A Bride For His Convenience. Lindsay Armstrong
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The thought of Rob Leicester sleeping right next door to her, if he’d meant what she’d thought he meant, was infinitely disturbing. The cabin she’d been allotted this time was a duplex. Two en suite rooms with one dividing wall and a shared veranda…
She came alive a moment later, shook her head and posed a question to herself—was she going crazy? She’d only met the man twice and both times in difficult if not to say demoralising circumstances!
The militant mood of disbelief this conversation had fostered in her boded ill for any future meetings with Mr Leicester. She undressed, got into bed and arranged the mosquito net then composed herself for sleep.
There was no sound from the other cabin, no light, so she guessed her tormentor had not yet gone to bed, but there were a million frogs croaking away outside to reactivate her memories of being broken down in the Daintree.
I’ll never sleep, she thought despairingly, then stiffened as she heard footsteps outside and the lightest rap on her door at the same time as Rob Leicester said softly, ‘You all right there, Miss Galloway?’
Strangely, a little ripple of relief ran through her.
‘I’m fine, Mr Leicester. Quite fine, thank you so much!’ she replied.
‘Sleep well, then,’ he said and she heard his door open and close.
She did just that.
Any slight spirit of unity with Rob Leicester was gone the next morning.
He took the fast launch trip to the Hope Isles, which six of her party, all men, elected to go on. Caiti’s services were needed on the launch, as an interpreter. Rob was most professional both when they stopped to fish and when they went ashore—for the most part. He concentrated on the guests, and left Caiti nearly single-handedly to serve up the picnic lunch.
It was a glorious day. The rain had gone, the sea was calm, a pale, shimmering blue, they weren’t far off-shore so the dark green mountainous scenery of the mainland was magnificent, and the fish were biting.
Despite the language constraints, the camaraderie of seven men catching fish was soon evident. So was their enthusiasm. It crossed her mind to think once that they hadn’t really needed her, there was obviously a universal language amongst fishermen. It also crossed her mind to think that she was being unfairly exposed to Rob Leicester.
He drove the launch with consummate skill. He seemed to know all there was to know about the art of catching fish, where to find them and how to clean them. Once, she caught a quizzical little sideways glance from him as he gutted a red emperor with the minimum of fuss.
But her squeamishness did not extend to fish, dead or alive. Her parents had run a restaurant in Port Douglas for years and she’d been well-schooled by her mother and her father in all aspects of fish cookery, from catching and cleaning them through to buying them in the market and cooking them.
Got you there, she said to him in her mind as she picked up a headless fish, borrowed a knife and filleted it neatly before consigning the fillets to the ice chest.
This earned her a round of applause from her party but no particular approbation from Rob Leicester.
When they landed on the lovely islet called Hope, a circle of white sand with a crown of thick bush and trees, he explained briefly where and how to set up the picnic lunch, and took the rest of the party on a tour of the island, the coral and for a swim.
Blow you, Mr Leicester, she said to him in her mind again as she stripped to her amethyst bikini and had a quick swim in the crystal-clear water herself.
She dried herself and pulled on her white shorts but didn’t cover up her bikini top. She loosened her hair to allow it to dry, began to set out lunch and was waiting demurely beside it when the party returned. They all tucked in with gusto, full of enthusiasm for the Hope Isles and full of questions for her that they’d been unable to put to Rob.
Another feather in my cap, Mr Leicester—she beamed the thought at him while maintaining her severely demure demeanour—and this time got a response.
He squinted at her through his damp dark hair. ‘You look like the cat that’s got the cream, Miss Galloway,’ he observed, as she poured piping hot coffee from a flask.
‘Cream? Cat?’ one of her party enquired. ‘What means ziss, Mlle Caiti?’
She smiled delightfully at the middle-aged man. ‘He thinks I’m,’ she paused, ‘very competent,’ she said instead of trying to explain that Rob Leicester thought she was downright smug.
‘Bravo!’ And a stream of French followed indicating that they all thought so too.
‘Merci!’ Caiti turned back to Rob and said rapidly, ‘They don’t think I’m smug at all.’
‘So I gathered.’ He crossed his arms and looked at her moodily. ‘What exactly did you tell them?’
She glanced around but everyone had wandered off. She explained and added, ‘I didn’t try to lower you in the popularity stakes.’ Her smile, this time, was virtuous.
‘Thank you, but it doesn’t bother you to go around misrepresenting things?’
Caiti grimaced. ‘You could have had a riot on your hands otherwise,’ she said simply.
‘And it has been known for pride to come before a fall,’ he retorted swiftly.
‘Is it only me or are you always so full of these theories?’ she queried, still smiling delightfully. ‘If it’s only me, I wonder what I have to do to persuade you otherwise.’
‘One swallow doesn’t make a summer. I’ll reserve judgement.’ He got up and began to pack up the picnic.
She watched him for a moment. Another sweatshirt was moulded over his hard muscles above shorts that exposed long, powerful legs. Once again her stomach lurched…
To counter it, she said, ‘You can also go to hell again, Mr Leicester!’ And she waltzed down to the water’s edge.
But inside she was seething, and confused, she realised. The trials and tribulations of yesterday had not been her fault; they could have happened to anyone. So, the only thing he had to hold against her was one mistake from the previous tour. Did that warrant being so…disliked as she felt she was today? And what about last night?
She stopped rather suddenly and thought—was this all to do with her refusing to acknowledge the frisson that had undoubtedly existed between them?
Well, well, she mused, in that case it’s about time more women said no to you, Rob Leicester!
They didn’t stop to fish on the way back to the camp and got there at about four-thirty, which left her with an hour or so of free time before the fish barbecue, using the day’s catch.
She let herself into her cabin thankfully as she realised how tired she was. A lot of sun and sea air on top of a stressful day yesterday, she reasoned, and thought, with a wry smile, that you needed the constitution of an ox to be a tour guide.
She showered, donned a colourful cotton wrap, made herself a cup of tea then could no longer resist the invitations her crisp white bed was sending out. Just forty winks, she promised herself as she lay down. Twenty minutes at the most and she’d be up and about, all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.
An hour and a half later she sat up with a hand to her throat, no idea where she was, then aware that someone was knocking on the door. It was dark, and suddenly it all came back to her…
She flew off the bed and ran to the door, praying it wouldn’t be Rob Leicester come to find out what had happened to her, but of course it was. This time he was sleek and combed and in front-man mode in clean jeans and shirt.
‘Oh, no! I’m late, aren’t I? I just fell into this…this…deep sleep,’ she gabbled as she clutched her wrap with one hand and gathered her long loose hair with the other. ‘Damn! I suppose this makes you happy?’
He