An Interrupted Marriage (Silhouette Special Edition) Read Online Free

bathroom, a scent of roses and lavender met her. Someone had placed a bowl of potpourri on the shelf above the hangers.
    Most of them were empty, those clothes still left on them mostly formal or party dresses, and the lower shelf near the floor held several pairs of high-heeled shoes. She went back to the suitcase and emptied out jeans, sweatshirts and blouses, skirts and low-heeled shoes.
    With a pile of undies in her hands she crossed to the long dressing table, pulling out the top drawer to put them in. She closed it and knelt to open the second drawer, sinking back on her heels.
    The drawer shimmered and frothed and glowed with silk and lace and ribbons, with peach and apricot and emerald and wine-red garments that weighed next to nothing as she lifted them, that were low-cut and narrow-strapped and exceedingly sexy. She remembered the way Magnus would look at her when she waited for him, wearing one of them, her hair shiny with brushing, her skin fresh and warm from the bath and scented at throat, wrists, between her breasts and behind her knees.
    She found a pale green wrap, delicately hand-embroidered, that Magnus had bought for her birthday, and laid her cheek against its soft lustre, closing her eyes. When she’d put it on for the first time, after a bath, and re-entered the bedroom, he’d drawn her to the bed and stroked her body through the fabric, then eased the garment away from her until his hand met her bare skin and kept on stroking. “Satin,” he’d murmured. “You’re all satin.”
    * * *
    A creaking sound made her eyes fly open, her cheeks flushing. She stumbled to her feet, recalling that the house talked quietly in the late afternoon, its joints making small protesting noises as the sun cooled. It had been built in the thirties, replacing a homestead that had stood on the property since the last century. There had been alterations over the years—extra bathrooms and, of course, kitchen renovations, and the old garage had been turned into a bedsitting-room for Mrs. Riordan’s nurse-aide when Magnus had the new four-car garage erected.
    Jade put the satin robe on the bed beside the modest, opaque garments she’d removed from the suitcase. The lovely nightgowns she’d worn at home had hardly been suitable for institutional living; they were meant for the intimacy of a bedroom shared with a lover—a husband.
    Picking up the small heap of cotton nightwear, she dumped them on the floor of the wardrobe. She’d give them to the Red Cross or the Salvation Army.
    She turned to close the empty suitcase. It had probably come from the spare room on the other side of the bathroom, where they had used to store such things. She went through, carrying the case.
    The bedspread had been changed. Jade remembered a quilt heavily patterned with dusky pink roses. The new cover featured an abstract design in dark blues and reds with streaks of gold. Interesting and dramatic. She supposed that male guests might have found the overblown roses a bit much for their taste.
    She turned to open one of the wardrobes that twinned the pair in the main bedroom, and stepped back in surprise.
    The hangers were fully occupied with shirts, trousers, suits and jackets, and several pairs of men’s shoes were on the lower shelf. She made to hastily close the door, a reflex action to the unintentional invasion of someone’s privacy. Then she paused, her heart thudding, and raised a hand to touch a jacket sleeve, her eyes puzzled. She looked down at the shoes, and swung round to survey the room, that she now realised had a distinct air of being lived in.
    No wonder the other bedroom had seemed larger, barer. The tallboy that had always been there had been moved in here. How stupid, she thought, not to have noticed. A man’s brush and comb sat atop the chest, alongside the small tooled-leather box where Magnus habitually kept his cuff-links and tie-pins. On the bedside table a pair of burnished metal bookends held several paperbacks