The Marriage Solution
'I see.' She rubbed a shaking hand across her eyes before rising to face him. 'I'm sorry, Carlton; I made a terrible mistake. But I didn't know.'
'No one does.' He shrugged slowly. 'Penny didn't want anyone to know about her face and what had happened. The world is cruel but the modelling world even more so and the media would have had a field day for a time until some other poor so-and-so took their attention.'
'She just disappeared from sight, changed her name to Staples, added the 'Mrs' and cauterised the wound of her old life. Her artist friends have no idea who she was previously but they're a good bunch—they don't care. How did Jennifer find out about it?' he asked abruptly. 'I presume it was Jennifer?'
'Yes.' She stared at him miserably, loving him more than she would have thought possible and terrified that he might read it in her face. 'I don't know how she found out but she is jealous about—about us,' she finished painfully. 'I suppose, knowing Jennifer, she dug and dug away until she got something; she has contacts you wouldn't dream of.'
'Oh, yes, I would,' he said grimly.
'And since Penny you've never fallen in love again?' She had to ask now, while he was actually talking to her. She had been wrong about Penny, criminally wrong, but there was still Maisie and, by his own admission, several other liaisons through the years. She had to know it all, face the worst now.
'I—' He had been facing her, his face taut and strained, but as she asked the question something flickered in the smoky depths of his eyes for an instant and he hesitated before turning to look out of the window again. 'Why do you ask?'
'Because—' Because I love you, I can't live without you, I'm going to marry you tomorrow knowing you don't love me, but you've reduced me to this creature who will take anything she can get, she thought wildly. 'Because it's only fair that I know,' she continued bleakly. 'You know everything about me—not that there was anything much to know,' she added bitterly.
'Yes, I see.' She saw him straighten, as though he had taken a deep breath, before he faced her again. 'Do you want me to be honest?' he asked with a grim seriousness that stopped her heart.
'Of course I do.' She stared at him, sheer will-power keeping her face cool and still and her eyes veiled.
'Are you sure?' he asked heavily. 'You might not like what you hear.'
'I want to know.' Her heart was thudding so hard that she was sure he must be able to hear it.
'Then the answer has to be yes,' he said tiredly. 'Yes, I have. I think you've known for some time deep down inside, haven't you?'
'Oh.' If the world had stopped spinning at that moment she wouldn't have cared. It was Maisie; it had to be. All the hundred and one little incidents from the past, the tender gestures, the gentleness, the innate kindness. It had to be the beautiful, shy brunette.
But why couldn't he marry her? What was stopping him from taking her as his wife? Didn't she return his love? Perhaps they hadn't been lovers. Perhaps Maisie had held him at a distance, unable to love him in return except as a friend. Or was there an obstacle she knew nothing about?
'And now you've had it confirmed.' He stared at her across the room, his eyes holding hers as her face registered her awareness. 'And it hasn't helped, as I knew it wouldn't You're more shocked, more panicky—'
'I have to go.' She spoke through numb lips as she backed from him, the look on his face piercing her heart like a sword. She didn't want to hear more—hear the details about another woman who had captured his cold heart for her own. She wouldn't be able to bear it. What good would it do anyway?
She knew now that she would marry him tomorrow whether or not he gave help to her father. She would marry him because she loved him, because a life without him in it would be pointless and empty and cold, even as a life as his wife would be an unending torment of pain and grief. But it would be better than knowing he was alive somewhere, walking and talking on this planet without her.
'Katie—' As he took a step towards her she found her hand on the doorknob and wrenched open the door savagely.
'No, don't come near me.' She couldn't bear to hear more. 'I'll be there tomorrow—you have my word—but I need to go home now.' And as she slammed the door behind her, a sob catching in her throat, it was as though she was slamming a door on all her hopes and dreams.
CHAPTER EIGHT
She was a beautiful bride—everyone said so—but as Katie drifted through the day on Carlton's arm—the ceremony, the reception—it was as though it were all a dream, indistinct and unreal. She knew her father was worried about her but she couldn't seem to find the words through the fog in her mind to reassure him, although she caught him looking at her time and time again, his pale blue eyes narrowed with concern.
There was dancing after the meal at the lavish hotel that Carlton had booked for the reception and as he raised her to her feet, the guests clapping as they took the floor, she felt her footsteps falter, and in the same instant his hand came firmly round her waist. 'Don't faint on me, little wife.' His eyes were glittering with some dark emotion as he looked into the speckled light of hers. 'See it through to the bitter end.'
Her eyes were wide and dazed as they looked into his, her skin a pale, translucent cream that complemented the ivory silk dress with its mass of tiny seed-pearls and old lace, the skirt wide and hooped and the bodice fitting like a glove. 'I'm not going to faint,' she said quietly, the tiara of tiny pink rosebuds in her hair reflecting the colour of her pale lips. 'I told you once before, I've never fainted in my life.'
'And I called you formidable.' He looked down at her as they began to dance, the full skirt of her dress preventing close contact 'I had no idea then just how formidable.'
'Formidable?' She stared up at him in bewilderment. He thought this mass of bruised emotion and trembling flesh that he held in his arms 'formidable'?
'You don't think so?' he asked softly as her face mirrored her thoughts. 'Innocence is a terrible weapon, my love; don't ever doubt it.'
'My love'? It was the first time he had used such an endearment and it cut like a knife. She would have given the rest of her life for one hour in his arms with him meaning those two words, she thought painfully.
The revelations of the day before had meant a sleepless night and an aching heart, and as she had sat and watched the night sky change from dark velvet blue to a dawn streaked with pink and orange she wept until there had been no more tears left. The magnificent wedding-dress on its hanger on her wardrobe door had seemed like a mockery then, the fine veil with its intricate lace and pearls an abomination, but she was married now.
She glanced up at him as the music came to an end and their solitary dance finished with the assembled throng clapping and chee