by Lynne Graham
*
It was dawn when she finally slept, wakening with a start only when someone gently shook her shoulder. She sat up. ‘What on earth…?’
‘Blaze even cancelled the builders so that you could sleep in peace,’ Floss informed her cheerfully. ‘And you must have needed it, to sleep this late…’
It was after three in the afternoon. Startled, Chrissy breathed, ‘Blaze?’
‘He’s gone down to London.’
As soon as she came downstairs, Chrissy headed for the phone. She would tell Elaine that they were getting married tomorrow. Surely even Elaine could not disbelieve that? Surely that would be sufficient to send her home safely to Steve? But nobody answered her call. She paced the floor, wondering if Elaine had already departed, scared to hope, never mind face how the heck she was to get herself out of the predicament she had put herself in.
It was after seven when her repeated phone calls finally received an answer. Her sister’s voice, cool and calm, came on the line.
‘Blaze and I are getting married t-tomorrow…’ Chrissy breathed shakily.
‘You may be driving to the church,’ Elaine responded with a derisive laugh, ‘but I can assure you that you won’t be getting married tomorrow or any other day.’
Chrissy swallowed hard. ‘How…h-how can you—?’
‘You’ll find out.’
The dead tone hummed deafeningly loud in Chrissy’s ear. Elaine had put the phone down and left it off the hook. Chrissy was still trying to raise an answer when the doorbell went an hour later.
It was Hamish. ‘Blaze couldn’t get through on the phone. He told me to tell you that he won’t be back tonight.’ His weathered features were set in familiar lines of grim disapproval. ‘Probably off on a bender to steel himself up for the wedding…’
‘Thank you, Hamish.’ Chrissy was beyond even being insulted. She was ready to tear her hair out in despair.
‘He’s an absolute disgrace!’ Hamish continued fierily. ‘Taking advantage of a young girl and only doing the right thing by you at the last ditch! He ought to be ashamed of himself…and he’s not—you needn’t tell me that; I know. He’s in cracking good form!’
Hamish had gone before she managed to hinge her dropped jaw up again. Now she could rejoice in the knowledge that she had Hamish’s sympathy, she thought, on the edge of hysteria. But dear heaven, what was she going to do? What had Elaine meant? What was she getting at? Chrissy knew that if she went to the church that was the furthest she could go. She could not go through with the marriage. At the church, she would have to tell the truth. The lie had reached its limits, leaving her in a terrifyingly tight corner.
Chapter 9
‘You look lovely…’ Floss’s voice trailed off uneasily. The older woman sensed that something was very wrong, but Chrissy’s strained pallor did not invite questions.
A heady combination of fear and desperation had strung Chrissy up so tight that one wrong word would have catapulted her into tears. All she could think about was what lay ahead of her at the church. Foolishly she had not expected Floss to involve herself in the preparations a bride was expected to revel in, any more than she had expected Floss to present her smilingly with the dress that Blaze had sent up from London the day before.
It was the soft pink of candy-floss, only vaguely bridal but decidedly floaty and romantic. Somehow the fact that Blaze had actually chosen the dress underlined the extent of the deception she had practised. He thought this was his wedding-day. He really did believe that. This wasn’t some nightmare she was mercifully about to wake up from… No, it was paralysingly real.
Dear God, how would Blaze feel when she exploded the truth on him? Why had she ever let it go this far? At the church, of all places…scarcely the scenario for such a shattering revelation. And his godfather, the bishop, waiting there to perform a ceremony that would not take place! If Blaze had come home last night, she would have told him. Later on, she had phoned Floss and asked if she knew where Blaze was staying, but Floss had had no idea and had instead teased her about bridal nerves.
‘Pinch your cheeks,’ Hamish urged as she climbed into the car. ‘You look like a ghost.’
She wished she were one, dead and safely buried. Until now, she had rigorously suppressed her own feelings for Blaze. Her own emotions had seemed irrelevant and self-indulgent when set against the far more important issue of protecting Elaine’s unborn child. But now, all of a sudden, she was wallowing in those emotions and out of control. She loved him, saw every fault he had but still loved him. She had never really quite believed that love would be like that. But it was. It wasn’t blind, it was all-encompassing.
She knew he didn’t love her, but she did think he was carelessly fond of her. It wasn’t much, but she was about to lose even that. He would despise her. The deception had been unforgivable. He had been very honest with her once the chips were down, but all she had done was lie and lie and lie. And after today she would never see him again…ever. She had packed their cases late last night, ready for the fast departure that would be forced on them.
‘I see word’s slipped out. Blaze won’t like that.’
Surfacing from her self-absorption, Chrissy glanced out of the windscreen as Hamish swung into the grounds of the church. There were people everywhere. Her fearful gaze darted over locals propped up by the railings to the nearest man with a camera rushing in their direction. The Press… She wanted to cringe.
Abruptly the door opened. Blaze, seemingly appearing out of nowhere, reached in to clasp her hand and pull her out at speed. ‘Bloody vultures,’ he grated furiously, misinterpreting the look of stark panic etched on her pale, tense face.
‘Give us a break, Blaze!’ one of the journalists groaned as, by dint of forging an aggressive path and keeping her head down, Blaze deprived anyone of the chance of a good picture.
‘I have something I have to t-tell y-you,’ Chrissy stammered as he trailed her into the dim, shadowy vestibule of the church. ‘I—’
Slamming the heavy door, Blaze turned her round and held her at arm’s length. Glittering sapphire-blue eyes moved from the top of her head to the soles of her feet and slowly back up again. ‘You are so pretty in pink,’ he murmured in an intense undertone that burnished flags of colour in her pale cheeks.
Thrown off-balance, she was captured by that devouring stare. Briefly she was lost. ‘I…I have t-to…I have—’
‘Blaze?’ Another, cooler voice intervened.
Dropping Chrissy’s hands, Blaze swung round. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’
Momentarily Elaine froze, her bright, exultant smile sliding away. Her recovery, however, was swift. ‘I’ve been here longer than you have, darling. I’ve been waiting for the bride’s arrival in the clock tower,’ she imparted with a little shiver. ‘And damned cold and uncomfortable it was too. I do hope you’ll appreciate the amount of effort I’ve been put to in getting hold of this…’
Chrissy was paralysed to the spot. Elaine was holding out a folded document.
Ignoring the offer, Blaze attempted to brush past her sister.
‘It’s Rosie’s birth certificate…I really do think you should take the time to look at it.’ Elaine thrust the document into Blaze’s hand.
Chrissy’s knees threatened to give way. Elaine had got in first, but how…how? How could she possibly have found out when Rosie was born? How could she have even suspected that Rosie was their mother’s child?
‘The brat is the living spit of Dennis Carruthers!’ Elaine dealt Chrissy a contemptuous glance of distaste. ‘I had to go down to London for the evidence. I knew the name of the solicitor Belle used for her divorce settlement. She had approached him for advice when Dennis was arrested. I told him that Belle was dead and that I was very anxious to trace my little sister, who was looking after our mother’s child. It worked like a dream. He had a copy of the birth certificate in his file. He had it photocopied for me…’
Chrissy wasn’t listening to Elaine. She
was watching Blaze. Time seemed to slow to a dulled, torturous thud in her eardrums as he impatiently shook open the certificate. She watched as he went white beneath his bronzed skin, the stark beauty of his bone-structure cruelly accentuated as his facial muscles tensed with shock. The hand at her spine stilled and then began to drum a silent tattoo before it abruptly fell away. She watched as his dense lashes dropped low over his piercing gaze, almost brushing his cheekbones as he took a second lightning-fast look at the birth certificate.
Time was speeding up again. His chiselled profile might have been cast in marble. ‘I…I a-am s-so sorry,’ Chrissy whispered brokenly, devastated that she could have caused so much damage without even the consolation of having achieved something worth while by her deception. Elaine would go ahead with her abortion now.
‘I just bet you are,’ Elaine derided, triumph emanating from her in waves.
Silent tears trickled down Chrissy’s anguished face. Blaze was studying the uneven stone floor. She had hurt him and she had never intended to do that. He had become attached to Rosie so quickly, had been so ready to believe that she was his daughter…and now the humiliating truth had been thrown in his teeth.
‘My dear boy…here you both are… This is not the time to weigh anchor. Caught one of those reporter chappies trying to break in through the vestry—’
‘I’m afraid there’s a hitch,’ Elaine announced brightly.
In strong dismay, Chrissy focused on the elderly man in the impressive purple robes and mitre of an Anglican bishop, standing in the entrance to the nave.
Blaze looked at Chrissy, at no one else. She went white. His jewelled eyes were incandescent blue. Not a muscle moved on his darkly handsome visage, but that seething sapphire stare spoke for him. She flinched as though he had struck her. She had grown up with a father who frequently lost his head in temper, but what she felt vibrating from Blaze was infinitely more threatening. It was an explosive black fury far beyond anything her father had ever been able to summon up. Anger, powerful as a physical blow, passionate, savage and dangerously uncontrolled.
Organ music rang out clear, sweet notes into the thundering silence.
‘The wedding is off,’ Elaine said loudly.
Blaze whipped gracefully round, and suddenly he smiled with breathtaking brilliance. ‘Is it?’ he drawled in a silky undertone Chrissy had to strain to catch. ‘If you could prove to me that your sister had been cavorting with an entire rugby team, I’d only ask her if she enjoyed it. I am insanely in love for the very first time in my life, Elaine, and nothing you can do or say will change that.’
Blinking bemusedly, Chrissy was caught unprepared when a set of fingers with the grip of an iron vice closed round her shoulder.
‘Let’s get on with it!’ Blaze said to the Bishop.
‘But…b-but we can’t!’ Chrissy whispered incredulously as he hauled her, in his godfather’s stately wake, to the mouth of the carpeted aisle.
Blaze paid no heed to her protest. The organ music soared into ecstasy. Chrissy, her sister’s shattered white face still etched in her mind, attempted to pull free, wildly disconcerted by his extraordinary behaviour. It was over, she had been telling herself sickly, wretchedly, and it shouldn’t matter so much to her that it had been Elaine, rather than herself, who had finally broken the bad news.
‘Stop it!’ he raked at her in a raw aside, giving her a shake. ‘You’re going through with it. I don’t intend to miss out on the grand finale!’
‘W-what…?’ She was silenced by the astonished stares of the Reverend Mr Haynes and his wife. They had turned to watch them walk up the aisle and had realised that something most peculiar was taking place.
The Bishop was by no means unaware of the same peculiarity. Strangely, though, he chose to ignore it. ‘Dearly beloved,’ he began in a breathless rush, and from there he went into a trot and then an all-out gallop like a man running the race of his life.
Chrissy was shaking all over, white as snow. Blaze was practically holding her up with that same imprisoning, strong arm. Her thready responses were pried and dredged from her by Blaze’s seething glares of expectancy. And then it was over. His godfather was a whiter shade of pale, perspiration beading his brow. As she signed her name, Blaze’s hand steadied her wrist.
The Bishop said something about marriage being a road strewn with many rocks, but perseverance and commitment and mutual tolerance, he asserted, would clear a path through an avalanche.
‘Smile!’ Blaze instructed as he pulled her out on to the church steps.
Tremulously she smiled. She was fathoms deep in shock. She couldn’t believe that he had forced her to go through with the ceremony. She couldn’t believe that they were actually married. Cameras went off all around them. Had he done it purely to revenge himself on Elaine? Elaine had visibly shrunk away from him when he’d said that he loved her kid sister.
Or was it that fierce pride which had driven him? Didn’t he realise that if the marriage hadn’t taken place she would have been the one to look a fool, not he? People would just have laughed rather unkindly and said that Blaze Kenyon wasn’t the marrying type and hadn’t they always known that?
He hauled her through the crush. He smiled, fended off questions, shook hands, stuffed offerings of flowers into Chrissy’s nerveless hands. It was rather like being royalty. For a few heady minutes, she was bathed in the golden light of Blaze’s popularity, and then the light went out as, shedding confetti everywhere, she was unceremoniously thrust into the Ferrari.
As they drove off, she waited sickly for the first wave of verbal attack. It didn’t come. The silence seethed. He headed for the motorway. The silence grew and expanded until it banged like a drumbeat all around her. But still he said nothing. He drove as though the devil himself were chasing them. She kept on waiting for a police siren but it didn’t come. Finally, when she simply couldn’t bear the silence a second longer, she broke into speech.
‘I lied to Elaine because she was p-pregnant! She was going to have an abortion. I th-thought that if I could convince her that R-Rosie was yours—’
Blaze murmured something unrepeatable.
Valiantly, Chrissy continued, ‘I thought she would go back to Steve and the b-baby would be safe. I n-never dreamt that she’d tell you what I’d said! And w-when you confronted me, I kept it up because if I hadn’t you would have t-told her it was a lie and she would have gone on with the t-termination… Are you l-listening to me?’ she prompted pleadingly. ‘It was n-never meant to go this far… I am so s-sorry…’
‘You’re not now, but you will be…’ Blaze promised.
He wasn’t listening; she knew he wasn’t listening. Sheer blinding rage was an exclusive emotion. She sensed that all that existed for Blaze at this precise moment was what she had done. He wasn’t interested in the whys and hows. He was centred on the lies, the outrageous, utterly inexcusable deception of allowing him to believe that he had taken gross advantage of a teenage girl, and the equally monstrous duplicity of allowing him to believe that Rosie was his daughter.
Falling silent, she wondered where they were going and asked.
‘London,’ he said with bite.
‘But R-Rosie—!’
‘This was arranged in advance. Floss has all sorts of treats planned for her this weekend,’ he divulged fiercely.
And presumably he was prepared to go through the motions for the sake of appearances. Guilty colour burned her cheeks. ‘I h-have no clothes…’
‘You won’t be seeing daylight for the rest of the weekend,’ Blaze assured her icily. ‘Hamish was to bring Rosie down on Monday morning in time for our flight to Paris, but I am not taking you to Paris now.’
Hot, stupid tears scorched her eyelids. Bravely, she forced them back. A honeymoon. He had actually arranged one, albeit a slightly unusual one with Rosie in tow. Dear heaven, she felt so awful, so eaten by remorse and shame. ‘I w-wouldn’t expect you to—’
‘You can switch out of the meek and mild,
butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-my-rosebud-mouth routine, right now!’ he cut in rawly. ‘At least grant me the intelligence to know when I’ve been ripped off by a professional! I just can’t believe that I fell for it… Guy said, “Check this out, go for the DNA tests, hire a private investigator to dig into your past…deny everything, admit nothing until you are forced.” That was his expert advice. And what did I do?’ He vented a ferocious laugh. ‘I believed you… I felt guilty…I didn’t want to humiliate you…I thought you’d already gone through enough. To think that I thought you were different from all the rest—’
‘Please!’ she sobbed.
‘The more you cry, the more I like it…so go ahead,’ he said with complete and crushing contempt. ‘But keep something back for later, sweetheart. You’ll need it. I intend to make you beg and I want a full performance. I want to see those big green eyes swimming with tears and reproach for real this time!’
‘I’m sorry!’ she gasped between sobs. ‘Why d-did you f-force me to go through with the marriage? W-why?’
‘Why?’ His wide mouth hardened. ‘You’ll find out soon enough.’
Chrissy didn’t like the sound of that. She made a huge effort to overcome the tears he had derided, and when the silence, now mercifully welcome, continued she succeeded. He would have the marriage annulled. She fingered the crushed flowers still on her lap and anguish threatened her regained composure.
‘Dump those!’ Blaze reached ruthlessly for the flowers when he stopped for petrol.
‘No!’ Chrissy objected, piling them out of his reach.
He had taken a suite at the Savoy. It was beautiful. Her eyes misted over again and she hurriedly moved over to the window to conceal her vulnerability.
‘I ordered a complete new wardrobe for you. It should be in the dressing-room. Go and get changed…get out of that bloody stupid dress!’ Blaze shot at her with raking savagery.
