One Husband Required!

by Sharon Kendrick

  Ursula’s heart thumped unsteadily as he continued to stare at her, his face in shadow, the dark brilliance of his eyes providing the only relief.

  ‘Let me see these photos of Amber’s wedding,’ he demanded suddenly.

  ‘Th-they’re in my handbag. I’ll go and get them.’ But as she went back into the flat to fetch them he followed her.

  Inside, after the brightness of the summer afternoon, the room seemed so unnaturally dark that Ursula almost snapped the light on. They stood blinking warily at one another across the room, like two creatures finding themselves in an unfamiliar habitat.

  After a few moments Ursula’s eyes accustomed themselves to the dimmer light, and she fished around in her handbag until she found the photos. She handed them to him, and he began to flick through them.

  ‘Pretty part of the world,’ he commented.

  ‘Yes, it’s beautiful,’ she agreed serenely.

  ‘And this is the famous wedding dress,’ he said, staring at one photo for longer than the others.

  She leaned over his shoulder to look at it. It was a shot of Amber and Ursula, their arms locked around each other’s waists, smiling straight into the camera. With her spare hand, Ursula was holding onto her blue silk hat and giggling. It looked as if she was having a good time. No one would have guessed from looking at it that she had spent an uncomfortable half-hour before the wedding convincing her sister that Ross was no more than a good friend and a brilliant employer.

  ‘Do you like it?’ she enquired.

  ‘Your hat?’

  ‘The dress!’ She laughed.

  ‘Very much. It looks...wonderful,’ he replied softly. ‘Not that I’m an expert on wedding dresses, of course.’

  ‘Did you get married in a church?’ Ursula asked without thinking, but as soon as she saw his face she wished she hadn’t.

  ‘No,’ he answered tersely. ‘It wasn’t that kind of wedding.’

  She realised that she didn’t want to hear about his wedding any more than he seemed to want to talk about it. She glanced down at another shot of her sister and her new husband, surrounded by all the wedding guests.

  ‘Look.’ She pointed at a red-headed figure at the front of the wedding group. ‘That’s Holly Lovelace, the daughter of the original, designer—she was the first person to wear the dress. She’s pregnant now.’ She took the photos from him and began to thumb through them. ‘This is a better one of her—see?—and that’s her husband, Luke. Now Amber has worn the dress, too. And then it’s...’ Her voice faded.

  ‘Then it’s what?’ he prompted.

  ‘Well, it’s supposed to be my turn.’ She gave a slightly awkward laugh. ‘I told you before, remember? I’m supposed to wear it next.’

  He narrowed his eyes. ‘But you don’t fancy the idea of marriage—is that it?’

  Was he deliberately misunderstanding her? Ursula wondered. Putting her on the spot so that she would be forced to reveal the unflattering facts about herself? ‘Well, there are two pretty insurmountable obstacles in the way, Ross,’ she told him drily.

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘For a start—I’m much too fat to even get that particular dress over my head!’ She shot him a look of challenge, just daring him to make a comment about that. But he didn’t.

  He just calmly said, ‘That’s the first obstacle. What’s the second?’

  ‘Then there’s the small matter of not having a prospective husband!’

  ‘No one even remotely in the running?’

  Not unless you counted him. And she wasn’t stupid enough to do that. She shook her head. ‘No one.’

  He began to smile then, and something in that smile turned her stomach to the consistency of half-set jelly.

  ‘What’s so amusing?’ she demanded nervously.

  He shook his head. ‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘Nothing at all. I just find I’m ridiculously pleased to hear that there’s no one waiting in the wings for you. But maybe it’s wrong of me to feel that.’

  ‘Not wrong,’ she managed, trying to sound reasonable—though the words almost choked her. ‘Understandable, I suppose. An unmarried female member of staff is always going to have more time to spare, more loyalty to give—’

  ‘That wasn’t what I meant at all!’ he clicked impatiently.

  ‘Are you sure?’ Her eyes were wide and dark and challenging. ‘I won’t be offended by the truth, you know, Ross.’

  This time he scowled. ‘Will you stop putting yourself down all the time?’ he snarled. ‘Hasn’t it occurred to you that when I said I was glad there was no one else I was being—?’

  ‘Selfish?’

  ‘Selfish?’ He looked outraged.

  Ursula stared at him, her determination to be reasonable evaporating by the second as she realised that she was fed up to the back teeth with her role as Ross’s dependable sidekick. She was sick of being sweet Ursula, reliable Ursula. Ursula who would drop everything to help him at a moments notice. Ursula who would keep smiling in the face of just about anything. She had supported him for too long—with never a hint of telling him what she wanted.

  ‘Yes, selfish!’ she declared. ‘You don’t want me, do you, Ross? But you can’t bear the thought of anyone else wanting me, either!’

  His gaze was steady. ‘You think don’t want you?’ ‘Of course you don’t want me! Even if you weren’t married—which you are!—why would you, when you could have your pick of the most eligible women in London?’

  He ignored that. ‘And when I kissed you before you went to Ireland,’ he said, very deliberately. ‘Did you think I wanted you then?’

  Ursula might have been innocent, but she certainly wasn’t stupid. ‘That was different—’

  ‘Really?’ His eyes narrowed with interest. ‘Do elaborate!’

  She wasn’t arrogant enough to think that it had been because she’d been wearing a swimsuit and he’d been so inflamed with desire by the sight of her body that he hadn’t been able to keep his hands off her. Oh, hell, why was he standing there like that—looking so unbelievably gorgeous and talking about kissing?

  ‘I don’t know,’ she admitted, her forehead growing clammy as reaction began to set in. ‘It just was. The heat of the moment and that sort of thing, if you’ll excuse the pun.’

  ‘And you think that if I kissed you now it wouldn’t be the same? Just as passionate? Just as earth-shattering?’

  Ursula swallowed. ‘I don’t know,’ she lied.

  ‘Sure you do, Ursula. You just won’t—’

  But a shrill, piercing bleep cut into his words, and it took a moment for Ursula to recognise the sound of his pager.

  ‘Oh, great! Perfect timing,’ he added, his face absolutely deadpan. ‘And just as the conversation was starting to get interesting.’

  Very interesting. She met his eyes and swallowed down the great lump of fear and excitement which had lodged at the base of her throat. ‘Y-you’d better answer it.’

  ‘I should have switched the damned thing off.’

  ‘No, you shouldn’t!’ she contradicted, even though she could have cheerfully hurled the pager into orbit. ‘What if it’s Katy?’

  His answering glance managed to be both wry and grateful as he reached into the back pocket of his jeans for the pager. ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah,’ he sighed. ‘I know you’re right, Ursula—I just don’t want you to be right all the time!’

  He read the message. ‘Ring Sophie-Jo’s mother,’ he said, frowning as he began to punch out the number on Ursula’s phone. ‘What’s the betting that Katy’s forgotten something—and wants me to go charging straight round with it?’

  And he probably would, thought Ursula, with a pang of longing she could have easily done without. Katy could twist him right round her little finger, but his softness where his daughter was concerned made him even more irresistible. As if he needed any help!

  ‘She’s done what?’ Ross was staring at the phone in disbelief, and his words shattered into her thoughts like a stone through a window.
r />   Ursula stared at Ross, at the sudden tension which had settled on his body, giving his limbs the stiff jerkiness of a puppet. Bad news, she thought, her pulse racing.

  ‘Dear God!’ he was exclaiming. ‘No. No. No, don’t worry. Of course you weren’t to know. I’ll be right over.’ He cut the connection and his face was dark with an unfamiliar fury.

  Ursula stared at him. ‘What is it?’ she demanded. ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘It’s Jane,’ he said, in an odd, flat voice. ‘She’s back in the country, and demonstrating her usual love of the dramatic.’

  ‘Jane? Back?’ Ursula blinked with confusion. ‘But when did she get back? And why didn’t she warn you?’

  He looked distracted—more distracted than she’d ever seen him, barely seeming to hear her questions. ‘She’s been round to Sophie-Jo’s house and she’s taken Katy,’ he said in a dazed voice.

  Ursula froze as she saw the fear on his face, and the same fear gripped her as his statement sank in. ‘Taken her where, Ross?’

  ‘That’s just it,’ he said grimly. ‘I don’t know! And neither does Sophie-Jo’s mother! I’m going round there now!’

  ‘I’ll come with you,’ she said briskly.

  He didn’t argue. Scarcely seemed to notice her offer. ‘I’d better phone home first. Jane may have taken her there.’

  But his voice didn’t sound as though he held out much hope, and neither did Ursula, though she couldn’t possibly have explained why.

  She locked the patio doors, took the tea tray into the kitchen, and when she walked back into the sitting room Ross was just replacing the phone.

  She didn’t need to see him shake his head to know that Jane hadn’t taken Katy home. His strained face told her more than a million words ever could. She noticed that his hands were shaking, his long, artistic fingers trembling like a drunk’s.

  Ursula frowned. ‘Are you going to be okay to drive?’

  ‘Of course I’m okay to drive!’ he snapped. ‘And even if I wasn’t you couldn’t help me, could you, Ursula? Since you haven’t even passed your bloody driving test!’

  It hurt, there was no doubt that it hurt—to have him talk to her like that—but Ursula bit back her angry response and nodded instead. She was usually calm and unflappable, and these were two of her greatest strengths. Strengths which Ross had admired and depended upon...

  Now was not the time to let them slip away. And now was certainly not the time to start interrogating him about what he had been about to say that was so interesting. She needed to be very strong for him right now. And for Katy.

  He raged all the way to Sophie-Jo’s house in Hampstead, and Ursula let him.

  ‘Why did I do it?’ he stormed.

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘Dump my daughter just so that I could pick you up from the airport!’

  If it was merely a case of picking her up, she wondered why he hadn’t just sent a car for her. ‘That’s a bit of an exaggeration, Ross,’ she murmured.

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Of course it is! Letting your daughter stay over with her best friend from school could hardly be classified as “dumping your daughter”!’

  ‘No, I suppose not,’ he agreed moodily.

  She tried one last time. ‘There’s probably a perfectly simple explanation—’

  ‘Katy has disappeared and I don’t know where she is,’ he interrupted icily. ‘And nothing changes that one stark fact.’

  And after that cold statement they didn’t speak another word for the rest of the journey.

  Sophie-Jo’s mother had obviously been watching out for them, because the car had barely pulled to a halt when she came running down the gravel path to meet them.

  She was a slim, nervous-looking woman, who dieted and exercised constantly in order to achieve a dress size not much larger than that of her eleven-year-old daughter. But today was the first time that Ursula had ever seen her look normal—and messy. Her hair was all over the place, and strands of it stuck to her sweat-sheened face. But it didn’t stop her gazing up at Ross with an instinctive little-girl look of helplessness.

  ‘I’m so terribly, terribly sorry, Ross!’ she puffed. ‘If I’d had any idea that you wouldn’t approve, then I would never have let her go!’

  He didn’t bother with any niceties. ‘What happened?’

  ‘Jane turned up here about an hour ago.’

  Ross glanced down at his watch. ‘And said what?’

  ‘Just that she had been round to your house and hadn’t got a reply, so she thought she’d see if Katy was here—and of course she was.’

  ‘What did she say to Katy?’ he questioned tiredly.

  ‘She said that she had a surprise for her.’

  ‘And did she say what this surprise was?’

  ‘Well, no. Not in front of me, anyway. Maybe Sophie-Jo will know—I’ll call her. Sophie-Jo!’ she called distractedly over her shoulder.

  ‘And how did Katy seem?’ Ross persisted. ‘Did she want to go with her mother?’

  ‘Well, she didn’t not want to go with her—she just seemed a little confused, that was all.’

  ‘Mrs Sanstead—’

  ‘Clara!’

  ‘Clara,’ he said, in a steady voice which seemed to take a great deal of effort, ‘did it not occur to you that the parent who had dropped the child off should be the parent who actually picked the child up?’

  Clara shrugged her bony shoulders and blinked her eyes at him rapidly. ‘Have you ever tried telling a mother that she can’t take her child?’

  ‘No, but maybe you should have done!’ he snarled. ‘As Katy had been left in your care!’

  Clara bristled. ‘She said that you knew all about the arrangement!’

  ‘And you believed her?’

  ‘Well, I didn’t ask her to sit down and take a lie-detector test, if that’s what you mean!’

  ‘Pity!’

  With a beseeching look, Ursula placed a restraining hand on Ross’s arm, relieved when he didn’t start shouting at her, too. ‘Ross is worried,’ she told the woman soothingly, ‘though there’s probably nothing to worry about.’

  Clara nodded, looking slightly mollified. ‘I know. These custody battles!’ She sighed understandingly. ‘It was exactly the same with my first husband—he thought he could just come in whenever he wanted and break the access agreement! Fortunately, he’s now remarried—she’s much younger than him—and they’ve got a new baby and he hasn’t really got time for Sophie-Jo any more.’

  Ursula saw Ross flinch with distaste, and she was relieved when Sophie-Jo came running out of the house, her face full of uncertainty as she looked to each of the grown-ups for information.

  Ursula liked Sophie-Jo. She also thought that she was better equipped to deal with her right now than a Ross who was only barely holding onto his temper.

  ‘Darling—do you know where Katy’s mummy has taken her?’

  Sophie-Jo bit her lip and shook her head. ‘She didn’t say.’ She looked at Ursula curiously. ‘Is Katy all right?’

  ‘Katy’s fine!’ soothed Ursula, uttering up a silent prayer that her words were true. ‘You know how paranoid we grown-ups can get when you children go off without saying anything!’

  ‘Yeah!’ grinned Sophie-Jo sheepishly. ‘Can you tell her to call me when she gets back?’

  ‘Sure.’ Ursula quashed the possibility that she might not come back, and looked into Ross’s hard, frozen face. ‘We’d better get back to the house, Ross,’ she suggested gently. ‘At least Jane knows she can contact you there.’

  He nodded, and swung away without another word, leaving Ursula to fix Clara Sanstead with an apologetic smile. ‘We’ll ring you when we hear anything.’

  Clara nodded, but her attention was all on Ross’s retreating frame. There was a dark spark of unmistakable hunger in the woman’s eyes, and Ursula felt quite sick. How on earth could she be eying Ross up and down at a time like this?

  Ross put his foot down hard on
the accelerator on the journey home.

  ‘You’ll get stopped,’ Ursula told him calmly.

  ‘Good!’

  ‘It won’t do Katy much good if you get a ticket for speeding—’

  ‘No, but it might make me feel better!’ There was a squeal as he was forced to brake rapidly, and Ursula heard him take in a great lungful of air as he slowed down to something approaching normal limits.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said eventually.

  ‘If using me as a verbal punch-bag makes you feel better, Mr Sheridan—then please feel free!’

  He shot her a look. ‘Is that what I’m doing?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’ There. She’d done it again! Reliable Ursula and now...punch-bag Ursula. Great!

  ‘It does matter,’ he said stubbornly.

  ‘Okay, it does! So don’t do it again!’

  The house was empty. Ross went straight into the study and came straight out again, and she only needed to look at his face to know what he was going to say next.

  ‘No messages,’ he said flatly.

  Ursula drew a deep breath. ‘Well, let’s try and think this through logically. Any idea where Jane might have taken her? Any relatives who she could have visited?’

  He shook his head. ‘She’s got some cousins in the north of Scotland—but she hates them.’

  ‘It’s not exactly local, either,’ Ursula mused. ‘Maybe she has just taken Katy out for a surprise. Why not? A trip to the theatre, perhaps—or out to one of the amusement parks. Maybe they’ve gone shopping?’

  He shook his head. ‘No. That’s just not Jane’s style. If she was going to give Katy a treat, she’d make damned sure that the whole world knew about it first. And why the secrecy, if that was the case? Why not just ring me up and tell me? I didn’t even know she was back in the country, until...hell!’ he exploded suddenly, and ran straight back into the study.

  This time when he came back out he looked marginally better. ‘Katy’s passport is still in the drawer.’

  ‘Oh, thank God,’ breathed Ursula, fixing him with an inquisitive look. ‘You don’t really think she’d try and take Katy out of the country without telling you?’