Anne Mather - Jack Riordan's Baby

She couldn’t help wondering now if she’d been too quick to put his behaviour down to disappointment. Disappointment that he wasn’t going to be a father, and disappointment in her, too, as a woman. She’d believed he thought she’d let him down—not once, but three times. And when she had refused to let him near her again, he’d turned to someone else.

It had all seemed so simple—and so sordid. She hadn’t been able to believe that a man like Jack could exist without some woman in his bed. The fact that it had taken her almost eighteen months before she found out about his involvement with Karen Johnson didn’t reassure her. Karen wasn’t the first, she was sure. But she was the only one who’d got pregnant with his child.

At lunchtime, Rachel abandoned any attempt to continue with her painting of Benjie Beaver and went back to the house. She had still to explain to Mrs Grady why her bedroom had been littered with burnt-out candles that morning, and why Jack’s bed hadn’t been slept in.

However, Mrs Grady was out. She usually went shopping on Thursday mornings, Rachel remembered, finding even normal events as difficult to concentrate on as anything else. Karen Johnson’s visit the day before—and her own shameless behaviour—had left her in a state of confusion. She knew that she’d seduced her husband. She just didn’t know why.

Oh, there was the obvious reason: she wanted to get pregnant. But where was the sense in that? Why should she believe that this pregnancy—if indeed there was to be one—would be different from any of the others? Wasn’t she just building up a whole lot of heartache for herself?

She shook her head. She only knew she’d had to do something to stop that woman from stealing her husband. Despite everything, she still loved him—although she had no intention of telling him that. But if she was expecting his child it would prove to Karen that they were sleeping together. And it gave her an added advantage. After all, she was still his wife.

To her surprise, Mrs Grady had left a cold lunch for two in the morning room. Chilled asparagus soup, a Caesar salad—Rachel’s favourite—and strawberry shortcake for dessert. Rachel wondered if the housekeeper expected her to ask Lucy to join her. Her best friend, Lucy Robards, only lived half a mile away.

Rachel hadn’t mentioned having a guest, so that seemed unlikely. But Jack never came home for lunch these days. It was a stretch if she had his company for dinner. Which was just as well, because they rarely had anything to say to one another.

An uncorked bottle of wine was standing in a cooler, and Rachel picked it out and poured some into a long-stemmed crystal glass. It was Chablis, she noticed as she tasted it. A wine that Jack had chosen. Was that relevant? Had he told Mrs Grady he’d be back for lunch?

It seemed unlikely. After the way he’d left the house earlier she was fairly sure she wouldn’t see him again that day. But that wasn’t entirely Jack’s fault. She was going to bed earlier and earlier these days, escaping into oblivion to avoid the inevitable questions Jack’s absence always created.

The roar of a car’s engine in the drive caused a sudden quiver in her stomach. It could be Mrs Grady, of course, but she didn’t think it was. Mrs Grady drove a Ford, not an Aston Martin. And this definitely sounded like a powerful car.

Rachel’s nerves tightened instinctively, and she took a gulp of wine to calm her racing pulse. There was no reason to get all chewed up, she told herself. Jack had probably forgotten something. He’d probably come in and go out again without her even seeing him.

A car door slammed, and in spite of her assurances Rachel’s mouth felt dry. She took another sip of wine, just to irrigate her throat, and then almost choked when Jack appeared in the open doorway.

She should have shut the door, she chided herself, still convinced he wasn’t staying. But Jack had other ideas.

‘Hi,’ he said civilly, much to her surprise after the way he’d left the house. ‘Good. I’m just in time.’

Rachel swallowed. ‘This—’ She gestured towards the round table, with its green and yellow place mats, its Villeroy and Boch china, its silver cutlery. ‘This is for you?’

‘For both of us,’ amended Jack, taking off his charcoal suit jacket and dropping it over the back of one of the ladder-backed dining chairs. He loosened the top button of his shirt and pulled the knot of his silver-grey tie away from his collar. Then he approached the wine cooler where Rachel was standing, her wine glass forgotten in her hand. ‘Is that Chablis?’

‘Don’t you know?’ She couldn’t keep the resentment out of her voice. ‘I imagine you must have arranged this with Mrs Grady before you left.’

‘I phoned,’ he corrected her again, a flicker of his eyes registering the way she moved around the table to put some space between them. He helped himself to a little of the wine. But only a little, she noticed. Whatever else he’d come home for, it wasn’t to drown his sorrows. He took a mouthful. ‘Mmm, that’s pretty good.’

Rachel shook her head, putting her glass down on the table with a slightly unsteady hand. She mustn’t let him do this to her, she told herself. She wasn’t going to let him behave as if nothing had happened. They both knew it had. Karen Johnson was part of their lives, for better or for worse.

All the same, as Jack stood there regarding her from beneath lashes any woman would have died for, Rachel was unwillingly reminded of the concern she’d had about him earlier. There was something different about him today. She didn’t know what it was, but it troubled her.

‘Shall we sit down?’

Jack spoke, and in spite of her thoughts Rachel gave a careless shrug. ‘If you like.’

Jack waited until she’d taken the chair opposite before joining her. He wondered if she thought he hadn’t noticed her edging her place setting around the table so that there was no way their elbows would touch, but he didn’t comment on it. It was enough that she wasn’t sniping at him—yet, anyway. No doubt that would come when he told her about Karen’s call.

Rachel reached for the wine and refilled her glass. She felt as if she needed some false courage, and one glass just wasn’t doing it. Despite her determination not to do so, she couldn’t help wondering why there were those lines of strain beside his mouth. However strenuous last night had been—and she coloured at the memory—he had been as eager to satisfy his needs as she had been.

Realising he was waiting for her to have some soup before helping himself, Rachel lifted the lid of the tureen and ladled a spoonful into her bowl. Then she pushed the handle of the ladle in Jack’s direction.

Judging by the little he took for himself, his appetite was as non-existent as her own, and once again she fretted over the reasons why. Last night he’d seemed exactly the same as usual; but then, last night she’d been intent on achieving her own ends, not his, she assured herself grimly.

Of course, his haggard appearance might have something to do with his guilty conscience, she thought, dipping her spoon into the soup with more force than enthusiasm. He was thirty-seven, for God’s sake. What else could it be?

‘Did you sleep well?’

His words took her completely by surprise—as they’d been meant to do, she guessed, annoyed that she’d been caught out. ‘Not very,’ she said, not altogether truthfully. After she’d left him sleeping soundly in her bed, she’d crashed in one of the other guest rooms. She must have been exhausted, because she hadn’t been aware of anything until the morning sun had poured in through the uncurtained windows and she’d realised what she’d done. After that, sleep had definitely been out of the question.