The Bridegroom's Dilemma

by Lindsay Armstrong

  ‘Not at all!’ It was his turn to break in. ‘I shall be the soul of discretion, you may rely on me, but this is very good news…’

  Skye escaped as more guests arrived, feeling dreadful. She wandered to the edge of the terrace to discover that a string quartet was playing Mozart on the terrace below. She watched for a moment, unable to help her thoughts escaping to another terrace down the garden that contained a swimming pool and a big tree…then turned at a sound behind her.

  It was Nick. Nick, looking darkly handsome in a dinner suit and a snowy shirt but with a blaze of sheer anger in his eyes.

  So much so, she literally felt scorched and pinned to the terrace wall as he then proceeded to undress her with his eyes so that she might as well have been standing there in her black silk and lace panties, her tiny girdle and long sheer stockings, which was all she wore under her dress.

  In fact so savagely intimate were his dark eyes as they lingered on parts of her figure that he knew so well, she crossed her hands defensively over her breasts in a reflex gesture.

  He looked back into her eyes with a glint of sheer mockery. ‘What the hell are you doing here, then, Skye, if it’s not to torment me with the remembered delights of your body?’

  She gasped. ‘No! I mean, that’s not why I’m here!’

  He shoved his hands into his pockets. ‘Perhaps you should have dressed up a bit more,’ he suggested sardonically.

  Her hands fell to her sides. ‘That’s ridiculous, Nick.’

  He raised an eyebrow at her and he could hardly have looked more satanic and devastatingly masculine at the same time. ‘Go on, then. Why are you here and why am I the last to know it?’

  She clenched her fists. He noticed it and looked back into her eyes with cool, hateful amusement.

  ‘I’m only here because of your sister,’ she said through her teeth. ‘She begged me to come because she thought it might lessen the crisis-ridden state of affairs you and your father are subjecting her to.’

  He frowned. ‘It’s not my fault she’s pregnant before the wedding and marrying a Frenchman. I don’t see what you can do about it either.’

  ‘That is so like a man, Nick,’ she shot back. ‘Haven’t you stopped to think what she may be going through? Or are you so taken up with fighting your father you haven’t even noticed?’

  ‘The only reason I’m fighting my father is because he won’t let go of this notion that I should get down on my knees and beg you to come back, Skye. Why don’t you explain things to him?’ he suggested roughly. ‘Then we all might get some peace and sanity round here.’

  Pippa came up at this point, took one look at her brother’s features which might have been cast in iron, and at Skye’s pale face, and said despairingly, ‘Oh, Nick, if you could just be friends for a night Dad might…it might make some difference!’

  Nick transferred his dark gaze to his sister, clad in a gold, off-the-shoulder gown with a bouffant skirt. She looked beautiful, and there was no sign of her pregnancy, but there were faint dark circles under her eyes.

  And Skye discovered she was holding her breath as his expression didn’t change for a long moment, then softened suddenly. He put his arm around his sister’s waist and kissed her brow affectionately. ‘Sorry, Pip. I’ve been—thoughtless. Let’s see what we can do to rectify things.’

  ‘You didn’t have to go this far,’ Skye said, sotto voce but with undeniable feeling as they sat down to dinner.

  Nick hadn’t left her side during the preceding hour. He’d introduced her to people she hadn’t met, calmly ignoring the looks of surprise they’d been unable to hide, and, while he hadn’t been precisely lover-like, he had managed to convey subtly that they were a couple. The only thing he’d avoided was any close contact with his father.

  ‘No?’ He raised an eyebrow wryly at her. ‘You think some tame half-measures are going to achieve anything? My father and I may not be in accord at the moment but one thing I do know—he’s not a fool. Do you know why he got all het up again over you, Skye?’

  She blinked at him.

  ‘Like the rest of the world,’ he drawled, ‘he saw the pictures in the paper. Like the rest of the world,’ he said with suave satire, ‘he was convinced I’d caused you to be crying, heartless monster that I am.’

  ‘You…’ She stopped and bit her lip.

  ‘I did make you cry? Or I’m not a heartless monster?’ He waited, but when she said nothing more he continued meditatively, ‘Have you stopped to think what you’ve done to my reputation, incidentally?’

  Skye unfurled a rose-pink damask napkin and laid it carefully on her lap. ‘If anything, women will find you more irresistible, Nick, so I wouldn’t worry about it if I were you.’

  ‘But not my father. Nor most other men who are all secretly a little in love with you, Skye. And I don’t know about the women either—you’re almost a national treasure.’

  Skye said something unprintable beneath her breath, causing him to look wickedly amused for a moment. Then she turned pointedly to Jean-Claude.

  The sixty or so guests were seated at four round tables with magnificent floral centrepieces of pink and white roses. The silver cutlery gleamed, the crystal shone, the waiters and waitresses wore black and white, and a moon was rising.

  Margaret and Richard Hunter were not at their table, for which Skye gave devout thanks. All the same the tables weren’t that far apart and she knew she was visible from most angles. Added to this, the guests had been mixed so that there were people of an age group that made them friends of the Hunter Seniors at Skye’s table. Pippa was on the other side of Jean-Claude.

  It was as Skye exchanged glances with her across him that it occurred to her that if she could get at least one thing right tonight it would be to take the Frenchman under her wing.

  She shook herself mentally as soon as the thought occurred to her. This was a middle-aged count! What could she do to make him more acceptable to Pippa’s family and friends?

  Treat him as if he were on one of your shows, an inner voice prompted suddenly. You obviously have cuisine in common too. Work on that!

  She did. The result was delightful. The rapport between her and Jean-Claude seemed to get the rest of the table going; she could see Pippa relaxing and finally she could sit back feeling as if she’d launched him successfully.

  ‘Masterly,’ Nick said dryly. ‘I gather that was Skye Belmont, TV personality at work?’

  ‘Yes,’ she agreed shortly, and added defiantly, ‘I like him but the real criterion is—Pippa loves him.’

  ‘I stand reproved,’ he commented.

  Skye didn’t answer and presently he began to talk to her more normally. She would have given anything to be able to freeze him off or simply ignore him but, apart from the obvious reasons not to, he was diabolically clever about it. Without her quite knowing how, he got her to discuss next year’s show and the innovations that were planned for it.

  ‘You know all my pot plants?’

  ‘I do,’ he agreed. ‘Although not by name.’

  Skye grinned. ‘Well, you may not know that I grow a lot of herbs as well, so we’re going to feature one fresh herb a week—how to grow it, how to use it, how to dry it et cetera. And—’ she wrinkled her nose ‘—I’m not so sure about this one, but we’re going to tour some farmyards.’

  ‘Why not sure about that?’

  ‘I think I may be expected to show a rapport with live chickens, pigs and things.’

  He laughed. ‘If you could see your face!’

  She laughed back at him. ‘I can imagine it. Not that I have any phobias about chooks and pigs but I haven’t ever been closely associated with them!’

  He sobered. ‘How’s it going—phobia-wise, Skye?’

  ‘I haven’t really had a chance to test it but I don’t worry nearly so much about going to supermarkets and things like that.’

  ‘I’m so glad,’ he said gently, and put his hand over hers briefly.

  Neither of them was awar
e that Richard Hunter was watching them closely.

  Things didn’t stay as serene, however. Nor did Skye realize that, despite being so nice to her, Nick was still angry underneath…

  After dinner, the quartet retired and a band took over. Pippa and Jean-Claude rose and stepped onto the circular dance floor that had been laid down.

  ‘Oh, no!’ Skye muttered.

  ‘You didn’t expect this or you still have painful memories of Bryce?’ Nick queried as he stood up and held his hand down to her. ‘Believe me, we dance together like a dream, Skye. Or had you forgotten?’ For a moment his dark eyes gleamed as a tiger’s might. Lazy now but with a hint of ever present danger.

  Skye cursed herself inwardly for not having thought about this, and took his hand.

  ‘Nothing’s changed,’ he remarked as they circled the floor in perfect step with each other. ‘Did he write?’

  ‘Bryce? Yes. He also sent me some marvellous photos of Haggerstone and Mount Gregory.’

  ‘How’s it going with Maggie?’

  ‘He didn’t say. I don’t know whether that’s good news or not.’

  ‘You wouldn’t be having second thoughts about him?’

  She looked him straight in the eye. ‘As you apparently had about Wynn? Of course not but I liked him, he was a good friend in a time of need, and I felt so sorry for him when he crashed.’

  ‘So did we all,’ he murmured. ‘You were both rather sweet, swirling your way through the water.’ He stopped dancing as the music changed and then drew her closer into his arms.

  ‘Nick—’ Skye swallowed as her heart started to beat differently ‘—we don’t have to do this…’

  ‘You think not?’ His dark eyes were ironic and they drifted almost absently along the smooth curves of her shoulders.

  ‘You know, I can’t work out why you bother to be nice to me then—like this,’ she said bitterly. ‘Why would I think otherwise?’

  ‘Because there’s a tell-tale little pulse beating rather rapidly at the base of your throat, Skye. I’ve often watched it although you may have been unaware of me doing so. I know, for example, that I can actually get it to beat faster simply by doing this.’

  He released her hand and put both of his on her back, one sliding down to her hips, the other on her skin just above the top of her zip. And he drew her towards him so that he could say the rest of what he was saying into her hair.

  ‘In days gone by, now would be when we’d leave. And either at your place or mine there would be no dress, however lovely, between us, to hinder me touching your breasts just as you like me to, Skye.’

  She stumbled but he gathered her smoothly into the beat again, although he moved her a little away and took her hand again so he could look into her eyes as they danced on.

  ‘Did you know,’ he continued, his gaze lingering on that pulse at the base of her throat, ‘you have a way of tilting back your head, Skye, and closing your eyes that tells me just how much you’re loving every damn thing I’m doing to you?’

  ‘Stop it,’ she whispered raggedly.

  ‘Why? If it’s getting to be too much for you perhaps we should do something about it? Think how happy it would make my father if we disappeared—together. Is that not the game we’re playing at the moment?’

  ‘I am going, right now. Nick!’ she protested as he pulled her close again.

  ‘Oh, no, Skye,’ he said, his body hard and strong against hers, his arms like steel. ‘When we slip away, which we’ll do shortly, it will be together. You started this.’

  ‘Nick—I didn’t know you could be like this!’

  He smiled into her eyes and kissed her lightly on the mouth. ‘Perhaps you’ll think twice before you play with matches again, Skye.’

  To her disbelief, he engineered their leaving the party discreetly not long afterwards, although she had his finger marks on her wrist to testify as to how he’d done it. And she was shaking with anger as she sat beside him in a dark green Jaguar as they drove towards her flat.

  ‘Don’t imagine you’re going to force your way in with me, Nick Hunter!’ she warned furiously. ‘Talk about a Dr Jekyll and a Mr Hyde. I had no idea what a lucky escape I had when I broke it off with you!’

  He grimaced. ‘What would you rather have done? Gone on proving to the world we’re back together? That party won’t break up until midnight at least and more likely two a.m.’

  ‘You didn’t have to—we didn’t have to—’

  ‘We’ve been through that before, Skye,’ he said impatiently. ‘If we’re to get my father into a better frame of mind so that Pippa can get to the altar happily, we needed to make it look real. That was your aim, wasn’t it?’

  Skye opened her mouth but she suddenly dropped her head into her hands. ‘I must have been mad…’

  ‘Agreed,’ he replied with unflattering promptness.

  ‘So…’ Skye raised her head, her eyes widening ‘…you weren’t serious?’

  ‘Oh, I was.’ But the look he cast her was distinctly mocking. ‘We’re two people who still have a rather odd effect on each other considering the lengths we go to to prove otherwise. But we are playing with fire, Skye.’

  She moistened her lips. ‘Because…?’

  He pulled up outside her home, switched the engine off and laid his head back. ‘Because, damn it,’ he said almost to himself, ‘I may be at loggerheads with my father at the moment but I still admire and respect him and I hate deceiving him. Because I didn’t expect you of all people to—to be party to it, and because, Skye—’ he raised his head abruptly ‘—we still can’t keep our hands off each other.’

  ‘I feel terrible,’ Skye said uncertainly, and swallowed several times. ‘But may I explain something? It was…’ she paused and cleared her throat as she tried to marshal her thoughts ‘…it was a women united against men kind of thing.’

  He laughed but not pleasantly.

  ‘Your mother is distraught, your sister was the same—there seemed to be no way to get through to either you or your father and I was the one who seemed to have done most of the damage,’ she said despairingly.

  ‘And what did you plan to do after Pippa’s wedding?’ he enquired. ‘Another bout of tears at an airport?’

  ‘Nick,’ she said on a breath.

  ‘What, as a matter of interest, do you think that would have done to my relationship with my father?’

  Skye started to speak a couple of times then she burst out, ‘Why? I can’t understand why he’s taken it so very badly. There are other women—’

  ‘I told you,’ he said grimly. ‘The whole bloody country has fallen in love with you—’

  ‘That’s not true!’ she protested.

  ‘No?’ He looked at her cynically. ‘Even when you were hiding yourself on Haggerstone Island you came up with one. Look, I don’t mean Dad’s physically in love with you but you couldn’t have fulfilled his vision of the perfect daughter-in-law better. That’s how much everyone loves you, Skye. You’re wholesome, you embody the kind of womanly skills older men set a lot of score by but you’re no fool. Then there’s the way you look.’

  She fumbled for the door handle blindly. ‘Well, it’s just a pity you didn’t realize what a perfect wife I’d make, Nick. It’s just a pity you are the one person in the whole country—and that’s really ironic—who doesn’t need half the things I am or a quarter even; only one thing and that happens to be sex.’

  He sat up abruptly and pressed the central locking device on his door so that her button flew down. ‘That’s what most marriages are about, Skye,’ he said grimly. ‘Don’t kid yourself you can get along without it.’

  She turned a proud, pale face to him. ‘You still don’t understand, do you, Nick? Yes, of course it’s important—it’s vital—but so is something else. Your mother may have been able to live without it; I can’t. I need to be your soul mate as well. Now, you can call it clinging if you like but if you want to inhabit some other world where I’m not permitted I will call it so
mething else—a fear of true commitment.’

  They stared at each other and the electricity that surged between them was charged with hostility as well as everything else that lay between them.

  Until she went on at last, ‘So, if you’re about to suggest we get back together again so you don’t have to go on deceiving your father, the answer is no, Nick. But if you have any feeling of compassion for the rest of your family you’ll do something to ease this crisis. Why don’t you just come clean and explain to Mr Hunter why you are the way you are?’

  The only sound that followed was that of the button on her door popping up. She shrugged, opened the door and slipped out of the car. It roared away before she’d got her key into her front door.

  She swam up from a deep sleep because someone was banging on that same front door the next morning. A groggy glance at her watch showed her it was ten o’clock, not so surprising considering how long it had taken her to get to sleep. She also remembered she’d taken her phone off the hook.

  It was her mother who ran up stairs when she’d released the front door.

  ‘What is it?’ Skye asked anxiously, clutching her cotton robe around her. ‘Has the restaurant blown up? Did the new chef burn everything or serve it raw?’ They’d started a new chef the night before.

  ‘No, no, he was fine. Skye, I think you should sit down,’ Iris said. ‘By the way I tried to phone you but you were always engaged.’

  ‘Oh, I took the phone off the hook.’

  ‘Why?’ Iris stared at her suspiciously. ‘How did it go last night?’

  ‘Um—OK. Mum, what’s all this about?’

  ‘No scenes, no rows, no…anything?’

  ‘No! Well, not that I know of. Why?’

  Iris swallowed. ‘I just heard a news flash. Richard Hunter died in his sleep last night.’

  ‘Are you all right? Drink this, darling—you look so pale.’

  It was a stiff shot of brandy Iris handed her daughter. Skye took a sip. ‘I can’t believe it! He was fine and he was only in, well, his sixties, I presume.’