The kitchen had to be on the first floor somewhere. It was just a matter of opening a few doors. Suddenly, he wanted to whisk Cleo away from all the madness downstairs, away from her suspicious, uncaring family. Part of his job as Cleo’s hired husband was to act as her bodyguard, to protect her from harm. And he intended to do just that. But after meeting her relatives, Roarke wanted to do more than simply protect her physically. He wanted to protect her emotionally. His gut instincts warned him that Cleo’s kindred felt very little love for her.
If Roarke had his way, that bunch of vultures would never get their claws into Cleo again. They would never rip her apart and leave her bleeding. In the weeks to come, he would do everything in his power to take care of Cleo and keep her safe.
But what he intended to do right now was find his wife, take her upstairs and enjoy his wedding night.
CHAPTER THREE
“WHY DIDN’T YOU come out and meet my husband?” Cleo watched Pearl while the housekeeper hand-washed the pots and pans she had used in preparing the upcoming evening meal.
Other than Aunt Beatrice, Cleo supposed she loved Pearl better than anyone else in the world. Pearl had been Cleo’s true friend for as long as she could remember.
“I don’t approve of this hasty marriage of yours.” Pearl kept her back to Cleo. “No matter what you or anyone else tries to tell me, I know why you married that man.”
So, that was how it was, Cleo thought. Pearl had never been one to mince words, to keep her true feelings to herself. Uncle George had relished his and Pearl’s heated disagreements over everything from politics to religion. Pearl came from a long line of Southern Baptist conservatives and would fight to the death for her convictions.
Taking one tentative step at a time, Cleo made her way across the polished wooden floor, past the tile-topped center island and toward the row of daffodil-yellow cabinets.
“And just why do you think I married Roarke?” Cleo halted a couple of feet behind Pearl.
“You married him because of your uncle George’s will.” Pearl placed the last pan in the drain board, wiped off her age-spotted hands on the large, white apron and turned to face Cleo. “You went and bought yourself a husband. That’s what you did. You paid for a man to get you pregnant. And as soon as he does, you’ll get yourself one of them quickie divorces.”
“Is that what Aunt Beatrice told you?”
“Your aunt Bea said this Mr. Roarke swept you off your feet and the two of you were madly in love.” Pearl frowned, turning the corners of her wide, thin lips downward and creating a row of wrinkles across her brow. Looking directly at Cleo, her sharp gray eyes narrowing, she shook her head and grunted. “Yep, that’s what she told the rest of ’em, too, and they didn’t believe her any more than I did.”
“Don’t you think I’m special enough that some man would fall madly in love with me and sweep me off my feet in a whirlwind romance?”
“Child, I doubt that the man’s been born who’s good enough for you.” Swallowing her sentimental emotions, Pearl tilted her silvery white head to one side and surveyed Cleo from head to toe. “You deserve better than a bought husband. You deserve a man who’ll worship the ground you walk on.”
“Oh, Pearl!”
When Cleo threw her arms around the old woman’s thick waist, Pearl wrapped Cleo in her embrace, stroking Cleo’s hair as if she were a child.
“Your uncle George was a stubborn old fool to have written such nonsense in his will.” Pearl wrapped her arm around Cleo’s waist and led her over to the pine drop-leaf table. “He thought sure you’d marry Hugh Winfield. Had that boy all picked out for you, he did. I tried to tell him that old Hubert’s son wasn’t man enough for my Cleo Belle. I told him, one morning when he was sitting at this very table…I said to him, a Thoroughbred filly like our Cleo needs her a rogue stallion, not some ‘lead him around by the nose’ gelding.”
Pearl’s comment made Cleo smile, not just because she had fairly accurately described Hugh Winfield and Simon Roarke, but because her comparing people to animals reminded Cleo of the game she and Pearl had been playing since she was a small child.
“I’m sure if Uncle George hadn’t taken ill suddenly and been in the hospital when I found Hugh in Daphne’s bed, he would have reconsidered the stipulations in his will.” Cleo pulled out one of the maple splat-back chairs for Pearl, and after the housekeeper sat, Cleo pulled out another chair and joined her.
“Now, there’s a pair for you.” Pearl’s round, fat face crinkled with tiny lines when she smiled. “Daphne and Hugh. I’d say those two deserve each other. A black widow spider and a cockroach.”
Cleo burst into laughter, the action releasing all the bottled-up tension inside her. “And Trey is a weasel and poor little Marla is a timid mouse and—”
“Your aunt Oralie’s been a snake all her life, and all the years they’ve been married, Perry Sutton’s been a whipped dog. And dear Beatrice has always been a little lamb. Even now, and her sixty-three years old.” Pearl reached across the table and took Cleo’s hands in hers. “Mr. George was so afraid you’d end up an old maid like Bea. It near broke his heart that she never married and had children.”
“Aunt Beatrice has no idea you told me about what happened all those years ago.” Cleo squeezed Pearl’s hands, then released them and took a deep breath.
“She was brokenhearted when she lost her man.” Pearl shook her head sadly. “And the way it happened. Poor little lamb ain’t never gotten over it. But thank the good Lord, you’re made of tougher stuff. When that Emerson fellow up and eloped with Daphne, you didn’t roll over and play dead for the next thirty years like Bea did.”
Cleo needed Pearl’s support as much as she needed her aunt Beatrice’s. She realized she should have talked things over with Pearl before getting married, made the old woman understand the necessity of her drastic actions. But when Aunt Beatrice had suggested the idea of hiring a bodyguard who could also double as husband and potential father, Cleo hadn’t been one hundred percent certain she would be able to go through with the plan. Only after a weeklong search and nearly two weeks of screening half a dozen contenders did Cleo decide she’d found the perfect man. Simon Alloway Roarke.
“Pearl?”
“What is it, Cleo Belle?”
“You can help make things a lot easier for me if you can accept my marriage to Roarke.”
“What sort of man can this Roarke of yours be if he’s willing to be bought and paid for? That’s what I want to know.”
“I’m sure he has his reasons for accepting my offer,” Cleo said. “Can’t you see that he’s essential to me right now? You don’t want McNamara Industries to be sold and half the employees to lose their jobs, do you?”
“No, of course I don’t.”
“And you want me to be protected against the person who tried to shoot me, don’t you?”
“I suppose this Roarke fellow is a bodyguard as well as a hired husband.”
“That’s exactly what he is, Pearl. He’s a former Green Beret and has worked for the past several years as a top agent for Dundee Private Security.”
“You must be paying the man a small fortune for all his expertise.” Pearl slapped her meaty hand down on the table. “I don’t approve of divorce. You know that. But…well…all things considered, I’m willing to hold off making a final judgment until after I get to know this Simon Roarke of yours.”
Cleo let out a sigh of relief. “You’ll go along with our little charade, then? You’ll accept Roarke as my husband and cooperate with us?”
“I won’t let on like I know a thing,” Pearl agreed. “But you’ve got to know that the whole bunch suspects something’s fishy about your marriage to a man none of them ever heard of before yesterday.”
“It doesn’t matter what they suspect, as long as they don’t know for sure.”
“You’d have been better off to have told them the truth—what you did and why. And that if they didn’t like it, that was just too bad. W
asn’t no need for you to go letting your pride get in the way of the truth.” Pearl reached out and tenderly caressed Cleo’s cheek. “It’s Miss Daphne you don’t want knowing that you had to hire yourself a husband, ain’t it?”
“I could lie and say that I don’t care what Daphne thinks, but—”
“But you’re human and you do care.”
Smiling sadly at Pearl, Cleo shoved back her chair and stood. “The agency Roarke works for not only provides security, in my case a highly trained bodyguard, but it also does investigative work. While my new husband is protecting me, he’s also going to work on discovering the identity of the person who tried to kill me.”
“I know there’s little real love lost between that bunch of vipers and you, but it’s hard for me to believe that one of them is capable of murder,” Pearl said.
The kitchen door swung open. Cleo and Pearl turned abruptly to see who might have overheard their conversation. Pearl’s eyes narrowed to a squint as she observed their intruder.
Smiling warmly, Cleo crossed the kitchen. She rushed over to her husband and took his arm. “Come meet Pearl. She’s been running this house since before I was born.”
Roarke allowed Cleo to lead him over to where the plump, elderly woman was rising out of her chair.
“Pearl, this is Simon Roarke. My husband.” Cleo waited for the housekeeper to say something, but when Pearl kept staring at Roarke, obviously evaluating every inch of him, Cleo cleared her throat. “Roarke, this is my dearest and oldest friend, Pearl Clooney, Ezra’s wife and our housekeeper for the past forty years.”
“Nice to meet you, Mrs. Clooney.” Roarke held out his hand in greeting.
She tilted her head, then grunted and smacked her lips. “Call me ‘Pearl.’” She didn’t accept his outstretched hand. “Yes, ma’am.”
“You’re going to take good care of my Cleo Belle?” Pearl’s words were part statement and part question.
Realizing the old woman wasn’t going to shake his hand, Roarke withdrew it, then slipped his arm around his wife’s waist and drew her up against him. “Yes, ma’am, I plan to take good care of Cleo.”
Letting her gaze travel from Roarke’s intense blue eyes to the tips of his size-twelve shoes, Pearl pursed her lips and then grunted again. “Yep, I do believe you just might be man enough, all right.”
Shaking her head, Cleo rolled her eyes heavenward. Roarke grinned.
“You two escaped your own wedding reception, huh?” Pearl asked. “Can’t say I blame you. A little of that bunch goes a long way.”
“We’re planning to go upstairs and stay there,” Cleo said. “Do you suppose you can serve our dinner in my room?”
“Getting an early start on your wedding night?” Pearl looked directly at Roarke.
“Yes, ma’am. You understand how it is with newlyweds,” he said.
“I’ll bring supper up around six,” Pearl said. “That should give you time to unpack. Ezra done took your bags upstairs.”
“Roarke likes beer,” Cleo said. “Do we have any?”
“Ezra’s got some.” The corners of Pearl’s mouth lifted in an almost smile. “You let me know what else your man likes to eat and drink, and I’ll be sure to pick it up at the grocery store.”
Cleo pulled away from Roarke, gave Pearl a big, loving hug, then turned back to her husband. Arm in arm, they walked across the room and opened the door.
Pearl called out to them, “A wife should use her husband’s Christian name. If she doesn’t, people wonder why.” With that said, the housekeeper turned her back to them and busied herself by checking the apple pie in the oven.
Neither Cleo nor Roarke replied. They looked at each other and smiled.
“She’s right,” Cleo said. “I’ve got to stop calling you ‘Roarke.’ It’s just that somehow I don’t think of you as Simon.”
It had been a long time since anyone had called him “Simon.” He preferred to be called “Roarke,” even by the women he dated. Using his last name was more impersonal. And that’s the way he liked his relationships. Impersonal.
Roarke led her out into the narrow hallway between the kitchen and the sunroom. “Maybe it would be easier for you to call me ‘honey’ or ‘darling’ or something like that instead of forcing yourself to call me ‘Simon.’”
“No, I’ll call you ‘Simon.’ I suppose this is just the first in a long line of concessions I’ll have to make while we’re married.”
“We’re both going to have to make some concessions for the duration of our marriage,” Roarke said. “After I unpack and we settle in upstairs, I think it would be a good idea for us to discuss setting up some ground rules. Each of us needs to know exactly where we stand, so that we can present a united front to your family and to your employees.”
Roarke followed Cleo up the back staircase. “Pretending to be happily married isn’t going to be easy, is it? Maybe Pearl was right. Maybe I should have been totally up front with everyone. Just told them that I hired you.”
“I overheard you admitting to Pearl that it matters to you what your cousin Daphne thinks,” he said. “And I have a hunch that it matters to you what your employees think. You’d prefer for people to speculate about our marriage than to pity you for having no choice but to buy yourself a man.”
Directly in front of the door leading to her suite, Cleo whirled around to face Roarke. “I did not have to buy myself a husband. I know at least half a dozen men who would have jumped at the chance to marry me. I chose to hire you because none of the men I know had your particular skills. I need someone who can protect me and unearth my would-be killer.”
“I didn’t mean to imply that you couldn’t attract a man, my dear Ms…. pardon me…my dear Mrs. Roarke.”
“No matter whom I married, it would have been a business arrangement.”
“Even if you’d married Hugh Winfield?”
“How do you know about Hugh?”
“I guessed right, then, didn’t I?” Roarke’s broad chest rumbled with laughter. “You and Daphne both wanted Fancy Pants Winfield, and your cousin won the prize.”
“Hugh Winfield is no prize.” Cleo opened the door to her suite. “Please come in and make yourself at home. We’ll share these rooms for however long our marriage lasts.”
She took a step forward, only to be swept up in Roarke’s arms once again. When she glared at him, he only smiled.
“It’s customary for the groom to carry the bride over the threshold.”
“You did that downstairs,” she reminded him.
“That was for your family’s benefit,” he said.
“Oh? And for whose benefit is this little show, Mr. Roarke?”
“It’s for your benefit, Boss Lady. I thought it might help you get in the right mood for our wedding night.”
Feeling the heat rise in her face, Cleo looked away from Roarke as he carried her through the open door. She should have said something to him earlier about not wanting to rush into having sex. Obviously, he intended to take that part of their marriage seriously. Of course she realized that she’d have to have sex with him sometime if she wanted to get pregnant. She’d considered asking him to go through an artificial insemination process, but had changed her mind. Everything about her marriage to this man was a charade and as impersonal as a relationship could be. She didn’t want the process of creating a child to be a clinical, impersonal act. She wasn’t quite sure why it mattered so much; it just did.
Roarke carried her across the room and deposited her in the middle of a mahogany spindle bed. Placing his knees on the quilt coverlet, he braced himself with both hands spread out beside her hips. Leaning forward, he kissed her. She pulled back and sucked in a deep breath.
As she scooted toward the headboard, he followed her, trapping her against the ornately carved wooden surface. “It’s been a while since you’ve done this, hasn’t it?” he asked.
“What?” Her eyes widened, the dark irises glistening like polished jade.
; “Sex,” he said, resting his body beside hers, his head against the headboard. “You haven’t had sex in a long time. You’re too skittish for an experienced woman. You act as if you’re afraid of me.” Laying his head on her shoulder, he cocked it to one side and looked up at her.
Every muscle in her body tensed at his accusation. Every nerve rioted, sending shock waves of embarrassment through her entire system. “Just because I’m not quite prepared to—to—”
“Jump my bones.” Roarke chose the words for her.
“Okay. Just because I’m not quite prepared to jump your bones right this minute does not mean that it’s been years since I’ve been intimate with a man. It simply means that I can’t rush into having sex with a man who’s a stranger to me.”
Lifting his head off her shoulder, he shrugged. “You don’t have to know a person to have sex with him. Believe me, you can have great sex with a perfect stranger.”
“I’m sure you would know. But unlike you and, from what I understand, most men, sex for me isn’t just some bodily function, it’s—”
“A deep and profound emotional experience?”
“I do not appreciate your making fun of me. And I don’t appreciate your implying that I’m practically a virgin!”
Uh-oh, Roarke thought. He certainly had pushed all her buttons, hadn’t he? He had hoped that Cleo McNamara wouldn’t turn out to be the type of woman who couldn’t separate her physical needs from her emotional needs. But just as he had suspected, she was a romantic under that icy exterior.
He had no intention of becoming emotionally involved with this woman. He hadn’t allowed himself to care about anyone, really care, since Laurie died. Loving others meant pain and suffering when you lost them. His divorce from Hope had made him cynical. His daughter’s death had made him emotionally barren.
He didn’t want Cleo to care about him, didn’t want her confusing good sex with love. It would make things easier for him if she’d had a legion of lovers, men who had meant nothing to her. But no, just his luck, she had admitted to being inexperienced. Just how inexperienced was she? Practically a virgin? What did that mean?
Til Death Do Us Part Page 28