Bridal Bargains

And the other subject was dropped, leaving Claire sitting there wondering bleakly just how deeply Andreas had loved his first wife for even his grandmother to worry about the fragile state of his emotions.

But—nubile? she then repeated to herself with a grin. Such an old-fashioned word! Yet, coming as it had from this hypercritical old woman, she found it rather a compliment.

‘Why the grin?’ the sharp tongue demanded. ‘You don’t like my dress? You think it is funny?’

Dress—what dress? Claire frowned, clicking her eyes into focus on what Althea was carefully holding up so the long skirt didn’t touch the ground.

‘Oh!’ she cried out as she jumped to her feet. ‘How absolutely lovely!’

‘You like it,’ the old woman sighed in satisfaction—then instantly went back to being stern. ‘It was my wedding dress. Now it is yours.’

‘Oh, but I can’t—’

Even as Claire turned to gasp out her protest, the old lady was talking over her. ‘Of course you can!’ she snapped. ‘It is my wish! So try it on—try it on and let us see how little different my young figure was to yours at your age!’

She sounded so animated—alive and excited—that Claire didn’t have the heart to protest a second time. But as she looked back at the long, soft lines of the beautiful dress she felt like a dreadful fraud.

A deceiver of a vulnerable old woman.

But, by the time she emerged from behind the tall screen, having had Althea help her out of her clothes and into the dress, she was already head over heels in love with the dress.

Made of an intricately worked handmade lace worn over the finest silk under-dress, it skimmed her slender body as if it had been made for it. The neckline scooped gently over her breasts. The long fitted sleeves fastened by tiny pearl buttons that ran from wrist to elbow—one of which had to remain unfastened because of her cumbersome plaster-cast. The skirt was a little short, finishing just above her ankle, but even that didn’t seem to matter.

It was the nineteen twenties at its most poetic. It was simply exquisite.

And just to see that sheen of tearful joy enter those tired eyes made wearing it a pleasure.

The old lady sighed, then ran on in hushed Greek that didn’t need translating for Claire to understand that she was overwhelmed by what she was seeing.

Herself maybe? Claire pondered. Was this old woman who was so very close to the end of her life suddenly seeing herself when she was at the beginning?

‘You will do—you will do,’ the old lady murmured huskily. Then she said, with a return of her old sharpness, ‘Nubile, eh? Was I not nubile also?’ she declared triumphantly.

And Claire couldn’t help laughing even though she was still feeling like a terrible fraud.

‘You will wear it next week when you marry my grandson and he will bless the day he found you because that dress is lucky,’ she promised, having no idea that Claire had switched off from the moment she’d mentioned marriage next week, which was news to her. ‘I had fifty years of happiness with my husband before the cancer took him. You will have the same luck. You mark my word, child. That dress is lucky …’

‘But this whole thing is getting out of control, Andreas!’

Claire was pleading with him across the width of his study desk, having come to search him out the moment she had been dismissed from his grandmother.

‘She wants me to wear her own wedding dress!’

‘You don’t like it?’ Sleek eyebrows arched in haughty enquiry.

‘Like it?’ Claire repeated incredulously. ‘It’s old, it’s handmade, it’s utterly unique and it’s exquisite!’ she sighed. ‘But she loves that dress, Andreas!’ she told him painfully. ‘And she loves you! Yet here we are intending to dupe her any which way you want to look at it!’

The only response she got to that was the slow lowering of lazy lashes then the same slow lifting of them again. But then, he was the ice man today, Claire noted impatiently. Yesterday hadn’t happened. He had clearly dismissed it from his mind.

‘Do something!’ she snapped in sheer frustration.

‘What would you like me to do?’ he asked quietly. ‘Go and tell her that this is all nothing but a lie?’

‘No,’ she sighed, hating him for his smooth simplicity! ‘I just feel—’ She sighed again, and turned her back on him so she could slump wearily against the desk. ‘I hate liars,’ she said. ‘Yet here I am, lying to everybody I speak to.’

‘Is she happy?’

Claire dipped her head to stare at her shoes. ‘Yes,’ she said.

‘Did the dress fit you as it must have fitted her more than seventy years ago?’

‘Yes,’ she said again, seeing the joy in that old woman’s face when she’d seen herself as she would have looked all those years ago.

To her consternation he gave a soft laugh. ‘She told me it would.’ He explained the reason for the laugh. ‘Last night, after having met you, she laid a wager with me that if the dress fitted you then I must buy it from her for you to wear on our wedding day. Oh, don’t misunderstand,’ he said quickly as Claire turned to stare at him. ‘She is a shrewd old thing, and she loves a good wager. The dress is a museum piece and practically priceless. She knows this. She means to fleece me, and will enjoy doing so.’

And thereby keep the weak lifeblood flowing through her veins that little bit longer while they haggle, Claire concluded, beginning to see again what her guilty conscience had blinded her to—the fact that this man was willing to do anything to keep his grandmother alive.

Today it was a wedding dress. Tomorrow it would be something else. Then there was a wedding to plan and a great-grandchild to meet and …

Without really knowing she was doing it, she began planning and plotting herself. ‘She wants the wedding to take place next week.’ She frowned. ‘Perhaps, if I insist that we put it off until my plaster-cast comes off, it will—’

But already Andreas was shaking his dark head, the expression on his suddenly grave face enough to tell her why.

‘She hasn’t got that long?’ Claire questioned thickly.

He didn’t answer with a straight yes or no. ‘She knows what she is doing,’ he murmured. ‘Let her set her own timetable, hmm?’

A timetable … She shivered, hating the concept so much that she sprang abruptly away from the desk. ‘I’m going to see Melanie,’ she told him as she walked quickly to the door.

For at least Melanie was everything that was bright and optimistic about life, whereas—

‘Claire—one more moment of your time before you go, if you please,’ that infuriatingly level voice requested.

It reminded her of a softly spoken headmaster she’d once had, who’d used to intimidate everyone with the simple use of the spoken word. Resenting the sensation, she spun around to glare at him. Seeing the glare, he responded with that brief grim smile she despised so much.

‘At the risk of infuriating you even more,’ he drawled, ‘I have to warn you that there will be a party here tomorrow night. My family wish to meet you before the wedding takes place,’ he explained, watching the varying changes in expression cross her face. Annoyance, trepidation then eventually dismay. ‘It will take the form of a—betrothal celebration.’ Smoothly he poured oil on the burning waters.

‘No,’ she refused, point-blank and unequivocally.

The leather chair he was sitting in creaked slightly as he sat back into it, the morning sunlight pouring in through the window behind him putting his features into shadow so she couldn’t see whether he was smiling that smile.

But she knew it was still there! ‘I’ve done everything you’ve asked me to do to make this lie work for you!’ she informed him hotly. ‘But I will not be paraded in front of your family to be scoffed at because they think I am a—a fallen woman who trapped you with a baby!’

Despite the sun behind him, she saw his eyes flash. ‘Let only one of my family be so crass as to scoff at you and they will never be welcome in my home again.’ At last he sounded as if he had some emotions left. ‘But if that is your wish—’ he stood up, and there was nothing calm or cold in the way that he did it ‘—then of course I will accede to it. I will go and inform my grandmother right now that she must shelve that particular plan.’

His grandmother. He was agreeing to this party thing because his grandmother wanted it.

She was only agreeing to any of this for Melanie’s sake.

Grandmother—Melanie. Melanie—grandmother.

What about Claire? she wondered bitterly.

‘Oh, have your stupid party,’ she snapped. ‘But don’t blame me if they all think that you’ve lost your marbles when they see me!’

CHAPTER SEVEN

SHE was still angry about the emotional blackmail being used on her the next evening as she finished getting ready for the party.

So the dress was a defiance.

Claire knew that even as she stood in front of the mirror frowning in trepidation at the reflection that was coming back at her. Made of pale blue high-stretch gossamer-fine silk tulle, the flimsy bodice was supported by bootlace-slim halter-style straps that held the two triangles of fine fabric over her breasts. From there it followed the contours of her shape with such an unremitting faithfulness that it really was the most daringly thought-provoking garment.

She looked naked beneath it—felt naked! Though she knew that she wasn’t if you took into account the tiniest pair of smooth silk briefs and a pair of white hold-up silk stockings. But nervous anxiety was making the hard tips of her nipples protrude to add to the illusion. And because the fabric clung so lovingly to her warm flesh she could even see the way the point high on her stomach between her ribcage was pulsing in tense anticipation of the evening to come.

‘I can’t wear this,’ she muttered on a sudden arrival of common sense that should have hit a lot sooner.

Standing behind her, carefully teasing the final gold-silk strands of a natty fantail knot into which she was dressing her hair, Althea paused to glance over Claire’s shoulder.

‘I think you are so brave,’ Althea confided—which helped not a tiny bit because she didn’t feel brave at all!

Not any longer, anyway. This afternoon when she’d picked this dress out off the line of other evening dresses she had been feeling brave—brave, bold and brazen! she mocked herself deridingly. Seeing herself boldly taking on all those critical looks she just knew she was going to receive for not being their first choice of bride for their lord and master.

But now, with reality hovering over her like the shadow of a giant black-winged eagle preparing to swoop, her fickle emotions had flipped over into cowardice. And she knew now with absolute certainty that she just was not going to be able to carry this off!

A knock sounded lightly on the connecting door.

That pulse-point between her ribcage gave a large throb, and she froze. So did Althea, her gentle brown eyes fixing on Claire’s pale face in the mirror. And silence rained down on top of both of them in a fine sprinkle of flesh-tingling static.

How much Althea and her parents actually knew for a fact about Claire’s relationship with their employer Claire didn’t really know. She thought that they at least suspected its lack of authenticity. After all, did Andreas look like the kind of man that seduced women like her?

But he does seduce me. She instantly contradicted that remark. Those increasingly passionate kisses are definitely seductive. And every time his dark hooded eyes settle on me now I feel dreadfully seduced even though he is trying his level best to pretend that it isn’t happening.

‘What do you want to do?’ Althea whispered in a hushed little voice.

Die a thousand deaths by a thousand knives rather than open that door! she thought helplessly.

At least you’ve managed to put on some make-up. She allowed herself that one small consolation. Discovering today that she was now able to use the fingers on her right hand for light tasks meant that she had been able to do a lot more things for herself—one of them being the application of a light shadow to her eyelids, some mascara to her lashes without smearing it all over the place, and a rose-pink lipstick that gave her soft mouth a fullness that had not been there before.

She looked much better for that, even if she did say so herself.

You’re not so bad-looking, you know, she informed that reflection. And despite its daring the dress is truly exquisite—the typically fashionable thing any woman slender enough to carry it off would wear today!

The knock sounded again, and she grimly pulled herself together. You’ve created your own monster here, Claire! she told that frightened face in the mirror. Now live with her!

With that little lecture to bolster her courage, Claire watched her chin come up, soft pink-painted mouth firming a little as the light of defiance sparked back into her eyes.

Seeing it happen, Althea took a step back in silent retreat. And when Claire turned away from the mirror to walk over to the connecting door Althea melted out of the room without another word spoken between them.

The way he was dressed, in a conventional black dinner suit, white dress shirt and black bow-tie, was the first thing Claire noticed as she pulled open the door. And the second thing was that he looked big and dark and dauntingly sophisticated.

Her pulse quickened; she tried to steady it. He opened his mouth to say something light and ordinary—then stopped when his eyes actually focused on her properly.

Claire gave up trying to control her pulse when it broke free and just went utterly haywire as his gaze rippled over her. There was really no other way to describe it since that was exactly what her skin did as he inspected her slowly from the top of her shining head to rose-pink-painted toenails peeping out from the tips of her strappy silver shoes.

And he wasn’t pleased by what he was seeing; she could see that immediately in the way his parted mouth snapped shut then tightened. ‘Taking us all on, are you?’ he drawled with super-dry sardonicism.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she answered coldly.

He smiled that smile. ‘Then let me put it this way,’ he offered. ‘I don’t think there is going to be any doubt in the minds of anyone here tonight why I find myself having to marry you.’

‘Lies can be such uncomfortable things sometimes, don’t you think?’ She acidly mocked all of that. ‘But this one you will have to live with,’ she then informed him. ‘Because I am not going to cover myself up just to save your embarrassment.’

His sleek black brows shot up. ‘Did I say I was embarrassed?’

You didn’t have to, Claire thought, and turned away from him as an unexpected wave of disappointment hit. Even with defiance flying as high as a kite from her, she discovered, to her annoyance, that she had still been looking for his reassurance, not his disapproval.

Needing something to do to keep her muddled emotions hidden, she was glad that she had it—in the form of a white stretch-silk sleeve Althea had cleverly fashioned for her to wear over her plaster-cast.

It was waiting for her on her dressing table, and she walked over to get it, stingingly aware of those dark eyes taking in the amount of naked back the wretched dress left exposed.

‘Where is your sling?’ he enquired levelly after a few moments.

‘I don’t need it any more,’ she said—then, with a half lift of one slender white shoulder, added, ‘Well, not all the time anyway.’

‘Here—allow me …’

A long-fingered hand appeared from behind her to take the white sleeve from her grasp. ‘To cover your cast, I presume?’ he said lightly.

The temptation to snatch it back from him and tell him she could manage very well by herself almost—almost got the better of her. But even in the strange antagonistic mood she was in she knew that would be just too childish.

So she stood silent and still while he came to stand in front of her—her very own giant black-winged eagle, she mused as the feeling of being swooped down on overwhelmed her again. But then, she might be tall at five feet eight inches but he was one hell of a lot taller.

Taller, wider, bigger, darker, she listed as he picked up her injured wrist and began feeding the sleeve over the plaster-cast protecting it.

‘Is the age thing a big problem to you, Claire?’ he asked her quietly.

Older, tougher, calmer, cooler—the list went on. She gave a shake of her head in reply to his question.

‘Perhaps you are still angry with me because I—over-stepped the boundaries of our arrangement, then.’

Wiser, she added. Because it hadn’t really hit her until he’d said it out loud that this was exactly the reason why she was feeling as emotionally confused as she was.

‘You blow hot and cold all the time,’ she felt constrained to answer. ‘I just don’t know how to respond to that.’

‘Then I apologise,’ he murmured rather grimly.

Gracious, too, she added to the growing list. Because I’d have cut my own throat before I’d have had the grace to apologise as quickly and as sincerely as that.

Giving that small shrug with her shoulder again in acknowledgement of his apology, she then added a small sigh. ‘It isn’t going to be easy for me, you know, having to deal with all of these people who are coming here tonight, knowing what they will all be thinking when they look at me.’

‘I know.’

‘Althea said she thought I was brave to dress myself up like this for the party. But I’m not brave, not really. I’m just …’ She ran out of words on a discontented sigh.

‘Trying to cope the best way you can.’ He supplied them for her.

Silly tears tried to fill her eyes because now she was having to add understanding and gentle and sympathetic to her list and it really couldn’t get any longer!

Yes, it can. She then had to amend that thought as he put his hand to her cheek and used his thumb to gently draw her chin up so he could look gravely into her swimming blue eyes. Because he was touching her for real rather than touching her through the protection of her plaster-cast, and she now had to add dangerous to that list because his touch made her feel so—!

He bent down to brush his mouth across hers, and the list was halted right then and there as it suddenly raced away from her in a mad, frantic blur of sizzling adjectives.

‘Althea should have said beautiful and brave,’ he murmured huskily as he drew away again.

So he did like the way she looked! If Claire could have seen her own eyes then, she knew it must have been like watching a dark shadow pass over and the sun coming out.

He smiled; so did she—the first real smile she had offered him in days. And while she continued to stand there feeling starry-eyed and breathless he picked up her other hand and slid something onto one of her fingers.

‘A betrothal ring for my betrothed,’ he murmured lightly as Claire glanced down then went perfectly still when she found herself staring at the most enchanting little diamond cluster ring she had ever set eyes on. ‘It is a necessary part of the game-plan.’

The game-plan. Her heart thumped in her breast. How could she keep forgetting the game-plan?

‘And it fits, too,’ he added in that same lightly teasing vein. ‘Which means Grandmother is going to make me pay for the pleasure of placing it here.’

‘It’s your grandmother’s ring?’ Swallowing her silly sense of let-down, Claire glanced up at him questioningly.

‘The first of many my grandfather gave her,’ he said with a small grimace. ‘But this was her favourite. Do you like it?’

‘It’s a beautiful ring,’ she murmured softly; it was not big enough to be ugly, not small enough to be cheap. ‘Thank you for allowing me to wear it tonight,’ she added, belatedly remembering her manners. ‘I promise to take precious care of it for you.’

He had been about to move away from her when she said that. But now he stopped. ‘It is yours to keep,’ he stated rather curtly. ‘I was not expecting to get it back.’

But Claire shook her head. ‘No.’ This ring did not belong to her and it never would. She could accept the new wardrobe of clothes and the luxury lifestyle she was being treated to here, because they only cost money and, as she had already learned with Andreas, money was a commodity he had more than enough of. But this ring—like the wedding dress—was different. Both had feelings attached to them, memories, for an old lady that belonged to this family, not to Claire, who was only passing through, so to speak.

He knew what she was thinking. She could feel him reading the sombre thoughts as they passed over her face. As she stood there with baited breath, waiting for him to start arguing the point with her, he surprised her by not doing that at all.

‘You have integrity, Claire,’ he murmured quietly. ‘That is a rare commodity; try not to lose it.’

‘Integrity?’ she repeated, sending him a wry little smile that thoroughly mocked the suggestion. ‘Where is the integrity in marrying someone you don’t love, even if it benefits the both of us?’ she asked him cynically.

He didn’t answer, and she didn’t blame him because there really was no answer that did not confirm she was telling the truth.

‘Come on,’ he prompted rather harshly instead. ‘It is time for us to go and greet our guests.’

And that small amount of harmony they had managed to create between them withered and died as they both remembered what this was really all about: a stranger’s child that he, for no apparent reason, had decided to adopt as his own. For the first time since he had talked her into this, Claire began to question his reasoning because, knowing him better now than she had when they’d struck this deal, she could no longer accept that he needed to legally adopt Melanie to make this deception work.

After all, no one yet had questioned his claim that Melanie was his child. And if he genuinely needed an heir that badly, then why not find himself an olive-skinned boy-child? Unless choosing a girl was all part of the deception—a clouding of the scent to keep people’s minds working on the wrong problem.

Could he be that devious? That tactically calculating? Glancing up at him as they began the long walk down the wide staircase, she saw the ruthlessness and cynicism etched into his dark profile and thought with a shiver, Yes, he can be that calculating.

Which still did not answer the question as to why he was determined to make it all legal. For if this was for his grandmother’s sake, and from what he had already prepared Claire to expect his grandmother would not be around for very much longer, Melanie was too young to feel the loss of a father who was not her real father in the first place.

So what was really going on here? She frowned thoughtfully.

‘Stop worrying,’ he scolded levelly beside her. ‘I won’t let them eat you.’

But they did—or almost did—with curious looks laced with a disbelief that none of them seemed able to keep hidden, which made her feel uncomfortably like an alien being who was trying to infiltrate their selective society.

Though, to be fair, no one was openly rude or questioning. The older element said teasing things to Andreas in Greek to which he replied with smooth aplomb. The younger ones—especially the men—ogled Claire in a way that made her blush and earned them a light but real warning to watch their manners from Andreas.

All very protective, very—possessive of him, she acknowledged. Like the way he kept her left hand enclosed in his right hand all the way through the ordeal while cheeks were brushed against cheeks in typical continental fashion.

‘See, it was not so bad in the end, was it?’ he drawled when the introductions were over.

Where were your eyes? she wanted to counter. But, ‘No,’ was what she actually said.

One person in particular gave her reason to feel really uncomfortable. Desmona glided in through the door looking absolutely stunning in the kind of dramatically simple black sheath gown that made Claire stingingly aware of her own complete lack of sophistication.