The Unmarried Husband. CATHY WILLIAMS

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      “You’re damned stubborn,” he murmured.

      “If you say so.”

      “Yes, I do. Not that you don’t look quite captivating with that pout.”

      Had she been pouting? Jessica tried to rearrange her features into some semblance of calm. I’m still furious with you, she thought. I still resent it that you feel you can lecture me on my abilities as a mother—even if what you say is true….

      But when she looked down, all she could see was the sprinkling of dark hair on his arms. When she breathed, she breathed in the aroma of his maleness. It was powerful, disorienting.

      And she knew, before he kissed her, exactly what he was going to do.

      CATHY WILLIAMS is Trinidadian and was brought up on the twin islands of Trinidad and Tobago. She was awarded a scholarship to study in Britain, and went to Exeter University in 1975 to continue her studies into the great loves of her life: languages and literature. It was there that Cathy met her husband, Richard. Since they married, Cathy has lived in England, originally in the Thames Valley but now in the Midlands. Cathy and Richard have three small daughters.

      The Unmarried Husband

      Cathy Williams

      CONTENTS

      CHAPTER ONE

      CHAPTER TWO

      CHAPTER THREE

      CHAPTER FOUR

      CHAPTER FIVE

      CHAPTER SIX

      CHAPTER SEVEN

      CHAPTER EIGHT

      CHAPTER NINE

      CHAPTER TEN

      CHAPTER ONE

      THERE was the sound of the front door being opened and shut, very quietly, and Jessica woke with a start. For a few seconds she experienced a feeling of complete disorientation, then everything resettled into its familiar outlines.

      She waited, motionless, in her chair, which had been soft enough for her to fall asleep on but too soft to guarantee comfortable slumber, so that now the back of her neck hurt and her legs needed stretching.

      She watched as Lucy tiptoed past the doorway, and then she said sharply, ‘What time do you call this?’

      Captured on film, it would have been a comic scenario. The darkness, the stealthy figure creeping towards the stairs, the piercing ring of a voice shocking the figure into total immobility.

      Unfortunately, Jessica Hirst didn’t find anything at all funny about the situation. She hated having to lie in wait like this, but what else could she do?

      ‘Oh, Mum!’ Lucy attempted a placating laugh, which was too nervous to be credible. ‘What are you doing up at this hour?’

      ‘It’s after two in the morning, Lucy!’

      ‘Is it?’

      ‘It most certainly is.’

      ‘But tomorrow’s Saturday! I don’t have to get up early for school!’

      Lucy switched on the light in the hall, and the dark shape was instantly transformed into a sixteen-year-old teenager. An extremely pretty sixteen-year-old teenager, with waist-length dark hair and hazel eyes. The gauche body of two years ago had mellowed into a figure, so that the woman could easily be discerned behind the fresh-faced child.

      Where had the years gone? Jessica straightened in her chair, quite prepared to have this one out here and now, even though she felt shrewish and sleepy, and depressingly like the stereotyped nagging mum.

      ‘Come in here. I want to have a word with you.’

      ‘What, now?’ But Lucy reluctantly dragged her feet into the sitting room, switching on the overhead light in the process, and slumped defensively into the chair opposite her mother. ‘I’m really tired, Mum.’

      ‘Yet not so tired that you couldn’t find your way home earlier?’ Don’t raise your voice, she told herself, try to sound reasonable. Treat her the way you’d treat a possibly unexploded bomb. It seemed odd, though, because she could still remember a squawking, red-faced baby in nappies. And now here she was, sixteen years later, having it out with a rebellious teenager who at times might well have been a stranger. She couldn’t quite put her finger on when this transformation had taken place, but certainly in the last few months Lucy had altered almost beyond recognition.

      Lucy sighed and threw her a mutinous look. ‘I’m not a child, Mum.’

      ‘You are a child!’ Jessica said sharply. ‘You’re sixteen years old…’

      ‘Exactly! And capable of taking care of myself!’

      ‘Do not interrupt me when I’m talking to you!’ Which brought another mutinous glare from under well defined dark brows. ‘You told me that you would be back by eleven.’

      ‘Eleven! None, but none of my friends have to be home by eleven! Anyway, I had every intention of getting back here by then. It’s just that…’

      ‘Just that what?’

      ‘You’re shouting.’

      ‘I have every reason to shout!’ She wanted to march over to the chair and forcibly shake some common sense into her daughter’s head. ‘Lucy,’ she said wearily, ‘you’re too young to be out and about at these sorts of hours in London.’

      ‘I wasn’t “out and about” in London, Mum. You make it sound as though I’ve been walking the streets! We went to watch a video at Kath’s house, and then afterwards…’

      ‘And then afterwards…?’ Jessica could feel her stomach going into small, uncomfortable knots. She knew that in a way she was lucky that Lucy would at least still sit and talk to her, where some others might just have stormed off up to bed and locked the door, but that didn’t stop her mind playing its frantic games.

      She had read enough in the newspapers to be all too aware of the dangers out there. Drugs, drink, Lord only knew what else. Was Lucy sensible enough to turn her back on all of that? She thought so, she really did. But then, at two-thirty in the morning, it was difficult to cling onto reason.

      ‘Well, we went over to Mark Newman’s house.’ Lucy glanced sheepishly at her mother. ‘I wouldn’t have gone,’ she mumbled, ‘but Kath wanted to go, and Mark promised that he’d give me a lift back here. I didn’t want to get the underground back.’

      As if that made it all right.

      ‘I gave you money for a taxi.’