Elena registered Jed’s harsh inhalation and wondeed if he was inwardly applauding his mother’s decision. It would make things easier for him, wouldn’t it? They wouldn’t have to play at happy couples very often; he could trot her out on social occasions then pop her back in her box and forget all about her.
Over her dead body!
‘Are you sure about that, Ma?’ Jed asked, leaning forward slightly, the better to judge his parent’s true feelings in the dwindling evening light. ‘I don’t want you to think you have to make a snap decision, or that Elena and I wouldn’t be happy to have you live with us.’
Elena watched him narrowly. He looked and sounded totally sincere. On the one hand, having his mother remove herself from their immediate orbit would make life a lot easier for him. But, on the other, he was deeply fond of Catherine, cared about her. The whole idea of pretending their marriage was normal had stemmed from his desire to keep the older woman happily deluded, spare her any further grief.
‘You know how you love the old place; all your memories are there—and you’re besotted by your garden!’
‘And having seen something of Elena’s, and her beautiful home, I know Netherhaye will be in good hands.’ Catherine smiled gently and put her hand over her son’s. ‘Sam’s gone now, and in any case he wouldn’t have wanted the responsibility. Netherhaye is yours.’
‘Even so,’ Jed said gruffly, ‘I don’t like to think of your being on your own. Not yet, not until...’ His voice tailed off, and despite herself Elena had to admire his understanding and compassion. If only he had extended a tenth of it in her direction!
‘You really mustn’t worry about me!’ Catherine smiled at both of them. ‘What I was about to tell you is I won’t be alone! I can’t remember who got the idea first, but Susan and I are going to set up home together. There’s a cottage for sale in the village—you remember the Fletchers, Jed? Well, they’re moving to the south coast, to be nearer their married daughter and grandchildren, and while I’m here breaking the news Susan is doing the business with the agent and putting her own home up for sale. There! What do you think of that?’
Elena didn’t know what to think. Jed was saying something, but her head was buzzing so loudly she couldn’t hear a word. Her mother hadn’t mentioned anything about selling the small house in Birmingham where Elena had been born. The fact that she hadn’t taken her into her confidence hurt.
‘As soon as this house was habitable, I asked her to live with me,’ Elena stated numbly. ‘She said she was too long in the tooth to uproot herself. Several years on, she’s obviously changed her mind.’
She pulled herself to her feet. The stars were bright now, in the dark velvet sky, and the scent of mountain herbs was released in the soft warm breeze. She couldn’t stand it, any of it! The night was so beautiful while her emotions were so painful, twisted and ugly. ‘If you’ll excuse me, Catherine, I’ll clear away.’ She balanced dishes and plates one on top of another and forced a thin smile. ‘Ask Jed if you need anything.’
‘Did you have to be so bloody curt?’
The bedroom door closed quietly behind him and Elena pulled the soft linen sheet up to her chin, swallowing the hot hard lump in her throat.
Contempt blazed from his narrowed eyes and she really couldn’t taken any more.
Her mother had never forgiven her for the failure of her marriage to Liam. She had thought the sun rose with her handsome young son-in-law. Even when she’d learned the truth she had tentatively suggested, ‘Perhaps you drove him to it, dear?’
Her own marriage had been a miserable thing. Elena’s father had had one affair after another, finally disappearing off the scene altogether when Elena was fifteen. Naturally Susan had wanted her only child’s marriage to be perfect. She would be even more unforgiving now, when she learned that her second attempt at matrimonial happy-ever-after had been even less successful than the first!
‘Go away,’ she said wearily. ‘I’m in no mood to talk right now.’ Though there were things that needed to be said, of course there were—decisions of her own he had to hear about. And she had to make another attempt to break through his stubborn refusal to listen to her story. She should have told him about the treatment she’d undergone as soon as they’d realised they were falling in love. But Sam’s death had been so recent, and Jed’s grief so raw—a grief she hadn’t wanted to exacerbate. She had decided it would be better to wait. And the treatment had been a failure—or so she’d truly believed at the time. She deeply regretted her decision to wait until time had softened the edges of Jed’s grief.