‘Don’t tell me. He said his wife didn’t understand him.’

‘Quite the reverse. He said Nina understood him only too well, and that she didn’t mind.’

‘Of course.’ Guy’s dark eyebrows twitched with suppressed amusement. ‘And you believed him.’

‘I don’t make a habit of getting involved with attached men,’ Janey protested. ‘I know what you must be thinking, but I’m really not like that. I suppose I believed him because I wanted to.

And he was plausible,’ she added defensively. ‘I’m not trying to excuse myself, I’m just explaining how it happened. It simply didn’t occur to me that he might not be telling the truth.’

‘Until tonight, presumably, when you learned otherwise.’

‘I found out a couple of days ago,’ Janey admitted. ‘I asked Nina.’

‘Good God.’

‘I didn’t tell her!’ she said crossly. ‘I’m not that much of a bitch.’

‘OK. So what happened after you’d made your momentous discovery?’

‘You were there.’ To her shame, she felt fresh tears on her cheeks. ‘You heard the rest. I told Bruno what I thought of him and he retaliated.’ Fumbling for a tissue,she took a deep breath.

‘He ... he hit back where it hurt. I wasn’t expecting him to say what he did.’

‘About your husband?’ Once again, Guy’s tone was reassuringly matter of fact. ‘I didn’t even know you’d been married. How long ago were you divorced?’

‘I’m not divorced,’ said Janey, her voice beginning to break. ‘My husband ... disappeared.

We hadn’t had a fight or anything like that. He just went out one day and n-never came b-b-back.

Nobody knows what happened to him ... We don’t even know if he’s alive or d-d-dead.’

It should have been embarrassing, breaking down in tears all over again in front of a man she barely knew. But Guy took it all in his stride, allowing her to get all the pent-up despair out of her system, making more coffee and showing no sign at all of wanting to slope off.

‘Stop apologizing,’ he said calmly when Janey, lobbing yet another sodden tissue into the waste paper basket, mumbled ‘Oh hell, I’m sorry’ for the fifth time. ‘You haven’t exactly just had the best two years in the world. You’re entitled to cry.’

‘I don’t usually talk about it,’ she admitted in a small voice.

‘You should. It helps to talk.’

‘Did you?’ Janey hesitated, wondering if he would be offended. ‘Talk, I mean. After your wife died.’

‘Probably bored a few close friends rigid,’ said Guy. ‘But they were kind enough not to let it show.’

‘And now here I am, boring you.’

‘Not at all.’ He grinned across at her. ‘If I was hearing it for the twentieth time and knew the words off by heart, then I’d be bored. But I’m being serious, Janey. It doesn’t help, bottling it all up. You really need to get it out of your system.’

‘I know, I know.’ The tears had dried up now, making it easier to speak. ‘But it’s so ...

unfinished. If I knew what had happened, it would help. If Alan had wanted to leave me, why didn’t he just say so? Sometimes I think ... oh hell, it doesn’t matter—’ Mindful of Guy’s own past experience, she bit her tongue before the shameful words could spill out. But he was already nodding in agreement, having understood exactly what she was about to say.

‘Sometimes you think it would be easier if he were dead.’

Plucking at the sequins on her dress, Janey nodded.

‘Of course it would be easier,’ he continued gently, ‘but you can’t put your life on hold while you wait to find out one way or the other. You could carry on like that indefinitely and still not get an answer.’

Beginning to feel like one of those novelty dogs in the backs of cars, Janey nodded again.

Guy’s voice was wonderfully soothing and now that her nose was no longer blocked from crying she was able to taste the hefty measure of brandy he’d added to her coffee.

Guy, however, was really getting into his stride. ‘I’m going to be brutal,’ he said, fixing her with his unnervingly direct gaze. ‘If Alan is dead, he’s dead. If he’s alive, it means he did a particularly cowardly runner. Either way, the marriage is over.’

He wasn’t telling her anything she didn’t already know, but Janey still winced. Having clung so fiercely in those first few weeks to the total-amnesia theory, she had neverbeen able to discard it from her subconscious.

‘Yes,’ she replied obediently. ‘I know that.’

‘So what you have to do is put it behind you anyway and rebuild your life.’

Janey managed a brief smile. ‘That’s what I was trying to do. With Bruno.’

‘Heaven help us.’With a rueful shake of his head, Guy said, ‘Now that’s what I call choosing the wrong man for the job.Tell me, who would you go to if you needed brain surgery?

A lumberjack?’

‘Don’t. I think ‘I must need brain surgery.’ This time she laughed. All of a sudden, the Bruno fiasco didn’t seem quite so terrible. Guy had certainly been right when he’d said it helped to have someone to talk to.

‘OK, so now you forget him,’ he declared briskly. ‘He’s an unscrupulous little shit and he’ll get his comeuppance sooner or later. With any luck,’ he added suddenly, ‘it’ll be with Maxine.

Punishment enough for any man, I’d have thought. Even a bastard like Parry-Brent.’

By the time Guy rose to leave it was gone three o’clock. Janey, opening the front door for him, found herself suddenly and unaccountably overcome by shyness.

‘Well, thank you.’ Clutching the door handle for support, she shifted from one stockinged foot to the other. ‘For um ... bringing me home. And for staying to talk.’

No problem,’ said Guy easily. ‘I’ve enjoyed myself.’

Without her high heels, she was dwarfed by him. And since he’d seen her lose both her dignity and her makeup, Janey realized, there wasn’t a great deal of point in being shy. She owed him so much for having come to her rescue, the very least she could do was reach up on tiptoe and give him a quick kiss on the cheek.

But her courage failed her, and she remained firmly rooted to the carpet. Some people, like Maxine, did that kind of thing all the time but she herself just wasn’t the quick-kiss-on-the-cheek type. Besides, thought Janey, how awful if Guy thought she was making some kind of amateurish pass at him .. .

‘I’m glad you decided to sneak away from the charity dinner, anyway,’ she said hurriedly, before he could read her mind.

‘Not half as glad as I am.’ He grinned. ‘It was pretty dire.’

‘And I hope Charlotte isn’t too furious with you for abandoning her at the party.’

‘Well at least you’ve managed to stop apologizing,’ said Guy, sounding amused. ‘All you have to do now is stop feeling guilty on my behalf. If I’m not worried about Charlotte, I don’t see why you should be.’

‘Oh, but isn’t she—’

‘Absolutely not. She’s a friend, but that’s as far as it goes. And shame on you,’ he added in mocking tones, ‘for even thinking otherwise. What has your fiendish sister been saying about me?’

‘Nothing at all,’ lied Janey. ‘I’m sorry. It was just me, getting it wrong as usual. I suppose it was because Charlotte seemed so ... well, so keen.’

‘She did?’ Guy looked genuinely surprised. Then he shrugged. ‘I’m not encouraging her, anyway. As I told you once before, I gave up behaving like Bruno Parry-Brent a couple of years ago. It isn’t worth the hassle.’ He paused, then added severely, ‘And whilst we’re on the subject of faithfulness, who was that chap I saw you with at the theatre the other week? I don’t suppose you mentioned him to Bruno.’

Aaargh, thought Janey, blushing in the darkness. Just when she thought she’d got away with it. ‘Oh, him. He wasn’t worth mentioning,’ she said, her tone off-hand. ‘I hadn’t even met him before that night. A so-called friend set me up on a blind date.’ She shuddered. ‘I could have killed her; I’d never been so embarrassed in my life.’

‘Until tonight,’ Guy reminded her. ‘And I’m afraid you’re really going to have to learn not to feel guilty on your own behalf.’

Janey’s blush deepened. ‘What do you mean?’

‘After you’d left, I was introduced to your blind date’s sister,’ he replied evenly. ‘She told me he’d met you through a Lonely Hearts column in the local paper.’

‘Oh God,’ sighed Janey, mortified.

‘I don’t know why you’re so embarrassed,’ Guy continued briskly. ‘He might have a loud laugh but he can’t be as much of a bastard as Parry-Brent. You need to make up your mind about what you really want.’

Now he’d managed to make her feel deeply ashamed of herself. Was there no end to this man’s talents?

‘Sleep, I think.’ Janey glanced at her watch. It was three-fifteen.

‘I’m going. Just one more thing.’

Eyeing him warily, she said, ‘What?’

‘Something you said earlier.’ Guy broke into a broad grin. ‘It’s been bothering me. Do you really think I look like Marje Proops?’

Chapter 28

‘Oh please,’ Maxine begged, thrusting the letter into Guy’s hands. In her excitement she’d almost torn it in two. ‘Look, the audition’s tomorrow! I’ll just die if I can’t go up for it ... and think how thrilled Josh and Ella would be if I was chosen! They’d be able to see me on television

...’

‘Sitting on the loo,’ said Guy acerbically, having scanned the contents of the letter.

‘Maxine, this is an audition for a toilet-roll commercial. It’s hardly Macbeth.’

‘You mustn’t say that word; it’s always referred to as the Scottish play,’ she replied in lofty tones. Then, because she didn’t want to irritate him, she waved her arms in a gesture of apology.

‘But you can call it anything you like.’

‘I still call this a toilet-roll commercial.’ Guy remained unimpressed. ‘And I can’t imagine why you should even want to do it. What’s happened, have they run out of puppies?’