The First of July by Elizabeth Speller

close to tears.
    “Your poor step-mama,” said Marina’s aunt. “Might she come to the wedding, or is she quite an elderly lady?”
    “Not old, but not strong, and, given the circumstances … I don’t feel I could ask her to make a sea voyage.” He felt a simultaneous blend of self-admiration and self-loathing.
    The aunt had been mortified. “Of course. How foolish of me. I am so dreadfully sorry.” She had taken his hand and he had known himself to be a complete cad.
    Now he looked across at that kind aunt, taking the place of Marina’s dead mother. She beamed at him from under a purple hat, trimmed with tartan ribbon. She had traveled to England and Scotland as a young woman and developed a passion for all things British. She had always been for the marriage.
    He and Marina had had one night in the Waldorf before joining their ship the next morning, and then, ahead of them, lay the freedom of a three-month tour around Europe.
    She had surprised him. He’d thought she would be a compliant, even quite an enthusiastic, lover; she was no prude, and their kissing had often left her breathless and flushed; but the woman who was now his wife was eager and subtle and adventurous. When they woke, tangled in sheets in the morning, her skin tasted of salt, she and her hair smelled animal, and he looked down at her nakedness with a great leap of joy and a simultaneous delighted surprise and relief that she made no effort to cover herself. She was the one. She was his. He had his life back. Her damp skin had the sheen of pearls. She was, had been, entirely unexpected.
    She was as different as could be imagined from the dark-haired, secretive woman who had obsessed him for so long. Less desperate, less hungry, and less knowing. She followed his lead but did not reposition herself to suggest new ways he could take his pleasure as his former lover had. Now Marina smiled sleepily and put up a hand to stroke his face. “I hope you haven’t changed your mind after last night,” she said. “I hope there’s not a first Mrs. Sydenham locked in an attic in England.”
    He forced himself to smile. “Only my stepmother, as far as I know. And she’s usually in the drawing room or the yard.”
    Was she watching him more closely than usual? He turned and sat on the edge of the bed.
    “I wish I could meet her when we’re in England,” she said. “I know we’ll only be there for a day or so, but it’s a shame she can’t come down to London.”
    “I’m sure we’ll visit again; in better times.”
    He found himself on the brink of saying that it would be too soon after his father’s death and remembered the father of a school friend, a top King’s Counsel who specialized in defending murder cases, saying that building a case was confused by criminals coming to believe, simply by virtue of repetition, the lies they told. Was he turning into such a man? He would tell her. Soon he would tell her. Must tell her. Though even then it must be a partial truth.
    “We’ll probably take a brace of grandchildren with us to see her next time,” he said.
    “But if she’s not very strong—”
    “She’s scarcely an old lady,” he said. “All the more reason not to wait too long to produce Master and Miss Sydenham.” He turned and lay facing her. “Who will scandalize her with their American accents.” She gazed back at him, unspeaking, her hair untidy on the pillows. He rolled back toward her. Laid his hand on her breast, feeling comforted rather than aroused. “If we didn’t have a boat to catch and countries to conquer. . . .”
    The journey to Europe had been mostly pleasure. “You’re not scared?” she’d said as the great liner pulled away from the waving crowds, the wharves, cranes, and storehouses.
    He laughed. “Of course not. I’m British; we have seawater in our veins.”
    “I just thought … after what happened.”
    Again a shadow. He was not just a liar, but a careless one. Fortunately she mistook his