Alysse Aallyn

Tag: #Mysteries

  • Devoured Heart – romantic suspense by Alysse Aallyn

    Chapter 15. Married Romance



    Because Ian’s train came in at the dinner hour, Scarlet hoped to turn the event into a sorely needed romantic date. Fern agreed to look after Nicholas if Scarlet dropped the baby off in his carrycot at her parents’ home. Fern’s mother oohed and aahed over Nicholas and offered to give him a bottle of warm, diluted condensed milk if he cried.


    She seemed so motherly Scarlet agreed. It was glorious to be set free for the evening, to imagine herself young and carefree with her whole life ahead of her. Those had been such good, such memorable days – she needed their nostalgic power to propel her through this crisis. When she dared to fall for an acknowledged heartbreaker, she told herself his bad reputation had grown out of disappointed spite. Every girl was attracted by Ian’s glamor but it was the shy American girl who had captured his heart.


    She had dressed carefully for this evening. Technically they weren’t supposed to “go all the way” tonight but what could twenty-four hours possibly matter? A whisper of the forbidden could spice up routine. According to Scarlet’s thinking this was the second time the future of their relationship required her to throw caution to the winds.


    She wore a low cut glittery velvet top – tight, her nursing bra pushing her newly inflated breasts upward. Now that she possessed such a pair of gaudy bosoms she might as well flaunt them. Her black velvet skirt was a bit long, forcing her to wear heels, but Ian liked high heels anyway – didn’t all men? If they danced high heels guaranteed they’d be cheek to cheek. Careful makeup, swinging gold leaf earrings, a fleecy wrap and her pale hair brushed fine and down. She had certainly caused favorable remark at Fern’s house:


    “Smashing!” declared Fern’s brother.


    She needed this confidence, she realized, as she waited for the train.


    The train was on time and she was a bit discouraged to see Ian step out of the dining car, his cheeks lit with comfort and good living, talking and laughing in a gaggle of male strangers.
    He waved goodbye as she flashed her lights at him, then she climbed out of the station wagon.
    “I hardly recognized you,” he offered.


    She hoped it was meant as a compliment but didn’t feel sure. She clambered, heels skittering across the icy cobblestones.


    “Steady on!” He grabbed her elbow. “Did you start the celebration without me?”


    That’s my line, she thought, almost angrily. “No, I made reservations Sous les Arbres. I thought we deserved a night out. How about you?”


    “Suits me,” he said, answering the wrong question, but she left it at that. At least he hadn’t dented his appetite which was something to be grateful for. And he didn’t seem visibly impaired. She must firmly reject that role of critical wife, Xantippe to a pathetic Socrates. Probably he’d had no more than a Guinness. Or two. Drink rounds were a rigid English social requirement in the club car ethos – especially if the “friends” were new.


    Scarlet plunged ahead – straight, she hoped, into their shared new life.


    “So, tell me the good news! I’m dying to know!”


    “I got the job!” he said, grinding the gears into reverse. “It’s a great opportunity. They love my modern mythology series idea. “Jupiter in Your Office!” They ate it up. They created a brand new position, just for me, based on me bringing in all my contacts. Director of New Programming. Fresh people, fresh ideas – cultivating movers and shakers. If we make it our business to know everyone it guarantees our place at the top of the game.”


    “Oh honey, I’m so glad!” and she kissed him. It really had worked out all right, then, after all. Buying this impossible house in the country hadn’t been the end of everything, but a more exciting beginning. Sister India had been entirely wrong – she just didn’t understand the English system of presentation, perks, honors and rewards.


    “Tell you what, you go up tomorrow and look at flats,” he said.


    “What can we afford? What are they paying you?”


    “That’s not settled but it’ll be something pretty generous. Should we call the Pourfoyles so you can stay over? They offered.”


    Did that mean he had seen them?


    “I don’t want to be away from Nick overnight. I think I should take him along.”


    “Oh Scarlet, stop being such a sentimental American squaw. Face it, the English have a much better system. You wean that baby and give him to Fern. Or Ina. Or somebody.”


    Scarlet certainly would not do that but she knew this was not a good time to argue the point. They had arrived at the restaurant where it was time to surrender their battered old car to the valet.
    “Pas devant les domestiques,” said Scarlet and Ian had the grace to laugh.


    They enjoyed a lovely meal. Snails followed by steak Diane set flaming in the pan, and a fine old Bollinger to drink it all down. Scarlet thought one glass was all she could manage – after all her abstemious days, wine seemed to soar straight to her head.


    Ian talked about all the new people he was meeting – important people with “royal connections” looking to him to “set the tone.” “They’re planning to really build me up!”’


    The champagne gave him the confidence to say, “Margalo really has no idea of quality. I believe I could sell them any damn thing. We should tart up your verse play and pretend we’ve just discovered it.”


    “Margalo?” asked Scarlet sharply. She ordered coffee with her cheese. Café americaine.
    They served espresso instead. Oh well, thought Scarlet, I don’t want to fall asleep immediately anyway.


    “Margalo Chalmers,” said Ian. “She’s the one who hired me. Don’t be jealous Scarlet old girl, she’s an unspeakably hideous old lesbian.”


    Scarlet knew there was no guarantee whatever that this was true. Margalo was doubtless a perfectly presentable thirty-five-year old businesswoman. Ian had probably flirted with her shamelessly. Scarlet accepted the driving duties as they tottered, flushed, out into the night.


    Fern’s Mom – who seemed to have commandeered the baby care – said she thought Nick’s diaper rash was “keeping him awake” and she had “taken the liberty” of applying some ointment the locals swore by. Scarlet sniffed at Nicholas like a mother wolf – she couldn’t help herself – had these people “altered” her child? She thought it much more likely that Nick was exhausted from being passed around to strangers when he should be getting his rest.


    The “baby minders” were thanked and coins changed hands, then just at the door Ian announced, “Scarlet’s going up to town –“


    “I don’t know,” Scarlet interrupted almost ferociously. “We’ll see.”


    As Ian helped her and carrycot into the car he said, “See what problems you make for yourself? That nice lady would love having a “babby” to look after!”


    Scarlet hissed at him angrily. “They won’t even tell us what they used to treat our child! Could be deadly nightshade for all you know.”


    “Hardly, if all the locals have been using it for years. There can’t be anything dangerous in the preparation or it would never have lasted this long. Naturally they keep their secret recipes proprietary. You should consider partnering with Mrs. Mugle to sell Failsafe Babby Ointment to every woman in Britain – that would be a lot more lucrative than verse plays.”


    There was so much umbrage to take at this sentence Scarlet didn’t know where to start, so she chose the better path and said nothing. By the time they got home she would hopefully be calmed down enough to get their “special evening” back on track.


    “What I hear you saying,” Ian went on in his most reasonable-sounding way as the car rattled around the corner onto the main road, “Is that you need help but you also want to do everything yourself in your own way.”


    Horribly, he was right. Her continued silence would sound like sulking.


    “I’m the one who chose Mrs. Mugle,” she said. “At least let’s see if this magic ointment really works before we try her again.”


    But if she asked Mrs. Mugle to put aside her own maternal instincts how good a job of baby-minding could she possibly do? Resentment and secrecy must follow any such request. Anyway, Scarlet had really signed on for the services of Fern – who had been nowhere in sight. Scarlet feared these local coven mothers with their unscientific, outdated superstitions. She couldn’t be too careful with her only child.


    “Americans fuss too much over their children and then they all grow up weak, delinquent and neurotic,” Ian accused comfortably. “In our country, we don’t believe in all this indulgence and fetishizing.”


    Once again Scarlet could barely control herself. Who could possibly be more neurotic than any aristocratic twit nursing his entitlement or for that matter an Angry Young Man seeking fame by proclaiming his grievance? But she knew she couldn’t say this – Ian would only tell her she didn’t know anything about it and the fight would be on. That was NOT her plan for the evening.
    “I’m bushed,” said Ian, pulling off his tie as she tucked Nicholas into his crib. “I’ll take the guest bath.”


    She heard the water running, but she also heard voices. Creeping down the hall she saw he had taken the hall telephone into the bathroom with him and closed the door.


    Who could he possibly be calling at this hour? Margalo? Candi? Someone she didn’t even know about? This was insufferable. She’d bitten her tongue all evening, now secret phone calls were too much. The moment for intimacy with her husband– on this night of nights – had passed. Intimacy with her son was all she had left. Too bad her milk seemed to have dried up.

  • Devoured Heart – romantic suspense by Alysse Aallyn

    Chapter 15 – A Trip to London

    A fast kiss at the train station –


    “You can reach me at The Royal Grenadier Hotel” – and he was gone. Leaving her to muse ruefully on all these new positional changes in their relationship.


    Hadn’t she always leaned on his preferences and decisiveness? Was it possible that – after all – she HAD masked her true self from her husband and only now was it beginning to emerge?
    No. She had masked her true self from herself. And it was understandable – the future was aspirational – one yearned to become a “certain somebody.’ It was only later that you found some doors were closed – always would be closed because you yourself really didn’t want them. Really didn’t.


    Did this work for men as well, she wondered? Did they know their real selves so little? Ian had been raised with certain expectations – to ‘rise in the world,’ for example – which he was fulfilling. But women were encouraged to adapt in a way men were not and so inevitably, they looked for someone to adapt to.


    If Ian’s real, poetic self had yet to emerge she was certain the revelation would take a very long time. It could only happen after he had tried his dream of castle ownership, BBC employment and ‘partying with the right people” – and found it wanting. It could be, Scarlet realized, a very long wait.


    She had thought she knew him so well that she could have said exactly what he was thinking at any given moment and that made him the only man for her. But she was beginning to realize that no couple can really know each other because the challenges of marriage itself – of parenthood – must mold their characters. An unchanged soul would be shallow and undesirable for that very reason. They had always been on a journey; it remained to be seen whether they could travel together.


    She recalled Ian on their very first date saying as she dithered over Indian food, “Don’t over-cerebrate. Lean on me. That’s what I’m here for.”


    Those words – so erotic at the time – now seemed appalling. Naturally, it wasn’t just his words but his face and body, his gorgeously explosive masculinity, the testosterone that dripped off him like cologne – turning both her head and heart. She had suddenly felt confident of reveling in the utter relaxation she required for erotic satisfaction. She could float – she could surrender.


    Now she was finding out what exactly what it was she had surrendered to. They had both used her “American optimism” as fuel to stabilize his “English pessimism”. She had literally been the making of him. And she had given herself to the enjoyment of every moment.


    Until now. Now she felt unpleasantly certain that he had dismissed her from his mind as he boarded the train. He was whistling. Whistling was his “tell”. Long ago he’d criticized her “bad” poker face, that American refusal to create a social personality – calling out her “giveaways” of furrowed brow and trembling lip. Because he positioned himself as the expert it hadn’t seemed appropriate to explain to him that he had “tells” of his own – an overly rigid “poker face” for example! Only used while playing poker! And the whistling. That was worse. It meant he was going hunting. And looking forward to it.

    Having Ian gone was a relief in at least one way – no regular meals. Much easier to diet — “slimming” the Brits called it. Ian loved fried breakfasts, relished cheese, desired iced cakes, dreamed about “old-fashioned English teas” with the “top of the cream”, demanded a constant supply of sandwiches, sweeties and savories. He considered a castle owner entitled to nuts served with his port. It was dangerous (and expensive!) keeping up with him and Scarlet knew she daren’t try. She couldn’t eat any of it and lose this bulky baby weight. Since she couldn’t match him indulgence for indulgence she might as well make up her mind to monastic living.


    Ian was a tall man, a big man, perhaps running a bit to fat these days, in the belly, in the chin, but to Scarlet’s loving eyes he was only that much more powerful and desirable now that his solid middle matched his massive shoulders.


    The easiest things to give up were alcohol and meat: chocolate was the stumbling block. She treasured that cup of cocoa at bedtime too much to surrender it. Another American habit! She had been sleeping badly, listening to Nicholas cycling through his moods. She required comfort to confront these cooling nights.

    The day after Ian left it snowed – the first snow she had seen in England, a country which had previously been uniformly cold, wet, dank and gray. This snow was white, full, American in its lushness. But who could she share it with?


    The Royal Grenadier had no telephones in rooms, so she left messages that were never returned. Finally, after four days, a telegram.

    “Good news. Home 22 6:15. Love, Ian”.

    Scarlet sighed with relief. On the 23rd it would be six weeks since Nicholas’ birth. She had marked that calendar date with a rose.

  • Devoured Heart – romantic suspense by Alysse Aallyn

    Chapter 14. Marital Disharmony

    On the very day Scarlet sent Candi’s telegram, Ian suddenly announced he must go up to London. Scarlet battled hard to suppress her instant jealousy. Jealousy placed her in an invidious position – the Ball and Chain carping wife. Who WOULDN’T want to escape from that? Ian argued that he had appointments about “employment options”, but Scarlet knew and stated that he’d received no calls or mail.


    “Oh no?” he’d returned loftily. He’d always had these appointments, he simply didn’t tell Scarlet because “she would react like this”.


    Scarlet was stumped. Stymied. How on earth had this happened? They’d been so happy just a couple of months ago, when they moved in – they’d always been a happy, get-along couple. The envy of their friends. Suddenly he had become a “high-flier” and she was a stuck at home as The Complainer! Why, oh why hadn’t she listened to India, her own Sister Anne, who warned her about Wives Stuck In the Country?


    The seeming inevitability of rigid roles loomed over them. There was the “hardworking long-distance husband” who needed and deserved whatever relaxation, rest and entertainment he could find in The Big City versus the “trapped, bitter drudge” of a wife who didn’t appreciate all she’d been given and always wanted more. It was the “battle of the sexes” they’d read about (and laughed over) during courtship. It could never apply to self-aware, intelligent artists: lucky people who knew where to find and how to value “true love”.


    Charming as Wyvern House was slowly becoming, it could never be worth a loss this devastating. Scarlet was facing nothing less than the total corruption of her love relationship. Worst of all, they couldn’t discuss it. She daren’t even mention it. She knew with absolute certainty that Ian would blame the baby, not the house! Wouldn’t he be simply playing to “type”? And wouldn’t everyone agree with him? Wasn’t this what the “world” insisted always happened to everyone else? The mother fell in love with the baby and the father, feeling the loss, sought attention elsewhere. He became freer, she became more burdened, then the fights began. She’d never – and Ian said HE’D never – thought any of this could possibly apply to them!


    He changed, not me, thought Scarlet mutinously. Suddenly his mind was closed to her. It happened the instant we walked into this house. But how could she have stopped Ian from buying a house she’d neither heard of nor seen? Talk about inevitability! They’d planned her pregnancy together but the house idea was his alone. Although when Scarlet thought honestly about it, hadn’t agreed they needed more space? It was a hopeless mess.


    Scarlet felt uncomfortable requesting fidelity from her husband considering they were banned from having sex. Although she couldn’t feel confident in his devotion, she did ask him – “will you be true to me?”


    His horrible answer was, “What do you think?” Either he scorned her for raising the question, or he dared her to tell him the truth, which was, that she thought he wouldn’t be. But her pride couldn’t allow her to beg from this stranger. Who was he? The more responsibilities Ian had, the more different he became from the playful, imaginative student she had married, and the more he seemed to be turning into a hostile alien driven by unreadable compulsions.


    But mightn’t he say the same of her? She kept secrets, too.


    For example, she had originally considered Nicholas would have better childhood in the country. Ian considered it “American” and “suburban” (both pejoratives) to dread the dirt and despair, the “rat-race” of big cities and to conjure up instead a green Eden where Nicholas could grow slowly, while studying the past’s best minds.


    Scarlet had known she must eventually brace herself to fight the English craziness of sending eight year old boys away to boarding school but in the old days she had enough confidence in herself and her marriage to feel this was a battle she might win.


    Now she saw he considered marriage a partnership only when the wife agrees with her husband. When she didn’t, it was easier to ignore her.


    Before the most recent trip to London she had taken care to mark him with her scent so to speak, to bathe him in her love, remind him of their passion, but after the guest weekend she felt too dispirited and if she must be honest, too angry at his cultivation of someone like Candi and his apparent willingness to use her as a goad against his own wife. How dare he! So disloyal! Her itch to scratch his face was decidedly de-rousing.


    He was claiming the Holy Grail – a proffered permanence at the BBC. According to him, “everybody knew” television was THE modern workplace nowadays for money and advancement. Scarlet hadn’t cared for the BBC people she had met. They seemed so relentlessly – even aggressively, proudly “unpoetic”. Couldn’t Ian see that these people quashed rather than enhanced creativity? But such concepts only made Ian angrier. Their new obligations were expensive. She couldn’t contest that.


    She found herself yearning hopelessly for the carefree days of courtship and poverty – a honeymoon in Spain for pennies a day – a dingy flat with a toilet on the landing. Too late for such nostalgia. Those days were pre-Nicholas, and now that he was here he needed the best care possible. The universe required Nicholas. It was Scarlet’s deepest belief that Nicholas needed to be born. One could even argue that Scarlet needed to become a mother, for Nicholas’ sake. Everything Ian knew of this atavism he instinctively despised. She was certain he considered Wyvern House more important than his son.


    A cynic would say this was the oldest Tale Ever Told. Men and women had different investments in children. Who was that American scientist in the thirties who wrote about how important any particular man was to a woman, and how unimportant any particular woman was to a man? Men didn’t comprehend the process of giving birth, didn’t need to because in biological fact they could father hundreds of children every year. Women, on the other hand, must invest years in bringing up a mere handful of children.


    Scarlet certainly didn’t want to hash any of this out with Ian. Back in their courting days, he was interested in her thoughts and they could talk about anything; now he seemed resolved on turning her own words into weapons against her.


    One morning Ian galvanized her with a totally unexpected argument.


    “You know, if I got this job, we’d have to get a place in town. What a Christmas that would be!”
    This was casually stated while he was looking in the mirror, tying his tie.


    Scarlet’s mouth fell open. “A flat in town AND a house in the country?”


    “Why not? Other people do it.”


    They certainly did: rich people. Ian did have that thousand pounds – if he hadn’t already used it to stave off debts. They’d already agreed to skip Christmas presents in the face of all these expenses – but a shared apartment hunt would be a gift in itself!


    Wouldn’t that be the perfect solution? Had she jumped too fast to all her negative conclusions? Her face burned – was he right when he called her “The Doomsayer?”


    He didn’t need the mirror to tie his tie – he was using it to study her face. She had never been one who aspired to mask her emotions – especially from her husband! But this time she really tried. In her mind she saw their lives unspooled – dinners with fake people like Candi, hours spent rushing from town to country and back again, passing the baby between them and multiple caregivers as they sought to keep a precarious footing in the world of “the lucky ones” – was that really the life she wanted? She felt certain that even in the midst of these complex preoccupations, people found time to feel lonely and hopeless. Equally she felt certain that such a busy chatelaine would never write a worthwhile word.


    Money was universally supposed to solve all dilemmas. She was beginning to see that wasn’t true. And yet – if she needn’t scrabble for a job herself, a flat in town would solve the education dilemma. And so she said,


    “Sounds wonderful,” and was touched when he sighed with visible relief. He still cared what she thought!

  • Devoured Heart – romantic suspense by Alysse Aallyn

    Chapter 13 – Game On


    “I have never been so happy to say goodbye to people,” said Scarlet when at last she and Ian were alone and driving home.


    “They’re not so bad,” said Ian smugly. “You must appreciate Candi’s determination to have a good time. Quite the little Cleopatra, isn’t she?”


    “Don’t fall,” said Scarlet sharply and her husband answered, “As if I would sink so low! She’s not my class at all.”


    How Scarlet wished he’d said, “YOUR class.” Did he even think of his wife as sexy? Desirable? Feminine? HUMAN, any longer? Instead she asked,


    “Why on earth did we invite them, then?”


    And Ian answered complacently, “Just an experiment to get your rusty skills up to speed. One must make plenty of daring social experiments to test the field.”


    Scarlet was struggling with the horror of that comment when just at that moment Nicholas woke up mightily discontented with everything about his life, requiring Scarlet to crawl into the back seat and minister to the one male who indisputably put her first.


    On Wednesday, the mail contained two thank you letters – one addressed to each of them.
    She couldn’t bear waiting – she had to open Ian’s, unfolding a sheet of empty pink letter paper stiff as cardboard and ornamented with a single gold “C” – and a shower of rose petals. Not a word.

    Candi hadn’t written a single word! Scarlet was humiliated to have to pick up every damn petal – there were thirty-six of them. She took them into Ian’s office where he was working on his accounts (or, as he called it “cooking the books”. It was only his own father he was fooling.)


    “This is yours,” she said, dumping them in his lap. “Sorry. I thought it was for the both of us.”
    He just laughed.


    Scarlet’s letter was more substantial, less suggestive and if that were possible, even more aversive. MORE cards from the Escarpa Gallery, fashion trunk show invitations, fulsomely effusive words about the weekend and an onionskin pattern drawing for a stained-glass window “picking out the colors of your study” – some kind of hunting scene.


    Scarlet couldn’t focus on the huntsman picture, she was so appalled by this barrage. She knew Candi wanted her to think Ian had taken her privately up to Scarlet’s study. Damn the woman! And in the guise of offering this idiotic “gift” she was literally daring Scarlet to complain.


    “We’ll never invite them back,” Scarlet thought. But did she actually have that much power? She could already hear Ian’s voice insisting they must entertain, make friends, cultivate acquaintanceships with people they didn’t like at all. Why had she done this to herself? She should have realized a castle came with a heavy psychic as well as financial mortgage.


    She toyed with the idea of needing to be “in London” on weekends when the unbearable was expected – but didn’t that cede the field to Candi? Wouldn’t she love to play hostess? Back in their London days Scarlet considered their coupledom as a unit, indissoluble, because they loved each other and wanted and valued the same things. It just didn’t feel true anymore. She felt embarrassed and humiliated by the pink honeymoon cloud that once has obscured the entire sky.


    She shouldn’t catastrophize. She should play it cleverly. How many women like Candi were there in the world? Couldn’t she figure out some way to keep them at bay? She needed to come up with some clever way to tell Candi she didn’t want this damn “gift.”

    Should she say she hated modern glass? Loathed hunting scenes? Something would occur to her but first things first: she must order stationery bearing the name Mrs. Ian Wye. No, no, that wouldn’t do – anyone could be Mrs. Ian Wye. Mrs. Scarlet Wye sounded as if they were already divorced. Ian and Scarlet Wye? That was so American – she could only get away with it if Ian never saw it. Her maiden name was the name she wrote under – Scarlet Stavenger – her “business name” she supposed – but taking away her married name seemed to concede the field. Scarlet Stavenger Wye – that was what was required.


    Oakhampton Stationers told her the order couldn’t be ready for two weeks at least, so she sent a telegram to Candi’s gallery.


    “No stained glass for me thank you – appreciate the thought.”


    Game on.

  • Devoured Heart – romantic suspense by Alysse Aallyn

    Chapter 12. A Hostess Gift

    They all rose late. David insisted he’d slept “very well” but Ian’s eyes were shuttered against Scarlet’s inquiring look and Candi seemed smugly triumphant. It went against Scarlet’s grain to question them but if you didn’t tell foreign sexual adventuresses that your husband was off limits, how could they be expected to know? Candi’s barbed words – “glad to know another couple with a truly modern relationship” – came back to haunt her like some sly promotion of infidelity as sophisticated, international and superior. Scarlet felt certain husband David wasn’t on board with that.


    They drove to Oakhampton after a late and hasty Continental breakfast prepared by Ian, (wonder of wonders) – the “girls” in the back of the estate wagon with Nick in his carrycot between them. Scarlet struggled to find words that would be politic yet reproving, fearing that if she missed her chance, she’d be silenced forever.


    But Candi forestalled her.


    “You must come up to London soon,” she gushed, “Now that you have a nanny.”
    Scarlet struggled with the concept of Fern elevated to this pinnacle while Candi hurried on; “So we can have a real heart to heart.”


    Which of us is being courted now? Wondered Scarlet. A nightmare world appeared to her inner eye where her personal good fortune; talent, beauty, husband, house, son – laid her open to invasion by this succubus scheming to supplant her.


    Candi placed a cold hand with terrifyingly long, red lacquered nails on Scarlet’s hot, stubby, hang-nailed paw.


    “I have discounts at all the best places. Now that you have your figure back we must suit you out.”
    “Lovely,” quivered Scarlet, revolted by virtually everything about this patronizing sentence. She knew immediately that the truth was of no interest to Candi, who sought always to perpetrate a façade, and who took it for granted other people did too. She seemed confident Scarlet would never correct her, never insist that she was large, baggy and leaking milk in all directions. Her presentable caftan at the restaurant for dinner out could be considered “maternity wear.” She would rather die than ever shop with Candi, didn’t want to resemble her and hadn’t planned to buy anything new until Nicholas was weaned.


    But she felt a horrid certainty that Ian would side with Candi; that one must always “put on a show”. Was she being penny wise and husband foolish? Something to consider. Perhaps she could spring for one outfit – but certainly not alongside Candi! Tatiana had a pair of velvet toreador pants Scarlet coveted. “Divorce insurance” – distasteful as that might be. And she desperately needed a warm winter coat – something better than this shabby red anorak she wore everywhere.


    Breakfast had been so late and Ian’s porridge was so stomach-churning nobody could think of food or even a cup of tea at the café. In desperation, Scarlet suggested visiting the bookshop instead to purchase “something to read on the train” and all agreed with this idea.

    The Fruitful Browser was fortunately open Sundays. It might specialize in old, antique and “used” books but there is no such thing as a “used idea”. Francesca even offered a respectable cup of coffee which she called, charmingly, “café americaine.” She gave Scarlet’s guests – and then Scarlet – a look that could only be described as “conspiratorial.” Baby Nicholas cooperated by staying sound asleep locked safely in the car.


    “Literature by the yard! I see!” said Candi, who appeared personally insulted by the very concept of used books. “But I suppose if you’ve got shelves to fill” – until Ian commented,


    “Here’s a lovely section of pocket Trollopes.”


    That’s what Candi was, thought Scarlet. A “pocket trollop!”


    Seemingly Candi wanted anything Ian wanted. Her acquisitive eyes lit with lust.


    Scarlet left them to it while she and David happily perused the Golden Age of Crime novels – tuppence a copy. David was thrilled to find a series Scarlet had never even heard of.


    “Our Miss Clew,” he said, “These are glorious. I think there were only ever a baker’s dozen and I’ve been missing five! Here they all are!” To Scarlet he hissed conspiratorially, “Don’t tell. They could sell the full set for substantially more.”


    Scarlet had to assume Francesca knew her business. In any event, she personally dropped a guinea in this store on her every Oakhampton shopping trip. She snapped up the five David didn’t need.


    “I see you love Miss Clew,” Francesca remarked, adding up their purchases. “They really must issue reprints – these inexpensive editions – “railway” they called them – fall to tatters far too soon.”


    Scarlet could only agree – her copies appeared to be restored with what she, as a new homeowner, recognized as friction tape.


    Candi had chosen a first edition of Frank Harris’ Life and Loves which, horribly, Ian insisted on purchasing for her.


    “I shall have to think up a really special bread and butter present,” said Candi. “This has been the most wonderful weekend of my life.”

  • Devoured Heart – romantic suspense by Alysse Aallyn

    Chapter 11. The Guests

    Ian continued to surprise her. He stood looking down on her humorously, but distantly, as if he were visiting from somewhere else. He had a long smooth patter prepared about how he had occupied himself while in London: cultivating television executives, meeting the right people, offering services, making pitches, being…himself.


    Scarlet found this naked pursuit of cash so repellant that she asked no questions, accepting it at face value. What else could she do? They needed money to live. She had agreed to live in this house, she had willingly added an extra mouth to feed. He was her husband, the father of her baby and she needed to accept and support his ideas. In aid of this charm offensive, Ian informed her that he had invited weekend guests.

    “Show off your accomplishments,” he oozed, “Let them see we’re a package deal.” To Scarlet it seemed strangely as if his sudden need of her hostessing shifted the power balance between them.


    Scarlet wished he’d waited for Nicholas to recover from night-screaming colic before entertaining. She also knew he didn’t want her to become the kind of woman who talked endlessly about baby’s digestive and bowel complaints. Ian had planned a life above the muck and so far she had failed him. But muck was artist’s fertilizer! For the first time in her marriage she felt the need to learn negotiation; or at least some basic bargaining skills.


    “If I can have some help with the food,” she requested. “I don’t want to be stuck in the kitchen while you entertain the guests.”


    He was smart enough to realize that it was his own insistence on keeping the dining room separate from the kitchen had let him in for this so he capitulated almost immediately.
    “What kind of help?”


    “Remember those dreamy trifles Pom served? They were made by Mrs. Ryquist over at the pub.”
    “I like your cooking,” he complained, his argument weakened by the fact that this was the first she’d heard it. She pushed her advantage.


    “I’ll be doing plenty of cooking. Let’s order fill-ins, say, a ham, some soup, a trifle and a cake for starters. Think how helpful that will be.”


    Ian knew when he was beaten. “Whatever you want”.


    David and Candianna Pourfoyle were the very couple to whom they’d sublet their tiny flat – Scarlet felt at first relieved when Ian mentioned their names. At least it was someone she knew!


    “A practice run,” said Ian, “Polishing our routine before inviting The Big Guns.”

    The more Scarlet thought about this, the more unsettled she felt. She even had the paranoid thought: What if the subletting happenstance was planned behind her back and not, as she had assumed, random?


    Was this sense of having undergone a radical sea-change what being a new young mother was all about? Scarlet shuddered at even trying to find her sea-legs in this new world when she felt so personally raw and physically overwhelmed.

    She had met the Pourfoyles only once it and they seemed so nice – he taught literature and she had some kind of art gallery job – a sublet was all they could afford. Newlyweds are foreigners to each other anyway and these two had been born in different countries. The similarities to Scarlet’s and Ian’s background only made them more simpatico.


    David was younger than Candianna and Canadian – they’d actually met on an Atlantic crossing – she was from one of those Balkan countries perpetually at war and seemed in need of a safe harbor. David seemed like a sweet, gentle man ready to be a hero – in this case rescuing Candi from a dreadful marriage with a violent man. Candi had actually been married three times previously – Scarlet assumed that to women of Candi’s birth culture marriage was simply an escape.


    “Candi” wasn’t even her real name – she had re-named herself but didn’t Americans love re-invention? Scarlet thought she could have picked a better name. But if English wasn’t your first language, wouldn’t you make just that type of error?


    Eventually she discovered a way to look forward to the weekend, singing as she planned guest room drapes, cushions and bedcoverings. Deep plum crewel work on a rough, almost canvas backing – courtesy of Tatiana Designs, another little shop she had discovered in Oakhampton. She’d coveted everything there but she couldn’t afford the clothes – the furnishings were being sold off cheap so Tatiana could concentrate on fashion. “We sell direct to Montcalm Clothiers,” Tatiana had bragged.


    This emporium seemed good place to guide Ian to when he was looking for a present. He had previously revealed a boring tendency to settle for ho-hum gifts like perfume and necklaces purchased at jewelry stalls. He couldn’t go wrong at Tatiana Designs and even Tatiana herself was interesting, although her Russian accent might be as fake as her Egyptian makeup. But why quibble with poseurs if they made life more fun? They were artists mastering their material.


    Candi and David arrived on a Thursday night. They expressed satisfactory appreciation of the house, oohing and aahing at just the right moments and David, thankfully, was a non-smoking light drinker.


    “You’re very brave, bringing children into the world, what with the bomb and all,” said Candi.
    Scarlet, who smiled encouragingly, privately dismissed her as not very bright.


    “They’re hard to avoid,” said Ian with unnecessary gloom.


    “I’d love having kidlets someday,” David contributed. Poor David. There was something so pathetic about him. Why was Scarlet so certain he never would have kidlets, or really, much of anything at all? He was such a follower.


    Scarlet waved a hand at the spiral staircase. “My study’s up there,” she said. An irresistible brag.
    Candi became goggle-eyed. “I’d love to see it.”


    “It’s not fit to be seen.” Truth was, it was just too private. But why did she feel so uncomfortable declaring it off-limits? Because hostesses were obligated to throw open all the doors and welcome anybody in? Scarlet shuddered at the thought of other people’s hands touching sheets of her half-baked ideas – those ideas would be blighted forever. She would never be able to get back to them. It was like people asking you to bathe in front of them. “Don’t mind us!”


    “Oh, please,” said Candi and David took her arm restrainingly. Did it come from being foreign, this cluelessness? English as a seventh language?


    “At least tell me the color scheme,” said Candi. “I’m psychic about colors.”


    “Red and purple,” said Scarlet, suddenly deciding that she really quite disliked this woman. Who wouldn’t be repulsed by her strange trick of bugging out her eyes like a starving Pekingese? It was so corny, so fake, reminiscent of bad hypnotists and unpersuasive stage magic. Did men really fall for this kind of thing? And yet both David and Ian looked at her as a mongoose might gaze at a snake.


    “Red for Scarlet,” said Candi. “How unexpected.” Perhaps she wasn’t clueless after all.


    A dinner out, a dinner in, two breakfasts, one lunch and another at the station in Oakhampton – Scarlet had never realized how much trouble guests really were. Their small London flat had prevented them from ever having company.


    Candi claimed to eat “nothing” yet she was a fount of complaints and requisitions: “China tea, never Indian,” “Can’t abide garlic”; “No tree nuts”; “Cucumbers don’t agree with me” – it would be easier to just show her the kitchen and tell her to forage. Scarlet refrained from pointing out that she must partake occasionally – you didn’t get substantial hips and breasts like those without tucking in. It did turn out that she was very fond of scones with Devonshire clotted cream. Starches and sweets! So that was the secret!


    David at least ate heartily, behaving as if he was on a gastronomic vacation, and assisted with the washing up while Ian, who pretended to assist, regaled them with his stories. Candi watched him with overly shiny eyes. She must spruce up her makeup every twenty minutes, thought Scarlet.


    The red wine vanished immediately; Scarlet had reason to be grateful for the Grüner Veltliner. She made a mental note to thank Pom again. He would never get any other benefit – Ian accepted all the credit and relished the opportunity to show off his knowledge of Austrian wine.


    “I usually buy Traminer but this is drinkable,” he opined. It was all Scarlet could do not to roll her eyes. Fortunately, Candi picked up any and all conversational slack, talking endlessly about her gallery job. She passed around tickets and cards to multiple openings and receptions – painters – all male of course – who seemingly enjoyed picturing women as corpses, robots and birds of prey. Scarlet began to feel the pressure that had triggered some of Pom’s re-envisioning. Moving with the herd was deadly.


    On their guests’ last night Scarlet was yawning and ready for bed at eight o’clock. With monumental effort, she held out till eight-thirty.


    “I think I’ll feed Nick and turn in myself,” she suggested.


    Candi said, “You must be very devoted to risk spoiling your figure.”


    “And a lovely figure it is,” David toasted her “To the cook!”


    None of it felt complimentary.


    Would Ian EVER come to bed? She awoke at two o’clock with a sense of dread. He wasn’t there, and though his side of the comforter seemed disturbed she could have done that herself, tossing and turning while escaping The Dark Tower. At last she rose, donned a pink paisley wrap and drifted downstairs with the excuse of re-filling her hot water bottle.

    She could hear whispering but couldn’t figure out where it was coming from. She took advantage of the time the kettle took to boil to wander from room to room and as she moved the whispering stopped. Could it be coming from the undercroft – the “crypt” in Pom’s parlance? But it was so cold and uncomfortable down there. If they were getting wine why didn’t they come back? And who required wine at breakfast? Maybe it was just the wind she was hearing.


    But Nick’s cry was unmistakable – she filled her bottle and rushed to feed and change him before he woke the house. As if the house had ever been asleep!

  • Devoured Heart – romantic suspense by Alysse Aallyn

    Chapter 10. The Bookshop

    Scarlet was rather hoping Ian would be jealous when he found out about her dinner party, but sadly, she turned out to be the jealous one. She could hear him whistling as he came in the front door and she rushed in to meet him so he wouldn’t wake the baby.


    He was waving a thousand pound cheque from his father’s account. Scarlet caught a glimpse of Nicholas’ name in the memo line before Ian whisked it away.


    “For the baby?”


    “Of course, for the baby!” Ian seemed irked. “Everything’s for the baby, which is to say it’s for us.”


    Scarlet hoped Ian’s father wasn’t under the impression that he was starting some special bank fund for Nicholas but feared he probably did. Ian often misled people about the finer points of his spending, implying he was a saver and an investor when he most assuredly was not. However, protecting Ian’s parents could not be her concern when she had too much on her plate already.


    At exactly that moment, Ida and Fern – riding with her grandmother today, thank God – showed up and Scarlet made the introduction. An expression of coy simpering Scarlet had previously imagined and dreaded did appear on Fern’s face – reflecting her babysitter’s appraisal that Ian was a fine figure of a man. But even worse from Scarlet’s point of view was the expression on Ian’s face. In spite of the girl’s youth, he paid clear tribute to her beauty.


    “Challenging your game,” Ian murmured, digging an elbow into Scarlet’s side. She had to struggle to keep from rolling her eyes. In what universe could she and a rural seventeen-year-old school leaver ever be rivals? She tried telling him about her dinner with Pom but he yawned with boredom. She could only hope he wasn’t as mentally finished with her as he obviously was with Pom. Ian considered a case of wine no more than his due -“He owes us” and when she mentioned the cherry tart he poked her middle and said jestingly, “No more of that for you!”


    But he really got under her skin when he called Pom a “poofter.”


    “Surely you can tell,” he drawled. No hope making him jealous of Pomeroy Bronfen!


    She wanted to argue the point, but realized it made her ridiculous. She honestly DIDN’T know – the only “evidence” she actually had that Pom appreciated ladies was the way he had made her feel – beautiful, interesting and intelligent. She stomped away in a huff which all too obviously gratified Ian.


    With Fern present she could at least go to her tower room and write. But she didn’t want to. She needed to get out of this house. She resolved to visit the bookshop Pom had mentioned and locate a copy of Perrault’s fairytales.


    “The Fruitful Browser” turned out to be Scarlet’s favorite kind of shop – from the tray of books outside to the shelves inside it was crammed with interesting finds. Not for the first time Scarlet asked herself, ‘Why should I bother to write when there’s so much to read?”


    The only thing she didn’t like was that she was alone in the store. Usually bookshops swarmed with incompetent help, though in this case the lone leonine woman behind the desk asked, “Anything I can help you with?”


    She looked to be in her 60’s with a big blunt face, broad nose, no makeup, and curly grey streaked hair streaming out around her like a nimbus.


    “Perrault’s Fairytales?” Scarlet asked. “In English. Er – adult version.”


    The woman tossed up a corner of the countertop and hasted out to shake her hand.
    “Welcome,” she said. “I’m Francesca Joringel. Follow me.”


    Her broad, booted, stumpy body was swathed in shawls. As they walked, Scarlet noticed the shop was carefully arranged and labeled – “Poetry”, “Literature,” “Biography” and some unusual ones: “Bloody Mystery” “Bloodless Mystery” and “American Crime.”


    Bet she knows what a paradigm shift is, thought Scarlet.


    They had arrived at “Story Therapy.”
    “Story Therapy?”


    Francesca – “Call me Fran” – turned to face her.


    “You are perhaps familiar with Viktor Frankl’s book Man’s Search for Meaning? No? Oh, every visitor to my shop who’s unfamiliar with that book gets a free copy. This shelf represents all my research for my forthcoming tome; Woman’s Search for Meaning.” She waved a hand. “I use folk-tales to back up my theories.”


    “Which is?” questioned Scarlet.


    “Frankl’s experience at Auschwitz convinced him that terrible experiences can be borne only when we comprehend the meaning that they have for us. Story therapy builds on that – it isn’t my own idea. Six years ago, I was living in London at the point of despair and I was fortunate to encounter a Hungarian psychoanalyst – she was a Jungian – who believed with stories we can foretell the future.”


    Scarlet was feeling a bit overwhelmed by this and found herself suddenly needing to sit down. Luckily benches, stools – and in this case an upright kitchen chair – were sprinkled around the store.


    “She taught me to apply these stories to the great question: how shall I live? Psychoanalysis is not only about coming to terms with the past, but planning for the future.” She dimpled unexpectedly. “Enjoy.”


    Scarlet was glad she needn’t suffer scrutiny as she opened book after book and studied their contents. She settled on Grimm’s Fairytales – faintly remembered, and a large version of Perrault, heavily illustrated.


    Fran was waiting for her at the counter with a threadbare paperback of the Frankl book.
    “Would you like to be on our mailing list for future events?”


    “I certainly would,” said Scarlet, and entered name and address in a ponderous volume. It was a warm comfort knowing that Pom had been there before her.

    That night a poem came to her.

    Sister Anne in the Dark Tower

    How you jumped
    When I upbraided you!
    Your sightless spyglass – a
    Sham panopticon –
    Can’t answer Spirit’s Questions.
    Summon the Ouija board and
    Let’s play cards
    Toss the dice like lovers;
    If you win I’ll be
    Forever celibate;
    Prisoned in an oculus
    Heated by
    Rage and
    Prophecy.

  • Devoured Heart – romantic suspense by Alysse Aallyn

    Chapter 9. The Dark Tower

    Pom insisted on bringing dinner from the pub – chicken Kiev, green beans with almonds, cherry tart and a case of Gruner Veltliner. “I remember how much you liked it. And that you have a wine cellar.”


    “This will be the first wine in it,” said Scarlet.


    He carried the case down himself to what he called “the crypt” and racked the bottles while Scarlet studied his strong arms. You didn’t get arms like that from painting – was he a rower? When he turned unexpectedly she knew she must be blushing violently but prayed he couldn’t see it in the gloaming.


    He condescended to take a perfunctory peek at the sleeping baby

    “Looks like General Eisenhower,” was his comment.


    “He does not! Eisenhower never had that lovely tuft of hair!”


    “Babies aren’t my purview,” admitted Pom. “Makes me feel like one of those pygmies who can’t see into photographs.”


    “He’s changed so much already,” Scarlet confided as they tiptoed out. “He was so long and stringy when he was born – now he’s all compacted. It’s his greediness – he’s a greedy little piglet.”


    “I don’t blame him,” said Pom, obscurely. “Life lies virgin all before him.”


    Now THAT was a masculine thing to say. Because they were already upstairs she took him to the Tower room, not admitting it was her first visit since Nick’s birth. Luckily the stairs did not seem so hard to climb. And even luckier, the room appeared invitingly glamorous. Not dusty at all.


    “This is astonishing,” said Pom. “You can’t think how you alleviate my guilt over selling you this behemoth. Those stairs are a particularly clever addition.”


    “Perhaps it’s a case of win-win,’ she suggested. Pom had to have this very American concept explained to him.


    “What a revolutionary notion,” he agreed. “We imperialists take it for granted there must be gluttons and losers in any transaction.”


    “It’s not popular,” Scarlet admitted.


    Pom started up a new subject, one closer to Scarlet’s heart. “I envy your ability to create with a view like this,” he said. “I couldn’t do it.”


    “I haven’t written anything yet,” she confessed at the sight of the immaculate desk and the paperless table. “But now that I’ve acquired a babysitter I swear I’m just about to start.”


    But Pom was clearly thinking other thoughts.


    But it was the windows that drew Pom. She distinctly heard tears in his throat as he said, “You’ve done it. This was the way it was always meant to be. No longer a widow’s walk – it’s become a panopticon.”


    Scarlet was aghast at these comparisons.


    “Widow’s walk? Panopticon? Those are horrible examples. I think of it as the eye of the house. The oculus.”


    But Pom wasn’t through yet with his horrible examples.


    “You can’t see anything through an oculus,” he said mercilessly.


    She said, “Then why did I buy it?”


    She saw him hesitate before bringing up the unpleasant subject. “You didn’t buy it. The house is in your husband’s name alone.”


    He turned as if to deliberately miss her violent blush. “I thought it was strange at the time…for an American wife.”


    I must have known this, thought Scarlet. Surely something could be done. After all, I wasn’t there, so my signature was not required. So why am I so upset? Because a stranger pointed it out? Or was it because it was THIS particular stranger?


    “I didn’t choose the house,” she agreed, proud that her voice sounded calm. “But I like it.”


    He continued looking out the windows. “You weren’t at all what I expected.”


    She sat down on the slipper chair, breath suddenly knocked out of her body. “And what did you expect?”


    “I suppose an efficient young woman from a cookery advertisement.”
    “But would Ian marry such a girl?” She smiled.


    At last he turned to look at her, and sat down on the desk chair.
    “I’d like to read your work.”


    “Well, you’ve certainly come to the right place.” She rose, laughing, opened a trunk and removed a copy of her poetry chapbook, Thistledom. “Be sure to let me know what you think. Somehow I’m sure you won’t hold back.”


    “You’re right,” he agreed. “I can tell you like the criticism better than the praise.”


    “One learns more,” she agreed.


    “You’re so right. My recent show had a reviewer who said my pictures were pretty colors.”


    “God!” Her jaw dropped. “What an awful thing to say!”


    “It certainly had an effect on me. I’ve worked in black and white ever since. Just last week I began adding a bit of blue.”


    She was still standing so he too rose, and looking out the windows said mockingly,
    “Save me, save me, Sister Anne,” And he pointed down the long stretch of road towards the gate. “Don’t you see her riding?”


    “Who?” Scarlet felt a flutter almost of panic. Curiosity or dread or both? Where was that quote coming from? Was he about to reveal some horrible tale about the house they had permanently bankrupted themselves to buy? Hauntings? Murders? Wastings away? If there was such a story, she knew she must hear it, even if it broke her.


    He turned his pale-eyed, narrow blond face towards her and she thought for a moment what a type he was. Everyone’s picture of clueless, useless English aristocracy – so unlike her handsome, Northern, rugged husband.


    “Bluebeard. The Perrault fairytale. Surely you know it.”


    “I guess French fairytales aren’t my purview,” she mocked him, she who had been dragged forwards and back through Norse mythology by her husband and was still feeling somewhat bitter about it.


    Pom had the grace to laugh, but then stung her again. “You know Disney, with the singing mice. Oakhampton has a lovely bookshop – the Fruitful Browser, which concentrates on folktales. But here’s the short version – Bluebeard used to kill his wives and lock the corpses in a forbidden room, but his last wife – Barbara, I think her name was – found it. He was going to kill her but her sister Anne rescued her. From the top of the house she summoned Sister Anne and saw her riding in. Do you have a sister?”


    Scarlet felt like a ship heaving in a storm but she was determined to remain upright. This man was interesting, but difficult. Definitely interesting. Definitely difficult. Possibly dangerous – was he probing for a weakness?


    “India. Older sister. No brothers.”


    “As an only child, I envy you,” he said, looking as if he really did not. “Sister India, Sister India” – doesn’t quite have that ring. Pomeroy was my mother’s name – she was an earl’s daughter and so I must blame snobbery. Where did your parents come up with your exotic names?”


    After the embarrassment of Disney, she was not going to admit to her mother’s addiction to Gone With the Wind, so she provided a quotation of her own, “Oh, brave new world. Americans like everything fresh. We create ourselves. You know how it is.”
    “I can only imagine,” he said. “I’m so jealous.”


    It was past time to return downstairs. She obscurely felt she’d been put through a wringer but Gruner Veltliner and music were sufficient to transform their rocky start into comfortable relaxation. Death and the Maiden played on the gramophone was a big success. Pom admitted he’d never heard it. “I thought Schubert was a waste of time. It certainly sounds very modern.”
    They listened while they ate.


    “You’re the only girl I know who doesn’t try to fill silences with useless cocktail chatter,” he said.
    Another backhanded compliment? Another scorched heir! She could have told the truth – that her mouth was too full to speak because she was so greedy for delicious food she hadn’t cooked – except that her mouth was full to explain even that! She decided to focus on the word “girl”. That must be a compliment – in her short experience strange men backed away from mothering females as if fearful of a paternity accusation. Scarlet still qualified as “young”. Even though she was now a mother she planned to be a girl for at least a few more years.


    “Lovely food,” she sighed, instead.


    Over coffee they relaxed enough to discuss their favorite films and books.


    “Oh, Hitchcock,” said Pom. “Hardboiled crime. Because of the paradigm shifts, for me it’s thrillers all the way.”


    He was full of surprises.


    “What’s a paradigm shift?”


    “A dramatic re-visioning. Very applicable to artists. Speaking of what’s fresh, – oh brave new world – artists need to SEE differently, be reborn – at least every other day.”


    “Like letting go of color. Yes, it’s also true of poets,” Scarlet added. “You don’t dare to ever be comfortable. Emily Dickinson calls it seeing “aslant.” If poets ignore that they get all stodgy. Like Wordsworth.”


    “And naturally society likes things stodgy. Likes and wants. Necessary for pigeonholing.”


    “And that’s just what an artist DOESN’T want.” She suddenly had the wild idea to discuss the germination of her possible novel with him, but of course she dared not. Possibly a pigeon hole might result – and if one did, it would prove impossible to rest inside with any comfort. She changed the subject, avoiding the dangerous corner like any good hostess.


    “I don’t know much Hitchcock but I enjoyed The Lady Vanishes. My favorite is Iris Murdoch. She’s not that good with the paradigm shifts but she does create believable, interesting universes to lose yourself in. I value particularly the way she meanders on and on. One Murdoch will last me anywhere. She could write a book that never ends and it would be all right with me.”


    “What a surrealist and philosopher you are – a book without an end. I’ll have to give her a try. But if you didn’t see Notorious or North By Northwest they’re worth going up to London for – much better than any play.”


    “What is it exactly that you like about them? You know already the paradigm shift is coming.”
    He considered.


    “His layers of revelation are so elegantly arranged – like a mille-feuille.”


    “Is it the pastry you prefer or the cream?” She felt certain no man would admit to preferring the cream.


    “I like the way the each plays off against each other.”


    He’s so interesting! she thought appreciatively. How unexpected! Could I have I found a friend? Would Ian be jealous? Is it possible for such an exciting man – who responds to me with such awareness of my femininity – to really be a woman’s friend? Instead she said, “Sounds like Iris Murdoch to me!”


    “But not if she takes too long getting around to it. Thrillers have to be constructed like this piece of music – they’ve got somewhere to go and they hurry you along. Is your poetry anything like Murdoch?”


    “I doubt you’ll think so. Like you, I was getting into a bit of a rut. That’s why I had a baby,” she teased him, “To improve my verse.”


    He laughed and laughed.
    All in all it was a most successful evening.

  • Devoured Heart – romantic suspense by Alysse Aallyn

    Chapter 8. The Help

    Fern revealed herself to be young & friendly, garnished with many local references Scarlet resolved to check. Scarlet doubted she’d hear anything against this fresh new face, as she could sense that the country people closed rank against city folk. But she also couldn’t prevent the mounting of a slow, inexorable excitement. Wouldn’t it be heavenly to get back to her desk, especially now that she had such a glamorous new desk to get back to? Did that mean she was a bad mother, failing to bond with her child?

    Back when she was a young teenager, shuffled off to a distant and disapproving male psychiatrist for “adjustment issues”, Scarlet grew a very healthy skepticism of mental health practitioners. They all seemed intent on fitting everyone into some grey flannel or Betty Crocker slot no artist could possibly accept. She wanted to get to know and to feel confident in taking care of her new baby, but certainly a couple silent, sacred hours to herself every day was not too much to ask. A bigger problem was feeling well enough to climb those stairs. She wasn’t there yet, and Ida had refused to clean “Up beyond” because “I don’t trust Rocco’s jury-rigged steps.”


    Scarlet promised to take care of that part of the house herself. It was better to never need worry about moved or missing papers. Until then she could use her two or three hours a day for a walk and a nap. That sounded luxurious enough.


    She needed peace and privacy to think about the novel she might write, something publishers might buy. So far, her only subject was Ian’s courtship of the shy American girl, heart bruised from oppressively football and career-oriented boyfriends searching for “the perfect wife” and subjecting all comers to a gamut of contortionist sexual and social auditions.


    This had been followed by an Atlantic crossing with too much alcohol and too many foreign males in “smash and grab” modality. If young men were “angry” about women who expected commitment to fatherhood, didn’t young women also have grounds for rage at their predicament? The problem really was the “happy ending” every woman Scarlet knew of was seeking; a safe place to raise her children. But those “happy endings” only occurred in “Romantic novels”, something Ian refused to ever acknowledge. “Happy endings are unrealistic.” He insisted important literature had always been written by and for males. No Charlotte Bronte, no Virginia Woolf; he wouldn’t even accept Jane Austen.


    Now Scarlet was finding herself increasingly bemused by Ian’s rather strange reaction to the birth of his son. He definitely seemed to consider Nicholas a competitor, even if he wouldn’t admit it – and also that Scarlet had been somehow tarnished by this birth. If she could rise above her kneejerk reaction of anger, pain, and revenge, couldn’t some great subject be unearthed? It seemed reminiscent of the ancient Greeks, really, some plot worthy of Aeschylus and Euripides. Ian couldn’t sneer at that!

    Well, Freud said life’s not about “finding” yourself but “creating” yourself and about this Scarlet agreed wholeheartedly. Fern’s references in hand, she phoned the Rector’s wife; first name on the list.


    “A thoroughly no nonsense girl, very dependable”.


    Wasn’t this enough? Why even bother to call the other people? What made Scarlet hesitate?
    The problem was that Fern was just too pretty. Some might even have called her beautiful, though probably not Ian, who disliked what he called “fat cheeks” on a woman. She was very dark with a lovely high color and those Elizabeth Taylor-like violet blue eyes sometimes found in black haired girls. Fortunately, she didn’t act like a pretty girl. Perhaps she was still too young, or Wyvern-on-Wye just too out of the way of the rest of the world. Was Scarlet afraid of the comparison, especially now, while she was “hors de combat”? Wasn’t the question really, did she trust Ian, or didn’t she? She would have trusted the old Ian, but this new situation seemed to offer some ineluctable yet terrifying new vision of the universe.


    She was still undecided when Ian called but she heard herself telling him she’d found somebody local and wanted to give her a trial. Hearing the anxiety in her own voice made her realize she needed that she appeared to need to offer Ian an “accomplishment”, since giving birth to his son hadn’t seemed to be enough.


    “Thank God,” said Ian. “I’ve discovered nannies are the most expensive servants in a servantless world. Seems they don’t know they are servants, and their employer is expected to keep the secret. I’d say it’s more like hiring a gang boss. They want to know who beside the parents and baby they’ve got to order around. It’s a status thing.”

    Scarlet laughed with relief. Wasn’t this the old Ian back, the two of them strategizing as a couple confronting a dangerous world? It was always like her to panic too soon; she’d been doing that all her life.


    Fern certainly displayed her best behavior. She congratulated Scarlet on the house perhaps a little too much, saying, “Lovely. Lovely, lovely, lovely.” And she was more than willing to give Nicholas a bottle so that Scarlet wouldn’t be interrupted. Bliss.


    Driving her back and forth was a bit annoying – Scarlet resolved to unload that job on Ian – if he ever came home. Fern didn’t live with her grandmother but actually at the furthest edge of Oakhampton – and then she needed to be dropped at the Oakhampton library – but she was so cheap Scarlet recklessly hired her four days a week.


    Fern’s first day went fine – it was a unseasonably warm day so Scarlet took a long walk – but Fern said Nicholas hadn’t even cried. Driving her home Scarlet happened to mention that she was expecting Pom for dinner and was startled to see the disapproval on Fern’s face. “All by yourself?”


    “He wants to greet the new baby,” Scarlet hastened to add. It did make her feel funny – guilty almost, but eventually she engineered a way to feel better about it. If Fern had strong old fashioned rules about marital conduct, so much the better. Safer, certainly in a such a pretty girl.

  • Devoured Heart – romantic suspense by Alysse Aallyn

    Chapter 7. The Baby

    Ian had a sweet tooth and so Scarlet suddenly found herself baking sand tarts, apple pies and lemon cake pudding in readiness for Nicholas’ birth. And that turned out to be a lucky thing, because the moment the last pie was set cooling on the wide kitchen windowsill her water broke. Ian rushed to fetch the midwife and at a quarter to midnight on Nov. 10, Nicholas was born.

    He was a long, thin, bright red, squally baby. Scarlet was feeling a bit squally herself because the gas had given out at the end, right when things were at their worst and Scarlet’s confidence in the little midwife – who acted surprised at this apparently impossible eventuality – was seriously shaken. It didn’t help that Ian left immediately – saying he would bury the placenta for luck – and then the midwife forbade bathing but gave Scarlet a very unsatisfactory sponge bath.


    Scarlet came down with fever and couldn’t nurse Baby Nick for two days. She couldn’t help feeling he acted a bit repulsed by the smallness and shortness of her nipples – not a problem Scarlet had even heard of before – but he did finally seem to “latch” and agree to accept nourishment and stay alive. It wasn’t until the evening of the twelfth, when Nicholas was finally quiet and Scarlet had a proper bath, a piece of pie, a glass of wine, that she was feeling more herself again.


    Ian, on the other hand, wore a strangely unfamiliar expression Scarlet couldn’t parse. She chalked it up to a suddenly overwhelming realization of his increased responsibilities, plus that unwelcome existential conundrum: “This baby will bury me.”


    When his wife gurgled “Isn’t he sweet?” over the sleeping baby, Ian refused to play along.
    “I think he’s more like a noisy drunk we can’t get rid of,” said her husband, “Constantly throwing up and needing everything done for him.”


    “It’ll get better and better from here on out,” insisted Scarlet, feeling a bit angry that she had to produce all the cheer and positivity for the entire family after what she’d been through. “In a month or two you’ll be glad to have him.”


    “Will I?” asked Ian. “When do they talk? Four to five years more likely.”


    The doctor came by in the morning to forbid them from sex. No sex for six weeks. Scarlet thought she could live without it – she needed to heal and was grateful not to have stitches – but she didn’t care for Ian’s reaction. It wasn’t long after that he announced a trip to London.


    “Should I bring it up?” she wondered. If you outright ASK someone to be faithful, are they more likely to be? Or LESS likely?


    “I don’t think I want you gadding around London on your own,” she temporized.


    “Oh? You’ve got two babies now? I was running my own life perfectly well a couple days ago.”
    She reached for his hand.


    “I’m worried – I don’t want – it’s just that I’m so desperately hors de combat.”


    “Whore what?” he teased. “I can see the way your mind is working.”


    She flushed a deep red she was certain was hideously unbecoming. “I can’t love you the way I want to and I don’t want anyone else to try.” And she burst into tears. He kissed her forehead very tenderly.


    “Don’t worry,” he told her. “You’ve given me impossibly high standards. I’ll interview nannies, shall I? Then we’ll soon be back to normal. ”


    But she did worry. The night before he left for London she did her very best to satisfy him and it seemed like a difficult and endless chore. Things were hardly improved by the stack of pound notes he left on the dresser in the morning – not even ironically!

    “Just in case,” he said.


    In case of what? In case you never come back? She wondered dispiritedly.


    That very evening – the twenty-ninth – she found a witch doll on the hearth. Sooty, as if it had fallen from the chimney.


    She asked the midwife about it on her next visit.


    “It’s a corn dolly!” said the woman. “Supposed to be lucky! Someone put it up the chimney for good fortune when you moved in. Why didn’t it burn up, I wonder.”


    “We haven’t used that fireplace,” Scarlet admitted. But they had used all the others. Who would do such a thing? It didn’t seem like Pom’s kind of idea at all and why would the movers bother? She found herself thinking about it so much she phoned him.


    “Sounds like Hedrigger to me,” said Pom. “The estate agent. I know he was desperate for the property to sell. When he took over the job from his late father – the first estate agent that we used – he told me he was willing to try anything.”


    “Well, it worked,” said Scarlet and they both had a good laugh over it. When Pom heard she was alone he offered to bring dinner and Scarlet bravely took him up on it.


    “Give me a chance to take a gander at the new heir,” suggested Pom.


    Why did talking to Pom always make Scarlet feel so relaxed and hopeful? There was something about the way that he treated her that made her feel special and desirable without any concern she’d be forced to repel inappropriate advances. An old-fashioned relationship? Here was a true gallant, a cavalier servant, her father would have said. A gentleman, her mother would correct, because that marital pair always argued and one-upped each other. Sometimes she feared their behavior would curse her into unhappy marriage, despite all her hope and prayer and effort. Could you ever have a happy marriage if you’d never actually seen one?


    Frankly she was glad neither parent had been around for Ian to meet. If girls became like their mothers…oh well. Her mother was gone forever, and besides, thought Scarlet, I was a Daddy’s girl anyway.


    She mentioned the corn dolly to the cleaner, Ida, when she came in for her half-day.
    “Oh, I did that,” said Ida casually. “A corn dolly in every chimney for luck. So we’d get nice people. And it worked.” She chucked Nicholas under his chin and he turned blindly towards her hand. Nicholas had no standards. At this stage, he would accept anyone.


    “My granddaughter Fern would love caring for a new baby,” Ida offered. “She’s just out of school – they gave her afternoon hours at the library but she wants more. She needs a ride, is all. Frankie from the garage could bring her when he’s free.”


    A teenage girl living “out” would be so much cheaper than a nanny! And much less bossy. Scarlet’s American spirit rebelled at the thought of being dominated by some know-it-all woman and her catechism of antique superstitions. She resolved to make an afternoon trip to the library her first foray as a new mum into the outside world.