Second Best Wife (24 page)

Georgina cast a proud, angry look about her, but there was no help to be gained from either Celine or Stuart, who were intent only on each other, and from Jennifer she would scorn to ask so much as the time of day!

'Where are we going, then?' she asked abruptly, knowing herself to be defeated.

'On a picnic,' he answered without hesitation. 'I have all the food in the jeep, waiting for you. Are you coming?'

She put her hand in the one he held out to her and bent her head. 'But I haven't forgiven you yet, William Ayres, not for anything!'

'Ah!' His fingers closed about hers with a painful intensity. 'It isn't your forgiveness I'm seeking,' he mocked her. 'I've never fancied the role of penitential sinner much and I won't grovel at your feet, because neither of us would care for that. I have another proposition to put to you—'

'And I suppose if I don't accept it at once, you'll coerce me into it just the same!' she interrupted him shortly. 'Why can't you be nice to me, just for once, just until—until—?' Her eyes widened and she stood stock still, refusing to budge another inch. 'William, what kind of proposition?'

'Why don't you come and find out?'

She blinked nervously. 'Will I like it?' she probed.

'You will, if you don't strain my patience too far before we get started! Look, sweetheart, I want you to myself for a few hours and I've spent a sleepless night and a great many hours of hard work to achieve it. Don't you think it's time we had a talk, just the two of us, without any interruptions, and got certain things straight between us?'

She nodded slowly. 'Didn't you go back to bed last night?'

'For a few hours.'

'Was that enough for you?'

His smile was wry. 'Lack of sleep doesn't help my temper any. You have been warned, my sweet Georgina! I need you on my side for the rest of today!'

'Oh yes!' she exclaimed. 'Why didn't you say so? I thought — ' She broke off, wondering exactly what it was that she had thought. A proposition in her experience was the first step on the road to ruin, but as she was already married to William he couldn't possibly have meant the temporary liaison that his words had conjured up. Indeed, it had to be something else, and that something set her nerves jangling and the blood racing through her veins.

She ignored his look of enquiry, a smile of sheer delight hovering at the corners of her mouth. 'William, I wish you'd come earlier! It was such a long morning without you! Why didn't you come in to wish me good morning?'

'How do you know I didn't? You were fast asleep when I left the house this morning.'

'I wouldn't have minded if you had woken me,' she protested. 'I thought it was because you preferred to have breakfast with Jennifer.'

He cast a quick look in her direction, giving her a push towards his waiting jeep. 'Jennifer is essentially an evening person, don't you think?' he returned.

'I'd much rather you didn't think of her as any sort of person,' she said in a small voice. 'I know you thought you were in love with

her — '

‘That was a misunderstanding, Georgina. That's one of the things I want to talk to you about. I've treated you very badly, dear heart, but a little bit of it was your own fault. You're going to have to give up fighting me in the future and try a spot of loving instead. Think you can stand it?'

She sat on the canvas-covered seat, her knees together and her hands clasped lightly in her lap. The colour edged up her face as she strove to find a credible answer that would not commit her to more than he wanted from her. None occurred to her.

‘Never mind, Georgie Porgie, I can wait.' He got into the driving seat beside her, lifting a hand in salute to the others who had come out from the factory to see them off. He grinned happily to himself. ‘Atta girl, Georgie! At least Celine knows what she wants from Stuart!'

The tea gardens looked particularly lovely that morning. The atmosphere was thin and clear and it was possible to look across miles and miles of tea-planted hillsides and up into the heights where even the tea came to an end, to be replaced by some scrawny laurels, rhododendrons, pipal, balsams and pitcher plants. The land was well watered too, a multitude of waterfalls giving life to some of the rockier gorges.

Georgina was beginning to relax and enjoy herself. She knew what she wanted too. She wanted William, but she wanted him all to herself and, for today at least, that was what it seemed she was going to get.

‘This must be the most beautiful place on earth!' she said, increasingly certain that this was going to be the most wonderful day in her life.

‘It must be the company you're keeping,' he teased her.

She sat up very straight. ‘Could be.' She would have said something more, something a great deal more enthusiastic, but there didn't seem to be any words to express what she was feeling.

William drove on in silence, only speaking again when he told her they were approaching their destination. ‘Stuart claims this spot is as near paradise as one is likely to get. He'd better be right!'

'He probably is,' she encouraged him. 'Not that it matters. It's such a lovely day that I wouldn't care if we were in the middle of Piccadilly Circus!'

He looked at her, his thoughts hidden behind a mask of indifference. 'I should,' he said.

She clasped her hands tighter together. 'Why?'

He smiled ruefully. 'Because, my Georgie Porgie, today I'm going to be very gentle with you and you're going to respond in kind. Shouting above the roar of the traffic wouldn't be conducive to the kind of atmosphere I want to achieve.' He glanced across at her. 'How does the programme appeal so far?'

'I don't mind when you're not gentle,' she blurted out. 'I l-like being with you, you see.'

'Do you, darling? I think you're more generous than I deserve, because in the past I've bruised your spirit more than a little, haven't I?'

Surprisingly, she was amused by that. 'I shall enjoy having you apply a little balm,' she told him. 'William, you fool! You know it will be just the same tomorrow when you want something from me! And I'm just as big a fool. I think I must like the masterful touch!'

'The iron hand in the velvet glove? That's all very well, love, but not without love, and not without the glove. It'll be different from now on, I promise you. I've been obtuse as far as you're concerned,

but my eyes are wide open now.'

'It doesn't matter,' she said uncomfortably.

'Because you're used to being misjudged?' His foot slipped on the accelerator and they shot forward, coming to rest under a group of trees close beside one of the prettiest silver waterfalls that Georgina had ever seen. 'It's going to be different from now on!'

She didn't know what to say to that. She was glad to be able to busy herself helping to spread the rug on the ground just short of the spray from the waterfall, and to carry the packages of food and drink from the jeep to the rug.

'Oh, do look!' she whispered, awed. 'That bird, over there!'

He glanced where she was pointing. 'A blue-tailed bee-eater.' 'And that?'

'A black headed oriole. It has a pretty mustard-coloured body which you can see better in flight. That one over there is a kingfisher.'

'But it's quite black and dull,' she complained.

'Wait until it takes off. See it?'

It flew across the water in a blaze of greeny-blue, settling on the other side of the water, its right-angled beak turning busily from side to side as the bird inspected the possibilities of his territory.

Georgina turned impulsively to William. 'Thank you for bringing me here! You looked so tired last night, and then to get up as early as you did—it was kind of you, because I didn't think I'd see you before this evening.'

'And that mattered to you?'

She nodded, embarrassed. 'It was nice having a whole week together before you started work. It spoilt me for having to entertain myself, I expect. I've never had nothing in particular to do before.'

'Enjoy it while you can,' he advised her. 'You'll be busy enough when the children make their appearance.'

'Children?' She sounded as if she had never heard the word before.

'The fruit of the marriage-bed,' he reminded her dryly.

'Oh.' She coloured and turned away, saying again,
'Oh!'

He sat down on the rug, spreading his long legs out in front of him and patting the place beside him. 'Don't sound so surprised, Georgie.

Celine seems to expect it of us, even if you don't!'

'I hadn't thought —'

'What had you thought about?'

She sat down quickly, feeling suddenly weak at the knees. 'I don't know. I was busy taking each day as it came.' She paused, gathering up her courage. 'William, about Jennifer — '

'What about her?'

'She doesn't mean half what she says. I think she is — fond of you, if that's what's worrying you.'

His eyes narrowed, the amber of his eyes looking very yellow against the black of his lashes. 'It's not. I heard all I wanted to from Jennifer last night. Not that it changed anything. You'd already wrought havoc with my feelings, long before Jennie made her appearance. You're such an innocent, Georgie! Didn't you guess how I felt?'

She bit her lip, trying not to allow the burgeoning excitement within her to get away from her rapidly diminishing control over it. 'I still don't know,' she said.

But it seemed he wasn't going to tell her—not yet. He lay back, pillowing his head on his hands, and changed the subject.

'Tell me about Jennifer,' he coaxed her. 'Tell me the truth, and make it as short as you can. She's a dull subject on such a day as this!'

'Dull?' The word exploded out of her. 'Aren't you in love with her after all? If you've changed your mind, you shouldn't have allowed her to come all this way to be with you. She'll be furious!'

'I'd say Duncan is more entitled to feel ill-used. I wonder how she persuaded him to pay for her to visit us. It's a damned sight more than I'd do for you, Georgie! Nobody else is ever going to have you but me!'

Georgina traced the pattern of the rug with her finger, waiting for the thunder of her heart to subside a little. 'She may go back to him,' she volunteered at last. 'It's the sort of thing she would do. Perhaps he knows that. He might have been prepared to take a gamble on her, don't you think?'

'Possibly.'

'She's a bit spoilt,' Georgina continued, picking her words with care. 'Our parents have always given her her own way—'

'And so have you!'

'She's younger than I am. I could always look after myself, but she's such a delicate little thing—'

'So I thought too! But not for long. I soon discovered which one of you needed protecting from the wolves of this world —
and it

wasn't her!'

Georgina looked at him then. 'You mean me?' she asked, astonished.

He smiled slowly at her puzzled expression. 'I daresay you'd manage well enough in a fair fight,' he consoled her, 'but wolves in sheep's clothing seldom fight fair. Like Jennifer!'

She accepted that, but she wasn't going to let him get away with his own deeds so lightly. 'Do you fight fair?' she challenged him.

His eyes met hers. 'Are you lodging a complaint?'

She shook her head. 'I don't want you to think badly of Jennie, that's all.'

He propped himself up on to his elbow, unbalancing her as he did so and triumphantly imprisoning her against the long length of his body.

'Jennifer can live with my opinion of her. I doubt it will so much as dent her self-conceit. But last night was the last time she takes you apart in my hearing. There's no comparison between the two of you, and I was lucky enough to get the best of the bargain when I pushed you into marriage with me. I knew it almost at once, and I thought you knew how I felt too. I forgot women have to have everything put into words before they'll allow themselves to believe a man's fallen in love with them—and you more than most, because you still think everyone is going to prefer Jennifer to yourself, don't you? Well, it isn't true. You didn't only black my eye, my darling; you hit me hard where it hurts most, and I couldn't believe my good fortune that I'd made my bed with you and had every right to make love to you as often as I could persuade you to co-operate!'

She veiled her eyes with her long lashes. 'I love you,' she said.

He ran his fingers round the collar of her dress, finding the top of the zip. 'I know that, sweetheart.'

Her eyes opened wide. 'How could you know?'

His lips found the hollow between her breasts. 'You told me so.'

'When?' His closeness disturbed her breathing and she put up a hand to prevent his from exploring any further. 'I'm sure I didn't!'

'Not in words perhaps, but I knew. You might have known how I felt about you too, if you'd thought about it. You must have known how much I wanted you!'

'That isn't quite the same thing,' she said primly.

His eyes lit with laughter as he kissed her. 'With you, I think it is, my lovely wife. You have a rare talent for love.'