Phantom Marriage

CHAPTER ONE

IF she didn’t hurry she was going to be late picking the twins up again, Tara acknowledged, glancing in resignation at the heavy-duty watch which looked so incongruous against the fragility of her wrist.

Today Chas has been more difficult than ever. Twice he had had the model in tears, and only her own deft soothing had enabled them to carry on.

It was not merely luck and knowing the right people that had taken Chas to the top as a fashion photographer, and even when she was appalled at the brutal, uncaring way he treated his models, Tara still found it possible to admire his skill, and the driving desire for perfection his unyeilding determination evidenced.

Today he had been particularly savage, and not just with the model, and Tara knew the reason why. Ever since she had started working for him as his personal assistant he had made his desire for her very evident. In a way she knew she ought to be flattered that he wanted her when so many beautiful girls were only too ready to share his bed, but then Chas was cynical and hardbitten enough to know that his models were only too happy to sleep with him if it meant it would further their career, whereas she… She stifled an impatient sigh as he gave terse instructions to her regarding the development of some of the shots he had taken. Photography had always been one of her interests, and when she had been left alone after the twins were born she had turned to it as a means of earning a living. Eventually she hoped to have a studio of her own, and this she had made plain to Chas when she first went to work with him. As far as work went she couldn’t fault him. He was marvellously patient in showing her all the tricks of the trade and helping her with her own photography; unstinting with both genuine praise and genuine criticism, and was now allowing her to take on some of their more routine work entirely unsupervised. An ad they had done for stockings several weeks ago had brought a positive paean of praise from the client, and Chas had given her full credit for her work. No, it was not where work was concerned that Chas was becoming impossible. In a way it was almost ludicrous that he should find her desirable; at twenty-four and the mother of six-year-old twins she had long ago ceased thinking of herself as the object of any man’s desire.

‘And don’t forget, we’ve got that weekend assignment coming up,’ were Chas’s final words as she hurried to where her car was parked.

It was an assignment Tara was privately dreading. They had received a commission to take some fashion shots at Leeds Castle which would take up an entire weekend. Tara had protested that she couldn’t possibly leave the twins, but Chas had overruled her, saying that his housekeeper would be delighted to look after them for her. The real reason she didn’t want to go was that she sensed that Chas would use the weekend to force her into an affair with him—an affair she didn’t want, but offending him might ultimately mean losing her job, which she enjoyed very much and which was extremely well paid.

Sighing, she eased herself into her ancient Mini, adjusting the driving mirror as she did so, pausing as she caught sight of her own reflection. Twenty-four; she grimaced wryly. She didn’t look it, which was ridiculous when she remembered that at eighteen she had looked older. Eighteen… She grimaced, tossing the thick length of her brown-blonde hair off her shoulders. Normally she wore it in one single plait for work but this morning they had overslept and there hadn’t been time. Her face free of make-up belied her years, freckles standing out plainly across the bridge of her nose. Her hair had a natural tendency to curl, tiny tendrils feathering across her forehead. Her eyes were an unusual mixture of hazel-green; hazel one moment, jade green the next, in accordance with her mood. As a child she had been volatile, given to impulsive gestures, but age and experience had cured her of that.

She switched on her engine, swearing mildly as she glanced again at her watch. Her skin was faintly tanned still from a trip she had made to Greece with Chas earlier in the year. Her mother had looked after the twins for her, but grudgingly. She had never really got over the fact that they had been born illegitimate. Tara grimaced as she pulled out into the main stream of traffic. It had not been purely for the twins’ sake that she had invented a ‘deceased husband’ for herself when she moved to London shortly after their birth. As she had quickly discovered in the months following their arrival, while some areas of ‘sophisticated’ society now quite happily condoned the birth of children outside marriage, in male eyes there was still an element of the ‘fallen woman’ attached to girls who admitted to fatherless children, and Tara had grown sick of the men who had offered friendship and affection merely because they assumed her unmarried mother status meant they would quickly gain access to her bed. They had soon learned their mistake, just as she had quickly learned from hers. She had left the small town where she had gone to stay with her aunt and uncle to await the birth of the twins, and started anew in the safe anonymity of London where no one cared enough to question her youthfully widowed status.

It had been a lucky move. She had managed to get the twins enrolled at an excellent nursery, while she herself had gone to college to complete the education so rudely shattered by the discovery of her pregnancy. It had been impossible for her to go to university, but she had gained a sound grounding in secretarial work, which had meant that at least she had been able to earn enough to keep a roof over their heads. An unexpected Premium Bond win had provided the money for the deposit on the small terraced house she had bought in what had been a very unfashionable part of London, but which was now fast moving up-market as more and more young couples made it their home, and there had been sufficient money left for her to afford the fees at the small private kindergarten the twins were attending. This last expense was a bone of contention between Tara and her mother. Her mother had moved to the same town as Tara’s aunt and uncle after the twins’ birth, complaining bitterly that she could no longer stand the shame of living in the same place that had witnessed her daughter’s disgrace. Tara’s father had been killed in a road accident when Tara herself was five and she could barely remember him, so her mother and her aunt and uncle had been the only family she had known. All three of them now felt uncom

fortable with her, she acknowledged, and so her visits to them were infrequent. Her mother considered private education to be morally wrong, but Tara had pointed out to her as gently as she could that she wanted the best for the twins.

When she had first discovered that she was pregnant her mother had wanted her to have her child adopted, but Tara had remained adamant that she wouldn’t. There had been no possibility of marriage to their father, of course. Her eyes darkened, the fingers gripping the steering wheel suddenly white. Oh God, how that still hurt after all these years when surely she ought to have put it long behind her, but James’s total rejection of her still had the power to wound. It wasn’t even as though he had the excuse of being a young innocent as she had been herself. An unwillingness to face up to his responsibilities was something she could have understood and accepted in a boy of eighteen, but in a man of twenty-seven… As always when she thought of James bitterness welled up inside her. The first time they met she hadn’t realised what was to come. He had simply been the father of a younger school friend.

Memories suddenly threatened to come crowding back, and with the skill of long experience, she dammed them up, concentrating on her driving and the evening ahead.

It wasn’t far from the studio to the kindergarten, which was one of the reasons she had chosen it.

To her relief there were still other cars parked outside when she arrived; mothers waiting to collect their offspring, and she smiled in wry amusement, acknowledging the incongruity of her shabby Mini amongst so many luxuriously expensive boxes on wheels.

An elegant blonde woman smiled at her as she eased herself from the Mini. Tara smiled back vaguely, eyes searching the playground for the twins’ familiar dark heads, and a small pent-up sigh escaped the full warmth of her lips when she spotted them playing on the slide.

Outwardly neither twin bore the slightest resemblance to her; both had inherited their father’s darkly attractive looks, softened by baby chubbiness, and an undeniably coquettish femininity in the case of Mandy.

Tara grimaced a little as she thought of her pretty, wilful little daughter. Already the little girl seemed to exhibit a perverse delight in thwarting her mother, and Tara recognised unwillingly in the little girl’s behaviour a need for the firm and loving hand of a father. Mandy was all female and had been from the moment of her birth, just as Simon was a sturdy miniature replica of his father. Like Mandy he too suffered the lack of a father, although in Simon it showed more in the pensive seriousness of his eyes and his tendency to cling a little too much to the protection afforded by Tara.

Simon as always saw her first and came running over to her, flinging his arms round her jean-clad knees, while Mandy followed in his wake, dark curls flying.

‘You’re late,’ Simon accused when she had kissed them both.

Tara sighed. ‘I know, darling.’

‘Is Uncle Chas coming round tonight?’ Mandy demanded. Chas occasionally popped round in the evening to discuss work, and Mandy tended to disapprove of his visits.

As Tara was explaining to them that it was unlikely, the blonde woman who had smiled so tentatively at her before suddenly approached with a toddler, her smile deepening to recognition as she came closer.

‘Tara!’ she exclaimed in pleased accents. ‘I thought it was you.’

She mustn’t have looked at her properly the first time, Tara decided, suddenly feeling ill, otherwise she would have recognised her instantly, despite the sophistication that seven years and the apparent addition of a wealthy husband had given.

‘Susan.’

Did her voice sound as weak as she felt?

‘What a fantastic coincidence,’ the other girl chattered on blithely, obviously unaware that Tara wasn’t sharing her pleasure. ‘It must be at least seven years since I last saw you. You never even told me that you were leaving Hillingdon,’ she added reproachfully. ‘Are these your children?’

‘Yes.’

Tara was desperate to escape, but it was impossible while Susan admired the twins, and picked up her own toddler, who, she informed Tara, was just three and was called Piers.

‘After his grandfather,’ she added, pulling a slight face. ‘Do you know, I just can’t get over meeting you like this. Of course the chauffeur normally collects Piers from school. What are you doing with yourself…’ Her eyes slid to the betrayingly ancient state of Tara’s Mini in comparison to her own elegant BMW. ‘You married, of course… Your husband…’

‘John died before the twins were born,’ Tara lied huskily, bending down to check the fastening on Simon’s shoes, glad of the excuse to hide her expression from the girl who had once been one of her closest friends. Dear God, why did this have to happen? Why did she have to run into Susan of all people like this?

Susan was instantly sympathetic.

‘Oh, you poor thing!’ she exclaimed, glancing significantly at the twins as she added, ‘No problems there, I hope? I can still remember what the lack of a father did to me, although it wasn’t the same thing. Mother divorced my real father when I was four. I don’t suppose I ever mentioned that to you before—I hated people knowing. She’s remarried again, you know,’ she added conversationally, patently unaware of the sudden tensing of Tara’s body. ‘The older she gets the younger her husbands get. She’s living in the States now. I think of all the fathers she provided me with James was my favourite. In the old days I never used to admit he wasn’t my father. He was wonderful fun, do you remember…?’

Did she? Tara forced a smile from a face that felt as though it would crack apart and expose her anguish to the world and managed to croak, ‘Yes…’

‘Look, we must get together,’ Susan announced enthusiastically. ‘We’ve so much to catch up on. We’ve just bought a house in the country—for Piers mainly. At the moment we can only use it at weekends, although his father is hoping to transfer his business down there eventually. We’re going down this weekend, why not come with us? The twins would love it, I’m sure.’