by Betty Neels
‘You’re sure you bathed him?’
Mark reached out and wiped his fingertips over her cheek. His hand was cool, his touch sweet bliss against her hot and bothered skin. It was all she could do not to rub herself against him and purr, say, Thank you for understanding. He held it up his fingers for her to see. ‘It looks more as if he transferred the mud to you.’
She looked down at herself and groaned. So much for the well-groomed wife, the angelic infant and the exquisitely prepared dinner waiting for her hero at the end of a hard day slaying dragons.
‘Don’t worry, it’ll wash off.’ He looked around. ‘Probably.’ Then, ‘It certainly explains why you haven’t had time to check the answering machine for messages.’
‘Oh, Lord! You said you’d been trying to ring me. Is something wrong?’
‘You were going to ring your mother?’ She clapped a hand over her mouth. ‘I can see you had more important things on your mind.’
‘I’ll do it now. As soon as I’ve had a shower—’
‘Too late, Jane. She called me first thing this morning. Apparently she rang you for a chat last night. One of your sisters is expecting a baby. Elizabeth?’
‘Is she? That’s wonderful, they’ve been trying for ages…’ She stopped. ‘Sorry. What else?’
‘Oh, pretty much everything. The woman from Accounts who’s leased your flat told your mother how surprised everyone was, how no one had suspected a thing. How romantic she thought it was that you’d married your boss.’
‘Oh, Mark! I’m so sorry.’ Then, ‘What did you say?’
‘What could I say? I told her the truth.’ Jane felt the blood drain from her face. ‘I told her I asked you to move in with me, but you wouldn’t. So we got married.’
‘Oh.’ Then, ‘You didn’t say anything else?’
‘Anything else, Jane, is our business.’
‘Yes, yes, of course.’ She swallowed hard. ‘And she, um, accepted that?’
‘That’s probably overstating the case, but I explained about Shuli and that appeared to pacify her.’
He wasn’t telling her everything. ‘And?’
‘And I suggested she and your father come to dinner so that we can get acquainted.’
CHAPTER SEVEN
‘DINNER?’ Jane swallowed nervously. ‘Some time,’ she said. ‘You asked them to come to dinner some time so that you could get acquainted.’ He didn’t answer. ‘Please tell me that you didn’t ask my parents to dinner tonight.’
‘Well, I will if you insist. But they’ll still be here at six-thirty.’ He put Shuli down so that she could stroke the dog. ‘I wouldn’t have asked them, Jane, but it was clear that your mother thought I had something to hide.’
‘No! Why on earth would she think that?’ But it explained why Mark had come home early. He hadn’t been able to raise her on the phone so he’d been forced to come home to ensure there’d be something to eat. No wonder he’d been mad. She wasn’t exactly over the moon herself. ‘What could we possibly have to hide?’ she asked, the edge to her voice sharp enough to cut glass. Then, with a little wail of anguish, ‘Did you say six-thirty?’
‘I did.’
‘But that’s…’ She couldn’t voice what she thought. Not with Shuli listening. ‘That’s so early!’
‘The plan was to let Shuli win them round.’ He looked down at the child, who was sitting on the floor chattering away to Bob. ‘If they fall for her—’
‘Oh, they will.’ Who wouldn’t love the child on sight? ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to complain. It’s really sweet of you to make such an effort, especially when I’ve dropped you in it so comprehensively.’
‘But?’ he prompted. ‘I’m sure I sensed a “but” in there somewhere.’
She gave a little shrug. ‘Well, just for future reference you might like to make a note that I need a minimum of two weeks’ notice to cook for my mother.’
‘Two weeks?’
‘One week to plan and one week to panic.’
‘For heaven’s sake, what kind of man do you take me for? I had Patsy call a caterer and order dinner for four at eight.’
‘A caterer?’ Jane covered her face with her hands and moaned pitifully. How could so much go wrong in one day?
‘Of course. Caroline always used a caterer—’
Caroline? This marriage might not be the romance of the century but she was a person in her own right, not some pale stand-in for his dead wife. ‘I am not Caroline,’ she said, through gritted teeth.
‘No,’ he said. And with a sweeping glance that took in mud, dog and the cut-off jeans she’d worn to bath him, he made it clear that she would never measure up.
She wasn’t about to try. She was her own woman.
‘Caroline would never have wasted half an hour, let alone half a day, on a mongrel pup.’
‘No? Well, I did tell you to advertise for the perfect woman, but you couldn’t face the hassle so you settled for me. Live with it.’ She tugged on her bottom lip with her teeth to stop the hot tears that threatened to overwhelm her. ‘Just as I’ll have to live with my mother telling me, at length, how my four beautiful sisters can cope with their children, their sparkling careers and a positive menagerie of pets and still manage to cook dinner for their parents.’
‘Your sisters haven’t been married for little more than twenty-four hours,’ Mark returned sharply. ‘Even your mother must suspect that you’d have more interesting things to do than cook.’
‘Why? You went to work this morning. Business as usual.’
Mark felt as if he’d been sandbagged. What had he said to provoke that reaction? They’d discussed what they’d do and they’d done it. Hadn’t they? It occurred to him that perhaps ‘discussed’ was rather overstating the case. He’d said how it would be and she hadn’t demurred. That didn’t mean she was totally happy with the situation.
And, remembering how her face had lit up when he’d told her about her sister’s baby, he wondered just how many assumptions he’d been guilty of making.
Maybe he should have spent a little more time working on the details of this arrangement and less time congratulating himself on his good fortune.
‘Oka-a-ay…’ he said. ‘Why don’t we try that again? Start from the beginning? I’ll go out, drive around the village and then, when I come back, I’ll say, Hi, honey, I’m home. Had a nice day? And you’ll say, Don’t ask, and then you’ll tell me anyway, and I’ll say, You think you’ve had a bad day? Just wait until you hear what happened to me…’ He reached out and cradled her cheek, turning her face towards him. ‘You wouldn’t be laughing by any chance?’ he asked hopefully.
‘No…I mean yes…’ Her cheeks flushed a hot pink. ‘Actually, I don’t know what I mean.’ Then, ‘Mark?’ He waited. ‘I’m really sorry about the dog.’ She gestured at the kitchen. ‘The mess in here.’ She took a shaky breath. ‘He dug a hole in your lovely garden, too.’ She pulled her lips against her teeth, clearly afraid that this would be the final straw.
His garden. His kitchen. His house. And he hadn’t exactly helped by walking in and demanding why she hadn’t been there to answer the phone. She was his wife, not his secretary. It was time he started treating her like one.
‘Our lovely garden, Jane. This is our home. And our dog.’
‘You mean it?’ Her eyes lit up. ‘He can stay?’
‘Whatever you want is fine by me. Honestly.’ He bent and ruffled the pup’s ears. ‘He is a very nice dog. Different. A slightly eccentric choice, perhaps—’
‘He chose us.’
‘So he did.’
‘It’s rather like that old nursery rhyme. The farmer needs a wife…the wife needs a dog…’ She stopped, realising just in time that the rhyme didn’t go quite like that. ‘First you get an ugly duckling wife, and then you get a dog to match.’
He looked up, irritated by the way she’d put herself down. ‘I didn’t say that, nor should you. So what if neither of you ever fledge into swans? You’ll make very
fine ducks.’
‘Well, thanks. I think.’
‘Swans hiss and bite, Jane. Ducks are friendly and eager to please. I know which I’d rather live with.’
She took a deep breath, as if she might argue, then she said, ‘Okay, you win the bunch of onions for the weirdest compliment of the month. But be very sure about the dog. Say the word and I’ll take him back to the RSPCA right now. They’ll find him a home, I’m sure. Eventually. But if he stays, he stays for good.’
Like the wife? ‘He’s got a home.’ Mark looked around at the disordered kitchen. ‘I’ve got a home.’
‘But—’
‘But nothing.’ Her forehead had puckered in an anxious little frown and instinctively he reached out to smooth it away with the pad of his thumb. He didn’t want her anxious, or worried. He certainly didn’t want her in a stew because the kitchen, for once in its immaculate life, didn’t look like a feature from some glossy magazine. On an impulse he placed a light kiss in the wide space between her eyes. ‘A tidy house is a place where nothing happens, Jane,’ he said, close enough to see the faint gold freckles that dusted her nose. ‘Believe me. I know.’
The dining room was ready for their guests. Bob was behaving like a graduate from obedience school. Shuli had been fed, bathed and dressed in her pretty new frock.
Clipping back her hair in the ebony clasp, Jane critically regarded her appearance in a long mirror, smoothing the simple, unadorned grey dress over her hips before slipping the diamond ring Mark had bought her in place next to her wedding ring.
It wouldn’t be enough. Her mother, already suspicious, was as sharp as knives. And her father, having spent thirty-five years in medical practice, had developed an intuitive gift for spotting when something was not quite as it should be. Which was why she’d spent the last fifteen minutes carefully eradicating any trace of her presence from the guest suite.
But she’d need to do a lot more than that to create the right impression when her mother asked to see around the house. As she undoubtedly would.
She could hear Mark outside, playing with Shuli and the puppy. She slipped into his bedroom, heart beating overtime and feeling like a guilty trespasser. But she had no time to waste worrying about that.
She put the silver-backed hairbrush she’d inherited from her grandmother on the heavy antique dressing table, adding a few hairpins and a jar of moisturiser for effect. The electric toothbrush her mother had bought her, but she’d never used, was propped conspicuously beside Mark’s own toothbrush in his bathroom. Her new white towelling bathrobe was hung on the door beside its twin. His and hers.
Then she turned to the bed. The tender little kiss he’d given her had fired her imagination, and for a moment she held the slinky silk nightdress against her cheek, imagining herself wearing it. Imagining how it would feel to have Mark slip the shoestring straps from her shoulders so that it fell to the carpet, to puddle around her feet. She imagined him touching her, lifting her onto the huge bed that dominated the room—
Jolted from her dreams by the crunch of her father’s car tyres against the gravel, she quickly tucked the nightdress beneath one of the pillows, leaving just a tiny trail of black silk visible to catch the alert eye. Even then she lingered, her hand against the cool fresh linen, before the sound of the doorbell sent her racing downstairs.
Mark looked up as Jane hurried down the stairs. She’d been a bundle of nerves and he was convinced that she was going to look so pale and guilty that her parents would think he was some kind of fiend. Instead her cheeks were faintly flushed, her eyes dark and sparkling—the perfect picture of a new bride.
For a moment he experienced again the same moment of shocked surprise that had seized his breath when he’d seen her first thing that morning. Before she’d realised he was there. Of looking at someone he’d worked with five days a week for the last two and a half years, a person he’d thought he knew, and realising that there was an undiscovered woman beneath the façade of the efficient secretary he’d taken for granted.
He wanted to tell her that, to let her know. He wanted to say how lovely she looked. But if he said that she’d think he was simply being kind. Nothing could be further from the truth.
‘You look…special,’ he said. Then, ‘I thought you might have worn the same outfit as yesterday.’
‘Yesterday’s outfit wouldn’t do, Mark. It offers too much scope for speculation. Now, this dull little dress serves a dual purpose.’ She ran a hand over the flat surface of her abdomen, drawing attention to her body. The gesture was innocent of provocation and yet it concentrated his mind totally on her slender waist, the gentle flare of her hips. ‘It hides nothing, comprehensively proving that you were speaking the plain, unvarnished truth when you told my mother that I’m not pregnant.’
‘What? Oh, right.’ He forced himself to concentrate. ‘You said a dual purpose?’
‘There is nothing to distract from this.’ She held up her left hand and moved it so that the diamonds flashed in a beam of sunlight. ‘As far as the outside world is concerned there’s nothing more convincing of a man’s sincerity than his generosity with pure carbon.’ The doorbell sounded again but he didn’t move. ‘I don’t think they’re going away, Mark,’ she prompted. Still he didn’t move. ‘You’re really going to have to open the door.’
‘I can’t fool you, can I?’ He stretched out his hand. ‘You know I’m scared to death. Will you hold my hand?’
‘Like this?’ She placed her fingers on his.
‘No, I think we should make it really convincing.’ And he tightened his grip and pulled her close, then put his arm around her before throwing open the door.
Pressed against Mark’s freshly ironed shirt, bombarded with the shock of his body hard against hers, an elusive hint of aftershave, the warmth of his hand keeping her close, Jane had to struggle for breath. ‘Mum, Dad…this is Mark…’
CHAPTER EIGHT
THERE was a moment of brittle tension while Mark shook hands with her parents. Then her mother said, ‘Oh, come here.’ And, gathering her up, gave her a big hug before holding her at arm’s length. ‘You look wonderful. And who’s this?’
Shuli, hiding behind her father’s legs, had to be coaxed to say hello. But then Bob hurtled through from the back of the house, wiggling with such excitement that Jane rushed him out into the garden, calling back, ‘He’s going to have an accident if I don’t…’ and grabbing the excuse to catch her breath.
Her father followed her. ‘Your mother was worried, Jane,’ he said, as they watched Bob chase a starling. ‘I can see there was no need. I’ve never seen you look so happy.’
She was. It was totally pathetic that that one little kiss, Mark’s arm around her waist, should make the world seem brand-new. But they had. ‘Everything’s—’ she lifted her hands in a gesture designed to indicate that the world was a wonderful place ‘—perfect.’
‘Then I’m delighted. I was looking forward to walking my little girl up the aisle, though.’
Fortunately Bob chose that moment to race back and show them how happy he was. ‘No! Down, Bob!’ She pulled him off. ‘Sorry, but he’s new. A stray.’
‘He’s going to be a handful.’
‘Just a bit excited to have a new family,’ Mark said, bringing out a tray with glasses and a bottle of champagne. ‘I know how he feels.’ He opened the bottle, poured out the wine. ‘Jennifer.’ Jane blinked to hear her mother addressed by her first name on such short acquaintance. ‘Harry.’
‘Thanks. I was just telling Jane that I’m sorry to have missed out on walking her up the aisle the way I did her sisters.’
Mark handed her a glass with a look that fried her insides. ‘I just couldn’t wait,’ he said, and grinned broadly.
Seriously convincing if you didn’t know that it was all play-acting. Like the arm about her waist, she realised.
And the evening suddenly lost its sparkle. She responded on automatic to her father’s toast, just sipping the champagne befor
e putting the glass down to pick up Shuli, make a fuss of her.
‘Jane?’ She looked up to discover everyone was looking at her.
‘Sorry, did you say something?’
‘I suggested that your parents should stay over. Back me up, here. Tell them we’ve got plenty of room. That it’s crazy to drive all the way home tonight.’
Jane nearly choked on her champagne. Did he realise what he was doing? There was convincing, she thought, and then there was asking for trouble.
‘Really, we can’t,’ her father said quickly, before her mother allowed herself to be persuaded. ‘I have a clinic tomorrow morning. But you must come down for a weekend very soon so that you can meet the rest of the family and we can have a proper celebration. Shuli will love it. There are lots of children and we’re right by the sea.’
‘We can’t leave Bob,’ Jane said, before Mark could do something stupid like say yes.
‘Bring him with you. I don’t suppose one more dog will be noticed, do you? We’ll soon wear him out on the beach. What about the weekend after next?’
‘That sounds wonderful,’ Mark said, before she could leap in with some unbeatable excuse. She was fast running out of excuses. In fact her brain had stopped functioning right after she’d worked out what the arm about the waist had really meant. ‘Shuli has no cousins of her own. It’ll be a whole new world for her. Just what she needs, wouldn’t you say, Jane?’
It was exactly what she’d been saying. Shuli needed a family and her family was the one she’d had in mind. It would have been perfect, but for one small detail.
Fortunately her father made any reply unnecessary. ‘You have no immediate family, Mark?’ he asked.
‘A mother and sister, both too busy putting the world to rights to have much time to spare for mundane things like family life. Shuli’s mother was an only child. Her parents were killed when she was a baby; her grandmother raised her. So it’s just been the two of us.’ He glanced at Jane. ‘Until now.’