When she came back from the bar with a glass of white wine for her, water for me, she asked, “So where are you living?”

“I’ve got a flat above a florist’s on Nelson Street. It’s all right, but I haven’t lived in that kind of place since I was a student. Hopefully, it won’t be for long. Tom’s going to sell the house, so I’ll get half of that and I’ll be able to buy something small.”

“You could have come to stay with us,” she said. “We’ve got a spare room.”

I thought of her lovely husband and her two small boisterous children. That was the family I’d wanted for myself. I couldn’t put myself through it. I tried to smile. “Thanks, but I needed to be on my own.”

“Still, I wish you’d called me. I hate to think of you in the hotel, waiting for him. And then his wife’s pregnant, too.” She was quiet for a minute, then said, “I bet he was telling you that he and Emma weren’t sleeping together, wasn’t he? Did you really believe him?”

I flushed. “It wasn’t something we talked about.”

“But were you . . .” She hesitated. “You and Tom. Were you still sleeping together?”

I shook my head. I didn’t want to think about that. The few times we’d had sex over the last eighteen months I’d felt sick with guilt, as though I was unfaithful to Harry. I realized then that Sarah thought I was saying we weren’t, because she touched my arm and looked sympathetic.

She took a long drink of wine. Clearly it was Dutch courage, for she said, “Do you think this was the only time Harry slept with someone else?”

CHAPTER 18

Ruby

I stared at her. Not once in the last eighteen months had I thought of this. “What?”

“I mean, do you think he makes a habit of it?”

“No! No, of course he doesn’t.”

“So he’s never had an affair before? Or a one-night stand? A fling when he’s been away from home?”

“No!”

“Are you sure? Has he told you that?”

I wanted to say that of course I was sure, that before he met me he’d always been faithful, but how did I know? It had never come up in our conversations. I assumed he hadn’t played the field while he was married, but could I swear to it? I shelved that thought; it was something I needed to think about when I was alone.

So instead of talking about Harry and other women, I asked, “Do you know when the baby’s due?”