A Paper Marriage

by Jessica Steele

  `You're very pale,' her father said in concern as they arrived at the church. `Are you all right, Lydie?'

  She should tell him. Tell him that the wedding was off. `Fine,' she murmured faintly, her head in turmoil as they walked up the path to where her attendants were waiting in the sunshine.

  All before she had been able to marshal any coherent thought, her bridesmaids were falling in behind her. And while Lydie, nerves grabbing her by the throat, was reeling from her thoughts, in the next instant so the organist changed from the Handel he had been playing to Wagner's `Bridal March' from. 'Lohengrin' and the congregation rose to its feet.

  I'll talk to the vicar. Lydie' s thoughts raced in panic. I'll whisper to him that I need to speak to my fiance in private. I'll... She saw Jonah up ahead, tall and straight in his morning suit, and suddenly she couldn't think of anything but that she loved him so heartbreakingly much and wanted so to marry him, to be his wife.

  Swiftly she looked from him to her left, where her mother, her brother and his new wife were standing. Her mother would kill her if she cancelled now. After all her labours, her hair-tearing, her mother would probably never speak to her again if now, at the very last minute, with everyone there to witness it, she called the wedding off.

  Lydie looked to the front again, and she and her father arrived next to Jonah and his best man, his brother Rupert. Lydie's thoughts were in total disarray when she felt that Jonah was looking at her. She turned her head to look at him-he smiled at her-and quite simply she loved him so much that what she should do and what she did were poles apart. She married him.

  It was as if in a dream that Donna relieved her of her bouquet, that her father gave her away, and all Lydie was conscious of was of Jonah. Her voice was husky; his voice was firm, unhesitating as they exchanged their vows. Their eyes met, and she felt like melting at the warm encouragement in his superb blue eyes-as if he was very aware of the dreadful shyness that had chosen that day of all days to roar in and trounce her.

  His touch on her shaking hand was magical, tender, as he placed his ring on her marriage finger-and they were declared man and wife. Shortly afterwards, the marriage register signed, witnessed, and all formalities completed, the organist was breaking out into `The Wedding March' from Mendelssohn's A Midsummer Night's Dream. And, with her hand through Jonah's arm, they were soon heading the procession back up the aisle and going out into the sunlight, the bell ringers again busy.

  They stood together at the church steps, people milling around, photographers, professional and amateur beavering away. Jonah bent to her. `I know you've heard all the compliments, but out of this world doesn't begin to cover how indescribably lovely you look, Lydie.'

  `Thank you,' she murmured. But by then her brain had started to wake up, and the enormity of what she had just done began to thunder in. She had cheated him! Oh, my... She should tell him. She saw her mother-beaming.

  `You're still shaking,' Jonah bent to say quietly. 'We'll be...

  `Jonah, I...' There were people everywhere, friends, family, everyone smiling, everyone in first-class humour.

  `Gone shy Lydie?' he teased, perhaps to help her feel a little less strung up when, having interrupted him, she had nothing more to add. She couldn't answer. He'd hate her when she told him. And tell him she would have to.

  Though in the following hours, although they were together the whole time, there was not the smallest chance of any kind of a private conversation. And Lydie's nerves stretched and frayed.

  She had stood with him to greet the guests. Had introduced people to him he had not previously met; he had done likewise. Charlie Hillier came and kissed her cheek and she introduced him to her new husband. Jonah weighed Charlie up in two seconds' flat, and was charming to him. Then Jonah was introducing someone called Catherine-and as Lydie shook hands with her she could not be jealous because she trusted Jonah not to allow her to shake hands on this day with any of his old flames.

  And all the while that was what was getting to her-she could trust Jonah but, by cheating him, he could not trust her!

  They sat down to a meal that was quite splendid; her mother would not have countenanced anything else. Then the speeches began. First Rupert made a humorous speech-Catherine, seated next to him, turned out to be his latest in a long line of girlfriends. Then Lydie's father made a wonderful speech where he let everyone know that if he'd had to personally choose a husband for his dear daughter he would not have done better than to have made the choice she had made. Then Jonah was on his feet, his speech short but sounding sincere when he said that he would want for nothing more than to be married to Lydie.

  Had that been true Lydie felt she would have fainted away on the spot from the sheer joy of it. But as spontaneous applause broke out, and her mother and Jonah's mother, and even Kitty, seemed quite moist-eyed, Lydie knew that it was not true.

  In fact she started to think that all of it was a sham, and she was heartily glad when the time came that she could disappear up to her room to change. She needed to be by herself. Though in actual fact she had time only to read through again the letter from her great-aunt's solicitors and to slip it inside her handbag-oh, why had it had to arrive today?-before her cousins and Donna were in her room to help her change. Lydie was quite able to change without assistance, and could have done without company just then, but tradition was tradition, she supposed.

  `Are you feeling all right, Lydie?' Donna asked under cover of the three cousins hooting with laughter at some tale of Gaynor's. `You seem quiet, if you know what I mean.'

  `I'm absolutely fine,' Lydie answered. `It's been a bit of a long day, though, hasn't it?"

  'You should be home by eight, nine o'clock at the latest. And you'll have two whole months on your island in which to recuperate.' Donna smiled.

  From where Lydie was viewing it, she would be very surprised if, after she had told Jonah what she had to tell him, they would be going anywhere. Forget the honeymoon.

  Though, with their goodbyes seeming to take for ever, Lydie started to think they would be lucky if they reached Yourk House by nine that evening, let alone eight. And by the time she was at last alone with Jonah, she was feeling so uptight she didn't think she would be able to say a word to him. Yet she must. Before this day was out he had to be told-that his wife was a cheat!

  `Alone at last!' Jonah commented as he swung his long sleek car out past the gates of Beamhurst Court.

  Tell him! Lydie opened her mouth-and closed it again. 'Jonah...' she tried, but her voice sounded all kind of cracked and strangled in her ears and she could find nothing to add.

  Jonah glanced at her and smiled, one hand leaving the steering wheel briefly to take her hand in a reassuring squeeze. `Try to relax, Lydie,' he said kindly. And, his smile deepening, `You know I don't bite.'

  Oh, heavens, he thought she was nervous with him. That on this, her bridal night, she was tense and starting to get worried. But it wasn't thatshe longed to be in his arms, ached for his kisses. She had not seen him for almost two long weeks. Almost two long weeks since she had last been in his arms, had last been held by him, held and... She blanked her thoughts off and closed her eyes, and was tormented all the way to Yourk House. She wanted to be his wife. But that word `cheat' rattled around and around in her head. Cheating. Was that any way to start to build a marriage?

  `Tired?' Jonah asked as they pulled up at Yourk House.

  Lydie guessed he could be forgiven for thinking that. Her replies to any conversation he had attempted had been monosyllabic to say the least. She found refuge in the answer she had given Donna earlier.

  `It's been a-a bit of a long day,' she replied, and as Jonah got out of the car and came round to the passenger side she quickly stepped out-in consequence bumping into him.

  She would have turned away, but the hands that came out to steady her continued to hold on to her. Lydie looked up into a pair of fantastic, understanding blue eyes.

  `Stop worrying. I'm not a monster.' He gave her
a small shake. `We don't have to seal our marriage tonight. We've got two whole months in which to intimately get to know each other.' He smiled encouragingly. `There's no rush.'

  She stared at him, all thoughts of how she had cheated him gone temporarily from her mind.

  'You-don't want to make love to me?'

  He laughed. It was wonderful to see. `Oh, Lydie,' he said softly, `have you got a lot to learn.' And, so that she did not misinterpret his reply, `I want you, quite desperately, but I want more desperately that everything is right for you.'

  Lydie looked at him, startled. But before she could begin to assess what, if anything, he meant by that last bit, he had picked her up in his arms and was carrying her over to the front door of Yourk House.

  `Traditional, I believe,' he murmured, unlocked the door, and carried his bride over the threshold of her new home.

  He did not set her down until they were in the drawing room. And by then Lydie's thoughts and emotions were all over the place. Her heart was racing just to be so close to him. Don't tell him, urged the part of her that wanted so badly to stay with him. Why tell him? If that letter from those solicitors hadn't come today she would have been married to him for two whole months before either of them knew anything about it. By then they would have grown to know each other intimately. Perhaps by then Jonah, her husband, would have begun to care for her a little. Who knew? Don't tell him.

  He lowered her to the floor, and she stood with him in the circle of his loose hold. `Mrs Ross will have left us some supper,' he began.

  But Lydie was shaking her head. She was starting to get confused. Food would choke her. 'I'm-not hungry,' she said quickly, her voice sounding all kind of staccato even to her ears.

  `You've had a busy day,' Jonah answered, `chatting to all our guests with never a minute to yourself. Would you like to go to bed?' he asked. And, when she went to jerk out of his hold, 'Shh,' he quieted her, but kept her there in his arms. `You're trembling,' he murmured, and smiled reassuringly as he tried to ease the new moments of being alone at the start of their married journey together. 'We'll share a bed, but until you feel comfortable having me there next to you we'll just lie together.'

  `Oh, Jonah!' she cried, emotional tears welling up inside as she coped with a feeling of being stunned that he should be so considerate, so thoughtful. `You're so kind.'

  He looked at her, his mouth curving wryly. `Does that entitle me to kiss my bride?' She stared at him, her heart going wild within her. And, when she was too choked to speak, Jonah appeared to take that as an indication that she had no objection. Because a moment later he was drawing her that little bit nearer and his head was coming down-and his lips were claiming hers.

  It was a gentle kiss, a tender kiss, and when he pulled back they just stood staring into each other's eyes. What he was reading in hers she had no idea. Certainly there was no objection there to his kiss. And, as he drew her that little bit nearer still, Lydie did not have any objection to make when he kissed her again.

  Of their own volition her arms went around him, and suddenly she was on the receiving end of a kiss that made her legs wilt. `My wife,' he murmured against her mouth, and as she responded their bodies came close, and they kissed and moulded to each other.

  She loved him so, and her lips parted voluntarily to allow the tip of his tongue to enter. She pressed to him and felt a fire scorch through her when he moved his hands to her hips and he pulled her yet closer to his wanting body.

  And her body was wanting too. `My wife', he had called her. She was his wife. Joy started to break in her. But as the words `My wife' throbbed through her, and passion between them mounted, so that part of her that was essentially honest chose just that moment to rocket in and bombard her.

  Wife! She had no right to be his wife. She felt his hands on her skin beneath the short jacket of her suit. Felt the bliss as he caressed her silken skin. He kissed her again, ardently, his hands caressing her back, her bra a barrier to that caressing. He unclasped her bra, his hands travelling freely, deliciously, over her soft smooth back while his tongue penetrated that little bit further. His mouth was still over hers, creating mayhem to her senses when his palms moved round to her ribcage. She felt his warmth and seemed not to be breathing at all when his loitering hands inched their way up under her bra. Then in breathholding moments his hands caressed their way ever upwards until both her firm breasts were in his hold. Again he kissed her, and as his fingers made a nonsense of all coherent thought in her he stroked and moulded in exquisite torment around the hardened peaks of her breasts that welcomed and wanted more. Instinctively she pressed into him, hearing his small sound of wanting; it was how she felt too.

  He kissed her again, and his mouth was still over hers when his reluctant fingers left her breast, and with that hand caressing the side of her face he looked deep into her eyes, and softly breathed, `I think we'll be more comfortable upstairs, don't you?' He bent, as if to pick her up in his arms and carry her to their marriage bed.

  Her sharp, `No!' stopped him, though she hardly knew from where that protest had come. He was her husband and she wanted to be his wife.

  Arrested by her protest, he stared at her, as well he might-she had been giving him very affirmative signals. `No?' he echoed.

  'I-c-can't,' she stuttered, and knew that she could not. She loved him too much to cheat him. If she said nothing, she would be his wife-their marriage consummated. It was what she wanted. She wanted to be part of him, of so much, to share her body with him, to share his body. But-no! It could not be. It had to stop. With her heart aching she turned her back to him and did up her bra, and, her throbbing, wanting breasts once more confined, she straightened her jacket and turned to him. He was looking nowhere but at her, a thoughtful expression on his face.

  `Okay,' he said calmly after a second or two, `let's go back five minutes. I'll apologise for what's just happened if you want me to, but you're a very desirable woman, Lydie-you I'll have to forgive that my antennae read it wrong. So we'll go upstairs-but perhaps you'd better sleep alone tonight after all.'

  `Oh, Jonah. It's not-' She broke off, shyness belatedly arriving so that she could not tell him that it was not that she did not want to follow where he lead in their lovemaking, but that it was not right that she should. `I can't...' she said helplessly.

  `You don't have to tonight. I've already said...'

  `I can't-ever,' she butted in, because she had to.

  `Ever?' He looked puzzled, and as if he was trying to work out what was going on here.

  `Never,' she replied chokily.

  `Oh, Lydie,' he sympathised. `Your nerves are shot. Don't worry, after a night's rest, everything will-'

  `Our marriage will have to be annulled!' she butted in quickly, while she could still find the strength.

  `Annulled?' Oh, heavens, she could see that Jonah did not care at all for this development. Though his tone was controlled when he quietly asked, `You don't think I might have a little something to contribute to that decision?"

  'You don't understand,' Lydie said desperately, keeping her distance from him-she still felt all of a tremble from his kisses and needed all the strength she could find. Though she rather thought, knowing his strong aversion to being cheated, that he would help her on her way when she told him what she had to tell him.

  `You're right there. I don't understand,' he replied.

  'I-I cheated you,' Lydie confessed, her heart falling into her shoes when she saw him frownhe did not take kindly to hear he had been cheated, she could tell. She hurried on, `I have the money-or will have. The fifty-five thousand! I knew it just before I left for the church,' she admitted breathlessly. And, as she had to, `I should never have married you,' she owned shakily.

  What she expected once that stark confession was out in the air, Lydie was not sure. Probably that, hating that anyone should attempt to cheat him, Jonah would send her back to Beamhurst Court without delay. That, she having cheated him, would be got rid of tout de suit
e. Their marriage annulled before the ink on their wedding certificate was set.

  What she had not expected was that Jonah would be remotely interested in knowing more than that she had cheated him. But, to her consternation, he fixed her with a stern look and, `You've just said you should never have married

  me,' he took up toughly. And, looking directly into her anxious green eyes, he as toughly added, `Then perhaps, my dear, you'll have the courtesy to explain exactly why you did?'

  Lydie stared at him, numbed. She wasn't ready for this. She need not have married him for her father's sake; she had known that before she had reached him at the altar. It therefore followed that she had married him solely because she loved him and had wanted to marry him more than she had wanted anything in her life. But there was no way she was going to tell him that. Though, with Jonah standing there watching, waiting, everything about him was telling her that she was going nowhere until she had given him an explanation-but -what explanation could she possibly give?