what seemed to be genuinely interested questions about her
background and emerging career.
When he led the bidding at the charity auction that followed dinner, she realised just how wealthy he was. He paid thousands for a diamond ring donated by a minor member of royalty and, to her
utter astonishment and against all her protests, insisted on presenting it to her.
‘I was dreading this evening, quite frankly,’ he confided. ‘But sharing it with such a beautiful woman transformed my expectations. I’m afraid there
is
a
condition attached to this little gift, though; you must agree to have dinner with me tomorrow. I won’t take no for an answer.’
And so the courtship had begun. Meriel had been won over by Cameron’s old-fashioned charm and attentiveness (‘I feel like I’m going out with Cary Grant,’ she told a
friend) and, if she was honest with herself, she couldn’t help but be attracted by the security the rich Scotsman represented.
When the same friend teased her – ‘It’s obvious, Mel. You’re looking for a sugar daddy’ – she hadn’t troubled to deny it.
‘What if I am? Lots of women have a bit of a thing for the older man. I’m not ashamed of it. Cameron makes me feel safe and secure and, yes, his money is part of that. I’m
wouldn’t say I’m
in love
with him, exactly – but I definitely love him. If he asks me to marry him, I’ll say yes.’
He had, and she did.
But it gradually became clear to Meriel that if she had been looking for a sugar daddy, Cameron had been hunting for a trophy wife. Now he’d acquired one his inner character, so well
hidden from her to begin with, had slowly emerged into view. His delight in tormenting and humiliating her was now so fully formed that she wondered whether, even as he assiduously wooed her, he
had been fantasising about the time he would harrow and persecute her.
She vividly remembered one of the early warning signs. She’d been sitting at her dressing table, making herself up prior to joining Cameron at a large business supper, when he approached
her from behind in his dinner suit and placed his hands lightly on her bare shoulders. He stared at her in the mirror for several long seconds before she laughed, a little nervously.
‘What is it, Cameron? Why are you looking at me like that?’
He squeezed her a little harder. ‘I was just thinking . . . you’re so beautiful . . . Sometimes I want to hurt you.’
She couldn’t say he hadn’t warned her.
Ten years on, Cameron was not ageing well. There was that potbelly, which she hated, and it seemed his hair was becoming sparser by the week. But worst of all was the way his face had changed.
‘Character will out,’ her mother used to say, and Cameron’s was now written plainly across his features. His mouth was habitually turned down in a sardonic twist, and his eyes
seemed to have become sunken and narrowed in a kind of permanently suspicious, hostile stare.
She had come to realise, early in the marriage, that he had few friends. His business contacts gave him a spurious cloak of sociability – Cameron brokered many a deal on the golf course
– but there was no warmth between him and his fellow man. Two Christmases ago Lake District FM had serialised a reading of Dickens’s
A Christmas Carol
and Meriel, listening to
the opening chapter as she drove home from the studios, found herself muttering aloud: ‘My God, I’ve married bloody Ebenezer Scrooge.’
But she wasn’t thinking about her husband now. She was thinking about Seb. As she did so she began to realise that when she told her agent that she had lost any interest in sex,
she’d been deceiving herself as well as him.
Because she
was
thinking about it. She was imagining Seb holding her in his arms, kissing her, that dirty-blond fringe brushing against her forehead. She pictured herself running her
fingers through his hair, and pressing herself against him as she kissed him back.
She closed her eyes and
background and emerging career.
When he led the bidding at the charity auction that followed dinner, she realised just how wealthy he was. He paid thousands for a diamond ring donated by a minor member of royalty and, to her
utter astonishment and against all her protests, insisted on presenting it to her.
‘I was dreading this evening, quite frankly,’ he confided. ‘But sharing it with such a beautiful woman transformed my expectations. I’m afraid there
is
a
condition attached to this little gift, though; you must agree to have dinner with me tomorrow. I won’t take no for an answer.’
And so the courtship had begun. Meriel had been won over by Cameron’s old-fashioned charm and attentiveness (‘I feel like I’m going out with Cary Grant,’ she told a
friend) and, if she was honest with herself, she couldn’t help but be attracted by the security the rich Scotsman represented.
When the same friend teased her – ‘It’s obvious, Mel. You’re looking for a sugar daddy’ – she hadn’t troubled to deny it.
‘What if I am? Lots of women have a bit of a thing for the older man. I’m not ashamed of it. Cameron makes me feel safe and secure and, yes, his money is part of that. I’m
wouldn’t say I’m
in love
with him, exactly – but I definitely love him. If he asks me to marry him, I’ll say yes.’
He had, and she did.
But it gradually became clear to Meriel that if she had been looking for a sugar daddy, Cameron had been hunting for a trophy wife. Now he’d acquired one his inner character, so well
hidden from her to begin with, had slowly emerged into view. His delight in tormenting and humiliating her was now so fully formed that she wondered whether, even as he assiduously wooed her, he
had been fantasising about the time he would harrow and persecute her.
She vividly remembered one of the early warning signs. She’d been sitting at her dressing table, making herself up prior to joining Cameron at a large business supper, when he approached
her from behind in his dinner suit and placed his hands lightly on her bare shoulders. He stared at her in the mirror for several long seconds before she laughed, a little nervously.
‘What is it, Cameron? Why are you looking at me like that?’
He squeezed her a little harder. ‘I was just thinking . . . you’re so beautiful . . . Sometimes I want to hurt you.’
She couldn’t say he hadn’t warned her.
Ten years on, Cameron was not ageing well. There was that potbelly, which she hated, and it seemed his hair was becoming sparser by the week. But worst of all was the way his face had changed.
‘Character will out,’ her mother used to say, and Cameron’s was now written plainly across his features. His mouth was habitually turned down in a sardonic twist, and his eyes
seemed to have become sunken and narrowed in a kind of permanently suspicious, hostile stare.
She had come to realise, early in the marriage, that he had few friends. His business contacts gave him a spurious cloak of sociability – Cameron brokered many a deal on the golf course
– but there was no warmth between him and his fellow man. Two Christmases ago Lake District FM had serialised a reading of Dickens’s
A Christmas Carol
and Meriel, listening to
the opening chapter as she drove home from the studios, found herself muttering aloud: ‘My God, I’ve married bloody Ebenezer Scrooge.’
But she wasn’t thinking about her husband now. She was thinking about Seb. As she did so she began to realise that when she told her agent that she had lost any interest in sex,
she’d been deceiving herself as well as him.
Because she
was
thinking about it. She was imagining Seb holding her in his arms, kissing her, that dirty-blond fringe brushing against her forehead. She pictured herself running her
fingers through his hair, and pressing herself against him as she kissed him back.
She closed her eyes and
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