Maggie Cox by Brazilian Boss Virgin Housekeeper

Author:Brazilian Boss, Virgin Housekeeper
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2010-08-04T01:13:04.796000+00:00

Chapter Seven

MARIANNE’S clearly uncomfortable glance settled on the dying orange embers of the fire, and Eduardo saw her shiver.

‘Shall I put some more coal on? It’s grown a little chilly in here,’ she said.

‘After you have answered my question,’ Eduardo said firmly. For some reason his heartbeat was accelerating a little at what she might be going to tell him. ‘Shut the door,’ he advised. ‘Then you will not feel so cold.’

She did as he suggested, then stepped silently towards the fireplace. Thrusting out her hands, she stole whatever heat remained and then, wrapping her arms round her slim frame, said quietly, ‘There was a man once that I cared about…we were married for less than a year.’

Married? He didn’t echo the word out loud in astonishment or perhaps in protest, as his instinct dictated, but Eduardo felt it resonate through him like a thunder-clap—a precursor to a storm of feelings and disturbances he hardly knew how to contain.

‘It does not seem conceivable that you were married so young,’ he commented instead. ‘ Too young. What happened? Did you divorce?’

‘No.’ Turning her bewitchingly pretty face towards him, Marianne held Eduardo’s gaze with resolute steadiness. ‘He—he died.’

‘Died?’

‘Yes.’

‘How?’

‘A very rare form of cancer.’ Her shoulders hunched.

Her ensuing sigh was as delicate as a newborn child’s, yet he heard it just the same. Feeling genuine sympathy, Eduardo wanted to react appropriately, consolingly, but his feelings raised the familiar spectre of his own devastating loss, and he found himself staying where he was as if turned to stone, wondering how people bore the sometimes dreadful things that happened to them, where they found the strength. Then, knowing that he had failed miserably in that department because he had not found strength—it was shame and guilt and the need for self-punishment that made him endure, nothing noble at all—he clenched his jaw hard.

‘Did he leave you with nothing?’ he demanded, his words underscored with indignant anger on Marianne’s behalf that her dying husband had clearly left her completely unprovided for. So much so that she’d had to resort to practically begging at the side of the road!

‘What?’ The question had clearly stunned her.

‘Look at the situation he left you in! How long since he died?’

‘Eighteen months.’

‘And he left you completely without the means to support yourself?’ Hearing the judgment and fury in his own voice, Eduardo made no apology for it.

‘No…He left me his house and—and some money.’

Confusion taking over from rage, he glanced at Marianne in genuine surprise. ‘So what happened? Why was it that I found you in the street busking? And in temperatures that would prevent most people from even going outside unless they absolutely had to, let alone stand there singing!’

‘I was learning to perform in public, like I told you before. Music is a passion of mine and I wanted to get better at it. I thought I might eventually join a band or something, make my living that way. I was also trying to rebuild my confidence after what happened.

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