Conveniently His Omnibus

She pushed past him and ran into the house, going straight up to her room, and flinging herself face down on the bed. She badly wanted to cry, in a way she couldn’t remember doing in years. Chris’s attack had frightened her; her body ached with the tension that fear had brought, and her breast throbbed where he had hurt her but what hurt far more, was Jon’s calm indifference. He had stood there and let Chris insult him and her, and he had said nothing—not even when she had told him that Chris had attacked her. He had looked at her with his face wiped clean of all expression—totally emotionless.

She was his wife for heaven’s sake. She had a right to expect his protection...his...his championship. Chris had hurt and frightened her...and primitive though it was, she acknowledged that she would have liked to have seen Jon hurt and frighten him in return. Had he believed what Chris had said to him? She swallowed suddenly turning over and staring unseeingly up at the ceiling. Surely not? She had been so caught up in her own feelings, in the shock of listening to Chris’s lies, that it had never occurred to her that Jon might believe them, that he might take what had happened at face value.

Did he really think she was that sort of woman? The sort who would break the solemn vows of marriage...who would allow herself to be involved with a man who was already married, who had once treated her with such contempt? Didn’t Jon know her at all?

Tiredly she got up, but instead of going downstairs and apologising to Jon for her outburst and talking to him about what had happened as she knew she should, she showered again, and dressed slowly, too heart-sick to face him. Her apology would have to wait until she was in a calmer frame of mind. As she went downstairs, she heard sounds from the study and guessed that he was working. Well, that gave her an excuse not to interrupt him.

He was still working when she went to fetch the children back from school. For once their energy and chatter gave her no pleasure. She felt drained and deeply unhappy. This was the time when she needed a mother or a sister to talk to, she thought wearily, someone who would understand what she was feeling.

When they got back, an unfamiliar brand new car was parked outside the house. Mentally admiring the sleek lines of the very expensive BMW, Sophy shepherded the children inside the house. The car probably belonged to one of Jon’s clients, many of whom were extremely wealthy men and she paused outside the now silent study, reluctant to disturb a business meeting.

The children it seemed had no such qualms and burst in before she could stop them, Alex shouting out, ‘We’re back, Uncle Jon!’

Reluctantly she followed them to find that Jon was alone in the study. She glanced round it and then looked at him. ‘I thought you had someone with you,’ she told him. ‘There’s a car outside.’

‘Yes.’ For once he looked neither vague nor embarrassed. ‘It’s yours... I bought it for you this morning.’

She had to sit down to get over the shock. Jon had bought that car for her! ‘But it’s so expensive! Jon...’

‘You said we needed a larger car and from what I can discover, this one seems to combine all our requirements. Of course, if you would prefer something else?’

She shook her head. ‘No...no, of course not.’

‘It’s ours?’ David was wide-eyed with excitement. ‘Come on, Alex,’ he instructed his sister, ‘let’s go and have a look at it.’

In the end all four of them went back outside, the children enthusing over the car whilst Sophy admired it in stunned silence. She was pleased to see that it was fitted with rear seat belts for the children. When she got inside she found it both luxurious and well equipped. At David’s insistence they went for a short drive although she was not familiar enough with the car’s automatic gears and power steering system to take them very far.

‘Jon, it’s...it’s very generous of you,’ she said haltingly when they got back. The words seemed to stick in her throat, her earlier accusations lying painfully on her conscience. She wanted desperately to call back those earlier ugly words, but found she could not do so in front of the children, and it still tormented her that Jon might actually have believed Chris’s lies.