Mistress Of The Groom

by Susan Napier

  ‘You were cold then, too... Your voice had that emotional frigidity you assume whenever you’re most frightened,’ he murmured against her forehead. ‘You were so damnably convincing in your humiliated dignity that for one nightmarish moment I nearly believed it myself. Why won’t you talk about it with me? Is it anything to do with Ava—why she was so quick to forgive you? Help me to understand.’

  She had stiffened within the circle of his arms at his shattering admission, now she pushed at his chest with panicky elbows.

  Ava! His voice always softened on her name. Perhaps speaking to her on the telephone had reawakened some of his old feelings, and if he was still carrying a torch for her then to discover how thoroughly she had betrayed his love and trust would be even more deeply humiliating now than a quick, cruel dose of the bitter truth would have been three years ago. Who wanted to be told they had spent years cherishing a shining memory that was in reality a pitiful lie? He might feel justified in lashing out with another destructive orgy of vengeance.

  Either way, Jane would once again be caught in the middle. She had already revealed too much about herself to him over the last few days—being misunderstood was the last line of defence for her wary heart! ‘I thought you’d already decided that it was the jealous spite of an old maid.’

  There was wry humour in his voice as he let her go and tilted her chin with his fist. ‘You may be old now but you were only twenty-three at the time. Oh, I can still accept the jealousy part, but not the spite. You’re a fighter, but unlike your father—and me—you haven’t proved to be very good at nursing a grudge. By all rights you should hate me with a passion, but instead, well...’ He trailed off, his eyes moving down over the full breasts pushing against the soft T-shirt...down to delicately tanned legs revealed by her linen shorts.

  ‘I do hate you,’ she said quickly. Too quickly. His eyes gleamed and he dropped a kiss on her mouth, the kind of casual salute he had perfected purely to drive her mad.

  ‘One day you’re going to trust me enough to tell me what I want to know...’

  And then he would walk away. ‘Is that what all this pretence of caring is about? Persuading me to talk about the good old days?’ she managed sarcastically.

  He didn’t even bother to argue that it wasn’t a pretence. He merely gave her the bold, confident smile of a seasoned hunter. ‘That...and seducing you back into my bed!’

  Maybe there might be an advantage to having a hostile nineteen-year-old chaperon hanging around after all! Jane thought feverishly.

  She was wrong.

  Melissa arrived back as threatened, her small boot stuffed with a clutch of bags that necessitated Ryan shifting boxes from the third bedroom into the garage. She lavished her brother with laughing attention and hissed baleful insults at Jane whenever the two women were alone. She complained about anything and everything, especially the fact that Jane was being waited on hand and foot while she, Melissa, had to take on her share of the chores. At lunch she changed into another outfit designed to make Jane feel like a slattern for arriving at the table in the same T-shirt and shorts, and entertained Ryan with non-stop stories about people that Jane didn’t know and cared less about.

  In the afternoon she got a measure of her own back by going for a brisk walk along one of the bush tracks that linked up with other walking trails through the western Waitakeres. But her usual enjoyment of the hushed beauty of the native forest was compromised by the sound of Melissa panting and whining in her wake, constantly begging Ryan to slow down, or rest, or help her get the stones out of her sneakers, or identify some piece of flora or fauna—anything to prise him away from Jane’s side.

  Later, while Ryan was working at his computer and Jane was lying on an old rug in the garden sketching on some scrap paper, with a small pencil-stub lightly suspended between her left forefinger and thumb, she was joined by Melissa, who wore a minuscule string bikini that would have created a riot on the beach. Braced for another round of hostilities, Jane instead found herself listening to chapter and verse about the many, many beautiful, witty and wonderful women who charmed Ryan’s existence, how marvellous a son and brother he was and how he would never do anything that would hurt his mother, especially after the hardships and disappointments she had suffered in the past...

  A sledgehammer would have been more subtle.

  Jane gritted her teeth through a chatter-filled dinner that Melissa had merrily helped her brother prepare and could barely raise a smile when Ryan firmly stated that she was making him nervous by hovering over his shoulder as he changed the dressing on Jane’s burnt palm. He suggested she pour the pan of hot water on the stove into the sink to start the washing-up, and she immediately began complaining about the unnecessary strictures on the use of electricity.

  ‘The little sister from hell,’ Ryan murmured ruefully, gently peeling off the old dressing while Melissa clattered the plates indignantly into the sink behind them.

  ‘You should know—you both come from the same origins,’ Jane whispered tartly as they studied the shiny pink patches of new skin emerging from beneath the weeping blisters, but the hint of conspiracy in his amusement was irresistible. ‘One minute she’s the wicked witch of the Waitakeres, the next it’s Pollyanna on speed,’ she muttered. ‘Is she ever going to run down?’

  He chuckled. ‘She’s jealous.’

  His soft reply feathered along her exposed nerves. ‘I don’t know why—I’m not making any claim on you...’

  His eyes were very blue. ‘A claim doesn’t have to be verbal to exist. If she hasn’t already guessed we’re lovers she soon will...’

  His whisper seemed as loud as a shout in her ears, and Jane flushed as she glanced guiltily at Melissa’s expressively outraged back.

  ‘Ex-lovers,’ she said through her teeth. Her eyes fluttered down and she experimentally flexed her fingers and winced.

  ‘Still painful?’

  Jane nodded, grateful for the prosaic turn of the conversation. ‘But only when I clench or stretch it...the rest of the time it’s just uncomfortably tight.’

  ‘Graham says to give it another few days under a light dressing, then you can leave it open to the air...’ Much to Jane’s embarrassment he was reporting her progress to his friend over the telephone each day, as if her moderate burn were of life-threatening importance.

  After he had redressed the wound Jane left brother and sister finishing the dishes and sat in the lumpy old easy chair under the window in the lounge with her pencil and the sheaf of sketches that were beginning to germinate an idea in the back of her mind. When the others joined her she was sufficiently immersed to have the excuse of turning down Ryan’s suggestion of a card game, so a two-handed game was played until Melissa tired of losing and perversely chose to take a dig at Jane’s self-absorption by plucking up one of the sketches as it slipped off the faded arm of the chair.

  The disdain slid off her mobile face, her eyes brightening with interest as she snatched up another drawing. ‘Hey, fashion designs! Far out! I thought you were sketching boring scenery or something. I like this layered look—’

  She suddenly remembered she was enthusing to the enemy and tried to affect uninterest as Jane explained that she had often sketched an outfit that she wanted her dressmaker to sew rather than choosing an existing design from a book of patterns or a fashion magazine.

  It was left to Ryan to pick up the conversation and ask to see more of the painstakingly executed drawings, and his sister scowled when he expressed a surprised admiration that warmed Jane with pride. Melissa immediately trashed the moment by gushing about the designer who had made such a wonderful job of Ava’s wedding and bridesmaids’ dresses.

  ‘I don’t suppose Ava could bear to keep it after what happened...’

  Ryan didn’t turn a hair at this gross insensitivity. ‘Perhaps she wore it for her second wedding and imbued it with happier memories,’ he said sardonically.

  Jane knew the pain he must be shielding with his cynicism. ‘
No, she and Conrad were married quietly in a register office—’ She broke off, biting her lip as Ryan’s gaze snapped to attention.

  ‘Oh? Were you there?’ Jane looked away. ‘Were you one of their witnesses, Jane?’

  ‘Yes,’ she admitted uncomfortably.

  ‘And a godmother to their first child, so I understand. Curiouser and curiouser...’ he said softly. He might have pursued his line of thought, but Melissa distracted him by deciding it was dark enough to turn on the lights and starting an argument when she discovered she was supposed to use lamps and candles that were probably a fire hazard or would give off toxic fumes, or burn up all the oxygen in the room.

  By the following afternoon Jane was on the point of throttling her additional unwanted guest. There was no eluding Melissa’s constant, carping, competitive chaperonage, and with Ryan refusing to budge or temper his possessive attitude towards Jane—indeed it had become subtly more intense since his sister’s arrival—she was driven to deliver a gunfighter’s ultimatum: the cramped cottage wasn’t big enough for the three of them. The portable stereo with its head-banging music and floor-pounding bass had been the last straw.

  As she’d expected, Ryan declined to tremble at the empty threat, but he did suggest a compromise—the only one he was prepared to consider.

  If Jane agreed to spend the next few days in the five-bedroomed house up the hill then, as soon as her burnt hand was fully functional again, she could return to her cottage with a guarantee that she would be left in peace. In the meantime she would have all the privacy she desired, a superb cook/housekeeper to wait on her instead of Ryan’s unsettling personal attentions, and Melissa kept firmly off her back.

  ‘Is that possible?’ said Jane wryly.

  ‘In my house, she obeys my rules. If she doesn’t like them, she can go back to Auckland.’

  ‘And afterwards, when I come back here...you’ll go away and leave me alone?’ she said cautiously. ‘That’s a promise?’

  His thick black eyelashes screened his eyes, his blunt, handsome features tight and inscrutable; his was a gambler’s face, intent on winning the pot by out-reading the opposition.

  ‘Yes, if that’s what you want...’

  CHAPTER NINE

  NO WONDER Melissa had been so bitchy about the deprivations that her brother had been made to suffer, thought Jane several hours later as she left her room to wander through the magnificent two-storeyed holiday house perched on the headland above Piha. Compared to Great-Aunt Gertrude’s, this place was a palace!

  The long modern Mediterranean-style house was bounded at the rear by a dense stand of virgin native bush and the north-facing aspect captured the sun all day. The outflung arms of the building curved in a broad U-shape towards the cliff, as if reaching out to embrace the spectacular view, and from her upstairs bedroom, which opened out, like all the other bedrooms, onto its own private balcony, Jane could see the whole of Piha—even a wedge of the rusty iron roof that she had been persuaded to temporarily abandon.

  Once he had had her agreement, the shift in premises had been accomplished with Ryan’s usual ruthless efficiency, leaving little time for second thoughts. Jane had no reason to feel piqued that he had merely given her a brief tour of his house before disappearing with a vague murmur about letting her settle in. Melissa, too, had floated off, gleefully smug that her obnoxious behaviour had achieved one of her primary aims.

  Jane had her doubts. She got the feeling that it was Ryan who had been the main orchestrater of events. Melissa had merely been the deus ex machina by which he had distracted and manoeuvred Jane into accepting a deal that she would otherwise have flatly refused to even consider. Ryan could hardly have continued to escalate his campaign of seduction in the poky little cottage, with his sister breathing down their necks, alert to every creak of the floorboards, every stray touch and heated look. But here, in comfort and luxury, with privacy locks on all the bedroom doors and little distraction from her rapidly healing burn, Jane was all too vulnerable to his dangerously seductive persistence.

  Jane’s mouth dried at the memory of Ryan’s lovemaking and, since she had drifted in the general direction of the kitchen, she decided on a cold drink to cure her hot flush.

  She hesitated at the door when she saw a small, spare, middle-aged woman with a short helmet of silver hair bustling back and forth between the sink and central work-island, obviously preparing vegetables for dinner. This must be the housekeeper who was employed on a part-time basis whenever the family was in residence, Jane guessed. The one that Ryan had mentioned was a superb cook.

  She cleared her throat and the woman looked up from her chopping board, surprise springing into her warm hazel eyes at the sight of Jane in her plain skirt and white cotton T-shirt, her feet in classy black flats and her hair rioting loose around her bare face.

  ‘Hello, I’m Jane Sherwood...’ She faltered, not quite sure how to politely describe her turbulent relationship with Ryan.

  ‘Yes, I know.’ The woman’s face lit up in a generous smile that made Jane feel like an old and valued friend. ‘What an awful time you’ve been having, my dear. I’m Peggy Mason. I won’t offer to shake hands because I know you can’t. Come on in and sit down. You look hot... would you like an iced tea?’ She put down her knife, drying her hands on her apron. ‘I find it just the thing in this heat. Sit here and I’ll get you one.’

  She steered Jane onto a stool at the breakfast bar which divided the kitchen from an open living area, clicking her tongue sympathetically as she looked at the damaged hands. ‘You poor thing—no wonder Ryan insisted you needed looking after. I bet it’s terribly frustrating... like being a baby all over again. Now, would you like something to eat with your glass of tea? I know you had lunch before you came, but dinner won’t be served until quite late...the family likes to eat out on the terrace and watch the sunset—’

  ‘Uh, no thank you, Mrs Mason,’ said Jane, disconcerted by her familiarity yet irresistibly drawn by the woman’s maternal warmth.

  ‘Call me Peggy.’ She set down the iced tea and returned to her chopping, making little piles of celery and onion as she continued with a chiding frown, ‘I hope you’re not dieting. It’s not a good thing to do when your body’s been under a lot of pain or stress.’

  ‘I have lost a bit too much weight recently,’ Jane was amazed to hear herself confess. ‘But not on purpose... and I think I’m starting to put it back on,’ she added hurriedly as Peggy frowned and she sensed an impending scold.

  But the housekeeper’s vehement disapproval was directed elsewhere. ‘Ryan has a lot to answer for! Melissa told me how you burnt your hand. I hope he apologised for causing you to hurt yourself!’

  Jane’s smile was rueful. ‘Well, it was mostly my own stupidity...’ Both times, she added mentally, flattening out the strapped fingers of her left hand and experiencing the faint twinge that reminded her that if she had obeyed her original orders the healing would have been complete by now.

  Grey eyebrows rose sharply over hazel eyes. ‘You’re far too forgiving, my dear. A hefty dose of guilt is just what that boy needs to curb his tendency to play God!’

  ‘Well, he appears to be trying to make up for it...’ Jane said weakly, suddenly realising that Peggy wasn’t just referring to her current physical injuries. By her easy manner she was obviously used to being treated as part of the family by the Blairs and must be aware of Ryan’s vendetta, if not the reason for it. Her affection for him was plainly strong, but her natural sympathies seemed to lie with the underdog.

  ‘Oh? In what way?’

  Jane pinkened at the innocent question. ‘Well, he’s cooked me some marvellous meals,’ she said hastily, burying her nose in her tea.

  ‘Mmm...’ Peggy gave her an assessing look. ‘He’s pretty handy in the kitchen, I’ll give him that.’

  And the bedroom! Jane’s flush deepened as the thought popped into her head.

  ‘I wish I was—a good cook, I mean,’ she stammered. ‘My technique is s
till very much trial and error. Unfortunately I never learned the basics when I was young...’

  ‘Didn’t your mother ever let you help her around the kitchen when you were little?’

  ‘We always had a cook and I wasn’t supposed to get in the way. My mother left home when I was six,’ Jane added impulsively.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Peggy, with a quiet compassion that tapped a deep-seated need in Jane’s subconscious.

  ‘Actually, I don’t remember that much about her, except that she was dark and pretty and liked to laugh and went out a lot,’ she admitted, her eyes darkening with memory. ‘After she left, my father burnt all her photos and only mentioned her when he was in a rage, so I’m not sure if what I remember is real or a childish fantasy I’ve built up in my head.’

  ‘Do you mean you never saw her again after your parents separated?’

  Jane looked down at the glass she was slowly turning around in her clumsy grip, missing the warning glance that the hazel eyes directed over her head.

  ‘No...she was just there one day and gone the next. It wasn’t until a week later that my father told me she’d run off to Canada with her lover. He said she’d told him she didn’t want to be saddled with the responsibility of a whining little brat like me.’

  Peggy almost dropped her knife, clearly appalled. ‘He said that to a six-year-old child!’

  Jane had never found it easy to confide in people, instilled with her father’s belief that if you were strong you didn’t bother other people with your problems, especially if they were emotional ones. But Peggy’s empathy made it seem natural to open up.

  ‘He used to say that the reason she never bothered to send me birthday cards was because she obviously preferred to forget I’d ever been born. He always managed to make me feel a failure for not being able to make her love me enough to stay...’

  ‘That was very, very wrong of him,’ Peggy said fiercely. ‘It’s never a child’s fault when a marriage fails.’