He's My Husband! - Lindsay Armstrong [27]
‘And—’ he overrode her as she opened her mouth ‘—I also apologise for the fact that you were made to feel uncomfortable this evening. Although—’ he looked fleetingly amused ‘—I doubt she’ll make that mistake again.’ He drew her loosely into his arms. ‘What a night, one way or the other,’ he murmured. ‘I thought at one stage that Kim was going to assassinate Rod.’
Nicola tried to resist it, but she couldn’t. Her lips curved into a reluctant smile, then she was laughing helplessly. ‘You’re right. If looks could kill—’
‘We’d have been having to appoint a new District Court Judge.’
They laughed together, and it was warm, and she felt some of the tension drain out of her as he hugged her gently and kissed the top of her head. Then she felt him stiffen, and realised he’d raised his head. She turned in his arms to see Chris standing in the doorway, staring at them.
‘What is it, Chris?’ she said.
‘I was having a nightmare about horrible big snakes and I was thirsty.’ He waved a red plastic mug, then rushed on excitedly. ‘So you are a real mum, Nicky, and Sasha was wrong. Oh, boy, wait until I tell her this—she thinks she’s so clever—can I hug, too?’
‘Of course you can,’ Brett said, and Chris raced over to them and flung his arms around their legs. Brett released Nicola unhurriedly and picked him up. ‘Back to bed, young man. Here, I’ll fill your mug for you.’
‘But what if the snakes are under my bed?’ Chris objected.
‘I’ll have a look,’ Brett said, and carried him out.
Nicola unfroze, but was still leaning on the counter with her face in her hands when Brett returned.
‘How is he?’ she asked fearfully.
‘Quite reassured. He’ll be asleep in no time. Nicola—’
‘Brett, what are we going to do?’ she broke in agitatedly. ‘He said—’
‘I heard what he said, but this is not the time to try to sort it out. Go to bed, Nicola—goodnight,’ he said quietly, but quite definitely.
Her bedroom had apple-green walls, a double brass bedstead with a hand appliquéd white quilt, white furniture, a beautiful Chinese rug in pinks and greens and a ruby velvet-covered couch set against the foot of the bed.
The couch was a favourite spot of Nicola’s when she wanted to think, and it also brought into full view one of her favourite possessions. She had a shower, changed into pink and white polka dot pyjamas and lay down on it, swept her hair over the armrest and stared at the picture on the opposite wall.
It was a framed poster actually from The Cloisters, the branch of the New York Metropolitan Museum devoted to art of the Middle Ages. In wool tapestry, of Franco-Flemish origin from the early sixteenth century, it depicted a unicorn in captivity. As a child she’d woven magic stories about how it had been captured and how it could be released.
She knew it off by heart—the small wooden corral, the droplets of blood on the unicorn’s creamy hide as it lay penned, the ornate collar round its neck and the chain to the fence, the dense, flowery meadow surrounding it—and it struck her suddenly that there were some similarities between her position and the unicorn’s.
Well, she mused, no blood, but bruised and battered in the region of the heart would be a good way to explain how I feel at the moment
I can’t believe Tara Wells would have acted entirely on her own; he must have shown some interest in her. They did have dinner the other night, for example. And why else would he suddenly discuss Marietta with me this evening, as he’s never done before? Was he afraid I’d make a scene on Marietta’s behalf—not knowing what it would do to me?
She turned on her side, slipped her hands beneath her cheek and remembered being in his arms, the sheer heaven of it—but now, irrevocably, tainted by the aftermath.
Tears welled and she dashed at them impatiently. The most lowering thought of all, she discovered, was that by her own hand she’d forced Brett into a ‘men will be men’ situation. She didn’t want to think of him like that, she found, and least of all did she want him to think of her as capable of