For Better for Worse

‘Well, one of us has to,’ he pointed out. ‘And since it certainly isn’t going to be you…’

He paused and Zoe’s smile changed to a small frown.

Did he resent the fact that he had to be cautious for both of them? Did he sometimes find her optimism a burden?

Did he sometimes find her a burden, a responsibility? Like his family.

Her frown deepened, her excitement evaporating.

‘Ben…’ she began uncertainly.

‘Mmm…’ he said sleepily. ‘Leave it with me… I’ll give Clive a ring and sort something out.’

He was already virtually asleep and it wouldn’t be fair to wake him up just so that she could ask for his reassurance, Zoe admitted honestly, but it was a long, long time before she herself finally managed to fall asleep too.

CHAPTER SEVEN

‘

MARCUS, I think I might have found us a house.’

Eleanor had had the details of the Wiltshire property for three days now, but she had deliberately waited until she and Marcus were alone before broaching the subject with him, conscious of the fact not only that he was irritated by the disruption caused by Julia’s announcement that he would have to provide a home for their daughter while she was in America, but also that the complexities of a new case he had recently taken on were demanding most of his time and attention.

She had known before she married him that he was the type of man to whom his work was not just a means of earning a living but something he genuinely enjoyed, and that once he became involved in a case it absorbed him to an extent which demanded a partner’s patience and understanding.

It had been Julia’s inability to accept that there were times when, on the surface at least, his work would appear to receive more of his time and attention than she did which had originally led to a rift developing between them. Marcus had made no secret of this aspect of his personality before their marriage and Eleanor had wisely forced herself to detach herself from the magnetic delirium caused by her enjoyment of the physical side of their relationship to ask herself if she could accept the importance of his work, and live with the consequences of it; not just immediately in the dizzying rose-coloured flush of so unexpectedly falling in love and being loved in return, but in the more mundane years ahead when that flush had retreated, leaving a world shaded in more prosaic colours.

She had decided that she could; after all, she was a woman in her thirties who had discovered for herself not just the importance of being financially independent, but also the thrill which came from self-achievement. Hadn’t there, after all, especially in the initial days of establishing her own business, been times when she had worked long into the night, so totally absorbed by what she was doing that she forgot everything else?

In an ideal world it might be possible for a man and a woman to find a way of synchronising their affairs so that they could harmonise those periods when their need for one another totally eclipsed everything else, a world where with a look, a word, both were able to put aside all other matters and reach out to one another.

Unfortunately life just did not happen like that, Eleanor acknowledged wryly as she waited for Marcus to make some acknowledgement of her comment other than the brief automatic grunt she had already received.

‘Marcus,’ she repeated more insistently. ‘Did you hear me? I said I think I’ve found us a house.’

‘What? Oh, yes… sorry.’ He smiled at her as he raised his head from his papers.

‘I’ve made arrangements for us to view it this weekend.’

‘This weekend?’ He was frowning now as he looked at her.

‘We’ve got Vanessa the weekend after,’ Eleanor reminded him. ‘And you did say you might have to go to The Hague.’

‘The Hague… Oh, that’s had to be postponed now. I need to clear up one or two things first. This Alexander case is proving a bit more complicated than we first thought. This view—what time…?’

‘One-ish,’ Eleanor told him. ‘That will give us enough time to drive down there—’

‘Drive down there? Drive down where?’ Marcus questioned her.

‘Wiltshire,’ Eleanor told him.

‘Wiltshire! I thought we were looking for something in London!’

Quickly Eleanor agreed. ‘Yes, I know that’s what we originally discussed, but I’ve been thinking it over, Marcus, and there are just so many advantages of moving out into the country that I’m surprised that we didn’t think of it before.

‘I’ll be able to work from home for one thing, which means I’ll be there full time for the children. The boys will be able to go to a local school… become part of a real community. No more ferrying them halfway across London.

‘We’ll be able to have all the space we need… not just for Vanessa but for friends as well, and Wiltshire isn’t that far. The agents tell me there’s an excellent train service into Waterloo from Salisbury, and best of all is the fact that we’ll just get so much more for our money.