Fugitive Wife Page 16

  Logan s hand shot out and she felt a sharp, stinging palm across her cheek. She gasped and lifted her hand to her face.

  ‘You hit me! ’ she accused.

  ‘And not before time.’ His voice was harsh. ‘Yes, things are bad at the moment, and you having a fit of hysterics will improve nothing.’ He glanced about him ‘Nor is this hardly the moment for embarking on spring-cleaning. ’

  ‘Perhaps not,’ she said sullenly. ‘But at least it keeps me from thinking.’

  His mouth tightened. ‘Then don’t let me stop you,’ he said. ‘I’m going out to do an hour’s digging on the track down to the village. If I can clear us a path, it might be an idea to leave the cottage and go down there instead. I presume that the pub is still there? They’d take us in until the roads into the village are cleared.’ She agreed tonelessly, and went on with her self-appointed task. But she did not look for her ring again.

  If Logan came in and found her scrabbling in the dust once again, he would think she had gone insane.

  There was satisfaction in restoring the room to rights, and dusting and polishing the furniture. She would have liked to have washed the floor, but the precious gas could not be wasted on heating water for scrubbing floors. She wondered what they would do when it ran out, as it must surely do in the next day or two. Perhaps they could contrive some device for cooking on the open fire.

  She sighed and pressed a hand to her aching head. The sky still looked grey and threatening, she thought as she opened a tin of chopped pork, and heated some baked beans to go with it.

  Logan was cold and wet when he came in to eat, and in a forbidding mood. She did not ask how much progress he had made, guessing that the snow was deeper than he had anticipated.

  When he had finished his meal he went into the parlour and began typing. Briony stacked the dishes in the sink, together with the mugs and plates they had used for breakfast, and decided she would do some washing up.

  She filled a pan with water and put it on the stove to heat up before returning to the living room and the comfort of the fire.

  Perhaps she was getting used to the conditions, she thought, because it had not seemed quite so cold in the kitchen while she was preparing the meal. Or perhaps she had made herself warm with the housework she had done. She was tired after her exertions. Sweeping floors and brushing carpets by hand was quite a different matter from plugging in a vacuum cleaner, she thought sleepily, staring at the dancing flames. Her back was aching slightly from bending, and she moved the cushion into a more comfortable position. She mustn’t forget the washing up, of course, but surely it could do no harm to close her eyes for a few seconds―only a few seconds, she promised herself.

  When she awoke with a start it was growing dark, and she realised the afternoon must be far advanced. In the same moment she remembered the washing up and the pan of water left on the little stove to heat, and jumping to her feet she rushed into the kitchen. The water in the pan was still warm, but the stove itself was cold, its supply of gas finally exhausted while she had slept.

  ‘Oh, no!’ she said aloud, almost imploringly as she stared at it. ‘No, it can’t be!’

  She had sat in the other room and simply let it burn away. Like someone in a trance she returned to the living room. The fire had sunk low while she had slept, and she made it up again, kneeling on the rug, her movements mechanical. How―how could she have been so careless, so stupid? she asked herself despairingly. The washing up could have waited anyway. It was far more important that they had something hot to eat and drink.

  She knew that. What in the world had she been thinking of? It was what Logan would say, she knew.

  She was simply rehearsing the scene to come. And what was her excuse―that she’d dozed off?

  She shook her head. She could always expand on the statement, she supposed .Tell him that she had fallen asleep because she slept so badly at night, alone in her cold bedroom, and that she slept badly because thoughts of him, wanting him, filled her mind.

  But of course she couldn’t say that, because it would break this weird silent pact of theirs in which they shared a roof, and a few brief words over meals, but nothing else. Those moments in his bedroom when she had wept in his arms might have taken place on a different planet.

  She had thought that if she could find her wedding ring and replace it on her finger, it might be a start towards a new understanding between them, but she knew she was only fooling herself.

  Even if she confessed to him that everything she had said about Christopher ,had been untrue, and that there was no other man in her life, it would make no difference.

  There was still Karen Wellesley to consider, coldly rationally Briony made herself consider her. Made herself think of the final hurt which had sent her running away from London into this self-imposed exile.

  She had waited in vain for Logan to come to the house again or at least telephone, but the days had gone by without a message, and she was totally bewildered. She was torn apart too by inward struggle. One side of her nature recoiled in panic at the thought of any kind of involvement with him again, warning her that with Logan there could only be eventual heartbreak and disillusionment.

  But deep within her, a small bud of hope had begun to blossom ,germinated by the knowledge that he had sought her out on his return. So she must have been on his mind, she thought, with a strange tremulous excitement which warred with the panic and reminded her that without Logan she would have nothing at all.

  In the end she had decided that she had to go and see him for herself, and that was what he had been expecting her to do all along. After all, he had made the first move. It was up to her to meet him halfway at least, and It would be better if the meeting took place in a place other than her father’s house.

  After a lot of soul-searching, she decided to go round to the flat where he used to live. She had no idea if that was where he was still living, but at least the present occupants might have some idea of his whereabouts if not.

  She had waited until the coast was clear to make her escape .Between Christopher and her father she felt she was being kept under constant surveillance. Then she hailed a passing taxi and told the driver to take her to Logan’s former address.

  All the way there memories of what had transpired on her last ill-fated visit kept coming back into her mind ―Karen Wellesley’s goating face, her half-naked body ,and worst of all her air of ownership returned to taunt and torment her, so that she was on edge even before the taxi turned into the street.

  There was another taxi drawn up at the entrance to the flats, and the occupant was paying off the driver.

  Briony registered the newcomer’s identity with a feeling of total unreality. It was as if merely by thinking of Karen Wellesley she had summoned her up. As she watched Karen turn away and cross the pavement towards the entrance to the flats, she leaned forward and rapped on the glass to her driver.

  ‘I’ve changed my mind.’ she said, and told him to take her back to the house. As she glanced back she saw Karen Wellesley blow a smiling kiss up at the windows of the flat.

  She stared unseeingly out of the window on the drive back. Now she knew why Logan had not contacted her again. Because Karen Wellesley was back in his life again, celebrating his return. She smothered a sob which rose in her throat. While she had been sitting at home, dreaming her romantic dreams, Karen had been with him, resuming her place in the scheme of things as if he had never been away. Perhaps they were even in love, she told herself. And even if they were not, then they understood each other. They came from the same world, had the same―goals, held the same values.

  She could not compete, and what was more she would not even try, she told herself proudly. It was that evening that she had decided to go to Yorkshire. Christopher had been to dinner, and both he and her father had been pressing her to come to some firm decision about, the dissolution of her marriage.

  Feeling as she did, she should have agreed at once, let the tide of their
pressure sweep her into a decision. It was her reluctance to begin the process which would bring their strange relationship to its inevitable end that disturbed her.

  Logan and she had betrayed each other .What possible reason did she have for hesitation? Questions for which she could find no convincing answers buzzed and seethed in her brain, and eventually she had decided to run away.

  Perhaps, she had told herself, a time of solitude was all she needed―a time when no one would be murmuring persuasive arguments in favour of this or that course of action. A time to think, and to make a reasoned decision.

  Looking back on the way she had tried to rationalise her behaviour. Briony did not know whether to laugh or cry. Because if she was honest, all she had done was run away again.

  And what good had her headlong flight done her? Here she was, after all, more unhappy, more confused than she had ever been. But at least she didn’t have a decision to make any more. Logan had done that for her.

  She wondered why he had not brought Karen with him to the cottage, although she was thankful in the circumstances that he hadn’t. The idea of being forced to become an unwilling member of a menage a trois with no means of escape was a repugnant one. She supposed Karen’s work had kept her in London. Her life as the Courier’s women’s editor was a busy one. And Logan had come to the cottage for peace and quiet to work on his manuscript. Perhaps he had felt that Karen’s presence would be too much of a distraction.

  She got up with sudden resolution and marched across the passage. Normally she knocked before entering when Logan was working, but this time she flung open the door so violently that it banged against the wall.

  Logan looked up from his typewriter; his brows lifting in surprise.

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘The gas has all gone,’ she announced baldly.

  He gave a dismayed whistle. ‘I thought it would have lasted longer than that.’

  ‘It should have. It would have.’ she said. ‘Only I used the stove this afternoon, and fell asleep and forgot about it. So all the gas has gone―wasted.’ She paused.

  ‘I see.’ He gave her a speculative glance. ‘Now why don’t you tell me what’s really eating you?’

  ‘I’ve told you,’ she said off the top of her voice, ‘I’ve just wasted all the bloody gas.’

  ‘So what do you want me to say about that?’ he said. ‘These things happen? Consider it said.’ His tone was openly dismissive and she stiffened,

  ‘I’m so sorry.’ she said, poisonously sweet. ‘Am I disturbing you with my little domestic problems?’

  The aquamarine eyes regarded her levelly. ‘You’re disturbing me. I won’t add any qualifications.’

  His tone was dry, and the implication unmistakable. Briony flushed, effectively silenced. She knew that if she had any sense she would beat a strategic retreat.

  Instead she said, gabbling a little, I'm sorry I'm in your way. I’ve been praying for the thaw as you suggested, but my prayers don’t seem to be answered. ’

  ‘Nor mine.’ he said pleasantly. ‘Besides a thaw is a slow process. A couple of days’ rain would be quicker and more effective.’

  ‘Is that what you’re praying for?’

  ‘If I told you what I was praying for, he said slowly, ‘you wouldn’t believe me. Now go, Briony, and leave me peace. ’

  ‘Peace?’ she echoed almost hysterically. ‘What peace is there for either of us here?’ She made a wild gesture. I can’t stand being cooped up here like this! ’

  Logan closed his eyes wearily, as if he was hanging on to his patience with a supreme effort. ‘You came here of your own free will,’ he said. ‘God alone knows why. Is that what’s needling you, Briony? That for once in your life there isn’t anywhere else to run to? That for once in your spoiled, sheltered existence you have to stop and face up to things? It’s certainly time you did. ’

  ‘Thank you for the sermon.’ she snapped. ‘Have you any other good advice?’

  ‘Plenty.’ he drawled. ‘For starters, you’d better go and acquire the knack of cooking on an open fire. That is if you want any more hot food.’

  She took pleasure in slamming the door behind her, but it was a waste of time. He was typing again before she had even got across the passage.

  She was blazingly, shiveringly angry, in the mood for throwing things, or striking out. She’d wanted a confrontation-wanted to fling in his face her knowledge of his relationship with Karen Wellesley, but he’d denied her the opportunity.

  Hands balled into impotent fists, she stood staring unseeingly out of the window.

  The way he’d dismissed her―like a schoolgirl who’d got above herself―or a domestic servant. How dared he! she thought hotly. Treating her as if she wasn’t worth quarrelling with―and expecting her meekly to come in here and start struggling to cook the supper on the living room fire. She could have screamed with rage.

  With sudden resolution she left the living room and went upstairs to her room, and began flinging her things into her case. Logan had dug the path to the gate and at least part of the way down the track. She would struggle the rest of the way. If he thought he had her trapped, then he would soon know how mistaken he was !

  She put on her sheepskin coat and her gloves, then crept downstairs. The hinges on the front door creaked a little, and she tensed for a moment, waiting for the parlour door to open and Logan to demand where she was going. But the clatter of the typewriter didn’t even falter for a moment, and she went out, closing the door gently behind her.

  He had been sitting with his back to the window, to catch what little remaining light there was, so with luck he would not see her going down the path, and she would soon be round the bend in the track.

  The path was more slippery than she had anticipated and her boots skidded on the surface. She had to keep stopping to get her balance, and she was glad there was no one around to watch her ungainly progress.

  It was easier to walk on the rough surface of the track, although the path which Logan had cleared was only narrow. When it petered out, she paused for a moment, gauging the depth of the snow with some dismay. She wished now that she had not brought her case, but only what she could carry in her pockets.

  Cautiously she moved forward on to the snow. She had tucked her cord jeans into the top of her boots, and immediately she was in over her knees. She swore silently. When she had been a child at Branthwaite, snow had been fun to play in. She’d forgotten what hell it was to walk in. She took another tentative step and then another and gave a little startled cry as she sank up to her thighs, She must have encountered one of the track’s many potholes.

  She floundered forward, panting as she pushed against the weight of the snow, then came to a standstill to consider her predicament. The first thing she had to do was get rid of her suitcase; she would just have to leave it at the side of the track for the time being. She leaned across the crisp frozen surface of the snow pushing the case away from her with all her strength.

  Then she began to move forward again, very slowly, trying desperately to ignore her soaked and freezing legs. She had covered perhaps twenty yards, and already she was exhausted. It wasn’t a pothole after all, she realised. It was just that the snow had drifted deeper on the slope of the track. At any moment she could find herself up to her waist.

  Her breath sobbing in her throat, she began to push forward again, but the weight of the snow was suddenly too much for her to dislodge and she fell forward ignominiously on to her face. Gasping, she dragged herself back on to her feet. She was wet through now, and her coat felt like a ton weight on her slender shoulders. As she stood motionless, trying to catch her breath and nerve herself for the next stage of the onslaught, she felt a wet drop on her face, then another, and yet another.

  For a moment she thought it was snowing again, and her heart sank, then as the drops started to increase and gather in momentum, the truth dawned upon her. It was raining.

  She stood, stunned in disbelief, watchin
g the dark marks appear on the crisp powdery surface. The wind had risen slightly, and she could hear it sighing mournfully in the trees which bordered the track. Briony could have moaned with it.

  She wanted to weep with frustration. If only she had been patient for a little while longer! As it was she was now faced with the choice of either pressing on becoming wetter and more cold and uncomfortable with every laborious step she took or returning to the cottage and having to face Logan.

  Gritting her teeth, she took another step, but her searching foot encountered an unknown obstacle, buried deep in the snow, and she fell forward on to her face again. And as she lay there wincing from the pain in her wrenched ankle and wondering dazedly where she was going to find the strength to get up again, she heard Logan call her name. This time she groaned aloud. She had to move-she must, even if she had to crawl on her hands and knees. She couldn’t let him come down the track and find her lying there, stricken and helpless.