Truly, Madly, Deeply

Only once did they have a real conversation.

‘What did you do in Ireland, Mr Doyle?’ she asked.

‘I was a stable hand. I’m good with horses. But I’ll work at anything to make a good life for my lads in Australia. It must be hard for you, going so far away on your own.’

‘Yes, but I have a job waiting, as a maid.’

‘Will you like that?’

‘I’ll like eating regularly and being paid. And it’ll give me a start.’

‘I don’t have a job waiting. But I’m hopeful. People always need help with horses, don’t you think?’

He stood as if trying to think of something to say, then walked away abruptly.

Although the journey was long and the confines of the ship so stifling, Sarah found enjoyment in reading and sewing classes.

In the reading class, the Blake sisters were the best speakers. Sarah could have sat and listened to them all day.

Ellis was also a member of the reading group but when he was asked to take his turn, he read so haltingly and looked so embarrassed that he wasn’t asked again. The teacher was tactful like that.

A very short woman called Miss Roswell was the best at sewing. It was obvious that she didn’t need lessons, just wanted the company. She soon began helping the teacher, who could get a bit impatient if people were clumsy in their work.

When the teacher claimed exhaustion and gave up running the class, Miss Roswell took over, which was all to the good.

One day she asked Sarah to stay behind. ‘I hope you don’t think I’m being too personal but I know what it’s been like for the people of Lancashire. I can see that your clothes were made for other women and I wondered if you’d like me to help you alter them?’

Sarah felt ashamed but wasn’t going to miss an opportunity like that. ‘Would you have time?’

‘I have all too much time on my hands at the moment. You’d be doing me a favour.’

Gradually, Sarah’s hand-me-downs were transformed into well-fitting and even stylish clothes. Oh, that made her feel so much better.

But out of perversity, she didn’t wear the best of them, even though Miss Roswell had hinted that Ellis kept looking at her when he thought no one would notice and she should encourage him.

Sarah knew her face had become rosier, could see for herself that she was getting her shape back under her newly altered clothes. But if he had to have her wearing new clothes to want her, then he wasn’t worth it. Was he? Or was she being too proud?

Ellis joined the reading group to while away the long hours of doing nothing. He sent his lads to a class for children, relieved that they wouldn’t see how poor he was at reading. Well, when had he ever had the chance for a proper education?

He saw Mrs Boswick in the class but when he made a mess of his first reading and heard how well she could read, he felt too ashamed to do anything but sit at the back and try to escape everyone’s notice.

He was glad to see her looking better, filling out a little, getting nice rosy cheeks. She must have been short of food for a long time. She wasn’t the only woman whose appearance had changed since they set off. Quite a few of them had blossomed. But the others didn’t interest him. She did.

After the second reading group meeting the teacher asked him to stay behind.

‘Would you like me to give you some extra help with the reading, Mr Doyle?’

‘Why would you do that, Mr Paine?’

‘Because I have too much time on my hands and because reading is such a joy to me that I like to share it with others.’

‘Oh. Well. If you don’t mind, I’d be grateful, I would so.’

‘You can come to my cabin for the lessons. We can be private there.’

But what was he going to do with his boys? They were so lively, they needed someone to keep an eye on them. He didn’t want them falling overboard.

After some thought, he asked Mrs Boswick if she’d mind watching them because she seemed to enjoy their company. He was too embarrassed to explain why, but she didn’t ask, just said in her usual quiet way, ‘I’d enjoy that. We can play games or I can read to them.’

Rory in particular seemed very attached to her. Ellis wasn’t sure whether that fondness for her was a good or bad thing. After all, they might never see one another again after they arrived in Australia and Rory had already lost one person he loved. But learning to read better was so important, Ellis took the risk of her finding out what he was doing and looking down on him.

6

The men talked quite a lot, sharing what they’d heard about life in Australia, revealing their hopes for a better life. A few knew what it was like because they had relatives there. A man called Martin had lived there for a while and was going back, along with his new wife. When he talked about Australia, people hung on his every word.

‘Couldn’t you find a wife there?’ one man teased.

‘No, I couldn’t. There are ten men to every woman in the Swan River Colony, so I went home and let my aunt find me a wife. And she did very well by me. A fine, sensible woman, my Dora is.’

‘Do you think being sensible matters?’ Ellis asked.

Martin looked at him as if he was utterly stupid. ‘Of course it does. Women are much more practical about marriage than people give them credit for.’

That gave Ellis a lot to think about. He wanted to marry again. And it hadn’t taken him long to realise Sarah would suit him well because she made him feel so comfortable and…Oh, just because!

But if there were ten men to every woman, she’d have other suitors. She could choose someone better than him, someone who could read and write fluently, who didn’t already have a family.

And even if he asked her, she might say no. She could be very sharp when annoyed

But…Ellis did like her. A lot.

So he had to be sensible about this and do it quickly, before someone else beat him to it. He chose a moment when he could get her on his own, planning to ask her straight out. ‘I’ve been thinking…’ He couldn’t get the words he’d rehearsed out. They sounded stilted.

‘Thinking what?’

‘Thinking we should…get married.’ He couldn’t bear to look her in the eyes. If she looked scornful, he’d shrivel up and die.

Her voice was cool. ‘Why should we do that?’

He summoned up the main argument, the one he thought would appeal to a woman most. ‘Because the boys need a mother and I need a wife. It’s the most sensible thing to do.’

‘Is that all?’

Words stuck in his throat. ‘Isn’t it enough?’

She shook her head. ‘No, it’s not enough. You didn’t say you cared for me.’

Someone came along just then and he turned to look over the rail, screwing up his courage to try again.

But when he turned back to say of course he cared for her, Sarah had gone.

After his failed proposal, Ellis tried several times to catch Sarah on her own but she seemed to be avoiding him. Maybe that was her way of saying no.

He didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t sleep at night for thinking of her.

Then he heard two of the other men joking about a bet they’d made: they were competing to see which of them could get Sarah to marry him. Pete and Jim had also listened to Martin, it seemed.

Ellis got up the next day determined to have it out with her even if he had to shout out his feelings for the whole ship to hear. He wasn’t going to lose her now.

After breakfast he saw her at the other end of the deck and hurried along. This was it. He’d do it. As he got closer he saw Pete on his knees in front of her and he knew what that meant.

Ellis would have turned away but she looked across at him. It seemed to him that she was pleading with him, that she was trying to pull her hand away from Pete’s.

Something snapped inside him and Ellis ran across the last few yards of deck, pushing between Sarah and Pete. ‘Don’t do it! Don’t marry him. He won’t love you half as much as I do. I can’t bear it if you marry him.’

‘Oi!’ Pete tried to pull him away.

He shoved Pete aside but the man came barrelling back.

Sarah stepped between them. ‘Go away, Peter Millton!’ she yelled. ‘Or you’ll spoil it for me.’

She turned back to Ellis.

He smiled, his anxiety past now, at what her words had revealed. ‘I love you, Sarah Boswick. I can’t think of anything else but how much I love you. Will you marry me?’

‘Of course I will, you fool. I’d have said yes last time but you were so horridly sensible.’

He laughed and wrapped her in his arms, kissing her soundly. It took him a while to realise that someone was tapping his shoulder. He swung round, ready to punch Pete if he had to. But it was the matron of the women’s quarters. So in his joy, he gave her a big hug too. ‘She’s just agreed to marry me.’

Then he turned back to finish kissing his Sarah properly.

Author’s Note

They really did send sixty starving cotton lasses from Lancashire out to Western Australia in 1863. I’ve written a whole series based on this fact, the Swan River Saga (Farewell to Lancashire, Beyond the Sunset and Destiny’s Path). But that wasn’t enough to get those young women out of my mind. When I was asked to write a story for this anthology, I immediately thought of using this scenario again. My heroine may be imaginary but the background is as true to life as I can make it.

The Corporate Wife

Carole Matthews

CAROLE MATTHEWS is a bestselling author of twenty-four hugely successful romantic comedy novels. As well as appearing on the Sunday Times and USA Today bestseller lists, Carole is published in thirty-one different countries and has sold over 4 million books. Her books Welcome To The Real World and Wrapped up in You have both been short-listed for the Romantic Novel of the Year.

Previously unlucky in love, she now lives happily ever after with her partner, Lovely Kev, in a minimalist home with no ornaments or curtains. She likes to drink champagne, eat chocolate and spends too much time on Facebook and Twitter. Her latest book is A Place to Call Home.

For more information visit her website

www.carolematthews.com

The Corporate Wife

I was a trophy wife when Ethan married me, you know. Oh, yes. I could have had my pick of anyone. Men buzzed round me like bees round a honeypot: they were irresistibly drawn to me. I was showered with gifts morning, noon and night. I was wined and dined on private yachts from Antibes to Antigua. That was the life I had.

I was a model, a bloody good one too. I’d done Vogue, Harper’s, Vanity Fair: all the glossies. I didn’t do catwalk though. My breasts were too luscious, my hips too curved. It was all heroin chic in my day and they wanted six-stone skeletons for that. I’m a woman and have always been proud to look like one. I was never going to be just a walking coat hanger. Which meant that I wasn’t ever quite as big as someone like Elle or Naomi. But I never minded that. Not really. I did get out of bed for less than ten thousand dollars a day though not that often. And, let me tell you, I’d been offered far more than that to get into bed too. Not that I ever did. I was very choosy. There were no scandalous pictures of me falling drunk out of nightclubs, wrapped round a different man every night, or snorting cocaine with some unsavoury, unwashed rock star. I always kept myself nice. Held myself well.

I’d had more marriage proposals than you could shake a stick at and had batted them all away. But when Ethan asked me, I said yes straightaway. Ethan was different. He didn’t fawn over me like other men. He was secure in his confidence. We met at a polo match in Windsor. I was presenting the prize and he was the captain of the winning team. His smile lit up my life in a way that nothing had before and made me weak at the knees. I gave him my number and he didn’t call me for weeks. I liked that. Not too eager. It continued like that throughout the whole time we dated. My phone was never deluged with texts and calls from Ethan. I had to ring him. That was a new experience for me. Sometimes he’d leave me sitting alone waiting in restaurants for him –how the press loved that. When I called he’d simply say that he’d forgotten about our arrangement. I thought he was playing a game with me. I guess I learned the hard way.

Ethan was rich, even then. Not as ridiculously wealthy as some of my suitors, of course, but we were never going to be on the breadline. He was from good stock with a family pile in Hertfordshire, a solid, handsome house where we eventually lived. I had my own money too, at one time. But it was expensive being me –looking like that doesn’t come cheap, I’m sure you can imagine –and soon there was very little of it left. Plus, once we were married, Ethan didn’t like other men looking at me. Not in magazines, anyway. The shoots were getting raunchier, less and less clothing. I could have had a big contract with a line of very racy underwear but Ethan didn’t like the idea of that either. He didn’t think that it would be good for my image. On his advice, I turned down so many bookings that eventually, I slipped off the radar. As soon as I hit thirty-five, the agency stopped calling at all. The paparazzi didn’t wait outside our London apartment or chase after me when I came out of restaurants. Ethan said that he was relieved. And I was too. In a way. Plus there were always the hungry young things snapping at your heels: nineteen-year-olds with more confidence and attitude than experience. I was one of them once.

‘Are you ready, darling?’ Ethan asks as he swings into the dressing room. He glances impatiently at his watch and does that tapping thing with his foot. ‘We’re going to be late.’

He’s still handsome, my husband. There’s a smattering of grey in his hair, but it only makes him look more distinguished over the years. It’s so terribly unfair that men grow more beautiful with age whereas women, inevitably, do not. He looks so smart in his hand-tailored charcoal grey suit and crisp white shirt.

‘Is that a new tie?’ I usually bought all his clothes and I didn’t recognise it.

He looks down. It’s grey silk with a faint black line through it. Very stylish. ‘Yes.’

‘You bought it yourself?’

Ethan rolls his eyes. ‘I am perfectly capable of buying my own ties, Lydia. I don’t see why you should be so surprised.’

But I am surprised. That was my role: I looked after the house, I looked after Ethan, I shopped for him.

‘It’s nice,’ I offer.

Even after all this time, I still love him. We’ recently celebrated our fifteenth wedding anniversary. Well, when I say ‘celebrated’ I mean that Ethan was away on business somewhere –Denmark, I think –and I opened a bottle of fizz on my own and watched re-runs of Wallander. When he was less busy we were hoping to hop off for a week somewhere warm.

It’s a party tonight. Another one. This one at The Dorchester. A thank you for five hundred of Ethan’s staff for hitting their targets in these terrible times of recession. Some of them will be made redundant next week, but they don’t know that yet. Tonight, they’ll still be blissfully unaware of their fate and on a high.

I take one last look in the mirror. The last time I appeared in the Daily Mail it was a shot from our beach holiday in Barbados pointing out the cellulite on the back of my thighs. I was mortified. That was the day that my unswerving attachment to the sarong started. Of course, that was years ago. I’ll be forty-five next birthday. Not a milestone birthday, as such, but one that takes me another step further away from my prime. None of the newspapers care what I look like now. But I do. My skin used to be like porcelain, white and flawless. There are wrinkles now –fine ones, thanks to Crème de la Mer and some well-aimed Botox. But they’re undeniably there. Perhaps I’ll have some of the lights taken away from around this mirror. It’s too bright, unforgiving. I might like myself better if I were perpetually in soft focus. I ease back my cheeks with my fingertips and watch my jawline tighten. That’s how I used to look. Once when I was young and desirable.

‘How much longer, Lydia?’ Ethan presses. ‘The car is waiting.’

‘I just want to make sure that I look my best.’ I clip on my diamond studs, then stand up and check myself in the full-length mirror. This dress is cut on the bias and flatters my figure, which is fuller than it used to be despite the hours I spend in the gym and the hours that I spend looking at food rather than eating it. It’s sapphire blue and emphasises the colour of my eyes.

‘No one will be looking at you,’ my husband says. ‘I’ll see you downstairs.’

It’s not just the newspapers who don’t care what I look like anymore, it seems.

It wasn’t always like that. Obviously. Ethan used to love having me on his arm at his corporate functions. Mouths used to gape when he introduced me. I knew what they were thinking. That Ethan had punched above his weight. That he had married well. My husband might not have wanted me to carry on with my career, but he liked men to look at me. He liked their mouths to water when they saw me with him. He encouraged me to dress in the skimpiest of clothes. And I was happy to oblige. He couldn’t keep his hands off me then. At the most inappropriate moments, I’d feel his thumb graze my nipples, his fingers inching up my thighs. I’ve lost count of the corporate dinners where his hand would be between my legs under the table before we’d even reached dessert.

There was a photograph of me in the tabloids. We’re on a yacht in the Med –I can’t remember whose now –and I’m standing at the bow alone in impossibly high heels, the tiniest of gold bikinis that barely contains my breasts, a gold chain accentuating my slender waist, the scant thong exposing my tanned buttocks. My long blonde hair streamed behind me. It was my natural colour then. I look like the cat who’s got the cream. It made page four of the Sun. I remember exactly the day it was. We were with a party of businessmen who we were entertaining for lunch. I was the only woman on board and yet Ethan insisted that I wore the bikini and nothing else. He even picked it out for me. Even after we’d spotted the paparazzi on another boat, he’d come behind me and slipped a finger under the thin fabric of my swimsuit and inside me. The other men were all lounging on the deck with champagne just behind us, but he didn’t care. Then Ethan took me down below, lifted me straight onto the counter in the galley, pulled down my bikini bottoms and made love to me right there. At any moment, any one of the men, or all of them, could have walked in. I thought he’d done it because he was overwhelmed by passion, because he loved me so much.

I’m older and wiser now.

I slick on my lipstick, smooth down my dress and plump my cleavage. It’s all still my own but it needs help now from well-cut and ferociously expensive underwear. Picking up my diamanté purse, I make my way down the stairs.

The Dorchester is one of my favourite venues and this is from someone who has been to the Burj al Arab on a regular basis. But that is tacky in its opulence whereas The Dorchester is all about understated elegance. Mind you, every five star hotel thinks that they’re far better than they are. We like the Terrace Suite here, which has the most marvellous view over London, and we were booked in overnight. I’m hoping to do some shopping in town tomorrow and perhaps have some lunch at Harvey Nics. Ethan, of course, is going into the office even though it’s Sunday.

The Ballroom Suite is already thronging with Ethan’s colleagues. They’re all bright young things, university educated with degrees in such things as philosophy and politics. They have conversations where they all shout over each other about the FTSE and the Dow Jones and I have no idea what they’re talking about and have no desire to. I stand and sip my champagne and try to look interested.

The room is beautiful, stylish, all cream and gold. We stand at the top of the sweeping staircase so that Ethan can greet his staff. We shake hands endlessly with the damp, the sweaty, the cool, the dry, the over eager, the bone-crushingly aggressive and the limp-wristed. No wonder the Queen always wears gloves. How could she bear to have all those strangers touch her?

‘Hello, Lydia.’ I look up to see one of Ethan’s managers, Colette, standing in front of me, smiling widely. I think she’s one of his favourites as she always seems to accompany him to his business meetings. ‘Beautiful dress. You look lovely.’

‘Thank you.’ She’s visited the house several times too, so we are familiar enough with each other to air kiss cheeks. ‘You look simply divine too.’

She’s slender, Colette. Sickeningly so. Self-consciously, I pull in my tummy. Tonight she’s dressed in a black, clinging number with a perilously plunging neckline that leaves little to the imagination. It must be held on with tit-tape and I’d bet a pound to a penny that she’s not wearing any underwear. It makes the brightness of my blue look garish in comparison. Like I’m trying too hard. She’s young. Twenty-six at most and has a boyish figure with a washboard stomach and no hips. For work she power dresses in crisp white shirts and pencil skirts with vertiginous black patent heels. She looks like a woman who wears stockings to the office. Her skin is soft and coffee-coloured. Her corkscrew curls –the height of fashion –bounce onto her bare shoulders.

I feel I should ask her a question but I don’t know what to say, so she moves on and turns her attention to my husband. ‘Ethan.’ Her eyes brighten.

‘Good evening, Colette.’ His hand slips onto her hip and his thumb traces the arched curve of her bone. Very few people would notice, but I do. She wets her lips and leans into him slightly as her kiss lingers too long on his cheek. ‘Great tie.’ Her fingertips stroke it lightly and a glimmer of a smile plays at her mouth.

And I know instantly who bought it. Of course, I do. Does Ethan think that I’m gullible enough to believe that he would ever trouble himself with his own shopping? Colette moves on and I watch Ethan’s eyes as they follow her. I feel sick to my stomach. If she thinks she is the only one, the first, then she is sadly mistaken.

It’s hot in here, stuffy and I wonder if they’ve forgotten to turn on the air-conditioning. The rest of the line snakes past us and soon we make our way down the staircase into the ballroom below. I always used to like this dramatic entrance, felt as if I was in a movie, Folies Bergère or something starring Fred and Ginger. I liked the heads that turned to look at me. Now I can’t wait to rush down to my seat and my legs shake as I take the steps.

‘Are you all right?’ Ethan snaps. ‘Do pull yourself together, Lydia.’

I trail in his wake until we reach the top table. ‘I need to talk to Colette and Brad Walker,’ he says over his shoulder, pulling out his own chair. ‘I’ve sat them either side of me. Hope you don’t mind entertaining Canning. He’s a bit of an old bore, but he’ll love you.’

What he means is that he’s old enough to remember the photograph of that wretched gold bikini and will leer at me all night. I take my place next to Stuart Canning halfway down the ballroom. He pulls out my chair for me and kisses my hand. There’s spittle at the corner of his mouth.

I have no idea what’s served for dinner, my stomach is too knotted to be able to consider eating. At the top table, there’s much banter and laughter and I have to drag my attention back from Ethan and listen to the man droning on at my side.

After dinner, the music starts. The dance floor starts to fill. Ethan kicks back his chair, unbuttons his collar, loosens that tie. The laughter doesn’t stop. Soon, I hope he will remember me and ask me to come to his table. But the minutes stretch on, the songs continue and, still, he doesn’t make a move. Eventually, I make my excuses to the extremely dull Mr Canning and weave my way through the tables to Ethan’s side. I wait until he finishes his conversation and then I kiss his cheek. He looks at me in surprise. Perhaps he had forgotten that I was here at all.