Second-Best Bride

by Margaret Rome

  CHAPTER ONE

  ‘I don't understand!' Angie's perplexed grey eyes roved her sister's nonchalant expression, sensing instinctively that her air of bravado was merely a facade. 'If, as you say, you're afraid of this man— this Greek you met on holiday—why on earth did you agree to marry him?'

  When Cilla's brilliant blue glance fell towards the carpet Angie's eyes widened. For the first time in years her younger sister was betraying signs of discomfiture—downcast head, shuffling feet, a slight tinge of colour on high cheekbones—all brought a vivid reminder of schooldays during which, in her role of protector, she had accepted punishment for Cilla's misdeeds and even managed to feel sympathy as she watched her squirming beneath the eye of a suspicious headmis­tress.

  'Must you be so prim and prissy!' Typically, Cilla reacted with resentment to the slightest hint of criticism. 'I'm sick to death of listening to your lectures, fed up with being urged to act with pro­priety, to remember always to behave in a manner in keeping with Father's position. What position, for heaven's sake!' Irritably, she flung her arms wide to encompass the whole of the shabby sitting-room. 'Take a good look at our ancestral home,' she challenged, a scowl distorting her lovely features and admit that it bears no comparison to the sort of place we ought to be living in. I'll never understand why a girl as beautiful as our late mother was said to have been, a girl brought up in a mansion and surrounded by luxury from birth,, should have wasted her chances by marrying a penniless curate who, even in his youth, had not the slightest ambition to advance his station. Even today, twenty-five years on, he's merely the Reverend Philip Rose, tenant of the dilapidated vicar­age of a poverty-stricken country parish!'

  Appalled though she was by her sister's out­burst, Angie managed to keep her voice steady when she told her simply:

  'I imagine Mother would have found it sup­remely easy to fall in love with our very lovable father.'

  For a second there was silence, then suddenly Cilla's tense body crumpled into Angie's arms.

  'I'm sorry,' she sobbed through tempestuous tears, 'honestly, I didn't mean a word I said, no one knows better than I do that we've been blessed I with the sweetest-natured, most charitable, loving, generous father in the whole world! I don't know why ... how could I speak of him in such a way ...'

  'You're overwrought.' After a swift, forgiving hug, Angie pushed her on to a nearby couch and sat down beside her. 'It's not like you to give way to tears,' she admonished mildly. 'For the past couple of years your life has been filled with fun and activity; I could have sworn you'd forgotten how to cry. But I suspect your mysterious Greek is in some way responsible for the sudden storm, therefore, as I've heard only the bare bones of the story, you'd better begin at the beginning and fill me in.'

  Cilla did not immediately respond to her re­quest, but knowing that she needed time to recover her composure Angie did not press her but sat quietly waiting until her sister was ready to explain her uncharacteristic loss of control.

  She strove for a look of serenity, but beneath her calm exterior she was worried and not a little surprised by her sister's storm of resentment. Though still not quite twenty, Cilla had seemed to achieve sophistication overnight. Immediately after leaving school she had scorned the chores of parish routine in favour of the good life, being escorted to dances and dinners by the legion of young men she had met during her numerous visits to the homes of wealthy relatives.

  Angie had always declined such invitations her­self, not because of any feeling of inferiority, but because the family budget had been stretched to the limit providing sufficient outfits to ensure that Cilla might hold her own in the midst of her wealthy friends.

  Her eyes kindled with appreciation as she scanned her sister's vivacious beauty, then shar­pened with anxiety when she glimpsed white teeth chewing a trembling bottom lip. 'I'm waiting, Cilla,' she encouraged gently. 'I've never known you so reluctant to share a confidence.'

  'You're going to be angry with me,' Cilla gulped.

  'I'll try not to be,' Angie promised, a twinkle belying the solemnity of her expression. Even as a child, Cilla had shown a propensity for drama.

  After struggling for some minutes to find words, Cilla began with a shamefaced apology. 'I suppose it was wrong of me to keep you and Father in the dark about my engagement, but to be honest,' she gulped, 'once I returned home it seemed to become more and more unreal—a dreamy interval, thrilling while it lasted, but so swift and intransient it became easy to believe it had never happened in reality.'

  'I assume,' Angie prodded gently when Cilla seemed to be in danger of lapsing back into her dream world, 'that the event took place during your holiday on Cousin Freddie's yacht?'

  She nodded. 'We were cruising in the Aegean when a sudden storm made it imperative for us to reach some kind of harbour. The nearest land was an island, a tiny gem of a place, which we discovered was owned by a wealthy Greek, Terzan Helios, who used it as a retreat from the pressures of the business world.'

  'Such wealth seems almost sinful,' commented Angie, who could be impressed by the ownership of an allotment.

  Cilla's head jerked up to eye her sister with respect. 'The word is very apt—Terzan is sinful, sinfully wealthy, sinfully handsome and,' her voice trembled, 'wickedly attractive.'

  Angie's breath caught in a sharp gasp. Cilla might have been describing the devil! Immediately, her mind became stamped with an impression of a dark Greek head sprouting horns. She clenched her hands and found to her surprise that her palms were sweating, but she could not spare the time to wonder when Cilla continued:

  'In the manner of all Greeks, he was wonder­fully hospitable. He insisted upon accommodating all ten of us, passengers and crew, in his home and pressed us to remain long after the storm had blown itself out. We were his guests for a month,' she admitted, sounding as surprised as Angie felt, 'and even Freddie was impressed by the lavishness of our host's hospitality. I suppose that might account for the way he chivvied me into egging him on when,' she hesitated, colour rising slowly in her cheeks, 'it became evident to everyone that Terzan was smitten with me.'

  Feeling an urge to vent a puzzling inner anger against someone—anyone—Angie exploded. 'If that isn't typical of the Honourable Freddie! It puzzles me why you bother to cultivate his friend­ship. I'm sorry to have to say this about a close relative, but in my opinion that young man is a weak degenerate, spoiled from birth by doting parents and a far too lavish income!'

  'You two have never hit it off,' Cilla almost smiled. 'If only you wouldn't rise too easily to his teasing, he wouldn't bother to enquire after your Brownie pack at each moment of meeting.'

  'He doesn't enquire, he sneers!' Angie corrected, quietly fuming, ‘I admit that I spend most of my time helping around the parish, but by no means do I deserve the title "Goody-Two-Shoes" that he so sarcastically bestowed upon me.'

  Cilla shrugged, her mind occupied with more important issues. 'You still haven't answered my question,' she pointed out, her voice strained. 'Will you go to Karios and explain to Terzan why I can't marry him?'

  As it had when the question had first been broached, Angie's blood ran suddenly cold. For" the first time in her life she suffered panic, a sensa­tion so strange she sought refuge in prevarication.

  'How can I be expected to explain a situation don't understand myself?' she husked. 'Though it's beyond me to comprehend how, you have admitted that in the space of a few short weeks this Greek managed to convince you that you wanted nothing more than to spend the rest of your life with him, yet now, barely six months later, you claim that attraction has turned into fear. How come?' she frowned. 'You haven't seen him since you left his island, so how has he managed to communicate fear?'

  'In the beginning,' Cill
a jerked, 'we talked on the telephone almost every day, then for about six weeks I heard nothing from him. It was during that time of silence that I began to realise what a mistake I’d made, and as the weeks went past with no further word from him I began to hope that he, too, had put our relationship into perspective, that he was regarding the interlude as nothing more than a light flirtation that had achieved unwar­ranted importance with the help of conducive sur­roundings.'

  'I understand,' Angie nodded. And she did understand. Although such a frivolous outlook was alien to her own nature, she knew that to Cilla such reasoning was normal. 'Then what hap­pened,' she prompted, 'obviously, he surprised you by once more getting in touch?'

  'Yes, by letter,' Cilla nodded miserably, 'a shower of letters that developed into a storm once I told him I had no intention of marrying him.'

  'He must love you very much,' Angie pondered sadly, feeling fleeting pity for the rejected Greek, 'nevertheless, though an engagement implies com­mitment it's by no means binding, a girl is entitled to change her mind—and also to expect her fiancé, if he has any pretensions towards being a gentle­man, to accept his dismissal with dignity.'

  'Terzan is no gentleman.' Her sister shivered violently. 'He's very much an uncut diamond, rich but ruthless, outwardly sophisticated yet un­civilised enough to use caveman tactics to force me to keep my word. That's why, suspecting that he might arrive on the doorstep any minute, I sent a message promising to return to Karios as soon as possible. I had to, Angie, I was desperate to keep him at bay!' Suddenly, a shy smile appeared on her lips and her voice dropped almost to a whisper.

  'You see, I've fallen in love—and this time it's for real ...'

  'You have?' Angie gasped. 'With whom ...?'

  'With David Montgomery—and if my instinct serves me right he's almost on the verge of proposing.'

  Angie's eyes lit up. 'That's wonderful news,' she beamed. 'I'm so pleased for you, darling. I've always liked David, he's so steady and dependable, by far the nicest person amongst your crowd of giddy friends.'

  'That's all very well, but his father is a viscount!'" Cilla's voice rose high with panic, ‘if his parents should hear the merest whisper about my engagement to Terzan Helios they'll be bound to oppose our marriage!'

  'Oh, heavens!' Angie sank back against the couch, exhausted by a gamut of emotions. 'You do make life complicated ...'

  ‘I won't in future, I promise.'' Cilla leant closer to plead. 'Please, Angie, take this back to Karios for me, place it personally in the hands of that tyrannical Greek to prove to him that our engagement is definitely over. You can't refuse! My future happiness depends upon his remaining on Karios and out of my life!'

  She jumped to her feet and flung out of the room, leaving Angie staring at the huge diamond ring that had been dropped into her palm. Transfixed with awe, she raised her hand higher, then jerked with revulsion when a stray shaft of sunlight pierced the stony heart, firing into life a brilliant, baleful glare.

  Carefully she stretched out a trembling hand to place the ring upon a nearby table. Averting her eyes from its magnificence, her mind from its cost, she sat still as a statue, striving to regain control over trembling limbs and chaotic thoughts, ‘That's an old and well-tried trick of yours, my girl,' silently she berated her absent sister, 'dump­ing a problem in my lap, then running hell for leather out of earshot of a refusal! But it isn't going to work this time. You've swum too far out of my depth and I've no intention of being drowned, on your behalf, in the depths of the Aegean Sea!'

  Cilla was still absent when Angie joined her father at the dinner table. As she took her place next to him, she missed his usual beam of welcome and cast an anxious glance as she served him with his soup.

  'Had a good day, Father?' she enquired, de­terminedly bright.

  'So-so . . .!' he sighed, and began heavily seas­oning his soup.

  'That's pepper,' she pointed out, knowing he had no great liking for it.

  ‘Oh, dear!' If he had been a man accustomed to using expletives, she felt certain he would have sworn. As it was, he relieved his feelings by push­ing his plate aside with the irritable comment, 'I'm not very hungry this evening, I'll skip this course, if you don't mind.'

  Wondering if her quiet, placid world was to continue permanently topsy-turvy, Angie waded dog­gedly through the soup it had taken her all after­noon to prepare and left him to his brooding. Normally, she would not have hesitated to enquire about whatever it was that was troubling him, but her mind was so full of her own worries she did not feel inclined to overburden it with such problems as how to secure the services of a chiropodist willing to visit the isolated village once a month simply to trim pensioners' toenails, or how to discover the vandal within the Boy Scouts' troop who had carved his initials upon the church hall door.

  But when they had reached the sweet course and her father had not spoken one word, she realized that he was not merely worried but deeply disturbed.

  'Where's Cilla?' The sharpness of his tone caused her to jump.

  'I don't know, she left the house a couple of hours ago, but I can ring around, if you like, and a try to trace her whereabouts.'

  'No matter, upon reflection perhaps it might be better if I have a cooling off period before speaking to that young woman.'

  She found his tone, his whole attitude, startling. Although he would have been most upset if anyone had accused him of favouritism, over the years he had betrayed in many small ways that Cilla, the daughter who had inherited her mother's beauty, was the apple of his eye. Rarely had she been scolded, never had she been denied anything it had been in his power to provide—especially since the death of his wife.

  'Why? What's she done wrong?' Blank amazement echoed in her query.

  Once again her father pushed aside his plate with the food untouched. He looked pained, as if he was finding it difficult to confide even in Angie, who was used to sharing all his confidences.

  'The Bishop telephoned me this afternoon to arrange a meeting,' he clamped. 'At first he was cagey about the subject he wanted to discuss, but because he's an old friend, and because he has known you two girls since birth, he finally admitted that he'd received a complaint from one of my parishioners concerning Cilla's conduct.'

  'Oh, Father ...!' Angie jumped to her feet, out­raged. 'The Bishop must be aware that every parish has at least one scandalmonger in its midst, one warped mind that condemns every youthful prank as evil! I'm disappointed in the Bishop, I'd never have believed him capable of listening to gossip, much less acting upon it!'

  'Sit down, Angie, and kindly allow me to finish!'

  The command was voiced with such unusual sternness that in spite of her indignation she obeyed immediately, slumping into her chair with a force that was far from elegant.

  'Whatever the Bishop's personal views,' her father continued, 'he's honour bound to follow up any complaint. He made it quite plain that he con­sidered the charge frivolous, then followed that up by stressing that even if it were not, the behaviour of any member of my family could never be al­lowed to cast a reflection upon my work. Never­theless,' he sighed heavily and brushed a hand across his eyes, betraying an attitude of such deep dejection Angie could cheerfully have wrung her sister's neck, 'I must take some of the blame, for I fear I've allowed her to become spoiled.'

  'Of course you haven't!'

  'Yes, my dear,' he insisted firmly, 'and also, during the process, I've closed my eyes to the fact that you've become the parish dogsbody, the one who does all the work and reaps none of the pleasure.'

  'But my work is a pleasure!' she insisted fiercely, his distress bringing her close to tears. 'And besides that, Cilla is so young and beautiful she deserves to have fun.'

  'She's a mere two years younger than yourself,' he pointed out sternly, 'and also you're a very pretty reflection of your sister.'

  The thoughtless comparison would once have hurt, but over the years Angie had become resigned to living in the shadow of Cilla's beau
ty, could now accept without rancour that although they both possessed the same delicate bone structure, the same clear skin, and were almost identical in build and height, Cilla's hair glowed sun-bright whereas her own had the pale lustre of moonlight; Cilla's eyes were a vivid, unclouded blue whereas hers were a solemn grey. Also, it was a constant source of annoyance that the clothes Cilla discarded immediately after they became unfashionable hung like shapeless bags around her own much less rounded frame.

  Her father stood erect and squared his shoul­ders. 'I've decided that I must forbid Cilla further prolonged visits to the homes of your mother's relatives. Too much luxurious living and the dubious example set by your pleasure-seeking cousins, especially young Freddie, has made her wayward.'

  'For heaven's sake, Father!' she stared aghast, 'of what exactly has she been accused?'

  ‘Of waking the entire neighbourhood by racing through country lanes in noisy sports cars; of dis­rupting the peace and quiet of the village pub with noisy drinking parties, and of being extremely impudent to elders who attempted to remonstrate with her,' he spelled out with obvious distaste.

  Numb with disbelief, Angie watched his stiff figure retreating from the dining-room, uncertain whether to give in to frustrated tears or to howls of derisory laughter. With sudden insight she was seeing her father and his contemporaries through Cilla's eyes, and deep sympathy welled for the girl condemned as delinquent simply because of youth­ful high spirits.

  But like most men slow to be moved to anger, her father, once roused, could be formidable—for the sake of Cilla's future happiness he must never be allowed to find out about the Greek!

  CHAPTER TWO

  As Angie sat in the stern of a motorboat that was speeding her across the bluest water she had ever seen, she shivered and pulled the collar of her coat closer around her neck, glad that she had paid no heed to Cilla's insistence that it was too shabby to be worn even for travelling and that in any case it would not be needed once she reached the land where flowers bloomed all the year round and where trees would be hanging heavy with citrus fruit, splashing hot colour against a background of spring green.