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‘Have you asserted your separation financially?’
‘Yes. There are no more joint accounts and credit cards. The house and the mortgage are in my name.’
‘Then you have nothing to worry about. As long as you’ve applied for a Deed of Separation, and you’re not jointly liable for any of his debts...’
‘How do you know all this?’ The question had occurred to Charlotte on her doorstep, but she’d pushed it to the back of her mind.
‘I have a degree in Law.’
‘As well as being a surgeon?’
‘I...um...I was advised to wait until I was eighteen to go to medical school. I was at a loose end.’
‘So...’ The gossip was correct, then. ‘You are a genius?’
‘They called it “gifted” when I was a kid. Now it’s called High Learning Potential.’
The twitch of his lips told Charlotte that they were just labels, which Edward didn’t set much store by.
‘I don’t need to be a genius to know that there’s more to your situation than what you’ve told me.’
There was a lot more. Charlotte grinned at him almost automatically, the way she did whenever anyone offered anything that sounded a bit too much like sympathy. ‘Really?’
‘Yeah, really. And you’re not going to convince me otherwise with that smile, either. Even if it is a very nice one.’
Stop now. One thing at a time. Having Edward as a concerned friend was already turning her universe upside down. It was a bit too soon for compliments.
‘You’re right, that’s not all. My husband had...I think it’s probably fair to say has...a gambling addiction.’
‘And that’s why you left him?’
‘I wasn’t that smart. I didn’t know about it until the bailiffs started calling. The first one was the day after Isaac’s second birthday.’ She sighed. She didn’t need to go into details; he was getting the gist. ‘I started out by paying his debts. He promised me that he’d stopped, and I believed him.’
‘But he lied?’ He was blunt, but there was no brutality there. Just the truth.
‘Yes, he just kept on racking up the debts. Internet gaming sites, card games... He maxed out our credit cards and I dipped into the money I’d inherited from my parents just to keep a roof over our heads.’ Charlotte gulped in a breath of air. This time she was going to do things better. She had to for Isaac’s sake.
‘But you couldn’t hold it together.’ Another flat, emotionless statement of the inevitable facts.
‘I did for a while. Then he left. That was eighteen months ago. I sold the house, paid off all the debts, and managed to scrape enough together for a deposit on a smaller house. Made a new start for Isaac and me.’
Edward just nodded.
Caught in the force of his concentration, Charlotte realised that Edward was not an absent-minded, other-worldly creature. He was thinking things through, his ruthless single-mindedness not allowing a single detail to escape.
‘Does your husband know where you are?’
‘Yes, he knows. I was hoping that he’d come and see Isaac but he never has.’
Charlotte heaved a sigh. She didn’t need to tell him about the thing that had damned her the most—it didn’t affect the problem at hand. Anyway, it was humiliating. Even more so than having to admit she was being chased by her husband’s debtors.
She met those blue eyes again. Ever questioning, but not as judgemental as she’d feared.
‘And you said your divorce is in the pipeline?’
‘Yes. I have the Decree Nisi and I’m waiting for the Decree Absolute. I’m hoping that he won’t throw any spanners into the works and put in a last-minute objection.’
‘Do you have any reason to think he will?’
