AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The kitchen had been completely modernised, but in a way that completely kept its traditional appeal. There was a note on the table saying that a salad and a cooked chicken had been left in the fridge.
Genista did not feel hungry. Her ears were alert for the first sound of the returning Maserati. When it did not come she went back to the library, reluctant to explore upstairs, as though she were a visitor who must await the invitation of the owner.
She was curled up asleep in a chair in the library, when something wakened her. She stiffened, tensing as she heard the front door open, and slow footsteps crossing the hall. The door handle turned, and she held her breath. It was gone two o’clock in the morning. Where had Luke been?
He opened the door and stood by it, swaying slightly, his eyes glittering dangerously over her sleepy features.
‘Waiting for me like a dutiful wife?’ His voice was faintly slurred, and alarm clawed at Genista as she realised that he had been drinking.
‘Why, I wonder? Not because you were lonely in bed without me? Or was it? You wanted me this morning, Genista, no matter how much those flashing eyes of yours want to deny it. Oh, you’re safe enough now,’ he muttered. ‘There’s a certain something to be said for alcohol—it blunts one’s desire. Shocked?’ His raw mockery caught at her nerves. ‘You ought to be grateful that you’re being spared my unwanted advances; that I’m not defiling you by further exhibitions of my lust. You hate me, don’t you? Don’t you?’ he demanded ferociously. ‘I took your virginity, and you haven’t got the guts to admit that you enjoyed the experience, so instead you blame me—hating me.’
‘If you’ll just tell me which is my room.’ She daren’t provoke him any further by retaliating. He was in a dangerously volatile mood, and even in the knowledge of her love, she shuddered at the thought of how he might use her in his present savage mood.
‘Take your pick. You can even share mine, but you won’t want to do that, will you, Genista? Who knows, you might actually turn to me one fine night and behave like a woman, and that would never do, would it? No one must be allowed to touch what’s being sacrificed on the altar to your love for Bob. You stupid little fool!’ His voice roughened suddenly, his hands grasping her shoulders and wrenching her out of the chair. ‘Are you going to spend the whole of your life in love with a man who doesn’t want you?’
Genista looked him straight in the eyes.
‘Yes.’
After all, it was the truth, but the man she loved wasn’t Bob. It was Luke. He let her go without a word. Her case was too heavy to carry upstairs, so she unzipped it and removed the silk cheongsam; too exhausted to search through it for anything else. The dress would do as a robe. All she wanted to do was to sleep—and to forget.
The first door she opened revealed a bedroom decorated in strongly male colours, and even without the silk dressing gown on the bed she would have guessed it was Luke’s. She closed the door, her heart hammering with pain and went to the room farthest away from his and switched on the light.
It was obviously a guestroom, decorated prettily in soft pinks, with its own private bathroom. Genista undressed quickly, showering briefly before sliding beneath the cool cotton sheets.
A telephone ringing somewhere woke her. Someone must have answered it, because the shrill sound was cut off in mid-peal. She opened her eyes and looked round. The sun was streaming in through her window. She climbed out of bed and crossed over to it, pulling aside the curtains to stare out at the lovingly restored Elizabethan gardens below.
‘Genista!’ There was a brief tap on the door and she barely had time to pull on her silk robe before Luke walked in.
He was already dressed in jeans and a thin cotton shirt, all signs of the previous evening’s drinking gone.
‘That was my sister on the phone,’ he announced without preamble. ‘She’s heard about our wedding from Amy, and she’s on her way over to see us. She should be here later this afternoon. Apparently a crisis has blown up.’
His eyes were on the silk robe, and Genista had the feeling that for a moment something had made him forget completely what he had been about to say. Seconds later she knew the reason why.
‘It’s Lucy’s half term, and Marina wants us to look after her. When you get to know my sister better you’ll come to realise that she has a blithe disregard of other people’s plans, but when it comes to roping them into hers…but on this occasion I feel I owe it to her to help. Philip’s been in touch with her. He wants her back.’ He turned away abruptly, and Genista had no difficulty in guessing where his thoughts lay. Barely forty-eight hours after he had tied himself to her he had learned that the woman he really loved was free. Perhaps she had found after all that mere wealth did not make up for love; or perhaps Verity had come to realise that with Luke she could have both! The bitchiness of the thought dismayed her.
‘Marina isn’t sure how Lucy will take it. It’s her own damned silly fault, I warned her about not pumping Lucy’s head full of silly tales about her father, but Marina wouldn’t listen. Now she’s afraid Lucy will reject Philip. The situation between them is still at a very difficult stage, and she feels that she and Philip
need time alone together.’
‘I expect she’s right,’ Genista agreed, her heart sinking. She felt completely unequal to coping with a precocious fourteen-year-old with emotional problems.
‘Marina will bring Lucy up here from her school. She’s a nice kid, despite her upbringing. Sensible too, but she’s at that age where they feel things intensely. I don’t want her to grow up with the idea that there’s no such thing as a happy marriage.’
‘What are you trying to say?’
‘That for the duration of Lucy’s stay, you’ll share my room. I’ve put your case in there. You can unpack while I make breakfast. I’m well aware that her visit gives you the perfect opportunity to get back at me, but I’m not asking for your co-operation for my sake—it’s for hers. She worshipped her father, and she took it hard when he left.’
Genista touched her dry lips with the tip of her tongue. A wild idea had suddenly occurred to her.
‘All right,’ she agreed huskily. ‘But there’s one condition.’
Luke’s eyes held hers.
‘For as long as Lucy stays here I’ll act the part of the deliriously happy new bride, but once she’s gone, I want you to start divorce proceedings. You blackmailed me into this marriage, and if I have to I’ll blackmail you into letting me out of it.’
‘I see.’
