Marriage on the Rebound

It was strange, really, but, having spent the last six weeks avoiding touching her at all costs—except for that one brief contamination when they had been formally introduced—Rafe now seemed quite happy to be as close to her as he could get.

She glanced at him from beneath her thick black lashes, seeing the rigid tension in his square jaw, in the harsh line of his strong profile. He was nothing like Piers to look at. The two brothers were as different in every way as two men could possibly be. Where Rafe was dark, Piers was fair—so fair, it hadn’t come as a complete surprise to her to find out later that they were only half-brothers. Which also answered the question as to the ten-year gap in their ages. Piers was the handsome one of the brothers, the one with the uncomplicated smile which went with his uncomplicated character.

Or so she had believed, she amended grimly as she took another sip at the brandy. It burned as it went down, and the taste was gross, but it did at least put some warmth back inside her.

‘What happened to everything in here?’

Rafe glanced around the pristine, tidy room. ‘Your aunt and your friend cleared it all out while you were busy in the bathroom,’ he explained. ‘They—needed to feel useful.’

‘I’m surprised Jemma didn’t throw you out,’ she murmured.

‘Not your aunt?’ he queried curiously.

‘No.’ Shaan shook the thick, wet pelt of black hair. ‘My aunt has never been rude to anyone in her home in her life.’

‘Unlike me.’

‘Unlike you,’ she agreed, not even trying to work out why they were sitting here having this stupid conversation in her bedroom of all places—he being who he was and she…

‘Jemma tried throwing me out,’ he admitted, taking a quick sip at his drink. ‘But I— convinced her that you would handle all this better with me here rather than anyone else.’

‘Because you don’t care.’ She nodded understandingly. She knew exactly why she had clung to Rafe rather than anyone else.

‘That isn’t entirely true, Shaan.’ He sounded gruff all of a sudden. ‘I know you won’t believe this, but I knew from the beginning that Piers was not the man for you. All right,’ he conceded at her deriding glance, ‘I’m relieved he came to his senses before it was too late. But I am not proud of the time he took to do it. Nor will I forgive him easily for the way he’s hurt you today. No one,’ he finished roughly, ‘has the right to wound another human being like he has done…If it gives you any satisfaction at all to know it, I can tell you that he and Madeleine are not proud of themselves for—’

‘It doesn’t,’ she cut in, rising abruptly to her feet. ‘And I really don’t want to hear it.’

Lifting the glass to her mouth, she tossed the full contents to the back of her throat, then stood, back arched, eyes closed, breath held, while she absorbed the lick of liquid heat and waited for it to begin numbing her again.

She didn’t want to feel anything yet. She wasn’t ready. She didn’t even want to think—not about herself, not about Rafe, and especially not about Piers and Madeleine.

‘All right, Rafe.’ Putting down the glass, she turned suddenly on him. Her eyes were still too big in her pale face, but her mouth was steadier, the colour beginning to ease back into her shock-whitened lips. ‘I know this has all been an ordeal for you, and I thank you for the bother you’ve taken with me, but I’m going to be all right, and I would like you to leave now.’ Now, before it all came hurtling on top of her, before the real hurting began, before…

But he gave a grim shake of his dark head, not even attempting to get up, and Shaan jumped in alarm when his hand snaked out to close around her wrist, the sudden tingle of her defences warning her that she wasn’t completely numb as he pulled her back down to sit beside him.

‘I’m not going yet,’ he informed her bluntly. ‘I have a proposition to put to you first. And I want you to hear me out before you say anything. I know you’re in shock, and I know you can’t possibly be capable of making decisions of any kind. But I’m going to force this one on you for the simple reason that I think, if you agree, we can at least save your pride if nothing else from this mess.’

He paused, then turned to look directly at her, those grey eyes of his very guarded but unwavering as they caught and held onto her own gaze.

‘Will you marry me instead of my brother, Shaan?’ he requested gravely.

CHAPTER TWO

FOR a single, short, breath-locking moment Shaan experienced a complete mind black-out. Then, ‘—Have you gone mad—?’ she choked. ‘Why, you despise the very sight of me!’

‘That isn’t true, Shaan,’ Rafe denied.

Not listening, she tried to get up, but found her legs wouldn’t let her. Her whole body had turned to crumbling stone, the shock waves of the past couple of devastating hours beginning to crack her wide open inside.

His hands came out to capture her own, closing all four of them tightly together on her lap and compelling her to turn around and face him. He looked tense, as white as she felt, but determined. She was trembling so badly now that even her head shook, quivering on the slender curve of her neck, her breathing gone haywire because of the tight contraction of her lungs.

‘I know I’m not Piers,’ he grimly conceded. ‘Nor ever will be for that matter. He’s my half-brother, and as different from me as—as Madeleine is from you. But—’

Madeleine! The name was beginning to haunt her, like the face—that sweet, gentle face, with its big blue vulnerable eyes surrounded by a cloud of soft golden hair. Madeleine was the archetypal pocket Venus, the fine porcelain doll. While Shaan—she was the—

‘She’s right for Piers, Shaan!’ Rafe said fiercely, as though her thoughts were so open to him that he could easily make them his own. ‘She always was! They were childhood sweethearts, young lovers before a stupid misunderstanding had Madeleine flying off to live with her mother in America last year…’

‘I told you I didn’t want to hear any of this!’ she cried, trying desperately to struggle against the black cloud threatening to completely overtake her.

‘All right!’ he rasped, sucking in a tense breath, then letting it out again. ‘Listen to this instead,’ he insisted. ‘In three days’ time, your aunt and uncle should be leaving on a three-month long world cruise. Do you think they’ll even consider going now, after what’s happened to you today?’

She stared at him, having forgotten all about her aunt and uncle’s delighted plans to take their dream cruise now the niece they had taken care of so lovingly for the past nine years was leaving the fold, so to speak.

‘They don’t have to worry about me,’ she said shakily. ‘I’ll tell them—’

‘Tell them what?’ he challenged when she fell silent, her mouth moving soundlessly. ‘That you’ll be fine sitting here all on your own for the next three months grieving?’

‘I don’t intend to grieve,’ she denied, stiffening in affront.

‘Good.’ He nodded his dark head in approval. ‘I’m glad to hear you’ve got more spirit than to do that. But would you leave them on their own if something as devastating as this had happened to them? Of course you wouldn’t.’ He answered for her. ‘And if you did manage to convince them to go, do you think they’d enjoy themselves, knowing how they’d left you behind?’

‘I’ll go and stay with Jemma…’

‘Jemma is getting married herself in a few months,’ he reminded her.

‘How did you know that?’ she gasped in shaken amazement.

He shook his head, dismissing that question as insignificant. ‘Let’s just leave it that I do know. To inflict yourself on Jemma now would spoil the excitement for her, because your own ruined wedding day will sit over you all like a thick black cloud.’

‘Which doesn’t mean I need to inflict myself on you instead!’ she cried, hurt by the cruelly blunt way he had made her face that fact.

‘Why not?’ he demanded, grimly determined grey eyes boring straight into her wounded brown ones. ‘If anyone deserves it, then I do. You said yourself that this was all my fault, and I damned well know it!’ he admitted roughly. ‘It was me who called Madeleine to warn her about you and Piers. It was me who advised her to get back here if she still felt anything for my brother. And it was me who encouraged them to see each other at every possible moment I could arrange, to make Piers see what a dreadful mistake he was making by marrying you!’

‘God, I hate you so!’ she choked, turning to fling herself face-down on the bed, her poor body hurting in so many different places that she actually shook with it.

‘Listen to me!’ To her surprise he lay back too, stretching out beside her as though he had every given right to be this close to her, when only yesterday he had shied away from even looking at her! ‘Shaan…’ His hand came out to stroke down the silky wet pelt of her hair, his fingers trembling slightly. ‘I admit it. I feel lousy about it all. Guilty, if you want to call it that. I owe you. Let me help you get through this with at least some dignity.’

‘By offering yourself in your brother’s place?’ She laughed, the sound shrill with near hysteria. ‘How old are you?’ she demanded, turning onto her back to glare bitterly up at him.

He grimaced. ‘Thirty-four.’

‘I am twenty-two years old,’ she informed him. ‘Piers is twenty-four.’

‘All right,’ he bit out, jerking up and away from her. ‘So I’m no bargain when compared to my brother! I’m not asking you to love me instead, just—give me a chance to help you through these next few months while you get over this.’

She didn’t think she would ever get over this.

‘And what will you get out of it?’ She hadn’t spent the last three years of her life working for the Danvers company without learning very early on that their revered chairman didn’t do anything without a damned good reason for doing it!

‘Like you,’ he said, ‘I save the family face.’

‘You’re that concerned with family honour?’ Her sceptical look made his mouth grow tighter.

‘My brother should be whipped out of town for the way he used you, Shaan. It makes the Danvers name dirty.’

Used…She sank back against the pillows, her eyes clouding over darkly. Yes, Piers had used her; all along the line he had used her, with his declarations of undying love and passionate promises.

He hadn’t just used her, he had grossly defiled her. And the only saving grace she could glean for herself out of it all was the knowledge that he hadn’t given in to her pathetic little pleas to make love to her before they married!

‘God, I feel sick!’

Rolling dizzily off the bed, she ran, stumbling, into the bathroom, where she was horribly and humiliatingly sick while Rafe stood there beside her, holding her hair away from her face, grimly taking her weight while she leaned weakly over the bowl.

Here she stood, she flayed herself bitterly, a virgin on her wedding day—with no groom to care one way or another that she had saved herself for him!

The bitterness welled up and sliced through her eyes as she ran the cold tap so she could splash her clammy face with water.

Rafe was wrong about one thing if he thought himself no bargain compared to his brother. He was worth ten of Piers—and that had nothing to do with looks or charm, or even the love still throbbing in her breast for his brother, despite all the hurt he had inflicted on it.

It had to do with this—this deeply inbred sense of responsibility he possessed. The kind which had made him warn his brother’s ex-lover about what Piers intended to do. It had to do with this—this need to put right what one of his own had messed up.

Her life—the family name. Their mutual honour!

‘I won’t marry you, Rafe,’ she said, leaning heavily against the wash basin. ‘Not to save your face or my own face. I won’t degrade myself any further by pandering to just another Danvers method of exploitation.’

‘I’m not trying to exploit you,’ he denied gruffly.

‘Yes you are.’ She lifted her head to stare bleakly at his grim, hard face in the bathroom mirror, then just stood there, staring instead at the empty void which was her own unrecognisable face.

The tears began to burn at the backs of her eyes, and she covered them with her hands, her body beginning to shudder in another bout of weak self-pity.

Rafe’s hands were firm on her shoulders as he turned her into his arms. And she felt his heavy sigh as she struggled against the onset of tears once again.

‘I have nothing left…’ she whispered bleakly. ‘Nothing…’

‘But you will again soon,’ he murmured reassuringly, and suddenly his arms were tightly crushing bands around her. ‘Come away with me now, Shaan,’ he urged her huskily. ‘At the moment, only you, me and Piers know what he actually said in his letter. Only we three know the real reason why there was no wedding today. Even your uncle didn’t really understand—only that Piers had decided not to marry you.

‘We can tell them he found out about us, that you and I had fallen in love. Piers won’t try to deny it. He’ll just be relieved that we’ve found some way of making him come through it smelling cleaner. They’re already speculating down there as to why you wanted me with you rather than anyone else. Let’s go and tell them that you and I are going away together to marry quietly somewhere. Let’s give them something to cling onto, Shaan—a bit of hope!’

‘Everything has been packed,’ she whispered into his shoulder. ‘I h-haven’t got anything to wear.’

‘We can soon remedy that,’ he said, the tension seeping out of him when he recognised her words as a statement of defeat.

His arms tightened on her in a short moment of encouragement, then he was taking her back into the bedroom and over to the stack of suitcases waiting by the door. ‘Which one shall I open?’ he prompted huskily.

Shaan stared down at them. Her trousseau, she thought emptily. The clothes she’d spent weeks gathering together for the express purpose of pleasing Piers.

Pointing to one of the cases, she turned abruptly away, shuddering, because the very idea of wearing anything she had packed in those cases filled her with horror now.

Rafe glanced sharply at her, but didn’t say anything, his face tightening with a new aggression as he picked up the small weekend case and laid it on the bed so he could flick open the catches.

Shaan came to stand beside him, looking into the case with him. Inside lay a variety of female fripperies, from the expected toiletries to a neat pile of brand-new silky underwear, and the tension lying between them began to pulse with a new knowledge.

This was the case she would have used for her wedding night. It contained only the kinds of things a new bride would want to have around her on such an important occasion. Soft, delicate, sexy things, to tantalise her new husband with.

Without a word, her lips sucked back hard against her tightly clenched teeth, she reached down and selected a pair of white silky briefs and matching bra. Then she took out the uncrushable silk Jacquard suit in a bold apple-green colour that she had packed to wear after their stop-over in Paris. After that they had been supposed to go on to the Seychelles for a month-long honeymoon. Then she turned, walking away towards the bathroom, her dark head held high.

The door closed behind her and Rafe stood, staring at the closed door for a long time, before turning slowly back to the case. Then, on an act of violence which would have startled Shaan if she’d been there to witness it, he sent the small case flying to the floor with a single, vicious swipe of his hand, glaring down at the tumbled array of feminine items scattered at his feet.

When she came back, though, dressed, her hair contained in a simple knot at her nape, she found the room neat and tidy.

Rafe was standing by the window, looking big and dark and forbidding, with that black scowl on his face. But the moment he saw her he smiled, albeit grimly, and came over to her side.

‘OK?’ he asked.

She nodded, knowing she shouldn’t be allowing this to happen, but somehow unable to find the strength to put up any more opposition.

Rafe was right about one thing—he was the only person she felt she could share the torment with because he had been the one to instigate it in the first place.

‘Leave the talking to me,’ he advised as he turned her towards the bedroom door.

She didn’t answer—couldn’t have if she’d tried—but she nodded. She had to trust in him to be the sane one. It was the only way she could cope right now.

They went to the sitting room.

Her aunt, her face red and swollen with crying, looked nothing like the bright, happy, if over-excited woman Shaan had watched leave for the church earlier today. Gone was the hyacinth-blue dress she had been wearing, and the huge, frivolous hat Shaan and her uncle had teased her about the day she had brought it home and showed them.

She came to her feet as they entered, still so shaken that she needed her husband’s help to do so. And suddenly they looked old and frail, so utterly unable to cope with the horror and emotion of it all.

For nine years of her life these two people had loved and cared for her, taken up the responsibility of Tariq and Mary Saketa’s child after she’d been left orphaned by a dreadful accident. Even though they had been well into their fifties then, and unused to having children around them, they had been good and loving towards her, had given her everything it was in their power to give her, put their own lives on hold for her sake, and been happy to do it.

Seeing Shaan safely married to Piers had meant the end of their commitment to her. And while she had been busy planning her wedding day, these two wonderful people had been just as excitedly planning their dream world cruise like two teenagers set free from parental control at last.

And Rafe was right, she couldn’t spoil that for them as well.

‘Shaan…’ Her aunt’s hoarse and trembling voice brought fresh tears to Shaan’s eyes as she hurried forward to gather her into her arms.

‘I’m all right,’ she assured her, closing her eyes because she couldn’t bear all this. Couldn’t bear their pain along with her own pain. ‘Really I am.’ Over the top over her aunt’s soft grey head, Shaan looked at her uncle. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she whispered, unable to stop herself from saying it.

Rafe moved up beside her, his hand slipping around her waist in an act of grim support. ‘Mr Lester…’

‘I hope your brother has it in him to feel shame for what he’s done today,’ Shaan’s uncle said tightly.

‘With all respect, sir,’ Rafe came back politely, ‘my brother was at liberty to change his mind right until the last moment—just as Shaan was at liberty to change hers also,’ he added succinctly.

‘Oh, my poor child!’ her aunt sobbed, and, using what was left of her depleted banks of energy, Shaan helped her back to the sofa, aware that she was unable to support herself for very much longer.

Rafe let her go, his hand dropping to his side as he stood watching the gentle way Shaan seated both herself and her aunt before gathering the older woman close while she cried softly.

‘Nevertheless, he should be made to face up to his obligations,’ Shaan’s uncle continued, aiming the blunt criticism directly at Rafe. ‘If only in his duty to let my niece down less cruelly than waiting until she was ready to leave for the church before pulling this treachery!’

‘In this case, I’m afraid that kind of duty doesn’t count,’ Rafe replied, his grim gaze not reacting to the outright attack. ‘You see,’ he went on coolly, ‘my brother refused to marry Shaan because he had discovered that she is in love with me.’

Shaan leaned her head back against the soft leather headrest and closed her weary eyes. She had never felt so drained and empty in her whole life.

Rafe drove the car in silence, grim faced and withdrawn now the worst of it was over. Oh, he had been very clever, very alert all the way through the ordeal. He had not allowed her to be spoken to alone, he had not even allowed her uncle to question her on any of Rafe’s tersely delivered statements.

And, oddly, her uncle had seemed to respect the way Rafe had been determined to protect what he was now claiming as his own.

Rafe had just told them in crisp, simple English that he and Shaan had fallen in love on their first meeting, that the two of them had been trying to fight their feelings ever since, and that—as her uncle would expect of her—Shaan had refused to turn back from a marriage she felt already committed to. In the end, out of desperation, Rafe had said, he himself had approached his own brother to plead with him on their behalf only that morning.

That Piers had, of course, backed out of marrying a woman who was in love with his own brother was perhaps only natural under the circumstances, they’d been told. He was sorry for all the heartache and embarrassment they had caused everyone, he’d gone on. But he was not sorry for stopping the wedding from taking place.

Rafe had then calmly told them that he was now going to take Shaan away and marry her himself, quietly, and that, like themselves, they intended leaving the country on a long honeymoon until the fuss died down.

And now they were driving to—she had no idea, nor did she care. She took with her the small consolation of knowing that somehow Rafe had managed to convince her uncle and aunt that everything had been done for the best. That, far from being broken in two by Piers’ desertion, Shaan was actually relieved that she had not gone ahead and married him.

She had left their house knowing that they would be taking their world cruise as planned, in the knowledge that their niece, whom she suspected they were disappointed in, was in safe and loving hands.

But, although Rafe might have saved her from being labelled a jilted bride, he was mistaken if he believed his solution had done anything to assuage her pride, because it hadn’t. For now she knew she looked like the jilter rather than the jilted, and really that was just as bad, just as unacceptable to those people who mattered.

On top of that she still felt used, defiled and rejected. And no lies, no matter how convincingly presented, could ease the terrible sense of loss and inadequacy she was suffering right now.

The car drew to a halt, and she opened her eyes to find herself staring at the Danvers family’s elegant home, set in its own grounds in this prestigious part of London. Without a word to her, he climbed out of the car, looking faintly ridiculous in his formal clothes as he came around to open her door and help her out, leading her in equal silence into a house she had never felt even the slightest bit welcome in.

As they stepped into the hall, a short, dumpy woman with frizzled hair and a harassed face came bustling towards them. ‘Oh, Mr Danvers,’ she gasped out in agitated breathlessness. ‘I’m so glad you’re home. The telephone refuses to stop ringing—’ Sure enough, as if on cue, the phone began pealing out even as the woman spoke. ‘Everyone wants to speak to you, and I just didn’t know what to say to them. They say Mr Piers has jilted his…’

She noticed Shaan then, half-hidden behind Rafe’s frame, and went as red as a beetroot, then as white as a sheet. ‘Oh, dear, I’m so sorry. I…’

Rafe made a gesture of impatience. ‘Pull the bloody plug on that phone, Mrs Clough!’ he commanded gruffly, and turned to stretch an arm around Shaan’s shoulders. He began guiding her up the stairs and along the upper landing into a room which could only be his own private suite judging by the sheer masculine power of the place.

‘Sit down,’ he told her, moving away from her and indicating a brown leather armchair placed beside a huge old oak fireplace. ‘I won’t be long. I just want to change out of these clothes.’

He went, disappearing through another door, leaving her staring numbly at the chair. Her mind had gone blank, reaction setting in to take her off somewhere deep inside herself where no one else could go.