He's My Husband! - Lindsay Armstrong [49]
He didn’t respond.
‘I mean, we are friends, if nothing else, and we’ve been through a bit together, haven’t we? I think losing my father affected you greatly as well. And we... always put Sasha and Chris first—that kind of thing, so—’
He sat up abruptly. ‘So? What’s this leading up to, Nicola?’
She shivered inwardly, because his eyes were hard and cold, but she found she was determined not to be scared off. She got up to carry his cup over to him, then sat down again. ‘It’s leading up to this—won’t you please tell me what happened yesterday? Even if I can’t help I’ll probably understand, and it might just help to tell someone.’
‘Understand?’ he repeated sardonically, and scanned her troubled expression, her brave yellow tracksuit and the faint blue shadows under her eyes. ‘Nicola...’ He looked away and his shoulders slumped. ‘There are some things I hope you never understand.’
She chewed her lip. ‘Then I can’t be much of a friend in your eyes, Brett. And I guess you still regard me as a child.’ There was a faintly mocking little glint in her blue eyes and her chin was tilted dangerously.
‘All right,’ he said harshly. ‘What do you make of this? Marietta is using this new man in her life—who, incidentally, is younger than she is but besotted with her—to point out to me the pitfalls our children are going to encounter if we don’t remarry. You see, her days of touring the world to perform are over, and she intends to settle in Sydney—she’s been offered a teaching post at the Conservatorium of Music and a guest spot with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra for the next three years.’
‘But why? I mean, she’s at her peak! She’s worldfamous.’
‘She’s also suffering from RSI. She has to cut down or it could get to the stage where she could never play again.’
‘Oh, no,’ Nicola said painfully. ‘How will she cope? But—the other night...’ She gestured and frowned. ‘There was no sign that she’s taken a blow like this. She was her normal—her—’
‘Her normal ebullient, outrageous self,’ Brett commented dryly.
‘Well, she was!’
He stared down at her. ‘That’s because she’s switched obsessions,’ he said grimly. ‘You, of all people, must know how good she is at doing that.’
‘Switched—? You mean...’ Nicola swallowed ‘...to recreating your marriage?‘
‘Precisely. Only, in typical Marietta fashion, she’s doing it in a below-the-belt fashion.’
A vision of the Reverend Callam’s face swam through Nicola’s mind, and of the way Richard Holloway had fallen, unwittingly, into a scheme of things that could also be described as ‘below the belt’. She shuddered inwardly this time. ‘That’s...that’s... I don’t know what to say.’
He smiled unamusedly. ‘I thought you might not. But it’s not going to happen.’
‘Is it a good idea for Sasha and Chris to be—exposed to this, though?’ She flinched at his cutting little look.
‘As you keep pointing out to me, she is their mother,’ he said with irony. ‘And I would imagine the trauma of me trying to withhold them from her could be equally damaging.’
‘But what’s he like? The oboe player?’
Brett shrugged and grimaced. ‘If you met him in other circumstances, you’d probably like him. A gentle giant—and he’s very good with kids. They took to him immensely.’
‘Oh, Brett,’ she said softly, and with a wealth of compassion in her voice.
‘Don’t,’ he said with sudden violence. ‘The last thing I need from you is—sympathy.’
She stood up as her face paled, and she whispered, ‘Why?’ Then she stiffened and turned, as if to run from the room.
‘Nicola—Nicola.’ He was on his feet swiftly and reached for her. ‘Don’t. I’m sorry. I...’ He stared down at her.
She saw that he was pale too, but she said huskily, ‘Let me go, Brett. It doesn’t matter—’
‘Yes, it does.’ He gathered her close and buried his face in her hair. She felt all the tension in his muscles, then the sudden, involuntary slackening of them, and he raised his head, looked into her eyes briefly, and started to kiss her.
Shock