Trials of Love Pt. 03

"He's here to tell you what happened between us to prove to you that I never loved him. He was manipulated by Stephen just as much as I was."

"I bet that was a hardship for him," I said bitterly.

"Stephen told him our relationship was on its last legs and that the two year break was our opportunity for us to go our separate ways hidden from the limelight. I called him yesterday, it's the first time we've spoken since the day after the scene at the nightclub."

She paused for a moment, "Actually, that's not true, we didn't speak. He just stood there while I ranted and raged at him, blaming him for destroying my marriage, for making you leave me. Then I told him to never contact me again."

I glanced out at the bank and the three people standing on the towpath. "So now it's all his fault, nothing to do with your hormones?" I asked.

"Of course, it was just as much my fault."

"Why contact him now?"

"Because he's the only other person who knows the truth of what happened. I need him to tell you what did happen and why he proposed."

Something about the thought of him stepping onto my boat turned my stomach, but I also knew that if I was ever to get a resolution to the situation we were in, I needed to listen to his tale.

"I need a few moments to get my head in the right place," I told her. "Take him over to that restaurant at the bottom of the lock. I'll be there in ten minutes."

Kayla shook her head, "Oh no, you don't, I know you, you'll just up and leave. I'll get Paul and Caroline to take him. I'm waiting right here for you."

That's what she did. The others walked back in the direction of the restaurant while she made herself comfortable on the captain's chair in the wheelhouse. She was right; I'd been seriously considering carrying on down the canal as soon as they were out of sight.

I changed out of my shorts and t-shirt and into something a bit more presentable. Kayla smiled at me as I rejoined her. I helped her ashore, locked up and we walked down the towpath. I held out my hand to her and she took it gratefully.

"This is all my fault," she said, the words spilling out of her. "I should never have insisted we keep our relationship a secret. I should have called you as soon as I felt that something was wrong with me. I shouldn't have lied to you either. I just wanted the whole sorry episode to go away."

She paused and coming to a halt, pulled me around to face her. She looked anxious as she looked up at me, "I fucked that up didn't I. Peter, please don't leave me, I have loved you ever since that first evening in Covenant Garden. I contacted him because he's the only other person who knows what happened between the pair of us and you need to hear what he has to say."

I sighed. She was right, of course. We couldn't go on like this any longer. I pointed at a bench set back from the towpath by the top gate of the lock.

"I'll wait here for him, and we'll talk," I said. "Just him, though, you wait with Paul and Caroline."

She looked at me and back to the boat. I could see her indecision. I took the key to the boat dangling from its cork float and handed it to her.

"I'm not going to run away again," I promised, and this time I meant it.

She nodded and trotted off, well trotted as fast as a woman who almost six months pregnant could.

It was a good ten minutes before Nigel sat down beside me. I hadn't really taken in his appearance in those brief moments I'd seen him. He was slightly taller than I was, and I guessed he was in his late thirties. He had a handsome face with striking steel blue eyes, eyes that pierced me.

"I don't know whether I should hate you or pity you," he finally said. He didn't have an American accent; I was surprised to note. The only other time I'd heard his voice properly had been in the nightclub. It had been distorted through the sound system, and I hadn't realized he was British.

"Funny, I was thinking the same thing about you," I replied.

He sighed then said, "I loved her from the first time I met her. Stephen told me that your marriage was on the rocks and you were separating. At first, I didn't believe him, but then, after a couple of months, Kayla began to respond to my advances, I thought he could be telling the truth. How was I supposed to know it was the drugs that made her react the way she did?" His voice was tinged with sadness.

He carried on, "She's a beautiful intelligent woman, a wonderful musician. I lost my heart to her the first time she smiled at me."

I wasn't sure I could be shocked anymore, but his words had come close.

"Didn't you think that it was odd that whenever I was around, she wanted nothing to do with you?" I asked. "That she was just using you to scratch an itch."

He tensed at my words, "She refused to talk about you; if I mentioned you, she'd change the subject or simply cut me off. Stephen told me it was because she feared you, that you could be violent..."

"What the fuck," my voice raised. I continued more softly, "I've never hurt her in all the years I've known her."

He raised his hands in a consolatory manner, "I know that now, but it was the reason he used to convince me it wouldn't be wise to confront you, in case you took it out on her. He'd give me a heads up if you were going to be around and I'd keep my distance and try and keep an eye on her."

I tried to relax, but I was having a hard time doing so. "So, let me get this straight," I said, hoping that I was sounding a lot calmer than I was. "Stephen tells you that Kay is at risk and no longer loves me. He wants you to... to romance her. She starts to respond to your advances, and you think she's falling in love with you, correct?"

"It sounds a bit clinical, but yes, that's the nub of it."

"You understand this is not helping her cause, you're here to convince me that she never slept with you."

He gave me a long telling look. "If I thought that there was still a chance she loved me, I wouldn't hesitate to try and convince you we'd been fucking for weeks."

He put his hand up to stop the angry comment I was about to make.

"What the point. She doesn't, never has. There's no way she'd want me in her life again. We didn't... well we did, but we didn't if you understand."

"Nope, you're going to need to do better than that. That's about as clear as that water," I said pointing at the murky water in the canal. "What the hell do you mean by 'we did but we didn't'?"

He gave me another long look. "I understand," he said. "There were several occasions when she spent most if not all night with me..." he stopped as he heard the growl coming from me.

"No, wait," he said hastily, "We may have fooled around a bit, but she never let me fuck her. Christ, most of the time, she never took her panties off. It was like all she wanted was foreplay and nothing else. She craved the attention, but at the same time, she was emotionless. She gets all worked up and then uses that damn vibrator of hers for the last bit. If I was lucky, she gave me a consolation hand or blowjob to keep me happy."

"And were you?"

"What?"

"Happy?" I asked.

"I was in love with her, Christ, I still am! I thought she loved me and I took whatever scraps she let me have."

He gave me a sad look, "And now I know that even scraps and feelings weren't real. The drugs were fucking her up and I was just a means to an end."

Christ, I almost felt sorry for him... almost. It seemed that she had been finally telling the truth.

"Kay told me that she stopped seeing you a few weeks before that last night, did she?"

He gave a single nod.

"That's true, although I saw her daily about the music and the recording contract. Yes, our personal relationship cooled those last weeks. I know now it was because she'd stopped taking those pills, but at the time, Stephen told me that it was because that she was under a hell of a lot of pressure from you.

"When I asked him what was happening and why Kayla seemed to be avoiding me, he said she thought that you were beginning to suspect she was having an affair and; supposedly, she was conflicted about her feelings for me. He led me to believe it was mainly about how she was going to tell you that she wanted a divorce; she didn't want to hurt you."

He paused to collect his thoughts. "When she disappeared after the penultimate performance, I was concerned. She and Stephen were supposed to meet up, and I was to join them. He said she wanted to talk, that she was close to resolving her issues."

"She never turned up. I tried to call her, but I just got her voice mail. I found out the next morning from Stephen that you'd got into town early. He said Kayla had gone to see you at your hotel, to finally tell you she wanted a divorce."

I grunted in annoyance, and he turned those piercing eyes on me. "Well, it's what he told me," he said with a shrug of his shoulders

I couldn't understand what Stephen was trying to do. Was he living in a fantasy world? I said as much to Nigel, and he agreed.

He said, "I asked him what the hell was going on after the confusion at the nightclub. He just said, 'Well I tried, it's your fault you couldn't close the deal'. Then he walked away. I haven't seen him since. Just what the hell did you do to him? He hates your guts."

"I'm damned if I know, I honestly thought he was a friend, as well as a business partner. Kay's parents and his are very close, and her parents have always been cold to me. They thought she could have done a lot better than me."

It was his turn to grunt. "That wouldn't surprise me," he said. "Ever since I've known him, he was taking digs at you."

"Kay said she first met you about a year ago, when you became her contact with the recording company; is that the same time you met Stephen?"

He looked at me in surprise. "No, I thought you knew. I'm James's cousin. I've known him for years, and I've met Kay's parents a few times. That's why I was asked to look after her after she got upset with the previous girl."

"I don't recall seeing you at any of Stephens dos," I pointed out.

"You wouldn't have, I only saw the pair of them at family gatherings. I was living here in France, that where the recording company is based. I went over to the States 18 months ago to head up our office over there."

"Hang on, does that mean he's been having a go at me all that time?"

"Yes."

We both fell silent. I'd no idea what he was thinking, but I was pondering his words. Was I that unobservant that I'd missed Stephens animosity all these years?

He interrupted my thoughts as he spoke again.

"When I saw Kayla backstage before that last concert, I knew something had happened. She was all jittery and anxious. I hoped it meant that she'd told you. That's why I decided that the after-show party would be the best time to ask her to marry me."

"You hadn't planned to propose that evening? Why did you have a ring with you!" I asked.

"I didn't start out with one. Sure, I was going to ask her to marry me, but I hadn't intended doing it that evening. The ring, well, that was an old family heirloom. I'd asked my mother to send it to me a few weeks earlier when I was convinced Kayla loved me. I'd left it in the safe in my room, and I got one of Stephens assistants to go and get it for me."

There was a slight pause, again, then he said. "She and Stephen were in heated discussions up until the start of the show. Every time I tried to talk to her, Stephen would stop me. He said she was really upset over you. That's what convinced me; she'd asked for the divorce and the pair of you were over. I don't think any of us who were backstage thought she would perform. She kept staring out at the auditorium as it filled up and fiddling with her phone. She wouldn't settle until she got a text. After that, she got them to shine a spotlight onto the front row. Then when she played her heart out, I thought it was because she'd finally made her choice and was free of you."

I watched as his hands tightened into fists, his fingers going white. "Christ how wrong I was about that, she played for an audience of one that evening. You," He said bitterly, he nodded down the towpath.

I peered in the direction Kay had gone. I'd missed her reappearance. She was sitting between Paul and Caroline on a bench the far end of the lock. Caroline had her arm around Kay's shoulders and seemed to be talking to her. Kay was staring at me.

There didn't seem to be anything more to be said between us. Nigel recognized that and stood up. He turned away and paused as though he had something else to add, then he shrugged and walked back down the towpath. When he reached them, Paul stood and the pair of them disappeared out of my view.

Kayla stood, but then hesitated. She was obviously waiting for a sign from me before walking over to me. Well, I wasn't going anywhere; she had the keys to the boat in her hand. I waved to her, and she hurried over.

She stopped a couple of paces from me, looking down at my face, obviously trying to gauge my feelings.

"Are we going to be okay?" she asked.

"Yeah, I think so, love."

"Did he say anything that helped you understand what happened?"

"Not so much that was new, it was more that he put what you told me into perspective, and that's what I needed."

She came and sat down beside me, tentatively squeezing my hand. I just pulled her close and kissed her mouth. She tucked her legs up under her and curled up against me, sighing contentedly.

"You do know I'm not having our baby on a boat, even one as nice as ours," Kay said.

I placed my hand on her baby bump, and she covered it with one of hers. She gave a gasp.

"Did you feel that," she cried. "He kicked."

I was speechless, all I could do was plaster a stupid grin across my face and make happy sounds.

"So, are you two good?" Caroline asked. She'd approached us while we had been talking. She hovered over the pair of us like a mama bear protecting her cubs.

"We are, Caroline," I said

And we were!

Postscript.

So, what was Stephens game? We think we know. We knew was he wasn't at all happy when we sold our share in the agency to my original buyers. We had convinced Laine and Julia that it was the right time for them to branch out on the own and start their own management agency. We were their first clients.

The apartment in New Orleans was sold, and the estate in Cornwall was on the market. We'd had moved into a modernized farmhouse on the outskirts of a village close to where the boat was moored for the winter. The farmhouse was set in fifteen acres of vineyards. It looked down from the hillside over the valley, through which the river and the canal wound.

Our daughter Rebecca was six months old, and next the week was going on her maiden voyage. Her godparents were staying with us. Asking Paul and Caroline had been the best decision we could have made. The Wizard was moored next to Nevermore. Both boats were waiting for us to begin a cruise down to the Mediterranean, and then up the Rhone.

It was Caroline who showed Nigel onto the patio that afternoon. I'd almost deleted his email without reading it. The subject line made me pause.

I know you want to, but please don't delete until after you've read this.

His message was brief. Could he please come and see the pair of us as he thought he'd finally worked out why Stephen had acted the way he had.

Nigel was pleased to see us and cooed over Rebecca. His tale was both straightforward and fantastic. He'd only seen Stephen once since he last saw us. Almost all he knew came from his cousin James.

He surprised us by starting with a history lesson.

"Do you remember how Thomas Beckett died?" He asked.

Kay nodded, and I replied, "Wasn't he killed by some knights who thought the king wanted him dead?" I wasn't sure where this was going, but it seemed important to Nigel, so I let him carry on.

"That's right, it was Henry II, and a Hugh de Morville led the Knights. Henry was in the midst of a constitutional row with the church. Thomas was the Pope's representative in England at the time and was resisting the changes Henry wanted."

"And this relates to Stephen how?" Kayla asked, as she bounced Rebecca on her knee.

"Henry was supposed to have said. 'What miserable drones and traitors have I nourished and brought up in my household, who let their lord be treated with such shameful contempt by a low-born cleric?'

I was impressed by his knowledge, and said so. Nigel grinned and pulled out a piece of paper with the quote printed on it.

"I'm not that good," he said, "It's just that your situation sounds similar. James told me that both Kay's and Stephens parents were very close friends. He said that Joyce and Rodger were not happy when you met Peter. In fact, what James told me is that they were apoplectic when you told them you were getting married."

Kay shook her head, "l know that Mum and Dad have always been a bit cool to him, but they seemed fine with our marriage."

He looked at her, sadly. "In a way, it's your fault..." He shrank back in his chair as both momma bear, and I snapped a sharp NO at him.

He held his hands up in contrition. "Wait, let me explain. Your insistence that the relationship between you and Pete remain secret confused them. They concluded that Peter had something on you, that he was blackmailing you."

He held up his hands again to forestall our reactions. "I know it's not the case, and you two are one of the most loving couples I know. I'm just telling you what they thought. James said that he and Stephen visited his parents at their Spanish summer home later that year. Joyce and Rodger were staying with them at the same time."

Kay nodded.

"Well, apparently, the conversation was dominated by you and Peter and their suspicions. At some point, Stephen became convinced that there was something in the situation. He promised your mother that if he ever got the opportunity, he'd do his best to split you up."

"So he waited all that time to start?" Kay asked.

"James said he thought Stephen had forgotten about it, but then two things happened when you were on tour. You told him that you'd both be taking a couple of years off. Then his father died, and your parents looked after his mother for the next few months. Apparently, Joyce kept reminding him of his promise."

"So this would have been about six months into the tour?" I asked.

"Yeah, about the time I first appeared on the scene," Nigel replied. "In the beginning, I didn't know about your relationship. After a few weeks, I told Stephen and James how much I liked Kay. That's when he said that she was in an abusive marriage and he thought she liked me, as well. If you remember, he kept pushing the pair of us closer?"

"I do. Suddenly he kept coming up with social events I had to attend, and you always seemed to be around."

"That was his plan. To begin with, you were quite distant. Then you started on those fertility drugs, and you changed. I think he knew you were taking them and what their effect could be, because he was pushing me next to you at every opportunity."

He paused to pour himself a glass of water from the jug on the table.

"Kay, according to James, Stephen was convinced that if we slept together and Peter found out, he would leave you, and even if he didn't, you would feel so guilty that it would damage your marriage beyond repair. If it worked, he would have been your mother's knight in shining armor who'd have rid her of her troublesome son-in-law, and I was the weapon he was using."

Caroline broke the silence that followed Nigel's last statement.

"You've got to be shitting me. Is the guy for real?"

"It's what James and I both think. Oh, and they have split up over this. James is staying in my flat in Paris."