‘And I’m going to, have no doubts about that,’ she told Anna. ‘I never want to see Marcus Piddell again.’
‘Really,’ replied Anna. ‘Bet you lunch at the Connaught you go back to him.’
‘I just hope your expenses are up to it,’ said Jennifer.
Marcus did not give up easily. He was used to getting what he wanted. At work she dodged his calls and at home she hid behind her answering machine. A couple of times he even door-stepped her office, which surprised her a little because she thought he would have been concerned about his image. She remained resolute, refusing even to stop and talk to him, but knew that if she were to hold out against Marcus’s persistence, she needed something to take her mind off him. And the only something which could possibly do that job for Jennifer Stone would be another man.
And so when nice Michael Appley had shown an interest in her when they met at a dinner party, she had readily embarked on a new affair. Michael was a college lecturer whose subject was history, and all Jennifer’s friends, particularly Anna, believed that he himself would soon be history too. Jennifer found him quite charming, which he was. He was like a great bear, a big man in his mid-thirties, already spreading to fat but attractive enough. He had a beard because he couldn’t be bothered to shave, and wore whatever clothes came first to hand in the mornings. Michael Appley was a complete change after Marcus, and that seemed like a jolly good idea to Jennifer. They went to bed together the first night they met. He was gentle and caring, just how she had imagined he would be. She found him delightful and enjoyed sleeping with him, but should have been warned off, because when they had finished her body invariably still ached for more.
Jennifer was totally on the rebound from Marcus, and quite incapable of a proper emotional commitment to anybody. None the less she convinced herself that she was in love with Michael, and he was definitely in love with her.
They were married within three months and divorced a year later.
Jennifer felt guilty about Michael for the rest of her life. It was only two months after they were married that she strayed for the first time. New sexual opportunity seemed to arise consistently, and Jennifer could rarely resist it. She never again wanted to go as far as she had with Marcus, but his influence on her had been overwhelming. She needed regular, challenging, exciting sex — she couldn’t help it.
Michael tried not to notice. Ultimately she became more and more careless, until he could no longer pretend ignorance of her activities. Deeply hurt, he had asked for a divorce. Jennifer hadn’t even bothered to try to explain. What could she say? She didn’t argue. In fact Michael would probably have liked her to attempt to justify her behaviour, because he secretly wanted to try again with their marriage. He loved her, he just wanted her to behave like a wife.
She, on the other hand, knew that it was hopeless. She needed her own space again. She had been deeply scarred by Marcus and had felt that the love of another man could heal her scars — but in fact she should never have married Michael. It had just been a stupid romantic dream.
Marcus had married only weeks after her. He had wed his editor’s secretary. By the time he became editor of the Daily Recorder the following year, that marriage too was over. He began to telephone Jennifer again, but, amazed at her own determination, she stuck to her resolution. Marcus was the one man who had control over her, their sex life still frightened her, and if she agreed even to meet she suspected she would succumb to him.
Fed up with London, she accepted the chance to go to New York as Features Editor of a paper there owned by the Globe’s parent company.
Eventually Marcus married for the second time. His new wife was nineteen years old, at seventeen years his junior she was little more than half his age, and had a title but no money. It seemed a fair trade.
Marcus sent Jennifer an invitation to the wedding which, in spite of being divorced, he had managed to arrange in a rather grand church on the outskirts of London. Never ceasing to wonder at his cheek, Jennifer declined even to reply.
A few weeks after Marcus’s second set of nuptials, Anna McDonald flew to New York on a business trip and Jennifer took her to her favourite New York restaurant, a delightful but unfashionable establishment where she liked to relax with her real friends. It was tucked away off the beaten track and in no way a place for seeing or being seen, yet suddenly, just as she and Anna were about to order their dinner, Marcus turned up with his new wife.
Jennifer could hardly believe her eyes. She was stunned. It would surely have been stretching credibility even to consider that Marcus had deliberately sleuthed out her regular haunts, but New York was a big town, boasting several thousand restaurants, and he had not seemed inordinately surprised to see her already sitting at a table. Indeed, with his customary self-confidence, he strode purposefully across the restaurant with his new bride in tow and flamboyantly introduced her to the two women.
Her name, it transpired, as Jennifer vaguely recalled from the wedding invitation, was Pamela. Lady Pamela, Marcus pointed out with obvious satisfaction, while explaining with a ridiculously rakish wink that they were on a delayed honeymoon. Pamela was tall, skinny, and horsily good-looking, the kind of looks that you know can only be English upper-class and yet you can’t explain exactly why. Her hair was very dark and skin very pale. She had that assured air about her which so often comes with an obvious public-school education, and in some ways she seemed older than her nineteen years, while retaining the naivety of a young woman who has never had to fight for anything in her life and never expects to.
None the less she seemed quite untroubled at meeting her husband’s ex-partner in such a manner. An immaculately manicured hand was produced for a firm handshake.
‘How lovely to meet you,’ she announced heartily. Unlike Marcus she had yet to bother to modulate her public-school accent, which was pure cut-glass.
‘Good to meet you too,’ muttered Jennifer. The words came out in some kind of dreadful mid-Atlantic drawl. God, this bloody man was the only person in the world who could throw her off balance like this. She felt extremely uncomfortable and very angry with herself. Marcus’s new wife was just a kid and yet it was Jennifer who was behaving like one. She had stood up when the couple approached her table and now wished she hadn’t. Sitting down again, rather clumsily, she groped for her napkin which she had dropped on the floor. With the swift agility she remembered only too well, Marcus picked it up and familiarly placed it on her lap. Jennifer felt herself beginning to blush. Marcus’s gaze was upon her as he rested an arm on his wife’s shoulder. Casually he brushed a finger against Lady Pamela’s neck beneath the heavy dark hair. Jennifer could see that he was scratching her flesh lightly with his fingernail. The young woman shuddered, almost imperceptibly, but Jennifer noticed.
‘So he does that to you, too,’ she thought. And her blush deepened as she had a brief and unwelcome vision of their two bodies together in bed, Marcus with all his mighty sexuality, Marcus doing to this debbie young thing all that he had done to her...
She forced herself to look away, and became aware that Marcus was still staring at her. His eyes were smiling, almost mocking. He flashed a grin. Was it her imagination or did his tongue dart swiftly across those immaculate white teeth? The bastard. He was reading her mind. He knew full well what she was thinking about. She tried desperately to look at ease and knew she was failing. She could not trust herself to speak at all.