Reluctant Wife

by Lindsay Armstrong

  Roz watched him go, her eyes wide and wary and confused.

  They hadn’t originally had separate bedrooms, but it had seemed to be a good idea because Adam often worked late and she had trouble sleeping, so he didn’t have to disturb her if she was asleep. But now, suddenly, they seemed to represent more to her than that. Now they represented the deep rift in their marriage which had been exposed to the light tonight.

  She sighed and turned away and her eyes fell on the glass of gin and tonic, and she sighed again because she hadn’t liked it, and the last thing she wanted to do was finish it.

  Curiously, she did enjoy herself without quite knowing how or why, but she suspected that her state of mind had become too much to bear, so she’d switched off, in a manner of speaking. Then also, she was surprised and touched by the gifts she received and the warmth of the congratulations and the fact that everyone seemed to be really happy and determined to make it a happy, memorable night for her. She’d always thought she was a bit of a disappointment and knew she was something of an enigma to the Milroy clan.

  But although Flavia, Adam’s mother, subjected her to the usual fleeting scrutiny directed squarely at her waistline, the gaiety was obviously infectious, and anyway, Roz knew that Flavia was as proud as punch of all her grandchildren so far and could be expected to be eager to add her eldest son’s children to the growing score.

  Flavia Milroy was Italian, had borne Adam when she was nineteen and subsequently five more little Milroys at irregular intervals—to the embarrassment of Adam’s father’s side of the family, all two-and-a-half-children-at-the-most families themselves, and aggressively Anglo-Saxon, as was often the case with colonial offshoots of the real thing.

  ‘Never,’ Adam had said to her once, ‘allow my family to get to you. They’re all mad, on both sides, and I disregard them.’

  He might disregard their opinions, Roz had decided, ‘but he certainly provided for them very well, which probably accounted for their eagerness to meet under his auspices despite their sometimes acute differences. And she often wished she’d known Adam’s father, Charles Milroy, not only as a clue to his eldest son but as a guide to this melting pot of a family which he had instigated by marrying Adam’s mother.

  In fact the sheer weight of numbers had made Roz, an only child herself and an orphan, dizzy at first, until Adam’s cousin Margaret had taken pity on her and drawn her a family tree, Margaret was widowed with two children, Amy and Richard, eighteen and twenty.

  But Margaret had gone further, in her forthright manner,and said, ‘Now, there’s one tour de force in this family, and that’s Adam, as you might have gathered. Anyone who can make himself a million from nothing before he’s thirty has to be someone to be reckoned with, but then even when we were all kids Adam was a force to be reckoned with. But there are several minor forces too, and it might help you to know about them. Aunt Flavia is one. She runs an unparalleled spy network and knows everything that goes on. Don’t ask me how, but she does.’

  ‘Even in your side of the family?’ asked Roz,

  ‘Even there,’ Margaret said ruefully, ‘You see, when Charles married her, he and his two sisters, of which one was my mother and the other Aunt Elspeth, had inherited Werrington jointly. They all lived there and worked it together—that’s what Charles brought Flavia home to after a whirlwind romance in Rome, and that’s how we all grew up together and became so engrossed in each other.’

  ‘That must have been rather hard for her.’

  ‘It had to be. She could barely speak English when she got tossed in with the Milroys, she had no relations of her own to fall back on, she must have been homesick, not to mention … other obstacles,’ Margaret smiled.

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Mmm … my mother got on well with her and personally I’ve always admired and liked her but Aunt Elspeth—well,let’s just say they took an instant dislike to each other and used to have some jolly old dust-ups. But to get back——the second minor force is Lucia, Adam’s sister and the eldest daughter.’

  ‘I… ’ Roz stopped.

  ‘Find her hard to like?’ enquired Margaret ‘Don’t worry, we all do. Although I must say——-or perhaps I shouldn’t—but as a girl she wasn’t quite so…’ she gestured. ‘But anyway,’ she went on after a moment, ‘she gets around now as if she was the supreme arbiter of all the taste and elegance in the family, not to mention. its first lady—by the way, that’s your role now, and don’t let her tell you any different. But she really likes to think she has great power of influence over us and she’s not always terribly ethical about it, I’m afraid. And the third force,’ she said slowly, ‘is about to be born. Well, she’s already born, but I don’t think anyone has realised her potential yet. I’m talking about Nicky.’

  Nicola, universally known as Nicky, was Adam’s youngest sister and the baby of the family at nineteen. ‘But. she’s a honey,’ Roz said bewilderedly.

  ‘I’m not disputing that. I’ve just got the uncomfortable feeling that Nicky will move heaven and earth one day to get what she wants whether it’s what she should have or not, and that even Adam will find her hard to control.’

  ‘I think Adam’s really fond of her. He sort of stands in as her father.’

  ‘That might be the problem—how fond he is of her,’ Margaret said cryptically, but then she had shrugged and gone on briskly, ‘I hope you don’t mind me filling you in like. this but you looked totally confused at the last family get-together,and not only about who was who but all the cross-currents as well.’

  ‘I was,’ said Roz. ruefully, then a thought struck her. ‘isn’t it odd that all the minor forces, as you call them, are female?’

  Margaret had smiled with genuine humour. ‘There’s at least one more, and she’s on our side of the family. Wait until you see Aunt Elspeth in action! But I can tell you one other thing, when you produce a son and heir for Adam, they’ll not be able to hold a candle to you, Roz …’

  The irony of that last remark was to stay with Roz over the ensuing months, and not only because she had no desire to be first lady of the family. And when Margaret had made her disclosures, Roz had, been tempted. to ask her about Adam’s first wife, but found herself unable to broach a subject that seemed to be totally taboo. She’d also treated Margaret’s confidences with some wariness and tried to stop herself from making judgements based on them. But it was obvious that Adam liked and respected his cousin Margaret, and he certainly did everything he could for the fatherless Amy and Richard, even to employing Richard. But she’d gradually, grown to see the truth of Margaret’s assessments of the family, except for one. For the life of her she couldn’t imagine where Nicky fitted in as a minor force.

  Like Adam and Angelo—Angelo was the fifth of Flavia’s children and, Nicky’s immediate elder, a dashing young blade of twenty-three—Nicky had inherited her mother’s dark good looks, although some of the Milroys were fair and Lucia was a striking Titian-haired goddess with a magnificent figure, although the proud mother of three. But Nicky had a bright, sunny personality, and although there had been some recent drama associated with her it had been more Flavia’s drama. Nicky had wanted to go flatting with two university friends, which seemed quite a normal aspiration for a nineteen-year-old——as Adam had pointed out to his mother. Also that Nicky would still be in the Same city, not on the other side of the moon.

  But Flavia had found the decision hard to make, and Roz had pointed out to Adam that it couldn’t be easy losing the last of your children from home.‘ He had replied with a slight smile that his mother was a very resilient person, she must be to have been torn from her own family so young, survived the Milroys, coped with being widowed fairly young and rendered nearly destitute for a time. And that she would make the necessary adjustments, he had no doubt.

  On the night of her twenty-first birthday, after dinner had been successfully concluded to Milly’s patent relief and Roz was sitting with Flavia and Lucia as the band struck up, she glanced at her moth
er-in-law, and couldn’t help admiring her because she had made the necessary adjustments as Adam had predicted, just as she’d coped rather marvellously with being ousted from Little Werrington two years ago by a complete stranger, something Roz had always felt guilty about-but then Flavia had taken that step, herself.

  Then, as more dancers drifted on to the floor, Nicky looking bewitching in pink taffeta and talking nineteen to the dozen to Richard as they danced, and Angelo with a gorgeous young blonde in his arms, Flavia said out of the blue, ‘I so hope those two babies don’t get any ideas about anything. It would not be suitable.’

  ‘Angelo’s not a baby, Mamma,’ Lucia said languidly. ‘Ideas about what?’

  ‘Nothing. Nothing,’ Flavia said hastily, and turned to Roz with a smile. ‘Now see what you have started, Rozalinda!’

  ‘I have?’

  ‘Why, yes! A vogue in twenty-first birthday parties. Let’s see, there is Richard to come and pretty soon, then Amy, then Nicky, not to mention my dear sister-in-law’s eldest grandchild Julian—I’m quite sure Elspeth would have her nose severely broken if Adam did not… ’

  ‘Not broken, Mamma,’ Lucia interrupted. ‘How many times do I have to tell you? Out of joint is the correct term, and anyway…’

  ‘Lucia,’ Flavia, who was petite and plump now but must have been a raving beauty as a girl, Roz had decided, because even now she had perfect skin, flashing eyes, long dark, hair and exquisite hands as well as exquisite taste in clothes, drew herself a up in her chair and continued, ‘ever since I have spoken this peculiar language I have referred to broken noses and everyone has known exactly what I have meant, so I will not change this late in life. Please bear with me and refrain from correcting me in public or in private or anywhere else!’

  Lucia raised her eyes heavenwards, and Roz turned away to hide her smile, for it had occurred to her before that although Flavia and Lucia spent a lot of time in each other’s company, even Lucia’s mamma found her rather a cross to bear,

  But Lucia remained unperturbed. ‘And anyway—’ she went on—but Adam approached before them and took his mother away for a dance, to her delight.

  And hard on his heels came Angelo to Roz’s rescue, having discarded his gorgeous blonde for the time being.

  ‘Thought I just had to rescue you from Lucia and Mamma,’ he said with a grin. ‘But in reality I’ve, been dying to dance with you, Roz. You always look beautiful, but tonight it’s gone beyond words, and I’m so sorry Adam met you first. I suppose you know I’m hiding a broken heart beneath this false air of gaiety?’ He twirled her round to the music and her skirt belled out and she found herself laughing up at him.

  ‘So I’d noticed!’ she teased him.

  ‘Because I dance with others …’

  ‘She’s lovely!’

  ‘Only for consolation …’ Angelo broke of and stared at her. Then he said eagerly, ‘Do you really think so, Roz?’

  ‘Yes, I do. And I spoke to her earlier. and thought she was nice as well as lovely.’

  ‘If only I could get the rest of the family to agree with you! But I know them well enough to know they don’t.’

  ‘Well——’ Roz hesitated, ‘I’m sure they wouldn’t disagree that she’s good-looking and nice, but you must admit you fall in love about every two months on average.’

  Angelo looked mortally offended, then burst out laughing and they laughed together companionably. ‘I suppose that’s true, but I’ve got a feeling about this one. Only I’m quite sure they’ll think up another excuse—that I’m too young to be thinking of marriage or… God knows what!’

  ‘Probably,’ Roz agreed ruefully.

  ‘Oh Well,’ said ‘Angelo philosophically, ‘let’s not spoil your birthday with my problems, darling Roz, in fact I tell you what.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Now that we’ve got dinner out of the way, I thought I might liven the proceedings up a bit. I couldn’t bear it,’ he said intensely, ‘to degenerate into one of Lucia’s polite, bloody boring soirées.’

  ‘Well …’ Roz looked around for Adam.

  ‘But I promise I won’t go overboard! Hey! It is your twenty-first birthday, not your forty-first!’

  Roz giggled. ‘All right.‘ What did you have in mind—no, better not tell me,’ she said wryly. ‘Then I can claim some innocence!’

  Over an hour later, when she had stopped dancing but only to get her breath back, she felt a hand on her shoulder and turned to see Adam behind her, and she immediately looked guilty because it was the first time she’d even thought of him in that time. ‘

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘you’re enjoying yourself after all. I’m glad.’

  ‘Yes, I am. I… it’s got quite lively, hasn’t it?’ she said breathlessly.

  ‘Yes’.I wonder who we have to thank for that—I suspect Angelo. I saw him in close conversation with the band some time ago.’

  ‘My lips are sealed,’ said Roz with a little laugh.

  ‘I see,’ Adam said gravely. ‘Did you also tell him to dim the lights?’

  ‘They were all his own… .’ She broke off ruefully because he was laughing down at her. ‘Then you don’t mind?’ she asked after a moment.

  ‘Why should I? Everyone’s enjoying themselves. ‘Even the Whatney’s,’ he said with, an ironic little bow as Lucia and her fair, handsome barrister husband danced past. ‘What’s more,’ he added, staring through the throng with his lips twitching, ‘Aunt Elspeth. is up and dancing.’

  ‘No! who with?’

  ‘Richard. He’s leading her around very deferentially and she’s loving every minute of it, although she’s trying to do a waltz. By the way, may I have this dance with you, Mrs Milroy?’

  ‘Of course,’ she smiled, and moved into his arms obediently. But the band chose that moment to take pity on the older members of the clan and slid into a slow, dreamy number.

  Adam pulled her closer and she stumbled, which was unusual for her——she was a good dancer and in her last year at school, she and her boyfriend had won a prize at the end of the course offered by the school. She was also used to dancing with Adam, which made it more unusual, and although he didn’t comment on it, it was a mocking little look he directed down at her as she regained her rhythm.

  She flushed, because she knew why it had happened to her and knew he knew why——it was the feel of his body against hers, strong and hard. She closed her eyes and broke into a sweat, thanking God for the dimmed lights, because the contact had not only made her stumble but remember with extraordinary clarity the last time he had made love to her. It had been a few nights ago, a rather windy night, and the curtains had billowed in so that the room had been dark and alternately flooded with moonlight as she had lain on the bed with Adam beside her propped up on one elbow and idly touching her breasts, plucking her nipples, stroking, cupping, while she fought a battle she fought often these days and lost frequently. Lost this time with a gasping little breath as she, had arched her pale, slender body towards him in a moment of moonlight.

  She swallowed but danced steadily as she remembered what had followed, and beneath the ruby red of her gown and the lacy cups of her strapless bra, her nipples tingled just as if his hands were on them, and stood up.

  She never knew what gave her the composure to keep dancing, to tear her mind away from that vision of herself lying in Adam’s arms afterwards exhausted and with her body dewed with sweat but quivering with pleasure. Or what gave her the composure, when Adam asked her suddenly what she was thinking, to shrug and say nothing.

  Then, to her consternation, a spotlight came on and found her and Adam unerringly, and the band slid into a drum roll, then a stirring rendition of Happy Birthday. And Roz thought she’d never felt more naked in her life.

  ‘0h!’ she breathed but Adam bent his dark head and kissed her and said as, his lips left hers, ‘And many, many more, Roz.’

  ‘Oh, thank you,’ she managed to whisper, consumed by guilt. ‘I didn’t expect…I means…’<
br />
  ‘Angelo and I did some conniving of our own,’ he murmured.

  ‘Angelo is … you’re both very …’ But she was engulfed then and kissed and embraced by everyone, including all the children, who had been having party of their own under Jeanette’s supervision, and finally Jeanette and Milly.

  I don’t know: what to say!’ she said at last. ‘Thank you all so much. I…’

  But there was no need for her to say anything, because the band broke into ‘For She’s as Jolly Good Fellow’, and everyone sang as if they really meant it and toasted her with champagne, and the thought struck her that they must like her. They really must, to be looking so fond and sounding so sincere. She glanced at Adam, still at her side, but he had turned to talk to his mother, who was absolutely bubbling with good spirits, and the feeling of guilt was there again alongside the warmth and happiness.

  Jeanette came upstairs with Roz when the party was over.

  ‘You don’t need to. I can put myself to bed,’ Roz protested, but Jeanette merely looked wise and said it was part of her job.

  ‘Your mother trained you well,’ murmured Roz. Jeanette’s mother had held a similar position with one of Flavia’s friends, and it was Flavia who had suggested to Adam that Roz might need some assistance and recommended Jeanette. But in her heart of hearts, although she was so fond of Jeanette, Roz thought it was a waste of her talents, and she fully intended to steer her towards a dress designing course as soon as her mother felt she was old enough to be unleashed on the wide world.

  But Jeanette herself took her responsibilities very seriously, as she demonstrated yet again by insisting, once Roz was changed into a long, filmy white nightgown, on unpinning her hair and brushing it out.

  ‘It’s so beautiful,’ she said as she slid the brush through the silky fair mass that came well below Roz’s shoulders, ‘it would be a shame not to look after it properly. There! Doesn’t that feel better?’

  Roz regarded her gravely in the mirror, then said with her eyes twinkling, ‘Yes, Mum.’

  ‘Well… .’