Page 42 of My Husband's Wife
‘What do they say?’
‘Nothing, nothing. They err…’ He takes a few breaths. ‘They think I’m someone else. Wrong number. It’s just annoying, and I overreacted, but it’s nothing, really.’ He smiles at her and pulls her into him.
She feels the firmness of his body against hers and places her arms around his neck. It feels nice to be close to him because this has barely happened since they had Emily. He kisses her gently and then again more deeply and slowly. ‘I love you,’ she says as they part.
‘I love you too.’
‘You know you mentioned maybe moving to Scotland one day?’ It was more than mention. Theo has become obsessed in recent days. It’s okay for him, he can work remotely from anywhere, but she would need to start up again. However, the firm offer she received for her salon had been upped by twenty thousand pounds recently. The more she thinks on it, the more she knows she is ready for the new start that Theo is keen for.
‘Yes.’
‘I think I’m ready to make the move.’
He picks her up and spins her around. ‘I think it will be amazing for us and Emily. What brought this on?’
She shrugs. ‘An offer on the salon, the thought of a new adventure in life and I got thinking. Emily is a baby; it won’t disrupt her if we do it now.’
He kisses her. ‘What were you going to tell me before?’
‘Something felt off at the Sea Horse earlier.’ In her head, she mulls over Eva calling her husband Hugo. ‘It’s odd that the wedding planner called you the wrong name and now you’re getting phone calls from someone who thinks you’re someone else.’
‘It’s a coincidence, that’s all. The phone calls started before today. I must have one of those faces, but I agree with you, I got a bad vibe from that meeting and the whole place. I don’t want to get married at the Sea Horse, and I didn’t want to say anything because I thought you’d be angry, but if you’re not sure either…’
‘I want to get married,’ she tells him. If he thinks he’s going to put their wedding on the backburner, he’s mistaken. She has a baby and getting married is important to her. She knows other people don’t think much of marriage these days but she always wanted the full package. Marriage and kids, just like what her sister Camille has, and what her mother and father have.
‘And I do too. I want to marry you more than anything, Madison. You and Emily are my world, which is why I’ve been looking into the Clifton House Hotel. It’s a bit grander. I also think we can stretch to pay for a better package there and they have a day in May, Madison.’ He looks into her eyes. ‘Will you marry me even sooner? Because I can’t wait for us to become husband and wife, and I want us to marry at a place that doesn’t give off bad vibes.’
Excitement fills her tummy. What she anticipated might be an awkward conversation about her not being comfortable at the Sea Horse, has turned out to be one of the easiest conversations ever. ‘Yes, yes and yes, again.’
He reaches out, grabs her hand and pulls her close again. Buster begins to yap at their feet, jumping up against them excitedly. Madison lifts Buster up before kissing his furry head.
‘I’ll call them and book the day. We can let everyone know later and if they can’t make it, I don’t care if it’s just us. All I want to be is your husband,’ Theo says.
Her phone shakes in her pocket. She snatches it out. ‘It’s the baby monitor.’ Pressing the app, she waits for the footage to load. Emily is screaming her little heart out, her fists balled and her blankets nowhere to be seen. ‘Something’s wrong.’
‘It’s okay, Madison. She’s just been thrashing around a little.’
Madison runs, Theo following as he tries to calm her down. Maybe she’s panicking over nothing, like she does a lot, but if anything ever happened to Emily, she’d never forgive herself. Emily is her life and she knows what it’s like to lose her babies and she couldn’t bear to lose Emily. Up the stairs and through Emily’s bedroom door, she sees that their precious little girl is fine, just a bit gripey.
Theo sidesteps past her and lifts Emily up. ‘She feels a bit warm. Maybe she’s sickening for something. I’ll take her down and feed her if you want a rest. There’s some expressed milk in the fridge, isn’t there? You look tired.’
She catches a glimpse of herself in the mirror. All her make-up has worn off and she agrees: the bags under her usually youthful green eyes are a purplish red. They’ve been like that a lot since she became a parent; nonetheless, she wants to feed Emily herself. She shakes her head. ‘It’s okay. I want to feed her.’
Theo passes her over. ‘I’m sure she’d love that, won’t you, Pumpkin? I’ll head back to the cabin and book the Clifton, if you’re okay calling to cancel the Sea Horse.’
She nods. She’ll do it when someone will be there to deal with the cancellation.
Theo has already gone. It’s just her, Emily and Buster, who is sniffing around at the corner of the room. He barks at the dresser. She glances around, feeling like someone is there, watching, but there is no one. With Emily in her arms, she quickly checks the other three bedrooms and the bathroom, but they’re empty; then again, what was she expecting? A homicidal maniac lurking in the wardrobe? Buster is still barking at the same corner in Emily’s room. She calls him out and pulls the door closed. ‘Let’s get you fed too. Come on, boy.’
After putting food down for Buster, she heads to the living room and undoes her nursing top and bra, and then proceeds to feed Emily. Her thriving baby gulps and gulps like she can’t get enough. After a few minutes, she swaps breasts and Emily continues to suckle. A full up Buster curls up in his basket.
Just as she’s about to close her eyes with Emily resting in her arms, she catches a glimpse of something black beyond the gate at the bottom of their garden. The foliage is too dense to see through now. She wonders if it was a raven or a crow. They get a lot of them in the woodland. It was something far bigger than a bird though. She places a sleeping Emily in the baby basket next to her and does her bra and top back up. She goes to open the front door but it’s on the latch. Maybe Theo left it like that when he went back and forth to the car carrying Emily’s baby luggage in.
She stands in the garden, her sundress billowing in the breeze. Buster dashes past her, barking into the bushes and dashing around all over the place, wagging his tail. He senses that someone has been here.
Daytime has all but gone and darkness is falling. If someone was out there, they’d have to have driven up their long, bumpy drive, but she doesn’t hear any vehicles leaving. She hurries down the path, nudging the gate open and continuing a little way down the turning space. There’s no car there. Maybe she imagined seeing someone, and Buster is probably trying to get her to walk him through the woods but that isn’t going to happen tonight. She’s tired. While rubbing her eyes, she begins to walk back. It’s dark now. A flurry of bats fly above. On entering the house, she removes the latch and closes the door behind her.
Emily is still asleep so she heads to the kitchen to put the kettle on. A cup of decaffeinated tea is in order before she works out how she’s going to tell the Sea Horse about their cancellation. Her thoughts go back to Eva earlier and the way she kept looking at Theo. No wonder her poor nervous husband had wanted to leave with Emily. It was creepy. She was creepy. As she pulls the tea bags out of the cupboard, a glint of light catches her eye.
