneath her weight, precipitating her into a long downward swoop towards me, apricot hair flying behind her like a wild Renaissance angel – a mermaid swept by the glassy green waves – a ship’s figurehead forging ahead, one out-thrust hand clasping—
Well, not a trident, at any rate, only some small grey thing. It didn’t just then make the same impression that Tish was about to: a bolt from the green.
While I’d like to say I caught her, truth compels me to admit I merely broke her fall, ending flat on my back with the angel sprawled across me. Enormous smoke-grey eyes stared apprehensively down into mine from an inch away. I decided to give in without a struggle.
Then something scuttled shiftily up my arm on hot, pronged feet and bit me savagely on the ear.
I swore and the creature let go and gave an evil laugh.
I’m not joking.
When Dad came round the corner of the house to see what all the noise was, he found the angel still sprawled over me, incoherently apologising and dabbing at my bleeding ear with a wadded-up bit of filmy skirt.
A small, evil-looking grey parrot stood nearby (too near) regarding us with interested, mad eyes.
‘Always Fergal catches the girls,’ Dad said cheerfully, taking the scene in his stride. Then, with his usual aplomb, he removed his jumper and enveloped the parrot in its folds.
The small assassin gave a dismal squawk, echoed by a screech of outrage from behind us. A tiny, well-preserved blonde, like a piece of shellacked fluff, was advancing up the drive with the martial air of one about to rescue her daughter’s honour or die in the attempt.
‘Leticia – get up at once!’
‘Leticia?’ I questioned incredulously, looking up into the grey eyes so close to mine. (And feeling as I did so as if I’d been sucked into a Black Hole and squeezed out on the other side like toothpaste.)
Her hand stopped its rather painful and ineffectual dabbing and she glared. ‘I don’t see that Fergal is any better!’ she said defensively. ‘And anyway, I’m always Tish.’
‘And I’m always Fergal, Angel, so you’ll just have to get used to it.’
