Innocent on Her Wedding Night (23 page)

‘Not just drink,’ he said. ‘To get blasted—totally and completely destroyed.

Obliterated.’ He held up the glass to the light, examining its contents with a frown. ‘They used this as anaesthetic in the old days. Drink enough of it on some battlefield and they could amputate a limb, apparently, without you feeling a thing. I was planning to see if that was true. If it can really blot out that kind of pain.’

He put the glass down. ‘But my experiment will have to wait, because here you are, and you want your flat back. I apologise for my intrusion.’

She said, ‘What kind of pain?’

‘There are many levels,’ He said. ‘But principally the kind that comes from thinking of you with another man. Letting him kiss you—touch you—as I once did.’

She took a step nearer. ‘But I’m not with another man.’

‘No.’ He glanced at her, still frowning, assessing what she was wearing. ‘Why is that, may one ask?’ He added sardonically, ‘After all, you went on your date dressed to be undressed.’

‘We decided we weren’t suited.’ She sat on the sofa opposite, putting her bag beside her. ‘However, the evening wasn’t totally wasted.’ She produced the bank draft. ‘This is for a lot of money.’

‘So I should hope.’

‘And it must have cost you a great deal in time and expense to get it for me.’ She paused. ‘You didn’t even know his full name.’

‘Jamie did.’

‘Ah,’ she said. ‘Those mysterious phone calls. I didn’t think of that.’ She looked down at the draft. ‘Anyway, some of this should be yours.’

‘I won’t hear of it.’ He hesitated. ‘If you want to repay me in some way, you could ditch that dead-end job and do something good with your life.’

She glanced coolly at him and saw him wince.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘It’s none of my business.’

‘But I’ve always been your business, Daniel, whether you wanted it or not.’

His mouth tightened. ‘I’m also sorry things didn’t work out for you in—other ways.’

‘Ah.’ She gave a faint shrug. ‘But, as I once said, you can’t choose who you love.’

‘But how much easier it would be if we could.’ There was bitterness in his voice. ‘Think of it, Laine. Just—tick a box and the job’s done. None of this hanging round waiting for a look—a smile. Counting the hours until you see her again. Dreaming of the night when you’ll hold her in your arms at last.’

She looked down at her hands, clasped together in her lap. ‘I thought you’d ticked a box labelled Belinda.’

He sat up, his face incredulous. ‘Are you crazy?’

‘I found her here a few weeks back, wandering round in nothing but one of your shirts. I—I thought she was your girlfriend. Then I saw her again, when I was on my way to meet you, and she told me she was pregnant. I assumed you were the father, and thought it would be best if I—faded out of the picture.’

‘I think our definitions of “faded” might differ.’ His face was expressionless.

‘In effect, I laid my life at your feet a second time, only to have it kicked away again.’

‘But she was at the bistro tonight—with her husband. They—put me right about a few things.’

‘How brave of them. But does it ever occur to you that I could have done the same—if you’d asked?’

‘Perhaps I was afraid to ask.’

‘Scared of me?’ Daniel shook his head. ‘I find that hard to believe.’

‘Scared of the answers I might get.’ She hesitated. ‘And of you—a little.’

‘Ah, well,’ He said. ‘It really doesn’t matter any more. As you also said once—we’ve come to the parting of the ways. I suppose Guy and Bel told you I was leaving England?’

‘Yes. Isn’t that a little drastic?’

‘Perhaps. But sometimes you have to give up dreaming and face reality.’

‘Through the bottom of a glass? Some reality.’

‘And that,’ he said gently, ‘is none of your business.’ He reached for his jacket. ‘Now, I’ll take my anaesthetic and go.’

‘Not yet, please. There’s something I need to ask you.’ She swallowed. ‘What did you want to say—that day at the Savoy?’

‘Nothing that has any relevance.’

She took a deep breath. ‘I wondered if you were going to tell me that you—loved me. That could be terribly relevant.’

‘You’ve never found it so in the past,’ He said, his tone almost matter-of-fact.

‘But—for the record—I’ve loved you all my life, but I fell in love with you on your seventeenth birthday, when you trembled as I kissed you. And I realised I was trembling too.’

‘Oh, God—why—why didn’t you tell me?’ There was anguish in her voice.

‘Because I was ashamed of myself. For one thing, you were far too young for that kind of commitment, and I told myself you should finish your education—have a career—live a little. For another, I suspected if Simon knew what I was thinking he’d want to kill me.’ He paused. ‘And how right I was.’

She said slowly, ‘But Simon wanted you to marry me.’

‘The hell he did. We had the worst fight of our lives over it. Nearly came to blows.’

Laine was gasping. ‘But how—why?’

He shrugged. ‘Because in Simon’s eyes you were still his baby sister, in need of protection, and I could keep my filthy hands off you.’

‘But he asked you to be responsible for me—if anything happened.’

‘Yes, but strictly on his own terms.’ His mouth twisted wryly. ‘I was to become surrogate brother, guardian and friend, but nothing else. As he made all too clear, whatever I might wish, I was never going to be in the running as husband or lover. Because you were a young and innocent child, and I was the exact and disgusting opposite.’

‘But you were his best friend…’

‘And as such he didn’t have many illusions about me.’ He paused. ‘Anyway, how do you know he asked me to look after you?’

Laine met his gaze, her face white. ‘You wrote him a letter agreeing, but saying it wasn’t what you wanted. That I was a burden you didn’t need, and it could wreck both our lives.’ She bit her lip. ‘Candida found it among Simon’s things, and gave it to me just before we left on honeymoon.’

‘Candida,’ Daniel said reflectively. ‘That poisonous bitch. Simon was finishing with her, you know, before he set off on his trip. No doubt she blamed me for that, although I swear I never said a word against her while they were together.

But he’d begun to see for himself that all that blonde beauty was only skin-deep. That there was a mean, nasty little soul underneath. Showing you my letter would have been her way of getting her own back.’

‘But I was grateful to her at the time,’ she said in a low voice. ‘Because it—it implied that you were only marrying me out of pity—for Simon’s sake—and I couldn’t bear it. Couldn’t endure the thought of you—touching me—making love to me—out of kindness. Couldn’t live that kind of lie.’

‘Dear God, Laine,’ he said huskily. ‘I wanted you more than life itself. Could hardly keep my hands off you. How did you not know that?’

‘But you never said anything—did anything to show how you felt…’

‘I didn’t dare. Because you were still too young, and in my heart I knew it.’

He paused. ‘Laine, I’d never intended to rush you into marriage so soon. I’d anticipated that Simon would come back safely, and that you and I could enjoy a long and leisurely courtship in which to get you used to the whole idea—and maybe, because I was no saint, introduce you to several new ones.

‘Then I discovered you were being dragged off to Spain, and suddenly there was no time to lose any more.’

‘But even after you asked me to marry you—you didn’t…’

He came to sit beside her, taking her hands in his. ‘Darling,’ he said gently.

‘I knew that sex was a closed book to you, and therefore it would be fatally easy to open it at the wrong page and maybe ruin everything. Anyway, I thought you would feel safer—happier—if you were my wife when I took you to bed for the first time.

‘Also, I was concerned about the kind of reaction you’d get at home if we became lovers,’ he added grimly. ‘Because both your mother and Candida would have picked up on it instantly, and no doubt commented, and I didn’t want you exposed to that kind of malice.’

He paused. ‘Besides, if we’re really being honest, I was scared too.’

‘Scared?’ Laine repeated. ‘You? I don’t believe it.’

‘It happens to be true. I’d never been in love before, and it made me feel—vulnerable. And you didn’t give me much encouragement, my love. So I began to worry that it might not be just shyness. That in fact you might not actually want me. After all, you’d never said that you loved me, and I wasn’t even sure you really knew what marriage would mean. Not just the sex thing, but the entire business of sharing our lives.’

‘But you never said you loved me either,’ she whispered. ‘Not even that night when we…’

‘Darling, I said it each time I touched you. And I was saying it before—whenever I looked at you—every time you came into the room. On our wedding day I thought my heart would burst with all that I felt for you. Then I watched you go upstairs to change, my laughing eager girl, only to come down a stranger who wouldn’t speak or meet my eyes. And I didn’t know why. Only that my worst nightmare seemed to be coming true, and I didn’t know how to deal with it.’

‘But that letter to Simon. It made you sound so totally unwilling…’

‘I can understand that it might have,’ he agreed. ‘Taken out of context.

Besides, I was actually agreeing to spend the foreseeable future being a brother to you when my feelings couldn’t have been less fraternal, so my reluctance was understandable. But what you didn’t see, my darling, was Simon’s reply, which I still have, and which I will show you one day. In it, he said he’d been doing some hard thinking too, and realised he’d no right to say the things he had, or to make those kind of demands about what form my care of you should take.

‘That he was so completely used to considering you as a child it had never occurred to him that you were growing into a woman I could love and want as my wife. And that it would be entirely wrong to block my desire to woo you because, on reflection, he now suspected it was what you wanted too, and he’d just ignored the signs.

‘So, I was off the hook. Free to love you and look after you in the way that I wanted. He added that if we could control ourselves until his return, he’d give you away at our wedding.’

‘If only he had,’ she whispered. ‘If only he had.’

‘I’ve wished it too,’ He said. ‘With every day that’s passed. But he’s given us to each other now, I think. Hasn’t he?’

‘Yes,’ Laine said on a little sigh. ‘Oh, yes.’ She paused. ‘Dan, I once said I’d never stolen from you, but it wasn’t true. Because I stole two years when we could have been making each other happy.’

‘How very true,’ he said, smiling at her. ‘I shall have to make sure you get ample opportunity to make it up to me for the rest of our lives.’ He added, more seriously, ‘Until death us do part, my dearest love. I’ll settle for nothing less.’

He picked her up and put her on his lap, holding her close, kissing her as he whispered all the things she’d longed to hear him say, then kissing her again.

‘But you should have told me the truth, darling.’ He stroked her cheek as they paused for breath. ‘Let me know what was troubling you.’

‘I dared not,’ she said ruefully. ‘Suppose you’d admitted that it was all true? I couldn’t have borne that, and yet I had no guarantee that wouldn’t happen—and not even much hope either.’

‘And I was left with no hope at all. Just hurt, anger and bitterness.’

He sighed. ‘I told myself I’d get over it. That I’d adjust to having a life you were no longer a part of. But, no matter how hard I tried, it didn’t happen. I realised you were the only wife I would ever want, and that I had to get you back—however long it took, and by whatever means. Also, that I’d been a bloody fool to walk away without fighting for you.

‘And when I found you’d gone—disappeared to Florida with that bastard—I nearly went mad. I was going to follow you down there—snatch you off that damned boat if need be. Then I calmed down and realised that you might genuinely be in love with the swine, and that I should play a waiting game, however hard that was.

‘In the meantime, I moved in here. Living in your flat, sleeping in your bed was a poor second-best, but it was all I could do to get close to you. At the same time I realised that I might need something else to offer you, along with my hand and my heart. Some kind of extra inducement to persuade you to try again.

‘Then, when you came back hating me, I knew it was going to be an uphill struggle, and I was going to need every atom of patience and self-control I possessed.’

‘I—didn’t make it easy for you,’ Laine said, nestling against him.

‘No, my darling, you didn’t. Even when we finally became lovers I wasn’t sure of you. So, after lunch at the Savoy, I planned to put you in the car and drive you down to see your wedding present. It wasn’t finished, of course, but I was going to say, This is the home you once said you wanted. A place for a family, where children can grow up and be happy, as we once were. Because that’s true, isn’t it, darling? Not all the memories are bad ones?’

‘Abbotsbrook!’ Laine sat up, staring at him, lips parted. ‘Oh, my God—you bought Abbotsbrook.’ Her voice broke. ‘That—that’s the house you’ve been renovating, isn’t it? You bought it for us?’

He nodded. ‘Yes, and it was one hell of an act of faith, as I had no guarantee that I’d ever get you back. And it’s also occurred to me since that you might hate the idea, so I want you to know that it doesn’t have to happen. That we can find another house entirely if that’s what you’d prefer.’

‘No, no.’ She was climbing all over him, laughing and crying at the same time, kissing every bit of him she could reach. ‘I think it’s a wonderful—wonderful idea. Oh, darling—darling! When can I see it? Can we go now?’

‘We could.’ He pulled her back into his arms and began to unfasten the little yellow buttons, slowly and with immense care. ‘But I do have other plans for the immediate future, which you might find just as interesting.’

‘Oh,’ Laine said, with a little gasp, as his hand slid inside her dress.

‘Well—tomorrow would be fine. Or the next day.’

‘Or even,’ Dan said softly, ‘the day after that.’ And he began to kiss her.