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Chapter Eighteen
It feels like days elapse while we "mingle" with my family, but I suppose it's been a few hours. I do not like long get-togethers. They leave me jeeked. I need to rest, but I don't want to do it. The arrival of Graham Oliver hadn't helped matters, and my mind keeps replaying that moment no matter how hard I try to avoid thinking about it. Graham must want something, or he believes he can hurt me somehow by talking rubbish about my wife.
I will never let Graham drag Emery through the muck.
Perhaps I haven't given her the sort of marriage a woman like her deserves, but I've done the best I can. Loving my wife is out of the question, whether I want it to be or not. Besides, I'm incapable of it.
After the confrontation with Graham, I find myself becoming the stoic and grumpy ogre everyone thinks I am. Maybe I don't growl at anyone, but I realize I'm retreating into myself again and ignoring my wife, giving her the occasional cursory glance while I herd my family out of the garden and to their vehicles. I try to encourage them to leave, politely, but I doubt I pull that off. Since my relatives each flash Emery a sympathetic smile, I suspect I have failed.
When we return to the house, Mrs. Darroch insists on making lunch for us. Emery tries to engage me in conversation, but I manage only the occasional grunt or obligatory "aye." This day so far has been a right fankle. I like order and reason, not a tangled mess of confusion.
After lunch, Emery decides to go upstairs to her bedroom while I retreat into my office with the door closed.
I sit at my desk and stare down at the file folders I've set on the surface, but I don't do anything. I stare. At the folders. What am I meant to do? Work, obviously. My clients need my help. I had told them I'm still on holiday until tomorrow, though, so I can't decide what work I should do. At least here, in my private sanctum, I can find a bit of peace and quiet. After the garden party nonsense, solitude appeals to me.
But I get bored with that after five minutes.
Organizing my calendar and my files keeps me occupied—for another ten minutes. Then I decide to call my mate at the Home Office to check on the progress of my wife's visa. Stephen Beckham answers on the second ring.
"It's Rory MacTaggart," I say.
"Good afternoon to you too, Rory," he says with a hint of sarcasm. Everyone knows I waste little time on pleasantries, but like my family, Stephen enjoys teasing me about that. "How's the weather in bonnie old Balla-whatever?"
"Ballachulish. But you know I don't live there anymore."
"Of course. You live in a castle in the dark and forbidding woods, like a character in a Grimm Brothers tale." A clicking noise alerts me to the fact he's extending and retracting the tip of his ballpoint pen while he talks, a habit he's had for years. "What can I do for you, Rory?"
"Can you check on the status of my wife's visa?"
"You want me to expedite it in any way possible."
Aye, he knows I prefer to get things done quickly. "Yes. Can you speed it up at all?"
"For you, of course. I'll do whatever I can. You did save me from a legal nightmare, and I will owe you for the rest of my life."
"You're being melodramatic. It wasn't that bad."
"No, it was worse. I'm grateful, so stop being humble and let me repay the favor."
"All right. Thank you, Stephen."
"Cheers, Rory."
Just as I hang up the phone, someone knocks twice on my office door.
"Come," I say.
The door swings open, and Emery waltzes into my sanctum.
She scans her gaze over the entire room as if she's cataloging every element. The office has dark wood paneling on the walls and shelves packed with books that take up three of the four walls from floor to ceiling. Many of the books are about the law, but I also have history texts. She smiles slightly when she sees the trio of tall windows that admit sunlight into the room and the upholstered bench positioned beneath them.
I'm hunched over my desk, which features wood the same dark shade as the walls. My leather executive chair suddenly feels too formal, at least when Emery is in the room. She likes "fun" things, so I doubt she appreciates the style of my office.
She glances at the computer that occupies one corner of the desk.
I try to focus on the papers spread out across the desktop, resting my arms on the surface, but I feel lines creasing my forehead. I'm dreading whatever my wife wants to say to me. She seems determined to pry me open and rummage about in there.
Emery approaches the two smaller chairs positioned across from me, which sit at a respectable distance from my desk. She glances down at the rug that covers most of the floor, her brows rising briefly.
