Fugitive Wife

by Sara Craven

  She never expected to see him again. Her father made no comment about her unexpected return home, and she offered no explanation. Logan and her marriage became taboo subjects by tacit understanding.

  Nothing very much seemed to matter any more, so she decided she might as well conform to the pattern that her father had laid down. She enrolled for a Cordon BIeu cookery course. She arranged flowers, and she became a demure and charming hostess. When he introduced young men to her, most of them rising executives from the ranks of V.P.G. itself, she accepted their inevitable invitations politely. Sometimes she felt she had become a marionette ready to dance to whatever string anyone chose to pull…

  But she made no move towards obtaining her annulment, for reasons she wasn’t even prepared to discuss with herself. There had been a small flurry of interest in the Press about the failure of her marriage, and even some cynical hints that the whole unlikely match had been a publicity stunt arranged by Sir Charles Trevor for some devious reason of his own. She didn’t want to arouse that interest again by applying for an annulment, when she could divorce Logan after two years’ separation without attracting very much attention at all.

  She couldn’t avoid all mention of him, of course. He still wrote for the Courier, and she had the pain of seeing his byline when she unfolded the paper. But each time, she told herself, the pain grew less. It was as if she was learning slowly how to distance herself from everything that had happened.

  She had reverted to the use of her maiden name, but had not removed her wedding ring, an anomaly which she guessed Sir Charles found it difficult to understand.

  But it was never mentioned. Relegated to the cupboard along with the rest of the skeletons, she thought cynically.

  She was gaining a reputation for extreme coolness, she knew. Very few of her dates, having undergone an evening of her quiet politeness, ever asked her again, and she was content for this to be so. She wanted no lovemaking, no attempt at any kind of physical relationship. She was afraid of it, because she could remember only too clearly the wild response ,which Logan had ignited, and which must never be allowed to happen again because it made her too vulnerable.

  It was at a dinner party at the London house that she first heard the impending trouble in Azabia being discussed.

  She knew very little about the place, except that it produced oil and was ruled by a despotic sheik who was amicably disposed towards the West. But all that, she heard, was due to change at any moment, as it had in other oil-producing countries, and no one knew exactly what the new regime would be or what its policies would be aimed against. It was then that someone inadvertently mentioned Logan. There was an immediate embarrassed silence and an instant change of subject.

  Later Briony tackled her father. ‘Is there going to be some kind of uprising in Azabia? A war?’

  He shrugged evasively. ‘It’s a little premature to state definitely that anything’s going to happen there, but there are―indications.’

  Indications. Briony lay awake that night and considered.

  It had seemed from the discussion over dinner that a revolution was a certainty and in the not too distant future. And it was obvious that Logan was being sent by the Courier to report on the troubles from Azabia almost from their inception, all of which spelled danger.

  She thought, ‘Why should I care? I don’t even want to care. Let Karen Wellesley worry about what happens to him. They’re probably together at this moment, bidding each other a fond farewell. I’m mad even to give him a second thought.’

  But the events of the following evening forced her to do more than just think.

  She had been to a rather dull party and had left early and alone. She was standing on the step, trying to fit her latchkey into the door, when a hand reached over her shoulder and took it from her. At the same time an arm like an iron clamp fastened round her waist propelling her forwards through the opening door. She was too breathless, too surprised to scream, even when she turned to see who her assailant was.

  ‘Your key, darling. ’ Logan said pleasantly, and tossed it to her.

  ‘Get out of here!’ she whispered.

  ‘Presently.’ He nodded towards the drawing room. ‘We’ll talk in there.’

  ‘We have nothing to say to each other.’

  ‘Not even goodbye?’ he asked sardonically, and smiled as he saw her flush. ‘I guessed the word of my impending departure would have got around by now. I see I was right. Aren’t you going to wish me luck in Azabia? I’ve the strangest feeling I’m going to need it.’

  ‘You can manage without my good wishes, Logan.’ she said coldly. ‘You can make your own luck.’

  ‘Then I can only hope the recent happenings in my life aren’t a sample of it,’ he said drily.

  ‘I wouldn’t have said you had a great deal to complain about.’ Her heartbeat was fluttering like a panicstricken bird, but she managed to face him inimically.

  ‘And what’s that supposed to mean?’ He raised his eyebrows.

  ‘Make of it what you will. Now will you please go?’

  ‘Not without what I came for,’ he answered calmly.

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘Among other things, this.’ One unhurried stride brought him to her, and it was too late to cry out, or run away or do any of the things she should have done at the very beginning of this preposterous confrontation, because his mouth was on hers, hard and warm and searching, and her body was locked against his as if she had been magnetised. When he eventually released her, her mouth felt bruised and she was on the point of collapse.

  He put her at arm’s length and studied her as if she was some kind of curious scientific specimen,

  ‘Interesting,’ he said at last. ‘And could become more so, I suspect. What a pity I have a plane to catch.’

  ‘You lay another finger on me,’ she raged, aware of her flushed face and hectically flurried breathing, ‘and I’ll .. .’

  ‘You’ll what? Scream for Daddy to rescue you, I suppose. Except that I happen to know that Daddy is otherwise engaged this evening. A Mrs de Bruce, I understand. And it’s the housekeeper’s evening off, too, so I might just go ahead and let you scream.’

  ‘Don’t you dare to touch me! ’

  ‘Why not?’ he asked derisively. ‘I’m not one of Daddy’s tame boardroom trainees. I’m your husband, remember? Or do you need a more permanent reminder?’

  ‘No!’ she panted, and wrenched herself free, wiping her hand savagely across her swollen mouth as if such a gesture could erase the marks of his passion.

  ‘You’re a little hypocrite, Briony, but unfortunately I haven’t time to teach you the depths of your own hypocrisy. I have to get to the airport.’

  ‘Then go! ‘ She was shaking, partly in anger and partly through some other emotion which she could neither understand nor explain.

  ‘When I get what I came for,’ he said. ‘I want to hear you say that you love me.’

  ‘You must be mad,’ she said, after an astonished pause.

  ‘I think I was,’ he said. ‘To let you get away from me so easily. But I don’t intend to let you go again. Now tell me that you love me and that you’ll be waiting for me when I get back from Azabia,’

  ‘Go to hell,’ she said very slowly and distinctly.

  ‘I’ll come back from there too, if I have to,’ he said. ‘Now say the words to me, Briony. It doesn’t even matter if you don’t mean them at the moment. I’ll attend to that when I come back.’

  ‘You mean if you come back, don’t you?’ she said with all the cruelty she could muster. ‘Please don’t bother on my account, Logan. You’re not the only one who’s found consolation. Now, will you get out?’

  He was staring at her as if he had never seen her before, the aquamarine eyes narrowed and incredulous.

  Then he gave a swift, shaken laugh. ‘Yes, I’ll go, he said. ‘And gladly, you little bitch.’

  The front door slammed behind him. Briony made her way slowly over to the foot of th
e stairs and sank down on to the bottom step, clinging on to the elegant curve of the newel post as a drowning man might cling to a piece of wreckage. After a long time she heard herself cry out―a sound that might have been his name.

  CHAPTER SIX

  A STRANGE grey light was filtering into the room when Briony awoke. For a moment she could not work out where she was―then everything came rushing back to her. She had disarranged the curtains slightly in her wanderings the night before and she could see that although no snow was actually falling at the moment, the clouds were full of it.

  She shivered, huddling further under the covers for a warmth she did not find. Presently she would have to get up and dress and go downstairs, and it was not a prospect she relished. Or, she supposed, she could stay there in bed and not go down at all, except that hunger would drive her down eventually, even if Logan didn’t.

  His arrival the previous night still seemed like a figment of a nightmare, but she was awake now, and the bad dream like the snow was still there and threatening her.

  She sighed. It was a horrible coincidence that they should both have chosen the same bolt-hole, but it was no more than that, and as it was certain that neither of them could get away immediately, then the only thing was to bear the situation as gracefully as possible.

  Two civilised people, she began―and then stopped.

  There had been very little that was civilised about her relationship with Logan since their ill-fated wedding. She couldn’t rely on civilisation to get her out of this mess.

  For the first time, she regretted that the cottage wasn’t on the telephone, always supposing the lines were still working. She would have been tempted to phone London and persuade Christopher to come in a helicopter and rescue her.

  Christopher. She winced slightly. There was another problem. She knew now that she had allowed herself to think back over the past year that her feelings for him were lukewarm at best. And yet he was confidently expecting her to divorce Logan and marry him as soon as possible. It was to escape his none-too-subtle promptings as well as her father’s that she had fled.

  And why had she run away? To think, that was why.

  To clear her mind and decide what she had to do. What it was best for her to do. And all she had succeeded in doing was recalling a lot of memories which would have best been left buried in her subconscious, and muddling herself completely, She hardly knew who she was any more, let alone what she wanted.

  She glanced at her watch and grimaced. It was already past nine o’clock, and time she presented herself downstairs.

  The last thing she wanted was Logan coming in search of her. She got out of bed and put on her housecoat and slippers, then went along to the bathroom. In spite of its size it was more like a refrigerator than anything else, but the water in the taps was warm and Briony reminded herself that she should be thankful for small mercies.

  Back in her room, she hesitated for a moment over her choice of clothes, before deciding to wear the jeans and sweater she had arrived in. She had more feminine clothes with her, but her femininity was something she wanted to understate in the present situation.

  As she went downstairs she could hear the sound of Logan’s typewriter tapping away furiously behind the closed door of the parlour. It seemed he really had come there to write.

  The living room fire was burning steadily, well banked up with logs and small coal, and when Briony had made herself some coffee, she carried it to the chair by the fire.

  It was going, she thought grimly, to be a long day.

  It began snowing again about an hour later, and she watched the feathery flakes whirling down with renewed dismay. She’d never been to the cottage so late in the year before, so she had no real idea how bad things could get, but it seemed as if they might be snowed up here for days, if not weeks. She stifled a groan at the thought, then tensed because she had heard the parlour door open. She snatched a book from the shelf beside the fireplace and was sitting, apparently absorbed in reading, when the living room door opened and Logan came in.

  ‘Good morning.’ His tone was as casual as if they had been strangers staying in the same hotel, she thought furiously. ‘I’m going to make some coffee. Do you want some?’

  ‘I’ve just had a cup. thanks.’ She was aware how stilted her voice sounded.

  ‘As you wish.’ He went through into the kitchen whistling softly through his teeth and she heard him filling the kettle and switching it on. She’d imagined he would remain out there while he waited for it to boil, so his voice just behind her came as a shock, and she jumped.

  ‘Good book?’ he inquired conversationally.

  ‘Excellent.’

  ‘An old favourite of yours? One that you know well?’

  ‘Not particularly. Why?’ She didn’t even know what it was. She had just grabbed the nearest and opened it without looking. .

  ‘Because you have it upside down,’ he said smoothly.

  He reached over her shoulder, took the book from her nerveless hand and gave it back to her the right way up.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, quivering with temper.

  ‘Not at all.’ He whistled appreciatively. ‘My Spiritual Mission among the Indians of the Amazon Basin by the Reverend Bertram Gleason,’ he read aloud. ‘Perhaps you’d prefer it the way it was.’

  She smiled pallidly, mentally consigning both him and the unknown missionary to a hotter place than the Amazon basin. For a few moments she was desperately aware of him still standing behind her chair, then at last he moved away back into the kitchen and she relaxed visibly.

  When Logan came back with his coffee she was standing by the window.

  ‘I think it’s getting worse,’ she said bleakly.

  ‘I’m sure it is.’ He gulped down some of the hot coffee, wincing slightly. ‘The forecast is bad too.’

  ‘You’ve heard it?’

  ‘I brought a radio with me.’ He crushed the dawning hope in her face. ‘But no spare batteries. so I’m afraid I can’t offer to lend it to you for your entertainment. There might come a time when we need to hear the forecast or the news.’

  ‘Yes, of course;’ she said stiffly. She couldn’t tell him that she was almost desperate for some kind of cheerful noise to come between herself and her thoughts. It was so hushed in the cottage, its isolation emphasised by the muffling blanket all around them, that she was conscious of the slightest sound―the dislodgement of a piece of coal in the grate, the tick of the clock, the distant tap of the typewriter. All of them seemed to underline how alone she was, and how unprotected. Which was not a train of thought she had any desire to pursue.

  Logan said abruptly, ‘What time are we eating?’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  He sighed impatiently. ‘What―time―is—lunch?’ he spelled out with unnecessary elaboration.

  ‘Are you expecting me to cook for you?’ she demanded indignantly.

  He shrugged. ‘It seems the most obvious course, unless you’re fasting. Look on it as a wifely duty―one of the many you’ve neglected since our marriage.’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘Satisfy that one, and I might forgo the others.’

  ‘Please don’t make jokes,’ she said between her teeth.

  ‘Who said I was joking?’ he said pleasantly, and went back to the parlour. She waited for the sound of the typewriter, then she went out of the living room and upstairs to the guest room. The mattress felt cold to the touch, but not damp, and she fetched sheets and blankets and made up a bed. She supposed that by rights she should offer Logan the main bedroom as he was renting the place from her aunt, but judging by the mood he was in this morning that didn’t seem a very good idea.

  She went down to the kitchen and surveyed the store cupboards. On the face of it, they had plenty of supplies, and when the bread ran out she could always supplement their diet by baking scones and soda bread. It seemed that the down-to-earth cookery lessons she’d been given at school were likely to stand her in better stead here than the cour
se she had undertaken in London.

  After some thought, she peeled and boiled some potatoes, then made some pastry, combining the cooked potato and a tin of stewed steak under the pastry crust.

  Tinned peas would have to do, she decided, dismissing nostalgic thoughts of baby carrots and broccoli spears, and they would have fresh fruit for dessert. There had been some apples and oranges among the provisions delivered by Mrs Barnes the previous night.

  When the pie was almost ready she laid a tray with a knife and fork, and added a glass of water, then carried it through to the parlour. For no particular reason that she could define, she knocked before entering, and heard Logan say ‘Come in’ above the incessant noise of the typewriter.