His Suitable Bride

by Cathy Williams/Abby Green/Kate Walker

  This was mildly surprising because he had occasionally brought one of his girlfriends to the house in the past and roughly about now, as the house unfolded itself in all its perfect splendour, they had exclaimed in delight as if on cue.

  When he looked he saw that Cristina was fidgeting with the hem of her dress and the little frown was back on her face.

  ‘There are an awful lot of cars,’ she commented nervously. ‘I’m really surprised there’s such a good turnout, considering the weather.’ Surprised, and a bit dismayed. She disliked big social occasions at the best of times, but this had all the hallmarks of being a vast one.

  ‘People up here are of the hardy variety,’ Rafael pointed out. ‘Londoners are altogether softer.’

  ‘Is that where you live?’

  Rafael nodded and quickly circled the courtyard, and then edged his car down the side-slip towards the back of the house and the tradesman’s entrance.

  ‘I thought you might have lived around here,’ Cristina said vaguely. ‘I thought perhaps that might be how you know the house and stuff.’ She tried to carry the observation through to its logical conclusion, but her mind was leaping ahead to the small problem of getting herself cleaned up and presentable for the number of people inside—not to mention Maria, who had been kind enough to invite her along. She might lack the polish of her sisters, but embarrassing her host would be anathema.

  The back entrance was, to her relief, considerably less busy. Just the staff to get past.

  ‘I ought to tell you that I’m Maria’s son.’ Rafael killed the engine and turned towards her.

  ‘Are you?’ Cristina looked at him in silence for a few seconds. She was thinking that Maria was a lovely, kind and genuine woman, and kind and genuine people tended to have kind and genuine offspring. She gave him a beaming smile because she realised that, however curt his outward attitude might appear, he was as kind as she had initially judged him to be. ‘Your mother’s a wonderful person.’

  ‘I’m glad you think so. On that one thing we at least agree.’ Without giving her time to respond to that ambiguous statement, he let himself out of the car and proceeded to help her out, while a man, who seemed to have materialised out of thin air raced out to get the bags. This could only mean that his mother had requested a lookout for her tardy son, which was a bit of a bother, considering he was now a reluctant knight in shining armour who had to somehow shuffle his unexpected cargo up the stairs and into one of the guest suites—whichever one was unoccupied, because he suspected a fair few people would be staying over.

  He had a few quick words with Eric, the man who had been taking care of everything to do with the house for as long as Rafael could remember, and then signalled to Cristina.

  In the remorseless light of the back hallway, he was surprised to see that she wasn’t actually the unremittingly plain woman he had first thought.

  Of course, no one could call her beautiful. She was way too … He rooted around in his head for a suitable adjective and opted for ‘stout’… not precisely fat, but solidly built. The sort who could probably pack a mean punch if the occasion demanded, although a less aggressive person he could hardly have hoped to find. Her face was open and warm, and although she was still looking nervous he could tell that she would be someone given to easy laughter.

  And she had enormous eyes, huge liquid-brown eyes, like a spaniel puppy.

  In fact, Rafael thought, she was the human equivalent of a spaniel puppy. The direct antithesis to the languid greyhound sort he favoured. But, hell, a deal was a deal and he had promised to help her out with her predicament.

  ‘Follow me,’ he said abruptly, and he began leading her out of the kitchen, and through a myriad back rooms which lay between them and the sound of voices and laughter that signalled the party happening at the front of the house.

  Of course, the house was far too big for his mother after his father had died, but she wouldn’t hear of having it sold.

  ‘I’m not yet decrepit, Raffy,’ she had told him. ‘When I need to use stair lifts, then I’ll consider selling it.’ Knowing his mother, that day would never come. She was as energetic in her early sixties as she had been in her early forties, and although there were wings of the house which were rarely used many of the rooms were taken up at various points of the year by friends and relatives staying over.

  Rafael now led Cristina to one of the less-used wings and quickly ushered her into a bedroom suite, where she proceeded to look at him with a mournful expression.

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake, woman.’ He shook his head and favoured her with a direct and assessing look.

  ‘I know I’m being a nuisance,’ Cristina said on a sigh, ‘But …’ Then she saw the expression on his face and flushed. ‘I know I haven’t got a perfect figure …’ she stuttered in embarrassment. It occurred to her that a man who looked like him, a man whose amazing looks could stop a woman dead in her tracks, would only ever associate himself with his female equivalent—which would probably not be a vertically and horizontally challenged twenty-four-year-old inexperienced woman.

  ‘I’ve been on countless diets,’ she blurted out into the evergrowing silence, ‘You wouldn’t believe. But like I said, I have my father’s shape.’ She laughed a pitch higher than was necessary and then subsided into embarrassed silence.

  ‘Your dress has a tear.’

  ‘What? No! Oh, goodness … where?’

  Before she could bend to scrutinise her treacherous garment, Rafael was in front of her, then kneeling like a supplicant, holding up the flimsy fabric of her loose, tunic-styled silk dress which, with its cluttered pattern of red and white tiny flowers against a black background, should have been more than up to the job of camouflaging a tear. Unfortunately, as he held it up, the rip seemed to expand in girth until it was all she could see with horrified eyes.

  Through her horror, though, she was very much aware of the delicate brush of his fingers against her leg. It sent a thrilling, wicked shiver straight through her body.

  ‘See?’

  ‘What am I going to do?’ she whispered.

  They looked at each other and Rafael sighed. ‘What else did you bring?’ Since when had he been in the habit of rescuing damsels in distress?

  ‘Jeans, jumpers, wellies just in case I wanted to have a walk and look around the garden. I absolutely love looking around gardens. I’m addicted to it. The most boring people can sometimes have wonderfully creative streaks that come out in the way they landscape their lawns. I’m babbling, sorry, getting away from the point … which is that I have absolutely nothing appropriate to wear …’

  Rafael had never met a woman who only packed the bare necessities. For a few seconds he was reduced to stunned silence, then he reluctantly told her that he would fish something out of his mother’s wardrobe. She had enough outfits to clothe most of Cumbria.

  ‘But she’s so much taller than me!’ Cristina wailed. ‘And skinnier!’

  But he was already striding out of the room, leaving her to wallow in a very unaccustomed sense of self-pity.

  He returned some ten minutes later holding various assorted clothes, all of which seemed hideously bright, not at all suited to someone of a more robust persuasion.

  ‘Right. I can’t waste much time here, so strip.’

  ‘What?’ Cristina’s eyes widened and she wondered, fleetingly, whether she had heard correctly.

  ‘Strip. I brought some … some forgiving items … but you’ll have to try them on and you’ll have to be quick about it. I’m late enough as it is.’

  ‘I can’t … not with you there … watching …’

  ‘Nothing I haven’t seen before,’ he drawled, amused by her sudden attack of prudishness.

  Cristina, however, refused to budge and he waited, looking at his watch while she tried on the armful of clothes in the privacy of the adjoining bathroom.

  He could, he knew, always leave her to get on with it. After all, she wasn’t his problem. But he found himself stay
ing anyway, and when she finally emerged he swung round, ready to tell her whatever she wanted to hear. Anything to get going with the evening, because he had work to do and would have to disappear virtually as soon as he appeared.

  He looked at her and stared before muttering the statutory, ‘Looks very nice …’

  He hadn’t quite expected this. Yes, she was far from willowy, but neither was she as overweight as the dress had suggested. In fact, there was a definite sign of curves, and her breasts were bountiful, barely restrained by the stretchy lilac fabric. She had the golden colouring of someone brought up in kinder climes, and her shoulders, left bare by the sleeveless style of the dress, were rounded but firm. For the first time in memory he was awkwardly conscious of fumbling for something further to say, and avoided the dilemma by opening the door and standing back to let her through.

  ‘Thanks.’ Cristina gave him a sincerely felt look of gratitude, then on impulse she tiptoed and kissed him chastely on the cheek.

  It was as if she had suddenly been touched with an electric spark. She could actually feel her skin go hot, and it was like nothing she had ever experienced in her life before. She pulled back at roughly the same time as he did and preceded him out of the room, babbling yet again about nothing in particular because she didn’t want him to see how hot and bothered she felt.

  It was almost a relief to make their way downstairs and to be greeted by the babble of voices, providing her with a comforting backdrop into which she could conveniently slide.

  But not until she made her presence known to Maria, who was fussing over a tray of drinks being carried precariously by a young waitress with a slightly panicked expression.

  Now that she was finally here, she could appreciate her surroundings—the fine paintings on the walls, the elegant dimensions of the huge drawing room, which flowed into yet another reception room also filled with people. Vases of flowers, lush and colourful, were scattered on some of the tables, and on the oak sideboard that must have been at least ten-feet long, and the atmosphere was thick with the jollity of lots of people having fun. Young and old, fat and thin, tall and short. She grabbed a glass of white wine from a passing tray and then interrupted Maria, who had been giving instructions on the timing of the food which, she exclaimed, was a complete nightmare to organise—but still, she seemed to be having a great time dealing with her nightmare.

  ‘That dress …’ Maria quirked her eyebrows, puzzled.

  She was, Cristina acknowledged not for the first time, a strikingly beautiful woman—elegant without being in the least bit intimidating, and well-spoken but gentle with it. Rafael might have been a trifle short-tempered, but she warmed at the memory of him putting himself out on her behalf, showing her up to the room, rummaging amongst his mother’s clothes so that he could fetch a selection for her to try on and thereby saving her the embarrassment of greeting strangers with a gaping hole in her dress. And when she had kissed him lightly on his cheek! Her heart did a funny fluttery thing inside her.

  She wondered where he was right now. Somewhere in the room, but he had been commandeered by acquaintances long before she had made it over to Maria. Which brought her to the subject of the dress, upon which she launched into an exuberant account of how it was that she was wearing her hostess’s dress. Maria, with her head cocked to one side and smiling with amusement, listened to the end and then assured her that she was more than happy for her to keep the dress because it certainly looked a great deal better on Cristina than it ever had on her.

  ‘I’ve never quite managed to fill it out at the top in the same way,’ she confided, instantly boosting Cristina’s self-esteem. ‘Now, tell me how your parents are …’

  They chatted for a few minutes, then Maria took her on a round of introductions to people whose names Cristina had a hard time remembering. By the time Maria disappeared back into the throng, Cristina was happily ensconced in a lively conversation about gardens with some of the locals, who seemed as enthusiastic about the ins and outs of soil and compost as she was.

  Across the room, Rafael absentmindedly looked at her and then took himself off in search of his mother, who would doubtless give him a sound lecture on the virtues of punctuality. He wondered how that would favour an early departure from the scene, thanks to an important overseas conference-call which he had scheduled for eleven-thirty.

  But no, there was no mention of his late arrival, and within seconds he knew why.

  ‘I had no choice,’ he muttered. ‘The woman had ploughed into the side of the road and was hunting down an errant contact lens as if she had a hope in hell of finding it.’ He wondered how well she was taking in her surroundings without the dreaded spectacles, which she had refused to wear, opting instead for one contact lens and the possibility of crashing into something breakable.

  She really was generously proportioned in all the right places, he thought distractedly, finding her and keeping her in his sight for a few seconds while he polished off his whisky and soda.

  ‘She’s a gem,’ Maria said, following his gaze. ‘I’ve known both her parents for such a long time. They own that chain of jewellers … you know the ones? Supply diamonds to all the best people … quietly influential, if you know what I mean.’

  Rafael had been half listening, but now his ears pricked up, more thanks to his mother’s intonation than the substance of her words, though he was picking up phrases: not brash like most wealthy people … Italian, of course, very traditional in their outlook, but not suffocatingly so … Happy for their youngest to live and work in London … And then, from nowhere, ‘She would be perfect for you, Raffy and it’s really time you thought of settling down …’

  CHAPTER TWO

  ‘NO, MOTHER!’

  They were sitting in the large, farmhouse-style kitchen with a pot of coffee between them and the buzz of the radio in the background telling them that another depression was heading in their direction so that they could expect more bad weather.

  It was not yet six-thirty, but Rafael had already been up for an hour, travelling the world via his mobile phone and laptop computer, and Maria was up simply because she found it impossible to sleep beyond six in the morning. Waking early was the habit of a lifetime, and a very handy one when she wanted to corner her son before the rest of her overnight guests started drifting downstairs and commanding her attention.

  ‘You are not getting any younger, Raffy.’ She picked at the croissant on her plate and tried to work out a suitable strategy for coaxing him into her way of thinking, a mammoth task by anyone’s standards. ‘Do you want to grow old changing mistresses every other week?’

  ‘I don’t change mistresses every other week!’ Rafael informed her. He looked meaningfully at his computer and was dutifully ignored. ‘I like my life just the way it is. Moreover, I’m sure she’s a very nice girl, but she’s not my type.’

  ‘No, I have met your type! All looks and no substance.’

  ‘Mother, that’s the way I like them.’ He grinned, but met no smiling response. ‘I don’t want a relationship. I haven’t got time for a relationship. Have you any idea how little free time I have in my life?’

  ‘As little as you want to have, Rafael.’ She leaned towards him and he could feel a sermon approaching. Mentally he kicked himself for getting downstairs at the crack of dawn when he should have known from past experience that his mother would be there, bustling around and primed for conversation. But he hadn’t thought. In fact, he had forgotten her ridiculous remark the minute his conference call had started, just as he had forgotten his brief contact with the girl in question about whom he could only vaguely recall someone short, plump and unnaturally cheerful.

  ‘You can’t run away forever, Raffy,’ Maria told him in a gentle voice, and his brows snapped together in disapproval of where the conversation was heading. Unfortunately for him, his mother was immune to any such vibes. She just kept ploughing onwards.

  ‘I really don’t want to talk about this, Mama.’

&
nbsp; ‘And I think you need to. So you married young and were heartbroken when she died—but, Rafael, it’s been over ten years! Helen would not have wanted you to live your life in a vacuum!’ Privately, Maria thought that probably was exactly what his ex-wife would have wanted, but she kept the thought to herself, just as she had always kept her opinions of her son’s ex-wife to herself. More so now because it was disrespectful to speak ill of the dead.

  ‘For the final time, Mother, I am not living my life in a vacuum! I happen to enjoy my life the way it is!’ And I don’t need you to try and find me a suitable wife, he thought, although he would not have dared utter such a statement because he knew how much it would have hurt her. He was, after all, her only child, and as such a certain amount of interference in his personal life was only to be expected. But that girl of all people? Surely his mother knew him well enough to know that physically the girl just wasn’t his type!

  She should also have known that any talk of Helen was taboo. That was a part of his life which he had consigned to the past, never to be resuscitated.

  Maria shrugged and stood up. ‘I should go and change,’ she said neutrally. ‘People will start heading down in a minute. I wouldn’t like to shock them by having to see me in my dressing gown. I am sorry if you think that I’m being an interfering old woman, Rafael, but I worry about you.’

  Rafael smiled fondly. ‘I don’t think you interfering, Mother …’

  ‘The child is a little naive. I know her parents. Is it any wonder that I feel a certain moral obligation that she is okay?’

  ‘She seems fine to me,’ Rafael said heartily. ‘No complaints about London life. Probably having a whale of a time.’

  ‘Probably.’ Maria busied herself with her back to her son, making sure that all the breakfast requirements were ready. Of course Eric and Angela, who had been with her for ever, would have made sure that everything was prepared for her guests—twelve of whom had remained for the night—but she still liked to make sure for herself that all was as it should be. She could hear the guilt in Rafael’s voice, but her maternal sense of duty ignored it. She wanted her son to be sorted out, which meant not standing on the sidelines while an array of highly unsuitable women flitted in and out of his life until he eventually keeled over from work-related stress or heart failure.