The Marriage K.L. Slater (classic romance novels TXT) 📖

The Marriage

An absolutely jaw-dropping psychological thriller

K.L. Slater

Books by K.L. Slater

The Marriage

The Girl She Wanted

Little Whispers

Single

The Silent Ones

Finding Grace

Closer

The Secret

The Visitor

The Mistake

Liar

Blink

Safe With Me

Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Chapter 58

Chapter 59

Chapter 60

Blink

Hear More from K.L. Slater

Books by K.L. Slater

A Letter from K.L. Slater

The Girl She Wanted

Little Whispers

Single

The Silent Ones

Finding Grace

Closer

The Secret

The Visitor

The Mistake

Liar

Safe With Me

Acknowledgements

*

In memory of Julie Wagg. Much loved mother, wife, mama and friend.

Prologue Bridget

April 2019

I stood in front of the full-length mirror in my new ivory silk dress. Simple and classy, it skimmed my curves but crucially remained demure in all the right places.

I’d had a salon spray tan. My moisturised skin looked smooth and youthful, but when I pinched the top of my hand, the skin did not spring back immediately. I’d curled my hair and pinned it up, adding a tiny sprig of fresh gypsophila here and there to soften my look, and applied a pretty pink lipstick, the latest spring shade according to the sales assistant at the department store make-up counter.

Peering closer to the mirror, I studied my reflection. Tiny lines fanned out from the corners of my eyes and lips. My cheeks gave way to a soft sagging that spoiled the razor-sharp jawline I’d enjoyed in my thirties.

In two years’ time I would be fifty years old, but age was just a number. Today, I felt young, vibrant and free. I’d planned this fresh start for what felt like a very long time.

Today, I would start a new life with a man twenty years younger than me.

In one hour’s time, I would marry the man I loved.

The same man who ten years earlier had killed my only son.

One

2009

To the local residents, retired primary school teacher Mavis Threadgold was a familiar sight walking the streets of Mansfield, a large market town that lay in the Maun Valley, twelve miles north of the city of Nottingham.

Dressed in her honey-coloured mac, tartan scarf and sensible laced walking shoes, she pounded the pavements like clockwork, three times a day, always accompanied by her trusty two-year-old black-and-tan dachshund, Harry. Whatever the weather, the intrepid pair could usually be spotted on one of their favoured routes in and around the town. Not so different to many other dog walkers in the area, apart from the fact that one of Harry’s regular daily outings took place at 2 a.m.

It was this walk they were on right now. Mavis stood patiently as Harry sniffed around the base of a lamp post. She often reminisced about her teaching days as she walked. Indeed, this was her favourite time to do so, the streets being so quiet.

Their eye-wateringly early walk had started the year Mavis retired, when she had lost her class of thirty eager, fresh-faced pupils. She’d had a pacemaker fitted for her worsening atrial fibrillation, and with it had gained the most wretched case of insomnia. Every night, after sleeping soundly for three or four hours, her eyes would spring open for no apparent reason. But it wasn’t just the heart condition that kept her awake.

Retiring early had scuppered Mavis’s plans to live mortgage-free when her annual salary ceased. She’d bought her house late in life and her mortgage was due to be paid off on her sixtieth birthday. Sure, she had a pension, but having never married, and with only one salary to live on, she’d skimped on her contributions over the years and her income wasn’t nearly as robust as it might have been. In the end, she was forced to extend the mortgage for another five years to reduce her payments.

Walking was the solution to her insomnia. It was one activity she hadn’t had to cut down on to stay within her budget, and even better, following a brisk twenty-five-minute stroll – invariably between the hours of two and three in the morning – she’d take a cuppa back to bed before settling down again for another few hours’ shut-eye.

Mavis marvelled how every morning the streets were the same: calm, deserted and completely uneventful. Until now. About to cock his leg against yet another lamp post, Harry froze as an explosion of booming music came out of nowhere about fifty feet away from them, in the middle of the almost silent street.

The rear fire doors of Movers, the only nightclub left in town, were suddenly flung open and two flailing bodies ejected onto the pavement before a muscular doorman slammed the exit closed again.

Mavis bent down to scoop up a startled Harry into her arms and stepped back into the shadows, out of sight of what she assumed would be local thugs intent on causing trouble. But when her eyes adjusted, she realised she actually knew the two boys who were currently dusting off their clothes.

It was none other than Thomas Billinghurst and Jesse Wilson.

She’d taught Tom and Jesse twice, first in her Year 4 class and later, when they were both aged eleven in their final year before they went on to Mansfield Academy.

The boys had been as close as brothers, inseparable from nursery, and yet very different personalities. Mavis didn’t mind admitting they had been two of her favourites, largely because of what she affectionately called their double act. Tom would step in as a calming influence when one of Jesse’s hyper moments struck, and Jesse happily coaxed Tom to join in activities when his nature was to shrink back. They naturally complemented each other without thinking about it, and both were all the stronger for