Mortal Taste Read Free

threw him the question as soon as he came into the sitting room. Might as well get it over with.
    Her husband did not treat it as a conventional enquiry. ‘Well enough. They were interested to hear about the numbers going to university and our plans for the future. They’ll support me in the scheme for the new library and information centre, I think. Mind you, I haven’t told them how much it’s going to cost yet!’ That small, unconscious grin came to Peter Logan’s lips, the one he had when he anticipated a challenge. The one she had once found so attractive.
    â€˜Have you eaten?’
    â€˜Yes. I sent out for a pizza from the shop near the school.’
    She might have ribbed him once about fast food and the example he set to his pupils. Instead, she said, ‘I’ll get us a drink, then,’ and went into the kitchen. She was shocked by her own feelings. She hadn’t seen Peter for fourteen hours, yet already she wanted to be away from him.
    She knew he was studying her over the top of his paper when she took the tray with its teapot and cups back into the room. ‘You’ve kept your looks, Jane,’ he said, as if he was noticing it for the first time. He sounded slightly surprised, and rather spoiled the effect of the compliment by following up with the observation: ‘They say that’s especially difficult for blonde, blue-eyed types like you, but my wife seems to have managed it.’
    â€˜Whereas you have just got yourself more and more important jobs. Working on the theory that power is the great aphrodisiac, I suppose.’
    â€˜Haven’t noticed it working that way recently. Not where you’re concerned, that is.’ He was behind the pages of the
Guardian
, studiously avoiding any eye contact, trying to cloak a serious observation as a throwaway remark. He had always done that; she realized now that she hated it.
    â€˜Perhaps you should pay a little more attention to your wife and a little less attention to the job.’ She said it tartly, more bitchily than she intended, and answered his retreat behind the paper by returning to the book she had been reading when he arrived. He had turned off the Schubert CD she had been listening to and put on the television. It flickered inconsequentially in the corner of the room, with neither of them watching or listening to it.
    To her surprise, he took her comment seriously. ‘You’re right, darling, I have been neglecting you. Now that I’m in the job I wanted, you deserve much more attention.’ She noted his priorities with a wry smile, but didn’t speak. She had never used the term ‘darling’ to him; it seemed to drop falsely from his lips now, where once she had accepted it.
    He waited for the reaction which did not come from her, and then said, ‘It’s always busy at the beginning of a new school year, but I must find time for you now that everything is under way. Perhaps we should book a weekend away. A long weekend, at half-term, perhaps?’
    That was the very last thing she wanted. She felt her heart thumping as she said, ‘There’s no need for that, really. I quite understand that you’re very busy at school.’
    It came out as though delivered by an understanding stranger, but he did not seem to notice. ‘No, I’ve been neglecting you. I must do something about that, or someone else will step in. Pretty women like you shouldn’t be neglected!’ He grinned at her over his teacup, then raised it in a mock toast to her beauty. She looked steadily back at him, putting on the poker face she had cultivated over these past few weeks, concealing what she really felt about him, forcing herself eventually into a small, answering smile.
    He was easily enough deceived, but that had its consequences. Twenty minutes later, as she undressed, he ran his fingers down her spine, took her roughly into his arms, insisted on making love to