Makeshift Marriage

by Marjorie Lewty

  Disgust was written all over John Morden's face. He dropped heavily into the chair beside Maggie's desk and said, 'Yes, I was afraid of that.'

  He was silent for a minute or two, glowering down at the carpet. Then he looked up and said suddenly, 'Why won't you go out to Hong Kong with Blake, Maggie? He was relying on you and I was, too. You make a good team, you and Blake, and he's going to have difficulty replacing you. Won't you change your mind?'

  She shook her head regretfully. 'I'm afraid not, J.M. My parents don't like the idea of my going out to the Far East for such a long time, and their wishes are important to me.' She had thought up the excuse on the spur of the moment, as soon as Blake had told her that his engagement to Fiona was going to be announced and that he planned to marry almost immediately, so that she could go out to Hong Kong with him as his wife. That had been the end of the road for Maggie. Hong Kong, she knew, wasn't a large place, and it certainly wasn't large enough to hold both herself and Fiona Deering.

  The Chairman shook his head irritably. 'Pity! This is a big job that the Corporation is entrusting to Blake, and in a way I feel responsible to my co-directors for the way he handles it. I've got complete confidence in his ability myself, but all the same I'd feel happier if you were out there with him. A man needs a woman he can trust and rely on to back him up.' His eyes grew thoughtful as he added, 'Without my wife I'd never have got where I am today.'

  Maggie nodded, her brown eyes soft. She knew from Blake how happy his parents had been together, and how his mother was missed since she had died just over a year ago.

  The Chairman's grey eyes, so like his son's, were watching her closely. 'Maggie, you're in Blake's confidence. Has he said anything to you about—' He paused, clearing his throat. 'I've no intention of spying on Blake, or asking you to break a confidence, but this is important. Do you think, yourself, that he'd be crazy enough to marry this Deering woman?'

  The Chairman was nobody's fool, and Maggie was a poor liar. She met his worried gaze and said simply, 'I just keep hoping he won't.'

  He nodded heavily and his mouth set in a grim line. 'So that's the way it is. I was afraid it might be.' He stood up and she saw that he was controlling his anger with an effort. Something in his face sent fear spiralling through her—fear for Blake, not for herself. 'If he does—' he began. Then his eyes met hers and he decided not to finish the sentence.

  He turned away, shrugging. 'Well, he won't be the first fool to ruin his life and career for a woman.' He strode out of the office and the door swung violently behind him.

  Maggie sat staring at the papers on her desk. Then she stacked them up and pushed them away in a drawer. It wasn't going to be possible to do any more work today while this devastating feeling of crisis was in the air.

  What did J.M. mean by that last remark? And all that about feeling responsible to the other directors for the decision to trust this huge new contract to Blake on his own? In the world of Big Business a man's wife is an important part of his image, she knew that. She also knew that J.M. wouldn't happily accept Fiona Deering as a daughter-in-law. 'A cheap little bit of trash,' he had once called her to Maggie, and Maggie knew then that he must have been making enquiries about Fiona, without Blake's knowledge. That was the way Big Business functioned, and it had always seemed to Maggie a particularly sordid and underhand part of the system. She suspected that J.M., in this particular matter, would be a businessman first, and a father second.

  Maggie sighed deeply and for a moment rested her head on her hands. She could see a long dark tunnel ahead into which she was being inexorably pushed, and there was no light at the end of it.

  The intercom buzzed again and this time it was Kendal, the commissionaire on the ground floor. 'Miss Webster—' the usually bluff, organised Kendal seemed to hesitate.

  'Yes, Kendal?' Maggie hoped it wasn't someone important insisting on seeing Blake.

  'Miss Webster, I think you'd better come down. It's—' the voice faded and he seemed to be looking back over his shoulder. 'It's Mr Blake. I'm afraid he's not too good.'

  Maggie stared at the instrument on her desk with widening eyes. Blake was never ill. He must have had an accident, then. Yes, that was it—an accident.

  Her heart racing, she rushed to the lift and was sucked silently downwards. As she stepped out into the vast entrance hall Kendal came stumping across to her, as quickly as his heavy bulk would allow.

  'What is it, Kendal? What's happened?' Maggie peered anxiously round him towards the desk unit where he reigned supreme all day. 'Has there been an accident?'

  Kendal was poker-faced. 'No, miss, I wouldn't have thought so. But Mr Blake is a bit under the weather, so to speak. I thought you'd be the right one to contact, being his assistant, like.'

  'Yes, of course.' Maggie was hurrying across the hall as she spoke, trying to take in what Kendal was implying and finding it difficult. She had never known Blake drink too much in business hours; he'd always been wary of lengthy 'business' lunches. 'You need a clear head in the afternoon as well as the morning,' he had said to her often. 'One drink too many at lunch could lose you an important contract.'

  She reached Kendal's desk. Blake was slumped in the chair behind it and he looked ghastly. He was leaning back, his head against the wall, a lock of dark hair falling over his eyes, which were closed.

  Maggie's hands were clammy and her heart was pounding. She shook his arm gently. 'Blake, what's the matter—are you ill?' She was afraid she knew what the matter was, but she didn't want to believe it straight away. Perhaps it was a virus, the kind that struck suddenly. 'Blake—tell me how you feel?'

  He opened his eyes. 'Hullo, Maggie,' he said carefully. Then he put a shaking hand to his forehead. 'Oh God, I feel like death!'

  Maggie turned to Kendal, who was standing just behind them, looking owl-like. 'I'll get him home straight away,' she said. 'Could you be an angel, Kendal, and find a taxi?'

  Kendal had once been a sergeant in the regular Army and there was no problem about getting Blake into the taxi, a few minutes later. Maggie linked her arm in Blake's, on his other side, and fortunately nobody came through the foyer to witness their exit.

  'Will you manage O.K. at the other end, Miss Webster?' Kendal enquired, and the driver glanced knowingly back into his cab and grinned, 'No problem, mate, I'll lend a hand.'

  Maggie gave the address of her own flat. She wasn't going to risk Blake being seen like this where everyone knew him, even if it were a virus, which she doubted. His flat was one of a lush new complex where the Morden Corporation owned several apartments and housed important visitors from overseas. It wouldn't do for Blake to be seen in this state at four o'clock in the afternoon by anyone he hoped to do business with.

  Her own flat was near Regent's Park, small but comfortable. She had moved here a year ago when her salary had taken a big upward swing, and she loved having a place to herself and enough money to make it as she wanted.

  Blake lay back in silence during the drive across town, and Maggie didn't try to question him. The driver waited until they had managed to negotiate the five steps up to the front door of the big old house, and then, with a friendly grin and a thumbs-up signal, he climbed back into his cab.

  Fortunately Maggie's flat was on the ground floor. She put her key in the lock, while Blake swayed slightly beside her, holding on to the door-frame. Inside, she took him straight into the bedroom and pushed him down on to the bed. He said, 'God, I feel lousy, have you got anything to drink, Maggie?'

  She kept a bottle of whisky for visitors and she poured him a small glass, which he tossed off in one gulp. She said calmly, 'You'd better sleep this off, hadn't you?'

  He lay back. 'Feel better soon,' he mumbled apologetically. 'Sorry, Maggie.'

  He submitted without protest while she pulled off his shoes and threw a light quilt over him. She stood for a moment beside the bed, looking down at him, at the handsome, saturnine face, dark against the white pillow. He had, she thought, the kind of looks
that women find irresistible. His eyes were closed and the long, thick lashes rested against his slightly hollow cheeks. His hair straggled across his broad forehead and she put out a hand and smoothed it back.

  He opened his eyes with an effort and grinned feebly. 'Maggie love—glad it's you, pal. Don't—go away, will you?'

  'I'll be here,' she said calmly. 'Go to sleep.'

  He closed his eyes again with a little sigh, and she stood there a moment longer. 'I'm glad it was me, too,' she said silently, and a wry smile touched her mouth as she added, 'I love you, you horror.'

  She went back to the sitting-room and picked up the phone to call J.M. While she was waiting for the call to go through she kept pushing down an unreasonable sense of elation. Perhaps she was being too optimistic, but it certainly didn't seem that Blake's luncheon had gone off as he had planned. A man might celebrate his engagement with more than a few drinks, but he would hardly turn up at the office in a state like this—and without his fiancée too. No, surmised Maggie, it was plain that something had gone wrong between him and Fiona, and if that was the case she couldn't be more pleased.

  The Chairman came on the line at last. 'Maggie, where are you? What the hell's going on?' He must have heard something from Kendal, but not, she guessed, the whole truth. Kendal was a tactful soul and had a wholesome respect for the Chairman's temper, as had all the employees in the building.

  She said, 'I'm afraid Blake's been taken ill. I thought the best thing was to get him to bed as soon as possible, so I've brought him home with me so that I can look after him. O.K.?'

  'That's very good of you, Maggie, I appreciate it. What's wrong with him, do you think?'

  She drew in a quick breath. 'A virus, probably, they do strike very suddenly sometimes and I've heard there's one of these twenty-four-hour bugs around. Don't worry, J.M., I'll get a doctor in if it seems necessary. And I'll keep you in the picture, of course.'

  'Thanks, Maggie, I'm glad he's with you. I can't get round to see him tonight, I've got this dinner at the Savoy. I'd skip it, only they're relying on me to propose a toast. But you can contact me there if you're worried.'

  'I'll cope,' she said, and the Chairman grunted, 'You always cope. Don't know how we should manage without you.' She went back into the bedroom. Blake was fast asleep and looked as if he would sleep for hours. A good thing, she thought practically, that she had a put-u-up sofa in the sitting room. Her mother often stayed overnight when she came up to town for shopping or a concert, and her father, recently retired, didn't fancy driving back home to Amersham late at night. The flat was useful, too, to her brothers, all three of them. Their jobs kept them on the move and she never knew when one of them would turn up on her doorstep. It was always a delightful surprise to see them. The Websters were the happiest of families.

  It was a strange evening. Maggie cooked herself a meal and ate it at the corner of the table in the small kitchen, her ears alert for any sound from the direction of the bedroom. When she had washed up she looked in again and Blake was still sleeping, so she made coffee and sat down in front of the T.V. She watched every programme doggedly through, jumping each time a gun fired, but hadn't the faintest idea who was shooting whom.

  Soon after the close-down she thought she heard a stirring in the bedroom and went to the kitchen to put the coffee percolator on. She was carrying it into the sitting room, with cups on a tray, when Blake appeared in the doorway. His dark hair was tousled and his face was dreadfully pale, with dark rings under his eyes. Maggie felt shocked; she always thought of Blake as being extremely fit. It was painful to see him looking like this, and with desperation written all over his face, too. But he was quite evidently sober again.

  He looked at Maggie, sitting on the sofa in a blue cotton wraparound, which she had procured from the bedroom on one of her visits there to check whether he was still sleeping.

  'So,' he said rather nastily, 'little Maggie was the good Samaritan who stepped in and offered sanctuary. I trust I didn't put you to too much inconvenience.'

  'Don't be silly, Blake,' Maggie said shortly. 'Sit down and have some black coffee. You look as if you need it.'

  'I'll have a small drink with it,' he said, 'with your permission, of course.' He went over to the cupboard where she kept the drinks. 'O.K., O.K., there's no need to look at me like that! I'm not going to get tight again, so don't worry.' She might have been a nagging wife, the way he glared at her. 'Another small drink is the best way to complete the cure. Or weren't you familiar with all these sordid little ploys? Good little Maggie,' he sneered. 'Never overstep the mark, do you?'

  She winced as if he had struck her. She had always thought he liked her, that they were real friends, and all the time he was thinking of her as a colourless little goody-goody. Perhaps he had laughed at her with his girl-friends. It hurt badly.

  'All right, don't go on about it.' She poured a cup of black coffee and held it out to him. 'You're obviously in a foul temper about something, so the best thing you can do is to drink this and then go. I only brought you here because I didn't want your father, or anyone connected with the company, to see you in the state you were in, in the middle of the afternoon. But now you've sorted yourself out, the sooner you leave the better.'

  He took the coffee from her, his eyes fixed on her small, composed face, and couldn't have guessed at the raging misery that was trying to break down her usual calmness.

  'You've never spoken like that to me before,' he said, frowning.

  'You've never been abominably rude to me before.' She stood up, the picture of a hostess giving a plain hint to a guest who has overstayed his welcome.

  But Blake didn't stand. He put down his cup and groaned, running a hand through his rough, dark hair.

  'O.K., Maggie, so I'm behaving bloody badly. I know that darned well. I suppose I just expected you to understand, you always do understand.'

  She gaped at him. 'Understand what?'

  He said, with an unpleasant glint in his eye, 'No, of course you wouldn't. You don't know, do you?' He put a hand in his pocket and pulled out a crumpled sheet of violet-coloured paper. 'This was waiting for me when I got to the Grill Room. Go on, read it.'

  Maggie smoothed out the paper and read, written in a flamboyant hand in purple ink: 'Married Pietro this morning. When you get this we'll be in Rome. Sorry it didn't work out, darling, but lots of love all the same. Fiona.'

  She folded the paper neatly and handed it back to him, shocked by the violence of her relief. 'I—I don't know what to say, Blake.' She couldn't very well say, Congratulations, you've had a lucky escape. Instead she said, 'You must feel badly about it, and I'm very sorry.' That sounded stupidly prim, but it was the best she could manage.

  'Badly!' He laughed bitterly. 'I damned near walked across the Embankment and tipped myself into the river! Instead, as was crashingly obvious, I stayed where I was and went on drinking until the pain went away.' He glared at her, 'And don't you dare nag at me, Maggie Webster. You don't know what it feels like to love someone like that.'

  Don't I indeed? she thought. Her eyes rested on his lean cheeks and the line of his mouth, firm and yet oddly sweet, and she felt weak with longing. She said, 'Possibly not. But I wasn't going to nag.'

  'No? That's how it looked to me. A regular nanny act you put on, didn't you? Lugging me here and keeping watch over me until the effect of all that nasty drink wore off!'

  His tone was cruelly sarcastic and she wondered how much more she could take. Even making allowances for the state of his emotions, and the natural desire to hit back at anyone within range, there was a limit to the amount of punishment she could endure.

  She put down her coffee cup and leaned towards him. 'Look, Blake,' she said, keeping her voice calm with a great effort, 'I really had no intention of nannying you. In fact, I wasn't really considering you at all. All I wanted was to remove you from the building before you did any harm to the company's reputation—which I care about myself, being an employee.'

&nbs
p; He laughed shortly. 'Very worthy of you! Please accept my grateful thanks on behalf of Morden Constructions. In future I shall take care to give the right impression to all the customers.'

  He got to his feet, quite steadily now. Blake Morden was himself once more—tall and dark and arrogant and responsible to nobody for his actions. 'I won't embarrass you with my presence any longer, Maggie.'

  She glanced at her watch, which said twenty minutes past midnight. She couldn't help asking, 'Where will you go?'

  'Don't worry,' he mocked. 'The Thames is unpleasantly cold at this time of night. I shall return to my own four walls and drown my sorrows in private.'

  She hadn't time to consider. She jumped to her feet and put a restraining hand on his arm. 'Blake,' she pleaded, 'don't go!'

  He was suddenly very still, looking down at her with a strange expression in his grey-green eyes. 'What is this, Maggie? You're not offering consolation, are you? Would you stretch your loyal service to taking me into your bed to provide relief and solace?' The mockery was in his voice still, but now it was no longer unkind.

  'I—I—' she stammered, 'I didn't really think of it like that—I only wanted to—to—'

  To what? she thought, her heart beating wildly. What had she done? Had she let him see that she was crazily in love with him? She felt the hot blood surging into her cheeks.

  He shook his head, rather as if he were refusing an unattractively sticky sweet from a small child. 'Thanks for the offer, Maggie, but it wouldn't do.'

  'No, I suppose not,' she said in a practical voice, as wave after wave of humiliation threatened to drown her. At least he had been kind enough to say 'it wouldn't do,' and not you wouldn't do.' But of course she wouldn't do, not after Fiona.

  She grinned up at him with a fine carelessness, thinking how merciful it was that she had practised for so long the way to mask her feelings. 'It was just a thought—forget it.'

  'It was a friendly thought,' he said.

  There was a somewhat awkward little silence and then he said suddenly, 'There is something you could do for me, though.'