Chapter 4

I resisted the urge to pull her into my arms. I had realised that this was coming and that the best way to deal with it was calmly and in an almost semi-detached way. The emotion could come later. It undoubtedly would but doing it this way might make things easier and the emotion pleasant.

"Yes, darling! I do love you and you are my princess and always will be."

Her head came up but her eyes remained full of tears and doubt.

"And I remain in love with my wife who is my queen and because of that I shall tell her about us when she gets home."

"What?

Yes, darling! I shall tell her. And do you know what she will say?"

"No?"

"She'll say: 'That poor girl! You've done well, my darling. Do you want to ask her down here to stay?' "

"She'll say that?"

"Yes!"

"But you've been unfaithful to her."

"No, I haven't. I haven't stopped loving her. I will have told her everything including the fact that I love you and want to help you in any way I can. Because she is so confident of my love for her she will accept all that and go out of her way to help you too."

Morag stared at me. After a long pause she asked: "You really mean me to believe that?"

"Yes!" I replied simply meeting her gaze.

"But won't she be jealous of you loving another woman and a younger one at that?"

"No!"

"Why not, for Heaven's sake? It's only natural."

"Is it?"

"Of course it is. Marriage is a monogamous affair and if you step outside that you're breaking your marriage vows."

"No, I'm not, darling."

"How not, for Heaven's sake?"

"I vowed to be faithful unto her as long as we both shall live. I have been and will be. If I had gone out and paid some slut for sex that would have been unfaithfulness because I would have been saying that my wife was insufficient to me. I didn't. I made love to you because I have grown to love you as I love a lot of people for whom I would do anything I could to help them if they needed it. What you've got to understand, darling, is that I love you and therefore will do all I reasonably can for you as long as you want me to. What I am not is in love with you. I am not binding myself to you for life or expecting you to do the same to me. That's where being married comes in."

"OK! I think I can understand that but what about your wife's feelings?"

"No problem. She will understand that what I have done and will do is to go on loving you and helping you to the best of my ability as long as you need me. She might even tease me that I need the variety but she will support me willingly in my love for you. She knows I'd do the same for her and she knows my love for her is unwavering"

"God! This is overwhelming. I've never heard such thinking before."

"I can believe that but I promise that in our case it is true."

"But, James, I have fallen in love with you and I'm jealous. I don't want to share you with anybody."

"No, darling! Even though you may think you are you're not in love with me. You do love me. I don't doubt that and because I have given you of my love and made love to you in a way you've never experienced before your feelings have gone a bit OTT. You are much, much younger than me and, now you've regained some confidence you will be much more open to men of your own sort of age. OK! You may not find the right man and really fall in love for a few years yet and I'll always be about as long as you want me but, trust me, you will find someone more of your own age and fall for him and that will make me very happy."

Her eyes had gone back into soul-searching mode during all this but I met her gaze.

"You never lie do you, James?"

"Hardly ever!"

"Well, you're not lying now."

I shook my head in agreement.

"I need some time on my own but I don't want you to go home just yet."

I stood up. "Alright! I'll disappear for a bit and get the car. It's just gone ten. I'll be back about twelve and take you down to a pub near home for lunch. After that, I'll bring you back or put you on a train back or you can come home and stay the night and you don't have to make up your mind until any of the crucial moments."

She uncoiled and got up from the sofa and, linking her hands loosely round my neck, she kissed me gently.

"You are a darling," she said, "I'll see you in a couple of hours."