For Better for Worse

Typically, Jade had laughed in disbelief when she had told her this, rolling her eyes and demanding, ‘What? My God, trust you! You manage to find one of the most charismatic and sexy men I have ever set eyes on, and all you notice about him is that he held open the door for you. You realise that he probably only did that so that he could check out the view,’ Jade had teased her, explaining when she had frowned, ‘Your rear view, idiot. Men like a nice, well-shaped female behind, didn’t you know?’

Now, Eleanor’s expression gave her away.

‘You’d forgotten?’ Marcus exclaimed sharply.

‘Marcus, I’m so sorry. I meant to organise a babysitter last weekend and then Julia telephoned and asked if we could have Vanessa and somehow or other…’

‘Damn!’

‘I could ring Jade,’ Eleanor suggested. ‘She might be free.’

She had just picked up the receiver and started to dial Jade’s number when she heard Tom calling, ‘Mum… Mum… I don’t feel well.’

Anxiously she replaced the receiver and hurried upstairs, just in time to hear him being violently sick.

It might only be ice-cream-induced and perhaps a fitting punishment for his greed, but there was no doubt that he was feeling extremely sorry for himself, Eleanor acknowledged as she tucked him back into bed.

At thirteen he was already beginning to consider himself too old and grown-up for maternal cuddles and fussing, but now he clung to her.

‘Stay with me,’ he begged her as she started to get up.

‘I can’t, darling. I’ve got to go and telephone Aunt Jade to ask her if she can come round to sit with you tonight.’

Immediately his face flushed and he sat bolt upright in bed, clinging fiercely to her.

‘I don’t want her. I want you,’ he told her.

Dismayed, Eleanor put her arms round him. He normally never clung to her like this… perhaps the doctor had been wrong… perhaps he was more ill than any of them had recognised.

‘Tom, darling, I have to go…’

‘No, you don’t,’ he argued stubbornly. ‘You don’t want to be with us any more. You just want to be with him.’

Appalled, Eleanor hugged him tightly. ‘Tom, that isn’t true!’

There was no way she was going to be able to go to the Lassiters’ dinner party, she recognised. Not with Tom so upset and unlike himself.

Marcus wouldn’t be pleased. She could feel her heart growing heavy with despair mingled with anxiety and panic, a sense of somehow feeling as though her life was out of her own control…

What was happening to her? It shouldn’t be like this… after all, she had everything a woman could possibly want. Yes, everything…

And some things that no sane woman would want. Like an accountant who was beginning to issue warnings about dropping profits and rising costs; a partner who had problems which seemed to be putting a strain on their business relationship. A stepdaughter who was growing increasingly hostile to her and who seemed to see her as some sort of rival for her father’s affections; a son who had just destroyed her belief that she had finally slain her inner dragon of guilt about the effect her divorce from their father might have had on her children.

A house filled with antique furniture and carpets which might be the envy of her single friends, but which was no real home for two growing boys.

A growing feeling that there were too many things in her life over which she seemed not to have full control.

And a husband whom she loved and who loved her, and surely knowing that made up for everything else, didn’t it? Didn’t it?

CHAPTER TWO

TENSELY Fern checked her appearance in the bedroom mirror, already anticipating Nick’s criticism. She smoothed the matt black fabric of her evening dress over her hips, anxiously aware of how much weight she had lost since she had last worn it for the round of Christmas parties.

Her mother’s death had been partly responsible for that. It had been a strain taking care of her for those last weeks of her life, especially with Nick being so resentful of her absence.

She had tried to explain to him how she felt: that it was a mixture of love as well as duty and responsibility which made

her feel that she had to be the one to nurse her mother; but Nick had demanded to know how he was supposed to manage in her absence. He had a business to run, he reminded her; she was his wife, and since she did not work, did not bring in any money herself, he felt he was not being unreasonable in expecting her to be there at home for him when he needed her.