A Secure Marriage

by Diana Hamilton

  Giving herself a mental shake, she endured the appraising drift of his eyes.

  His assessment of the way she looked was gentle, like a caress, and she returned his slight smile.

  'How was Brussels?'

  'Smooth. No problems. There's no danger now of an American takeover, you'll be pleased to know. But you didn't come here to talk about Brussels.'

  His smile was tight and gave no impression of warmth and Cleo sank on to a chair and thought, my God! What have I let myself in for? Then she let her eyes laze around the room because it was peaceful, an anodyne for fraying nerve-ends, an harmonious mix of fine antiques, good fabrics, nothing showy. She had been here before on one or two occasions, enjoyed herself.

  She didn't think she was going to find this evening enjoyable.

  He had been pouring the white wine he knew she preferred and she took the glass from him, careful that their fingers should not touch. And one corner of his mouth quirked in a smile, as if he knew just how careful she had been.

  Something caught in Cleo's throat; either he was enjoying this, creating a tension calculated to shred the staunchest nerves, or he was waiting for her to make the opening gambit. And she would have done, simply to get it over, behind her, but she didn't know what to say.

  Suddenly, the enormity of what she had put in motion when she had proposed to him hit her again, right in the gut. He couldn't have seriously considered her crazy offer—so why was he spinning the agony out? She wished she could shrivel away, become invisible. She didn't know what was happening to her—one minute she was in control, quite calm, the next she was on the verge of hysterics. It wasn't in character for the woman she knew herself to be. And she could stand no more of it!

  'Have you reached a decision?' she blurted, her voice thick. She put her glass down on the small round table at the side of her chair, her fingers clumsy, fumbling, and she looked up in time to catch his expression of surprise at her unpolished question and could have bitten her tongue out. Where was the poised image now? she groaned inwardly, resisting the impulse to wring her hands.

  But the fleeting look of surprise was gone, his impressive features displaying little more than polite interest as he stood with his back to the crackling wood fire, his whisky glass held loosely in one hand. His eyes were veiled, thrown into shadow so that she couldn't read what was going on inside his head. She probably wouldn't have liked it if she could.

  He nodded briefly, 'I have, but we'll talk about it over dinner.' And that told her nothing, nothing at all. If he was trying to test her nerve, her ability t6

  keep cool in the face of mental pressure, he was doing an excellent job!

  Lifting her glass again, she recalled how he'd often probed for her reactions to balance sheets, research reports. She had never failed herself on that score—but this probing, if such was his intention, was something else, something more closely allied to emotion than to hard, indisputable fact.

  Trouble was, she was unused to handling emotion, and she hadn't, until now, equated it with that proposal of marriage.

  So she searched for something to say, something light but not inane, and kept talking, with the occasional interjection from him, until Meg came in with a heated trolley and Cleo realised that the palms of her hands were hot, slippery with sweat, that her insides had turned to jelly with the sheer nerve-shredding effort of trying to look and sound in control of herself.

  Meg and her trolley broke the tension, just a little, and Jude said, 'You don't mind if we eat in here?'

  She rose fluidly, noting the oblong linen-covered table in the window alcove for the first time.

  Long velvet curtains were drawn, closing out the blue April twilight, and candles were lit, creating an atmosphere of intimacy, drawing glittery lights from silver and crystal, casting a softening, warming glow over the cool features of the man opposite, making them enigmatic but not fearsomely so.

  The food was delicious, Meg's unobtrusive service effortless. The wine was friendly, relaxing, as was Jude's attitude, his conversation. But Cleo didn't relax, not for a moment, and Meg's superbly cooked food tasted like nothing.

  However, only when Meg had gone, leaving them with the silver coffee-pot, did she allow a little of all that pent-up anxiety to show through.

  'I don't want coffee.' Her voice came out as a snap as his hand hovered over the bone handle of the Queen Anne pot. Then, Thanks,' she added, mumbling now. The man was inhuman. Didn't he know how this suspense was pulling her apart?

  He hesitated, then poured a cup for himself, and Cleo thought, it's crunch time, and cursed for the fiery colour she felt creeping over her skin.

  'Well--' They both started to speak at once and he dipped his head, waving her on, and Cleo wished she'd kept her mouth shut. The onus was on her again, and he knew how to turn the screw.

  But enough was enough, she decided savagely, and producing the courage, the composure, from somewhere she remarked levelly, 'You said you'd reached a decision.' A lift of one silky eyebrow gave emphasis to her question. 'May I know what it is?'

  'Of course you may.'

  So smooth, so suave, so damnably cool. She could have hit him! She couldn't imagine now why she had ever thought she liked him, believed that an expedient marriage to a man such as him would be no intolerable thing.

  He lit a slim cigar, taking his time, and the flame of his lighter threw his features into harsh relief, sharpening every slashing angle, every plane. And his eyes, darkened to midnight, dealt her a glancing blow, knocking the breath clear out of her lungs because he'd looked at her before, of course he had, but never like that, never as if he owned her.

  'I have decided,' he regarded the glowing tip of his cigar with lazy interest,

  'to agree to your suggestion of an alliance—a marriage of convenience.

  Successful marriages have been based on less,' he told her, his magnificent eyes lifting from their inscrutable contemplation of the glowing tip, meeting the hazy smoke-grey of hers. A smile flickered briefly over the long, masculine mouth. That is to say, I agree in principle—however, there would be one stipulation.'

  Cleo stared, her eyes wide, hardly able to take it in as the breath she hadn't known she'd been holding was expelled silently from her burning lungs. If Jude Mescal had accepted her proposal of marriage then the idea couldn't have been as demented as she'd come to believe it was. And she need no longer lie awake at nights worrying about the likelihood of failing to pay the money Fenton demanded. She would have control of her inheritance once she was married, and the whole dreadful business could be kept quiet.

  Everything was going to be all right!

  A sudden smile of utter relief made her face radiant, and Jude raised one black eyebrow. 'Don't look so delighted. You haven't heard my stipulation yet.'

  'No. No, I haven't.' She felt light-headed. Her conscience wouldn't have to bear the burden of knowing she had been instrumental in darkening her uncle's declining months with shame and misery or, even worse, being the cause of another and almost certainly fatal heart-attack. And Jude's stipulation, whatever it was, couldn't be too daunting.

  She tilted her head in easy enquiry, the movement elegant, eloquent, and saw the way his eyes narrowed on her pointed face, on the warm curve of her lips as he said, 'It would have to be a full marriage. I want children.'

  The long, square-ended fingers of one hand flexed round the handle of the coffee-pot and, watching them, letting the words he'd said sink in, Cleo felt her insides , clench. Fool that she was, she hadn't viewed marriage to him from that angle, merely from the academic side. Two compatible adults merging their lives, their assets, for mutual benefit—that was the way she'd seen it. A marriage of convenience, a business arrangement, made tolerable by their mutual respect.

  A full marriage, having children, meant sleeping together, having sex. It put an entirely complexion on the whole idea. Sex without love seemed unconscionably squalid in her view. But not in his, obviously. And why, oh, why hadn't she at
least considered the possibility that he might demand a full, physical marriage? Because her head had been too full of the need to take control of her inheritance, she answered herself drily, to think about what Jude Mescal might want!

  She stared at the tablecloth, as if the fine fabric held a weird fascination, quite unable to meet his eyes as the beginnings of a slow, deep flush made itself felt. She knew those clever azure eyes were on her, analysing her reaction, and she strove to keep calm.

  She had seen the outcome of his acceptance only from her narrow viewpoint, as a means of enabling her to pay off Fenton, shield Uncle John.

  She had looked no further than that, believing that Jude would view the union as a business arrangement, too, that the offer of the Slade Securities shares and the addition of her own considerable fortune to his might be enough.

  However, he was not a eunuch and naturally enough he wanted children, and as a male he was biologically different and could enjoy sex without love; his emotions would not have to be involved. And if he wanted children then it would be her duty, as his wife, to produce them. But could she go through with such a marriage—to a man she did not love?

  She would have to, the answer came starkly. She was no twittery, starry-eyed teenager, and if she accepted the benefits of his acquiescence then she must accept the other. The alternative, Fenton's foul threat to go to the seamier tabloids, was impossible to contemplate.

  Having rationalised the situation, accepted it with the logic that was such an intrinsic part of her way of thinking, she was able to meet his eyes squarely, unconsciously lifting her chin and setting her shoulders.

  'I accept your stipulation. I can understand that a man in your position needs an heir.'

  She thought she had countered him with suitable dignity, admitting no hint of the carnal which his deliberate introduction of the subject of children, and the getting of them, could very well have produced.

  But her tongue ran away with her then, panicking, betraying the intimate nature of the thoughts she'd hoped to hide from him.

  'But I would like to make one stipulation of my own- that we don't—we don't actually sleep together for, well, a couple of weeks or so after we're married.' She met the cool questioning of his eyes, the slight upward tilt of one strongly defined black brow, and blundered heedlessly on, her gaucheness totally out of character. Td like time to adjust, to get to know you better—as a husband, I mean—before we actually, er--' Words failed her then and he supplied,

  'Make love.'

  His eyes moved with lazy boldness over her lips, her throat, the sweet, curving line of her shoulders and breasts.

  'It's a bargain, Cleo. Two weeks to the day.' And she hung her head, her fingers twisting mindlessly in her lap. It sounded less like a bargain than an awful threat!

  They were married quietly three weeks later, and the only , people at the sort civil ceremony were Aunt Grace, Luke and Jude's sister Fiona.

  It was fitting in a way, Cleo thought as she left the registrar's office on Jude's arm, that there weren't vast throngs of people waiting to celebrate a wedding that had been arranged, on her part through dark necessity, and on his a need, at last, to begin a family to carry on his name, to inherit his vast wealth.

  But Grace had been delighted when she'd heard the news, Cleo recalled as she watched her aunt and Fiona climb into Luke's BMW for the drive back to Slade House.

  'An excellent match!' That lady had come as near to open enthusiasm as it was possible for her to do. 'It will be good to have the Mescal name so closely allied with the Slades' again.'

  And later, Uncle John had told her, Tm glad. Glad. You couldn't have made a better choice. I have great faith in young Mescal's judgement—I only wish your father and I had had as much in his uncle's.' He had taken her hand, holding it in an unprecedented display of affection, 'But when your father and I were young we thought we knew it all, so we took the bit between our feet, pulled out of Mescal Slade and founded Slade Securities. We took risks, we had to, and it paid off. Though Grace always thought secondary banking to be socially inferior, I'm afraid. But we made up for that in superior living in every degree—Grace saw to that.' He had sighed then, as if he regretted the breakaway still. 4Yes, it's good to know the two families will be alliedagain, that "Slade" .won't just be a redundant name on a letter heading.'

  So everyone was pleased, Cleo thought; even Jude had behaved like a devoted bridegroom-to-be when they'd accepted a dinner invitation at Slade House. Not that she'd seen much of him during the past three weeks. She'd spent most of her time booking him on flights to Zurich, Bonn, New York, arranging his hotel accommodation, fixing meetings with foreign bankers and clients.

  'I rather think we should have gone first.' Jude placed a hand on the small of her back, only lightly, but it made her shudder. Today just did not feel like her wedding day. She stared unseeingly at the grey facades of the buildings on the opposite side of the street as if she didn't know where she was, what she was doing. She couldn't bring herself to look at him and Jude enquired softly, feeling that betraying shudder, 'Cold, darling?'

  'Yes. Yes, I am, a little.' Cleo grasped at the excuse gratefully. It wouldn't do his ego much good to know that his bride of ten minutes had shuddered like a startled mare because he had touched her! And the weather had changed, feeling more like November than May, and there was little warmth in the cream silk suit she was wearing, little warmth in her heart, but he wasn't to know that.

  'Shall we go, then?' The arm he put round her shoulder as he hurried her over the pavement to where the Rolls, minus Thornwood today, was parked was protective, but Cleo felt her whole body go stiff, rejecting even that small intimacy.

  But the tug of the wind on her small hat, cream straw decked with apricot roses, came to her rescue, gave her yet another useful excuse in the automatic way both hands fled up, securing the nonsensical headgear, because that instinctive movement effectively knocked his arm away.

  He looked down at her as she struggled to secure her hat, tipping it further down over her eyes in the process, and his eyes were light with laughter.

  'That scrap of silliness suits you. Makes you look ultra- feminine and in need of protection. It's a side of you that's never on display in the office. I like it!'

  There was warm appreciation in the way he smiled and Cleo scrambled into the car as he held the passenger door open for her.

  She felt a fraud, and she said over her shoulder, trying not to sound stiff,

  'You'd think I'd flipped if I turned up for work wearing this!'

  She heard his deep chuckle as he walked round the car, and she gritted her teeth. She was as she was, there was nothing more. The coolly sophisticated woman he knew as his PA was all there was to her. She had no frivolous, ultra-feminine side. Would he be disappointed when he realised that?

  He slid in beside her and the engine purred aristocratically to life at the start of the journey to Slade House where Grace had arranged a small celebration lunch party for them. Uncle John hadn't been well enough to attend the ceremony, but she'd see him at the house. She wondered, her face white and set, what his reaction would be if he knew exactly why she had married Jude Mescal. But he would never know; that had been the whole point of the exercise.

  'You're very quiet, Cleo.' Calm, azure eyes left the road for a split second, probing hers. 'Second thoughts?'

  'No, not at all,' Cleo lied. During the past three weeks she'd been having second through to tenth thoughts, but they'd all led to the same inevitable conclusion. She was doing the only thing she could, given cold circumstance.

  She would be in a far worse position had Jude refused to marry her, or if she'd got really cold feet and had called the whole thing off. She would just have to make the best of the situation, and she had far too much respect for Jude to allow him to know that his stipulation about a full marriage had her running scared.

  'Good,' he said softly, his strong profile relaxed as he returned his full attention to the road. Ther
e was even a smile in his voice, and Cleo marvelled that he should appear so much in control, so easy in his mind. He, for one, could have no doubts about their future.

  'I've some news for you,* he told her. 'Interested?'

  'Of course. Tell me.' Cleo jerked herself out of the dangerous and all too often recurring mood of introspection, and Jude grinned.

  'I've managed to fix us a honeymoon on a Greek island. Only a week, I'm afraid, that's all the time I can spare right now. But we'll have time to relax together.' He braked for traffic lights, his hands light on the wheel, and turned to her, his eyes enigmatic, 'It might help you to adjust.'

  'It sounds delightful.' She carefully kept her tone neutral, not letting him know she had recognised the specific words she'd used when making her own stipulation. 'But a long way to go for just one week.'

  'I suppose so,' he concurred absently. If he was disappointed by her lack of enthusiasm he wasn't showing it. 'But when a colleague offered me the use of his villa, the thought of all that sun, sea and solitude was too tempting to turn down. I'd been thinking along the lines of asking Fiona if we could borrow her cottage in Sussex, but I think we'd enjoy the island better.

  Besides,' his eyes slanted a totally unreadable message, 'we could both use a break in the sun. We'll leave in three days' time—

  give you some breathing space to settle into your new home.'

  He was arranging everything with no recourse to her. Was his private persona to be as dominant as his public one? She didn't know whether she liked that idea. But the tiny frown between her eyes was eased away as rapid calculations informed her that they would be back in London before her fortnight's period of grace was up. And then, as if he knew every nuance of her thoughts, every twist and turn of her brain, he added drily, 'To the world at large it will appear as a brief and romantic honeymoon. You can regard it simply as a lazy week in the sun.'