For Better for Worse

too many other things on her mind.

After Marcus had gone out she tried to talk to Tom, to reassure him that he was wrong to believe that Marcus was any kind of threat to his relationship with her, but when she had gently tried to draw him out, to question him about why he should believe that she no longer loved him, he had clammed up on her, refusing to discuss the subject.

The antique grandfather clock in the hallway chimed midnight. Marcus should not be much longer, she comforted herself.

The clock reminded her of the one her grandparents had owned. They had lived in the country and every summer she had spent two weeks of her holidays with them, before flying out to join her parents in whichever part of the world her father happened to be stationed. As a career diplomat, he had been constantly on the move, and as their only child Eleanor had never felt particularly close to her parents. Her father’s career had necessitated her spending most of her childhood at boarding-school, and, while she loved her parents and knew they loved her, they had never had the closeness she had promised herself she would share with her own children… a closeness she had genuinely believed they did have. Until this evening… How could they be close when she had not even known what Tom thought… when it had been Marcus who had correctly diagnosed the cause of his sickness and not her?

As a child she had looked forward all year to those holidays with her grandparents, to the unchanging security of their pretty house in its sleepy country setting.

Perhaps because of those childhood memories, she had been determined to maintain her own children’s contact with Allan’s parents. After all, they were their only set of grandparents; her own parents had died in an air crash before she and Allan married. But the last time they had visited, Tom had complained that things weren’t the same.

She frowned now, remembering how upset he had been to discover that the room at his grandparents’ which he had always thought of as his own was also the one Allan’s new baby from his second marriage slept in when they were there.

At the time she had dismissed his complaint as mere childish possessiveness and jealousy, but now, aware of how disruptive she herself was finding it every time Marcus’s daughter visited and she had to move her own sons out of their room, it suddenly struck her ominously that something more than mere childish resentment might have underlain Tom’s complaint.

Children needed security… needed to feel that they had their own special and protected place in adults’ lives, especially those children who had gone through the trauma of seeing their parents split up.

Now, when she thought seriously about it, she recognised that Tom had been increasingly truculent and withdrawn recently, especially when Vanessa visited, and it was unfair to expect him to give up his room to Vanessa… Just as it was unfair to expect Vanessa to be happy with the discovery that the room she had always thought of as her own was now someone else’s.

The answer was of course to buy a larger house, but she and Marcus had already discussed this and agreed that it was financially impossible.

She glanced at her watch. Marcus should be home soon. Their large bed seemed empty without him. She smiled wryly to herself, acknowledging the direction her thoughts were taking.

When she and Allan had married she had been sexually naïve, and they had never really been sexually compatible. This had been another source of friction between them. Secretly she had always blamed herself for her inability to respond as fully and passionately to his lovemaking as Allan had wanted her to, and then, after the birth of the boys, he had become less and less interested in making love to her.

After their divorce she had been cautious about allowing herself to get involved with other men. Sex had been something she had pushed to the back of her mind and out of her life. She had the boys, and the excitement of a burgeoning career to keep her fulfilled and busy.

And then she had met Marcus. He had patiently encouraged her to put aside her wariness and caution and to learn to celebrate and enjoy her sexuality. He was a very sensual lover. And a very experienced one?

She frowned as she felt the tiny tremor of anxiety touch her spine. What was she worrying about now? Marcus had always been open and honest with her, making no secret of the fact that there had been other women in his life before they had met. He was not a promiscuous man but it would have been naïve of her to believe that he had lived a celibate life in the years between the break-up of his first marriage and their first meeting.

Her frown deepened as she remembered how, the last time she had visited them, Vanessa had asked her if she ever got jealous or worried that Marcus might leave her for someone younger.

‘Most men Dad’s age marry someone a lot younger,’ Vanessa had commented. ‘Women aren’t attractive to men once they’re middle-aged.’

‘That’s not true, Vanessa,’ she had countered as firmly as she could, trying to dismiss her own personal feelings and to concentrate instead on her concern that already, while still only in her teens, Vanessa was being dragged into the female trap of perceiving her own sex as only being able to have a valid sense of self-worth when rated by their desirability to men; but Vanessa had shrugged her shoulders and walked away from her, telling her unkindly over her shoulder, ‘You’re only saying that because you’re old.’

Old… at thirty-eight?

* * *

Marcus arrived home just after one. She had been asleep but she woke up when he walked into the bedroom, smiling sleepily at him as she asked, ‘Did you have a good time?’

‘Yes, but not as enjoyable as it would have been if you had been there,’ he told her, coming over to the bed and bending his head to kiss her briefly.

‘Did the Lassiters understand?’

‘Yes. As luck would have it, they’d had an extra unexpected guest, a young American lawyer, who’s over here on a year’s sabbatical. She came with Paul Ferrar and his wife. Her parents are friends of theirs.’

‘Pretty, was she?’ Eleanor asked him, and then immediately wondered what on earth was wrong with her as she caught the acerbic, almost hostile note in her own voice.

No wonder Marcus was looking at her like that.

‘Not exactly pretty,’ he told her judiciously. ‘She was very fresh and enthusiastic in the particularly American way. She seemed to find our legal system outdated and old-fashioned. When she returns home, she plans to specialise in international law.’

‘Like you?’

Marcus gave her another thoughtful look. ‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘How’s Tom?’