Wife in the Making. Lindsay Armstrong
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him slowly. ‘A little. How…how is Tom?’
Bryn looked her over thoroughly before replying. If anyone looked tired, he did, she thought in the pause, in his moleskins, check shirt and deck shoes. There seemed to be shadows beneath his eyes and more lines beside his mouth than she remembered, and she flinched inwardly because she didn’t want to notice things like that about this man but didn’t seem able to help herself.
‘Tom appears to be fine,’ he said at last. ‘But friends of mine are holidaying on the mainland. They have a couple of kids round about his age and he knows them well, so I left him with them for a couple of days. They’ve both had chickenpox and their mum knows what to look out for in Tom.’
‘Oh. Well, I guess he’ll enjoy some company of his own age.’
Bryn smiled twistedly. ‘So he gave me to understand. Like a drink?’
Fleur blinked. ‘I…’
‘Eric is setting up a barbecue on the beach and Julene is going to cook. We’ll have the pleasure of Clam Cove to ourselves this evening.’
‘That sounds…that sounds wonderful,’ Fleur heard herself say with more enthusiasm than she could explain.
And after a moment Bryn Wallis smiled down at her more genuinely than he ever had before, causing her to catch her breath—and pray he hadn’t noticed.
It was a wonderful evening. They swam, while the water was smooth, silky and coloured oyster with touches of fire from the setting sun. Eric built a fire and Julene grilled fillets of fish, heated crusty bread in the coals and provided a delicious risotto as well as a fresh salad to go with the fish, plus her homemade tartar sauce. They opened a couple of bottles of wine and sat in deckchairs on the beach—more relaxed than Fleur would have thought possible only a day ago.
Bryn built up the fire after they’d eaten and the swift darkness of the tropics fell. Then, in a rather orchestrated way, Fleur felt, Julene and Eric yawned simultaneously, claimed they needed an early night in the same breath, and departed for bed.
She was still looking surprised when Bryn started to laugh softly.
‘What was that all about?’ she asked.
‘I have to agree they’re lousy actors,’ he said, still grinning.
‘But why?’ She looked even more puzzled.
‘Fleur, your steely mind must be taking a break—I should have thought it was obvious.’
‘Not to me. I feel as if I’ve suddenly acquired body odour.’ She shrugged whimsically.
‘Not at all. I’d say that Julene and Eric, with a consummate lack of subtlety, have decided to throw us together.’
Fleur’s lips parted incredulously. ‘But…I don’t understand… Why?’
‘They’ve obviously come to the conclusion we’d be good for each other.’
‘Only last night,’ she said, ‘and for the past three and a half weeks it’s been—’ She stopped and gestured helplessly.
‘The other side of a certain coin?’ he broke in to say. ‘Perhaps.’
In the silence that followed his statement, Fleur wished with all her heart that she could feign misunderstanding or deny it. She moved restlessly in her deckchair and shuffled her bare feet in the sand. It was another beautiful night with the Southern Cross hanging above their heads, and the fire was casting leaping shadows on the beach.
‘You and I,’ he said quietly at last, ‘may have a better understanding of things, though.’
‘Such as?’
‘Such as why we don’t wish to pursue the other side of the coin—I’m talking about the attraction that lies just beneath the surface.’
She released a deep breath and glanced at him through her lashes.
He had on the same football shirt and khaki shorts of the night before and he was lying back in his chair with his legs sprawled out, looking up at the stars.
He was, it would appear, relaxed and in a contemplative frame of mind, as if he was talking about something quite abstract and he was not, at that moment, prey to any physical attraction to her. Whereas just looking at his big frame sprawled in the chair as he gazed up at the stars brought a strange clenching to the stomach for her, for example.
‘Go on,’ she said, when she could keep her voice cool and calm.
He glinted a quizzical hazel glance at her and resumed his study of the heavens. ‘Well, the reason you may not want to pursue it is because you, for whatever reason, have given up men.’
‘And you?’ she queried.
‘Ah. It couldn’t be said that I’ve given up women.’
‘I had noticed that.’
He smiled. ‘On the other hand, I have given up Stella.’
Fleur blinked. ‘Why?’
‘The same reason that would make it unforgivable for me to take up with you, Fleur. I’m perfectly happy to continue my bachelor existence. I don’t say this with any pride but I’m a hard man to pin down—’
‘I’d say there’s a lot of pride in that statement, Bryn,’ she interjected sharply. ‘How did you fail to make Stella aware of this before you took up with her—or didn’t you even try?’ She looked across at him sardonically. But something in his expression arrested her. Something in the way he fleetingly lowered his eyelids made her wonder whether he was actually hiding cool amusement—and she’d walked into a trap of his devising.
‘Bryn,’ she said slowly, ‘I’m not really interested in what reasons you may have for not wanting to take up with me—I’m just glad you have them.’
He sat up at last, to clasp his hands between his knees and subject her to a penetrating gaze that was also quite enigmatic. ‘So we understand each other quite well?’ he said at length.
‘We do.’
‘Hmm…’
A smile trembled on Fleur’s lips but she forced it to disappear at the same time as she thought, Got you there, Bryn Wallis! Perhaps he read her thoughts, though, because the glance he then bestowed upon her was loaded with irony. ‘So be it,’ he murmured. ‘By the way, I’ve decided to close again tomorrow night. Could you see your way clear to taking a day off, Miss Millar?’
Fleur frowned. ‘I—’
‘It’s just that Eric and Julene want to take their yacht for a spin and there’s a beach on the mainland with this marvellous waterfall and pool. It’s a great spot for a picnic.’
She thought for a bit. ‘And you don’t think Eric and Julene will come up with another novel way to “throw us together”?’ she queried.
He grinned. ‘What do they say—forewarned is forearmed? I was also thinking of getting my friends and Tom to join us. They’ve got a four-wheel-drive, so they can get to this beach by road—track really. I would imagine all that should be sufficient to dampen any suspicious ardour we might feel for each other, don’t you?’
‘Bryn,’ she responded swiftly and through her teeth, ‘don’t make me mad enough to want to throw another drink over you with that kind of clever satire!’
He blinked, looked at her fingers clenched around her wineglass and said gravely, ‘Sorry. My ego just took another little dent, you might say.’
‘You mean it’s all right for you to tell me you don’t want to pursue me but it’s a bit different for me to tell you I’m happy about it?’ she responded tartly.
‘I told you you had a mind like steel trap, Fleur, didn’t I?’ he marvelled, looking glum.
She