A High Price to Pay (19 page)

There was a silence, then Melanie said, 'Oh— that. It was quite a

giggle. Blue House won in the end.'

'It sounds fascinating.' Silently, Alison found she was praying,
Tell

me that Nick came down and took you out. Make me feel ridiculous

for even imagining such things, if that's what it takes. But don't let me

go on like this—jealous and suspicious of my own sister!
Aloud, she

said, 'I hope it was worth the sacrifice of a weekend at home.'

Glancing sideways, she saw Melanie's mouth curve in a small private

smile. 'Oh, I think so,' Melanie said.

Nausea rose in Alison's throat, bitter as gall suddenly. She pulled over

to the side of the road and thrust her door open, almost falling out on

to the verge as she retched miserably on to the grass.

'Ally!' Melanie was kneeling beside her, ashen- faced, proffering a

clean handkerchief. 'What is it? Are you ill?'

She straightened dizzily. 'No, of course not. 1 just felt rather—hot,

that's all.'

'We'll open all the windows,' Melanie decreed briskly. She sent

Alison a long look under her lashes. 'It is only the heat, is it? I

mean—you're not planning to turn me into an auntie?'

The temptation to tell the truth—that her period was overdue, and

she'd woken feeling slightly sick every day that week—was

overwhelming. If Melanie knew there was a baby on the way, or even

that it was a possibility, surely that might change any plans she and

Nick might be making for the future. It could—or it could tie Nick to

her through a sense of obligation. And that was the last thing she

wanted.

She said shortly, 'Don't be ridiculous! Of course not. Now we'd better

get going, before Mother starts imagining that we're upside down in a

ditch somewhere!'

The first thing Alison saw as she turned into the drive was the car

parked outside the house.

Melanie exclaimed joyously, 'Nick's here! That's fantastic!'

'Miraculous,' Alison said. It took a terrific effort of concentration to

edge her car neatly alongside, but she managed it somehow.

Melanie flew into the house ahead of her, making for the study like

some eager homing pigeon.., Alison stood alone in the hall for a

moment, staring ahead of her, then, moving slowly, she walked

upstairs to her room.

She stripped off her dress with short, jerky movements, then went

into the bathroom. She had a long cool wash, then cleaned her teeth,

rinsing her mouth with meticulous thoroughness. Small things, but

they made her feel a little better, physically if not mentally.

When she sent back into her bedroom, Nick was there, standing with

his back to the window, his dark figure appearing grim and

forbidding against the brightness outside.

Acting on reflex, she snatched up her discarded dress, holding it

protectively against her.

His mouth curled in a smile that held no amusement whatever.

'Stop behaving like some threatened Victorian virgin,' he advised

curtly. 'I came to ask if you were feeling better.'

Alison found a voice from somewhere. 'News travels fast.'

'Which would you prefer—my not knowing, or not being concerned?'

She shrugged. 'There's no need for concern,' she said dismissively. 'A

slight tummy upset, that's all.'

'Are you sure?' He frowned critically, as his eyes went over her. 'You

look like a ghost...'

'I'm fine. Now will you please go? I'm trying to get changed.'

'I'm not stopping you,' Nick said pleasantly. 'And I have seen you

without your dress on before, if you recall—although I must say you

looked considerably more seductive then than you do now.'

Alison flushed, it's not my intention to look seductive.' She felt

foolish clutching the dress as if it was some kind of shield. She

dropped it on to the bed and walked across to her wardrobe.

'Not for me certainly,' said Nick, an odd grimness in his voice.

Alison snatched a dress off the rail at random and pulled it over her

head, twisting slightly as she tugged at the zip.

'Let me do it,' he said quietly.

She felt his fingers brush her skin, and her body convulsed in an

anguish of yearning.

'Don't touch me!' she said stormily, pulling away.

Nick drew a sharp breath. 'Don't be a fool,' he said icily. She heard

him walk away from her across the room, and then the door closing

quietly behind him. Alison sank down on to the edge of the bed, and

buried her face in her hands. She stayed like that for a long time.

When at last she moved to the dressing table, she felt as if she was

looking at a stranger. She was pale, as Nick had said, but even her

bone structure seemed to have sharpened, the faint hollows beneath

her cheekbones more pronounced than usual. She dragged a comb

through her hair, and added a touch of colour to the strained lines of

her mouth.

As she reluctantly approached the drawing room a few moments

later, she could hear her mother's voice raised in some gentle

complaint, and sighed.

As she walked into the room, she saw Mrs Mortimer seated in her

usual chair beside the fireplace looking vaguely martyred, and

Melanie standing at the window, her face flushed and mutinous.

'So far, my dear, tragedy has hardly touched you,' Mrs Mortimer was

saying sadly. 'Youth is resilient, of course. But I would have expected

my daughters—both my daughters—to have rather more

understanding of the blow I suffered with your father's loss.'

It was a well-worn theme, and Alison took a firm hold on her

patience.

'I'm sorry that we lack understanding, Mother," she said calmly.

'Would you like a sherry?'

'I certainly need some stimulant,' Mrs Mortimer acknowledged

fretfully, it's rather hard, when one has scarcely seen one's younger

child for weeks on end, to be taken to task as soon as she enters the

house.'

'I was not taking you to task,' Melanie said crossly. 'I was simply

enquiring if you'd been into the village at all since I was home last, or

whether Ally was still running all your errands for you, as well as this

house and her job.'

'I don't think I like your tone, dear,' Mrs Mortimer said reprovingly.

'I'm sure it's no bother to Alison to undertake the few little messages I

have from time to time. Although heaven knows I hardly see anything

of her these days,' she added with a sigh. 'I can't help but think she's

over- committed her time by returning to Thwaites. After all, it isn't

as if there's any financial need for her to work.'

'None at all,' Nicholas said pleasantly. None of them had heard him

come in, and at the sound of his voice, Alison started, spilling a few

drops of sherry from the decanter she was holding on to her dress.

The blue eyes surveyed her sardonically for a moment before he went

on, 'But clearly her job has other inducements apart from purely

monetary ones.'

Alison replaced the decanter on the tray, independence, for one thing,'

she said coolly.

Her mother tutted. 'I suppose this is the modern viewpoint,' she said.

'But it seems to be a very extraordinary one for a married woman to

adopt. When I married, I relied on my husband totally for my

support.'

Alison handed her the glass, glad that her hand was steady. 'But these

days,' she said, 'nothing is certain in this uncertain world. Marriages

don't always last as long as they used to.'

'Alison!' Her mother's voice was sharp. 'What a thing to say! I'm so

sorry, Nicholas. I don't know what ails either of my children today.'

Nick helped himself to a whisky and added a splash of soda. 'I can't

speak for Melanie,' he said. 'But Alison tells me she's suffering from a

bilious attack. Maybe it's curdled her outlook.'

'Well, it's the first I've heard of any bilious attack. I think she's doing

far too much, undertaking a full-time job along with all her other

responsibilities. I think you should put your foot down, Nicholas.'

'I intend to.' The merciless blue gaze seemed to take in every detail of

Alison's pallor, the shadows beneath her eyes, before travelling down

over the slender body beneath the clinging simplicity of her green

dress. 'I've thought for some time that Alison does far too much.'

Alison set down her own glass with a thump. 'Perhaps you'd all be

good enough to stop discussing me as if I wasn't here,' she snapped

angrily.

'But then,' said Nick too pleasantly, 'you so rarely are here—darling.'

Alison's brows lifted defiantly. 'Is that really the problem?' she

enquired. 'Or does it hurt your masculine pride to have a wife who

works? I don't feel I neglect any of my commitments.'

Nick's glance was openly derisive, as he swallowed the remainder of

his whisky. 'Perhaps that's" something we should discuss later—in

private,' he said. 'Now, shall we go in to dinner?'

It was not a comfortable meal. Mrs Mortimer kept up a flow of bright,

inconsequential chat which only served to underline the taciturnity

afflicting the rest of the party, rather than conceal it.

Melanie was the quietest, Alison recognised with a pang. Head bent

over her plate, her sister was picking desultorily at her food. Perhaps

the problems of conducting a love affair with another woman's

husband under their own roof were just beginning to come home to

her, she thought unhappily. Perhaps she was undergoing the same

agony of jealousy that Alison herself was lashed by.

God, what a mess! she thought as she pushed her plate away.

When the meal was over, she stood up. 'I think I'll have an early

night,' she said. 'See if I can throw off this virus.'

'That's an excellent idea,' Nick said softly. 'Go and get some rest,

darling. I'll be up very soon.'

His smile challenged her. Words of defiance rose in her throat, and

were choked back. But he'd banked on that, she thought stormily, as

she walked towards the door. He knew she wouldn't make a scene in

front of her mother—and Melanie, of course, whom he must have

hurt by this hypocritical display of husbandly concern.

As she went upstairs, she heard the dining room door open, and

quickened her step, panicked by the thought that Nick might be

following her already. Her heel caught on the edge of the stair, nearly

dragging her shoe off completely in the process. She paused in

mid-flight, bending to retrieve the errant footwear, and heard from

the hall below Melanie's voice, low and urgent, saying, 'Nick, I must

speak to you. It's all going wrong. What are we going to do?'

She heard their footsteps going down the hall, then the soft closing of

the study door behind them.

Alison found she was gripping the banister rails so tightly that the

polished wood was bruising her hands. She sank down on to the step

and sat there staring numbly down into the shadowy hall beneath. She

heard, as if from a distance, the warning stir of the grandfather clock

as its sonorous Westminster chimes prepared to proclaim the hour. It

was one of the familiar reassuring sounds of her life, part of the home

that had always been hers—the home she had fought to save. The

home she had sold herself to save.

But the security she had paid so highly for no longer seemed to exist.

Crouched there on the stairs, Alison had never been so lonely or so

afraid in her life.

SHE would have run, but there was nowhere to run to. Yet how could

she bear to stay here and suffer this humiliation? Images of Nick and

Melanie together—holding each other—touching and kissing—kept

presenting themselves to her tortured mind. They were willing, it

seemed, to run any risk of discovery rather than deny their feelings

for each other, and the thought made her shiver.

Well, she wouldn't stand in their way. She couldn't. And at least she

could comfort herself that Nick had no idea how stupidly and

hopelessly his unwanted wife had fallen in love with him. That was a

secret she would carry within her until the day she died.

She put a hand lightly and protectively on her abdomen. This was one

secret she would be unable to conceal for very long, and its existence

would bring a whole train of new problems in its wake. She had no

idea how Nick would react to the reality of being a father. When he

had asked her to marry him, he had made it clear it didn't enter into

his plans at all. Perhaps it was an attitude he would maintain. Besides,

if it was Melanie he wanted, would he really want to be saddled with

any reminders of his brief first marriage?

'I'd have to go away,' Alison thought. It would be less embarrassing

for everyone, and it would save her the pain of having to see Nick