Truly Married (2 page)

She looked down to shift into Drive, but when she raised her head again there was another set of headlights coming toward her. A shudder of apprehension ran through her as the car swung into Elaine’s driveway and the sensor light came on, illuminating the satiny black BMW.

Fergus’s car!

As she watched, frozen with shock, the door opened and her husband stepped out. Possibly she could have been mistaken about the car, but even if he hadn’t been wearing the same tan Burberry overcoat he’d worn to work that morning she’d recognize his collar-length brown hair, and his tall, loose-jointed frame anywhere. He was as much a part of her as her own image.

Quickly he closed the door and strode around the car and across the front of the house to the porch, where another sensor light came on, illuminating that area. Within seconds the door opened and he stepped inside and closed it behind him.

Sharon was stunned, unable either to move or to cry out her anguished disbelief. This couldn’t be happening! It was all a nightmare, and she’d wake up any moment.

But she didn’t, and as the minutes ticked by she knew this was no dream. She wasn’t going to wake up warm and safe in their luxurious king-size bed with Fergus’s long, lean, hard-muscled body wrapped around her, spoon fashion, his hands cupping her breasts even as he slept.

So what was she going to do now? Was she going to condemn her husband just because he’d followed a fellow lawyer home from work? That didn’t mean he was going to run away with her. There could be any number of innocent reasons why he would do that. Couldn’t there?

She could at least give him the benefit of the doubt.

Quickly she turned off the engine, opened the door and got out. She’d go up to the house and confront them, tell them about the anonymous notes, confess that she was spying on him and lay this thing to rest for good. They’d probably insist on taking legal action against the slimy creature who sent libelous letters through the mail if they could find out who it was.

Slamming the door behind her, she hunched her shoulders against the cold wind that buffeted her and blew her long medium-brown hair across her face. She’d forgotten to wear one of her wool knit tams that would have kept her head warm and her hair from blowing.

As she walked across the lawn the porch light came on again, and she felt somehow exposed, as if she had no business being there. Which was probably true, but now that she’d succumbed to the doubts raised by the notes she had to see her course of action through.

At the door she was looking for the doorbell, when she noticed that the metal blinds on the big window to her right were open. Not fully, yet slanted enough so that she could see in but anyone inside probably wouldn’t see her.

Even as her conscience screamed protests she moved toward the glass. She couldn’t stop herself. Although she knew she could be seen peeping by anyone passing by, she had to know what was going on between her husband and that woman in what they thought was the total privacy of Elaine’s living room.

The sheer white curtains covering the blinds from the inside obscured her vision slightly, but she could see the whole room. It was tastefully decorated and furnished and looked warm and comfortable, making Sharon aware that she was shivering outside in the cold.

The room was unoccupied, and she was wondering where Elaine and Fergus were, when Elaine walked through the open archway at one end. She was dressed in a dark-gray suit and a white tailored blouse. A Gucci purse swung from her shoulder, and she carried a brown leather suitcase in one hand and a large matching cosmetic kit in the other.

Sharon gasped, then stared in horror, as Fergus came in behind Elaine, carrying two large Pullman cases!

Dear God, they really were going away together.

Dazed, she watched as they stacked the luggage on the floor next to the end of the sofa, then straightened and turned to face each other. Fergus had his back to the window, but Sharon could see Elaine’s upturned face clearly.

It wasn’t a beautiful face. The nose was too large, the lips too thin, and the hazel eyes were set a little too close together, but even through metal blinds and a curtain Sharon could see the love that radiated from Elaine’s plain features and made her glow when she looked up at Fergus.

Sharon hunched forward and hugged her arms around her waist, trying to deflect the awful pain as Fergus reached out and took the other woman in a lover’s embrace. He lowered his head and covered her mouth with his own in a long, passionate kiss.

Sharon’s vision blurred, and for a moment she felt light-headed and dizzy. She clutched at the window casing to steady herself as the tears that had welled in her eyes spilled down her cheeks and were replaced by more in a continuous cycle over which she had no control.

It was like trying to see through a waterfall. The image shimmered surrealistically, and she couldn’t discern details. Still, there was no doubt but that she was watching a man and woman making love, even though they weren’t having sex.

In those few minutes she discovered that it was possible for the human heart to break.

Her breath came in tearing gasps, and the pain in her chest was almost unbearable as she wrenched her gaze away from the two entwined figures and stumbled the few steps back to the door. In her crazed state she couldn’t think, she could only react, and she had to be sure that what she’d just seen was real and not a hallucination.

This time her finger found the doorbell, and she pushed the button and held it in until the door was pulled open and Elaine Odbert stood facing her.

Elaine’s lips were slightly smeared and swollen from Fergus’s kisses, and her once neatly styled blond hair was disheveled. She blinked in confusion as her gaze fell on Sharon, but before she could speak Sharon did.

“I’m Sharon Lachlan,” she said in a voice too raspy to be her own, “and I want to see my husband.”

Before the other woman could speak or move Sharon pushed past her and entered a foyer. At first she thought she was looking at a picture on the wall directly in front of her. A distorted portrait of a woman in torment, her hair windblown and wild, her face white and ravaged with tears and the features twisted in a grimace of anguish.

But it was the eyes that startled her most. They were wide open, the blue irises dark and distended, and the torment that looked out of them was frantic in its intensity.

It was only then that she realized it wasn’t a picture she was gazing at but a mirror, and it was her own tempestuous image that she saw.

The shock was like a slap in the face, but it brought her back to her senses. Mindless hysteria would get her nowhere. She had to pull herself together. If need be, she could fall apart later, alone and in private.

She swiped at her eyes and face with the back of her hand as Fergus’s voice broke the electrifying silence.

“Elaine, who is it? Is anything wrong?”

Sharon swung around to look at him as he came through the archway from the living room. He stopped in midstride and stared at her as astonishment replaced the inquisitiveness in his expression.

The blood drained from his face. “Sharon!” It was a cry of surprise and...fear? “Dear God, what’s the matter? Have you been mugged? Why are you here?”

He started forward, his arms reaching out to her, but she stepped back and put up her hand. “No!” It was almost a shout, and she made an effort to lower her voice. “Don’t touch me. I’ve been watching you through the window.”

He gasped, but she hurried on. “I haven’t been mugged—I’ve been violated. Betrayed in a most intimate and degrading way by my own husband.”

Fergus’s face went even whiter, and the agony that crept into his eyes as understanding dawned almost made her forget her own.

“Oh dear Lord,” he moaned, as he sagged against the wall.

She’d momentarily forgotten that Elaine was there, as well. Although it seemed to Sharon that the events since she’d forced her way into the foyer had been acted out in slow motion, actually everything had happened so quickly that Elaine was just now recovering her composure.

She looked from Sharon to Fergus and straightened her shoulders. “We’d better go into the living room, where we can talk,” she said firmly. “You’re welcome to stay as long as you want to, but I’ll have to leave in twenty minutes. I have a plane to catch.”

She
had a plane to catch? Didn’t she mean
they?

Elaine led the way into the other room and Sharon and Fergus followed. “Please sit down,” she invited, and settled herself in a chair, then turned to look at Sharon. “I’m sure you have things to say to me, too.” Her voice quivered, betraying her emotional upheaval.

Sharon’s knees were trembling so, she practically fell into the nearest chair, but Fergus remained standing.

Now that Sharon had confronted them her mind went blank. She hadn’t considered how she’d handle the situation because she’d been so sure there was no situation to handle. Had it all been wishful thinking? Her way of hiding from an unbearable truth?

As Sharon floundered Fergus spoke. “How did you know I was here, Sharon?” His voice was tight with strain.

Wordlessly she opened her purse, pulled out the envelope and handed it to him.

His eyes widened with shock as his gaze flew over the message. “Where did you get this?”

“It was delivered by messenger earlier today,” she answered in little more than a whisper.

“And what’s this reference to trying to help you and having the warnings ignored?” he asked grimly as he handed the note to Elaine.

Sharon didn’t answer immediately, but watched while Elaine’s face turned red as her mind absorbed the message she was reading. Then Sharon took a deep breath and told them about the other two malicious notes she’d received previously.

“Why in hell didn’t you tell me?” Fergus raged.

“Because I didn’t for a minute believe them.” Her lips trembled and her teeth worried the lower one. “I only investigated this one because I wanted to prove him wrong.”

Fergus’s eyebrows lifted. “‘Him?’”

She shrugged. “I always think of the writer as ‘him,’ but it could as easily be a woman.”

Again the scalding tears poured down her cheeks. “I was so sure that you loved me, that you’d never be unfaithful—”

A shuddering sob shook her, and she dropped her face in her hands.

Fergus groaned and walked over to her chair, but again she cringed from him and he stopped short of touching her.

“Sharon, I do love you,” he said raggedly, “and I haven’t been unfaithful to you.”

His words tore at her like a knife in her chest, and she sprang out of the chair. “Dammit, Fergus, don’t lie to me,” she yelled. “Not any more than you already have. Don’t forget, I saw you and Elaine making love just minutes ago.”

“We weren’t making love—we were just kissing,” he insisted.

The anger that had been curiously missing in the myriad of emotions she’d been feeling finally surfaced, and she whirled around to face him. “Don’t play word games with me.” Her tone was low and grating. “I’m not stupid, and I belatedly lost my innocence when I saw you take that woman in your arms. You weren’t just kissing—you were making love, and don’t deny it.”

Fergus clenched the back of the chair she’d just vacated, as if trying to steady himself. Elaine hadn’t moved, nor did she speak, but her expression mirrored both guilt and despair.

“Sharon, you must believe me,” he pleaded. “No matter how it looked to you, Elaine and I have not committed adultery.”

Sharon’s eyes widened with disbelief, and the only thing she could think of to say was “Why?”

Elaine gasped, but Fergus seemed to understand what she was asking. “Because I’m married to you. I love you, and I couldn’t betray you in that way.”

The pain of knowing he thought she was simpleminded enough to believe his lies was almost more than she could bear. “I told you not to lie to me,” she said angrily. “How can you say you love me, when you and Elaine have resigned from the firm and are running away together tonight?”

She swallowed a sob that tore at her throat. “Why haven’t you been honest with me? Why didn’t you come to me and tell me you wanted out of our marriage? I’d have given you a quiet divorce if you really wanted it. You didn’t have to scheme to run off in the middle of the night with another woman and make me an object of pity and gossip.”

A spasm of pain twisted Fergus’s face as he ignored her wish not to be touched and clasped her by the shoulders. “Honey, I know this is going to be hard to believe after the notes you’ve received and what you’ve seen here, but whoever wrote those letters has only given you half-truths and vicious speculations. I haven’t resigned from the firm, and I’m not going anywhere, but Elaine has accepted a position in a law office in California and is flying out there tonight.”

He sighed and released her. “I...I admit that there is an...an attraction between Elaine and me, but neither of us wants to break up my marriage. I’ve always loved you, Sharon, and I didn’t take our marriage vows lightly. I don’t want a divorce. The kiss you saw was one of goodbye, not a prelude to making love.”

He turned away from her and put a few steps between them. “I was going to take Elaine to the airport and then go home to you. I’m sorry that we were indiscreet enough that someone picked up on the attraction and used it to poison your mind with their venom.”

Even in her numbing grief, Sharon realized that she should be relieved. Fergus really didn’t want a divorce.

So he’d gotten involved with another woman. Well, that happened a lot in marriages. He was sending the other woman away, and Sharon tended to believe him when he said they hadn’t had sex. She’d never known him to be anything but honorable in his dealings with people.

Surely that meant he loved her more than he loved Elaine.

Or did it?

Sharon fought against her doubts, but couldn’t put them to rest. As he said, she was his wife, and he took the vows of marriage seriously. It would be just like him to abide by them, even if it meant giving up the woman he really wanted.

With great effort she resisted the urge to break down and sob, to do whatever it took to bind him to her. Instead she again dried her wet face with her hands and pulled in a deep breath to choke back the sobs that shook her.