The Bartered Bride

by Anne Weale

  ‘Oh...sorry.’ After a pause, she added, ‘I’m in a bit of a daze this morning.’

  ‘Is that good or bad?’

  ‘Good...very good.’ On impulse, she curled a hand round his wrist and rubbed her cheek against his upper arm. ‘Thank you for making it so good for me.’

  He was smiling as he said, ‘That’s actually the object of the exercise. Didn’t you know?’

  ‘That might be the theory. I don’t think it always works in real life. You said the other day...that if people were getting it right there wouldn’t be all these divorces.’

  There were other guests coming downstairs. Reid said, ‘Let’s concentrate on breakfast. We can talk about sex when we get to our next destination,’ he added, with a teasing look that sent an anticipatory thrill of excitement through her.

  By ten, they were on their way. Half an hour later they were above the treeline in a region where the air was cooler and the road was lined with tall poles banded with colour to mark the depth of snow during the winter months. It was wild, barren country inhabited only by small groups of wild goats.

  Where once there had been a frontier post, now there were only deserted police and customs buildings. They crossed from France into Spain without any formalities.

  The parador was an ancient castle converted by the Spanish government into a luxurious hotel. Fran wondered if Reid would remember that he had asked for twin beds.

  He did and, without any sign of embarrassment, informed the desk clerk that they would now prefer a cama matrimonio. ‘And I’d like a bottle of cava sent up immediately, please.’

  ‘Certainly, señor.’ The clerk spoke excellent English. What he thought about people who wanted twin beds one day and a double the next, they would never know.

  Their room was a return to the luxury of Bordeaux but in the Spanish taste. While they were starting to unpack, the cava arrived with a complimentary basket of fruit. The waiter opened the bottle and poured the pale golden wine into two crystal flutes. Some notes changed hands and he bowed himself out.

  Reid picked up the glasses and came to where Fran was standing beside her suitcase.

  ‘As a concession to foreigners, the restaurants in most paradores open about half past one, although Spanish people eat later,’ he told her. ‘If we’re going to keep Spanish hours while we’re here, we have a couple of hours to spare.’

  ‘We could go for a stroll,’ she suggested.

  ‘We could...or I could give you another tutorial. Yesterday I taught you to abseil. Today I could give you a lesson in something more fundamental.’ He touched his glass to hers before drinking some of the cava. ‘How to make love to a man.’

  Fran’s insides did double somersaults. She gulped down some wine. It tasted the same as champagne.

  ‘All right,’ she said breathlessly.

  Reid took her by her free hand and led her to the huge bed with its brocaded cover. He whipped this back with a single strong flick of the wrist. Then he sat down on the edge.

  ‘You can start by undressing for me...slowly.’

  For a second she froze with shyness. Then she thought, OK...why not? I’ve got the underwear for it.

  Draining her glass, she said, ‘Wait just one minute. If I’m going to let my hair down, I need some more of this...’ She fetched the bottle in its bucket of crushed ice and put it on the nearest night-table. ‘Some more for you?’

  ‘Uh-uh.’ Reid shook his head, a slight smile curling his mouth as he watched her refill her glass and take another swallow before setting it down.

  ‘Now...’ Fran’s eyes sparkled with a mischievous determination to give him at least as much as he expected of her and possibly a good deal more.

  Although all her outer clothes were simple separates, with just one ravishing slither of almond-pink dévoré velvet in case they went dancing one evening, all her underpinnings were seductive bits of lace and satin from an Italian firm specialising in luxurious lingerie.

  So far Reid had seen only the briefest glimpses of it. Now he would get the full impact.

  To start, she unfastened her hair, held back and up by a couple of tortoiseshell spring clips. Shaking it out, teasing it into wild disarray with her fingers, she gave him the sultry smile she had practised in front of mirrors when she was a teenager but never actually used in real life. If strip-tease was what he wanted, it was what he was going to get—with bells and whistles!

  Keeping his eyes on her, Reid stretched a long arm to put his glass on the night-table. Fran began to unbutton her white cotton sleeveless top, slipping it off her shoulders with the exaggerated shrugs she had seen strippers do in movies. Her bra was the colour of lemons and designed to maximise her curves. She took a slow deep breath, her hands fooling around with her hair, to make him wait for her next move.

  Reid watched but showed no reaction other than the amused lift at the corner of his mouth.

  Determined to make him pant, she unbuckled her belt and pulled it slowly through the loop of her jeans. They had a buttoned fly which, when they were new, had taken for ever to undo. Now the denim had softened and they unfastened easily, but she did it slowly, pausing between each button to inch the jeans down her hips.

  Reid’s expression remained annoyingly impassive. She suspected that was deliberate. But he certainly didn’t look bored. She had his full attention.

  ‘Oops!’ She faked a naughty-me giggle and clutched the front of her briefs to prevent them going down with the jeans as she wriggled them over her bottom and let them fall to her ankles. She had already heeled off her deck shoes. Now she stepped out of the jeans and kicked them out of the way.

  It seemed a good moment to knock back some more of the cava before going on to the next stage. By now she could feel the bubbles beginning to fizz through her veins.

  ‘I think I might have missed my vocation,’ she purred, sliding one strap of her bra off the end of her shoulder, then doing the same with the other.

  ‘Perhaps you have,’ Reid agreed, the husky timbre of his voice confirming that the stoic face was a mask.

  Fran put her hands behind her to unfasten her bra. ‘Are you ready for this?’ she teased, moving a step closer to him.

  His hands were resting on his thighs, just above his knees, his body inclined slightly forward. She noticed his fingers tightening and saw the tic at his jaw before he managed to relax it.

  For the first time she felt a stirring of sensual power. Perhaps she could do to him what he’d done to her last night...reduce him to mindless ecstasy.

  She released the clip, peeling the bra away from her breasts and freeing her left arm from the thin strand of ribbon. It only needed a rippling movement of her torso to send the flimsy garment fluttering to the floor.

  Naked except for her briefs, she said softly, ‘If we’re going to play games, I think you’re overdressed.’

  As she stepped between his legs and started to undo his shirt, she glanced down at him and saw that he was gripping his thighs to stop himself touching her.

  It was a heady sensation, knowing she had it in her to drive this controlled and commanding man wild. And this was only the beginning...

  The hard lithe shape of his body made it easy to pull his shirt free of his trousers and push it off his suntanned shoulders. While Reid put his hands behind him to finish taking it off, she slid down onto her knees to flip the tongue of his belt out of the matt brass buckle. He lay back to make it easier for her to pull down the zip. But first Fran took off his dark brown loafers.

  ‘You have much nicer feet than most men,’ she said, caressing one of them, knowing it wasn’t his feet he wanted her hands on.

  Reid has his fingers laced at the back of his head. He was watching her from a quarter way through a sit-up, a position he made look as effortless as lying on a pile of pillows.

  She remembered from last night the feel of that hard strong body against her own softer flesh and the wonderful sense of togetherness when it was over. She wanted those feelin
gs again, but not yet.

  To help her take off his chinos, Reid relaxed his shoulders and lifted his heels onto the edge of the bed to lever his backside off it. Some loose change and a bunch of keys slipped out of his pocket but they both ignored them.

  Fran pulled his trousers clear of his hips, pretended to lose her balance and fell forward onto his stomach. ‘Sorry.’ She removed herself with a leisurely press-up, her expression demure.

  ‘You can do it again if you like.’ He gave her a wolfish grin, his narrowed eyes gleaming.

  ‘Legs straight, please.’ She made herself sound like a staff nurse dealing with a difficult patient.

  Reid obediently straightened his legs for her to pull his trousers off. Aware that his eyes were caressing her, she deliberately took her time placing the chinos’ hems together and hanging them neatly over the back of a chair.

  Turning back to the bed, she found that Reid had used the brief interval to whip off his undershorts and move fully onto the bed. He beckoned her to join him. ‘I’m beginning to think there’s not very much I can teach you,’ he said, as she climbed on beside him.

  ‘I’m sure you can. What ought my next move to be?’ She sat back on her heels and gave him a wide-eyed smile, fixing her eyes on his face, pretending not to notice that he was already powerfully aroused.

  ‘Let’s see what your instinct comes up with.’ He was breathing faster than usual, the grey eyes she had thought cold now like slits in the wall of a furnace.

  ‘Well...’ With a series of rapid movements she disposed of her tiny briefs and arranged herself close beside him. ‘My instinct says this might be nice.’

  Ten minutes later she had the satisfaction of seeing Reid sprawled on his back, his head flung back, his eyes closed, his white teeth bared in a rictus of almost unbearable pleasure.

  It was an empowering moment that filled her with a strange tenderness. Somehow it made him more human and made her feel better about the nature of their relationship.

  Aware of an unfamiliar kind of happiness, she bent to repeat the caress which had made him groan with enjoyment. But as her hair, falling forward, brushed softly across his body, he put out his hands to stop her.

  In a single convulsive moment, he reared up and pushed her backwards, fitting their bodies together, bringing his mouth down on hers.

  Even the late-lunching Spaniards were already eating when the head waiter greeted the Kennards and led them to a table for two.

  While Reid talked to him in Spanish, Fran turned the pages of the menu till she came to an English version. Having woken out of a short but deep sleep and dressed in a rush, she didn’t feel ready to make even simple decisions.

  ‘Shall I choose for both of us?’ Reid asked.

  ‘Would you? That would be lovely.’

  Amazed that he could snap back to normal so quickly, she sat in a pleasant daze while he made the decisions.

  When they were alone, he said, ‘When I was a small boy I used to enjoy cartoons about a cat who was always getting banged on the bead and seeing stars. You look the way he used to look when someone had thumped him with a saucepan.’

  ‘I’m not surprised,’ she said, smiling, not minding his teasing.

  ‘Perhaps it would have been better to have something sent up by Room Service. Or perhaps not,’ he added dryly, with a look that added a subtext she had no trouble reading.

  Leaning across the table, he put out his hand palm upwards. When Fran gave him hers, he squeezed her fingers. ‘You’re fantastic. I’ve heard of women having a natural gift for it. Obviously you’re one of them. I can’t believe my luck.’

  ‘I could say the same about you,’ Fran answered lightly.

  She was glad they had found one level where they were in total rapport. But was it enough to build a good marriage on?

  CHAPTER TEN

  THEY spent the last night of their honeymoon at a small château-hotel on a beautiful stretch of the Garonne, a place of pastoral tranquillity less than an hour’s drive from Bordeaux.

  Fran had lost count of the times they had made love. She had started the trip as an uneasy novice. Now she felt she had more than caught up with her experienced girlfriends. Judging by things they had let drop, in the terms of physical pleasure she was way ahead of them.

  But although in Reid’s arms she had found a whole new dimension to life, she wasn’t as happy as she ought to be.

  South-west France was enjoying an early heatwave. They had dinner outside on the terrace. Most of the other visitors were well-heeled Americans and Fran was glad she’d decided to wear the dévoré velvet slip-dress.

  When she joined Reid downstairs, he said, ‘You look ravishing, darling,’ and kissed her hands.

  But later, during dinner, he said something that worried her. ‘You were saying the other day that your schooling was a waste of time. Why not do something about that...sign on with the Open University and get yourself a degree in a subject that interests you?’ he suggested. ‘Most of the women I meet, socially and professionally, spend hours a week toning their bodies but they don’t do a lot about exercising their minds.’

  ‘Surely their jobs do that?’

  ‘Not necessarily. Careers give people a focus, but often it’s a narrow one.’

  He changed the subject and she sensed that for him the end of their honeymoon and the resumption of normal life was something he didn’t want to think about until they landed in London.

  An hour later, in a bedroom furnished with heirlooms and faded toile de Jouy curtains framing the open windows, they made love by moonlight. It was good for them both, but afterwards, instead of falling asleep in his arms until Reid woke her by lifting his body from hers, Fran stayed awake, thinking.

  Had his remark at dinner indicated that although he enjoyed her in bed, he found her less entertaining outside the bedroom?

  On the flight home she made up her mind to prove herself, but not necessarily in the way he suggested. To work for a degree without a specific purpose seemed to her pointless. She wanted a more practical project.

  In the weeks after their return, their life formed a pattern of weekends looking for a house in the country, returning to London on Monday morning and leaving on Friday afternoon. Many of the houses they looked at would have suited Fran but Reid’s requirements were more exacting. Nothing they saw satisfied him. She began to feel nothing would.

  In London, often she had Lady K breathing down her neck. When her grandson was out of the way, that formidable personage had no compunction about invading his young wife’s privacy in their rooms at the top of the house.

  They had been married for almost two months when they went to a large dinner party given by a society hostess whose mission in life, according to a magazine profile, was to bring together the best younger brains in the country.

  Fran wore black, with the emerald beads and an emerald shawl trimmed with a long silk fringe. Reid looked distinguished in black tie but was not in a party mood.

  Fran’s schooling had made her at ease in all social circles, but those in which she had moved before her marriage had been mainly made up of frivolous pleasure-seekers. She didn’t expect to know any of the people at this party. It was a surprise and a shock to recognise two of the faces in a crowd of strangers.

  When their hostess introduced them to Julian and Alice, he said, ‘Franny and I are friends from way back,’ and leaned forward to kiss her on both cheeks.

  In the taxi taking them home at the end of the evening, Reid said, ‘You and Julian Wallace seemed to have plenty to talk about.’

  Aware that he hadn’t liked it when, after dinner, Julian had drawn her aside to speak to her privately, she said, ‘We grew up together...almost like brother and sister. Julian thinks his father is fond of my mother. He feels they should get together. But he knows his father won’t say anything without some encouragement from Mum. He asked me to suss out her feelings.’

  ‘How do you feel about that?’

  ‘It mig
ht be a good thing...better than Mum spending the rest of her life on her own.’

  The taxi drew up at the house. Reid sprang out and offered his hand as he always did, but she felt that tonight it was an automatic gesture. He paid the fare, unlocked the front door with his key, and they crossed the hall and went up the staircase in silence.

  In their bedroom, they undressed on opposite sides of the large room. Suddenly Reid said, ‘It’s obviously Wallace’s wife who wears the trousers. He struck me as a wimp.’

  ‘How can you possibly judge him on such a brief acquaintance?’

  ‘How long does it take?’ he said scathingly. ‘The man may have a good brain, but that’s no use without judgment.’

  ‘He may have excellent judgment. How would you know?’ Fran retorted defensively.

  ‘He has lousy judgment,’ said Reid. ‘He could have had you. He chose her.’

  Fran went white. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  He came to her side of the room and took hold of her chin. ‘Don’t lie to me, Francesca. I needed to know who it was you were in love with. Your grandmother told me. Now let me tell you something. If it’s at the back of your mind that encouraging your mother to shack up with her ex-chauffeur will give you a good excuse to see more of Wallace, forget it! You belong to me now.’

  To reinforce the message, he pulled her against him and kissed her protesting mouth.

  Outraged by his interrogation of Gran, she struggled to free herself, spreading her hands on his chest and using her full strength to push him away. It was like trying to budge a large rock. He held her fast with one arm, his other hand clamping her head, and went on kissing her whether she liked it or not.

  Fran didn’t want to respond. She tried to ignore the messages his mouth was sending to all her nerve centres. Her brain told her he had no right to force her into submission, but the primitive woman inside her was glad he was angry and jealous.

  In the end she gave up resisting. As soon as he felt her yielding, Reid picked her up and carried her to their bed where he stopped controlling her by force. They made love as equal partners and eventually went to sleep in each other’s arms, as if nothing had happened.