The Guilty Wife

by Sally Wentworth

  Perhaps it wasn't what he meant, but when she did look at him fully she saw that his face was as drawn as her own, the time having taken a terrible toll on him too. There were smudges of sleeplessness and anxiety around his eyes and his mouth was set into a thin line of unhappiness.

  It broke her heart. ‘I’m sorry,' she whispered. ‘I’m so terribly sorry.'

  'Sorry!' He almost spat the word at her. 'Is that all you have to say? Well, it isn't enough. I want to know why Why you walked away from us without a word. Is there someone else? You've got to tell me.'

  'No.'

  'Then for God's sake why? All right, I know that things weren't right between us—but to leave Sam! How could you possibly be so heartless?'

  Lucie stood there, unable to answer, her eyes huge in her ashen face. Instead she said with difficulty, 'How is Sam?

  Is he all right?'

  'No, of course he damn well isn't. He misses you terribly and he can't understand why you've left him, why you don't come home.' He had phrased it almost as a question, but again she couldn't answer. With an exclamation he flung himself away from her, then looked round the room. 'Where's your suitcase?'

  She began to tremble. 'Why?'

  'Because I'm taking you home where you belong, that's why.'

  'No! Please, no.'

  He had opened the wardrobe, was checking to make sure only her things were there, but swung round to stare at her.

  'You're going home.'

  Lucie's voice rose. 'No, you can't make me.'

  'Oh, can't I?' Coming over, he put his hand on her throat, his eyes filled with such anger and bitterness that she flinched away. 'You're going home and we're going to sort this thing out like civilised people. For Sam's sake. Do you understand?' he demanded harshly, his hand tightening. 'He is the only one that matters now, and I will not have his life torn apart. Whatever happens between us I will not let you make him unhappy any longer.'

  He glared down at her, his gaze murderous, his breath harsh in his throat. Lucie looked away, closed her eyes for a moment, then slowly nodded, knowing that nothing would stop him.

  He seemed reluctant to let her go, his eyes fixed on her face. 'Now, where's your case?'

  'Under the bed,'

  He brought it out, told her to start packing her things. Lucie did so, packing the photograph carefully so that it wouldn't get broken. Then she went to the bed and took something from under the pillow.

  'What's that?' Seton asked sharply. She didn't answer, just held it tightly, so he came to look for himself. 'But that—

  that's my sweater.' He stared at her hi perplexity. 'Why do you have it?'

  Lucie shook her head and hastily bundled it in the case, unable to tell him that she held it close to her every night, that she drank hi the smell of him that still lingered hi its folds. Closing the case, she said stiltedly, 'You shouldn't have come here. You should have let me go.'

  It angered him again, but took his mind off the sweater. 'Never!' he said curtly. 'Never like this.' He picked up her case. 'Do you owe anything here?'

  She shook her head. 'No.'

  'Then let's go.'

  But Lucie hesitated. 'I have a job. I ought to tell them.'

  'You can do that from home. Come on.' Again he took her arm, as if afraid that even now she might somehow run away from him again.

  It was a long drive down to the south and the motorways were heavy with traffic, so Seton had to concentrate all the time. Lucie was glad; she didn't want to have to talk, even to ask more questions about her son. A great feeling of inevitability swept over her; it seemed she wasn't to be allowed to save the people she loved from the results of her past after all. Fate was being cruel, playing games with her, lifting her up one moment and throwing her down to the depths again the next. It just wasn't fair. One mistake when she was young didn't rate all this. Closing her eyes, she tried to shut everything out, desperately trying not to think of what would happen when they got home. And because she had spent the whole night sitting bolt upright in the police cell, Lucie eventually fell asleep, not even waking when Seton stopped for petrol.

  They came off the motorway and Lucie stirred and woke when they stopped at a traffic light. She was resting against the seat with her head turned towards Seton, and when she opened her eyes she found him looking at her. In that moment his face was unguarded, his eyes full of bleak despair, full of the pain of raw hurt and rejection. But when he saw her eyes on him his expression immediately changed, became a cold mask almost of remoteness. Slowly Lucie sat up and turned to look out of the window.

  They were on familiar streets now. Seton swept into their driveway and she was thankful that it was screened by bushes; it would have gone all round like wildfire if anyone had seen her being brought home so ignominiously. It seemed strange to walk into the house again, to see all the familiar things that she loved so much. Lucie felt as if she'd been away for years instead of just a few days. Walking in ahead of Seton, she paused to look at a picture, to touch an ornament, her heart filling with pleasure.

  After shutting the door, he set down her case and watched her, saw the yearning, the nostalgia hi her face. Somehow that hurt more than he could bear. 'Why the hell did you go?' he demanded, the hurt plain in his voice. Lucie grew still, her hand raised to caress a figurine on the shelf. Slowly she turned to face him. 'I had to.'

  'Without even trying to work things out? Had we become so incompatible that we couldn't communicate, couldn't even talk?'

  Turning away from him, Lucie took off her coat and walked into the sitting-room. It was clean and tidy—no layers of dust, no scattered toys waiting to be put away. Of Sam, the only sign was a couple of reading books left on the coffee-table. Picking them up, Lucie held them tightly. 'Has your mother been looking after you, after the house?'

  'Yes.' Seton's voice hardened. 'Are you implying that someone else might have? Are you still angry about Anna? My God, that isn't what this is all about, is it?'

  His voice had filled with rage and Lucie swiftly said to placate him, 'No! Of course not.'

  'What, then?'

  Lucie pushed up the sleeves of her sweater, feeling suddenly chill, and rubbed her arms. 'I'm sorry, but I can't tell you.'

  'What the hell is that supposed to mean?'

  'Please don't keep on, Seton. I just can't tell you.'

  He rounded on her in sudden, furious anger. 'You disrupt our lives, you drive me mad with worry, and then have the temerity to say that you can't tell me why! My God, Lucie, how can you do this to us? How can you be so cruel?'

  'I'm not. I mean—I'm not deliberately trying to hurt you.' She put her hands up to her head and squeezed her fists against her temples. 'Oh, why did you have to follow me? I begged you not to.'

  'Did you really expect me to just sit tamely by and let you destroy our lives? You left here without any word of explanation and—'

  'I left you a note,' Lucie interrupted.

  'The brevity of which was in itself an insult,' Seton bit back at her. 'You didn't even get in touch after you'd left; surely you must have realised how worried I was about you?' Lucie half turned away, not answering, and he gave her a suspicious look. 'I put an advert in the personal column of the paper, hoping that you would see it. Did you?'

  Again she didn't speak, but he strode towards her and swung her round to face him. Seeing the guilt in her eyes, he said furiously, 'You did see it!' His face filled with contempt. 'I would never have believed that you could behave so cruelly. Whatever's wrong between us, whatever you think I've done, I don't deserve this from you.'

  'Oh, but it isn't anything you've—' Lucie broke off, biting her inner lip. Raising pleading eyes to look at him, she said unsteadily, 'It isn't your fault. Of course not. It's me. I—I needed to get away, to be alone.'

  'So why didn't you go to your aunt's house?'

  'Because you would have come after me, of course.' A note of anger crept into her voice. 'Because we would have had this—this fight even earlie
r.' She pushed away from him. 'Do you think I would have left you, left Sam, if I hadn't been absolutely desperate? I had to leave. And if you'd thought about ft, if you'd thought about me, then you would have respected my wishes and left me alone, not come after me.'

  'You must have known I'd look for you.' His eyes raked her face. 'I know that things weren't right, that they had been getting worse for months—but to say that you were desperate! I just don't understand you, Lucie.' Going to her, Seton tried to take hold of her again, but she pushed him away. Exasperated to the point of losing control, he shouted, 'You must tell me what's wrong. You've got to; can't you see that?'

  'I can't!' It was Lucie's turn to yell. She faced him like a wild thing at bay. 'Damn you, Seton. Just leave me alone.'

  He stared at her, his jaw rigid, his hands balled into fists as he strove to contain his fury. Striding over to the drinks tray, Seton poured himself a drink, his hands shaking with anger. 'Do you want one?'

  'No, No, thank you.'

  Taking a long swallow of the drink seemed to. calm him a little. Seton stood with his back to her for over a minute, turning the glass in his fingers. When he faced her again there was a different look in his eyes, speculative, almost calculating. "The police told me that you were using another name; why use an alias if all you wanted was some space?'

  Grateful that his anger seemed to have eased, Lucie said wearily, 'Because I knew it would make it harder for you to find me.'

  'So you did know that I'd come after you.'

  'Yes.' Lucie went to an armchair and sank down into it. She wanted to be alone, to think, to try and work out what to do next. Rick must know that she'd gone away; when she hadn't shown up with his money he would have tried to contact her and would have realised that she'd gone, had escaped him. With any luck he might not come looking for her for a while; she might have a week or so of respite before he found out she was back and started blackmailing her again. Perhaps she might be able to run away again—more successfully this time. She had closed her eyes momentarily and now opened them to find Seton looming over her, his hands on either arm of the chair. Lucie flinched away, terrified that he might have guessed her thoughts. But Seton was following a train of thought of his own and said, 'Yes, you must have known that if you'd asked me to give you time alone, if you'd discussed it with me rationally, then I would have done as you asked. You could have gone to your aunt's place and no one would have been so terribly worried about you. You would have talked to Sam as often as you liked, have had the peace that you wanted. You certainly wouldn't have looked as if you were as torn apart as I've been.

  'Of course, the objective could have been to make me worry, if you felt jealous or neglected. But you're not the type of woman to act so irrationally, to be cruel for the sake of it—especially not to Sam. So maybe it wasn't me you were running away from.' She gave an involuntary gasp and he immediately pounced. 'Yes, I'm right. Who was it, Lucie? Who were you running from?'

  'No one. You're wrong. I'm amazed that you could even—'

  Catching hold of her wrist, Seton suddenly yanked her to her feet. 'Don't lie to me! There is someone.' A thought occurred to him and he looked sick. Dragging her with him, he went over to the desk and pulled it open. 'Is it anything to do with these? Well, is it?'

  He thrust a bundle of papers into her hands and she slowly looked at them. They were all unsigned but she knew at once they were from Rick. A fax said, 'Nothing came from you today. I shall expect to hear tomorrow.' A letter, addressed to her but which Seton had obviously opened in the hope that it would give a clue to her whereabouts, read, 'Don't hold out on me. Do you want me to come to the house again? Or perhaps I could meet Sam from school for you, like I did before.'

  Then there were several messages hi Seton's handwriting that he must have noted from the answering machine. Again all the messages were ambiguous, could have been completely innocent, asking her to pick up the phone, not to ignore him. None of them was openly threatening, so Rick must have been careful in case Seton intercepted them.

  Lucie tried to be calm, to give nothing away, but what little colour there was in her cheeks drained away, and her hand was shaking as she dropped the messages back on the desk.

  'Well? Do you have an explanation for them?' Seton demanded. She began to shake her head and tried to move away, but he jerked her back. His face very bleak, Seton said, 'Who are they from?'

  "There—there's no name, so how should I know?' Then she gave a sharp little cry of pain as his grip on her wrist tightened fiercely.

  'You cowardly little liar! They're from the same man who sent you the flowers. You've met someone else. Been having an affair. You've been seeing him for weeks, months, ever since you started behaving so strangely.' His face and voice filled with the deepest torment and he suddenly dropped her hand as if he couldn't bear to touch her.

  'But it's not—'

  'Don't lie! Don't insult me by telling more damn IKS.' Seton's face was drawn into a snarl of bitter anguish. 'But you've been lying to me all along, haven't you? Telling lies, living them. Making me think you were ill when all the time you were—' He broke off because the words were too terrible to say, picked Tip the glass and flung it across the room.

  'Oh, Seton, don't, please.' Tears began to run down her cheeks because Lucie couldn't bear to see him so hurt.

  'Please,' she begged, and tried to catch his arm.

  But he threw her off, seemed to take control of himself by a supreme effort of will, and when he turned to face her again his eyes were full of cold, implacable rage and contempt. 'Have you been to bed with this man? Have you?'

  She stared at him, taken aback, not knowing what to say, but he read the answer in her silence. 'I see.' Then Seton laughed. A harsh sound far worse than his hot rage, it pierced her heart, broke it into pieces.

  'But you ran away from him too. Why was that, Lucie? Couldn't you make up your mind between us, was that it?

  Was it too difficult to decide which man you wanted in your bed?'

  He flinched at his own words, self-inflicted wounds. 'Or maybe your conscience was getting to you—was it guilt that drove you away? What a coward you are,' he said with another derisive laugh. 'Too afraid to tell me the truth, too afraid to commit yourself to someone else. No wonder you ran away; it was the easy way out for you, wasn't it?

  And you didn't give a damn about the hell you were putting us all through. God, I could almost feel sorry for this man, whoever he is, if he really cares for you. If you weren't just a cheap lay.'

  Lucie reeled as if he'd struck her. She turned blindly away, groped for the back of a chair and gripped it tightly. Seton was right that there was another man in her life and right that it had been guilt that had driven her away, but oh, so completely wrong about everything eke. But it was over now; he had ended it himself, because he would never want her back, not after this.

  She had tried to run away but now Seton wouldn't be able to wait to kick her out; he would get a divorce and she would never see him again. What she had tried so feebly to do he would now make sure of. So she ought to be glad; he would be able to build a new life for himself and Sam, find a new wife to love him and be Sam's mother. There would be no scandal, no disgrace. Seton would be able to do everything he wanted, go all the way to the top, if he was lucky.

  And that was what she wanted too, wasn't it? It was tragic that he'd found her and they'd had to go through this, but otherwise nothing had changed. He and Sam would be free of all the years of unhappiness she would bring them if she stayed. So why did she feel as if she'd died inside, as if she couldn't bear to take another breath? But it wasn't done yet; she must make sure that she kilted any feelings he might have left for her once and for all. So she turned, her chin lifting, and said, 'All right, so now you know. I admit it; I went away to think things through, to decide which one of you I wanted.'

  His mouth twisted. 'And do you think you still have a choice?' he said with deep sarcasm. Trying to ignore that, Lucie
said, 'I'd already decided before you found me.' She took a deep breath and avoided looking at Seton. 'I'd decided to leave you permanently and go to him.'

  There was a great, heavy silence. Lucie kept her eyes down and bled inside for the hurt she was giving. She loved him so much—so much. When the silence became interminable, Lucie picked up her jacket and put it on, walked out into the hall and picked up her case. She'd actually-got the door open when Seton ran up behind her and slammed it shut.

  'Where the hell do you think you're going?'

  'You won't want me here now. I'll go and—'

  'No!' He shouted the word at her violently, his eyes so murderous that she thought he was going to hit her. 'I brought you back for Sam's sake as much as mine, and you're going to stay here until he's happy again, until we can sort out this mess you've made of our lives without doing him any further harm.'

  Lucie turned frightened eyes to him. 'But I can't stay here.' Her voice rose. 'Do you hear me? I can't stay here!'

  Seton's hands reached for her throat, almost as if he would choke off her words, but before he could touch her they were both startled out of themselves as the doorbell rang, loud and strident above their heads. For a moment they just stared at each other, but then the bell rang again long and insistently, and Seton reached past her to open the door.

  'Mummy! Mummy!' Sam had been standing on tiptoe to reach the bell, but now he threw himself into her arms and she swung him up, hugging him, laughing and crying at the same time. 'I saw your car. I knew you'd come home.'

  Sam began to sob. 'Please don't go away again. Please don't go away.'

  Lucie kissed him, murmured soft words of love and comfort as she carried him upstairs, leaving Seton to greet his mother who had brought Sam home from school, neither of them noticing a car that had been parked on the other side of the road and now drew away.

  It was the next morning when Lucie was in the kitchen with Sam that the phone rang. Sam ran to answer it. 'Hello?

  Yes, she is. It's for you, Mummy.'

  Lucie took the receiver and the voice that haunted all her nightmares said with deep satisfaction, 'So you're back.'