An Interrupted Marriage (Silhouette Special Edition) Read Online Free Page A

and two volumes with library numbers on their spines, and lying beside them was a magazine. She walked over to inspect the date and found it was this week’s.
    Jade swallowed hard, and went back to the master bedroom, flinging open the doors of the second wardrobe there.
    It was empty but for a few forlorn hangers and a couple of bags stowed on the top shelf.
    When had Magnus moved out of their room?
    And why?

Chapter Two
    J ade backed away from the wardrobe and slumped down on the bed, her brain grabbing at snatches of logic, of comfort. He’d been unable to bear sleeping in the bed they’d shared, without her? He’d moved out temporarily to accommodate some guests and just never bothered to bring his things back? But surely there was plenty of room for guests without such an upheaval.
    Other possible answers didn’t bear thinking of. She got up, hurrying into the other room again, closing the wardrobe, removing the suitcase, breathing quickly with relief as she reached her own room, before she realised the absurdity of her anxiety to hide her knowledge of where Magnus had obviously been sleeping lately. Nothing had been locked, after all. And certainly Magnus was no Bluebeard.
    The thought made her smile, and steadied her. There must be a perfectly ordinary, understandable explanation. She only had to ask him.
    She was out of the room and had run down the stairs before she hesitated in sudden doubt, her hand still on the smooth polished rail. He might not welcome the interruption.
    Too bad. She needed an answer. Removing her hand from the stair rail, she lifted her head and walked across the hall.
    Mrs. Riordan’s voice called, “Is that you, Ginette?”
    “No,” Jade answered reluctantly, stopping at the open doorway. “It’s me,” she said. “Did you want something, Mother Riordan? I don’t think Ginette’s around.”
    “Jade.” The book she’d been reading lay open on Mrs. Riordan’s lap. The sun had left the room, and it seemed gloomy. “Come in.”
    Jade advanced a few steps. “Is there something I can do for you?”
    “It’s getting cool. My knee-rug—it’s on the chair over there.”
    A wheelchair stood in one corner, a checked mohair rug folded on the seat. Jade fetched the rug and placed it over Mrs. Riordan’s legs. “Anything else?”
    “Not at the moment. Why don’t you sit down?” she suggested.
    “I...was going to see Magnus,” Jade said.
    “Is it so urgent?”
    Jade shook her head and took one of the high-backed chairs. “Did you want to talk to me?”
    Mrs. Riordan closed the book on her lap and sat holding it tightly. “I wonder if you realise,” she said, “how fortunate you are in having Magnus as your husband.”
    “I assure you I do,” Jade answered her. “I know that Magnus has made great sacrifices for me, that things have been...hard for him.”
    “It’s something that you acknowledge that. I should tell you,” the older woman said, looking straight at her, “that I advised him to divorce you.”
    Jade paled. “It would have been understandable.”
    “Magnus has a very strong sense of loyalty.”
    That cuts more than one way, Jade thought grimly.
    Mrs. Riordan continued, “He’s never shirked a responsibility. And he feels responsible for you, as his wife.”
    Jade met the penetrating gaze and said calmly, “I think he feels a good deal more than that. Magnus and I love each other.”
    A look of remote scorn crossed the other woman’s face. “Love! Is that what you call it?”
    Her head lifting, Jade said, “I don’t know what else to call it. It’s why we married each other.”
    A faint colour came into Mrs. Riordan’s sallow cheeks. “Magnus married you because he needed someone to give him practical help after his father died and I became—as I am now. He knew you were efficient as his secretary and I suppose he’d already discovered that you were equally so in his bed. I thought at one time that you were genuinely in love with him, and