And to think she had believed him to be so refreshingly different.
But no, he was as bad as the rest of them.
Her initial reaction to the revelation that he had had an affair with his best friend’s wife had been one of casual acceptance; after all, it was in the past and Orla had been such a difficult woman to live with.
But now, after a good deal of wine, Valentina had cause to question all that she knew about Orla. Or what she thought she knew. Had the woman been such a terrible wife? What if everything Alastair had shared with her about Orla was nothing but a stream of lies, a reinvention of the truth to suit the narrative he wanted to portray of himself?
‘Never trust an Englishman,’ her dearest Papaused to say. ‘Beneath their superior act of gentility they don’t play fairly, or honestly.’
Did anyone? And so what if Alastair had lied to her? She was not entirely innocent of that crime herself. Everybody lied, and for all manner of motives. She had lied to Alastair about her financial situation, or rather she had allowed him to think she was better off than she really was, encouraging him to believe that most of her money was tied up in various trusts and investments, which she couldn’t touch for some years for tax reasons. Not once had he questioned her on the subject. In time, just as soon as she had Alastair securely committed to her, she had planned to make out that she had been swindled by a charlatan of a financial adviser who had disappeared off the face of the earth, taking all her investments with him.
In the deathly silence of the garden, the hoot of an owl close by startled her into opening her eyes. She raised her face to the moon, which had once again burst through the clouds. She breathed in the chill of the dank night air, thinking how it could not compare with the warm, lavender-scented air that she was offering Alastair in the south of France. There they could delight in the sweet fragrance of lemon and orange-tree blossom, along with mimosa and jasmine. Oh, how she yearned to leave this miserably parochial backwater and be somewhere more cosmopolitan, where there were bars and restaurant and shops. And culture. Oh, how she craved that!
On the other side of the inky-black, brooding surface of the river, which to her looked menacingly sinister, she saw a light glowing in one of the windows of the Mill. As her gaze took in the garden and the looming shadows of the trees and bushes, she thought of the unedifying spectacle of Alastair and Simon thrashing around on the lawn, and before that, Callum brawling with Alastair. What had shocked her most about the incident was not the violence, but Alastair pushing her hands away so forcibly, and the harshness in his voice telling her not to fuss. In that split second, she could have happily slapped his face and walked away, all the way back to Paris. What had stopped her was the thought of how triumphant his friends would have been.
‘I feel as though I’ve known you all my life,’ Alastair had said to her only a few weeks after meeting.
Obviously it was only now that they were getting to know each other properly. The question was, did she like what she was getting to know? Could she readjust her thinking and accept that Alastair was not the perfect man she had wanted to believe he was?
Chapter Sixty
Alastair was dog-tired. It had been a long day, and it wasn’t over yet.
Torn between wanting to drive home to Linston End at breakneck speed, or to take it slowly because tiredness inevitably meant his reactions weren’t as sharp as they should be, he was being sensible and sticking rigidly to the speed limits.
He was full of regret for the way things had turned out that day. He’d give anything to undo the harm he’d caused. He had badly wanted to talk to Simon, that was why he had changed his mind about driving back to Norfolk straightaway, and instead had driven to Ashleigh House to try and make amends in some way.
But Simon was in no mood for reconciliation. Alastair couldn’t blame him. It had been okay when it had been a case of all hands on deck to help Danny and Frankie, but quite another matter when Alastair had begged to talk to him alone. Simon had been adamant as they faced each other on the doorstep that it would be better if he left.
With little traffic on the roads, the journey was proving soporific and Alastair was beginning to find it hard to stay awake. He knew he should pull over and rest, but he couldn’t, he felt compelled to push on. To keep moving. It wasn’t even as though he was in a hurry to get home, which appalled him. Only a few days ago, all he could think about was being with Valentina. Now there was a part of him that wanted to avoid her. Just as he had that afternoon when he’d gone out on the river.
‘I have to help Danny and Frankie,’ he’d explained when he was saying goodbye to her, before setting off for Suffolk with the others. ‘Surely you see that?’
The coldness in her face told him she didn’t. ‘I understand that your friends will always come first,’ she’d said.
‘That’s not true,’ he’d replied, ‘and it’s twisting the situation. This is an emergency.’
‘But it’s notyouremergency. It’s Danny and Frankie’s. Let them sort it out.’
‘I can’t do that,’ he’d said.
She had shrugged and turned away to go back inside the house. He’d watched her go, shocked that she could be so callous. Could she really expect him to abandon his friends when they needed him most? What kind of a woman was she that she could be so heartless? All the way to Suffolk he was consumed by the worry that only now Valentina was showing her true colours. If this was the real Valentina, then it changed everything.
Not wanting to believe this, he’d phoned her as soon as he’d left Ashleigh House to say he was on his way home. He hung on to the hope that she would have calmed down and realised she had been unnecessarily petty. If she apologised, he told himself, he would be able to forgive her. But she didn’t.
‘I’m surprised you’re bothering to come back,’ she’d said. ‘Why not stay there with your precious friends, who clearly mean so much more to you than I do.’
‘Valentina,’ he’d said patiently, ‘I know the last few days have been difficult for you, but please don’t take it out on me.’
‘Why shouldn’t I when you’ve lied to me?’
‘When have I lied to you?’
‘You didn’t tell me you’d had an affair with Sorrel. You said you didn’t want any secrets between us.’
She had a point. ‘I’m sorry I kept that from you,’ he’d said, ‘but in my defence I didn’t want you to think badly of me.’
‘Well I do think badly of you! What kind of a man sleeps with his best friend’s wife? How do I know you won’t do it again with somebody else?’
