"You want to know if I'm pregnant, and I'm forced to own up that I am.
Rufus received the news with a moment or two of silence. "Strange, isn't it?" he said at last. "I tried for two years to father a child with Claire and failed—"
"But just one encounter with me and bingo!" said Jo bitterly.
Rufus took her hands. "So let's discuss what happens next."
She frowned. "What do you mean? Nothing happens next. Not until May of next year."
His grasp tightened. "You obviously haven't thought this through. Look, Jo. . .all I can do is try to put things right—"
"Don't dare offer me money," she interrupted fiercely.
"I'm offering something quite different. As I said before, I would very much like a child. And I would prefer that child to have a father married to his mother. Are you with me so far, Jo?"
Dear Reader,
Pennington, my favorite location, is my own creation. Having lived in the past near two attractive towns in the heart of England, I combine the best features of both, not least the picturesque buildings from olden times. My fictional town has wide streets, quaint tearooms and public gardens ablaze with flowers; there are irresistible shops with elegant clothes and jeweiery, while others are filled with bargains in antique furniture and porcelain. Surrounded by lush countryside, Pennington is full of charm—a place where dreams come true.
Sincerely,
Catherine George
P. S. Look out for more stories from Pennington in Harlequin Romance!
ISBN 0-373-03449-0
THE SECOND BRIDE
First North American Publication 1997.
Copyright © 1997 by Catherine George.
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work In whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9. CLS
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.
This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
® and TM are trademarks of the publisher. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Trade Marks Office and in other countries.
Printed in U.S.A.
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER ONE
Torrential rain had slowed to a steady downpour as the storm receded, grumbling, leaving a power cut as its parting shot. As the taxi drove away Jo hurried up the path in total darkness, then stopped halfway, listening. Someone was following her. She swung round belligerently.
'Who's there?' she demanded.
A flash of lightning lit up a hard, masculine face above a glimmer of pale raincoat before darkness fell again.
'You?' she said incredulously.
'Good evening, Jo,' said Rufus Grierson. 'Sorry to startle you. I waited for you in the car.'
She breathed in shakily. ' Why? It's after midnight. Is something wrong?'
'No more than usual. Could I come in for a minute?'
Jo peered at his tall shape through the darkness while her heartbeat slowed. 'Well—yes I suppose so.' She fumbled in her bag for her key. 'But you'll have to find your way up to the top floor in the dark.'
'This must keep you fit,' he observed, close behind her as she led the way up several flights of stairs, his manner as laconic and impersonal as the last time they'd spoken, almost a year before.
'Not so you'd notice,' panted Jo, out of breath for reasons other than exertion as they reached her door. 'I'll go in first and find a torch. Wait here, please.'
Leaving her unexpected visitor on the landing, Jo felt her way through her sitting room to the kitchen area, her hands trembling as she searched in a drawer for a torch. Thankful it was still working, she found her meagre supply of candles, stuck them on saucers and distributed flickering lights round the room. She beckoned Rufus inside, and he closed the door behind him, standing just inside the confines of the attic flat that Jo called home.
'You'd better take off your raincoat,' she said awkwardly, removing her own. 'I'll put it in the bathroom to drip.'
'Thank you,' said Rufus Grierson. He handed the expensive garment over and ran a hand through his wet hair. 'It's later than I thought. I apologise. I lost track of the time.'
Jo took the coats away and hung them up in her tiny bathroom, feeling utterly shattered by Rufus Grierson's presence in her flat. For some time now she'd been sure that their last meeting, almost a year ago, had been just that—the last time they would ever meet, unless by accident. At first she'd hoped— longed—to hear from him, but as the months went by she'd gradually resigned herself to the fact that Rufus thought of her merely as a painful reminder of all he'd lost. Yet now he was here, out of the blue. Why? Jo pulled herself together and rejoined him.
'Do sit down,' she said politely. 'Coffee?'
Rufus sat on her sofa and crossed his long legs. 'Could you possibly run to something stronger?'
Jo nodded, and, torch in hand, went to the kitchen for the bottle of brandy her mother insisted on for emergencies. Jo collected two glasses, went back to her guest and asked him to pour.
'Thank you,' said Rufus. 'I take it you're having some too?'
'Just a little.' Hoping it would calm her down, she took the glass from him and sat in her usual chair. 'Stupid of me to offer coffee with no electricity to make it.'
'It seemed impolite to point that out.' He poured an equally sparing measure for himself, but left the brandy untouched beside him. He sat looking at Jo in silence, his face haggard in the flickering candlelight, with new lines carved in it since she'd last seen him. At last she could stand it no longer, and asked him bluntly why he was actually here in her flat long past a socially acceptable time for a visit.
'I was in the Mitre earlier for a meal with a colleague,' he said obliquely. 'I saw you behind the bar in the other room, but you were run off your feet. There was obviously no chance of talking to you there, so I drove round here later and waited for you to come home.'
'I might not have been coming home,' she pointed out. 'Or I could have moved.'
'I did some research on both points first, naturally.'
'I see,' said Jo. Not that she did.
'Do you know what day it is?' he asked.
Did he think she could have forgotten? She stared blindly into her glass. 'It's your wedding anniversary.'
'You remembered, then.'
Her chin went up. 'Of course I remembered.'
'I thought you might. Bridesmaids usually do.' Rufus Grierson gazed at her through the dim, flickering light, his brooding eyes dark in the olive-skinned face which always, to Jo, wore a look of superiority, as though Rufus considered himself a cut above her. Jo Fielding and Rufus Grierson had never been comfortable in each other's vicinity. Which had been awkward when he married her closest friend, Claire.
'How are you?' asked Jo after a long, difficult pause.
'I get by,' he said very quietly. 'And you?'
'The same. I work hard.'
/> 'Does it help?'
'Yes.' She looked at him squarely. 'Tell me, after all this time why exactly are you here, Rufus? On this day, of all days, I must be the last person you want to see.'
'On the contrary.' He drank some of his brandy. "Though I admit I deliberately arranged a business dinner for tonight with someone who had never met Claire, in an effort to avoid talking about her.' He paused, jaw set. 'It still hurts.'
Jo had no doubt of it.
'Then I caught sight of you behind the bar,' Rufus went on, 'and suddenly I needed to talk about Claire. And who better to talk to on this subject than you! So when the man left I drove round here.'
'Just to talk about Claire?' Jo stared at him suspiciously. 'But you always resented me—and the time she spent with me.'
'Actually, you're mistaken. I didn't resent it at all.' He glanced at the candle on the table behind him. 'This is on its last legs. Do you have any more?'
'Afraid not.'
'Could you borrow some from the other tenants?'
'Everyone's away,' admitted Jo with some reluctance. 'We'll have to make do with these.' I 'Then put a couple out and save them for later.'
Jo got up and extinguished two of the candles, plunging the room into semi-darkness. She felt lightheaded, both with fatigue and the shock of meeting Rufus again. It was hard to grapple with the fact that she was alone in a room with the man Claire had wanted for a husband from the moment she first set eyes on him. Rufus had been the perfect husband for Claire, just what the Beaumonts had always dreamed of for their daughter—successful, secure, even attractive, in a remote, damn-your-eyes kind of way.
But Rufus Grierson, thought Jo bitterly, had never approved of his wife's closest friend. A freelance journalist who spent evenings behind a bar to make ends meet had rather obviously been a bit hard to take for the successful, ultra-conventional lawyer. Jo, determinedly cool in return, had kept her own opinion of him secret from Claire and made sure their paths crossed as little as possible. For Claire's sake the husband and the friend had preserved the civilities. And once Claire was dead Rufus Grierson had obviously seen no reason to come into contact with Jo Fielding again. Until now. Tonight was their first encounter since the funeral, and to her dismay Jo felt no more at ease in his presence now than she had then.
'You want me to go,' Rufus read her mind.
'No,' she said quickly. 'If it helps you to stay for a while, please do. Talk about Claire as much as you like. When I visit her parents they talk about nothing else, of course, which is—painful.' Jo bit a suddenly quivering bottom lip. 'It's different with my own family. When Claire's name comes up we just chat about her normally.'
'It's good that you can do that. Claire enjoyed spending time with your family—probably because it was so different from her own.' His eyes shadowed. 'She was a much indulged only child, of course. Growing up must have been a lot different for you, Jo. Tell me about it.'
She eyed him doubtfully. 'Are you sure you want to know? Our household bore no resemblance at all to the Beaumonts'.'
Rufus smiled faintly. 'So I gathered from Claire. I was always curious about the attraction it held for her.'
'Contrast, I suppose. There was never much cash to spare in my family, but the atmosphere at home was always—well, happy, really. My father taught classics at Pennington Boys School and coached the first-eleven cricket team. Even when he was at home he usually had some pupil or other around for extra tuition. Dad was a darling, but a typical academic— not the least handy about the house. There was no money to pay people to do the decorating, so my mother did it all, in between her PPP work—'
'What on earth was that?' he asked, relaxing slightly.
'Painting pet portraits,' Jo informed him. 'She always seemed to have a paintbrush in her hand for one reason or another, not to mention a hammer, or a screwdriver. She was perpetually mending something—in between baking and making our clothes and doing the gardening and helping us with homework and so on.'
'Is she still alive?'
'Very much so! My sister Thalia lives in part of one of those large country houses they divide up into posh apartments, and Mother lives in the lodge at one of the gates.' Jo smiled a little. 'She doesn't have to do repairs any more but she still paints animal portraits. My other sister lives only a few miles from her in Oxford, too, so it suits everyone.'
'I heard that your father died.'
'Yes.' Jo's smile vanished. 'I miss him. It was hard to lose him so soon after—' She sipped some of her brandy hastily, coughed for a moment, then looked at him diffidently. 'It was good of you to write to Mother. She moved not long afterwards. But that's enough about my family. You really wanted to talk about Claire.'
'Not exclusively. I think I just needed to talk to someone who loved Claire for what she was—not a saint, but a warm, loving human being. Her parents have totally canonised her since she died.' Rufus drained his glass. 'May I have another drink?' he added, the diminishing light giving his voice a curiously disembodied quality.
'Of course.'
He poured a little brandy into his glass. 'I've sold the house at last.'
'Perhaps that's a good thing.'
'It is. I should have done it right away. It was so full of Claire, I had no hope of coming to terms with her death while I stayed there. I kept expecting to hear her voice, see her walk through the door.' Eyes sombre, he sipped some of his drink. 'So I moved into town. I've spent a lot of time packing and unpacking tea chests lately. I found these. I thought you'd like to have them as a keepsake.' Rufus took a small jeweller's box from his pocket and snapped it open.
Jo felt a searing pang of pain as she stared at the pendent pearl earrings that Claire had worn on her wedding day. She shook her head involuntarily. 'I— I can't take these, Rufus. They should go to Mrs Beaumont.'
'I handed the rest of Claire's jewellery over after the funeral,' he said quietly. 'I'd rather you had the pearls. I'm sure Claire would too. They were my personal wedding present to her, if you remember.'
Jo nodded wordlessly. How could she forget? Claire's wedding day was imprinted indelibly on her mind.
Rufus took a deep, ragged breath. 'I came across an old dinner jacket the other day and found the earrings in the pocket. Claire must have taken them off when we were at some party or other.' He held them out. 'She would have wanted you to have them.'
Jo took the box reluctantly. 'Thank you. I'll— treasure them.' But she would never wear them. Gypsy hoops were more her style.
There was an awkward pause while they avoided each other's eyes, Rufus sitting like a graven image.
'Are you still writing?' he asked at last.
'Yes. I'm just finishing a novel.' Now, why on earth had she told him that?
'A novel?'
'Yes.' Jo peered at him through the gloom. 'Did you think I gave up my job at the Gazette because I was allergic to steady employment?' She forced a shaky little laugh, trying to lighten the atmosphere. 'Ah! You did.'
'Of course not. But Claire never mentioned a novel.'
'I didn't tell her.' Jo hesitated. 'I wanted to find out if I could do it before broadcasting the news. Mother knows what I'm up to, of course, but no one else. Except you now.' She eyed him militantly.
'Your secret's safe with me.'
'No one you know would be remotely interested, anyway,' she retorted.
'So you work at the Mitre instead of starving in a garret,' Rufus remarked, making a visible effort to shrug off his melancholy. 'Do you earn enough to make life bearable?'
'Oh, yes,' she assured him. 'My articles pay reasonably well. My father left me a tiny legacy from an insurance policy, which eased my path quite a bit, and when Mother sold the house here in Pennington she gave me a bit more. It ran to a very basic word processor, and left me something in the bank for emergencies.' She paused, flushing, suddenly aware that she was talking too much. 'How about you, Rufus?'
'Like you, my work fills the vacuum. The firm's busy as ever, due to the
solid client base we've established over the past few years. My brother's joined it now.'
'I don't know much about law. Do you specialise?'
He nodded. 'I advise merchant banks, financial institutions, public limited companies—that kind of thing.'
'Sounds very high-powered.'
'It keeps me busy.'
There was silence for a moment, then Jo got up and relit one of the candles. 'I wish the electricity would come back. Silly, really, but the moment we get a power cut I yearn for tea.'
'It's human nature to yearn for what we can't have,' said Rufus, with sudden, startling bitterness.
Jo felt a lump in her throat. The first wedding anniversary after his wife's death was obviously hard for him. She sat down again, peering at the taut, hard features she could only just make out in the gloom. 'I know we're not soul mates, exactly, Rufus, but we've been acquainted a long time—'
'Which means you're about to say something likely to offend,' he said drily.
'I thought my mere presence in the same room was enough to do that,' she retorted, stung. 'You certainly behaved like it in the old days when—'
'When Claire was alive,' he said morosely, then gave her a long, dissecting look. 'You were rarely in my company at all, Jo. You took good care not to be.'
'It seemed the best way to make life easy for Claire,' said Jo quietly.
'Life usually was easy for Claire.' Rufus leaned forward, his hands clasped between his knees. 'It was a damnable twist of fate to deny her the one remaining thing she lacked—and wanted more than anything else in the world.'
'A child.'
He nodded, a bitter twist to his mouth. 'Odd, really. Two normal, healthy people get married and a child is the usual outcome. But not in our case. And the worst part was that Claire began to feel she'd failed me. I won't deny I wanted a child. I did. I still do, very much. But no matter how much I told Claire I loved her, child or no child, that we could adopt if necessary, it was no use.'
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