She paid him the respect of not leaping up and fussing, but waited as he slowly got himself under control.
‘I’m so sorry I left it too late.’
‘For what?’
‘For us to get married.’
She made herself meet his eyes. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘Yes. It does. You’re keeping a promise you never even got to make.’
‘Jonathan. It really doesn’t matter.’
He smiled then, but sadly. ‘I love you for saying that, but I know you’re lying. And besides, it matters to me. I should have stood next to you, in front of the kids and my friends – in front of everyone – and said, This is the woman I love.’ He took deep breath. ‘Megan, I wish you were my wife.’
She leant across and kissed him, gently. As she withdrew, Jonathan held on to her, pulling her back towards him. There was so little strength left in his arms that it felt like a faint request, but the expression on his face was anything but weak. She kissed him again, properly. Their first passionate kiss in months. It was like kissing a different person – which, of course, he was – one who felt, smelt, moved, spoke and looked totally unlike the Jonathan she had fallen in love with. When they broke apart, his eyes were alive, his breathing very erratic. She tensed, worried that he was having another pain episode, perhaps the effort of the evening had brought it on.
But she was wrong. It wasn’t pain he was feeling, it was passion. ‘Come to bed with me. Please.’
‘Of course.’ Her heart twisted.
But their moment of passion was immediately overshadowed by the logistics of his illness. She would have to ask if he needed the toilet, help him to change and get settled, sort out his meds. Be his carer, not his lover.
But even that, Jonathan had planned. ‘Will you do something for me?’ She nodded. ‘Will you wear the robe I brought you back from Washington?’ He was sending her away so that she wouldn’t have to help him into bed, like she had a hundred times before.
‘If that’s what want.’
‘Tonight, it is.’
She kissed him again and did as he asked.
Jonathan had bought the robe for her at the beginning of their relationship – when their love affair had been exhilarating and illicit. It was made of caramel-coloured silk. It was the most indulgent item of clothing Megan had ever possessed. She stepped out of her dress and wrapped its soft folds around her body. Then she sat on the bed and waited, listening to the sounds of Lisa helping Jonathan get settled, trying to hold on to the romance. The effort he had gone to, the desire to remind them both what their love used to feel like – still did feel like, beneath the mountain of worry and awfulness that was heaped on top of them – made Megan want to cry.
At last she heard Lisa shout ‘Goodnight’ and the definitive slam of the front door. That was her cue.
She headed downstairs.
Jonathan was waiting for her. The room had been transformed again. The only light now was from the wrought-iron candlesticks left burning on the mantelpiece. The bed had been pulled away from the wall and pushed into the middle of the room, so that it was facing towards the French doors, which were open, letting in the breeze and the smell of the sea. Jonathan was in bed. Megan climbed in beside him and put his arm around her. They took a few moments to find a position that was comfortable – too many nights apart made fitting back together a conscious act. He was naked, apart from his boxers. She rested her head against his chest and he breathed in and out. She could hear the effort, but she tried to ignore it. Neither of them said anything for a long time.
She pressed against him. Silk against skin. Skin against skin.
‘Thank you,’ he whispered.
Megan put her fingers to his mouth and traced his lips, showing him she loved him, but also silencing him. She didn’t want thanking; she wanted loving. She raised herself up and took off the robe, but didn’t discard it. It had a role to play. Gently she laid it across Jonathan’s chest – a kind disguise. Then she began to stroke his chest through the silk. It slipped and slid across his skin. She moved her hand down his torso and across his hips. She felt him tense and relax, strain against and then away from her touch. His breathing caught, but this time she knew why and she didn’t let it concern or stop her.
After he came, he cried. Then he slept, propped up, with Megan at his side.
She stayed with him as long as she could, watching the clouds scud across the moon, before she quietly got up, closed the French doors and climbed the stairs back to her empty bed.
Chapter 37
LIV’S ‘BOYS’, all three of them, were flat out. She could hear Arthur’s ruttly snoring through the wall. As a family, they only had two settings, on and off. Liv was used to unpredictable sleep patterns, due to a lifetime of shift working, but of late her brain simply wouldn’t switch off, even when she begged it to. As a result she was living in a twilight world of tiredness, her senses perpetually on alert. Angus rolled over – oblivious to her wakefulness. A bottle and a half of red could do that to a man, even one as big as Angus. His generous consumption had helped to blur his awareness of her covert abstention. A full glass didn’t need filling if you never drank from it.
There was a part of Liv that was disappointed Angus hadn’t noticed the changes in her behaviour; that her husband and soulmate hadn’t questioned her, forced the issue and discovered she was pregnant. But a far bigger part of
