He shook his head angrily. ‘It’s not all right,’ he said. ‘Not when it keeps happening.’
She placed a hand on his chest. ‘Twice. It’s happened twice, and it is inevitable, being here in the bedroom you shared with your wife.’ She moved her hand and tapped his forehead. ‘Orla is in there, isn’t she?’
He nodded. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, repeating himself.
Valentina’s hand moved back to his chest and pressed it gently against his heart. ‘But is Orla still there?’ she asked.
He blinked. ‘No. I’ve told you before, I stopped loving her a long time ago.’ Valentina was the only person in the world to whom he had admitted the true state of his marriage, and the first time he had uttered the words aloud the relief had floodedthrough him like a Class A drug. But it was soon replaced by something far stronger and more addictive – guilt.
‘Maybe you think you did,’ Valentina said, ‘but perhaps there is still a part of you that has not let go of the love you once had for Orla.’
‘You’re wrong,’ he said firmly. ‘Any feelings for Orla I once had died many years ago.’ Still feeling embarrassed, he sat up. ‘I’d better have a shower.’
‘It will all be right in the end,’ she said, when he was off the bed. ‘When you leave here, you will leave Orla behind.’
That day couldn’t come soon enough, he thought.
*
Valentina selected what she was going to wear for the evening and reflected on what had just happened.
Her conclusion was that Alastair was a completely different man here at Linston End to the one she had met in Sri Lanka. Different also to the happy carefree man with whom she had gone to Kenya, and where, after an exhilarating day of cycling up and down steep and rocky paths that brought them to amazing views, they had collapsed into bed at night exhausted, but elated. Despite their sore bodies aching from cycling such long distances, they had found the energy and passion to make love. There she’d had the whole of Alastair, but here she had to share him with his friends and their constant distrust of her, as well as Orla’s poisonous presence casting its shadow over him.
Just as Valentina had anticipated, Alastair’s friends did not like her very much. If at all. But then they had nothing in common with her, apart from Alastair. She could cope with that, but the toxic force of his dead wife was another matter.
Had it, as Nikolai and Irina said, been naïve of her to imagine otherwise?
She was glad they were here; they were allies with whom, in Russian, she could talk freely and without worrying that they could be overheard. She had been surprised how happy she had been to see her stepchildren at the station, not having seen either of them for some six months or so. Maybe longer. As fond of them as she was, and they of her, they did not have the kind of relationship that required regular contact. An occasional phone call or email was quite sufficient. Besides, they had their mother, who had remarried and lived in California, to turn to for that level of emotional commitment if they so wished.
Being with Nikolai and Irina today had unexpectedly reminded Valentina of happier times with their father, when Ivan had not drunk so much, or gambled away huge amounts of money in a single game of poker. Perhaps the memories had been stirred because, as the years went by, Nikolai grew ever more handsome and ever more like his father in appearance. In addition he had the same dangerously unpredictable nature, which could make him as reckless as Ivan had been. Valentina very much hoped he would behave while he was here.
Chapter Thirty-Six
‘I still can’t believe he’s here,’ said Rachel, adding another layer of mascara to her already thickly coated lashes. ‘It’s as if it’s fate.’
‘You said that before, about a hundred times and I’m still not buying it,’ said Jenna, wishing her friend could at least pretend to disguise her glee. Rachel had been nearly hysterical with laughter when Jenna returned with the eggs from the shop in Horning and told her whom she’d met, and that he had to be the violin-player staying at the Mill.
‘And I’ll probably say it again, because it’ssogot to be true.’
‘Go on, tell me it’s written in the stars.’
‘Don’t mock. And how do you know it isn’t?’
‘Because I don’t believe in such things, therefore it doesn’t exist. Just as I no longer believe in the Tooth Fairy or Father Christmas. Anyway, never mind Blake, what about Valentina’s stepchildren? Is Nikolai the reason you’re making such an effort with your appearance this evening?’
Without turning round, Rachel stared back at Jenna in the dressing table mirror. They were getting ready together for dinner, Jenna now sharing Rachel’s bedroom having vacated hers so that Irina could have it.
‘You’ve got to admit, he’s worth the effort,’ said Rachel with a grin.
‘If you like your men arrogant with a dash of sullen brooding thrown into the mix, and want your name added to what in all likelihood is an extensive roll call.’
Rachel laughed. ‘I’m happy to risk it. And why shouldn’t I have some fun after what I went through with Paul?’
Based on the short time she had spent in Nikolai’s company, Jenna didn’t think he knew what the concept of fun was. His sister didn’t seem a barrel of laughs either. If Jenna wanted to be kind, she would say Irina was shy, and that was why she appeared so curt, but probably she was just stuck-up. They each had an air of simmering boredom about them, as though being here was a huge inconvenience. Jenna could concede that there would be plenty who would find the combination of Nikolai’s laconic manner and haughty profile immensely appealing, but his hard-etched face of granite and equally hard eyes did nothing for her. She had the horrible feeling that he, along with his sister and stepmother, regarded Linston End and Alastair’s friends as being beneath them, a bunch of provincial nobodies. But again, trying to be kind, Jenna reasoned it was still early days, they all needed to bed in and get used to one other.
‘It’s going to be an interesting evening,’ she said as she pulled on her dress and then wriggled to do up the zip at her back.
Rachel snorted. ‘It certainly will be. And I’ll be watching you and Blake every step of the way. As will Callum, especially after you came clean about your motives for snogging him.’
