Marriage on Trial

by Lee Wilkinson

  ‘While I was helping your father go through some old documents, we discovered that Saltmarsh House, which was built on a man-made mound, was used as a lighthouse in Tudor times.’

  ‘That accounts for the tower. As a child I always thought the place looked like a lopsided castle.’

  ‘It was a kind of castle in a way. It certainly became a stronghold. There were cannons to seaward, and at low tide the presence of dangerous quicksands helped to deter any land-based attacks.’

  ‘You must have found the research interesting,’ Quinn observed. Then, with no change of tone, he asked, ‘How did you manage to get a job as my father’s secretary?’

  ‘You mean did I engineer it?’

  ‘Did you?’

  ‘No. I’d never heard of Henry Durville. He approached me.’

  ‘Out of the blue?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Seeing Quinn’s face register disbelief, she said flatly, ‘I’d just left college and was looking for a job when Peter Carradine, my history tutor at Pentridge, got in touch with me.

  ‘It seems that he and your father had been friends since their school days…’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘When Henry’s first stroke partially confined him to a wheelchair and he decided to research and record the Durville family history, he needed someone to help him. He went to see his old friend and ask if he knew anyone suitable, and Peter Carradine mentioned my name to him.’

  Quinn still looked sceptical, and she said fiercely, ‘You can check the truth of that if you want.’

  ‘I might just do that.’ Then he asked, a shade derisively, ‘How did a history student metamorphose into a secretary?’

  The spurt of anger dying, she answered flatly, ‘I’d been warned that there weren’t too many jobs available in my chosen field, so to be on the safe side I’d gone to special classes to learn shorthand and typing.’

  ‘But it seems you utilized more potent skills.’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she said stiffly.

  ‘Oh, I think you do.’

  What was the use of protesting her innocence? she thought bleakly. He was convinced she’d deliberately set out to catch his father, and there seemed to be no way to prove how wrong he was.

  Sighing, she turned her head to look out of the window once more.

  The rolling countryside had given way to flatter, lower-lying farmland, which turned to marsh as they got nearer to the coast.

  Elizabeth was deep in thought, oblivious to her surroundings, when Quinn brought the car to a halt and suggested, ‘It’s getting quite late, so what about a post of lunch?’

  Looking up, she saw that they were on one of the quiet back roads that skirted the little town of Saltmarsh and led down to the shore.

  They had stopped outside the Ship, a black and white half-timbered inn, with bow-windows and a hanging sign showing a full-masted sailing clipper.

  Shock made her heart lurch and her stomach start to churn. Finding her voice, she objected. ‘Have we time to stop for lunch?’

  ‘We need to eat somewhere—’ Quinn’s manner was deceptively casual ‘—and you said you liked this inn last time, if you remember?’

  So stopping at the Ship was no accident. She shivered as the poignant memory of past happiness and delight mingled with alarm and dismay at finding herself here again in such very different circumstances.

  Watching her face, he queried, ‘Surely you haven’t forgotten staying here?’

  No, she hadn’t forgotten. She and Quinn had been returning from London one evening, and had missed the tide. Unable to cross the causeway, they had been forced to stay at the inn.

  He had calmly booked one room, and, though she was totally inexperienced, already fathoms-deep in love, and knowing he was the one man for her, she had made no demur.

  When, hands clenched, she remained silent, he asked, ‘Don’t you remember the four-poster bed, and the grandfather clock that chimed so loudly in the middle of the night…?’

  ‘No! No, I really don’t remember.’ She was lying through her teeth and he knew it.

  ‘Not even the bedroom ceiling with its painted mermaids?’ he asked wickedly, and watched the hot colour pour into her face.

  When she was scarlet as a poppy, he slid from behind the wheel and came round to help her out.

  ‘Another reason for choosing this place,’ he went on, as he escorted her the few yards to the inn door, ‘is that they display a tidetable. I can check when it’s low tide.’

  ‘What if we’ve already missed it?’ The instant the question was out, she could have bitten her tongue.

  He shrugged, and suggested, ‘If we can’t make it over to the island, we can stay here tonight and go across tomorrow.’

  Panic stricken, she began, ‘No, I can’t stay overnight. Richard—’

  ‘Is in Amsterdam,’ Quinn jumped in smoothly, ‘so he’ll never know.’

  She pulled herself together, and said, ‘He often phones me when he’s away.’

  ‘Do you usually sit at home and wait?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Quinn muttered something half under his breath that Elizabeth didn’t catch. But she saw that his mouth had tightened ominously, and she felt maliciously pleased that she’d managed to anger him.

  The lounge, with its low, black-beamed ceiling and sloping floor, looked just the same. A cheerful log fire burnt in the wide fireplace, and the air was scented with applewood.

  Apart from a marmalade kitten blinking sleepily at the flames, the place was empty.

  Having settled Elizabeth at a table, Quinn dropped his jacket over the back of a chair and strolled over to study the tidetable.

  Recalling what he’d said about staying the night, she asked anxiously, ‘Is everything all right? Will we get across to the island?’

  ‘There should be no problem at all,’ he answered easily.

  Just as he finished speaking, a genial-looking man with a neatly trimmed beard appeared behind the bar. Elizabeth gave a faint sigh of relief. To the best of her knowledge, she had never set eyes on him before.

  ‘Not a very nice day,’ he remarked cheerfully.

  ‘No, the fog’s never really cleared.’ Quinn seemed prepared to discuss the weather while he glanced through a menu.

  ‘Can’t say I’m surprised,’ the landlord said. ‘It’s forecast to linger for several days. Not that they always get it right, of course…’

  After the exchange of pleasantries, and without consulting his companion, Quinn began to order their food.

  Listening to him, she discovered he was ordering as near as possible the same things they’d eaten on their previous visit here, and realized that for some reason best known to himself he was trying to rattle her.

  Well, she wouldn’t let him succeed. She wouldn’t give him that satisfaction.

  When he returned carrying two glasses of bitter, her expression as untroubled as she could make it, she accepted one with a word of thanks.

  As she sipped the clear, sharp brew, she found herself wondering what Richard would say if he could see her now.

  He would probably be shocked.

  Very conservative in some ways—she carefully avoided the term narrow-minded—and considering it infra dig, he never drank beer, and he had no idea she did. Though of course she hadn’t since she’d known him…

  The arrival of the starter broke into her rather confused thoughts. Staring at the dish of smoked Essex oysters and the thin fingers of toast, she remembered the last time when, seeing her hesitate, Quinn had asked quizzically, ‘Don’t you like smoked oysters?’

  He had been twenty-seven then, good-looking and charismatic, already wealthy in his own right, and a knowledgeable man of the world.

  She had been twenty-one, no great beauty, and, until she began to work for Henry Durville, a penniless history student.

  Feeling very young and gauche, and at a grave disadvantage, she’d admitted, ‘I don’t know, I’ve never tried them.’
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br />   ‘Short of the adventurous spirit?’

  ‘Short of money.’

  Just for an instant his green eyes had looked very cold, then he’d raised an interested brow, inviting her confidence.

  Even so, she’d kept it brief. ‘For most of his adult life my father, who had a bad heart, was unable to work. We lived in a rented ground-floor flat and had a struggle to pay the bills, let alone buy luxuries.’

  ‘And since?’

  ‘Like most students I’m more familiar with baked beans than smoked oysters.’

  His eyes amused now, he’d said, ‘I think you’ll find they’re an improvement on baked beans. Why don’t you go ahead and try one?’

  Seeing he was waiting, she’d confessed awkwardly, ‘I don’t know what to do with them.’

  ‘Then let me show you.’ Quinn had put one of the smoked oysters on to a thin sliver of hot, buttered toast and fed it to her with his fingers.

  His action had been intimate and strangely erotic, making her feel everything he’d wanted her to feel…

  With a shiver, Elizabeth dragged her mind back to the present and glanced up to find he was watching her, his gaze brilliant and intent.

  He raised a dark brow. ‘Can’t remember what to do with them? Let me show you.’ Putting one of the plum oysters on to a small piece of toast, he offered it to her.

  She hadn’t intended to take it, but like someone under a spell she opened her mouth, and saw his mocking smile.

  Damn him! she thought bitterly, and fought the urge to spit it back in his handsome face.

  ‘Enjoy that?’ he asked, as she chewed and swallowed.

  ‘Not really,’ she answered flatly. ‘I’m afraid my tastes have changed.’

  ‘In everything?’ he probed softly

  A faint flush appearing along her cheekbones, she pretended not to have heard the loaded question.

  He studied her, his dark eyes gleaming between thick, dark lashes. ‘Refusing to say? Oh, well, it’ll be fun finding out.’

  She was suddenly hot and flustered, and her heart was racing, but telling herself firmly that he was just baiting her, she tried to hide her alarm.

  As though he knew exactly what effect his words had had on her, he smiled a little, and with an air of satisfaction picked up his fork and began on his own share of oysters.

  While the rest of the meal was served and eaten, he kept the conversation light, the topics general, making no further attempt to unsettle her.

  Still she was relieved when their coffee cups were empty and they could start moving again. Now they’d got this far, all she wanted was to get the visit to Saltmarsh House over with as quickly as possible…

  Once outside, Elizabeth found that the mist had closed in even more. The sky hung over the sea and the coastal plain like an inverted bowl of hazy pearl, and the still air felt raw and clammy.

  She shivered, chilled by a combination of cold and nervous apprehension. ‘We won’t have to be too late starting back.’

  ‘No,’ he agreed, as he slid behind the wheel and started the car.

  On either edge of the small town of Saltmarsh, the land was bleached and colourless, veined by numerous threads of silver from the many inlets and waterways that dissected it.

  Though the coastline was in no way spectacular, it had its own kind of charm, and in the few months she had lived here Elizabeth had grown to love it.

  ‘A fascinating coast in its own way.’ Quinn echoed her thoughts.

  ‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘The Elizabethan topographer William Camden said of this county, “The ocean windeth itselfe into it.”’

  ‘Both poetic and accurate.’

  After a few hundred yards the road that ran down to the sea petered out, and beyond the dark, gritty foreshore, and a stretch of lighter sand, the water looked calm as a mill-pond and pewter-grey.

  At the far end of the half-mile-long causeway, partly obscured by mist, lay the familiar oval shape of Saltmarsh Island.

  Stopping the car, Quinn rested his forearms on the wheel and stared across at the oblong bulk of the house and the squat round tower.

  Watching him surreptitiously, she noted that his expression was curiously sombre, and wondered what he was thinking and feeling.

  By his own admission, Saltmarsh House hadn’t been home to him since he was a child, but it was bound to hold a lot of early memories, both happy and sad.

  An early dusk had already started to close in and, to Elizabeth, the old house looked unbearably lonely and desolate in the fading light.

  Or was that only because she knew Henry was no longer there?

  Perhaps she sighed aloud, because Quinn glanced at her before restarting the car.

  They drove over the causeway—its edges marked at intervals by tall, thin white poles—past the large brick boathouse, and up a steep, paved incline to the house itself.

  At one side of the substantially built terrace, there was an extensive garage block and a self-contained flat for the chauffeur, which had been added in Henry’s lifetime.

  As well as the family cars, the block had housed a supply of logs for the open fires, and a generator, though during the last twenty years all mod cons had been laid across to the island.

  Quinn stopped the car in front of the garages, and, with the kind of consideration that had once made her feel loved and cherished, came round to open Elizabeth’s door and help her out.

  She had half expected the housekeeper to appear and welcome them, but even this close the house seemed deserted.

  Uneasily, she remarked, ‘I presume Mrs Wickstead knows you’re coming?’

  ‘I’m afraid Mrs Wickstead isn’t here.’

  ‘Isn’t here?’ Elizabeth felt a quick stab of alarm. ‘But you said she still lived here.’

  ‘So she does. It just happens that a short while ago she had to have an operation. She’s gone to Harwich to stay with her sister until she’s fully recovered.’

  ‘Oh,’ Elizabeth said blankly. Then she asked accusingly, ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘Does it make any difference?’ he asked calmly.

  It made all the difference.

  ‘I just wish I’d known.’ She sounded as agitated as she felt.

  ‘You mean you wouldn’t have come?’

  ‘No, I wouldn’t,’ she burst out.

  ‘Dear, dear,’ he said mildly. ‘Then it’s just as well I forgot to mention it.’

  ‘You didn’t forget,’ she accused. ‘You kept it from me purposely.’

  ‘Now why would I do a thing like that?’

  She didn’t dare begin to think.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  PULLING a key from his pocket, Quinn opened the heavy iron-studded door and ushered a reluctant Elizabeth into the panelled hall, which ran the entire width of the house.

  It was poignantly familiar.

  At either end, two long windows let in light which on sunny days made the black floorboards gleam. On the left was a wide stone fireplace, and in the centre an oak staircase curved upwards, with a specially fitted lift to take the wheelchair.

  The air felt chill and, though the antique furniture still shone, the clean, fresh smell of beeswax polish that Elizabeth had always associated with the big old house was missing.

  ‘If you’ll excuse me a moment I’ll turn up the central heating.’ Quinn disappeared kitchenwards while she hovered, agitated and uncertain.

  He was back quite quickly, remarking casually, ‘It won’t take too long for the place to warm up. In the meantime I’ll get a fire going in the study.’

  As he moved purposefully away, she followed him, protesting, ‘But surely we won’t be staying long enough to need a fire?’

  ‘There are some of my father’s private papers and his safe I still have to look through, so as we’re going to be here for a while at least we might as well be cosy,’ he pointed out reasonably.

  The study, a combination of living room, office and library, was large and well-furnished, with a crimson car
pet and rich velvet curtains. On the seaward side of the house, and with a huge, diamond-paned bow-window set in its two-foot-thick outer wall, it had been Henry’s favourite room

  There was a log fire already laid in the wide stone fireplace, and a box of matches on the mantelpiece, so it was the work of a moment for Quinn to stoop and set light to the kindling.

  As it flamed and crackled, sending a shower of bright sparks up the chimney, he drew an armchair up to the blaze, and invited, ‘Why don’t you make yourself at home?’

  Noting her reluctance to comply, her anxious glance at the door, he said humorously, ‘Or perhaps you’d prefer to make a start? Your room is just as you left it, so if you want to look through the things I mentioned earlier…?’

  Elizabeth shook her head. That part of her life was over and done with. She wanted no reminders. ‘It isn’t necessary. I don’t intend to take any of them. If there’s anything worth having it can go to Oxfam or some other charity.’

  Trenchantly, he said, ‘Then rather than hover like some restless spirit, may I suggest that you sit down and endeavour to possess your soul in patience while I get on with my part of the proceedings?’

  Divesting himself of his jacket, he tossed it aside, and, crossing the room, took a seat behind Henry’s large, imposing desk and switched on the lamp.

  Sinking into the chair, and trying to ignore the pricking in her thumbs, she stared through the window-panes at the November dusk gathering over the sea.

  Though she studiously avoided looking at Quinn, she was conscious of his every move. She heard him unlock and open one of the drawers, then the rustle of papers as he began to go through them.

  She risked a quick glance. Seeing he was fully occupied, she began to watch him surreptitiously from beneath long, silky lashes.

  His was the kind of tough, masculine beauty that had always made him a man’s man and every woman’s darling. But, though he must have been well aware that women often turned their heads to give him a second look, he had never shown any sign of personal vanity, nor had he made the slightest effort to encourage their interest.

  He had once told her that he was a one-woman man, and, believing him implicitly, she had hoped and prayed that she might be that one special woman. That she might be the love of his life, the mother of his children…