The Bartered Bride

by Anne Weale

  A lot of them were the over-indulged, under-disciplined children of broken marriages. During the holidays they had too much pin money and not enough supervision. Several girls she knew by sight hadn’t completed their time at school. They had been expelled for serious misdemeanours ranging from night-time truancy to drugs.

  Fortunately, although described as ‘lazy’, ‘inattentive’ and ‘irresponsible’ in her school reports, Fran had never been taken up by the group known to the serious-minded girls as The Decadents. The fact that she was reserving herself for Julian would have debarred her from that clique. Although far from being a teacher’s pet, from The Decadents’ point of view Fran was one of the girls they called The Nuns.

  She was thinking about her lack of sexual experience and wondering what conclusions the detective had drawn about her in that respect, when the telephone started to chirrup.

  She forced herself not to grab it, letting it signal six times before she said coolly, ‘Hello?’

  ‘Good morning.’

  If the distinctive voice at the other end of the line had mocked her about not leaving the phone off the hook, she would have cut the connection and dashed round the flat disconnecting all the extensions.

  But Reid didn’t refer to her parting shot. He said, ‘I’d like to show you my library. Will you have lunch with me?’

  She drew in her breath, knowing she was on the brink of one of the defining moments of her life.

  ‘If you’re worried about being alone with me, you needn’t be,’ Reid went on. ‘My household is run by staff who are far too respectable to stay with any employer who doesn’t live up to their standards. But even if that were not so, I’ve already made it clear my intentions are honourable.’

  She could guess from the tone of his voice that there would be a sardonic quirk at the corner of his chiselled mouth.

  ‘All right,’ she said. ‘What time and where?’

  When he had rung off, she looked at the exclusive address she had jotted down on the notepad and wondered why she had relented.

  Less than twenty-four hours ago she had stormed out of his office, convinced he was out of his mind. Now she was going to have lunch with him. Had she gone out of hers?

  Before setting out for their lunch date, Fran reread the file Reid had sent her.

  He was thirty-four, twelve years older than herself. A big age gap. It seemed likely that wasn’t the only gulf between them.

  Kennards, a merchant bank dealing with long-term loans for governments and institutions and advising on takeover bids, had been founded by his great-grandfather. The controlling influence had been retained by Thomas Kennard’s descendants.

  Unlike her father, Reid hadn’t had to claw his way up from nothing. The facts in the file indicated that from birth he had been groomed for the position he occupied. But family influence couldn’t have made him head boy at his public school if he’d lacked the qualities needed for that position, nor could it have gained him an impressive degree at one of England’s most prestigious universities. He had to have a brilliant brain.

  So why pick someone as unbrainy as me? Fran pondered uneasily. She knew she had other equally important qualities and had never wanted to exchange them for a superior intellect. But for a man like Reid deliberately to select a female who operated by instinct rather than logic seemed strange, not to say suspect.

  He lived in a large house in one of the most select squares in the ultra-fashionable Royal Borough of Kensington. The butler opened the door to her and took her coat.

  A man in his fifties, dressed in an ordinary dark suit with a discreet tie, he led her up a sweeping staircase, past a line of family portraits, to a large first-floor landing. As they reached it, Reid was descending the stairs from the floor above. She noticed his thick dark hair was damp and wondered why. It seemed an odd time of day to take a shower.

  ‘You’re admirably punctual,’ he said, holding out his hand to her.

  As they hadn’t shaken hands the day before, it was her first experience of the firm clasp of his fingers. Then he took her lightly by the elbow to steer her across a rose and gold Aubusson carpet and through open double doors in an elegant drawing room with three tall windows overlooking the square.

  Normally Fran would have swept an appreciative glance around the beautiful room, taking in some of the details. Instead she was overwhelmed by the strength of her reaction to their first physical contact.

  ‘I nearly kept you waiting,’ said Reid. ‘I came back from the bank at eleven to go for a run in the park. As I was coming home I saw an old man on a bench who obviously needed medical attention. That held me up.’

  ‘Do you run every day?’

  ‘I try to. Are you a runner?’

  Fran shook her head. ‘I play tennis and ski. I don’t do work-outs.’

  He slanted an appraising glance at her figure. Today, in place of the black suit, she was wearing a designer outfit bought on a holiday in Italy. It consisted of a fine jersey-knit top in lilac, a waistcoat in violet, and a swirling chevron-striped skirt combining those colours with pink and pale pistachio-green. The audacious colour combination was perfect with Fran’s dark red hair and green eyes.

  ‘You look in good shape,’ he remarked. ‘But people in desk jobs like mine need some kind of fitness regime to stave off the bad effects of a sedentary lifestyle. Come and sit down. What would you like to drink before lunch?’

  She remembered his remark about the wine she had been drinking when he forced his way in the previous evening. Was he one of those people who drank only mineral water and made everyone who didn’t feel on a lower plane?

  Fran had no intention of allowing him to intimidate her. ‘A Campari and soda, please,’ she said firmly.

  Reid said to the butler, who had been following them at a discreet distance, ‘A Campari for Ms Turner and my usual, please, Curtis.’

  With a silent inclination of the head, the butler withdrew.

  ‘Let’s sit over here, shall we?’ Reid steered her towards a group of comfortable chairs near one of the windows. ‘Have you finished your packing?’

  ‘Almost.’

  Knowing that she wouldn’t be able to sleep, she had worked on it till long past midnight. At half past nine this morning a dealer from whom she had bought a lot of the furnishings had come round to buy them back. Luckily Fran had paid for them out of her bank account. Although the money in it had come from her father, technically they were her property, not his. As soon as his business had been forced into receivership, everything George Turner had owned, including the family home, belonged to his business creditors. But the cash the dealer had handed her could go in her own pocket.

  It wasn’t much but it was better than nothing if, when Reid spelt out the terms of this trade-off marriage, she found that she couldn’t accept them.

  ‘What date is this house?’ she asked, looking up at the elegant cornice around the ceiling and the two crystal chandeliers, their chains swathed with coral silk to match the festoons of silk cord and big coral tassels at the tops of the heavy cream curtains.

  ‘Late eighteenth century. Are you interested in architecture?’ He sounded faintly surprised.

  ‘Sometimes.’

  The butler came back with their drinks, hers a slightly more vivid red than the coral linen slipcovers on some of the sofas, Reid’s colourless except for a twist of lemon floating among the ice cubes. It could be gin or vodka, or it could be straight mineral water.

  Reid said, ‘This was my grandparents’ house. My paternal grandmother still lives here when she’s not staying with her daughters. I moved here when my father died. We had been living in Oxfordshire and commuting by helicopter. For the time being I have an apartment on the top floor. But I thought you would feel more comfortable being entertained in the main part of the house,’ he added, with a gleam of amusement.

  After a slight pause, he added, ‘I shall move out when I marry. The country is better for children... if their parents can ch
oose where to live. Most people can’t of course.’

  ‘Where are you thinking of moving to?’ Fran asked.

  ‘I haven’t decided.’ His expression was enigmatic. ‘Where would you choose to live, given a free choice?’

  Fran considered the question. Once the answer would have been ‘Wherever Julian wants to live’.

  She said, ‘Probably not in England. Ideally, I’d like more sun than we get in this country. I wouldn’t mind living by the sea...or a lake would do as long as it had mountains round it. I’d like to look out on mountains... big ones with snow on top.’

  He lifted an eyebrow. ‘Sounds as if New Zealand would suit you.’

  She shook her head. ‘I’m sure it’s a beautiful country but it’s too far away from Europe. Have you been there?’

  Reid nodded. ‘The scenery’s magnificent...when it’s not raining. The South Island shares England’s problem. Unreliable weather. Where have your travels taken you?’

  ‘Mostly to holiday places...the Caribbean in winter... resorts round the Med in summer. My mother’s a passionate gardener. She doesn’t like travelling alone, even in a group. I’ve been on some garden tours with her...the south of France, Ireland, California. Where do you go for your holidays?’

  ‘I used to go with my father who also liked someone with him. We went to Japan together and to other Pacific Rim countries. I travel a lot for the bank. For pleasure I usually go to France or Spain. Where would you like to go for our honeymoon?’

  The question, tacked on to innocuous small talk, took her by surprise.

  ‘I haven’t agreed to marry you,’ she said coldly.

  ‘If you found the idea unthinkable, you wouldn’t be here,’ he said dryly. ‘Let’s be straight with each other, Francesca. I need you...you need me. It’s a sensible, practical arrangement.’

  She knew that at least the first part of what he said was true, but she wasn’t about to admit it. Was it pride that made her reluctant to fall in with his plan too readily?

  She said, ‘I’m not clear why you’ve selected me.’

  ‘You’re very attractive...as I’m sure you’re aware.’

  ‘Is that all you want in a woman? An acceptable face and figure? Don’t you care what I’m like inside?’

  ‘I can make some intelligent guesses. People can’t hide their characters,’ he told her casually. ‘Even in repose a face gives a lot of clues to its owner’s temperament. Apart from yesterday’s evidence that you have a short fuse, I haven’t detected any characteristics I wouldn’t like to live with.’

  His arrogance took her breath away. In that moment of silent shock, she was struck by the thought it would be both a challenge and public service to bring this man down from his lofty pinnacle and convert him into an acceptably unassuming person.

  But perhaps it was already too late. One of Gran’s favourite sayings was, ‘What’s bred in the bone must come out in the flesh.’

  Reid, with his long-boned thoroughbred physique and his autocratic features, looked a descendant of generations of men who had felt themselves to be superior beings and never experienced the doubts felt by ordinary people.

  In a different, more rough-hewn way, her father had been the same. Probably, somewhere far back in Reid’s ancestry, there had been a man like her father: a roughdiamond unscrupulous go-getter who had founded the Kennard fortune.

  Perhaps, if George Turner had married someone better equipped to handle him than her quiet and easily cowed mother, her father might have been saved from becoming an overbearing braggart.

  Whether, at thirty-four, Reid’s essential nature could be modified was problematical. But it could be interesting to try.

  She said, ‘I don’t find you as transparent as you seem to find me. It takes me longer to make up my mind about people.’

  ‘You haven’t had as much experience of summing up people as I have.’

  The butler reappeared. ‘Luncheon is ready when you are, sir.’

  They ate in a smaller room with a view of a large garden, an oasis of well-kept greenery in the heart of the city. The surface of the round Regency breakfast table had the gleaming patina resulting from nearly two centuries of regular polishing. It reflected the colours and shapes of the red-streaked white tulips arranged in what Fran recognised as an antique tulip-pot, its many spouts designed to support the stems of flowers which had once been costly status symbols.

  The meal began with potted shrimps served with crisp Melba toast, tiny green gherkins and a dryish white wine which they continued to drink with the main course, chicken with a minty yogurt dressing.

  While they ate Reid talked about plays and art shows he had been to recently. It was the kind of conversation made by strangers at formal lunch parties and although his comments were interesting, Fran thought his choice of subjects irrelevant to this particular situation.

  When the butler had withdrawn, leaving them to help themselves to a fruit salad with fromage frais, or to a selection of more substantial cheeses, she said, ‘Why do you want a wife when you could go on having girlfriends and change them when you get bored?’

  Offering her the elegant Waterford compote, its apparent fragility emphasising the powerful but equally elegant form of the hands in which it was cradled, he looked at her with unexpected sternness.

  ‘I have a responsibility to my line. I need sons to carry on the traditions established by my predecessors.’

  She found his solemnity irritating. ‘Are you expecting me to provide proof of my fertility?’

  Before she could add that, if he was, he could forget it, Reid said, ‘No, I’m prepared to chance that.’

  ‘Big deal!’ Fran said sarcastically.

  She had the feeling that Reid wouldn’t hesitate to divorce her if she failed to live up to his expectations in some way.

  But although he struck her as a monster of coldhearted self-centredness, she couldn’t deny that he was extraordinarily attractive. Every movement he had made since they sat down had heightened her awareness of the lean and muscular physique inside the well-cut suit and the long legs under the table. His hair was dry now but still had the sheen of health. There was nothing about him suggestive of stress or tension. He seemed entirely relaxed. Yet why did he need to arrange a businesslike marriage instead of falling in love the way people usually did?

  Wondering, suddenly, if he might be in the same situation as herself, heartbroken, although it didn’t seem likely, she said, ‘When did you dream up this scheme?’

  ‘It’s an idea I’ve had for some time...probably since my contemporaries started divorcing. I have about a dozen god-children, most of whom now have stepparents, some official, some not. I don’t want that for my children.’

  ‘Did your parents stay married?’

  It seemed to her that his face underwent a change. His lips didn’t tighten. His eyebrows didn’t draw together. But there was a subtle hardening and chilling, reminding her of the impression of formidable coldness she had received yesterday morning when they sat on opposite sides of his imposing desk.

  Now they were at a table designed for a more intimate and relaxed conversation. But she sensed a change in the atmosphere and knew she had trespassed in an area of his life where she was an unwelcome intruder.

  ‘They separated. They were never divorced,’ he answered.

  Fran wanted to ask how old he had been when the separation happened, but something made her hold her tongue.

  Later, going back to the flat in the taxi he had laid on for her, she regretted restraining her curiosity.

  When—if—two people were going to many, there shouldn’t be any ‘No go’ areas between them...or at least none of that nature. His past girlfriends were not her business, but his family life certainly was. She shouldn’t have allowed herself to be put off. From now on she wouldn’t be, she told herself firmly.

  Later that afternoon, her sister rang up.

  ‘How’s it going?’ Shelley knew about clearing the apartment but not
about the interview with Reid.

  ‘I’ve more or less finished. How are things with you?’

  ‘Fine, but I’ve just been talking to Mum and she sounds at the end of her tether. You don’t think she might crack up...have a real nervous breakdown, do you?’

  ‘She wouldn’t dare,’ Fran replied. ‘Imagine Gran’s reaction to anyone in her family going to pieces. She’d consider it letting the side down.’

  But despite her cheerful response, intended to soothe Shelley’s anxiety, Fran wasn’t as sanguine as she . sounded. Her mother’s state of mind had been worrying her for some time.

  ‘Gran’s made of sterner stuff than Mum,’ said her sister. ‘You’re like her and so am I, up to a point. But Mum’s nothing like her. She takes after Grandad’s sister, the one who was jilted and never really recovered.’

  ‘Maybe...a bit. But Great-Aunt Rose wasn’t strong and Mum is. There’s nothing wrong with her physical health. She’ll be all right, Shelley. Just give her time to get over the shock of it all.’

  ‘I hope you’re right.’ Her sister didn’t sound convinced.

  ‘I live with her. I ought to know. In some strange way it may be harder for a woman to come to terms with the end of an unhappy marriage than to lose a husband she loved. Mum can’t look back and say to herself, “Well, I can’t complain because we had thirty great years which is more than lots of people do.” Her marriage was one of the duds.’

  ‘You could be right. Even though everyone else feels it was all Dad’s fault they didn’t get on, I think she blames herself...and I guess if she had been different, he would have been. Still, that’s all in the past. What worries me is her future. She’s never going to marry again, that’s for sure, and she isn’t equipped to stand on her own feet. Somehow, between us, we’re going to have to look after her... but how?’

  This was ground they had already been over several times and Fran didn’t want to rehash it until she had made up her mind whether the solution offered by Reid was feasible.