The Ultimate Surrender

‘This is why you’ve got these management consultants in—because you’re going to sell Fraser House?’ Polly pounced accusingly.

‘It’s one option I may be considering, yes,’ Marcus agreed.

‘But you can’t sell…not without my agreement. I own fifty per cent of the business.’

‘I don’t need your agreement to sell my own share in the hotel,’ Marcus corrected her.

‘You’d sell out?’ Polly badly needed to sit down. Perhaps it was illogical of her to feel so shocked, as though the ground had been cut from beneath her feet, as though she was being betrayed and abandoned; but, nevertheless, that was exactly what she did feel.

‘Why not?’ Marcus shrugged again. ‘The main reason I had for suggesting that the house be turned into a hotel in the first place no longer exists.’

‘The main reason…? You mean now that Briony is grown up there’s nothing to keep you here?’ Polly demanded.

‘I don’t owe you any explanations, Polly,’ he reminded her starkly. ‘You’ve made your plans for the way you want to live your future, as you’ve made perfectly plain to me.’

‘I have a right to want a life of my own,’ Polly protested. ‘Whatever you may choose to think, at thirty-seven I’m still too young to sit back and sink into genteel senility.’

‘Too young for that, yes,’ Marcus agreed, with a bitter twist of his mouth, ‘but…’

‘But what?’ Polly pressed sharply. ‘Too old to have a relationship with Phil? Too old to have another child?’

‘Mr Fraser, if you could spare me a moment…’

Both of them turned towards the door as the young woman who had been questioning Polly earlier appeared, her forehead wrinkled as she informed Marcus, ‘I’ve discovered that the perennial borders are planted with fresh tulips every year, and I was wondering…’

‘You’re obviously busy,’ Polly told Marcus with a taunting smile. ‘Please don’t let me disturb you. We can finish our discussion later.’

‘Polly!’ Marcus called out warningly, but Polly refused to listen. Let him explain why the very expensive pink tulips were planted every autumn to flower the following spring. It had, after all, been his idea that they should flower just in time to celebrate Richard’s birthday, a reminder to them all that beauty and love and laughter never, ever died whilst there were still those to remember and enjoy such things—and Richard, of all men, had so loved all of those things.

Richard—what would he make of what was happening? He had thought the world of Marcus, hero-worshipped him really. Richard. It seemed so long ago now that she had loved and married him, and when she thought of him she thought of him as the boy he had been, a boy of whom she had fond memories—almost, in an odd sort of way, maternal memories now, since she’d had to grow and mature without him. She had never been able to visualise him as the man he might have become, perhaps because really there was only one man for her—Marcus. Right now she didn’t know whether she loved him or hated him, he was hurting her so much.

‘Hello, Ma. Have you heard the news?’

‘What news?’ Polly asked Briony cautiously. Had Marcus told Briony already that he was looking for a buyer for the hotel? That was her privilege, surely, but trust Marcus to pre-empt her role as Briony’s parent…

‘The news,’ Briony stressed impatiently. ‘Suzi’s pregnant and they’re going to get married. It’s all very unexpected and her parents are quite shocked. Her mother’s a little bit on the old-fashioned side, isn’t she? I imagine she would have preferred them to do things a little bit more traditionally, but these days plenty of couples have children without feeling any need to get married, and for myself—’

‘Briony.’ Polly interrupted her daughter stiffly, ‘Are you sure? I mean…’

‘Of course I’m sure. Chris rang me last night. He was complaining because Suzi is insisting on having a full-blown wedding—bridesmaids, page-boys, the lot. And a big marquee on the lawn. So you’d better prepare yourself. I know you’ve always refused to do wedding receptions but, according to Chris, Suzi has talked her way round Marcus and he’s already given his agreement.

‘Ma, are you still there?’ Briony demanded. ‘You haven’t said anything.’

‘Yes, I’m still here,’ Polly managed to tell her hoarsely.

Marcus was getting married. Marcus was going to be a father.

Marcus…

Marcus…

The pain that tore through her was the worst pain Polly had ever experienced, worse by far than the birth pangs which had torn into her when Briony was born, making her cry out and cling to Marcus so tightly that…