Substitute Bride

by Margaret Pargeter

  As they reached the house it soon became obvious what Rick meant when he talked of it as not being too popular with his lady-friends. The house, though large and solidly built, had none of the elegant lines of his home on Barbados. Inside the accommodation was spacious enough and clean and well cared for, but Emma couldn't imagine either Veronica or Blanche liking it.

  Upstairs there were four large bedrooms, all containing massive pieces of dark old furniture. She saw at once which one belonged to Rick. It was as tidy as the others, but a pile of paperbacks lay on the bedside table and when she looked the drawers of an old polished chest contained several of his shirts. Having made sure of this, she chose for herself the room farthest away from it. Apart from Rick's, the others were more or less the same, so she didn't think he would mind which one she occupied. Belasco had told her that a married couple with daughters lived at the rear of the house and looked after everything, as well as the boss when he was here. Dinner would be ready in an hour, which gave her plenty of time to unpack and get settled in.

  The housekeeper was called Josephine. She said she was of French extraction, and sent her daughter, a pleasant girl, to unpack for Emma. This left Emma with nothing to do but shower and change. Despite this, she was too exhausted after dinner to do anything else but take another shower and crawl into bed. When Josephine fussed with hot coffee and brandy, Emma did her best to assure her there was nothing wrong, that she was only a little tired and would be quite recovered by morning.

  When Josephine had gone, still with a worried frown on her face, Emma lay for quite a while staring up at the ceiling, wondering what Rita and Gail would make of her sudden disappearance. She had seen nothing of them since Rick arrived and was curious as to how he would explain her somewhat precipitate departure from Barbados. While she tried to stop them, her thoughts kept returning to the mysterious appearance of Miles's bracelet in her drawer. How could it have got there? Somehow she found it difficult to believe Miles had been responsible, but obviously it could only have been him. He must have been determined that she should have it, she decided bitterly, and because of the devious way he had gone about it she had little hope of ever persuading Rick that she hadn't accepted it willingly.

  Awakening next morning from a restless, dream-torn sleep, Emma was glad to leave her bed and dress. Hastily she found a pair of shorts and a matching top and, after completing a brief toilet, saw that her appearance wasn't quite as ruined as she had feared.

  Her face was still bruised, but the bruises weren't as noticeable as they had been yesterday, and the rest of her, apart from her face, was no different. Her figure remained greatly improved from when Rick had last seen her. It had been the way in which he had looked at her, after their quarrel in the bedroom at Coral House, which had mentally transformed her back to a plain young girl. Perhaps for him she would never be any different. While there might be rose-tinted spectacles, there might also be darkly tinted ones, through which a man might never see over clearly.

  Time on the island, Emma found, passed gently. With no immediate worries, she spent her days idly. True, her thoughts continued to torment her, but on the whole she felt more relaxed. Josephine and her family looked after her so well she hadn't anything else to do but amuse herself. This she did by exploring the island, or just swimming and lying on the hot sand while, at a discreet distance, Belasco and another man guarded over her constantly.

  Once, knowing how much all the family relied on him, she asked Belasco how they would be managing without him on Barbados. He had merely laughed and shrugged his great shoulders and said he had no idea.

  'Won't do them any real harm, Miss Emma,' he grinned. 'Maybe the ladies will appreciate me more when I return there. But that I can't do until the boss arrives.'

  While at first Emma had feared Rick's immediate arrival, it was in fact almost a week before he turned up. She had begun to think he might not come at all, that he meant to confine her to a solitary imprisonment on the beautiful island. And while she felt this would present no great punishment, her heart hungered strangely for even a glimpse of him. When he did arrive it was so unexpected, he took her completely by surprise. He walked in one evening just before dinner, to catch her as she was returning late from the beach.

  Half way up the stairs, where he was obviously going in search of her, he paused to glance back at her with cool indifference. Then he frowned as his eyes became fixed. Emma, having entered the house by the kitchen quarters and left Belasco chatting to Josephine's husband, was stunned. The colour left her face, which she knew would show up the now almost faded bruising. Her heart beating rapidly, she fought for composure as her eyes widened on Rick's tall, dominant figure.

  As he turned slowly to retrace his steps, she wished he would stop staring at her. His eyes were mere slits and he appeared to be inspecting her inch by inch, going carefully over the new silky smoothness of her skin, the soft, seductive curves of her slender young body.

  Shrinking under such a closely calculating surveillance, she wasn't sure what to expect, and surprise shot through her when he commented quite casually, 'I see you've settled in.'

  'Yes,' she tried to adopt the coolness of his tones but failed. 'Yes,' she repeated, attempting to make her voice stronger.

  When he nodded but appeared to have nothing further to say, she enquired nervously, 'How did you get here?'

  'By boat,' he replied. 'I have more than one and did a little fishing on the way.'

  'I see…' so he hadn't been in any hurry?

  As if losing interest, Rick turned from her abruptly, his jaw hard. 'I want to shower before I eat. Are you coming upstairs?'

  'I suppose so.' She trailed behind him apprehensively. 'Now that you're here, I suppose you'll expect me to change for dinner?'

  'I like to keep up certain standards,' he agreed smoothly, 'but we don't have to be as formal as we are on Barbados.'

  'I—I wasn't sure if you would bother,' she faltered, wondering with amazement how she came to be going on at such lengths about something so trivial when she had far more serious things on her mind. Uneasily she blamed Rick. He unnerved her with his fixed, cynical stare—what was there about her which held his attention so keenly? He kept looking back at her, as she reluctantly followed him, as if he couldn't help himself. She noted, though, that he didn't appear to like what he saw.

  'I bother,' he returned briefly, 'even if it's just a clean shirt. It shouldn't be impossible for you to find a short dress.' Again his glance flicked her long, slim legs which her brief shorts left bare.

  Why did he taunt and mock so? 'I've been on the beach,' she said, seeking irrationally to excuse herself. If she didn't get away from him soon, she would probably find herself apologising for even being here! For even daring to exist.

  Rick merely nodded as he halted outside his bedroom door, holding it open. When, head bent, Emma tried to walk past him, he grabbed her arm. 'Where do you think you're going?'

  'To my room.' She found it impossible to look at him, to meet the cynicism which she knew would be in his eyes. 'You don't have any communicating rooms here,' she hastened, 'so I chose the one over there. It's very pleasant…'

  'And I'm not?'

  Something in his voice which she failed to understand made her go stiff all over. 'I—I wasn't talking about you,' she protested.

  'Weren't you?' he jeered. 'Well, this is my room, so it follows it's yours, too.'

  Emma tried not to clench her fingers, not wishing him to guess her growing agitation. 'We—we didn't share at Coral House!'

  'No,' his hard mouth curled at the way her voice wobbled. 'That was because I was giving you time to get used to me, to being married. Unfortunately charitable gestures are rarely repaid. Some other man beat me to it.'

  'Just what are you trying to say, Rick?' Emma, although she was trembling, knew a sudden urgency to know what he was talking about.

  'I mean,' his eyes glinted harshly on her dazed, bewildered ones, '—if you must have it spelt ou
t, that I'm no fool. I felt the way you responded, when I held you in my arms after the fiasco in the gardens. I suppose you merely closed your eyes and imagined I was Ray or Ben, but I could tell by your kisses someone had taught you a lot. And that's not the only change I perceive,' he added insolently, his dark blue eyes smouldering with anger as they swept over her.

  Half aware of what he was hinting at, she felt a tearful rage catch her heart. 'If you must know,' she burst out impulsively, 'you're the only man I've ever kissed.'

  For her pains, his head went back on his strong neck and he laughed. There wasn't much mirth to his laughter, but it hurt all the same, hurt and humiliated! 'God!' he rapped, his eyes suddenly black with anger, 'if you tell me any more of your impossible little stories I won't be responsible for what I might do.'

  There seemed no logic in the argument they were having, no way she could reason with him. He just wouldn't believe anything she said. Hopelessly she hung her bright head. 'Let me stay in the other room, Rick,' she pleaded. 'How can we share a room when you hate me so much?'

  Ignoring this, he commanded abruptly, 'Get your things. We'll start as we should have done when we were first married. After all,' his smile was even harsher than his laughter had been, 'why shouldn't we enjoy each other while we're together? We might have had an unusual honeymoon, but there's no reason now why we shouldn't live like a normal couple. Until we part, that is,'

  Feeling slightly sick, Emma stared at him. He sounded so reasonable, if it wasn't for what he was suggesting! Her eyes widened apprehensively. She didn't know why she should suddenly suspect he was secretly seething with an anger more terrible than anything she had known before. Something about him made her tremble with a peculiar kind of terror and give in to him weakly.

  'I'll get dressed and then pack everything.'

  When Rick nodded grimly and let go of her arm, she clutched the spot where his fingers had dug deeply and fled.

  Feverishly, in her room, she showered, scarcely realising what she was doing. After drying herself she hastily put on the first dress she came to, a simple little cotton. Rick would insist she went down for dinner, but what sort of meal would it be with such an atmosphere of distrust between them? And afterwards? She could only hope Rick would come to his senses before he did something he might always regret. Perhaps, she prayed silently, he would change his mind about the rooms if she didn't do anything else to antagonise him.

  After hearing his bedroom door open and no other sound for several minutes, she believed he must have gone down without her. She was about to slip thankfully from her own room when he walked in.

  Ignoring, as before, her look of dismay, he said, 'I'll give you a hand with your things. You seem quite recovered from your overdose of popularity, but you can't afford to take risks. You still look frail.'

  How hateful he could be! How was it possible for a man to sound so caring yet taunting? 'I haven't had time to pack,' Emma stammered.

  Rick laughed, his eyes glinting. 'You're only going across the passage, not to the other side of the world. You weren't thinking of packing properly, were you? I can easily carry everything.'

  He sounded so cool and sensible, while Emma didn't feel either. Yet when he carefully gathered all her clothes together in his arms, she found herself without the courage to protest. He even, she saw, as she hovered behind him pale-faced, put everything neatly away in two of his empty drawers, hanging her few long dresses next to his suits in the spacious wardrobe.

  'There,' he murmured softly, as though he were talking to a fretful child, 'nothing to it, as you can see. We'll be nice and cosy in here, just the two of us.'

  Did he really believe that? Did he actually mean her to sleep in that huge, old-fashioned bed with him? Colour flooded her pale cheeks and she swallowed painfully. 'Rick—you know this wasn't part of our—er—bargain…'

  'Neither was Ray,' he shrugged, with deceptive mild-ness. 'It was you who first broke the agreement between us when you attempted to drag my name through the— shall we say—dust of Barbados. In view of that, why should I bother to stick to rules?'

  Emma hated the derision she saw in his face. How unfair he was! What about his own relationship with Veronica Ray? Didn't he ever think about that? She was willing to bet his friendship with Veronica was no way near as innocent as that which she had shared with Ben or Veronica's brother!

  Unhappily she sighed, meeting Rick's coldly belligerent stare. To argue with him now, she realised, would be futile, and she was grateful when she heard the gong. There was a great brass gong in the hall which Belasco declared was enough to waken the restless souls of his ancestors. The noise of it penetrated loudly upstairs, and she used it as an excuse for not replying to Rick's last taunt.

  While dinner was being served he studied her curiously across the table. Feeling the anger still smouldering within him, Emma wondered uneasily if her supposedly regrettable behaviour had really dealt such a blow to his pride. If it had, it could surely only have been a very small one—nothing, surely, to justify such icy, disapproving eyes and tightening lips. Fearing, as the glint in his eyes deepened, that he was about to reopen the subject, she interposed swiftly:

  'You haven't told me how you got on in Canada.'

  'As well as usual,' he replied suavely, as the servant withdrew and they started on the first course. Emma noticed wryly how everything on the table sparkled, how extra care had been taken because the boss was here. The shrimp cocktail they were eating was delicious and as an entree made a nice change from the usual piece of egg on a lettuce leaf which she was given.

  Rick said nothing more and she wished he would talk to her about Canada, if he didn't want to discuss his business there. Or did he think that because her stay in his life was to be so brief, it wasn't worth talking to her about anything? 'You never wrote, or rang me,' she said, tears stinging her eyes along with a real sense of grievance.

  'Did you expect me to?' he snapped.

  'No,' she hesitated, as he rang for the next course, 'but I thought you might. It—' she swallowed, 'it made me feel lonely when you didn't.'

  'And when your loneliness grew intolerable, you consoled yourself with other men.'

  Helplessly she frowned. That hadn't been what she meant. 'I—I went out with Ben occasionally, yes, I'll admit. He taught me things…'

  Rick's eyes slitted to steel splinters. 'He won't again. He's off to Australia.'

  'Not—not because of me, I hope?' Among other things, if Rick had blamed her, Emma shivered to imagine Rita's wrath.

  'It was the sensible course to take. He was going soon, in any case.'

  'But not just yet.'

  'Does it make any difference?'

  Hating the jeering note in his voice, she exclaimed, 'It might, to Ben. If his sudden departure was based on the wrong motives.'

  'I think not,' Rick returned harshly, draining his glass which he immediately replenished.

  Painfully, Emma watched him. 'The relationship between the two of you has always been a good one. He practically worships you. I would hate to think I'd been responsible for any trouble, but I…'

  'Forget it,' he cut in brusquely. 'Everything's been taken care of.'

  'And Miles?' she whispered, suddenly frightened and made reckless by such ruthlessness. 'How did you deal with him?'

  'Ah, now I detect real concern!' A cruel smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. 'Miles is too besotted to do. anything but protest your innocence, but, like you, is unfortunately lacking in proof.'

  'You surely didn't accuse him of anything?' she asked hollowly.

  'I didn't stop long enough for that,' he rejoined curtly. 'I merely returned his bracelet and told him exactly what I thought of him.'

  Imagining what that would be, Emma shivered. The pleasure Rick had derived was still written clearly on his face. Suddenly desperate to change the subject, she looked down at her plate. 'Did you stay in Canada all the time you were away?'

  'No.'

  'So that's
all you're going to tell me?' Glancing at him again, she hated him almost as much as she loved him because he made no effort to meet her half way. He just sat staring at her while continuing with his meal, indifferently.

  'It's enough,' he raised his glass consideringly, his eyes mocking. 'How about you telling me something for a change?'

  'Such as?'

  'Such as how do you like living on St Lusanda?'

  'I haven't been bored, if that's what you mean.'

  'Strange,' his brow creased, as if he actually was puzzled. 'What have you been doing with yourself?'

  'Nothing much, I'm afraid.' She always felt guilty about having nothing to do. 'Josephine and her family take care of everything. I insist on making my own bed…'

  'Ours—after this,' Rick promised softly, as her voice trailed off.

  The colour ran enchantingly under her clear skin as she blushed. She knew a moment's blind panic when she wanted to jump to her feet and rush upstairs to her room. But this, as a sanctuary was no longer available and she didn't know where else she could go. Taking another quick gulp of her wine, she sensed his sardonic amusement and was aware of a sudden urge to get under his skin for a change.

  'I wonder that you feel inclined to share your bed with a girl like me.'

  'You asked me that before,' he sounded bored. 'Do I have to repeat I have little choice? You're my wife, after all, and there are no other girls here. Now finish your wine,' he commanded abruptly, as though the subject was closed.

  Heedless with despair she did as she was told then rose unsteadily to her feet. He knew, she suspected, that she'd had a little too much. She wasn't used to anything more than the occasional glass of sherry, but he made no comment as he followed her careful progress from the dining-room. At the farm she had never been offered anything. So, she thought mutinously, was it to be wondered at that a few glasses of wine went to her head? As she crossed to the lounge and sat down, she had no real feelings of regret. While she did feel slightly ashamed of herself, a muzzy head seemed much easier to endure than one which registered Rick's every move much too clearly.