Best Man To Wed?

Poppy moved irritably against the restriction of her seat belt, all too aware of how easily James could refute such an accusation. Although he had the reputation within the company of being a demanding employer, noone disputed the fact that the company’s present success was due to his hard work. And no matter how much he might demand of those who worked for him it was never any more than he demanded of himself.

The traffic was starting to build up as they got closer to the airport and already Poppy’s stomach was beginning to clench nervously as she anticipated what lay ahead. It was the moment of take-off she dreaded most; once that was over it was easier for her to relax.

The spot in Italy where the conference was being held was three hours’ drive from the airport, which meant, Poppy suspected, that they would be spending the better part of the day travelling. She had brought some work with her to keep her occupied during the Sight—and to ensure that she didn’t have to talk to James—but she couldn’t help wistfully reflecting how different things would have been if her travelling companion had been Chris... a Chris who was not married to Sally or anyone else, a Chris who—

Stop it, she warned herself sternly. He is married to Sally and you’ve got to stop thinking about him... stop loving him...

As she quickly blinked away the weak tears she could feel threatening her, she heard James say sardonically, ‘Poor Poppy, still hopelessly--in love with a man who doesn’t want her. Why do I get the impression it’s a role you actively enjoy playing?’ he asked her savagely, the harshness in his voice shocking her almost as much as the cruelty of his accusation.

‘That’s not true,’ she denied chokily.

‘That’s not the impression I get;’ James said to her as he negotiated the maze of slip-roads that led to the car park. ‘In fact I’d say the role of self-pitying lover is one you’ve embraced with far more enthusiasm than you appear to have had for embracing real love.’

Poppy’s face burned hotly as he parked the car and opened his door. She wasn’t going to dignify his comments by responding to them... or defending herself, she told herself fiercely. Nor was she going to let James see how much they had hurt her.

‘It’s no wonder that Chris prefers to take a real woman to bed,’ James told her cruelly as he opened her door for her and waited like a gaoler for her to get out.

I am a real woman, Poppy wanted to protest. Just as real as Sally, just as capable of giving love, of inciting passion and desire. But was she? Was there something inherently feminine and desirable in Sally that was missing from her? Was she somehow lacking in that vital ingredient that made a woman lovable and desirable?

All the doubts about herself and her sexuality which had sprung into life with the news of Chris’s engagement to Sally and which she had rigorously and fiercely ignored and denied suddenly rose up inside her, a fully armed enemy force which James’s words had carelessly set free from the prison in which she had concealed them.

Did he know about the fears, the insecurities about her sexuality that these last months had brought? Poppy wondered numbly as she waited for him to remove their cases from the boot of his car.

How could he? It was impossible. He was simply trying to goad her, to hurt her, to provoke a reaction from her which would enable him to reinforce his condemnation of her as immature and foolish.

Quite what his purpose was in doing this Poppy didn’t really know, had never really questioned. The enmity which had developed between them had grown alongside her love for Chris until she’d accepted it in the same way that she had accepted that love. But, despite the fact that Chris’s marriage had now forced her to accept that she had to find a way of severing herself from the past and finding another focus for her life, of accepting that Chris could never be a part of that life in the way she had so much hoped, it seemed that since the wedding James’s antagonism to her had simply increased.

Why? Was he perhaps trying to force her into leaving the company? Was his desire to hurt her, to undermine her... to destroy her... to do with the business, or something more personal?

James had locked the car and was waiting impatiently for her to join him.

These next four days were going to be the longest of her life, Poppy reflected.

‘You can relax now; we’re airborne...’

The sound of James’s voice in her ear made Poppy open her tightly closed eyes, her pent-up breath leaking in a relieved sigh from her lungs as she recognised the truth of what he was saying.

Having shudderingly refused the window-seat that James had offered her, she had fastened her seat belt and willed herself not to give in to her childhood need to have a familiar hand to cling to as the plane had taxied down the runway and started to lift off.

At least she had managed not to do that, although... Surreptitiously she slowly released the tense fingers she had not been able to stop herself from curling into the immaculate smoothness of James’s suit jacket—and not just James’s suit jacket, she acknowledged uncomfortably, but James’s very solidly muscled arm as well.

His dry ‘Thank you, Poppy’ as she tried to remove her hand from his arm without him noticing what she had done made her flush guiltily and avoid looking at him.

Did he never feel afraid? she wondered bitterly. Did nothing ever dent that iron self-control of his? Had no one ever made him ache... hurt ...yearn for her so much that nothing else ... noone else mattered?

If anyone had, she had certainly never been aware of it, Poppy thought, but then she had been too involved in her own feelings to pay much attention to anyone else.

As always, now that they were actually airborne, her fear left her, her body starting to relax...

She refused the drink that the stewardess offered her and reached for her case and the work she had brought with her. James, she noticed, was already engrossed in some papers which he had removed from his briefcase. Well, at least whilst his attention was on them he wouldn’t be able to pick on her, she decided with relief.

‘Oh, James, just look at that view,’ Poppy breathed, unable to keep the awed delight from her voice as she stared through their hire-car window at the panorama spread before them.

Transport had been arranged from the airport to the conference centre, but James had opted to make his own arrangements and independently hire a car, and Poppy had felt no trepidation at the thought of travelling with him, since she knew that not only was he a very safe driver but that he was also familiar with Italian roads.

The thought of spending three hours shut up in a car with only him for company had been a different matter and until they had started to climb into the mountains she had resolutely occupied herself with her own thoughts rather than try to engage him in any conversation. Conversations with James, she had decided bitterly, always seemed to lead to the same place-to them arguing.

Pride and her awareness of how unsympathetic and antagonistic towards her he was had prevented her from trying to defend herself by telling him that loving Chris had become a burden she desperately wanted to remove from her life.

Had they had a different relationship, had they been closer, had she felt able to trust him, to turn to him for help, she might have been able to admit to him how much she longed to have someone to confide in, someone to whom she could talk about her feelings and her guilt at her own inability to leave behind a love she knew could only cause her pain. If things had been different ... if he had been different... if he had still been the same James he had been when she had been a child... But he wasn’t, and somewhere, somehow, the cousinly love that he had once felt for her had gone.

Her determination not to give him any opportunity to criticise or condemn her whilst they were alone by keeping silent and aloof from him had disintegrated, though, as the road had started to wind through the ancient chain of mountains, taking them through small villages and dusty towns in whose Renaissance squares Poppy could very easily visualise the richly liveried rnen-at-arms who, along with the princes who had once commanded them, had fought over the prizes of the fertile plains below them.

Today, the towns were tranquil, only their architecture a reminder of the past turbulence and turmoil, the scenery around them so spectacular that it bewitched Poppy into forgetting her vow of silence to exclaim over its beauty.

James, of course, was bound to be less impressed, Poppy recognised; he had relatives in Tuscany and Rome and was no stranger to the beauty of Italy’s countryside, nor her architecture. And Poppy told herself that she ought not to feel rather like a child told off for a crime it hadn’t committed when James turned his head to look at her in response to her impulsive comment and said tautly, ‘But no doubt a view which you would enjoy far more if it was my brother you were seeing it with. Too bad that Chris doesn’t share your enthusiasm. He’s a modern city man, Poppy—something else he and Sally share, something else you and he don’t,’ he told her unkindly.

Poppy said nothing, turning her head away so that James couldn’t see the quick, betraying sheen of tears filming her eyes.

She knew, of course, that Chris did not share her love of history... of the past... of the awesomeness of nature, as James had just said, and as Chris himself was the first to cheerfully admit.

Nor did she intend to defend herself by contradicting James’s comment or by telling him that he was wrong and that, oddly enough, she had not actually been wishing that Chris were in the car beside her.

She hadn’t...but now she did, and with such heart-aching in tensity that she was almost swamped by her misery.

Thank heavens it couldn’t be much further to the hotel, she thought. She closed her eyes and leaned back in her seat, keeping her face turned towards the window and averted from James.

Four days, four times twenty-four hours... She gave an involuntary shudder. Please God, let them pass quickly, she prayed.

‘Poppy.’

Sleepily Poppy opened her eyes and eased her aching body into a more comfortable position when she realised that the car had come to a halt and that they had reached their destination.

The hotel, as she had read in the brochure, had originally been a medieval fortress built by an Italian prince, set high up in the mountains to guard his territories, but leading about it had not prepared her for the raw magnificence of a structure which seemed to be carved out of the rock itself, rising up steeply from the walled courtyard in which they were now parked.

Even though she knew that the original fortress was now just a shell which had been used to house a far more modern and luxurious centre, Poppy felt awestruck and faintly intimidated by the sheer, stark rise of the stone edifice in front of her, which was softened only slightly by its mantle of ivy and roses.

The palazzo had been used as a private home for several centuries, abandoned only when it had been commandeered by the German army during the Second World War, and Poppy knew that in addition to the luxurious state rooms which had now been adapted to form the hotel’s reception rooms the original Italian water garden had been restored to working order and restocked with the varieties of roses and other plants with which it would originally have been adorned.

And yet, despite knowing just how luxurious the spa promised to be and being hit by the heat of the sunshine when she stepped out of the car, unable to remove her gaze from the sheer sweep of rock from which the outer wall of the fortress had been cut, Poppy couldn’t quite repress a small shiver.

‘Not the kind of place you’d want to be incarcerated in as a prisoner,’ she heard James saying behind her, his comment so exactly mirroring her own thoughts that she turned towards him in surprise as he added drily, ‘I wouldn’t give much for anyone’s chance of escaping from here.’

‘No.’ Poppy agreed bleakly. A prisoner would probably have about as much chance of escaping from such a place as she had of escaping James over the next few days.

The car park was starting to fill up rapidly with other arrivals. Picking up their cases, James touched Poppy briefly on the shoulder.

‘Reception seems to be that way. Let’s go and get booked in before it develops into too much of a scrum.’

Once inside the hotel, the austere, almost forbidding impression of the fortress as a prison was totally banished by the breathtaking luxury of the reception area, a huge, vaulted room illuminated by crystal chandeliers, the walls decorated with glowingly rich frescos. Only a room this vast could take such an abundance of gold, crimson and blue, Poppy acknowledged dizzily as she followed James towards the central reception desk.

Immaculately groomed girls, in suits as understated as their surroundings were ornate, busied themselves dealing with the rapid influx of guests, and Poppy was cynically amused to see that James, who was in fact behind three other men trying to claim one girl’s attention, received the full wattage of her very alluring smile whilst they were totally ignored.

Poppy had always known that other women found her elder cousin attractive. She could even remember how, in the days before she had fallen in love with Chris, she had actually felt angry and jealous herself if he paid her schoolfriends more attention than he did her, but those days were gone now, and even though she registered the assessing look the receptionist gave her as James leant over the desk to speak to the girl and handed her their passports she was not affected by it. The receptionist was welcome to him. She gave a small shudder. She could think of nothing more loathsome... noone more...

She tensed as she suddenly realised what the receptionist was saying to James, and hurried towards him, demanding angrily, ‘What does she mean, our room?’

The girl was already reaching behind her to hand James a pass-key. A key, Poppy noticed in disbelief.

‘James...’ she urged, but James had already anticipated her and was turning back to the receptionist, telling her in swift, fluent Italian that there appeared to have been a mistake, and that they required two separate rooms.

‘No,’ the girl denied, shaking her head, picking up their passports and a list she had in front of her. She read out carefully, ‘Mr and Mrs Carlton,’ and then said, first to Poppy, ‘You are Mrs Carlton,’ and then to James, ‘and you Mr Carlton.’

‘I am Poppy Carlton,’ Poppy confirmed, ‘but I am not his wife. We are not married... I am not... his wife,’ she emphasised.

When the receptionist continued to gaze blankly at her, she turned angrily to James, appealing, ‘You tell her, James. Explain... make her understand.’

How could such a mistake have been made? Poppy fumed as she stood back whilst James quickly explained to the receptionist the misunderstanding which seemed to have occurred and asked her to change their booking from one double room to two singles.

Chris’s secretary had made the original bookings. She was comfortably middle-aged and extremely efficient and Poppy couldn’t believe that she could have made such a mistake. The receptionist had summoned the duty manager at James’s request and James was now explaining the situation to him and reiterating the fact that they required two separate rooms.

The duty manager shrugged and shook his head. ‘That, I am afraid, is not possible,’ he told James. ‘The hotel is fully booked for the conference, every room already taken...’

‘But they must have somewhere... some room,’ Poppy gasped as she heard what he was saying.

‘None; there is nowhere,’ the duty manager repeated firmly.

‘Then we’ll just have to find somewhere else to stay,’ Poppy burst out.

Her face flushed beneath the withering look that James gave her as he asked her sardonically, ‘Where exactly did you have in mind? The nearest town is forty miles away.’

‘Then...then I’ll just have to...to sleep in the car,’ Poppy asserted wildly. ’I—’

‘For four days?’ James gave her a derisive look. ‘Don’t be so ridiculous...’

‘James, you can’t let them do this,’ Poppy protested as the duty manager turned away from them to deal with the harassed-looking courier in charge of a party of Japanese businessmen who, from what Poppy could hear of their agitated conversation, had lost not just some luggage en route but one member of their party as well. ‘Do something.’

‘Such as?’ James asked, gesturing to the now packed reception area and the press of people demanding attention from the receptionists.

‘You’ve attended conferences before; you know what they’re like,’ he pointed out. ‘The rule is if it can go wrong it will...’

‘Maybe, but it’s never gone wrong before,’ Poppy seethed. ‘How can they make a mistake like that...? There must be something you can do... Offer to pay them extra... to...’

‘Poppy,’ James told her, speaking slowly and patiently as though she were a child too young to grasp what he was saying. ‘There are no empty rooms. Believe me. I just heard one of the receptionists telling another that she’s already been forced to give up her staff room and share with someone else on another shift because of overbooking. Believe me, it’s either this room or nothing.’

It was on the tip of Poppy’s tongue to tell him that if that was the case then there was no way she was staying. But then she-remembered how much James would relish her giving him an opportunity to prove how unprofessional she really was and she forced the impulsive words back.

James, taking her acceptance for granted, was already signing the register and taking possession of their pass-cards.

‘We might as well find our own way,’ he told Poppy. ‘God knows how long we’d have to wait for a porter.’

Like her, James was only carrying a briefcase and an overnight bag. She just hoped that the hotel’s laundry facilities were better organised and more reliable than its booking system, she reflected angrily as she followed James towards the nearest bank of lifts.

The modern part of the complex had been built around an atrium and as the lift took them upwards they could look down past the open balconies to the greenery and splashing fountains below them.

Although the complex had been given the title of spa it did not actually possess any natural hot springs or spa waters of its own, the term, Poppy suspected, being used in a slightly looser sense to embrace the fact that it offered a wide range of self-indulgent treatments and dietary regimes and holistic alternative therapies.

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