The Token Wife

‘I’m having herb tea.’ If it was an olive branch, Lou didn’t want it. ‘I don’t drink coffee at this hour. It keeps me awake.’

‘How naughty of it,’ Alex Fabian said gravely. ‘Of course, there are a lot of far more pleasurable activities that have exactly the same effect, but perhaps you haven’t tried those.’

Helplessly, Lou felt her face warming again. She went over to the cupboard, produced two beakers, set them on the worktop, and pushed the coffee jar towards him without a word.

‘Before you flounce out of the room, slamming the door behind you,’ Alex Fabian said pleasantly, spooning granules into his beaker and adding boiling water, ‘I should tell you that was a magnificent dinner you gave us tonight.’

‘Thank you.’ The beguiling aroma of coffee seemed to fill the kitchen. Biting her lip, Lou dropped a camomile tea bag into her beaker, and let it infuse.

‘Have you ever thought of cooking professionally?’ he went on. ‘Private lunch and dinner parties in people’s homes? I should think you’d make a fortune.’

‘On the contrary,’ Lou said. ‘In future, I intend to cook only for my husband.’

He gave her bare left hand a fleeting glance. ‘Does this fortunate guy exist, or is he simply an erotic fantasy in your caffeine-free dreams?’

‘Of course he’s real. I—I thought you knew I was engaged.’ Her flush deepened.

‘Ah,’ he said. ‘Our brief debate on sexual etiquette. I thought you knew that was a wind-up.’

‘And Ellie didn’t tell you?’

‘Ellie,’ he said, ‘has told me very little. But I haven’t exactly been forthcoming myself, so I can hardly complain.’ He paused. ‘So, who is he?’

‘Someone I’ve known forever. He lives in the village, and works for Galbraiths in their regional office.’

‘Does he have a name?’

‘He’s called David Sanders.’ Her tone was short. ‘Why do you ask?’

‘So that when I come to your wedding I’ll know what to call the groom,’ Alex Fabian said calmly. ‘I presume, as Ellie’s husband, I’ll receive an invitation.’

Ellie’s husband, she thought. Ellie’s husband? If she lived to be a thousand, she could never see him in any such role.

She said slowly, ‘I suppose so.’ She fished out the tea bag and disposed of it. ‘Do you want milk in your coffee?’

‘I take it black,’ he said. ‘It helps me stay awake.’

‘Of course,’ she said. ‘You have work to do. Please don’t let me keep you.’

‘I am working,’ he said, and smiled at her with faint mockery. ‘Building bridges, I hope, with my future sister-in-law.’ He leaned against the kitchen table and took a meditative sip of coffee. ‘Tell me, how is it you don’t work for Trentham Osborne as Ellie does?’

‘Because publishing never appealed to me, and London certainly didn’t. I was always happiest here, so I moved back permanently and got a job with a local law firm.’

‘You’re a solicitor?’

She bit her lip. ‘No, a paralegal. I went to the same school as Ellie, and they weren’t geared up for university grades, just…’ She hesitated.

‘Just grooming the girls to make suitable marriages?’ he prompted softly.

‘Actually—yes,’ Lou acknowledged ruefully. She shook her head. ‘You wouldn’t believe that it could still go on.’

‘No?’ He drank some more coffee, watching her over the rim of the beaker. ‘Yet it seems to have worked for you.’

‘David isn’t “suitable” in that sense,’ she said. As her stepmother never failed to make clear, she thought wryly. ‘Just—the right man for me.’

‘How fortunate you are,’ he said softly. ‘To be so certain so early in your life.’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I think I am.’

She finished her tea, and rinsed her beaker briskly under the tap. She gave him a bright, meaningless smile. ‘Well—goodnight. Will you switch off the lights as you go up?’

At the door, she paused. She said haltingly, ‘And I’m sorry for the way I spoke earlier. I—I hope that you and Ellie will be very happy together.’

The green eyes met hers, cool and enigmatic.

‘I feel sure,’ he said, ‘that her old school would be proud of her. Goodnight—sister-in-law.’

She was suddenly aware that her heart was thudding quickly—unpredictably. She smiled uncertainly, and went swiftly upstairs to her room. She closed the door behind her and drew a deep breath.

For a moment there, she’d allowed her guard to drop. And had been made aware, in a few devastating seconds, how disturbing a man Alex Fabian could be.

Bad move on her part, she thought. And lesson duly learned. From now on she would take more care. And keeping out of his way was just the first step.

Lou was tired when she climbed into bed, but sleep proved elusive just the same. She found her mind was churning, going over her encounter with Alex in the kitchen, and trying to analyse what had been said, and what else had been implied.

Oh, this is ridiculous, she adjured herself at last. Forget about the wretched guy, and concentrate on tomorrow.

She supposed, glumly, that if Mrs Gladwin failed to arrive again she would be expected to cook the breakfast, and she would do so, but after that they could forage for themselves, because she was going to the coast with David.

They would have a seafood lunch in a pub, then walk along the beach, and talk seriously about fixing a date for the wedding. It had hardly been mentioned in recent weeks.

Three months ahead, she thought contentedly, would surely give Mrs Sanders plenty of time to move to her sister’s place.

When eventually she slept, it was to dream that her wedding day had come, and she was walking up the aisle of the village church on her father’s arm to her bridegroom, waiting at the altar.

But as she got nearer he turned his head, and she saw, instead of David’s ruggedly familiar and beloved face, a mask, blank and featureless. And, crying out with fear and grief, she fled, alone, back the way she had come.

The dream was still vivid in her mind when she woke. Nasty, she thought, shivering, then threw back the bedclothes. Nothing, especially a nightmare, would be allowed to cloud this lovely day.

She showered, and dressed casually in a knee-length denim skirt and a white short-sleeved top, then brushed her hair into a silky cloud on her shoulders.

Because she would soon be seeing David, she accentuated her eyes with grey shadow and mascara, and coloured her mouth with her favourite dusky rose lipstick before she went downstairs.

When she got to the kitchen she found to her relief that young Tim had recovered from his asthma attack, and Mrs Gladwin was there ahead of her, already assembling the ingredients for the kedgeree and cutting the rind off the bacon rashers.

‘I took Mr and Mrs Trentham’s tea up to them,’ Mrs Gladwin reported. ‘But I had to leave Miss Ellie’s tray outside her door, as I couldn’t make her hear me. And I didn’t know what to do about her visitor.’

‘I think he’d prefer coffee.’ Lou found the small cafetière and filled it. But she had no intention of taking Alex Fabian coffee in bed, she thought, her mouth tightening. That was Ellie’s task, and she could wake up and do it.