Deception by Jane Marciano Read Free Book Online

happened to be the butter knife, she’s got another thing coming!
     

 
     
    Chapter 4
     
     
    Breakfast was over and couldn’t be dragged out any longer. Mum had said she wanted to talk to me, to which I’d replied I was perfectly agreeable to hearing her out, so Jonti had made himself scarce as soon as he was able to. Miranda, after having made it crystal that she trusted I would absent myself that evening from the flat, had also taken herself off to buy whatever it is she needed for her guests’ dinner. I decided there and then that it really was time to make a move and let these good people have their lounge back.
    Curling myself on the armchair, I was aware that for all my outward signs of ease, I felt slightly on edge, which is not at all the same as saying one was edgy. I felt as if my mother had once again managed to compromise me into a situation with which I wasn’t truly comfortable. But she was my mother, after all, and had to be respected. But, before she seated herself, something on the couch caught her attention, and she bent and her long red fingernails scraped the crusty fabric on which she was seated.
    “I see that Miranda’s still been unable to remove this liqueur from the settee,” she said faintly as she spread her silk skirt and arranged herself gracefully on the cushions. “ Baileys , wasn’t it?”
    I gave an appreciative nod at the pun. “Only you could call your daughter after a shipping region and still manage to make a joke of her name,” I said.
    She took a deep breath. “Well, all jokes aside, I’m here to offer you my help.”
    I cupped my chin in my hand and regarded her thoughtfully. “What makes you think I need any help, Mother?”
    She only had to raise her eyebrows at me and I was already on the defensive. Thirty three, going on thirteen. I leaned back in the chair and gave a small shrug.
    “Actually, I haven’t decided what I’m going to do yet,” I said, somewhat untruthfully.
    She gave me a quizzical look. “You’re not thinking of going back to that man, are you?”
    “ That man made me pretty happy while I was with him.”
    “I never trusted him.”
    “Yes, I know. You told me so enough times over the years. Apart from when you initially thought he might be a member of the razor family, before you found out he wasn’t related to them, you quite liked him. Only afterwards did you decide he was unsuitable for your only daughter. So I guess you must be very pleased at having been proved right about him.”
    She bristled. “You really think I’m that shallow?”
    I didn’t answer.
    She stared out of the window. “I know you still blame me for divorcing your father.”
    “I don’t say it was your fault…I don’t even know whose fault it was…”
    She raised her hand to cut me off. “That’s at the heart of everything… I know it. Our marriage and the break up. You think I don’t understand that’s why you and I have such a …a difficult relationship now? But you and Jonti were both so young at the time, how could you possibly understand?”
    I looked at her. “I’m not so young now, Mother,” I said, but she still wasn’t looking at me. It was as if she was talking to herself.
    “No marriage is perfect, Bailey,” she said softly. “We all make mistakes, some of us more than others.”
    Now she turned to me, and there was a plea in her voice.
    “I don’t pretend to know or do what’s right always,” she said. “But whatever you think about me, whatever you believe, believe me when I tell you that I’ve only got your best interests at heart. And to ask you to please not shut me out of your life. I just want to see you happily married.”
    “Like you are now?”
    She turned to look at me, and her voice was rock steady. “As I am now. As I always wanted to be and as every woman deserves to be with the right husband beside her.” She leaned forward, all urgency and earnestness. “What’s wrong with a mother wanting to see her children