Worthy of Marriage

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by Anne Weale


  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  FOR her wedding outfit, Lucia chose a slim-fitting plain white crêpe dress with long sleeves, a skirt that stopped just short of her ankles and a neckline that skimmed her collarbones. With it she was going to wear the single string of matched cultured pearls presented to her by Braddy.

  ‘I’d like you to have them, my dear,’ the housekeeper had told her. ‘I haven’t any daughters or nieces to leave them to, and my own neck has collapsed. It would please me to see them shown off to advantage on your pretty young neck.’

  Mrs Calderwood had wanted the service to be held in her parish church and the reception at Larchwood. Despite having organised three weddings for her daughters, she had claimed to be disappointed when Grey insisted on a quiet civil marriage and a reception limited to family and very close friends at a hotel in London, before he and Lucia flew off to honeymoon at a secret destination.

  Whether her future mother-in-law was genuinely disappointed and was putting a brave face on the situation, Lucia could not tell. It was also hard to be sure what Grey’s sisters thought. Like their mother, the two elder daughters were women who would feel it was not good manners to let their reservations be seen. If Grey was set on the marriage, they would accept it gracefully, whatever they might feel privately.

  The worst shock for them had been his announcement of his resignation from the board. That had been a blow to them all, and all four of them had come to her privately and begged her to persuade him to reconsider. She did not think they had believed her when she’d said, ‘Grey’s happiness is the most important thing to me…and I think he’s old enough, and wise enough to know what is best for him.’

  To that reply, Jenny, more blunt than the others, had said, ‘I think he’s mad. If he walks out, the company will fall apart…the way they invariably do when the driving force vanishes. I admire you for being willing to go along with this dotty idea of his, but I think you’ll both regret it.’

  ‘The one thing I did regret, I don’t any more,’ Lucia had told her. ‘Those awful months in prison were a small price to pay for the rest of my life with Grey.’

  She was remembering that conversation as she picked up the wide-brimmed hat of fine white straw, trimmed with moiré silk ribbon tied in a large crisply stiff bow at the front, that completed her outfit.

  As she placed it carefully on her head, Lucia wondered if Jenny was right and Grey’s plan would turn out, in retrospect, to have been a dotty idea. As far as she was concerned, it didn’t matter. It was what he wanted to do, and her idea of marriage was an alliance in which both partners did their best to let each other have whatever they wanted—dotty or otherwise.

  In any case, she had total confidence that, if Plan A didn’t work out to his satisfaction, Grey would swiftly come up with Plan B. He was the kind of man with whom she would always feel safe no matter what contingencies and vicissitudes might be lying in wait for them.

  Disregarding many of the traditional wedding conventions, they had planned the occasion to suit themselves. They had spent the night apart, Grey on the boat, Lucia at the hotel where, last night, he had given a party for some of his friends who had not been invited to the reception.

  The bedside telephone rang. Lucia picked up the receiver. ‘Hello?’

  ‘Mr Calderwood is in the lobby, Ms Graham,’ said a voice.

  ‘Please tell him I’ll be down in a moment.’

  There was nobody else in the lift that took her down to the lobby. She hoped Grey wasn’t expecting a full skirt and a filmy veil. She had tried on a selection of outfits and this was the one that had felt right.

  When the lift doors opened, he had his back to her. He was taking a turn round the lobby. He was wearing a light grey suit she hadn’t seen before, the impeccable tailoring enhancing the natural breadth of his shoulders and the straightness of his broad back. Whenever she looked at him now, no matter how formally he was dressed, she had an X-ray type vision of the strong male body under the uniform of the urbane businessman. Not that he would be wearing that uniform for much longer. From now on he could dress as he pleased.

  As she stepped out of the lift, he turned, saw her, and came striding towards her in the eager way that always made her heart lurch. She still couldn’t quite believe this man, who could have had anyone, wanted her.

  ‘It’s all right: I’m not going to knock your hat sideways or smudge your lipstick. I know better than that,’ he said, taking her hands and lifting them to his lips.

  He was wearing a pale yellow silk tie. A yellow carnation was tucked in his buttonhole.

  ‘I missed you last night,’ he told her. ‘For the next fifty years, let’s try to spend as few nights apart as possible.’

  ‘Sounds good to me…but maybe this hat was a bad choice if it’s putting you off kissing me properly.’

  ‘A careful kiss then.’

  He ducked his head to avoid the brim and kissed her lightly on the cheek and even more lightly on her mouth.

  Straightening, he said, ‘You look ravishing.’

  When he looked at her like that, she felt ravishing. She wondered why she had ever thought his eyes cold, his expression hard.

  ‘There’s a taxi waiting. Let’s go, shall we?’ He clicked his heels together and offered her his forearm.

  She took it, feeling the sinewy strength of bone and muscle under the expensive cloth.

  She still didn’t know where they were spending tonight, but she didn’t need to. Anywhere Grey chose to take her would be fine with her. She wasn’t about to surrender her independence of thought or her capacity to make some decisions on her own. She would still sign her paintings Lucia Graham. She would always be her own person, but still bound heart and soul to Grey.

  He put her into the taxi and climbed in behind her. As the vehicle moved off, he reached for her hand and they laced their fingers together.

  The last minute nervousness Lucia had expected to feel had not materialised. She realised she was no longer worried about what her future in-laws might think. Suddenly full of confidence, she relaxed and enjoyed what she knew would always count as one of the happiest moments of her life, being a bride on her way to her wedding.

  ISBN: 978-1-4603-6517-5

  WORTHY OF MARRIAGE

  First North American Publication 2000.

  Copyright © 2000 by Anne Weale.

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.

  All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

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