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  ‘Millie?’ Perdita drew back and looked at him with a puzzled frown.

  ‘I think she did it deliberately,’ he told her. ‘Whenever I turned round, there she was, pointing out how fantastic you look and how pleased she is that you’re starting to show an interest in men again after being so hurt by Nick, and had I noticed how men were looking at you?’ Ed gave a bark of mirthless laughter. ‘Of course I’d noticed! It seemed like I was the only one who had to treat you like a friend, and then you looked straight at me and I just snapped…It’s a very long time since I’ve been reduced to dragging a woman out of a party so that I could kiss her!’

  Perdita couldn’t help smiling. ‘Millie’s been playing a dark game,’ she said. ‘She told me that she was going to try and seduce you, and no doubt she could see perfectly well that I didn’t like that idea at all!’

  ‘She certainly didn’t try any seduction. She was too busy needling me about you.’ Ed’s smile faded as he twined her dark hair around his fingers so he could hold her head still and look deep into her eyes.

  ‘What are we going to do? I know why you don’t want to get involved with a father, Perdita, but there’s more than friendship between us, you know there is.’

  ‘Yes.’ Perdita met his gaze squarely. She couldn’t pretend now. ‘Yes, I know.’

  ‘So…?’

  She drew a deep breath. ‘So I think we should get it out of our systems.’

  ‘Get what exactly out of our systems?’ he asked.

  ‘The physical thing…sex,’ she clarified with a hint of defiance as he raised his brows in mockery of her coyness. Her eyes were suddenly very direct. ‘I want you, Ed. I want you very badly. I’ve wanted you since that kiss down by the river, probably before, but…’

  ‘You’re still scared in case I’m like Nick?’ Ed finished for her.

  ‘I’m scared in case any relationship we might have turned out to be like the one I had with Nick,’ she corrected him carefully. ‘But maybe we could make it easier on ourselves by not trying to have a proper relationship. By not thinking about commitment or forever. By just enjoying the physical attraction between us while it lasts, and not having any expectations beyond that.’

  Ed’s expression was impossible to read. ‘So you’d like an affair?’

  ‘Don’t you think it would work? Maybe if we got sex out of the way we could be friends after all,’ Perdita suggested hopefully, and he half-smiled.

  ‘I’m not sure it’ll be as easy as that.’

  ‘We could try,’ she said, willing him to agree. Putting her palms flat against his chest, she slid her hands up and around his neck. ‘Don’t you want to try?’ she whispered, and closed her eyes in relief as she felt Ed’s arms go round her to pull her hard against him.

  ‘Is that your best offer?’

  She smiled. ‘For now.’

  ‘In that case, I’ll take it,’ said Ed, and then his mouth came down on hers once more and there was no more talking for a very, very long time.

  Having an affair proved much harder to organise than either of them had imagined. Ed had to take Tom home from the party that night, Perdita felt that she ought to check on her mother every day, Lauren needed to be ferried to and from some netball match, Cassie wanted a friend to sleep over…

  ‘This is hopeless,’ said Ed. ‘Let’s go away for a weekend, where there will just be the two of us.’

  Perdita gnawed her bottom lip, desperately tempted but uncertain. ‘I don’t think I can leave Mum alone that long. I know she has carers during the day, but there are still the evenings…’

  ‘Couldn’t you arrange for someone to drop in?’ he asked. ‘It would just be for a couple of nights.’

  ‘I suppose I could ask Betty.’ Perdita thought of her mother’s old friend, who was always offering to help. She felt a little awkward about asking, but Betty was delighted.

  ‘It’s time you had a break, Perdita,’ she said when Perdita mentioned the idea. ‘You’ll be no good to your mother otherwise. She’ll be fine with me.’

  ‘That’s Mum sorted,’ Perdita reported to Ed. ‘What about the kids?’

  ‘Cassie would say that they’re old enough to be left, but I don’t trust them,’ said Ed, resigned. ‘There would be a party the moment I’d turned the corner at the end of the road, and God knows what state the house would be in when I got back. Besides, Lauren is only just fourteen,’ he said. ‘I’ll ask my sister if she’ll come and keep an eye on them for the weekend.’

  ‘Won’t she want to know why you’re going away without the children?’

  ‘If I know Joanna, she’ll guess exactly why the moment I open my mouth,’ Ed said wryly. ‘She’s been pushing me to get a life for a year or so now, so she’ll be delighted.’

  It was frustrating having to wait until the weekend, but Perdita told herself that made it a proper affair. This was just how it should be, a time away from their normal responsibilities. She tried not to look forward to the weekend too much, but she couldn’t stop herself. She was one huge smile, from the dopey grin on her face to the smallest fibre of her body, swelling and soaring with happiness, fizzing with anticipation and excitement. Over the last few years nothing ever seemed to have worked out the way it should have done, but maybe this time, just once, it would…

  When she had been with Nick, the weekends they had planned had so often had to be cancelled at the last minute, and Perdita braced herself for the phone call, but no, Ed picked her up from her flat as agreed on Friday evening and drove up to a pub in the Yorkshire Dales where he had booked a room for two nights. There was no crisis, no urgent message telling them to turn round. Perdita hardly dared to let herself believe that it was really going to happen until Ed drove into the car park behind the pub.

  The King’s Arms was an attractive old stone building and the pub was famous for its good food. Its spectacular location made it popular with walkers too, and the bar was crowded as they went inside. Not that Perdita noticed much about it. She was zinging with anticipation and her throat was so dry that she could hardly thank the fresh-faced girl who showed them to their room.

  The first thing she saw was the bed. The big, wide, inviting double bed where she would be sleeping with Ed at last.

  ‘The restaurant’s very busy tonight,’ the girl was saying. ‘Would you like me to reserve you a table for later?’

  ‘Er…yes,’ said Ed, who couldn’t take his eyes off Perdita and just wished the girl would go.

  ‘Will nine o’clock be all right?’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘We’ll see you downstairs later, then,’ she said with a smile and-at last-went out, closing the door behind her and leaving them alone.

  There was silence in the room.

  Perdita cleared her throat. ‘What a lovely room.’

  Not wanting to look at the bed-and really, there was very little else to look at-she walked over to the window, which looked out over a shallow, stony river to darkness beyond. The curtains hadn’t yet been drawn and she fingered the tieback uneasily. The idea of sleeping with Ed had seemed so easy before, but now that they were here, alone, her anticipation and excitement was curdling rapidly into a bad attack of nerves. She was suddenly remembering that she was forty and it was a long time since she had taken her clothes off in front of a man.

  Ed came to stand beside her and they both looked out into the darkness. ‘It’s been a long time for me too,’ he said, as if he had read her mind. ‘Do you want to wait? We could go and have a drink and a meal and then see how you feel, if you like.’

  Perdita took one last look at the river and then turned to face him. Placing her hands flat against his chest, she smiled and shook her head. ‘I think we’ve waited long enough,’ she said.

  CHAPTER TEN

  B Y THE time they finally made it downstairs they had missed their table reservation, but they found a tiny table in the corner of the bar where they could sit close together and share a plate of sandwiches, which was all the kitchen co
uld come up with by then.

  Perdita was reeling with love, so boneless with satisfaction that she was amazed that her legs had worked well enough to make it down the stairs. Her whole body was throbbing, as if Ed’s hands were still sliding hungrily over her, as if his mouth was still teasing, tantalising, making her gasp. As if she could still feel the hard possession of his body and the spinning, shattering pleasure that had engulfed them both.

  ‘This is so perfect,’ she said to him when they had finished eating. She was leaning against his shoulder and resting her hand on his thigh, unable to keep her hands off him, wanting to touch him and make sure that this was real. ‘I don’t deserve it.’

  Very tenderly, Ed smoothed her hair back from her cheek and tucked it behind her ear. ‘Yes, you do,’ he told her, and the warmth in his eyes made Perdita’s heart clench anew. ‘You deserve everything you want.’

  She smiled and slid her hand possessively over his thigh. ‘In that case, I want to go back to bed!’

  Perdita woke early the next morning. She hadn’t slept much-Ed’s body was too unfamiliar for that-but she didn’t care. She lay pressed into his back, one arm curled round him so that she could feel his chest rising and falling steadily, and her heart swelled. How long was it since she had felt this peaceful, this happy?

  Outside, the wind was splattering rain against the window. They had never got round to closing the curtains the night before and, by lifting her head cautiously so as not to disturb Ed, Perdita could see…well, not much more than she had been able to see through the darkness. Any view of green hillsides was blanked out by lowering cloud. Strange, when the room felt as if it were full of sunshine…

  She lay down again and snuggled closer to Ed, kissing the nape of his neck until he stirred and rolled over to face her. Surprise flickered in his face as he looked at her-had he been expecting to see Sue, and was he disappointed to find her instead? Perdita wondered for one dismayed moment and then pushed the thought aside. This was a new start for both of them.

  And, look, he was smiling as the sleep cleared from his face. ‘Good morning,’ he said, pulling her towards him for a kiss.

  ‘Good morning,’ she said demurely. ‘I’m afraid there’s bad news.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘It’s raining,’ Perdita told him. ‘We won’t be able to go for that long walk we planned.’

  Ed’s smile deepened. ‘Oh, dear, what shall we do, stuck in here all day?’ he wondered and she gazed innocently up at the ceiling.

  ‘I can’t imagine. We’re going to be pretty bored.’

  He laughed out loud at that and rolled over swiftly to pin her beneath him. ‘One thing I never am with you, Perdita, is bored!’ he said, and she laughed and wound her arms around his neck.

  ‘I’ve got an idea about what we can do,’ she murmured wickedly.

  Afterwards, Perdita was glad that they had that last time of love and laughter together. They were lying lazily entwined in the aftermath of loving, too replete to disentangle, when the phone by the side of the bed jangled.

  Ed sighed and stirred reluctantly. ‘What’s the betting this is them wanting to know if we’re going to make it down in time for breakfast?’ he asked as he sat up and fumbled for the phone.

  ‘I’m starving.’ Perdita stretched luxuriously and ran a hand down his bare back, just for the pleasure of being able to do it. ‘If they want us to order, I’ll have a full English breakfast and a vat of tea.’

  She never forgot the moment she realised that something was wrong. After his initial ‘hello’, Ed just listened to the voice at the other end of the line. Perdita, watching lazily at first, saw his spine stiffen and she tensed in turn.

  ‘OK, thanks,’ said Ed and put down the phone. He stared at it for a moment before turning to Perdita.

  ‘I need to ring home,’ he said.

  His sister had been trying to ring him, he explained, but he had switched off his mobile phone the night before, so in the end they had remembered the name of the pub and called to leave a message.

  Sick at heart, Perdita pulled on a dressing gown and waited helplessly as Ed dialled home. Please, let it not be one of the kids, she prayed. But why would his sister ring him if it wasn’t an emergency?

  She couldn’t glean much from Ed’s side of the conversation. ‘Yes…yes…I see…no, you’re right…We’ll come straight home…’It didn’t sound like a tragedy but, whatever had happened, the golden happiness had leaked away, the bubble of sunshine had evaporated, leaving just a room in a pub with the rain beating drearily at the window.

  Well, she had known it couldn’t last, Perdita reminded herself. That was why they were having an affair and not a proper relationship. There was always going to be a reason why they couldn’t manage a whole weekend away.

  Ed put down the phone heavily. ‘What is it?’ Perdita demanded, suddenly frightened. ‘Is it one of the kids?’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘It’s your mother.’

  Her hand crept slowly to her mouth. ‘Mum?’

  ‘It’s not as bad as you think,’ Ed tried to reassure her hastily. ‘She had a fall last night and she’s a bit bruised, but otherwise she seems to be OK. Betty called an ambulance anyway, but your mother is refusing to go to hospital. She seems very confused, apparently, and Betty’s worried about that. When she couldn’t get hold of you, she went to see Joanna, who rang here. Although Betty’s with her, they think you’re probably the only person who can reassure her at the moment.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Perdita in a flat voice. Her face was white but she seemed calm. ‘Yes, I’ll have to go back.’

  Ed was already pulling on his trousers. ‘I’ll drive you home.’

  It was a silent journey back to Ellsborough. Perdita gazed dully out of the window, sick with guilt and bitter disappointment. A great, glitteringly cold stone seemed to be lodged deep inside her, squashing the last remnants of her happiness into oblivion.

  Hard to believe now that only a couple of hours ago she had woken and felt as if golden sunshine were pouring through her veins! Now it had all solidified into a dreary leadenness that was weighing her down, making the smallest gesture a huge physical effort. It had all been so perfect…She should have known that it couldn’t last.

  I don’t deserve it. Wasn’t that what she had said last night?

  ‘It’ll be all right,’ Ed said, but Perdita only shook her head.

  ‘No, it won’t,’ she said. ‘It’s never going to be all right for my mother again. Oh, she might recover from the bruises, but she’s old and she’s confused. She isn’t going to get better. She’s never going to be the mother I remember again. How can it be all right?’

  Ed glanced at her rigid profile, his own heart sinking. The laughing, loving, vibrant woman who had woken him with kisses that morning had gone, wiped out by the burden of guilt. Was that how she felt about her mother? he wondered sadly. Would he ever see the Perdita he loved again? And he did love her, he knew that now.

  ‘You know, it isn’t your fault,’ he tried to tell her, but he wasn’t surprised when Perdita refused to be comforted.

  ‘I should have been there,’ she said bleakly. ‘It suited me to believe that Mum was better but deep down I knew that she wasn’t. I was just so desperate to get away that I pretended it would all be fine.’

  ‘Betty was there,’ Ed pointed out. ‘It’s not as if you went off and left her on her own.’

  ‘I know, but she needed me last night. It was too much to ask Betty to deal with an accident.’

  ‘Has she fallen like this before?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then how were you to know that she would fall the one night you went away?’ asked Ed reasonably. ‘She could just as easily have fallen when you were there.’

  ‘But at least I would have been there to help her. I should never have gone back to my flat at all.’ Perdita’s voice was bleak with self-loathing. ‘I should have just accepted that she’s too old to cope on her own.’

>   ‘The doctor said she was getting better. I know she’d been getting a little vague, but the shock of her fall will have made her confused now. There was no way you could have predicted that.’

  ‘All the signs have been there. I put them down to her not being well, but I should have realised that it was more than that.’

  ‘You made sure there was someone to care for her while you were away,’ Ed said. ‘What more could you have done? I just don’t think you should beat yourself up about it,’ he added unwisely, and she turned on him, slewing round in her seat belt to face him angrily.

  ‘Oh, really? And what would you be doing if it had been one of your children that was hurt last night-if it had been Lauren or Cassie or Tom? If one of them had been lost and confused without you, and you weren’t there for them because you’d been off having a good time by yourself?’

  Ed made himself stay calm. Perdita needed a focus for her guilt and her anger with herself, and he was the obvious target. ‘OK,’ he said evenly. ‘I probably would be beating myself up, you’re right-and you would be the one telling me that it wasn’t my fault.’

  There was a long silence.

  Balked of the argument she wanted-needed-Perdita turned back to stare unseeingly at the rain shrouding the hills while the windscreen wipers swept uncaringly backwards and forwards with a rhythmic ‘thwack’.

  ‘It’s not going to work, is it, Ed?’ she said after a while.

  Ed took his eyes from the road to look at her sharply. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Us,’ she said. ‘We can call it an affair instead of a proper relationship, but it doesn’t change the fact that we’ve both got too many other responsibilities to be able to give each other the attention we need to be happy.’

  Perdita fought to keep her voice steady, but tears were very close. ‘I thought that if we avoided talking about commitment and tried to keep things to a physical relationship it would be easier, but there’s always going to be something,’ she said, sounding utterly defeated.