by Penny Jordan
‘What for?’ Rosy asked him. ‘I’m only using a few of the rooms and—’
‘You may be, but after we’re married we’re bound to have to do a certain amount of entertaining. I have business associates who’ll want to be introduced to my new wife, and unless you’re proposing to give up your work at the shelter to be here full time—’
Give up her work at the shelter? ‘Certainly not,’ Rosy told him vehemently.
‘Good. So it’s agreed then. You’ll contact Mrs Frinton, tell her that we’re getting married and that I’ll be moving in here and ask her—’
‘You’re moving in here?’
‘Well, it is the normal thing for a married couple to live under the same roof,’ Guard pointed out to her sardonically. ‘Unless of course you want to move into my apartment. Although…’
His apartment? Rosy stared at him. When Peter had first mooted the idea of her asking Guard to marry her, she hadn’t been able to think very far past the ordeal of actually having to propose to him.
‘But we can’t live together,’ she began, panic suddenly beginning to infiltrate her voice. ‘We don’t…’
‘We don’t what? Oh, come on, Rosy…how old are you? You can’t be that naïve. You must have realised when you came up with this plan of yours to stop Edward inheriting this place that you could hardly convince the world that this is a genuine marriage if we’re living at separate addresses. Have some sense.’
Rosy could hear the exasperation creeping into his voice.
‘I hadn’t really thought that far ahead,’ she admitted weakly. ‘I just wanted—’
‘You just wanted to save the house from Edward. I know,’ Guard finished for her. ‘You’re twenty-two years old, Rosy. Isn’t it time you started to grow up?’ he asked her scathingly.
‘I am grown-up,’ Rosy responded indignantly. ‘I’m an adult now, Guard, a…’
‘A what?’ he asked her softly. ‘A woman?’
‘Yes,’ she told him fiercely, her eyes darkening with anger as she saw the look he was giving her as he crossed the room.
‘Turn round,’ he commanded, ‘and look at yourself in that mirror and tell me what you see.’
She was tempted to refuse, but the memory of how quickly and easily he had overpowered her the previous evening stopped her.
Reluctantly, instead, she did as he had demanded, staring defiantly not at her own reflection in the huge Venetian mirror over the fireplace, but at him.
How tall he looked in comparison to her own meagre height and how broad, the powerful, muscular structure of his torso clearly evident beneath the soft, checked woollen shirt he was wearing.
Her own top, in contrast, wide-necked and baggy, revealed all too clearly the vulnerable delicacy of her own bone-structure, the soft black wool somehow highlighting the translucency of her pale skin, the feminine curves of her breasts.
‘A woman! You look more like a child,’ Guard mocked her. ‘In years you may be a woman, Rosy, but you’re still hiding behind the attitude and looks of a child.’ He moved in front of her, his thumb-tip rubbing briefly against her mouth, its touch gone as she instinctively lifted her hand to his wrist to push him away, her eyes dark with shock and anger.
‘No lipstick,’ he told her. ‘No make-up of any kind.’
‘It’s Saturday morning,’ Rosy protested. What she didn’t tell him—what she couldn’t tell him—was that she had overslept, that last night she had been unable to sleep because…because…
She could feel the flesh of her bottom lip prickling sensitively where he had touched it; instinctively she went to catch it between her teeth and then stopped abruptly, remembering.
‘No make-up,’ Guard continued remorselessly, ‘clothes that hide your body, deliberately de-sexing it. Has any man ever seen your body, Rosy? Touched it? Touched you here?’
The fleeting touch of his hand against her breast made her tense in outraged protest, even while her body registered that there was nothing remotely sexual in his touch.
‘I don’t have to apologise to you or anyone else for not wanting to indulge in casual sex,’ Rosy defended herself angrily. ‘And just because I don’t jump into bed with every male who asks me, that doesn’t make me immature, or less of a woman!’
‘No, it doesn’t,’ Guard agreed. ‘But the way you blush whenever I say anything with even the remotest sexual connotations, the way you back off from me, the way you so openly betray your inexperience sexually, they all say that you’re not a woman, Rosy, and they’ll certainly say that you’re not a married woman.’
‘Well, there’s nothing I can do about that, is there?’ Rosy snapped at him, turning away from him so that he wouldn’t see either that she was blushing or that his comments had, for some odd reason, actually hurt her. ‘Unless you’re suggesting that I go out and find a man to go to bed with just so that I don’t embarrass you with my—my lack of womanliness…’
‘My God, if I thought…’
Rosy gasped as she felt Guard take hold of her, shaking her almost, and then releasing her just as abruptly, so that she didn’t even have time to open her mouth to protest at his rough treatment of her. She could hear anger in his voice as he told her, ‘This isn’t some game we’re playing, Rosy. It’s reality—and a damn dangerous reality at that. Have you actually thought of what could happen to both of us if Edward takes it into his head to bring a case against us for fraud?’
‘He wouldn’t…he couldn’t do that,’ Rosy protested.
‘You saw the look on his face as well as I did when he learned that he wasn’t going to inherit this place,’ Guard reminded her. ‘One hint—just one hint that this marriage of ours is a put-up job, and he’ll have his lawyers on to us so fast…’
‘But he can’t find out. He can’t prove anything,’ Rosy protested shakily.
‘Not as long as we’re both careful,’ Guard agreed, ‘and as long as you remember that you and I are now a couple. A couple who, as far as the rest of the world are concerned, are desperately in love—so desperately in love that they can’t wait to be together, to be married.’
Rosy gulped nervously. She had a good imagination—a very good imagination—but trying to imagine herself desperately in love with Guard…and trying to imagine him reciprocating that love!
‘Any more criticisms?’ Rosy challenged him, fighting off the feeling of panic and despair flooding her.
The look Guard gave her made her stomach muscles cramp nervously.
‘Don’t tempt me,’ he advised her warningly.
Suddenly Rosy had had enough.
‘You don’t have to do this, you know,’ she reminded him. ‘No one’s forcing you to marry me, and I certainly don’t want to marry you. Look, why don’t we just forget the whole thing, Guard?’ she exploded angrily. ‘Why don’t we—?’
‘Why don’t you try thinking before you open that pretty little mouth of yours?’ Guard interrupted her savagely.
For some reason he looked even more angry now than he had done before, Rosy realised.
‘Haven’t you forgotten something? Edward knows we’re supposed to be getting married.’
‘So…We can pretend we’ve had a lovers’ quarrel. It happens all the time; you should know that,’ she told him with daring flippancy.
Oddly enough, her jibe seemed to have less effect on him than her earlier one about their not marrying.
‘Lovers invariably make up those quarrels, at least until they aren’t lovers any longer,’ Guard told her drily. ‘No, Rosy, we’re committed now. It’s too late for any second thoughts.’
‘At least Peter was right about one thing,’ Rosy told him with forced bravado. ‘You must want this place one hell of a lot. You’d have to want something one hell of a lot to go through this to get it.’
She gave him a small, defeated shrug as she turned her back on him, trying to ignore the sinking, miserable sensation in the pit of her stomach as she tried not to contemplate her immediate future.
‘Yes,’ she heard Guard agreeing somberly. ‘I would.
‘I’ve already had a word with the vicar, by the way,’ he informed her, changing the subject. ‘He agreed with me that a quiet, mid-week ceremony would seem best…’
Rosy spun round.
‘You’ve already done what? But…’
‘You were the one who proposed to me,’ Guard reminded her.
Rosy snapped her teeth together, suppressing the urge to scream. No matter what she said or did, Guard always managed to outmanoeuvre her—to outwit her.
Well, one day…One day very soon she’d be the one to outwit him, she promised herself and, as far as she was concerned, that day could not come fast enough.
‘Did you and the vicar fix an actual date, or am I allowed to have some say in that?’ Rosy asked with acid sweetness.
‘Yes, a week on Wednesday,’ Guard told her, ignoring her sarcasm.
‘So soon? But…’ Rosy gulped back her protest as she felt the cold sensation of apprehension spreading through her body.
‘There’s no point in delaying things,’ Guard told her. ‘We’ve only got two months to fulfil the terms of your grandfather’s will. I’ve got several business trips coming up; in fact I’m due in Brussels again the day after the wedding, which unfortunately means that we shan’t be able to have a traditional honeymoon.’ When he saw Rosy’s expression, he laughed sardonically. ‘Yes, I thought that might appeal to you.
‘The fact that we’re getting married so quickly will mean that we won’t need to invite many people. Neither of us has any family to speak of, and I thought we’d smooth any ruffled feathers by giving a formal reception-cum-party here later in the year. As I said, you can leave all the arrangements to me, apart from one thing. Your dress…’
‘My dress?’ Rosy looked at him suspiciously, guessing what was coming. ‘I’m not going out and wasting money on a wedding-dress,’ she warned him.
‘No. So what are you going to wear? Not, I trust, the outfit you have on now?’
Rosy glowered at him. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. I’ll—’
‘Look, Rosy, I’m not going to waste my breath arguing with you. Your family had, and still has, a certain standing locally, which meant an awful lot to your grandfather. I appreciate that you’re a modern young woman, that inherited wealth and everything that goes with it runs counter to your own beliefs, but sometimes, for the sake of other people’s feelings, we have to compromise on our own principles.’
‘You mean you want me to wear a traditional wedding-dress so that I don’t let you down?’ Rosy suggested dangerously.
‘No, that is not what I mean.’
The anger in Guard’s voice made her look directly at him. She really had annoyed him, Rosy recognised. There was a dark stain of colour angrily flushing his cheekbones and his mouth had tightened ominously. Even the way he moved, pacing restlessly from the fireplace to come and stand directly in front of her, revealed his loss of patience with her.
‘I don’t give a damn if you go to the altar wearing sackcloth and ashes, which is quite plainly what you want to wear. What is it, Rosy? Afraid that some people—someone—might not fully understand the motivation behind this marriage, that he—this someone—might not realise the great sacrifice you’re making? Well, let me warn you now, Rosy, if you even think of telling Ralph Southern the real reason for this marriage…’
Ralph? What on earth was Guard talking about? Why should she tell Ralph anything of the sort? She already knew just how he would react if she did, just how contemptuous he would be of her desire to protect and preserve the house…
‘If you think,’ Guard continued grimly, ‘that I—’
Rosy shook her head. Suddenly all the fight had gone out of her.
‘All right, Guard. I’ll wear a proper wedding-dress,’ she told him woodenly, but she knew that her eyes had filled with tears and, although she tried to turn away, she wasn’t quite quick enough and Guard had seen them too.
She heard him swear under his breath and then say roughly, ‘All right. I’m sorry if anything I’ve said hurt you—but you must realise that—’
‘No, it’s not—it isn’t anything you’ve said,’ she said fiercely, blinking back her tears. ‘I already know exactly what you think of me, Guard. It’s just…’ She lifted her head, unaware of how vulnerable the bravado of her stance and the resolution in her voice actually made her as she told him, ‘I always imagined that when I got married…when I chose my wedding-dress…it would be—’ she swallowed back the tears forming a hard lump of emotion clogging her throat ‘—that I’d be choosing it, wearing it, for a man who loved me…for a man I loved.’
She could see a small muscle beating tensely in Guard’s jaw. Perhaps he was not, after all, as she had previously imagined, she recognised. Perhaps he, too, somewhere deep down inside him, had once imagined marrying for love.
‘Still,’ she told him, trying to appear more light-hearted than she felt, ‘I suppose I can always do that the—’
‘The next time,’ Guard supplied harshly for her.
Rosy couldn’t understand what she had said to make him so openly and furiously angry.
‘I suppose you think I’m being stupid—over-idealistic, naïvely romantic,’ she flung at him defiantly, ignoring the instinct that told her that what she was doing was somehow dangerous. ‘But I am romantic, Guard, and I am idealistic. Perhaps by the time I get to your age I might feel as you do, that loving someone and being loved by them isn’t important, that it’s something to sneer at and mock, but I can’t help the way I feel,’ she told him challengingly, lifting her head and forcing herself to make eye-contact with him, despite the nervous flutterings in her stomach. ‘And just because you don’t feel the same—’
‘You know nothing about what I might or might not feel,’ he interrupted her bitingly. ‘What I may or may not have already felt or experienced…’
Rosy could feel the wave of heat burning up over her skin as she recognised the truth of what he was saying and, with it, all that he was not saying.
Guard was an experienced, highly attractive, highly sensual man; there must have been women—or a woman—in his life to whom he had been emotionally as well as physically attracted and somehow, subtly, with his response to her own outburst, he had made her unwantedly aware of that fact.
For as long as she had known him she had felt compelled to battle and react against the air of control and authority that he exuded but now, for some reason, instead of challenging his remark, instead of asking him why if he had experienced such feelings he was still single, as she would once have done, she swallowed back that challenge.
‘Let me warn you, Rosy,’ she heard him saying as she turned her head away from him. ‘This quest of yours to find this romantic, idealistic love isn’t one that’s going to be carried out whilst you’re married to me. Your search for love’s holy grail is one that will have to wait, I’m afraid.’
Rosy looked uncertainly at him. His comment was the kind that was normally accompanied by the mockery which always got so easily under her skin, but there was no glint of taunting humour in his eyes on this occasion, no familiar irritatingly knowing curl to his mouth.
In fact, she had rarely seen him looking so grimly serious, she recognised warily.
‘For the duration of this marriage, as far as the outside world is concerned, I am your lover…your beloved…in every sense of those words.’
The cold flatness of his voice robbed his words of any hint of sensuality, but nevertheless Rosy could feel her skin flushing as her imagination, always her worst enemy where her run-ins with Guard were concerned, reacted to the evocative words he had used: lover, beloved. She shivered suddenly, trying to banish the images conjured up by her overactive imagination—images of two people, two lovers, their bodies entwined in an embrace of such intimacy, such compulsive desire and need for one another, that there could be no mistaking the nature of their relationship, either physically or emotionally.
Hastily, Rosy tried to banish her mental pictures, rushing into protective speech as she told Guard fiercely, ‘You needn’t worry. I shan’t do anything to spoil your image. I mean, it just wouldn’t do, would it? Guard—the fabled, famous lover—married to a woman who doesn’t want him…’
‘It isn’t my image, as you call it, that concerns me,’ Guard returned grimly. ‘It’s my professional reputation, and yours. You do realise, don’t you, that technically what you and I are doing is fraudulent?’ He took advantage of her wary silence to continue more easily, ‘And as far as being married to a woman who doesn’t want me is concerned…You aren’t a woman, Rosy, you’re a girl, and I doubt that I should have much trouble finding solace elsewhere, do you…?’
For sheer arrogance there was no one like him, Rosy decided rebelliously as he turned away from her, reaching into the inside pocket of his jacket as he did so.
‘You’re going to need these,’ he told her matter-of-factly as he handed her a small jeweller’s box.
Rosy’s fingers trembled slightly as she opened it, a small, totally involuntary awed gasp escaping her lips as she saw the rings inside it. The wedding-ring was plain and simple, heavy yellow gold; the engagement ring that went with it…She stared at the sapphire with its surround of dazzling, square-cut diamonds.
‘It…it’s beautiful,’ she told Guard shakily.
The sapphire was a dense, dark blue, virtually the same colour as her own eyes, she recognised in surprise as she studied it.
‘I can’t wear it, Guard,’ she protested huskily. ‘It’s…it’s far too valuable.’
‘You must wear it,’ Guard contradicted her firmly. ‘It’s what people will expect—look for.’
Had he chosen the sapphire deliberately? Rosy found herself wondering. Or had it simply been a random decision, made in haste and irritation, the connection between the colour of the stone and her eyes unnoticed by him?