The Right Bride?

by Sara Craven

  Tears spurted to her eyes again. Tears she could not control ran unchecked down her cheeks. What with everything happening so fast—her father dying, followed by Nanette so soon as good as throwing her out of her home—Colly felt as if she had never properly mourned her father.

  She again dried her tears, her thoughts on Silas and how he had found a solution to her problems—and his problems too, it had to be remembered. Oh, why had she to go and fall in love with him?

  Tears pricked her eyes again, but this time she held them back. It was not the smallest good crying because she wanted Silas. She could not have him because he preferred blondes.

  Why had he phoned? She acknowledged that she did not much care for his ‘sugar-daddy’ remark. But why had Silas asked her to have dinner with him? She guessed he had not been too pleased with her remark about divorcing him. But—

  Her thoughts stopped right there when suddenly someone came knocking at her door. Silas! Or one of her neighbours? Silas—no! She’d got Silas on the brain. A neighbour, then?

  Whoever. She was not going to answer the door. She was not fit to be seen. Her eyes were most likely pink-rimmed from crying, and in any case she was in her nightdress and wrap and ready for bed.

  If it were a neighbour who had seen a line of light under her door she would see them tomorrow and plead she’d had a headache. Were it Silas, then…Her breath caught—somebody was unlocking her door! Somebody—was coming in!

  Silas had a key! In an instant she was on her feet, wanting to run, wanting to hide. But too late. As cool as you like, closing the door behind him, Silas was strolling into the sitting room.

  Her reaction was immediate. In the absence of being able to hide, she turned her back on him. And, finding a snappy note, antagonistically suggested, ‘Would you very much mind leaving? You’re invading my personal space!’ As if she thought that would work.

  ‘We need to talk,’ Silas retorted sharply.

  ‘You sound as though you would rather quarrel than talk!’ She stayed in there to erupt, still keeping her back to him.

  ‘I don’t—’ he began, and to her dismay, plainly not a man who enjoyed talking to someone’s back, he came round to the front of her ‘—want—’ he added, but as she stared down at the carpet so he halted, a hand all at once under her chin, tilting her head up so he should see into her face. Abruptly he left what he had been about to say. ‘You’ve been crying!’ he accused.

  ‘So?’ she answered defiantly.

  ‘Why?’ he wanted to know. And, soon there with his conclusion, ‘Who was that man you were with?’ And, aggressively, before she could answer, ‘Did he—?’

  ‘No, he didn’t!’ she replied heatedly. ‘That was Rupert.’

  ‘From the gallery?’

  ‘Look, Silas, I’m ready for bed, and—’

  ‘I’ll wait if you want to go and get dressed,’ he cut in.

  That stopped her in her tracks, and some of her defiance faded. ‘You really do want to talk,’ she commented.

  There was a determined look about him, she noticed, but his tone had lost its sharp edge when he asked, ‘Why were you crying, Colly?’

  She shrugged. ‘A mixture of things, I suppose.’ Silas waited. And when she did not want to tell him, most definitely did not want to tell him, she found she was going on, ‘I never used to have a temper—then there I was yelling at you. Then…’

  ‘You’re saying that I’m the cause for your tears?’ he asked, seeming not to like that idea one tiny bit.

  ‘I think you’re in there somewhere,’ she understated. ‘Probably the trigger,’ she admitted. Having said so much, she felt she had to concede that. No way, though, was he going to know that he was the larger part of why she had given way to tears. ‘Anyhow, with everything sort of exploding in my face, so to speak, I suddenly started to realise that, what with one thing and another, I never properly mourned my father when he died.’

  ‘Your tears were for him?’ Silas murmured, his tone so gentle she really had to protest.

  ‘Don’t go nice on me. You’ll have me blubbering again!’ she cried in alarm. But, gaining some control, added smartly, ‘And if we’re going to have a row, I prefer to—’

  ‘I don’t want to row with you,’ Silas cut in. And, his voice now more matter-of-fact than anything, ‘Things have sort of—got out of hand between us. I think,’ he went on carefully, ‘we should take time out to talk matters through.’

  ‘It’s nearly eleven o’clock!’ she objected, just a little worried about where this talk would take them.

  ‘You needn’t go to the gallery tomorrow,’ Silas decreed.

  ‘Rupert will be thrilled,’ she replied, but couldn’t help being a touch pleased that Silas should remember that Tuesday was her gallery day.

  ‘Shall we sit down?’ he asked.

  ‘This is going to take that long?’ she queried as he led her over to the sofa and sat down beside her.

  ‘As long as it takes,’ he answered, as if—heedless of the fact he had to go to work tomorrow—he intended to stay all night if need be, until they had talked everything through. Colly was not sure that she wanted an in-depth discussion with Silas, when any unwary word she might utter might give him a hint of how she felt about him. ‘You had dinner with him tonight?’ Silas asked, which to her mind was hardly a subject for in-depth discussion.

  ‘Rupert was feeling low. His latest girlfriend has decided she’s seen enough of him for a while—Rupert likes to bend my ear on such occasions.’

  ‘Some of your tears were for him?’

  If she were honest she would have to say that, save thinking it might be him when her telephone had rung, she had not given Rupert another thought once his car had driven away. But, as that dreadful green-eyed monster gave her a nip, ‘I don’t remember seeing you in the dining room?’ she remarked lightly, knowing without a question of a doubt that he had not been in the hotel dining room while she had been there.

  ‘We didn’t have a meal,’ he replied. ‘Come to think of it, apart from a sandwich earlier, I believe I completely missed out on dinner.’

  ‘Didn’t you feed her?’ Oh, damn.

  An alert light came to his eyes. ‘You’re not—jealous, Colly?’ he asked, which did not surprise her in the slightest. She had heard that jealous note in her voice too. It would have been a miracle if he hadn’t picked it up.

  ‘Pfff!’ she scorned, to bluff being the only way. ‘I may be your wife, Livingstone, but I draw the line at having to be jealous as well.’ Who was she—the blonde? And what, since eleven o’clock at night was probably early for Silas, was he doing here with her and not the blonde? ‘Er—she looked very nice?’ Colly found she was fishing anyway.

  ‘She is,’ he replied, and Colly wished she had not bothered. She was not sure she wanted to know any more when Silas went on, ‘I was hoping to see you tonight when Naomi rang and asked if I would meet her. She was upset—’

  ‘I don’t really need to know about this,’ Colly cut in coolly—now the name Naomi would haunt her for evermore. ‘What did you want to talk about, Silas?’ she managed to hold on to her cool note to enquire.

  Silas looked at her levelly, either not liking her tone or wondering where to start. Since he never seemed at a loss for words, she doubted it was the latter.

  Then his chin suddenly jutted, and his tone was totally uncompromising. ‘I don’t want to talk about divorce, that’s for sure,’ he said harshly.

  And she immediately felt mean. Instantly she realised that he had every right to be angry that she had said she was thinking of divorcing him. ‘I’m sorry, Silas. It was unfair of me to say, even in temper, that I was thinking of divorce.’ For heaven’s sake, she had known in advance that he would date other women. They were both free to date other people. ‘It was particularly unfair when I knew you needed our marriage for the sake of the company. Will you—’

  ‘This has nothing to do with the company!’ he cut in grimly.

  Colly st
ared at him. She was missing something here. ‘We’re…You…You’re not here to talk about divorce?’ she queried, trying to catch up. ‘And this has nothing to do with the business?’

  ‘Neither,’ he agreed. But as she continued to stare at him, so she saw that his eyes seemed watchful on her.

  ‘I—see,’ she said slowly. But then had to confess, ‘No, I don’t.’

  There was silence for several seconds before slowly, deliberately, he said, ‘Marriage, Colly. I want to talk to you about our marriage.’

  Marriage? Their marriage? They had not got a marriage. Not really, they hadn’t. What they had was just a piece of paper, a certificate that united them. ‘Our marriage?’ she began to question. ‘In relation to your family, you mean, and future meet—’ Her voice tailed off. Silas was shaking his head.

  ‘Our marriage in relation to—us,’ he corrected.

  ‘Oh,’ she mumbled, while her heart pounded, as it did most times when he was near. ‘You’re referring to what you said—about things sort of getting out of hand between us?’ she dared bravely.

  There was a hint of a smile about his mouth. ‘It hasn’t gone at all as I planned it,’ he admitted.

  ‘So much for forward planning.’ She added her hint of a smile to his—he seemed encouraged.

  ‘It seemed such a good idea at the start,’ he confessed. ‘You get your career and I got to keep long-term charge of the business. Only…’ He hesitated.

  ‘Only?’ Colly prompted. It was odd. Silas was always so sure of what he was about, but if she did not know better she would say he was—nervous. Don’t be ridiculous!

  ‘Only at the outset the idea seemed flawless. I looked at it from every possible angle—or so I thought. And the more I thought about it, the more to marry you seemed the perfect solution—for you and for me. On my part, as suitable as you were, it wasn’t as if I’d got to live with you.’

  Thanks! ‘A perfect solution, as you’ve said,’ Colly murmured, striving not to sound sour.

  ‘So I thought,’ he agreed. ‘But then events began to go offplan.’ Too true they had! Leave alone their personal involvement, he had been obliged, because of her ‘letting the cat out’, to introduce her to his family. ‘They were never intended to go the way they did. Nor,’ he added, his eyes on hers, ‘did I ever expect I could feel the way I started to feel.’

  ‘Oh,’ Colly mumbled again. ‘You—um—started to feel—um—differently—about something?’ Now she was the one who was feeling nervous. What the Dickens did ‘feel the way I started to feel’ mean?

  For answer, Silas stretched out a hand and took a hold of one of hers. Oh, help. Her heart did not merely pound, it thundered.

  ‘You have to understand, Colly, that I’m a hard-headed businessman. Very little gets in the way of that.’ She was not sure she believed that; not when it came to his family, she didn’t. She had seen his respect for his father and his grandfather, his fond indulgence and also respect for his mother. ‘But there we are, not even married yet, when here in this very room, on your first visit, you’re getting all sparky when you think I’m doubting your honesty.’ He paused. ‘And there am I,’ he resumed, ‘experiencing a feeling of interest that shouldn’t be there.’

  Her eyes widened. ‘Interest—in me?’ she queried faintly.

  He nodded. ‘I scoffed at the very idea, of course.’

  ‘Of course,’ she agreed firmly.

  ‘I scoffed again when I discovered I was not too keen on you dating other men.’

  Her throat went dry. ‘Well, you would, wouldn’t you?’ she murmured, which meant absolutely nothing, but gave her a chance to get her breath back. He gave her hand a small shake. ‘Colly,’ he said, his dark blue eyes fixed on her wide green ones, ‘I’m doing my best here to be restrained, but you’ve got me so that I don’t know where the blazes I am.’ Her eyes went saucer-wide. She’d got him so…! ‘What I’m trying to tell you—hell, give me a tough board meeting any day—is that I have grown to l—care for you.’

  ‘You haven’t!’ she denied instinctively. Then, because she wanted to believe it, ‘Have you?’ she asked huskily.

  He did not answer for a moment or two. But, every bit as smart as she knew him to be, he had soon sifted through her brief reply. And, after another moment to check he had worked it out correctly, ‘From what I’ve learned and know about you, I’d say you wouldn’t ask “Have you?” if you weren’t interested in knowing more.’

  Oh, heavens! ‘I—er—um—feel a bit on shaky ground here,’ she confessed, and was rewarded with a smile.

  ‘I know all about that shaky ground!’ he said softly. ‘And I’m trying with all I have not to rush you.’

  ‘I remember once thinking that you were a man who liked things done yesterday,’ she brought out of nowhere as nerves well and truly started to bite.

  ‘But not now. Not here and now,’ Silas took up. ‘I don’t want to upset or worry you. Which is why I’m doing my best to take this slowly.’

  She did not know what he meant. Why he thought she might feel rushed, or worried, or upset, so she stayed with what he had—astonishingly—so far said.

  ‘You said you had grown to c-care for me?’

  ‘I have, and I do,’ he answered without hesitation. ‘I wasn’t supposed to. I did not want to. To care for you had no part in my plan. Yet there am I, on the day we marry, no less, kissing you—albeit briefly—and not because of the occasion but because I had to.’

  Colly gaped at him. This couldn’t be happening! ‘I thought you kissed me because of people watching,’ she whispered, with what breath she could find.

  He shook his head in denial. ‘It just came over me. I can see now that it was the first stirrings of starting to care for you.’ Colly was still getting used to that when he went on, ‘Naturally I, in my superior wisdom, denied any such nonsense.’

  ‘Naturally,’ she agreed, still feeling a touch breathless.

  ‘So why are you in my head so much?’

  ‘I am?’

  ‘Even when I’m in tough board meetings,’ he confirmed.

  She stared at him incredulously. ‘Heavens!’ she said faintly.

  ‘Several times I’ve had to control the urge to come and see you,’ he surprised her by admitting. ‘Just to check you were settled in all right—not for any other reason, obviously.’

  ‘Why else?’ she managed chokily.

  ‘So I had mixed feelings when you wrote about your inheritance. At least it gave me a bona fide reason to call and see you.’

  ‘Oh!’ escaped her, but she was still too stunned to do more than sit tight—and hope.

  ‘I decided I wouldn’t come and see you again,’ Silas revealed. Hope took on a dull sheen. ‘But you were in my head so much,’ he went on, to shoot her up to the high end of the see-saw she was on. ‘Even when I landed up in hospital you were in my head,’ he owned. ‘Then I opened my eyes one day and there you were.’ He paused, and suddenly the question she had once avoided was there again. ‘Why did you come?’ he asked.

  ‘I—er…’ She felt a great need to be honest with him. Silas appeared to be sharing the same piece of shaky ground, so whatever it might cost her, she felt an overwhelming urge to meet him halfway. ‘The paper—the report in the paper said you were gravely ill.’ She took a deep breath, held it for a moment, then, while her nerve held out, she plunged. ‘And I’d begun to care for you too.’

  ‘Sweetheart!’ Silas breathed, and, his head coming closer, he gently kissed her. For ageless seconds they just stared at each other. Then Silas was saying, ‘I have to confess that when I decided to leave hospital I did try to fight against the compulsion to ask you to come and stay at my place overnight.’

  ‘Because…’

  ‘Because I knew I was falling for you,’ he admitted openly.

  Did caring for her and falling for her mean that he loved her a little? She had no way, no experience, of knowing. The look in his eyes was warm, even tender, but…She started t
o feel a little scared. She decided to stick with that which she did know. ‘But you did ask me to come. You phoned and—’

  ‘And blamed my illness for my weakness. Had I been physically stronger I would not have been so otherwise weak.’

  ‘You—um—gave in…?’

  ‘I gave in,’ he took up. ‘And found I enjoyed having you tinkering about my apartment. That,’ he added with a self-deprecating look, ‘bothered me.’

  ‘You were a bit of a snarly brute at times,’ she said with a smile.

  ‘Why wouldn’t I be? I found I didn’t want you to leave. Yet I wasn’t ready to face what was happening to me.’

  Colly looked solemnly at him. His caring for her, did he mean? ‘You sent me flowers,’ she recalled, trying hard to keep her head together.

  ‘I should have phoned to thank you,’ he apologised. ‘But I was a bit narked that you’d left without saying goodbye. I suppose to send you some “bread-and-butter” thank-you flowers was my bright idea of stamping “The End” on it.’ He smiled then, a smile that made her heart turn over. ‘Only it wasn’t the end,’ he said softly. ‘The next time I saw you, you were having dinner with Andrews and appeared to be thoroughly enjoying his company.’

  Colly stared at Silas in amazement. As he had picked up that note of jealousy in her voice, so she thought she detected something similar in his. ‘You—were—jealous?’ she asked in wonderment.

  ‘There wasn’t any shade of green that didn’t bombard me,’ he admitted. ‘Oh, I fought against you, Colly Livingstone,’ he went on, to thrill her some more. ‘Even the next evening, when I was phoning you and asking you to have dinner with me, I fought against you.’

  ‘Against your—caring for me?’

  ‘Absolutely. Time and again I reminded myself that ours was a purely business arrangement, and that was the way it must be. And that while I might feel I should like to get to know you better, what would be the point? I did not want to be married-married.’ He squeezed her hand and disclosed, ‘I again made up my mind not to contact you again. I would resist all temptation to phone or see you again.’ His eyes caressed her. ‘Then you, my dear, dear, Colly, rang me,’ he said, with such a tender look in his eyes for her that she had to swallow hard before she could find her voice.