A Fall from Grace, Maggie Ford [best english novels to read txt] 📗

meeting her.’ His arms had tightened about her in a new surge of disbelief.

‘How could your father withhold her illness from you, much less not informing you of her tragic end, nor of the funeral. It seems to me quite deliberate. Forgive me but how vicious and cruel can the man be?’

Madeleine pulled herself away from his grip to throw herself back on to the sofa, though this time to sit upright, trying to collect herself. There was no need to forgive James his opinions. She was entirely in agreement. It was unbelievable how cruel her father could be. It made her heart ache and she vowed that to the day she died, she’d never forgive him.

Sitting on the sofa beside her, James said quietly, ‘You must put it behind you, my dear.’ Gently he took her hand. She let it linger there.

‘Try to think of nicer things,’ he went on. ‘Our companionship, the happiness you now have. I have made you happy, haven’t I, my dear?’

She nodded without speaking as he went on: ‘Think back to the lovely time on our honeymoon. I know it was nowhere exotic such as I would have loved to take you were it not for this terrible war. But when it is finally over, I will take you to places you have never seen before. I’ll make sure you’ll never be sad again, my dear.’

Listening to him, Madeleine’s mind went back to that first night at his home before travelling off to Derbyshire. She’d been so on edge, hardly able to concentrate on being introduced to his staff – Merton his manservant, his cook and housekeeper Mrs Cole, the housemaid Beattie, and Lily the scullery maid, and Robert his chauffeur – for thinking of James expecting to exercise his marital rights once upstairs. But he’d done nothing of the kind.

She’d never set foot in any of the upper rooms of his home and with heavily beating heart had allowed herself to be led up there, he preceding her, having not so much as held her hand, allowing her to follow two steps behind. In fact he had been as awkward and embarrassed as she, following him into the large, splendid bedroom with its big double bed which she instantly guessed had once been his and his first wife’s, they no doubt far more at ease with each other during their married life than James and she were at that moment, would ever be.

She hardly remembered what he had said, her mind more on the problem of changing into night attire and having to lay beside him. She did remember them both standing in the centre of the room a few inches apart, he leaning forward to kiss her, and apparently sensing her slight, instinctive almost, recoil and had instantly stepped back from her, going to a little table to one side that held a decanter of brandy and two glasses and had said as he poured out a tiny measure for each of them, ‘Maybe a small nightcap for us both.’

It was then she’d realized how awkward he too was feeling, and out of compassion for him, had forced herself to relax, taking the glass he’d offered with its tiny measure of spirit.

‘To our companionship,’ he had said quietly.

The word companionship had come as an overwhelming relief as he’d leaned forward and kissed her cheek – a tender kiss; no embrace, the kiss of an elderly man to a child, not what she had expected. She’d been nineteen, he indeed elderly in comparison, and now her husband. His moustache had felt soft against her skin, his lips even softer; flaccid, and she remembered having instantly recalled the firm demand of another much younger man’s lips on hers that had made her insides squirm with desire, and then had come the thought: what had she done, marrying a man thirty-seven years her senior? But she knew – so that one day she’d have her child back.

Since then she had raised the subject time and time again, yet more than eighteen months later he was still making excuses not to trace the baby – after all this time it might well be impossible; nothing to go on; his stockbroker business demanding all his attention right now; the way the war was going so many other concerns taking precedence.

She’d even suspected a personal reluctance to have a child, any child, especially one not of his blood, around him at his age. She’d begun to ask him less and less these days, slowly seeing the sense behind his reasoning. It had been a long time and that deep longing, that ache she used to feel had begun to diminish a little. Her life had settled down. Other than a reluctance to trace the child, he gave her everything she desired, while continuing to see their marriage as mere companionship for which she was grateful.

He had never attempted to make love to her. The nearest he had ever come to physical affection was a tender kiss on her forehead or taking her arm when out together or to help her in and out his Wolseley limousine before his chauffeur could reach her, even tucking the travelling blanket around her knees which was more the chauffeur’s job.

It was always a loving gesture on his part, this care for her comfort and safety and for that she was grateful, in turn vowing to be faithful to him. But every so often came that secret yearning for a younger man’s touch and many times she had caught herself thinking of the young man who had run lightly down the steps of the registry office; a lively, loquacious young man of twenty-six in the uniform of an army captain, who had introduced himself as her husband’s nephew Anthony. But today there was no such yearning.

The solicitor’s letter had loomed back into her mind, smothering those fleeting thoughts that had come from nowhere, unbidden, making her loathe herself for having allowed them in