by Penny Jordan
‘I don’t want your money!’ Genista put down her glass, its contents untouched, her voice tight with anger. ‘I have plenty of money for my wants. I don’t want yours, Luke.’
‘But nevertheless you will take it.’ A muscle twitched in his jaw, and his fingers were clenched round the precious crystal. ‘You destroyed the cheque I gave you to buy a wedding outfit—your pride refused to allow you to wear something I had paid for. Well, I have my pride too, Genista, and just as long as you’re my wife, I will keep you. Is that understood?’
For a moment she contemplated defying him, but the look in his eyes warned her that it would be wiser not to.
‘I suppose I’ll be allowed to keep my car,’ she responded sarcastically at length.
‘What would you do if I said “no?” Keep within the bounds of this house like a prisoner rather than touch anything I might have given you? I don’t carry the plague, you know, Genista. I won’t contaminate you.’
‘You already have.’
She said it so quietly that she thought he hadn’t heard her, until the brittle sound of glass breaking brought her head up in shocked protest. His glass lay shattered in the hearth in a dozen pieces, his face white with fury.
‘Damn you, you won’t let me forget, will you?’ he swore. ‘What am I supposed to do? Pay a penance for the rest of my life because I took your virginity? What is it you hate the most, Genista? The fact that I wasn’t Bob, or the fact that you enjoyed it, despite that?’
‘You’re dispicable!’
‘Despicable or not, I’m still your husband. Remember that, won’t you?’
When the door slammed behind him Genista sank into the nearest chair. She heard the throaty roar of the Maserati as it roared away, although it was several seconds before she realised that Luke had left her completely alone in her new home. She waited half an hour and when he did not return she rose on shaky legs and started to explore her new surroundings.
Across the hall from the library was the drawing room, a beautifully proportioned room, which had obviously been remodelled during the Georgian era. The high, moulded ceiling and graceful marble fireplace drew a faint sigh of appreciation from her. The room was decorated in shades of palest green, and beautiful though it was she could quite see why Luke might prefer the library for relaxing in. It was much more a family room. A family! She stopped like someone transfixed. Where on earth were her errant thoughts leading? Any family that filled this beautiful house would not be hers and Luke’s, but the thought of the children he might father on another woman left her raw with a pain that lacerated her already tender heart.
Behind the library was a formal dining room, elegant antique furniture gleaming under the lights of the chandelier. Genista closed the double doors quietly, trying not to imagine that huge mahogany table filled with a large family.
The kitchen had been completely modernised, but in a way that completely kept its traditional appeal. There was a note on the table saying that a salad and a cooked chicken had been left in the fridge.
Genista did not feel hungry. Her ears were alert for the first sound of the returning Maserati. When it did not come she went back to the library, reluctant to explore upstairs, as though she were a visitor who must await the invitation of the owner.
She was curled up asleep in a chair in the library, when something wakened her. She stiffened, tensing as she heard the front door open, and slow footsteps crossing the hall. The door handle turned, and she held her breath. It was gone two o’clock in the morning. Where had Luke been?
He opened the door and stood by it, swaying slightly, his eyes glittering dangerously over her sleepy features.
‘Waiting for me like a dutiful wife?’ His voice was faintly slurred, and alarm clawed at Genista as she realised that he had been drinking.
‘Why, I wonder? Not because you were lonely in bed without me? Or was it? You wanted me this morning, Genista, no matter how much those flashing eyes of yours want to deny it. Oh, you’re safe enough now,’ he muttered. ‘There’s a certain something to be said for alcohol—it blunts one’s desire. Shocked?’ His raw mockery caught at her nerves. ‘You ought to be grateful that you’re being spared my unwanted advances; that I’m not defiling you by further exhibitions of my lust. You hate me, don’t you? Don’t you?’ he demanded ferociously. ‘I took your virginity, and you haven’t got the guts to admit that you enjoyed the experience, so instead you blame me—hating me.’
‘If you’ll just tell me which is my room.’ She daren’t provoke him any further by retaliating. He was in a dangerously volatile mood, and even in the knowledge of her love, she shuddered at the thought of how he might use her in his present savage mood.
‘Take your pick. You can even share mine, but you won’t want to do that, will you, Genista? Who knows, you might actually turn to me one fine night and behave like a woman, and that would never do, would it? No one must be allowed to touch what’s being sacrificed on the altar to your love for Bob. You stupid little fool!’ His voice roughened suddenly, his hands grasping her shoulders and wrenching her out of the chair. ‘Are you going to spend the whole of your life in love with a man who doesn’t want you?’
Genista looked him straight in the eyes.
‘Yes.’
After all, it was the truth, but the man she loved wasn’t Bob. It was Luke. He let her go without a word. Her case was too heavy to carry upstairs, so she unzipped it and removed the silk cheongsam; too exhausted to search through it for anything else. The dress would do as a robe. All she wanted to do was to sleep—and to forget.
The first door she opened revealed a bedroom decorated in strongly male colours, and even without the silk dressing gown on the bed she would have guessed it was Luke’s. She closed the door, her heart hammering with pain and went to the room farthest away from his and switched on the light.
It was obviously a guestroom, decorated prettily in soft pinks, with its own private bathroom. Genista undressed quickly, showering briefly before sliding beneath the cool cotton sheets.
A telephone ringing somewhere woke her. Someone must have answered it, because the shrill sound was cut off in mid-peal. She opened her eyes and looked round. The sun was streaming in through her window. She climbed out of bed and crossed over to it, pulling aside the curtains to stare out at the lovingly restored Elizabethan gardens below.
‘Genista!’ There was a brief tap on the door and she barely had time to pull on her silk robe before Luke walked in.
He was already dressed in jeans and a thin cotton shirt, all signs of the previous evening’s drinking gone.
‘That was my sister on the phone,’ he announced without preamble. ‘She’s heard about our wedding from Amy, and she’s on her way over to see us. She should be here later this afternoon. Apparently a crisis has blown up.’
His eyes were on the silk robe, and Genista had the feeling that for a moment something had made him forget completely what he had been about to say. Seconds later she knew the reason why.
‘It’s Lucy’s half term, and Marina wants us to look after her. When you get to know my sister better you’ll come to realise that she has a blithe disregard of other people’s plans, but when it comes to roping them into hers…but on this occasion I feel I owe it to her to help. Philip’s been in touch with her. He wants her back.’ He turned away abruptly, and Genista had no difficulty in guessing where his thoughts lay. Barely forty-eight hours after he had tied himself to her he had learned that the woman he really loved was free. Perhaps she had found after all that mere wealth did not make up for love; or perhaps Verity had come to realise that with Luke she could have both! The bitchiness of the thought dismayed her.
‘Marina isn’t sure how Lucy will take it. It’s her own damned silly fault, I warned her about not pumping Lucy’s head full of silly tales about her father, but Marina wouldn’t listen. Now she’s afraid Lucy will reject Philip. The situation between them is still at a very difficult stage, and she feels that she and Philip
need time alone together.’
‘I expect she’s right,’ Genista agreed, her heart sinking. She felt completely unequal to coping with a precocious fourteen-year-old with emotional problems.
‘Marina will bring Lucy up here from her school. She’s a nice kid, despite her upbringing. Sensible too, but she’s at that age where they feel things intensely. I don’t want her to grow up with the idea that there’s no such thing as a happy marriage.’
‘What are you trying to say?’
‘That for the duration of Lucy’s stay, you’ll share my room. I’ve put your case in there. You can unpack while I make breakfast. I’m well aware that her visit gives you the perfect opportunity to get back at me, but I’m not asking for your co-operation for my sake—it’s for hers. She worshipped her father, and she took it hard when he left.’
Genista touched her dry lips with the tip of her tongue. A wild idea had suddenly occurred to her.
‘All right,’ she agreed huskily. ‘But there’s one condition.’
Luke’s eyes held hers.
‘For as long as Lucy stays here I’ll act the part of the deliriously happy new bride, but once she’s gone, I want you to start divorce proceedings. You blackmailed me into this marriage, and if I have to I’ll blackmail you into letting me out of it.’
‘I see.’
It was impossible to judge his reactions from the even words. ‘So. Now we both know where we stand. I owe Marina this much, I suppose. After all, I was the one who introduced Philip to Verity.’
A Verity who was now free, Genista reminded herself sickly. No wonder Luke wasn’t raising any objections to her desire to be free!
‘Very well, but if you cheat on me, our agreement will be rescinded, Genista.’
‘I’ll go and unpack my things.’
He was standing by the door, and she had to breathe in to squeeze past him. She could smell the clean fragrance of his cologne and for one mad moment she wanted to reach up and touch him, to press her body against him and feel his vital, compelling response.
‘Mrs Meadows will be here soon. You might warn her about Lucy’s impending arrival.’ He walked towards her bed, twitching back the covers she had just disturbed. ‘I don’t want any gossip in the village,’ he told her harshly. ‘It might get to Lucy’s ears.’
‘I’ll make the bed when I’m dressed.’
They were enemies. She could feel it in the silence which stretched between them, and she had to blink fiercely to prevent tears from forming.
* * *
It was shortly after four o’clock that the Citroën pulled up in front of the house in a spurt of gravel, disgorging an elegant dark-haired woman whom Genista would have recognised anywhere as Luke’s sister, and a fair-haired teenager, still dressed in what was obviously her school uniform. She looked so vulnerable and young that Genista’s heart went out to her. Had Marina told her daughter about her father’s return?
‘Luke, you wretch, how dare you get married without telling me? You do realise that you’ve robbed Lucy of her only chance of being a bridesmaid, don’t you?’ Marian called lightly as she walked into the house. Seen at closer quarters, she had a brittle quality, a nervous tension which communicated itself instantly to Genista. Despite her elegance, the older woman was nervous of Luke? She glanced covertly at her husband. He was frowning faintly, his attention focused not on Marina but on Lucy, who was hanging back slightly, her expression uncertain.
‘Lucy would have hated being a bridesmaid,’ he said decisively. ‘How was school, little one?’
‘Filthy!’
It was instantly obvious to Genista that uncle and niece shared a rapport which did not exist between mother and daughter. Physically they were not alike, until Lucy smiled, and then her wry expression bore a startling resemblance to her uncle’s sardonic grimace.
‘But she’s looking forward to spending her half-term with you,’ Marina interposed quickly, turning to Genista. ‘Luke is a gem. Lucy often spends her half-terms with him. It’s so convenient. Coming over to France means that she loses a day each way, and it just isn’t worth it for the shorter breaks.’
Genista smiled politely, but secretly she felt a little surprised by Marina’s attitude towards her child. It was scarcely maternal.
‘I can’t stay long, Luke,’ she was saying quickly—too quickly, it seemed to Genista, as though she expected Luke to protest. ‘Lucy, run upstairs and unpack. I want to speak to your uncle, and I have to leave right after dinner.’
‘She’s a teenager, not a child, Marina,’ Luke said mildly when Lucy had gone. ‘Have you told her about Philip?’
‘I intended to, but as yet I haven’t had the chance,’ Marina began evasively.
‘And as you plan to leave us right after dinner you won’t have the opportunity to—right?’ Luke enquired sardonically.
‘Oh, Luke, it will come so much better from you,’ Marina pleaded. ‘I just can’t tell her. My nerves…’
‘You shouldn’t have pumped her full of all that rubbish about Philip in the first place,’ Luke said dryly, ‘You’re a fool, Marina.’
‘That’s a fine way to talk to your sister!’ Marina took umbrage instantly. ‘It isn’t often I ask you to help me, Luke. It’s only a small thing, after all.’
‘You think so?’ If anything his voice was even drier. ‘Leaving us with a sensitive teenager at the very start of our honeymoon, and expecting us to break the news to her that the father her mother has been reviling without cessation for the last four years is suddenly about to be welcomed back into the fold? I wonder if Philip really knows what he’s letting himself in for?’
‘That’s a foul thing to say!’ Marina’s voice broke on the last word, and to Genista’s dismay she saw tears in the older woman’s eyes. ‘I’m going up to my room.’
‘There’s no need to look at me as though I’ve just taken a starving child’s crust,’ Luke said curtly when his sister had gone. ‘Marina isn’t averse to turning on the tears if she thinks it will get her her own way.’
‘She is your sister,’ Genista pointed out mildly.
‘I know, and that’s one of the reasons I could never find it in my heart to really hate Philip. Poor devil!’
‘He must love Marina if he’s going back to her. Will you tell Lucy?’
‘I expect I’ll have to. Marina is quite capable of leaving without doing and them calmly leaving Lucy to find out the truth for herself the next time she goes home. Marina was spoiled by our parents and as a result she seems to expect everyone to treat her indulgently. I hope Philip knows what he’s doing.’
Suspecting that Marina was the type of woman who always changed for dinner, Genista went up stairs while Luke was busy in the library. They might have to share a room, but she was determined that they would spend as little time in it together as they could.
She was seated in front of the dressing table mirror applying her eye-shadow when she heard the faint tap on the door. She was wearing only a towelling wrap over her underclothes and she frowned, hesitating.
‘It’s Marina—may I come in?’
For a moment she felt deep disappointment. Had she been hoping it was Luke? He was hardly likely to knock on his own bedroom door. No doubt he was as anxious to avoid any intimacy with her as she was with him—although for completely different reasons. While she feared that his proximity might force her to betray her feelings for him, he felt only boredom for her sexual inexperience. He had expected to find in her a woman whose knowledge of lovemaking matched his own, and instead he had discovered that she knew next to nothing about the art of pleasing a man—apart from what he had taught her!
‘Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t realise you weren’t dressed,’ Marina apologised. ‘Where’s Luke—downstairs?’
‘He’s in the library,’ Genista told her. ‘Did you want to talk to him?’
‘Not unless he’s in a far more accommodating mood than he was earlier,’ Marina said frankly. ‘I sometimes think he forgets that
I’m five years older than he is. He’s let his success as a businessman go to his head. All that nonsense about your being on your honeymoon!’ She glanced covertly at Genista. ‘We’re both women of the world, my dear—I know my brother, and he’s no monk. One only has to think of that bitch Verity to know that—he had a lucky escape there. She would have taken him for every penny he owned—and will still probably try, if I know her. Now that she no longer has Philip to batten on to, she’s bound to try and get Luke under her thumb again. He doted on her, you know…’ She broke off as though realising that they were hardly sentiments likely to appeal to a newly married bride, adding hurriedly, ‘But of course, Luke would never take her back. He’s gone so hard—he would never forgive her. Now, as I was saying, all this foolishness about the pair of you being on your honeymoon. I’m sure you won’t take it amiss when I say that where my brother is concerned, playing by the rules is not his forte, and nowadays…’
‘Everyone anticipates their marriage vows—is that what you were about to say?’ Luke interposed smoothly, startling them both. ‘Wrong, my dear sister. I didn’t know Genista long enough beforehand to do so, even had she been willing. You’re letting your cynicism cloud your judgement. As it happens, my wife was as pure and untouched as Lucy.’
From Marina’s briefly assessing glance, Genista suspected that the other woman was surprised by Luke’s revelations. She herself felt ready to die with embarrassment. How dared Luke discuss her like this!
‘A virgin?’ Marina’s eyes rounded. ‘I suppose I should have known. Nothing but the best for my brother—and certainly no second or third-hand goods! Verity wouldn’t get a look in now, would she?’
‘You’re embarrassing Genista,’ Luke said coolly, ‘and insulting me. I married Genista for no other reason than that I love her.’
He was an excellent actor, Genista thought bitterly. Marina stared at him in silence.
‘And now, if you’ll leave, I shall get changed for dinner, after which we shall discuss what is and is not to be said to Lucy.’