Husband by Arrangement

by Sara Wood

  ‘But they weren’t together for long,’ she whispered, her throat choked with tears. And she likened her father’s brief moments of love with her own.

  ‘No.’ Dexter kissed her forehead and drew her deeper into the circle of his arms. ‘It all went wrong when your father sent Mother a note, asking her to meet him on Yellowhouse Beach.’

  ‘And?’ she asked, hardly breathing.

  Dex sighed. ‘I was there when Grandmama found the note and showed it to my father. He told your mother and they went to the beach to confront the lovers. Apparently there was a terrible row.’

  ‘I was fishing with a friend that day,’ she remembered. When she’d returned, it had been to a terrible atmosphere. Her weeping grandfather had told her that her parents were dead. Soon after they’d packed their bags and left. Her head lifted and she looked at Dex. ‘I didn’t see you at all. Where were you?’

  She felt every muscle in his body tighten. His grip was uncomfortable but she didn’t say a word. Within the deep cavity of his chest, his heart had begun to thunder. She waited, patiently, apprehensively.

  ‘I was in the garden, cutting—ironically—a split branch on the Judas tree. I could hear this peculiar revving of engines. Then two cars came careering up the narrow track towards me.’

  ‘Our parents?’ she hazarded.

  His mouth was bitter. ‘Yes. But not together. Your father was driving the first car, with my mother in the passenger seat. The others were following in hot pursuit.’

  ‘Oh, Dex!’ she breathed.

  His voice grew very soft. ‘I could hear your mother shouting, egging my father to overtake the first car. Their wheels touched. And they crashed.’

  ‘You saw it!’ she gasped in horror.

  ‘I got to them before anyone else,’ he agreed, his tone brittle and thin. ‘Your father was still alive. Just. It was obvious that…that everyone else was dead. I went to him. He said…’ His voice broke.

  Maddy’s eyes squeezed tight shut as she felt his pain. And visualised her beloved father. The tears streamed down her cheeks.

  ‘Go on,’ she begged.

  Dex stroked her hair gently. ‘He was desperate to tell me what they’d intended. You see, Maddy, he and my mother had been coming back for us. There had been an argument between them all, over who should have custody of you and me. My mother couldn’t bear to be without me. Your father desperately wanted you. He said…he said, “Tell Maddy I love her with all my heart.”’ He bowed his head. ‘But because your grandfather kept you away from me from that moment on I never got the chance.’

  She cried as though her heart would break. And yet it was a cathartic release. Her father hadn’t abandoned her after all. A huge weight had lifted from her shoulders.

  Dexter’s voice sounded soft and husky close to her ear. ‘They died because they wanted us, Maddy. I can’t tell you how I felt. Because she couldn’t bear to be without me, my mother died. And for all these years I’ve felt a crucifying guilt. They could have slipped away and still be alive. Our parents would have divorced, but we would not have been deprived of them at such a young age. And—’ he sighed ‘—I wouldn’t have harboured such a terrible hatred towards my grandmother,’ he added bitterly.

  ‘Why would you hate her?’ she asked, puzzled.

  ‘Because she could have screwed up that note and let my mother handle her own life, instead of interfering. I know that Mother would have broken it gently to my father. She would have found a kind, less traumatic way of saying that she wasn’t in love with him any more. Instead, he found out in the worst possible way. At the time, of course, I was beside myself with grief and shock. I told Grandmama that she’d as good as killed my mother with her own bare hands.’

  ‘Oh, how awful for you both!’ Maddy murmured in sympathy.

  He sighed heavily. ‘I must have hurt her badly. Your grandfather was furious with her, too. And he hated my mother for luring your father away, as he said at the time, with her wicked feminine wiles.’

  Maddy eased herself from Dexter, her tears drying on her cheeks. He needed reassurance, and because she loved him she tried hard to find the right words.

  ‘It was an accident,’ she said gently, and it was her turn to stroke his frowning brow and to offer comfort. ‘A tragic accident. Nothing else. You weren’t to blame. You must know that now.’

  ‘I always did, really,’ he said in a low tone. ‘But I still felt the guilt.’

  She nodded and held his hand in hers. ‘So you ran away. You punished yourself,’ she told him. ‘And your grandmother.’

  ‘I realise that,’ he said quietly.

  ‘She has very strong moral values. She must have been faced with an awful dilemma when she found that note. Don’t blame her, Dex. Or yourself. We can console ourselves with the fact that each one of our parents must have loved us very much to have been so desperate to get to us first and claim custody.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said huskily. ‘I suppose you’re right. Thank you, Maddy.’

  She was silent for a moment. And then, ‘I’m glad I know everything now. There’s just one thing that bothers me. I can’t understand why my grandfather didn’t tell me what had happened,’ she said, frowning.

  ‘You must ask him,’ Dexter said in a gravelly voice thick with emotion. ‘Perhaps he was too upset to speak of it. Old tyrant though he was, he genuinely adored your father more than anything and anyone in the world. And perhaps he felt he couldn’t explain the facts to an eleven-year-old girl. The least said the better. He was never good with feelings, was he?’

  She nodded, realising now that maybe her grandfather’s cold, stern appearance had hidden a wealth of misery. He’d suffered greatly but he didn’t know how to show emotion, it was true.

  It was growing dark. She had what she’d come for. Stiffly they got up from the bench and made their way back to the car. On the silent journey back she thought of the tortured note in Dex’s voice when he’d told her about the crash.

  And when they arrived at the cottage they undressed by candlelight and went straight to bed, just hugging one another.

  In the early hours, she woke to find that he was watching her. She shuddered at the tenderness in his eyes. His warm smile seemed to enfold her in its protection and she smiled hesitantly back, knowing this would be her last day.

  Dexter began to drop tiny, feather-light kisses on her forehead. She closed her eyes and felt his mouth moving over her face, inch by inch, as if they had all the time in the world.

  It seemed she was in a dream, a slowly building vortex of sensation, as his mouth and hands worked gentle, insistent magic on her flowering body.

  I love you, she thought to herself, experiencing the deep and whisperingly tantalising luxury of the silky slide of his skin against hers.

  Drawing in a long gasp of sheer indulgent delight, she almost blurted out the truth of her love when he kissed her breasts.

  But she dared not because of the pain that would bring.

  I will remember this for ever, she told herself. And touched every part of him. Kissed him all over. Smelt his skin, inhaling his glorious maleness, tasted him and grew delirious under the constant, murmured onslaught of his throaty voice which was describing how he felt when he touched her.

  Almost in slow motion they united, taking every ounce of long-drawn-out pleasure in one another.

  The tenderness of their loving blew her away. She was incoherent with love and pain and the sight of his beautiful face moist with tears. He kept her on the peak of ecstasy for so long that she thought her body would disintegrate. And then, with impassioned cries and deep, bone-shaking shudders, they gradually came to rest.

  Sated, she lay without moving, her lashes wet and dark as one or two silver droplets squeezed from her heavily lidded eyes.

  ‘Maddy,’ he whispered.

  ‘Mmm,’ was all she could manage.

  ‘I want you to stay.’

  If she’d had any energy whatsoever, she would have gasped and jerked
up. However, she opened her eyes wide to see that he was perfectly serious. A terrible anguish careered unstoppably through her.

  ‘I can’t,’ she grated. ‘Grandpa.’

  ‘Would he come here to live?’ Dex asked gently.

  ‘Like a shot!’ she mumbled. ‘He is miserable in England. Loves the warmth here. But—’

  His finger pressed firmly on her lips, preventing her weary mouth from moving.

  ‘And…would you marry me, Maddy?’ he asked.

  Stricken with terrible pain, she turned her head away, but he brought it back so that she was forced to look at his brightly gleaming eyes.

  ‘Don’t tease me,’ she muttered. ‘You said you didn’t want to get married.’

  ‘I know.’ His arms enfolded her. ‘You’re tired. Forget what I said. Sleep.’

  Forget! If she ever could! He’d joked about something that meant the world to her…to marry him…would be…it would…

  Her exhausted brain and body gave up. And she fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

  The morning sun blazed into the bedroom, waking her and causing her to groan and put her head under the bedclothes.

  ‘Coffee.’

  Loathing the brisk sound of Dexter’s voice, she shouted, ‘Go away!’ in a muffled tone.

  The clothes were ruthlessly stripped away, leaving her naked and vulnerable, the warm sun giving her body a golden sheen.

  ‘Coffee,’ he said again, but this time he sounded decidedly shaky.

  ‘Why?’ she scowled, glaring at his denim-clad thighs.

  ‘Because I want you alert and attentive,’ he said bossily, hauling her up and patting pillows behind her like a demented nurse in a black and white war film.

  ‘Why?’ she mumbled limply.

  ‘Drink.’

  She looked at him suspiciously from under her sulkily lowered brows and took in the clean white T-shirt and general aura of someone who’d been washed and dressed for hours and intended everyone else to be perky too.

  ‘There’s arsenic in it?’

  ‘Ambrosia,’ he corrected with a grin. ‘Now, get it down you or I’m coming at you with a nice enema.’

  ‘Brute,’ she muttered. But sipped the coffee. ‘Yuck!’ she rasped as the caffeine galvanised her bloodstream. ‘How many spoons did you put in this?’

  ‘I lost count,’ he said airily. ‘Finish.’

  ‘I’ve finished, I’ve finished!’ she protested.

  ‘Marry me,’ he said, fixing her solemnly with his molten-tar eyes.

  Her heart lurched. Not again. He had no idea how cruel he was being.

  ‘I can’t!’ she wailed in a cracked voice.

  ‘Maddy.’ He sat on the bed, his expression serious. ‘Are you uncertain that I’m ready for commitment?’

  ‘You said you didn’t want to marry,’ she reminded him croakily.

  ‘Yes. That’s what I want to explain. The reason I didn’t want to marry anyone was because I’ve been married before.’

  The wind was taken out of her sails. A small ‘Oh!’ was all that emerged. There was a long silence. Eventually she broke it. ‘Tell me about her,’ she whispered.

  He sucked in a long, ragged breath. ‘Her name was Luisa,’ he said softly. ‘She was a gentle and sweet kind of person, just what I needed to soothe me. With her I felt calm, instead of ravaged by guilt and self-recrimination. Her placid nature eased my pain.’

  ‘That’s nice,’ Maddy mumbled, fighting the hurt, the jealousy. She was glad that Dexter had found solace. And wished it had been her.

  He shifted his position a little, his expression far-away.

  ‘We married,’ he said simply. ‘Gradually the nightmare visions of the accident began to recede. I hunted plants and returned to a quiet and patient wife. When she became pregnant I thought I had everything I wanted. I’d lost my family—but I could create my own.’

  Maddy listened, barely breathing. Something about his sad eyes told her that this would not end happily. She realised that she loved him so dearly that she wouldn’t even have minded if he was still married if that gave him joy. But instinctively she knew the relationship had foundered. And her heart bled for him.

  ‘Go on,’ she whispered tenderly.

  He took her hand. Turned it over. Stroked the care-worn palm and kissed it, his face infinitely sad. ‘She caught dengue fever, Maddy. She died, taking our unborn child with her.’

  ‘Oh, Dex!’ She held him tightly, aching for him.

  ‘The shock was too much for me,’ he admitted. ‘I went to pieces for a while. From then on I vowed not to love anyone ever again, because every time I did they were snatched from me. And it hurt too much. Nearly destroyed me. But my heart hasn’t listened to my head,’ he said with a rueful smile. ‘You have brought me back to life again, Maddy. I have fallen in love with you so deeply that I know I will never claw my way back to sanity again. I have fought this every inch of the way but perhaps I was always searching for someone like you. Gentle and caring, knowing when to be silent—and vital and vivid, laughing and happy, dazzling the world and making it a brighter place. I want to father your children. I want us to be a family. This is a big thing for me to do, Maddy, to ask you to be my wife. Commitment is scary because it makes you vulnerable. But I think I have seen love in your eyes. Last night was too sweet and profound for your feelings to be anything else. So marry me, Maddy. I love you and I always will.’

  She felt utterly tormented by the hope in his eyes. He had set his emotions free after years of restraint. And now she was going to deal him a bitter blow. Her pain for him was even deeper than her own.

  ‘You…you want us to have children—’ she began hesitantly, floundering for a way to let him down gently.

  ‘Oh, yes!’ he cried enthusiastically. ‘A rugby team, don’t you think?’ He laughed. ‘And a netball team to even things up. No one ever accused me of discrimination.’

  There was a terrible silence which grew longer and longer. The tension between them seemed as taut as a drum.

  ‘Maddy?’ he croaked, his face slowly, horribly, sagging.

  ‘I can’t tell you how sorry I am,’ she said in a hoarse whisper. ‘I wouldn’t hurt you for the world. I—I admire you. We…we’ve had such fun together…’

  ‘But,’ he growled harshly.

  She swallowed back the lump of emotion, knowing she shouldn’t drag this out any more.

  ‘Forgive me. I won’t marry you, Dex.’

  His gasp ripped through her as if he’d slashed her with a knife. He dropped her hand.

  ‘Because you think I’m not rich?’ he asked in a malevolent snarl.

  She winced, her stomach churning with nausea. Where did she start to explain? Should she? She hesitated. And then knew she had to tell him the truth. Even though they’d never be together, she didn’t want him to think it was because she cared about money.

  ‘Dex, I know you must be in debt,’ she began gently.

  But he had stormed from the room before she could say it didn’t matter, it wasn’t the lack of money at all. Stunned, she heard the door slam. The car screech into gear. The scream of a careless acceleration.

  And then…silence.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  ALL day she waited. But he didn’t return. Afraid to leave the cottage in case he came back when she wasn’t there, she hung around, unable to settle to anything.

  The next morning she walked to the site, but no one had seen him. Her heart in her mouth, she hurried back, intending to pack her clothes and somehow get herself to the main road. Perhaps one of the men would take pity on her and give her a lift to the airport. There was no point in staying. No sense in painful goodbyes.

  However, from the hill, she saw a strange car parked outside the cottage.

  ‘Dex!’ she whispered, her heart thudding, spirits soaring. She raced down the hill, panting and moaning in her desperation to see him, to explain…

  And when she flung open the door, flushed and bright-eyed, her disappoin
tment at seeing only Sofia was so keen that she had to clutch at her chest to ease the pain.

  ‘Is Dex with you?’ she cried frantically.

  ‘No, he’s… My dear! Whatever is the matter?’

  ‘He’s disappeared! We had a row and he—he—he’s gone!’ she sobbed, flinging herself into the older woman’s arms. ‘And I love him so much and I have to tell him why I can’t marry him—’

  ‘Slow down, slow down, Maddy!’ Sofia cautioned affectionately.

  ‘You must know where he is! Please tell me,’ she begged. ‘He’s the whole world to me, but I can’t be his wife. He has to see that and then he won’t be so hurt—’

  ‘Why can’t you marry him, child?’ Sofia asked in a soothing tone.

  ‘Because I had an infection ten years ago and I can’t have ch-ch-children!’ Maddy wailed.

  Behind her, the door closed very gently.

  She whirled around, face swollen with tears, to see Dex. His eyes were very tender and loving and her heart seemed to break with misery.

  ‘Maddy,’ he reproached shakily, ‘did you think I cared so little for you? I can’t deny that I would love to have children. But it’s you I want to marry. I want you above everything in the world.’ His eyes softened at her confusion. ‘And if you want to know why I came back, Grandmama persuaded me. I went to her with my tale of woe and raged up and down for a while before she asked me a simple question. Had I actually established why you wouldn’t marry me? Because she thinks I’m poor, I told her. And she said that was rubbish and you didn’t care about money. I’ve been such a fool!’ he cried. ‘I should have known that! But I was too wrapped up in my own aching heart. Now I discover that you were trying to protect me from a childless future. Well, I’ll take you as you are.’ He grinned lopsidedly. ‘Flaws and all. They’ll complement mine. So now I’m asking you again.’ He knelt on the floor and looked up at her with melting hope. ‘Please, Maddy. Make my life complete. Be my wife.’

  Her knuckles went to her mouth and she couldn’t speak. But the lights in her eyes danced.