SOS: Convenient Husband Required

by Liz Fielding

  ‘I’ll just get my birth certificate and then we can go. I’ll take Nancie if you’ll bring the buggy.’

  ‘Well, that was painless,’ Adam said as they emerged from the register office.

  May nodded, but she was very pale. And, while it might have been painless for him, everyone who worked in the Town Hall, the Registrar’s Office, had known her. They’d been eager to congratulate her and cooed over the baby, assuming it was hers.

  ‘Why did you let everyone think Nancie was your baby?’ he said.

  ‘I thought that it would be safer.’

  ‘Safer?’ He frowned.

  ‘For Saffy.’

  He was momentarily lost for words. While everyone knew her, she was an intensely private person and inside she must have been dying of embarrassment at being the centre of attention, but she’d smiled and smiled and let everyone think whatever they wanted in order to protect his wayward sister.

  ‘I don’t know about you, but I’ve missed lunch…’ he said. ‘Let’s grab a sandwich.’

  ‘I thought we were going to the business park. Nancie will need feeding again soon.’

  ‘You won’t be any use to her if you collapse from hunger,’ he said, taking her arm, steering her across the road to the thriving craft centre that had once been a big coaching inn in the centre of the town.

  It was lit up for the holiday season and packed with shoppers, but the lunch time rush was over in the courtyard café and they took a table near the window where there was room for the buggy.

  ‘A BLT for me, I think. You?’

  She nodded.

  He ordered, adding a pot of tea without asking. ‘You’ve had a shocking morning—we both have. Hot, sweet tea is what the doctor orders,’ he said when the waitress had gone.

  ‘The reality is just beginning to sink in.’

  ‘It was a terrible thing to do to you,’ he said.

  ‘What? Oh.’ She shook her head. ‘His memory had gone. He didn’t know.’

  He’d assumed that she’d been talking about the loss of her home, but it seemed that marrying him was the shocker.

  Well, if she’d been looking forward to an artistic partnership with the well-bred, public school educated but presumably penniless Jeremy Davidson—divorce would strip him of a large part of his assets—she had every reason to be in shock.

  But, like her ancestor before her, she was prepared to do whatever it took to hold onto the family estate. Not so much a fate worse than death as a fate worse than being a nobody, living in an ordinary little house, the wife of a man who no one had ever heard of.

  ‘Did you sort out your honey labels?’ he asked.

  She stared at him, then, as their food arrived, ‘Oh, the labels. I took your advice and gave Jeremy the watercolour. He’s going to scan it into his computer, see what he can do with it.’

  Adam discovered he wasn’t anywhere near as happy about that as he should have been, considering it had been his idea, but what could he say? That he didn’t want the man in her bedroom, getting hot and sweaty at the thought of her peaches and cream body nestled in all that white linen and lace.

  ‘My advice was to use a professional.’

  ‘How much honey do you think I produce?’ she asked. ‘I can’t justify the kind of fees a professional designer would charge. Jeremy’s doing it as a favour.’

  ‘He’s going to a lot of trouble to keep in with the school governor,’ he said, pouring the tea. Loading it with sugar before handing her a cup. ‘Is there a promotion in the offing?’

  ‘Not that I know of.’ She took a sip of the tea, pulled a face.

  ‘Not sweet enough?’ he asked and was rewarded with a wry smile that tugged at something deeper than the bitter memories.

  ‘You are so funny,’ she said, taking a dummy from the baby’s carrier, unwrapping it and handing it to Nancie to suck.

  ‘May…’ His phone began to ring but he ignored it. Her relationship with Davidson was more important than whatever Jake wanted. If she thought that she could carry on—

  May glanced up when Adam ignored his phone. ‘Aren’t you going to get that? It could be Saffy.’

  ‘What?’ He took the phone from his pocket, snapped, ‘Yes,’ so sharply that if she’d been Saffy she’d have hung up. Clearly it wasn’t because, after a moment, he said, ‘Fifteen minutes.’ Then, responding to her expectant look, ‘My office. I’m afraid I’ll have to give the business park a miss. Can I have this to go, please?’ he said, holding out his plate to the waitress before turning back to her. ‘Let me have a list of what you need and I’ll sort something out.’

  ‘Get Jake to sort something out, don’t you mean?’ she said, edgy, although she couldn’t have said why. Just something about the way he’d looked at her, the way he’d said her name before his phone rang.

  Was he having second thoughts?

  ‘It’s the same thing. He’ll have to know where Nancie is in case Saffy turns up while I’m away next week. And you’ll need someone to call on in the event of an emergency. He’ll sort out a credit card for you as well.’

  ‘I don’t need your money, Adam.’

  ‘Maybe not, but I understand from colleagues that babies are expensive and I don’t expect you to subsidise my sister. With a card you can get whatever she needs.’

  ‘She needs love, Adam, not a piece of plastic.’

  ‘If you give her half as much as you lavished on your broken animals then she’s in good hands,’ he said. ‘But it’s not just Nancie. You’ll need a wardrobe upgrade.’ Before she could respond, he said, ‘The sweats are practical, and the little black dress you’ve been wearing to every civic reception for the last five years is a classic, but when I present you to the world as my wife I will be looking for something a little more in keeping with my status.’

  Presenting her…

  His status…

  Which answered any question about whether he’d changed his mind. He was going to marry her, but didn’t want to be seen out with her until she’d had a makeover.

  ‘Maybe you should consider an upgrade in your wife,’ she snapped. ‘Get one of those skinny blondes you’re so fond of to take care of Nancie,’ she continued, getting up so quickly that her chair scraped against the floor, causing heads to turn.

  ‘Now who is there in the county who could outclass Miss May Coleridge?’ he enquired, catching her hand. The shock of the contact, the squeeze of his fingers around hers, warning her that she was in danger of making a scene, took the stuffing out of her knees and she fell back into her seat.

  An unreadable smile briefly crossed Adam’s face and it was there again. The feeling that she’d had just before he’d kissed her. Nothing that she could pin down. Just the realisation that this Adam Wavell was not the boy who’d trembled as he kissed her. He was a man who’d been thrown the smallest lifeline and within a decade had ousted the dead wood from an old family firm, seized control and built himself an empire. That took more than hard work, brains. It required ruthlessness.

  She would have felt guilty about her part in flinging him the rope secretly begging an old family friend to give him a job, but for the fact that the family had come out of it with more money that they’d ever seen in their lives before.

  ‘I was simply suggesting, with my usual lack of finesse,’ he said when she didn’t respond, ‘that you might want to indulge yourself in some clothes for the Christmas party season.’ He was still holding her hand just firmly enough to stop her from pulling away.

  He’d always had big hands, all out of proportion to his skinny wrists, but they’d been gentle with animals. Gentle with her. The kind of hands you’d want to find if you reached out, afraid, in the dark.

  He’d grown into them now. But were they safe?

  ‘I’ll ask Jake to give you a call next week so that he can go through the diary with you,’ he said, with just enough edge to warn her that it was not up for discussion.

  ‘Christmas parties should be the least of your worri
es,’ she replied, refusing to submit. ‘My only concern is Nancie. And Saffy. Have you done anything about finding her?’

  He released her hand, took out his wallet and exchanged a bank note for the paper bag that the waitress offered him, telling her to keep the change.

  ‘I’ve called a friend who runs a security company. Even as we speak, he’s doing everything he can to trace her. And he’s discreetly checking out what’s happening in France, too.’

  Oh, damn! Of course he was looking for her… ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, realising that she’d allowed her pride to override common sense. ‘I didn’t mean to snap at you.’

  His hand rested on her arm for a moment in a gesture of reassurance. ‘Forget it. Neither of us are having a good day.’

  ‘Are you going to tell Jake everything?’ she asked. ‘I mean that you…me…we…’ She couldn’t say it.

  ‘That you…me…we are going to get married?’ he asked, smiling, but not unkindly, at her inability to say the words.

  She nodded.

  ‘It’s a matter of necessity, May. I’m going to have to leave him to make all the arrangements.’

  ‘Arrangements? What arrangements are involved in a ten-minute ceremony?’

  He shrugged. ‘Does it have to be ten minutes? I thought we might manage something a little more exciting than the Register Office.’

  ‘Exciting? You think I need excitement?’

  ‘Elegant, then. Somewhere where we can have lunch, or dinner afterwards so that I can introduce you to my directors and their wives.’

  She opened her mouth. Closed it again.

  ‘He’ll sort out flowers, cars, photographs, press announcements. Arrange an evening reception for my staff.’

  ‘You’ve given it quite a bit of thought.’

  ‘I haven’t had a baby to take care of.’

  ‘No. It’s just that I assumed… I thought…’

  Adam had forgotten the way that he could read exactly what May was thinking. It had hit him with a rush when she’d lost it in the park, yelling at him for leaving Nancie, with everything she was feeling right there on her face. Nothing held back. All those years when she’d locked him out, avoided him had disappeared in the heat of it. The truth of it.

  He could read her now as she tried to come to terms not with being married to him, but everyone knowing that she was his wife. Having to act out the role in public.

  ‘You thought that no one need know?’ he prompted, calling on years of hiding what he was thinking to disguise how that made him feel.

  ‘I… Yes…’ she admitted. ‘It’s a paper formality, after all. I didn’t expect so much fuss. Show.’

  ‘But that’s the whole point of it, May,’ he said gently. ‘The show.’ He’d got everything he wanted after all. And so had she. But both of them were going to have to pay. In his case, it would simply be money. In hers, pride. A fair exchange…’ You wouldn’t want the Crown Commissioners suspecting that you were just going through the motions to deny them Coleridge House, would you?’

  ‘I thought asking Freddie Jennings to be a witness took care of that,’ she said, her face unreadable. ‘I’m sure it will make his day and once he gets home and tells his wife you needn’t bother with a newspaper announcement. The news will be all around the town by nightfall.’

  He didn’t doubt it but the formality of an announcement in The Times was not something he intended to omit.

  ‘I have to go. If you want a lift—’

  ‘No. Thank you. I’ll walk home. Introduce Nancie to the ducks.’

  ‘Right. Well, I’ll see you later. I don’t know what time.’

  She looked up at him, taking his breath away with an unexpected smile. ‘If you’re late, I’ll do the wifely thing and put your dinner in the oven.’

  Dinner? He’d never, in all his life, gone home to a cooked dinner. His mother’s best effort was a pizza. Then it had been university and living on his own. Since his success, he was expected to be the provider of dinner in return for breakfast. At whatever restaurant was the place to be seen.

  ‘What time do you eat?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s a moveable feast. Seven?’

  ‘I should be done by then.’

  ‘Well, in case you’re held up…’ she opened the soft leather bag she carried over her shoulder, found a key fob ‘…you’d better have a key.’ She sorted through a heavy bunch and, after hesitating over which one to give him, she unhooked a businesslike job and handed it to him. ‘That’s for the front door. I’ll sort you out a full set before tomorrow.’

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  JAKE, being the perfect PA, didn’t raise an eyebrow when Adam informed him that he was about to get married.

  He simply listened, made a few notes and an hour later returned with a list of available wedding venues for May to choose from, a guest list for lunch and the reception and a draft of the announcement to go into The Times.

  He scanned it, nodded. ‘I mean to warn you that May will be calling with a list of things she needs for Nancie.’

  ‘I’ve already spoken to Miss Coleridge. I needed her full name for the announcement in The Times and, since you were on a conference call—’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ Adam said with an unexpected jab of irritation as he realised, looking at the draft, that he hadn’t known that her name was not May but Mary. Pretty obvious now that he thought about it. It was a month name and her birthday was in December…

  ‘Show me the list.’

  ‘It’s a bit basic,’ he said. ‘I suggested a few things, but she insisted that was all she needed.’

  She probably had most things, he realised. Like the antique cradle. When a family lived in the same house for generations nothing got thrown away. But she would have nothing new. Bright. Modern.

  He’d made a mess of the clothes thing, but she wouldn’t be able to refuse his insistence that she indulge Nancie. He wanted her to enjoy spending his money.

  He wanted to make his mark on the house. Leave his imprint. Become part of the fabric of the house. Part of Coleridge history.

  ‘Forget this, Jake,’ he said. ‘Call that big baby store on the business park and invite the manager to fulfil any new mother’s wildest fantasies. Clothes, toys, nursery furniture. Just be sure that it’s all delivered to Coleridge House before five o’clock today.’

  Jake glanced at his watch. ‘It’s going to be tight.’

  ‘I’m sure they’ll find a way.’

  ‘No doubt. I’ve ordered a credit card for May. It will be here on Monday. I’ll deliver it myself.’

  ‘A first class stamp will be quite sufficient,’ he said. ‘She isn’t desperate.’ Persuading her to use it would be the problem.

  ‘It’s no trouble. I have to pass Coleridge House on my way home and I can make sure that she’s got everything she needs at the same time. I received the distinct impression, when I spoke to her, that Miss Coleridge isn’t the kind of woman who would find it easy to pick up a phone to ask.’

  ‘You’re right. In fact, you might do worse than touch base with her housekeeper, Mrs Robson.’

  When he’d gone, Adam sat back in his chair and turned to look out across the park to where the chimneys of Coleridge House were visible above the bare branches of the trees.

  One phone call and Jake had got May’s character down perfectly. She had never asked for anything. Never would. If Saffy hadn’t sent him, reluctantly, in her direction today the first he—anyone—would have known about her loss would have been the ‘For Sale’ boards going up at the house.

  Not that it would have been a totally lost opportunity. He could have bought it, moved his company in. Paved over the site of his humiliation and used it as a car park.

  But that would not have been nearly as satisfying as the thought that tonight he’d sleep in James Coleridge’s four-poster bed. And that in less than three weeks his granddaughter would become Mrs Mary Louise Wavell.

  It took May a few moments to find her phone in the mud
dle of bags and boxes that had been piled up in her sitting room.

  ‘Yes?’ she snapped.

  ‘You sound a little breathless, Mouse.’

  ‘Adam…’ She hadn’t expected him to ring and if she hadn’t been breathless from unpacking the cot, the sound of his voice would have been enough.

  ‘I hope you’re not overdoing it.’

  ‘Overdoing it?’ she repeated, propping the end of the cot with one hand, blowing hair out of her face. ‘Of course I’m overdoing it. What on earth were you thinking?’

  ‘I have no idea. Why don’t you help me out?’

  ‘I asked for a cot. One cot, a changing mat, a few extra clothes and some nappies. What I’ve got is an entire suite of nursery furniture. Cupboards, shelves, a changing trolley with drawers that does everything but actually change the baby for you and enough nappies, clothes, toys for an entire…’he waited while she hunted for the word ‘…cuddle of babies!’

  ‘A cuddle?’ he repeated, clearly struggling not to laugh out loud. ‘Is that really the collective noun for babies?’

  ‘Cuddle, bawl, puke, poo. Take your pick.’

  ‘Whoa! Too much information,’ he said, not bothering to hide his amusement.

  ‘I hate to be ungracious, Adam, but, as you can probably tell, I’m a bit busy.’

  ‘You can leave the furniture moving until I get there.’

  ‘Moving?’ She looked around at the mess of packaging and furniture parts. ‘This isn’t just moving furniture, this is a construction project!’

  ‘Are you telling me that it arrived flat-pack?’

  ‘Apparently everything does these days.’ She looked helplessly at the pile of shiny chrome bits that had come with the cot. ‘And I have to tell you that I can’t tell a flange bracket from a woggle nut.’

  ‘Tricky things, woggle nuts,’ he agreed.

  ‘It’s not funny,’ she declared, but in her mind she saw that rare smile, the whole knee-wobbling, breath-stealing package… ‘Is Jake there? He sounds a handy sort of man. Tell him if he can put this cot together I’ll lavish him with Robbie’s spiced beef casserole, lemon drizzle cake and throw in a slab of treacle toffee for good measure.’