Second Best Wife

by Isobel Chace

  'Was that all?' She could tell he didn't believe her and she was doubly hurt that he should prefer the word of that dragon of a woman. 'It wasn't, was it?'

  Georgina sighed. 'She said Celine has crying fits when she screams for hours together. But why does she have them, William? There must be some reason for her to behave like that. She was sunny enough when we arrived just now.'

  'Hmm. She didn't like it when Stuart obviously preferred yourself to her.'

  'Oh, that.' Georgina dismissed Stuart Duffield with an airy wave. 'She knew he wasn't serious. With her looks, she'll never have to worry about competition in that department!'

  'She's too young in herself to worry about things like that,' William answered. 'Thank goodness that she is! We've problems enough without her getting ideas about boyfriends or marriage!'

  'Why shouldn't she?' Georgina asked. 'Her body is quite grown up and there doesn't seem to be all that wrong with her mind. If she talks like a child, couldn't that be having to live with that impossible Miss Campbell?'

  William put his hands on his hips and glared at her. ‘D'you think you can do better?'

  Georgina nodded. She pressed her lips together and straightened her shoulders. ‘I'd like to try.'

  Exasperation gave way to a more hopeful expression. ‘Yes, but, Georgie, it won't do to bully her. You have to admit that Miss Campbell was pretty quick to sum you up. Celine wants a more gentle touch than yours. Jennifer —'

  ‘Jennifer isn't here and I am! I think I can make Celine like me —I think she does already!—and I can't think Miss Campbell is the answer to anything. Where did Celine's father find her?'

  ‘She found him. She's the old retainer type, devoted and selfless, though I have to admit I find her rather trying too.'

  Georgina slanted a look up at him. ‘I think she was in love with him,' she hazarded. ‘She certainly hated Celine's mother.'

  ‘Rubbish, my dear. The Miss Campbells of this world can't afford the luxury of falling in love with their employers. They know nothing will come of it.'

  ‘Knowing doesn't always have the desired effect,' Georgina remarked wryly. Knowing that William was in love with Jennifer hadn't stopped her falling for him. Hope could survive on very little encouragement, or even none at all. ‘William, I know my opinion doesn't count for much, but she was telling me about Celine's mother's death. She was in that fire too, but she didn't go back for that poor woman. Perhaps the fire was already too bad, but supposing it wasn't. I wouldn't put it past her to have stood by and watched her rival die.' She shuddered. ‘Worse still, she says Celine is just like her mother. If she hated the mother so much, how does she feel about the daughter?'

  William sat down on the bed beside her. ‘My dear little Georgie, how your imagination runs away with you! What do you want me to do? Tell the old harridan to go? Celine can be quite a responsibility, you know. She has frequent nightmares and she can be spiteful if you cross her. Are you sure you want to take on all

  that single-handed?'

  Georgina looked at him, her eyes pleading for something she thought he didn't have it in him to give. 'If I have your support,' she said. 'I thought you'd back me up with Miss Campbell, but you didn't. Okay, I know you don't trust me not to impose my ideas on other people, but you owe it to me to pretend we're a team in public. Or is that too much to ask?'

  William's face softened. 'I can't afford to make a mistake, Georgie, not with someone as helpless as Celine. But I promise you, I'll back you all the way for as long as you restrain your tendencies to play the bully. Play fair with me and I'll play fair with you, but if you once try to manipulate that girl to suit yourself, I'll take you apart, piece by piece! Try a little feminine gentleness and see what wonders that works for you!'

  'Try leaving me alone and see what that does!' she snapped back.

  His expression changed to one of amusement. 'But I have no intention of leaving you alone, my pet. That's what I came in here to talk to you about.' He studied the stubborn lines of her face for a moment. 'Aren't you interested?' he enquired.

  'Should I be?'

  'Most brides are.'

  'But I'm not most brides! And I'm not Jennifer — I'm me!'

  His amusement increased. 'You're you and you won't change, is that it?'

  'People don't change much,' she sighed, 'and you won't allow me to change the image you have of me, not that I care what you think! You always were prejudiced against me.'

  His eyebrows rose. 'Was I?' He leaned closer. 'Shall we call a truce until we've settled down into being man and wife?'

  'You never play fair!' she complained.

  'A truce,' he said dryly, 'binds both parties, Georgie Porgie. Come on, love, give a little bit! I don't want to have you in tears every time I kiss you, and I mean to kiss you frequently in the near future. You are my wife after all.'

  'You don't have to remind me of that! What a prize —to be the despised wife of Mr. William Ayres, the man who's never wrong about anything! Well, you can take whatever you feel you have a right to, but if I want to cry, I'll cry all the time, and you won't be able to stop me!'

  'It sounds like a lachrymose evening,' he drawled. He rolled away from her across the bed and went across the room to stare out of the window. 'You can always try and make me cry instead?' he invited her.

  'That'll be the day! You don't care a toss what I do, or how I feel. You never have!'

  He turned quickly. 'Should I be shedding tears over your fate, my Georgie? Are your tears shed for me rather than for yourself?'

  She didn't know how to answer. She made a gesture of defeat. 'I don't expect love, but you're not even kind! Nor do I think making love should be reduced to a legal obligation.'

  'Good lord!' he exclaimed. 'What do you expect? Bells ringing and violins playing off stage? Surely you, with your vast experience, must know it just doesn't happen like that?'

  She ignored his sarcasm, wishing she had a small part of the experience he credited her with. 'Perhaps you've never had the right partner,' she struck out at him. She cowered away from the glint in his eyes, wishing herself anywhere else but there. 'If you had, you wouldn't behave as though it were nothing more than sharing a cup of tea!'

  'Well, if one's wife isn't the right partner, who is?' he demanded softly, advancing towards her with such steely purpose that she shivered despite herself.

  'One's beloved,' she insisted.

  He came to a stop in front of her, their knees touching, and looked down at her, his eyes burning a deep gold. He was even larger than she had remembered, standing over her like that, and he looked more than capable of holding his own in any battle with her. Not that she would be putting up much of a fight, for she had never felt more weak and feminine, with a tingling fear that might have been mistaken for joyful anticipation of the coming struggle. Was it possible that she wanted to lose to him?

  'William, we have to go back to the others! Please don't! Not now!'

  'Why not now?' He sounded triumphant and very much in control of the situation.

  'I'm not ready — ' By contrast her own voice was ragged and unsteady. 'I'm tired and—and I'm hungry too.'

  'Are you now?' He swept her up on to her feet and into the circle of his arms. She looked up at him fearfully and was astonished to find he was smiling. 'You seem smaller than ever. You fight like a heavyweight, so it comes as a constant surprise to find you such a small handful!'

  'I haven't any shoes on,' she found herself explaining, 'and I stopped growing a long, long time ago, so I doubt I'll grow any larger —'

  'I expect I'll get used to it in time,' he mocked her. His hand went to the collar of her dress and trailed an intimate fine down to the hollow between her breasts. He unbuttoned the first button, and then another, ignoring her hesitant attempts to prevent him. 'Where's all that experience you were boasting about now?'

  She clenched her fists, battering them against his chest. The blows wouldn't have hurt a fly and despair mingled with a burgeoning ex
citement that threatened to betray her into openly inviting his caresses. Even so, she was unprepared for the moment when he bent his head and his lips claimed hers with a force that made her glad of the strength of the arm that held her close up against him. She made a last, feeble protest before flinging her arms round his neck with an abandonment that would have shocked her to the core at any other time.

  The harsh urgency of his kisses bewildered her as much as her own response, awakened new emotions she had never known existed inside her. When he pushed her gently back on to the bed, she clung to him as if her life depended on it.

  'Don't go!' she flung at him. She buried her fingers into the hair at the nape of his neck and arched her body invitingly against his.

  'I'm not going anywhere, my sweet.' He stripped off his shirt in a single movement and took her back into his arms. 'I want my wife and, it would seem, she wants me too! I can't say I believed I'd ever think you lovelier than Jennifer, but you have a beautiful body.' His

  mouth travelled from her lips to her breasts and back again, smiling deep into her eyes. 'Aren't you going to kiss me too?'

  She shook her head. 'I can't.'

  She felt his laughter rather than heard it. 'All those claims, my dear little Georgina, and you're as innocent as a young girl. Confess, you've never felt like this before, have you?'

  She shook her head again. 'I've never —'

  He turned her face gently towards his, exploring her mouth with his own. 'Never? Oh, Georgina! Why didn't you say so before?'

  'You didn't ask me.'

  He leaned up on his elbow, smoothing her hair away from her face. 'I still mean to have you, Georgie Porgie. I'll be as gentle as I can—'

  His words were cut off by a yell of anguish from some other part of the bungalow. It came again and again, rending the air with its piteous sound.

  'Celine!'

  Georgina felt cold with shock. 'Celine? But it doesn't sound human! William, why?'

  He pushed her away from him. 'How should I know? I'd better go to her. Sometimes, if one gets in early enough, one can stop her before she really gets started. You'd better get dressed too.'

  Georgina pulled her clothes together with a heightened colour. 'If I'm going to look after her, I ought to go to her now,' she insisted. 'Poor girl! She sounds as though she's having a terrible nightmare, as if she's really asleep. I wish we could wake her up!'

  'To her it's a nightmare, a nightmare of fire and death, but she won't talk about it. She never has.'

  They went together to Celine's private sitting-room, where the girl sat for long hours on her own, refusing any company or occupation, preferring to spend her time staring with unseeing eyes into space. Now she was struggling to get away from Miss Campbell, who was attempting to calm her.

  'I won't! I won't!' she was screaming. 'I won't tell them anything!'

  Miss Campbell looked grim. 'Who would believe such nonsense? No one has ever seen a demon a hundred and twenty feet high, you stupid girl! Certainly not one with the head of a bear! I never heard such nonsense!'

  'It was there!' roared Celine. 'I saw it! It had a thing like an elephant in its hand —an elephant-shaped cup! And then there was the fire again!'

  Georgina pushed Miss Campbell to one side, taking the girl into her own arms. 'Shall we look for this demon together?' she asked her, hugging her tight. 'It's all right, Celine. I believe you!'

  'It won't be there now,' Celine sobbed. 'It never is. Before, it was something else, but now it wears a mask and it drinks blood. I couldn't have imagined that, could I?'

  'No,' said Georgina carefully, 'I don't think you could.'

  Celine stopped yelling, amazed by this reaction. 'Nobody ever believed me before!' she sobbed. 'Never! Never! Only I've never seen a demon like this one before. He was horrible!'

  Georgina's eyes met her husband's. 'William will find out his name and, when you know who he is, you won't be afraid of him any longer,' she promised soothingly. 'I'm sure he has a name.'

  'They never have names!' Miss Campbell snapped.

  'The first one did,' William remembered, sounding surprised himself.

  'The first one was an Aborigine character.' Miss Campbell sniffed.

  'She shouldn't be encouraged in her fancies, sir. If you ask me, she frightens herself deliberately. I've no sympathy with her!'

  'So I've noticed, Miss Campbell,' William returned smoothly. 'Happily, it seems that my wife has. Shall we leave her to finish calming Celine by herself? We would be better employed discussing the terms of your notice, I believe.'

  Miss Campbell turned venomous eyes on to Georgina's startled face. 'You'll regret it!' she spat out. 'You'll both regret it!'

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The atmosphere at dinner was decidedly frosty. Georgina tried to tell herself that the depression was centred on Miss Campbell, but it was finally borne in on her that Miss Campbell was completely herself again, as was Celine, and the only person who seemed to be suffering from reaction after the scenes of a couple of hours earlier was herself.

  She did her best to respond to Celine's overtures of friendship, but all she really wanted to do was to escape from the lot of them, to shut herself in her room and to howl herself to sleep.

  ‘What are those masks in the hall?' she asked the girl— unwisely, she thought, the second the words had left her mouth.

  ‘There's a whole craft industry centred round them in Sri Lanka,' Celine told her shyly. ‘Do you like them?'

  Georgina wondered how to answer. ‘They're very colourful,' she said guardedly.

  ‘I like them,' Celine volunteered. ‘I like the small ones and the ones that don't move. They're different from— from—' Her mouth quivered and she looked fearfully across the table at Miss Campbell.

  ‘Madam shouldn't have reminded you,' Miss Campbell reproached Georgina. ‘Now, now, chicken! You don't want to water down your soup with your tears, do you? You get on with your food, my dear, and forget all about your little adventure. We don't want you having nightmares in the night, do we?'

  The blankness came back into Celine's eyes. ‘The moon is getting full now,' she said.

  ‘That's right, dear. Girls and boys, come out to play, The moon doth shine as bright as day!'

  A brand new suspicion crossed Georgina's mind. She turned impulsively towards her husband. ‘Did you know Miss Campbell when you were fifteen?' she demanded.

  His lips twitched. ‘No, that was my own inspiration,' he answered. ‘It was a long time ago, Georgie. Isn't it time you forgave me for that?'

  ‘Never!' She glared at him, but a little giggle inside her betrayed her. ‘It wasn't funny, William. It wasn't at all funny for me!'

  ‘You made far too much of it — then and now.'

  'You didn't have to listen to that dreadful rhyme being whispered by all and sundry every time you appeared anywhere. It hurt badly for years and years, especially as I was only trying to defend Jennifer from that little creep. It hurt terribly! I'd liked you up until that moment, you see, and then that had to happen!'

  'My dear girl, you didn't like me at all! You were as prickly as a hedgehog.'

  'I was ten years old.'

  He smiled slowly. 'Is that an explanation or an excuse?'

  She smiled too. 'You were so large. It never occurred to me that you might be feeling out of place at a children's party. All I was thinking about was how much I hoped you'd like me! You had a beautiful bicycle and I wanted to go for a ride on it. I thought you might take me upon the crossbar —'

  'I invited you for a ride later on,' he reminded her. 'You refused.'

  She flushed, looking young enough to be ten years old all over again. 'I had to refuse! I didn't want to have anything to do with you after —after coming out with that!'

  'It could have been worse, my dear. I might have said: There was a little girl who had a little curl, Right in the middle of her forehead. When she was good, she was very, very good, But when she was bad, she was horrid!'

>   'That wouldn't have done the same damage,' Georgina said at once. 'I wouldn't have minded that half so much.'

  'Why not?' he asked, intrigued.

  'That could have been anyone, the other one everyone knew to be me!'

  He shrugged, losing interest. 'You do have a little curl, though. You had it then, and you have it now. Mother used to refer to it as your "kiss-curl". You have pretty hair, Georgie Porgie, even if it does lead a life of its own. It never stays put like Jennie's does.'

  Georgina could have told him that she didn't use hair lacquer as her sister did, but she didn't. She sighed instead, wondering rather bleakly if there would ever come a time when he would cease to compare her with Jennifer all the time. She glanced out of the window at the steadily falling rain and took consolation from the thought that her sister would have hated everything about the bungalow and the sodden scenery. Jennifer was a fair-weather person in all senses of the word. She hated wet weather as much as she hated having to put herself out on another's behalf. Nobody could be more pleasant while everything was going well, but when she was crossed nobody was safe from her ire.

  'It's all right,' she muttered inelegantly. 'It suits me as it is.'

  His eyes mocked her. 'It certainly does!' he agreed. Celine came suddenly to life, pointing her knife at Georgina in a manner which caused Miss Campbell to click her tongue disapprovingly. 'Georgie Porgie ran away when the others tried to play! Did you run away, Georgina?'

  'Not she!' William said on a laugh. 'She gave them all a bloody nose!'

  'I did not!' Temper flared inside Georgina. 'You and Duncan were the only two—ever!'

  'The others must have been wise enough to keep their distance!' William taunted her.

  To everyone's surprise and to her own consternation, her eyes brimmed with tears and they ran unchecked down her cheeks. She wiped them away with an angry hand, ashamed of displaying such weakness before her tormentor. But he was already on his feet, standing over her with his arm round her shoulders.