The Only One

by Penny Jordan

  At last the ordeal was over—or nearly. The meal had finished and they were now free to wander among their guests. At any normal wedding this would have been a relaxing and pleasurable climax to the day’s events, but for her, there was no joy in meeting and being introduced to a long procession of well-fed and almost always overly smug faces.

  Only Tod’s family seemed real, his mother exclaiming over her dress with genuine pleasure, as she touched the fine fabric. ‘Eeh but that’s a lovely bit of material,’ she commented, adding to one of her daughters, ‘Look, our Sylvia, you should get something like this when you marry young Terry.’

  ‘Chance ‘ud be a fine thing,’ Sylvia commented with a lively grin in Brooke’s direction. ‘It’s silk, Ma, and it costs a small fortune. Besides,’ she added with a practicality that warmed Brooke’s bruised heart, ‘even if we could afford it, I’d sooner the money was spent on the house.’

  Adam moved away to speak to someone else, and Brooke thankfully sat down in the chair Tod’s mother pulled out for her.

  ‘So our Adam’s got himself wed at last,’ she commented, studying her. ‘Well there’s no doubt about it, you’re a right bonny lass, but looks aren’t everything, and our Tod says you’ve got a lovely nature as well.’ She glanced lovingly at her son, who grimaced and looked faintly embarrassed. ‘We’re all right glad Adam didn’t go and wed that toffee-nosed Susan. Too good for him she thought herself, but not good enough by a long chalk, that’s what I say.’

  ‘Ma….’ Tod’s voice had a warning note in it, and Brooke tensed, worried by the look exchanged by mother and son, but Adam had returned and was patiently waiting for her to re-join him.

  They were three-quarters of the way round the room before Brooke found the courage to ask a question. ‘Adam, how many of these people are your real friends?’

  ‘You mean how many of them accept me as I am; how many of them would still be here, if I wasn’t Adam Henderson Hart of Hart Enterprises?’ he asked grimly. ‘What’s the matter? Are you worried that you won’t get enough acceptances to your invitations to fill your dinner table? Are you worried about being ashamed of me Brooke; of having to face the snide comments and mockery of your social peers? Well you should have thought about that before.’ Almost savagely he released her arm and strode away from her, leaving Brooke shocked by his outburst. Tod had warned her that Adam still retained the bitter memories of his childhood, but she had had no idea that they were so deep-rooted or vitriolic. Frowning she turned away, only to be accosted by Susan and her escort.

  ‘Darling, do go and get me another drink would you,’ she trilled sweetly. ‘Trust Adam to serve the very best champagne. Vulgar of course … but then what else can one expect.’

  When her escort had gone to do her bidding she smiled mockingly at Brooke. ‘Well, well, so Adam finally did it.’

  Grimly telling herself that she wasn’t going to give the blonde the satisfaction of asking the obvious question Brooke turned away. ‘He always said he would, but I didn’t think anyone would ever be stupid enough to go along with him, but then I suppose in your circumstances it was either Adam or some dreary accountant. I suppose you expect that the combination of your family background and his money …’ she broke off, and smiled secretly, much to Brooke’s fury. ‘Of course I always knew that Adam would stop at nothing to get himself socially accepted, but you?’ Her eyebrows arched. ‘Of course you know that he asked me to marry him?’ Her unkind laughter filled Brooke’s ears, breaking through her pain.

  ‘Daddy was furious, although of course, he couldn’t say much about it because of this deal he’s involved in with Adam. Naturally I refused him.’ She glanced complacently at the diamond glittering on her left hand, in its own way as vulgar as she had called Adam’s champagne, Brooke thought fiercely. ‘I had to tell him when he proposed to me that I’d already accepted Leon. Not that it would have made any difference. My set would have shunned me completely, if I had married him. There are some things money just can’t compensate for. Oh Adam’s done extremely well for himself, and in bed….’ Her eyebrows arched delicately, her small pink tongue touching her lips in a way that made Brooke long to rake her nails down her face, the intensity of her emotions making her feel almost sick. ‘But as a husband! I suppose of course, he told you he loved you? It’s your family background he loves my dear. He’s never made any secret of the fact that he intended to marry well, and he won’t be a faithful husband.’

  ‘Just as you won’t be a faithful wife,’ Brooke broke in too angry to care what she was saying. A sick, despairing feeling flooded through her. Knowing what she did about Adam’s background it was all too easy to believe what Susan was saying. She was perhaps the only woman he had ever loved, and she had embittered him to the extent where he was capable of marrying for exactly those reasons she had described. But it had come as a shock to hear that he had proposed to her so recently. He must have made up his mind to marry her almost immediately afterwards, and that was why everything had been arranged with such haste. Even making love to her had probably been calculated and planned, she thought bitterly. He must have known that once they had been lovers she would be more inclined to marry him. The desperate passion and hunger she had sensed in him had not been for her after all, they had been the result of his rejection by Susan.

  ‘Brooke?’

  Tod was standing beside her, looking concerned. Susan had gone and how long she had been standing alone Brooke did not know. ‘You look pale,’ he told her, ‘are you okay?’

  ‘Fine. It’s just been a long day.’

  ‘Soon be over now. Brooke….’ He frowned and glanced uncertainly at his hands, square, capable hands Brooke noticed absently.

  ‘Brooke, don’t take this the wrong way, but do you love Adam?’

  ‘Does it matter?’ her voice ached with raw pain. ‘I know why he married me Tod, if that’s what’s worrying you.’ She broke away before Tod could say anything else, pain and bitter anguish tearing into her like cruelly sharp spurs. Adam had deceived her; he hadn’t had the honesty to tell her why he was marrying her. He had guessed how she felt about him and he had used her feelings quite callously to get what he wanted; to show Susan that even if she rejected him, others would not.

  Now she understood the reason for the lavish reception, and the impressive guest list, and her heart ached anew; both for herself and for Adam. Surely he could see that he was pursuing a chimera; that the so called ‘acceptance’ of those people who could be impressed by wealth and power simply wasn’t worth having. And she couldn’t help him. She had never mixed in the glossy superficial circles favoured by Susan and her like and she shrank from doing so.

  ‘Brooke.’

  Adam’s sharp voice intruded on her misery. ‘Isn’t it time you got changed?’

  ‘I’m on my way.’ She turned away from him as she spoke not wanting him to see the pain and misery in her eyes. She was a substitute for Susan Crawford. Adam didn’t even want her physically for herself, but for what she represented. Despite the centrally heated room set on one side for her to change in she was shivering convulsively as she slid out of her wedding dress and into the chestnut wool dress she had chosen to return to Abbot’s Meade in.

  CHAPTER TEN

  BROOKE could never remember travelling back to Abbot’s Meade in such acute misery in her whole life.

  Adam made desultory conversation as he drove, to which she responded with what she knew to be lacklustre and stilted monosyllables, but despite all the urgings of her pride she couldn’t find the willpower to sound happy and unconcerned.

  She had known he didn’t love her—at least not as she loved him—and she had been able to come to terms with that, but this new discovery was too soon and too devastating for her to cope with. Their marriage was destroyed before it had even really started she thought weakly. Another stronger woman might have been able to fight; to play a game of ‘let’s pretend’ in the hope that eventually their sham relationship might be transformed
into a real one, but Brooke was beyond any form of pretence, never mind such a sophisticated one. And it didn’t help knowing that she was a fool for not seeing the truth for herself. But it was too late to berate herself now. She and Adam were married; they had been lovers. A wave of nausea wrenched through her, leaving her pale and aching with pain. How could she endure having him touch her again now that she knew the truth? She couldn’t adopt the cynical attitudes of a woman like Susan.

  ‘Are you all right?’ The curt question whipped across her lacerated nerves, sending acute waves of pain shuddering through her nervous system.

  ‘Brooke?’

  The harsh utterance of her name made her tremble, and yet why should she be so afraid, Adam knew nothing of her decision yet.

  She wasn’t going to sleep with him, she decided frantically, she could not. He would have to take whatever steps he wished to end their marriage. A strangled noise issued from her throat causing Adam to switch his attention from his driving to her.

  ‘Too much champagne,’ he derided, mockingly. ‘Lie back and close your eyes.’

  Brooke did as he directed, more from a need to escape the cool, too-knowing scrutiny of his eyes than because she wanted to. Adam was astute and she was frightened that he would read her anguish in her eyes. She wasn’t afraid of telling him of her decision, but she wanted to do it with a little more courage and self-control than she was capable of just now.

  When they turned into Abbot’s Meade’s drive, the house loomed large and dark ahead of them. Adam swung his car expertly round towards the Dower House. Smoke curled out of the chimneys, lights glowing behind the curtains. As though anticipating her question Adam murmured, ‘I arranged for someone to come in and organise fires and food.’ His eyes went to the thin curl of smoke. ‘It looks very inviting, doesn’t it, but like everything else, looks aren’t everything. When I was a boy my mother used to have to go scavenging along at the back of the local railway yard to get coal—stealing it, really if we’re being honest, but if she didn’t come home with any we didn’t have a fire, and the walls in our terraced house ran with damp during the winter. My mother suffered from severe arthritis towards the end of her life….’

  It was the first time he had mentioned anything personal from his past to her, and in other circumstances Brooke would have been brought to the edge of sympathetic tears by his casual disclosures, but now all she could feel was a dull numbness, a disinterest that manifested itself in her slow turning of her head to stare out of the window, leaving his remarks uncommented upon.

  ‘Sorry about that.’ His voice grated roughly against her ears, and had she not so recently learned how hard he could be she might almost have supposed it to contain pain. ‘Obviously, you aren’t interested in the sordid details of my childhood. I’ll make note not to mention them again. Worrying you is it; how you’re going to endure the social solecisms of your lower-class husband….’

  This was it. Brooke took a deep breath and held it, it was now or never; she must tell him while she could.

  ‘Not really.’ She was proud of her cool, distant voice that didn’t tremble or betray any shade of emotion whatsoever. ‘You see, Adam, I made a mistake. I don’t want to be married to you after all.’

  The silence in the car pressed heavily down on her. She daren’t look into Adam’s face, and then without saying a word to her he opened the car door and got out. When he opened her door Brooke fought down panic. His face was impassive; she could read nothing in it.

  Perhaps he thought she was suffering from bridal nerves she thought feverishly. If so she would have to convince him that she was serious, although he would know that the moment he touched her. Her blood actually seemed to run cold at the thought of him touching any part of her body, no matter how casually. It was the deep intensity of her love for him that had caused this bitter revulsion, she acknowledged; and it was directed as much against herself as against him. She had enjoyed his lovemaking; if a word such as ‘enjoy’ could describe the wealth of sensation and pleasure he had given her, and now her mind was punishing her body for that enjoyment; for putting it in a position where it could be humiliated in this way. She still loved him; that was the most incredible thing of all; and yet she hated him at the same time; and she hated herself.

  His fingers reached for her arm to help her out of the car and she froze, watching the expression on his face, as though she were a complete outsider to the small drama, watching herself. Anger, deep and penetrating, set his face into harsh lines, his mouth thinning as he withdrew and went to open the boot.

  Following him inside, Brooke shivered, despite the enveloping heat of the centrally heated hall.

  Part of her mind recognised that a small army must have been at work in the Dower House since she left it because not only had discreetly hidden central heating been installed, but the hall had been restored to its original glory, the mouldings and plasterwork delicately picked out in white, against the soft peach of the walls. A thick, plain pearl grey carpet muffled their footsteps, and flowed up the sweeping staircase.

  ‘In here.’

  Adam’s voice was curt as he thrust open the door to the drawing room. Here again the floor was covered in the pearl grey carpet. The walls had been painted in a soft yellow with an attractive stippled effect, the plasterwork once again white.

  Two large, comfortable settees upholstered in an attractive yellow, French blue and soft grey traditional fabric were positioned either side of the Adam fireplace, an elegant coffee table in between them.

  A Regency writing desk and several other attractive antiques of the same period added warmth to the room, and Brooke knew that this was somewhere she could have felt at home in. It was an attractive room, elegant and yet comfortable.

  ‘Sit down and I’ll get us both a drink.’

  ‘I don’t want one.’ How stiff and formal her voice sounded.

  ‘Maybe not, but I do.’

  She sank down on to one of the settees, her hands folded primly in her lap, tension infusing every part of her body. Behind her she could hear Adam pouring his drink and the tension grew.

  ‘Now,’ he said tersely, when he came to stand in front of her, ‘would you mind explaining to me exactly what you meant out there in the car.’

  ‘Exactly what I said,’ Brooke told him bravely. ‘I’ve changed my mind, Adam, I don’t want to be married to you.’

  ‘After less than five hours of marriage, you’ve decided you don’t want it, is that it? I was good enough as your lover, but not as your husband.’ His face contorted with a mixture of emotions she couldn’t define, as he tilted his glass and drank the contents in one swallow. ‘And to think I thought you were different—warm and human….’ He grimaced with disgust and Brooke had to stop herself from screaming at him that he was the one who was cold and without emotion; he was the one who had married her because…. Her mind shied away, still not wholly ready to accept the truth.

  ‘Well, I’ll just have to see if I can’t change your mind, won’t I?’

  Before she knew what was happening she was in Adam’s arms and he was carrying her towards the stairs. Struggling frantically to escape, Brooke glared up at his impassive face. Despite her height he didn’t need to check as he carried her upstairs, and shock began to give way to fear.

  ‘Adam….’

  ‘Save your breath, Brooke,’ he told her tersely, thrusting open a door with his shoulder. The room beyond lay in shadow, dominated by the bulk of a large half-tester bed. A fire had been lit in the grate, the flames flickering shadows round the walls, highlighting the soft muted shades of peach and cream in which the room was decorated.

  The bed sank beneath her weight as Adam dropped her on it. Brooke reacted instinctively, twisting to one side, rolling desperately away intent on escape, but Adam foiled her, pinning her to the bed by straddling her body, gripping it with his knees as he used his hands to pull off her jacket.

  Brooke was a tall girl, and she had always thought a fairly s
trong one, but despite her angry struggles Adam easily overpowered her.

  When his hands reached the waistband of her skirt she tensed in furious protest, hating him with her eyes, loathing the touch of his fingers against her skin.

  ‘It’s coming off Brooke,’ he responded thickly. ‘I’ll tear it off you if I have to.’

  He did, and the harsh noise of the tearing fabric was like a cry of anguish for all that their marriage could have been and was not.

  Brooke lay motionless, cold as marble as he removed the rest of her clothes and then his own. She was beyond any thought of escape, beyond anything but keeping herself from being acutely sick. Even Adam’s driving anger didn’t have the power to touch her. He didn’t kiss her, simply staring broodingly down at her before gripping her shoulders and then slowly sliding his hands down her body until he was cupping her breasts. Unable to tear her eyes away from the sight of his tanned fingers against her skin Brooke felt a wave of nausea rise up inside her.

  In a voice completely devoid of any trace of feeling she said quietly, ‘Adam if you don’t stop touching me, I’m afraid I shall be sick.’

  He withdrew almost immediately, and for a moment it seemed that his skin was almost grey, his eyes winter bleak.

  ‘Why?’ he asked in a voice that matched her own for emptiness.

  ‘Because I know the truth.’ What was the point in hiding it; he might as well know. ‘I know why you married me.’

  This time he really did lose colour. For a moment his eyes blazed down at her and then they were masked, his emotions banked down.

  ‘And because of that you can’t bear me to touch you?’

  ‘If I’d known before I’d never have married you,’ she told him quietly, ‘and now that I do know, I can’t stay married to you.’