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“Before you go – we have to –“ the judge began, but Spence intervened. “You can congratulate me in a few minutes, Larry,” he said smoothly. “I’ll meet you in the library, where it’s quiet, as soon as I take Corey upstairs. There’s a cab front to take you home after we talk.”
In the space of time it took to leave the gazebo and start down the hall to her suite, Corey’s emotions had plummeted from an enthusiastic high over the outstanding photographs she was certain the’d gotten to an inexplicable depression, which she tried to rationalize as a normal letdown after a day of extraordinary tension and hard work. She knew Spence wasn’t to blame. He’d played his role as surrogate bridegroom with a combination of unshakable calm and boyish enthusiasm that had been utterly charming.
She was still trying to sort out her tangled emotions when he opened the door to her suite and stepped aside, but when she started to walk past him, he stopped her. “What’s wrong, beautiful?”
“Oh, please,” she said on a choking laugh, “don’t say anything sweet, or I’ll burst into tears.”
“You were a gorgeous bride.”
“I’m warning you,” she said chokily.
He drew her into his arms, cupping the back of her head and pressing her face to his heart in a gesture that was so tender and so unexpected that it moved her another step closer to tears. “It was such as awful farce,” she whispered.
“Most weddings are an awful farce,” he said in quiet amusement. “It’s what comes afterward that matters.”
“I suppose so,” she said absently.
“Think about the weddings you’ve seen,” he continued, ignoring the startled looks of several wedding guests who saw them through the open door as the guests walked down the hall. “Half the time the groom is hungover or the bridge has morning sickness. It’s pitiful,” he teased.
Her shoulders shook with a teary laugh, and Spence smiled because the sound of her laughter had always delighted him, and making her laugh had always made him feel as if he were better, stronger, nicer than he really was. “All things considered, this is about as close to a perfect wedding as you could hope for.”
“Not to me it isn’t. I want a Christmas wedding.”
“Is that the only thing you dislike about this wedding – the season of the year, I mean? If there’s anything I can do to make you happier about all this, tell me and I’ll do it.”
You could love me, Corey thought before she could stop herself, then she pushed the thought aside. “There is absolutely nothing more you can do beyond what you’ve done. I’m being ridiculous and overemotional. Weddings do that to me,” she lied with a smile as she stepped back.
He accepted that. “I’ll deal with Lattimore, and then I want to change clothes. In the meantime, I’ll have some champagne sent up here, and then I’ll come up and share it with you, how does that sound?”
“Fine,” she said.
Sixteen
A SHOWER HAD PARTIALLY REVIVED COREY’S SPIRITS, AND SHE surveyed the selection of clothes hanging in her closet, wondering what the appropriate attire was for a stand-in bride who was about to have champagne with a surrogate groom after their pretend wedding. “This will work,” she said with relief as reached for the billowy cream silk pants and long tunic she’d brought along because they were flexible enough to wear to almos any social event in a Newport mansion.
She was standing in front of the bathroom mirror, brushing her hair, when she heard Spence knock on the door and then let himself in. “I’ll be right there,” she called, pausing long enough to put on pearl earrings. She straightened and stepped back from the mirror. She looked much happier and more contented than she felt, she decided with relief. Because what she felt was… haunted. She had worn a bridal gown and veil and stood beside Spence in a rose-covered gazebo while he held her hand in his, smiling tenderly into her eyes. He had even slipped a ring on her finger afterward… The memories of their “wedding” seemed to be permanently imprinted on her mind. No, she told herself, not permanently, only temporarily. Memories would soon give way to the reality. The wedding had been a hoax, the “ring” a piece of gold ribbon with a wire in it. The reality made her ache.
Spence had taken off his tuxedo jacket, loosened his tie, and opened the top buttons of his formal shirt. He looked every bit as sexy and elegant that way as he had during the wedding; he did not, however, look nearly as relaxed. His jaw was rigid, and his movements were abrupt as he ignored the champagne chilling in a gold bucket and jerked the stopper out of one of the liquor decanters on the cabinet. He poured some into a crystal tumbler and lifted the glass to his mouth. “What are you doing?” Corey asked, watching him take two deep swallows of straight bourbon.
He lowered the glass and looked at her over his shoulder. “I’m having a very stiff drink. And now I’ll fix one for you.”
“No thanks,” Corey said with a shudder. “I’d rather have the champagne.”
“Take my advice,” he said almost bitterly, “have a regular drink.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re going to need it.” He fixed her a drink that at least had ice cubes and some club soda to dilute it and handed it to her. Corey sipped it, waiting for him to explain, but instead of talking, he stared at the glass in his hand.
“Spence, whatever is wrong, it can’t be worse than you’re making it seem to me right now.”
“I hope you still feel that way in a few minutes,” he said grimly.
“What is it?” Corey said desperately. “Is someone ill?”
“No.” He put down his drink, then he walked over to the fireplace and braced his hands on the mantel, staring into the empty grate. It was a pose of such abject defeat that Corey felt a fierce surge of protective tenderness. She walked up behind him and laid her hand on his broad shoulder. It was the first time since coming to Newport that she had voluntarily touched him except when he was kissing her, and she felt his muscles tense beneath her hand. “Please don’t make me wonder like this, you’re scaring me!”
“An hour ago, my idiotic niece called to tell me she was now married to her beloved restauranteur.”
“So far, that sounds good.”
“That was the only good part of the phone call.”
Visions of car crashes and ambulances flashed through Corey’s mind. “What was the bad part, Spence?”
He hesitated, then he turned and looked directly at her. “The bad part is that, during our conversation, we also discussed the elopement letter she left for me last night. It appears that in her haste to explain how you’d influenced her decision to elope, Joy was a little remiss about the verbs she used. Specifically, she failed to clearly differentiate between past and present tense.”
“What do you mean she explained how I influenced her?” Corey asked warily.
“Read the letter,” he said, taking two folded pieces of paper out of his pants pocket and handing Corey the one on top.
Corey saw at a glance what he was talking about.
Corey told me she loved you and wanted to have your baby, she said you’re the only man she’s ever felt that way about, and that’s why she’s never married anyone else. Uncle Spence, I love Will. I want to have his babies someday. That’s why I can’t marry anyone else…
Despite the mortification she felt, Corey managed to affect a calm, dismissive smile as she handed the letter back to him. “In the first place, I was describing how I felt about you when I was a teenager, not an adult. Secondly, the conclusion she drew about why I haven’t married was hers, not mine.”
“As you can see, that’s not quite the way it read.”
“Is – is that all that’s bothering you?” Corey said, relieved that he wasn’t going to challenge her explanation.
Instead of answering, he shoved his hands into his pockets and studied her in impassive silence for so long that Corey took a nervous sip of her drink. “What’s bothering me,” he said bluntly, “is that I don’t know how you feel about me now.”
r /> Since she didn’t have the slightest idea how he felt about her and he wasn’t volunteering any information about it, Corey didn’t think he had any right to ask the question or expect an answer. “I think you’re one of the handsomest men I’ve ever married!” she joked.
He was not amused. “This is no time to be evasive, believe me.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that I know damned well you feel something for me now, even if it’s just common garden-variety lust.”
She gaped at him. “Does your ego need a boost?”
“Answer the question,” he ordered.
Struggling desperately to put a light tone on the matter and end it, she said, “Let me put in this way: If we ever do an article on ‘Great Kissing’, you’ll be featured in the Top Ten, and I’ll give you my vote. Well?” she teased. “What do you think?”
“I think you’d be accused of bias for voting for your own husband.”
“Don’t call yourself my husband,” Corey said. “It isn’t funny.”
“It isn’t a joke.”
“That’s what I just said,” Corey pointed ot impatiently.
“We’re married, Corey.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
