Second Best Wife (8 page)

But William had known many, many women. He probably knew better than she did the unconscious signs a woman made when she was attracted to someone, even if she didn't want to be attracted to him. Well, she would just have to disabuse him of any thought that
she—
Supposing he had kissed her? It would have been no big thing in her life!
She didn't like William!

She chose a pretty flowered dress from her suitcase and donned it in a rush, determined not to give him cause to gloat over being longer than she had specified before she joined him on the terrace. It was a very feminine dress with frothy lace at the neck and cuffs: Surely no one could think her hard and bossy in such a dress? To her own eyes she looked as vulnerable as she felt: afraid of William and afraid that she was going to get hurt, but when she smiled she looked a shade more confident. She would have to smile a great deal that evening, she recommended to herself. She would be cool, casual, and charming, and he would never suspect the turmoil that was going on inside her.

She squirted some scent on to the back of her neck and down the front of her dress and then sniffed the air anxiously, afraid she had been too lavish. Some people had an aversion to the cheaper scents that flooded the world's markets and she had never been able to afford anything else. What did William think about things like that? She tossed her head at her reflection in the glass, telling herself it was sheer snobbery to care, and hurried on her way downstairs before she could think of anything else to worry about. She could do without such niggling doubts if she wanted to carry the day with William. With him, she needed every scrap of confidence she could command. And yet— and yet it felt that her whole being burgeoned into a new life when she saw him, his long legs stretched out in front of him, sitting at one of the far tables on the terrace.

‘Eleven and a half minutes,' he growled at her as she sat down beside him.

‘One and a half minutes to find you sitting right over here,' she retorted, flashing a determined smile in his direction, and then wishing that she hadn't, since he was bound to know that it was as false as was the lightness of her tone.

‘You still look a bit washed out,' he commented, looking her over.

‘How charming of you to notice,' she returned. ‘I could say the same for you, but I won't. I'll compliment you on your choice of shirt instead.'

‘Meaning that you hoped I'd notice you had on a Jennifer-style dress? Well, I had noticed. Did you steal it out of her wardrobe when she wasn't looking?'

Georgina looked far out to sea, her whole attention on the setting globe of the sun, now gold, now enormous and scarlet as it slid down

into the purple-grey of the water.

'Jennifer's clothes don't fit me,' she said mildly. 'Hadn't you noticed that I'm larger round the bust?'

'It can't make that much difference!' He studied her with renewed interest. 'Perhaps it does at that! You haven't Jennie's delicate air, but you make an exciting handful for all that!' He noted her blush with satisfaction, his smile adding a cruel twist to his lips. 'Is that what you really wanted me to notice?'

'No, I'm quite indifferent to your excitements.' She leaned forward, staring so hard at the setting sun her eyes hurt. 'When does the green flash come?'

'Just as the sun disappears. Any second now. Wait for
it —now!
Did you see it?'

'Yes — yes, I did.' She sounded almost as surprised as she felt that she had actually seen the flash on the horizon that had saluted the departure of the setting sun. 'I didn't really believe it would happen. Why does it?'

He started to explain it to her, but soon realised she wasn't listening to him. 'You don't really want to know, do you?' he muttered, disgruntled.

'It might destroy the magic,' she explained.

He gave her a wry look. 'Who would have thought our Georgie Porgie was a romantic at heart? You've given few signs of it before! What did you learn at that college of yours, by the way? Jennifer seemed to think it was something about making bricks without straw? Not very likely, I thought.'

Georgina deliberately relaxed her clenched fists. 'Women seldom take up building,' she said.

He laughed. It wasn't a pleasant sound. 'I can well imagine you as a "bricky", though, carrying hods of bricks through the mud and wet concrete of a building site, proving yourself as good or better than any man!'

Georgina forced a smile. 'A regular Amazon, in fact? I rather like that! When one's small, one likes to be thought bigger than one is, and to be a pint-sized Amazon is better than to be a quart-sized, besotted humbug—'

'Like me?'

She shrugged. 'If the cap fits,' she suggested sweetly, 'you know what to do with it.'

He looked suddenly thoughtful. 'I hadn't realised how small you are,' he said at last. 'How tall are you? Five-one? Five-two? Jennifer must be a good three inches taller —'

'She weighs more too!' Georgina pointed out, not without malice. 'Not when I first knew you,' William remembered. 'You were a very solid little girl.'

'That,' Georgina said briskly, 'was a long, long time ago. You should catch up with the times, my lad. You live far too much in the past. Anyone would think you were middle-aged, you're so nostalgic about the days of your youth! Still, I suppose everyone feels the same about their first love — only most of us grow up and go on to bigger and better things.'

William eyed her soberly. 'What did you learn at college?'

'Not psychology. Design and commercial art.' She lifted her chin, congratulating herself on getting the best of the latest skirmish between them. 'Hence the bricks without straw, I suppose. Jennifer doesn't approve of artists selling their talents on the open market. In her opinion they ought to be starving in a garret, or living in the shadow of some patron. I'm not that romantic!'

'Nor am I,' he agreed unexpectedly. 'That's why I became an engineer. I like to see good, solid, practical results to my work. You don't get that with pure science. It's the technicians, the engineers, who've made civilisations work, right from the very beginning—far more than the so-called scientific bods. Nor do I live in the past much. My work is fashioning the future, and that's where most of my thoughts are.'

'And in your private life?'

'That's a more difficult question to answer,' he admitted. 'One gets caught up in things. That's why I wanted to bring Jennifer out here.' He hesitated, chewing on the inside of his lip. 'She has a gentle, loving nature and that's what Celine needs most at this moment.' His lips tightened. 'Celine is the past all right. She lives there all the time, no matter what anyone does to try and give her a future.' He sighed. 'Jennifer would have been good for Celine.'

'Celine?' Georgina felt completely lost. 'Who is Celine?'

William stared morosely out to sea. 'I inherited her from her father. He was a good friend of mine until he was killed by a flash flood in Australia. I'd promised him if anything happened to him I would take care of Celine for him. She's a pretty girl, but not quite all there, if you know what I mean. She was completely normal when her mother was alive, but her death affected her very badly. After that she never seemed to grow up. She's nearly twenty now, but she sounds and behaves as if she were half that age. I thought Jennifer would be good for her.'

Georgina spread her fingers on her knees. 'Did Jennie know about Celine?'

'No. I thought it would be enough for her to find out about her after we were married. Whatever happens, you see, I can't ditch Celine now.'

Georgina surveyed him in silence for a moment. 'It's a good thing you married me and not Jennie, then,' she said. 'Jennifer is used to being the baby and the most precious member of the family—'

'Come off it, Georgie! Jennifer is grown up and has been for a long time now. She would have shouldered the responsibility of Celine easily enough. Celine could have done with her kind, gentle ways too. It was a risk bringing you in your sister's stead, but if you so much as touch that girl you'll have me to answer to. She needs loving, not bullying, and that's what she's going to get from both of us.'

Georgina sighed. 'How did her mother die?' she asked.

'In a fire. Celine was got out of the house by some neighbours, but they couldn't get her mother out. Celine's father tried to make the child talk it out of her system, but she wouldn't say a single word. Whenever he mentioned Alice, his wife, the child shut up like a clam with a dreamy look in her eyes, and she's been like that ever since.'

'Poor girl!'

William glanced at Georgina and it seemed as if a reflection of that fire was lighting his eyes. 'I'd give anything to make that girl happy,' he said abruptly. 'I owe it to her father —and the girl

herself. She's beautiful, Georgie, the most beautiful creature I've ever seen.'

Georgina raised her eyebrows. 'More beautiful than Jennifer?'

'Good lord, yes! Jennifer has a fragile prettiness, but this girl is out of this world!'

'And you think Jennifer would have tolerated comparison with a raving beauty?' Georgina was stung into asking. 'She'd have got rid of Celine somehow — especially if she knew how fond of her you are! Her gentle ways wouldn't have lasted two minutes after she realised she was expected to share your attention with somebody else. You've had a lucky escape, William, my lad!'

'By being stuck with you? Don't you ever have anything pleasant to say for your sister?'

Georgina bit her lip. 'I've known Jennifer all her life,' she reminded him. 'She doesn't share things—with anyone.'

'Only because she's had to put up with your petty jealousies whenever she wanted to strike out for herself. Older sisters can have one hell of a lot to answer for when they constantly resent being put in the shade by their younger siblings. Still, it's a risk I've chosen to take with Celine. You might say the choice was forced on me: either I got married to make a home for her, or I should have had to put her in a home and visit whenever I could. I chose to marry you — and I'll make it work if it's the last thing I do! You won't make Celine suffer for your inadequacies as you did Jennifer, my girl. I've got your measure, and if anyone can handle you, I can!'

Georgina bent her head. 'What will you do if Celine recovers? She may not stay a child for ever. Have you thought of that?'

'I can't afford to,' he dismissed the question. 'I have to think of her as a child. One can't think of her as anything else.'

But he already did, Georgina thought, surprised by the insight he had given her into his feelings. It had been Celine all the time! Was it possible? Could he really have decided to marry Jennifer for no other reason but that she would be kind to Celine? If so, where did she stand herself as Jennifer's substitute?

'A child in a woman's body,' she mused aloud. 'Does she know I'm coming?'

He nodded. 'I had her brought over from Australia last week.

She's already installed in the house at Nuwara Eliya where we're staying while I'm working on this irrigation project.'

'Alone?' Georgina gasped.

'Of course not! She has her nurse with her —a woman I very much want to get rid of, incidentally. If you can do that for me, I'll be eternally in your debt.'

Georgina eyed him covertly. 'Are you afraid of this dragon? I don't believe it!'

'You needn't. Miss Campbell doesn't alarm me, she bores me with her baby-talk and her upsy-daisies! Celine doesn't understand much, but she's a human being and should be addressed as such.'

Georgina allowed herself a faint smile. 'All right,' she said, I'll get rid of your Miss Campbell for you. Anything to oblige and all that.'

His eyes narrowed, openly mocking her. 'Anything?'

'Almost anything,' she amended, and yawned to show she didn't care what he thought. But she did care! And she was alarmed too, because now she was back at the beginning with him, not knowing or understanding him at all. She had got used to his being in love with Jennifer. Now she didn't know if he was in love with anybody at all—and she had to know! She had to know
something!

She cleared her throat, hesitated, and then started again in a now or never voice that betrayed her nervousness. 'William, why did you marry me? As an alternative Miss Campbell?'

'Does it matter?' He stood up, pushing back his chair with a vigour that had the backs of her hands tingling.

'It matters to me,' she said.

He bent over her, leaning his hands on the arms of her chair. 'Does it? Why did you marry me, Georgie Porgie? You see, you can't answer that either, can you? It's better not to ask questions that have no answer to them. It'll have to be enough for you that you're here — that in itself fulfils one of your ambitions, doesn't it? Haven't you always wanted to travel and see the world?'

'Yes,' she admitted. 'But I want to know where I stand too. Was all you wanted a nursemaid for Celine?'

His face was unreadable, at least to her. 'I wanted a wife. Wives are usually expected to share their husband's responsibilities, aren't they?'

She made a last effort to explain her anxieties to him. 'I don't resent Celine —'

'You haven't met her yet. You resented Jennifer all right and with much less cause. Where do you want to stand, Georgina?'