From Waif To His Wife

‘You don’t have to,’ he murmured, reaching her side.

‘Oh, I don’t mind. It’s about the only credential I have,’ she added for his ears only, and slipped her arm through his. ‘Lead me to it.’

Ten minutes later she’d wowed the gathering, and left some egg on the face of his cousin Amelia, with a lively, sparkling medley excerpt of well-known tunes, from a stunning “Rhapsody in Blue” through to the latest pop song that was at the top of the charts. They begged her not to stop.

‘Yes, yes, I must!’ And she got up and closed the piano. ‘Thank you for being such a lovely audience,’ she added warmly.

And as she came back to his side, he knew that Maisie Wallis had endeared herself to his family.

Snippets of conversation reinforced this.

‘A genuine ingenue…’

‘Rather refreshing, wouldn’t you say…?’

‘So lovely and natural…’

‘Well, I didn’t know what to think but I’m converted…’

‘The only thing I don’t understand is why all the secrecy…?’

He saw Maisie catch that comment, and in her only unguarded moment her eyes flew to his and he thought he saw something curiously stricken in them.

‘That wasn’t so bad, was it?’

They’d driven back to the apartment and Maisie was sitting on a settee, massaging her feet, having kicked off her shoes.

‘No, I suppose not,’ she said quietly.

He slung his jacket and tie over a chair and unbuttoned his shirt at the neck.

‘You say that as if you have reservations.’

She looked up at him. ‘Yes, I do. It was basically dishonest and,’ she sighed, ‘I-I don’t feel too good about myself.’

‘You certainly put on a sparkling performance.’

She grimaced. ‘A bit of that goes directly to having red hair. It seems to sort of…put you on your mettle, and I guess I thought, well, I can only be myself. But of course, that was only the tip of the iceberg.’

She reached behind her and unclasped the diamond necklace. ‘Thank you.’ She held it out to him. Then she suddenly looked directly into his eyes. ‘You say that as if you have reservations.’

‘Say what?’

‘That I put on a sparkling performance.’

He gazed down at her, still so elegant in her lovely black dress even with bare feet, but with shadows in her green eyes, then he shrugged. ‘Perhaps I only meant that it was Mairead, not Maisie, who took over tonight.’

Maisie examined the uneasy thread that lay between them she was coming to know well and she said, before she stopped to think, ‘You don’t like Mairead, do you?’

‘I didn’t say that,’ he denied, ‘but I do find her a bit-I don’t know, but it may have something to do with-it was Maisie I met first.’

Or because Mairead leads straight back to Tim Dixon? she found herself wondering, and shivered suddenly.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing,’ she murmured but wondered for a moment if she could explain that it wasn’t only redheadedness that went into Mairead. Yes, she might be able to extend that confident aura to suit the situation at times but basically it came from her music.

Once she’d discovered that “bubble” in her practical exam, it had provided what probably all performers, be they ever so different at other times, drew on. That almost spiritual affinity with their music.

But would he believe that?

‘Maisie?’

She shrugged. ‘I really am one and the same person. A bit battered now, shop-soiled, some people might even say, but if,’ she gestured, palms out, ‘all this hadn’t happened I would have lived with my mistakes and made the best of things.’

He frowned. ‘What are you saying, Maisie?’

‘I guess, that people are going to have to take me or leave me.’

‘As in me?’ he queried abruptly.

She stood up and picked up her shoes. ‘No, Rafe, not you. You’ve done enough, you’ve literally picked up the pieces-I don’t expect any more from you.’

‘Maisie,’ he said harshly, then paused because the only way he knew to defuse things between them was to take her in his arms, to kiss her and cradle her to him and tell her-what?

That Mairead both attracted him and disturbed him? Because Mairead was more enigmatic than Maisie at the same time as she was…stunning? But beneath that vivacious, on-her-mettle personality, what really lay in her mind?

Come to that, did he still feel bound up in silken strands?

Talking of silk, he mused as he studied the pearly glow of her skin beneath the unlined voile of the top of her bodice, he contemplated drawing her dress down her body so none of that smooth, lovely skin was veiled and hidden from him.

He wondered what expressions would chase through her green eyes as he did so.

On the other hand, he reminded himself, he felt real affection for Maisie, perhaps too much to put her through the mill of his indecision-and the other reason he was the way he was.

But, and it was a bit like slamming into a wall, yes, there were still moments when he could forget she was pregnant and by whom but shortly that wasn’t going to be possible. Soon, every time he looked at her he was going to be reminded of his charming, feckless cousin…

Not only that, but he was also going to be asking himself if she still loved Tim. He’d never forgotten her remark in the Tree House that had seemed to indicate she was looking for excuses for Tim.

He shut his teeth hard. ‘Maisie, let’s just get through your pregnancy, let’s take one thing at a time, in other words. We’ve done what had to be done and perhaps both of us, but you particularly, need a break.’

She swung her shoes in her hand. ‘Of course. Goodnight, Rafe.’

He watched her go and was almost unbearably tempted to stop her, to throw all caution to the wind, but he didn’t.

He made a savage little sound in his throat and crossed the room to pour himself a nightcap. He swirled the brandy and gazed into its amber depths.

It couldn’t work, he told himself. Maybe if it had been anyone but Tim, who will no doubt think it was a nice revenge to have foisted his baby on me, maybe…

But it wasn’t only Tim Dixon who held him back, it was the fact that he well knew how destructive a love-hate relationship could be. After all, he’d lived through one.

Maisie fell asleep with relative ease.

It was as if she’d made a statement about herself she’d needed to make. It was as if she’d finally closed the door on her feelings for Rafe Sanderson.

Three days later they were both installed in the house although the apartment was to be maintained.

Two months later, despite her ongoing love affair with the house, Maisie dropped her head into her hands as she sat at her piano, and tears trickled through her fingers.

The dog curled up on the floor beside her sat up and put a paw on her lap.

She fondled its silky head and pulled a hanky from her pocket to blow her nose.

The dog, a present from Rafe, was a six-month-old border collie that she’d christened Wesley, Wes for short. And it was a living example of everything her husband had done for her to make her life pleasant and bearable over the last months, but there was so much more.

He’d installed a live-in housekeeper-there was a small service flat over the garage-so she would never be alone. Grace Hardy, in her forties and a spinster with a childcare background, was unobtrusive but they’d become friends when they’d discovered two common interests-Grace loved to cook and she belonged to a choral society.