Lost in Love

‘Why all this sudden curiosity to know,’ he asked, ‘when over the last four years you have point-blank refused to so much as think about that damned night?’

‘Because—because…’ Oh, God. She pushed a hand up to cover her eyes, eyes which were seeing things, things she had refused to attach any importance to before.

Things like the sharp glance Derek Fowler had sent over her shoulder, and the malicious smile on his face when he’d looked back at her. Things like Anthea’s equally malicious smile when she had lifted her face out of Guy’s throat, her naked limbs wrapped around him; Guy’s muffled groan and the blank dazed look in his eyes when he had managed to drag them open, a look that had turned to confusion, then horror, then utter disgust before he’d hoarsely murmured her own name.

Slowly, her face pale with tension, she looked up at him. ‘If I ask you now, to explain what happened then, will you tell me?’

‘And are you asking?’

Am I? A wave of panic fluttered through her, put there because she had an awful suspicion that, if she said yes, Guy was going to rock the very foundations her life had stood upon over the last four years.

‘Yes,’ she whispered, dragging her eyes away from him. ‘Yes, I am asking.’

There was a moment’s silence, while Guy stood beside her with his hands thrust into his trouser pockets. She could sense the indecision in him, the grim reluctance to rake over it all again. Then he sighed, and shifted his posiition, turning to rest his hips on the low window-ledge so he could look directly into her face.

‘If I explain what really happened that night,’ he said quietly, ‘will you in turn explain to me what made you chase up to London looking for me so urgently?’

Marnie lowered her eyes, refusing to answer. ‘Your father says we were set up by your friends,’ she repeated instead. ‘He insists she was there with you without your knowledge. That you were drunk. But you didn’t drink!’ She sighed, shaking her bright head because her battle with what was the truth and what was lies was beginning to make her head whirl. ‘Not in excess, anyway,’ she added. She glanced frowningly at him. ‘Were you drunk?’

A strange smile touched his lips. ‘Out of my mind with it,’ he admitted, then grimaced, dropping his gaze and folding his arms across his broad chest to stare grimly at his feet. ‘I had been drinking steadily all day. Concerned about you, about the direction our marriage was taking…’ He looked up, his expression sombre. ‘Marnie—our marriage was falling apart at the seams long before the night of that party. We cannot—either of us—blame one isolated incident for its collapse.’

‘I know.’ Her voice sounded thick. ‘But it was the final straw, Guy. One that maybe could have been avoided if…’

‘If what?’ he asked. ‘If I had not taken myself off to Derek’s house? If you had not come rushing up to London to find me? If Jamie had not suggested Derek’s place to you as a good place to find me? If Anthea had not been such a vindictive little bitch that she was prepared to crucify both of us just to get her revenge on me for replacing her with you?’

‘So we were set up?’

‘Yes.’ He sighed heavily. ‘I arrived at the party so drunk I could hardly stand…’

‘I put him to bed to sleep off the old plonko…’ Marnie closed her eyes, quivering on a wave of sickness as she heard Derek Fowler’s jeering words echo down the years. Then he had glanced over his shoulder at something or someone on the stairs and that calculating gleam had entered his eyes…

‘I did not know a damned thing about anything until I heard you calling to me,’ Guy was saying flatly. ‘I opened my eyes to see you standing there looking like death. I remember thinking—through the haze of whisky, of course,’ he inserted acidly, ‘what the hell has happened to make her look like that?’ He huffed out a grim laugh, shaking his dark head. ‘Then that bitch moved, and I realised she was there, and—well—’ he shrugged ‘—you know the rest.’

Her hand leapt up to cover her trembling mouth, that scene, no matter how false it had been, still having the power to fill her with nausea. ‘Oh, God, Guy,’ she whispered, not even thinking of questioning his honesty. For some reason she knew it to be the truth. Four years on, and four years too late, she knew that this was the full destructive truth. ‘I’m so sorry…’

‘For believing what you were expected to believe?’ He lifted his hands emptily in front of him.

‘But I should have listened to you, Guy!’ she choked out, feeling wretched in her own guilt. ‘I could have at least given you the chance to explain!’

‘Explain what?’ he asked. ‘That what you saw with your own eyes was an illusion?’ He shook his dark head. ‘I tell you this, Marnie—if the roles had been reversed between you and me, I would not have listened. I would not have believed.’

‘Is that supposed to make me feel better?’ she demanded shrilly. ‘To know that for the last four years I’ve been punishing you for something you didn’t even do!’

‘I was not aware that we were discussing this with the aim of making you feel better,’ he mocked drily. ‘I thought we were supposed to be simply sharing the truth!’

‘A truth you should have made me listen to long ago!’ she cried. ‘A truth you would have made me listen to if it had been at all important to you that I hear it!’

‘Are you trying to imply that I did not

care?’ he demanded incredulously. ‘After the way I have let you wipe your feet on my feelings for the last four years, are you actually daring to—?’

‘God, no,’ she sighed, accepting that his burst of anger was well deserved. She had been at it again—no sooner believing him to be the innocent party in a game that had ripped her world apart than she was accusing him of another unjustified sin.

In fact, she realised starkly, it seemed that it was Guy who should be doing the accusing, and she who should be begging forgiveness.

Forgiveness for a lot of things. Some of them that he—thankfully—knew nothing about! And never would, she vowed grimly. Never.

So? she wondered dully, seeing no use in a marriage between them now. Not unless Guy was planning to take revenge on her for the four years. She glanced at him sitting there in profile to her, deep in his own private brooding.