Last Chance Marriage

Unsteadily she picked up her cup and drained the contents, setting it down on the saucer with a clatter that seemed deafening in the otherwise silent kitchen.

‘Thanks for the tea.’ She forced herself to smile across the table.

‘You’re more than welcome.’ Mary Harrington smiled back.

‘I’ll see you out.’ Her son rose to his feet in a swift, controlled movement.

‘Thank you,’ she murmured evenly, overwhelmingly conscious of his height and breadth as he ushered her down the hall. Opening the front door, he stood back to enable her to step through, and for an imperceptible second her eyes locked with his, saw the hard certainty in their depths as they raked her oval face. The pretence was over for both of them.

‘It was you, wasn’t it?’ Joshua Harrington said quietly.

The colour drained from her cheeks. ‘Yes,’ she said simply, and saw a muscle clench along the hard line of his jaw.

‘I think I recognised you almost straight away,’ he conceded slowly.

‘But you hoped you’d made a mistake?’ she said levelly.

‘Yes,’ he admitted shortly.

That swift pinprick of hurt was completely irrational. Hadn’t she been equally reluctant to acknowledge his identity? Exhibited no more warmth or pleasure at seeing him again than he had her?

‘Your hair was longer then,’ he said abruptly.

Five years ago her waist-length red hair had been the most striking, most immediately noticeable thing about her.

‘I had it cut.’ She stated the obvious, wondering why it should matter that he made no immediate comment on the shorter gamine style. His own physical appearance had altered, too, but the change was more subtle. His dark hair was as thick and rich as she remembered. His eyes were the same intense blue—but the guarded detachment in their depths was as alien to her as the cynicism.

Clemency surveyed him with large, wary eyes, the constrained silence that had fallen between them unbearable. It seemed impossible that she had once, for a short time, felt closer to this man than any other living creature. But she was at a total loss how to even try to bridge the chasm that existed between them now. Wasn’t even sure that she wanted to.

‘I’d better be getting home.’ With amazement Clemency registered her calm, collected voice. But then over the past five years she’d become an expert at concealing her emotions. What happened to your wife? Knowing just how tenuous her composure was, terrified that the faade might crack at any minute and she would give utterance to the question pounding in her head, Clemency turned away quickly.

‘Mind the step.’

Instinctively he stretched out a hand to steady her as she missed her footing. His touch was brief and impersonal but her bare skin felt as if it had been scorched. That she could still react to his slightest touch like this was ultimately the biggest shock of all.

‘Goodbye, Clemency,’ he said quietly. It was the first time he had ever used her given name.

‘Goodbye.’ she returned, registering the finality in his voice that told her as clearly as words that he had neither the desire nor the intention of furthering their acquaintance.

But then, what had she expected? Clemency wondered, her legs swinging with uncharacteristic jerkiness down the drive. An invitation to come over for coffee that evening when the twins were in bed to have a cosy chat about old times?

To Joshua Harrington she would always be a reminder of a past that, like her, he wanted to forget. A reminder to that strong, proud, private man of a rare moment of weakness. Moving on autopilot, Clemency made her way around to the back of her cottage. Reaching the far end of her garden without any real recollection of how she’d arrived there, she sat down on the grass beneath the shade of an old gnarled apple tree.

Joshua Harrington. A man she had never expected to see again. The only person to whom she’d ever told the truth about Simon. Her anonymous confidant. The stranger on a train.

Except that she hadn’t met Joshua Harrington on a train but on a London bench by the Thames on a dark New Year’s Eve, five years ago.

CHAPTER TWO

DRAWING up her long legs to her chest, Clemency rested her chin on her knees and stared unseeingly at the daisy-strewn lawn. Married to Simon for eighteen months, she’d been so happy at the start of the evening, so totally unprepared for the bombshell that was to wreck her secure world. Her eyes closed. They had been celebrating the end of the year at a party in her eldest brother’s flat by the river in Chelsea.

Her hair swinging over her shoulders, cheeks flushed from the heat generating from the swirling, gyrating dancers packed into the small room, Clemency tried unsuccessfully to match the flamboyant steps of her extrovert partner.

As the music slowed, somewhat to her relief, the russet-headed young man took hold of her hand and swung her in front of him.

‘I think you’re the most beautiful woman here tonight, Clemency Adams,’ he proclaimed loudly.

Clemency laughed up into his open, good-natured face.

‘And I think you’re extremely drunk,’ she reproved him affectionately. Best man at their wedding and, like Simon, a school friend of her youngest brother, she’d known David Mason almost all her life.

‘Run away with me to my South Sea island home,’ he implored her theatrically.

‘To your bedsit in Clapham?’ she teased gently.

‘Oh, Clem, you’re a hard woman.’

‘I’m also a very married one.’ She grinned back, her eyes moving around the densely packed room, searching for one particular fair head. There he was. Standing over by the corner talking animatedly to Lisa.

That was an encouraging sign, she thought with satisfaction. Why her husband and her closest friend, two of the people she cared most about in the world, should have developed such an aversion to each other’s company over the past few months, after years of friendship, had both baffled and upset her. Hopefully tonight they’d finally decided to call a truce, stop the ridiculous bickering. She felt a wash of sadness as her gaze rested on the small brunette by her husband’s side. She was going to miss Lisa when she moved to New York, was still surprised at her sudden decision to apply for the overseas post.

She lost sight of her husband and friend as the tempo of the music increased, dancing with renewed energy until she finally pleaded for mercy from her inexhaustible partner.

‘No staying power, these married women,’ David teased her, planting a brotherly kiss on her cheek as he released her hand. ‘And, if you’re looking for your lucky swine of a husband, I just saw him heading towards the kitchen.’

No doubt to replenish his empty glass. Edging her way towards the door, Clemency watched with amusement as David threaded purposefully across the room towards a solitary, attractive blonde. She’d spent the early part of the night circulating, catching up with friends, and now, she thought contentedly as she made her way towards the kitchen, she just wanted to spend what was left of the old year with Simon.

Later she was never quite sure why she had paused in the doorway, had not simply walked straight in the moment she’d seen Simon and Lisa in the otherwise empty kitchen. But she had paused, had seen that expression of utter desolation on Simon’s face as he gazed longingly across the room at the dark-haired girl standing with her back to him staring out of the window into the darkness.

‘Please don’t go to New York, Lissy.’

Clemency froze, unable to move, the anguished desperation in Simon’s voice numbing her completely.

‘I have to, Simon. You know that.’ Lisa’s voice was low and muffled, her back rigid. ‘If I stay...I don’t want an affair with you...I couldn’t do that to Clemmy.’

‘I don’t want an affair with you, Lissy. I love you...’

She couldn’t be hearing this. Would wake up any moment and find it was a nightmare. The numbness had eased, the first wash of agonising pain tearing through Clemency. This could not be happening, not to her. She wanted to cry out her protest, her denial as she watched her husband cross the floor and take her best friend in his arms but her throat was too raw.

‘Lissy, please.’

‘No, Simon...’ Pushing him away, Lisa swung back to the window. ‘I love you, but I love Clemmy too. I’ve known her since I was five, even longer than you have. She’s like a sister.’ Her voice was so low, Clemency could barely distinguish the words. ‘I couldn’t ruin her life, and nor could you, Simon.’

They already had...

Her eyes flicking open, Clemency stretched out her stiffening legs and leant back against the tree. Perhaps if she’d tackled Simon and Lisa right then it might have been easier, less painful in the long run. But she hadn’t. She’d turned and crept away like a wounded animal, grabbed her coat and escaped silently out of the flat into the December night.

Oblivious to the squeal of taxi brakes, moving like a sleepwalker, Clemency crossed the road to the river embankment. For a moment she stared down into the dark, cold water and then began walking along its edge, her pace increasing until she was almost running. Head bowed, her eyes blurred with unshed tears, she didn’t see the group of young men approaching until it was too late to take evasive action and almost cannoned straight into them.

‘Happy New Year, beautiful.’

‘What’s a woman like you doing on her own tonight?’

‘Fancy coming to a party with us, gorgeous?’

Their bantering was good-humoured—if puerile—rather than threatening, and normally Clemency wouldn’t have had any trouble in dealing with the group of intoxicated but harmless young men. But tonight she simply stared dazedly at the group forming a half-circle around her.

‘Scram!’

The deep, educated voice came from behind her. Quiet and controlled, it held an authority that was immediately recognised and acted upon. Macho bravado evaporating, the young men dissolved into sheepish small boys, murmuring apologies to Clemency before hastening on their way.

‘Are you all right?’

Tilting her head, Clemency looked up at the tall, quietly spoken man.

‘Yes, I’m fine,’ she said mechanically. The glow of the street lights illuminated strongly carved male features.

‘Where are you going? It might be advisable to take a taxi.’

It was the flicker of concern in the dark, shadowed eyes, the gentleness in the deep voice that proved to be her undoing. ‘I d-don’t know where I’m going,’ she mumbled in a small, bewildered voice and burst into tears.

Vaguely she was aware of a firm hand on her arm propelling her towards a bench. He made no attempt to assuage her tears, offered no trite words of comfort, simply sat there silently by her side, letting her cry without question or intrusion. Yet his very presence, his aura of calm strength was more soothing than a million platitudes.

Her tears subsiding, she dabbed at her cheeks with a tissue and turned towards him. She had never broken down in front of anyone in her life before, should have felt self-conscious and awkward, but she felt neither. Maybe it was because he himself showed no signs of embarrassment or impatience, the corners of the very masculine mouth curving in a reassuring smile, the dark blue eyes inviting but not pressing her to tell him the cause of her distress.

There were tiny laughter lines etched on his face, hinting at a strong sense of humour, a sense of the absurd. A man not given to small talk but, she suspected from the astute eyes, an acute observer. His clean-shaven jaw was lean, well defined, its decisiveness reflected in the square, tenacious chin. In his early thirties, he looked resourceful and competent, not a man to be fazed easily, and certainly not by a weeping female.

She ran a hand over her face again and gave him a watery smile. The embankment was deserted but she felt no qualms about sitting alone in the night with him, not the slightest flicker of unease.

‘I’m fine now,’ she assured him unconvincingly. ‘Please don’t let me detain you any further,’ she added politely.

He didn’t answer. Made no effort to move. Just sat there. Waiting.

‘I’ve just found out that my husband has fallen in love with my best friend,’ she blurted out, and saw the leap of compassion in his eyes. She swallowed. ‘We were at my brother’s party and I overheard them talking in the kitchen...’ Jerkily she relived again out loud the most traumatic seconds of her young life. ‘I just ran away,’ she concluded in a mumble.

‘You had no idea?’ the man beside her asked softly.

‘No. Not a clue. I thought we were happy,’ she said bleakly. ‘I’ve known Simon since I was at primary school. He was my first boyfriend when I was sixteen.’ She paused, her luminous eyes huge with pain and bewilderment. ‘How can you know someone almost all your life, live with them, share their bed and not really know anything about them at all? Not really know what they’re thinking, feeling?’

‘I don’t know.’

His voice was even but the muscle flickering along the lean jaw betrayed him, alerted Clemency immediately. He wasn’t simply paying lip service to the words but actually understood—no, more than that—shared her dazed incredulity.

Slowly she searched his face, her eyes locking with his. And for the first time she saw the unhappiness in the dark blue depths. He wasn’t as she’d automatically supposed en route to a party, but, like her, had deliberately sought out the solitude and anonymity of the river embankment. This man was suffering as much as she was.

Her heart squeezed, aching for him, her own pain momentarily forgotten as she silently willed him to confide in her as she had in him. She saw the hesitancy on his face, the hesitancy of a man accustomed to keeping his own counsel, dealing with his own problems.

Then she saw the doubt disappear and was aware of a sudden jolt of warmth at the knowledge that he trusted her as instinctively as she did him. Why it should matter so much that he did so, when her whole life was falling apart, was too confusing even to think about.

‘I found out this afternoon that my wife’s pregnant,’ he said quietly.

Clemency looked up at him uncomprehendingly. Surely that was cause for celebration, wasn’t it?

‘She’s known for six weeks.’

‘Six weeks?’ she echoed. How could his wife have kept the news to herself for six weeks? Not wanted to share it with him immediately?

‘She doesn’t want the baby,’ he said abruptly. ‘She doesn’t want our child. My child.’

The pain in his voice cut through Clemency like a knife, driving everything else from her mind.

‘Laura’s an interior designer. A very successful one. She’s just won a prestigious overseas contract which she’s due to start in June next year.’

By which time she would be nearing the end of her unplanned and unwanted pregnancy.

The chiselled mouth twisted. ‘Lousy timing, hmm?’ He paused. ‘I always knew that Laura’s career was important to her.’ His voice was so low that Clemency had to strain her ears to hear it. ‘But I didn’t realise...’

That it was the most important part of her life, more important than her husband or their unborn child. The unspoken words hung in the air, the raw, naked hurt etched on his face almost unbearable. Knowing just how inadequate any words she could offer would be, Clemency reacted instinctively. Inhibitions abandoned in the overwhelming need to comfort him, she reached out and gently took hold of his hand.

His strong, lean fingers tightened around her small palm and then slowly relaxed but didn’t release their hold. The tension easing from his face, he smiled down at her wryly.

She smiled back, a sense of complete unreality engulfing her, the blue eyes anaesthetising her to everything but the sensations induced by the warm male fingers folded lightly around hers. She was sitting in the dark on a London bench holding hands with a man whose name she didn’t even know and yet it felt the most natural thing in the world to be doing, as if, far from being strangers, they were old, familiar friends. Or lovers.

She stiffened, horrified at the insidious thought, further appalled to realise that Simon had completely slipped from the forefront of her mind. Oh, God, Simon and Lisa. She began to shudder as reality crashed over her again.

‘You’re getting cold.’

She nodded, the protectiveness and concern in the deep voice making her throat constrict with the effort of keeping back another flood of tears. How could this man’s wife not want his child? How could anyone hurt him like this? It took every ounce of control not to launch herself into his arms, hold him, hug him.

‘I’ll walk you back,’ he said quietly, pulling her gently to her feet.

She nodded again, both relieved and bereft as he released her hand. Shortening his strides to match hers, he accompanied her as she retraced her path along the river bank towards her brother’s flat, the silence between them no longer comfortable but increasingly constrained. Clemency ground to a halt, indicating the illuminated three-storey house across the road, the sound of music spilling out into the night from the ground-floor flat.

‘It’s just over there.’ As she spoke the music was abruptly silenced, raised voices beginning a countdown. Ten, nine...

Eight seconds to midnight. Clemency stared up at the house. Was Simon standing beside Lisa? Had he even noticed she was missing or was he too lost in his own misery even to care?

‘One...’ As the exuberant voices reached a crescendo, she turned to look up at the figure towering by her side, his dark face as strained as her own.

‘Happy New Year,’ she murmured wryly, and felt an inane bubble of laughter rising in her throat, the words so hopelessly inappropriate under the circumstances.

‘Happy New Year,’ he returned, and she saw his own mouth quirk as he too recognised the absurdity of their seasonal exchange. His eyes moved slowly over her face. ‘Take care, hmm?’

‘You too,’ Clemency said unsteadily. Once this man turned and walked away she would never see him again. The tightness in her chest had nothing to do with Simon.

Impulsively she stood up on tiptoe, intending to plant a swift, chaste kiss on his cheek. Simultaneously he lowered his head to bestow a similar parting gesture, but as she unexpectedly tilted her face upwards his mouth, instead of grazing her forehead, closed over her lips.

The warm, firm mouth barely brushed hers and yet it acted like a touch paper, heat instantly pooling in the pit of her stomach, flaring up, gathering momentum, scorching through her veins. She heard his sharp intake of breath as he lifted his head, his dark face rigid with shock.

For a second she could hardly breathe, let alone think, stared up at him with wide, stunned eyes, drawing desperate gulps of air into her burning lungs. Then she turned and ran.

With a tiny, convulsive shiver, Clemency jerked herself to her feet and paced across the garden, coming to a standstill by the wooden fence that separated her garden from the open farmland beyond.

More than five years on and she could still remember that mindless panic with which she’d fled Joshua Harrington that night. Her hands tightened over the fence and then relaxed. She’d been in a total daze that night, emotionally completely off-balance, vulnerable to anyone who’d shown a modicum of sympathy and understanding.

Turning around, she began to make her way briskly up the garden and faltered, her eyes drawn like a magnet to the red-tiled roof adjacent to her own. Why of all people did her new neighbour have to be him? She’d made a new life for herself with which she was perfectly content.

Oh, for heaven’s sake, Clemency. She pulled herself up irritably. There was no earthly reason why her orderly existence should be remotely affected by her new neighbour. Joshua Harrington, she reminded herself firmly, had made it perfectly clear that he had no intention of intruding into her life, let alone changing it.

CHAPTER THREE

MUFFLING a yawn, Clemency zipped up her jeans and tugged a green cotton sweater over her rumpled red curls. Barefoot, she padded across to her bedroom window and flung it open, surveying the cloudless blue sky. It looked as if it was going to be another glorious day.

Yawning again, she slipped on her sandals and made her way downstairs. She bent to retrieve the newspaper and mail from the front doormat and headed down the hall, coming to an abrupt halt as she heard the sound of breaking glass.

One of the cats from the local farm knocking down a milk bottle? Except she didn’t keep her empty bottles outside her back door. She took a tentative step forward and froze. Someone was breaking into her kitchen...

‘Please, Daddy, let me do it.’

‘Sorry, old chap. Back you go. You too, Tommy, please.’

She expelled a long, deep breath. Did prospective burglars normally bring their four-year-old sons along as witnesses? Tiptoeing to the door, she stealthily eased it open a crack and peeped through.

Armed with gloves and a small hammer, Joshua Harrington was casually knocking out the glass in her open back door onto a plastic sheet. From the safety of the lawn, the twins, identically dressed today in the brown uniform of the village school, watched with expressions of utter longing on their small faces.

Clemency’s eyes dropped to the football at their feet and her eyes darkened reflectively. One hell of a kick for such small legs—over the hedge with still enough force to smash her window.

Pushing open the door, she stepped into the kitchen.

‘Good morning,’ she said breezily.

If she’d hoped to throw Joshua Harrington even marginally off-balance, she was disappointed.

‘I thought you’d be at work by now,’ he murmured mildly, the navy blue sweatshirt hugging the wide, powerful shoulders intensifying the brilliance of his eyes. Knocking out the last fragment of glass, he stooped to gather up the plastic sheeting.

Normally she would have been, Clemency conceded, but it wouldn’t have hurt him to ring the doorbell and check. ‘I’m on leave for a week.’

Waggling her fingers at the twins, who were waving to her enthusiastically from the garden, Clemency retrieved the strong refuse bag from the floor and held it open.

‘Thanks.’

As he deposited the plastic sheeting deftly into the bag, her eyes flicked over the strong contours of his face, absorbing the weariness etched into it. For a second her hard-won composure almost cracked completely, the muscles of her stomach coiling into a fierce knot. Had he endured an equally troubled night? Lain awake for hours, like her, eyes open, staring into the past?

‘Daddy’s going to put a lovely new window in your door,’ trebled a small voice. Evidently deciding that their temporary banishment had been lifted now the glass had been safely removed, the twins scampered across the grass.

‘That’s really kind of him, isn’t it?’ The second voice piped, with unconcealed hero-worship.

‘Yes, it certainly is,’ Clemency agreed solemnly, her muscles relaxing as the small boys bounded into the kitchen.

‘Especially as Daddy broke the damn window,’ Joshua Harrington murmured sotto voce, the corners of the firm, straight mouth twitching.

Unable to keep it straight any longer, Clemency’s face broke into a warm, wide grin, the wariness in her eyes of which she’d been quite unconscious clearing briefly.

‘Where’s your lunch box, Tommy?’ Joshua enquired, straightening up.

‘Left it in the garden.’

‘Go and fetch it, please.’

‘Yes, Daddy.’ The boys started for the door and then, as if some invisible hand had tapped them on the shoulder, turned back towards Clemency.

‘Bye, Clemency,’ they chorused dutifully.

‘An’ thank you for having us...’ one voice continued absently, parrot fashion.

‘You don’t have to say that...’ Its owner was instantly corrected.

‘Goodbye, Jamie,’ Clemency said formally, repressing her laughter, a little mystified at the expression of utter resignation on their small faces as they looked up at her. They were so adorable, she could hug them! ‘Goodbye, Tommy.’