Wedding Fever

by Lee Wilkinson

  Leaving the theatre on Friday night, after seeing a musical, she found that it was raining. Rather then just stand being jostled by the crowd, she had started to walk down Shaftesbury Avenue, keeping her eye open for a taxi, when she cannoned into a tall, slimly built man hurrying the opposite way.

  The impact made her step back and drop her clutch-bag, which opened, spilling its contents all over the wet pavement.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ the well-dressed stranger apologised, and, stooping, he began to gather up her belongings and drop them back into her bag.

  Thanking him, she admitted, ‘It was my fault. I was trying to find a taxi and not looking where I was going.’ As she spoke she put weight on her right foot and winced.

  ‘Is there something wrong?’ he asked, his voice clear, with a distinctly upper-class accent.

  ‘I’ve just stepped awkwardly and turned my ankle. It’s nothing serious.’

  ‘Can you walk?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’ She took a step to prove it, and winced again.

  His look held concern. ‘Perhaps I’d better give you a lift. My car’s quite close.’

  When she hesitated, he added, ‘You won’t stand much chance of finding a taxi on a night like this.’

  He was young and good-looking, with gold-rimmed glasses and a reassuring air of quiet respectability.

  ‘Well, if it’s not out of your way...’ she said slowly. ‘I’m staying at the Wirral Hotel, near Green Park.’

  ‘I know it. And it’s not out of my way. I have a flat in Curzon Street, and the family home is in Mayfair.’

  ‘Then, thank you. It’s very kind of you.’

  ‘Not at all,’ he said politely, meaninglessly, as he offered her his arm with old-fashioned courtesy. As they began to walk—Raine hobbling slightly—he added, ‘My name’s Kevin ... Kevin Somersby.’

  ‘Raine Marlowe.’

  ‘Raine?’ he echoed blankly.

  ‘Short for Lorraine,’ she explained.

  ‘Oh.’ Judging from his frown, he didn’t approve of shortening names.

  His car was an extension of himself—an expensive, well-polished, rather sober saloon. He handed her in with care, and she found herself thinking that his excellent manners must have been instilled from birth.

  During the short drive they chatted, and it came as no surprise to discover that he worked in the Foreign Office and that his mother was Lady Maude Somersby.

  Though he was handsome, it was in an oddly negative way. His looks didn’t raise her blood pressure one iota, and he was so prosaic that he neither stimulated nor disturbed her. In short, he presented no threat, and she found herself relaxing in his company.

  Having escorted her into the hotel lobby and been duly thanked, he wished her a pleasant goodnight.

  ‘Goodnight...and thank you again.’ Raine offered him her hand.

  He held it for a moment, then asked a shade diffidently, ‘May I call tomorrow to enquire how the ankle is?’

  ‘Of course.’

  He was a very nice, correct young man, she thought as she took the lift up to her room, and the complete antithesis of Nick.

  When Kevin turned up after breakfast next morning, with a dozen long-stemmed roses and an invitation to lunch, she had no hesitation in accepting.

  The lunch-date stretched into the afternoon, and they ended up having dinner and spending the evening together.

  Before leaving her that night, he asked hopefully how long she would be staying in town.

  Telling herself that Nick would surely get the message and go home soon, she answered vaguely, ‘I’m not sure ... probably another day or two.’

  Clearly crestfallen, Kevin rallied to ask, ‘will you come to Manton Square tomorrow for lunch? Mother would like to meet you.’

  Not sure how she could get out of going, and not even sure that she wanted to, Raine answered politely, ‘Thank you, I’d love to.’

  ‘Then I’ll pick you up about twelve.’ Kevin looked relieved, and Raine felt a sudden conviction that the invitation had been issued so that she could be vetted as a suitable companion for Lady Somersby’s only son.

  Such was the case.

  The next day she found herself greeted with the utmost courtesy by a regal lady with a cast-iron hairdo, several strings of pearls and pale eyes like gimlets.

  After an excellent lunch, having been politely but minutely grilled about her background and social standing, Raine was given what was evidently the seal of approval when Lady Somersby suggested that Kevin might take her to see the family portraits.

  The following evening, after a phone call to Martha had reassured her that Nick had returned to the States, Raine told Kevin she would be going home the next day. His obvious disappointment was somewhat alleviated when she added, ‘You’ll be very welcome at White Ladies any time you care to call.’

  ‘Have you a car in town?’ he queried.

  ‘No, I came by train.’

  ‘Then perhaps I could drive you home?’

  ‘That’s very kind of you,’ she said automatically, ‘but won’t you be at your office?’

  ‘I have some days due to me,’ he announced firmly. Raine found herself wondering what her father would think when she arrived home with a strange man in tow. But after some consideration she decided it was the ideal solution. Kevin’s presence would prove that she wasn’t mooning over Nick, and it should help to smooth over what might otherwise have been an uncomfortable homecoming.

  Safe in the knowledge that no matter how vexed he was with her, her father would be polite and pleasant to any guest, she suggested, ‘If you have nothing planned for the evening, perhaps you’ll stay for dinner?’

  Kevin gave her his charming smile. ‘Thank you, I’d like to.’

  From then on he became a constant visitor, and early in the spring, with due ceremony, he proposed to her.

  Raine had seen it coming, and she didn’t need to think about it. With Kevin, everything would be ordered and placid. He would never tear her apart emotionally and leave her bleeding to death. It might not be the most exciting of marriages, but they were happy and comfortable together. They wanted the same things out of life.

  She said yes.

  He bought her a discreet diamond solitaire and they began planning the wedding and their future together. In the following months there were only two things they disagreed on—working wives and where to live.

  Raine wanted to continue with her job, at least for a time, but Kevin proved to be unexpectedly obdurate about it.

  The contentious topics were shelved several times, and then, on Friday evening in September, as they strolled through the garden at White Ladies, Kevin reintroduced them.

  ‘It’s time we came to a decision, old thing,’ he said, and then, almost as though it clinched matters, ‘I have to tell you that Mother strongly disapproves of these modern marriages where the wife keeps working to the detriment of family life. And in any case,’ he continued, ‘my flat is too far away to make commuting every day feasible.’

  ‘I’d rather hoped not to have to leave Dad,’ Raine replied. ‘He’s looked after me ever since Mum died, and I’m all he’s got.’

  Seeing Kevin frown, she added persuasively, ‘There’s a large, self-contained apartment here at White Ladies, and, with your office situated where it is, it wouldn’t be any further for you to travel to work than you’re travelling now.’

  But once again he was adamant. ‘I’ve always felt that a wife should move into her husband’s home, not the other way around.’

  ‘But what would I do all day, cooped up in a London flat?’

  His pale grey eyes looked hurt. ‘I hope we’ll entertain quite a bit when we’re married, and there’s voluntary work and committees and things... Mother will be pleased to help and advise you. And we’ve agreed we want to start a family.’

  She seized on that. ‘Surely a town flat isn’t the ideal place to bring up children?’

  ‘When the time comes we’ll look for a hous
e in the country,’ he promised. ‘Agreed?’

  She nodded, and said reluctantly, ‘Very well. I’ll tell Dad I won’t be going back to work after the wedding.’

  Having got what he wanted, Kevin was willing to be gracious. ‘If you’d like to be close to your father, when we do buy a house we can try to find something within a reasonable distance of White Ladies as well as London.’

  He kissed her cheek. ‘I must go. I’m taking Mother to a charity function in the morning and then on to lunch, but I should be here some time in the afternoon. By the way, we’ll be dining in Lopsley. I’ve booked a table at that new place you said you wanted to try.’

  Disarmed by his thoughtfulness, his attempt to please her, she accompanied him to the door and waved him off.

  The old walled garden was a suntrap. Eyes closed, head pillowed on her discarded woolly, Raine lay flat on her back on the smooth, green expanse of turf in the centre while she waited for her fiancé.

  The late afternoon sun shone redly through her eyelids. She could hear the bees buzzing around the lavender and autumn roses, and smell the various pungent herbs. A baby breeze patted her cheek and ruffled her wispy half-fringe.

  Calib sat on her stomach, blinking sleepily while he contemplated nothing in particular. Applying a pink tongue to a velvet paw, he began to wash leisurely behind one ear.

  His hearing was more acute than his human companion’s, and he looked up and paused in his ablutions a second or two before the door in the high pink-brick wall opened.

  Raine heard the steps cross the crazy-paving path that meandered past the flower-borders, and felt Calib’s easy spring as he abandoned his perch. He always absented himself when Kevin came, determinedly repulsing all his attempts to make friends.

  Her fiancé’s shadow falling over her face momentarily blotted out the sun. Keeping her eyes shut, she murmured a lazy hello, and smiled a little invitation.

  When he sat down beside her and leaned over to let his mouth lightly brush hers, she reached up to put her arms around his neck.

  Rather to her surprise she felt him stretch out beside her. Normally Kevin wasn’t one for lying about on the grass. Even the touch of his lips seemed different. Less deferential. More disturbing. Much more disturbing.

  All thought was suspended as, making her heart start to race with suffocating speed and sending a swift surge of pleasure through her, he deepened the kiss.

  While her entire body sang into life and a core of liquid heat formed in the pit of her stomach he explored her mouth with masterful thoroughness, one hand following the curve of her hip and buttock in a way it had never done before.

  A sudden fear, like the shock of an icy plunge, made her brain click into gear.

  Until now, Nick had been the only man who had ever been able to engender such an urgent and overwhelming response. And she didn’t want to feel this way. It terrified her.

  Stiffening in rejection, she tried to push him away.

  Refusing to be so summarily dismissed, he finished the kiss unhurriedly before lifting his head.

  Raine’s eyes flew open.

  At first, dazzled by the low sun, she could see nothing but brightness. Then she found herself focusing on a lean, sardonic face, with brows and lashes several shades darker than the thick blond hair, and eyes of a deep midnight-blue. A strong-boned, handsome face. No, much more than handsome—a fascinating, compelling face. A face she had taught herself to hate. A face she’d hoped never to see again...

  Panic swept over her as her worst fears were confirmed. ‘You!’ she whispered, jerking upright. Trying to swamp fear with anger, she demanded furiously, ‘What are you doing here? How dare you kiss me like that?’

  A level brow was lifted mockingly. ‘How did you want me to kiss you?’ His mouth, the top lip thin, the bottom one seductive, was much too close for comfort. ‘With more respect and less enthusiasm, as I understand your noble fiancé does?’

  ‘I don’t want you to kiss me at all,’ she hissed at him.

  ‘You did once,’ he reminded her with deliberate cruelty.

  Her mind was suddenly in confusion, beset by memories that returned to her with devastating clarity.

  Calib, who had been watching from a short distance away, came back with a little rush to push between them as, face burning, Raine ignored the goad and demanded, ‘And how do you know how Kevin kisses me?’

  ‘Your father described Kevin Somersby as a minor civil servant—a steady and correct young man.’

  ‘Which you interpreted as dull and inhibited!’

  Rising to his feet in one fluid movement, Nick held out a lean suntanned hand. ‘Was I wrong?’

  ‘Totally wrong! He’s—’ Breaking off the hasty words, she said coldly, ‘I’ve no intention of discussing Kevin with you.’ Carefully avoiding Nick’s outstretched hand, she scrambled to her feet.

  The clamour of her own heartbeat almost deafening her, she busied herself brushing wisps of grass from her grey and white striped cotton shirtwaister.

  Her diamond solitaire flashed in the sun. Aware that his eyes followed it thoughtfully, she asked again, ‘What are you doing here?’

  His healthy white teeth gleamed in a smile. A smile that, like his words, held a subtle threat ‘If the mountain won’t come to Mahomet...’

  Just for an instant both her heart and breathing seemed to stop. She took a long, shuddering breath and asked the first thing that came into her head. ‘Did Dad know you were coming?’

  ‘Yes, he knew. I gather he didn’t tell you?’

  Her green eyes flashed. ‘You probably asked him not to!’

  Neither confirming nor denying the charge, Nick said, ‘I thought it was high time we had a talk.’

  Feeling as though a silken noose was tightening around her throat, she informed him, ‘There’s nothing to talk about. I’m going to be married in a month.’ She spoke the words as though they were a talisman with the power to keep danger at bay.

  ‘Really?’ he drawled.

  ‘Yes, really.’ She strove to sound serene and certain, but all at once she hardly believed it herself. To add substance to the declaration, and aware that her father and Nick corresponded regularly, she added, ‘Surely Dad must have mentioned it?’ And then she knew that of course he had. That was why Nick was here!

  His smile oblique, Nick agreed, ‘Oh, yes, he mentioned it...‘ But he wasn’t very happy about it. The words were as clear as if they’d been spoken aloud. Eyes glinting, Nick went on, ‘However, I gather he doesn’t think too much of your intended.’

  It was the truth and she couldn’t deny it. Angry with both of them, she said sharply, ‘What he thinks of Kevin is nothing to do with you.’

  ‘Oh. I don’t know... Apart from anything else we’re family. Kissing cousins, you might say.’

  When Raine failed to rise to the bait, stooping to stroke Calib, who, purring like a young traction engine, was winding sinuously around Nick’s ankles, he remarked reflectively, ‘Though, apart from just now, it’s almost a year since you last kissed me.’

  Swallowing hard, feeling the past she’d struggled so hard to leave behind closing in on her, Raine denied it. ‘I didn’t kiss you just now.’

  Straightening to his full height of well over six feet, towering over her five feet six inches, he said, ‘Strange. That’s what it felt like.’

  ‘I thought it was Kevin.’

  ‘Well, if he’s able to make you respond so passionately, perhaps your father’s wrong about him being prudish.’

  Though she knew he was trying to provoke her, she couldn’t stop herself saying, ‘Kevin’s not prudish. He just isn’t—’ Breaking off, she continued raggedly, ‘I much prefer romance to...’

  ‘Passion?’ Nick suggested when she faltered. Dark blue eyes holding an expression that could have been contempt, he continued derisively, ‘But of course romance is so much less disturbing than passion—less of a risk. Holding hands, a stroll in the moonlight, a chaste kiss—that doesn’t demand
any real commitment, any great depth of feeling. Everything’s calm and orderly and safe.’

  He was a fine one to talk about commitment, about depth of feeling. Desperately she fought back. ‘If that’s how I want things to be it still has nothing to do with you.’

  ‘Why do you want things to be that way?’

  Because surrendering to passion had almost destroyed her, and she had no intention of ever letting it happen again.

  When, staring blindly at a magnificent display of orange dahlias, she failed to answer Nick’s question, he took her shoulders and made her look at him. ‘Why, Raine? Why do you want things to be calm and orderly and safe? It doesn’t seem to be much of a recipe for marriage. It’s like trying to sail a three-masted schooner on a pond rather than taking it out to sea.’

  She made an attempt to pull herself away and felt a rush of relief when he let her go. ‘Some people get seasick.’

  ‘Kevin, for instance?’

  ‘It suits us both to have a calm, friendly—’

  ‘Friendly! Ye gods ... a platonic marriage.’

  On the defensive, she cried, ‘It won’t be platonic. It just won’t be...’

  ‘Stimulating? Passionate?’

  She sought for a word. ‘Stormy. Neither of us care for an excessive display of emotion.’ Realising just how priggish that had sounded, she flushed and dipped her head, so that the long black hair fell forward, half curtaining her face.

  Nick laughed harshly. ‘Little Lord Fauntleroy can’t have any good red blood in his veins if he’s willing to settle for a tepid relationship like that It seems as if your father was right when he—’

  ‘Dad’s not right. For once in his life he’s prejudiced and—’

  ‘Save your breath,’ Nick broke in softly. ‘It looks as if I’m going to have the opportunity to judge for myself.’

  Kevin was advancing towards them over the grass, and for the first time she noticed that his shoulders were somewhat rounded and that he carried himself with a slight stoop.

  Despite the warmth of the day, and the fact that it was a Saturday, he was conservatively dressed in a suit and tie.