The Marriage Merger

by Liz Fielding

  ‘I have them occasionally.’

  ‘Thank you for being so smart, Bram.’

  ‘If I’d been smart, I’d have talked you out of the trip to the tomb.’

  ‘No. That was good too,’ she said. Especially the way he’d opened up, confided in her, trusted her. ‘Apart from the bats.’

  ‘Yes. It was. I’m glad I saw your princess.’

  They drifted for a moment.

  ‘She might have come here,’ Flora said. ‘Swum with the other maidens of the court in the early morning.’

  ‘Or at night, with her lover.’

  She heard herself sigh. ‘I almost wish I wrote fiction so that I could invent an entire life for her. As it is, we’ll probably never know who exactly she was and why she was buried there in such state.’ She turned her face towards him. She hadn’t expected him to be looking at her but he was, and for a moment the words froze in her throat. ‘Thank you for being smart enough to stop me from going on my own, Bram. For being kind enough to come with me.’

  ‘That’s what shadows do. You can’t go anywhere without me, remember?’ And, as if to demonstrate the reality of that, he turned, scooped her back up into his arms and kicked for the shore.

  ‘This is getting silly,’ she said, as he stood up with her in the shallows and walked towards the natural shower. ‘I’ve twisted my knee, not broken my leg.’

  ‘I’m taking no chances,’ he said, setting her down carefully beneath the spray. For a moment he continued to hold her against him, his skin warm against hers despite the sudden chill of the water, and she caught her breath.

  ‘I owe you, Bram,’ she said. ‘I won’t forget how much.’

  ‘Does that mean I win this round of the Claibourne/Farraday feud?’

  She stared at him for a moment. She had forgotten all about the damn feud. ‘Is that all you care about? Have you been taking notes of every stupid thing I’ve done today?’ She stepped back without thinking and her knee buckled. His arm was around her waist before she could even register the pain.

  ‘Why would I take notes?’ he asked. ‘Every moment of today is imprinted on my mind. Indelibly.’ Hers too, she thought. Hers too. But not for the same reasons. ‘There’s just one thing I don’t understand.’

  ‘Then ask, Bram,’ she said carelessly. ‘Anything.’ After all, how much worse could it be?

  ‘Anything?’ he repeated, and without warning the mood shifted out of the sunlight into the shadows. Back to the darkness of the tomb and the moment when he’d bared his soul to her, trusted her with the deepest secret of his heart. And in the darkness she’d seen everything that—dazzled by his golden image—she had never been able to see in the daylight.

  Bram Gifford was not some heartless philanderer who cared for nothing but his own pleasure. He was a work hard/play hard man who once, long ago, had fallen in love with a woman who’d used him. And he’d made sure he never made the same mistake again.

  She owed him. He’d found the tomb for her. Carried her to safety when she’d fallen in her panic. Whatever he asked of her, whatever he wanted, she must tell him. And if he was simply using her, passing the hurt forward, well, she could take it. Maybe one day he’d recognise it for what it was. Unconditional love. And maybe it would finally set him free. Maybe it would finally set her free, too.

  ‘Flora?’ he murmured softly.

  ‘What do you want to know?’ she asked. And she held her breath, waiting for him to ask her to betray her sister.

  CHAPTER TEN

  ‘TELL me why you painted your toenails blue.’

  Bram’s question was so far from her own confused thoughts that for a moment Flora was sure she’d misheard him. ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Your toenails. You don’t paint your fingernails, yet you paint your toenails. Why?’

  It took a moment for her heart to crank back into life, to slowly begin beating again. She was sharing a tropical paradise with a man who’d revealed himself to be everything she’d believed impossible. He’d been kind, tender, gentle. He hadn’t uttered a single word of reproach for the mess she’d got him into. But of course that was all too good to be true.

  He was a man, for heaven’s sake. He’d expect some kind of payback. Not sex. He could have gone there last night—he’d been halfway there, for heaven’s sake, and even though she’d been half expecting it she had no defence against him. But he hadn’t been able to go through with it. Even with her hair loose.

  Now she was in a situation where she owed him. She’d told him so. And he wanted information. But not about her sister. Or the store.

  ‘My toenails? You want to know why I painted my toenails?’

  ‘You were going to tell me when we were in town last night. We got sidetracked.’

  ‘That’s it?’ she asked, still not sure where this was leading.

  ‘Maybe.’ Then, ‘Depending on your answer, there may be a supplementary question.’

  ‘Oh, right.’

  For a moment she’d thought the world had been made over, just for her. It seemed she was mistaken. Instead of being her knight errant he was simply her shadow, adding up the mistakes, counting the errors. Well, she’d certainly made life easy for him.

  The only unexplained phenomenon was her blue toenails. Last night it wouldn’t have been a problem. She’d have told him and they might have laughed. Now she realised that it was a problem…

  ‘Well?’ he prompted, apparently impatient for her answer.

  ‘It’s nothing.’

  He waited.

  ‘It’s silly, really. Nothing at all.’

  ‘If it’s nothing, tell me.’

  ‘I can’t… It’s a secret pledge.’

  ‘A secret pledge?’

  Well, that had taken the smile right off his face. Except he hadn’t actually been smiling. Only somewhere behind his eyes. And when he stopped it was like the lamps going out.

  ‘Who with?’

  ‘That’s the supplementary question, right?’

  ‘Who with?’ he persisted.

  She would have liked to spin out some fanciful yarn about a secret lover, a pledge of true love and a promise of love until death. Somehow, though, blue nail polish didn’t quite live up to that scenario—and, anyway, he’d know she was lying. The hot pink flush would give her away in a heartbeat. And she wouldn’t—couldn’t lie to him. ‘With my godson.’

  He blinked. She’d surprised him. If she’d felt capable of feeling good about that, she’d have felt good. As it was…

  ‘Why?’ he asked.

  ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘Everything matters, Flora. I want to know everything about you.’

  ‘Do you?’ For a moment she felt a surge of something unexpected. Something that might have been joy. Then she realised that he was just being a Farraday, and that for the Farradays information was power. ‘He’s been picked for the football team at his school.’

  ‘Football? It’s May. He should be playing cricket.’

  ‘He’s seven, Bram. The bat would be bigger than him. And this is the big end of season match with their deadly rivals. I promised to be there to cheer him on and then this trip came up.’

  ‘And how did painting the toenails help?’

  ‘He said I had to do something so that he’d know I would be thinking of him—wear something in his school colours all the time.’ She looked down, wiggled her toes. ‘So I let him paint my toenails. He wanted to do one foot blue and the other yellow, but we compromised on the blue.’

  ‘He made a pretty good job of it, for a seven-year-old.’

  ‘I’ve touched them up a couple of times.’ Please, she thought, holding her breath. Please, please don’t ask his name.

  Almost as if he could read her mind, he said, ‘What’s his name?’

  She hesitated a moment too long.

  ‘John. His name is John, isn’t it?’

  She nodded.

  ‘That’s why you didn’t want to tell me?’

  Sh
e shrugged, turned away, stood beneath the spray to wash the salt from her skin, not wanting him to see how much she hadn’t wanted to do or say anything that would hurt him.

  ‘I’m going to need that supplementary question, Flora.’

  ‘You’ve had your supplementary question. Twice.’

  ‘That was all the same question. Now I want to know why you didn’t paint your fingernails to match. Or any other colour. Who hurt you, Flora? What did he do to make you want to be invisible?’

  ‘That’s a hell of a supplementary question,’ she muttered.

  ‘They’re the ones to watch out for,’ he agreed, joining her under the spray, spreading out her hair, letting the water run through it.

  Anything. He’d told her that she could ask him anything and he’d told her his deepest secrets, his darkest pain. She could do no less. ‘Steve,’ she said. ‘His name was Steve.’ She paused, thought about it. ‘Still is, I guess.’

  ‘Not Seb? Or Sam?’

  She glanced uncertainly up at him, remembering how she’d teased him, surprised that he remembered. ‘Steve,’ she repeated. ‘I never forgot his name.’

  ‘No, I didn’t imagine for one minute that you had.’

  ‘He was the most beautiful man I’d ever seen,’ she said. Bar one. ‘Thick corn-coloured hair, muscles like a professional tennis player. But then he had been a professional tennis player. My mother was between husbands that year and so she’d taken up tennis.’ She turned away, lifting her face to the spray. ‘It’s a cliché, isn’t it? Losing your virginity to the tennis coach.’

  ‘Losing your virginity, however it happens, is always a cliché.’

  ‘I was seventeen,’ she said. ‘Sweet seventeen and hardly ever been kissed. Not the way he could kiss, anyway. I threw myself at him shamelessly.’

  ‘That’s what your hormones demand when you’re seventeen. It’s nature’s way of perpetuating the species.’

  ‘I suppose it is.’ She closed her eyes, feeling the sun on her face, the water pouring over her body.

  ‘That’s not all, is it?’

  No. It wasn’t all. ‘I was into earrings in a big way then. Making them for my friends, making them for myself. I surpassed myself in an effort to catch his eye, make him notice me. Make him reach out and touch.’

  ‘I doubt he needed that much encouragement.’

  ‘Oh, he teased and flirted a little. But I wanted more. Much more.’ She turned to face him, forcing him to let go of her hair, leaning back against the cold rock. ‘The feather earrings were good. He tickled my neck with them. And a pair like little baby swings. They were toys, made to play with, and he didn’t miss a beat. But it was the licorice allsorts that finally did it.’

  ‘Licorice allsorts?’

  ‘Big, bright and edible.’ Bram said something brief and pretty much to the point. ‘You’ve got it in one. He’d have had to be a saint to resist that much temptation.’

  ‘I don’t imagine he was that. And your mother? Where was she when all this was happening?’

  ‘She was around. But she was busy. She spent hours at the beauty salon. Shopping. Keeping yourself looking that good is a full-time job, apparently. I never realised that he was hanging around for her. I thought I was the attraction. You have to realise that I was a very naïve seventeen-year-old.’

  ‘Something he must have been very well aware of?’

  ‘Maybe that was part of the attraction. There’s nothing more tempting than forbidden fruit, and temptation was everywhere. In the summer house. In the dining room—’

  ‘He had a resistance factor of zero, obviously.’

  ‘Would that be a big turn-on for a man, do you think?’ she asked. ‘To have mother and daughter—?’

  ‘I can’t imagine it turning me on,’ he said sharply. ‘What happened when your mother found out?’

  ‘She didn’t. I was the one who found out. My mother took him to America with her for a week… Even then I didn’t catch on. But when they came back they were married.’

  ‘He’s the toyboy she married?’ He looked confused. ‘I thought that was a fairly recent thing.’

  ‘It is. Steve the tennis coach didn’t last more than a few months. She’s got a new model now.’

  ‘What on earth did he say to you?’

  ‘He didn’t understand why I was so upset. He said he’d thought I knew, that I’d been doing it out of some sort of rebelliousness. He said he thought he was doing me a favour. He didn’t see any reason why we shouldn’t just carry on the way we were.’

  ‘You told her?’

  ‘My mother? No. I knew I’d been bad. Worse—I’d been stupid. Once I knew what had been going on, it all seemed so obvious. And I knew she’d be angrier with me than with him. He was a man, after all. What else could you expect?’

  ‘A little more than that, I would have thought.’

  ‘Yes, well, my father was her first husband and he set the trend for cheating on her. He was only faithful to India’s mother. To be honest I don’t think he ever got over her walking out on him.’

  Bram made no comment and she sighed. ‘What good would telling have done? It would just have made my mother unhappy sooner rather than later. So I went away to Italy for the summer on an art course, and by the time I came back he was history.’

  ‘You never told anyone?’

  ‘Only you.’

  He reached out, touched her face with his fingers, and for a moment she thought he might kiss her. She couldn’t bear the thought of him feeling sorry for her.

  ‘Are you hungry?’ she said quickly. She didn’t wait for him to answer but turned and walked away, refusing to limp despite the pain in her knee.

  ‘Your leg seems easier,’ he said as he joined her at the Jeep.

  ‘I guess the cold water helped,’ she said, and despite the heat of the sun drying out her skin she shivered. She dried her hands and face on her shirt, then, as she went to put it back on over her damp bra, she saw the rip where Bram had stopped her headlong flight.

  ‘Here,’ he said, offering her his shirt. ‘Wear this.’

  ‘It’ll get wet.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. You’ll burn.’ She hesitated and he held it out for her, waited while she fed her arms into the long sleeves, then took his time about buttoning it up. He was too close, his sun-streaked hair flopping over his forehead as he bent to his task, brushing against her cheek.

  ‘Thanks,’ she said as he straightened. The word squeezed out from lungs that seemed deprived of oxygen. But he didn’t let go, instead holding onto the collar, keeping her close.

  ‘You should have told someone, Flora,’ he said. ‘India, perhaps. Or, if you couldn’t talk to her, a counsellor. They’d have reassured you. Told you that you’d done nothing wrong.’

  ‘I couldn’t…’ And yet she’d told him. Trusted him. As he’d trusted her.

  ‘You don’t have to hide from me, sweetheart. We’re partners.’ He kissed her forehead. ‘No more secrets.’ He kissed her mouth, soft and sweet, over almost before it had begun. ‘And no more combs. Promise me.’

  ‘I promise,’ she whispered.

  Bram’s fingers tightened about the cloth, and for a moment the temptation was to take it further—much further. He wanted her so much. Wanted to show her that she was the most beautiful woman in the world. Second to no one. But why would she believe that he was any different? He was trying to take away something she took pride in, believed in, cared about.

  He’d told her to trust him, but why should she? And what, when it came right down to it, did he know about her? They’d shared their secrets. He’d told her things that he’d thought he’d never tell another living soul. She’d laid open her heart. They’d come a long way in a very short time, but they both knew how easy it was to be deceived, made a fool of by desire.

  For all her reserve, she’d come into his arms eagerly enough last night. And she was looking up at him now in a way that was calculated to heat a man’s blood. His was hot en
ough to blow the top off a thermometer, but he took a mental and physical step back, distancing himself from what, a mere three days ago, would have seemed an impossibility. Distancing himself from the possibility of hurt.

  ‘Right. Now we’ve got that sorted, let’s have some lunch,’ he said.

  She looked as if he’d slapped her. Still. Shocked. Then she said, ‘Actually, if you don’t mind, I think I’d rather go back to the hotel. If I don’t do something involving industrial quantities of conditioner to my hair very soon, I’ll never get a comb through it again.’

  It was an excuse, and they both knew it, but he opened the Jeep door without a word. The drive back was completed in almost total silence. As they walked into the hotel, though, they found themselves in the midst of a champagne celebration. Staff, guests—everyone seemed to be partying. And in the midst of it all was the cool blonde, with Tipi Myan and a tall, thickset man—not unlike Bram to look at, Flora thought, but perhaps ten years older.

  Tipi Myan detached himself from the group. ‘Miss Claibourne! Mr Gifford! How good to see you enjoying yourselves. You’ve been to one of our beautiful beaches?’

  ‘Amongst other things,’ Bram said. ‘What’s the celebration?’

  Dr Myan shrugged. ‘There’s no reason not to tell you now. I’m afraid that like many newly emerging nations we have a restless minority who wish to overthrow the established order—cause trouble.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘A small group intent on overthrowing our royal dynasty seized an engineer who came from Australia to look at the tomb and assess how best to make it quite safe. Protect it. They’ve been holding him hostage for the last five days.’

  ‘What? Didn’t it occur to you to stop Flora from coming here?’ Bram demanded.

  ‘It was too late, I’m afraid. By the time we realised what had happened, you were on your way. Of course you couldn’t go to the tomb—’

  ‘Been?’ Flora interrupted. ‘They’ve been holding him hostage? Past tense?’