Mistresses: Bound with Gold / Bought with Emeralds

‘Are you talking about the wedding? I hope you’re not going to interfere as well, Joshua. I already have enough on my plate with Frank poking his nose in!’

‘I wouldn’t dream of it. I’m very happy to leave it all in your gracious hands,’ he replied. ‘Would you like to sit down and rest that leg?’

‘No, thanks, I’ve been sitting down all night. A little exercise is good for me—whatever Frank has to say!’

Joshua smiled. ‘He suggested that Regan and I get to know each other, but it turns out that we’ve met before…’

Hazel’s eyes brightened with enquiry. ‘Oh, really? Where?’

Joshua opened his mouth, and Regan didn’t trust the bland look on his face. Was he about to conduct some advance damage control?

‘It was only just the once—and not at all memorable,’ she cut in quickly. ‘Which is why Joshua’s name didn’t ring a bell when Sir Frank mentioned who Carolyn was going to marry.’

‘Oh, well, at least you’re not total strangers, so that makes everything much more cosy for all of us,’ Hazel approved complacently.

‘Indeed.’ Joshua’s blandness was even more pronounced.

‘Frank is very keen for Regan to feel at home. I know he feels guilty that he didn’t do more for you when Michael was killed—’

Regan was agonisingly conscious of Joshua’s sharpened interest. ‘Oh, really—he did more than enough for us when Michael was alive.’

But Hazel was unstoppable. ‘It’s such a tragic waste when people die with so much of life ahead of them,’ she sighed.

‘How long were you married?’

In front of Hazel, Regan couldn’t flatly refuse to satisfy Joshua’s curiosity, as he very well knew! ‘Just over four years.’

‘You must have married young?’

‘I was twenty,’ she admitted, with the thin end of her patience.

‘The same age that I was when I married the first time,’ he commented. ‘How old was your husband?’

‘Four years older than me. How old was your wife?’ Regan retaliated, before realising that it was hardly a polite question to ask in front of his future mother-in-law.

‘Twenty-four.’ He tipped his head in acknowledgment of her slight blink of shock. ‘I wonder how many other uncanny coincidences lurk in our pasts. Children?’

Her flinch was barely perceptible, except to a hawkish gaze. ‘No.’

‘A mutual decision?’ he murmured.

‘Isn’t that what marriage is about?’ she snapped.

Hazel’s forehead wrinkled. ‘I remember Michael telling me one day when he dropped in here with Frank after showing some buyers around the site that he definitely didn’t want to be tied down with children until you were both well established in your respective careers. He felt very strongly about it. And, of course, he was so very keen for you to graduate as soon as ever you could, Regan. He joked that he wanted a wife to be proud of, one that he could boast about at the country club!’

It had been no joke. Image had been everything to Michael. And the demands of her full-time study, her part-time job and the chores around the house with which he was always too busy to assist had ensured she rarely had the time to keep tabs on his whereabouts. Even though she had begun to yearn for a baby, Michael had flatly refused to even discuss it.

‘And what did he envisage you doing while he was busy boasting about you in the bar of the country club?’ asked Joshua with painfully acute perception.

‘If you don’t mind I’d rather not talk about it,’ she said, casting a bleak look at Hazel, who instantly leapt to her aid.

‘Of course you don’t want to, dear,’ she said, patting her hand. ‘No sense in dwelling on what can’t be changed. It’s time to put the past behind you and think of the future. Speaking of which, Joshua—do you know where Carolyn is? I need to consult her about supper but I haven’t been able to track her down—not that that’s so very surprising in this crush! The naughty girl didn’t tell me she’d been so casual with the invitations.’

‘I believe she was with Chris, near the conservatory.’

‘Oh.’ Hazel’s beringed fingers moved up to play restlessly with her string of pearls, her smile dimming. ‘I didn’t realise he was going to be here—I thought he was on duty this weekend.’

‘He apparently swapped with someone else. He’s staying the night with me at Palm Cove.’

‘I’ll go and look for Carolyn, if you like,’ offered Regan, seizing on the excuse to escape her forced interrogation.

‘We’ll all go,’ Joshua was swift to respond, and as he gently shepherded the women before him he leaned close to the back of Regan’s head and whispered, ‘I meant what I said: stay away from my brother; he needs no encouragement to flirt. If you do stir up any trouble, you’ll have me to deal with…’

It was easier said than done. In the huge house and grounds it should have been easy to avoid someone, but Christopher Wade seemed to have developed a built-in radar that had him gravitating towards Regan with dismaying regularity—usually when Joshua and Carolyn were somewhere in the vicinity—combined with a thick-skinned good humour that refused to allow her to politely shake him off.

Later, when the guests were beginning to thin out, Regan sought her hostess out and asked if she could help with any of the clearing up before she slipped away to bed.

‘Oh, heavens, no. The caterers will deal with most of the debris and Alice has an army of helpers coming in in the morning to help tidy up the house and gardens. You go off and have a good rest. And don’t worry about getting up too early in the morning—we usually have breakfast at nine on a Saturday, but tomorrow I’ve told Alice to give us a brunch at eleven so we can all have a good lie-in.’

But when she tried to fade up the stairs Chris was there, dogging her heels.

‘I’ll walk you to your room.’

‘I’m not likely to get lost!’

‘No, but you could be waylaid by a gang of ghostly bandits. A creaking old rabbit warren like this could harbour all sorts of nefarious characters lurking amongst the shadows.’

‘Yes, and I think I’m looking at one of them right now,’ said Regan wryly as they walked along the hall, their footsteps muffled on the runner which ran the length of the polished floorboards. With his white suit glowing brighter every time they passed one of the glass wall-lamps, he made a very stylish ghost.

‘I’ll have you know that as a doctor I have an impac—an impeccable character,’ he enunciated carefully.

‘You’ve also had too much to drink,’ she realised, as they came to a halt beside her door.

He laid his right hand on his heart. ‘Alas, it’s true. I cannot tell a lie. I’m tanked to the gills.’ He used his other hand to open her door with a flourish. ‘Would you like me to come in and check for bogeymen under your bed?’

‘I wouldn’t like you to get your nice suit dirty,’ she said, stepping over the threshold to switch on the light, and turning with her body square in the door to prevent him following.

‘I could take it off.’ He began to unbutton the jacket.

‘Goodnight, Chris.’

‘Yes, push off, Chris. You’ve gone as far as either of you intend to go,’ came a midnight-dark voice from behind him. ‘So cut the clowning and take a hike back down the stairs where you belong. They’re serving coffee on the back terrace. You might want a cup or three.’

Chris turned with a fat chuckle. ‘Well, surprise, surprise! Look who’s here. Keeping tabs on me, bro?’

Joshua’s gaze was steely and calm, his stance relaxed and yet also finely balanced. ‘Always.’

Chris snickered, even as he obeyed the silent command. ‘Night, Regan.’ He gave her a sloppy salute as he turned away. “Ware the bogeyman!’

Regan watched him go with puzzled eyes, wondering what he was so smug about, what it was he thought he had achieved. She cast a fleeting look at Joshua, not quite meeting his eyes.

‘Well…goodnight.’

She closed the door in his face, but she had only a few seconds to savour her small victory before it flew open again, and Joshua strolled in with an arrogance that immediately made her vibrate with outrage.

‘You could have knocked!’

‘Why? We both know you wouldn’t have opened it.’ He walked around the room, looking at the white flounced cover on the single bed, the half-open wardrobe displaying her small collection of clothes on hangers, the array of toiletries neatly arranged on the mirrored dressing table.

‘Perhaps because I didn’t want to let you in,’ she said with withering sarcasm, watching his profile as he picked up a paperback from beside the bed. ‘Would you mind not handling my things?’

He turned the book over with careful deliberation, stroking his fingers across the covers, touching every inch of the available surface before he just as deliberately set it down, satisfied he had delivered his silent message. He would handle whatever he liked, whenever he liked…

Including her? Regan felt a quiver of guilty excitement.

‘I did warn you not to flirt with Chris. It seems that you chose to deal with the consequences…’

‘You also said he didn’t need encouragement!’ she pointed out tartly. ‘I didn’t invite him up here, you know—he followed me. And in spite of everything Hazel said, I’m virtually a paid employee—I can’t start off my first day by insulting the brother of the groom—’

He spun around on his heel and rapped out, ‘You’re a little ahead of yourself. I’m not actually a bridegroom until my wedding day.’

He was playing with words again. She bravely stood her ground as he invaded her personal space. ‘He was very persistent. I couldn’t get rid of him without being rude. What was I supposed to do?’

‘Be rude…be very, very rude…’ His hand came up to cup the side of her throat, his thumb extending under the point of her chin. ‘I don’t like him touching you. I find I really—don’t like it an extraordinary amount…’

She swallowed, feeling the pressure of the ball of his thumb against her larynx and the heavy throb of blood at her pulse-point. ‘You shouldn’t be here,’ she murmured thickly, her voice vibrating in the cup of his palm. ‘The door is open…anyone could look in.’

‘We’re not doing anything wrong…’

Yet.

The unspoken qualification lingered in the air.

His eyes dropped to her mouth. Her lips parted. His head sank, his breath a hot streak of sensation across her cheek.

‘Say my name…’

‘What?’

He inhaled the scent of her skin. ‘I want to hear you say my name…’

‘Joshua.’ It was a mere sough of wind across her tingling lips.

His head sank further, the pressure on her throat increased and her mouth tilted up like a flower to the brilliant incandescence of the sun, and he groaned.

‘Damn and blast!’ His lips were hard against her forehead for a fleeting instant before his hands were gripping her shoulders, setting her firmly away. ‘No! We’re not going to do this.’ There was a sheen of perspiration on his forehead and upper lip as he stared down into her dazed violet eyes and ground out savagely, ‘You’re a complication I really don’t need right now!’

Stricken, she writhed out of his implacably gentle grip and lifted the shield of her pride. ‘Join the club, buster!’

There was a rustle from the hallway and they looked across just in time to see Carolyn drooping wearily past.

‘Carolyn?’ Joshua was at the door with startling speed.

She halted, her golden eyes curiously blank, not even seeming to register that her fiancé was coming out of another woman’s bedroom. ‘What?’

His voice gentled to a note that caused Regan physical pain. ‘Are you all right?’

‘No, I’m not all right.’ Her pouty mouth turned down sullenly. ‘I’m tired. I’m going to bed.’

‘But not all your guests have left—’

‘God, you sound just like Granny!’ she snapped. Then she put a hand on her flat stomach. ‘I don’t feel very well, OK?’

‘Do you think you’re going to be sick?’

‘Of course I’m not going to be sick!’ Two patches of pink stood out on her cheeks. ‘Tomorrow, when I get up in the morning, that’s when I’ll probably be sick, and I’ll feel rotten for half the day.’ Her eyes glittered with tears, this time genuine, and her voice was shrill. ‘Oh, God, I hate this—it’s all such a ghastly mess! If there were any justice in the world men would have to go through this, too!’

She dashed away down the hall towards her room at the far end, and when Regan would have gone after her she found a strong arm barring her way.

‘No, let her go. She’ll probably throw herself on the bed, have a good cry, and feel the better for it.’

After his tender tone, it seemed awfully callous. ‘But she says she doesn’t feel well.’ She remembered her earlier suspicions. ‘Perhaps she’s had too much to drink—in which case she might need someone there.’

‘She’s not ill and she’s not drunk.’

‘Not ill? But—’ Suddenly it hit her, nearly knocking her to the floor. She clutched at the door handle for balance and stared up at him as her mind made the conscious leap from instinct to understanding. That Empire-line dress and the many-layered look Carolyn had worn to dinner would cover a multitude of sins!

‘My God!’ Her voice cracked. ‘That’s why you two are in such a rush to get married! Carolyn’s pregnant, isn’t she? Isn’t she?’

His face was like granite, his voice tight with the effort of control as he lowered his voice. ‘Yes, she’s pregnant, but Hazel doesn’t know about it yet…that’s the way Carolyn wants it. So, for her sake, promise me you’ll keep quiet?’

‘You weren’t courting her, and you didn’t owe her fidelity, but you did go to bed with her—unless you’re going to claim it’s a virgin birth! You heartless, hypocritical, lying, lascivious beast!’

This time when she slammed the door thunderously in his face it stayed shut.

Chapter Seven

AT ELEVEN o’clock the next morning it was an unpleasant surprise to walk into the dining room and find the lying, lascivious beast laughing and chatting with Hazel and Sir Frank as Alice Beatson served him up a large plate of scrambled eggs and salmon cakes.

‘Good morning, Regan,’ carolled Hazel from her position at the head of the long refectory table. ‘Look who’s dropped in for brunch!’

While Sir Frank grunted and waved his marmaladecovered knife in greeting, Joshua had risen to his feet and rounded the table to pull out the chair squarely opposite his own.

Damning his manners, Regan sat down, giving him a stiff nod.

‘Thank you.’ Now she would have to suffer being directly in his sight-line all through the meal. In a straw-coloured casual linen jacket over an open-necked beige shirt and trousers he looked too damnably attractive for her unsettled state of mind.

‘Good morning, Regan,’ he chided her softly, stooping over her shoulder in the process of pushing in her chair, his open jacket brushing the short sleeve of her cherry-red shift dress.

She clenched her teeth on a smile. ‘Good morning,’ she parroted. She accepted Alice’s offer of freshly squeezed orange juice and a dish of sliced fresh fruit in yogurt and looked around the table.

She had been so preoccupied with her effort not to react to Joshua that she had barely registered anyone else in the room, and now she felt a shock of recognition as she stared into a pair of familiar light brown eyes, gazing at her from across the table over the top of a tall stack of buttermilk pancakes.

He smirked at her surprise. ‘Hi.’

‘Hello, Ryan,’ she blurted. ‘Were you at the party last night? I didn’t see you.’

‘Nah—I have exams starting on Monday, I had to swot.’

In the act of reseating himself beside the youth, Joshua snapped up his head. ‘You two know each other?’

‘Sort of,’ hedged Regan, praying that the sly humour that had entered the young man’s eyes didn’t mean he was going to rat on her for the pleasure of seeing an adult squirm. Today he had his hair slicked back into a neat ponytail and was wearing a brown T-shirt that made him look even more like a beanpole.

‘We ran into each other yesterday and had a bit of a chat, didn’t we, Ryan?’ Her eyes silently begged him to play it casual.

‘So, did you see any more of those birds?’ he said loudly.

Sir Frank frowned. ‘There’s no need to shout, lad, we’re not deaf.’

‘Sorry, but I thought Regan was hard of hearing.’ Ryan’s eyes were owlishly innocent behind his wire glasses.

The wretch! Regan gave him a speaking look which he returned with a pious grin as he stuffed another pancake in his mouth.

‘Why on earth should you think that?’ asked Hazel.

Ryan moved his thin shoulders up and down, pointing to his bulging cheeks to explain why he couldn’t answer.

‘He must have misunderstood something I said,’ Regan supplied hurriedly, ‘We were bird-watching, so we were whispering—’

‘Bird-watching?’ Joshua’s eyebrows shot up. He looked sceptically at the young man munching innocently at his side. ‘Since when have you taken up such a tame hobby, Ryan? I thought Cyberspace ruled your life. Although I suppose staring at native flora and fauna could be considered an advance on staring at a computer screen all day. At least it gets you out in the fresh air.’

‘Nothing’s tame to a young, enquiring mind,’ Regan objected at his disparaging sarcasm. If he was going to be a father he needed to buck his ideas up. ‘I think children should always be encouraged to find everything interesting and not be stuck with labels that inhibit them from wanting to learn…’

Ryan gulped down his pancake to protest. ‘I’m not a child.’

‘I was speaking generally. Whether you’re five, fifteen or fifty, you’re still someone’s child,’ she countered, dipping her spoon into her fruit.

‘Yes, but not a child. A child is someone between the ages of birth and puberty,’ he argued.

She recalled his water-dripping-on-stone technique of wearing her down from the previous day.

‘According to the dictionary, a child is also a human offspring—’ she persisted.

‘But not in the first meaning of the word,’ he interrupted stubbornly. ‘I bet if you looked it up you’d find my meaning listed before yours.’

‘Don’t take that bet,’ came Joshua’s dry advice.

‘I wasn’t going to,’ dismissed Regan. ‘OK,’ she told Ryan, finding it amazingly easy to sink to his level, ‘you win—you’re far too boringly pedantic to be a mere child. You have to be at least ninety before you get to drive other people crazy by arguing endlessly over such irritating trivia with such single-minded intensity.’ She smiled at him sweetly. ‘I guess that puts you somewhere in your second childhood.’

Ryan thought about that for a moment, his eyes narrowing behind the round rims of his glasses in a way that struck a faint chord of uncomfortable resonance in Regan’s brain.

‘You kept arguing, too…’

‘That’s because I was right, but I showed my maturity by letting you win in deference to your mental age. When I was a child, I was taught to respect my elders…’

She tilted up her nose at him and he grinned, attacking his pancakes again. ‘You didn’t let me win.’

‘If you say so, dear,’ she said, in the indulgent, forgiving tone that she knew men—both young and old—hated to hear.

Ryan opened his mouth.

‘Give it up, Son. Women are genetically programmed to have the last word. They can never bear to allow a man to feel that he’s won an argument.’

‘But, Dad…you told me never to give up on a fight when I believe I’m in the right!’

Son? Dad?

Regan’s spoon clattered to her plate, splattering fruitjuice and yoghurt over the pale yellow tablecloth.

‘He—You—You’re father and son?’ she said stupidly, dabbing at the tablecloth with her napkin in order to disguise her shaking hands.

Her eyes darted from face to face, suddenly seeing the echo of the boy in the man and the foreshadowing of the man in the boy…the similar angle of their cheekbones, the narrow, intelligent temples, the strong line of their noses.

Joshua’s eyes narrowed, exactly as his son’s had a few moments earlier. She must have been blind not to have seen it before!

‘I thought you said that you and Ryan had talked?’

‘Yes, but not about you!’ He had been the single subject she had been desperate to avoid.

An unholy amusement filtered across his face as enlightenment dawned. ‘Let me guess…you didn’t realise who he was because you never got around to exchanging surnames? Seems to be a habit of yours…’

Regan seethed as he picked up his cup of black coffee and took a leisurely sip.

‘You mean it’s just what happened when you and Regan met the first time?’ chuckled Hazel, who had been following the conversation with lively interest. ‘A case of like father, like son!’

Flustered violet eyes clashed with thunderstruck grey as they shared a moment of mutual consternation. Visions of their torrid sexual encounter danced between them.

‘God, I hope not,’ muttered Joshua fervently, and Regan knew that she was going to blush as Ryan sat up in his chair, his precocious antennae twitching at the silent interaction. She quickly cast around for an innocuous change of subject.

‘So…where’s Chris this morning?’ she asked.

Bad choice. Hazel’s eyes lowered as she thoughtfully stirred a lump of sugar into her tea and Sir Frank stared out of the window and made a gruff remark on the blustery day.

‘Still sleeping off last night,’ said Joshua. ‘Why? Were you hoping to see him?’

‘No—oh, no…I just wondered, that’s all.’ In her haste to disassociate herself from the question she allowed Alice to persuade her to a salmon cake she didn’t really want. ‘If he’s a doctor I suppose he must work very hard…’ She trailed off, seeing that she had only compounded her error as Joshua’s expression hardened.

‘Works hard and plays hard. He’s not sleeping because he’s tired; he’s sleeping because he behaved like a total idiot.’

‘Uncle Chris fell into the canal coming home last night,’ supplied Ryan. At least her diversion had worked on one level. ‘I saw him from my window, splashing and yelling. Dad told him to stop whining for help, that he had two choices: sink or swim. So he swam to the boardwalk and Dad hauled him out.’

‘Goodness!’ Hazel covered her mouth, and Regan couldn’t decide whether she was concealing a gasp of horror or a smile.

‘Serves the young fool right!’ pronounced Sir Frank.

‘But he could have drowned!’ Regan thought she was the only one showing any compassion. ‘Particularly in his state.’

‘You mean drunk,’ said Joshua.

‘Why didn’t you help him straight away?’ Regan chastised, her eyes flashing. ‘Instead of standing there taunting him.’

‘Because I believe in tough love,’ he said laconically. ‘He’d got himself into a jam and there was no reason he shouldn’t at least try to get himself out of it. Besides…I didn’t want to risk ruining my clothes,’ he drawled with a baiting smile. ‘I was wearing some recently acquired items of great sentimental value.’

‘It was OK, really—Uncle Chris used to be a champion swimmer at his school,’ offered Ryan, torn between his natural loyalty and the delightful novelty of seeing his father being sternly lectured on behaviour by a slip of a woman. ‘And Dad did throw him a lifebelt from the dock.’

‘How kind of you,’ Regan bit out at the mocking face across the table, fuming over the veiled reference to his cufflinks. Whatever sentiments he attached to them, she knew they wouldn’t be the tender ones that he was implying!

‘I was aiming for his head,’ he said succinctly, and suddenly she couldn’t help the quiver of a smile escaping her control. She chewed it off her lips, totally bewildered by her reaction. How could he make her feel like laughing when she was so angry with him?

‘I wonder what’s keeping Carolyn? She did know you were coming, didn’t she, Joshua?’ interrupted Hazel, squinting at the exquisite diamond watch whose face was a trifle too dainty for her aging eyes.