AllFreeNovel
Share Us
‘The only difference would have been that we would both have got very wet.’ His tone was matter of fact. ‘Stop blaming yourself, Amanda. Being exposed for the first time to the malicious side of Nigel’s nature can be quite a shock to the system. It’s hardly surprising you didn’t behave rationally.’
‘How nice to be able to analyse the situation so accurately,’ Amanda said sourly as she walked to the door. ‘Don’t you ever forget you’re a scientist?’
‘Not very often.’ He didn’t sound in the least put out. In fact, he was smiling. ‘Goodbye, Amanda. I’ll be in touch.’
Amanda’s head was whirling as she drove home. She supposed she should be grateful that Malory hadn’t lost his temper and given her the tongue-lashing she knew she deserved, but in an odd way she would have preferred a storm of anger. Because the alternative was infinitely worse.
Of course, it made a kind of weird sense. Fighting the newspaper stories would only attract more unwelcome attention to them. A tacit acceptance of the situation seemed to be the answer.
But being forced to masquerade, even on a temporary basis, as Malory’s fiancee was a distasteful prospect. After all, in spite of everything they’d been through together, he was still an almost total stranger to her, and what she did know about him, she didn’t particularly like, she told herself roundly. His cool composure got right under her skin. But there was more to it than that. Under the politely civilised exterior he presented, there were signs of a formidable personality, she suspected.
She sighed. She would never call Malory a nonentity again, she thought uneasily.
And the next few weeks promised to be the most difficult of her life.
Amanda tucked the last file back in the drawer, closed the filing cabinet and locked it with a feeling of relief. It had been a very long day. Jeffrey Lane, her boss, had returned that morning from his vacation, and set the whole building by the ears. Everyone knew that Jeffrey hated holidays, and only went on them because his wife insisted. He invariably returned in a foul temper, bursting with frustrated energy, and this time had proved no exception. But every cloud had its silver lining, and Jeffrey’s determination to turn the company inside out had, at least, served to distract people’s attention from her rift with Nigel and its aftermath.
Secure and happy in her engagement, she had never realised before what a hotbed of gossip Lane Gerstein was. She’d looked on work as a sanctuary—an escape from her mother’s querulous and unceasing criticism—but it had proved the opposite. Since her return, she’d found herself exposed to every kind of innuendo and speculation. Only her pride had prevented her from reporting sick and going to ground at the flat.
Yet there wasn’t a great deal of peace there, either. Fiona and Maggie clearly thought she was mad to have split from Nigel, although Jane’s reaction had been kinder and more tactful. But there were altogether too many sudden and awkward silences each time she entered the kitchen or the living-room. And, since Malory’s unexpected announcement of their engagement in two of the leading dailies, and a short-lived revival of press interest in her love-life, it had been impossible to confide in her companions—even in Jane.
Anyway, she wasn’t sure she wanted to admit to anyone what a total fool she’d made of herself. In retrospect, she was frankly appalled by her behaviour, and thankful that no one else knew what a hash she’d made of things. She bit her lip. No one, of course, except Malory Templeton.
Since her return to London, he had telephoned twice, once at the office, and once at the flat, in-viting her to meet him, but each time she’d made an excuse and, thankfully, he now seemed to think that honour had been satisfied by his going through the motions of acting the attentive fiance, and was leaving her in peace.
Going abroad, even on a temporary basis, was beginning to seem an increasingly attractive prospect. If she went where she was completely unknown, she might be able to start dragging the rags of her life together again.
When she got outside the building, Amanda found to her annoyance that it had been snowing slightly, and the traffic was in turmoil as a result. She had to queue for ages for a bus, and when it came it crawled along while Amanda sat, hunched and miserable in her seat, gazing unseeingly through the splashed window.
The others were already home when she got to the flat. She was unzipping her boots in the hall when Jane appeared, grinning at her.
‘Had a nice day?’
Amanda shuddered. ‘Can we just draw a veil over the whole painful subject?’ she appealed. ‘What’s for supper?’
