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The kitchen, though large and well-equipped, was as sterile as the rest of the house. While Lewis made them tea, Lacey tried to exercise her imagination by exchanging the streamlined formica units for something a little less severe and more homely, wooden perhaps with tiled worktops; an Aga replacing the modern split-level cooker; gentle, worn tiles on the floor, covered perhaps by a couple of rugs; a chair in front of the Aga; a large scrubbed table in the middle of the room, so that the whole family could…
She tensed abruptly. What family? she demanded bitterly of herself. The family Lewis had told her he would never have? This was, after all, Lewis’s home and not hers.
And what about her, the other woman? Had she left him when he had told her that he did not intend to have any children? Had he told Lacey that, how would she have reacted? She had always wanted a family—three, hopefully four children. Had Lewis told her in the early days of their marriage that that would not be possible, what would she have done?
Would she have left him to find a man who shared her dream of a family…a man who could give her healthy children? Or would her love for Lewis have been more important to her? Would it have kept her by his side…would she have been prepared to give up her desire to have a family to stay with him? Would her love have been strong enough for that?
She gave a tiny shiver. She thought she knew the answer, but then when she looked at her daughter she wondered…chewing on her bottom lip, worrying at it, as she wondered if over the years her self-denial might not have become corrosive and bitter, eating into the fabric of her love.
Perhaps it was just as well she had never had to make that choice…that Lewis had in effect made it for her, by rejecting her before either of them knew the truth.
‘You’re very quiet.’
Lacey tensed at the soft sound of Lewis’s voice. She hadn’t even realised he was watching her, and she flushed uncomfortably, wondering how long he had been studying her and what he might have read in her unguarded face.
Even now she found it difficult to appear composed when he focused his attention on her, terrified of what she might inadvertently betray.
It was bad enough that sexually he knew how vulnerable she was to him; if he should discover that she loved him as well…
She gave a tiny shiver. Even now, days later, she still woke up in the night, vividly aware of how she had felt when he touched her, aching for him…wanting him, and acutely, bitterly conscious of the fact that she had practically encouraged, if not invited him to make love to her, but making that idiotic admission that there had been no one
else since him.
‘She’s probably redecorating everywhere,’ Jessica told him mischievously, adding, ‘Which room have you chosen for the nursery, Ma?’
‘The house does need a woman’s touch,’ Lewis commented, ignoring the latter part of Jessica’s comment. ‘After I bought it, I…’ He stopped. ‘You still haven’t seen the gardens, and we won’t want to leave it too late getting back. I’ve booked a table for us at eight.’
Since it was Jessica’s last evening at home, Lewis had insisted on taking them out to dinner. Lacey had protested that there was no need, but Jessica had overruled her, assuring her that she would enjoy the treat.
The gardens were well laid out, mainly lawned, with flower beds which were a little too formal for Lacey’s personal taste, although she loved the maturity of the large trees which framed the garden and protected it from view.
While Lewis and Jessica discussed the plausibility of dredging the weed-covered pond and restocking it with koi carp, she walked across the lawn towards the small summer-house at the other side of the garden.
The wisteria which grew over it had finished flowering, but the rose entwined with it had a profusion of pink buds, some of them half-open, the sweet scent surrounding her.
‘Lacey, are you feeling all right?’
She hadn’t heard Lewis approach and she swung round, her face shadowed and pale, her eyes unwittingly revealing the strain she was under.
‘Of course I’m not all right,’ she told him shortly. ‘How could I be? This whole charade…and we don’t seem to be any closer to telling Jessica. Where is she, by the way?’
‘She thought she saw a fish in the pond. She’s still over there looking for it. What would you have preferred? That we told her that we’d simply gone to bed together for old times’ sake?’ He sounded grimly bitter. ‘Is that really the kind of example you want to set her…the impression you want to give her of our relationship?’
‘What relationship? We don’t have a relationship.’
‘We did once,’ Lewis told her. ‘I thought of you when I bought this house. It was so like the one you said you wanted.’
She went white with the shock of it, the looked-for cruelty of his casual comment turning her head away with a quick defensive movement that caused her hair to slide silkily across her face, tears blurring her eyes so that she had to blink furiously to stop them from falling.
‘Lacey, what is it…what…?’
He was standing far too close to her, bending towards her, his hand resting on the wall of the summer-house, so that she was virtually imprisoned between it and him.
‘Look, I know how much of a strain this whole thing is for you…for both of us…but for Jessica’s sake…She’s going back to university tomorrow. I do understand how you must feel about the whole thing…but if—’
‘But if what?’ she demanded raggedly, interrupting him. ‘If I hadn’t practically begged you to go to bed with me none of this would ever have happened. Do you think I don’t know that—?’
‘That wasn’t actually what I was going to say.’ His quiet words cut through her own nervously angry outburst. ‘And as for begging me…Look at me, Lacey.’
