Wife By Agreement

“That can soon be fixed.” Ethan’s eyes flickered to her shocked face. “I think we’d both like that.” He reached out and touched Hannah’s cheek, his fingers leaving a trail of fire against her skin.

“You look as if I’ve made an improper suggestion.” Ethan continued. “We’re married, nothing could be more proper than for us to share a bed.”

Rubbing her cheek against his hand, she closed her eyes. “This wasn’t part of the deal.”

“Circumstances change, situations alter. If you’re going to fall in love, it might as well be with me.”

KIM LAWRENCE lives on a farm in rural Anglesey, Wales. She runs two miles daily and finds this an excellent opportunity to unwind and seek inspiration for her writing! It also helps her keep up with her husband, two active sons and the various stray animals which have adopted them. Always a fanatical consumer of fiction, she is now equally enthusiastic about writing. She loves a happy ending!

Wife By Agreement

Kim Lawrence

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER ONE

HANNAH slid the key very carefully into the lock. Inside the only sound was the ticking of the clock. Nobody was up, thank goodness. She leant back against the door and gave a slow sigh of relief—at last!

She didn’t bother switching on the light, but slipped thankfully out of the remains of her patent leather court shoes. Tucking them under her arm, she felt her way carefully past the big scrubbed table that had centre stage in the room. She thought with longing of a hot, cleansing shower. The sudden illumination made her freeze and blink like a startled animal.

‘Is all this subterfuge really necessary? There isn’t a curfew.’ Ethan had moved to sit at the table, a half-empty glass of brandy in front of him. The vaguely bored irony faded dramatically from his voice as he took in her bedraggled state. ‘What the hell has happened?’

The last thing Hannah felt like was reliving the past hour, and the last person she wanted to explain to was Ethan. Her hand went self-consciously to the torn material of her shirt lapel, but her attempts to hold the fabric together only drew his attention to the pale skin the rent exposed. What was he doing sitting in the dark anyway? She grimaced as she risked a swift glance down.

The unkind electric lights revealed it was even worse than she had thought. Her legs were covered with mud and her fine denier tights were in shreds; her velvet skirt was torn in several places and the pale skin of her shoulders and midriff showed through the gaping tears in her silk shirt.

‘It looks a lot worse than it is,’ she said soothingly. It didn’t feel it, though. The scratches on her cheek were beginning to sting as the warmth of the room thawed her cold body. There was a promise of winter in the autumn air tonight.

With an impatient gesture Ethan dismissed her weak attempt to pacify him. ‘Have you been in a car crash?’

‘Not exactly.’ You couldn’t call jumping out of a car moving at thirty miles an hour a crash, exactly. She had a pretty good idea what Ethan would call it—insanity, probably. He hadn’t been there, though. It had been— A deep shudder rippled through her body and she swayed as the whole room pitched.

Ethan reached out and touched her arm. ‘My God, you’re like ice.’ He took off his robe and wrapped it around her. ‘Sit down before you fall down.’ He pressed her into a chair.

The nausea passed and Hannah opened her eyes. ‘You’ll get cold,’ she protested. Under the robe Ethan was wearing a pair of dark blue pyjama trousers and nothing else. They’d taken the children to the South of France in June, and she noticed irrelevantly that his olive-toned skin was still tanned a deep golden brown.

‘Drink this.’ She tried to turn her head away as her nostrils flared against the scent of raw alcohol. ‘Do as I say.’

It was only under duress that she obeyed; brandy wasn’t a taste she’d ever acquired.

‘Now tell me exactly what happened.’

‘I want a shower,’ she fretted. A hand on her shoulders prevented her from rising.

‘After I’ve had my explanation. I was under the impression that you were going out for a meal with your fellow night-class members.’ His sceptical tone made it sound as though this was an elaborate lie.

Why would she need to lie to him? Did he think she led a double life or something? ‘I was…I did.’ She raised her eyes to his face and read implacability there. Best just get it over with. ‘Debbie and Alan took me.’ Ethan had met the young couple who were learning French with her and he nodded briefly. ‘Craig Finch, he only joined the class last month, offered to bring me home. He said it wasn’t out of his way and it would save Alan a detour.’ She swallowed hard. ‘Only Craig took a detour, and when I mentioned it he…he…’

‘What did he do?’ He spoke quietly, but Ethan Kemp’s grey eyes had narrowed to slits and a nerve throbbed erratically in his lean cheek.

‘He laughed.’ She felt sick just thinking about the expression in Craig’s eyes. She’d already been tense—some of the things he’d been saying had been particularly personal, and slimily coarse—but it had been that smile that had really set the alarm bells ringing.

‘Laughed?’ Ethan echoed incredulously. It wasn’t what he’d expected to hear.

‘You weren’t there!’ she shot back angrily. ‘He’d been…saying things.’ In a large group, Craig’s behaviour had been unexceptionable, but once he’d got Hannah alone his entire attitude had changed. Everything he’d said had been laced with grubby innuendo. Her frigid silence hadn’t put him off at all.

‘He hurt you?’ Looming over her, Ethan looked a lot more threatening than Craig had been. She felt guilty for making the comparison: Ethan had his faults, but he was a decent man, and no bully, despite the way he was interrogating her right now. Normally he didn’t interfere with her life at all.

‘No, this happened when I jumped out of the car.’

Some of the repressed violence that had been implicit in his tense stance faded as he stared at her, to be replaced by astonishment. Ethan Kemp wasn’t a man easily astonished. His big hands unfurled from the fists they had instinctively formed.

‘I don’t suppose it was stationary at the time?’

She shook her head and gave him an exasperated look. Ethan wasn’t usually so slow. ‘I was lucky he hadn’t thought to lock the door,’ she reflected soberly.

‘I can see why you might be thanking your lucky stars,’ he agreed drily.

‘I landed in brambles and my clothes got a bit ripped getting out,’ she explained in a matter-of-fact way. ‘I hid in a ditch for a while, just in case he’d followed me, then I walked home over the fields.’

‘Where did all this happen?’

‘The junction near the Tinkersdale Road.’

‘That has to be six miles away.’

‘It felt like more, but you’re probably right. Her smile was limp at best. ‘Don’t worry, nobody saw me. Her wide, smooth brow creased as she sought to reassure him. Ethan Kemp’s wife strolling through the market town where they lived in this state wouldn’t create the sort of image he would approve of, and Ethan cared about the image they presented to the world. Didn’t it occur to you to ring me—or the police for that matter?’

‘I didn’t think to grab my bag; I had no money—nothing. The police aren’t interested in crimes that didn’t happen. He didn’t actually touch me.’

‘You’re sure he was going to?’

This was an insinuation too far! Anger enabled her to nudge aside the incipient exhaustion that made her eyelids heavy.

‘It was one of those occasions when prevention seemed better than cure,’ she snapped crisply. The snap seemed to surprise him. Tough, she thought with uncharacteristic venom. Under the circumstances she thought she was being quite restrained. What did he expect her to do? Sit back and wait to be a crime statistic? ‘I don’t let my imagination run away with me, Ethan.’

This was unarguable: Hannah Smith was the most placid, practical female that he had, in his thirty-six years, ever met. He frowned—after a year’s marriage he still thought of her as Hannah Smith, not Kemp. If anyone had suggested to him this morning that she was capable of throwing herself from a moving vehicle he’d have laughed at the absurdity of such an idea.

Hannah was not exactly timid, although her reserved manner made people initially assume she was, but she was not the sort of woman calmly to wade through muddy fields and brambles after extricating herself from a dangerous situation. At least he hadn’t thought she was. Would she have told him about it at all if he hadn’t witnessed her return? Had she intended appearing at breakfast just as if nothing had happened?

‘We should contact the police.’

‘Why? Nothing happened. I expect they’d write me off as a neurotic female.’ If Ethan could think it, why not total strangers? ‘I would like to get my bag back, though—my wallet’s in it.’

‘Wouldn’t you like to see that swine get his just deserts?’ he growled incredulously. He found it hard to identify with a turn-the-other-cheek philosophy.

‘Like?’ she said quietly. She raised her head and at first he didn’t realise the tears glistening in her hazel eyes were tears of rage. This only became obvious when she spoke and her voice shook with suppressed fury. ‘What I’d like to do is make him endure, just for five minutes, the sort of helplessness and terror I…’ She bit down hard on her lower lip to stop it trembling. ‘We rarely get what we like, Ethan.’

‘That’s a depressing philosophy.’ The depth of her passion shocked him; that she had any passion at all shocked him! More than shocked him—it made him uneasy. What other surprises lurked beneath the placid exterior?

‘It’s just an observation. Now, if you don’t mind I’d like to go to bed.’

He kept a hold on her elbow, as though he expected her to collapse at any moment. At the door of her bedroom she slipped the robe off her shoulders.

‘Thank you. Sorry if I got it grubby. Goodnight, Ethan.’ This polite, but firm, dismissal appeared to make him change his mind about what he was going to say. She smiled vaguely at him as she disappeared into her bedroom. A few seconds later she heard the sound of Ethan’s bedroom door slamming.

Her lip curled with distaste as she stripped. Even if she could have salvaged the clothes, she’d have put them out with the rubbish. As it was they hung off her like rags.

A glance in the full-length cheval-mirror shocked her. Her glossy brown hair had pulled loose of its neat French braid and was liberally anointed with mud. The long scratches along the right side of her face showed through the dirt. The streaks of mascara that gave her the look of a startled panda blended in with the general grime. The amount of flesh exposed through the gaping holes in her shirt was nothing short of indecent. No wonder Ethan had been shocked—she looked appalling!

It was a relief to stand under the hot spray of the shower and let the steamy water wash away some of her tension along with the dirt. It didn’t matter how hard she scrubbed, thinking about Craig made her feel grubby. How could a man who seemed so—well, normal act like that? Had she given the impression she would welcome such advances? She dismissed this horrifying notion swiftly. No, this hadn’t been her fault.

In her naïveté she had imagined that a ring on her finger gave a girl automatic protection from unwanted advances. She automatically glanced down at her finger—it looked oddly bare without the slim gold band. On her knees, she searched the floor of the shower cubicle. It wasn’t there. Panic out of proportion with the loss flooded through her.

She stepped out of the shower and hastily wrapped a towel sarong-wise about her body. She left a minor flood in the bathroom as she searched the floor there before retracing her footsteps into the bedroom. It was nowhere to be found.

‘I knocked,’ Ethan said as he appeared through the interconnecting door. It was the first time he’d used the door, and he knew it was ridiculous but he felt like an intruder in his own home. He didn’t see Hannah at first, and then he spotted her small figure crouched beside the dressing table, silent tears pouring down her cheeks. The obvious conclusion to draw from such grief was that she hadn’t told him everything that had happened. As he anticipated the worst his face darkened.

‘I’ve lost my ring!’ she wailed as she caught sight of him.

‘What ring?’ he asked blankly, moving to her side.

‘My wedding ring.’

He felt relief. ‘Is that all?’ he said dismissively.

She hardly seemed to hear him. ‘It might be in the kitchen, or on the stairs. I’ll go and check.’ She got rapidly to her feet—too rapidly, as it happened.

‘You’ll do nothing of the sort,’ he said, catching hold of her elbows from behind and half lifting her across the room as her knees folded.

With a soft grunt he transferred her into his arms. She was incredibly light. Was she naturally slender, or were there more surprises in store for him in the form of eating disorders? Nothing would surprise him after tonight!

‘The ring doesn’t matter; I can buy you a new one. You’re overwrought!’ The last sounded almost like an accusation.

Hannah sniffed as he placed her on her bed. Of course he could; why on earth had she reacted like that? Why should a ring that symbolised their marriage of convenience be precious to her? She must be more careful. He was probably suspecting he was married to a mad-woman, she surmised, fairly accurately.

‘Sorry,’ she whispered huskily.

‘You’ve had a bad night.’ Her tears made him uncomfortable. It occurred to him that he hadn’t seen this much of his wife before—even on the beach that summer she’d worn a baggy tee shirt over her swimming costume, and not even the children’s pleas could make her enter the water.

The towel she wore cut across the high swell of her small breasts and ended… Her legs were quite long in proportion to her diminutive frame. His wandering gaze encountered a pair of solemn hazel eyes, watching him watching, and he looked away abruptly.

‘I fetched this for the scratches.’ He held out a tube of antiseptic cream.

‘That’s kind of you, Ethan.’

‘Your back is badly scratched,’ he observed.

‘I can’t see.’

‘Or reach,’ he pointed out practically. ‘I expect you’ll feel it tomorrow—there are some nasty bruises coming out. Are you covered for tetanus?’

‘I think so.’

“‘Think so” isn’t sufficient; you must go to the surgery first thing in the morning for a booster. Turn around and I’ll put some cream on your back.’

His touch was impersonal, firm, but gentle. She felt warm and relaxed, and—for the first time since she’d leapt from the moving vehicle—safe.

‘You’ll have to loosen this,’ he said, pulling at the edge of the towel. The warm glow that had enveloped her was abruptly dispelled by a flurry of irrational anxiety.

‘No, that’s fine.’

‘I’ll probably be able to restrain myself at the sight of your flesh,’ he observed drily.

‘I didn’t think that…’ Her instinctive rejection of a more intimate touch had been no reflection on Ethan’s intentions and she was mortified at the conclusion he’d drawn. She knew he didn’t find her attractive. Even so, his next words did hurt.

‘You’re too thin.’

‘I know.’ In her teens she’d fantasised about waking up one morning and finding her awkward angles had been transformed into lissome curves. Now she knew better.

‘Do you eat?’

‘You know I do—’ She stopped. In actual fact, it was rare that they ate together, only socially on the occasions they dined out together or had guests. Normally she ate with the children and Ethan ate alone later. He commuted to the City, and being a successful barrister seemed to keep him away from home a lot. He was tipped to be the next head of chambers when Sir James retired next year—the youngest in the chambers’ long history.

Actually she didn’t mind these absences; she was a lot more comfortable when he wasn’t there—not that she found his company oppressive, exactly. She was always acutely conscious in his company of her deficiencies. When he looked at her she was always sure he was comparing her unfavourably with his first wife As always, the thought of the sainted Catherine made her wince.

‘Mrs Turner will confirm the fact I could probably eat you under the table.’ He wouldn’t consider the children impartial witnesses—they doted on her—but the housekeeper was another matter.

‘I’ve only ever seen you pick at your food. That’s it.’ He pulled up the towel. ‘They’re not deep; you won’t scar.’

Should she tell him she was usually so nervous of making a social faux pas on the occasions he referred to that she couldn’t stomach anything? On reflection she decided not to. Inadequacies—at least, hers—made Ethan impatient.

‘I think that under the circumstances these French classes aren’t such a good idea,’ he mused slowly.

His words filled her with deep dismay and the first stirrings of rebellion. ‘But Thursday is my night off, Ethan.’

‘Night off?’ he repeated coldly. ‘You’re not the nanny now, Hannah. You’re my wife.’

‘Of course I still work for you, Ethan. I just call you Ethan, not Mr Kemp.’ And that had taken some getting used to! ‘The contract’s more permanent, and less flexible,’ she added thoughtfully. ‘That’s all.’

He couldn’t have looked more astounded if she’d popped him one on the nose. He breathed in sharply and the slab of his belly muscles became more noticeably concave. Hannah had heard girls on the beach in Nice commenting on his ‘great pecs’ these too were visible, because even though he’d slipped on a blue top that matched his trousers he hadn’t bothered to fasten it. She was no expert, but she didn’t think their enthusiasm for his body had been misplaced.

‘There is no need to think of yourself in that way,’ he said, his colour heightened.

‘Then as your wife I don’t necessarily have to take your…advice.’ Advice had a more tactful ring than order.

A combative light had entered his grey eyes. Possibly it was due to the unusual events of the evening, but Hannah found the circumstance more exhilarating than alarming.

‘Perhaps you should consider your track record in the decision-making arena before throwing my advice back in my face.’

‘Did you have a particular decision in mind?’

Despite the fact that she had remained meticulously polite, there was no mistaking the obstinate set of her rounded jaw. He viewed said jaw with serious misgivings.

‘Getting into a car with a perfect stranger? Only a complete idiot would do anything so grossly irresponsible,’ he said scornfully. ‘Emma, at seven, would have more sense.’

She’d been stupid to imagine she could win an argument with Ethan. ‘You wouldn’t say that if I was a man,’ she complained belligerently.

He blinked: she was pouting, actually pouting—Hannah! The sight of her rather full pink lips had the most unexpected effect on his body. ‘Well, you’re not a man,’ he snapped. ‘And in that outfit it’s patently obvious.’

Hannah went bright pink and, after a furtive glance down at her body, began to tug the towel higher, but the material would only stretch just so far.

‘I’m sorry if my skinny body offends you, but I didn’t invite you into my room.’ Even a fluffy bunny rabbit could get aggressive if you backed it into a corner, and she wasn’t actually as weak and pliable as Ethan thought.

Early on she’d decided confrontation wasn’t her style, but to survive ten years relatively unscathed after her spells in assorted foster homes, interspersed by the inevitable return to the children’s home, wasn’t the sign of a weak character. It wasn’t an advantage in life to be brought up in care, but Hannah had never allowed herself to grow bitter, just as she’d never allowed herself to be influenced by the less savoury influences she had been surrounded by.

‘I’ll keep that in mind in the future,’ he observed stiffly.

‘I didn’t mean…’ She gave a sigh of frustration. ‘The French classes mean a lot to me,’ she admitted.

‘Very obviously,’ he drawled. With growing dismay she observed the pinched look around his nostrils.

It had been a waste of time appealing to his softer nature! ‘I need to get away, be…I don’t know—me!’

‘Does that usually involve removing your wedding ring?’

Hannah could only stare at him in astonishment. He couldn’t actually believe… ‘I lost my ring.’ It had always been too big; if she hadn’t hated asking him for anything, she’d have told him so.

‘You seem awfully passionate about a night-class.’

His faint condescending sneer really made her see red. ‘Just a class to you!’ she yelled. ‘But then you have dozens of friends. You go out every day and meet people. I see the children—’ And, as much as she loved Emma and Tom, the children weren’t always enough. She broke off, breathing hard. Though one part of her felt appalled at her outburst, another part—a small part—felt relief.

‘We have an active social life. My friends…’

‘Your friends despise me. They only put up with me because I’m your appendage. Actually—’ she smiled briefly, amazed at her daring ‘—I don’t much like them, at least not most of them.’

The colour that suffused the pale, perfect oval of her small face was quite becoming. ‘Colourless’ was the adjective he most frequently associated with this girl he’d married—it sure as hell wasn’t applicable now!

‘Then why haven’t you seen fit to mention it before?’

‘I didn’t think it was relevant. I’m quite prepared to take the rough with the smooth.’ But I won’t give up the French classes. It wasn’t necessary to add this; Ethan wasn’t dense.

‘That’s very tolerant of you. Do you consider there to have been much that is rough for you to endure over the past year?’

‘Next you’ll be saying I was in the gutter when you found me,’ she cut in impatiently. She ignored his sharp inhalation of anger and continued firmly. ‘You can expect my loyalty, but not my unstinting gratitude, Ethan. If you remember, I did warn you I wouldn’t be the world’s best hostess, but I’m a good mother.’

‘Mother substitute.’ She flinched, and his expression seemed to indicate he regretted his hasty response. ‘The children love you.’ This was meant to soften his sharp correction but only served to bring a lump of emotion to Hannah’s throat. ‘Do you find me such an ungenerous husband?’

It wasn’t fair of him to bring affection into the discussion because affection, or rather the lack of it, had been implicit in their bargain.

‘I didn’t say that.’

Right from the outset he’d insisted that she spent money from the generous personal allowance that appeared in her bank account every month. Ethan Kemp’s wife couldn’t have a wardrobe that consisted of jeans and jumpers. When he’d discovered she couldn’t overcome her reluctance to spend money, he’d sought the help of the wife of one of his colleagues.

Hannah wasn’t sure whether Alice Chambers had genuinely awful taste or she just didn’t like her. Whichever was the truth, the clothes Hannah came home with from their joint shopping expedition did nothing whatever for her slight figure, and the colours made her appear washed out and insipid.

Some of the annoyance faded from Ethan’s expression as he took in the pale fragility of her unhappy face. With her glossy hair hanging softly about her face she looked incredibly young. She was incredibly young; he was apt to overlook the age gap sometimes. Usually she had the composure of someone much older.