The Flawed Marriage

by Penny Jordan

  ‘Clothes now,’ he told her when they emerged from the jewellers, adding sardonically, ‘Try to look as though you’re enjoying yourself—if nothing else helps try reminding yourself that you’re spending my money. It never failed with Teri.’

  ‘But I’m not Teri,’ Amber snapped, colouring when she saw the way he looked at her.

  ‘No,’ he agreed slowly, ‘you’re not.’

  The words seemed to hang on the air, waiting for the rider that didn’t come—that Joel regretted the omission. Was he still in love with his ex-wife? Amber wondered. She shrugged the thought aside, telling herself that Joel’s feelings were no concern of hers.

  ‘In here.’ He touched her arm lightly, propelling her into a small boutique of the type Amber normally walked past enviously, ignoring the lure of the one or two outrageously expensive garments in their windows.

  The shop was empty apart from the saleswoman, who came forward with a pleasant smile.

  ‘My fiancée needs some new clothes,’ Joel told her with an unexpectedly charming smile. ‘She’s been ill recently and has lost weight. We’re getting married in three days’ time, and she keeps insisting on telling me that she simply can’t put together a new wardrobe in that time.’

  Very obviously rising to the challenge, the saleswoman bustled importantly about the cool gold and white interior of the boutique, clicking her tongue over Amber’s slender frame, and exclaiming over her fragile appearance, while tactfully ignoring the appearance of her leg.

  ‘This could take some time,’ she told Joel with a smile. ‘If you have any other shopping to do…’

  Taking the hint, Joel glanced at his watch and told Amber he would return for her in an hour. ‘And remember,’ he warned her, bestowing another of his mock tender smiles, ‘I want you to dress like the woman I love!’

  The warning was so subtly couched that only Amber was aware of it, Joel’s departure leaving the saleswoman beaming fatuously.

  ‘Aren’t you the lucky one?’ she exclaimed. ‘When did he say you were getting married?’

  ‘Monday,’ Amber told her, hoping her voice didn’t sound as hollow as it felt.

  Had anyone told her that she could completely refurbish her wardrobe in an hour she would have laughed at them, but with the saleswoman’s skilled assistance it didn’t prove to be an impossibility after all.

  There was a cream suit with a belted jacket and a delicate self-embroidery on the lapels and the skirt just above the elegant fan of pleats. Amber wanted to buy a blouse to wear under the jacket, but the saleswoman said that to do so would spoil the line of the suit.

  A cocktail dress in a matt black jersey with tiny shoestring straps and a glittering matador-shaped jacket fitted her like a second skin and did something unexpected to the pale translucency of skin Amber had privately thought insipid beforehand. An entrancing range of separates in a clear fashionable blue were added to the growing pile; a silk dress in dark gold with a flattering draped neckline and a slender skirt was pronounced a ‘must’, and in a final reckless moment of abandon Amber fell for a slim blouson in pale cream suede with gathered cuffs.

  Joel returned exactly an hour after he had left, just as the saleswoman was persuading her to try a spectacular picture hat in soft cream trimmed with artificial flowers.

  ‘We’ll take it,’ he announced decisively, watching her. ‘And that.’ He gestured to a dress hanging on the rail which Amber had discarded as far too expensive. It was a model, Edwardian in conception, in a soft shade of peach lace with a deeply plunging neckline and a lace choker ornamented with peach silk flowers. Amber had tried the dress, fallen in love with it, and regretfully put it on one side, as much for the fact that she thought it totally unsuited to her as the price.

  As they left the shop the saleswoman recommended a beauty salon where Amber could have her face made up and her hair done.

  ‘Later,’ Joel told her as he grasped the expensively embossed black and gold carriers. ‘First, some lunch.’

  They ate in the restaurant of a comfortable hotel where the food was good without being pretentious and Amber was able to relax and feel at ease, without feeling she was the cynosure of all eyes in her dull clothes. Dismissing the idea that Joel had deliberately chosen the restaurant to spare her any embarrassment, she reminded herself that everything she was doing now was only a prelude to what would happen once she had his twenty-five thousand pounds.

  After lunch Joel suggested that while she was visiting the hairdresser he would call at his office.

  ‘After all,’ he reminded her with an ironic smile, ‘I won’t have much opportunity to work on Monday!’

  The hair-stylist enthused over the texture and colour of Amber’s hair, snipping very little off the length but re-shaping it so that it hung in a shiny fall over her shoulders.

  The make-up artist was a pleasant girl who showed her several tricks for emphasising the size and colour of her eyes, and by the time she was ready to leave their experienced and skilled hands Amber was longing to discard her drab interview clothes and change into some of the new things Joel had bought for her. It was so long since she had taken any pleasure in what she wore that the feeling was almost unfamiliar.

  After Rob had left her, she had packed away all the new things she had bought for their holiday unworn. She had asked her landlady to send her things on, but she knew that no matter how attractive the things she had bought they simply didn’t compare with the clothes Joel had bought for her today.

  He was waiting outside the hairdresser’s for her in the car, his eyes moving slowly over her shining hair and newly made up face.

  ‘Good,’ he said at last. ‘I like to know I’m getting value for my money.’

  It was like a slap in the face. Amber could feel her newly found confidence draining away as she slid into the car. They had gone several miles before she realised that they were heading away from Joel’s home, and as though he read her mind he said calmly,

  ‘We’re supposed to be having dinner together, remember? So I thought we’d kill two birds with one stone. There’s a hotel not far from here where they hold dinner-dances most Saturdays. I’ve booked us a room and a table—the room is so that you can change,’ he told her acidly, seeing her expression. ‘We could well meet some of my friends…’

  ‘And you don’t want to be ashamed of me?’ Amber finished bitterly for him.

  ‘We’re supposed to have fallen in love,’ Joel pointed out calmly. ‘I’ve yet to meet any woman in love who celebrates that fact dressed like a schoolgirl, and a particularly frumpish one at that.’

  Amber was forced to acknowledge the truth of his statement, much as it rankled.

  ‘Neither do I want my friends to think I’m getting married in some hole-and-corner fashion, or that I’m ashamed of my bride,’ Joel continued smoothly. ‘That isn’t the object of the exercise at all. Remember what I told you—no loopholes; no flaws; this marriage is going to be watertight as far as the outside world is concerned.’

  The hotel he took her to was several miles outside Kendal, a gracious ivy-clad building with excellent views of the Lakeland peaks. He had booked them adjoining rooms, and there would be plenty of time for Amber to explore the hotel and its environs before they needed to change for dinner, he told her in response to her comment that the hotel grounds looked particularly attractive.

  Amber’s room overlooked the side of the hotel, and had excellent views of the hills. While she was admiring them a porter came in with her parcels which she directed him to leave on the bed. She had barely started to walk towards them when she heard a brisk tap on the door. Opening it, she found Joel standing outside.

  ‘May I come in?’ Without waiting for an answer he walked into her room, glancing assessingly over the extremely comfortable room. ‘It just dawned on me that you might decide to explore the grounds alone, and I thought I’d better remind you that we’re supposed to be a couple on the brink of engagement, so it might be as well if we were to share the
pleasure of their seclusion.’

  His glance fell on the bed and the parcels lying there and he walked across to them.

  ‘Have you anything here suitable for walking in?’

  Amber thought about the attractive separates she had just bought, and although she was tempted to say that she considered the clothes she was already wearing more than adequate for walking, some perverse streak of femininity she had thought suppressed by her accident surfaced, revolting at the thought of continuing to wear the drab garments she had on when much more attractive clothes were there to be worn.

  She was about to reply in the affirmative when her eye was caught by a gold and white box she didn’t recognise as being one of her purchases, and she went towards it in dismay, thinking that the porter must have brought it up with her things in error.

  ‘Ah,’ Joel drawled, grasping the box, ‘a gift for my bride-to-be…’ He handed it to her, watching her speculatively. ‘Aren’t you going to open it?’

  ‘You’ve bought me so much already,’ Amber protested, but Joel shrugged her protest aside.

  ‘Props,’ he told her laconically. ‘A very necessary part of our charade if it’s to be played successfully.’

  Amber didn’t answer, she couldn’t. She was too busy staring at the contents of the gold and white box, a terrible anguished pain tearing at her heart as she gazed disbelievingly at the froth of silk, chiffon and lace. Her trembling fingers moved awkwardly over the fragile, cobwebby garments—a nightdress in finest crěpe-de-chine, a matching negligee, delicate, feminine underwear, designed to be worn by a woman confident of her own beauty and her body’s ability to reflect that beauty when clad only in brief wisps of satin and lace.

  ‘Something wrong?’ Joel enquired dulcetly, watching the play of emotions across her face.

  ‘I can’t wear them,’ she told him bitterly. ‘Please take them away.’

  ‘What’s wrong? Aren’t they the right size?’ His eyes rested provocatively on the soft thrust of her breasts and Amber flushed, knowing as she did that he had judged her measurements almost exactly.

  ‘I can’t wear them,’ she insisted, turning away from him to add in a low voice, ‘You’ll have to be content with transforming my public image; or were you hoping that by dressing me in fine silks and satins you could pretend I was Teri?’

  Only her anguish could have forced her to say such a foolhardy thing, and she knew she had gone too far the moment she saw the brooding anger in Joel’s eyes.

  ‘That would be impossible,’ he told her curtly. ‘She was a woman who delighted in the sensuality of her body—but then she had good reason to,’ he added cruelly, turning on his heel. He paused at the door to say curtly, ‘If you want to walk in the grounds I’ll meet you downstairs in half an hour.’

  Amber shook her head. ‘I don’t think I’ll bother,’ she told him tightly, waiting until she was quite, quite sure that he had gone, before flinging herself full length on the bed and crying until there were no more tears left.

  What on earth was the matter with her? she asked herself when the storm had finally abated. What did it matter if Joel Sinclair compared her unfavourably with his ex-wife? Why should she care if he insulted her by buying her the kind of frivolous, sensual underwear that he must know mocked and underlined her scarred and disfigured body?

  CHAPTER FOUR

  TO judge by the number of people who had approached their table during the half an hour they had been sitting there, Joel had a good many acquaintances in the locality, Amber reflected, knowing that she was the cynosure of most of the feminine eyes in the room—eyes which had widened slightly, betraying their owners’ astonishment as Joel had introduced her as his fiancée; glances which had made her writhe selfconsciously, knowing what a contrast she must present to the other women. Automatically she tucked her damaged leg under their table.

  ‘Something wrong with your steak?’ When she shook her head, Joel said softly, ‘Then try to look as though you’re enjoying it. We’re celebrating our engagement—remember?’

  As he spoke he leaned forward, capturing one restless hand and conveying her fingers to his lips, kissing the finger bearing his engagement ring lingeringly.

  Colour scorched Amber’s face. She tried to pull away, gasping as his fingers tightened, knowing that they were being watched.

  ‘That’s better,’ Joel approved. ‘A little colour in your cheeks suits you, you’re too pale—and too thin,’ he added critically.

  ‘Illness does that to you,’ Amber said bitterly. ‘I’m sorry if I don’t match up to your exacting standards.’

  ‘Beggars can’t be choosers,’ Joel replied indifferently, ‘and you suit my purposes well enough.’

  He had ordered champagne, but Amber barely touched the bubbling liquid in her glass. Every now and again her eyes went to the engagement ring he had placed on her finger, a curious little pain twisting her heart. What was the matter with her? It was stupid to feel so ridiculously sentimental over the bestowing of a ring. The ring was just another part of their business arrangement—nothing more.

  In an alcove at the far end of the room, musicians struck up a waltz, and couples who had finished their meal got up to dance. Amber watched them, unaware of the wistful expression in her eyes.

  ‘Shall we join them?’

  She looked at Joel as though he had struck her.

  ‘Now what’s the matter?’

  ‘I’m a cripple,’ she reminded him bitterly. ‘I can’t dance.’

  ‘Can’t—or won’t?’

  Her face as white as the tablecloth, Amber stared at him.

  ‘Have you ever tried?’ Joel continued remorselessly. Before Amber could prevent him, he was on his feet, coming round to her side of the table, his fingers burning through the thin silk of her new dress as he urged her to her feet. Caught off guard, Amber stumbled against him, prevented from falling by the hardness of his arm round her waist, drawing her against him in a parody of a lover’s embrace.

  Once on the dance floor it wasn’t as bad as she had dreaded. The lights had been dimmed and the pace of the waltz was slow enough to accommodate her stiff muscles. Pain ached and flared through her calf and she bit down hard on her lip, refusing to give in to the temptation to favour her good leg.

  Pain brought a misting of tears to her eyes, which she tried to blink away, knowing that people were watching them.

  The dance seemed to go on for ever, and when it eventually ended Amber’s whole body was trembling with exhaustion and reaction. As the lights came on Joel’s arm slid round her waist, catching her off guard as he pulled her firmly against him, her trembling legs supported by the solid-columned muscle of his. She felt the warmth of his breath grazing her forehead, and lifted her face to tell him to release her, ashamed of the momentary weakness that had made the strength of his body a welcome resting-place, her eyes widening as she read the purpose in his eyes, her mouth parting on a soft protest which was silenced by the firm pressure of his lips.

  Amber was no naïve, impressionable teenager. She had been kissed before, and not just by Rob, but never once had she experienced the mind-reeling skill of a kiss that swept aside conventions and reached deep down to the vulnerable core of her, dragging from her throbbing lips a response that shocked and bewildered her.

  When Joel lifted his head she couldn’t meet his eyes. His drawled, ‘Well, you’re an excellent actress if nothing else,’ left her feeling raw with pain. ‘A very convincing demonstration of desire,’ he continued harshly, and something in the cold words made Amber look up at him. His eyes were grey lakes of winter ice, rimmed with contempt—and for what? she raged inwardly. He was the one who had kissed her, who had decided upon this ridiculous charade.

  ‘If you’ve changed your mind—–’ she began hesitatingly, only to have her words silenced by the angry oath that ripped from his throat, his face dark with an anger surely totally out of proportion to whatever sin she was supposed to have committed.

  ‘What are
you trying to do?’ he demanded savagely. ‘Up your price? No way! We’ve made a bargain and you’re going to stick to it. Teri bled me dry; and going through that once is enough for any man. And don’t even think of running out on me now, Amber,’ he threatened softly, ‘otherwise a badly scarred leg will be the least of your problems!’

  Too terrified to protest, Amber let him bundle her out into the car, aware as he hurried her past the other diners of their amused and speculative glances. She overheard one woman saying quite clearly to her companion, ‘I never had Joel down as the impetuous lover, more the cool calm collected type, but he certainly seemed anxious to have his little fiancée all to himself. Why, do you suppose? Surely not an excess of celibacy? I could name at least half a dozen women who’d be more than glad to share his bed.’

  As Joel hustled her away, Amber just caught the first angrily muttered words of her male companion’s response, his, ‘Yourself included, Delia,’ heightening her own flush of chagrin. She glanced at Joel’s impassive features, but there was no clue to be read there indicating either that he had overheard the woman’s comment, or that it was true.

  * * *

  Two days later they were married—a simple church ceremony made possible by the special licence Joel had procured and a broadminded and understanding vicar who seemed to know Joel quite well and obviously did not take exception to his divorced status.

  The wedding was a very quiet one—a few friends of Joel’s, all strangers to Amber; and Paul, who seemed quite pleased to learn that she was to be his stepmother.

  ‘You’re lucky really,’ Jennifer Boston, the wife of Joel’s accountant, told her over the excellent lunch Joel had arranged at the same hotel where he had taken her dancing two days before. ‘Stepchildren can be one of the biggest problems of a second marriage, as I know to my cost.’ She grimaced a little, putting out her cigarette with a jerky movement, her face drawn. ‘Mike has two, a boy and a girl, and they make my life hell. He has access every other weekend; I look upon those weekends as the penance I have to bear for the pleasure of being Mike’s wife. Those two kids hate me, I can tell by the way they look at me, and they never miss an opportunity of talking about their mother; of reminding Mike of things they did together as a family before he and Shirley split up; excluding me. And the damnable thing is that I didn’t even meet Mike until he was divorced. God, I shouldn’t be telling you all this,’ she apologised. ‘It must be the champagne—it affects me like that.’ She was elegant brunette in her late twenties, plainly in love with her husband, and Amber could see despair in her hazel eyes.