Marriage on the Agenda

by Lee Wilkinson

  His kiss was passionate and searching, a devastating mixture of possessiveness and desire that made her body tremble and her head spin, so that she was forced to cling to him.

  Sweeping her into his arms, he crossed to the sumptuous couch and laid her on it. Then, sitting by her side, looking down at her, he said with undisguised triumph, ‘Mine at last.’

  ‘You sound as if you’ve waited for years,’ she remarked huskily.

  ‘I have. Almost as long as Jacob waited for Rachel.’

  She thought for a second or two that he might be teasing her, but something about the way he spoke made her know he wasn’t.

  Suddenly, clearly, she recalled him talking about unrequited love, and saying, ‘I wasn’t good enough for her… However, that was a long time ago.’

  Pushing herself up, so she was half lying back against the cushions, she said, ‘You knew me in the past.’ It was a statement, not a question. ‘When?’

  ‘You’d just started at the School of Art and I’d finished college and was working for your father. The minute I saw you I knew you were what I’d always wanted. I started going to Bohemian Nights—if you remember, it was where a lot of the art students went for coffee or a cheap pizza—and after weeks of worshipping from afar I plucked up enough courage to talk to you. When I discovered you liked the cinema, I asked you to come to the Carlton with me…’

  ‘Johnny… Of course…’ Though both had been shy there had been an instant affinity, and she’d thought he might be the someone special she’d been waiting for. ‘Ever since I first saw you I’ve had the feeling that I once knew you…’

  ‘But I was of so little account that you didn’t even recognise me.’

  ‘I half did. If you remember, at the party, I asked you if we’d ever met before, and you said no.’

  He shook his head. ‘I said, “If we had, I would have remembered”.’

  ‘And you were angry that I didn’t?’

  ‘Let’s say disappointed.’

  ‘But it was years ago, and I only knew you for a very short time. You told me your name was Johnny Dudley, and you looked so completely different then. You were boyish… Diffident and unassuming…’

  As though curious, he asked, ‘Why did you agree to go out with me?’

  ‘Because I wanted to.’

  His voice cool, he pointed out, ‘You didn’t come.’

  ‘I intended to, but it happened to be my father’s birthday. He’d made arrangements to take some friends to Maxim’s, and because their son was coming too he insisted on me going to even up the numbers. When I told him I had a date, and who with, he said if I wrote you a note he’d see you got it.’

  ‘Can you remember what you said in the note?’

  ‘I explained why I couldn’t come, and suggested we met the following night at the same time and place. I asked you to phone me if you couldn’t make it. I didn’t hear from you, so I went to the Carlton and waited for over an hour.’

  Jonathan’s face looked so hard and set that her voice wavered as she continued, ‘The next day I went into the offices, hoping to see you, but I was told you hadn’t come in to work. A few days later, when I asked again, my father told me you’d left without a word. Why did you leave so suddenly?’

  ‘I didn’t exactly leave, I was thrown out.’

  ‘Thrown out?’

  ‘For getting too familiar with the boss’s daughter.’

  As Loris stared at him, aghast, he went on, ‘Instead of giving me your note, your father gave me my marching orders. He said he didn’t want one of his workforce “trying it on” with his daughter. Like a fool, I denied “trying it on”, and admitted that I was serious and I wanted to marry you. He roared with laughter before pointing out that I was a nobody, with no money and no background. That I wasn’t, and never would be, good enough to clean your shoes, let alone marry you, so I was wasting my time trying to date you. I told him you were of an age to make up your own mind, and that you’d already agreed to meet me that night. He said, “Don’t think for a minute she’ll turn up, boy. She’s just been enjoying a bit of fun at your expense. Tonight she’s having dinner at Maxim’s with the son of Sir Denzyl Roberts”. I didn’t want to believe him. I waited outside Maxim’s and saw your party arrive. You were escorted by a handsome fair-haired man. He had his arm around your waist.’

  Taking a deep breath, she said, ‘That was Nigel.’

  Jonathan muttered something under his breath that might have been an oath, before saying, ‘I hope your father was proud of himself.’

  ‘To be honest, it was more likely to have been my mother’s influence that made him act as he did. I don’t think my father would have cared enough.’

  ‘He cared enough not to want you to marry a penniless nobody. I would have given a lot to have seen his face when I first broke the news to him.’

  Understanding at last why Jonathan had railroaded her into this marriage, Loris went icy cold, as if every drop of blood had drained from her body.

  He hadn’t married her because he loved her. It had been to settle old scores.

  How many times had she said, ‘I wish you’d be serious’? Now she knew he was, and had been from the start. Deadly serious.

  She felt a crushing despair.

  Slowly, she said, ‘So that’s why you were so determined to have my parents there, to savour your triumph. You hate them both.’

  ‘Not at all,’ he denied smoothly. ‘Your mother can’t help being the kind of person she is, and your father has actually done me a great service. If it hadn’t been for him I might have lacked ambition. He gave me the incentive to get where I am today.’

  ‘In a Paris hotel that neither of us can afford,’ she said bitterly. ‘Well, as far as I’m concerned you don’t have to worry, because I’m leaving right now.’

  When she tried to struggle up, he stopped her. ‘I’m afraid I can’t let you leave.’

  ‘Why not? After all, you’ve done everything you set out to do. You’ve married the boss’s daughter, and given your sister-in-law a chance to keep Mark. What else could you possibly want?’

  ‘A lifetime with you.’

  ‘I’ve no intention of staying with a man who doesn’t love me. Who simply used me to get even with my father.’

  ‘I admit that getting even with your father was part of it, but only a tiny part. I fell in love with you when you were eighteen, and I’ve never stopped loving you. For the past few years I’ve worked fourteen hours a day with one thing in mind. You. I hardly dared hope that when I got where I wanted to be you’d still be free. Luckily I was almost there when Jane told me about your engagement…’

  Dazed by the rush of happiness, Loris said nothing.

  Watching her bemused face, Jonathan asked quizzically, ‘Don’t you want to know where “there” is?’

  She didn’t really care. The only thing that mattered was that he loved her. But she said dreamily, ‘If you want to tell me.’

  ‘I think I’d better, so you won’t keep worrying about how I’m going to pay the bill. I don’t work for Cosby’s; I own it.’

  Thinking she’d misheard, she said, ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I own Cosby’s,’ he repeated patiently.

  ‘Own it?’ Her jaw dropped, ‘Then why did you pretend to be Mr Grant’s PA?’

  ‘I wanted the takeover to go through before anyone found out who I was.’

  ‘But after it went through why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘I needed to see if you’d marry me thinking I had nothing. When you agreed, I knew you must love me.’

  He leaned forward to kiss her.

  She put her hands flat on his chest and held him off.

  ‘Something wrong?’

  ‘I want the answers to some questions before you kiss me.’

  ‘You’re a hard woman,’ he complained. Seeing she wasn’t about to relent, he agreed, ‘Okay, shoot.’

  ‘I take it my father doesn’t know you’re his boss?’

&n
bsp; ‘In the end I had to point it out to him to get him to come to the wedding. Anything else?’

  ‘Is your name really Drummond?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then why were you calling yourself Dudley when we first met?’

  ‘My grandfather, a dictatorial old man, ruled the family with a rod of iron. Even when his two sons were grown up he tried to run their lives. His eldest son, my uncle Hugh, gave in to pressure and took the course Grandfather “suggested” he took. But my father wanted to be a doctor, and, what was worse, a GP rather than a Harley Street specialist, which infuriated Grandfather. There was a blazing row and he accused his younger son of wanting to debase the name Drummond, and said if he didn’t toe the line he could get out. My father left the ancestral home, and, deciding to cut all ties with the old man, changed his name to Dudley, his mother’s maiden name.’

  Suddenly putting two and two together, Loris said, ‘So “Uncle Hugh” must be Sir Hugh Drummond, and the ancestral home Merriton Hall…’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘But when my mother asked if you were related to Sir Hugh Drummond, you said—’

  ‘Ah, but she went on to ask specifically if he was my father, and I said my father was a poor GP. Which was the truth. He never made any money, but he was loved and respected, and when he died from an infection he’d picked up from one of his patients the whole town turned out to mourn. Grandfather, who was a very old man by then, came to the funeral. It seems he’d regretted the rift for some time but had been too proud and stubborn to make the first move. Hugh had never married, so I was his only grandson. He begged me to change my name to Drummond, to carry on the family name, and promised that when Hugh died everything would come to me. I told him politely that I wasn’t interested, whereupon he told me a great deal less politely that I was as pig-headed as my father. My mother, who oddly enough felt sorry for the old man, and thought it would be a shame to let the name die out, wanted me to do it, so in the end I agreed, to make her happy.’

  A thought occurred to Loris, and she began, ‘The tall grey-haired man in the vestry—’

  ‘Was Hugh,’ Jonathan confirmed. ‘Any further questions?’

  ‘One thing puzzles me,’ she admitted. ‘You’ve only been in the States a few years and I was wondering…’ She hesitated.

  ‘How I come to own a firm the size of Cosby’s?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, I had a flying start. Can you remember me telling you that my mother’s parents owned a small business in Albany? Well, that was Cosby’s. By the time I went to live in the States my maternal grandparents were on the point of retiring. I took over from them, and when there was a huge boom in electronic communications I was able to buy them out. As a result of luck and a lot of hard work business increased tenfold, and profits soared…’

  ‘When did you decide to take over Bergman Longton?’

  ‘That had been one of my goals since the day your father told me I’d never succeed in marrying the boss’s daughter.’

  ‘Well, in a way you haven’t.’

  He looked at her, his sea-green eyes quizzical. ‘What exactly does that mean?’

  Flatly, dispassionately, she said, ‘It means I’m not Peter Bergman’s daughter. My mother was already pregnant when she got married. She tried to pretend I was his, but he knew she was lying. In the end, to save looking a fool, he agreed to pass me off as his own. But I don’t think he’s ever really forgiven her, or me. My mother still doesn’t know I know.’

  ‘So how do you know?’

  ‘Understandably, perhaps, the man I still call Father has never liked me, and one day when I’d particularly annoyed him he told me the truth. I was thirteen at the time.’

  ‘It must have come as a shock.’

  ‘In some ways it was a relief to know I wasn’t his child.’

  ‘That fact certainly explains a lot of things—why he didn’t help you through college, why he left you to fend for yourself, why he didn’t care overmuch about your happiness…’

  ‘But a lot of good’s come out of it,’ she said quietly. ‘It’s because of him that I worked so hard to become a designer and be independent…’

  A thought struck her, and she asked, ‘You won’t mind if I keep on working?’

  ‘My love, you can work to your heart’s content, though I’d like you to take Fenny Manor as one of your first assignments.’

  ‘So it really is yours?’

  ‘Ours. And when we eventually get back from our honeymoon we’ll buy a nice place in town, for when we want to be in London.’

  ‘Eventually? I thought we were only in Paris for a few days.’

  ‘We’re here for as long as you like, and after Paris I thought a trip to New York, to meet my mother and the rest of my family, then on to San Francisco, Hawaii maybe…’

  ‘For someone who’s a self-confessed home bird that sounds like pretty good going.’

  Taking her in his arms, he held her close. ‘You’ll be travelling with me, and you know the old saying, “Home is where the heart is…”’

  When he kissed her, in a haze of happiness she kissed him back, until kissing was no longer enough, and, on fire for him, she whispered, ‘What time is it?’

  ‘Eight-fifteen.’

  ‘Oh…’

  Hearing the disappointment in her voice, he left her for a moment to hang the ‘Do not disturb’ sign on the door. Then, taking her hand, he led her towards the bedroom.

  Conscience stirring, she asked, ‘What if they bring the meal?’

  ‘They’ll have the sense to leave it outside,’ Jonathan said firmly. ‘After all, this is France, and we are in the honeymoon suite.’

  ISBN: 978-1-4592-0049-4

  MARRIAGE ON THE AGENDA

  First North American Publication 2002.

  Copyright © 2001 by Lee Wilkinson.

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  All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

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