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She had been against the marriage in the first place. Not because Charles Savage was so far above the doctor's daughter both financially and socially—she wasn't that old-fashioned—but because of Zanna. Only a week before the wedding she had said worriedly,
'Have you really thought it out, pet? I don't want to spoil things for you, but I don't want to see you unhappy, either. Don't you think it's a little soon? He could be marrying you on the rebound, you know. Have you thought about that? No one could miss seeing the way he was with that Zanna Hall woman. She'll be a hard act to follow.'
But Beth hadn't thought about it, or only inasmuch as to convince herself that although he had made no pretence of being in love with her, spouted no pretty words, she, with her own deep and long-developing love for him, could teach him to need her as much as she needed him. It had been the supreme self-confidence of untried youth, the supreme folly. And, in the circumstances, the less her mother knew about the present situation, the better.
And now that lady was saying complacently, 'Your good news couldn't have been a better homecoming present. I'm going to have to buy lots of baby wool.'
Beth winced inside. Could her mother really have forgotten all those tiny jackets and caps, carefully folded away in tissue paper, which she'd knitted with such enthusiasm for the baby they'd lost?
No one ever mentioned the accident, and its tragic aftermath. Everyone had been traumatised. They seemed to think that if it wasn't mentioned it hadn't really happened.
'And do tell…' Mrs Garner leaned forward to pour them both another cup of tea. 'I heard that Hall woman turned up at South Park—brazen as ever, with her two-year-old son. Did you give her short shrift? I know I would have done. That woman has no sensibilities whatsoever! She's not married, apparently.'
'I didn't see much of her,' Beth said, feigning indifference. 'We had a houseful of guests for the weekend and I was leaving for France almost immediately.' Any minute now her mother would be relaying the news that young Harry bore a remarkable resemblance to Charles Savage, and Beth didn't know quite how she was going to skirt round that one. She could feel perspiration begin to break out on her brow, in the palms of her hands but, thankfully, her father walked in through the door.
'Any tea in the pot? I'm parched.' He flopped down on the sofa next to Beth, running his hands through his thinning grey hair. 'Soon be autumn, and I can put the garden to bed. I know exercise is good for me—drummed it into my patients often enough, but—'
'But you'll spend the winter evenings reading through the seed catalogues, mapping out new borders, ordering plants, fretting to get out there again,' his wife cut in drily, passing him a cup of tea. 'Do you know, Beth, he paid Johnny Higgs a small fortune to keep everything trim while we were away, and no sooner had he dumped the suitcases in the kitchen than he was out there, on his hands and knees with a magnifying glass looking for imaginary weeds, trimming hedges, mowing lawns…'
Amid the rueful laughter Beth got to her feet, smoothing down her skirts, making her excuses. 'Charles was away last night, but he said he'd be back by teatime. I must rush, if I'm to be there to meet him.'
They kept up the pretence, even in front of each other, treating each other politely, like strangers. He worked more from home now but every now and then had to go up to town, staying overnight to give himself two clear days at head office. And she always made sure she was around when she knew he was due, emerging from her office in time to tidy herself, ready to greet him with polite if stilted enquiries about the journey, offering him a drink to help him unwind, passing on snippets of local news she thought might interest him. No one would ever be able to accuse her of not keeping to their bargain.
'Well, don't rush too much,' her father advised gruffly as he walked with her to the door, an arm around her shoulder. 'Got to handle yourself with kid gloves from now on.'
It was the nearest either of her parents had got to mentioning her miscarriage, apart from the initial flood of shocked sympathy, and she wondered, belatedly, whether more openness would have helped during the long, distressingly miserable months that had followed.
Certainly, if Charles had been able to bring himself to explain that his deep feelings of guilt had been responsible for the distance he had put between them, then things would have been easier, and they would have grown closer instead of further and further apart. Especially if she had confided her own feelings of failure, the terrible feelings of inadequacy she'd gone through after she'd learned she might never conceive again.
But any closeness they might have achieved would have counted for nothing from the moment that Zanna and Harry put in an appearance, she reminded herself tartly as she settled herself behind the wheel of her car. The past was over and all the might-have-beans in the world would make no difference to the future.
Winding down the window and pasting a smile on her face, she waved to her hovering parents, calling brightly, 'Dinner with us tomorrow. Don't forget—seven o'clock sharp. And bring your holiday snaps; Charles won't want to miss seeing them.' And she drove away slowly because sudden, stupid tears were blurring her vision. She had a long way to go before she could calmly accept her life for what it was.
She entertained a great deal, worked hard for the agency, put on a bright face. And if her parents expressed concern over her pallor, the dark smudges beneath her eyes, she told them truthfully that she was being looked after by one of the leading obstetricians in the country—at Charles's instigation—and that he pronounced himself satisfied, said she was doing fine.
And when she and Charles were together, which happened as little as she could arrange it, she sometimes glanced up to find him watching her and, just for a moment, their eyes would hold. And there was something there she could not read, gave up even trying to, and pigeon-holed the enigmatic expression under the label of resentment.
He had to resent her presence, her nominal position as his wife. They both knew he had been willing to divorce her, to take the woman he loved as his wife, and they both knew that she, Beth, was only here because she was carrying his child, because the impossible-to-pin-down Zanna had walked out on him yet again.
His heart was with the flamboyant, vibrantly alive redhead; always had been, always would be. Every time he looked at her, Beth, he would resent her for not being Zanna.
She was a second-best wife, and knew it. But was learning to handle it, learning to make the most of her organising abilities and put them to good use in the build-up of the agency. Learning, slowly and painfully, to erect an impenetrable wall around her heart.
Christmas and the New Year festivities came and went and Beth congratulated herself on handling everything perfectly. The big house was decorated with branches of holly cut from around the estate, the huge open hearths alight with blazing logs, the hospitality lavish—right down to the silver bowls of Mrs Penny's aromatic punch.
Charles's brows had drawn together in a frowning black bar when he'd scanned the guest list he'd asked to see, but she'd ignored the obvious signs of his displeasure, knowing that he possessed enough self-control to be the perfect host, knowing that she had to fill the house with guests to be able to get through the season at all because she wasn't yet strong enough, self-contained enough, to be alone with him at this supposedly happy, family time.
But she was getting there, she assured herself, learning to live with his icy, slightly mocking politeness, learning to match it, learning not to care. And when he told her, 'There will be no more entertaining, apart from when your parents come for dinner, no more huge parties,' she simply dipped her head in cool submission and turned back to her work, feeding fresh data into the computer.
He had come to her office, which was unusual, and his interference in the way she ran the social side of their lives more unusual still. And the veneer of cool indifference was peeling along the edges of his voice as he bit out, 'You're running yourself ragged. If you don't give a damn about your own health, you should think about the child. From now on, you're going to do just that because, if you don't, I'll damn well make you.' And left the room, slamming the door behind him.
The child. Of course. The new life she was carrying inside her was his prime concern. The only reason she was here. But she couldn't feel resentful, couldn't wish the baby had never been conceived. It was all she had to live for now.
In all truth, she didn't regret Charles's strict veto. She was getting bulkier and slower, her body telling her it was time to be quiet. Entertaining so frequently, so lavishly, was, she recognised, becoming something of a strain.
But that didn't mean she could be content to spend much time alone with Charles. She knew, from the bitter expression she sometimes surprised in the depths of her eyes when she used her mirror, that she was on the verge of accepting her life as it was, the polished, surface-bright sham of her marriage.
However, alone with him, who could tell whether some remnant of emotion she hadn't qu
