Anne Mather - Relative Sins

All the same, she did not need his support…

‘It’ll soon be over.’

His words irritated her for no good reason, and she tilted her head to give him a studied look. ‘For which I’m sure you’ll be very grateful,’ she remarked, aware that she was being ungracious. ‘Tell me, is this one of your flying visits, or can your parents expect you to stay for forty-eight hours this time?’

Alex’s lips thinned. ‘I shan’t be going back to Kashmir,’ he said obliquely. And then, as one of his father’s tenants came to offer his condolences, he added, ‘I don’t think you know Will Baxter, Sara. He and his son run a small printing works in Corbridge.’

For the next few minutes Sara was obliged to shelve any alarm that Alex’s words might have engendered and accept the sympathy offered by a sequence of well-meaning strangers. So many people came to take her hand and offer some personal glimpse of the man who had been her husband that she lost track of names and faces.

But these were Harry’s friends, Harry relations—aunts and uncles and cousins whom Sara had never even met. She had got to know Harry in London, and had visited Edmundsfield only a couple of times before they were married. Harry had told her little about his life here—a fact which her mother-in-law had soon discovered. She was a stranger to these people, just as they were strangers to her.

Perhaps if they’d been married here…she found herself thinking now, and then dismissed the thought before it was fully formed. There was no way that she could have been married in Edmundsfield. For all her brief acquaintance, this village held only unhappy memories for her.

‘And I don’t live here,’ Alex was informing her evenly, and she realised that once again they were alone. Or as alone as any two people could be in such a gathering, she amended silently. But at least his words reassured her. He’d be going back to London if not to Kashmir.

‘I really think I ought to go and check on my son,’ she declared, avoiding any direct answer as he had himself. ‘If you’ll excuse me…’

‘I bought Ragdale,’ he said before she could put enough space between them so that she could pretend not to hear. ‘I’ve left the Press Corps. I decided I needed some security in my old age.’

Sara swallowed, though the effort nearly choked her. ‘How…interesting,’ she said, obliged to say something before she rushed away. But the news was devastating, particularly as the Reeds were bound to want to see their grandson on a regular basis. God, hadn’t fate dealt her enough blows already? Was she now to be expected to treat Alex like a friend? Like a brother-in-law , she thought scornfully. A man she’d grown to hate.

When she returned to the hall a few minutes later it was Robert Reed who captured her attention. ‘We’re about to have something to eat,’ he said, ‘and I don’t want to hear that you’re not hungry. There’s scarcely anything of you as it is. Have you been starving yourself to stay slim?’

Sara managed a faint smile. ‘I don’t know whether that’s a compliment or not,’ she teased, relieved to find that she felt no sense of intimidation with him. Harry had been like his father, she thought: competent but easygoing, never letting anyone rile him, never losing his temper out of hand. Or his head, she appended somewhat painfully, wishing desperately that he were still here. He’d been her friend, her lover, her anchor—the only man she’d ever known who’d thought of others before himself…

DESPITE her best efforts, Sara could only manage to eat one sandwich and the crumbled remains of a piece of Mrs Fraser’s shortbread. Even so, the sugary biscuit stuck in her throat, and she found herself drinking more than was wise to try and dislodge the constriction.

She knew that Harry’s father was concerned about her, which warmed that part of her that his wife had so unfeelingly chilled. And at least Alex hadn’t returned to disturb her, though the sight of him, chatting to a tall, elegant woman in her thirties, wasn’t exactly to her taste either.

She’d recognised the woman earlier, when she and her husband had come to offer their condolences. The Erskines—and Linda Erskine in particular—were old friends of the family. At one time Linda Adams, as she had been then, had been expected to marry one of the brothers, but circumstances had decreed otherwise, and Harry’s mother had informed them in one of her letters that she’d married James Erskine instead.

A great disappointment, no doubt, thought Sara now rather maliciously, remembering the way Linda had hung around Alex when she was here. It had seemed only a matter of time before their engagement was to be announced, and she knew that Harry had been surprised that his brother had ducked the issue. But then, Harry hadn’t known what manner of man his brother was…

Sara pressed her lips together. She didn’t want to think about any of that now—not here, not with Harry dead and Alex playing the grieving sibling. But how could he behave so ingenuously, she wondered, as if Harry’s death had devastated him as much as anyone else? He was the man who had betrayed his brother, yet he was acting as if they’d been the best of friends.

All the same, Sara’s eyes lingered on Linda Erskine and her brother-in-law with something less than indifference. The woman’s simple navy blue dress, worn with matching stockings and high-heeled shoes, served to enhance both a graceful neck and the silken ash-blonde hair that Linda wore in a fashionable chignon. There was a brooch at her shoulder which offered some relief from the rather severe outfit, but Sara thought, rather uncharitably, that its expensive setting was a reminder that Linda had married well.

From Sara’s point of view the exquisite emeralds, set in a twisted coil of white gold, were an all too unwelcome reminder of the home she had once had. Beautiful gems like those were freely available in South America, and Harry had offered to buy her an emerald ring for their fifth wedding anniversary.

Sara determinedly put that thought aside and glanced instead at her own appearance in the mirror over the fireplace. The dress she had been forced to wear wasn’t entirely suitable, being too thin for this northern climate. But it was plain and it was black, and she hadn’t exactly had a lot of choice.

The long coat she had worn to the church was infinitely more suitable. She’d bought it in London years ago, and for some reason she’d taken it with her when she moved. Being made of warm charcoal-grey wool, it had hidden the fact that the dress hung rather loosely on her spare frame. She knew she’d lost weight since Harry’s death, and she hadn’t been exactly robust before that. Food had never been that important to her, and since Harry had been killed she’d found it difficult to eat anything.

In consequence she found her comparison to Linda Erskine decidedly unflattering. Despite the fact that her skin was lightly tanned and clear of any blemishes, she was sure that it suffered from a lack of colour. The other woman’s make-up was smooth and immaculate, a distinctive touch of blusher heightening the impression of a perfect English rose.

Sara’s hand crept almost unconsciously to her hair. Unlike Linda’s, Sara’s hair barely brushed her collar at the back. In the heat of Rio de Janeiro it had been more sensible to keep it short, and although its russet strands were thick and shining it lacked the elegance of a longer style. Perhaps now that she was back in England…

But at that point she arrested her thoughts. For heaven’s sake, she thought impatiently, here she was, at Harry’s funeral , and all she could think about was how dowdy she looked when compared with a woman she scarcely knew. What did it matter to her if she looked a frump? She wasn’t here to gather compliments. She was here to bury her husband.