Mistess of the Groom

by Susan Napier

  Whenever Ryan appeared his mother gave him a task to perform that involved them all, and at dinner he found himself at the opposite end of the table to Jane. Melissa cheered up at this evidence that her mother's kindness might be of the killing kind, and after dinner decided it was safe to drive down the road to party with a group of friends.

  After she and Ryan had done the dishes, Peggy sug­gested a film that was showing on television-another luxury that Jane could no longer take for granted-and the three of them settled down to watch, Ryan exiled to a chair while the two women shared the couch. The film was a thriller with a strong thread of romance, and when­ever there was a love scene Jane had to force herself to keep her eyes on the screen, conscious of the brooding looks Ryan was sending her way. As soon as the credits rolled he sprang to his feet and declared that Jane was looking tired and that he would see her to her room.

  He had tugged her out of her comfortable seat and hustled her as far as the door when the arrival of an international call thwarted his intentions, and he scowled impotently as Peggy blandly offered to escort their guest upstairs while he took the call-since, if Jane was so tired, she wouldn't want to wait around heaven knew how long for Ryan to finish his business.

  'I'm sorry for putting you to all this extra work while your housekeeper's away,' said Jane awkwardly, after her hostess had tactfully helped her to change into the baggy T-shirt she had taken to sleeping in. The older woman then produced some large rubber kitchen gloves so that Jane could wash her own face, an idea which, to her chagrin, had never occurred to her-not that Great­ Aunt Gertrude appeared to have possessed any gloves­ or to Ryan, who was supposed to be so clever! But, of course, it had been in his interests to encourage her con­tinuing dependence on him!

  'I'm enjoying it,' admitted Peggy, watching Jane sit down at the dressing table and begin gingerly brushing her hair. 'It's about time Ryan came to his senses. I warned him that he would regret it if he let his desire for revenge get out of hand, but of course he claimed that that would never happen. Now I think he's finally realised that two wrongs don't make a right!'

  'That's not what Melissa thinks-' Jane winced as the bristles caught on a knot and the handle of the brush yanked free of the gentle grip of her left hand.

  'Here, let me do that,' said Peggy, picking up the brush and taking over where Jane had left off. 'Melissa still sees everything in black and white. She doesn't see that there might be wider issues at stake or extenuating circumstances. To her, there are no shades of grey.'

  'And I'm a very grey area,' said Jane wryly.

  'Oh, a veritable grey hole.' Peggy's eyes twinkled in the mirror.

  Jane swallowed. She had to say it. 'I don't know why you're being so nice to me. I mean, after what I did to Ryan, those awful lies I told to break up the wedding, the scandal ... you must have hated me.'

  Peggy put down the brush and sighed. 'Hate is such a self-destructive emotion. I was shocked, certainly, but to tell you the truth when Ava returned Ryan's ring I wondered if it wasn't all for the best.'

  'But Melissa told me you were heartbroken that Ryan didn't marry Ava.'

  The older woman sat on the bed. 'Melissa exagger­ates. What I wanted-what I still want-is for Ryan to be happy. I don't know how much he's told you about himself, but revenge was the driving obsession of his life for over a decade. The need to make your father pay for what he did shaped his ambitions and absorbed all of his emotional energy.

  'When he found out that your father was dying and forced himself to relinquish his obsession I was very proud of him-no revenge is more honourable than the one not taken. But it meant that suddenly there was a huge emotional void in his life, and I think he instinc­tively sought to fill it with the utter antithesis of the ugliness, the greed and corruption that had obsessed him for so long ... someone soft and quiet and gentle whom he could cherish and protect and never have any desire to hurt.

  'He has very highly developed protective instincts where women are concerned-a legacy of being sud­denly made the man of the family so young, I suppose ­but he also has a deep respect for female strength, which I flatter myself is because of me. I may be small and delicate-looking but I'm tough-I had cervical cancer when Melissa was a baby, but it was caught early and I'm a fighter; I faced up to it and beat it. I think when Ryan met Ava he saw a woman like me-someone del­icate, gentle, and with a core of steel that he could rely on in adversity. But the way that Ava acted at the wed­ding, and afterwards, well ... I suspect that Ryan might have mistaken quietness for depth, and that she wouldn't have had the resilience to cope with Ryan when he was in a towering temper, which is not infrequently, or to stand up to him when his arrogance needed taking down a peg or two. Would that be an accurate assessment of her, do you think?'

  Treasuring this glimpse into the complexity and contradictions of the man she loved and yet found so difficult to understand, Jane met the perceptive hazel gaze in the mirror.

  'If you're asking did I think they were unsuited,' she said carefully, 'then, yes, I thought they were deeply unsuited.' And her tone suggested that was as much as she was prepared to say.

  Peggy nodded. 'Tell me, just out of interest, what would you have done, Jane, in those circumstances? If some other woman had tried to stop you from marrying Ryan at the brink of the altar ... ?'

  Jane swung around, blood in her eye, and Peggy rose with a quietly satisfied smile.

  'Quite. Pistols at dawn rather than lady-like hysterics. Well, goodnight, my dear. Sleep well. And I suggest you lock your door if you consider you've already said a sufficiently polite goodnight to my son!'

  Jane blushed ... but did as Peggy suggested. She was deeply grateful for this unexpected gift of Peggy's moral support-whatever her motives might be-for without it she knew she could easily become a victim of her own desires. Drained by the upheavals of the day, she fell into bed and slept like a log, blissfully unaware of Ryan's soft tapping on the door an hour later.

  The next morning followed the pattern set the previous afternoon, with Ryan's suggestion of a drive over to Karekare and a walk amongst the towering black sand ­dunes overridden because Peggy wanted to look at the fashion sketches that Jane had mentioned at dinner.

  She was encouragingly enthusiastic, and when she learned that Jane had been a keen sewer at school and was eager to take it up again she offered to give her a refresher course when her hands had healed enough to handle scissors and pins. Whisked up to the sewing room off Peggy's bedroom, Jane admired the state-of-the-art electronic over-locker and sewing machine, and shyly confided her dream of one day making a living out of sewing her own designs for sale at the markets, or in one of Auckland's many individualist boutiques.

  Melissa mooched in on them and found herself reluc­tantly drawn into a discussion about the designers she liked. Shut out by a conspiracy of female opinion, Ryan gave up and retreated to the downstairs library that he used as an office.

  At lunch he was surly and made no enquiry as to what Jane intended to do afterwards, an attitude that was ex­plained by the arrival of Carl Trevor carrying a bulging briefcase. The women went down to the beach, and when they came back to find Carl's meeting with Ryan dragging on into the evening Peggy invited him to stay the night in comfortable tones of long familiarity. He accepted with an alacrity that was regarded sourly by his chief, especially when he produced an overnight bag from the boot of his BMW.

  Recalling their two previous encounters, Jane was highly embarrassed to be seated next to Carl at dinner, but he smoothly exerted himself to put her at ease and she was soon laughing at his sardonic wit, relaxed enough to tease him about his jaded view of the world and joke about her newly acquired homesteading skills.

  Peggy's maternal authority held sway, and Ryan and Melissa were briskly dispatched to do the dishes while Carl stretched and complained about the kinks in his back from an overly enthusiastic session at the gym that morning.

  'Why don't you hop in the spa pool?' said Peggy, indicating the
tiled round pool sunk into the lower level of the terrace on which they sat. 'A hot soak is probably what you need to loosen you up.'

  'Good idea-Jane?'

  She was frankly envious. 'Oh, I couldn't-my hands ... Besides, I haven't got a bathing suit,' she said wistfully.

  'I have plenty of spares for guests ... there's bound to be one your size. And you can fold your arms on the edge to keep your hands out of the water. Carl will be there to catch you if you slip. Go on, Jane,' urged Peggy. 'It's a wonderfully relaxing way to watch the sun go down.'

  And so it was-until Ryan reappeared to find his per­sonal adviser advising a giggling Jane on how to keep her straw in her glass of wine as she was buffeted by the bubbling water jets.

  'Come to join us, Ryan?' grinned Carl, floating on his back in the water, his lithe physique outlined by the underwater lights.

  Ryan's eyes glinted over Jane's body, encased in what she had thought was a very modestly cut black swimsuit. Her hair was twisted into a knot on the top of her head but steamy tendrils were escaping to corkscrew around her glistening face. She was flushed from the heat, her dark lashes spiky with moisture and her perpetually se­rious expression softened by the damp feathering of her thick eyebrows and the laughter lingering around her mouth.

  Standing at the edge of the pool, the tip of his shoes almost touching the towel on which her hands rested, Ryan seemed impossibly tall, and as Jane tilted her head back to look up into his face she inadvertently gave him a swooping view straight down into the scooped neck of her swimsuit, where her creamy breasts, buoyed by the water, jostled for room against the tautly straining fabric.

  'I want to talk to you.'

  He had the gift of making a simple statement sound ominously like a threat, but Jane felt safe with Carl at her back. He, at least, didn't tangle her up in emotional knots and make her think sinful thoughts.

  'So ... talk,' she said with an airy shrug of her pale, gleaming shoulders that made her breasts bob gently on the surface of the water as Carl swam up beside her to take a sip from his glass of wine.

  A muscle jumped in Ryan's jaw. 'Not here. In­side. Now.'

  'But I'm not ready to come out,' she pouted, encour­aged by his clipped restraint. He obviously wasn't going to risk a scene in front of his P A. 'Carl and I are working out our kinks, aren't we, Carl? Your mother recom­mended it. You should try it, Ryan, you strike me as a man with an awful lot of kinks-'

  'Uh-oh...'

  She barely had a chance to register Carl's breathy sing-song of amused warning as Ryan bent down, grasped her under the armpits and hauled her startled body out of the water with barely a grunt of effort.

  'Is this kinky enough for you?'

  Suspended from his grip, Jane flapped like a landed fish. 'Ryan!'

  Ignoring the water sheeting off her body and Carl's laughingly ineffective remonstrance’s, Ryan carried her in through the open French doors and across the wide hall.

  'Ryan, I'm dripping all over the carpet!' she protested in vain as they reached the library and she was set down with a jolt.

  'Don't think you're going to use Carl to make me jealous!' Ryan growled, his hands remaining where they were, firmly compressing the sides of her breasts, his dark blue trousers and shirt showing the wet imprint of her body. His anger was like the flick of a velvet whip.

  'For goodness' sake!'

  'I hired him, I can fire him,' he snarled. 'Bear it in mind that the next time you feel like flirting with him you could be costing him his career!'

  'You wouldn't fire an employee for flirting with me, especially not Carl!' Jane, scoffed, with an absolute con­viction that sparked a small flame of appreciation in his angry eyes.

  He dropped his hands but remained standing between Jane and the door. 'No, I wouldn't-because I'm not the cruel bastard you like to pretend to yourself that I am. And I didn't say he was flirting with you; I said you were flirting with him.'

  'I was just being friendly-'

  'Semi-nude over a couple of glasses of wine? A man could get the wrong idea about a woman that way.' She wanted to dispute the semi-nudity, but suddenly realised that it would be a mistake to attract his attention to her treacherous body.

  'Are you accusing me of being drunk?' she demanded belligerently. He knew full well that she had been in no danger of Carl misinterpreting her friendliness, but he was still furious. There was only one explanation for his unreasonable attitude: he was jealous!

  Jane's burst of triumph was swiftly followed by a deep resentment. He had even less right than reason to feel jealous!

  Ryan had planted his hands on his hips, his legs astride. 'No, just stupid-if you think I'm going to let you get away with it! This is between you and me, Jane. I won't let you hide behind another man, no matter how innocent the situation. If you want to flirt, why don't you flirt with the man you really want to hop in the sack with?'

  Her resentment was goaded into temper. 'Why, you arrogant-'

  'That's right, sweetheart, get mad,' he interrupted, running his gaze insolently down her body, allowing it to linger on her hard nipples, clearly visible against the thin nylon. 'I like it when you get hot and bothered over me.' She trembled and a wicked smile softened his angry expression. 'Hard to fight the memories, isn't it, Jane?'

  Something inside her snapped. 'You should know!' she flung at him. 'You're the one who can't let go of the past!'

  His dark head went up, as if catching a scent on the wind. 'What do you mean by that?'

  'Ava!'

  The name shimmered accusingly on the air between them.

  'What about Ava?' he said, with a careful casualness that didn't fool her for a moment.

  'Well, she's still your ideal woman, isn't she?' sneered Jane, wrapping her arms around her rapidly cooling body, her voice dripping with sarcasm as she whipped herself up into a jealous rage. It was as if Ryan's irrational burst of jealousy had given permission for hers to exist, and finally she was free to allow the old, corrosive envy that she had tried so hard to hide from her best friend to bubble to the surface.

  'She's the oh-so-fragile flower of feminine perfection that all others are measured by, the woman you loved and lost, your soul mate, the one whom you knew in­stantly on meeting was the woman for you-only, hey, guess what? It turns out that she isn't!' she said with sweet vitriol. 'She ends up marrying someone else so I guess you must have been mistaken. But you can't ac­cept that. You can't let the memory rest in peace­, you're still so hung up about her you're always asking me questions about what she did and why-'

  'Hardly always. That must be your guilty conscience working overtime, Jane,' he ground out. 'It's not her actions-the what and why of what she did that I'm hung up on-it's making sense out of your involve­ment.'

  But Jane was beyond making sense. Having set her jealousy free, she could no longer control the words spilling off her bitter tongue. 'Did talking to her again bring all your old feelings flooding back? Are you won­dering whether you might get a second chance at your first love? If you're hoping that she isn't happy, forget it! She and Conrad have a good marriage.'

  He uttered a black curse. 'I'm not the type to waste my life pining for a lost cause, and that's what Ava became the moment she got married-only three months after she left me!'

  'Oh? Then why were you so disappointed that I hadn't told her we'd slept together? Did you hope I might tell her what a fantastic lover you were so that she'd finally realise what she'd been missing? Maybe, in the twisted logic of your revenge having sex with me is the next best thing to bedding my unattainable best friend,' she spat unforgivably, and when he lunged towards her in raw outrage ducked under his arm and ran--out into the hall and up the stairs, fleet of foot, unencumbered by clothing, splattering drops of water against the walls as she dashed around the landings, conscious of his pound­ing pursuit gaining on her at every stride.

  She'd had enough of a head start to get to her room just in front of him, tears blurring her eyes as her fingers fumbled to s
hoot the lock a split second before the full force of his pursuing weight hit the door. She leaned back against it, gasping for breath, feeling the vibration of his pounding fists down the length of her spine.

  'Go away!' she shouted desperately.

  'Jane-open this door!' He punctuated his angry de­mand with a hefty kick.

  Why? So he could punish her with his contempt for her ridiculous accusations? Or poke and probe with that horribly relentless, incisive mind into the painful reasons for her ignominious loss of control? She'd thought love was supposed to be an enriching, spiritually uplifting experience, not this cheap fairground ride of thrilling euphoria followed by sickening plunges into terrifying despair.

  'No--go away!' she gulped, dragging an arm across her eyes. Surely he wouldn't dare break it down? But at least, if he did, she knew the noise would bring Peggy swiftly to the rescue.

  His voice lowered and she felt a little burnp against the back of her skull that suggested he was resting his forehead against the polished wood. 'Jane? What's the matter? Are you crying, sweetheart?' She could hear him reining in his angry impatience. 'Look, let me in. I don't want to hurt you-I just want to talk...'

  She gulped back her tears. Sweetheart! How could he call her that? Her heart was as shrivelled as an old boot and it was his fault!

  'Well, I don't! Go away! Or---or I'll scream over my balcony for your mother!'

  Silence on the other side of the door. Jane smiled a watery, humourless smile. She pressed her ear to the wood and still had it there when she heard a scraping sound coming from the open glass door to her balcony and rushed across just in time to see Ryan launch himself in a flying leap from the narrow rail of the next balcony, at least two metres away. In the darkness he seemed to hover like a sinister avenging angel before swooping earthwards.

  Jane screamed as his landing foot hit her rail and slipped off again, but the forward momentum of his up­per body carried him over the barrier to crash on his haunches in front of her.