Merger By Matrimony (11 page)

But things got easier, and after another hour exploring each room, discussing who'd removed what in accordance to the legacy Abe had left, the brief moment of madness, if not forgotten, had been put to sleep. Like a tiger injected with a temporary sedative. She had no
doubt that, when she was alone again, the moment would come rushing out at her, like a bat out of hell.

They only managed to cover part of the house, which, if anything, was bigger than it had appeared from the outside, before Callum suggested lunch, and they joined a lazy and slightly browner Stephanie by the pool.

More salad. Destiny looked at her plate, which had been brought out by Deirdre, Harold's other half, with a distinct lack of enthusiasm. At least this time round there was plenty of it, but several helpings went virtually nowhere to filling the gap in her stomach.

‘Don't worry,' Callum confided, as they left Stephanie once more by the pool and resumed their tour of the house, ‘dinner will be more substantial. It's an old English custom to serve salads on hot summer days.'

‘Don't know why,' Destiny said. ‘You need a lot of energy in hot weather, especially at lunchtime, and the last thing you get from a bundle of lettuce leaves is an injection of energy.'

An injection of apathy, more like it, she thought when they had finally completed the rounds of the house. In the end they had had to quicken their pace, if the gardens were to be done the following day, but there was lots she wanted to revisit.

At six o'clock, when they found themselves once again at the pool, Stephanie was finally through with her day's exertions.

‘You look great,' Destiny said warmly. ‘Very brown.'

‘Do I?' She contorted her slender body in an attempt to scrutinise as much of it as she could. ‘What do you think, Callum?'

‘Mmm.' He wasn't looking at her, even though his thoughts were most definitely on her. On her and on the chat they would have to have before the evening was
over. He hoped to God that she wouldn't break down on him but, if she did, then whose fault was it? His. His, because he should have ended this relationship a long time ago and not relied on fondness to see them through. He could have kicked himself.

‘I think that means
yes,
' Destiny offered lightly.

‘And how would you know what I mean?' His voice was cold. They both turned to him with varying expressions of surprise and discomfiture, but it was Stephanie who, amazingly, exploded.

‘Why do you have to be so rude? Why can't you just
relax
a little and stop acting as though everyone has to do as you say? You…you…you…' Her brief outburst of valiance tapered off while Destiny groaned inwardly and wondered miserably whether her casual words of advice had been taken to heart. She was now a spectator at a scene in which two opponents faced one another, one with an expression of shock but defiance, the other with grim determination.

‘I think, Destiny,' Callum said, looking at his fiancée, ‘that it's time you relaxed before dinner. Deirdre is in the kitchen. She'll show you up to your room.'

W
HEN
Destiny emerged two hours later, she found Stephanie by herself in the kitchen. The table was set, but for two and Stephanie was busily fussing around the stove with a pair of oven gloves on her hands. She'd pulled her hair back into a high ponytail and was wearing a pair of culottes and a silk blouse.

‘Callum's gone,' she said, answering the question that hadn't yet been asked.

‘Gone where?'

‘Back to London. And I told Harold and Deirdre that there was no need for them to stay and see about dinner for the two of us.'

‘So you cooked all of this yourself?' She couldn't help it, but there was incredulity in her voice because the smells emanating from the various dishes were mouth-watering and she had somehow never imagined her stepcousin to be much of a hand when it came to culinary skills.

‘Lord, no.' Stephanie looked at her and grinned. ‘Are you crazy? Toast and scrambled egg are about the only two things I can manage. No, Deirdre cooked all this up herself and gave me very strict instructions on how long I was supposed to heat everything for. She seemed to think that I would wreck her meal.'

‘And you haven't.'

‘Well, the soufflé
is
in the bin, actually. Forgot it in the oven, and by the time I remembered it was a sad, deflated black mass.' She brought various dishes to the
table, filled their glasses with wine and sat down with a little sigh. ‘There's enough food to feed an army here. Hope you're hungry because I've lost my appetite.'

‘There was no need for you to rise to my defence back then, Stephanie,' Destiny said awkwardly. ‘I'm very sorry if…you know… I mean, I wouldn't like to think that you got yourself into trouble because of me…' She looked at the little figure, ridiculously fragile without her usual make-up and with her hair pulled back, toying with the birdlike proportions of food on her plate.

‘Don't be silly. It's not your fault.' Stephanie picked up a few vegetables on her fork and proceeded to survey them without much interest. Then she rested her fork on her plate and gulped back some of her wine instead. ‘We really should have called it a day a long time ago, but things have a habit of drifting on. On and on and on. We never really argued, but then we never really
spoke
either. We've just been trundling along for the past few months. No excitement, no magic—just two people who got on reasonably well and saw no reason to have any kind of confrontation.'

Until I came along,
was the thought that guiltily occurred to Destiny as she tucked into her food. The spread on the table more than compensated for the lunchtime offering of leaves and cold meats, and it was traditional food. Her meals out thus far, in restaurants, had been small, prettily presented plates of various things drizzled with strange juices and accompanied by delicate titbits of vegetables arranged in appetising but unsatisfactory designs. This was hearty food and manna to a ravenous appetite.

‘So it's all over?'

‘I gave him back his ring and, to be honest, I was pretty relieved. It was all very civilised, actually. More
of a discussion than any kind of argument. Callum hates scenes. You could say that we parted the best of friends.'

‘Well, that's something at least.'

‘I mean, of course I'll miss him. We kind of got accustomed to one another. But that's not enough, is it? Just liking someone and being
kind of accustomed to them?
What kind of marriage would
that
have been? Without any spark at all?'

‘I suppose so.' Destiny thought about Henri—not that marriage had ever been on the agenda, although Henri had jokingly suggested it a couple of times.

‘I would have ended up being married to someone who could have been my brother!' Some of the liveliness resurfaced and Stephanie managed to eat a couple of mouthfuls of food before closing her knife and fork. ‘I realised that what I wanted was thunder and lightning and fireworks, not just feeling good because I was out with someone most women would give their eye teeth to be seen with. Anyway, I also realised that Callum's always treated me like a child. I think he thought that if he spoke to me in more than two-syllable sentences, I might not understand what he was saying!'

‘And did you tell him all of this?'

‘What would have been the point? It's not like I felt any urge to fight to hang on. I was relieved that we were going to be parting company. Sad but relieved.' She finished her glass of wine and refilled it. ‘So now here I am, back on the market, in search of true love.' She tried to look dramatic and mournful but the effect was ruined by tell tale giggles.

‘You'll find a partner in less time than it would take me to kill a snake,' Destiny told her, finally closing her knife and fork with a warm, replete feeling in her stomach. ‘Think about me and my problems of finding true
love! Out in the middle of nowhere! I shall end up a grey, sad little soul—or should I say big soul?—devoting my life to other people while no one devotes their life to me.'

‘You have Henri.'

‘You remembered his name?'

‘I have a very retentive memory when it comes to certain things.'

‘Henri…' Destiny stood up and began clearing the table while Stephanie began washing up. ‘Henri is… Well, more of a friend…'

‘With or without the spark?'

‘We get along so well…'

‘You're avoiding the question.'

‘He's a lovely person. Kind, thoughtful but not boring or fuddy-duddy.'

‘Have you slept with him?'

‘Stephanie!' She was frankly shocked by the question. Confidences of that nature belonged to a language she had never spoken.

‘Well, have you?' Stephanie persisted.

‘I…well… You have to understand…'

‘You haven't.'

‘Well, no…' Destiny's face was bright red and she made a big production of wiping the kitchen table to try and hid the fact.

‘And have you been tempted to?'

‘It's awfully difficult on a compound, Steph. It's very comfortable, and we all have our own living quarters, but still…'

‘Enough said. I'm beginning to get the message!' And they looked at one another with an instant of perfect comprehension. As if by unspoken but mutual consent, they spent the remainder of the evening chatting about every
thing under the sun apart from Henri and Callum, and when at ten-thirty Stephanie finally uncurled herself from her chair to head to bed, Destiny thought with a pang that she would miss her stepcousin. Miss the frivolity and gossip and giggling that she never got on the compound. She would miss someone taking an interest in what she wore and how she did her hair and offering advice on colour schemes. She would miss the girlish chat about men and their ways and the cosy, secret bond that seemed to exist between women which was a whole great world away from the one in which she had spent most of her life. For the first time she thought of her compound in Panama with a certain amount of detachment, and realised that she had needs that could never really be fulfilled there.

‘I'll stay down here for a while longer,' Destiny said, walking with her stepcousin to the door, and was surprised when she received a hug and a broad smile.

‘I'm so glad you're here,' Stephanie said to her. ‘You're a darling.'

‘Well. Thank you.'

‘And don't be late up. A girl needs her beauty sleep.'

Her mother had used to tell her that when she had been alive and the cliché brought tears of nostalgia to her eyes.

Destiny settled into a comfortably maudlin mood, aided and abetted by the glass of port which Stephanie had produced with a flourish and insisted that she drink, and was sitting in the smallest of the sitting rooms when she became aware of the sound of footsteps.

If Stephanie was returning for some more words of comfort, then Destiny had no objection. Comforting people was something she did well. She had enough experience of it, comforting mothers with sick children and
the occasional new recruit to the compound pining for what they had left behind.

She looked expectantly at the door and blanched when she saw who her visitor was.

‘I thought you'd gone back to London.' She had half stood in shock, but now subsided back into her chair, still cradling her glass of port. The drowsy inertia induced by lots of food and the alcohol disappeared at the speed of light and was replaced by a jumpy edginess that made her breathing jerky and painful and dried out her mouth.

‘Forgot something,' he informed her, prowling into the room and circling her chair before sitting down on the sofa and stretching his long legs out in front of him. ‘What are you drinking?'

‘Port.'

‘First wine? Now port? Not getting used to the finer things in life, by any chance, are you?' There was an antagonistic edge to his drawl and it occurred to her that he was looking for a fight. And why not? He had probably got halfway to London, more than enough time to think about what had happened between himself and Stephanie. More than enough time to work out that his fiancée's sudden and uncharacteristic behaviour had only seen the light of day since she, Destiny, had been on the scene. Stephanie might well be relieved that it was all over and, who knew, maybe she had really believed that the feeling had been mutual, but it was evident that Callum was far from a happy man. In fact, he was in a foul mood.

‘What did you forget?'

‘Oh, I forgot that I was supposed to spend tomorrow showing you around all these extensive acres of land.' He made a sweeping, lazy gesture with his hand while he continued to look at her from under his lashes.

‘I think I would have been capable of showing myself around.'

‘And leave you with the impression that I'm anything less than the perfect gentleman?' He gave a short, harsh laugh and her jumpy nerves became even more jumpy. ‘Now, why don't you go and get me a glass of port? It's been one helluva night, as I'm sure you know.'

‘The bottle of port is in the kitchen, and if you want me to feel sorry for you then you're not going the right way about it.'

‘Why should you feel sorry for me? No, don't answer that one. Not until,' he said, getting to his feet and heading for the door, ‘I have a glass of port in my hand.'

Instead of savouring the few minutes he was gone to try and relax, Destiny found that her nerves were stretched to breaking point by the time he came back with a glass in one hand and the bottle in the other.

‘So,' he said, resuming his position of indolence on the chair, ‘you were saying…'

‘I'm sorry that things didn't work out between you and Stephanie,' she said evenly.

‘Are you? Why?'

‘It wasn't my fault,' she mumbled defensively, allowing her guilty thoughts to surface.

‘I never said that it was.'
But it damn well was,
he thought savagely. She'd moved into his complacent life, which had been running quite smoothly, and blown the whole thing to smithereens. Yes, he'd had misgivings about Stephanie, and, yes, he would have ended the whole thing—which, he'd been relieved to discover, had been met with similar feelings of relief. But he would not now be sitting with a drink in one hand with his well-oiled life in pieces around his ankles.

He'd left the house intent on making it back to
London, but in fact had made it only to the nearest pub, where he had drunk far too much for his own good. It was just as well that the pub in question had only been twenty minutes' drive away and there had been a taxi to get him back to the estate.

It was all right and dandy for her to sit there with those bewitching green eyes and look at him as if he was a madman, but she turned him into one. He'd closed the door on one woman, a long overdue closure, and in the process another door had blown open and he had realised, with the sadistic help of a few glasses of whisky, that what he had considered a harmless enjoyment of this woman's conversation had somehow turned into an addiction. He was falling in love with her, and the mere fact that he'd admitted as much to himself was enough to make him realise that he'd probably gone past the point of no return.

He was not only invigorated by her but she had lodged in his soul and he wanted her out. He wanted his control back. He didn't want to sit at his desk with a stack of files in front of him while his mind played games and sabotaged his every effort to work. To work, to sleep, to think clearly.

The woman who had originally been a temporary thorn in his long-range forecast was now driving him crazy.

‘Perhaps you two weren't suited to one another,' she was now saying quietly. ‘Perhaps the thunder and lightning and fireworks had gone out of the relationship—and what would have been the point of marriage then?' Anyone would think that she, Destiny Felt, the woman with no emotional past to speak of when it came to the opposite sex, was an expert on the subject.

‘And what makes you think that thunder and lightning and fireworks are all that necessary to a good marriage?'
he jeered, calling a halt to the alcohol and resting his glass next to him on the ground. ‘In case it's missed you, thunder and lightning and fireworks are all over in the wink of an eye.'

‘If you want to try and persuade Stephanie to stay with you, then you're talking to the wrong person,' Destiny said cautiously, and he leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees.

‘You mean you won't go upstairs and try and persuade her that my heart is breaking? That I can't go on?'

Destiny tried to imagine this big, muscular man, made of steel, with a breaking heart, and she realised that it hurt to think that Stephanie might be the one to do that.

‘Just as well I don't want you to do any such thing, then, isn't it?' He shot her a ferocious, brooding look. ‘Because you're right. Steph and I should have reverted into being just good friends a long time ago.' He got up and began his restless prowling around the room while she watched, mesmerised by the way his body moved. For someone of his size, there was a feline grace about him that she wouldn't have expected.