The Accidental Bride (Black Lace)

by Portia Da Costa

  ‘If he’s twelve, yes, it’s possible. But we used condoms.’ John ran his hand through his hair, making it look even more like Charlie’s flaxen curls than ever. He was still in a kind of shock, more perplexed than she’d ever seen him, yet trying to keep it together. For her sake, bless him.

  Their conversation after the folly came back to her. ‘Could there have been an exploding one?’ The night was quite warm, and she wore pyjamas and a robe, but she still shivered.

  A spasm of pain crossed John’s face. It was as if there were words he didn’t want to utter. ‘It’s … It’s possible. We had a lot of sex at that time. A helluva lot. We fucked like rabbits. There might have been a torn condom I never noticed.’ Eyes like broken blue stars, he reached for her hand. ‘I’m so sorry, love.’

  His skin actually felt cold, and Lizzie raised his hand to her lips, kissing it as if they might warm him. ‘You don’t have to apologise to me. You loved her. You thought you were going to be together. You didn’t even know I existed then. And even if you had done, I’d only have been a kid at the time.’ She kissed his hand again. ‘What I can’t understand is, why, if she was pregnant and she knew it was your child, did she still go ahead and marry Robson Hertingstall? If she’d cared at all for you, she should have married you.’

  John’s face twisted. Bitterness, a hotter emotion this time, but again, almost visibly, he quelled it and shrugged. ‘At the time, he was the better prospect, and who knows, she may have cared for him just as much. Perhaps more. And to keep him she had to pretend the child was his.’

  ‘Oh, this’s such a mess,’ Lizzie blurted out, then wished she hadn’t. John was having the crappiest time of it already. But still, this was crappy for her too. Too crappy to keep inside and play the martyr.

  The evening had made martyrs of the pair of them. Dinner had been a nightmare papered over with polite sociability. The only bright spot had been Charlie himself. Whatever his parentage, and his complications, he seemed uncomplicated, a sweet and amiable personality. Miraculously, given his mother’s history, he was a golden child: funny, but with good manners, and smart. Remarkably grounded for his young age, he seemed unscarred by his mother’s flighty procession of men and marriages.

  He’s probably turned out well because he’s John’s. He’s got his father’s strength; it’s in the genes.

  That thought had pretty much extinguished Lizzie’s appetite, and she was sure that everyone around the table, with the possible exception of Clara, had been grateful for Charlie’s engaging chatter about his summer spent at Robson Hertingstall’s English racing and thoroughbred breeding stables.

  His mother seemed to be enjoying a quiet, understated satisfaction from the hand grenade she’d thrown into everybody’s weekend.

  Clara’s unwitting bombshell, the boy who could be John’s son, obviously loved the outdoor life, and horses. He’d been spending a lot of time at the establishment near Newmarket during the holidays, rather than in South America with his mother, or visiting his ‘father’ in the States, or even seeing his grandmother, Caroline. To Lizzie, it seemed a slightly strange carry-on, but it didn’t appear to have done Charlie any harm. Clearly, he’d been well looked after by the stable manager and trainer there, Arthur Something or other, and the housekeeper who took care of him.

  In fact, it was all Arthur this, and Arthur that, and very little mention of the man he believed to be his real father. And no mention of the Conde Sanchez de la Villareal, his step-father.

  Charlie’s cheerful enthusiasm for horses – and Arthur – coupled with his unabashed opinions on television, music and computer games had just about made the meal bearable. Things might have been better if Tom and Brent had joined them, but the duo were no doubt blissfully unaware of what was going on, and under the impression that John and Lizzie would be having a lovely ‘wedding’ talk over dinner with the Marchioness.

  As for the Marquess, Lizzie had a shrewd feeling that he hadn’t even been told that Clara was at Montcalm. She’d heard John and his mother talking in hushed tones, and she wondered if they’d decided not to upset the old man with potentially disruptive news.

  ‘Yes, it is a mess, alas,’ said John, softly. ‘I don’t know what her object is in bringing him here, but I have an awful feeling it’s to use him as leverage, goddamn her. To get me back, now that she’s made a mess of things with her Argentine count.’ He sighed, a low, plangent sound that seemed to come from the very pit of his soul. ‘If he is my son, she probably believes he’s her trump card.’

  Lizzie wanted to shout and scream and break things, but that was no answer. She drew in her own deep breaths, scrabbling for calm, and to stop her mind running in circles.

  But the truth was, she could see things with crystal clarity.

  Clara did want John back. He was the good prospect now. Probably richer than either of her husbands, and … well … he was John, so beautiful, urbane and sexy. Was Clara playing on the horrible possibility, the suspicion that Lizzie kept squashing and squashing, but which could not be dealt with swiftly and cleanly like that sticking plaster?

  The possibility that, despite everything, John had never completely been able to expunge his feelings for his first love.

  He’s my perfect man, you bitch. But I suppose you think you can sweep in and take him … because you’re the mother of his son.

  Despite her attempts to hold it together, Lizzie’s eyes misted. John’s glance shot to her face when she dashed at the gathering tears and sat up straight, her spine stiff.

  With a growl, he lunged forward and grabbed her in his arms. ‘I love you, Lizzie. I love you completely. And whatever she has to say, I’m yours now. That’s set in stone. It can’t change.’ His blue gaze seemed to bore into her like a laser. ‘I have no feelings whatsoever any more for Clara. Nothing. Nada.’

  ‘But what about Charlie?’ muttered Lizzie into his shoulder. Agonised, she thought of her own parents and the rough patch they’d once gone through; marriage rocks that as the eldest, she’d been aware of and experienced keenly.

  But her mother and father had got back together again, even though it had been touch and go. Her mother had told her later that the reunion had been solely for the benefit of her sisters and herself at first, although later, the Aitchisons had found a way to love each other again, and were a happy and devoted couple now.

  That could happen with you and Clara, my love. If you got married for Charlie’s sake. You loved her once …

  Her heart screamed, but she kept it inside. John seemed to hear it, though, because he made her look at him.

  ‘Set in stone, love. Don’t ever forget that. Nothing she says can change that, and I will work something out, if he’s mine.’ He shrugged again, rolling his shoulders as if trying to release real physical tension. ‘But I’m not so sure he is. I do like the lad. He’s a good, bright kid, but I don’t feel a connection.’

  ‘But that might be because you barely knew he existed until now.’

  John looked as if she’d slapped him. As if what she’d said was possible.

  ‘Well, I can’t begin to know what’s what until I’ve talked to her. I must go down. I don’t want to, but I have to face my demon.’ He laughed, a wry, harsh sound.

  ‘Yes, it’s no use us stewing up here, while she’s down there, gloating and spinning her webs like Spider-woman or something.’

  Clara had drawn John aside, after dinner, asking him to meet her in the Red Salon, later. It’d been a discreet move, but Lizzie suspected that Clara had intended her to hear.

  John smiled darkly. ‘I’d better go,’ he repeated. With a last squeeze of her hand, he released her, and slid off the bed. He looked like a man going to the dentists or some other unpleasant ordeal, rather than have a discussion with a woman he’d once loved.

  ‘I’ll wait here. Come back straight away, though … Afterwards. I want to know everything as soon as possible. Even if it’s not good news.’

  John paused. ‘I’d say come wit
h me, love, but I doubt she’ll disclose anything meaningful if you’re there. She just won’t say what she really means, or what she really wants. It’ll be all light and airy, Clara the charming, Clara the gracious, for your benefit. She won’t show her true colours.’

  ‘It’s all right. You need to have this out with her one to one.’ Lizzie leapt off the bed, and stood against him, her fingers spread over his heart. ‘I trust you, John. I trust you to tell me all afterwards. No secrets between us now.’

  ‘I love you,’ he gasped, hugging her tight. ‘I love you, I love you, I love you.’

  With a last embrace, he turned and strode from the room.

  Barefoot into battle, in the Red Salon.

  24

  Showdown in the Red Salon

  ‘So, what’s this all about?’

  Clara looked up sharply, as if she hadn’t heard John’s bare feet on the stair carpet. Or it could just be a ploy? She was full of these tricks, he remembered, little strategies to get the upper hand.

  ‘Why so combative, Jonathan? We’re old friends … so much more than old friends. And yet you come charging down here as if you’re spoiling for a fight.’

  The woman he’d once loved had prepared the scene well. The Red Salon was softly lit now, creating a flattering ambience, and she was dressed for bed, in a silk wraparound dressing gown and matching nightdress. It was a demure ensemble, in a flattering dark rose shade, but even though it revealed nothing of Clara’s body, it suggested much.

  Intimacy.

  ‘I am spoiling for a fight. I want to know why you chose to come to Montcalm on this particular day, and why you brought your son with you.’ He strode across the room, ignoring her subtle indication that he share the sofa with her, and stood with his back to the empty fireplace, trying not to glare. Despite what he’d just said, aggression was a poor tactic. ‘It can’t be a coincidence, Clara, and you can’t believe for a moment that I’d think it was one.’

  ‘Won’t you have a drink, Jonathan? Let me get you one.’ She started to rise.

  ‘No. No, thank you. I’d prefer an answer.’

  He watched her schooling her face into one of her inscrutable icon-like smiles, making him wait. ‘I simply thought it would be a good opportunity for you to meet Charlie.’

  ‘Why now? Why would I need to meet him, other than by chance?’ Trying for inscrutability himself, he slid his hands into his jeans pocket. It was either that or clench his fists. The situation was surreal. Clara was acting as if nothing had happened. As if there’d been no betrayal. As if they’d been lovers only yesterday.

  ‘Oh, Jonathan. Don’t be obtuse. You know why.’ In a measured movement, she reached for her glass, and sipped her gin and tonic. It was she who’d started him on gin, all those years ago, and in perversity, he’d decided never to drink it again. But then later, he’d decided he missed the clean, juniper bite of the spirit and decided it was absurd to cut off his nose to spite his face.

  ‘Pray enlighten me.’

  ‘Because Charlie is your son, and I thought you’d better be made aware of the fact before it was too late. Before you do something silly.’

  The words had far more impact than they ought to have had. It was like being hit. Hit in the face, and filled with the need to strike back. Not so much at the woman in front of him, but at life, and fate. Intellectually, he knew that the likelihood that Clara was lying was high, but on a gut level, it seemed as if a hammer had fallen, a hammer heavy enough to knock him to the ground.

  Reeling inwardly, he summoned self-control. And the other great source of his strength.

  Lizzie. Oh Lizzie … whatever happens, I’ve got to resolve this without hurting you. Or hurting you in the least possible way.

  The thought of her beauty and composure granted him composure too. He could almost feel her with him, warm and close.

  Crouched behind a pillar on the gallery above the Red Salon, Lizzie almost toppled back onto her arse.

  Idiot. You should never have followed him. You knew it was going to be awful.

  Almost as soon as John had left her room, Lizzie had crept out after him, keeping her distance. She knew it was monumental foolishness and childishness to eavesdrop from up here on his confrontation with Clara, but she’d lost the battle with her own good sense at the very first skirmish.

  And now all her silly little hopes that the presence of John’s ex and her son here might still actually be a pure coincidence were shattered. It was everything they’d feared. And even if it wasn’t, the fact that Clara was prepared to go to such lengths at all was still a blow.

  ‘What do you mean, something silly?’

  John’s voice was low. Even. Beautifully modulated. The more aristocratic timbre Lizzie had noticed as soon as he’d arrived here at Montcalm was back in full force. Austere and subtly cutting.

  ‘Before you commit yourself elsewhere, instead of to your son.’

  Instead of answering, John strode to the sideboard and poured himself something colourless from a decanter. Gin. He must be rattled. Lizzie had never known him to drink in response to stress, not really. If anything, he avoided alcohol in such situations, preferring a clear head.

  ‘In case it’s escaped your memory, we used condoms when we were last together,’ he pointed out, returning to his station by the fireplace, and taking a single sip of gin before placing his glass very precisely on the mantelpiece.

  Lizzie wanted to run down and stand beside him, his spear carrier, but she knew he was right to face Clara alone. At least that way he might get some answers, of a sort.

  I should go back to bed. This is stupid.

  Yet still she lingered.

  ‘Condom’s aren’t infallible, darling,’ said Clara, adjusting her position on the settee, leaning back. Displaying her poise. ‘Remember that time in Scotland, all those years ago, when we had a scare?’

  ‘But if you discovered you were pregnant with my child, why didn’t you want to marry me?’ John demanded, ignoring the invitation to reminisce. ‘Wouldn’t that have been the obvious thing to do?’

  ‘I didn’t realise I was pregnant until I was married to Robson. I thought it was just a little irregularity. I …’ For the first time, the woman sitting below seemed to falter. ‘I wasn’t sure what to do. So I pretended Charlie was premature. But I knew he was yours as soon as I saw him.’ She paused, sipped her gin. ‘Luckily Robson’s mother and sister are both blonde, so he didn’t look like a cuckoo in the nest.’

  Lizzie watched John run his hands through his hair, those blond curls, so very like Charlie’s. ‘But when you split from Robson, why didn’t you approach me then? Surely by that time, I was rich enough for you?’

  Lizzie almost laughed. Ooh, bitchy. Such bitter humour.

  ‘I’d already met Ernesto.’ For the first time, Lizzie detected a touch of the shamefaced in Clara’s demeanour.

  John reached for his drink again, turning away. ‘And now that’s over, you’re at a loose end again and, finally, after all these years, you think you’ll give me a whirl again,’ he said, over his shoulder.

  ‘Don’t make it sound so sordid, Jonathan. It’s not like that. It’s just the right time. The right time for you to meet Charlie, and to be his father at last. I’ll soon be free, and you’re not yet committed.’ Lizzie sensed a stiffening of resolve. ‘You always said you wanted to marry me, Jonathan. Well, now is the time to make it happen.’

  John spun towards her, and Lizzie almost thought he might smash his glass in the fireplace like a Cossack. But instead he just stared at the seated woman with a look of raw astonishment on his face.

  We both know what she’s after, but it’s still gobsmacking to hear it, isn’t it, love?

  ‘Don’t be idiotic, Clara. I love Lizzie. I love her with all my heart. I plan to be with her for the rest of my life.’

  A torrent of relief sluiced through Lizzie’s heart. He loved her, she knew, but hearing him almost roar it out was like knocking back a jolt of that gin. I
ntoxicating, despite the situation.

  ‘But you once loved me, and felt that way about me. You could feel that way again, if you gave us a chance.’ Was Clara’s self-belief cracking? Was there a strident edge to that low, melodious voice?

  ‘I did love you. I loved you crazily. But I’m not sure we’d ever have been happy, and what we did have seems insubstantial now. Faint, like a faded dream.’ He paused, and from her vantage point, Lizzie saw the ghost of a smile warm John’s face. ‘While what Lizzie and I have is Technicolor, rich, full of life. Like never before.’

  ‘Of course it’s Technicolor,’ cried Clara, snapping, ‘you’re nearly forty-seven now, and she’s what, twenty-two? Twenty-three? Of course she feels like fun to you! What man isn’t flattered by the attentions of a pretty younger woman? But you’re not an ageing rocker, Jonathan; you’re a man with responsibilities. Not to mention the fact that you need the right sort of woman.’

  Bloody cheek … but she’s right.

  In every aspect the woman below was far more suited to these surroundings than Lizzie knew she herself was.

  ‘We’re straying from the point,’ said John, teeth gritted. ‘What you need to understand, Clara, is that even if Charlie is mine – which I still doubt – and even if you and I were to marry, you would eventually become the Marchioness of Welbeck when I succeed George, but Charlie can never be the Marquess. We would have had to have been married at the time of his birth for that to happen.’

  Lizzie frowned, and felt a plume of probably premature triumph. She’d wondered about that, but knowing next to nothing of peerage and inheritance, she’d feared that Charlie as a ready-made male heir for Montcalm was Clara’s strongest card.

  ‘I thought there might be some act of Parliament or something.’ Clara sounded more petulant than disappointed.

  ‘No, Clara! There isn’t. And even if there was, I love Lizzie and she’s the woman I’m going to marry. The next Marquess after me will be her son.’

  Clara rose to her feet, moving jerkily now. ‘But I could give you more children, Jonathan. I’m still young and healthy. I could give you a future Marquess, and Charlie could have his real father around and we could be a proper family.’ She appeared as if she might dart forward, and hurl herself at John, but the look in his eyes seemed to stop her in her tracks.