He's My Husband! - Lindsay Armstrong [51]
‘Funny you should say that,’ Nicola found her tongue suddenly. ‘I treated them to a samba last night they haven’t seen the likes of for years. I got a standing ovation.’
Why she said it, she wasn’t sure. She could never equate Marietta with the likes of Tara Wells, never indulge.in a round of tit-for-tat with the mother of Brett’s children—so why? Because she’d never been good at feeling sadly and righteously misused and wasn’t about to start? Probably. She shrugged inwardly and turned to the large young man standing behind Chris’s wheelchair. ‘Please introduce me, Marietta?’
‘Darling, this is Ralph Metcalfe. Isn’t he gorgeous?’
Ralph actually blushed, and Nicola, studying him critically, decided that he was. He wore a round-necked T-shirt under a trendy tweed jacket with jeans. He was very tall, and in his middle twenties, she judged. He had long blond hair, a physique that would have done the Chippendales proud and features that could have been hewn out of stone. Slightly at variance with them, though, was a pair of soft and friendly blue eyes.
Nicola blinked, and Ralph said with a sweet, shy smile, ‘I believe you play the harp?’
‘I do. And you’re an oboist?’
‘Cor anglais, actually.’ He had a decidedly English accent, and he went on with great feeling, ‘Mellower, sadder and much more mysterious, don’t you think?’
‘Don’t start him off,’ Marietta intervened with a grin. ‘Ralph, this is Nicola—Brett’s second wife. Contrary to all the norms, we’re very fond of each other.’
‘I’m glad,’ Ralph said fervently. ‘I abhor unease and upheaval when it’s so much easier to love each other.’ But he studied Nicola with some surprise, her slim figure, lovely hair, the smooth skin and dark blue eyes, then glanced at Brett, almost as if saluting him.
‘Yes, well,’ Brett said, moving his shoulders restlessly as Nicola struggled with an insane desire to laugh, ‘thanks very much for babysitting—’
‘We’re not babies any more, Daddy,’ Sasha protested, although affectionately, and took his hand to rub the back of it against her cheek. ‘Mummy says we’ve grown up so much in the past few months, she can’t believe it.’ And she reached for Marietta’s hand too.
Brett looked down at her, and Nicola stared at the three of them, linked together. It struck her like a flash of lightning that for Chris and Sasha’s sake she could no longer muddle along. If Marietta wanted to come back then at least she wouldn’t have Nicola to climb over. Nor, for that matter, was any flower-power cor anglais player going to get in the way—and, even if she had to personally ram it home to her, neither was Tara.
The speed with which this flashed through her mind was almost equalled by the inventiveness that followed. ‘Ralph,’ she said, ‘I...uh...would love to show you a bit of Cairns. And I’m sure Brett and Marietta need some time alone with Sasha and Chris—oh, and look, the sun’s trying to come out! Shall we go for a drive?’
‘Nicky—
‘Nicola—’
Brett and Marietta spoke together—Marietta in tones of utter surprise, Brett roughly.
But she smiled at them both. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll take good care of him,’ she said to Marietta, and, squaring her shoulders, turned to Brett. ‘Things can’t go on like this,’ she said very quietly. ‘Please, you two need to talk.’
Then she took Ralph’s hand and drew him out of the room.
‘She didn’t tell me,’ Ralph Metcalfe said dazedly.
They were having lunch at Palm Cove, beneath a white sail umbrella on a green lawn that led to the beach. The sun had succeeded in coming out, although the day was still on the cool side—for Cairns. Double Island looked to be only a stone’s throw away, across the glittering waters of the cove.
Nicola had ordered Barramundi fillets in a beer batter and a Caesar salad, while Ralph was eating a very large rump steak. They’d ordered a bottle of wine and Nicola, although she’d felt like pinching herself to think that she should be explaining these things to a complete stranger, had described how her marriage to Brett was only a marriage of convenience.
‘What does it all mean?’ He stared at