A Whirlwind Marriage

CHAPTER ONE

ZEKE BUCHANAN glanced at his wife as he rose from the breakfast table, but although Marianne was aware of his gaze she didn’t raise her head from her contemplation of the contents of her coffee cup, not even when he stopped just behind her and rested his hands on her slender shoulders as he said, ‘You haven’t forgotten the Mortons are coming at seven?’

No, she hadn’t forgotten the Mortons. She steeled herself to show no reaction, either in her body or her voice, when she replied coolly, ‘No, of course not. Everything’s in order.’

‘Good.’ There was a moment’s hesitation, and then he bent and placed a swift kiss on the top of her blond head. ‘I probably won’t be home much before seven myself. I’m flying up to Stoke this morning to look at an old factory site I’m interested in, but I should be back by mid-afternoon if you need me.’

If I need you? Of course I need you, but that’s a concept that’s alien to you, isn’t it? She didn’t trust the bitterness not to show if she spoke, so she merely nodded without turning her head to look at him.

‘Goodbye, Marianne.’

His voice was cold now, and she replied in like vein when she said, ‘Goodbye, Zeke.’

And then the breakfast room door had shut behind him and she was alone. She sat absolutely still for a full minute, willing herself not to give way to the tears that were always threatening these days, and then she rose very slowly and walked across to the huge, south-facing window which took up most of one wall.

The vista beyond the glass was a breathtaking aerial view of half of London, or so it seemed. The penthouse, at the top of a high-rise block of luxury flats, had been tailormade for Zeke long before he had met her, more than two years ago. It was the last word in opulent living, from the massive drawing room regally decorated in blue and gold to the sumptuous master bedroom and its decadent en suite bathroom, which was black and silver and mirrored from floor to ceiling. And Marianne hated it. She loathed it.

She knew one of Zeke’s old girlfriends—a very successful and glamorous redhead by the exotic name of Liliana de Giraud, who was the interior designer to the rich and famous—had designed the penthouse, and once she had discovered that some twelve months ago her dislike of the brazen bachelor pad had turned to revulsion.

She had lost count of how many times she had asked Zeke to come with her to look at different properties—some apartments, some houses—but always he had fobbed her off with ‘tomorrow’. But tomorrow had never come.

She relaxed against the window for a moment, her forehead pressed against the cold glass, and then she straightened abruptly, drawing her shoulders back military-style and lifting her small chin determinedly.

None of that! she told herself silently. You’re not going to give in to the urge to run and hide. They were going through a bad patch, but that didn’t mean she had to fold under the pressure. She would come through this; she would. She had coped with the shock of her mother’s sudden death four years ago—she would cope with this. But, oh… She bit her lip hard. What she would give to talk to her mother now, just to be able to tell someone all of it. She felt she would go mad sometimes, cut off from the world in this ivory tower Zeke had created.

And then, as though in answer to the silent desperate plea, the telephone rang. Marianne let it ring until the answer-machine cut in. The only people who rang these days were Zeke, one or other of their social circle, or business acquaintances, and she didn’t feel like talking to any of those.

‘Hi, Marianne. Long time no talkie! This is Pat—Patricia—in case you haven’t guessed, and as I’m up in town for a day or two I thought I’d—’

Pat’s voice was cut off as Marianne lifted the receiver and said breathlessly, ‘Pat? Oh, Pat. It’s so lovely to hear your voice.’

‘Is it? You only had to pick up the phone any day to hear it, Annie,’ Pat said with a chuckle to soften the admonishment.

Marianne blinked and then found herself smiling. The same old straightforward Pat. It was her friend’s habit of plain speaking that had got under Zeke’s skin even before he had met Pat, and the two had never hit it off. Pat was right, though; she should have contacted her before this, Marianne told herself silently. But with all that was happening between Zeke and herself she had felt—ridiculously, perhaps—that it would be a betrayal of her husband. She didn’t feel like that any more. Not since last night.

‘You’re in town?’ Marianne said now. ‘Can we meet up for lunch or something?’

‘Great. Do you want me to come round to the apartment?’ Pat asked briskly.

Marianne glanced round the suffocatingly exquisite interior and shut her eyes tightly for a second before she said, ‘No, we’ll eat out. My treat. There’s a great little French place a few blocks away: Rochelle’s, in St Martin’s Street. I’ll meet you there at twelve if that’s okay?’

‘Terrific. See you then. And, Annie—?’

‘Yes?’ she asked carefully.

‘Are you all right?’

Marianne took a deep breath and said quietly, ‘No, no I’m not all right, Pat.’

‘Didn’t think you were. Twelve, then.’ And in characteristic fashion the phone went dead.

Oh, Pat. Marianne replaced the receiver and stood staring at the telephone for some moments as a great flood of relief and expectation swept through her. She hadn’t realised just how much she needed Pat’s down-to-earth common sense and no-frills approach to life until this very second, but now she couldn’t wait to see her.

She glanced at the small gold wristwatch Zeke had given her for her twenty-first birthday, a few months after she had married him. Eight o’clock. Four hours to go. But suddenly the day which had stretched endlessly in front of her just minutes before had been transformed.

A long, hot soak in the bath. Marianne nodded to the thought, and, leaving the breakfast table just as it was, walked through to one of the two guest bedrooms whic

h both had their own en suites.

She rarely used the master bedroom’s en suite—even though it boasted an Olympian Jacuzzi bath—unless Zeke was around, and then she only did it to avoid yet another row. She couldn’t quite explain it, but the flamboyant, lavish black-and-silver bathroom always seemed to emphasise everything that was wrong in their marriage and just how far they had grown apart in two years.