An Unbroken Marriage

by Penny Jordan

  As an afterthought she opened the fridge and removed half a dozen eggs, breaking them into a bowl and whisking them efficiently.

  ‘Omelettes,’ she told Mel when he wandered into the kitchen. ‘It won’t take a minute and we could both do with something.’

  They ate in a companionable silence, each savouring the relaxation from tension and the knowledge that both Alison and the baby were safe.

  ‘We want to name her after you,’ Mel told her. ‘It was Alison’s idea. She was sure all along that it was going to be a girl, and before they operated she told me that if she… if she didn’t make it and it was a girl she wanted me to call her India.’

  India reached impulsively across the table, covering his hand with hers.

  ‘I’m one hell of a lucky guy,’ Mel said abruptly, pushing away his plate and standing up. ‘Am I allowed to show my appreciation in the time-honoured way?’

  India went willing into his arms, knowing that the brief passionless kiss he pressed upon her forehead was both a goodbye and an acknowledgment that what he had felt for her had been an older man’s sudden yearning for youth and all that it represented.

  ‘Friends?’

  ‘Friends,’ India agreed, touching her lips to his.

  Neither of them heard the front door open, and so both turned in surprise when Simon suddenly strode into the room, his eyes dark and enigmatical as he looked at them, arms round one another, and then at the intimacy of the table set for two, the table lamps the room’s only illumination primarily because India had had the beginnings of a headache and hadn’t felt up to enduring the more strident overhead lights.

  ‘Surprise, surprise,’ he drawled, placing a tissue paper-wrapped bottle on the table. ‘Although not quite the one I had in mind,’ he added in a self-derisory tone. ‘Obviously I ought to have been more considerate and rung to make sure I was expected and welcome.’

  ‘Simon I can explain. You…’ Mel began.

  ‘No, thanks, Mel,’ Simon cut in coolly. ‘I’m afraid I’m a great one for letting circumstances speak for themselves. Right now what I’d appreciate most is you leaving my house, and my wife.’

  ‘Simon…’

  ‘Now, Mel,’ Simon said with such iron inflexibility that India said wearily,

  ‘You’d better do as he says, Mel. I’ll explain.’

  Plainly reluctant to do so, Mel turned on his heel and left them, and not until the front door had closed behind him did Simon say with deadly calm,

  ‘Well, you had me nicely fooled didn’t you? What a pity I had to return before the evening reached its ultimate climax. Couldn’t you at least have entertained your lover outside my home?’

  ‘Mel isn’t my lover,’ India said quietly.

  ‘Not yet perhaps,’ Simon sneered. ‘But obviously it’s only a matter of time.’

  ‘I’m not going to attempt to justify myself while you’re in this mood,’ India said quietly. ‘As it happens you’ve completely misinterpreted the situation…’

  ‘Have I?’ He reached for her as he spoke, making her wince as he grasped her upper arms with hard fingers.

  ‘We’ll see about that, but first perhaps it’s time that I showed you what being a wife is all about—who knows, I might be able to kill two birds with one stone. If it’s a lover you want, surely I’m as capable of filling that role as my dear cousin-in-law!’

  CHAPTER NINE

  FACED with the full raging tide of an anger which appalled India with its intensity, she was powerless to prevent Simon from lifting her up in arms which seemed to tighten around her like steel.

  At the top of the stairs he kicked open a door—not to the bedroom she had slept in the previous night but his room. It was just as she remembered it from that other occasion, entirely masculine.

  ‘So you thought you could make a fool of me, did you?’ Simon demanded thickly as he lowered her on to the bed, pinioning her arms, straddling her so that there was no possibility of escape. ‘You under-estimated your acting ability—I was so convinced that Mel meant nothing to you that I actually thought…’ His mouth clamped shut, a muscle working in his jaw, his eyes blazing with a barely suppressed anger that made India cringe in fear. ‘And to think I believed that you possessed honesty, decency—even thought that if you did care for Mel, you weren’t the sort of woman to steal another’s husband!’

  ‘You don’t understand,’ India began. ‘If you would just listen to me…’

  The sound of his harsh laughter jarred against her already overwrought nerves, her eyes widening in pain as his grip of her wrists tightened.

  ‘Listen? Oh no, the time for listening is over. You’re my wife, remember, and as I hate to see a woman frustrated and disappointed…’

  The sneering mouth closed over her own with smothering violence. India could feel her heart thudding in terror, her body number with a fear she had never experienced before. This wasn’t the same man who had made love to her before, who had said that if they worked at it their marriage must surely have a future. This was a remorseless stranger, bent on destroying every barrier she tried to erect between them, on destroying every last particle of resistance, on humiliating and degrading her, but try as she might India could not avoid the punishing force of that smothering kiss, and to her chagrin, when Simon lifted his head and regarded her with eyes smokey-dark with arousal, for a brief second she felt as though an answering chord had been struck somewhere deep inside herself, causing her body to vibrate against her will to a spell she had no power to resist.

  ‘You try to hide it, but I can tell that you want me,’ Simon said broodingly. ‘Just as I want you, even though I despise myself for doing so. Forget about Mel,’ he advised roughly. ‘Forget everything but this, India, because, God help us, it’s all there is.’

  She tried to stem the wild surge of longing that swamped her at the renewed touch of his lips against hers—not destructively this time, forcing from her a response that grew in depth to meet his own, until there was nothing in the world but the feel of Simon’s mouth against her own, his lips invading and exploring, as his hands slid from her wrist, upwards, unfastening the buttons of her blouse and pushing aside her bra to cup and caress the aching fullness of her breasts.

  She forgot what had happened downstairs, why he had brought her to this room, reality fading as quickly as frost in the heat of the sun, her whole body turning into a melting, yielding compliance that silently urged his possession.

  Clothes were a barrier that tormented and denied. Beneath the fine silk shirt Simon was wearing India could feel the solid muscle of his body, damp with perspiration where it clung to the tanned skin. Remembering the time before when she had performed this task for him, her fingers, unerring, found the small mother-of-pearl buttons, her senses responding instinctively to the warm, musky scent of his body; the feel of the crisp body hair beneath fingers which seemed to have discovered a latent knowledge of pleasure. His flesh against her lips tasted of salt; India felt him shudder deeply as she trailed her fingers lazily down his spine over the strongly formed male hipbone and across the tautly flat stomach which quivered faintly in reaction to her caress, her hand suddenly crushed against him as Simon muttered something unintelligible beneath his breath, his hands gripping her waist as he bent to savour the thrusting hardness of nipples which already ached from the arousing contact with his hair-roughened chest.

  Her emotions already aroused beyond the point where it was possible to think clearly or logically, India instinctively sought to prolong the exquisite pleasure, her free hand tangling in the thick darkness of the hair growing low in his nape, her small moan of pleasure echoed by Simon’s husky groan.

  As though her body’s response to his caress had swept away all her natural restraints, she could only delight in Simon’s thorough and prolonged exploration of her body, each fresh wave of pleasure delighting and startling her with its intensity and drawing an instinctively answering caress from her own fingers as they stroked delicately over ski
n which covered hard bone and muscle like a layer of oiled silk. Lost in the wonder and mystery of discovering that a man’s body could be so truly beautiful, India was conscious of nothing and no one but the man holding her against the aroused warmth of his body while teaching hers the exact meaning of the verb ‘to pleasure’.

  When his lips grazed the satin-soft skin of her stomach she shivered ecstatically, her eyes closing on a wave of yielding desire and need, which found a brief but unassuaging appeasement as Simon parted her thighs with his knee. Opening her eyes momentarily, India had a brief impression of the tanned, dark maleness of his thigh against hers, sprinkled with dark hairs, taut with a strain she could also see etched in his face, and then his lips were against hers, his arms tightening round her as she felt the full thrusting power of his desire.

  ‘I won’t hurt you this time… I promise you,’ India heard him say, but the words reached her as though she were in a dream; the fear of pain had never been farther from her mind, her entire body was urging her towards a fulfilment she could only guess at but which promised appeasement and cessation of the deep ache which arched her against Simon, her nails digging into the smooth flesh of his back, her small plaintive cries silenced beneath his mouth as her unspoken plea was answered, a delirious, singing pleasure taking her far beyond pain, beyond anything but the complete rightness of Simon’s possession, the ultimate oneness of being part of a deeply loved person. And then there was no room for thought, only the waves of pleasure crashing down over her, carrying her far, far out to sea, and then back to a sunwarmed beach where her body could lie in absolute peace…

  * * *

  India opened her eyes slowly, recollection filtering back, her eyes widening and turning to the pillow next to hers as full remembrance of the evening’s events swept over her.

  The other side of the bed was empty, the only sign that it had ever been occupied the dent in the pillow.

  She felt strangely reluctant to move, a delicious and hitherto unexperienced lethargy making her give in to the desire to simply remain where she was, allowing the birdsong outside and the bright sunlight to wash over her.

  The house itself seemed strangely quiet, and at length, when curiosity overcame her lassitude, India left the bed and padded into the bathroom, averting her eyes from the sight of clothes—hers and Simon’s—strewn haphazardly on the floor, a mute reminder of how desire had swept everything else aside. And yet on her part not simply desire, but love; the deepest, most womanly part of her had responded to Simon like a flower opening out to the sun, drawing from her a response which she knew instinctively she would never experience with anyone else. He desired her, Simon had said; and she had known that he spoke the truth, but desire was not love, and in Simon’s case she doubted if he would even have desired her had he not thought she had planned to let Mel become her lover. It had been as though the finding of the two of them together had sparked off an anger in Simon so deep that it had pushed aside everything but the need to assuage that anger in the most primitive and effective manner possible.

  And yet she could not entirely regret what had happened. It had proved if nothing else that Simon wanted her, and perhaps in time…

  But first she would have to convince him that she and Mel had been together entirely innocently. Somehow…

  The thought of Mel reminded India of Alison and the baby. Dressing quickly, she ran downstairs. There was no sign of Simon, nor of his car, and a cold finger of fear touched her heart. Where was he? Telling herself not to be stupid, she dialled the number of the hospital. Alison and the baby were both doing fine, she was told. Hanging up, India tried Mel’s home, but there was no reply. He was probably on his way to the hospital, she reflected, wishing she knew where Simon had gone and why—Was he perhaps regretting last night? Or worse, had she somehow betrayed to him how she felt? A marriage based on hopeless love on one partner’s side and pity on the other’s could never succeed, and suddenly it had become very important to her that their marriage did survive. If she wanted it to she would have to cultivate a careful façade; allowing herself to respond just so much and no more. She bit her lip, wondering perhaps if Simon, still believing the worst of Mel’s presence in the house, had perhaps gone back to London.

  It was almost lunchtime before she heard a car draw up outside, and running to the living room window, saw Simon emerging from the Ferrari. There was nothing to be read from his expression which was, if anything, withdrawn and shuttered.

  She had spent the morning tidying up and had prepared a casserole lunch on the offchance that Simon might return. The rich meaty smell of it infiltrated the hall as she opened the door, and for a moment neither she nor Simon said anything, merely looking at one another. Against her will India felt her colour rise, her pulses racing as she dragged her eyes away from his jean-clad thighs, trying not to remember the contrast between his dark skin and her fair one. Simon was casually dressed in jeans, a checked woollen shirt, and a slate blue leather jacket.

  ‘Something smells good,’ he commented, taking off the jacket.

  ‘It’s only a casserole,’ India said hesitantly. ‘I wasn’t sure… that is…’

  ‘You thought I might have gone to demand satisfaction from Mel in the time-honoured tradition?’

  No such thought had crossed India’s mind, and she looked uncertainly at him, determined to tell him the truth before there could be any more misunderstandings.

  ‘Simon…’ she began, but he let her get no further, interrupting,

  ‘I need a drink. Let’s go into the living room and sit down.’

  India noticed that he poured himself a generous measure of whisky without diluting it, but she shook her head when he asked if she wanted to join him.

  ‘No vices,’ he said, grimacing slightly, ‘unlike myself. It seems I owe both you and Mel an apology. I went to see him this morning—primarily to tell him that there was simply no way I was going to allow him to have an affair with my wife. I’d got it all planned, right down to telling him exactly how you’d responded to me, if he got stubborn, but it wasn’t necessary. All he could talk about was Alison and the new baby, and how marvellous you’d been.’ He had his back to India, and was staring out of the window, so it was impossible for her to see his face, or to guess at what he was thinking behind the cool mask of his voice.

  She went towards him hesitantly, reaching upwards to touch his arm. He withdrew from her as though her touch had burned, an expression in his eyes that turned India’s heart to stone. He hates me, she thought wearily, loathes me, can’t bear me to touch him…

  A sick helplessness rose up inside her, leaving her unable to do anything but retreat into the chair she had been occupying before, while Simon continued jerkily, ‘God knows I’ve done some crassly stupid things in my time, but this…’

  ‘You mean our marriage?’ India asked, trying to appear calm.

  ‘Among other things.’

  ‘We could always separate…’

  ‘Have you forgotten why we got married in the first place?’ Simon demanded sardonically, glancing significantly over her slight slender body. ‘And there’s even more reason now, not less. No, we stay together, but to ensure that there’s no repeat of last night, it might be as well if I stayed in London for a while—alone.’

  He wasn’t looking at her, but India could still feel the warm flush rising up under her skin. What was he saying? That he had guessed how she felt about him and that to avoid any embarrassment—for either of them—he thought it best that he didn’t place any temptation in her way. And there would have been temptation, she admitted painfully, knowing that she could not easily have endured knowing that he was sleeping in the room next to her.

  ‘But if I promised,’ she began unsteadily, casting pride to the winds, determined not to let him go without a fight, because she foresaw that if he returned to London and left her here alone it would mean the end of all her hopes that eventually Simon might come to care for her. He didn’t want to care for
her, she admitted honestly. He wanted to preserve the distance between them and she cursed herself for being foolish enough to betray to him how she felt, convinced that it had been her passionate response to his lovemaking which was making him have second thoughts.

  ‘Words dictate promises,’ he told her harshly, ‘but emotions dictate actions.’

  Meaning that she would not be able to keep hers, India thought drearily, and it was probably true.

  ‘If you’re sure it’s for the best,’ she said emotionlessly.

  ‘For the best? God knows. The best thing would have been for us never to meet, but we have done; and we’re both aware of the consequences, and I won’t condemn any child, never mind my own, to the bitter rejection that comes from not having a father.’

  ‘And if there is no child?’ India asked quietly, remembering how, just after their wedding, he had said they could make a go of their marriage no matter what—but of course, that had been before he realised that she loved him. It was one thing proposing a marriage between two sensible adults, but quite another when one of those adults had to carry the burden of the other’s love.

  ‘We’ll be let off the hook,’ he said curtly.

  There seemed nothing else India could say. Simon left shortly after lunch and she yearned to be able to reach out and touch him, to kiss the hard line of his mouth.

  ‘When will you be back?’ she asked him as he threw his case into the boot of the Ferrari.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  It was the end of a brief dream. Her most sensible course now was to pray that she wasn’t pregnant, India told herself, but strangely enough she found herself stubbornly praying for exactly the opposite. One half of her writhed in self-contempt, but the other refused to give up the fight, even when she told it that there was no point in going on.

  At the end of the week Alison returned home from hospital. She telephoned India to report progress on the baby, who was thriving in the premature unit of the hospital, but would not be allowed to go home until she had reached a target weight of six pounds. As she was barely three this was obviously going to be some time.