The Price of a Wife

Thursday was a day she endured with gritted teeth, both dreading and longing for the moment when she opened the door that evening.

There was a mountain of work waiting for her concerning the Night Hawk project when she got into the office, but the chaotic pace helped overall, although the lack of sleep the night before had her light-headed by the time she left the office at five sharp. And the flat was empty. Sickeningly, stomach-wrenchingly empty.

She forced herself to make a sandwich that went straight in the bin, swallowed a couple of aspirins for her blinding headache, then went to lie down on the bed to rest her aching head before she started ringing round some neighbours. She had found that the only way she could function that day was to blot all thoughts of Luke out of her mind, and now, as she slipped into a deep, dreamless slumber, even her subconscious obeyed the unspoken order.

When a loud and unrelenting knocking at her front door brought her out of thick waves of unconsciousness, it also brought her awareness of hard, driving rain against the window and the knowledge that the room was in darkness. She glanced at her bedside clock as she rose groggily to her feet and was amazed to find that it was nearly midnight, but such was her exhaustion that it didn't even occur to her to wonder who was banging with such ferocity so late when she swung open the door.

'One repentant sinner.' Luke was there, big and dark, and in his arms was a bedraggled, thin but very much alive Mog. 'He's been badly frightened, he's hungry, and I think he wants plenty of tender loving care, but other than that he's fine,' Luke said calmly as he deposited the miaowing cat in her arms. 'And don't open the door at this time of night without enquiring who it is,' he added as he turned to walk towards the stairs.

'Luke!' She stood in dazed wonder as he turned, Mog clinging like a monkey around her chest and neck, his two front paws resting either side of her throat as he purred an express train of a greeting. 'How…? When—?'

'One of those notices came up trumps in a corner shop,' Luke said lazily without moving towards her, the water dripping off his black hair onto his leather jacket. 'Some kids had heard a cat miaowing from a row of garages a couple of streets away and one of them told his mother, who put two and two together after seeing the notice. She rang me this evening but we couldn't get into the place-apparently the owners have gone on holiday for a couple of weeks.'

'Mog must have crept in there—probably hunting mice, because the area's crawling with vermin—when they were packing the car. They left and he was shut in. So I got the police involved and after a certain amount of persuasion a couple of the local bobbies forced an entrance and…' he indicated Mog, who was engaged in blissful contemplation of Josie's chin '… here he is.'

'I don't know what to say. How can I ever thank you?' she said shakily. 'He would have died in there, wouldn't he? Please come and have a coffee while I feed him—'

'Josie, a saint I am not,' he said wryly, a twist to his hard mouth. 'Nor am I a masochist. You might not know it, but you look good enough to eat all ruffled and dishevelled the way you are now, and self-torture is not my style. Besides, I was rather proud of my exit last night; I'm not usually so noble. So if you don't mind we'll mate it some other time.'

'I— Luke… Thank you.' She wasn't making any sense but he nodded coolly.

'Goodnight, Josie.' He pointed at Mog. 'And don't forget, plenty of tender loving care. We males aren't always as tough as you think, you know.' And on that enigmatic note he left her.

Over the next week, when she didn't hear a word from Luke either by letter or phone, Josie went through every emotion known to man every day, every hour, on the hour—until she was emotionally and physically drained.

She had expected… She didn't know what she had expected, she admitted to herself the following Thursday evening, a full week after Mog's return. A pressing of his advantage? A display of that clever, ruthless strategy she had seen him display more than once? An invitation to dinner or the theatre or something at least…

/> And then, on the Friday morning, when Andy slung a newspaper on her desk with a wry comment, she thought she had the reason for his lack of interest. 'He's a wily one, is Luke Hawkton. I wonder if it's genuine?'

'What?' She glanced from Andy's round face to the picture in the paper and then froze, her heart thumping as though she had been kicked in the chest.

She recognised the girl with him, of course, the girl who was draped over his arm like a second skin as she smiled prettily into the camera, her dark hair snaking round her shoulders and her evening dress displaying more than a little of her wares. So that was who he had been with when she had been wondering if he was thinking of her. She should have known. She should have known! Bitterness rose up like a grey fog over the picture.

'All the 'happy ever after' spiel they come out with at times like this,' Andy said impatiently. 'Hawkton is no fool. He knows the best way to shut the inquisitive mouths of the Press.'

'I don't know what you're talking about, Andy,' Josie said woodenly as she strove not to let her feelings show.

And she had begun to believe him. To believe he actually cared a bit about her. In fact she had started to worry for him, her love causing a biting anxiety that if he did care, really care, she was going to hurt him, cause him pain—

'I'm talking about Catherine Morley, of course,' Andy said irritably. 'Her engagement.'

'She's engaged to Luke?' Josie asked as the words registered like a bullet in her heart.

'Luke?' Andy stared at her as though he thought she was from a different planet. 'What the hell are you talking about, Josie? Why would he get engaged to his sister?'

'His sister?' If she hadn't been sitting down she knew she would have fallen down. As it was, her whole body felt peculiarly heavy, as though she was going to faint at any moment. 'Luke hasn't got a sister. He had a brother, but he hasn't got a sister.'

'I don't know what you're mumbling about.' Andy was definitely irritated now. 'I don't know about any brother, but I do know Catherine Morley is his sister—or his half-sister, to be exact. The papers were full of it a few months back—you must remember?'

'I don't.' She stared at Andy's fast-receding hairline as her mind spun. 'Why was it in the papers?'

'Because Catherine Morley is the love-child Luke Hawkton's father kept quiet about for years,' Andy said with heavy patience. 'For crying out loud, Josie, it was the scoop of the year for the journalist who dug it out.'

'The Hawkton family insisted that the father had told than all years and years ago, when the kid was born as a result of a brief affair with some distant relation of his wife. They say the girl in question married a man she loved and Catherine was brought up as that man's child but with the knowledge of who her real father was. When she attended old Hawkton's funeral some smarty-pants on one of the tabloids started digging and it all came out. According to Luke Hawkton, Catherine is accepted as part of the family and there's no big deal.'

'Then that's the way it is, I'm sure,' Josie said carefully.

'Maybe…' Andy glanced at her before scooping the paper off her desk. 'Anyway, Catherine's just got engaged to some titled Italian guy, so she should be happy enough. Now, how's that report going?' he asked abruptly.