Page 43 of Wife After Wife

As thunder reverberated around the palace, Ana and Merry appeared, hurrying toward them under two big black umbrellas. Merry’s white dress and platinum-blond hair stood out in the gloom.

Ana sheltered Katie as she began to move again, dragging heavily on Harry’s arm. Merry held the other umbrella over Harry, but he waved her away.

“Is she...” said Ana.

“The baby’s coming,” Harry said grimly.

“Megan’s waiting for the ambulance at the drop-off point.”

“Harry,” whispered Katie. He bent down to listen. “It’s too soon. Why is God doing this to us?”

“They can do wonders,” he said. “Tinier babies than ours survive. You and the baby are going to be just fine.” But his voice caught, and as Megan and the paramedics appeared on the path, and Katie clung to his hand, a terrible certainty filled his heart.

CHAPTER 17

Harry

November 1992

It was seven thirty, and Harry was still at work. It had been dark for hours, and out of his office window the lights of London were blurred by the fine drizzle falling across the city.

Britain was in the grip of late-autumn gloom. The recession was dragging on, and unemployment was expected to hit three million soon. Harry was about to add to that, with a number of layoffs. Rose Corp. was doing well, bucking the trend, but Colin Hale, his bean counter in chief, was telling him they needed to cut costs, be leaner.

The Queen had just called 1992 her annus horribilis. Since June, Harry’s own annus had been excessively horribilis. Five months after his baby son (they’d called him Max) had been stillborn at twenty-nine weeks, he was still regularly blindsided by grief. The universe could be so cruel.

But at least he had his work—and thoughts of Ana—to distract him.

Harry put down his pen and looked out the window, wondering again what to do about Katie. She seemed unreachable, hadn’t even begun to climb out of the dark place she’d fallen into. The only spark was when she spent time with Maria, reading her books or watching her play with her toys. But she never took her out, other than to and from school,which she’d started in September. Katie constantly fretted over Maria’s health, the sad legacy of her miscarriages and stillbirths. Harry knew he should talk to her about the overprotectiveness. It was turning the child into a drama queen. Maria really did stamp her foot when she didn’t get her own way.

Her brattish behavior was raising eyebrows, and they’d already been contacted by the school about “Maria’s issues around inclusion and space,” which apparently meant not sharing, and demanding the best spot on the mat.

Before, Cassandra had always been there to help Katie out of her despair. She’d cheer her up with a shopping trip or an outing with the children.

But now poor Cass had her own demons to face.

A postmortem established that the baby’s death had nothing to do with the blow to Katie’s abdomen—that had just speeded up the inevitable. A chromosomal abnormality was responsible for a defect that meant the baby wouldn’t have made it to full term, and Katie could have miscarried at any time. But that didn’t stop Cassandra from blaming herself. And Charles hadn’t forgiven her behavior that night, whatever part he may have played in provoking the drunken meltdown.

“Dry out or get out,” he’d said. So Cassandra had checked into the Priory and was attempting to kick the addiction she’d finally admitted to.

Harry and Charles’s friendship was strained, too, and he felt the loss of their easy companionship. Harry was livid that Charles had led Megan on that night. No matter how flighty she was, Charles was the older married man who should have known better. And now Megan imagined herself madly in love with him and had practically cheered when Cassandra was packed off to rehab. Harry was exasperated with them both.

Charles had accused him of hypocrisy. “What gives you the right to judge, with your blond bombshell tucked away in South Ken?”

But that was completely different. He and Merry both knew the boundaries, and nobody would get hurt. Besides, he rarely saw Merry now. He’d found himself making excuses, and when they did gettogether, he was easily bored, and... he admitted to himself that the only way he could lift his performance from mildly aroused to passionate was to visualize Ana’s willowy body, her glossy black hair, her dark, dark eyes.

Merry had her own problems too. Will was increasingly unwell, and was holed up in his Scottish castle.

Things seemed to be going badly for all of them.

Harry began loading his briefcase with reports, his copy of theTimes, and his Filofax. At least, in spite of the recession, Rose was continuing to bloom. Circulation figures for theRackhad exceeded expectations. The only downside was that Terri needed no input from him at all. She ran a tight, efficient ship and coaxed increasingly creative triumphs from her staff, in spite of her tyrannical management style.

The art editor had so far been the only one to cave, leaving for a job atHello!Ana had been promoted to replace her, and Harry dropped by her office to congratulate her.

As Harry had shut Ana’s office door behind him, causing her to frown slightly, he’d had the strongest compulsion to pull her into his arms and tell her the truth—that he was losing sleep over her. That he was a man possessed. That he couldn’t go on like this.

Instead, as he’d met her cool, unsmiling gaze, he’d placed a bottle of champagne on her desk, saying, “A small token of my appreciation. I know you’ve only been with us a short while, but you’ve earned this promotion fair and square. Well done.”

“Thank you.”