by Miranda Lee
But she gave voice to one of her minor confusions as soon as they were semi-alone in the back of the hire-car and on the way to James’s house for the reception. ‘Who is this man Rhys Stevenson? I have the strangest feeling I should know him.’
‘He’s an up-and-coming Australian film director. You’ve probably seen his name on the screen, or on television, and absorbed it subconsciously.’
‘But how did you meet him and what was he doing at our wedding?’ she persisted, not entirely satisfied. ‘Don’t tell me he was invited, because I saw the list of guests and he wasn’t on it.’
‘I asked him personally, only a couple of days ago. Lucky I did, as it turned out,’ he finished drily.
‘Well, yes, but—’
‘Are you going to talk about Rhys all the way to the house?’ James interrupted, startling her by disposing of her bouquet on to the floor then sliding an arm around her waist and pulling her close. ‘I’d much rather tell you that you’re the most stunningly beautiful woman God ever put breath into,’ he rasped, ‘and then do this.’
There was nothing cold and lifeless about his kiss this time. Far from it...
Ashleigh found it difficult, however, to forget the chauffeur behind the wheel, who was possibly watching then in the rear-view mirror. She squirmed under the hot possession of her husband’s mouth and hands, an embarrassed heat flushing her cheeks.
Squirming, however, was not the best activity for a woman in the close embrace of a man she’d been becoming more sexually aware of all day. Her chest rubbed against his dinner-suit jacket, a button scraping harshly over one already hardening nipple.
Her lips fell open in a silent gasp, and immediately James’s probing tongue found its mark, filling her mouth with a hungry thrust that sent the blood whirling in her head. Dazed, she clung to the lapels of his dinner-jacket, and all thoughts of chauffeurs vanished. There was only that ravenous mouth crushed to hers, and its insatiable tongue, feeding on the sweetness it found behind her own panting lips.
When James finally abandoned her mouth it was to kiss her neck, to mutter unintelligible words against her flushing skin. Ashleigh’s head tipped back in a raw response, her whole body drowning in a flood of warmth and heat. The drum-beat of desire began pounding in her heart, and her head, making her oblivious to her surroundings, making her a willing victim to her husband’s passion. Already James’s mouth was back on hers, taking her down deeper and deeper into maelstrom of need and yearning.
‘Damn it.’ he rasped when the car turned the corner that led up the hill to his home. ‘We won’t be staying at this reception late,’ he growled. ‘I’ve already waited too long for this night. Far too long.’
Ashleigh shivered at the darkly intense resolve in James’s voice and face. But it was a shiver of excitement, not fear. She wanted him as much as, if not more than, she’d ever wanted Jake. Such a realisation ripped through all her preconceived ideas on what she felt for the two brothers. Before it had been love and desire for one. Liking and respect for the other. Now Ashleigh was forced to accept this wasn’t so any longer. She had never felt this kind of desire before without love. That was why no man had ever reached her since Jake, simply because she’d never loved any of them.
She lifted a trembling hand to James’s face and held it there, tears swimming in her eyes. ‘I love you, James,’ she whispered. ‘I really, really love you.’
His head jerked back and he stared at her. For a second Ashleigh was taken aback, unsure if the frozen mask on his face meant he was appalled, or merely deeply sceptical. With a sigh of understanding she realised it had to be the latter.
‘I know I said I didn’t love you when I agreed to marry you,’ she rushed on in a low whisper as the car pulled into the long driveway that led up to the Hargraveses’ house. ‘To be brutally honest, I thought that, underneath, I was still in Jove with Jake.’
She felt the muscles in his jaw flinch, though his eyes didn’t waver.
‘There’s been no one else, you see, and I always believed...’ Her hand trembled against his skin. ‘But, when you kissed me just now and I responded the way I did, I knew it had to be true love.’
There was no doubting the relief that zoomed into those blue eyes, or the emotion behind the husky, ‘I knew it. I knew it!’
And he kissed her again, deeply and hungrily.
He only released her when the car pulled up at the house. ‘Just as well,’ she murmured with an embarrassed laugh. ‘If we keep this up I’ll get your cold.’
‘My...cold?’ His puzzlement was only momentary. ‘Oh, you mean my raspy voice. Don’t concern yourself, my darling. It’s not a cold. Let’s say I—er—did a fair bit of shouting last night and it affected my vocal chords. Now, take that frown off your lovely face and don’t let that bastard Reynolds spoil things for us.’
Ashleigh blinked her amazement. That bastard Reynolds? Astonishing. Only last week James had been telling her what a wonderful friend Peter had always been and how grateful he had been for his help with the financial side of the company since his father’s death.
She might have liked to take the discussion further—such as exactly what Peter had said to cause the blow-up between them—but the chauffeur’s opening the back door for her to get out put paid to that. Putting her hand in the chauffeur’s, and a blush of lingering embarrassment on her face, she alighted at the base of the wide steps, glancing up at the house where she would have to live for a while till she and James found something suitable around Glenbrook in which to set up their own home. Perhaps something with enough room for her to have a small attached practice, she thought, since Nancy would hardly let her turn any of the Hargraveses’ home into a surgery.
Two-storeyed and in a Cape Cod design, the house had a setting suited to the family’s status in Glenbrook, grandly overlooking the town from the crest of a hill. Tall English trees stood in elegant clumps of shade over the surrounding lawns, upon which a large marquee had been erected for the reception.
The guests had not yet arrived, but soon the nearby area would be full of parked cars. Even the photographer hadn’t made it yet, having stayed behind to snap some more pictures of the bridesmaids and guests.
All of a sudden Ashleigh recalled what James had said to her in the car, about how they would leave the reception early. She turned to watch him stride around the white Fairlane to join her, a splendid male figure in his tuxedo, his well-tailored clothes highlighting his wide-shouldered, lean-hipped frame.
He caught her staring at him, and an amazingly confident smile caressed his mouth. It jolted her. For there had only ever been one male who’d been so sexually sure of himself with her. Only one...
‘Jake,’ she whispered on a breathless note, and her fingers fluttered up to the locket.
But the man beside her wasn’t Jake. It was his brother, his brother who had finally taken Jake’s place in every possible way...
James had stiffened at her uttering his brother’s name. He stared down at her, then at the locket, the muscles twitching in his strong jaw. Ashleigh stopped breathing, certain now that he suspected the locket had something to do with Jake. Which was why he had stared at it earlier on.
She opened her mouth to try to explain why she’d chosen to wear the thing today, but he cut her off.
‘Do not speak that name again,’ he rasped, ‘or I won’t be responsible for what happens.’
He drew in then expelled a ragged breath.
‘Now,’ he went on sternly, ‘go inside and replace your lipstick. The others will be here soon and it wouldn’t do for everyone to think I’d been ravaging you already. My mother, particularly, might find that thought...unnerving. She isn’t quite herself today, as I’m sure you’ve already realised.’
It was at that precise moment that Ashleigh realised James knew not only about the locket, but Jake’s letter as well.
CHAPTER FOUR
‘YOU know, don’t you?’ Ashleigh confronted James. ‘About Jake’s writing to y
our mother, about his sending me back this locket?’
James’s blue eyes grew watchful beneath a dark frown. ‘I am acquainted with my mother’s visit to you before the wedding,’ he admitted slowly.
‘Good God!’ Ashleigh gasped. ‘Why did she have to tell you? What point was there?’ She shook her head in agitation. ‘I suppose you think I wore this damned thing because I was still pining for Jake. I wasn’t. I wore it in defiance of his rotten arrogance and lack of tact in wanting me to have it on the very day I was marrying his brother!’
‘I see,’ James said somewhat drily. ‘To be honest, I would not have thought of that reason.’
‘It’s the truth.’
‘I don’t doubt you.’
‘You did believe me when I said I loved you, didn’t you, James?’
There was no mistaking the flash of painful irony in his eyes. ‘I think you might be a touch confused, my dear, in these unusual circumstances. But I’m a patient man. I know I can win your love, even if it takes me the rest of my life.’
Ashleigh was distressed at the bleak intensity behind his words.
‘Leave me now, Ashleigh,’ he went on brusquely. ‘There are cars coming up the hill. I’ll stay out here and greet the guests and organise things for the photographs while you fix your face. Someone will be up shortly to collect you.’
Ashleigh didn’t want to leave him. She wanted to go on explaining, reassuring. Oh, how she’d hated seeing the hurt in his face, hated feeling the withdrawal in his manner towards her. But she could hardly stand there arguing with him in front of other people, especially with smudged make-up. Reluctantly she turned and made her way up the front steps and in through the open double doors, holding her skirt up as she made her way slowly up to the bedrooms Nancy had set aside for her as a changing-room.
The door was already open and Ashleigh walked in, her mind still on James and the unhappy thought that he didn’t believe she really loved him. But she did. She was sure of it! How could she convince him?
Tonight, she decided breathlessly. Tonight she would leave him in no doubt that she both loved and wanted him as she had wanted no other man, not even Jake.
Damn Jake, she thought angrily. Damn him to hell!
With an abrupt movement her hand swept up under her veil and behind her neck, where she fumbled to unclasp the now hated locket. It stubbornly refused to yield, and in the end she reefed it from her neck with a savage yank, the locket spilling on to the parquet floor and sliding under the double bed.
And that was where she left it, tossing the silver chain on to a chest of drawers.
‘Something borrowed,’ she scorned out loud. ‘Something buried would be more like it!’
Ashleigh counted to ten till her breathing was back to normal, then quite deliberately turned her back on the chain and gazed with satisfaction at her going-away outfit, all laid out ready for her on the double bed, complete with shoes and handbag.
It was an elegantly simple suit in emerald-green silk, which hugged her tall, shapely figure and proclaimed to the world that she was all woman. James would like it, she was sure. And in the packed suitcase of clothes already in the boot of James’s Jaguar, awaiting their honeymoon, was an ivory satin négligé set that would make any man sit up and take notice, let alone the man who already loved her.
Picking up the black leather handbag, she carried it over to the corner dressing-table, where she opened it and drew out the make-up she’d put in there. First she touched up her foundation, then replenished her blusher and lipstick. She was just applying some perfume when Kate knocked on the open door and breezed in.
‘There you are, Ashleigh. James sent me to get you. Hmmm, perhaps I could do with some more lipstick too. May I?’
‘Be my guest.’
‘The photographer wants to take a few shots in the garden,’ Kate explained as she applied the deep pink shade to her wide mouth. ‘He spied that clump of rhododendrons and thinks they’ll make a splendid backdrop. There...all done...’ She looked at herself critically in the mirror, then shrugged. ‘Oh, well, we can’t all be gorgeous. Come, oh, beautiful bride,’ she said, and linked arms with her friend’s. ‘Your panting groom awaits!’
Laughing, the two friends made their way down the sweeping staircase and out into the mild autumn air, Ashleigh immediately expressing her gratitude that all the guests seemed to have disappeared into the marquee, and weren’t waiting to besiege her on the front lawn.
‘You have James to thank for that,’ Kate informed her. ‘I also heard him sneakily instructing the drink waiters to ply everyone with as much liquor as they could handle to keep them out of our way while the official photographs were being finished. By the time we make our grand entrance they’ll be high as kites on sherry and a quite lethal fruit punch. I know: I sampled it.’
‘I could do with a shot of something lethal myself,’ Ashleigh said drily. Kate’s ebullience hadn’t totally distracted her from how she had left James a little earlier. Neither could she forget that in a couple of hours she would be driving off on her honeymoon with a husband who didn’t really believe his bride loved him.
‘I could do with sitting down as well,’ she continued with a sigh. ‘I didn’t exactly have a chance to break in these shoes before today, and they’re killing me.’
‘Ditto repeato,’ Kate groaned expressively.
Both girls looked at each other and laughed again.
‘Just as well we didn’t decide to become models, eh, Kate?’
Kate made a face. ‘Well, I didn’t have much option on that count, being five feet two and having a face that didn’t launch a thousand ships.’
‘You have a great face,’ Ashleigh insisted, stopping to look at her friend. And she did, all her big, bold features combining well to present an arresting, vivacious image.
Kate beamed with pleasure at the compliment. ‘You are so good for my self-esteem, do you know that?’
‘Will you two giggling Gerties mind shaking a leg?’ James called over from where the rest of the bridal group were waiting impatiently beside the pink rhododendrons. ‘We’re all dying of dehydration and hunger here.’
Ashleigh was astonished and relieved to see that James was actually smiling at her. Gone was his earlier scowl, his look of pained anguish. He was a totally different man, confident and positive in his manner. She heaved a happy sigh. Everything was going to be all right after all.
Walking quickly over, she slipped a loving arm through his, smiling up into his face. Clearly her gesture startled him, for he stared back down at her for a second before expelling an exasperated though good-natured sigh.
‘Right,’ the photographer announced. ‘Everyone facing front and smiling.’
‘Wait!’ Kate shouted, making everyone jump. She rushed over and started straightening Ashleigh’s veil where it had caught slightly on some beading on her shoulder. Suddenly she stopped and frowned down at Ashleigh’s bare neckline. ‘What happened to the locket?’ she asked.
Ashleigh groaned silently. Trust Kate to notice and comment. She opened her mouth to voice an excuse, but nothing came to mind, and she was left looking like a flapping flounder.
‘It broke,’ James said coolly from beside her. ‘In the car.’
‘Oh, what a pity!’
‘Not to worry, Kate,’ Ashleigh inserted swiftly, having regathered her wits. ‘I still have your garter, which was borrowed as well as blue.’
‘A garter?’ The new best man perked up. ‘How quaint. Can I see it?’
‘Certainly not while it’s on,’ James intervened firmly.
Rhys laughed. ‘How possessive you are! But rightly so. Your bride is as lovely as you described to me. I fully understand you now, dear friend. Some things are worth any sacrifice.’
Flattered and flustered, Ashleigh lifted startled eyes to her husband, catching the end of a harsh glare thrown his best man’s way.
‘Do you think we could get on with this, folks?’ the photographer sighed.
>
The session seemed interminable, as was having to keep on smiling. By the time it drew to an end Ashleigh’s mouth was aching. She was also harbouring the beginnings of a headache.
‘Something wrong, darling?’ James murmured from her side when she put a hand to her temple.
‘Only a very small headache,’ she smiled softly, thinking that she did so like his calling her that.
‘I’ll get you something for it. Kate! Take Ashleigh over to that garden seat there while I rustle up some aspirin. Or do you need something stronger?’ he directed back at his bride.
‘Well...panadol is kinder to the stomach.’
His mouth curved into a wry smile. ‘Of course. Doctor knows best.’
She flinched, knowing how men didn’t like to be corrected, or told things by a woman. She could never tell her father or brother anything—even about medicine—without earning a reproachful glare or a sarcastic remark. ‘Sorry,’ she murmured.
‘Don’t be. I’m proud of your being a doctor. Kate? The seat, please. Be back shortly.’ And, flashing them a parting smile, he strode off.
‘I didn’t realise James could be so masterful,’ Kate remarked as she led Ashleigh in the direction of the shaded seat. ‘It’s very attractive on him, isn’t it? I mean, being nice is all very well, but a man shouldn’t be too, too nice. If he is people walk all over him, including his wife, and then he might lose her respect, don’t you agree?’
Ashleigh did.
‘Rhys is a very interesting man too,’ Kate raved on. ‘I could talk to him all day. The places he’s been and the people he’s met! Fantastic!’
‘Don’t tell me you’ve finally met a man you didn’t want to put solidly in his place,’ Ashleigh said, amazement in her voice.
‘I can’t imagine anyone putting Rhys Stevenson in his place.’
‘Kate! I do believe you’re smitten.’
‘Not at all. Just jealous.’
‘Of what?’
‘Of his lifestyle.’
‘Well, we can’t all be movie directors!’
‘Why not, if that’s what we’d like to be?’ she said quite aggressively.
