Bridal Bargains

Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t, but having no Andreas around to bounce either feeling off meant she had to deal with the conscience-struck days herself.

So her wedding day arrived, and behind a protective haze of disassociation she went through with it, stepping into the tiny but beautiful candlelit church on the arm of Andreas’s uncle Grigoris to be handed over to a man who had taken back the guise of tall, dark stranger in the days since she’d seen him last.

All those who had been at the betrothal party were here to watch them marry. Like a puppet responding to each pull on its strings, Claire repeated vows she didn’t mean to a man who didn’t mean them, his voice a dark and husky rumble that vibrated through her system like the growl of a hungry animal who saw her as its next meal.

Only this particular animal didn’t really want to eat her. So that fanciful impression was just another deception she could add to a growing list of them.

A slender gold wedding band arrived on her finger. She was kissed—though she completely shut herself off from it. She caught a glimpse of his eyes, though, as he drew away again. They were narrowed and probing the strained whiteness of her face.

She looked away. That kind of intimate contact was just too much for her right now.

They arrived back at the house to find that the wedding breakfast was to take place outside on the lawn. But when she went to move in that direction, already armouring herself for the next ordeal of having to face again all those people who, in her mind, had somehow become indelibly linked with the night of her wretched leap into womanhood, Andreas stayed her with the light touch of his fingers on her shoulder.

Sensation ripped through her like a lightning bolt, straightening her spine and drawing the breath into her lungs on a stricken gasp.

Why it happened, when she had managed to disregard every other time he had touched her today, she didn’t know.

But his fingers snapped back, his lean face freezing in what she could only believe was shock. ‘I can accept it is a bride’s right to look pale and interestingly ethereal,’ he rasped out harshly. ‘But do you think you could at least refrain from behaving as a lamb being led to her sacrifice?’

‘Sorry,’ she said awkwardly, but it was already too late for the apology.

He turned away from her, angry, tense. ‘We have another ordeal to contend with before we can go out to greet our guests,’ he then informed her grimly. ‘My grandmother is waiting to meet Melanie.’

Of course, she thought as mutely she followed him towards the stairs. Melanie was no longer an illegitimate member of this family—which was the real point to all of this after all. So why hadn’t she considered this eventuality?

Because it had been one lie that had become lost within all the other lies. She answered her own question.

The amber eyes flicked over Claire then did the same to Andreas, who was standing beside her holding Melanie. And Claire knew the old lady was superimposing her own and her late husband’s image over the top of them as she did so.

‘Perfect,’ she sighed out in eventual satisfaction. ‘Except for the child, of course,’ she then added censoriously. ‘I would have been banished from the family and my dear Tito would have been whipped to within an inch of his life. Now, get me that soft cushion over there,’ she went on impatiently. ‘Place it on my knee then let me have my great-granddaughter.’

Eager now—almost greedy in her desire to hold the baby, Claire moved to her bidding, collecting the requested cushion and laying it on the old lady’s lap. With infinite care, Andreas followed it with Melanie, then they both straightened to watch as the bony fingers of her only useful hand gently touched Melanie’s cap of silky black hair then stroked her baby cheek.

As if she sensed a stranger around, Melanie’s eyes flicked open and stared directly into the wizened old face leaning over her. It was an electrifying moment, though Claire didn’t know why it felt like that. But a few seconds later Andreas’s grandmother lifted her eyes up to his, and static was suddenly sparking between them.

‘You devil,’ she said.

That brief grim smile of his appeared. ‘And you are just too shrewd for your own good sometimes,’ he replied.

Then they both went on speaking in their own language while Claire stood by, utterly lost to the conversation, though she was aware that it took the form of a very sharp question-and-answer session that seemed to be including her because the old lady kept on glancing sharply at her.

The inquisition was concluded with a final thoughtful glance in Claire’s direction and a brief nod of her head. ‘Now send Althea to me,’ the old lady commanded, and her attention was back on the baby lying wide awake now on her lap. ‘And leave me to get to know my great-granddaughter in peace.’

‘What was all that about?’ Claire dared to ask after they’d left his grandmother with Althea safely ensconced to watch over Melanie.

‘She likes to think she still has control over everything, you know that,’ he drawled dismissively.

‘She called you a devil.’ And she’d meant it, Claire thought frowningly.

‘Maybe I am,’ he replied in a light, mocking vein that nonetheless still made Claire feel that, like his grandmother, he was being serious.

She was missing something here; she knew she was; she just didn’t know what the something was.

Then Andreas was diverting her thoughts into a whole new area that completely dismissed everything else for a while. Because he took her to his study and produced a set of legal documents that were, he explained, a formal application to the British authorities for them both to legally adopt Melanie.

Yet another stage of his carefully thought out game-plan, she mused bleakly as she set her signature to each page as Andreas indicated. A game-plan that had gone very smoothly for him—if you didn’t count that one small glitch in the middle when he’d given in to his baser instincts and seduced one of the expendable pawns.

‘Don’t look so worried,’ he said. ‘This will strengthen your claim on Melanie, not weaken it. Trust me.’