She swallowed painfully, wondering what he would say if she told him she had already discovered that she knew the pain that came from such loneliness.
Instead she said brightly, ‘I suppose that, now you’ve got a house, the next thing you’ll be looking for will be a wife.’
Her heart started thumping as he gave her a cool look and then said quietly, ‘You suppose quite right.’
‘I don’t imagine you’ll have to look far,’ she told him, determined not to let him see the effect his announcement was having on her. ‘I’m sure there must be any number of women only too willing to marry you.’
She tried to make her voice sound mocking and faintly derisory, desperate to conceal her inner pain.
‘Unlike you… You’re not the marrying kind, are you, Rue?’ he said grimly. ‘You prefer your independence.’
He couldn’t have made it plainer that she was the last woman he would consider as a wife. She swallowed painfully and whispered, ‘Yes, that’s right. Marriage isn’t something I want. After all, I’m not like you, Neil; I’ve tried it once.’ She got up unsteadily. ‘If you don’t mind, I think I’ll go upstairs for a rest.’
She saw him frown. ‘Are your lungs still bothering you? The doctor…’
‘I’m tired, that’s all,’ she interrupted him bleakly, and then added bitterly, ‘You seem to forget that this isn’t my home, Neil. I’m not used to sharing my living space with someone else.’
He stood up too, giving her an angry look, his mouth set in a bitter line.
‘You don’t need to go on. I get the message,’ he told her grimly.
* * *
IN HER ROOM, Rue didn’t rest as she had told Neil she was going to do, but instead reached for the telephone he had considerately had installed for her, and dialled the number of her solicitor.
He seemed surprised when she gave him instructions, and no wonder, Rue reflected wryly as she hung up. After all, it wasn’t so very long ago that she had sworn that she would never, never sell her home, and yet here she was changing her mind, telling him to write to Neil’s solicitors and inform them that if Neil still wanted to buy the house and land she was prepared to sell them to him.
Knowing the laboriously slow way in which legal wheels turned, Rue guessed it would be several days before Neil learned of her change of heart, by which time she would have removed herself from his proximity permanently.
Now that the decision was made she would need to organise herself. She would need somewhere temporary to live…
Luckily it was almost the end of the summer. She ought to be able to rent a holiday cottage without too much difficulty. The local estate agent could probably help her with that, and once she was safely away from Neil she could start to make proper plans for what she was going to do with her future. A bleak and empty future without him, but, listening to his plans for his own life, it had become depressingly clear to her that there was no way she could remain living in the village watching him with his wife and family, slowly growing more and more embittered and alone.
There would be time enough tomorrow to start making formal plans. Now she felt as drained and in need of a rest as she had claimed. Her muscles ached with tension and she glanced towards the closed bathroom door. A warm bath to relax her, and then a brief sleep. She grimaced wryly to herself as she headed for the door. That was all she seemed to do these days, eat and sleep, and yet, strangely, she had not gained any weight…did not feel any real benefit from her relaxation. And, if anything, the tension inside her seemed to grow and go on growing.
* * *
SHE WAS IMMERSED IN THE WARM, soapy water when the communicating door to the other bedroom opened abruptly and Neil strode in.
He was half-way across the room, heading for the opposite door, when he stopped abruptly, realising she was in the bath.
Rue had never felt more self-conscious or more embarrassed in all her life.
As he stared at her she made instinctive and totally ineffective efforts to conceal her nudity, at the same time demanding breathlessly, ‘Go away!’
‘Not yet. Not until you’ve told me exactly what you’re playing at,’ Neil told her grimly.
‘Playing at?’ Rue stared at him in confusion. ‘I’m having a bath.’
His glance flickered from her face down to where the wet curves of her breasts rose above the foamy water. Her flesh tingled as she saw the sudden hard burn of colour darken his cheekbones.
And then he had himself under control and was looking back into her eyes, his own dark with anger.
‘That isn’t what I meant and you know it,’ he told her tersely. ‘My solicitor’s just been on the phone.’
Now it was Rue’s skin that burned, in a hot, betraying tide of colour that seemed to start at her toes and sweep all the way up her body, until there was no part of her that hadn’t pinkened under her guilty flush.
She had counted on Neil’s not finding out about her decision until she was too far away from him to question her, because if there was one thing she had learned about him it was that he was not the kind of man to take anything at face value, and she knew that he would question and delve into the reason for her abrupt change of mind until she was in danger of revealing the truth to him.