Free A Bad Enemy by Sara Craven Page A

runabout when she was in the country was kept in one of the outhouses off the old stableyard, and she backed it out with care across the yard to the tap in the corner. It had started at first try, which was a good sign, and Peterson had assured her that he had had it serviced only recently. But it could do with some cosmetic treatment, she thought, coupling up the hose to the tap.
    Washing cars was by no means her favourite chore, but gradually, in the crisp autumnal air, the hard exercise of hosing down, drying and polishing began to restore her equilibrium. She even began to hum a tune as she worked.
    She would drive herself to the hospital tonight, she thought. Establish her independence. She grimaced as she realised that Murray would be expecting her to arrive with Jake, but she would think of some excuse why they were not together, then, gradually, as his health improved she would get him to accept the fact that the marriage plan he cherished was unworkable.
    'We don't even like each other,' she would have to tell him eventually. 'And he has a glamorous blonde lady hanging on his every word, and any other part of him she can reach, while I—I'm going to marry Oliver Grayson.'
    She pronounced the last few words with less conviction, even in her head, although she had little doubt she could make it happen if she really wanted to. But did she want to? She'd known Oliver for a long time—nearly all her life, in fact. She remembered Hilary, his ex-wife too. They had met and married at university, from what she could recall, and Hilary had been some kind of flower child. She had found adapting to the role of executive wife rather hard to take from all accounts, and eventually she had just stopped trying and gone off with the tutor of her pottery class to try self-sufficiency in Wales.
    Lisle thought Oliver still heard from her occasionally. Certainly he seemed to harbour no bitterness towards her, and there were no children for them to squabble over.
    She thought Oliver would probably have made quite a nice father, and in fact could still do so. If he remarried, he might well want to start a family.
    She bit her lip hard. She must stop casting Oliver in these roles, she thought. He was attractive and reliable and certainly one of the cornerstones of Harlow Bannerman, but she had never considered him in the light of a future husband before, or anyone else either, if it came to that.
    She was letting Murray's ridiculous suggestion completely unnerve her, and it wasn't necessary. The engagement was only a fake, and there would be no marriage. After all, what had Jake said? '
I have just as little taste for you as you have for me
.' That was her safeguard.
    But after last night, just how safe was it?
    He had wanted her badly, and she had been going quietly crazy in his arms when Gerard's call had interrupted them, and she found herself wondering how she would have felt if there had been no phone call, and she had let him make love to her there on the rug, and perhaps later up in his room. She pushed the thought resolutely away. There was no profit in that kind of speculation.
    The car positively gleamed when she had finished, and she felt proud of her handiwork as she re-coiled the hose, and put the wax polish and the cloths back in the garage. Her grandfather's Jaguar gleamed in the shadows, and she wondered with a pang whether Murray would ever sit behind the wheel again.
    She was passing through the hall on her way to the stairs when she heard Jake's car pull up. She took the stairs two at a time. She felt windblown and grimy after her exertions, and she didn't want to face him. At least not yet. Mrs Peterson was serving dinner before they were due to go to the hospital, and during the meal she would try and persuade him that there was nothing he could usefully achieve by remaining at the Priory.
    It wasn't even as if she was going to be alone there with the Petersons, because Gerard would be arriving that evening, which was