A Reluctant Wife

“I think we should get married.”

“What?” Sophie replied. “Are you crazy?”

“It makes perfect sense,” Gregory told her calmly.

“It makes no sense whatsoever. You seem to forget that I’ve already had one bad marriage.”

Gregory flushed darkly. “Why do you assume that ours would be bad?”

“Because it takes more than good sex to make a good marriage,” Sophie told him roughly. “Marriage isn’t a business deal.”

CATHY WILLIAMS is originally from Trinidad, but has lived in England for a number of years. She currently has a house in Warwickshire, which she shares with her husband, Richard, her three daughters, Charlotte, Olivia and Emma, and their cat, Salem. She adores writing romance fiction and would love one of her girls to become a writer, although at the moment she is happy enough if they do their homework and agree not to bicker with one another.

A Reluctant Wife

Cathy Williams

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

EPILOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

‘EVERYONE’S talking about him, you know.’ Katherine Taylor—curly blonde hair, brown eyes and a mouth that seemed destined to smile at the slightest opportunity—was perched on the corner of the kitchen table, idly picking on a celery stick because this week was Diet Week, as opposed to last week which had been Eat-All-I-Want-Since-All-Diets-Are-Useless-Week and watching with interest while her friend did amazing things with vegetables, a wok and some herbs. ‘Rumour has it that he’s going to be moving here.’

‘So?’ Sophie had her back to her friend and she could picture the glint of sheer pleasure at this little titbit of gossip. In a small village, and she didn’t think villages got much smaller than theirs, gossip was the oil that made the wheels of daily life turn smoothly.

‘So? So? Is that all you’ve got to say on the subject?’

‘Pretty much.’ Sophie drizzled a few herbs onto the concoction in the pan and liberally poured in some cream. Kat might well be dieting, but woe betide anyone who was foolish enough to encourage her in her efforts. She adored food and would have felt hard done by if she had been offered anything remotely calorie controlled when she was supposed to be eating out and having a good time—even if the meal in question was only a home-cooked meal shared between two.

‘How can you not be bursting with curiosity?’ Katherine asked in an accusing voice, as if Sophie’s indifference was a deliberate ploy to sabotage the conversation. ‘Everyone’s talking about Gregory Wallace. Annabel and Caroline and all the other Great and Good have already plotted his entire social life if the rumour turns out to be true and he does move here.’

‘Poor man. Anyway, food’s up.’

Which diverted the conversation for a few minutes, but as soon as they were sitting in front of their plates of pasta and vegetables Katherine returned to the topic with the relentlessness of someone determined to elicit a response.

Sophie listened to Kat and her endless speculation, but she found the whole thing boring. She would be the first to concede that Gregory Wallace was doing tremendous things for the village. He had been the man behind the building of the new housing estate, which, despite all the initial suspicions, had proved to be tasteful and thoughtfully done, and, of course, all those displaced Londoners in their new executive commuter style homes would boost the economy in their little village no end.

Already there was talk of one of the major supermarket chains opening up, which would do away with the half-hour drive to the nearest one, and the one hotel, which had been growing sadder and shabbier by the year, had suddenly seen fit to have a long overdue face-lift so that it now looked quite elegant, instead of being the local eyesore. But still. Anyone would think that the man was a knight in shining armour, charging in on a white steed to save the poor inhabitants of Ashdown from rack and ruin, instead of a wealthy businessman who was simply out to make a bit more money for himself.

‘I can’t see why the man would want to move here, of all places,’ Sophie finally said, as she placed her knife and fork on her empty plate and watched indulgently as her friend spent a few seconds resisting the temptation of a second helping, then succumbing. ‘Those types need the cut and thrust of living in a big city like London. Don’t tell me that he intends to settle down here, plant his own vegetable patch and take up bird-watching in his spare time.’

‘You’re so cynical, Sophie.’ Katherine took a generous sip of wine and eyed her friend with jaundiced familiarity.

‘I’m realistic. Gregory Wallace is supposedly an eligible bachelor so why would he choose to live in Ashdown? It’s hardly noted for its parade of beauty queens.’

‘Don’t let Annabel and her lot hear you say that. Besides…’ Katherine sat back, cradling the wine glass in her hands and looking at Sophie seriously. ‘There’s you. You’re not exactly a bag lady, are you, Soph? Despite the fact that you spend half your time dressing as though you’d like to look like one.’

Sophie felt colour steal into her cheeks and she hurriedly began to clear away the dishes, stacking them in the sink and then filling the kettle with water.

‘Please don’t start on this old subject again, Kat.’ She hated being reminded of her looks. Everyone seemed to think that good looks could only be a blessing in life, that they opened doors and turned locks and altogether made life a whole lot easier. No one ever seemed to understand that good looks could shut as many doors as they opened, and Sophie was tired of trying to explain that to Katherine.

‘Why don’t you stop wearing all those long, dreary skirts and baggy jumpers? It’s not as though you haven’t got the money.’

‘No,’ Sophie said bitterly, ‘it’s not as though I haven’t. After all, Alan left us more than well provided for.’ She turned and faced her friend. ‘A guilty conscience can be a very expensive commodity, can’t it?’ It still stuck in her throat. Even after five years his name still stuck in her throat and made her want to retch. ‘Anyway, I don’t want to talk about this.’

‘Why not?’ Katherine asked bluntly. ‘If you can’t talk to me about it then who can you talk to?’

‘I don’t want to talk about it to anyone, Kat.’ Her fists were curled into balls, and she made an effort to unclench them. ‘Jade and I are both fine. We’re happy. There’s no need to dig up the past.’ At the mention of her daughter’s name Sophie’s eyes flicked automatically to the staircase, but she knew that Jade would be sound asleep.

‘OK.’ Katherine shrugged and watched as Sophie brought two mugs of coffee over to the table and resumed her place. ‘But I think you’re wrong. You’re beautiful, Soph. And I don’t mean beautiful with the help of bottles of hair dye and face paint. But you still insist on burying yourself here.’

‘You’re here. I haven’t exactly seen you rushing out to the train station to purchase a one-way ticket to London.’

‘Point taken.’ She grinned, and Sophie felt herself relax a little.

At least the evening hadn’t ended on a sour note. She would have hated to fall out with Katherine. They had been friends since the days of Barbie dolls and pretend teddy-bear picnics but, even so, the subject of Alan was still too raw to be discussed openly, and normally Katherine respected her reticence.

Later, after Katherine had gone and Sophie had checked on her daughter, she stood in her bedroom and thought about what she had said about Alan. All lies. She wasn’t happy. At least, not in the sense of waking up each morning and being filled with the sheer joy of living.

She only really felt that way when she looked at Jade, but most of the time it was as if she were wrapped up in a blanket of vague unhappiness. Sometimes she could shake it and a waft of joyous air would blow in, like when she had watched Jade’s first nativity play at school last Christmas, but pretty soon the blanket would settle back around her body, never quite strangling her but never quite letting go.

How could she explain all that to Katherine? Katherine felt that divorces happened in their millions and that she, Sophie, was lucky at least to have had the dubious privilege of being married to a rich man who had made sure that she was more than generously compensated. How to explain the belittling circumstances behind the divorce? How to explain the way her precious self-esteem had been battered so thoroughly that it had been impossible to revive it?

She turned and in the half-light of the bedroom she looked at herself fully in the mirror to see the face and body which should supposedly have brought her happiness and fulfilment. She saw flaming red hair which curled down to her waist, large, translucent green eyes, a small, straight nose and full lips. She had no need to strip to see the length of her legs, the slightness of her waist, her full bust.

She looked at herself with no affection. If her looks hadn’t been quite so dramatic Alan would never have noticed her, and if he had never noticed her then her life might have been different—better. Thank goodness for Jade, she thought, turning away. One good thing had come out of that mire of unpleasantness.

Was it any wonder that the thought of attracting another man, of putting her body on show, filled her with revulsion?

That, at least, was one good thing about living in a tightly knit, small community. The men were all accounted for. The occasional unrecognised face might pass through, and when Annabel and her cronies descended from London to rest and recuperate in their parents’ country houses they invariably brought their chums back with them, but their few party invitations to her had been politely refused. Yes, here she felt safe.

When, a few weeks later, Katherine announced to her that Gregory Wallace was, indeed, moving to Ashdown the information barely made an impact on her. As far as she could see, whether he lived in Ashdown or Timbuktu would make zero difference to her lifestyle.

‘And I’ve met him!’ Katherine squealed, over a cup of coffee in the newly opened coffee-shop next to the post office on the high street.

‘Good for you,’ Sophie said warmly. ‘And would you say that you’re a better person for the experience?’ That provoked a warning glare.

‘He’s gorgeous.’

‘Oh, really, In that case, the locals will probably be eating out of his hand within hours. Annabel and Caroline and the Stennor twins will, no doubt, take up permanent residence here. Where is the gorgeous saviour of our little village going to live?’

‘He’s bought Ashdown House.’

‘Ashdown House?’ Sophie sat up and frowned. ‘I thought that old Mrs Frank was determined never to leave the place?’

‘Well, she did. She’s relocated to the cottage on the lane, and work begins on the place next week.’

‘He must have some powers of persuasion.’

‘Absolutely.’ Katherine sighed and Sophie shot her an irritated look. ‘Along with some very persuasive looks and a bank balance to match. And please don’t jump onto your money-isn’t-everything soap box. Play your cards right and he might prove to be a hefty benefactor to help your charity.’

‘I have no intention of running to a perfect stranger with cap in hand, begging,’ Sophie said sharply. Her charity work was a labour of love, and she wasn’t about to join the queue of people desperate to meet the wonderful Gregory Mr Fix-it so that they could squeeze something out of him. In fact, she found the whole charade surrounding his arrival faintly disgusting. At the library, where she worked, all the old biddies were full of stories of Gregory Wallace and his no-expense-spared renovations of Ashdown House.

‘No, I haven’t met the man,’ Sophie had repeated on a number of occasions. Now she had to stop herself from yawning whenever his name was mentioned.

She would doubtless bump into him one day. In Ashdown it was impossible not to bump into your fellow residents on a fairly regular basis, and she was pretty certain that she would recognise him, even though sightings, according to Katherine, had been limited over the past few weeks as autumn began to creep into winter and thoughts turned to Christmas, mince pies and Santa Claus.

‘Maybe now that the house is finished he’s become bored with his little plaything and has decided to switch his allegiances back to London,’ Sophie told her, grinning as her friend shook her head and left the library with a theatrical sigh of frustration.

At this hour, nearly five in the afternoon, it was already dark outside and the library was virtually empty. In a minute she would leave to collect Jade from her child-minder, who had her after school on the two full days that Sophie worked, and they might start work on some Christmas decorations.

In a few days’ time a large, extravagantly expensive gift would arrive from Jade’s father in New York and in due course it would take up residence under their tree. It was the same routine every year—the present, the thank-you note to the man about whom her daughter never enquired. He had had no part in her life and Jade, only five years old, had not yet started asking questions. That would come later.

Sophie was getting ready to leave, filing away her paperwork into the drawer behind the desk, when she looked up and saw someone standing just inside the door to the library. Because most of the lights in the place had already been switched off, the figure was in shadow and her heart gave a leap of pure fear.

‘My hand,’ Sophie said in a clear voice, which reverberated around the empty library and had the instant effect of making her feel like a heroine in a third-rate detective movie, ‘is on the telephone. If you take one step closer I assure you that I’ll phone the police and they’ll be here before you can so much as blink an eye.’

Whoever he was, he was tall and powerfully built. His outline told her that much. She could feel her heart thumping madly in her chest and she hoped to heaven that should she have to call the police they would still be there.’

‘How dramatic,’ the man drawled. He had a deep voice, with enough of a thread of irony running through it to turn it from merely attractive to sexy. He stepped forward out of the shadows and materialised into someone whose looks were so powerful that they bordered on mesmerising—very dark hair, very dark eyes and even encased, as he was, in a trenchcoat, Sophie could see that his body was muscular and graceful.

She recognised the type well. He was very reminiscent of her ex-husband, whose physical appeal and persistent charm had ended up scrambling her brains. She began to put on her coat, and snapped shut the index boxes on the counter.

‘Not as dramatic as being descended on by the police,’ she said sharply.

‘The police? Do you mean the jolly chap who works at the police station and plays Santa Claus in the local pantomime at Christmas?’ He gave an amused, deep-throated laugh and continued to stroll towards the desk.

‘Who are you? The library is closed. If you’re looking for a book you can come back in the morning.’ She fetched her bag from under the counter and from habit looked around her to make sure that everything was in order.

‘I’m Gregory Wallace,’ the man said. She bestowed on him a look of undisguised curiosity for several seconds, then began to head towards the door.

‘And I’m on my way out so, if you don’t mind, you can either follow me or be locked in here until nine-thirty tomorrow morning.’ As she walked past him she caught a whiff of something, some intensely masculine scent, and was struck by how tall he was. It was unusual for her to be faced with a man who wasn’t more or less on her eye level.

‘I’ve come for a book,’ he said, not following her so that she was obliged to turn and look at him, which she found exasperating—not lease because if she didn’t hurry she’d be late, collecting Jade from the child-minder.

‘I’d deduced as much,’ she said with stiff politeness. ‘People who come to libraries are generally looking for books.’ So this, she thought, was the man who had succeeded in throwing their calm little village into an excited frenzy. Viewed objectively, she could understand why. He was good-looking, presumably rolling in money and, if the gossip-mongers were to be believed, single. Look a bit harder, she could have told them, and they would glimpse the trail of broken hearts he had left in his wake.

‘And generally,’ he said dryly, ‘they expect slightly better service. I don’t even know your name.’

‘I’m Miss Turner,’ Sophie told him, without bothering to inject any cordiality into her voice, ‘and, as I said, the library’s closed.’

Surely you can take a few minutes to locate a book for me. Something on the history of this place.’

‘It’s too small to have a history. If you want history, try talking to Reverend Davis.’ She spun around, fished the key out of her coat pocket and walked briskly towards the door, switching off the remaining lights as she went. She didn’t think that he would pursue the conversation if faced with the sobering reality that she might just lock him in, and she was right. What she hadn’t expected was to find him next to her and standing so close that his presence seemed claustrophobic. She was not, by nature, a tactile person. She disliked having her personal space infringed on, and automatically she drew back slightly to put distance between them.

‘You’re the first person I’ve met who hasn’t extended the long arm of welcome,’ he said, meeting her eyes and somehow managing to keep them on his face.

‘You mean here or in life generally?’

‘Has anyone ever told you that you look nothing like a librarian?’

‘Much as I would love to stand here, chatting aimlessly to you, Mr Wallace, I’m afraid I really must go now.’ She stepped outside and slammed the door, turning the key once then testing to make sure that it was locked. Not, she thought, that it was likely to be broken into if the door remained open all night long. Ashdown was low on crime. How could you be a committed thug, she thought, if the person you were mugging had tea with your mum once a week and used to babysit when you were a toddler? Difficult.

She started to walk towards her car, which was parked across the road from the library, and he followed her.

‘I guess,’ he said, as she slipped her key into the car door and unlocked it, ‘you’ve heard that I’ve bought Ashdown House?’

‘I guess I have,’ Sophie agreed, not enlarging on the observation. ‘Well, goodbye. Hope you have some success, finding out what you want to know about the place.’ She pulled open the car door, slid into the driver’s seat, pulled her coat around her so that it didn’t get trapped in the car door after she had shut it—which it had an annoying tendency to do—and started the engine.

He rapped against the window, and she irritably rolled it down.

‘Can I ask you something?’ he enquired, half leaning into the car, and with a shiver of inexplicable alarm she pulled back, her heart beating furiously. Something about her reaction to him unsettled her. She liked men to keep their distance. She purposefully gave off strong signals that she was unavailable, and she expected them to steer a clear course away from her. Gregory Wallace was fast impressing her as a man who had little respect for other people’s signals—the sort of man who blithely went precisely where he wanted to go and ignored any protests that might get in his way.

‘What?’

‘To what do I owe your remarkable show of antagonism?’

‘My gene pool,’ Sophie told him curtly.

‘In other words, you’re like this with everyone?’

‘In other words, I have to go now so kindly remove yourself from my car.’

He stood back. Immediately she wound the window up, manoeuvred the car out of its parking space and raced towards the child-minder’s house. Just before she turned the corner she glanced into her rear-view mirror to see whether he was still there, but he had gone.

She was half an hour late, and when she arrived she found Jade, drawing intently in the lounge, with a stack of paper and crayons around her, happily unaware of her mother’s delay.

‘How has she been?’ she asked Sylvia.

‘A doll. As usual. Collected her from school at one, and she was full of it. Louise Dodwell has asked her over to tea on Friday and she’s thrilled to bits.’

Sophie smiled, and thanked God for the blessing of this small village where everyone knew her daughter and knew how to cope with her disability. How would she have managed otherwise? Oh, of course, she would have found a way, but it was so much easier to be surrounded by people who knew and understood and accommodated.

She approached Jade and spent a few seconds breathing in her presence, quietly treasuring the miniature copy of herself. It was a shame, she often thought, that her parents were not alive to see Jade. Then she walked directly in front of her daughter, stopped and spoke clearly and slowly, using hand movements as necessary to ask her how her day had been. She received a series of hand movements in response.

‘She’s not handicapped,’ the specialist had patiently told her years ago, when Sophie had first noticed that her daughter didn’t seem to respond to sounds the way she should have. ‘She’s deaf. Not profoundly. She can hear, but sounds are a distant rumble and make no sense to her. But deafness isn’t life-threatening, Sophie. You’ll need to take time, but you’ll be surprised at how well Jade will cope with her disability.’

Everyone in the village knew that Jade was deaf, and because all the children had grown up with the knowledge they always made sure that they were standing in front of her when they spoke. They were curiously gentle with her and from day one at school Jessie, Jade’s teacher, had learnt basic hand movements and had taught them to her class, turning the lesson into fun so that gradually the children began to mix their words with movements.

Sophie herself had read everything there had been to read on the subject from the time the diagnosis had been confirmed. She had taught herself how to talk, using her hands, and she had started fund-raising in Ashdown and further afield, money that would go to national children’s charities. All the time she was also relentlessly reliving the despair of her broken marriage.

In time, she had stopped thinking that Jade’s deafness was some sort of obscure punishment for being a failure at holding her marriage together, but thoughts of Alan still left a taste of bitterness in her mouth.

She tried not to think of him, but she knew that she would never again trust a man, never again open herself up to be hurt. In the space of five years she had grown up and shed her youthful vulnerabilities, like a snake that has shed its outer skin.

That made it all the more infuriating to find, as she lay in bed that night, that at the back of her mind there were suddenly images of Gregory Wallace, which flitted about like mosquitoes on a hot night, buzzing in the darkness, waiting to feed.

Hopefully, she wouldn’t lay eyes on him again or, at least, if she did it would be only in passing and from the opposite side of a street. She could always avert her eyes and pretend that she hadn’t seen him. It would be difficult since he stood out in Ashdown like a Martian at a tea party but not totally impossible. Really, he would be around very little. Tycoons had no part in village life. Their bases were always in London and the country house was the status symbol they escaped to once a month if they could spare the time.