Merger By Matrimony

by Cathy Williams

  ‘I’m so glad you’re here,’ Stephanie said to her. ‘You’re a darling.’

  ‘Well. Thank you.’

  ‘And don’t be late up. A girl needs her beauty sleep.’

  Her mother had used to tell her that when she had been alive and the cliché brought tears of nostalgia to her eyes.

  Destiny settled into a comfortably maudlin mood, aided and abetted by the glass of port which Stephanie had produced with a flourish and insisted that she drink, and was sitting in the smallest of the sitting rooms when she became aware of the sound of footsteps.

  If Stephanie was returning for some more words of comfort, then Destiny had no objection. Comforting people was something she did well. She had enough experience of it, comforting mothers with sick children and the occasional new recruit to the compound pining for what they had left behind.

  She looked expectantly at the door and blanched when she saw who her visitor was.

  ‘I thought you’d gone back to London.’ She had half stood in shock, but now subsided back into her chair, still cradling her glass of port. The drowsy inertia induced by lots of food and the alcohol disappeared at the speed of light and was replaced by a jumpy edginess that made her breathing jerky and painful and dried out her mouth.

  ‘Forgot something,’ he informed her, prowling into the room and circling her chair before sitting down on the sofa and stretching his long legs out in front of him. ‘What are you drinking?’

  ‘Port.’

  ‘First wine? Now port? Not getting used to the finer things in life, by any chance, are you?’ There was an antagonistic edge to his drawl and it occurred to her that he was looking for a fight. And why not? He had probably got halfway to London, more than enough time to think about what had happened between himself and Stephanie. More than enough time to work out that his fiancée’s sudden and uncharacteristic behaviour had only seen the light of day since she, Destiny, had been on the scene. Stephanie might well be relieved that it was all over and, who knew, maybe she had really believed that the feeling had been mutual, but it was evident that Callum was far from a happy man. In fact, he was in a foul mood.

  ‘What did you forget?’

  ‘Oh, I forgot that I was supposed to spend tomorrow showing you around all these extensive acres of land.’ He made a sweeping, lazy gesture with his hand while he continued to look at her from under his lashes.

  ‘I think I would have been capable of showing myself around.’

  ‘And leave you with the impression that I’m anything less than the perfect gentleman?’ He gave a short, harsh laugh and her jumpy nerves became even more jumpy. ‘Now, why don’t you go and get me a glass of port? It’s been one helluva night, as I’m sure you know.’

  ‘The bottle of port is in the kitchen, and if you want me to feel sorry for you then you’re not going the right way about it.’

  ‘Why should you feel sorry for me? No, don’t answer that one. Not until,’ he said, getting to his feet and heading for the door, ‘I have a glass of port in my hand.’

  Instead of savouring the few minutes he was gone to try and relax, Destiny found that her nerves were stretched to breaking point by the time he came back with a glass in one hand and the bottle in the other.

  ‘So,’ he said, resuming his position of indolence on the chair, ‘you were saying…’

  ‘I’m sorry that things didn’t work out between you and Stephanie,’ she said evenly.

  ‘Are you? Why?’

  ‘It wasn’t my fault,’ she mumbled defensively, allowing her guilty thoughts to surface.

  ‘I never said that it was.’ But it damn well was, he thought savagely. She’d moved into his complacent life, which had been running quite smoothly, and blown the whole thing to smithereens. Yes, he’d had misgivings about Stephanie, and, yes, he would have ended the whole thing—which, he’d been relieved to discover, had been met with similar feelings of relief. But he would not now be sitting with a drink in one hand with his well-oiled life in pieces around his ankles.

  He’d left the house intent on making it back to London, but in fact had made it only to the nearest pub, where he had drunk far too much for his own good. It was just as well that the pub in question had only been twenty minutes’ drive away and there had been a taxi to get him back to the estate.

  It was all right and dandy for her to sit there with those bewitching green eyes and look at him as if he was a madman, but she turned him into one. He’d closed the door on one woman, a long overdue closure, and in the process another door had blown open and he had realised, with the sadistic help of a few glasses of whisky, that what he had considered a harmless enjoyment of this woman’s conversation had somehow turned into an addiction. He was falling in love with her, and the mere fact that he’d admitted as much to himself was enough to make him realise that he’d probably gone past the point of no return.

  He was not only invigorated by her but she had lodged in his soul and he wanted her out. He wanted his control back. He didn’t want to sit at his desk with a stack of files in front of him while his mind played games and sabotaged his every effort to work. To work, to sleep, to think clearly.

  The woman who had originally been a temporary thorn in his long-range forecast was now driving him crazy.

  ‘Perhaps you two weren’t suited to one another,’ she was now saying quietly. ‘Perhaps the thunder and lightning and fireworks had gone out of the relationship—and what would have been the point of marriage then?’ Anyone would think that she, Destiny Felt, the woman with no emotional past to speak of when it came to the opposite sex, was an expert on the subject.

  ‘And what makes you think that thunder and lightning and fireworks are all that necessary to a good marriage?’ he jeered, calling a halt to the alcohol and resting his glass next to him on the ground. ‘In case it’s missed you, thunder and lightning and fireworks are all over in the wink of an eye.’

  ‘If you want to try and persuade Stephanie to stay with you, then you’re talking to the wrong person,’ Destiny said cautiously, and he leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees.

  ‘You mean you won’t go upstairs and try and persuade her that my heart is breaking? That I can’t go on?’

  Destiny tried to imagine this big, muscular man, made of steel, with a breaking heart, and she realised that it hurt to think that Stephanie might be the one to do that.

  ‘Just as well I don’t want you to do any such thing, then, isn’t it?’ He shot her a ferocious, brooding look. ‘Because you’re right. Steph and I should have reverted into being just good friends a long time ago.’ He got up and began his restless prowling around the room while she watched, mesmerised by the way his body moved. For someone of his size, there was a feline grace about him that she wouldn’t have expected.

  ‘Of course,’ he said, briefly turning to look at her from across the room, ‘it hasn’t helped that you’ve instigated the revolution by telling her that she was a poor, downtrodden female who needed to get in touch with herself and start making a stand for women’s rights.’

  ‘I did no such thing!’ Destiny protested uncomfortably.

  ‘Well—’ he shrugged ‘—she’s been quoting you from dawn till dusk. Oh, Destiny this, and Destiny that and Destiny the other.’

  ‘That’s not fair,’ Destiny said hesitantly, wondering what exactly these quotes were.

  ‘No, it’s not, is it?’ he countered, strolling over to where she was sitting and looming over her like an avenging angel. ‘Because, stuck out in the middle of nowhere, you haven’t exactly got the experience to be a guru on all things sexual, have you?’

  ‘I never claimed I was!’ Destiny said, rising to the occasion. It took a mammoth effort to stare him down, and in all events she didn’t manage it, finally lowering her eyes to his knees, which were altogether less alarming than other, less innocent, parts of him.

  ‘Do you know—’ he dropped his voice, which was even more alarming than when it was directed at her wi
th all its implicit menace ‘—that for someone with little or no experience, you do a pretty damned good job of being a siren?’

  ‘Me? A siren?’ She laughed, but what emerged was more along the lines of a hysterical choke. ‘You’re joking, aren’t you? Where do you think I’ve learnt these amazing skills of being a siren? Do you think I practise daily in front of the howler monkeys in the jungle?’ She laughed derisively, thinking of her sheltered, protected background which had left all these loopholes she was now falling headlong into.

  ‘You,’ he accused, walking towards her so that she coiled back into the chair. He reached out and dropped his hands to either side. ‘So philosophical when it comes to giving advice. I bet you and Steph had a good old heart-to-heart while I wasn’t here, while I was in that pub burying myself in a few draughts of whisky, man’s most reliable friend…’

  ‘I thought you said you were on your way to London…?’

  ‘I was. But the journey ended prematurely at the village pub. Funny how these things happen.’

  They happen, Destiny thought, because—whether you admit it or not—the break-up was traumatic for you. A man like him would need a submissive woman, a woman who was willing to bend like a sapling to his powerful personality, and the minute that Stephanie began showing signs of rebellion he had reacted with his typical overwhelming intensity. Perhaps the truth of the story was that Stephanie had ended their relationship and pride would not let him try to win her back, so, in her relief, Stephanie had misread his signals for feelings of shared relief that it was over. It all seemed so horrendously convoluted, but wasn’t Destiny fast discovering that nothing here was what it seemed? People dressed, spoke and behaved in a manner designed to create a certain type of impression, and honesty was something that remained locked away for a rainy day.

  ‘So you’ve been drinking,’ she accused coolly, and he gave a bark of humourless laughter.

  ‘A glass or two of whisky. Is that allowed under the circumstances?’

  ‘You probably need to go to bed,’ Destiny said. Her body was beginning to ache from the unnatural angle in which she was sitting, pressed back against the chair in an attempt to ward off the sheer force of his masculinity.

  ‘Is that an offer?’

  ‘No, it’s not!’ But the suggestion stirred something in her that sent her already accelerated heart into overdrive. Bed? With Callum Ross? Naked bodies coated in perspiration, writhing in passion on rumpled sheets. The image was strong enough to almost make her squeak with terror. ‘Look, why don’t I make you some coffee?’ In other words, Please let me get out of here and away from you so that I can pull myself together.

  ‘You think that’s what I need?’

  ‘It might…sober you up…’

  ‘I’m not drunk.’

  ‘No, maybe not, but…’

  ‘Oh, why not?’ He pushed himself back and stood up, fists balled in his pockets, watching her.

  ‘Black?’

  ‘Whatever.’ He shrugged and she escaped out of the room, and, after a moment of brief orientation in the hall to make sure that she headed in the right direction and didn’t amble off to some remote corner of the house by mistake, made for the kitchen.

  She didn’t hear him enter. In fact, she was only aware of his presence when she turned around with the cup of coffee in her hand to find him standing there behind her. In her shock she took two steps backwards, bumping into the counter, and there was a second’s delay between the coffee spilling and the sudden burning pain on her hand, where most of it had gone. This time her yelp had nothing to do with him but with her hand.

  She dashed the cup on the counter and half ran to the sink, pushing the plug in and filling it with cold water; then she plunged her hand in, gritting her teeth.

  ‘This is your fault!’ she wailed. ‘If you hadn’t sneaked up on me like that, none of this would have happened.’ Through the water she could see the raised red smudge where the coffee had touched. It would come up in a nasty blister and hurt for a bit, but it wasn’t serious. When she looked at him, though, his face was deathly pale.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said roughly. ‘Do you need to see a doctor?’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous. It’s a burn, not a broken hand.’

  ‘God. Abe must have had some kind of first-aid supplies in this bloody mausoleum.’ He began pulling open cupboard doors which were either empty, or else yielded stores of pristine, unused china.

  ‘I’ll be fine.’

  He swung back to her, raking his hand through his hair. ‘There’s no need to play the martyr, Destiny.’

  ‘I’m not playing the martyr. Look, why don’t you go and sit down? Or make yourself another cup of coffee.’

  ‘You’re right. It was my fault.’ He stood next to her and they both watched her splayed fingers under the water. ‘How does it feel now? Is that helping? Should I get a dishcloth and soak it in some water? I’ve got a first-aid kit in my car. No, forget that, the car’s at the pub. We can’t even get out of this damned place to get you to a hospital!’ he groaned, and Destiny sighed deeply.

  ‘It’s a coffee burn, for heaven’s sake. Surely you must have dealt with this type of thing before?’

  ‘Not really, no.’

  ‘You’ve never burnt yourself before?’

  ‘Not that I can remember. My mother always taught me to be careful around hot things.’ His anger had dissipated, which was good, she thought, although the humour creeping into his voice was almost as dangerous.

  She whipped her hand out of the water and said, in a soothing voice, ‘There, it feels much better now.’

  ‘Wait there.’ He fetched a dry cloth and gently dabbed the water off, while her heart seemed to do a funny kind of somersault and end up somewhere in her throat. ‘You’d better come and sit down.’

  ‘You’re overreacting!’ Destiny protested fruitlessly, as he led her very slowly back into the sitting room, holding her wrapped hand as though it was made of breakable crystal.

  ‘Now, sit.’

  She obediently sat on the sofa and, alarmingly, he sat next to her, so that the sofa depressed under his weight and her body slid an infinitesimal amount closer to his, so that they were lightly touching. He gently rested her hand on his leg and removed the cloth.

  ‘Looks much better,’ she said weakly.

  ‘Looks bloody awful.’

  ‘You need to feast your eyes on something truly awful, and you’d agree with me that the hand looks fine.’

  ‘Something…like what?’

  ‘Something…like a human missing a bit because of an overhungry croc? Or something…like a person with a hand infected with snake toxin.’

  ‘I don’t know how you do it.’ Her hand was still on his leg and she looked at him, her mouth half-open, acutely conscious of the feel of his hard thigh under her fingers, even though he seemed blissfully unaware of it.

  ‘Do what?’ she asked, shutting her mouth.

  ‘Live the life that you do.’ Their eyes met. To her, they seemed to fuse and she felt a wave of giddiness steal over her.

  ‘You make it sound as though I’m some kind of latter-day heroine,’ she said a little breathlessly, ‘and I’m not.’

  ‘Do you ever long for escape?’

  ‘Don’t we all?’ She wished that the lighting wasn’t quite so dim, but there was no overhead light. The room was lit by a series of lamps, only two of which were actually turned on.

  ‘How’s the hand?’

  ‘Barely feel a thing,’ she answered truthfully. She dutifully stared at it, and he lightly traced a pattern along her fingers.

  ‘Will you miss this evil city of ours, then? Or are you itching to get back to your country? God, I make it sound as if you’re not English, but of course you are. In fact, you even speak better English than most people over here do.’

  She laughed nervously. Her hand had developed a will of its own and was enjoying itself on his thigh. ‘That’s only because my parents were so adamant about
speaking it at home. I never really picked up an accent or slang from anyone else. Can you imagine if you spoke English only to your parents?’

  ‘Oh, I can imagine a lot of things—’ he paused ‘—but not that. You still haven’t answered me. Are you itching to get back to Panama?’

  ‘Is this your way of asking me whether I’ve made my mind up about the house as yet?’ She withdrew her hand from its compromising position and cradled it on her own lap with her other hand.

  ‘No, it’s not!’ he shot back at her. ‘Damn the house. It’s the last thing on my mind at the moment.’

  Destiny looked at him warily. ‘And what is the first thing on your mind?’

  For a few seconds he didn’t answer. He just looked at her until she could feel every drop of colour leave her face and then rush back in a tidal wave, turning her crimson.

  ‘This is,’ he muttered. He put his hand at the back of her neck and pulled her towards him, then his mouth met hers.

  Or, rather, his mouth assaulted hers. His lips were hungry and his tongue pushed into the moistness of her mouth. His hand pulled her towards him, fingers buried in her thick hair and, after a split second of confusion, during which she made a feeble attempt to break away, Destiny surrendered to all the powerful, primal feelings suddenly released inside her.

  From her near-frozen state of virginal innocence, this awakening was explosive. Had she been conducting her entire life in a state of slumber? she wondered. She coiled her arms around his neck, moaning in surprise and pleasure when his mouth left hers to trail wetly along the slim column of her neck.

  She knew all about the birds and the bees. Before her mother had died, she had sat Destiny down and told her. And, of course, she had studied enough medical journals to be fully acquainted with the act of mating and reproduction. But what she was experiencing now bore no resemblance to all those clinical explanations she had read about in her youth, and it bore even less resemblance to what she had felt with Henri, during their occasional amateurish gropings.

  A wild animal had taken over her body. She writhed and groaned and wanted. They slipped backwards onto the huge sofa and she closed her eyes as he pushed up her baggy shirt, pulling it over her head while she obligingly extended her arms to accommodate him. She had never been inhibited about her body and the removal of her shirt felt wonderful, allowed her more movement.