Jack Riordan's Baby. Anne Mather

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      Rachel spent the morning in the studio Jack had had built for her in the garden. It was on the far side of the property, with a magnificent view of Foliot Cove. The cove was at the foot of the cliffs that etched this part of the coastline, and could be reached by a flight of stone steps some previous owner of the land had had carved out of the rock.

      Rachel was quite a gifted painter, using both oils and charcoal in various forms. But her favourite medium was watercolour, and she’d created quite a name for herself in recent years, illustrating children’s books for the London publisher who’d recognised her talent.

      Today, however, it was hard to concentrate. She kept thinking about what she’d done the night before, and remembering Jack’s face when she’d told him she knew about his affair with Karen Johnson.

      He hadn’t admitted he was having an affair with Karen, but then he hadn’t denied it either. Instead, he’d accused her of abandoning their marriage. Of moving out of their bed and effectively putting an end to their relationship.

      Yet surely he should be able to understand how she’d been feeling at that time? Three times she’d become pregnant, three times she’d felt the miracle of life inside her, and three times she’d lost the baby in the third month. All right, perhaps she hadn’t given enough thought to how Jack was feeling. Perhaps she had been totally tied up with her own emotions, her own grief.

      But Jack had always seemed so strong, so impervious to anything life threw at him. The eldest son of an Irish labourer and his wife, who had emigrated to England in the sixties, he’d worked hard to get his degree in civil engineering. He was the only member of his family who’d ever gone to university, and although one of his brothers and all three sisters were settled now, with families of their own, for years Jack had helped to support his siblings, doing two jobs even when he was at university so that he could send money home.

      She couldn’t help wondering now if she’d been too quick to put his behaviour down to disappointment. Disappointment that he wasn’t going to be a father, and disappointment in her, too, as a woman. She’d believed he thought she’d let him down—not once, but three times. And when she had refused to let him near her again, he’d turned to someone else.

      It had all seemed so simple—and so sordid. She hadn’t been able to believe that a man like Jack could exist without some woman in his bed. The fact that it had taken her almost eighteen months before she found out about his involvement with Karen Johnson didn’t reassure her. Karen wasn’t the first, she was sure. But she was the only one who’d got pregnant with his child.

      At lunchtime, Rachel abandoned any attempt to continue with her painting of Benjie Beaver and went back to the house. She had still to explain to Mrs Grady why her bedroom had been littered with burnt-out candles that morning, and why Jack’s bed hadn’t been slept in.

      However, Mrs Grady was out. She usually went shopping on Thursday mornings, Rachel remembered, finding even normal events as difficult to concentrate on as anything else. Karen Johnson’s visit the day before—and her own shameless behaviour—had left her in a state of confusion. She knew that she’d seduced her husband. She just didn’t know why.

      Oh, there was the obvious reason: she wanted to get pregnant. But where was the sense in that? Why should she believe that this pregnancy—if indeed there was to be one—would be different from any of the others? Wasn’t she just building up a whole lot of heartache for herself?

      She shook her head. She only knew she’d had to do something to stop that woman from stealing her husband. Despite everything, she still loved him—although she had no intention of telling him that. But if she was expecting his child it would prove to Karen that they were sleeping together. And it gave her an added advantage. After all, she was still his wife.

      To her surprise, Mrs Grady had left a cold lunch for two in the morning room. Chilled asparagus soup, a Caesar salad—Rachel’s favourite—and strawberry shortcake for dessert. Rachel wondered if the housekeeper expected her to ask Lucy to join her. Her best friend, Lucy Robards, only lived half a mile away.

      Rachel hadn’t mentioned having a guest, so that seemed unlikely. But Jack never came home for lunch these days. It was a stretch if she had his company for dinner. Which was just as well, because they rarely had anything to say to one another.

      An uncorked bottle of wine was standing in a cooler, and Rachel picked it out and poured some into a long-stemmed crystal glass. It was Chablis, she noticed as she tasted it. A wine that Jack had chosen. Was that relevant? Had he told Mrs Grady he’d be back for lunch?

      It seemed unlikely. After the way he’d left the house earlier she was fairly sure she wouldn’t see him again that day. But that wasn’t entirely Jack’s fault. She was going to bed earlier and earlier these days, escaping into oblivion to avoid the inevitable questions Jack’s absence always created.

      The roar of a car’s engine in the drive caused a sudden quiver in her stomach. It could be Mrs Grady, of course, but she didn’t think it was. Mrs Grady drove a Ford, not an Aston Martin. And this definitely sounded like a powerful car.

      Rachel’s nerves tightened instinctively, and she took a gulp of wine to calm her racing pulse. There was no reason to get all chewed up, she told herself. Jack had probably forgotten something. He’d probably come in and go out again without her even seeing him.

      A car door slammed, and in spite of her assurances Rachel’s mouth felt dry. She took another sip of wine, just to irrigate her throat, and then almost choked when Jack appeared in the open doorway.

      She should have shut the door, she chided herself, still convinced he wasn’t staying. But Jack had other ideas.

      ‘Hi,’ he said civilly, much to her surprise after the way he’d left the house. ‘Good. I’m just in time.’

      Rachel swallowed. ‘This—’ She gestured towards the round table, with its green and yellow place mats, its Villeroy and Boch china, its silver cutlery. ‘This is for you?’

      ‘For both of us,’ amended Jack, taking off his charcoal suit jacket and dropping it over the back of one of the ladder-backed dining chairs. He loosened the top button of his shirt and pulled the knot of his silver-grey tie away from his collar. Then he approached the wine cooler where Rachel was standing, her wine glass forgotten in her hand. ‘Is that Chablis?’

      ‘Don’t you know?’ She couldn’t keep the resentment out of her voice. ‘I imagine you must have arranged this with Mrs Grady before you left.’

      ‘I phoned,’ he corrected her again, a flicker of his eyes registering the way she moved around the table to put some space between them. He helped himself to a little of the wine. But only a little, she noticed. Whatever else he’d come home for, it wasn’t to drown his sorrows. He took a mouthful. ‘Mmm, that’s pretty good.’

      Rachel shook her head, putting her glass down on the table with a slightly unsteady hand. She mustn’t let him do this to her, she told herself. She wasn’t going to let him behave as if nothing had happened. They both knew it had. Karen Johnson was part of their lives, for better or for worse.

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