Second-Best Bride

Oh, God, how she loved him! Her anguished eyes burned into his back. If he’d turn round, she reasoned, everything would be all right. Even at this eleventh hour it would be a joy to find her worries wiped away. She didn’t want to hurt anyone today; not her mother, her father, her friends, Trader…herself.

Turn, Trader! she pleaded. He must know she was there! Her satin-clad feet were tapping on the grating, her many petticoats were rustling. Everyone else was looking! Didn’t he care?

‘Oh, Trader!’ she breathed plaintively.

‘Claire, darling!’ whispered someone close by. With a start, Claire recognised the warm tones of the woman Trader had lived with for most of his life. Phoenix’s beautiful, exotic face swam into focus. ‘You look ill! Should you be here?’

Claire went limp with gratitude. Someone cared. ‘No,’ she husked. Her tongue flickered nervously over pale, dry lips and she gazed at the raven-haired Phoenix, pleading to be saved from her nightmare.

Before that could happen, her father’s strong, expensively tanned hand reached out and patted hers and even he—insensitive to the condition of other people—could see that it was pale and trembling where it lay against the cascades of cream and pastel blue flowers that were appliquéd on to the fabric.

‘Pull yourself together, sweetie!’ he growled.

She was together. That was the trouble. Her rational mind had woken up and it was discovering all the flaws in her dream. Her love had been too unconditional, too trusting. She was an unsophisticated chambermaid. Trader was handsome and desirable.

Like her father! And he’d never been faithful…

Quite suddenly, Trader turned, jerking around with a sharp, impatient movement. She gave a small gasp of hope and her heart quickened its beat. But there was a frown instead of the usual look of adoration on his dark and handsome face; a frown that was replaced by a chilling stare as his eyes swung between her and her tense father. And the hatred between the two men blasted down the aisle with a shockingly tangible force.

‘Oh, no!’ she moaned, panicking.

Blindly, consumed by an unspeakable dismay, Claire tugged her hand from her father’s arm and half-whirled around, hampered by the trailing material and the weight of the long, flower-strewn train. She would run! She’d get into her car, leave Ballymare and never come back!

CHAPTER TWO

CLAIRE heard murmurs of consternation from all around her as she gathered her skirts up for the dash to the door. Then her father caught her hand and jerked her roughly back to his side.

‘You want to humiliate both your parents?’ he hissed furiously.

‘I want to be happy!’ she whispered.

She rocked on her feet but managed to hold her ground. The murmurings grew louder while she stared in confusion at Trader, who looked equally alarmed, small beads of sweat glistening on his brow. Hopelessly muddled, she gripped her skirt convulsively, causing some of the petals from the flower swags to float to the floor.

‘He loves me, he loves me not,’ she intoned inaudibly to herself, superstitiously counting each petal as it fell. ‘He loves me, he loves me not…’ Her breath stopped. ‘He loves me!’

Her lashes fluttered up in the unlikely hope that the childish game had some foundation. Incredibly, Trader was smiling gently and the love in his eyes made her give an involuntary sigh of bemused pleasure. She was totally oblivious to the chorus of sentimental sniffs to her left and the amused smiles to her right. Her father tugged in vain. She was transfixed. Immobile.

I love you! Trader mouthed, tenderly, adoringly. And she melted. Stupid she might be to go against every ounce of rational thought in her brain, but with that affirmation, all her worries vanished in a rush of relief and a shy delight.

I love you! she mouthed back in soft, heart-aching delight, seeing his whole body relax as though he’d been tense and uncertain too.

He loved her. She’d put her life on the line that he did. That heart-stopping worship in his soul-searching eyes couldn’t possibly be faked!

Her slender body still trembled but now she glowed and her smile broke out, filling her face with radiance. She sighed in sheer relief at the narrowness of her escape from a life of misery without him. Seeing Trader’s loving face, she knew there was more to the blackmail and Trader’s strange behaviour than her father had let on. There must be another side to the story, and between them they’d work out a solution to living their lives decently.

Courage and confidence lifted her head on its slender neck. Like a graceful swan, released from its ugly duckling stage, she floated towards Trader, the man she loved, an incandescent joy on her face. And to her great delight he came slowly towards her as if he couldn’t bear to wait any longer to be near her, to touch her. That was how she felt. They’d been apart for too long. Hours!

She was aware, briefly, of her mother’s moist eyes and hugely happy smile beneath the ridiculous little hat Trader had helped her choose. It made her look young and beautiful, thought Claire fondly. And saw how quickly her mother transferred her gaze to her father, and ached at the intense longing in her mother’s sweet face. Dear Ma! It took all sorts!

And Claire vowed to forget her father’s jarring behaviour and questionable ethics and to concentrate on the fact that he had the power to make her mother content, after years of unhappiness. If they got together, her mother could give up work at last and her angina would be more manageable and less life-threatening. Claire smiled with joy.

‘I hope she knows what she’s doing!’

Claire flinched, but she didn’t let Phoenix’s anxious aside dim her smile at all. She did know. Trader was stretching out his hand to her and she had eyes only for him.

‘My beautiful madonna,’ he said softly.

Shivers chased down her spine at the way he looked at her. Nice shivers. They made her feel special. Cherished.

‘Trader!’ she husked.

Filled with a wonderful lightness of heart, she reached out and took his hand, watched him half disintegrate, saw the strong jaw working, the swallowing of a lump in his throat that echoed hers—and, unknown to her, almost everyone’s in the church.

‘Trader,’ she sighed happily.

He loved her!

Firmly he drew her to his side and his fierce, possessive look told her that he never wanted to let her go again. Lovingly he guided her the last few yards down the aisle. And, elated beyond belief, she shyly lowered her eyes to quietly savour the wonderful moment of certainty. Her dreams were safe and love would conquer all their difficulties. Feeling the acuteness of his relief, she felt privileged and humble that she should have prompted such a profound love in a man’s heart.

His hand tightened its grip a little. ‘Claire!’ It was a wonderfully husky growl that never failed to make her feel she was being caressed and it reached deep into her bones. ‘You worried me for a moment back there!’ he said softly. ‘I thought that——’ He gave a low laugh that still had an edge of relief to it. ‘I thought you were going to jilt me!’

The clergyman fidgeted, the starched cassock crackling meaningfully, but Claire’s eyes pleaded mutely for a moment to speak to Trader.

‘If I had?’ she asked gently.

‘I would have caught you and kissed you till you surrendered to me,’ Trader murmured. He smiled. ‘I love you, Claire!’ he said with fierce conviction. ‘I love you so much it stops my breath!’

It was everything she’d wanted to hear. Shaken, she slowly lifted her lashes and he must have seen the pearly tears at the corner of her huge, soft eyes despite the folds of the gossamer veil, because he gave her a tender, understanding smile that brought a blinding happiness to her face.

The intense devotion in her expression, her unworldly beauty and his compellingly handsome profile, produced a ripple of wistful envy that ran through the church in a low murmur.

Her lips parted. But she couldn’t speak for the lump in her slender throat and touched him on his broad chest instead, with a loving, worshipping hand. Which he took in his and kissed lightly before he turned to the moist-eyed cleric in front of them.

‘Please go ahead. We’re ready,’ he said, with an authoritative nod.

And Claire felt the excitement mounting within her, a mist of love around her that little else permeated. Dimly in the background, she heard the organ notes die away and then the clergyman’s gentle voice. ‘Dearly beloved…’

Trader squeezed her hand rather hard. She tried to listen carefully to every word, every special phrase she and Trader had chosen from her mother’s old prayer book, so that she could savour every second of her wedding-day—so nearly abandoned.

Now she understood her mother’s unshakeable devotion. Once you’d experienced true love, you were never the same again. There was a painful, contradictory seesawing of feelings: a deep core of tranquillity and an adrenalin-spinning excitement. Elation and security. Irresistible drugs of the mind. Trader satisfied all her emotional needs. That was enough.

She stole a look at the man she loved: the clean sweep of brow, the aggressive nose and determined mouth, the achingly beautiful angle of cheek and jaw. An intensely masculine man. Potent, a little unnerving, mysterious.

Her knees weakened. He shot her a look, his eyes glittering with such a fierce excitement that it came close to…triumph.

‘…not to be undertaken lightly or wantonly…’

Her body stiffened a little because her conscience troubled her over that. They were marrying with secrets between them. Maybe without a dowry Trader wouldn’t give her a second thought. His hand squeezed hers reassuringly. In fact, his grip was so tight that she could feel the unusual dampness of his palms and the impression of her bones against his flesh.

‘…but reverently, discreetly, advisedly…’

The pressure on her hand increased till she gasped and turned her huge green eyes to him in apprehension. It was as though Trader was afraid she’d take fright and run. Claire shrank into herself, alarmed by her suspicious thoughts.

Somehow she quelled her disloyal doubts and fixed her gaze on the solemn priest. Every word was of deep significance to her. Marriage was holy. Not to be undertaken lightly…There was a clatter behind them; one of Trader’s guests had dropped something—a portable phone, by the sound of it. And he drew in a deep, harsh breath that filled his body with a rigid tension.

Stricken by her overwhelming misgivings, she steeled herself not to tremble.

‘Therefore,’ intoned the priest, ‘if any man can show any just cause why they may not lawfully be joined together, let him now speak, or else hereafter for ever hold his peace.’

There was a stifled cry behind them which made them both jump. The vicar looked up in sudden alarm as a shocked hush fell. Trader stopped breathing and prickles went down the back of Claire’s neck. Trader had tightened every muscle in his body as though he feared and anticipated a denouncement.

She felt her skin become clammy. And then she heard what she’d been dreading. A clear, ringing word that echoed accusingly in the silence…

‘Wait!’

Claire gave a low, despairing moan of horror and fainted dead away.

It seemed but a moment before the darkness that surrounded her became murky. Voices impinged on her unconscious and slowly she recovered to full awareness—but she kept her eyes tightly shut because she couldn’t bring herself to face anyone. The shame, the awful, hollowing disillusionment, rocketed through her, draining away all normal resilience.

And she tried to untangle her mind because she was no longer lying on the cold, stone floor of the church. It seemed she was sitting in an armchair; she could feel its welcome softness beneath her lifeless body.

Quite motionless, she began to gather the foggy facts together. There’d been an objection to their wedding. Her stomach did its sickening swoop. The whole scenario was so like Jane-Eyre! Trader must have a wife. In the attic? she wondered hysterically. What attic? Where? Perhaps children! Hordes of them! How dared he! She wanted to hide forever…

‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry! You know I’d never hurt you——’

Claire all but stiffened at the pathetic whimper. It was Phoenix—Phoenix, when she wanted her mother’s shoulder to cry on…

‘For God’s sake, shut up!’ rasped Trader brutally, shockingly. ‘I’m damned if I’m cancelling the marriage! It means too much to me!’

Claire barely stifled a groan of dismay at the giveaway remark and the extraordinary change in his character. He’d never been curt or angry before. Never rude. But then she’d never known the real man, had she?

‘Face up to it, darling; she’s either highly reluctant, or she’s feeling ill. You can see she’s in no fit state,’ said Phoenix gently. ‘She wasn’t exactly galloping up the aisle.’

‘She was very pale——’ conceded Trader grimly.

‘You noticed? Even under all the layers of make-up? I’m afraid it’s possible she’s discovered your plans,’ said Phoenix, forgetting to whisper.

Of course, thought Claire. Phoenix would know everything. They’d been friends for so long. And last night Phoenix’s conscience had prompted her to hint that Trader was being deceitful, even though her loyalty meant she couldn’t openly betray him. Poor Phoenix—what a dilemma!

‘Keep your voice down, for God’s sake!’ Trader growled irritably. ‘Leave this to me! I can bring her round better on my own. You can make amends by going to Brodie—Claire’s mother—and apologising on my behalf for ordering her out of here so rudely…say I was upset. Tell her Claire is fine. Make Brodie relax, or I’ll have your hide!’

‘Bully,’ said Phoenix amiably.

‘Fee, get the vicar to announce that Claire is recovering, ask everyone’s indulgence for ten minutes and get the organist to play something cheerful,’ Trader snapped, rapping out the orders like a man born to authority. Her father had ordered her mother around in a similar way, Claire remembered, appalled. ‘Now get out!’ Trader finished forcefully.

‘I don’t like what you’re doing——’ protested Phoenix.

Trader made a warning sound in his throat that apparently made Phoenix scurry out in fear, because there was the click of high heels tapping on a flagstone floor and then a heavy wooden door slamming.

The full horror of her situation finally hit Claire. She’d fallen hopelessly in love with Trader, but to him she was nothing more than a potential goldmine, to be exploited and plundered at will. And if his behaviour with Phoenix was anything to go by, he’d push her around, given half a chance, and treat her with contempt. She knew what that did to a woman. Knew what damage a dominating brute of a man could do. And she wasn’t suffering that kind of treatment.

‘Claire?’

The pulses in her wrist began to beat a fast tattoo. Trader was bending over her, she sensed that from the movement of air in front of her and the delicious shiver down her spine. She felt her veil being lifted back and his soft breath on her painfully composed face. Her own breathing deepened, lifting her breasts high, despite her efforts to remain unaffected.

‘Damn!’ He reached around her, bringing her forward, and to her astonishment his fingers closed around her zip tag!

She gasped, hearing—feeling—the movement of the zip and the lessening of the pressure of her tight bodice. Cool air met her upthrust breasts as they spilled luxuriantly from the dainty strapless basque, her lashes fluttered open in alarm and she found herself staring directly into a pair of glittering black eyes, as dark and as dangerous as a slick of tar.

‘Claire!’ he whispered softly, sensually.

Petrified, she lifted her arms to cross defensively over the luxurious material of her bodice and her hands came to rest on the sumptuously perfumed swell of her creamy breasts. Trader’s nostrils flared, his eyes lingering avidly on the rapid rise and fall of her delicately boned hands as they tried to slow her breathing by pressure alone.

‘No! Don’t touch me!’ she gasped, shrinking back into the chair and he jerked back as if from a blow, straightening up with a muttered curse.

‘Hell! What—?’

‘How dare you do that? How dare you take the first opportunity you had to…? Oh! You’re a brute! A despicable, disgusting brute!’ she whispered incoherently.

‘My God!’ he exclaimed, his face pinched with anger. ‘You think…! Dammit, Claire—your dress was tight! I thought you needed air in your lungs, darling——’

‘Don’t darling me!’ she cried in fury.

‘Hey!’ He frowned and gave her a little shake. ‘Still groggy? This is me, Trader! How far did you think I was going to go? he demanded, sounding bitterly offended.

‘That’s what I want to know!’ she muttered defiantly, her eyes fixed miserably on his.

The muscles in Trader’s jaw tightened, the insult eating into every visible inch of him. ‘Thanks for the vote of confidence,’ he said tightly.

‘Confidence?’ she scathed. ‘I’m to have confidence in you?’

‘Ye gods! Where’s the shrewish tongue come from?’

She didn’t know. Claire flushed at the rebuke and frantically tried to lift her bodice back to cover the half-naked globes of her breasts. For a moment she thought she saw hunger flicker around his strained mouth, but it set back into hurt lines again and she knew he was going to deny any idea of assault.

‘Where are we?’ she asked frostily, hunting around for clues.

‘The church vestry.’ His wary eyes watched her as if she were a bomb that might go off at any minute. ‘You’ve got a few minutes’ grace to recover.’

‘If I do,’ she said wildly.

‘Of course you will,’ he soothed, a worrying edge to his voice.

She squirmed under the compelling glance, saw his gaze drop as if hypnotised by her quivering breasts and she froze. Beneath her fingers, she could feel the treacherous excitement firming each peak and knew that she was quivering from the frisson that always came when he was near.

There was a horrid silence between them as if they were adversaries in some ghastly Cold War. Desperately she tried to interpret his expression, to find something—anything—that told her he felt concern or a residue of love for her. But the dark, smoothly tanned face had become quite inscrutable. Her eyes glimmered with contempt. He didn’t want to lose her—or rather the money that came with her. He’d want to coax her back to the altar, wouldn’t he?

‘I’m sorry. You must have had an awful shock,’ he said with disarming gentleness. Almost disarming.

‘Terrible,’ she replied bluntly. ‘I would like some water, please.’

‘Of course. Forgive me, I wasn’t thinking,’ he said in stilted, courteous tones. He went to fill a glass from the small wash basin and she took the opportunity to struggle with the zip but her fingers made no headway. ‘Let me,’ he said politely, putting the glass on the table beside her.

‘No! Don’t touch me!’ she snapped hastily.

‘For God’s sake, Claire! What the hell’s got into you? I told you I was applying common sense and first aid! Do you think I’m an animal?’ he growled.

‘I don’t know!’ she wailed. Other than her father, what did she know of men? How they behaved?

‘God!’ he exploded angrily, balling his fists.

‘Don’t hit me!’ she warned unsteadily.

His eyes flickered with a lightning flash of rage. He sucked in his breath and slowly released it before allowing himself to launch into a chilling reply. ‘I’m not like your father,’ he said coldly. ‘I don’t hit women. The rough treatment your mother had to suffer——’

‘Don’t you dare to speak of my father like that!’ she flared defensively, shamed by his perception. ‘You know nothing about his marriage!’

Trader seemed to be making an effort to control himself. It was like damming a river in full spate, she thought nervously. ‘If you say so,’ he said tightly. ‘I regret the remark and I made it in temper. But I don’t hit women, Claire. Whatever the provocation. Now listen. This is a church vestry. There are one hundred and fifty-two people, a vicar and a dozen choirboys a few yards away. Even if you think I’m the sort to jump on you at any given opportunity,’ he continued sarcastically, ‘you surely can’t imagine that I’d choose this particular moment, when I’ve had ample opportunity before, on beaches, in cars and in secluded woods?’

Her face flamed at his listing of the times when she’d been achingly willing. ‘No. Of course not. I believe you. I felt…vulnerable. Muddled.’ She put a shaking hand to her head and looked at him in appeal. ‘I feel terrible that—I—I reacted without thinking,’ she said miserably, wishing her zip would come unstuck. ‘I’m sorry.’

He grunted and watched her ineffectual wriggling with ill-concealed impatience. ‘Why don’t you give in?’ he sighed. ‘You’ll never do that up on your own.’

‘I—all right. Thank you,’ she mumbled, wanting to cry.

‘My poor darling,’ he said huskily. ‘You must be feeling awful. I hate to see you upset.’

And she wanted to believe that. But the lies seemed to come too easily to his lips, the adoration flowed too freely from his drowsy eyes. She had been vain to imagine she could have captured his heart when he was so handsome, so unnervingly sophisticated and worldly.

Oh, God! She blanched. Was that how her father had seduced his second wife into parting with her fortune? By charm and stealth and smooth talk?

Trader came to stand behind the chair, and remained there for several seconds without doing anything. The hairs rose on the back of her neck while she sat waiting, her hands firmly gripping the low neckline of her dress as a precaution. Eventually, after an eternity, he swept the headdress to one side in a drift of silk that caressed her smooth shoulder in a soft, erotic whisper and she gave an involuntary shiver. Her whole body waited for the touch of his hands and every fibre of her being had become focused on her naked and unprotected back.

‘Claire——’ he husked thickly.

‘For heaven’s sake, get on with it!’ she cried in agitation, unable to bear the suspense. There was a sensation running down her spine that frightened her. Fear and anticipation. Half of her wanted him to kiss each vertebra, to surround it with his warm mouth. The rest of her wanted to pick up her skirts and run for safety. A snake-pit would be fine.

‘Of course, darling,’ he soothed and she felt the satin voice wash over her, calming her doubts despite her struggle to stay wary. ‘We are pushed for time. I merely wanted to say how I adore you. How much I want to hold you in my arms.’ He gave a wicked little chuckle. ‘But it wouldn’t stop there, would it?’

Yes, she wanted to say. It would.

One of his palms came into contact with her back and she shuddered again, the desire to have it stroke her skin far too strong for her to deny. But Trader grunted, she felt the tug on the zip and so she drew herself erect to help its slow progress upwards. It couldn’t be that difficult a task, but she seemed suspended in a heavily dragging time while the material gradually closed over her lower back and then each straining rib; one by one, inch by excruciatingly exciting inch.

Probably to taunt her, he took a painful age to do up the fastening at the top, and she agonised over the touch of his fingers on her flesh. Something fierce and raw was piercing her body, something alarmingly sexual had made her vibrate to his practised caress. Each time he brushed her skin she quivered with a strange, vibrant life that made her blush with shame.

It was deliberate, she told herself. Part of his seduction. And mentally she clad herself in an impenetrable armour.

‘It’s a beautiful dress,’ he murmured. Idly his hand ran down the sheathing material that now encased her back. ‘You have such a tiny waist,’ he mused, sounding huskier by the second. ‘I think my hands could——’