Mistresses: Blackmailed With Diamonds / Shackled With Rubies

by Lucy Gordon;Sarah Morgan;Robyn Donald;Lucy Monroe;Lee Wilkinson;Kate Walker

  Fran gave a startled gasp as he caught the hem of her nightdress and, pulling it over her head, tossed it aside.

  Turning back the duvet, he ordered, ‘Get in.’ Then, stripping off his own clothes, he slid in beside her.

  She caught her breath, half wishing she hadn’t begged him to stay. The winsome man who had teased her in the Jacuzzi was gone, in his place a hard-eyed, angry stranger.

  ‘Something wrong?’ he queried silkily.

  ‘No,’ she whispered.

  ‘Then why are you looking so scared?’

  ‘I—I’m not scared…Just tired.’

  ‘Well, in that case we won’t waste time on preliminaries.’

  Always in the past he had been a tender, considerate lover, careful to see that her body was in tune with his. This time he made no attempt to arouse her, and when some hundred and sixty-odd pounds of bone and lean, hard muscle crushed down on her she tensed and tried to repulse him, upset and angry that he was treating her this way.

  He caught her wrists and pinned them to the pillow, one each side of her head, while he made himself the master of her writhing body.

  Perhaps her struggles triggered some switch, because suddenly, in spite of everything, she found herself responding.

  He felt that response and began to move more slowly, coaxing and holding back, waiting until the core of tension had built to a climax and she gave a little gasping cry.

  When he lifted himself away she lay quite still, engulfed in misery, struggling to hold back the tears that made her eyes ache and her cheeks feel stiff.

  She had wanted him, the comfort of his arms and his presence; she had wanted him to hold her close while she fell asleep; she had wanted to pretend for just a little while that he loved her…

  All he had offered her was cold-blooded sex, without a trace of kindness or caring.

  Why had he stayed, if his only intention had been to cause her pain and humiliation? Was he regretting the fact that he had let Melinda go and taking it out on her…?

  ‘Did I hurt you?’

  The sudden urgent question broke into her unhappy thoughts, and she became aware that he was propped on one elbow looking down at her.

  When she didn’t immediately answer, he shook her a little. ‘Did I? Francesca…answer me.’

  ‘No.’ At least not physically.

  ‘Then why are you crying?’

  ‘I’m not crying,’ she mumbled.

  That was manifestly untrue, and, clearly bothered, he pursued, ‘I’m sorry I treated you so roughly. I must have been mad. I promise it won’t ever happen again.’

  ‘It’s not that…’

  ‘No, of course it isn’t!’ he said suddenly. His voice like ice, he added, ‘I’m a fool not to have realised sooner…’

  ‘Realised what?’ she asked thickly.

  ‘That in the circumstances I don’t make a very satisfactory stand-in for Varley.’

  She caught his arm. ‘You’re wrong…quite wrong…It’s nothing like that…’

  Brushing her hand away, he got out of bed.

  ‘Please, Blaze, listen to me…’

  Ignoring the choked plea, he gathered up his clothes, and a moment later the door closed quietly, but decisively, behind him.

  Left alone in the big bed, Fran cried herself to sleep for the second time that night.

  Chapter Ten

  THE sound of a knock at the door awakened her, and Fran opened heavy eyes to find that sunshine was pouring through the light curtains and flooding the bedroom.

  For a second or two her surroundings looked strange, and, dazed and disorientated, she couldn’t remember where she was, or what she was doing here.

  Then it all came back in a rush. She was at the Empire Park Hotel and this was her wedding day.

  Unless, after what had happened the previous night, Blaze had changed his mind?

  As the thought brought a swift stab of alarm there was another sharp rap, and almost immediately the door opened and Blaze walked in.

  He had already showered and shaved. His dark hair was neatly brushed and he was dressed in a lightweight lounge suit.

  ‘I’m sorry to have to wake you.’ He sounded distantly polite. ‘But it’s almost nine-thirty. I’ve asked for breakfast to be sent up in about fifteen minutes.’

  ‘I’ll be ready.’ She tried to match his tone.

  Feeling vulnerable because of her nakedness, she waited until he’d gone before she got out of bed and hurried into the bathroom.

  As quickly as possible she showered, and then, dressed in the only remaining clean undies in her case and a fawn jacket and skirt, went through to the sitting room.

  The breakfast trolley had just arrived, and Blaze was standing by it pouring fresh orange juice. As soon as she’d taken her seat he sat down facing her, and, removing the silver lids from several dishes, asked, ‘What will you have?’

  Headachy and far from hungry, she was about to tell him that she only wanted coffee when, apparently reading her thoughts, he said firmly, ‘You’ll feel a great deal better if you have something to eat.’

  Serving her with a piece of crisp bacon and a helping of scrambled eggs, he added, ‘You had nothing last night, and I don’t want you fainting at the altar.’

  Swallowing a forkful of the light, fluffy eggs, she asked huskily, ‘Then you haven’t changed your mind? About the wedding, I mean?’

  ‘No. Have you?’ His narrowed grey eyes on her pale face, he added, ‘After last night I couldn’t blame you if you had.’

  ‘No,’ she said steadily, ‘I haven’t changed my mind.’

  ‘Even though the threat of Varley ending up behind bars has been removed?’

  ‘Was it ever a real threat?’

  ‘What do you think?’

  Buttering a slice of toast, she said incautiously, ‘I rather doubt it.’

  ‘But you still agreed to marry me?’

  Ignoring that, she asked, ‘What made you decide not to press charges?’

  ‘For one thing, I detest publicity. If the story had got into the papers, which it almost certainly would have done, the media would have had a field-day. For another, my main concern was to get the necklace back. Once that was on the cards I could afford to be magnanimous.’

  ‘You weren’t showing any signs of magnanimity when I left the Royal George,’ she said with feeling.

  ‘At that point I wasn’t feeling magnanimous. I was still angry enough to want to make both of them sweat a little. In any case, it made sense to keep up the pressure until they returned the necklace.’

  ‘As later on you let them leave for the airport, I presume they have returned it?’

  By way of answer he pulled a thick brown paper envelope from his pocket and, opening the flap, poured the contents into his palm.

  Fran drew a deep breath as the blood-red stones caught the light and flashed fire.

  ‘You’ll be able to wear it this afternoon,’ he said, with a kind of bleak satisfaction.

  She didn’t care for her own sake, but as Blaze wanted to keep up the tradition she was only too delighted that he’d managed to recover it in time.

  ‘Was it very difficult? Getting it back, I mean…?’

  Dropping it into the envelope, he shook his head. ‘The whole thing proved to be a great deal easier than I’d dared hope.’

  ‘Only you were a long time coming home.’

  He looked at her sharply.

  Flushing a little, she said defensively, ‘At least it seemed a long time.’ With only partial truth, she added, ‘I couldn’t imagine what was keeping you.’

  ‘There were a lot of things to be thrashed out before they started for the airport.’

  ‘Oh.’ She wondered what kind of things.

  ‘If it hadn’t been for that I would have got back a lot sooner. But of course it’s swings and roundabouts…If they hadn’t been planning to leave the country, they probably wouldn’t have been carrying the necklace with them. The fact that they were saved
a great deal of time and trouble.’

  Thinking back to something Blaze had said the previous day, Fran asked, ‘If you hadn’t caught up with them, what were their chances of getting it safely through Customs?’

  ‘Quite good, I think. Melinda was intending to throw it in with the rest of her jewellery, most of which is artificial. If they’d gone to the trouble to look, the necklace is so over the top it’s on the cards that anyone who wasn’t an expert would have taken it for costume jewellery.

  ‘It was a risk, of course, but there’s one thing you can say for Melinda that you can’t say for Varley: while she has few principles, she has plenty of guts.’

  ‘There’s something I don’t understand,’ Fran said in a rush. ‘What made her decide to go with Kirk instead of…?’ She broke off, biting her lip.

  ‘Coming back to me?’ he finished for her.

  Remembering his reaction the previous night, her ‘Yes’ was barely above a whisper.

  ‘You must take me for a fool if you think for one second that I would have had her back…A woman who’s shown herself to be so completely hard and heartless…’

  ‘But you…you seemed to know what she was like. You told me yourself that if you’d ever lost your money she would probably have left you…’

  ‘I’d always been well aware that Melinda would put her own interests first, but I hadn’t realised she could be quite so unscrupulous. I wish Varley joy of her…’

  His mouth wry, he added, ‘In spite of the fact that he deserves everything he gets, I could almost feel sorry for him.’

  ‘There are two things I can’t fathom,’ Fran said slowly. ‘The first is, what made her decide to stick with a man she’d called a penniless bankrupt…?’

  Cynically, Blaze suggested, ‘Perhaps, when I made it quite clear that I was no longer interested, she decided she loved him after all.’ His lip curling, he added, ‘I suppose any meal ticket’s better than none.’

  Reaching to fill Fran’s coffee cup, he asked, ‘What’s the second?’

  She finished her piece of toast and licked a sliver of marmalade from her finger before replying, ‘The thing that really puzzles me is why, when they have no money to start a new life, they’re still going to South America?’

  ‘Because I gave them an ultimatum,’ Blaze said flatly. ‘Either they left the country for good, or I’d turn them over to the police. It didn’t take them long to decide that leaving the country was the better option.

  ‘To be absolutely certain they got the message, I added that if they ever attempted to come back, I’d file charges against them. Just in case they tried to change their minds, I had them escorted to the airport by two of Ritters agents, who then waited to make sure they got on the plane.’

  Two of Ritters agents… A sudden picture of the middle-aged couple who had been sitting close to the door in the Georgian Room flashed into her mind.

  When he had escorted her out to the taxi, Blaze had nodded to them…

  Watching her transparent face, he smiled mirthlessly. ‘They look innocuous, don’t they? That’s why they’re so good at their jobs.’

  Seeing she’d finished her coffee, he put down his own empty cup and asked, ‘Any more toast or anything?’

  She shook her head. ‘I’ve had a good breakfast.’

  ‘Feeling better?’

  ‘Much better. You were right about needing to eat.’

  ‘Well, if you’re ready…? You’ll want some wedding finery, and at least the beginnings of a trousseau, so we ought to make a start.’

  He rose to his feet, and, having pulled back her chair, picked up the envelope containing the necklace. ‘But first I’d best put this away.’

  Moving a Douglas Reed watercolour to reveal a small safe, he put the envelope inside and reset the code.

  As they headed for the lift his hand at her waist was impersonal, his manner businesslike.

  She felt a sudden painful longing for the man she had known and loved three years earlier—the warm, romantic man who would have held her hand and smiled at her.

  It was sad to think that he had gone for ever, replaced by an aloof stranger who saw marriage merely as a business transaction.

  As though to add weight to that thought, he observed distantly, ‘It will probably be quicker to take a cab rather than get the car out. We need to be back here by three-fifteen at the latest, to give us both a chance to change.’

  ‘Where…?’ Her voice faltered and she tried again. ‘Where are we getting married? You didn’t say.’

  ‘At All Saints.’

  ‘Oh…’ She was surprised. For some reason she’d presumed it would be at a register office rather than a church.

  ‘It’s at the bottom of Green Lane. We could see it from my old flat, if you remember?’

  Yes, she remembered All Saints well. It was a small picturesque church with a tall, slender spire and a walled churchyard. On one side it was hemmed in by a high-rise apartment building, but on the other the Green Lane gardens gave it elbow room.

  Coolly polite, he asked, ‘I hope you don’t mind being married in a church?’

  ‘No, I prefer it.’

  When they reached the main entrance, the doorman snapped to attention and asked, ‘Taxi, Mr Balantyne?’

  At Blaze’s nod, he beckoned. The first vehicle in the queue pulled forward and he opened the door.

  ‘Thank you, sir.’ As they climbed in, he pocketed the generous tip.

  ‘Knightsbridge, please,’ Blaze instructed the driver, and a moment later they were on their way to one of the most famous departmental stores in the world.

  The next few hours passed in a kind of whirl. When Fran would have chosen with her usual caution, Blaze, who had his own ideas of what he wanted her to wear, would have none of it.

  With no sign of embarrassment he selected a range of daring undies and some gossamer nightwear that brought a blush to Fran’s cheeks.

  Coats, dresses and suits came next, along with matching shoes and accessories.

  Finally he hurried her up to the Bridal Department, saying, ‘Now you need something to be married in.’

  ‘Wouldn’t one of the suits do?’

  ‘Certainly not! I want my bride to look like a bride.’

  Glancing along the racks of polythene-shrouded dresses, he selected an ivory wild silk with a fitted bodice, long, tight sleeves and a sweeping skirt.

  ‘This one, if it fits,’ he said decidedly.

  It was beautiful, and unashamedly romantic, and Fran sighed as the saleslady pointed out a tiny bunch of blue forget-me-nots embroidered inside the hem.

  As she was being led to one of the fitting rooms, Fran turned to Blaze a little hesitantly and asked, ‘Do you want to see it on?’

  ‘No,’ he said almost curtly. ‘Isn’t it bad luck?’

  The dress fitted like a dream.

  Smiling, the saleslady hurried to fetch the matching shoes and headdress: a simple coronet with a veil as delicate as a spider’s web.

  When everything had been packed and dispatched to the hotel it was well after two, and Blaze insisted on them having a sandwich and a cup of tea before they started back.

  By the time they reached the Empire Park it was almost a quarter past three. Waiting in their suite along with everything else was a florist’s box. It contained a single off-white carnation and a bouquet of ivory freesias and deep red scented rosebuds.

  Red roses for love…

  ‘I hope you like it?’ Unusually for him, Blaze sounded uncertain. ‘As you’ll be wearing the necklace, I thought your bouquet needed some colour.’

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ she assured him tremulously.

  ‘I’m sorry I can’t provide you with a bridesmaid,’ he went on, ‘but if you need any help to get ready I’ll ask the hotel to send up a maid.’

  ‘No, thank you, I’m sure I can manage.’

  Then, bearing in mind what he’d said about it being bad luck to see her in her dress, she asked, ‘We won’t be t
ravelling to church together?’

  ‘No, I’ll be leaving first. A car will come for you about ten minutes to four.’ As she turned away, he added, ‘Oh, one more thing…the necklace…Before I go I’d like to put it on for you.’

  She nodded. ‘Yes, of course.’ And hurried into the bathroom to shower and start to get ready.

  Some fifteen minutes later there was a tap at the bedroom door. Hastily pulling on her robe, she went barefoot to answer it.

  Blaze was standing outside wearing an immaculate pearl-grey suit, the carnation in his buttonhole.

  He looked the epitome of the tall, dark and handsome bridegroom one read about in novels, Fran thought, with a strange feeling of unreality.

  ‘Ready for this?’ He held up the necklace.

  ‘Yes.’ She turned so that he could put it around her neck.

  That done, he fastened the catch and allowed it to slip into place around her slender throat.

  Turning back, she gazed up at him, waiting.

  ‘It looks wonderful…Now you have everything. The moonstone ring is old, the dress is new, the necklace is borrowed, and you have something blue.’

  His words reminded her of the romantic man she had once known, and, her heart beating faster, she waited for his kiss.

  But a moment later, without so much as a smile, he was gone, leaving her feeling empty and desolate.

  Making an effort, she pulled herself together and went back to getting ready.

  By a quarter to four she was fully dressed, her hair taken up into a smooth, silky knot, her coronet and veil in place.

  Having changed her engagement ring to her right hand, she took one final look in the full-length mirror. The dress itself was every bride’s dream. Lovely and enchanting, it almost managed to turn an ordinary girl into a fairy tale princess.

  Though pale, in spite of careful make-up, and certainly no fairy tale princess, Fran was satisfied that she looked her best.

  Not as stunning as Melinda would have looked, and nowhere near as sexy and exciting, but she would do her utmost to make Blaze a good wife, and no matter what happened she would never knowingly hurt him…

  A knock at the outer door interrupted her thoughts. Realising it would be the car, she picked up her bouquet and hurried to open it.