by Anne Mather
And so, much to her father's dismay and her mother's quiet amusement, she had found herself a flat in London. Instead of commuting to the office from her parents' home in Buckinghamshire, as Matthew Webster had expected, she had abandoned her ideas of working for the company and accepted a temporary position in a friend's art gallery instead.
Of course, from her father's point of view, she couldn't have made a more unsuitable decision. The men she met in the course of her work at the gallery were not the sort of men he admired. Mostly, he regarded artists, of any per-suasion, as wimps and losers, and he lost no opportunity to ridicule her chosen career.
But, once her mind was made up, Caitlin had proved to be as obdurate as her father. She liked the idea that people listened to her opinion; that she was treated as an equal instead of being ignored. And the work was easy. She could have done it standing on her head. It was pleasant, it was civilised, and she'd managed to convince herself it was what she wanted to do.
In addition to which, she had a social life at last. Instead of burying her head in a book every evening, she'd started accepting invitations to the theatre, and to parties, and to various exhibitions. She still had no illusions about her popularity, of course. Growing up as Matthew Webster's daughter had made her cynical, and she couldn't throw that cynicism off overnight. She knew she was neither incredibly sexy nor incredibly beautiful, and for all her independence, she was still too willing to accept that her father's wealth was pulling strings.
"Mrs Wolfe?"
A nurse was standing in front of her, and Caitlin jerked her head up so quickly she went dizzy for a moment. "Yes?"
"Dr Harper says he's sorry to keep you waiting, Mrs Wolfe," the nurse explained, urging Caitlin back into her seat when she would have stood up. "He'll be with you very shortly." She paused. "There's a dispenser over there if you'd like to help yourself to some coffee."
Caitlin made a negative gesture, the dizziness receding. Machine-made coffee was usually unpalatable in her experience, and although she'd come to the hospital straight from the airport, her stomach was not yet attuned to the fact that it was only midday here in New York. It was already five o'clock in London, and on any other day she would have been either at the flat, or working.
"It's the pits, waiting," remarked the little girl's mother suddenly, in an accent that Caitlin found harder to understand than that of the nurse. She sniffed. "I guess you're here for the same reason I am. You got someone injured in the crash?"
Caitlin nodded. "My husband." She hesitated. "Did you…?"
"Yeah. Emmy's father was on the same flight," agreed the woman, pulling a used tissue out of her sleeve and blowing her nose hard. "He was on his way to England to see his sick mother. Leastwise, that's what he told me." She grimaced. "Who knows about men?"
Well, not me, thought Caitlin ruefully. She exchanged a wistful smile with the little girl. When David Griffiths had come along, she'd been vulnerable and far too willing to believe what he said.
David was the brother of the friend who'd invited her to work at the gallery, and, for some unknown reason, he had been instantly attracted to her. Had he seen how naive she was? How inexperienced? Or had he sensed what a pushover she'd be?
Whatever, he had certainly made her feel special. The tall, shy young woman, who had come to help his sister sell her paintings, had been transformed into a glowing creature who believed everything he said. She'd sometimes wondered if he'd ever cared about her. Or if she was the kind of person who only saw what she wanted to see.
His sister, Felicity—Fliss—had approved of the alliance. She'd assured Caitlin that she was good for her brother and that he'd never been so happy before.
Sometimes, Caitlin had found him a little impractical. She was still her father's daughter after all, and his attitude to-wards money gave her pause. But he taught her that life was not just a series of balance sheets and that personal fulfilment meant more than being a success.
Their affair had not been a passionate one. In lovemaking, as in everything else, David preferred to take it very much at his own pace. Caitlin doubted he had ever felt strongly about anything that didn't directly affect his own wellbeing. He was selfish and self-indulgent—but he was fun.
The only aspect of their relationship that did trouble her was his moodiness. For all his happy-go-lucky ways, there were days when he was not approachable at all. And because in all the time she'd known him he had never had a job, Caitlin had got it into her head that he had financial problems; that although he seemed quite content to borrow money from either her or his sister, secretly he worried about the future.
She remembered she'd even mentioned her fears to Fliss quite early in their relationship. But Fliss had just dismissed them out of hand. David had always had these cranky days, she assured her carelessly. If she had any sense, she'd just leave him alone and he'd come round.
And she had, until that fateful day when she'd entered the small flat he'd occupied above the gallery and discovered him unconscious on the floor…
Looking back now, she could quite see why Fliss had been as angry as she was when Caitlin burst unannounced into her office. She had been dealing with a client at the time, and Caitlin's hysterical belief that David had suffered some kind of stroke had not helped the proceedings. "My God," she'd said later, after David had been carted off to a drug rehabilitation centre, "if you hadn't recognised my brother's little habit for what it was, you must have been living on another planet!"
And Caitlin supposed she had. Or in another world anyway, she conceded ruefully. But afterwards, she'd found it impossible to forgive him, or Fliss, for deceiving her as they had…
"You're English, aren't you?"
Emmy's mother was speaking again, and guessing she needed the comfort of a shared confidence, Caitlin conceded that she was right.
"I flew in from London this morning," she admitted as Emmy left the shelter of her mother's skirt long enough to touch the glossy sable fur that trimmed Caitlin's cashmere coat. "Um—how about you? Do you live in New York?"
"Can't you tell?" The woman was philosophic about her accent. "Yeah, Ted and me, we live on Staten Island. I don't suppose you've ever been there. Believe me, you've missed nothing."
Caitlin smiled. "I'm afraid this is my first trip to New York," she said, grimacing at her ignorance. "I've been to Florida and California, but I've never been to the Big Apple before."
"The Big Apple." The woman repeated the words as if she liked the sound of them. "Yeah, well, I've never been to London. But Ted—he was born there, see."
"He's English, then?"
Caitlin found talking about something other than her own problems was comforting to her, too, and the woman nodded. "Sort of. His father was a G.I., see. His mother's English, of course. But Ted, he always wanted to live in the States."
"Ah."
"His old lady didn't," went on her companion, pulling a wry face. "There was no G.I. bride bit for her. I guess you could say she wasn't much interested in Ted, either. She let his father bring him back to the U.S. That's why him dashing off to see her now she's s'posed to be ill sounds pretty thin, don't you think?"
Caitlin made some reassuring comment about time healing all wounds, but she wondered whom she was kidding. Her first opinion of Nathan had been coloured by the way David had treated her. The assured, confident American had seemed to possess all the attributes the other man hadn't. He was good-looking, well-educated, ambitious; and she was no longer the naive idealist she had been.
In addition to which, her father had liked him. She'd left the art gallery after her break-up with David, and it was while she was recovering her spirits at home that she'd met Nathan at the party her parents had given for her twenty-sixth birthday. He'd been at Harvard some years before with the son of one of her father's business acquaintances, and because he was staying with the Gordons at the time, he'd accompanied them to the celebrations.
To begin with, she and Nathan had appeared to have so m
uch in common. Like herself, Nathan was a university graduate. He was an older man, of course, but from a business background as she was. He'd told her his father owned a busy sawmill in New Jersey, and that he was visiting England to study British business methods.
His host, Adrian Gordon, had spoken very positively of his interest in the environment. And when Matthew Webster had offered to show him a little of the way he operated, Nathan had been eager to accept. He'd seemed so open, so enthusiastic, so eager to please. So much so, that she'd been completely taken in.
Their marriage was an instant disaster. She'd learned, at the start of her honeymoon, that Nathan had no feelings for her; that he cared for no one but himself. Her hopes, her fears, her needs, were not important. He'd married her because she was Matthew Webster's daughter and because he believed that ultimately her father would give the control of the company to him…
"You come back here, Emmy."
Caitlin came back to the present to find that the little girl had sidled up to her now and was stroking the fur that edged her cuff. "It's all right," she said, almost glad of the diversion. "I expect she's missing her daddy. Just like you."
"You got children, Mrs Wolfe?"
The woman moved into the seat next to her, and Caitlin gave her a rueful glance. "Unfortunately not," she said, the pain of Nathan's betrayal still sharp inside her.
She sighed.
She had certainly had a rude awakening. Until they were married, Nathan had held back from making love to her, and she, poor fool that she was, had imagined it was because he respected her. She winced. How wrong she had been. Nathan hadn't touched her because he'd known his lovemaking would disgust her. She couldn't respond to his violent sexuality, and by the time they came home from Tahiti, she was in a state of shock.
But she was not a quitter, and although she knew she had made a terrible mistake, she was still prepared to give the marriage a chance. She'd known how disappointed her father would be if she said she wanted to divorce Nathan. Particularly when he'd invested so much hope in their union.
She'd discovered Nathan was being unfaithful to her less than three months after their return to London. Seeing him with another woman had shaken her, and she had listened to his excuses with a heavy heart.
She'd learned Lisa Abbott's name just a few weeks later.
The woman was an American, she discovered, and he had known her for years. He had apparently invited her to join him in London, and he had been using the credit card her father had given him to pay for a room at a hotel.
Caitlin had been searching, quite legitimately, for her address book when she'd found the damning statement crumpled at the back of a drawer. She probably shouldn't have looked at it. The very fact that she hadn't seen it before should have warned her it was nothing to do with her. But curiosity got the better of her, and like any normal wife, she'd wanted to know what it was.
The row that had followed had been painfully destructive, the first real indication that any hopes she still might have nurtured for their marriage had been hopelessly naive. She'd walked out of the flat afterwards, with every intention of seeing a solicitor. She couldn't go on living with a man to whom deceit was second nature.
But it was evening when she left the flat. All solicitors' offices were closed, and rather than go back, she'd taken a room in a hotel. She'd had no knowledge that her father had had a heart attack until she'd arrived at her parents' home the next day to find an ambulance—and Nathan's car—already in the drive.
The sight of her father being carried from the house on a stretcher had sent her running towards the pillared portico. Matthew Webster was clearly unconscious, but her mother was there, with Nathan just behind her, and she'd raised accusing eyes to her daughter's face.
"What is it? What's happened?" cried Caitlin, convinced in those first few minutes that Nathan was responsible for her father's collapse. She was quite prepared to believe he had told some cock-and-bull tale to her parents, blaming her for the rift between them and destroying all her father's hopes for their marriage.
"Where have you been?" retorted her mother tearfully. "If Nathan hadn't come at once, I don't know what I'd have done." She glanced round at her son-in-law gratefully. "We've both been trying desperately to find you. If you must continue to go out with your friends, you might at least leave Nathan an address where you can be reached."
Caitlin's eyes moved to her husband's then, and his smug expression was almost her undoing. But how could she accuse Nathan of anything in the present circumstances? With the guilt successfully transferred to her shoulders, it was doubtful if even her mother would believe her.
Of course, Caitlin could tell from Nathan's expression that he knew she wouldn't say anything now. That half-amused arrogance, quickly disguised when her mother turned to speak to him, was a clear indication of what he was thinking. There was no question now of Caitlin betraying his falseness. Until her father recovered his strength, her hands were tied.
And, unfortunately, since that afternoon, Matthew Webster had never completely regained his strength. He'd recovered from the attack, but his doctor had warned him there was still a weakness in his heart, and he had to avoid any kind of stress.
For her part, Caitlin had eventually resigned herself to the hypocrisy of her marriage. The awful thing was that, as the weeks and months went by, she had actually begun to ask herself what she had to gain by ruining Nathan's reputation. She was grateful that the physical side of their marriage was over, but from an objective point of view, he provided a shield. At least no other man attempted to seduce her. As Nathan's wife, she was protected from men like him.
Gradually, however, she had become aware of a change in her father's attitude towards her husband. He no longer seemed confident that Nathan was the man to succeed him. These days, he never spoke about giving Nathan more authority, and his sudden appointment of Marshall O'Brien as his second in command had placed a definite strain on their relationship…
"Mrs Wolfe?"
The unfamiliar masculine voice arrested her uneasy thoughts, bringing her abruptly back to earth. Whatever had happened in the past didn't much matter now. Nathan was injured, maybe seriously, and even her father couldn't blame him for that.
An elderly man in a white lab coat was looking down at her, and she forced her brain into action. "Dr—Harper?"
"That's right." Harper looked both harassed and weary. "Come with me, please, Mrs Wolfe. I'll explain why I wanted to speak to you before you see your husband."
"Good luck."
Emmy's mother called the words after her as Caitlin followed the stoop-shouldered medic into the corridor, and she raised a grateful hand. She had the feeling she was going to need all the luck she could get if Dr Harper's expression was anything to go by.
The corridors were still busy, with orderlies transferring patients from one ward to another. Although she tried not to look at all the gurneys they passed, the need to reassure herself that Nathan wasn't on one of them was irresistible. But none of the pale faces she saw even remotely resembled her husband. Wherever Nathan was, she was not to be allowed to see him until this unsmiling doctor had delivered his doubtful news.
The office he eventually appropriated was obviously not his own. A nurse, who had apparently been snatching a quick cigarette, was unceremoniously despatched, and Dr Harper opened a window to allow the noxious fumes to disperse. It allowed a draught of cold air to enter the office, however, and Caitlin blamed that for the sudden chill that slid down her spine.
"Please—sit down."
Harper gestured to a chair beside the desk, and although Caitlin would have preferred to stand, she obediently complied. The truth was, she felt less helpless when she was standing. As if whatever blow she was going to be expected to weather could be overcome better when she was on her feet.
"Thank you."
Her gratitude was as spurious as the tight smile she bestowed on her companion, and the doctor hesitated only a moment before seati
ng himself behind the desk. It occurred to Caitlin then that he probably welcomed the respite. He wasn't a young man, and he'd obviously been continually on his feet throughout the night.
"You're English, Mrs Wolfe," he remarked at last, unnecessarily, Caitlin felt, but she assumed it was his way of starting the interview. Whatever he had to say, it was probably easier to get the formalities over first. Hospitals had their own form of protocol, even in circumstances like these.
"Yes," she replied now, crossing her legs and making sure the skirt of her coat covered her trembling knees. "I flew over from London this morning."
"This morning?"
Harper arched a quizzical brow, and Caitlin felt obliged to explain. "On the Concorde," she appended quickly. "I was lucky enough to get a cancellation."
"Ah." He inclined his bead. "Your husband's not English, of course."
Caitlin began to understand.
"No," she said evenly. "Nathan was born in this country. As a matter of fact, he was over here visiting his—oh, God!" She broke off as a horrifying thought occurred to her. "Has—has anyone informed Nathan's father? If he knew his son was on the flight, he must be worried sick. And he's not a well man—at least, that's what Nathan said."
"We only inform next of kin," replied Dr Harper flatly. "Right now, I'm more concerned with the after-effects of your husband's injuries. I have to warn you, Mrs Wolfe, there's a problem. He probably won't remember who you are."
Caitlin's jaw sagged. She had barely recovered from the shock of learning that she was going to have to break the news to Nathan's father, a man whom she'd never even met, and Dr Harper's words left her weak.
"I beg your pardon," she began, her mouth dry and taut with tension, and the doctor attempted to explain what he had meant.
"It's quite common, really," he told her, though Caitlin was equally sure it was not common at all. "Your husband is suffering the effects of being involved in a serious—not to say, traumatic—accident. In many cases of this kind, a temporary neurosis can occur."
"You mean—there's some psychological problem?"
