The Right Bride? (47 page)

Silence settled in the car once more. She supposed he looked as grim as he sounded, but it was for sure she was not going to look at him to find out.

‘I’ll take half the blame if you’ll take the other half,’ he offered grimly.

‘That’s the least you can do!’ she retorted, and, just so he should know, ‘And if you don’t mind I’d prefer not to discuss it.’ She could feel herself getting all hot and bothered even before they went any further.

A grunt was her answer. Good. She switched her thoughts back to how she had discovered an unknown talent for acting when she had finally gone down the stairs to join Silas and his grandfather. Or maybe it had been just good manners in front of the elderly gentleman. But somehow or other over the next few hours she had managed to chat and smile with both men as though nothing out of the ordinary had so recently taken place in her life.

And when, shortly after lunch, Silas had said they should be on their way, and his grandfather had come out to the car with them and had commented, ‘It has done my heart good to see you, Colly,’ it had seemed natural that they should hold hands and kiss cheeks. Just as Silas had started up the car, ‘Come again,
soon
,’ he had urged.

If she had anything to do with it, that would never happen.

‘Thank you for coming with me,’ Silas said formally when he’d parked outside the apartment block and they got out of the car.

I wouldn’t have missed it for the world, she thought acidly. ‘That’s all right,’ she muttered, and felt as fed-up as Silas sounded.

‘I’ll bring your bag in.’

No way! She’d had one close encounter with him. She did not want him in her sitting room, where they might exchange verbal fisticuffs. ‘No need!’ she answered sharply. And, feeling close to tears suddenly, ‘See you!’ she mumbled. Taking her overnight bag, she went quickly from him before he should tell her, Not if I see you first.

She went to bed that night with her spirits at rock bottom. And, after a dreadful for the most part sleepless night, got out of bed on Monday morning with her spirits still down on the floor.

The situation, she felt, was hopeless. She and Silas could not have a proper marriage even should she want one—and it was for definite that he didn’t—so what was the point of them staying married?

Well, she did not have to think about that very deeply. She knew the answer to that one. But from where she was viewing it, to get divorced from each other would suit her quite well. Were they divorced then it would put an end to his parents inviting them to dinner and other family functions—which she could see might well crop up. And while Colly had truly liked Silas’s parents, and while she would have loved to be a part of Silas’s family, how could she be?

Look what had happened at the weekend? ‘Come again,
soon
,’ Grandfather Livingstone had urged when they were leaving. How could she go back there again with Silas?

She could not. Remembering how everything had got out of hand—to make love had never been in their agreement—Colly knew she dared not risk that again. Yet for how long could Silas stall his parents, his grandfather?

But, when to divorce seemed to be the only answer, Colly knew that she could not divorce Silas unless she wanted his feckless cousin to ultimately be in charge of Livingstone Developments and thereby ruin the work of three generations of Livingstones.

Colly knew she could not do that to Silas. She wished that she did not love him so much, and knew then that she should never have married him. But she also knew that she was glad she had known him. When all was said and done, he had never asked her to fall in love with him. And after the short way he had been with her on the drive home it was obvious he would be totally appalled at any such idea of them being any closer than they were. He did not want that sort of involvement.

The day dragged wearily on, with every hour seeming like ten. But, to show that she was not the only one in low spirits, Rupert Thomas phoned her around five that afternoon and sounded really out of sorts.

Colly had been tempted not to answer the phone when it rang. But it was then that common sense, pure and simple, stepped in to scornfully prod. Did she really think that after the dozen or so unfriendly words she and Silas had exchanged on the drive home it might be him calling for a chat? Get real!

‘What are you doing tonight?’ Rupert asked, his tone glum.

He’d been dumped again? ‘Nothing in particular,’ she replied, realising that tomorrow she was going to have to hide her own feelings while she listened, chapter and verse, to Rupert’s latest tragedy.

‘Can you have dinner with me?’ he wanted to know.

She’d had dinner with him before—he was good company when he was up. ‘Any particular reason?’ she enquired. He was a pain when he was down, but he was a friend.

‘You’ll never believe it!’ he launched in at her invitation. ‘That wretched Averil Dennis has given me the elbow!’

‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ Colly sympathised, and for the next five minutes listened to a catalogue of the said Averil’s faults.

‘I badly need someone to talk to,’ Rupert said as he came to an end. ‘Say you’ll have dinner with me?’

Colly was about to remind him that she would be seeing
him at the gallery tomorrow, when he would be able to talk his little cotton socks off, but abruptly, before she could say a word, changed her mind. What are you doing tonight? he had asked. Well, she wasn’t doing anything tonight. Nor was she doing anything tomorrow night, or the night after that, nor, for that matter, any night in the foreseeable future. And it just was not good enough!

‘I’d love to have dinner with you, Rupert,’ she answered. And, forcing a bright note, ‘Where are we going?’ she asked, determined to rise above her down feeling. ‘The White Flamingo?’ It was one of his favourite haunts.

‘Hmm—I thought I’d take you somewhere a bit more upmarket than that,’ he replied. ‘Averil introduced me to this place. I’ll pick you up about seven.’

‘I’ll be ready.’ Colly guessed that Rupert was half hoping that Averil would be dining at that establishment, so he could either stick his nose in the air and ignore her—or introduce her to Averil as though she were his latest.

Colly did not mind. Rupert had lived and enjoyed a hard life, and though he was forty looked fifty, but he was harmless, and most of the time quite amusing, and besides, she was fond of him.

He was on time, and it was all Averil from the word go. He plainly had not read of her marriage to Silas, Colly realised, and realised too that, with the heartless Averil taking up central position in his head, he most likely would not have commented on it even if he had known.

Whether or not he knew of her marriage, however, suddenly became irrelevant. Because as Rupert drove on Colly was all at once filled with a feeling of apprehension. She had to be wrong. She had to! But, if she were not wrong, Rupert was heading for the same hotel where she had dined with Silas that night he had made that amazing suggestion that they marry!

‘Rupert, I—’ broke from her urgently when he halted his
car at the hotel. But he was getting in a fluster over a parking space that someone else was trying to grab, and either did not hear her or assumed she was taking him to task for being so bullish.

She calmed down. What did it matter? This hotel might have a favourite dining room for Averil, but it did not necessarily follow that it was a favourite for Silas too. For goodness’ sake, there were dozens of restaurants in London! What about that restaurant Tony Andrews had taken her to that night Silas had come up to their table? Perhaps that was his favourite eating establishment.

Telling herself not to be ridiculous, Colly nevertheless scanned the dining room as she and Rupert went in. Then she realised that Rupert had been doing the same thing, though in his case he seemed disappointed that the object of his search was not dining there that night. For herself, Colly could not have said how she felt. She did not want to eat here. She knew well how idiotic she was being, but to her it was their place, hers and Silas’s.

She was all tensed up, she knew that, and as it was relatively early she supposed Silas could still walk in—but did she want to see him again? Oh, to blazes with it—she positively ached to see him again.

‘So I drove her home…’ Rupert was saying. Colly tried to concentrate. ‘…and accidentally…’ She was sitting where she could see the dining room door. It opened, and a tall dark-haired man came in; her heart thundered, then quietened. It was not Silas. ‘…think about that?’ Rupert ended.

‘Er—unfortunate,’ Colly attempted.

And discovered she had said the right thing when Rupert took up, ‘I’ll say it was unfortunate! Averil swore I did it on purpose, but I…’

And so it went on through dinner. Colly tried not to look at the door every two minutes, and was glad to find she
needed to make very little input as Rupert warmed to his ‘heartless Averil’ theme.

‘…had enough?’ he asked.

Colly felt out on a limb again, and hoped he was asking if she’d had sufficient to eat. ‘That was a super meal,’ she replied.

‘We’ll have coffee in the lounge, shall we?’ he asked.

The lounge—where she and Silas had drunk coffee that night…Oh, Silas.

Not waiting for her answer, Rupert stood up. It was still early, not yet nine o’clock, but as they made their way to the lounge area so Colly felt she would much prefer to go home.

Less than a minute later she was wishing that she had said as much. Because as she and Rupert entered the lounge, so her eyes were immediately drawn to a good-looking dark-haired man seated, coffee-cups on the table before him, in deep conversation with a most attractive blonde!

Silas! Colly’s spirits rapidly rose—only to hit the floor with an almighty crash. She had spent a good part of the evening watching every tall male who had come through the dining room door, whereas Silas was so engrossed with his coffeedrinking companion that he did not even look up when the lounge door opened.

Though even as a sick feeling battered Colly, and jealousy seared every part of her, Silas did take a moment to glance away from the blonde. His eyes met Colly’s. She saw his glance go to her companion—he did not look too well pleased. All in less than two seconds, as he started to rise, so Colly was turning about and whispering to Rupert, ‘I need to get out of here!’

She went speedily, and Rupert, to his credit, did not argue but followed her out. ‘Feeling queasy?’ he asked as he followed her to where he had parked his car.

Colly was too churned up to tell anything but the truth. ‘I’ve just seen someone I don’t want to see,’ she said, though
she wondered, as green barbs still pierced her, if it was not so much Silas she did not want to see, but Silas with another woman.

‘Oh, I know that picture,’ Rupert replied, and, as if fully understanding, ‘Let’s get going.’

Colly tried to remember her manners as Rupert drew up outside the apartment block. She had done him out of his coffee, and knew she should invite him in so she should make him a cup. But somehow she had not got the heart.

‘Thank you for a lovely dinner,’ she said instead, glad that Rupert had settled the account for their meal in the dining room, rather than leave it until after they’d had their coffee.

‘It was good, wasn’t it?’ he replied, the defecting Averil having in no way affected his appetite, and, as Colly went to leave his car, ‘See you tomorrow,’ he said. ‘I’ll wait here until you get inside.’

Colly opened the outer door, turned and waved to him, and then went to the apartment. And she had thought she had been down before! She tried desperately hard to raise her spirits, but all she could see was Silas, deep in conversation with the pretty blonde.

Perhaps he was asking her to be wife number two, Colly thought with sour humour. But this was not a laughing matter. She hated feeling the way she did, and she hated him that he could make her feel that way.

She went and had a shower and got ready for bed. But sleep was light years away, so she returned to the sitting room—just as the phone started to ring.

Silas? As if! He’d got better things to do than remember he had a wife, she fumed sniffily. Rupert, then? Was she in the mood for more ‘What Averil did’? Don’t be mean. Rupert could not help it if he had a penchant for women who usually got their goodbyes in first.

She picked up the phone. ‘Does he know you’re not in line for a sugar-daddy?’ Silas snarled grittily.

Shock, pleasure and hate fought for precedence. Jealousy romped in and flattened them all. ‘Still keeping to your wedding vows, Livingstone?’ she flew, and immediately wanted to bite out her tongue. Had she sounded jealous? Had Silas, shrewd, clever Silas, picked up that jealous tone? she wondered fearfully.

Whatever, there was a definite pause—but only so he could control his irritation with her, she quickly realised, when evenly, coolly, he had the nerve to ask, ‘I wonder, Colly, if you’d care to have dinner with me tomorrow?’

And that made her mad! Furious! She just could not believe it! Only a little over an hour ago, definitely not more than that, he had been in deep conversation with a blonde! He was probably still
with
the blonde, Colly fumed, and that thought caused her fury to soar to volcanic proportions. Had he just excused himself from her to make this phone call? Was he still in that hotel with his blonde?

Vesuvius blew.
‘Dinner!’
Colly exploded. ‘I was thinking more of
divorcing
you than dining with you!’ With that she slammed down the phone—and promptly burst into tears.

C
OLLY
was at once ashamed. She dried her eyes and wondered where all that bad temper had come from. Oh, how could she have been so awful to Silas? She had never used to have such a temper.

She sighed as she realised that her emotions had been having a fine old time with her just recently. Well, ever since she had met Silas, in actual fact.

Although, on reflection, perhaps to some extent she had stepped on the roller-coaster of emotional upheaval starting with the shock at the unexpected death of her father.

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 stared 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 grand
father, 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.