His Reluctant Bride

by Sara Craven

  Nor had he been angry enough to call off the marriage. And for Monteagle’s sake she should be thankful for that.

  She pushed her tangled hair back from her face and walked slowly to the door.

  It might be politic to make some kind of amends, however. Not go to the lengths of an apology, of course. But perhaps if she prepared his room herself—put flowers in it?

  She got sheets and pillowcases from the linen cupboard and carried them to the room he’d used briefly before. She opened a window to let in the sunlight and the faint breeze, wrinkling her nose at the sound of the building work, then quickly made up the bed, the pillows plumped and the sheets immaculately smooth.

  She was coming back from the garden, her hands full of roses, when as she rounded the house she heard Alan Graham say, ‘What are you going to do about Angeline Vallon?’

  Helen halted, puzzled, then realised his voice was coming from the open window of her grandfather’s study, just above her head.

  Marc, she thought, shrinking against the cover of the wall. He must be talking to Marc. And felt her whole body tense.

  She strained her ears, but couldn’t catch the quietly spoken reply.

  Then the other man spoke again. ‘Marc—she’s not a problem that will simply vanish. And she’s bound to have heard by now that you’re to be married. There could be trouble.’ He paused. ‘And your fiancée might find out.’

  ‘Then I shall take care she does not.’ Marc must have come to the window too, because, for her sins, she could hear him clearly now. And regretted it with all her heart.

  ‘You worry too much, mon ami,’ he went on. ‘I will deal with Angeline—and that jealous fool she is married to if I have to. And Hélène need know nothing.’

  Helen felt frozen. She was terrified in case Marc glanced down and saw her there below—eavesdropping —and knew she could not risk staying where she was a moment longer. Besides, she couldn’t stand to hear any more.

  I ought to be glad that there’s another woman in his life. Relieved that our marriage is of such little importance to him, she told herself brokenly. But I’m not—I’m not …

  Slowly and carefully, she tiptoed back to the house, pausing only to thrust the roses into one of the bins by the back door.

  Some of the thorns, she saw, had drawn blood from her hands. But what she’d just overheard seemed to be draining the blood from her heart.

  Because she realised she could never let him see how much this painfully acquired secret knowledge was hurting her. Nor dared she ask herself why this should be so. Her instinct told her that the answer she sought might be beyond all bearing.

  The dress wasn’t white, Helen told herself defensively. It was ivory. A major difference when it came to symbolism. But it was still her wedding dress, and in little more than an hour she would wear it as she stood in Aldenford registry office and became Marc Delaroche’s wife.

  Time had run out at last, and she was frightened.

  Her hair, which had been skilfully layered and highlighted, framed a face that looked pale and strained in spite of the best efforts of the beautician who’d just left.

  Also reflected in her mirror was the set of elegant matching luggage on the bed, containing the trousseau that Lottie, once she’d become convinced that Helen would not turn back from her chosen course, had relentlessly forced her into buying.

  Including, of course, this slim-fitting dress in heavy silk. The skirt reached just below her knees, and the bodice was cut square across her breasts with slender shoestring straps, now hidden discreetly under the matching jacket, waist-length, mandarin-collared, and fastened with a dozen or more tiny silk-covered buttons.

  It was beautiful, thought Helen, and in truth she hadn’t needed much persuading to buy it.

  Lottie had approved of the evening and cocktail dresses, the casual day clothes and beachwear that Helen had reluctantly selected.

  ‘Don’t be such a Puritan,’ she’d urged. ‘You’re marrying a multimillionaire and going on honeymoon to one of the smartest resorts on the Riviera. Marc will expect you to dress—and undress—accordingly.’

  ‘Why are you on his side all of a sudden?’ Helen had asked, flushing.

  ‘I’m on your side.’ Lottie had given her a swift hug. ‘Which is why I’m determined that you’ll do yourself credit.’

  She’d pulled a face at Helen’s choice of lingerie, in crisp white cotton and broderie anglais, and raised her eyebrows at the nightgowns too, demurely simple in pale silk, and cut severely on the bias.

  ‘Expecting fire to break out?’ she’d teased, probably puzzled that there was no lace, no chiffon. Nothing sheer or overtly sexy.

  But for that, thought Helen, wincing, Marc had someone else.

  Even if she hadn’t heard that betraying snatch of conversation she would have guessed as much by now. Because since those brief delirious moments she’d spent in his arms, and their angry aftermath, Marc had not made the slightest attempt to be alone with her, or to touch her—apart from a formal brush of his lips across her cheek on greeting or leavetaking. And sometimes not even that.

  Nor had he spent a single night at Monteagle in the room she’d made ready for him, choosing instead, on his flying visits, to stay with Alan and Susan Graham at Lapwing Cottage.

  But that would end tonight. In a matter of hours they would be alone together in a starlit room overlooking the Mediterranean. And she supposed that in spite of the coldness between them he’d expect her to share his bed, submit to whatever demands he made of her.

  Although that same chill might spare her the seductive persuasion he’d used the last time she was in his arms. There had been little defence she’d been able to summon against that, she thought, her throat tightening as she recalled her body’s naïve response—and his almost amused rejection.

  But tonight she would be on her guard, fighting ice with ice.

  For the sake of her emotional sanity she had to try, anyway. Because this was the price she had to pay for Monteagle, and there was no escaping it.

  Unless Marc himself let her go. And she could always hope—couldn’t she?

  Helen was shocked to find the parish church full as she walked up the aisle, her hand reluctantly in Marc’s.

  A lot of people were there, she knew, because they were simply curious to take a look at the French millionaire who’d swept young Helen Frayne off her feet. Probably quite a few were disappointed because she wasn’t wearing a white crinoline with a veil. But the majority had just come to wish her well. She could feel the waves of goodwill rolling towards her as she stood at the altar with her bridegroom, and she felt the colour deepen in her face.

  Oh, God, she thought. The blushing bride. What a cliché.

  She wanted to turn and tell them, Don’t be fooled. I’m a total fraud and this marriage is strictly business.

  Up to that moment things had passed almost in a blur. The formal phrases uttered by the registrar in Aldenford a short while before had hardly impinged on her consciousness. But now the gleam of Marc’s wedding ring on her hand was a cogent reminder that the deed was done.

  She was aware that Marc had turned slightly to look at her, and kept her own gaze trained on Jeff Lowell’s kind face. She didn’t want to see what might or might not be in her new husband’s eyes.

  When they’d met at the registrar’s office, he had told her quietly that she looked very beautiful. He looked amazing too, she thought with a pang, the elegant dark suit doing more than justice to his tall, lean body. But naturally she hadn’t said so. Instead she’d thanked him with equal politeness for the cream and yellow roses he’d sent her.

  She’d been aware of Lottie looking anxious, and of Alan Graham’s tight smile as they stepped forward to act as witnesses for the brief ceremony.

  Now she stood taut as wire, the Vicar’s serious words on God’s gift of love reaching her from some far distance. She found herself wondering what he meant—questioning what relevance his words bore to her confuse
d and panic-stricken situation.

  This is wrong, she thought, her throat tightening. What we’re doing is so wrong …

  She knelt at Marc’s side to receive the blessing, and realised with surprise that he had made the sign of the cross as it was pronounced.

  As they rose, Marc took her hand and turned her towards him. He said quietly, ‘Ma femme.’

  She knew he was going to kiss her, and that this time there could be no protest or evasion. Silently she raised her mouth to his, allowing his lips to possess hers with a warm and lingering tenderness she had not expected. And if she did not respond he was the only one who knew it.

  At the same time Helen was aware of a faint stir in the congregation. No doubt they were pleased to see the romantic myth fulfilled, she thought, torn between irony and bleakness.

  Still clasping her hand, Marc led her down the aisle, courteously acknowledging the congratulations and good wishes from all sides.

  And then Helen, halfway to the sunlit doorway, understood the reason for that sudden restlessness behind them. Because Nigel was there, leaning against the wall at the back, smiling thinly as he watched them approach.

  For a moment she thought she was having a hallucination—a waking nightmare. Because he was the last person she wanted to see—and what was he doing there, anyway? What could he possibly want?

  She cast a fleeting glance up at Marc and saw his face become a coolly smiling mask just as his fingers tightened round hers.

  Their car was waiting at the lych gate to take them to the airport, and suddenly she wanted to run to it. To be inside it and away without any further leavetaking or good wishes from anyone.

  But there was no chance of that. People were pouring out of the church around them, and a lot had cards and lucky silver horseshoes to bestow, while even more seemed to have cameras.

  Helen stood, smiling composedly until her facial muscles felt stiff. At some moment Marc must have relinquished her hand, because they’d become separated. Looking round for him, she saw he was standing a few yards away with Alan, enigmatically receiving rowdy advice from some of the local men.

  ‘Do I get to kiss the bride?’ Nigel’s voice beside her was soft and insinuating, but the arms that pulled her into his embrace held no gentleness. Nor was there any kiss. Instead, his cheek pressed against hers in a parody of a caress as he whispered into her ear, ‘If the conversation flags tonight, sweetie, why not ask him about Angeline Vallon? And see if he tells you.’

  She pulled herself free, pain slashing at her. I don’t need to ask, she wanted to scream at him. I already know.

  But Nigel had already gone, melting into the laughing crowd.

  Instead, she saw Marc coming towards her, his face granite-hard.

  He said curtly, ‘I think it is time we left, Hélène. Allons. ‘

  And silently, shakily, she obeyed.

  Their silence during the ride to the airport had continued during the flight to the South of France.

  Marc had apologised briefly for having work to do. ‘But once it is completed I shall be able to devote myself to you,’ he’d added, slanting a coolly sardonic smile at her before becoming immersed in papers from his briefcase.

  Helen’s heart had lurched uneasily, but she’d made no reply. Instead she sipped the champagne she was offered, and stared out of the window.

  The flight should have provided some kind of respite from the stress of the day, but not when the name Angeline Vallon was buzzing in her brain.

  The fact that she was Marc’s current mistress must be common knowledge if Nigel was aware of it. Common sense suggested that she should confront her husband on the subject, letting him know she was not the innocent dupe he clearly imagined.

  Yet some instinct told her that she had reached a threshold she should not cross. After all, Marc had never promised to be faithful, she reminded herself painfully. And it might even make her life easier if his physical demands were being satisfied elsewhere and she became simply his official wife, to be produced in public when required and left to her own devices in the country at all other times.

  All she really needed was—somehow—to make her life bearable again.

  Although her immediate concern, she realised, dry-mouthed, was to get through the week ahead of her—and particularly the next twelve hours of it.

  She sat tensely beside Marc in the back of the chauffeur-driven car which had met them at the airport. It was already sunset, and lights were coming on all along the Promenade des Sables at St Benoit Plage, illuminating the marina, with its plethora of expensive yachts, and the up-market boutiques, bars and cafés that lined the other side of the thoroughfare.

  Behind the promenade terraces of houses rose steeply to be crowned by a floodlit pale pink building with a dome, which Helen thought was a church until Marc informed her with faint amusement that it was the town’s casino.

  ‘Would you care to go there one evening?’ he asked. ‘There is an excellent restaurant, and you could try your luck at the tables.’

  ‘Thank you, but, no,’ she refused curtly. ‘My father was the gambler of the family. I don’t want to follow in his footsteps.’

  He shrugged slightly. ‘As you wish,’ he returned. ‘Then I shall go alone.’

  The Villa Mirage occupied its headland in splendid isolation and was reached by a narrow snaking road. It was large and rambling, built on two storeys, and surrounded by a broad terrace at ground level. The first floor rooms were served by communal balconies, each with a flight of steps that led down to the luxuriant gardens, and bougainvillaea tumbled over the white walls.

  In other circumstances she’d have been entranced. Now she was just scared.

  The owners, Thierry and Nicole Lamande, were abroad on an extended business trip, Marc had told her, and they would be looked after by the staff, Gaston and Elise.

  ‘I hope,’ he’d added ironically, ‘that you will not find it too secluded.’

  Gaston turned out to be a taciturn man with a grave smile—in direct contrast to his wife, who was small and ebullient with a mass of greying hair. Chattering volubly, she conducted Helen upstairs to a large room at the back of the house, overlooking the swimming pool, with its own dressing room and elegantly appointed bathroom.

  Gaston followed with her luggage, but, to her surprise, Helen realized that Marc’s bags, brought up by the chauffeur, were being placed in an identical room just across the passage. And presumably by Marc’s own order.

  So the immediate pressure seemed to be off, she thought, suppressing a gasp of relief.

  All the same, she tried to ignore the wide bed, with its immaculate white-embroidered linen, as she walked across to the long windows that led to the balcony and opened the shutters. The air was warm and still, carrying a faint fragrance of lavender from one of the local flower farms, while the rasp of cicadas filled the gathering dusk.

  She took a long, luxurious breath, trying to calm herself. ‘It’s going to be all right,’ she whispered. ‘Everything’s going to be fine.’

  She turned to re-enter the bedroom, and halted with a stifled cry. Because Marc was there, leaning in the doorway, arms folded as he watched her.

  She said unevenly, ‘You—you startled me.’

  ‘You seem easily alarmed, ma mie.’ His mouth twisting derisively, he came forward into the room. ‘I have only been asked to say that our dinner will be ready in twenty minutes.’

  ‘Oh,’ she said, trying to sound pleased when she’d never felt less hungry in her life. ‘Then I’ll come down.’ She turned away, beginning to fumble with the little satin-covered buttons on her jacket, trying to drag them free from their loops.

  ‘Be careful,’ he said. ‘Or they will tear.’ He walked over to her and removed her shaking hands from their task, dealing with the fastenings himself, deftly and impersonally.

  She’d planned to take the jacket off, of course, but she felt absurdly self-conscious as she slipped it from her shoulders—as if, she thought, she was su
ddenly naked under his inscrutable dark gaze.

  ‘Your dress is charming,’ he said, after a pause that seemed to Helen’s overwrought senses to have lasted fractionally too long. ‘Perhaps we should give a party when we return to England, so that all your friends in the village can admire its true glory. What do you think?’

  She shrugged as she walked past him towards the door. ‘I’m sure people will want to see how the house is progressing, anyway,’ she returned quietly. ‘But won’t you find a village party rather boring?’

  His brows lifted. ‘With you beside me, cherie?’ he asked mockingly. ‘Impossible. Now, let us go and eat our wedding supper.’

  A table had been set for them under an awning on the terrace, bright with tiny bowls of scented flowers and candles in little glass shades. Gaston brought Helen the dry white wine she’d asked for, while Marc drank Ricard.

  The food was wonderful, even though Helen was fully aware she was not doing it justice. A delicately flavoured vegetable terrine was followed by poached sole, then tiny chickens simmered in wine and grapes. After the cheese came milles-feuilles, thick with liqueur-flavoured cream.

  Helen was sparing with the excellent Chablis offered with the meal, and, to Marc’s open amusement, resolutely refused the brandy that arrived with the tall silver coffeepot.

  ‘Afraid that it will send you to sleep again, ma chère?’ His brows lifted. ‘I promise it will not.’

  Her heart lurched. ‘Did Elise do all of this?’ she asked, keen to change the subject. ‘She’s a miraculous cook.’

  ‘A lot of people would agree.’ He smiled faintly. ‘And many attempts have been made to lure her away, but she remains faithful to Thierry and Nicole.’

  She said stiltedly, ‘It was kind of them to lend you this beautiful house.’

  ‘And I am sorry we have only a week, instead of the month they offered,’ he returned. ‘But it may be that we can go on a longer trip later in the year—to the Caribbean, perhaps, or the Pacific islands.’ He paused. ‘Would you like that?’

  She didn’t look at him. ‘It—it sounds wonderful.’