without Ivo and if the clothes were eye-catching enough, maybe people wouldn’t remark on his absence. Maybe she wouldn’t notice it too much.
‘And we need to talk,’ he added. ‘About what happens next.’
‘You’d better come through,’ she said, turning away, leaving him to follow. Then, because facing him in her small sitting room while he coldly deconstructed their lives was unbearable, she veered off into the kitchen and once there needed to do something with her hands. ‘Are you hungry?’ she asked. ‘It seems forever since lunch.’ A sandwich at a hastily convened meeting in the boardroom. Not that she’d eaten any of it. One mouthful had warned her that it would stick like a lump of glue in her throat. Then, when he didn’t immediately answer, she turned and realised he hadn’t followed. She retraced her steps and found him staring at her laptop. The adoption site.
‘You’re busy,’ he said. ‘I’ve disturbed you.’
He’d disturbed her the moment she’d turned and seen him looking at her at some charity function. When she’d felt the heat reach out and touch her from the far side of the room.
It had been new then, but the effect did not diminish with familiarity; even now it seemed to burn through her silk shirt, warming her skin.
‘I’m researching a new project,’ she said, her fingers itching to close the lid, but her brain warning her that hiding what she was doing would only arouse his interest. Then, ‘I haven’t got much in. Food,’ she added. Just the basics she’d picked up at the eight-’til-late on the corner.
The computer beeped to warn her of an incoming email and the sound seemed to vibrate through her.
It took every bit of will-power she possessed to turn away and walk into the kitchen.
‘It’ll have to be something on toast,’ she said. ‘Cheese? Sardines?’ The kind of comfort food that had no place in his Belgravia kitchen, but which she craved right now. ‘Scrambled eggs-’
‘We could go somewhere.’ Clearly he felt as out of place in her kitchen as-all Savile Row tailoring and handmade shirts-he looked.
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Somewhere quiet,’ he persisted, unused to his suggestions meeting with resistance.
She didn’t argue, just took a box of eggs from the fridge. ‘You’ll find some bread in the crock,’ she said, as she set about cracking them, one by one into a bowl.
For a moment he didn’t move, then, dropping the envelopes on the counter, he reached for the loaf.
‘You didn’t know I could cook, did you?’ she said, reaching up to unhook a whisk, doing her best to keep it light.
‘You’ve never needed to,’ he said as he put the loaf down beside her.
Not since she’d married him.
She’d watched the television chefs who’d been on her show. Had bought books, taught herself. It had been such a luxury to have her own kitchen. Such a pleasure to be able to go to the supermarket and buy what she wanted. But in Ivo’s house there had always been someone on hand to produce anything from a sandwich to a banquet at the drop of a hat and her early visits to the kitchen had been firmly discouraged by Miranda on the grounds that it would upset the staff.
‘Maybe I did,’ she said.
When he didn’t answer, she looked up, realised just how close he was. How foolish she’d been to invite him in. She needed to keep her distance…
‘Why don’t you make the toast?’ she suggested, moving away to pour egg into a pan. Scrambling eggs was not rocket science, but it did require total concentration, which was why she’d made that the comfort food of choice. ‘You
‘I went to a spartan, character-building public school in the wilds of Scotland,’ he reminded her. ‘Followed by four years at university, Belle. Without a toaster I’d have starved.’
His words, about twice as much as he’d ever said before about his school days, were unexpectedly heartfelt. He didn’t talk much about his childhood. All she knew she’d learned from Miranda. Their summers in France and Italy, the ponies, the pets…
Now she wondered. Had he been as happy as Manda had implied?
‘There’s a difference between being hungry and starving,’ she said, refusing to weaken, look at him. Besides, she wasn’t talking about food.
She’d only ever envied Ivo one thing. Not his wealth, a house filled with treasures gathered over generations, the half a dozen places around the world he could call home if ever he had the time to visit them. Only his education. The fact that he and Miranda had conversations about art, music, literature that passed right over her head. That, courtesy of summers spent in France and Italy all through their apparently idyllic childhood, they spoke both languages fluently.
She’d missed out on so much, had spent all her adult life reading voraciously in an attempt to fill the gaps, but mostly learned just how much she didn’t know.
He’d had every advantage. Had no business complaining.
‘My staff sponsored you,’ he said, assuming that she was referring to the kids they’d been raising money to help. ‘Supported what you were doing.’
‘Am I supposed to be grateful?’ she asked, unimpressed, as she continued to stir the egg. ‘They were just sucking up to the boss, Ivo.’
‘You underestimate yourself.’ Then, when she was surprised into looking at him, ‘They were genuinely touched by your empathy with those children.’
‘Oh.’ Throat suddenly dry, she said, ‘And you?’
‘I supported you too. A cheque was sent into your appeal this morning from all of us.’
‘Thank you,’ she said, knowing that it would be generous, wishing she hadn’t been quite so sharp. ‘But I was asking if you were “genuinely touched”.’
‘Belle…’
Stupid question…
The bread popped up and, glad of the interruption, she took the eggs from the heat, reached for plates from the overhead rack. ‘Will you pass me the butter from the fridge?’
He didn’t move. ‘What is this all about? Why now?’ When she didn’t answer, he added, ‘If there’s no one else?’
The painful edge of uncertainty in his voice was so rare, so unexpected, that she had to put down the wooden spoon she’d been using to stir the eggs. The one thing about Ivo that was unchanging was his sureness of purpose and she longed to go to him, to reassure him that this was not his fault.
Unfortunately there was only one way that would end, so instead she fetched the butter herself, spread it on the toast, piled on the egg and hitched herself up on a stool with the breakfast bar between them. Only then could she trust herself to say, ‘There’s no one else, Ivo.’
She picked up a fork, going through the motions of normality for both of them.
‘As for why now-well, maybe distance lends perspective.’ She toyed with the egg, searching for words that would explain how she felt without unnecessarily hurting him. ‘We never pretended that this was a fairy tale marriage, Ivo, and we’ve had three years.’ She managed a wry smile. ‘That’s at least two years longer than most people gave us at the start. Almost a record for someone in my business. At least we knew what the score was. Didn’t make the mistake of having children…’ Her voice faltered and she gripped the fork more tightly, as if it were a lifeline. ‘There’s no one to be hurt.’
Grateful…
Now that really was a fairy tale.
She’d longed for Ivo’s baby, a part of him who would love her unreservedly, accept her as she was, but she had married him for security, he’d married her for lust. Children needed more than that.
Maybe ‘grateful’ was the right word.
Babies would have been no more than a sticking plaster to cover over the hollow place in her life. The Daisy- shaped emptiness that, until now, she’d refused to acknowledge.
Until she’d confronted the past, found her sister, she had no right to children of her own.
‘Just accept that I’m doing us both a favour,’ she said, a little desperately. ‘Let it go. Find someone who’ll fit your world…’
