Free A Winter Affair by Minna Howard

tried to joke. ‘Then the divorce papers arrived and I came to my senses. Although I still loved him, I accepted that the marriage was over and I must let him go. We met up to discuss selling the house but we were like two strangers,’ she shrugged, ‘who didn’t even speak the same language. We never really said goodbye, just packed up our marriage and walked away. Perhaps if we had talked it through, it would be easier to come to terms with now.’ She stared out of the window at the slope beside her, watching a class of children struggling down.
    â€˜And horrid for you losing the twins as well, not that you really have
lost
them of course, but them going off on their gap year is hard, especially over Christmas,’ Saskia said.
    â€˜They’d been planning it for ages and everything was set up. They’re going to uni next year, so they couldn’t put it off, though they did suggest they would if I needed them to stay with me.’ Eloise remembered their crestfallen faces at the thought of cancelling their plans, and yet they were decent enough to suggest that they would stay behind with her, and she knew that if she’d wanted them to, they would have done so, but she wouldn’t ask it of them. Hard though it was, she’d get on without them, without Harvey.
    â€˜Well, you’re here now, and if they were still at home and you were still married you couldn’t do this job,’ Saskia said cheerfully. ‘Are you happy here? Not that you’ve been out here for long.’ She studied Eloise’s face intently as if to winkle out any distress.
    â€˜It was all a bit sudden and I worry that Lawrence will not think me a good enough cook, or rather
chef
,’ she emphasized the word with an ironic grin, ‘for his discerning guests. I’m here under false pretences, you see.’ Eloise told her about Desmond’s misplaced pride in her cordon bleu credentials. ‘I’m cooking the sort of food I do when friends come to dinner and I had no complaints from them, but then they weren’t paying for it. Lawrence is running a business.’
    â€˜I’m sure he’d tell you if he wants any changes. That dinner you cooked the other night was delicious,’ Saskia said. ‘You’ll be fine and if you weren’t he’d have packed you off already, raided Aurelia’s dreadful delights,’ she laughed. ‘It was jolly mean of Denise, letting him down like that. She was nice though; we skied together sometimes. She told me she was getting tired of cooking, so I suppose she saw her chance and grabbed it. Tough luck if she finds he’s one of those mega-rich men who have miserly habits.’
    â€˜Tell me about you and Quinn.’ Apart from being curious Eloise wanted to steer Saskia away from her problems. ‘I’ve sometimes read his articles, though it was a bit scary cooking for such a prestigious food expert,’ she finished.
    â€˜I wouldn’t worry, he has to eat my cooking and he doesn’t grumble, not often anyway. It’s restaurants he writes about and some of those chefs can be so bumptious he can’t resist putting them down.’ Saskia smiled, pouring them more wine. ‘Well, my marriage didn’t work out either. I suppose Toby and I did fall in love, but when you’re young you confuse sexual desire with true, lasting love. We had the children and life was busy, but we somehow didn’t fit together. I found Toby lazy – no not exactly lazy that’s unfair, but apathetic, too laid-back. He had a job in a mediocre firm and just trundled along with no ambition, and though he wasn’t unkind or anything like that, he treated me as just someone who was always there, like a piece of familiar furniture. So I had an affair.’ She looked ashamed of herself and Eloise felt a grab of pain in her stomach. Had she had an affair with Harvey?
    There was a silence between them a