Blogger Bundle Volume VI: SB Sarah Selects Books That Rock Her Socks

by Kathleen O'Reilly

  ‘I suppose so,’ the older woman returned after a pause, lips compressed. ‘But I don’t know what Simon will say when he hears.’

  Rhianna stared down at the carpet, as if abashed, her long lashes veiling the sudden flare of anger in her eyes. Simon, she thought grimly, has other things on his mind to worry about.

  Fussily, Mrs Rawlins picked up the box with the veil. ‘You had better take this upstairs, Caroline—before there’s another accident,’ she added, with a fulminating glance at Rhianna.

  ‘Yes,’ Carrie said without enthusiasm. ‘Yes, of course.’ She glanced appealingly at Rhianna, who picked up the cue and immediately followed her.

  ‘You’re a star,’ Carrie said simply, tossing the box onto the bed in her room. ‘But what the hell am I going to do with a thousand yards of dead white tulle when I’m wearing ivory satin? Look.’

  The dress was lovely, Rhianna thought instantly as it was removed from its protective cover and displayed. A simple Empire line sheath, needing no other adornment but Carrie’s charming figure inside it.

  She considered. ‘What flowers are you wearing in your hair?’

  ‘Roses,’ Carrie said. ‘Gold and cream, like my bouquet.’ She took the veil from the box and lifted it up. ‘But they won’t be substantial enough to hold a weight like this.’

  ‘Then we’ll just have to make it manageable.’ Rhianna paused. ‘Got a sharp pair of scissors handy?’

  ‘Oh, God,’ said Carrie. ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘Cement my reputation as the arch-vandal of the western world,’ Rhianna told her cheerfully. ‘Simon’s mother will never speak to me again, of course, but that’s a small sacrifice to make.’

  Besides, she would have far more powerful reasons to hate me—if she knew…

  She took the veil from Carrie and placed it on her own head, studying herself in the full-length mirror. ‘Heavens, it swamps me—and I’m taller than you. However, if we just use one layer we’ll be able to see your hair through the tulle, and the flowers will help too, of course. Besides, if I’m careful, it can all be sewn back together afterwards,’ she added, grinning, and gave Carrie an encouraging push towards the door. ‘Now—scissors and sewing kit.’

  Left alone, she picked up the dress with immense care and held it in front of her to see the whole effect. She’d use the veil’s shortest tier, she thought, as it would only reach Carrie’s shoulders and therefore wouldn’t detract from the lovely simplicity of the dress itself.

  At least she hoped so. After all, she’d had enough costumes practically re-made on her to know what worked and what didn’t, she thought drily.

  Then paused, staring at herself, suddenly stricken, as she asked herself what she was doing. Why was she taking this trouble over a wedding that shouldn’t even be happening? How she could be helping her friend marry a man who had already betrayed her so terribly?

  Especially when there was no guarantee that it would never occur again, she thought bitterly. That Simon would suddenly become repentant and faithful.

  But he was the husband Carrie had always wanted—had set her heart on from young girlhood. Had waited for. And this wedding was going to be the culmination of all her sweetest dreams.

  The image in the mirror was suddenly blurred. Rhianna lifted a hand and quickly wiped away her tears before they could fall on the precious satin. Besides, she thought she heard a movement in the passage outside, and she couldn’t risk Carrie coming back to catch her weeping.

  Nor could she take the dream of her friend’s whole life and smash it. She would have to keep the secret. Pretend she had no idea there had been a hidden love affair. No baby so soon and so finally eliminated from the equation.

  And no dream for me, either, she told herself, pain twisting inside her as she put the dress gently back on its padded hanger and covered it.

  Out of all that had happened, she thought, that was the hardest thing to bear. Knowing that she had nothing left to hope for.

  And having to live with that knowledge for the rest of her life.

  CHAPTER THREE

  IT OCCURRED to Rhianna that an excuse to stay out of harm’s way in her room was exactly what she’d needed, giving her a chance to catch her breath and regain some of her composure.

  Working with immense care, she’d reduced the mass of tulle by two thirds, and the discarded lengths, their raw edges neatly hemmed, were back in the box.

  Carrie was reluctantly reconciled to the idea of the shortened version, and by the time Simon’s mother discovered what had been done it would be too late. Although the fact that the veil could be subsequently reconstituted in all its voluminous glory might mollify her a little.

  Whatever, thought Rhianna. Carrie and I will be long gone anyway, so she’ll have to fulminate alone.

  But now the time was fast approaching for the next ordeal—a quiet dinner at home with the family. Including, of course, the master of the house.

  ‘The big party’s tomorrow evening,’ Carrie had told her happily. ‘At the Polkernick Arms. We’ve practically taken the place over.’

  Her face had clouded slightly. ‘But Simon can’t be with us tonight. His godfather and his wife are travelling down from Worcestershire a day early, and Margaret’s insisted that he spends the evening at home with them.’

  Rhianna had given an inward sigh of relief. At some point, sooner or later, she and Simon would have to face each other, of course. But she’d prefer that to be much, much later.

  But his absence was not going to make the occasion any easier for her. Because he was not her only problem, she reminded herself unhappily. There was also Diaz to be confronted yet again, and although there might have been a brief moment’s complicity between them in the drawing room earlier, it had been no more than that, and she was totally deluding herself if she believed otherwise.

  He would still be gunning for her. Watching her. Waiting for her to make one false move.

  So she would have to make damned sure that he was disappointed, she told herself grimly.

  And she was armoured for the challenge.

  She’d showered, and changed into a silky skirt the colour of indigo, stopped with a white Victorian-style blouse, high-necked and pin-tucked. Demureness itself.

  She’d drawn her hair back from her face, securing it at the nape of her neck with a silver clasp, and used the lightest of make-up—a coating of mascara to her long lashes and a touch of colour on her mouth. Nothing more.

  She’d accentuated the body lotion used after her shower with a drift of the same fragrance on her throat and wrists, and fixed modest silver studs in her ears.

  Neat, she thought, scrutinising herself in the mirror, but not gaudy.

  She walked over to the window seat to repack Carrie’s sewing basket, and stood for a moment staring out of the window at the grassy headland, the blue ripple of the sea beyond.

  It was the last time she would see it like this, because first thing tomorrow they were coming to put up the marquee. So she would take a long, final look now at this view, so familiar and yet at the same time so alien.

  So many memories too, she thought wryly, and so few of them to be treasured. In fact, she could almost count them on the fingers of one hand. The feel of the short turf, cool beneath her bare feet as she ran. The hot gritty slide of the sand under her burrowing toes down in the cove, and the eventual, blessed shock of the sea against her heated skin. Misty mornings. Blistering afternoons, lying languid in the shade. All pure nostalgia.

  But also tears scalding her eyes, like salt in her throat. And a man’s voice saying almost gently, ‘What’s wrong? There must be something…’

  She stirred restlessly. That particular recollection had to go. It had no place in her memory. Not any more.

  Perhaps this was really why she was here? she thought. To clear her mind of the past and prepare for a future that in so many ways was looking good. The kind of career many actresses her age could only dream of.

  Except
her dreams were different, and that was something she had to deal with once and for all.

  To accept that she’d been crying for the moon all these years, and that the man she wanted had his own obligations, his own priorities, creating a void between them that could never be crossed.

  She turned abruptly away from the window. Took several deep, steadying breaths from her diaphragm, as she did before she began an important scene. She opened her door, stepping into the passage—and ran straight into Simon.

  ‘So there you are.’ Abruptly he took her arm, propelling her back into her room and following. ‘What’s going on, Rhianna? I thought you weren’t going to be here. That’s what you let me believe, anyway.’

  ‘I told you I hadn’t made a decision,’ she defended, rubbing the arm he’d grabbed, aware that she was quivering inside, and a lot of it was temper. ‘What’s the matter, Simon? Conscience troubling you at last?’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake.’ His voice was harsh, goaded. ‘I made a mistake, that’s all. I’m not the first man and I won’t be the last to get spooked by the thought of marriage and have a fling before the gates finally shut.’

  ‘A fling?’ she echoed bitterly. ‘Is that what you call it? It’s rather more than that when you tell someone you love her. Make her believe in happy ever after, then dump her, leaving her pregnant with a child she thought you wanted too.’

  ‘Is that why you’re here?’ he said hoarsely. ‘To tell me the termination’s been cancelled after all? Or to make some other kind of trouble?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘And—no. Does that put your mind at rest? But understand this, Simon. I’m keeping quiet about this whole hideous mess for Carrie’s sake, not yours. You don’t deserve her, you appalling creep, and you never have. But you’re what she wants.’

  ‘Well,’ he said softly, ‘she isn’t the only one—is she, sweetpea?’ He lifted his hand and stroked it insolently down her cheek.

  Rhianna flinched away as if she’d been burned. ‘Just get out of here,’ she said harshly. ‘And you’d better make Carrie happy, that’s all. Don’t ruin her life as well, you complete and utter swine.’

  ‘No,’ he said, suddenly sober. ‘I won’t. Because I really do love her. Maybe it took a stupid, meaningless involvement to teach me how much. To make me realise I couldn’t bear to lose her. Can you understand that?’

  ‘I’ll never understand you, Simon.’ Her glance was cold and level. ‘Or anything that’s happened in the last months. Not if I live to be a thousand.’ She paused. ‘And my own loss, of course, doesn’t matter,’ she added bitterly.

  ‘Come off it, Rhianna.’ The mockery was back, coupled with a note of triumph. ‘How can you lose what you never had? Get real.’ He paused. ‘And now, sadly, I must tear myself away. But I’ll be back tomorrow, so remember that I’m about to marry your best friend and be nice, hmm?’ He gave her a valedictory grin, and departed.

  Left alone, Rhianna sank down on the edge of the bed, feeling the inner trembling spread through her body, permeating every nerve, every sinew.

  Calm down, she told herself. You’ve seen Simon. Spoken to him. You don’t have to do that again. By now he’ll be gone. Tomorrow there’ll be a mad rush to get everything done, and avoiding him should be pretty easy. The trick is not to make it too obvious, or Carrie will notice and wonder.

  Tonight, you’ll simply be—pleasant, speaking only when spoken to. You know how to do that. God knows, you’ve had plenty of practice over the years, right here in this house, where you’ll always be the interloper. The unwanted guest.

  And when dinner’s over you can yawn, say you’re tired after the journey. Make that your excuse for an early night.

  But above all you will not—not—cry. Certainly not now. But not even tonight, when it’s dark, and you’re lying on your own, thinking of—him. Trying not to want him and failing miserably. Just as you’ve done for so many nights in the past. As you’ll want to do for the rest of your life.

  Having composed herself with an effort before venturing downstairs again, it was something of an anti-climax to walk into the drawing room, her head high, and find it empty.

  But the rest of the party were clearly expected, because a tray of drinks, including large jugs of Pimms and home-made lemonade, plus a cooler containing white wine, had been set out on a side table.

  The French windows were standing open, and the evening sun was pouring into the room like warm gold, accompanied by the faint whisper of the sea like a siren call.

  Rhianna took two steps towards the open air, then paused. However pressing her desire to escape, she was hardly dressed for scrambling over rocks and sand, or for paddling through the creaming shallows of the tide, she reminded herself drily. Far better to stand her ground and hope the evening would pass quickly.

  She wandered back towards the wide stone fireplace, and stood looking up at the portraits which flanked it of Tamsin Penvarnon and her Spanish husband.

  Carrie had told her all about them one afternoon, when they’d been alone because Simon had been dragged unwillingly to Truro, shopping with his mother.

  ‘Several years after the Armada there was a Spanish raid on Cornwall,’ she’d said. ‘They burnt Mousehole and Newlyn, but as they were getting away in their galleys there was a fight, and one of their marine captains, Jorge Diaz, was wounded and swept overboard. He was washed up in our cove and Tamsin Penvarnon, the family’s only daughter, found him there, half drowned. She had him carried up to the house and nursed him until he recovered.’

  She gave an impish grin. ‘Then Tamsin found she was having a baby. So she and Captain Diaz got married—only the family put it about that he was really her cousin, one of the Black Penvarnons from near St Just, in case anyone asked awkward questions. He took the family name, but he and Tamsin called one of their sons Diaz, and the tradition has kept going ever since. So when Uncle Ben and Aunt Esther had a boy, everyone knew what he’d be christened.’

  She sighed. ‘It’s a wonderful story—especially as it turned out that Jorge Diaz’s father was one of the conquistadores who went to South America and won lots of land and masses of gold, which he left to Jorge’s elder brother, Juan. But Juan Diaz got fever and died too, so everything came to Jorge and Tamsin, which is how the Penvarnon fortune started. And, to add to it all, they found enormous mineral deposits on their estates in Chile. Which is why my cousin Diaz is a multimillionaire and we’re the poor relations,’ she added buoyantly. ‘Only Mummy doesn’t like me to say that.’

  Rhianna digested this. ‘Is Mrs Penvarnon—your aunt—dead too?’

  ‘Oh, no.’ Carrie shook her head. ‘She lives abroad. She just—doesn’t come back here.’

  ‘Why not—when it’s so beautiful?’

  Carrie shrugged. ‘I asked Daddy once, and he said that though Mummy and Aunt Esther were both Londoners, some people didn’t transplant as well as others. Although Jorge Diaz seemed to manage it,’ she added. ‘He and Tamsin had their portraits painted when they got rich, and she’s wearing the Penvarnon necklace, all gold and turquoise, that he had made for her. Their pictures are in the drawing rooms. One day when no one’s around I’ll show them to you.’

  Carrie had been as good as her word, Rhianna recalled, and she’d stood enthralled as she gazed up at the long-ago lovers—he with the kind of saturnine good-looks to die for, and she a red-gold beauty with vivid blue eyes.

  Now, as she took another look, the resemblance between Diaz Penvarnon and his Spanish ancestor was truly amazing, she acknowledged with reluctance once again. Shave the black pointed beard, replace the snowy ruff with an open-necked shirt and substitute a mobile phone for the sword Don Jorge’s hand was resting on with such stunning authority, and they could be twins.

  Both of them adventurers too, she thought. Their eyes looking outward with challenge, seeking new worlds to conquer and fresh fortunes to be made.

  Had Tamsin known what she was taking on that day in the cove? she wondered. Or had she ever sighe
d for a more settled existence?

  She moved slightly closer. Tamsin hadn’t the expression of a lady who suffered from doubts. Her eyes and faint smile held the same proud certainty as that of her husband. One hand toyed with an elaborate feathered fan, while the other pointed beringed fingers at the dramatic chain of turquoises, set in gold, that surrounded her neck, its single pendant stone, encircled by pearls, nestling enticingly in the valley between her breasts.

  ‘It used to be kept in that display case over there on the table,’ Carrie had told her, as they’d stood gazing that first time. ‘But there were problems with insurance, so Uncle Ben decided it should live in the bank. Penvarnon brides always wear it on their wedding days, so I suppose we’ll have to wait for Diaz to get married before it comes out again.’ She’d darted across the room to the table in question. ‘But the fan’s still here, if you want to have a look.’

  I should have stuck at looking, Rhianna recalled ruefully, but the temptation to take the lovely thing from its satin bed and hold it had been too strong.

  And as she’d touched it something strange had happened to her, as if the simple action of unfurling a fan and waving it smoothly and languidly had transformed her into a different person—a grown woman, aware of the power of her own beauty. She’d moved slowly across the room, her walk a glide, glancing from left to right under her lashes, as if acknowledging the admiration she aroused.

  She’d thought since that that was the moment when she’d known with absolute certainty she would become an actress. That she might be able to hide from her intrinsic loneliness by becoming other people.

  At the time, she’d spun round on her toe, laughing almost shamefacedly at her own silly fantasies—only to look past Carrie and see Moira Seymour standing grim-faced in the doorway, with Diaz Penvarnon just behind her.