Newlyweds of Convenience

‘Music and dancing, yes.’ Torr nodded. ‘You’ll enjoy it. Everyone always does, even if they wouldn’t normally be seen dead dancing. It’ll be a chance for you to meet some of our neighbours, too.’

‘What? In case I ever want to pop round for a cup of sugar or a quick coffee?’ said Mallory, who was still feeling edgy after misinterpreting his look so humiliatingly. ‘Our nearest neighbours must be at least fifteen miles away- hardly handy for a chat over the fence.’

‘It’s all relative,’ he pointed out. ‘You never know, you might make some friends. I said we’d go, anyway.’

So on Saturday evening Mallory had a bath and washed the dirt of the garden out of her hair. Torr had said that it wouldn’t be a formal affair, which was just as well as she had left most of her smart evening clothes in storage in Ellsborough, but she wanted to make a bit of an effort.

For the neighbours, she reminded herself.

She found a soft, swirly skirt and a vibrant pink blouse with three-quarter length sleeves, which she cinched at the waist with a wide belt. She would just have to hope that it looked all right. The next time she went to Inverness, she decided, she was going to get a full-length mirror.

As it was, she had to inspect her reflection as best she could in the bathroom mirror. She had dried her hair so that it fell in soft waves to her shoulders, and she was wearing make-up for the first time in ages. She looked just the same, Mallory thought with surprise. She felt so different now from when she had first come to Kincaillie that she had somehow expected it to show in her face.

Perhaps the changes were more visible than she had thought, though. Torr was sitting at the kitchen table, reading a paper while he waited for her, but when Mallory went in he looked almost startled. He got slowly to his feet.

‘You’ve changed,’ he said.

‘Of course I’ve changed! I can hardly go dancing in my old gardening clothes!’

‘No, I meant…you’ve changed,’ he said. He studied her, as if contrasting his pale bride with her stark eyes and withdrawn expression with the vivid woman in front of him. ‘You look…better,’ he said inadequately.

Mallory thought about what he had said. ‘I feel better,’ she admitted honestly.

‘I suppose that’s because you don’t feel trapped into our marriage any more.’ Torr was folding up the paper, searching for his car keys, not looking at her any more, and his voice was curt and careless.

She watched him with a slight frown. Was that why she felt better? It must be. ‘I suppose it is,’ she said.

They left Charlie in the kitchen, knowing that the moment they’d gone he would be up on one of the chairs and making himself comfortable.

For some reason the atmosphere between them felt strained again as they made their way out to the car.

It was long, clear May evening, windless for once, and the sea gleamed like a sheet of copper. The hills in the distance were a smudgy violet beneath a sky washed with the gold of a slowly setting sun. Mallory stopped with one hand on the car door, caught by the luminous light, noticing the setting as if for the first time.

‘It’s beautiful,’ she said, sounding almost puzzled.

Torr was momentarily forgotten as she gazed at the scene. She had never thought of this landscape as beautiful before. It had always seemed so barren, so intimidating in its savage grandeur, a mighty battlefield between the scarred mountains and the ceaseless wind and sea. But now all was still and a magical hush lay over it, and she could see at last how you might come to love it.

If you were going to stay more than a year.

‘Yes,’ Torr agreed, but when she turned her head he wasn’t looking at the sea or the hills beyond. He was looking at her as she stood with her face lifted to the setting sun.

‘You are too,’ he said gruffly, opening his door so that his words were almost lost. ‘I should have said before.’

Mallory’s heart clenched like a fist in her chest. ‘Thank you,’ she said after a moment, which seemed like a better option than, Why don’t you kiss me if you think I’m beautiful? A more sensible option, anyway.

He was her husband. He thought she was beautiful. Mallory sat next to Torr, her pulse booming in the dark, enclosed space of the car. She was burningly aware of his hand on the gearstick, of his massive, reassuring presence. The light from the dashboard illuminated his cheekbone, the edge of his mouth, the line of his jaw, and every time her eyes slid sideways to rest on his profile she felt hollow and slightly sick.

He was her husband. She ought to be able to lean across and put a hand on his thigh. They would share a bed when they went home tonight, but she ought to be able to turn to her husband for more than warmth. She ought to be able to press her lips to his throat, to trail her fingers down his stomach, to kiss her way along his jaw and whisper in his ear.

If he thought she was beautiful, he ought to want her to do that, surely?

Mallory swallowed, half terrified by the train of her thoughts. Torr had made it clear enough that he didn’t want that. No sex, no passion, no excitement. That was what he had said. No touching other than in the interests of warmth.

But if he really did think she was beautiful…

Mallory was appalled at herself. She seemed to be in the grip of something beyond her control, so that no matter how often she reminded herself that it would be better to keep things the way they were, her imagination would simply sweep all sensible thoughts of the future aside and leave her next to him in the darkness, where nothing mattered but the longing thumping deep inside her and clenching at the base of her spine.

When Torr parked outside the pub in Carraig and switched off the engine, Mallory was almost disorientated. The sharp air helped clear her head at least, and she was able to smile and greet people at the ceilidh even though she was still quivering with awareness. She knew every time Torr smiled or shook hands, every time he so much as turned his head.

He seemed to have met a surprising number of people in the area already, which was puzzling when she remembered how grimly unapproachable he had always seemed in Ellsborough. The Scots seemed to like his austere style, though. Or perhaps, like her, it was him who had changed.

The village hall was very plainly decorated. A buffet was laid out at one end of the room, and uncomfortable- looking chairs were ranged along the walls. Dragging her mind away from Torr for a moment, Mallory did wonder if it was going to be an excruciating evening, but once the musicians started tuning, things began to look up.

The music was impossible to resist, and in spite of herself Mallory’s foot started tapping. As the first set started to form, she hoped Torr might ask her to dance, but he was talking to the doctor’s wife, and in the end it was the vet who swept her onto the floor.

‘I’ve got no idea what I’m doing,’ she warned him, and he grinned at her.

‘It doesn’t matter. You’ll pick it up as we go along.’

Had Torr even noticed that she’d gone? Mallory wondered crossly, and was then even more miffed when she saw him inviting the doctor’s wife to dance.

The dancing was great fun. Mallory whooped and swung and tapped her feet along with everyone else, but she was aware of Torr the whole evening. Like her, he had a different partner for every dance, so it wasn’t as if she were jealous. It wasn’t that kind of dancing, and one of the great things about the ceilidh, she learned, was that you danced with anybody and everybody.

Still, he might have asked her, Mallory couldn’t help thinking. She was his wife, after all. Every now and then they would meet in the dance, and their hands would clasp as they passed down the line, or swung each other round, and each time his touch send a jolt of awareness through her. There was a steady thumping building up inside her, and her mouth dried whenever she looked at him.

That was what came of sharing a bed with someone, of starting to notice him. Now she was reduced to lusting after her own husband, and was unable to do anything about it, thought Mallory, mortified. Ridiculous.

And yet, was it so impossible? They were alone, and neither of them was involved with anyone else, however much they might want to be. God, they were even married! How much more justification did they need? And surely anything would be better than the charged atmosphere in the bedroom every night, lying there and not touching when all they could think about was how it would feel if they did?

Correction: all she could think about. Be honest, now, Mallory told herself. The fact