The Virgin Bride

‘Sorry to love you and leave you, Nancy,’ he said briskly, when it became clear she was going to linger, ‘but I have to go upstairs and change.’

‘Going out for dinner, Doctor?’

‘Yes, that’s right.’

‘Where are you off to tonight?

‘I thought I might drive over to the coast.’

‘Seems a long way to go to eat alone,’ Nancy returned on a dry note.

Jason opened his mouth to lie, but then decided against it. The people of Tindley would like nothing better than to see their second and much younger doctor safely married to a local girl. Doctors were as scarce as hen’s teeth in some rural areas. They would exert a subtle—or perhaps not so subtle—pressure on Emma, to be a sensible girl and snap up the good doctor while she had the chance.

‘Actually, no, I’m not going alone,’ he said casually. ‘I’m taking Emma Churchill.’

If he’d been expecting shock on Nancy’s face, then he was sorely disappointed. Her smile was quite smug. ‘I suspected as much.’

‘You sus—’ Jason broke off, grimacing resignedly. The small town grapevine never ceased to amaze him. ‘How on earth did you know?’ he asked, with wry acceptance and a measure of curiosity. No way would Emma have told anyone.

‘Muriel said you were asking about Emma yesterday. Then Sheryl spotted you going through Ivy’s side gate last night. Then Emma dropped in to Beryl’s Boutique at lunch-time and bought a pretty new dress. On top of that, you’ve been clock-watching and jumpy all day. It didn’t take too much to put two and two together.’

Jason had to smile. Jumpy, was he? You could say that again. He’d hardly slept a wink last night for thinking about Emma.

‘And what will the good ladies of Tindley think about such goings-on?’ he asked, still smiling.

Nancy laughed. ‘Oh, there won’t be any goings-on where Emma is concerned, Dr Steel, so you can save your energy and keep your mind above your trouser belt till the ring’s on her finger. You are planning on proposing, aren’t you?’

Jason saw no point in being coy. ‘I am…but that’s doesn’t mean she’ll say yes.’

‘She will, if she’s got any sense in her head. But there again—’ She broke off suddenly, and frowned.

‘If you’re thinking about Dean Ratchitt, then I know all about him,’ he said brusquely. ‘Muriel filled me in.’

Nancy’s expression was troubled. ‘He’s bad news, that one. Emma was really stuck on him. Always was, right from her schooldays.’

‘I hear he’s very handsome.’

Nancy frowned. ‘Not handsome, exactly,’ she said. Not like you, Dr Steel. Now, you’re handsome in my book. But he has something, has Dean. And he has a way about him with the women, no doubt about that.’

‘So everyone keeps telling me,’ Jason said testily. ‘But he’s not here in Tindley, Nancy, and I am. So let’s leave it at that, shall we? Now, I must shake a leg or I’m going to be late.’

‘What time did you say you’d pick Emma up?’

‘Seven-thirty.’

‘Just as well she lives down the road, then, isn’t it? Off you go. I’ll lock up here.’

Jason dashed up the stairs, stripping as he went.

Like Ivy’s sweet shop, the surgery was part of an old house which fronted the main street of Tindley. But where Ivy’s place was small and one-storeyed, the house Doc Brandewilde had bought thirty years before was two-storeyed and quite spacious. Doc and his wife had raised three boys in it.

But they’d always wanted a small acreage out of town, it seemed, and once Jason had expressed interest in the practice Doc had bought his dream place and moved, leaving the living quarters of the house in town to his new partner.

Jason had been thrilled. He’d liked the house on sight. It had character, like those American houses he’d often seen in movies and which he’d always coveted. Made of wood, it had an L-shaped front verandah, with wisteria wound through the latticed panels, and a huge front door with a brass knocker and stained glass panels on either side. Inside, the ceilings were ten feet high, and all the floors polished wood. A wide central hall downstairs separated two rooms on the left and two on the right. It passed a powder room under the stairs, and led into a large kitchen which opened out onto a long, wide back verandah. The two rooms on the left—which had once been the front parlour and morning room—had been converted into the waiting room and surgery. The two on the right remained the dining and lounge rooms.

Upstairs, there had been four bedrooms and one bathroom till a few years back, when Doc’s wife, Martha, had brought in the renovators and combined the two smallest bedrooms on the right into a roomy master bedroom and en suite bathroom.

Jason rushed into this bathroom now, snapping on the shower and reaching for the soap. No time to shave, he realised. Pity. He’d wanted to be perfect for Emma. Still, he wasn’t one of those dark shaven men who grew half a beard by five o’clock in the afternoon. His father had been dark—according to his parents’ wedding photos. But his mother fair. He’d ended up being a mixture of both, with mid-brown hair, his father’s olive skin and his mother’s light blue eyes.

And a blessed lack of body hair, he thought as he lathered up his largely hairless chest.

With time ticking away, he didn’t shampoo his hair. No way did he want to front up with wet hair. Snapping off the taps, he dived out of the shower, grabbed a towel and began to rub vigorously. Five minutes later he was standing in his underpants, scanning his rather extensive wardrobe.

No suit tonight, he thought. Tonight called for something a little less formal, which didn’t really present a problem, except in making a choice. During his days as a dashing young Sydney doctor, he’d bought clothes for every occasion.

His eyes moved up and down the hangers several times. Damn, but he had too many clothes! Finally, he grabbed the nearest hanger to his hand, and had already dragged on the cream trousers, pale blue silk shirt and navy blazer before remembering Adele had chosen that very outfit the last time they’d gone shopping together. She’d said it made him look like a millionaire, fresh from winning the Sydney to Hobart yacht race. She’d liked the image, said it turned her on. Nothing turned Adele on, Jason thought ruefully, like the thought of money.

He scowled at the memory, but had no time to change, consoling himself with the thought that at least the woman had had taste in men’s clothes.

She came to mind again as he slipped on the sleek gold watch and the onyx dress ring he always wore. Both had been presents from Adele, bought in the first year of their three together. She’d given him quite a few personal gifts in those early days, mostly to enhance his new status as her partner.

Jason felt no personal attachment for the gifts any more. Usually he wore them without a second thought. But it didn’t seem right to wear them when he was going out with the woman he was going to marry. He compromised by leaving the ring off but wearing the watch, because he liked knowing the time. Still, he determined to buy himself another watch in the morning. Something less flashy.

Scooping up his wallet and car keys, he turned and went forth to make his destiny.

Emma was ready and waiting for him, as pretty as a picture in a dress just made for her pale colouring and willowy slenderness. Round-necked and long-sleeved, it was mainly cream, but tie-dyed with splashes of peach and the palest orange. The material was light and crinkly, the style on the loose side, skimming over the gentle rise of her bust and falling in soft folds to her ankles. Her fair curly hair had obviously been shampooed and especially conditioned, for it shone in contrast to the previous night’s dullness. Her face had some colour too—thanks to some lipstick and blusher, perhaps? Her eyes looked huge, even though he could see no visible make-up around them. When her neck craned back to look up at him, a faint smell of lavender wafted from her skin.

She looked like something from another world. A unique treasure to be cherished and cared for.

Was that how Ratchitt had seen her when he’d pursued her? Or was Emma just another notch on his belt? Had her purity enraged or enslaved him? Jason couldn’t see the rotter who’d been described to him as having any sensitivity. He’d probably only asked Emma to marry him because he thought she’d come across once a ring was on her finger.

Jason was glad he’d failed to get what he wanted. He didn’t deserve her. Men like him didn’t deserve any decent woman, let alone his Emma.

And that was how he saw her now. His Emma.

‘You look lovely,’ he said, his eyes raking over her with what he hoped wasn’t too impassioned a gaze. But, dear heaven, he did desire her. Yet so differently from the way he’d desired Adele.

Adele, he’d wanted to ravage. With her, he’d wanted to take, never to give. After all, Adele was one of those liberated females who shouted to the rooftops that they were responsible for their own orgasms, and she had been, at times. He and Adele hadn’t made love, he now saw. They’d had sex. Great sex, it was true. But still just sex, the only aim being mutual physical satisfaction.

Emma made him want to give. Jason had no doubt that his priority when he made love to her would be to give her the most wonderful experience in her life, an experience which would banish Ratchitt from her mind for ever. His own pleasure would be secondary…which was an extraordinary first for him when it came to sex. Maybe he had changed, after all!

‘You look very nice yourself,’ she was saying. ‘Very…handsome.’

At least she hadn’t said rich.

‘Thank you. Shall we go? My car’s out in the street. There again,’ he added, smiling a wry smile, ‘my car’s always parked out in the street.’

That was one thing his new house didn’t have. A garage. There was room in the back yard, but no access down the side.

You can’t have everything in life, son…

Jason glanced over at Emma, and his smile softened.

Maybe not, Mum. But I’m getting closer.

CHAPTER FOUR

‘WHAT happened to your ring?’

Jason was about to fork a honeyed prawn into his mouth when Emma posed the unexpected query. Slowly, he lowered his fork to the plate, and looked across the table into her big, luminous green eyes.

Her asking such a question was telling, he thought, for it revealed she’d noticed his always wearing the ring in the first place. He reasoned that you wouldn’t notice such a thing—or its absence—if you hadn’t been watching a person fairly closely.

The thought flattered his ego.

He was also grateful that their conversation had finally become a little more personal. During the drive over to Bateman’s Bay, Emma had been quiet and tense. Jason had had the awful feeling she was regretting coming with him, regretting having anything to do with him at all. Sensing her mood, he hadn’t pressed her with any questions of his own, keeping the conversation light and inconsequential. He’d tried amusing her with an account of his relationship with Nancy so far, but, whilst she’d laughed at the right moments, he’d suspected her mind was elsewhere. Ratchitt, probably.

Now he wasn’t so sure. Her eyes were focused on his face with a concentration which was total and exclusive. He almost preened under the triumphant and very male feelings her intense gaze evoked.

‘I took it off,’ he said. ‘And left it off.’

‘But why?’ she asked, perplexed. ‘It was a beautiful ring.’

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