Strange Intimacy. Anne Mather
why was he now resenting the fact that he could think about what had happened without feeling that devastating surge of despair? he wondered. It couldn’t be that after two years he had grown so used to the anguish, he had actually started to find pleasure in it. But no. He might never forgive himself for what had happened to Sarah, but anything else was unthinkable. He ought to be glad he was beginning to accept the inevitability of it all; glad that he was finally coming to terms with her death.
His mother would probably say that Phillips was responsible. It was she who had eventually persuaded him to let Phillips try and help him, and for the past six months he had spent a couple of hours each week listening to the old fraud tell him that trying to drown his sorrows in alcohol wasn’t going to work. Of course, he’d known that for himself. Prolonged bouts of drinking had left him with nothing but a bad hangover, and in recent weeks he had started to restrict his intake accordingly. But his mother had begged and cajoled him to seek professional help, and it had been simpler to give in to her than suffer her tearful recriminations.
That was why he didn’t believe Phillips had had anything to do with the way he felt now. Unwilling as he was to believe it, his change of mood seemed to stem from what had happened the previous afternoon. Which was the real reason he resented it, he supposed. It was infuriating to think that Isobel Jacobson—and her precocious daughter—should have had any positive effect on his mental condition. For God’s sake, he had only gone to the station in the first place because he had known how it would irritate his mother. His mother might have succeeded in foisting her pet psychologist on to him, but he could still behave completely irrationally if he chose to do so.
Like this morning, he thought broodingly. Why had he felt that overwhelming urge to help the Jacobson woman again? It wasn’t as if she was the kind of woman he had ever been attracted to. Apart from their obvious social differences, she didn’t even look like his ideal woman. He preferred small women, like Sarah, not tall Amazons, whose shape was apparent even in a man’s shirt and trousers. She had just been a means to ruffle his mother’s feathers, and it annoyed him to think that she had caused him to act in a totally inappropriate way. Even the thought that she had, however briefly, attracted his interest disturbed him. He didn’t want—he didn’t need—that kind of complication in his life.
‘Anyway,’ Colin ventured now, evidently deciding that Rafe was still brooding over his wife’s behaviour, ‘I suggest we say no more about it, eh? I’m sure—Mrs Jacobson appreciated not having to wait for the local train. And at least she’s had a decent introduction to the area. I’m sure old Webster will be pleased about that. It hasn’t been easy finding a replacement for Miss McLeay, you know. There aren’t that many people who’d want to move to a remote village in the Highlands, not when they’ve been used to—well, a much more—hectic environment.’
Rafe made no response. It would have been difficult to say anything without involving himself still further, and he had no wish to endure another argument with his mother. Her complaints were legion as it was, and he was tired of accounting for his actions to any of them.
So, instead, he took up his brother’s earlier comments about the members of the hunting party who were visiting the estate that weekend. Sir Malcolm Calder had been an old friend of his father’s, and Rafe suspected his main reason for coming to Invercaldy was to see his father’s widow. Sir Malcolm’s own wife had died some time ago, and Rafe didn’t think it was his imagination that his visits had increased in frequency in recent years.
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