The Marriage Secret (3 page)

Standing in the darkness of the herb garden, Emily could just about make out the small window and, yes, it was open. Her satisfaction was short-lived; actually it wasn't small, it was
very
small, and it looked an awful lot higher up than she'd mentally pictured. Getting in by this route would call for a ladder and a good head for heights, neither of which she possessed.

“Are you going to stand there all night?”

Emily jumped and spun around, her heart racing.

“How did you get in there?” she demanded indignantly of the tall dark figure suddenly outlined in the golden light filling the open doorway.

Finn dangled a key ring and thumbed through a healthily thick wallet. “Spare key and cash in the car. My days as a Boy Scout were not wasted after all.
Always be prepared,
” he quoted virtuously.

Not always, he hadn't been, Emily recalled, lowering her eyes in panicky confusion as the intrusive recollection of the first time they'd made love crept into her head. She remembered lying there in a blitzed condition staring at the ceiling, feeling the warm fluttery aftershocks of the shattering climax. A good-night kiss that hadn't been!

“Oh my god!”
she'd mumbled for the umpteenth time since his heavy frame had finally slipped off her trembling, sweat-slick body.

“If anything happens, you mustn't worry, Emily.”

Emily nodded. She supposed she should have been sensibly alarmed by the idea of an unwanted pregnancy, but she wasn't feeling sensible.

“I want you to know I don't make a habit of this…
carelessness,
” Finn had emphasized worriedly as he took her chin in his hand and looked into her hazy unfocused eyes.

“Well, you already know that I don't,” she replied with a shaky laugh.

The reminder made him flinch.

Finn had been pretty devastated to discover that he was her first. In fact, if she hadn't assured him he'd have her death on his conscience if he didn't continue, Emily was pretty sure he would have stopped right then!
Thank God he hadn't!

“Hell, I'm
so
sorry, I was too…”

Emily had halted the torrent of self-recrimination with a kiss. “Too gorgeous for words is what you are!” she'd told him firmly. “
You
were incredible, Finn!” she'd whispered rapturously. “
It
was amazing, and when can we do it again?”

“Come on in before you get hypothermia, woman!”

Finn's irritated voice tugged her back to the present.

“I think I already have,” she jittered. Wrapping her arms around her body, she walked past him into the small vestibule that led into the heart of their home—the big farmhouse kitchen.

She took a seat at the big refectory table bought at an antique fair on a weekend trip they'd taken to Normandy. Had he and Maeve been…together even then? Had they ever not? I'm my mother all over again, she thought in self-disgust, acknowledging her deepest fear.

Emily had known about her father's mistress, the whole village had known, but not her mother.

Finn, after seeing she was literally shaking with cold, opened the lids on the woodstove that sat in the inglenook. Extra heat immediately flooded the room.

“I don't know why you're looking at me like that, Emily. Things are going to plan, aren't they? Haven't I done what I was supposed to do—run after you?”

“I didn't want you to run after me!” she denied, thrown off balance by his cool observation.

“Sure, it must have come as an
enormous
surprise when I turned up,” he drawled. “I suppose the next thing I'm supposed to do is plead with you to believe that Maeve's baby isn't mine?”

His eyes hardened. “Well, news flash, sweetheart.
I'm not going to!
”

Shaking with shock and revulsion, Emily pressed her cold, stiff fingertips to her trembling lips.

“Then you're admitting you're…”

“The only thing I'm admitting,” Finn bit back, “is that I've had a gut full of justifying myself to you, Emily. How do you think it makes me feel to know the woman I love thinks I run around the country impregnating other women!” he thundered. “Tell me, do I act as if our sex life doesn't satisfy me?” he demanded.
“Well?”

Mutely, she shook her head. The only time he'd displayed any dissatisfaction was when, after months of tedious temperature taking and ovulation charts, he'd walked into the bathroom they shared and before her astounded eyes had flushed the whole lot down the toilet.

“We'll make love,” he'd announced authoritatively, “when we feel like it. I won't be limited to only touching my wife when she's likely to conceive. And if we meet at lunchtime to make love, it will be because we can't wait until the evening. I won't be rationed—I'm a man not a machine!”

Overawed by this macho display and secretly relieved to ditch the whole palaver, Emily had meekly nodded.

“Not
women,
” she protested weakly. He loves me? She clung to those three all-important words when the rest of her world seemed to be disintegrating around her.

“No, not women,” he conceded in a leaden tone that made her wince. “Emily. Is it because of Adam? Or can't you stand the idea there was anyone before you?”

Emily shook her head. “I love Adam, you know that.” Adam stayed most weekends and Emily loved to see him with Finn, who was a fantastic father. “And I'd much prefer to be your last love than your first,” she admittedly warily. At least he didn't reject the idea outright.

“Maeve shares so much with you that I don't, Finn,” she tried to haltingly explain. “She's so…How would you feel if I saw an ex-lover every day?” She saw his unguarded expression and knew she'd made her point.

“
I'm
your only lover.”

“I'm talking hypothetically. I feel shut out, excluded when Maeve's around, and I don't know why, but I always get the impression that you two have a secret.”

He shrugged. “If we have and I haven't told you, it must be for a good reason.”

“You can't say something like that and leave it!” Emily protested.

“I can and I have. This is it, I told you I've had enough.” Hands palm-flat on the table, he bent down toward her.

The blood drained from Emily's face leaving her deathly pale. This conversation had suddenly taken a turn she had not reckoned on—a turn that was making her head spin in confusion.

“You're saying you want to…to…
split up
?”

Why the shock, Emily? a voice in her head taunted. Didn't you always think this would happen? Didn't you always say
why would a man like Finn want me?
Oh my god! It's some awful self-fulfilling prophecy! Me, I've done this. I've virtually pushed the man I love into another woman's arms.

“No, I don't want us to split up.”

Because of the baby, a spiteful voice she tried hard to ignore suggested.

“But this is about trust, Emily. We've got no future until you start trusting me.”

The echo of his uncompromising words resounded in Emily's ears as the silence between them stretched. With each passing second of horrid hush it became harder and harder to speak.

Head bent, her red hair brushing the table, Emily looked at his hands pressed down against the wood, his knuckles white. Finn had the most incredible hands.

What am I doing getting turned on by
hands
when my entire future happiness is hanging in the balance? she asked herself angrily. Subconscious delaying tactics…because you're a coward, came the knowledgeable mental response.

Pull yourself together, girl,
think,
—this is important. Say the right thing, she instructed herself sternly. Do
not
mess it up!

“That sounds like an ultimatum, Finn.”

As displays of calm objectivity went, this quavering effort was pathetic. After taking a deep gulp, she forced herself to meet his eyes.

Immediately she got a blast of the grim, angry implacability she'd been expecting, but that wasn't all. It was the other thing she saw that
really
got to her—the
faintest
suggestion of vulnerability in those crystal-blue depths that only someone who knew Finn very well could have detected.

Arrogant, assured, assertive, borderline bossy…these things she associated with her husband. Insecurities just never entered the picture. I'm so caught up in how I'm feeling, I've not spared a thought for what this is doing to Finn.

“Ultimatum?”
Finn shook his head. “No, I'm just stating a fact, Emily, not making a grand gesture. You must know that your jealousy and suspicion is driving a wedge between us,” he continued, his normally expressive voice dull and deadened.

“This should be the
best
of times for us, we should be celebrating our baby.” He walked around the table and, falling to his knees, pressed his head against her still-flat stomach.

Emily gasped, feeling the pressure of his warm lips through the fine fabric, the heat spreading like arrows of fire through her body. “We should be enjoying every second of this time, sweetheart.”

She felt tears fill her eyes. “Before I get fat and ugly, you mean?”

He lifted his dark head. “Lush and lovely,” he contradicted huskily.

In that second Emily believed totally in the love shining in his eyes…. There would be other seconds, though, when the doubts and fears would slip back. Emily found herself wanting to explain everything, just like she had all those other times. Only each time she'd tried, something clenched inside her and she couldn't. The same thing happened again now.

“I have a problem with trust and men, Finn. I'm so sorry,” was all she could manage. It sounded horribly inadequate.

If he ever got hold of the man who had made her lose her faith in the whole damned sex, he'd personally throttle him, Finn decided grimly.

“I'm not
men,
” he gritted. “I'm your husband. Not a particularly brilliant one maybe,” he conceded dryly. “I might forget to telephone you when I should sometimes. I might make too many unilateral decisions.”

“Might…?”

Finn returned her watery grin with his own wolfish version. “It's not like I don't
want
to—I just don't know how,” he admitted. “I knew my life would change when we got married. Hell, I
wanted
it to, but I wasn't prepared….” His shoulders lifted. “Blame it on the fact I've been a solo act for too long, able to do what I want, when I want….”

“But, Finn,” Emily interrupted with a perplexed frown. “What about all the years you were with Maeve?”

Finn froze. “Oh God, yes, I forgot.”

Forgot…?

“You were talking as if you'd never been married before.” As much as Emily would have liked to wipe out those years he'd shared with Maeve, she couldn't pretend they hadn't existed; and Finn had never behaved as if he wanted to. “Three years is quite a long time.”

“Perhaps I'm a slow learner.”

Emily's confusion deepened as his eyes slid warily from hers.

“I wasn't talking about being married to Maeve,” he said softly. “I was talking about being married to you.” Hands pressed against his muscular thighs, he drew himself upright in one lithe motion.

“How different could it be?” she blurted out without thinking. If he thought she was requesting some sort of compare and contrast thing, she'd die!

“More different than you could ever believe.”

“You know how much I hate it when you're cryptic.” Her faint smile faded when there was no answering glint of humor in his own face. “How different can it be?” she repeated. Instinct made her grab for his shirttail as he made to turn from her.

“Just
different.
”

“Why are you being defensive?” she challenged.

“I am not being defensive.”

“Yes, you are—defensive, secretive, furtive…”

“Don't be ridiculous, Emily, I just don't want to discuss my previous marriage with you.”

The combination of ice and impatience in his face and voice made Emily see red.

“For God's sake, Finn!” she exploded. “I'm not asking for details of your sex life.” Her eyes narrowed. “You really shouldn't play poker, darling.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning you look as guilty as sin, and don't you
dare
refer to my pathological suspicions!” she yelled.

It wasn't easy to fight on equal terms with someone who was towering over you, so Emily unhooked her ankles from around the barley-twist legs of her oak chair and made to get to her feet. She was halfway through the simple procedure before she realized she couldn't feel her right foot. Had Finn not seen her dilemma and caught her, she'd have fallen.

“What is it?” he demanded, turning her face up to him.

Emily blinked as his blue eyes raked her face. They looked incredibly brilliant against a complexion that had become unnaturally pale and strained.

“Speak to me!” he demanded hoarsely.

The soundless little gasp that escaped her parted lips as her body grew limp in his arms didn't soothe his alarm. He was no medical expert but even he could tell her breathing had changed perceptibly, getting shallow and worryingly rapid. He swore softly under his breath as her eyes half closed.

“Emily!”
He shook her slightly and was relieved when her dark lashes lifted off her cheek. “Are you ill, sweetheart? Shall I call a doctor—ambulance…? Oh, God, it's not the baby?”

“No, no—the baby's fine, I'm fine.” she managed to breathlessly reassure him. “A numb foot—must have been sitting awkwardly. Pins and needles now.”

“Well, you don't look fine,” Finn responded with a suspicious frown.

Emily felt the prickling heat that already bathed her body rush up to her neck, and it didn't stop until her whole face was burning.

“That, you
stupid
man, is because you're too…” She threw him an exasperated look as he shook his head. “Do you want me to draw a diagram? I can't look at you without going weak at the knees, okay! I'm
turned on,
you fool!”