Wife in the Making

by Lindsay Armstrong

  She raised her eyebrows then shook her head. ‘Can’t remember.’

  He looked at her intently for a moment longer but kissed her instead of probing further, to her relief. ‘OK, let’s get this show on the road!’

  They dressed casually to go to the movies, saw a comedy and came out still laughing. Then they bought some fish and chips and went down to Riverside to watch the ferries plying the broad reaches of the Brisbane river as they ate their supper with their fingers.

  Bryn was as good as his word when they went to bed and kept his Scout’s honour, but it was also a rare pleasure to snuggle up against him and fall asleep in his arms.

  There was a hairdresser and beauty parlour in the hotel, of which Fleur availed herself the next morning. Then she suggested to Bryn that, since she had clothes in storage as well as her piano, she should get them out instead of shopping to enlarge the small, rather dowdy wardrobe she’d taken to Clam Cove. But he disagreed, saying that all brides needed a trousseau, so they found a shop with summer stock available and he helped her to choose some light, colourful clothes.

  He then directed her to the lingerie department of an exclusive store, and with a wicked glint in his eye recommended she let her hair down in the matter of sexy underwear. She pointed out that he spent a lot of time taking her out of her underwear, so mightn’t it be a waste of money? He replied that, on the contrary, it only added to the pleasure.

  They met again for lunch then went shopping armed with the lists they’d drawn up of the things Clam Cove needed to make it a real home. It was interesting to note, Fleur found, how their tastes, even in things like bed linen, coincided. It was also interesting to find that, unlike her father, who had left everything of that nature to her mother, Bryn had definite opinions and a connoisseur’s eye for colour.

  But when he suggested that she could do with proper office furniture she laughingly declined.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I really fought not to make a fuss about my office when you were quite sure I would,’ she teased. ‘It’s…it was a victory to make it work and I intend to keep it that way. Besides, a lot of the charm of Clam Cove is the simplicity.’

  He stared into her eyes. ‘Thanks.’

  The next day they flew home.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  THEY’D been home about a week when all their purchases, and Fleur’s piano, arrived in a container that had been shipped up the coast.

  It had been a fun week. Tom was delighted to see them home, and still delighted with Fleur’s new status. She and Bryn had debated the wisdom of explaining things to him thoroughly but had decided against it until Tom himself required some explanations. And, in fact, he’d said to Fleur that he knew she was not his mother so he would keep on calling her Fleur.

  With Eric’s help, Bryn had started the extensions to the main bungalow and the restaurant had run smoothly for the whole week, something of a miracle, as Fleur confided to Julene one day.

  Julene laughed. ‘That was one deeply frustrated dude, hon! It’s no wonder we had a few spats and the like.’

  Fleur looked away and a tinge of colour came to her cheeks.

  Causing Julene to laugh again, indulgently this time, and pat Fleur on the shoulder. ‘When it gets like that between a man and a woman, pet, there’s only one thing to do. I’m glad you saw that.’

  Fleur hesitated. ‘There’s still a lot I don’t know about him.’

  ‘It’ll come! You’ll see.’

  What had come during that week was peace, accord and a lot of laughter between Fleur and Bryn as they relished being back at Clam Cove, and the weather was perfect.

  Then their things had arrived and they’d all had a lot of fun unpacking and finding a spot for the piano, until Fleur discovered that all her possessions had been mistakenly shipped with the piano. Not that there was a lot, but all her clothes, books, CDs and odds and ends that she’d stored with the piano for her three-month stay at Clam Cove were now with her.

  ‘Oh, no,’ she said laughingly to Bryn as she wrestled open a large cardboard box, to see suitcases inside. ‘All those new clothes! Oh, well, I’ll be the best-dressed person on the island and I’m happy to have my books and music.’ She looked up to disturb an unreadable expression in his eyes, unreadable except to say that there was something rather dark about it. ‘What?’ she asked, straightening and looping her hair behind her ears.

  ‘You don’t need those clothes.’

  ‘I know! But now they’re here…’ She shrugged ruefully.

  He studied her for a long moment then turned and walked away.

  She blinked and was about to follow him but Tom raced up, having just discovered a brand-new bicycle amongst the other stuff. So she sent him after Bryn, whose idea the bike had been, to say thanks. Then Julene claimed her to wax lyrical over the new couch they’d bought for her and Eric’s cabin, and Bryn and Tom returned, Bryn as if nothing had happened as he commenced lessons in how to ride a bike.

  But Fleur was unable to dismiss the incident from her mind, so she closed the box up without unpacking anything and asked Eric to store it in the shed for her, saying she’d get back to it when she had more room.

  It was a quiet evening in the restaurant that night and her services were not required, so she and Tom had their meal in the bungalow and then played Snakes and Ladders until it was time for him to go to bed.

  Bryn came in at about ten-thirty to find her sitting at her piano but not even touching the keys.

  ‘Something wrong with it?’ he asked as he took off his bandanna and threw it across the back of a chair.

  She came out of her reverie and shook her head. ‘No. It’s survived the move amazingly well. How did it go?’

  ‘Like the well-run restaurant it is.’

  A smile touched her mouth. ‘You’re very modest.’ But she looked at him with a question in her eyes.

  ‘I’m also knackered.’ He yawned. ‘Must be all the building I’ve been doing. Would you care to take me to bed, Mrs Wallis?’

  ‘Bryn…’ What happened today? The question hung on her lips now but she found she couldn’t ask it. ‘Of course.’ She got up and stretched. ‘I’m a bit tired myself.’

  He looked around, at the things she’d unpacked, the colourful cushions, the painting they’d chosen together, the rug. ‘You’ve done well. Still respectably “alternative” but not as spartan as it was. Would I be correct in thinking our new sheets et cetera are on our bed?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then let’s road-test them.’ He took her hand and, after the barest hesitation, she followed him into the bedroom. They undressed in silence with Fleur donning one of her new nightgowns, a black one with a lace panel down the front. She went to clean her teeth and when she came back Bryn was already in bed, lying on his back with his arms behind his head.

  ‘They feel good,’ he said of the sheets, ‘and you look good. Come in.’ She slid in beside him. ‘Sadly, I’m unable to raise the energy to celebrate how good you look but I can—’

  ‘Bryn,’ she put her fingers to his lips, ‘if you just want to sleep, that’s fine with me.’ And she arranged herself next to him, turned on her side facing away from him, and switched off the lamp.

  About two minutes passed then she felt him sit up and heard him say, ‘As you should know, Fleur, I don’t take kindly to being gazumped. Do you know what that means?’

  She sighed but didn’t turn. ‘I can guess—you don’t mind telling me you don’t want to make love to me but you do mind me agreeing with you?’

  ‘Precisely. It…brings out the worst in me.’

  ‘At least you can acknowledge that,’ she said severely.

  ‘It has also, on this occasion,’ he continued smoothly, ‘brought out the best in me, in a manner of speaking. Thus, I’m either going to have to make love to you or I’m going to have to get up and go for a long, cold swim.’

  ‘Bryn,’ she sat up abruptly, ‘if this is another attempt to solve a dispute the w
ay only you would conceive of doing…’ She stopped frustratedly.

  ‘What dispute?’

  ‘Whatever it was that upset you about my old clothes arriving here!’

  ‘Oh. That,’ he said. ‘What I’d really like to do with them is dump them in the sea!’

  She gasped. ‘Why?’

  ‘Just in case some other man gave them to you, or you wore them for him, or they bring back memories.’

  ‘You’re not serious!’

  ‘Sadly, I am,’ he agreed. ‘But I suspect I’m fairly average in that way. I mean, most men would rather not have their wives—’

  ‘I bought every single item myself,’ she broke in. ‘None of them has any memories attached to them; I made a whole clean sweep when…’ She stopped and bit her lip.

  He took her hand and threaded his fingers through hers. ‘That’s OK, then. And I’m a bloody fool,’ he said softly. ‘Sorry.’ He lay back and pulled her down with him. ‘Let’s see what I can do to make up for being such a fool.’

  ‘Why couldn’t you just tell me?’

  He kissed her mouth and drew her hard against him. ‘Because I didn’t want to sound like a fool.’

  ‘Before you go one step further, Bryn Wallis,’ she said, ‘I think we should make a pact. No secrets. If something is bothering you, tell me; and I will do the same.’

  ‘Why not?’ he drawled.

  ‘I’m serious!’

  ‘So am I. And you’re even more gorgeous when you’re serious.’

  ‘I…you…you can’t even see me at the moment.’

  ‘But I can feel you,’ he countered. ‘Skin like satin, breasts—well, I can’t even begin to tell you what they do to me and…ah, yes, especially when they do that.’

  Fleur drew a ragged breath as her nipples peaked beneath his fingers. And she made a husky little sound in her throat that was a mixture of frustration and desire. But the frustration was no proof against what he did to her then, and what she found herself doing to him so that yet again they were united in physical splendour, and all else seemed to be mere trivia…

  And things did get back to normal.

  He himself retrieved the carton of her things from the shed and helped her to unpack. He also built a frame for her to hang the hessian from so she could start work on a wall-hanging. And they decided she would use her old bungalow as a studio, so he set it up there for her. He even displayed an artistic side by helping to create a design—on paper—to work from.

  ‘You have so many talents, I’m amazed,’ she told him as she studied the design they’d worked on together that blended the colour of the sky, the dark green of the hoop pines on the headlands, the sea and the riotous blooms in the gardens.

  ‘I do,’ he agreed.

  ‘However, you’re not exactly a model of modesty,’ she pointed out.

  ‘False modesty is not one of my failings, no.’ He glanced at her, a model of seriousness.

  ‘Bryn,’ she started to laugh, ‘you don’t fool me! There is not a modest bone in your body.’

  He looked hurt. So she kissed him and recommended that he leave her to do her own thing for a while in case she developed an inferiority complex. He did, and he left her studio severely alone for the next few days, but one late afternoon, as the sun set, he brought her a drink.

  ‘How’s it going?’

  She stood aside to reveal what she’d done so far. He was silent for a moment then he said, ‘Fleur, you could go into business.’

  Her eyes widened. ‘Do you think so?’

  ‘Yes. We could hang them in the restaurant with a discreet “for sale” sign.’

  ‘But this is rather an amateurish effort.’ She stood back and studied it.

  ‘I don’t think so—it’s lovely. It would stand out like a jewel on the right wall. Hey, you’re a clever kid.’ He handed her her drink. ‘And a model of modesty,’ he added with his lips quirking.

  She sipped a deliciously fresh, chilled white wine. ‘It’s a funny thing. What started my mother off on this was a visit to Dunk Island and the artists’ colony there. They do wall-hangings, pottery and so on. And now I’m on an island doing it.’

  ‘Another of life’s strange twists and turns,’ he commented wryly. ‘I’m sincerely sorry to have to ask you this, but Rose has a problem with one of her kids. Could you fill in for her tonight?’

  ‘Of course! And you don’t have to be sorry.’

  ‘All the same, I am,’ he remarked obscurely then changed the subject. ‘Have you heard anything from your parents?’

  ‘No. I’ve been e-mailing them once a week but they must be somewhere out the back of beyond where they can’t access it.’

  ‘So they still don’t know we’re married?’

  ‘No. I just couldn’t break it to them via e-mail,’ Fleur said ruefully. ‘As we agreed, Bryn.’

  He nodded. ‘I just wondered if you’d changed your mind, that’s all.’

  ‘I’d have told you.’

  He put an arm around her shoulders. ‘I wish I could whisk you away to a private dinner for two somewhere.’

  She leant against him. ‘What say we have a private nightcap on the beach later?’

  He ran his fingers up the back of her neck and through her hair.

  ‘Sounds nice.’

  ‘In which case, I’d better go and get ready for work.’ But she didn’t move. Instead, she said, ‘Are you OK?’

  ‘Fine. Well…’ He sighed.

  ‘This is a night you don’t feel like cooking for the public?’ she suggested.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘By my calculations there’s only another month to go, Bryn, before the restaurant closes for the summer. Then you’ll be as free as a bird!’

  He laughed softly. ‘OK. Let’s go to work.’

  So they did but, although they did have their private nightcap on the beach and when he took her to bed he made exquisitely tender love to her, she couldn’t discard the niggling feeling that something more was bothering him. She hardly had time do more than ponder it, however, because the next evening three unexpected guests arrived for dinner at the restaurant…

  Rose was still having problems with one of her children, so Fleur was waitressing again rather than disrupt the roster, when who should arrive but her parents, with Walter Wallis following on their heels.

  ‘Mum! Dad!’ she gasped. ‘So that’s why I wasn’t getting any e-mails— Oh, no, I mean…Mr Wallis! Goodness me! I don’t—’

  But her mother was hugging her, then her father, and they were saying that they were staying at the resort because they’d decided to surprise her, and she was looking wonderful…

  Which was when Walter Wallis took his turn to hug her, and comment at large that marriage to his son must be agreeing with her.

  ‘Fleur,’ her mother whispered, her gaze dropping to the ring on Fleur’s left hand, ‘what have you done?’

  And her father went white.

  Fleur looked around a little wildly and Bryn, who’d been standing arrested as he took in the scene, came down to introduce himself.

  ‘Mr Millar, Mrs Millar, I’m sorry this must have come as a bit of a shock. I’m Bryn Wallis. Fleur and I got married a couple of weeks ago.’

  Her mother’s mouth dropped open as she took in the bandanna, the colourful outfit—and the butcher’s apron Bryn was wearing. She turned to her daughter incredulously. ‘You married a chef? Oh, Fleur!’ And tears started in her eyes.

  ‘Ma’am,’ Walter Wallis intervened with dignity, ‘he may look like a chef, not to mention a drop-out or a castaway or whatever, but my son will inherit a vast empire. Of course, what he chooses to do with it is another matter and a source of concern to me, I can’t deny, but there’s a lot more to him than would appear on the surface—at the moment.’

  ‘Who cares?’ Theo Millar retorted angrily. ‘What I’d like to know is why he lured my daughter, my only child, up to this forsaken spot on the planet and persuaded her to marry him secretly!’

&n
bsp; At this point Bryn glanced around, received a nod from Julene as she pointed in the direction of her bungalow, a signal to commandeer Eric, and he said quietly, ‘Let’s move this discussion somewhere more private.’ He took off his apron and led the way to their bungalow, stopping only to pass the message on to Eric that his services were needed urgently in the restaurant.

  Once inside their bungalow, her mother looked around incredulously, and gave way to her tears.

  Several hours later, Bryn and Fleur were sitting on their favourite log on the beach sipping champagne beneath a bright white sickle moon as the tide lapped the beach rhythmically.

  ‘Of course I don’t think we’re out of the woods yet,’ Bryn said.

  ‘Why are we drinking champagne, then?’ Fleur asked.

  He shrugged. ‘We need some kind of a lift! At least your mother stopped crying.’

  ‘I apologize for that.’ She sighed. ‘They’ve been away for a year. I mean, I knew it would come as a shock to her but not such a shock. I suppose I’m trying to say I thought that because they could do that, they would also assume I was adult enough to make…decisions like this.’

  ‘Oh, a merchant banker, a stockbroker, a media magnate, for example, might have been a different matter.’

  ‘Bryn,’ she warned, ‘she is my mother.’

  ‘Sorry.’ He sounded genuinely contrite. ‘When it comes to that, your mother and my father make a good pair.’

  Fleur smiled faintly. ‘He did spring to your defence.’

  ‘And there were some moments of high comedy.’

  She looked rueful. ‘Explaining Tom, for example, who slept through it all, thanks heavens? Yes.’ It was at that point that her mother had called for a strong drink.

  ‘What I would like to know,’ Bryn said, after a long pause, ‘is how you feel about it all?’

  Fleur considered. ‘Guilty for springing it on them like that. Guilty,’ she looked at the glass in her hands, ‘for underestimating the love and concern they feel for me—but not sorry I married you, Bryn.’