The Right Bride? (42 page)

‘I’ll bring a bottle. What time?’

He thought she meant tonight! Colly was about to put him off when her new-found self asserted itself. Why was she dithering? What better than to start her new life
now
? Tonight? This very Monday? What was there to wait for?

‘We could eat about eight?’ she suggested.

‘I’ll be there at seven-thirty,’ he accepted readily.

Colly was still squashing down that part of her that was not too happy about having Tony in the apartment when, punctually at seven-thirty, bottle of wine in hand, he arrived.

It was the first time she had entertained in the apartment, and as the evening wore on so she began to lose any small feeling of apprehension; the evening seemed to be going rather well. Tony appeared impressed with her cooking—though she did confess that the stilton and celery soup was not home-made, but came from the delicatessen.

The rest of the meal was home-made, though, and it pleased her to see Tony tucking in. He seemed thoroughly relaxed, and that made her feel relaxed too. She thought she had got to know him quite well over these past months of phone calls and his visits to the gallery. But she knew she would never regard him as more than a friend.

Something she rather belatedly realised he had not taken on board when, insisting despite her protests that he wanted to help her with the dishwashing, and taking no heed of her, ‘Honestly, I’d much prefer to do it later when you’ve gone,’ he carried their dessert plates out to the kitchen and started to run the hot water.

‘Let me try my hand at being domesticated,’ he requested, giving her his most charming smile.

Perhaps she was too intense. To her way of thinking he was a guest, and this was his first meal in her home. Should
there be subsequent meals, then perhaps to let him clear away might be in order, but…

‘If you’re sure.’ She gave in, and took over at the sink. But only to grow immediately uptight when he passed behind her and she felt him drop a kiss on the back of her neck.

Instinctively she took a sudsy hand out from the dishwashing water to wipe his kiss away. ‘Now look what you’ve done,’ he teased, and, taking up a hand towel, he stepped closer and dabbed at her damp nape.

‘That’s fine. Thank you,’ Colly said as lightly as she could, half turning, her instincts suddenly on the alert as she took a step back from him. She at once came up against the kitchen sink—Tony moved in closer.

He took the towel and dried her hands. ‘You’re beautiful—you know that, don’t you?’ he said, to her amazement his tone suddenly gone all seductive. She was still staring at him mesmerised when he reached out and took her in his arms.

‘This—isn’t getting the washing up done,’ she reminded him, staying the polite hostess.

‘We can, as you suggested, do it later,’ he replied, and kissed her.

Colly felt a soul in torment. She wanted a life, had to have a life without Silas. But the wretched truth was there undeniably before her—she did not want anyone’s kisses but his.

‘You can do better than that, can’t you?’ Tony coaxed—and she wondered if she was being fair to him, fair to herself?

‘Of course,’ she replied, and tried. She put her arms around him and offered him her lips. But he was alien to hold, his lips alien. It will get better, she attempted to tell herself, in despair about the new life she was going to make for herself if only she could put some kind of effort into it.

He came closer, pressing her against the sink. She tried hard to keep calm, to respond; did she really want to do this? She was wedged in between him and the sink with no way out when he placed his hands on her hips and pulled her into him.

She pushed him away and knew then that, new life or no new life, she would much rather do the washing up. ‘Er—I think…’ was as far as she got before Tony grabbed her and clamped his moist mouth over hers, his body pressing into her while his hands moved up, seeking her breasts.
‘No!’
she yelled, and, giving him a push, meant it.

He knew she meant it too. It was there in her tone, her look, her stance. ‘Why not?’ he argued. ‘Hell’s bells, I’ve given you miles of rope to get you to this pitch. You invite me to dinner and then…’ He grinned suddenly—she saw it as a leer—‘You still playing hard to get, Colly?’ he questioned, and made another grab for her.

She was determined not to panic, but knew she was losing it when, forcefully, she ordered,
‘No!’

‘Oh, come on.’ He made another lunge for her.

‘No!’ she said again.

‘Why not?’ he repeated, a wheedling kind of note there in his voice. ‘What’s to stop us? I’m unattached. You’re free and…’ he leered again ‘…I’m sure I could make you willing. Relax, sweetie,’ he pressed, his breath hot against her face, and in the next moment he had fastened his lips on hers again.

Her agitation was growing as again she pushed him wildly away, while wondering at the same time how, when she now felt revolted by his kisses, she had allowed him to kiss her in the first place. And suddenly, her composure shot when he would not take his wet mouth from hers, she gave him another shove, and, picking up on what he had just said, cried, ‘I’m not free!’

That seemed to stop him in his tracks. He stared incredulously at her. ‘You’re—engaged—married?’ he asked in disbelief.

Oh, Lord, her head was spinning. She did not know where the devil she was. All she could think then was that no one must know about her marriage. Panic set in with a vengeance. ‘We’re getting divorced!’ It was out before she could stop it.

Tony heard what she had said, for all she had gabbled it out in a panicky rush, and sifted through what she had just told him. ‘So where’s the problem?’ he came back, without so much as a blink. But even as he went to make a grab for her again, so part of his brain appeared to be putting two and two together. ‘Where’s your husband?’ he asked, and, more pertinently, ‘Who
is
your husband?’ he prodded further. And, his two and two swiftly adding up to a correct four, before she could halt him, ‘Silas Livingstone!’ he exclaimed, sounding staggered, though still able to replay in his mind that time when Silas Livingstone had revealed that she had ‘personally’ nursed him when he had been ill. How she had been there to keep him warm. ‘You’re married to Silas Livingstone!’ he concluded, and, as if shaken anew, he actually took a step back.

Colly wanted to repeat that they were getting divorced—but suddenly a whole welter of complications were crashing in. She immediately wanted to deny that she and Silas were married at all. And from there at once grew terrified that any other panic-stricken comment she might make would see her saying something else to Tony that could lead just about anywhere.

Without another word she went smartly from the kitchen. Tony followed. ‘It’s true, isn’t it?’ he questioned, but seemed to know it for a fact.

‘I—think you’d better go, Tony,’ she replied, trying to keep her voice from shaking.

‘That’s a bit steep, isn’t it?’ he complained. ‘You invite me for an intimate dinner…’

Intimate
dinner! Was that the way he had read her invitation? She shook her head. ‘I’ve enjoyed your company,’ she told him—which, up to a point, she had. ‘But I never intended it to be more than dinner.’

‘I don’t suppose your husband would approve,’ Tony, his tone changing, offered sourly. There wasn’t any possible an
swer to that. So she just stood her ground. After a few belligerent moments, ‘Don’t call me—I’ll call you,’ he said huffily. Colly went and opened the door for him. Seriously annoyed, he took the none-too-subtle hint.

She closed the door after him, reeling. What had she done? Just what…? It all played back horribly in her head. ‘Silas Livingstone!’ he had guessed. ‘We’re getting divorced,’ she had lied. Oh, save us!

In need of something to do, Colly went to the kitchen and carried on with the dishes from where she had left off. But her head was spinning even more when the used dishes had been washed, dried and put away, and the kitchen once more immaculate. Because by then she had recalled that Tony Andrews worked in public relations, and, from conversations she’d had with him, she had also recalled that he seemed well acquainted with people in the news media.

Oh, heavens. What was to stop him making capital in any way he could from what she had so unintentionally revealed? She doubted that after tonight’s little episode Tony would feel any loyalty to her.

Needing action of any kind, she went and brushed her teeth. Then ran a comb through her hair. But she was so unable to settle she began to pace up and down. For herself she could not care less what Tony told his press contacts. For Silas…She could not think. The whole thing was a nightmare.

She continued to pace up and down, but as the hands on her watch neared half past eleven it came to her that there was only one thing she could possibly do. She had to warn Silas! There was no way around it; she had to warn him.

Hoping that he was in—and for all his statement that he took his vows seriously it would not stop him from living it up somewhere—Colly went and found his home number.

When the phone was not answered straight away she was sure he must be out. But then, doing nothing for the agitat
ed mass she was inside, the phone was picked up and, ‘Livingstone,’ he answered.

‘It—it’s Colly,’ she stammered.

Silence for a moment, before, ‘You make a habit of telephoning men when they’ve gone to bed for the night?’ he questioned tersely.

And she was glad he was being vile. It made some—not all, but some—of her nerves subside. ‘I have it on good authority that you’re in bed alone!’ she retorted snappily. But was immediately unsure, sick inside with jealousy, and nervous again. ‘You are, aren’t you? I m-mean, I haven’t…?’ She could not finish.

An agonising moment or two of silence followed, until, ‘You haven’t,’ Silas confirmed, and his tone thawing a little, ‘To be quite honest, petal, I have to get to the airport for a business trip very soon—I wouldn’t mind a few hours’ sleep before then.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry—I’m sorry,’ she apologised. But, as the import of what he had just said hit her, ‘You’re going away!’ she cried.

‘Don’t upset yourself—I’m coming back.’

Smug pig. ‘This isn’t funny!’ she exclaimed furiously.

‘Presumably you’re going to get to the point of this call—before my plane takes off.’

‘You weren’t smacked enough as a child!’ she flew, feeling very much like redressing the balance had he been near.

His tone changed again, was warmer again. ‘You’re in a tizz about something?’ he guessed.

Colly promptly folded. ‘Oh, Silas,’ she mourned. ‘I’ve done something so dreadful I hardly know how to tell you.’

‘Sounds—serious,’ he commented.

‘It is. It—um—won’t wait until you get back.’

Silas was decisive. ‘I’d better come over.’

‘No, no,’ she protested. ‘I’ve enough guilt without adding
any more. You get what sleep you can. I’ll come to you.’ She put the phone down before he should persuade her differently.

A short while later she was ringing the doorbell to his apartment, and still had not been able to find a way of telling him what she knew she urgently had to share with him.

He was wearing shirt and trousers when he opened the door. ‘You needn’t have dressed,’ came tripping off her tongue, she having assumed that, having got up from his bed, he would be robe-clad.

‘Now, there’s an invitation,’ he said dryly, leading the way to the drawing room.

She gave him a speaking look, but as he indicated she take a seat and then took a seat facing her, so Colly saw the opening that she needed. ‘That’s the thing about invitations,’ she began, searching for words and finding a few, ‘I invited a friend to dinner tonight—and got things very badly wrong.’

‘Tony Andrews?’ Silas guessed, a hard kind of glint all at once there in his eyes.

‘I do know other men,’ she stated, a touch miffed that he seemed to think Tony was the only man who asked her out. But she was in the wrong here and she knew it; this was not the time to get shirty. ‘But, yes, Tony.’

‘Where did you eat?’ Silas wanted to know.

She suspected he already knew. ‘At the apartment,’ she owned.

‘My grandfather’s apartment?’ he asked toughly.

‘It’s where I live!’ she snapped.

‘Andrews often dines there with you?’

There was no let-up on Silas’s toughness, she noted. But after what she had done she wasn’t in a position to take exception to anything. ‘It was the first—and the last—time,’ she confessed.

Silas had an alert look in his eyes, but his tough tone was fading as he commented, ‘It sounds as if you sent him home with a flea in his ear?’

‘I—it…not quite. But—’ on reflection ‘—similar.’ Then suddenly she wanted this all said and done. If Silas was going to rain coals of fury down on her head, and she was sure he would go ballistic, then the sooner it was done the better. ‘Well, the thing is, I—er—invited him to dinner out of friendship. But he—um—seemed to think I’d invited him for an—er—intimate dinner, and…’

‘It didn’t occur to you that dinner for two at your place might be construed as a touch intimate?’

‘Well, if you’re going to take his side!’ she erupted heatedly. But again remembered that she was the one in the wrong here. ‘No,’ she changed tack to answer, ‘it didn’t cross my mind that—that I was on the menu with the
petit fours.’

‘He came on strong and you didn’t like it?’ Silas guessed, his expression stern.

Colly flicked her glance from him. She did not want to tell Silas how she had tried to respond to Tony. But in all honesty she could not make Tony out to be the villain of the piece. ‘It—er—was all right at first,’ she admitted, but hurried on, ‘Then I said no, and…’

‘You said no?’ Silas questioned. Her ears felt scarlet. ‘Because you didn’t want to? Or because you’re married to me?’ he persisted. By no chance was she going to let Silas know that other men stood no chance—because of him. But she could feel herself getting het-up again at the thought that Silas might guess at her feelings for him.

Unable to sit still, but with no idea of where she was going, she was on her feet. ‘Would you like me to make you some coffee?’ she offered.