His Blackmailed Bride

by Sandra Marton

  It struck Paige that her mother had asked her that same question more and more in the past few days. She’d lied again, of course, saying yes, she was fine. What else could she have said? she thought now, staring blindly at the old maple. She couldn’t have told her the truth—that, even as they spoke, Quinn was probably telling Alan that his fiancée was a… a…

  Paige’s empty coffee cup clattered as she put it down. A thin beam of sunlight reflected from the diamond on her finger. Alan’s ring, she thought, and her hand went to the valley between her breasts. Quinn’s blood ruby lay warm against her skin, suspended on a thin golden chain. What perversity had made her put it on?

  She glanced at the clock beside her bed. The wedding was just a few hours away. Why hadn’t Alan called? Surely Quinn had told him by now. All last night, she’d alternately dreaded and welcomed the moment when she’d have to confess her duplicity, but nothing had happened. And Quinn—Quinn had lurked in the background, his face a mask of darkness, watching her…

  ‘Paige.’ She looked up as the door opened. ‘It’s time to dress, dear.’

  ‘Has Alan phoned, Mother?’

  Janet Gardiner shook her head. ‘He’s not supposed to, is he? It’s bad luck or something.’ She opened the wardrobe and carefully slipped Paige’s long-skirted bridal gown from its hanger. ‘Isn’t it beautiful?’ she sighed.

  Paige watched as her mother spread the gown on the bed. The yards of handmade French lace, so lovely and delicate, seemed a mockery.

  ‘Mother? I was wondering—what do you know about Quinn Fowler?’

  ‘Alan’s brother?’ Her mother shrugged. ‘Not much, only what Mr Fowler told your father. He lives abroad—London, I think. Apparently, he’s been a great disappointment to the Fowlers. He left here under some sort of cloud. But he and Alan are still close. Why do you ask?’

  Paige swallowed. ‘No particular reason. I was just thinking…’ Her words trailed away. ‘Mother? What if—what if something happened and I didn’t marry Alan?’

  Her mother smiled. ‘Nothing’s going to happen,’ she said gently.

  ‘But just suppose—what if I changed my mind? Would you be upset?’

  ‘Have you changed your mind?’ her mother asked after a moment.

  Paige shook her head. ‘I… I’m just asking.’

  Janet Gardiner crossed the room and put her arm around her daughter. ‘Paige, dear, every bride has last-minute doubts.’

  ‘I know. But…’

  Her mother’s eyes searched hers. ‘Do you want to talk about it?’ she asked softly.

  Paige shook her head again. ‘No,’ she whispered.

  Her mother nodded. ‘Do what your heart tells you,’ she said, her eyes never leaving her daughter’s. ‘That’s all that matters.’

  Tears glistened in Paige’s eyes. ‘You’re a terrific mother,’ she said, with a quick smile. ‘Have I ever told you that?’

  Janet Gardiner’s eyes were damp as well. ‘Not half often enough,’ she laughed, and then she kissed Paige’s cheek. ‘Now,’ she said briskly, ‘let’s get you into this gown, shall we? Time’s running out.’

  * * *

  Her mother’s words rang through Paige’s mind as she stood in the centre of a small upstairs room in the Fowler house. Time was, indeed, running out. The early sounds of the wedding festivities carried clearly up the rear staircase: the hum of conversation between the caterer and his assistants, the clink of silverware, the discreet tones of Vivaldi. In less than an hour, the house would be filled with people, and she would move slowly down the flower-bedecked main staircase, across the pink and white runner laid over the Aubusson carpet, to Alan’s side.

  Except that none of that would happen. Any minute now, the door would open and Alan would confront her. Alan and Quinn. And she was alone and ready. There would be no audience to her disgrace.

  ‘Go and see to our guests,’ she’d said to her mother. ‘You know Mrs Fowler—she’ll swallow them alive if you’re not there.’

  Her father had seemed eager to leave her. ‘This is a good thing you’re doing,’ he’d said, and the remark had seemed so solemn and heavy that it had brought the only smile of the day to Paige’s face.

  Paige looked at the clock and felt a moment of panic. Was it possible Quinn had changed his mind? Had he decided not to tell Alan anything? Was she less than an hour away from becoming the wife of a man she didn’t love, a man she didn’t deserve? No, that was out of the question. She’d seen the look on Quinn’s face. He hated her and he loved his brother, and…

  The door opened and slammed shut. Alan… Heart pounding, Paige spun towards the door. She felt the blood drain from her face. It wasn’t Alan—it was Quinn. And he was alone.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ she whispered. ‘Where’s Alan?’

  His lips drew away from his teeth. ‘What a charming way to greet your brother-in-law,’ he said pleasantly, while his eyes moved over her. ‘You look lovely, sweet Juliet. So pure and virginal.’

  Paige felt a rush of heat to her face. Had there been a way to run from the look of disgust in his eyes, she would have. But she could only square her shoulders and force herself to meet his gaze without flinching.

  ‘Did Alan send you? Is he… Has he…’

  The smile left his face. ‘He doesn’t know I’m here. He doesn’t know anything, Paige. You’ve done quite a job on my little brother.’

  ‘You mean… you haven’t told him? But…’

  ‘Alan wouldn’t believe me if I told him you were the whore of Babylon,’ Quinn said harshly. ‘God knows, I tried. I took him out for a drink after everyone left last night. Hell, I got as far as saying he was making a mistake when he laughed and slapped me on the back. He said he’d expected me to try and talk him out of getting married. And when I started to say I didn’t think you were right for him, he laughed again and told me I was just jealous of his good luck.’ His face darkened and his voice fell to a whisper. ‘You don’t know the effort it took not to tell him his “luck” could have been anybody’s at the right place and the right time.’

  The accusation pierced her heart. ‘It’s not true,’ she whispered. ‘What I did with you…’

  A sneer curved across his mouth. ‘I was there, remember? You had an itch and you needed somebody to scratch it, that’s all.’ Paige’s face turned white and Quinn laughed. ‘What’s the matter, baby? Is that too vulgar for your delicate ears?’

  ‘You can’t talk to me like that,’ she said. ‘You…’

  He moved towards her with such an intensity of purpose that she took a step back. But there was no place to go; her shoulders hit the wall just as his hands closed on her arms.

  ‘What was it that got to you, Paige? Weeks of playing the innocent with Alan? No, I guess that wasn’t so difficult—he doesn’t excite you, does he? You told me that straight off.’

  Tears rose to her eyes. ‘Quinn, please, it wasn’t like that…’

  He drew her towards him. ‘Was it me who excited you, Paige? Or was it the idea of being taken by a stranger that turned you on?’

  ‘Please, Quinn, I beg you…’

  He stared at her for a long moment, and then he flung her from him. ‘God, you’re good at what you do,’ he muttered. ‘No wonder Alan fell for your act, the poor bastard.’

  Paige shook her head. ‘I never pretended with Alan. I told him…’

  ‘The crap I had to listen to last night!’ Quinn shook his head in disbelief. ‘You sure as hell figured him out fast, Juliet. All you had to do was play it coy, bat those long lashes and say “no” whenever he tried to lay a hand on you, and a marriage proposal was almost guaranteed.’

  ‘It wasn’t like that, Quinn. I told Alan I didn’t love him.’

  ‘And what a nice touch that was,’ he said with a bitter laugh. ‘He damned near blushed when he told me he was going to teach you about love.’ He bent his head towards her, his eyes filled with hate. ‘I’ll bet you could write a book about love,’ he snarled, giving t
he word an inflection that twisted it into an obscenity. ‘Alan must have been a gift from the gods. Your chance at a rich husband—and an insurance policy for your father, all in one neat package.’

  Her gaze swung across his face. ‘What are you talking about? What’s my father got to do with this?’

  ‘Don’t try that act on me, baby. It won’t work. I know everything.’

  ‘And I don’t know what you’re talking about, Quinn. My father…’

  ‘I’ve got to admit, you and your old man were clever. Alan never suspected he was being played for a fool.’ Quinn let go of her and stalked across the room. ‘Jesus, he even told me how grateful he was to your father, how he had needed an ally when you and he first started going out and how it was your father he turned to.’

  ‘My father likes Alan. He…’

  He spun on his heel and faced her. ‘Don’t lie to me, dammit!’ She drew in her breath as he moved slowly towards her again. ‘Whose idea was it, Juliet? Yours or your father’s?’

  ‘I… I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she said, her mouth dry with fear.

  ‘Damn, but it was clever! Your father dangled you in front of Alan, you played hard to get, and Alan was drawn deeper and deeper into the web.’ He reached out suddenly and grasped her shoulders. ‘And once he was caught, the Gardiner father and daughter team had two problems neatly solved.’

  ‘You’re crazy, Quinn! I want you to get out of this room. I…’

  ‘Problem one,’ he said, ignoring her, ‘what do you do with a daughter who’s been around a little too much? Problem two: what do you do when you’ve got your hand in the till up to your elbow? Solution? Simple. You tart up your tarnished goods with a fresh coat of paint and marry her off to the man you’ve been stealing from. Then you’ve got nothing to worry about. Who’d bring criminal charges against a relative?’

  Paige looked at him as if he were speaking gibberish. ‘Criminal charges? What are you talking about?’

  ‘I’m talking about your father,’ he snapped. ‘He’s a goddamned thief!’

  ‘My father?’ she said incredulously. ‘Look, say what you want about me, Quinn. I know what you think of me and I can’t… I can’t blame you. But my father? My father’s been chief accountant at Fowler’s for years. He…’

  ‘He’s been stealing from Fowler’s for years.’

  ‘You’re a liar,’ she said quickly, her voice sharp with anger. ‘You don’t know anything about him. For that matter, you don’t know a damned thing about Fowler’s, either. You walked away from your family and your responsibilities…’ The bite of his hands made her breath hiss between her teeth. ‘You’re hurting me,’ she said, trying to twist free. ‘Let go of me. Dammit, let go or I’ll…’

  ‘You’ll what?’ he said, lifting his hands from her with exaggerated care. ‘Call for help?’ He laughed. ‘Send for the police? That would be rich, wouldn’t it? The embezzler’s daughter and the cops.’

  Paige drew in her breath. ‘Embezzler?’

  ‘What’s the matter, Paige? Do you think the word’s too harsh? That’s what he’s been doing. Hell, you probably know the story better than I do. Take a little from this account, a little from that—dormant accounts, of course, the kind no one ever looks at twice. Who’s going to catch you, especially if you’re the man in charge?’

  ‘That’s impossible,’ she said quickly. ‘If anyone did something like that, Alan or his father would have known. Who are you to come out of nowhere and say these things?’

  Quinn’s mocking smile faded. Suddenly, the room seemed cool.

  ‘I own a consulting firm, Paige. Didn’t Alan tell you? Computers, software, programs—my speciality is setting up accounting procedures for firms like Fowler’s.’ The smile came again, quick and cold. ‘When my father heard I was coming home for Alan’s wedding, he tossed me a bone. “See what you can do for our records department,” he said, probably not expecting much.’ His voice dropped to a whisper. ‘But I did a great deal. I spent the past few days instituting a computer program that took Fowler’s out of the dark ages and into the twenty-first century.’

  Paige stared at him. None of what he was saying made sense. ‘But… but Alan said you weren’t even arriving until…’

  ‘Alan was so busy being a bridegroom that he didn’t know which end was up.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘I flew in the evening of the Masquerade Ball. Of course, he didn’t see me that night. Nobody did, thanks to your little tease on the beach.’

  Colour flooded her face. ‘That’s not the way it was, Quinn.’

  ‘Since then,’ he said, ignoring the interruption, ‘I’ve spent every day programming the computers. I turned up your father’s little scheme the day before yesterday.’ A thin smile spread across his mouth. ‘Do you want a good laugh? When I realised who he was—Paige Gardiner’s father—I almost went crazy trying to find a way to bury what I’d found. I didn’t want Alan and his sweet little bride to learn that her daddy was an embezzler—not right before the wedding.’ He looked at her. ‘If you don’t believe me, find your father and ask him about the Melnick account. See what reaction you get.’

  It was all too much. He was as wrong about her father as he was about her. He had to be. Her father, a thief? Never. He wouldn’t steal.

  No risk, no gain. Her skin chilled, as if the ghosts called up by Quinn’s accusations were brushing against her. As a child, she’d overheard more than one hushed, late-night quarrel between her parents. It was always over the same thing—her father’s determination to ‘make a quick killing’. He was chasing fool’s gold, her mother would say, and then a cold silence would settle over the household for days on end.

  What if her father’s schemes had got out of hand? What if the eccentricity had become addiction? Memories drawn from the past months tumbled through Paige’s mind: she thought of the way her father had thrown her at

  Alan—there was no pretending he hadn’t. And then there were the vaguely unpleasant comments he’d made these past weeks about the Fowlers and their money. Now that she stopped to think, he’d been acting strangely ever since she’d returned home.

  ‘I only want what’s best for all of us.’

  Wasn’t that what her father had said the other night? And she’d laughed and teased him about his choice of words. Suppose it hadn’t been a slip of the tongue? Suppose it was an expression of relief that he was going to be related to the Fowlers, protected by marriage from public shame or worse?

  She knew, suddenly, that it was all too impossible for Quinn to be lying. What he’d told her was the truth. Panic filled her. Her father was an embezzler. A thief.

  ‘What do you want me to do?’ Her voice was desperate. ‘I’ll do whatever you say, Quinn. Just promise me you won’t expose my father.’

  His eyes darkened. ‘Ah,’ he said softly, ‘the act is over. No more pretending you don’t know what I’m talking about, Paige?’ Denial was pointless; her silence was his answer. Quinn nodded. ‘All right, your father’s little game is over. I’ll see to it that it stays buried—if you do as I say.’

  She nodded wearily. ‘Tell me what you want.’

  His voice was sharp. ‘I want you out of Alan’s life.’

  Anger stirred within her. ‘You think you know me, Quinn, but you don’t. I’d have made your brother a good wife. I…’

  He laughed in her face. ‘A good wife? You mean a scheming wife, don’t you, baby? One who would lie cold in his arms, just to keep him on edge, while she slept her way through town.’

  Tears gleamed on her lashes. ‘There’s no point to this conversation,’ she said. ‘You want me out of his life, and that’s fine. I’ll tell Alan the wedding’s off. I was going to do it days ago…’

  He laughed again. ‘I’ll bet you were.’

  Her eyes met his. ‘Bring Alan to me. I’ll tell him I’ve had second thoughts about marrying him. I’ll find a way that won’t hurt him.’

  ‘A way that won’t tarnish your halo, you mean. Yeah, I
can see it now. By the time you’re finished, he’ll be at your feet, begging you to give him a chance to make you happy.’

  Paige caught his sleeve as he paced by. ‘Then I’ll write him a letter.’ Quinn stopped and turned to her, his blue-green eyes on her face, and she hurried on, ‘I’ll—I’ll tell him I can’t go through with the wedding. And then I’ll leave. Right now. I have my luggage here, even my passport.’ She waited, but he said nothing. ‘That would work, wouldn’t it? I’ll go away for a while. You can go back to… to wherever it is you came from, and…’

  Two hard lines etched beside his narrowed mouth. ‘Wonderful,’ he said softly. His hand snaked out and grasped her wrist, and his voice exploded with rage. ‘Do you think all men are fools? I’ll leave and you’ll return—is that it? And then you’ll tell Alan you’ve had a change of heart, you never should have cancelled the wedding…’

  Paige shook her head. ‘I wouldn’t. I swear I wouldn’t…’

  She cried out as his fingers tightened on the fragile bones in her wrist.

  ‘You’re hurting me,’ she gasped.

  ‘Am I?’ he growled, drawing her to him. ‘I sure as hell hope so.’

  ‘I didn’t lure Alan into anything. He wanted me.’

  ‘Damned right, he wanted you.’ His mouth twisted as he leaned closer to her. ‘What man wouldn’t, once you turned those eyes on him? I should know.’

  Her cheeks pinkened. ‘You weren’t innocent. I didn’t seek you out, hunt you down…’

  Quinn’s eyes blazed. ‘When a man is interested, Paige, an honest whore tells him her price first.’

  Her hand was a blur as it swung through the air and cracked against his cheek. The sound of flesh striking flesh echoed through the room.

  ‘You son of a bitch,’ Paige said in a whisper. Her violet eyes darkened to indigo. ‘You know what I’m going to do, Quinn? I’m going to marry Alan, whether you like it or not—and there isn’t a damned thing you can do to stop me! You were absolutely right. He’ll believe whatever I tell him.’

  ‘He’ll believe what the computer printouts tell him. Your father’s a thief.’