Honeymoon Baby. Susan Napier
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‘real men’ left in the world—was looking at him with grudging interest. An amateur naturalist and inveterate shoestring traveller, Dot was a semi-permanent resident of Beech House, living there between her long trips abroad, and anyone who brought news of fresh vistas for her to explore would be welcome grist to her mill.
‘Well, thank goodness you came when you did! That was what I wanted to tell you when I came in, Jenny,’ said Paula excitedly. ‘We just heard on the car radio that they’ve upgraded the volcano alert level to three. That’s on a scale of five, and it means they’re classing it as a hazardous local eruption,’ she explained in an aside to Rafe, before switching her attention back to her daughter.
‘They’ve closed the mountain completely, and with the ash cloud blowing this way they’re issuing a general warning for residents not to go outside without masks and to stay off the roads unless absolutely essential. Driving conditions are awful on the main road already, aren’t they, Dot? We had to crawl along and the headlights didn’t seem to help at all. Did you feel that earth tremor just as we arrived? That must have been another massive ash blast going up!’
Earth tremor? Taking a sip of her untasted tea, Jennifer instinctively glanced at Raphael and found him looking back, a knowing quirk at the corner of his mouth. He knew that neither of them had been aware of any external shocks. She remembered that moment of shattering temptation. A volcano had been erupting outside her window and she had still assumed it was Rafe who had made her world shudder!
Her cup rattled in her saucer as she replaced it with a trembling hand.
‘Careful, darling,’ said Rafe, leaning over to still the teetering crockery. He had already drunk half of his own tea, and eaten two of her mother’s feather-light scones while inveigling his way into her good graces.
Jennifer’s eyes told him she would like to dump the contents of her cup over his head. She wasn’t fooled by his amiable air of relaxation. He knew now why Susie had made her apparently inexplicable mistake and had accepted his assigned role as her husband purely for some nefarious purpose of his own as smoothly as if he had planned it for himself.
He was relishing seeing her hoist by her own petard, knowing that he now had her precisely where he wanted her—totally at his mercy. One word and the whole elaborate charade she had created to protect her sweet, unworldly mother would come tumbling down.
If she had been the crying type she would have burst into tears. But then she doubted that even a Niagara of tears would soften Rafe’s cynically hardened heart.
‘I’ve got it, darling,’ she responded through her beaming teeth.
‘It’s so lovely to see you two together,’ her mother sighed, getting back on the subject that her daughter had spent the last fraught fifteen minutes trying to obscure with meaningless small talk. ‘Poor Jenny has been missing you so dreadfully since she got home; she could hardly bear to talk about you—I had to base most of my impressions of you on her letters and phone calls before your marriage, and your photograph—so I hope you won’t mind if I’m rudely inquisitive.’
‘Of course not, Paula. If you don’t mind the reverse.’ Rafe’s hand massaged Jenny’s neck under her veil of hair, a possessive, lover-like caress that didn’t go unnoticed by the two older women. ‘Jenny and I didn’t seem to talk about anything other than ourselves when we were together. I just hope that photo was a flattering one...’ He trailed off invitingly.
As anticipated, Paula Scott glided innocently into the trap. ‘How could it not be? Having been so often in front of the camera when you were a model, I suppose it’s second nature to show it your best side—not to say your other sides haven’t turned out to be very attractive too,’ she added, looking him over with a twinkle. ‘Actually, it was your wedding photo.’
Rafe stiffened slightly, although his voice remained casually amused. ‘Oh? Which one was that?’
Jennifer considered herself lucky he hadn’t asked which wedding...
‘Would you like to see?’ Paula bent and felt in the tray under the seat of her wheelchair, pulling out her handbag. Her long battle against the debilitating effects of a back injury might have worn her frame thin, but not her valiant spirit. ‘I hope you don’t mind, Jenny—’ she smiled a trifle guiltily, her gamine grin making her look more like a girl than a fifty-five-year-old woman ‘—but I had a copy taken off for my wallet A mother has to have something to boast over!’
‘Of course I’d love to see it,’ said Rafe, with a gentle courtesy that Jennifer would have appreciated if she hadn’t known he was merely sucking up for more information.
‘I’m sure Rafe isn’t really interested—’
‘Oh, let him speak for himself, girl,’ Dot chipped in, creaking heavily in her chair as she scooped another scone off the plate. ‘The man has a mind of his own, doesn’t he? Maybe after three months apart he needs to remind himself that he’s married. I notice you don’t wear a wedding ring, young man.’
Jennifer nervously fingered the heavy gold band on her left hand. ‘Aunty Dot—’
‘I don’t believe in them, Mrs Grey,’ said Rafe without turning a hair.
Dot’s deep voice broke on a crack of laughter. ‘Neither do I, sonny, neither do I. Never could abide a man wearing jewellery. Namby-pamby, I call it. And you may as well call me Dot, seeing as we’re as near as dammit related. Jenny calls me Aunty, but I’m really just an old friend of the family.’
‘A very valued friend, I’m sure, Dot.’
This time Rafe’s smoothness backfired on him. ‘No need to butter me up, young man. I’ve already decided you’ll do. Jennifer’s always had a good head on her shoulders. If she chose you then that’s good enough reason for me to like you.’
‘Thank you,’ Rafe chuckled, proving that unlike his father he had no problems admitting his own faults. ‘I suppose a backhanded compliment is better than an insincere one.’
‘Here you are!’ Jennifer’s mother finally produced the result of her rummaging in her untidy bag.
Jennifer had one more lame attempt at deflecting the inevitable. ‘He probably already has that print anyway—’
‘We ex-models are terribly vain; we can never resist drooling over shots of ourselves,’ Rafe interrupted her coolly, half rising to take the slim leather pocketbook from Paula’s deceptively fragile fingers. He settled back beside his rigid companion and inspected the small coloured photograph displayed under the plastic window.
‘Oh, yes, I remember that moment very vividly,’ he murmured, causing Jennifer to shift uneasily on the cushions and rub her neck, which strangely seemed to still feel his phantom fingers. She didn’t have to look to know what Rafe was seeing: a study in deception.
In deference to Sebastian’s insistence that their wedding appear as normal as possible, to subvert any potential future threat to the legality of Jennifer’s position, she had worn an expensive white silk suit, paid for by Sebastian, and had carried an exquisite bouquet of white roses and baby’s breath, and afterwards they had posed for the register office photographer. She had been wearing her contact lenses, and a visit from a hairstylist and make-up expert had prettied her unconventional features, but it was the secret which she happily carried inside her which had made her truly bloom like a genuine bride.
To Jennifer’s extreme discomfort, and Sebastian’s startled satisfaction, Rafe had turned up to hear them exchange their brief vows—the only one of the extended family to attend. Although he had refused to act as a formal witness, his father had insisted on him joining them for a photograph. He had broken off one of Jennifer’s white roses and thrust it through the buttonhole on the lapel of his son’s grey suit, lining them up with Jennifer in the middle.
In hindsight she could appreciate the irony of the pose, but at the time only Sebastian had known that the man on the other side of his wife was in fact the true father of her child. As far as Jennifer had been aware,