Sinful Nights: The Six-Month MarriageInjured InnocentLoving

by Penny Jordan

  Over breakfast, Louise’s excitement about the snowfall successfully covered the empty silence between them, Mrs Fuller coming and going with toast and coffee. Lissa noticed the dry crackers on her own plate and the weak cup of tea. Thankfully most mornings Joel had left their bedroom before she actually got up, and so far had not noticed her brief bouts of nausea. She couldn’t go on ignoring her symptoms any longer, though, she admitted, deftly preventing Emma from overturning her cereal bowl. She would have to make an appointment to see the doctor.

  Once that mental decision had been made it was easier to ring the local surgery and make an appointment, which she did as soon as Joel had left the house. She couldn’t go on for much longer with the present situation, and nor could she tell Joel of her suspicions without making any attempt to have them confirmed.

  Mrs Fuller had gone out to do some shopping, taking both girls with her, and when the receptionist offered her an almost immediate appointment, Lissa took it.

  As she stepped outside it started to snow again, small flurries at first, increasing in density so that by the time she had reached the main road it was snowing quite heavily. Fortunately there was very little traffic on the road, but when she skidded slightly on one sharp bend Lissa began to wish someone else was driving. Living in London had blinded her to the dangers of adverse weather conditions, and her stomach muscles tensed protestingly as she switched her windscreen wipers on to fast in order to clear her window. The doctor’s surgery was in the nearest town, in the opposite direction from the small village where Mrs Fuller had taken the girls, and the road to it was a narrow, little used one.

  It was nearly an hour before Lissa reached the small market town. She found an empty space in the surgery car park, and hurried on jelly-like legs towards the building.

  She wasn’t kept waiting very long. The partner she saw was new to her, a pleasant, quietly spoken woman in her mid-forties, who briskly confirmed her own suspicions. ‘We shan’t know for definite of course, until we get the results back,’ she added, ‘but from what you’ve told me there seems little doubt that you are pregnant.’

  She went on to discuss pregnancy in general with Lissa and advised her to ring her in a couple of days when they should have obtained the results of her test.

  Although she had been in the surgery less than half an hour it had been long enough for the roof and bonnet of her car to become covered in snow, as were her tyre tracks. Huddling deeper into her jacket Lissa unlocked her door and climbed in, trying not to dread too much the drive back home.

  A cold, biting wind had sprung up while she was inside, whirling the heavily falling snow into a blinding storm. Crawling along in a low gear Lissa prayed that she would reach home safely. Several times she skidded but on each occasion she managed to control the car before any damage was done. When at last she was on the familiar half mile or so of road that led to Winterly’s gates relief poured over her, relaxing her tense muscles. She was just about to turn into the entrance when a Land-Rover turned the corner beyond the gate, heading towards her from the opposite direction. She braked instinctively, gasping with shock as she felt her car start to slide towards the stone wall that encircled the park, knowing that she was helpless to prevent the collision.

  Her seatbelt pulled tightly against her body as her front wheels dropped into the ditch, the bonnet of her car screeching horribly against the stones. Part of her was conscious of doors slamming and footsteps coming towards her, but until her door was wrenched open and Joel bent down and across her, releasing her seatbelt mechanism, she hadn’t realised he was in the Land-Rover.

  ‘What the hell did you brake for?’ he demanded grittily, almost pulling her bodily out of the car. ‘We’d seen you coming and we were waiting for you to turn into the drive. Didn’t it strike you that the Land-Rover is far easier to control in weather conditions like these?’

  ‘I didn’t think … I just reacted instinctively,’ Lissa admitted huskily. Now that the initial shock of the impact had worn off she was beginning to feel distinctly odd … only too glad of the hardness of Joel’s chest behind her, as he half carried and half dragged her away from her car.

  ‘Where the hell have you been, anyway?’

  Conscious of the fact that Joel’s companion—one of the tenant farmers—was watching them, Lissa shook her head, closing her eyes on a sudden wave of sickness. She must have gone completely limp in Joel’s grasp because instantly his arms tightened round her, and she heard him swearing under his breath as he swung her up off the ground and carried her towards the Land-Rover.

  ‘I’ll take my wife up to the house,’ she heard him saying to his companion. ‘You see if you can get her car out of the way. Left there it will only cause a hazard.’

  Dimly, like someone in a dream, Lissa was conscious of Joel shouldering open the Land-Rover door and depositing her on the hard seat, before taking his place next to her. The engine started, its roar filling her senses like the sound of waves pounding on to surf, and then they were jolting down the drive towards the house, each jolt making her shudder and clench her stomach muscles against an increasing need to be sick.

  The moment Joel stopped the Land-Rover she scrambled out, making for the downstairs cloakroom.

  ‘You’d better call the doctor,’ she heard Joel speaking behind her, his voice curt; angry almost. ‘Lissa’s just had an accident in her car. I’ll take her upstairs and get her in bed.’

  She wanted to protest that she was neither deaf nor dumb and moreover, perfectly capable of putting herself to bed, but the bout of nausea had left her too weak to do more than moan a miserable protest, as Joel picked her up and strode towards the stairs.

  In their room he placed her on the bed, and stood frowning over her for a few seconds before asking tersely, ‘Are you hurt at all? Did you bang your head … ’

  ‘I’m fine Joel,’ she told him weakly, ‘it’s just the shock …’ Instinctively her hand went to her stomach, and lay tensely there, but Joel missed the betraying gesture, his eyes on the scene beyond the window.

  ‘What on earth possessed you to take the car out in the first place? Where the hell had you been?’ He broke off as Mrs Fuller tapped on the door and came in with a tray of tea.

  ‘I’ve rung the doctor and he should be out soon.’

  A numbing lethargy was creeping over Lissa. All she wanted to do was to close her eyes and go to sleep, but Joel wouldn’t let her. He kept on talking to her, demanding to know where she had been. If only he would go away Lissa thought weakly, refusing to answer.

  ‘Lissa you mustn’t go to sleep.’ His voice was painfully harsh, ringing dauntingly in her ears. ‘You might be suffering from some slight concussion … Open your eyes …’

  Wearily she did as he instructed. He looked quite pale, she noted with detached curiosity. He also looked extremely angry. It gave her a certain amount of quiet satisfaction to realise that she had escaped somewhere where neither of these emotions could touch her. Indeed she felt extraordinarily detached herself … quite strangely so. She must close her eyes …

  ‘Lissa!’ The sound of her name exploding beside her with angry vehemence forced her to open them again. Joel’s head jerked up and he stared at the window, getting up to go and look out.

  ‘The doctor’s arrived, thank God.’

  His fervency hurt her, betraying how anxious he was to escape from her presence.

  Her door opened and Mrs Fuller came in. Lissa smiled weakly at the doctor. The older woman raised her eyebrows. ‘Well now … what’s all this?’ she demanded briskly.

  ‘I had a slight bump in my car,’ Lissa began to explain, but Joel over-ruled her, telling Dr Soames what had happened in terse, bitten-out sentences.

  ‘She was very sick almost immediately afterwards. I was concerned that there might be some degree of concussion.

  ‘Umm … I don’t think so,’ Dr Soames pronounced, examining Lissa’s forehead. ‘She doesn’t seem to have bumped her head at all. More likely to b
e the nausea was caused by her pregnancy.’ She frowned a little and said to Lissa. ‘I suggest you spend the rest of today in bed. In my view it’s too early yet for your accident to bring on a miscarriage, but we won’t take any chances. Any other bumps or bruises?’

  Lissa shook her head, unable to look at Joel. He had gone to stand by the window when Dr Soames came in and he was still standing there with his back towards her, the intense rigidity of his spine making her heart sink. This wasn’t how she had planned to tell him that she might be carrying his child.

  CHAPTER TEN

  ‘WHY? Why the hell didn’t you tell me?’

  They were alone, Dr Soames having left, and Mrs Fuller having tactfully shepherded both girls downstairs. Joel swung round to stare at her. Her head was aching muzzily, and Lissa reflected wryly that fate seemed determined to work against her. How on earth was she to marshal her arguments against Joel when her brain refused to work properly.

  ‘I wasn’t sure myself. That’s why I went to see Dr Soames this morning. I knew it was something we’d have to talk about but I wanted … I wanted to be sure of my facts before we did …’

  ‘Sure of your facts …’ How brittle and angry Joel’s voice sounded. He swung round and she saw his face, confused by the grimness of his voice and the pallor of his skin. No doubt it had come as a shock to him to discover that she was carrying his child especially when … she bit her inner lip painfully to stop the weak tears from forming and forced herself to face the truth. How could Joel want her to carry his child when in reality he loved Marisa?

  ‘Well it seems now that there’s precious little doubt.’

  She didn’t blame him for being angry, but it wasn’t entirely her fault, she reminded herself, trying not to remember the sensation of his hands on her skin … his mouth against hers, his heart thudding out its primitive intoxicating message against her body.

  ‘Do you want to abort it?’

  Lissa couldn’t hide the flash of shocked pain in her eyes, but managed to whisper croakily, ‘Do you?’ She ought to have been prepared for this, but somehow she had not. It was, after all, the neatest, tidiest solution, but it was not one she could ever agree to. Even if Joel rejected her she still intended to go ahead with her pregnancy.

  ‘No.’ His voice was harsh, his head averted so that she couldn’t see his expression.

  ‘Neither do I,’ she admitted huskily.

  ‘You realise what you’re committing yourself to, do you, Lissa?’ he demanded, still without looking at her, ‘and I don’t just mean motherhood. I want to make it quite clear now that there is no way I would ever allow anyone else to take my place in my child’s life. I won’t divorce you so that you can go to Greaves,’ he told her levelly, facing her for the first time.

  At first Lissa was too shocked to respond.

  ‘But …’

  ‘Don’t bother to deny it Lissa. I saw the two of you together in London—remember?’

  She bit her lip. It was tempting to allow Joel to go on believing that she was in love with Simon, for the sake of her pride if nothing else, but if she did … She thought about the child she was carrying … Joel’s child … life would be difficult enough for it as it was with a father who merely tolerated instead of loving its mother. It was better to tell the truth.

  ‘That was a chance meeting, Joel,’ she told him quietly. ‘I bumped into him in the street the day I went to buy a new dress for the dinner party. I didn’t tell you at the time because …’ She laced her fingers together and stared down at them as fiercely as though they were something she had never seen before, concentrating on them so that she would not have to look at Joel.

  ‘Because …?’ he prompted, his voice steel soft.

  Suddenly she felt totally exhausted, her hands relaxed, her body slumping into the mattress. ‘Do you really need to ask,’ she said tiredly. ‘Please let’s not play games now, Joel …’

  He was at her side in a second, his fingers cool against her unexpectedly hot forehead, his eyes, in the brief second she allowed hers to meet them, deeply concerned … so concerned that she felt she must be hallucinating.

  It was pointless feeling pain because he had not denied his involvement with Marisa, what had she in all honesty expected?

  ‘No games,’ he promised quietly, ‘but we must talk, Lissa. I must admit that this was not entirely the outcome I … hoped for when …’

  ‘When you made love to me,’ Lissa supplied tiredly. ‘No … I think I understand what motivated you Joel.’

  A shadow darkened his eyes, and she thought for a moment that he looked almost haunted … a trick of the light of course.

  ‘And understanding that …’

  She cut him off before he could go on to tell her as he undoubtedly would that his own feelings had never been involved on more than a merely concerned level. ‘It makes no difference, Joel,’ she told him curtly, turning her face away from his so that he couldn’t see the anguish in her eyes. ‘I am carrying your child, and we are both agreed that the pregnancy should not be terminated. You don’t want us to divorce …’

  ‘Do you?’ He shot the question at her with explosive force, her head automatically turning so that she could look at him. She had seldom seen him look as he was doing now—as though he were fighting to control his anger.

  ‘I believe that for the sake of the children—the girls as well as our own child—we should stay together but …’ She bit her lip wondering if she dare tell him that she did not know how long she would be able to go on as they were now without completely breaking down. Every time he went out without telling her where he was going—every night he came home late she imagined him with Marisa. Jealousy was a bitter corrosive emotion and one she would far rather not have suffered from.

  ‘But?’ Joel prompted harshly. His eyes glittered almost blackly beneath thick spiky lashes. He seemed to have aged somehow, and as he walked towards the window Lissa recognised an inner tension in his movements that tore at her heart.

  ‘When we were first married,’ Lissa began carefully, picking her words with forethought, too aware of the delicacy of the ground she was now venturing on to speak completely openly, ‘we managed to get on reasonably well, before …’

  ‘Before I made love to you?’ Joel interrupted harshly, his face oddly drawn. ‘Is that what you were going to say?’

  It wasn’t, but it would suffice. She had meant before she realised the truth about Marisa, but didn’t want to say so. Her pride would not allow her to reveal to Joel how she felt about him, or how jealous she was of Marisa.

  ‘Well if that is all that’s worrying you, don’t let it. From now on our relationship will be as sexless as that of brother and sister if that is what you want?’

  For a moment Lissa almost hated him. What on earth did he expect her to do? Beg for his lovemaking? When she knew he loved someone else?

  She turned her face away from him and said quietly, ‘I don’t think I need to answer that question, do I, Joel?’

  She heard the door slam as he went out and only when she was quite sure he was gone did she release a shuddering breath of tension.

  IN THE DAYS THAT FOLLOWED while it couldn’t be said that there was a complete return to the easy familiarity that had developed between them in the early days of their marriage, Lissa was conscious that Joel was making an effort to put their relationship back on a more relaxed footing.

  Her pregnancy test had been confirmed as positive and it was Joel who insisted on driving her to the surgery and waiting with her until Dr Soames had seen her.

  The doctor was reassuringly matter of fact. ‘I don’t envisage that you’ll have any problems. The sickness should start to wear off after the third month.’ She went on to discuss various aspects of pregnancy inviting Lissa to ask her as many questions as she cared to. The birth would take place in the small local hospital which had its own maternity wing. ‘You’ll see round that later,’ Dr Soames told Lissa as she ushered her towards the door. ‘D
on’t forget, any problems … give me a ring.’

  ‘I’d thought about taking you out to lunch—by way of a small celebration,’ Joel commented when Lissa gave him the news, ‘but somehow I didn’t think it would be what you wanted.’

  Remembering how acutely nauseous she seemed to be almost every time she ate, Lissa agreed, surprised by the sudden withdrawal of his hand from her arm, and the shuttered withdrawn expression on his face throughout the drive back to Winterly.

  It had been decided that the girls were too young as yet to be told of her pregnancy at this early stage—plenty of time for that later, Lissa suggested, wondering if now was a good opportunity to ask Joel about redecorating the nursery, but he forestalled her by saying as he parked the car, ‘I’ve been thinking that now you might want your own bedroom.’

  He said it abruptly, and Lissa was conscious of a fierce stab of pain. No one knew better than she the loneliness of a double bed when both parties kept strictly to their own side, but to be banished to another room. She felt helplessly bereft, and said unsteadily, ‘Don’t you think it might seem rather odd …? Mrs Fuller …’

  Joel shrugged. ‘It’s your decision Lissa, I was only thinking of you.’

  She took a deep breath and without looking at him said quietly, ‘Then I would prefer to continue as we are,’ and before he could say anything she hurried past him and into the house, glad of the noisy attentions of the girls which put a stop to any further intimate conversation.

  March died into April and April into May. Louisa had started playschool two mornings a week and Lissa drove her there. She had got to know a couple of the other mothers by sight and life seemed to have settled down into an uneventful routine. Joel was punctilious about returning home for dinner, and about spending most of the evening with her, but Lissa was finding herself increasingly tired at night, only too happy to go to bed early. What Joel did once she had, she daredn’t even think about. If he went to Marisa, then she didn’t want to know. She knew she was behaving like a coward, but she couldn’t help it. To live with Joel as his wife knowing he didn’t really love her was agony it was true, but to live without him … that would be sheer hell.