Contract Bridegroom

by Sandra Field

  “I’d really like that.”

  Knowing she had to get out of here before she started bawling like a baby, Celia hurried down the hall to her room and repaired the damage to her makeup. It was now five to eleven. She took a couple of deep breaths and picked up the sheaf of pale gold lilies she’d chosen instead of a more traditional bouquet; they went beautifully with the ring Jethro had given her.

  Her father had never stopped loving her, she thought in pure happiness. And indirectly, of course, she had Jethro to thank for that revelation.

  In marrying Jethro, she was doing the wrong thing for all the right reasons. Or was it the other way round?

  She wasn’t sure. But she felt oddly calm as she left her room and began to descend the stairs. Nothing like a good cry to settle the nerves, she thought ruefully; and wondered if Jethro would like her dress.

  Jethro was already waiting in the living room, with its high ceilings and impressive collection of nineteenth-century American antiques. At least there weren’t any dour-faced ancestors on the walls. He tried to pay attention to Celia’s brother Cyril, who was as conservative and correct as Celia was quick-witted and vibrant. Cyril’s wife was self-effacing, while his two daughters were looking rather enviously at Lindy’s more boisterous children.

  Jethro was glad Lindy and her husband Doug were here; although his sister’s open delight in his prospective wedding made him highly uncomfortable. One minute to eleven. He only hoped Celia wouldn’t be late; every nerve in his body already felt stretched taut as a bow. One occasion when he didn’t have to act, he thought grimly. He felt and probably looked exactly like the typical nervous bridegroom.

  Was Celia nervous? What if at the last minute she decided she couldn’t go through with it?

  Then the chamber musicians grouped by the tall windows struck up a wedding processional. The clergyman took his place in front of Jethro; Dave, patting his pocket to make sure he had the ring, came to stand next to Jethro, giving him a comradely wink. Lindy, who looked very pretty in her yellow gown, smiled at him lovingly from his other side. He was getting married, he thought blankly. Married.

  It had never been among his plans to embark on matrimony. Especially to a woman he scarcely knew, who possessed the unique and very irritating ability to get under his skin.

  Slowly he turned around. Celia was walking toward him, her hand on her father’s sleeve. Her head was held high; she looked calm and composed and so startlingly beautiful that his heart gave a great thud in his chest and he felt a primitive rush of possessiveness.

  She was wearing a pure white suit with a long slim skirt slit to the knee on one side, and a jacket that hugged her body; its neckline plunged in a sharp V, the raised collar cupping her slender throat and emphasizing in its severity the soft glow of her skin and the delicacy of her collarbones. Her hair was pulled away from her face and knotted on the back of her head. She was carrying three lilies, as simple and sensuous as her dress.

  It was as though he’d never seen her before.

  And then she smiled at him, a grave smile that he sensed was at some level unsure of itself. In a flash of admiration for her courage, he smiled back, and watched as her own smile deepened.

  She was so incredibly beautiful. So elegant, so devastatingly desirable.

  So complicated and hot-tempered and independent.

  He was going to marry her.

  He felt the same rush of adrenaline that had taken him to the peak of K2; that had kept him at the wheel of Starspray in thirty-foot seas. A challenge, he thought. A challenge unlike any other in his life.

  Her father patted her hand and stood to one side. Celia directed her gaze at the clergyman, and from a long way away Jethro heard the words, “Dearly beloved, we are gathered…”

  He made all the appropriate responses; Celia’s voice sounded as clear and calm as it had on Starspray’s radio in the middle of a storm. Her second name was Marian. He’d never asked her full name.

  There was a lot he’d never asked her.

  He promised to love her and keep her, to honor and cherish her; and such was the power of the words that Jethro forgot this was a sham, a fake marriage that would end in divorce. His own voice sounded deep and sure of itself; the challenge was real.

  He’d bought a narrow gold band the same day he’d found the yellow diamond; as he slipped it on her finger, he noticed her hand was cold, and trembling slightly. He pressed it gently, trying to reassure her; then stood very still as, her tongue caught in her teeth, she fumbled to push a wider band on his finger.

  “I now declare you man and wife…”

  He’d done it. He’d married Celia Marian Scott. She was his wife. Until death do us part, Jethro thought, and was suddenly aware of how hard his heart was beating.

  “…may kiss the bride.”

  Jethro took Celia in his arms, kissing her with a swift, passionate intensity. Her cheeks were flushed when he released her; Lindy, he noticed distantly, had tears hanging on her lashes. Then Lindy and Dave were hugging them both, Cyril had embarked on what sounded like a presidential address, and Ellis was patting him on the back.

  Jethro’s nephew Stephen, aged five, tugged at his trouser leg. “Uncle Jethro, are you her husband now?”

  “That’s right, Stevie. You can call her Aunt Celia.”

  “D’you love her like Dad loves Mum?”

  “Yes, I do,” he said, keeping his gaze very steady.

  “She’s real pretty.”

  Jethro looked up, straight into Celia’s face; he said, “She’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”

  Tears flooded Celia’s eyes. She whispered, “That’s what my father said about my mother…he loved her so much.”

  And what was he supposed to say to that? Board meetings with millions at stake, business rivals, takeovers, he could handle them all with consummate skill; yet right now he was speechless. “You…look very different than the first time I saw you.”

  Her smile was more natural. “That was the object.”

  Briefly they were isolated; everyone else seemed to be indulging in an orgy of hugging. Celia said in a rush, “Half an hour before the wedding Dad and I had the best talk we’ve ever had in my life—all about my mother and why he was so overly protective of me. He really loves me, Jethro—he always has.”

  Why should two tears clinging to a woman’s lashes make his bones melt in his body? “I’m glad,” Jethro said hoarsely.

  “So this was all worthwhile,” she finished with a radiant smile. “I’ve made him happy. I knew all along I was doing it for him and I was right.”

  Doing it for her father. Nothing to do with him, Jethro.

  The clergyman suddenly reappeared, edging them both toward a walnut Duncan Phyfe table to sign the official papers that legally made them man and wife; and with a thud Jethro came all the way back to reality. Last Monday he and Celia had signed an equally legal contract about separation and divorce.

  There was nothing real about this marriage. It was fake from start to finish and he’d damn well better remember it.

  It was all for the benefit of Ellis Scott. Celia had been telling the truth a moment ago. He, Jethro, was the means to an end. No more, no less.

  She’d used him. But she’d been honest about it from the start, and he, after all, had agreed to be used.

  He got up from the table. His gut felt like a lump of lead in his belly. Dave said speculatively, “You okay?”

  Act, Jethro. Isn’t that what he’d told Celia to do at the airport the day they’d arrived here? “Sure,” he said and put his arm round his wife’s waist. “She’s taken my breath away.”

  “She’s much prettier than Starspray,” said Dave with a grin on his ruddy face, and bent to sign the register.

  Jethro could feel the tension in Celia’s body through all his nerves; stroking her hip, he said, “You don’t know how happy you’ve made me today, darling.”

  Her lips compressed; she was quite intelligent enough to pick
up the ambiguity of his statement. “I’m sure in the next couple of months, you’ll figure out a way to tell me.”

  There was an edge to her voice. Good, he thought. So you’re not totally immune. “I can’t wait for us to be alone,” he murmured, and let his lips drift down the slender line of her throat. She smelled delicious; with a fierce stab of mingled lust and power, he felt her quiver to his touch.

  By this evening, they’d be alone at the lodge. Alone and together. He’d be with Celia in the one place in the world he’d always kept strictly for himself; and how cleverly—in front of her father—she’d manipulated him into taking her there!

  He’d never taken any of his lovers to the lodge. It was one of his unbreakable rules. The other was never to get involved with a woman beyond certain scrupulously defined boundaries.

  He was doing a lousy job of keeping both those rules.

  And quite suddenly his strategy for his honeymoon dropped neatly into his mind. Yeah, he thought, turning the plan around in his head, that’ll show her. Provided I can stick with it. He said easily, “Champagne’s called for, don’t you think, my love?”

  By the time they reached the lodge in the Green Mountains, dusk was falling and every nerve in Celia’s body felt as though it were pulled unbearably tight. They’d flown from Washington to Burlington in Jethro’s private jet and picked up a car there, a sleek black Maserati. Then they’d driven east. Not a hitch in any of the arrangements. Of course not. She’d married Jethro Lathem, of Lathem Fleets.

  The narrow dirt road, overhung with huge maples, turned a sharp corner then opened into an expanse of grass edged with a stone wall and more trees. The lodge was cedar-shingled, set so artfully among pines and birches that it looked as though it had always been there. A soft gold light shone through the tall windows, infinitely welcoming. For a painful moment whose intensity knocked her off balance, Celia wished she was here with a man she truly loved—what a heavenly place for a real honeymoon.

  She smothered this sharp regret as Jethro said formally, “A couple in the village look after the place for me. I asked them to put the heat on and leave food ready for us.”

  It was the first time he’d spoken in the last hour. As though, she thought bitterly, now that they were alone, there was no need to keep up any pretense. So what was he going to do? Fall on her as soon as they were through the door?

  No sex. She climbed out of the car, stretching her limbs. To her left, a brook chuckled and gurgled; otherwise the silence was complete. She should have opted for the luxury cruiser or a weekend in Paris, rather than this isolated wilderness lodge with a man who was a stranger to her. She glanced up at him. His strongly chiselled features, his hair and deep-set eyes almost black in the fading light…what did she really know about him?

  She knew that every time he kissed her, she turned into a woman she’d never known existed: a passionate woman who forgot all restraint in her fierce hunger for him.

  She knew something else. A large part of her—the reckless Celia her father so deplored—wanted to make love to Jethro this weekend regardless of the consequences. The other part—the woman of twenty-seven who had learned that the consequences of all her actions landed squarely on her own shoulders—wanted to run a mile from him.

  If she made love to him, thereby breaking one clause of the contract, did that render the rest of it invalid? She should have asked the lawyer that all-important question, she thought unhappily, and followed Jethro up the slate path to the front door. He unlocked it and ushered her in ahead of him.

  She said spontaneously, “It’s lovely, Jethro.” The soaring cathedral ceiling and sleeping loft, an immense stone fireplace with laden bookshelves on either side, an array of colorful woven rugs: unquestionably a man’s space. Yet she felt instantly at home.

  For some reason this terrified her. Jethro said casually, “Let’s eat, shall we? I’ll check out the refrigerator, Greta usually leaves a note. The main bathroom’s down the hall, Celia; there’s another one upstairs. Make yourself at home.”

  Jethro make love to her? He was more interested in dinner than in his new wife. Nor, now that she thought about it, had he as much as laid a finger on her ever since they’d left Mason and the limo at the airport in Washington.

  Celia marched down the hall. The bathroom had a Jacuzzi, piles of thick blue towels and a mirror that showed a woman with wide, frightened eyes. She was still wearing her going-away outfit, a tailored teal-blue coat over a simple sleeveless dress; her wedding ring and the yellow diamond felt funny on her finger.

  Remember your father, she told herself. Remember that when he saw you in your wedding dress, the silence of years was broken. That’s what this is all about.

  She replenished her lipstick, dabbed on more perfume and went back to the kitchen. “The cutlery’s in the drawer by the sink,” Jethro said, “do you mind setting the table?”

  “Not at all,” she said politely. “What’s for dinner?”

  “I’ll bake potatoes in the microwave and broil a couple of filets.”

  Twenty minutes later they were sitting down to eat. The food, while delicious, was wasted on Celia; throughout the meal Jethro talked wittily and intelligently about any number of things, none of which was related to their marriage, their honeymoon or their emotions. Afterward she helped him clean up the kitchen. As he was loading the dishwasher, he remarked, “I thought you’d probably want to sleep in the loft—there’s a balcony that overlooks the trees, it’s a pleasant place to read when the sun’s out. I’ll sleep downstairs.”

  The dirty knives she was carrying clattered to the floor. She bent to pick them up. “That sounds fine,” she said in a muffled voice.

  There was no reason for her to be so immediately and furiously angry. He was only obeying the contract, the conditions she’d laid down from the start.

  He added, “I’ll probably go out for a hike first thing in the morning…that’s my usual routine when I’m here.”

  And you’re not invited: she didn’t have to be a genius to figure that one out. Celia stuffed the knives into the dishwasher and grabbed the cloth, scrubbing at the pine table as though her life depended on it. When she was finished, she carried her case upstairs to the loft.

  Jethro’s bedroom. More books, a vivid quilt in primary colors on the king-sized bed and another luxurious bathroom. She unpacked, hanging a few things in his wardrobe, in which, elusively, she caught the scent of his body. Then she changed into jeans and a loose jade-green sweater, pulling the pins from her hair and tying it back in a pony tail.

  She felt both overstimulated and exhausted; but how could she go to bed when Jethro was sitting so peacefully by the fireplace, his nose buried in a book? If this were the Caribbean, she could have gone for a swim; or if it were Paris, to the theater. She took her jacket from the wardrobe and went downstairs. “I’m going out to see the stars,” she said.

  He glanced up, giving her a preoccupied smile. “Sure…if you follow the stream, you can’t get lost.”

  She went outside, shutting the front door with a decisive snap. The air was cool and fragrant, the stars shining as brightly here as they did in Collings Cove, and she’d never felt so lonely in her life. She tramped over the grass to the stream, her hands shoved in her pockets, sat down on a rock and gazed into the water.

  It gave her no answers and did nothing to soothe the tumult of emotion in her breast. She’d got what she wanted. No sex. None of the kisses that sent her pulses skyrocketing, or the caresses that awakened in her the compelling ache of desire. Jethro was leaving her strictly alone; behaving as differently from Darryl as was possible. She should be down on her knees in gratitude, she thought, poking at the moss with a stick. Instead of which she felt frustrated, vulnerable and enraged. All at the same time.

  It made no sense.

  Half an hour later, Celia went back indoors. Jethro was putting another log on the fire; he’d changed into jeans and a cotton shirt, the fabric pulled taut across his back as he t
ossed the chunk of wood onto the flames. He was in his sock feet, his hair ruffled, a glass of red wine on the table by his chair. She said with artificial brightness, “I think I’ll go to bed, it’s been a busy day.”

  “Want anything before you go?”

  And if that didn’t top the list of unanswerable questions, nothing could. “No, thanks. See you in the morning.”

  He’d already gone back to his book and grunted something indecipherable. If she’d been lonely outdoors, Celia was now so angry she could barely see. In the upstairs bathroom she yanked on her satin nightgown—chosen with a real honeymoon in mind?—turned off the lights and fell into bed. The bed where Jethro slept when he was here by himself.

  Burrowing her head under the covers, she started counting sheep. Woolly ones, shorn ones, fat ones and thin ones; and sometime after midnight she fell into a deep sleep.

  CHAPTER TEN

  WHEN Celia woke, sunlight was falling across the bed through the skylights, and she knew intuitively that she had the lodge to herself. She padded downstairs. Jethro had left a note on the kitchen table. “Back sometime this afternoon—I’ve taken the mountain trail. Have a good day,” it said.

  She crumpled it up, threw it in the garbage and went to have a shower. She made sure that by midafternoon she was hiking in the opposite direction to him; when she got back, they ate dinner and read by the fireplace, although Celia afterward couldn’t have repeated a word of what was on the page. She was in bed by nine-thirty and tossed and turned most of the night.

  Monday was much like Sunday, except her tension level had jumped another notch and Jethro was even more assiduously avoiding her. They’d be heading back to Washington early tomorrow morning, Celia thought, standing at the living-room window and watching Jethro chop wood. The honeymoon would be over.

  It had been over before it began.

  He’d taken off his shirt and the play of muscles in his torso as he swung the ax filled her with an agony of desire. She forced it away. She’d walk up the mountain trail today; Jethro had told her he’d built a small cabin up there. It would give her an excuse to be gone most of the day.