A Secure Marriage

by Diana Hamilton

  'I don't want a drink.' His voice was thick. 'I want you.' He reached for her again but she was too quick for him, her voice rapid and high as she told him,

  'I must ask you something.' The smile she slanted in his direction was shaky, because this wasn't what she wanted, not really. She, too, wanted only the wonderful magic that could only be found in his arms, in the depth and delight of their lovemaking.

  'Go ahead.'

  He slumped in the chair opposite the one she had sunk into and she noticed the tiredness was back in his face, the marks of a man who drove himself too hard. But she owed it to Uncle John, to herself, to find out, so she asked him,

  'Is it true that Mescal Slade are considering a takeover of Slade Securities? I heard a rumour.'

  'Ah. I think I will have that drink.' He moved over to the drinks tray and Cleo, her eyes on the long male elegance of his back, knew the rumour had solid foundation. And that hurt, more than she had thought possible. Why hadn't he told her? But his features had assumed the poker player's mask that he always used tohide his true feelings when he turned to face her again, and he went to stand in front of the fire, straddle-legged, his glass held in one loosely curved hand.

  'So you've heard about the possible takeover bid. It's the good old Chinese Wall syndrome again!' He smiled thinly, rocking back on his heels, his eyes stony.'The old fiction that each department keeps itself to itself with no gratuitous overlapping of information is a pretty theory, but it hardly ever works.'

  'Why didn't you tell me?'

  With an effort she kept her voice level, light; she had too much pride to allow him to see her as a whining child, and a cold smile flickered over his mouth as he told her, 'We don't work like that. You, of all people, should know that. You're an interested party.'

  'Of course.' Her expression was carefully blank, but she was hurting inside.

  How could he have kept such a thing from her? She loved him, she was his wife! But, a cold spiteful voice inside her reminded, he didn't love her. As far as he was concerned theirs was an expedient marriage, nothing more.

  Beyond the bedroom door she was no more to him than she had ever been—one individual among the many employed by Mescal Slade, slightly closer to him than most because of her position as his PA, but that was all.

  All at once she needed a drink, too, and she got up stiffly, her body feeling uncoordinated as she moved across-the room. When John Slade found out about this it would finish him. He would see all his work, the decision he'd made with her father to break free of Mescal Slade all those years ago, count for nothing.

  Her back to Jude, she poured herself a vodka and tonic, trying to control the tremor of her hand, and Jude said quietly, 'There's something else. I think it's time you knew—I'm going to have to find another PA.'

  Quite suddenly, the ticking of the pretty grandmother clock seemed louder, the crackle of the logs on the hearth almost deafening. Or maybe it was the silence, the stillness that flooded her brain as she waited for him to explain, that brought everything into sharper focus. So they'd all been right—Polly, Dawn, Sheila Bates—when they'd picked up undercurrents. Jude wanted her out.

  She loved her job, didn't want to lose it. Working with Jude made her feel fully alive, it had done since that very first day. And surely he wasn't one of those ghastly old-fashioned men who, clinging to archaic concepts, believed a woman's place was in the home, preferably in chains!

  In any case, her chin jutted mutinously, he could fire her—that was his prerogative—but he couldn't stop her going out and finding another job!

  He had waited for her to protest, to comment. That much was evident from the arching of one black brow. But Cleo couldn't trust herself to speak, not just yet. And then, as if he could feel her bewilderment, her quick instinctive mutiny, his eyes softened, understanding making them warm as he watched her go back to her chair with the stiff movements of a tautly held body.

  'I shall miss you,' he told her quietly. 'Miss your quick mind, your unfailing tact, the flick of dry humour you produce when you want to put me in my place.'

  So he had noticed that! And all the time she had imagined she was quietly and unobtrusively manipulating him into making slightly less than impossible demands on himself, on the rest of the staff! And if he would miss her, why then should he fire her? It didn't make sense!

  'There are two reasons why I want you to make a move,' he answered the question posed by the puzzled grey eyes. 'In the first place, I don't think it's a particularly good idea for a husband and wife to work so closely together.

  And secondly, in view of the board's interest in the possibility of a takeover, you'd be far more useful at Slade Securities.'

  She hadn't thought of that, but now her mind reluctantly began to follow his.

  'Are they in trouble?' Grace had said that her husband had been fretting about the business. Cleo had put that down to his general ill health, but obviously there was more to it than that. And Mescal Slade had started to take a serious interest. Shaky finance houses did well to keep looking over their shoulders, because there were always rock-solid merchant bankers only too ready to swallow them up.

  'Some,' Jude replied evenly, shifting, stretching out long, immaculately clad legs, the dark fabric pulled taut across his thighs. 'Since John had to retire, Luke's been overreaching himself. It's a high-risk-capital game, as we know, but recently he's been risking too much— especially in the entrepreneurial section; high flyers with no real and solid grounds for success. The City is getting to know it by now, but if I could persuade the board to back off, forget we ever contemplated a takeover bid, then the other big fishes would have to rethink. If they find out, which I shall make sure they do, that Mescal Slade's interest in Slade Securities has cooled, then they're going to hold off while they sniff the air. You understand?'

  She did. She understood, but could do nothing about the game of financial chess Jude was outlining. He had seen her offer of her block of Slade Securities shares as a means of taking personal control of the finance house Mescal Slade were interested in controlling. With her at the helm of the company, no doubt with strong guidance from him, he could become the major shareholder in a newly prosperous concern. Little wonder he'd decided to take up her offer of marriage after she'd told him she'd give him those shares!

  'And if you are there,' he leaned forward in his chair, his eyes holding hers intently, 'with your brain, your grasp of what makes the City tick, your financial common sense, then you should have enough time to get Slade Securities back into a position of strength before anyone realises what is happening. Interested?'

  'You don't need to ask that,' Cleo replied, her throat tightening. If it were within her power to rescue Slade Securities then she had no choice but to do her damnedest. And that would be what Jude was counting on. The shares she had brought to this marriage would be worth so much more if the company was sound. He was manipulating her, making sure the assets she had brought with her were worth as much as possible. It hurt, like nothing else had hurt before, because in spite of her earlier optimism about the state of their marriage he was no nearer loving her than he had ever been. He was using her. In bed or out of it, he was simply using her.

  'When you told me you were firing me I thought it was because you were the type of man who meant to keep his wife at home, looking after the children.' No way was she going to let him know the way she really felt—betrayed, used, as far as ever from having his love. Her role was to be the amenable, totally sensible wife, pulling with him, never against him, never letting him know by word or action how desperately she craved the commitment of his love.

  'But I do.' His soft answer left her gasping, but he amended, 'But not quite in the way you imagine. When the children do arrive we'll turn a room here into an office for you, install a computer link-up with Slade's head office, and you can do most of your work from home. No problem. You'll have a nanny, of course, but we'll both make time to be with the children—that's where the house in
the country will come in. A place for holidays, weekends, that sort of thing. Fair?'

  She nodded, unable to meet his eyes in case he saw the pain there and wondered... Oh, he was being fair, doing everything possible to make their life together a success, and if she didn't love him she might feel the marriage was perfect. But she did love him, more than life, and his calculated manipulation of their future, of the assets she'd brought to this marriage, made her feel cold, cold and lonely.

  But she nodded, 'Very fair,' and finished her drink. 'I hope Uncle John and Luke approve our intentions,' she added drily, flinching when he told her,

  'I've already consulted them.' She had been living in a fool's paradise, the last person to know of his intentions. His brain must have been working overtime ever since she'd mentioned those shares in conjunction with her proposal of marriage.

  She hardly heard him when he elaborated, 'Your uncle's firmly behind the idea of your joining Slade. So is Luke—but only, I must warn you, because he can't see any way out of the near shambles he's created.'

  'Then there seems nothing further to say,' she told him, surprising herself by the equable tone she achieved, and he countered,

  'I've often wondered—why didn't you join Slade when you got your degree?'

  'Luke.' She shrugged minimally, containing her misery. 'I couldn't stomach the idea of him treating me like a backward junior clerk. Apart from being pompous, he's the type who thinks that being male automatically makes him superior in every degree to a mere female.' And I've discovered that he hates me, which will make working with him almost intolerable, she thought. But Jude wasn't ever going to hear about that, so she added, 'Not to worry, you now own as many shares as he and his father between them, and that, if nothing else, makes me his equal.'

  And to her astonishment Jude grinned lazily, stretching, cat-like, in his chair. 'You have a finer mind by far, determination and guts, not to mention all that exquisite packaging. The poor guy's going to have to resign himself to taking a very inferior back seat indeed!'

  Almost, she felt flattered. But he was simply seeing her as a brain, a means of pulling Slade Securities—in which, of course, he had a vested interest—together again. He wasn't seeing her as a wife, a woman to be loved.

  'I think I'll go up, I'm very tired,' she excused herself, hoping to get out of there before her misery began to show through, and she had reached the door before his voice stopped her, and she turned to see him leave his chair, come over to her.

  'You don't mind? It might not seem so from where you're standing, but I don't want to push you into doing something you don't want to do.' The character lines on either side of his mouth indented wryly and he touched the side of her face with a slowly moving finger, his eyes sober. She almost flinched away from his touch because the meaning behind it was shallow.

  She craved the depths of emotion, not the shallows. But she smiled, shaking her head.

  'Of course I don't mind. It's the sensible thing to do.' And she watched his face change, assume the blank poker player's mask again.

  That mask always worked well in his business dealings, and had always amused her because she knew how the mind behind the mask was working.

  But now, when he said, 'And you always do the sensible thing. Quite right, Cleo,' she didn't know whether to take it as a compliment or not. It was one thing to understand how his mind worked in his dealings in the City, quite another to understand his motives, his feelings, in the arena of their marriage.

  And that night, for the first time, she pretended to be deeply asleep when he came to their bedroom.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  THE last of the everyday cooking utensils and crockery went into a packing case, ready to be taken to Oxfam, and now Cleo had to start wrapping the things of sentimental value—mostly bits and pieces her student friends had given as housewarming presents when she had first moved into the small house in Bow.

  These and most of the furniture would go into store. Jude had said, 'You might like to hang on to your things, put them about when we get a place in the country,' and she had agreed, because she had taken time and trouble when furnishing, and some of the pieces were like old and valued friends.

  Getting up from her knees, she decided on coffee to help steady her nerves because Robert Fenton had said he'd be here around lunch time, and that could mean anytime between twelve and two.

  She tucked the hem of her blue and green striped Viyella shirt back into the waistband of her sleek green needlecord jeans and filled the kettle, plugging it in with hands that shook a little. She would be thankful when today was over, this whole horrible business behind her.

  She spooned coffee granules and powdered milk into a mug and waited for the kettle to boil, chewing on a corner of her lower lip. It had seemed a good idea to suggest Fenton collected the money from here. She hadn't wanted him anywhere near the house in Belgravia, but she could have laid down a definite time, an anonymous meeting place—outside some tube station or other.

  But she wasn't used to this kind of cloak and dagger stuff, and she hadn't been thinking too clearly when she phoned him yesterday. He would be here anytime during the next two hours. But at least, after then, it would all be over and she could put all her energies into making this marriage work.

  But that would be an uphill struggle, she admitted. Those shares had been the primary reason behind his decision to accept her proposal, make her the mother of the children he wanted to have. But she'd always known that, hadn't she? Her conversation with him last night had merely reinforced what she'd already known. Nothing had changed, not really, and besides, she wasn't a quitter and would do everything she could to make this marriage work, and pray that in time love would grow for him, too.

  She smiled at this thought, a small, tight smile, and as she poured water into the mug she remembered how she'd sat opposite him at breakfast this morning and he'd asked, 'Are you going to take a look at the Slade Securities books this morning?'

  She'd shaken her head, her stomach tying itself in knots because this morning she was collecting the money from the bank, seeing Robert Fenton, and it wasn't a prospect she was over the moon about.

  'I'll give him a call and ask him to send all the relevant stuff over in a taxi this afternoon,"' she had told him/'I can work through them in peace here, without him breathing down my neck.'

  'Good idea. And don't let him try to put you down.' His mouth quirked humorously. 'Not that I think he could, not in a million years. But just remember, your uncle's on your side all the way, and if you need any help or advice you know you can count on me.'

  Jude had finished eating and he'd be leaving for the City soon. Cleo had tried to look on the bright side, because the next time she saw him the nightmare of Robert Fenton would be over and behind her, so she smiled and said,

  'Have a good day.'

  'Make it a better one?' he'd countered lightly. 'I miss you around the office, so have lunch with me?'

  'I'd better not,' she'd said quickly, perhaps too quickly, because she'd caught the slight lift of his brows over cool, enquiring eyes, and she'd just had to explain as she'd followed him to the door, feeling like a worm, 'I thought I'd take myself over to Bow this morning. I need to get things sorted out and packed, and arrange for some of the stuff to go into store. The house agents will be putting the board up next week.'

  It had felt like telling lies, although it was part of the truth. And she would phone through and make those arrangements just as soon as Fenton had gone. Until then, she was too edgy to make coherent arrangements with anyone about anything.

  It was almost an hour later when the shrill of the doorbell made her drop the pile of books she was moving down from her former bedroom. Her nerves were stretched tight as she stepped over the scattered books, but she took a deep breath and told herself that this would soon be over, and after that she felt calmer, better able to cope.

  As she opened the door he was leaning against the frame, smiling unpleasantly; she ste
pped back and he walked through as if he owned the place.

  He was casually dressed and she thought: brown leather trousers, ye gods!

  and decided they didn't suit him. Neither did the brown silk shirt, open almost to the waist. The outfit marked him as the poseur he was. Saying nothing, she preceded him to the living-room, untidy now with the bulging cartons and carriers she'd dumped haphazardly because this morning she hadn't been functioning on her normal calm and efficient level. There was a small wall safe behind one of the pictures, installed by a previous owner, and she'd put the package in there as soon as she'd come from the bank. Twenty-five thousand was a lot of money to leave lying around, even for a few hours.

  It took a few moments to extract the package, and when she turned he was sprawled out on the sofa, his booted feet on the almond-green upholstery, his eyes avid, following her every movement. He held out his hand wordlessly but she shook her head.

  'The hotel receipt first.' She watched coldly as he pulled the scrap of paper from a pocket in his shirt and released it so that it fluttered to the carpet.

  'How do you know I haven't had it photocopied?' he asked, his face blank, and she snapped,

  'You probably have. But I'd advise you not to try it on again. Just pay off your debts and stay away from me.' She tossed the package at him, disgust on her face. 'Now get out!'

  He turned his head, staring at her, his face tightening. 'You weren't always so keen to see the back of me.'

  'I didn't know what a creep you were then,' she grated, her control precarious now. She couldn't bear to be reminded that she had once found him remotely likeable. It made her feel ashamed to know that she had ever been so blind, so gullible. And he knew that, he'd have to be a fool not to, and his mouth whitened with temper as he retaliated,