Reluctant Wife(39)

‘I’ll try—no, I will,’ she promised.



‘Because it’s like a vicious circle, you see, Roz. I mean, the news is good—I know two years of trying to conceive probably seems like a lifetime to you, but you could well be prolonging it by worrying so much. You have to break the circle.’





Why couldn’t I tell him that’s already been done? Roz wondered as she steered her little blue sports car down the Pacific Highway. Only Adam broke it, but in doing so he seems to have started me on another one.



But while she had been able to confide in Mr Mason about her nightmares, she had not been able to about the true state of her marriage. How could you tell anyone that? Especially when you’d been deluding yourself about it and had not known the stark truth of why you wanted Adam Milroy’s baby so much. Not to pay off a debt, not to keep your half of the bargain, but because you loved him.



She blinked away some tears and pondered again the awful irony that now she knew there was no physical impediment, and now she’d sorted out her inner torment, she couldn’t put it to the test.



I could just tell Adam, she mused. I could tell him that the scales just seemed to fall from my eyes, that his proposition jolted me out of all the self-deceptions l was practising. Only I don’t know if it’s what he wants to hear, if it’s not too late, if there isn’t another woman …



So many ifs, and he’s coming home tonight and don’t know what to do!





Unfortunately all this made Roz less sensitive to Nicky. Then, Adam didn’t arrive when expected, and when Milly rang the airport it was to discover that his flight from Tokyo had been delayed in Manila.



That was when Milly decided to take charge. ‘It could be well past midnight by the time he gets home and he might even decide to stay in Brisbane, so we’ll go to bed. You’re looking tired anyway, Roz.’



‘I’m certainly feeling tired!’ sighed Nicky with a large yawn. ‘Must be this country air,’ she added almost hastily, and it was only later, much later, that both Milly and Roz were to remember how warmly she had kissed them both goodnight.



‘Oh,’ said Milly as the door closed behind Nicky, then, ‘No, it doesn’t matter.’



‘What?’ Roz asked.



‘Well, I popped over to Pimpama this morning, to the post office, and just as I was about to drive off l heard the phone ring, but Nicky took it. I forgot all about it, but couldn’t have been anything important, Jeanette gets back tomorrow.’



‘Yes, and I suppose we’ll get back into full swing.’ Roz grimaced.‘I think I will go to bed, Milly. But what if Adam rings?’



‘I’ll switch the phone through to my bedroom. Goodnight, Roz’. I was so pleased to hear your news!’





But half an hour later, Roz realised to her despair that she wasn’t going to fall asleep.



Finally she wandered into Adam’s bedroom. It was more austerely furnished than hers, with built-in drawers and cupboards but a more vivid colour scheme, emerald green wallpaper, a matching carpet with an inset rectangular band of a rich yellowy cream that matched the box-fitted bedspread.



She moved around for a time, touching his things, the silver-framed photo of his father beside the bed, the onyx-backed brush set Nicky and Angelo had saved for years, so they’d claimed,: to buy him for a birthday, the carved wooden box he kept his cuff-links in.



She fiddled with the cuff-links for a time, then put them back in the box with a sigh and glance at herself in the square mirror above the built-in dressing table. She wore a pair of white, self-patterned silk pyjamas with short cap sleeves, and although they were almost tailored in design the silk was rich and lustrous and sensuous.



But Adam’s presence was so strong in this room, she could feel her half-formulated impulse, that was definitely associated with her beautiful pyjamas, wavering.



She turned away and then, consumed by another impulse, folded back his bedcover and lay down on his bed—wondering what skills beautiful geishas possessed that she might not, and how she could acquire them and make herself so desirable to Adam he wouldn’t be able to resist her. Because if he didn’t want to hear what she had to tell him, she knew she would be no match for him with mere words.



So here l am, she reflected sadly, a wife of two years, wondering how to seduce her husband, how to take the initiative, which I’ve never done before—feeling like a girl before her first time …



She fell asleep with all these thoughts on her mind, only to wake up disorientated and drowsy, and with Adam leaning over her.