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“How long has it been going on?”
“I first realized about a week ago. But I presume it’s been going on longer than that.”
She didn’t want to tell Gabriel that she’d heard Laure and Joseph having sex. She had left the house quickly that day, and had sat for hours in a café in Markham, returning to the house at 5 p.m. Everyone had presumed she’d spent the day in London, even Esme—Iris had picked some photos of furnishings from various websites and had sent them to her—and she had seen no reason to tell them the truth. For the moment, she didn’t want Laure to know that she knew about her relationship with Joseph. She wanted to see if Laure would tell her herself. Laure owed her that, at least.
Gabriel put the rest of his pork pie back in the foil, his appetite gone. “What are we going to do about it?”
“There’s nothing we can do about it,” she said, exasperated. “They’re adults, Gabriel.”
His brow darkened. “It doesn’t seem right. Pierre—”
“Doesn’t have a leg to stand on.”
“You’re right—if it’s true about him having a daughter.” He glanced toward the garden. “I don’t want to go back out there now. Do you think Hugh and Esme know?”
“I have no idea.”
“Should we mention it to them?”
“It’s not really any of our business.”
He unwrapped the foil again and took a half-hearted bite of the pork pie. “Do you think it was going on before she went to Paris? Maybe that’s why she didn’t hang around to wait for Pierre, because she was already involved with Joseph.”
Iris stopped in the middle of filling the kettle.
“I don’t know. She was pretty distraught that Pierre hadn’t turned up.”
“She wasn’t distraught when she got back though, only when she phoned you from Paris. And didn’t you say that she’d been shopping before she got on the train? You found that strange.”
She turned to face him. “What are you saying?”
“That maybe when she phoned you, she was only pretending to be distraught. Maybe she did see Pierre, maybe she told him their marriage was over because she was already with Joseph at that point.”
“Wow.” She considered this for a moment. “It would explain her bizarre behavior that day, and her decision not to stay even one night in Paris. I found it strange that she wanted to come straight back before knowing how it would go with Pierre. It would help if we could speak to Pierre, get his side of the story. But that’s not going to happen, is it?”
“Only when he comes back to Paris at the beginning of August.” Gabriel paused. “What are you doing for the rest of the day? Howabout we go out for lunch, just the two of us? Get away from here for a bit?”
“Thanks, but can we make it another time? I’m going to see Esme.”
“Of course. How’s she doing?”
“Bored out of her mind.”
“I can imagine. It can’t be easy for someone like Esme to be confined to bed.”
Esme had called her the day after they were meant to go to London, to confess that she hadn’t had a sickness bug the previous day, but had been having contractions. She’d phoned the midwife that morning, and the midwife, who lived in the village, had asked Esme to come in. It was where she’d been going when Iris had seen her leaving her house.
“I’m sorry, I should have told you the truth,” Esme had said. “But I didn’t want you to worry. It was a bit of a wake-up call; the baby isn’t due for another seven weeks.”
“What did the midwife say?”
“She sent me for a scan and everything is fine but I have to rest. I’m not allowed to go out, so I’m basically lying on the sofa all day. It’s so frustrating as there’s still so much to do. The rest of the house can wait, but I’d feel better if the nursery was ready.” She paused. “Would you be able to come over and bring some swatches for curtains? Then I can have them made up.”
“Of course. I’ll bring them this afternoon.”
She had been over most days since, happy to see her friend and give Hugh a break, because Esme wasn’t supposed to get up at all. In the mornings, she moved from her bed to the sofa in the kitchen, but that was the only walking she did.
Iris hadn’t spoken to Esme about Laure and Joseph because she was waiting for Esme to mention it first. If she and Joseph were as close as they seemed to be, surely he would have told her about his relationship with Laure? Unless he didn’t want her to know. She had tried, but she couldn’t shake the image of him with his head on Esme’s stomach, nor the intimacy it had conveyed. There couldn’t be many pregnantwomen who would welcome, or encourage, such a gesture from a man if he were only a friend. So if Joseph was more than that, didn’t Esme deserve to know that he was in a relationship with Laure?
