For the Love of Emma Page 8

  Pulling it open, Briony stared at the amount there. “But—”

  “It’s more than the monthly salary we agreed I should pay you—”

  “It’s nearly double.”

  “I decided to show my gratitude in tangible form.”

  Briony felt as if she’d received a blow in the stomach. It was for this that her pulses had raced as she climbed the stairs to their bedroom. “There was no need—” she began to say.

  But Carlyle forestalled her, putting the bank statement aside and taking both her hands in his. “You don’t understand,” he said fervently. “When I see how you’ve transformed Emma’s life, how much you’ve done for her—I just feel that nothing is too good for you.” He waited for her to react, puzzled by her pallor and stillness. “Did I make a mistake?” he asked, attempting a joke. “Isn’t it enough?”

  She wanted to scream, “No, it’s not enough. I want much more. I want your heart. I want you to look at me with the tenderness you give Emma. I want your love and your need. I want all of you. And you fob me off with money.”

  But she only smiled and said, “Don’t be silly. It’s far too much.”

  “I don’t think it’s too much for the woman who’s making my Emma happy.” He dropped a light kiss on the top of her head. “I’m glad everything’s all right again. For a moment I thought I’d done something wrong. Now, let’s get to bed. I shall sleep like a log tonight. Which side do you prefer?”

  Silently, fighting to hide her cruel disappointment, Briony got into bed. Carlyle got into the other side and put out the light. For a while they both lay without speaking or moving, until at last she could tell by his breathing that he’d fallen asleep. Only then could she relax. Her body was aching from the effort of holding it still. Just a foot away from her lay Carlyle, her love and yet not her love. That twelve inches was like a chasm, but he was still close enough for her to be intensely aware of him. Suddenly she wondered how she was going to endure this marriage.

  CHAPTER SIX

  BRIONY had made an instant hit with Nora and Tom, who together took care of the house and garden, leaving her free to concentrate on Emma. Often in the afternoons she would have a snack with them in the kitchen. It was a large room, with a superficially traditional air that came from the copper pans that hung around the walls. But despite this the gadgetry was state-of-the-art.

  “It’s like the deck of a space station,” Briony said once, looking around at all the knobs and lights. “Did Carlyle put this in for you?” For she knew that Nora lived for her cooking.

  “Some of the most recent stuff was put in because I asked for it,” Nora said. “But it was always the latest gadgetry. Helen—” She stopped delicately.

  “Helen wanted it that way,” Briony finished for her. “It’s all right. You needn’t be afraid to mention her to me. Did you know her well?”

  “We met at the same cordon bleu cookery class,” Nora said. “Later she asked Tom and me to come and work for her. They’d just got married and were doing up this house.”

  “She looks lovely in her pictures,” Briony observed casually. She was alone with Nora today, and felt able to talk more freely than with Tom around.

  “Oh, she was beautiful,” Nora remembered. “So dainty and delicate, as if a breath would blow her away. When she died, I thought he’d go crazy. I’m sure he would have gone crazy but for the little one.”

  When the enlargements of the photographs arrived Briony and Nora went through them together. Nora was entranced by the one of Emma and Briony.

  “She looks such a little angel,” she sighed. “You’d never guess—” She broke off with a wry smile.

  “No, but I’m finding out,” Briony said.

  Despite the weakening effect of her illness, Emma was no angel but a normal child. She was sweet-natured, and there wasn’t an unkind bone in her body, but she was also stubborn to the point of mulishness. She had a strong will and the ability to focus her attention like a laser onto the serious business of getting her own way. In short, she was Carlyle in miniature.

  Her father found it hard to say no to her, and impossible to rebuke her. Briony knew that she had to tread a very fine line. Emma could indulge in a battle of wills so exhausting that it became dangerous for her. The little monkey wasn’t above using her frailty as a weapon, with the result that she prevailed too often and was getting out of hand.

  Yet, even when she was at her most infuriating, Emma was never less than lovable. Sometimes Briony would catch her glancing secretly at her in the midst of an argument, as though this were no more than a game that the two of them were playing. When this happened they would often burst into laughter together, and the conviction grew on Briony that she was being tested.

  “You’re a little wretch,” she said once.

  “A terrible wretch?” Emma asked hopefully.

  “The worst little wretch in the whole world.”

  “In the whole uni-uni—?”

  “Universe,” Briony confirmed as Emma reached for her notepad. “In fact, the worst in the whole galaxy.” She spelled both words and waited until Emma had written them before adding, “But if you were ten times the wretch you are I’d still love you, so eat up your greens and stop trying to discover my limits, because you’ll never find them.”

  And Emma’s gleeful look told her she’d got it right.

  Emma was intelligent and eager to learn, and she took her dictionary very seriously. The little notebook went everywhere with her, and she could stop an adult conversation dead in its tracks by demanding to have a word explained and spelled.

  She attended school only in the mornings. At lunchtime Briony collected her, and Emma would spend the afternoon resting on her bed, reading until she fell asleep. By the time Carlyle returned in the evening she was refreshed and eager to chat to him over supper.

  Sometimes they would take her to the ballet. Carlyle was bored by ballet but he sat through everything, ignoring the stage, his eyes fixed on Emma, savouring her wide-eyed delight.

  One evening he brought home a Camcorder, which Emma pounced on with glee. The three of them sorted out the instructions, got it all wrong, laughed a lot, and finally cracked the secret. Emma filmed them to her heart’s content and he let her hog the machine. But at last he said, “Let me take some of you,” speaking casually so that she wouldn’t guess he was storing up pictures for the time when pictures were all he would have.

  Often Briony would see him laughing with Emma as though he hadn’t a care in the world. Afterward, in the privacy of their room, his shoulders would sag and his face would be gray with strain. She longed to comfort him, but knew in her heart that it was useless. There was no comfort for the death of a beloved child.

  On November the fifth Briony held a fireworks party for Emma’s school friends. The evening was a huge success. Emma was in high spirits, bonneted, scarved and mittened, drawing patterns in the darkness with sparklers.

  “Daddy, look at me,” she cried, waving one so close to his face that he only just retreated in time.

  “Don’t poke my eye out,” he laughed. “Here, let me have a go.”

  He struck matches and suddenly the air was alive with the glitter of multicolored sparklers, illuminating both their faces as if by magic. They were smiling at each other in a perfect moment that excluded the rest of the world. Briony caught it on camera and, later that night, when the house was asleep, she went downstairs to play the tape. There was Carlyle, his face alight with love and tenderness for his child. It was a look Briony had seen often, but never turned toward herself.

  As the year drew to a close, the volume of work in Carlyle’s office increased, and he began bringing it home. One evening Briony went into his study with coffee and sandwiches while he was on the phone. After setting the snack down she would have departed, but, without looking at her, he waved an imperious hand for her to wait.

  Just as if I were still his secretary, she thought, between indignation and amusement.

&
nbsp; She’d grown so used to the tender father and conscientious husband that she’d almost forgotten the other Carlyle, the autocrat who barked orders to underlings. She sat down while he finished tying up his arrangements. While she waited she noticed a paper on the edge of the desk, and the name George Cosway leapt out at her. She remembered it from that first day when Carlyle had called her into his office to alter the Cosway contract. Out of curiosity she glanced over the document.

  “I don’t care if you have to get him out of bed,” Carlyle was saying into the phone. “I’m not waiting any longer. Get me an answer by tomorrow.” He was briefly silent. “Don’t argue, Sam. Do it.” Another short silence. “Just do it,” he snapped and hung up.

  Briony chuckled. “We used to call you The Great Fixer in the office,” she recalled. “The legend was that you could fix anything.”

  “So I should hope.” He leaned back, his arms behind his head, grinning. He was on a “high” from having forced matters to go the way he wanted, for him the most potent drug in the world. “It’s incredible how often life is just a matter of pulling a few strings behind the scenes—”

  “Moving a few people about as pawns—” she teased him. His mood was infectious.

  “That, too,” he conceded. “I have a theory that life is divided into the pawns and the movers.”

  “With you as the mover and everyone else as the pawns,” Briony said. “You got me doing what you wanted.”

  “Of course. That’s how I like it. In a well-ordered world everyone would be doing what I wanted.”

  Then, abruptly, his exhilaration died. “But some things can’t be fixed,” he said somberly. “Not even for the toughest mover in town.”

  Briony met his eyes, and what she saw in them hurt her. Behind the knock’em-flat philosophy and the cheerful ruthlessness, Carlyle was slowly dying inside. And she, who’d longed to comfort his pain, was powerless against it. As powerless as he was himself.

  At last he sighed and said, “It took me a long time to accept that there’s something I can’t do anything about, but I guess I’m getting there. Is she asleep?”

  “She ought to be, but I think she’ll stay awake hoping you’ll look in for a good-night kiss.”

  “All right, I’ll go up in a minute. Ah, coffee! Great.” He poured himself a cup and glanced at the paper she was still holding. “What do you think of that?”

  “I’m sorry,” she said quickly. “I didn’t mean to pry. I just happened to notice Cosway’s name and wondered how that contract had come out.”

  “Not too well. He’s still making difficulties. Don’t apologize. I don’t mind you looking. I haven’t forgotten.”

  “Forgotten what?”

  “Our bargain. I promised you business opportunities in return for your time in this marriage.”

  “You’re already paying me a big salary.”

  “But I want to give you more than that. You have the makings of a first-rate assistant. For me, perhaps.”

  Out of sight Briony clenched her hands. How could he talk about working together later, as though nothing had happened? “I don’t think that would be a very good idea,” she said.

  “No? Perhaps not. I just wanted you to know that I’m a man of my word. You were right to remind me.”

  “I didn’t—I was just—”

  “No, not deliberately. But you’re still interested in business, aren’t you? I’ll give you some books to read. You’ll find them helpful.”

  “Thank you,” Briony said dully.

  The sweet comradeship of a moment ago was gone. To make matters worse Carlyle immediately turned to the bookshelf behind him and pulled down a volume.

  “Aspects Of Management,” he said. “Start with this. Now I’ll go up and say good-night to Emma.”

  A stranger walking into the Brackman household would have thought they saw the perfect family. The love that joined both parents to the child was an almost tangible thing, infusing the whole house with its atmosphere. Briony devoted herself to Emma’s care, taking her to and from school, overseeing her rest, talking to her. Carlyle came home each day as early as he could, and if he brought work with him he never did it until his daughter was tucked up in bed.

  Often he would have a snack in his study and work far into the night. Sometimes he would eat with his wife, and discuss their daughter. Usually she went to bed first while he made a few trans-Atlantic phone calls, and at last he would enter quietly and get into bed without putting the light on, so as not to wake her.

  In fact, she was never asleep, although she pretended to be. Beneath the untroubled surface of their lives Briony was tense with sadness and longing. Her unsatisfied love tormented her. At first it had been almost enough to see Carlyle every day. There was joy in loving him and being constantly in his company, and that alone buoyed her up for a while. But gradually the need for more became overwhelming.

  If she wanted to talk about Emma he would set aside everything else. His dark eyes would be fixed on Briony intently, and occasionally he would smile. For a brief moment she could pretend that it was she herself who entranced him. But reality was always waiting to destroy the illusion, and she would find herself left alone again, in a place that increasingly felt like a desert.

  He liked her, he was grateful to her, and he showed that gratitude generously. And after that one explosion when he’d ended the engagement he was always courteous and considerate. But there was nothing else. She had to face that fact.

  At first it had hardly mattered that she was living in Helen’s house. But as the excitement of the wedding faded she became more aware that this was where Carlyle had brought his bride, ten years ago, the house they’d done up together. In an unguarded moment Nora had let slip that nothing was allowed to change. If the decorations grew shabby they were replaced exactly as they had been. There’d been some updating in the kitchen, but apart from that everything was as Helen had chosen it. And Briony wondered how much a man would have to love a woman to stop the clock on the day of her death.

  Once, searching for a pen she’d lent him, she’d ven tured to open the drawers of his desk in the study. And there she’d found something she would rather not have seen. It was a photograph of Helen, with her baby in her arms, taken, Briony knew, by Carlyle himself. She’d looked frail and near to death, but still beautiful. Briony had seen this picture beside Carlyle’s bed, but he’d courteously removed it before their marriage. Now she knew that he’d hidden it here where he could brood over it privately.

  Beneath the picture was a photo album. Briony wrestled with temptation, but in the end no power on earth could have stopped her jealously turning the pages. There was Carlyle and Helen on their wedding day, their faces radiant as they gazed at each other. There they were on holiday, Helen in a bikini, held high in his arms, shrieking with laughter as he prepared to toss her into the water.

  It was hard to recognize Carlyle. The sharp-tongued autocrat he’d become had been little more than a boy in those days, with a candid, glowing face, untouched by grief. Briony felt as if she could see into his mind. He was young, talented, passionately in love, and he’d been granted his heart’s desire. He believed the world was his, and it always would be. He had no idea how tragically soon his happiness was to be snatched from him. Sadly, Briony put the pictures away.

  One night, as so often before, she lay still and wakeful long after Carlyle had gone to sleep. The bed, which had seemed large enough from the outside, was far too small now they were sharing it. It was impossible not to be conscious of his big body so close to hers, clad only in thin pajamas, sharing the same warmth as her own.

  The moonlight gave her a clear view of his face, so tense in the daytime, so vulnerable in sleep. She had to fight the temptation to lay her lips gently on his and enjoy one forbidden kiss. As she watched the shape of his mouth, unexpectedly curved in contrast to his harsh features, she could feel it against her own as it had been during their wedding. Memory pervaded her, flooding her body with de
sire. In another moment she would lean forward and brush his lips with hers…

  Briony clenched her hands and forced herself to leave the bed. She must get away from Carlyle until this dangerous mood had passed. Moving quietly, she took her dressing gown and slipped out. Downstairs she fetched Aspects Of Management, and went to the kitchen. There she made herself some hot milk and sat staring at the book until she realized she’d read the same page four times without taking anything in. Words danced before her. They were sharp, like little arrows to plunge into her heart. The world was full of torment and there was nothing she could do to ease it.

  “What are you doing down here so late?”

  She looked up quickly to see Carlyle standing in the doorway in his pajamas, his hair tousled, his chin beginning to look unshaven. Her heart did a dangerous somersault.

  She pulled herself together. “Where are your slippers?” she demanded, pointing accusingly at his bare feet.

  He grinned. “Don’t talk to me as if I was Emma.”

  “Emma has more good sense than you. She puts her slippers on because she knows the weather’s turning cold.”

  “She puts her slippers on because you bought her a pair done up to look like her favorite cartoon characters.” He yawned and rubbed his eyes. “What are you drinking? Is there any left?”

  “Sit down.” She went to the hob while he pulled her book over and examined it.

  “You’re a conscientious student,” he said. “Or do I mean ambitious?”

  “It’s a fascinating subject,” she said, avoiding his question. “I do a lot of reading while Emma’s at school. Do you want anything in your hot milk?”

  “Cocoa, if we have any.”

  She laughed as she set the mug before him, and seated herself. “If your rivals could see you now. They all think you eat people for breakfast.”

  “That’s what I want them to think.”

  “I know. Cocoa would ruin your image.”

  He grinned. “Well, let’s keep it our secret.”

  It wasn’t fair, she thought, that he should get out of bed, rumpled and disordered, and be twice as attractive as when he was elegantly dressed. Carlyle could be thrilling when he presented his imperious face to the world, but Briony loved him best as he was now, looking younger and more vulnerable. She was filled with a sudden passion of tenderness, and it was an effort not to put her arms around him.