Bride Required

by Alison Fraser

  ‘Thanks.’ Dee didn’t point out that Henry’s running days were over, but exchanged smiles with the other woman before continuing downstairs.

  She took her time, both for her own sake and the old dog’s, whose joints were stiff. Of course, Baxter Ross couldn’t be like any normal person and live in a normal house—preferably a bungalow.

  Still, when she eventually got outside and stood back from his tower, she could almost see its attraction. Banked by moorland on one side, with grass fields and a river on the other, it was the ideal place for someone who liked privacy.

  There was no other habitation in sight. If Dee wanted to reach civilisation, she would have to walk to it. With only a half-formed plan in mind, she went to the hired car first. Behind it stood a Volvo and behind that an Audi, presumably belonging to his sister and brother-in-law.

  Baxter had left the hire-car open, and she took it as a good sign. She rifled through the case on the back seat and shoved some bare essentials into her rucksack. She kept on his jacket, knowing she might need it at night, and, retrieving Henry’s lead from the boot, set off.

  The track was made of earth and loose stone, and maintained to a minimum standard only. She walked a good fifteen minutes before she reached a road. It was a very minor road, with no signposts and no real promise of a bustling metropolis at the end, but Dee reasoned it must lead somewhere.

  She crossed to the far verge to face oncoming traffic, and walked down rather than up. It was hard going and quite dangerous with so many bends in the road, and Scotland in July was almost as warm as London had been. After half an hour’s walking, she was sweating, Henry was panting, her knee was throbbing and she had arrived nowhere of significance.

  She crossed back to the other side, sat on a grassy knoll off the road, and tried hitching. Unfortunately there were no dog or people lovers in the rare cars that appeared. She could have cried. She did cry. With pure frustration. In her desperation to get away from Baxter Ross and his family, she had stranded herself and Henry in the middle of nowhere.

  Worse, with nothing to do but sit at the roadside, she had given herself too much opportunity to relive last night over and over, like a blue movie in her head.

  She wanted to tell herself that was why she was running—in disgust. The problem was her one great virtue: she was almost always honest with herself. She could rerun the movie a dozen times, but she couldn’t freeze-frame it at any point where she’d said no. She had been willing, and he had stopped. Virgins weren’t his thing.

  She should have been grateful. She was grateful. She had fought Edward to keep her virginity, and lost her home over it. She didn’t want to squander it on a man to whom she meant little. So why had she let her guard down at all?

  Baxter Ross didn’t mean that much to her, did he? She barely knew him, and she didn’t believe one could love a virtual stranger. No, love didn’t come into it.

  Dee shook her head. She couldn’t figure it out. Much wiser to run, then analyse at a distance—only a mile down the road was hardly that much of a distance.

  Hope revived briefly as a car came round the corner and pulled up on the verge beside her. It died as the driver got out.

  ‘Dee?’ Cat’s expression was all concern. ‘We were worried when you were gone so long. Is it your leg?’

  ‘Yes,’ Dee lied.

  ‘Baxter said you couldn’t go far,’ Cat ran on. ‘He’s gone out looking for you on foot.’

  She helped Dee up and into the passenger seat of the Volvo, before stowing Henry in the boot.

  Dee wasn’t given much chance to object but, when Cat climbed in herself, she asked, ‘Could you take me to the nearest town?’

  ‘Linlithgow?’

  ‘Wherever.’

  Scottish geography wasn’t Dee’s strong point, but it sounded like somewhere she should have heard of. ‘I need a few things,’ she added rather lamely.

  Cat looked at her closely, before murmuring, ‘I think we should go home first, don’t you?’

  She didn’t wait for a response but, reversing into a field, returned the way they’d come.

  Dee realised how pathetic her escape attempt had been. A couple of minutes’ drive and she was back where she’d started.

  Ewan Macdonald was waiting at the door of the tower, and, after a quick word with Cat, left in his Audi.

  Dee felt guilty as she learned her disappearance had delayed his departure for a meeting. From their brief exchange, Dee gathered Ewan Macdonald was a businessman of some kind.

  She was made to feel guiltier as Cat went ahead of her, saying, ‘I’ll just go check on Morag, then try to reach Baxter on his mobile to tell him I’ve found you.’

  Dee was meant to follow, but she remained by the door, reluctant to go inside.

  A minute or two later the older woman returned.

  ‘I spoke to Baxter,’ she relayed to Dee. ‘He was very relieved to hear you were all right. He’s walked up to the crag, so it’ll be a while before he’s back… I’m to keep you from running away again,’ she added with a small laugh.

  Dee didn’t laugh back. In fact, her expression must have been all too readable.

  ‘You really were running away,’ Cat concluded for herself.

  ‘Sort of,’ Dee admitted.

  ‘From Baxter or the situation?’

  Baxter, Dee could have said, but she didn’t want to give the wrong impression. ‘He hasn’t harmed me. I just don’t think I should stick around.’

  ‘You could be right,’ Cat actually conceded. ‘I admire my brother both as a man and a doctor, but this latest scheme of his is just too risky. The whole idea of an arranged marriage…’ She shook her head at it. ‘I know Baxter feels he has an obligation to fulfil, but there must be some other way of doing it… And you’ve obviously had second thoughts.’

  ‘Yes,’ Dee agreed, confused by the rest.

  What obligation? And to whom? The aunt who’d left him something in her will, she supposed.

  ‘Well, don’t worry, I won’t let him force you into anything,’ Cat assured her. ‘For now, why don’t you have lunch? Everyone else has eaten, but we left some for you.’

  ‘Thanks.’ A resigned Dee followed the other woman up the spiral staircase.

  Cat served her a pasta dish with chicken and courgettes. After a diet of fry-ups, it was haute cuisine.

  The other woman busied herself in the kitchen while Dee ate, but Morag insisted on staring at her from the far end of the table.

  This, it seemed, was the prelude to being interviewed.

  ‘What’s your dog called?’

  ‘Henry.’

  A pert nose was wrinkled. ‘That’s not what I’d call one. If I had a dog, I’d call it Belle.’

  ‘That’s nice, too,’ Dee smiled back.

  ‘I wanted a dog,’ she then confided to Dee. ‘But Mummy’s having a baby instead.’

  ‘Really?’ Dee said, feeling awkward.

  But Morag’s mother was seemingly used to the child’s forthrightness, and smiled as she patted her slight bulge. ‘Yes, and not before time, too.’ She shook her head at her precocious first-born, and said, ‘Only children can be a handful in their own way.’

  ‘Yes,’ Dee agreed politely.

  ‘Have you a sister?’ Morag asked of Dee.

  ‘No. No brothers either,’ she admitted. ‘And your mum’s right—I think it’s much better to have some. I wish I had.’

  ‘Oh.’ Morag thought about this for a moment. ‘Never mind. You and Uncle Baxie can have lots of babies.’

  It came from nowhere, and left Dee almost choking on a piece of chicken.

  This time Cat Macdonald turned completely from the sink, an appalled look on her face. ‘Morag! Whatever makes you say such a thing?’

  Morag was unfazed. ‘I heard you tell Daddy earlier that Dee wasn’t too young to get married if that’s what she wanted.’

  ‘Honestly, darling, you must stop listening in to adults’ conversations.’ Cat sighed heavily. �
��That’s why you get so mixed up. Dee may get married, yes, but it won’t be to Uncle Baxie… Heavens, no!’ She dismissed the very idea with a laugh.

  ‘Then who?’ the child asked.

  Good question. Dee waited, jaw dropped, for the answer.

  It came slowly, reluctantly. ‘Well, it’s just a possibility that Dee’ll marry Joseph.’

  ‘Joseph?’ the child echoed in surprise.

  Joseph? Dee just mouthed the word, but her reaction was nearer shock. Baxter wanted her to marry Joseph? Not him? Of course. It had never been him!

  ‘But it may not happen,’ mother stressed to daughter, catching Dee’s deepening frown.

  ‘Why not?’ Morag enquired. ‘I like Joseph. He makes me laugh. What colour will their babies be?’

  ‘Morag!’ Her mother shot her a silencing look so fierce it actually worked, and added sternly, ‘Why don’t you go to the toilet?’

  ‘I don’t need it.’

  ‘Go anyway.’

  Morag was helped up from her chair and firmly shooed out of the door.

  Only then did Cat continue. ‘I really am sorry about this. She’s obsessed with babies at the moment, and I can’t really explain to her about you and Joseph. I mean, the less people who know about it and all that, you understand?’

  No, but Dee was beginning to. What possible reason could Baxter Ross have for paying her to marry a complete stranger? One who came from Africa. She could think of only one.

  ‘When does Joseph’s visa expire?’ She tried out her theory.

  And Cat Macdonald proved it, responding, ‘I’m not sure. Baxter brought him over on a temporary visa last Christmas, and he’s tried to gain him student status ever since. But that route’s hit complications… I really thought he was joking when he suggested getting a British bride for him, but evidently not.’ Her eyes rested on Dee, leaving her in no doubt who that bride was to be.

  ‘Why does he want to help Joseph so much?’ she asked.

  ‘He promised Joseph’s parents he’d take care of him,’ Cat Macdonald explained. ‘They both died while working in a hospital Baxter was overseeing. Some kind of fever. Baxter was seriously ill, too… But that’s had its compensations.’

  ‘Compensations?’ Dee frowned.

  ‘The fever’s left him prone to infection,’ Cat explained, ‘which is why he’s finally given up field work.’

  ‘How does he feel about that?’ Dee enquired.

  Cat shrugged. ‘I haven’t had the chance to ask him. I’m just glad he’s out of it before he gets his head blown off… Maybe now he can settle down and concentrate on living a halfway normal life,’ she reflected in dry tones.

  Dee wondered what his sister had in mind for him, but didn’t ask. It wasn’t her business. None of it was.

  When Morag reappeared, Dee took the chance to say, ‘If you don’t mind, I’d like to go for a lie down.’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ Catriona replied, but she was hesitant.

  Dee, who wasn’t up to any more dashes for freedom, added, ‘I’ll leave Henry down here, if that’s okay.’

  ‘Yes, fine.’ The older woman was reassured by the sight of the old dog stretched out by the Aga.

  Dee departed, leaving Morag asking her mother what was wrong with her leg.

  She mounted the stairs slowly, her knee aching with each step. Her ‘walk’ hadn’t improved her condition. In fact, she suspected the knee was swollen with fluid once more.

  Although the tower was cool, she felt hot and sticky. She emptied her rucksack on the bed and sorted through underwear and T-shirts, finding something suitable to wear. She washed in the washbasin rather than shower, because she didn’t want the bandage to need changing again. She emerged, scrubbed and shiny, and fortunately fully clothed, to find Baxter Ross prowling the bedroom.

  She hadn’t expected it so she wasn’t ready for him. That was what she reasoned later. At the time she just stood there, breath catching, heart stopping at the very sight of him.

  In fantasy he would have held out his arms and she would have run to him, laughing. In reality he strode up to her, giving her no chance to run, laugh or even draw breath.

  ‘Where the hell were you going?’ he demanded without preamble.

  ‘I…a walk… I—I went for a walk,’ she stammered, shocked by his anger.

  ‘With a rucksack full of clothes?’ he threw back. ‘Don’t take me for a fool. Where were you heading?’

  ‘I’ve no idea!’ She mustered up her own temper. ‘Anywhere but here would have done!’

  ‘Because of last night?’ he countered.

  She felt her face flame.

  ‘I told you—it won’t happen again,’ he ground out. ‘God knows why it happened at all!’

  His eyes flicked over her—face scrubbed, skin rosy, looking more twelve than seventeen.

  ‘I’m so repulsive, am I?’ Dee concluded from his manner. ‘Well, thanks, that just makes me feel so much better.’

  ‘I didn’t mean it that way,’ he replied heavily. ‘You must know you can turn a few heads, even with the haircut and ear armour…’ Baxter paused for a moment, realising finally what had been different about her last night. The earrings had gone, leaving only the puncture marks where they’d been.

  ‘Anyway—’ he refocused his thoughts ‘—how attractive you are isn’t the issue. The point is,’ he laboured on, ‘I am not your stepfather. I don’t chase after girls young enough to be my daughter.’

  Well, it was honest. Too honest. Dee felt rejected rather than reassured.

  ‘You weren’t so scrupulous last night,’ she said, out of hurt and an odd sense of despair.

  ‘No, I wasn’t,’ he agreed heavily. ‘I was tired after a long journey and a rough week. I’m barely getting my head round being back in so-called civilisation. Add that to a year’s abstinence, and it seems I can behave as badly as the next man. I’m not asking you to forgive, just understand—’

  Oh, she did. Only too well!

  ‘You wanted sex to wind down from a stressful week, and were randy enough not to care about the date on my birth certificate,’ Dee cut in, out-franking his frankness. ‘But you got cold feet when I turned out not to be quite the easy lay you thought I was… Have I missed out anything?’

  Nothing. She had summed up last night from a viewpoint so cynical it was hard to believe she was still fundamentally innocent.

  It saddened rather than angered Baxter as he recalled the girl in the photograph he’d seen yesterday. A beautiful girl, she’d smiled out at the world with a clear gaze and a face full of expectation. What had happened to her?

  ‘It really wasn’t like that,’ he finally replied. ‘My actions were certainly inexcusable, but they were also unplanned. And I have absolutely never thought of you in such terms.’

  He spoke with a quiet sincerity that undermined Dee’s own anger, and made her wish that things could be right between them once more.

  ‘Honestly?’ she murmured back.

  ‘Honestly,’ Baxter echoed, then mused aloud, ‘In fact, far from being experienced, I wonder if you even know when you’re being provocative.’

  ‘Provocative?’ She looked genuinely surprised at the word.

  Which proved his point, somewhat. ‘It’s obviously not intentional,’ he was quick to add. ‘You’re just…well…a shade outspoken. I’ll probably get used to it, but I wouldn’t recommend your being quite so—let’s say—upfront with other men. They might get the wrong idea.’

  Dee could have chosen to flare up again. She could have told him he was the only man to whom she’d reacted in this way. But she took his advice instead and kept quiet, and gave a vague nod, acknowledging the fact that right or wrong it was well-meant.

  He nodded, too, as if they’d reached an agreement, and their gazes held a moment or two longer before both looked away to break eye contact.

  ‘Right.’ His tone became more businesslike. ‘Now we’ve got that out of the way, do you feel you could stay?’


  They were to return to an impersonal relationship. That was the agenda. Only Dee wasn’t sure if she could.

  ‘On what basis?’ she asked at length.

  Baxter’s mouth thinned. She wasn’t going to make this easy. Perhaps he should just let her go.

  ‘You are currently homeless, you have an injured knee and you have no source of income,’ he spelled out. ‘Three good reasons to stay, I’d have said.’

  Dee could think of some equally good reasons to go. It had taken months to toughen up to life on the streets. How was she going to feel after a few weeks in his ivory tower? Too scared to leave?

  ‘That depends on the pay-back,’ she countered.

  ‘I’ve already told you, last night was—’ he began heavily.

  ‘Not that,’ she cut across him. ‘The reason you got me up here in the first place.’

  He frowned convincingly.

  She hummed the ‘Wedding March’ in flat, ironic tones. ‘Or were you going to wait a week or two to spring it on me?’

  He shook his head. ‘Rest assured, there’s no question of an arranged marriage between us.’

  ‘Oh, I know that,’ Dee seethed as he continued to play her for a fool. ‘I meant between me and your native friend from Kirundi.’

  If she’d intended to annoy him, she succeeded, as he clipped back, ‘Don’t be so English and ignorant. My native friend is a highly intelligent young man descended from African princes. Normally he wouldn’t look twice at you.’

  And that’s me told, Dee thought, with no ready answer back. She hadn’t intended to sound prejudiced. Her objections had really been to Baxter Ross’s duplicity.

  ‘And, as I’ve already told you,’ he grated on, ‘I have shelved any plans for an arranged marriage between you and anyone.’

  Because she couldn’t be relied on, Dee assumed. Or trusted not to talk. For surely it was illegal to broker a marriage for someone to gain British citizenship?

  ‘I wouldn’t tell anyone,’ she found herself saying.

  ‘It’s not that simple,’ he went on. ‘Marry a temporary resident like Joseph and the Home Office would descend on you. It wouldn’t be a matter of not telling. You’d have to convince them that your relationship is real, that you’re deeply in love with a man you’ve barely met, and that you really intend spending the rest of your life with him.’