Marriage on Command

by Lindsay Armstrong

  Lee swallowed and saw again in her mind’s eye the dining room as she had imagined it. But this time, in a dress that glittered as she moved, she pictured Julia Blake-Whitney partnering Damien…

  ‘I…’ She paused.

  ‘I never thought she was the right one for him,’ Ella said flatly.

  It was Lee’s turn to blink. ‘You didn’t?’

  ‘No. Oh…’ Ella waved a careless hand. ‘She was gorgeous, gifted and all the rest, but lacking an essential ingredient Damien needs—little though he may realise it.’

  ‘What’s that?’ Lee asked, her eyes huge.

  ‘Je ne sais quoi. That certain something that’s so hard to put into words.’ Ella shrugged. ‘I may not quite be able to put my finger on it, but I thought it was missing between them. And I don’t know why…’ she gazed at Lee ‘…but maybe, just maybe, you provide it, Lee.’

  ‘I wish I knew what it might be, because to be honest this started out as a marriage of convenience, and I think—although…some things have changed—’ Lee looked down at her hands and wondered why she was confiding in a virtual stranger. ‘I think it still is.’

  Ella surged up and came over to sit next to Lee on the settee. She put her arm around her. ‘I gather your feelings for him aren’t “convenient” in the slightest?’

  ‘You gather right,’ Lee said a little dryly.

  ‘Then hang in there, kid,’ Ella advised, and hugged her. ‘Because I think you’re special.’

  ‘That’s so kind—’

  ‘Rubbish, it’s true!’ From the depths of her pocket Ella produced a hanky for Lee to wipe her eyes on, and when the tearful little moment had passed she moved back to her chair and told Lee she was planning a party.

  ‘I did think of a MASH party, but…’ Ella wrinkled her nose. ‘All that drab army gear! Then I had a brainwave! You know that lovely sequence out of My Fair Lady, at the races?’

  ‘I do,’ Lee said, and sang a couple of bars of the ‘Ascot Gavotte’…

  ‘Bravo! Well, that’s the theme of my next party, and I think you could look as ravishing as Audrey Hepburn did, Lee!’

  ‘Thank heavens you didn’t choose The Sound of Music, Ella!’ Damien said, coming into the room and sitting down next to Lee.

  ‘Well…’ Ella temporised. ‘I did give it some—’

  ‘She yodels,’ Damien said, taking Lee’s hand.

  ‘I would never yodel in public!’ Lee protested.

  He pulled her into his arms. ‘You’ve yet to yodel in private, but I’m still working on it.’

  ‘Damien,’ she whispered into his shoulder, unable to lift her head because she knew her cheeks were tinted bright pink.

  He kissed the top of her head and tilted her chin to look into her eyes. ‘Sweetheart,’ he said softly. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to embarrass you. Just couldn’t help it!’

  And as Ella Patroni watched them at first she was amused, then her eyes widened and everything fell into place. She saw exactly how Lee filled the gap that had existed between Damien and Julia Blake-Whitney.

  Obviously Lee was unaware of it, she mused, but did Damien know what had got to him about this girl? She suspected not, otherwise Lee would have no doubt as to his feelings…

  She was tempted to put her thoughts into words, she even opened her mouth, but wisdom prevailed.

  ‘You and Ella seem to get along pretty well,’ Damien said, after Ella had left.

  ‘Yes. I like her.’

  ‘I would say she likes you,’ he commented. ‘Ella never bothers with people she doesn’t like.’ He looked at Lee wryly. ‘She is also enormously curious. I’d be most surprised if she hadn’t tried to pump you about our marriage.’

  They were back in the bedroom and Damien was throwing clean clothes into his bag, having tossed all the clothes he’d taken to Vanuatu into a pile on the floor.

  Lee picked up the bundle. ‘I’ll put these in the laundry. Do you have someone who comes in to clean and wash and iron?’

  Damien took the bundle from her and dumped it on the floor again. ‘Yes. Tell me about Ella.’

  Lee backed away from him and sat down on the end of the bed. ‘She… Damien, it was nothing! She said the mystery of it was driving them all crazy, that’s…all.’

  ‘You don’t lie well, Lee.’ He sat down beside her. ‘Was it something that upset you?’

  ‘No. And that’s all I’m going to tell you,’ she said composedly.

  He paused. ‘Why the mystery, though?’

  She tilted her chin and eyed him through her lashes. ‘I feel like being mysterious, that’s all.’

  ‘There are ways and means of dealing with that.’ He laughed softly, and looked so wickedly alive she had no doubt as to his meaning.

  ‘Don’t even think of it,’ she warned, however.

  ‘Oh, not today,’ he drawled. ‘Three times in the space of one morning might be a bit much even for us. That doesn’t mean to say I won’t bide my time. I have some good news for you, by the way.’

  She raised an eyebrow.

  ‘It was Cosmo, the black sheep of the Delaney family, who pulled the scam on your grandparents.’

  ‘What?’ Lee blinked, her mouth fell open, then she said on a breath, ‘Of course! The same initial, the resemblance—why didn’t I think of that?’

  ‘You had a lot on your mind?’ he suggested gravely.

  She went faintly pink. ‘I guess so. But what made you suspect it?’

  ‘Remember when we were having lunch at Byron Bay, you mentioned the resemblance between Cyril and Cosmo?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Well, right from the start it had me puzzled that Cyril should have a lookalike. When you said that, something clicked in my mind and I decided to have Cosmo investigated. In the course of it I turned up another claim against a C. Delaney for a similar scam. And I’ve just got the news that Cosmo has a very dubious history.’

  ‘Oh,’ Lee breathed. ‘Is that what Cyril suddenly suspected then left unsaid?’

  ‘I would say so,’ Damien agreed. ‘Cyril had bailed him out a couple of times, apparently. But it seems likely that he decided to do things differently this time.’

  ‘Because you are the son he never had and I…’ She trailed off.

  ‘Because you’re who you are, Lee,’ he said quietly. ‘And because we’ve got to the state he foresaw for us. Haven’t we?’

  She was silent. Then, ‘Wasn’t it extremely dicey for Cosmo to reveal himself to me, though, since it was my grandparents—’

  ‘There was no reason for him to connect the name of Westwood with Mercer, Lee.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Also, in the course of these investigations, I came across their sister, Carol Delaney. She can’t stand Cosmo. She thinks he’s a disgrace to the family and would be more than happy to testify that Cyril and Cosmo were not close and had frequent arguments on the subject of Plover Park itself, in fact. Cosmo always wanted his brother to sell it.’

  Lee’s eyes widened. ‘So…I see!’

  ‘Yep! He never believed it belonged in the family, and he has no use for it himself. All he was after was the money it represents. And we have, have we not, Lee, fulfilled Cyril’s dearest wish?’

  She looked into his eyes and was shaken by the seriousness she saw. ‘Yes…’

  ‘Then let’s go home.’

  Three months later, Lee stopped what she was doing and burst into tears.

  Damien had spent a week with her at Plover Park after they’d come back from Vanuatu, and she’d been up to Brisbane a few times—Ella’s party being one of them. Ella and Hank had also spent a few days at Plover Park. But otherwise she and Damien had only been together at weekends. And last night she’d got a call from Damien to say that he wouldn’t be able to make it this weekend. The result was that she felt like a mistress, not a wife.

  Which was not to say the weekends weren’t wonderful, nor to say Damien didn’t take a very active interest in Plover Park, he did. In fac
t he’d ensured that Lee’s lifestyle was as pleasant as possible.

  He’d had part of the shed converted into a flat, which he’d leased to a young couple who would act as caretakers when they were away—although that hadn’t happened yet—and so that she was not totally alone at night. And he’d gone to some lengths to find the right couple, whose company she would enjoy without feeling hemmed in, and who could help with the heavy work.

  He’d bought another dog to help Peach share the guard duties—a Great Dane puppy called Paddy that both Lee and Peach had fallen in love with. And he’d moved some of his brood mares and foals to Plover Park on discovering that Lee adored horses. He’d also bought a brand new four-wheel drive vehicle and trailer for the nursery, as well as converting one of the bedrooms into a study for her, with all the proper draughting tools for designing gardens.

  And he’d instituted proceedings against Cosmo Delaney which looked like returning her grandparents’ life savings to them. What more could he have done for her?

  Nor could she say she wasn’t busy doing what she loved, as more commissions rolled in. So why was she so desperately unhappy?

  Because she felt as if she was tucked into a compartment of his life that didn’t overlap into the rest of it.

  Not that she was blameless. A couple of times he’d mentioned that they’d been invited to a party, would she like to come up for it? But something had always stopped her from agreeing. Some strange feeling that she was being pulled out of mothballs. Or perhaps a feeling that this marriage must still be a mystery to all his friends, and she didn’t feel able to cope with their curiosity?

  The only entertaining they did on the farm was for her grandparents, and the two solicitors who ran the Byron Bay branch of Moore & Moore and their wives. His mother had come down once for a weekend, and although she’d tried her best to cope with the new direction of her only son’s marriage, Lee had not been able to detect any real warmth in Evelyn Moore.

  The result was that his life during the week was a closed book to her. Their life, in fact, was a series of sensuous reunions that resembled an affair far more than a marriage. And he had made no mention of starting a family…

  Peach butted her leg with his nose as she clung to a post and wept her heart out. So she sat down on the ground and buried her head in his silky coat. ‘I was always afraid it would be a marriage of convenience, Peach,’ she sobbed. ‘But what to do about it? If I moved to Brisbane what would I do with myself?’

  She lifted her head at last and looked around. Autumn was turning the landscape to old gold, leaves were fluttering to the ground as a sharp little breeze whistled through the trees and the clear sky was the deeper blue of approaching winter.

  She shivered and wiped her eyes on the sleeve of her jumper. It came to her that she would do anything, even leave her beloved nursery and Plover Park if that was what it would take, to be a proper wife to Damien Moore. But was that what he wanted?

  It was almost as if he had gone to extraordinary lengths to secure Plover Park for her—as compensation for the deficiencies in their marriage? she mused. The more she thought back, the more that seemed to leap out at her. What had he said the day they’d come back from Vanuatu? Something about how important Plover Park was to her…?

  Not any more—how ironic! she thought sadly. So what to do? she wondered again. Make the best of things or try to explain her feelings to him?

  The decision was taken out of her hands the very next day. She went to the dentist for her regular check-up and was paging through a magazine while she waited for her appointment. The back pages were the society pages. She looked uninterestedly through the Sydney and Melbourne social scene and was about to close it when a picture in the Brisbane section leapt out at her.

  It was the Law Society’s Annual Ball, she read with her heart in her mouth, only a couple of weeks ago, and pictured standing side by side in a laughing group were Damien and Julia Blake-Whitney. Damien looked breathtakingly handsome in a black tuxedo and Julia was stunning in a strapless violet gown that clung to her figure. She was also looking up at him in a clearly fascinated way.

  The magazine fluttered to the floor from Lee’s nerveless fingers and she got up and left, ignoring the startled receptionist’s queries. And she drove home on auto-pilot, because all she could see was Julia’s expression.

  She left Plover Park that same day. She told her grandparents she was going to Brisbane for a week. She told the caretakers the same thing, and made sure they would take care of Peach and Paddy, the chickens and guinea fowl. But she told Lydia that she was very much afraid she wouldn’t be back…

  CHAPTER TEN

  TWO weeks later she was standing in front of the Sydney Opera House watching a glamorous array of guests arriving for a gala charity concert.

  It was a chilly afternoon, heading towards dusk, and she’d been walking through the Domain and the Botanic Gardens.

  She’d driven down to Sydney, taking her time, and found herself a pleasant motel to stay in while she contemplated her future—not that her thoughts had yielded much. In fact, she’d moved out of the motel that morning and had planned to drive south, but her car had developed a mysterious knock and she’d been forced to put it into a garage. It would be ready in an hour.

  She was just about to turn away and find herself a warm café when Ella Patroni, magnificent in a full-length gold cape, with a real tiara adorning her head, stepped from a limousine, stopped as if shot, then with surprising agility, considering her bulk, pounced on Lee.

  ‘My dear girl! My dear girl!’ she crooned. ‘Thank heavens I’ve found you! Damien is going out of his mind! Hank—’ she turned imperatively ‘—forget about this! We’ve got much more important things to do! Get a car.’

  Hank Patroni greeted Lee dazedly, then turned back to his wife. ‘But—’

  ‘Don’t but me, Hank. How long have we known Damien Moore?’ As she spoke, Ella hung on to Lee determinedly.

  ‘Years,’ Hank said. ‘I was only about to say our limo has gone, Ella.’

  ‘Then get another one!’

  ‘I—’ Lee started to say.

  ‘And don’t you give me any nonsense either, Lee,’ Ella broke in sternly. ‘There—grab that one, Hank!’ She pointed to a limo just about to depart.

  Ten minutes later Lee was ensconced in the Patronis’ lovely lamplit suite at the Regent, nursing a glass of brandy and soda.

  ‘All right.’ Ella discarded her cloak, took off her tiara and slung it on to a chair, causing Hank to look pained. ‘Drink some of that,’ she instructed Lee. ‘You look as if you’re about to faint. I’m not going to probe and pry into the whys and wherefores—I’m sure you have your reasons for what you did—but it was not fair to Damien to leave him without one word. Don’t you agree, Hank?’

  Poor Hank, Lee thought, and took a sip of her brandy.

  ‘I…yes, I do,’ Hank said slowly. ‘He’s not a monster, that much I do know, Lee.’

  ‘I never thought he was.’ Lee sipped some more brandy and felt some of the shock of it all recede. She’d taken off her anorak and was wearing a navy tracksuit beneath it. She looked away. ‘But I didn’t know what to say to him.’

  ‘So the marriage of convenience came true.’ Ella sat down beside Lee and put an arm around her. ‘I wondered about that. You might find it’s a different story now, Lee.’

  Lee sniffed. ‘All the same, if you could just let him know I’m alive and well. I did write to my grandparents, explaining. I couldn’t seem to do it to their faces. But Damien—’ She broke off, then realised that Ella was making peculiar signals to Hank, as if she was holding an imaginary phone to her ear. She sat up and said fervently. ‘Please don’t ring him in Brisbane. I will get in touch, I promise—when I’m ready.’

  Ella got up when Hank made no move, and picked up the phone. ‘I’m only doing this,’ she told Lee, ‘because I believe it’s the best for you both. I’m not one to sit idly by when my friends are in trouble.’ Then sh
e spoke into the phone and asked to be connected to a Mr Damien Moore.’

  ‘What?’ Lee whispered, and felt a roaring in her ears. ‘No…’

  ‘Damien?’ Ella said into the phone. ‘Could you pop up for a moment, right now? It’s very important. Thanks.’ She put the phone down and said to Lee, ‘He’s right here in this hotel. He came down on the same flight we did because he had a check done on the motels and your car registration came up, although you used a different name. So he would have found you anyway.’

  She stopped as a knock sounded on the door and turned to Hank. ‘That’ll be him. Hank, we’ll go to the concert. Hand me my tiara, please!’ She drew her cloak on.

  Hank got up resignedly. ‘I hope you know what you’re doing, Ella.’

  Ella positioned her tiara, looked at them both regally, then swept out into the foyer.

  Hank shrugged. ‘He was terribly concerned, Lee. The reason we got to know about it was because he thought you might have got in touch with Ella. He was leaving no stone unturned, however unlikely.’

  Not so unlikely, Lee thought. It had crossed her mind to get in touch with Ella…

  ‘I…I…’ she whispered, but Hank was gone and Damien had walked into the room.

  Lee’s first impression was that Ella had got it completely wrong. Rather than welcoming her back, Damien looked murderously angry as he came to stand in front of her in a dark suit and a blue and white striped shirt. He also looked tired, and thinner, with harsh lines scored beside his mouth.

  His first words, as he watched her shrink back into the chair, did nothing to dispel the impression. ‘If you ever do that to me again, Lee, I’ll put you over my knee and spank the living daylights out of you.’

  She gasped.

  ‘Where the hell have you been? And what insane reason prompted you to…simply disappear?’

  ‘I…it…I…’ she stammered. ‘It was the only thing I could think of to do! I just didn’t want to be a…convenient wife any more, tucked away down on the farm while you lived two different lives. I should never have… I always knew you wanted a marriage of convenience, Damien, but you gave me so little choice.’