A New Dream, Maggie Ford [books to read romance txt] 📗

over and see you and Simon now and again,’ Ginny said. ‘After all, considering the situation we were all left in after Father died, we’ve all done pretty well for ourselves and it’s all thanks to you, Julia. They should show some appreciation.’

It was a shame the others didn’t see it that way, but Julia was finding life too busy again to care about them. The order books were always full. They were even planning to enter for a fashion competition and had also arranged to go over to France before Christmas to attend the Paris Exhibition.

Married life, as for most newly-weds, held a certain wonder for Julia. She had always imagined that after all their years together marriage to Simon would feel no different. But she was wrong. Loving Simon all but overwhelmed her, as if that business with Chester Morrison had never been. All that remained of that episode was an occasional disturbing dream in which Simon appeared to be running away from her, with Chester holding her back as he faded into the distance. In the dream she searched frantically for Simon, asking people if they knew where he was and meeting blank faces – her penitence perhaps. Simon never referred to her affair.

At other times she would dream that Simon had gambled away everything they had, reducing them to living in some horrible hovel, its walls falling in so that everyone could see her striving to pretend to be rich. Perhaps this was inspired by the memory of the earlier trauma that had befallen her family.

Yet she felt it had some substance to it. Simon did play the stock market far too rashly. Time and again she would warn him to think about what he was doing but he always laughed at her when she tried to recount her dream to him.

‘While the market’s this buoyant, I intend to make the most of it. Everyone else is doing it. No reason to worry, darling. Shares in all the big corporations are rising to unimaginable heights and I don’t want to be the one to miss out.’

Perhaps he was right. Their business was thriving and dreams were, well, just dreams. And she had her own private hope about which she had so far said nothing to him: her period was now more than a week overdue. She was sure she felt different too, an odd yet indefinable change in her body. Maybe it was only her imagination – it was best to let another month go before raising his hopes.

But what if he didn’t want children? He hadn’t been too eager for marriage, so maybe he wouldn’t be eager for children either. She knew he hadn’t seen his own parents for years. She had sent them an invitation to their wedding but there had been no reply. In the past he’d told her of the rift his refusal to take up his father’s business had caused. It seemed that, having spent a great deal on sending his son to public school and then to university, his father had been angered to a point of blind fury when Simon had disappointed him. His parents had never forgiven him and he in turn had determined never to forgive them. But would that jeopardize his wish for a family of his own? Perhaps he wasn’t cut out to be a family man. She had never asked.

This evening she and Simon were lounging quietly together on the sofa in front of a dying fire. They were glad to have the evening to themselves and were enjoying coffee and brandy after a good dinner and listening to soft music being played on the wireless. Beyond the drawn curtains an October downpour was battering at the window panes but she felt cosy and warm and looking forward to him making love to her when they got to bed.

‘Have you ever thought of having a family?’ she asked tentatively.

Coming out of the blue, the question obviously startled Simon. He sat bolt upright, his gaze instantly full of concern. ‘You aren’t, are you?’ he exclaimed.

She’d have loved to have said yes but merely replied, ‘It’s just, how would you feel if I were?’

She had never expected to see a glow of joy spring to his eyes but what really took her aback was the dull gleam of suspicion that she saw there. She almost cried out: ‘It’s not like that! We took precautions.’ But what would that say of her, heaping degradation upon degradation?

Powerless to say anything, she could only pretend she hadn’t noticed the look as he got up off the sofa, a little too abruptly she thought, muttering something about it having been a long day and that he needed to go to bed.

Seated at the breakfast table Simon scanned the financial pages of The Times with his usual quiet expectancy.

‘Quite a good few of the shares I’ve been buying have already gone up several points these last couple of weeks,’ he murmured as though talking to himself. ‘Good as investing in bricks and mortar, you can’t go wrong.’

‘Shouldn’t you sell some?’ Julia queried. ‘Reap some of the profit, just in case.’

She still couldn’t get those dreams out of her head.

Simon grimaced. ‘Not when they’re still on their way up.’ There was no gentleness in his reply. He might as well have been addressing a colleague, having not once this morning called her darling. To Julia it felt almost as if a knife were being turned in her flesh.

‘In fact I might take a look at a few more before they go up too,’ he went on, still as if to himself. ‘At this rate I can make a real killing!’

Julia sipped steadily at her cup of tea to allay the misery in her stomach. In front of her a plate of cornflakes remained untouched. She never ate a cooked breakfast though Simon always did. Mrs Allan, who cooked and cleaned for them, always made sure that his plate was full to