For Better for Worse

His mother? He was a man now… approaching middle age. What the hell was the matter with him? It must be the pressure he was under at work. He had taken on a very heavy workload recently, anticipating the increased expenses they would have if they moved. He had worked hard before, he reminded himself harshly, and it had never had this kind of effect on him.

He looked at Eleanor. Her face was set and pale. She was angry with him… and no wonder. He had over-reacted. What was it they had promised each other when they’d married… that they would also find the time to talk… to explain… to listen? Well, Eleanor seemed to have precious little time to do any of those things for him these days, he thought, guilt smothered by an atavistic male reluctance to admit to being at fault.

‘Forget the house,’ he repeated curtly. ‘And as for Vanessa, the girls… I am capable of looking after them… her. She is, after all, as you never seem to tire of pointing out to me, Nell, my daughter.’

The antagonism in his voice was like a blow against her heart, making her wince with the anguish it caused her before she felt the reviving tide of responsive anger surging through her.

‘What are you trying to tell me, Marcus? That you would prefer me not to be here?’

‘For God’s sake, Nell, what’s got into you? You complained that you couldn’t go to Provence because of Vanessa; I’m simply trying—’

‘I suppose you think I’m taking the cowardly way out… that I’m running away. Well, I’m not. I need the money this commission will bring in, Marcus. We need it. I’m not having Vanessa or anyone else accusing me and my sons of being financially dependent on you as well as—’

‘Stop it, Nell. When have I ever suggested anything like that? My understanding was that you would keep on the business because you enjoyed it, because you wanted, not financial independence, but some degree of personal independence, and not just from me but from the boys as well. I respected and admired you for that… I never thought you’d try to use it against me to make me feel guilty.’

‘I’m not trying to make you feel guilty. You’re the one doing that.’

‘Me?’

‘Yes,’ Eleanor told him fiercely. ‘It’s easy enough for you to criticise me… to blame me for not being able to deal with Vanessa, but what am I supposed to do? She doesn’t want me here, Marcus. Everything I try to do to bring us all together she deliberately undermines, and you let her. It’s your fault she resents me, that she feels that I threaten her position in her life, that she feels so insecure.’

‘Mine?’

‘Yes,’ Eleanor said sadly, ‘she loves you so much, Marcus, and she’s afraid of losing you. She’s so insecure.’

‘She’s almost an adult,’ Marcus protested curtly. ‘You’re letting your imagination run away with you, Nell. Children might cling to their parents, but teenagers… adults—they don’t.’

‘Not if they’re secure enough, perhaps,’ Eleanor agreed. ‘But Vanessa isn’t secure… she—’

‘Leave it, Nell. Stop looking for someone else to blame because the pair of you don’t get on. Perhaps you’re trying too hard. You can’t force these things. They take time and even then it’s all a matter of luck. You have to accept that. You can’t force Vanessa to accept or want your rosy view of the future or Broughton House, the way you can’t…’

He stopped abruptly. Eleanor stared at him, the anger and pain she felt bringing sharp tears to her eyes. She blinked them away, demanding hoarsely, ‘Go on…’

Marcus shook his head.

‘No. It doesn’t matter.’ He rubbed his forehead tiredly. ‘This isn’t getting us anywhere, Nell. Perhaps a few days apart will do us all good. Give us both time to…’

‘So you think I’m to blame,’ Eleanor challenged him shakily.

‘Nell, for God’s sake. I don’t have time to think about anything other than my work. I’m up to my eyes in it. This case…’ He made a small explosive sound of impatience. ‘I don’t think I can take much more of this. What’s happening to us…? What’s happening to you?’

‘To me?’ Why did he make her feel as though everything was her fault, her responsibility?

What had happened to the harmony, the closeness they had once shared and which she had so smugly taken for granted? Where had it gone? How had they lost it?

An anguished sadness overwhelmed her anger. She gave a small forlorn shiver. She felt vulnerable and afraid, and, although she tried to hide from it, at the back of her mind lay the knowledge that somehow their quarrel had spoiled and soured their relationship and that she was angrily resentful of Marcus for allowing it to do so.

Was he equally disenchanted with her; did seeing her vulnerable and hurt diminish her in his eyes?

He had always praised her calmness and self-control. Where had they gone now?

It was a new experience for her, this anger and intensity, something she had never experienced with Allan; their relationship, their marriage had simply faded, died. There had not been any violent quarrels, any emotion of any kind as they had slowly drifted apart.

It hurt her more than she wanted to admit that Marcus had not denied immediately that he wanted her to go to Provence.

What had she really wanted? For him to beg her to stay, to tell her that she was indispensable?

Those were the thoughts, the vulnerabilities of a woman low in self-esteem and self-worth. She was not that kind of woman, was she?