Convenient Brides (23 page)

‘So you do admit to feeling some sort of attraction towards me?’ His brown eyes questioned hers.

‘No.’

He gave a rumble of cynical laughter. ‘No, of course you wouldn’t. But we both know the truth, don’t we?’

‘The truth is I loathe and despise you.’

‘But you were prepared to marry me.’

‘Suffice it to say it was an offer too good to refuse.’ Sarcasm coloured her tone. ‘I would’ve settled for the Elephant Man if he’d offered to pay off my Visa card. You got there first.’

‘So I did.’ His eyes followed the nervous movement of hers. ‘So now you’re in my debt, so to speak.’

‘I…’ She moistened her dry lips. ‘I don’t quite see it that way.’

Damien’s hands slid down from around her up-raised wrists and instead settled on her waist. Emily stiffened. Her hands had nowhere to go but his shoulders, where they valiantly tried to push him away. But somehow the feel of his firm muscles under her palms distracted her from her task of putting as much distance between them as possible. His shirt was silky to the touch, his shoulders warm and broad underneath the pads of her fingers.

His eyes sought and held hers. She felt like a moth attracted
to a searing flame in spite of the danger it represented, and the one thing she was becoming more and more certain of was that Damien Margate spelt danger.

‘Be a good girl while I’m away, Emily,’ he said, his fingers now light, almost like a caress about her waist.

She didn’t trust herself to answer. Her breath had stalled somewhere in the back of her throat at his nearness, his touch feather-light but electric all the same. All her nerves seemed to be leaping inside her body, each portion of her flesh craving for the brush of his long fingers.

His head lowered to hers, his mouth just a fraction from hers. ‘Kiss me goodbye,’ he commanded her gently.

She wanted to resist. Every rational part of her being insisted she resist the temptation to press her soft lips along the firm line of his, but it was overruled by a deep and irresistible desire to feel his mouth on hers once more.

She lifted her head just a fraction and their lips touched. It was like a match to tinder; heat coursed and exploded on impact, flames of passion licking between them uncon-trollably. His tongue found hers and played with it, danced with it, teased it. The answering moves of her own tongue tightened his hands about her waist, pressing her into the rock-hard wall of his chest while his lower body told her of his aching, throbbing need.

Suddenly she was free. He stepped away from her so abruptly it took her a couple of seconds to collect herself. She straightened her clothes and forced herself to make eye contact.

‘Goodnight, Emily,’ he said, his mouth set in a grim line.

Emily rolled her still tingling lips together before answering quietly, ‘Goodnight.’

He turned and left her standing there, listening to the mantel clock ticking away the minutes like the drone of a metronome keeping time to a tedious piece of music. Emily sighed and, crossing her arms against her chest, turned and stared sightlessly out of the window overlooking the bay while the persistent clock kept time in the background.

E
MILY
didn’t hear him leave the next morning. She’d lain awake most of the night, tossing and turning and thumping her lead-like pillow, trying to eradicate the memory of his kiss. By the time she did eventually fall into some sort of restless slumber Damien had left to catch the first flight of the day.

Later, as she made herself a small breakfast of toast and tea, she wondered if it was really consistent of her to feel lonely at the thought of him not returning to the house that night. She should be feeling relieved, she remonstrated with herself. He wouldn’t be missing her! He would have no doubt arranged to meet up with his lady-love interstate, away from the prying eyes of the local press, while she, his legal wife, sat twiddling her thumbs, wondering what to do with the rest of the day.

Emily pushed her second slice of toast away; she knew she had to do something with her time or she’d end up going crazy. As it was she spent most of her time thinking about Damien, and that was surely a pathway to disaster. He wasn’t interested in her other than as an entertaining diversion when his mistress was unavailable. And she didn’t like him—but there was something about him that drew her to him like a bee towards scented blossoms.

Animal attraction, she’d explained to him earlier, trying to find some sort of valid excuse for her own wanton behaviour. She knew she should be feeling shame about their passionate encounter, but for some reason she didn’t. She felt proud. Proud that a full-blooded man of such iron control as Damien Margate had let caution fly to the winds and
let himself sink into the pleasure her young and eager body had offered.

It had been an awakening for her in more ways than one. She’d never felt such need before. She’d never felt her responses in such a wild and abandoned way, and never had she felt so complete, as if two halves of a whole had joined and the universe had sighed in relief at their union.

She wanted it to happen again but knew it couldn’t. He didn’t want a physical relationship with her because his only reason for marrying her was to protect his aunt. Their marriage was a sham, a façade they were both using for different reasons. The only trouble was, Emily wasn’t sure what her reasons were any more.

It had seemed the sensible thing to do in the beginning, especially with the bank breathing down her neck about the state of her finances. But now she was confused. Damien had cleared away her outstanding debt without even blinking a reproving eye over her credit card statement. He’d also refinanced her apartment so the allowance he deposited into her account each week covered her mortgage repay-ments at a rate she would have had no hope of equalling unless one of her books became a top ten best-seller—which she knew wasn’t likely in her lifetime. It had sur-prised her that he’d allowed her to keep it, but when she’d questioned him he’d informed her he had some clients who were desperate for accommodation. The hefty rent they were paying was also magically appearing in her bank account, which made her feel even more ambiguous towards him.

She wanted to feel angry at him, not grateful. Her dependence on him was increasing each day in subtle ways. Living in the same house, sharing meals and conversations with him, was making her see him in a different light. He was nothing like his more shallow brother Danny, for a start. Damien had a fine intelligence, a dry wit and a level of compassion that had taken her quite by surprise. His aloof nature, she was starting to recognise, was not just a
protective device. He was a private person. Keeping his cards close to his chest was wired into his personality just as surely as Danny’s outgoing party-boy image was wired into his.

Emily wished she knew why it was so important for Damien to keep his aunt’s whereabouts a secret—a secret so safely guarded even his own brother didn’t know. What could possibly be his reason? Was she, as rumoured, a reclusive alcoholic? Or was it something else?

Emily wandered aimlessly around Damien’s house, trying to fill in the crawling minutes. Three days, he’d said. It seemed like a lifetime. The house was spotless due to the fastidious attention of Damien’s housekeeper earlier that morning. Mrs Tilberry had introduced herself grudgingly and, after giving her employer’s new wife an assessing glance, with a shrug of her hefty shoulders had turned and applied herself to the task of maintaining the sterile order of Damien’s house. Once she’d left, Emily had gone around and deliberately shifted the sofa cushions into a more relaxed position. Then, on her way past the huge gleaming gilt-edged mirror in the dining room, she’d left a complete set of her fingerprints in one corner. She smiled mischie-vously at her unrepentant reflection, satisfied at last.

The mid-afternoon sunlight beckoned her outside for a long walk, the earlier heat of the day having cooled with the onset of a light coastal breeze. Emily walked for several blocks, peering into gardens and admiring the huge mansions of the exclusive leafy suburb. Her tiny apartment in the inner suburb of Stanmore seemed so pathetic compared to the grandeur surrounding her. Thinking about the way Damien had helped her keep her property made her anger towards him increasingly harder to sustain, especially now, with him absent.

His absence seemed to have multiplied her tendency to think about him. He filled her mind. It was as if he’d taken up permanent residence there, and there was now no way
of evicting him. She increased her pace, determined to erad-icate him from her thoughts, her feet pounding along the pavement, her head down against the playful breeze. She didn’t see the woman until she cannoned into her less than half a block from Damien’s house.

‘Oh, I’m so sorry!’ Emily reached out a steadying hand to the older woman. ‘Are you all right? Did I hurt you?’

The woman grasped Emily’s arm with an unsteady hand while the other went to her blue-grey hair. She looked at Emily with penetrating dark, black-button eyes.

‘I’m fine. Just a wee bit shaken.’ Her voice was rich with a Scottish lilt.

‘I didn’t see you,’ Emily apologised. ‘My mind was on other things and I—’

‘Don’t go troubling yourself,’ the woman said with the hint of a rueful smile. ‘I’m not very steady on my feet these days.’

‘Do you have far to go?’ Emily asked. ‘I can walk you home if you like, to make sure you’re OK?’

The woman seemed to hesitate. Emily assumed her hesitation was because the elderly were so often the target of opportunistic thieves. She smiled reassuringly at her.

‘The truth is, I’m new around here. My…er…husband lives in number thirty-three. See, just there, the one with the high fence.’

The woman’s eyes brightened and a smile crinkled her soft face. ‘Just married, eh, lassie?’

Emily could feel herself blushing. ‘Is it that obvious?’

‘You’ve got blushing bride all over you like an Edinburgh fog.’ The older woman smiled. ‘So Mr Margate finally got himself a wee bride. Who’d have thought?’

‘You know him?’ Emily’s eyes widened.

‘I’ve not long been in Double Bay myself, but he is one neighbour I have seen now and again. He’s a rather handsome lad, isn’t he?’

‘I…Yes, he is.’ Emily blushed again, struggling a little with the Scottish accent.

‘My name’s McCrae,’ the woman said. ‘Maisie McCrae. I live in the next street.’

‘I’m Emily Sher—I mean Margate.’

‘So you didn’t keep your own name?’

‘I wasn’t all that attached to it, actually,’ Emily answered with honesty. ‘It’s really one of my stepfathers’ names so I didn’t mind relinquishing it.’

‘Well, you’ve certainly married into a famous family,’ Maisie said. ‘He has an aunt—what’s her name again?’

‘Rose,’ Emily offered.

‘Ah, yes. Rose Margate, a fine stage actress she was in her time.’

‘Yes, that’s right.’

‘Have you met her yet?’ Maisie asked. ‘She’s become a recluse. No one’s seen her for a wee while now.’

Emily wasn’t sure how to answer. She could hardly tell Mrs McCrae that Damien had forbidden her from meeting his aunt. How would she explain that?

‘I’m sure I’ll get to meet her soon, Mrs McCrae,’ she said after a slight hesitation. ‘Damien and I have been very busy and—’

Maisie gave a tinkling laugh. ‘And that’s exactly how it should be when you first get married, lass. Why would a young couple want old folk around when they have each other?’

‘Will you allow me to walk you home, Mrs McCrae?’ Emily asked in an effort to swing the subject away from Damien.

The images in her head of her body entwined with his were already wreaking havoc on her equilibrium, especially as Mrs McCrae was quite clearly a hopeless romantic who thought all marriages were made in heaven. She wondered what the older woman would say if she told her the truth. That Damien Margate had bought her literary silence, sealing the agreement with a ring on her finger and a brand on her body that just wouldn’t wash away.

‘Well, that’d be nice, lass,’ Mrs McCrae said, taking
Emily’s arm with a tremulous hand. ‘I should really be using a walking stick, but they’re so ageing, don’t you think?’

Emily smiled and slowed her pace to match Mrs McCrae’s.

‘I’m sure you can buy quite nice ones,’ she offered positively.

Mrs McCrae gave her a scornful look. ‘Next you’ll be telling me it’s not ageing to wear underwear the size of yacht sails.’

Emily burst out laughing. She hadn’t laughed in so long the sensation felt strange and she quickly smothered the sound. Mrs McCrae looked at her and smiled.

‘You should smile more often. You have such lovely eyes. They dance the Highland Fling when you smile.’

Emily looked away in embarrassment and they continued in a companionable silence. There was something about Mrs McCrae that appealed to her. The faltering steps beside her filled her with compassion, and she wondered if the older woman had had a stroke recently. She didn’t like to ask, but pulled back her pace even more as they continued along the pathway.

Not long after they’d turned the corner Mrs McCrae stopped in front of a neat terraced house. ‘This is my home. It’s not as grand as its neighbours but I live alone.’

‘Did you…did your husband pass away?’ Emily asked uncomfortably.

‘He’s been long gone,’ Mrs McCrae said.

‘I’m sorry.’

Mrs McCrae’s bright eyes twinkled again. ‘Not all husbands are as irresistible as yours, my dear.’

Emily’s colour returned. ‘I should get going.’ She took a step backwards.

‘Come and visit me some time,’ Mrs McCrae said. ‘I don’t have many visitors. We can have tea and shortbread and a good blather.’

‘I’d like that,’ Emily said, and gave Mrs McCrae’s arm a little squeeze as she turned to walk home.

Two days later Emily was just sitting down to a snack of cheese on toast when the doorbell rang. She left her scanty evening meal and opened the front door.

‘Danny! What are you doing here?’

‘This is my brother’s house,’ Danny said, stooping to kiss her briefly on the mouth. ‘While the cat’s away and all that.’

Emily stepped aside as he came in, her forehead creasing into a worried frown. ‘I’m not sure Damien would appre-ciate your sense of humour. Where’s Louise?’

Danny shrugged and bent his head to smell the huge bouquet of flowers she’d put on the hall table only that morning. ‘Mmm, nice.’ He turned back to face her. ‘Louise is visiting her mother.’

‘So while the cat’s away and all that?’ Emily quipped darkly.

‘Come on, Em, have pity on me. Let’s have a drink and a chat. We’re supposed to be mates, aren’t we?’

‘You’re my brother-in-law now,’ she pointed out as he strode off towards the sitting room, where the well-stocked bar was located.

‘Even better,’ he said, reaching for the whisky decanter. ‘Damien won’t mind sharing. He’s used to it by now. Linda Janssen is his latest—apart from you, of course.’

Emily found his comments intensely irritating. She hated being referred to in the same sentence as Damien’s mistress—it made her feel used and cheap.

Danny looked at her as he lifted his glass to his lips. ‘You’re not falling in love with him, are you?’ he asked when she didn’t speak.

Emily felt the flush rise like a tide along her cheeks. ‘Of course not! You know why I married him.’

Danny’s laugh was mocking. ‘Yes, you married him for his money, didn’t you, my sweet?’

Emily’s mouth tightened. ‘I wouldn’t have put it quite that way,’ she said.

‘How would you have put it, Emily?’

Emily turned in shock at the deep sardonic sound of Damien’s voice at the doorway. ‘Damien!’ she gasped.

Damien’s brow lifted ironically. ‘Surprised to see me? How touching.’ He turned to his brother. ‘What brings you here, Danny—apart from my wife?’

Danny finished his whisky in one mouthful. ‘I thought I’d do the brotherly thing and entertain Emily for you. But since you’re home now I wonder if I could speak to you about something.’ He glanced briefly at Emily before adding, ‘In private.’

Emily swung away to leave the room, her face set in lines of tension. She didn’t trust Danny. She wondered why she hadn’t seen it before, the way he inveigled himself, got what he wanted and then turned away without remorse.

‘What is it this time?’ she heard Damien ask as she closed the door behind her. ‘Money?’

She
wouldn’t
listen through the keyhole, but how she wanted to! Instead she went back to her abandoned meal and sat down and stared at the cold cheese and limp toast. Very few minutes had passed before she heard the front door slam and the roar of a car soon after.

Damien’s unmistakable tread came towards the kitchen and Emily pushed her untouched food away.

‘I want to talk to you,’ he said as he entered the room.

Emily felt her stomach free-fall at the sheer height of him looming over her like some dark knight intent on righting the wrongs of his underlings.

‘I’m having my dinner,’ she said defiantly, pulling her toast back towards her.

He gave the small plate a cursory glance. ‘That’s not dinner—that wouldn’t feed a gnat.’

‘I’m not that hungry.’

‘Are you upset?’

She looked up at him.

‘Upset?’

‘You told me you can’t eat when you’re upset. Remember?’