Second-Best Bride. SARA WOOD
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for him.
‘My beautiful madonna,’ he said softly.
Shivers chased down her spine at the way he looked at her. Nice shivers. They made her feel special. Cherished.
‘Trader!’ she husked.
Filled with a wonderful lightness of heart, she reached out and took his hand, watched him half disintegrate, saw the strong jaw working, the swallowing of a lump in his throat that echoed hers—and, unknown to her, almost everyone’s in the church.
‘Trader,’ she sighed happily.
He loved her!
Firmly he drew her to his side and his fierce, possessive look told her that he never wanted to let her go again. Lovingly he guided her the last few yards down the aisle. And, elated beyond belief, she shyly lowered her eyes to quietly savour the wonderful moment of certainty. Her dreams were safe and love would conquer all their difficulties. Feeling the acuteness of his relief, she felt privileged and humble that she should have prompted such a profound love in a man’s heart.
His hand tightened its grip a little. ‘Claire!’ It was a wonderfully husky growl that never failed to make her feel she was being caressed and it reached deep into her bones. ‘You worried me for a moment back there!’ he said softly. ‘I thought that——’ He gave a low laugh that still had an edge of relief to it. ‘I thought you were going to jilt me!’
The clergyman fidgeted, the starched cassock crackling meaningfully, but Claire’s eyes pleaded mutely for a moment to speak to Trader.
‘If I had?’ she asked gently.
‘I would have caught you and kissed you till you surrendered to me,’ Trader murmured. He smiled. ‘I love you, Claire!’ he said with fierce conviction. ‘I love you so much it stops my breath!’
It was everything she’d wanted to hear. Shaken, she slowly lifted her lashes and he must have seen the pearly tears at the corner of her huge, soft eyes despite the folds of the gossamer veil, because he gave her a tender, understanding smile that brought a blinding happiness to her face.
The intense devotion in her expression, her unworldly beauty and his compellingly handsome profile, produced a ripple of wistful envy that ran through the church in a low murmur.
Her lips parted. But she couldn’t speak for the lump in her slender throat and touched him on his broad chest instead, with a loving, worshipping hand. Which he took in his and kissed lightly before he turned to the moist-eyed cleric in front of them.
‘Please go ahead. We’re ready,’ he said, with an authoritative nod.
And Claire felt the excitement mounting within her, a mist of love around her that little else permeated. Dimly in the background, she heard the organ notes die away and then the clergyman’s gentle voice. ‘Dearly beloved…’
Trader squeezed her hand rather hard. She tried to listen carefully to every word, every special phrase she and Trader had chosen from her mother’s old prayer book, so that she could savour every second of her wedding-day—so nearly abandoned.
Now she understood her mother’s unshakeable devotion. Once you’d experienced true love, you were never the same again. There was a painful, contradictory seesawing of feelings: a deep core of tranquillity and an adrenalin-spinning excitement. Elation and security. Irresistible drugs of the mind. Trader satisfied all her emotional needs. That was enough.
She stole a look at the man she loved: the clean sweep of brow, the aggressive nose and determined mouth, the achingly beautiful angle of cheek and jaw. An intensely masculine man. Potent, a little unnerving, mysterious.
Her knees weakened. He shot her a look, his eyes glittering with such a fierce excitement that it came close to…triumph.
‘…not to be undertaken lightly or wantonly…’
Her body stiffened a little because her conscience troubled her over that. They were marrying with secrets between them. Maybe without a dowry Trader wouldn’t give her a second thought. His hand squeezed hers reassuringly. In fact, his grip was so tight that she could feel the unusual dampness of his palms and the impression of her bones against his flesh.
‘…but reverently, discreetly, advisedly…’
The pressure on her hand increased till she gasped and turned her huge green eyes to him in apprehension. It was as though Trader was afraid she’d take fright and run. Claire shrank into herself, alarmed by her suspicious thoughts.
Somehow she quelled her disloyal doubts and fixed her gaze on the solemn priest. Every word was of deep significance to her. Marriage was holy. Not to be undertaken lightly…There was a clatter behind them; one of Trader’s guests had dropped something—a portable phone, by the sound of it. And he drew in a deep, harsh breath that filled his body with a rigid tension.
Stricken by her overwhelming misgivings, she steeled herself not to tremble.
‘Therefore,’ intoned the priest, ‘if any man can show any just cause why they may not lawfully be joined together, let him now speak, or else hereafter for ever hold his peace.’
There was a stifled cry behind them which made them both jump. The vicar looked up in sudden alarm as a shocked hush fell. Trader stopped breathing and prickles went down the back of Claire’s neck. Trader had tightened every muscle in his body as though he feared and anticipated a denouncement.
She felt her skin become clammy. And then she heard what she’d been dreading. A clear, ringing word that echoed accusingly in the silence…
‘Wait!’
Claire gave a low, despairing moan of horror and fainted dead away.
It seemed but a moment before the darkness that surrounded her became murky. Voices impinged on her unconscious and slowly she recovered to full awareness—but she kept her eyes tightly shut because she couldn’t bring herself to face anyone. The shame, the awful, hollowing disillusionment, rocketed through her, draining away all normal resilience.
And she tried to untangle her mind because she was no longer lying on the cold, stone floor of the church. It seemed she was sitting in an armchair; she could feel its welcome softness beneath her lifeless body.
Quite motionless, she began to gather the foggy facts together. There’d been an objection to their wedding. Her stomach did its sickening swoop. The whole scenario was so like Jane-Eyre! Trader must have a wife. In the attic? she wondered hysterically. What attic? Where? Perhaps children! Hordes of them! How dared he! She wanted to hide forever…
‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry! You know I’d never hurt you——’
Claire all but stiffened at the pathetic whimper. It was Phoenix—Phoenix, when she wanted her mother’s shoulder to cry on…
‘For God’s sake, shut up!’ rasped Trader brutally, shockingly. ‘I’m damned if I’m cancelling the marriage! It means too much to me!’
Claire barely stifled a groan of dismay at the giveaway remark and the extraordinary change in his character. He’d never been curt or angry before. Never rude. But then she’d never known the real man, had she?
‘Face up to it, darling; she’s either highly reluctant, or she’s feeling ill. You can see she’s in no fit state,’ said Phoenix gently. ‘She wasn’t exactly galloping up the aisle.’
‘She was very pale——’ conceded Trader grimly.
‘You noticed? Even under all the layers of make-up? I’m afraid it’s possible she’s discovered your plans,’ said Phoenix, forgetting to whisper.
Of course, thought Claire. Phoenix would know everything. They’d been friends for so long. And last night Phoenix’s conscience had prompted her to hint that Trader was being deceitful, even though her loyalty meant she couldn’t openly betray him. Poor Phoenix—what a dilemma!
‘Keep