Maid for Marriage

by Sue Peters

  MAID FOR MARRIAGE

  Sue Peters

  She travels fastest who travels alone!

  Dee Tredinnick knew what she wanted. Travel, excitement, a challenging career - she had no time for romantic entanglements. But try telling that to her matchmaking family.

  But surely, not even Cupid could track her down to Delphi. Mind you, her mission was certainly the stuff of romance. She was there to escort a maharaja's ransom in jewels back to England.

  But that wasn't the only ransom she had to cope with. There was also Luke Ransom, and he wasn't about to let the jewels - or Dee - out of his sight. Unfortunately, Luke was the last man a determined-to-stay-single woman should travel with. But Dee didn't have a choice. Her orders were to 'cultivate' him. Her problem? She hated him!

  CHAPTER ONE

  'Three times a bridesmaid. You want to watch it, young Dee,' Oliver teased, and tweaked a lock of shiny dark hair which had managed to escape from under the restricting halo of artificial flowers that adorned his sister's neat head. 'You know what they say about never being a bride.'

  'Don't you harp,' Dee groaned. 'I've heard all I want to on that subject from Mother. And if you upset this head-dress I shall get into even more trouble with her. She took over half an hour to fix the wretched thing to her liking.'

  Hastily Dee ducked away from her brother's reach, putting up one hand to steady the headdress. Her sudden movement imperilled the slice of wedding cake which she held in the other, precariously balanced on a scarcely adequate plate.

  'I wonder if I can manage to smuggle this out to Scruffy,' she wondered out loud. 'He'd enjoy all the sticky marzipan and icing.'

  'That's typical of you,' Oliver's wife laughed, safe in the occupation of one of the few seats in the crowded marquee, hers by right of her interesting condition. 'You don't give good wedding cake to a dog,' she scolded. 'You either eat it, or put it under your pillow so you'll dream of your husband-to-be.'

  'Did you dream about Oliver before you were married?'

  'I didn't need to. We'd been dreaming about one another ever since we were at school together.'

  Dee hid a grimace. So cut and dried. Predictable to the point of boredom. Just like her second sister's marriage this morning, and her older sister's wedding two years previously. She cast a glance to where the new bridegroom was shaking hands with some late-arriving guests, and no doubt saying all the right things.

  He was nice enough. So were the others. But totally unexciting. At twenty-three, Dee had no intention of mortgaging the rest of her life for the doubtful privilege of wearing a wedding-ring.

  A year ago she had thought just the opposite. That was before she had found out about Alan. She stirred restlessly, and decided, trying not to sound bitter, 'I'll eat my cake myself. I can use being three times a bridesmaid as an insurance policy.'

  Her sister-in-law's look struggled between amusement and exasperation. 'I never knew anyone so reluctant to fall in love.'

  Her family did not know about Alan. Dee said defensively, 'There's nothing wrong with wanting to stay solo.'

  'That seems to be your theme song. Love won't wait for you forever. You'll end up being an old maid. You'll sit on the shelf, and be taken down and dusted every other bank holiday. Doesn't the thought appal you?'

  'No.' Dee's denial was muffled by marzipan, but the emphatic shake of her head made up for any lack of clarity.

  Exasperation won, and the older woman scolded, 'Never has a girl passed by so many opportunities. You've been brought up in a university town absolutely crammed full of students of all shapes and sizes, all of them high fliers. Surely one of them must have had some appeal for you, somewhere along the line? You get invited to every function that's going, and then some, and it isn't just because your father's a senior don either.'

  'To say nothing of having a mother who's the town's most active matchmaker,' Oliver put in wickedly. His sister's huge dark eyes, which could melt or sparkle at their owner's whim, had more than a little to do with the invitations, he reflected as his wife went on,

  'Hasn't one of them made any impression on you?'

  'Mmm.'

  It could have meant yes, or it could have meant no, and the last bit of icing and marzipan made the perfect excuse for Dee not to enlarge.

  Alan was not a student, but the impression he had made was both lasting and painful. He was Dee's first serious love, but she had learned the hard way that she was not his.

  Alan was the architect who had come to advise on the restoration of the stone work of one of the colleges, and from the moment he had espied Dee walking home across the grounds he had pursued her.

  Since she was more accustomed to the company of students in her own age group, Alan's attentions had at first flattered her, and then swept her off her feet with his glib tongue and apparent sophistication, against which her own naïveté had given her no defence.

  Until the evening in the chic restaurant, when Alan's wife had arrived at the same time as the coffee and liqueurs. The lady had been furious, vocal, and heavily pregnant, and Dee still cringed at the memory of the scene which had followed.

  Shocked and bewildered, she had turned on Alan. 'You told me ‑'

  'I didn't say anything about marriage,' he had countered quickly, and, with hindsight, Dee realised he'd spoken the truth, for once. Alan's promises were as insubstantial as his lifestyle, and marriage had simply been an assumption on her part, which she now knew to be incredibly naive.

  Her only consolation had to be that the restaurant was a long way out of town, and there had been no one there that she knew to witness her humiliation, or to bring back news of the sordid affair to the ears of her family.

  It was a long time before Dee had felt able to look the world in the face again after that evening. Now at last she could, and she knew exactly what it was she wanted from it.

  Her plans did not include men. She felt as if she would never trust another man, for as long as she lived. In future, she decided, she would remain her own woman, and confine her ambitions to seeing as much of the world as possible.

  Ambition was a safer bet than love. It could not hurt. And the world would always be there, it would not disappear in a flurry of weak excuses, as had Alan, and leave her to pick up the pieces as best she might.

  A timely opening with a local firm had made an excellent springboard for her ambition to travel, and if her new boss felt surprise at the force of her declaration that she was free from male commitments, either present or in the future, her determined, 'I want to travel. And I can't pack a husband into a suitcase,' had satisfied him sufficiently to offer her the job.

  'Your insurance policy won't work,' Oliver predicted now. 'With me safely married, and Jane and Felicity off her hands, Mother won't have anyone else but you to turn her talents to. What's the betting that this time next year you'll be eating your own wedding cake?'

  'No chance.' Dee stabbed at the remaining crumbs on her plate with a positive forefinger, and licked off the results. 'You'll lose your bet. I'm a confirmed bachelor girl. By the time Mother's recovered from organising this lot,' she waved her now empty plate in the direction of the smartly dressed assembly crowded into the huge marquee, 'I'll be safely out of her reach, in India.'

  'You might escape your mother, but don't imagine you can escape Cupid,' her sister-in-law warned. 'With your looks he'll catch up with you yet.'

  'He won't if I travel fast enough, and far enough.'

  Her job as a courier with WW enabled her to do both. The initials stood for William Williams, or Bill, as their boss was familiarly known to all his staff. The letters also stood for world-wide. It was Bill's proud boast that he could despatch or collect any item to or from any part of the globe at a moment's notice,
personally escorted by a member of his staff, so that clients anxiously awaiting some precious consignment could rest assured that it would be delivered safely into their hands by a courier already known to them.

  The service was not cheap. WW only dealt in upmarket valuables, but such was the firm's reputation that they were never at a loss for work. World-famous jewellers, silversmiths, and dealers in priceless antiques and equally precious artefacts of all kinds, including paintings, beat a path to their door.

  Under pressure from their satisfied clients, WW expanded operations to include organising exhibitions of the precious wares they handled and it was to collect items for one such function that Dee was due in India at the weekend.

  It was to be her first long-haul trip. Up until now her journeys on the firm's behalf had been confined more or less to the continent, Italy being her furthest destination. She could hardly believe her luck when Bill had called her into his office one morning, several weeks previously, and announced without preamble, 'By the time you get back from your next trip I'll have the papers processed for you to go to Delhi.'

  'Delhi?' Dee gasped, unable to hide her delight.

  'Delhi,' Bill confirmed. 'It's time you began to spread your wings a bit.'

  It was his way of telling her that he was more than satisfied with the way she had conducted her work so far, and Dee received the accolade with a pleased nod, and an interested, 'What's the trip in aid of?'

  'We've been asked to stage an exhibition on the theme of craft-work through the ages. The guilds are sponsoring it, and it will be mostly jewellery, silverware and ceramics.'

  'Only from India?'

  'No, the exhibits will be coming from all over the world. We'll be collecting from Egypt, India, Japan, Russia—you name it. And, of course, the continent as well, but the team that's in Paris next week can disperse to cover that. You'll be collecting the Indian exhibits from our contact in Delhi.'

  'Will they be big or heavy?' The size and weight would affect how the consignment was crated, and whether it would travel by air or by sea, which in turn would dictate what luggage Dee would need to pack for her own personal use.

  'They shouldn't be, although our contact over there will have the final choice of what to send, but I'm told it will be jewellery for the most part, and small items, so you'll be able to travel by air. I'm told some of the pieces once belonged to a maharajah, so don't drop them,' he teased.

  'I wouldn't dream of it,' Dee promised gleefully, and added, 'Where are you staging the exhibition?'

  'In the UK, but I haven't decided on exactly where yet. I'll keep the exhibits in our vaults here if necessary until that part has been sorted out. The National Exhibition Centre, just outside Birmingham, was one suggestion.'

  'But not coming from you?' Dee sensed Bill's reservations, although he had used the venue on many occasions before and was enthusiastic about the excellent facilities it offered.

  'It's ideal for most jobs, but not this one. For one thing, we shan't need so much space. The exhibition won't be open to the general public.

  Entry will be by invitation only, which is why having a fairly short notice of the venue won't matter.'

  'It sounds as if there might be more exhibits than visitors.'

  'With a collection of items of this value access will have to be restricted, for security's sake. It's aimed at upmarket, specialist people only, with one or two of the wealthier private collectors allowed in for good measure. For this reason alone I'd like to stage it in a setting that will show off the exhibits to their best advantage.'

  'Like Windsor Castle, for example?' Dee grinned.

  'Windsor Castle would do at a pinch,' her boss conceded, and removed her grin with, 'Go and see the company medic about getting your jabs started. You'll need about four on my reckoning, and they'll all hurt.'

  The pain and the subsequent malaise were worth it. India exploded on Dee's consciousness with all the colour of a splintered rainbow. Bill's contact met her at Delhi airport.

  'Did you have a good flight?' he enquired as he rescued her luggage and steered her through a clamour of local entrepreneurs, all eager to purchase her non-existent duty frees.

  Her smiling head-shake convinced them of her lack, and they transferred their attentions to other, more likely passengers, and Dee followed her guide to the car which he had parked in readiness. He helped her into the passenger-seat, and disposed of her luggage in the back before adding, 'Would you like a meal, or have you eaten?'

  'The flight was fine, and I ate on the plane, thanks. Although a cup of tea would be welcome.'

  'In that case, we'll head straight for your hotel. We can talk after you've settled in.'

  There was scant opportunity for conversation on the way. With the promise, 'I'll take a short cut through the back streets; they're a bit crowded, but it will be quicker in the long run than going all the way round,' her companion keyed the engine into life, and sent the car hurtling at speed to join the nightmare mixture of humanity on the move that was Delhi traffic, and which made Dee thankful that it was not she who was at the wheel.

  Even Paris traffic could not compare with this, she decided, awed. No boulevard could possibly produce the mixture of auto-rickshaws, camel carts, loaded donkeys, and equally loaded motor-scooters. Some of the latter carried as many as four adults, she counted in amazement, and stared in disbelief at a miniature motor vehicle, which had been designed to carry only one person, and which had almost disappeared under its outrageous load.

  Immediately that the car turned off the main thoroughfare into a side-street a seeming impenetrable mass of people confronted them, intermingled with animals of every conceivable size and description.

  'You'll have to turn back,' Dee gasped. 'You'll never get through a scrum like this.'

  'Why not?' her driver enquired laconically and carried blithely on, with one foot pressed down hard on the accelerator, and one hand pressed equally hard on the horn.

  His ploy worked, but the din was deafening. Dee winced as shouts from street bazaar traders vied with motor horns for attention, while she marvelled at the cool nerve of the man at the wheel.

  'Look out!' she cried as a child darted inches in front of their bonnet.

  Her companion swung his wheel, missing the boy by a hair's breadth, and made Dee grab for anchorage when he immediately swung it back again to avoid an ambling cow heading with hungry intent towards a display of fruit and vegetables piled on the nearby pavement.

  Dee longed to close her eyes, but brilliant colour dazzled her senses, keeping her lids wide with wonder.

  Bright turbans, intricately wound, made vivid splashes among the more delicately shaded saris which fluttered in the breeze like colourful butterflies as their wearers bargained briskly with the street traders, seemingly impervious to the dust and the heat that beat down upon them. Bill had apologised in advance about the heat.

  'Sorry the cooler weather's a week or two away, but the heat shouldn't be unbearable. The thermometer hasn't reached the bottom line yet, but it's beginning to head downwards.'

  'I can cope. I don't mind heat,' Dee had declared with the confidence of the uninitiated. 'Anyway, I shan't be there for more than a night or two. As soon as I've met up with our contact over there I can book the next available flight back.'

  The look Bill had thrown at her had held a trace of irony, but he'd said nothing more, although Dee had noticed that her flight tickets were open-ended, the return date being left for negotiation.

  This was not unusual, however, such being the nature of her journeys for the firm, and it had excited no questions in her mind. Bill had sufficient trust in his couriers to allow them some flexibility.

  An intersection of the side-streets brought them to a temporary halt beside a spice vendor's stall, and aromatic air wafted tantalisingly through the open window.

  Dee's appreciative, 'Mm, lovely,' turned to a disgusted, 'Ugh!' as she frantically wound up the window against the blast of exhaust fumes tha
t started the traffic moving again, and a few minutes later the side-street ejected them on to a wide tree-lined thoroughfare that was in total contrast to the crowded, narrow alleyways they had left behind.

  So, too, was the imposing hotel, set in its own gardens, before which her companion eventually pulled to a halt, with the remark, 'You should be comfortable here.'

  He was given to understatement, Dee reflected, surveying her luxurious en suite accommodation, but she had no time now in which to relax and enjoy it. Her contact was due to return in under an hour and take her to see the exhibits she had come to India to collect.

  Refreshed by a shower, a change of clothes, and the tray of tea which had been thoughtfully sent to her room, she was waiting in the foyer when her escort called back.

  'It isn't far, and it's main road all the way this time,' he promised, and was as good as his word when, less than twenty minutes later, he ushered Dee into the cool entrance hall of an official-looking building which she supposed to be a bank.

  Her guess proved correct, and the vaults mounted guard over the precious artefacts an indication, if she needed one, of what their value must be.

  'They're beautiful!' she exclaimed as she surveyed the items laid out on a black velvet cloth for her inspection, and marvelled at the imaginative artistry that had gone into their composition.

  'What must it feel like to be rich enough to own such lovely things?' she wondered wistfully, and her companion's tone was dry as he answered, with truth,

  'You and I are unlikely ever to know.'

  A delicate pendant, inlaid with precious stones, and each gem itself beautifully engraved, was flanked on the one side by a miniature painting of exquisite beauty, set in a jewel-encrusted mount.

  On its other side lay a collection of necklaces, ear pendants, rings, and bangles for both ankle and wrist, all lying in glittering splendour, fashioned in gold and silver, and set with jewels worth a king's ransom.

  'We'll provide you with an escort for your journey back to London, of course,' her companion said matter-of-factly, and Dee nodded.