The Bartered Bride

She was on her way to the kitchen to make a cup of coffee when someone pressed the front-door buzzer. Answering it, Fran found a motorbike messenger outside.

‘Ms Turner?’

‘Yes.’

‘Package for you. Would you sign for it, please?’

Fran wrote her name on the form and took the padded bag. There was nothing to indicate where it came from, only a plain white label with her name and address printed on it. Perhaps it was something she had ordered and forgotten about?

She closed the door and, walking back to the living room, pulled the tab that opened the bag and peered at the contents, immediately recognising the file Reid Kennard had said was a résumé of his life. Now there was a sheet of headed paper clipped to the cover.

Aiming at the sofa, Fran flung the package from her. Bloody cheek! Infuriating man! As soon as she’d had her coffee, she’d find some sticky tape and a label and send the file back, unstamped, with UNSOLICITED, UNWANTED BUMPH written large above the address.

She went to the kitchen, half filled the electric kettle and perched on a stool at the breakfast bar. Usually she drank herb tea, being on a more or less permanent health kick. But sometimes, on days like this, she allowed herself a shot of caffeine.

Postponing dealing with the package, she spent the next hour going through her father’s wardrobe, making sure there was nothing in the pockets of his suits before she folded them. Rather than giving them to a charity shop, she hoped to sell them. The chaos he had left behind him made it essential to raise money in every way possible.

With the hanging cupboards empty, the next job was the drawers...but after another cup of coffee, or maybe a glass of white wine.

She opened a bottle of Muscadet and filled a glass. Instead of taking it back upstairs, she couldn’t resist her curiosity about the letter that man Kennard had sent with the file.

Later she debated going to a movie to take her mind off her problems for a couple of hours. But there was still a lot to be done and she had already wasted half an hour reading the contents of the file.

She decided to phone for a pizza and concentrate on the job in hand. Some time during the evening she would telephone her mother. Mrs Turner didn’t know about the interview with Kennard. Fran had felt it best not to mention it. She’d been trying to play down the financial side of their situation.

Her supper arrived sooner than she expected. But when she opened the door, it wasn’t a pizza delivery man who stood outside. It was Reid Kennard.

Fran’s friendly expression froze into a mask of dislike. ‘What do you want?’ she said curtly.

‘I thought you might have calmed down a little by now.’

‘I haven’t...and I’m busy.’

She started to shut the door but he put a foot across the threshold and the flat of his hand on the door to hold it open.

She had never expected to hear herself saying, ‘How dare you?’ to anyone, but it was what sprang to her lips, followed by, ‘Get out!’

‘I’m not inside yet,’ he said blandly. ‘We have things to talk about. May I come in?’

‘We have nothing to say to each other. You have no right to pester me like this. If you don’t go away, I’ll call the security man and have you thrown off the premises.’

‘On what grounds?’

‘Making a nuisance of yourself.’

Reid Kennard smiled, but it wasn’t a kind or amused smile. It was the sort of expression she associated with sadists about to do something which would give them pleasure but cause excruciating pain to their victim.

‘I think you’re bluffing.’

He stepped into the hallway. To her chagrin, Fran let him. Not that she had much option. He was far too large and muscular for her to use physical means to deny him access. She had muscles of her own, but not in the same class as his.

He had looked a strong man in his office, but that might have been partly good tailoring. Now that he had changed out of his city suit into chinos and a dark blue cashmere sweater over a cotton shirt, it was clear that the breadth of his shoulders owed nothing to clever padding.

‘This is outrageous,’ she snapped, while instinctively backing away to avoid coming into contact with that tall and powerful male body as he closed the door.

‘Don’t pretend to be in a panic. You know perfectly well I’m not going to harm you.’

‘How do I know that? You’ve already shown signs of derangement.’

‘Not really. I’ll admit to being unconventional. You’ll get used to it.’ He glanced round the hall and then, with a gesture at the open door of the living room, said, ‘After you.’

Having no choice but to act on her threat or let him speak his piece, Fran walked ahead of him. If he expected to be invited to sit down, he could think again.

Grinding her teeth, she saw that she had left the file on the low glass-topped table in front of the sofa. Even worse, it was open, proving she had looked through it.

But the first thing that caught his eye wasn’t the file. It was the half-full glass of wine—her second—she had left by the telephone.

‘A bad habit...drinking alone,’ he remarked, with a sardonic glance at her hostile face.

‘I don’t as a rule. It’s been a trying day. I’m not used to dealing with people who think they can trample roughshod over the rest of the world.’ She folded her arms and glared at him. ‘You have to be the most objectionable person I have ever met.’

‘Because I want to marry you? Even if they don’t wish to say yes, most women regard a proposal as a compliment.’

‘Not when it comes from a stranger who regards women as chattels.’

‘There are cultures where it’s the custom for girls not even to see their husband’s face until after the marriage ceremony. Marriage is a practical institution. It’s because our culture ignores that that we have so many divorces. Wouldn’t you rather stay married?’

‘I’m not interested in marriage...certainly not to you.’

‘Why not, if there’s no one else in your life? Or did my investigator slip up there?’

At this point the buzzer sounded again. She saw him looking displeased by the interruption as she went to answer the door. This time it was the takeout delivery man. She took the box to the kitchen before paying him the money she had ready in her pocket.

Rejoining Kennard, she said pointedly, ‘My supper’s arrived. I’d like to eat it while it’s still hot.’

Ignoring the hint, he said, ‘You ought to keep your door chained until you see who your caller is.’

‘Normally I do. It’s only because I thought you were the man with the pizza that you were able to barge in.’

‘That was lucky...for me.’ He began to look round the room, taking in the colour scheme, the books and paintings, and the mirrors. Fran loved mirrors, especially antique ones. As a child, her favourite book had been a copy, inherited from her grandmother, of Through the Looking-Glass. Somehow the wrong-way-round view seen through a mirror always looked better than what was really there. She had often wished she could step through the frame of a mirror into a world where things were the same but different; her parents’ marriage a happy one and herself a model pupil like her elder sister.

‘Nice room. Who designed it?’ asked Kennard.

No one had ever remarked on the way the room looked. She couldn’t help feeling a slight sense of gratification that someone had finally noticed the effect she had spent a lot of time and thought achieving.

‘Nobody well known,’ she said. ‘Please...I want to get on with my supper and I have to have everything packed by tomorrow afternoon. I really don’t have time to talk...even if we had anything sensible to talk about.’

‘A pizza’s a poor sort of supper...especially if you’re eating alone. Let me buy you a decent dinner and try to convince you that my plan makes a lot of sense. Then, if you like, I’ll give you a hand with the packing.’