In the Best Man's Bed

by Catherine Spencer

But her attempt to cover up what was going on in Solange’s quarters had soon put paid to that, and the worst of it was, Anne-Marie had been able to offer no reasonable explanation for her sudden, inexplicable behavior. If only he was more approachable, less inflexible, she might have tried, but that was like wishing for snow on Bellefleur—a notion too fanciful to be entertained.

  Josephine handed her a wide-lipped cup balanced on its saucer as gracefully as a lotus blossom floating on water, the china so translucent, a person could almost read print through it. “Earl Grey today, my dear. I hope it’s to your taste. Help yourself to lemon, if you prefer.”

  “Thank you.” She sipped the hot, fragrant liquid, and found it delightfully refreshing despite the tropical heat visibly shimmering above the flower beds beyond the verandah. “And they fell in love?”

  Josephine blinked. “Who? Oh, André and Patricia, you mean? She was a Hythe-Griffiths, you know, of Griffiths pharmaceutical fame. Very well to do, very aristocratic. And André—well, the Beaumonts are the crême de la crême in these parts. Ethan’s great-grandfather bought this island in 1921. It had been a French territory before that and was in very sad shape. A few fields of cotton, some peas and corn, wild cattle and sheep—nothing you’d want to live with nowadays, I can assure you. But he rescued it from neglect and turned it into a viable community. Have another scone, child. They’ll only go to waste if you don’t eat them.”

  “And Patricia?” Anne-Marie prodded, her curiosity about Ethan’s background itching to be satisfied.

  “I’m getting to that part. My father was a profligate. When he took over, he drank away the family fortune and let the island fall back into decay, so it was a blessing all around when his horse threw him and broke his neck, because that left André, my younger brother and Ethan’s father, in control.”

  “I see.” Anne-Marie hid a smile. Clearly, her hostess was not one to waste sympathy on those she deemed to be undeserving!

  “André slaved to restore Bellefleur,” Josephine continued. “All those citrus groves and coconut palms you passed, the day you arrived here, are part of his legacy, as are the cotton plantations. He built the roads, an airstrip, a school. And he started a horse breeding program which is what took him to Barbados.”

  “Where he met Patricia.”

  “Exactly. It was love at first sight for both of them. She was a beauty, a true English rose, and André….” Josephine sighed, her dark eyes misty with fond memory. “Oh, he was handsome! All the eligible women on Bellefleur wept a little when he brought home a bride. Ethan looks very much like him, but he has his mother’s eyes.”

  “You say André was handsome. I take it that means…?”

  “Restoring this island to prosperity eventually killed him. He worked himself to death.” She blinked, and stroked the wedding ring on her left hand. “And he did it on purpose, because he didn’t care to go on living.”

  “And Patricia?”

  “Died in childbirth, a year after she came to Bellefleur as a bride. A terrible tragedy. It never should have happened. But we had no hospital here at the time that she went into labor, and a wicked storm had blown in from the Atlantic, which made getting off the island impossible.” She sighed. “It was only after Ethan was born that André built the medical facility, and named it after her. Too little, too late, as the saying goes.”

  “Poor man. He must have been heartbroken.”

  “More than that, it broke his spirit. He blamed himself for his wife’s death, and became frighteningly withdrawn for months afterward. But he had a baby to look out for, a son who needed a mother, and I didn’t live here then because Louis’s work kept us in Europe. So, two years later, André remarried. Celine was a good woman, a devoted wife. She gave him another son, Philippe.”

  “How did Ethan feel about that?”

  “Oh, he was thrilled! He was five at the time, and had no memory of Patricia, remember. Celine was the only mother he’d ever known, so there was none of the resentment you might have expected from an older child who’d seen another woman come in and take his birth mother’s place. He was very protective of his baby brother.”

  “And yet, from your tone and expression, it seems there was no happy ending for this new family.”

  Josephine sighed again. “I’m afraid not. Celine loved André deeply, and he loved her, too, after a fashion, but not the way he’d loved Patricia. Celine knew it, and she was proud. She grew tired of competing with a ghost and always being second best, so she left when Philippe was eight. André wouldn’t let her take the boy, and because she was Roman Catholic, divorce was out of the question, so she joined a French convent as a lay person, and took the veil after she became a widow, seven years after that. Ethan was twenty when his father died and left him to take charge not just of the island, but of Philippe, too, who was a very unruly teenager.”

  A faint sound overlaying the soft whir of the ceiling fan in the room behind had both women looking over their shoulders to find Ethan standing in the open doorway, blatantly eavesdropping. “I can’t imagine our guest cares one iota about our family saga, Josephine,” he said stiffly, his glance skating over Anne-Marie with stunning disregard.

  “On the contrary,” she said. “I’m enjoying hearing about the Beaumonts and their doings.”

  “Why?” He flung the question at her baldly, resentfully.

  In the hope that it might persuade you I’m not quite as reptilian as you seem to find me, she nearly told him, shivering in the cool blast of his indifference. “Family histories always fascinate me, I suppose because I have so little of my own.”

  “I didn’t know you were back already.” Josephine extended her hand in welcome. “Have a cup of tea with us, mon cher, and tell us about your trip.”

  So he’d been away and hadn’t necessarily been avoiding her, after all! An untoward flush of pleasure rippled over Anne-Marie, but it barely had time to register before he squashed it.

  “I was able to take care of the problem in a matter of hours,” he said, accepting the cup his aunt offered and looking out at the sweep of jungle and ocean beyond the garden.

  “You were up very early this morning. It was still dark when I heard the car leave.”

  “Did I disturb you? I’m sorry.”

  “I never sleep well when I know you’re en route to the oil platform. That whole operation makes me very uneasy.”

  The smile he turned on his aunt, warm and full of teasing affection, filled Anne-Marie with envy. “You don’t like having an oil baron in the family?”

  “I don’t see the necessity for it. We’re Caribbean landowners, not Arabian sheikhs.”

  But he could have passed for one, Anne-Marie thought, sneaking a look at him as he stood surveying his tiny kingdom. A blue-eyed western sheikh, as proud and powerful as his desert counterpart.

  “Running Bellefleur costs money, Tante Josephine. We have an obligation to the future generations of this island.”

  “Your father relied on its natural resources.”

  “They’re no longer enough. And I enjoy the change of pace.”

  “Do you?” she replied tartly, clearly put out at having her opinion dismissed. “Well, Anne-Marie could use a change of pace, too. She’s working much too hard. I told her you’d show her the stables.”

  Once again, his cool gaze drifted over Anne-Marie. “I doubt she’s really interested.”

  Anger rushed in to take the place of that wayward flash of optimism. “Why don’t you try asking me, instead of behaving as if I’m a piece of furniture incapable of speaking for myself?”

  He raised one arrogant eyebrow. “Do you ride?”

  “Not as well as you, probably,” she said. “But I’m as capable as the next person of appreciating a fine animal.”

  “You know what to look for in a horse, do you?”

  “Besides two legs more than you possess, and a head more handsome?”

  He grimaced, annoyed, but Josephine let out a squawk of laughter. “Chil
d, you are a breath of fresh air, and just what this man needs to remind him there’s more to life than work!” she crowed, tossing down her embroidered napkin. “Help me up, Ethan. It’s time for my pre-dinner siesta.”

  “I expect you have to go, too,” he said hopefully to Anne-Marie, once his aunt had left.

  “I suppose I do.” Bereft, she brushed a few crumbs from her skirt, and drifted toward the steps leading to the garden.

  “You can find your way?”

  “Certainly. I’ve become quite familiar with the layout of the grounds.”

  “And the wedding gown? Is it finished yet?”

  “Not quite. I ran short of seed pearls and am waiting for more to be sent from Vancouver.”

  “I hope you didn’t rely on them arriving by ordinary parcel post.”

  “No. I always use a courier.”

  “That’s good. Because mail delivery to the island is unreliable, to say the least.”

  Such inconsequential conversation seemed out of character for a man who, a moment before, had been insultingly anxious to see the back of her. “What’s the purpose of these delaying tactics, Ethan?” she inquired boldly. “Is there something else you’d like to say to me that has a relevant purpose beyond wasting both your time and mine?”

  “Not at all,” he said, staring out at the landscape.

  “If you’re worried that I’ve ignored your edict that I stay away from Adrian, don’t be.”

  “I’m not,” he said, apparently engrossed by the hummingbirds fighting each other to feed at the flower beds. “It never occurs to me that my requests will go ignored. That being the case, and since you’re at a temporary standstill with the wedding project, I’ll expect you at the stables at nine tomorrow.”

  “Then brace yourself for an upset, because this is one time your expectations aren’t going to be met. I’m still busy with the bridesmaids’ dresses, and can’t afford to waste the morning.”

  It was a lie. Apart from final finishing, the dresses were done and, for once, she had the luxury of time on her hands—a rare occurrence when she was at home, with the phone constantly ringing and new designs being commissioned daily. But his implicit censure of everything she said or did cast a long shadow and took the shine off the bright afternoon.

  Why expose herself to more of the same, tomorrow? She still had several weeks left on the island and she wanted to enjoy them. Why let him strip her of the pleasure?

  “That’s a pity. Some other day, perhaps?”

  She shrugged. “Perhaps,” she said, matching his nonchalance, and without bothering to spare him another word or glance, set off across the lawn.

  The dazzling, sun-splashed days and scented, star-spangled nights fell into a pattern of lazy indulgences. At least three times daily, she swam in the guest pool. She took tea with Josephine. She drew pictures for Adrian, and played croquet with Louis. She and Solange lazed in recliners on the shaded walkway connecting their suites, and sipped tall, cool drinks while they reminisced about old times. Before she went to bed, she walked down to the beach and sat on her favorite rock to watch the moon rise, and soak in the tranquility and beauty of the sleeping island.

  Apart from showing up each night for dinner, Ethan kept his distance, but that didn’t lessen her infatuation with him. The meal tended to be long and leisurely, often lasting two or more hours but, no matter how delicious the food or entertaining the conversation, they couldn’t compete with him.

  Sometimes, she feared the memory of him sitting at the head of the table in that spectacularly elegant dining room, his immaculate white dinner jacket in gleaming contrast to the burnished bronze of his skin, his rare smile bringing life and youth to his often somber face, would stay with her the rest of her life and make it impossible for any other man to take his place.

  Nor was he as oblivious to her as he tried to make out. Occasionally—very occasionally!—they’d share a moment’s amusement at something Josephine said, but most of the time he treated Anne-Marie with distant courtesy.

  Yet for all that he tried to hide it, she was sublimely conscious of his gaze resting on her when he thought she wasn’t looking. Once, she caught him at it, and he immediately lowered his eyes and scowled at the broiled pheasant in front of him, as if the poor thing had risen up from the dead and laid an egg on his plate!

  All that being so, she was surprised to receive a phone call from him at the beginning of her fourth week on the island. “A replacement part for some machinery which I ordered from the mainland arrived this morning, and I’m headed out to the airport to pick it up,” he told her. “You want to come with me? There’s a package waiting there for you, as well.”

  “Yes,” she said, the chance to be alone with him, for however short a time, more than she could resist.

  “Meet me in the front courtyard in half an hour, then,” he said. “And wear a hat. The heat’s enough to kill you today, and I’d hate for you to get sunstroke.”

  No “please,” or “will you,” but his concern for her well-being took the sting out of his command. Hanging up the phone, she hurried to exchange the knee-length sarong she always wore around the guest quarters for a gauzy cotton dress in pale apple green sprigged with tiny pink rosebuds, and a wide-brimmed straw hat.

  “You look delicious as a sherbet sundae,” he surprised her by saying, when he saw her. “All cool and shady, except for your skin. You’ve picked up quite a tan.”

  She’d have told him he looked entirely fabulous himself, if his compliment hadn’t left her tongue-tied. What a mass of contradictions he was; charming one minute, and chillingly aloof the next. How was a woman supposed to know where she stood with him?

  He walked her out to the forecourt and handed her into a white Rolls Royce Corniche. Fairly tingling from his touch, she said, “Is Adrian coming with us?”

  “No. He’s in school.”

  “I didn’t know he attended school. I suppose he has a private tutor?”

  “You suppose wrong. He goes to the local school, but only in the morning. He’s still in kindergarten. Have you had a chance to explore the town, at all?”

  “No.”

  He put on a pair of sunglasses and nosed the stunningly elegant convertible down the steep driveway. The big iron gates swung smoothly open as the car approached, then glided closed once it had passed through. “I’ll show you the sights, after we’ve collected our stuff. I assume the package waiting for you is the beading you need to finish Solange’s dress?”

  “I hope so. The wedding’s fast approaching.”

  “We’ll fly to Florida and shop in Miami, if necessary. One way or another, you’ll have your supplies.”

  “I hope it won’t come to that, but it’s very nice of you to be so accommodating.”

  “Not really,” he replied, dashing any hope she had that winning a few Brownie points with her was his prime objective. “It’s a Beaumont wedding. It has to be perfect.”

  “Of course! Silly me, to have thought for one second that it might be because you were willing to go out of your way on my behalf.”

  His expression inscrutable behind the reflective lens of his glasses, he said, “The two go hand in hand, surely? The guest list runs close to three hundred and all those people will see your work and no doubt admire it enough that some will want you to design for them. This could be a real boost for your career.”

  “I don’t need a boost, thank you very much,” she said. “I already have more than enough clients.”

  “Aren’t you interested in seeing your company grow?”

  They were passing through the town by then and the open car afforded her an unobstructed view of the quaint conical roofs on the houses, and the pretty flowering vines climbing over fences and doorways. Down near the quay, a street market hummed with shoppers clustered around stalls loaded with fresh fish, fruit, vegetables, and other food.

  The kaleidoscope of color, bright orange, red and yellow against a backdrop of azure sky and turquoise water, adde
d to the scent of blossoms mingling with fresh baked bread and the sharp tang of the ocean, presented a feast to the senses like nothing she’d experienced before. And yet, despite the bustle of activity, the pace of life was so much less frenetic than what she was used to in Vancouver.

  Here, people really did take time to smell the flowers. Here, there was always tomorrow on which to take care of the things that didn’t get done today.

  “Well, Anne-Marie? Don’t you want to increase your business assets?”

  “No,” she said, surprising herself almost as much as she no doubt surprised him. “I love my work, but it doesn’t consume me, nor does it fill all the corners of my life. It never will.”

  “How so?”

  Again, she surprised herself. “Because, at the end of my life when I look back at what I’ve achieved, costume design won’t be what counts.”

  “And what will?”

  “A real home.”

  “You don’t have one?” He sounded skeptical.

  “I have a very smart town house, if that’s what you mean. It’s extremely comfortable, very well located, quite charming, and it suits me well enough for now. But I want to be remembered for something more meaningful than a pile of lumber and a few dramatic designs which will be forgotten even sooner than I will. I want to leave behind a legacy of love.”

  “And just how do you propose to do that?”

  “With a family,” she said, her heart swelling with a need which went back twenty years, to the day she’d learned she was an orphan. “With a husband and children.”

  He turned onto the road leading to the airport. “Successful career woman giving it all up for the dubious joy of changing diapers and scrubbing floors? Somehow, I don’t see you fitting into such a picture—unless, of course, you plan to marry for money.”

  She could have slapped him. He certainly deserved it. “Did I forget to mention that I don’t need to go searching for a rich husband? That I have enough in the way of assets that I can afford to marry a poor man and the only criteria is that he love me for myself, and not for what I own?”