His Rags-to-Riches Bride: Innocent on Her Wedding Night / Housekeeper at His Beck and Call / The Australian's Housekeeper Bride. Susan Stephens
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of minds as well as bodies.
She unpacked and put away her things, leaving the letter in its hiding place. She didn’t need to look at it again. Every bit of it was seared into her memory.
Downstairs, she drank her tea in the drawing room, and pretended to eat a scone, while Daniel, not pretending at all, read the financial pages of the daily paper with narrow-eyed attention.
Afterwards she went for a walk in the garden, Daniel having declined her stilted invitation to accompany her with equal politeness, and realised she was deliberately prolonging her stroll, lingering over every plant as if she was memorising it for an examination.
She also discovered the swimming pool, totally secluded in a high-walled garden, where espaliered fruit trees spread their branches over the elderly red brick. It was a warm and sheltered place, the sun still high enough to make a swim seem enticing, and for a moment she wistfully considered going back to the house and changing into her bikini.
It occurred to her, too, that if this was a real honeymoon, and Dan and she had found the pool together, he would have dealt swiftly with the buttons on her dress, laughing away her protests, and swimming costumes would have become entirely superfluous for them both. She turned away, stifling a sigh.
‘Mrs Jackson suggests dinner at eight,’ Daniel said when she got back to the house. ‘Does that fit in with your plans?’
She looked at him, startled. ‘I—I have no plans.’
‘No?’ There was faint irony in his voice. ‘My mistake.’
She hesitated. ‘Do we—dress for dinner?’
His brows lifted. ‘Isn’t that a little formal—for just the two of us?’
‘Yes, of course. I—I wasn’t thinking.’
He sent her an enigmatic look. ‘How I wish that were true,’ he said, and returned to the newspaper, and the crossword he was completing.
Laine was hungry, but she had to force herself to eat the delicious food Mrs Jackson provided—smoked trout, followed by lamb cutlets with new potatoes and tiny broad beans, with a creamy mousse made from fresh strawberries for dessert.
The meal was conducted mainly in silence, although Laine made an effort to speak whenever the Jacksons were in the room. But it was making conversation, she realised, rather than talking, and to judge by his sardonic expression Dan knew it too.
Coffee was served in the drawing room, but Laine declined the brandy they were offered.
‘Would you like to listen to some music?’ Dan asked when they were alone again. He nodded towards the shelves that flanked the fireplace. ‘There seems to be a fair selection.’
‘Thank you.’ She put down her empty cup. ‘But I’m tired. I think I’ll—go up. That is, if you don’t mind?’
‘Why should I?’ He smiled at her. ‘The idea has much to recommend it. But I think I’ll stay down here for a while. Finish my drink. Listen to a CD, perhaps.’ He paused. ‘What shall I pick, Laine? A sonata—or a whole symphony?’
She hesitated by the door. ‘I don’t know. It’s your choice.’
‘Is it?’ He sent her a reflective glance. ‘I wonder.’
As she went up the stairs she heard the first sombre chords of Elgar’s cello concerto following her. It was a favourite of hers, and she should have been listening to it with him, curled into the curve of his arm, sharing brandy from the same glass. Not going to her room alone.
She went quietly through the rituals of preparation, as if she was a real bride. Took a bath that was warm but not too hot. Rubbed her favourite lotion into her skin and applied a more intense version of its scent to her pulses, her throat and between her breasts. Brushed her hair until it hung to her shoulders like tawny silk. Put on the filmy high-waisted nightgown with its satin ribbon straps.
Then sat on the edge of the bed in the lamplight and waited to end her marriage.
She heard him come upstairs, and the breath caught in her throat, but he went into the other room, and it was twenty minutes before her own door finally opened and they confronted each other, husband and wife, in the shadowy room.
Dan closed the door quietly behind him and leaned back against its panels, looking at her in silence. He was barefoot, clearly wearing nothing but the white towelling robe, and for a moment everything she’d ever felt for him stormed into her consciousness, and she wanted him so badly that her resolve almost faltered. Almost, but not quite.
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