Second Best Wife

by Isobel Chace

  William's eyes narrowed. 'Is Jennifer your father's favourite too?' he asked her.

  Hurt to the quick, she refused to meet his eyes, but buried herself in her letter instead, mumbling something about her father not playing favourites. 'One can't help liking one person more than another, though,' she added. 'You should know that!'

  He relaxed, throwing himself into the nearest canvas chair. 'I do,' he admitted. 'Are you going to let Jennifer come?'

  Georgina hunched her shoulders. 'Have I any choice?'

  Stuart finished his drink and rose quickly to his feet. 'I'm off,' he announced. 'Thanks for the drink. I'll call for you around tea time, girls. Will that do?'

  He smiled at Georgina, ruffled Celine's hair with a friendly hand, and was gone, leaving a silence one could cut with a knife behind him.

  'What attraction is bringing him back this afternoon?' William enquired, his gaze noting with interest the fluctuating colour in his wife's face. 'You?'

  'He's taking us to the village,' Celine answered him. 'To see if the demon Georgina saw last night is the same one that I saw.'

  William raised a thoughtful brow. 'Good. I think I'll come too and keep an eye on this wife of mine.'

  'You don't have to,' Georgina protested.

  'Don't I? What I have, I hold, Georgina Ayres. You won't cuckold me lightly, not even with such an easy-going partner as Stuart Duffield—'

  Georgina raised wide, astonished eyes. 'But — '

  'I should have accepted your invitation last night, shouldn't I, my sweet? I didn't awaken you to love to have someone else steal the cream! Stuart will have to look elsewhere —'

  'What about Jennifer?' Georgina cut him off, hotly embarrassed.

  'What about her?' he retorted. 'She isn't my wife!'

  'But how you wish she were! Do you want her to come, or not?'

  'Invite her by all means,' he answered smoothly. 'It won't make any difference to us, I assure you. Much as I hate to ruffle your

  romantic dreams, my dear, her coming won't alter the fact that you are mine. Hanker after Stuart all you please, you're staying mine! He and Jennifer will be the ones who'll play games together —'

  ‘Then I don't want her here!' Celine burst into the argument. ‘Stuart is my friend. I don't like the sound of this silly Jennifer! Why can't she stay in England?'

  Georgina could only wonder the same, but she knew her sister well enough to know that nothing she could say or do would make her stay away if she had made up her mind to come.

  ‘I'll write to her,' she said dully. ‘With any luck she won't come!'

  But that was too much to hope for, just as William may have said that she was his, but would never, never admit that he was in any way hers. If he did, just once, a hundred Jennifers could come to Sri Lanka and be welcome!

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Georgina was glad to be quiet for a few moments. She had never had an easy chair in her bedroom before, but these last few minutes had convinced her that it was a very good idea. Nobody would disturb her in her own room and she needed some time by herself to calm down and do a bit of hard thinking about what she was going to do about Jennifer. When she thought of her mother's letter she still burned with embarrassment, and that William should have read it was the last straw! He would think all the worse of her now that he knew that even her parents thought more highly of Jennifer than they did of herself.

  There was Celine to be considered too. Georgina had been on the receiving end of Jennifer's sharp tongue too often not to know how she would make the younger girl suffer for having the kind of beauty that Jennifer had always been led to believe she possessed herself. Only when the sun shone, as Shakespeare had pointed out, the light of a candle paled into insignificance. Jennifer would not like Celine at all!

  Then there was William. He might be possessive, but he was far from loving as far as Georgina was concerned. Jennifer was a different cup of tea. Jennifer was the love of his life and only Georgina would stand between them and the consummation of that love. And she was not such a fool as not to know that Jennifer would give him every encouragement. The mere fact that William was her husband would be enough to force her sister to go to any lengths to get him away from her. One way and another, it wasn't a very pleasant prospect actually to have her in the same house, the first home she had ever tried to share with William.

  Outside the window was a frangipani tree, or temple tree as it was more often called locally. Georgina watched the white flowers dance in the light breeze and thought how different today was from yesterday. The sun was shining, for one thing, drawing some of the moisture out of the fertile ground in little puffs of steam. Otherwise the rain of yesterday might never have been. When she stood up, she could see a sloping garden, very English in character, that led down to a hollow where a table and chairs were permanently laid out, taking it for granted that most meals would be taken out of doors. Was that where they would have lunch? she wondered.

  'Georgie, are you in there?'

  If she kept very quiet perhaps he would go away. She had not yet forgiven William for reading her mother's letter. Besides, she felt too raw to embark on another skirmish with him before lunch. She would say something she would regret, something that would confirm him in his belief she was jealous of her sister, when she truly didn't think she was, not while she was thousands of miles away and there was no possibility of her benefiting from William's decided partiality for her rather than for his own wife.

  The door opened and William walked in, taking in her small figure seated on the rather large chair in a single glance.

  'What are you doing?' he asked her. 'Sulking?'

  She shook her head. 'I was wondering what to do about Jennifer.'

  He gave her a long, hard look. 'Wouldn't it be more to the point to wonder where you're going with your husband?'

  Her eyes fell before his. 'You had no right to read my mother's letter without my permission,' she said stiffly. 'How would you like it if I were to read your letters?'

  He shrugged. 'You can read them any time you choose. You do anyway.'

  'I do not!'

  'No? Do you still claim you didn't read Jennifer's letter to me, or hold it up until it was too late for me to do anything about it?'

  'Yes, I do. Anyone would think it was I who forced you to the altar instead of the other way round!'

  'Oh, not that again! Really, Georgie, nobody could have made you marry me if you hadn't allowed them to.'

  'I wish I hadn't!'

  His expression took on a grimness she had not seen before. 'So I noticed. Somehow I'd never thought of you as being particularly susceptible to the blandishments of my sex. Jennifer yes, but not you.'

  She looked up at him then, giving him a roguish look because, at that moment, it was the best defence she had. 'Why not me?' she asked.

  'Maybe you had no opportunity before to bask in the admiration of your male acquaintances because Jennifer was always in your way, but things are different now. I don't know how it is, but there's something different about you since we came to Sri Lanka. You're inviting trouble, do you know that? I'm not surprised young Stuart can hardly keep his hands off you!'

  Georgina summoned up a laugh. 'Don't be ridiculous! He can't take his eyes off Celine — and a very good thing too! She's much more normal when he's around, and she likes him very much. That's what bothers me about Jennifer coming here. It wouldn't occur to her to notice how Celine feels about Stuart. She'd dismiss her as a child and her feelings as being of no account to anyone! Jennifer never sees anyone's point of view but her own.'

  'Meaning she's never worried much about yours?' he ground out.

  'I never minded before!' she answered.

  'Never?' His disbelief was total. 'What about her engagement to

  me?'

  Had she minded? Honesty forced Georgina to admit to herself that she had, though at the time she would have laughed any such idea to scorn, but she would not admit as much to William.
r />   'It was a way of getting back at you when it was all over. As far I was concerned that was all there was to it!'

  'You took Jennifer's place — '

  'I didn't think I had any choice!'

  He put a hand on either arm of her chair. 'You didn't. I meant to have you, and have you I will, my Georgie Porgie! What's more, I'll break your pretty neck for you if I see you playing patsy with Stuart again!'

  His closeness made her heart pound. She tried to breathe normally, but somehow she couldn't get any air into her lungs.

  'You wouldn't dare say such a thing to Jennifer!' she challenged him in a small voice.

  'You underrate me! No woman will ever rule me, Georgina, however much they might like to. Not Jennifer, and not you!'

  She had never lacked courage, but it was put to the test then as she stared back, deep into his golden eyes. 'You take too much on yourself, William Ayres. If you think I'm going to sit down under such a Victorian attitude, while you read my letters and vet my friends, you're very much mistaken! I'll make my own decisions!'

  'Will you, my Georgie?' His face softened into amusement and she hated him for it, for it was the amusement of the victor when he knows that nothing is going to stop him from getting his own way. 'Women are at a biological disadvantage when it comes to some decisions. Diana the Huntress remained a virgin goddess, if you remember —'

  'Perhaps I may choose to do so too!'

  'You can try!' he mocked her. 'But I'd hedge my bets if I were you. You may have got away with it at one time, little one, but that was before I had your measure. Are you afraid I'm not going to be man enough for you?'

  She couldn't have answered to save her life.

  'Well?' he prompted her.

  She swallowed, averting her eyes from his. 'This is an impossible conversation!' she declared. 'Why should you want to make my decisions for me anyway?'

  He bent his elbows, bringing his face very close to hers. 'Because you prefer it that way, little fraud. You'd run even now, if I let you, wouldn't you? Cutting off your nose to spite your face? What a girl! I won't fancy your kisses any more if you spread them around the neighbourhood in a series of trial runs. I'll teach my own wife all she needs to know, and I won't hesitate to call her to heel if she strays too far away from me —'

  'I see!' she cut him off. 'It's a matter of pride and I'm cast in the role of propping up your ego! What if I won't do it?'

  His lips parted in a smile. They were so close to her that she could feel his breath on her own. 'Care to try it?' he murmured on a note of laughter.

  Her heart turned over within her. 'No,' she whispered.

  'I thought not.' His lips touched hers and drew back again. 'Sugar and spice and all things nice, that's what little girls are made of, Georgie Porgie. Don't spoil it by overdoing the spice. It's the sugar that turns me on!'

  She put up a hand and touched his cheek. 'That's all it means to you, isn't it? A turn on?'

  His lips took a long, slow toll of hers. 'I'll let you know,' he murmured. 'Damn it all, Georgie, you are my wife!'

  'Big deal!' Her other arm slipped up round the back of his neck. 'How much will that mean to you when Jennifer gets here?'

  He released himself with the greatest of ease. 'That depends on you,' he answered, walking over to the window and standing there with his back to her. 'You have the advantage if you care to use it, but do you?'

  'What advantage?'

  He cast her a mocking glance. 'If you play your cards right Jennifer could be just a memory by the time she gets here. Until I have to report on site for my work, I'm all yours!'

  'Oh yes?' Her tone was every bit as dry as his. 'Don't you mean that I'm all yours? Or at least, isn't that what you'd like to mean?'

  'I mean we're stuck with one another,' he answered, and quoted softly: 'As unto the bow the cord is, So unto the man is woman; Though she bends him, she obeys him. Though she draws him, yet she follows; Useless each without the other.'

  'Only if they're tied to one another,' she objected.

  'And aren't we tied by marriage?'

  She sniffed. 'I might have known you'd like Victorian poets as much as you do their ideas of male superiority. Nobody quotes Hiawatha nowadays!' She took a deep breath. 'You're not stuck with me, William, unless you want to be. I'd never hold you to such an unprofitable arrangement. I want to be the only woman in the world for my husband, not a piece of tatty string!'

  He turned and faced her. 'Poor Georgie! Ever the romantic under that practical exterior of yours! It's an intriguing combination. Dream your dreams, my dear, and who knows, they may come true for you. Perhaps you approve of Nietzsche more than you do of Longfellow? Only he who is man enough will release the woman in woman, and Stuart and his kind will never be man enough for you!'

  'But you are?'

  He was openly amused. 'At the risk of your thinking me even more conceited than you do now, yes, I am.'

  'You can't know that!'

  He put his hands on his hips and laughed at her, a great bellow of sound that rang round the silent bungalow.

  'For heaven's sake!' she rebuked him. 'What did you have to do that for? Miss Campbell will wonder what on earth we're doing!'

  That made him laugh again. 'Do you care?' he asked, his eyes dancing.

  'Yes, I do,' Georgina answered him soberly. 'I think Miss Campbell a dangerous woman and I wouldn't want to stir her into any further activity like the demon of last night.'

  'Miss Campbell?'

  She nodded. 'Who else, William? Who else would want to frighten Celine into a scene?'

  'I don't know, my dear, but do you think Miss Campbell has the imagination to make use of such a thing? She and Celine haven't been here long, only a few days before we arrived ourselves, and she's not the type to go down to the village by herself. It was probably just a coincidence.'

  Georgina had her own doubts, but she was not prepared to give voice to them. 'She looks like a witch,' she said instead. 'Perhaps she is one.'

  William gave her a startled look. 'If she is one she'd have had a job to persuade the Aborigines to allow her to make use of their sacred objects. It was the sound of a whirring rope that set Celine off in Australia. It always began the same way — and ended in her being frightened into a fit. One of the Australian doctors we consulted suggested she might have witnessed some Aboriginal ceremony as a child, some thing she wasn't supposed to see, and that it had haunted her ever since.'

  'That's no excuse for Miss Campbell telling her she's touched in the head!' Georgina said sharply. 'That was cruel!'

  William studied her face with a thoughtful look. 'Women don't always examine their weapons with sufficient care before they throw them, Georgina. You should know that!'

  'I've never tried to drive anyone mad!'

  They stared at one another in mutual consternation, but Georgina couldn't bring herself to take the words back.

  'But why?' William asked.

  Georgina laced her fingers together. 'I don't know. Celine says she was in love with her father. William, that woman has to go!'

  'She'll expect to serve out her notice and I have no reasonable excuse for sending her away before the month is out. I agree she has to go, but don't overrate Celine's lucidity, will you? She'll never be more than a little girl at heart —that was about the only thing the doctors were agreed about! There's no point in encouraging her to start thinking of love and romance when she can never be a wife.'

  'I don't see why she can't be. She's a lovely girl.'

  William's lips twisted into a wry smile. 'A man wants more than mere beauty in his wife,' he said.

  But he didn't! He wanted Jennifer, and what for, if not for her delicate beauty? The answer to that hurt so badly that Georgina felt it like a physical pain inside her. When one loved, beauty didn't matter, nothing mattered except the joy one felt in the beloved's presence. That was how she felt about William. That was what was so awful about it, that he didn't feel the same way about her and he
never would.

  ‘Celine has a lot more than beauty to recommend her,' she said aloud. ‘I'm sure Stuart sees her as something more than a little girl. I know I do.'

  ‘Despite the scene last night?'

  Georgina nodded. ‘That was fright. We're none of us ourselves when we're badly frightened. At other times Celine is as lucid as you or I. That blank look she puts on is probably a defence she's grown up with. Anyone would if they had to put up with Miss Campbell all day and every day.'

  William grinned. ‘So you don't like Miss Campbell, Georgie Porgie, but I couldn't have managed without her— nor could Celine's father! How d'you suppose he would have looked after Celine on his own? He had his work to do. He couldn't have had a retarded daughter hanging on to his sleeve all the time.'

  Georgina looked down at her hands, trying to stop herself from entering into an argument on such slight evidence that even she could see she had formed her opinion largely on guesswork and a hunch that, despite its implications, wouldn't go away.

  ‘And what were Miss Campbell's rewards?' she asked.

  William froze. ‘What do you mean?'

  ‘Only that her major interest doesn't seem to be money, does

  it?'

  William hauled her up on to her feet and into his arms. She hid her face against him, trying to still the trembling that had seized her limbs. He smelt nice, she decided, but then she liked everything about him. His attraction for her was so strong she felt quite dizzy with it. His fingers found the nape of her neck and closed about it, before entangling themselves in her hair and forcing her face up to meet his.

  'Why is it never the right time for me to kiss you properly?' he demanded in her ear. 'I can't and won't wait for ever, Georgie Porgie!'

  She shuddered against him, saying nothing. There was a lump in her throat the size of a tennis ball and she swallowed helplessly, trying to make it go away. It didn't. On the contrary, it grew so large she was afraid it would dissolve into a flood of tears and he would think it was something he had done to her.