For Better for Worse

Cressy’s relationship with Graham and with her parents; her wariness of the kind of commitment marriage would bring; her fear of not being able to live up to Graham’s expectations of her.

‘I can’t live without him,’ she confessed to Fern, ‘and yet I’m terrified that once we’re married I shan’t be able to live with him.’

‘You will,’ Fern assured her, and, oddly, as she said it, not only did she herself know that it was true, but she could see as well that Cressy believed her.

‘Do you see much of Adam?’ Cressy asked her idly as they finished their last glass of wine.

Fern tensed automatically, her whole body stiff and wary until she remembered that this was Cressy she was talking to and not Nick, and that with Cressy there was no reason for her to feel afraid of what her face might reveal.

‘Not really. He and Nick have never been close and now with this business of Broughton House…’

‘What business with Broughton House?’ Cressy asked her. Briefly Fern explained.

‘But surely Adam would never do anything like that? He’s always been such a keen conservationist.’

‘Yes, I know, but he is involved in several similar projects and I suppose as a businessman… an architect… well, no one is finding it easy these days, are they? Adam has his staff to think of as well as himself.’

‘Even so… Have you discussed it with him, Fern?’

Now Fern did dip her head, avoiding looking directly at Cressy. There were still some things she had not told her, confidences she had not given, could not give anyone, not even the oldest and closest of her friends.

‘No. No, I haven’t. Tell me some more about how you met Graham,’ she encouraged, changing the subject. ‘I know you said you were both working on the same project…’

‘Yes. Well, we were…’

Thankfully Fern listened as Cressy proceeded to describe her first meeting with her husband-to-be, congratulating herself on successfully deflecting her attention.

Out on the dykes, where water met sky, dawn was just beginning to pearl the horizon when they finally went to bed, leaving the detritus of the evening meal, the empty bottles of wine and even the cocoa mugs, so reminiscent of their earlier days together that Fern smiled ruefully over them as Cressy refused to allow her to clean up, announcing that they would have plenty of time for that when they got up.

‘I suppose once I’m actually a wife I’ll start getting like you and feel totally unable to go to bed unless the kitchen’s spotless,’ Cressy told her drily. ‘But I’m not a wife yet, and Graham, thank God, is not one of these men who puts a premium on housewifely efficiency.’

‘Really?’ Fern teased her rounding her eyes in mock naïveté. ‘You do surprise me.’

Laughing, they went upstairs together.

But half an hour later, as she slipped between the cold linen sheets of her bed, Fern wasn’t laughing any longer.

‘Leave Nick,’ Cressy had advised her again later in the evening. ‘Otherwise, he will destroy you completely, Fern.’

Leave Nick. As she closed her eyes, Fern could feel the unfamiliarly frantic panicky beating sensation deep within her chest. Not fear, she recognised, but the desire, the need, the overwhelmingly urgent and compelling ache to be free.

Why had she never recognised it before… never realised… never seen…? Why had it taken someone else to show her Nick as he really was; to set her free from the intolerable burden of her own sense of failure and despair?

And her guilt?

She opened her eyes abruptly. No, Cressy had not done that. How could she? She did not, after all, know the whole truth. Did not know that Nick had not been the only one to break their marriage vows.

But, even despite that, she could not stay with him now, she recognised.

Their marriage was over. But would she have the strength to tell Nick that?

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

‘WHAT’S wrong with you? You’ve been pushing that pasta round your plate without touching it for ages. I thought you loved Italian food.’

Zoe smiled wanly at the mock accusatory tone of her friend’s voice.

‘I do—normally,’ she agreed. ‘It’s just that I’ve been feeling so off colour lately.’ She pulled a wry face. ‘Virtually everything I eat seems to make me feel and be sick, and sometimes…’