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‘It isn’t the end! What’s the matter, David? Did I wound that stiff pride of yours by refusing your magnanimous offer that day?’ Her eyes flashed defiance at him although she could see the growing anger on his face.
‘What you did, Beth, was give me an answer. I don’t see that there is anything left to discuss.’
‘Oh, don’t you? Don’t you think it would be fairer to both of us if you stopped being so pig-headed before it ruins both our lives?’
‘And what makes you an expert? You don’t seem to have made that much of a success of running your life, so what makes you imagine that you can help run mine?’
‘Maybe I can’t. But I mean to try to sort this out once and for all!’ She stood up, unable to sit a moment longer when her whole life was hanging in the balance. ‘Maggie told me that you always ask about me when you phone her.’
‘Did she?’ He moved from the window and poured himself a drink, then set it down on the tray untouched.
‘Yes, she did. In fact, she said that for someone who is supposedly not interested you show a great tendency to keep on asking questions.’
‘Sounds as if Maggie told you a whole lot more than she should have.’ He picked up the glass and downed the whisky in one go. ‘What are you trying to say, Beth? That I have some sort of feelings left for you and that’s why I keep asking about your welfare?’ He shook his head, his eyes glittering with amusement. ‘I hate to disillusion you, but that isn’t so.’
‘No?’ She smiled faintly, moving across the room to stand just inches from him. ‘And what if I said that I think that is a pack of lies?’
‘More lies? I lied to you about why I married you, and now I’m lying about how I feel? That doesn’t add up, Beth. One or the other must be the truth, yet you accuse me of both.’
‘I was wrong. I’m not afraid to admit it now.’
‘And what if I tell you that you weren’t, that I did plan to use you as a cover to get Maggie back?’
‘Then I wouldn’t believe you. I still don’t really know why you helped me in the first place, David, but I do know that you never intended to use me or the baby or our marriage that way!’ She said the words and knew suddenly that they were the truth. David would never have used her like that, never have stooped to such subterfuge. Everything she knew about him as a person told her that and it was just a shame that she’d been too blind to see it before.
‘Pretty sure of yourself, aren’t you?’ Colour rimmed his lean cheekbones, making her aware for the first time of how pale he was beneath the tan. There were lines of strain etched deeply on either side of his mouth and furrowed between his brows. Beth’s fingers itched to smooth them away, but she knew she didn’t have that right just yet, not until she had finally convinced him that she now understood the truth.
‘Very sure. I was upset and hurt that night at what I overheard. It knocked me for six.’ Pain flashed in her eyes, but determinedly she carried on. ‘All along I knew there was something behind your reasons for marrying me. You’d admitted to me that it would help ease the situation between you and Matthew, but if you had only explained how then maybe I wouldn’t have taken what I overheard to heart the way I did. All I could think of was that you had used me, that I’d been purely a cover.’ She smiled sadly. ‘It all added up, you see. Your determination to marry me, even your determination to keep on with our marriage when I lost the baby!’
‘What did you expect me to do? Ask you to leave? It was my fault you lost your baby, Beth. The least I could do was make sure that you had the chance to get well before you made any decision about your future. I owed you that!’
‘It was an accident, a tragic accident. It wasn’t your fault or mine. Don’t blame yourself.’ His words cut deep into her heart. Had he asked her to stay with him out of some misplaced sense of duty because he had felt responsible for the loss of her child? Had that been the reason why he had suggested that they should make their marriage real, as a kind of compensation for her loss, a way that he could make amends?
