The Bartered Bride

‘I always act fast whenever possible. Is your mother feeling better?’

‘She can’t quite believe the threat of eviction is no longer hanging over us. It’ll take her a few days to get used to it.’

After he had rung off, she realised she had forgotten to thank him for the flowers.

Explaining the good news to Shelley and John was more difficult. They couldn’t understand how, when George Turner had been unable to raise the investment capital his business needed, someone should make a good offer after the business had failed.

Fran managed to blind them with science by tossing out phrases picked up from Mr Preston. But afterwards she wondered if they would put two and two together when she became engaged to a leading figure in the banking world.

CHAPTER THREE

A WEEK later Fran returned from walking the dogs to find a sleek black Porsche 911, a car she had always longed to drive, parked near the front door.

She paused to admire the classic lines of what a man she had dated, although not for long, had told her had been one of the world’s most desirable vehicles since before she was born and was still an object of desire to people who knew about cars and could afford the best.

Then she walked round the side of the house to the tradesmen’s entrance. In the quarry-tiled lobby the dogs had their water bowls below the hooks for their leads.

Leaving them slurping, she went into the kitchen.

‘Who’s the visitor, Janie?’

Janie had come to the Turners as a fifteen-year-old nursery maid when Fran was a baby. She had grown up in an orphanage, with the added disadvantage of a stammer.

She had a flair for cooking and now produced all the meals as well as supervising the three part-time helpers who did the housework and ironing.

‘Gentleman to see your mum.’

Fran knew Janie wouldn’t have asked his name because, except in the family, she was self-conscious about her indistinct diction.

‘I took in a tea tray twenty minutes ago. Shall I make a small pot for you?’

‘No, thanks, I’ll have a cold drink.’ Fran went to the fridge for a bottle of spring water. Filling a tall glass, she said, ‘Perhaps he’s after the house...heard rumours it may be for sale.’

‘If you ask me,’ said Janie, ‘we’d be better off somewhere smaller. It would upset your mum at first, but she could make another garden. When you leave home, this’ll be far too big for just her and me.’

Fran nodded. She wondered, not for the first time, if Janie was really resigned to a lifetime of living in someone else’s house, never having a place of her own, or a husband and children. It seemed terribly unfair when she would make a much better wife than many women who didn’t have her impediment.

‘I’ll go and find out why he’s here,’ she said.

Crossing the wood-panelled hall, she was surprised to hear her mother talking in an animated way most unlike her usual manner with strangers. Whoever the visitor was, he must have a gift for bringing quiet, reserved people like Mrs Turner out of their shells.

Fran opened the door and joined them.

‘Oh, you’re back.’ Her mother jumped up, looking pleased to the point of excitement. Not since the birth of her grandchild had she looked so radiant with delight.

Rushing across the room, she embraced Fran and kissed her. ‘What a dark horse you are! Yes, I know you did give me a hint...but you made it sound as if it was just the beginning. I wasn’t expecting to be asked for my consent to your marriage. Not that you need it, of course, but it’s very nice to be asked.’

She turned round and beamed at Reid who had been sitting in the armchair with its back to the door, but was now on his feet, watching Fran’s reaction to her mother’s announcement.

The moments of silence which followed were ended by Mrs Turner saying, ‘Well...you two must have a lot to talk about and I need to do some watering. You will be staying the night with us, Reid?’

‘Unfortunately I can’t. This is a flying visit.’

‘Oh, what a pity. I thought... Still, if you can’t, you can’t.’ She moved towards the door, to be overtaken by Reid who held it open for her. ‘Thank you.’ She disappeared.

He closed the door and returned to where Fran was standing. Placing his hands on her shoulders, he looked thoughtfully down at her. ‘What was the hint you gave your mother?’

She hadn’t forgotten how disturbing he was at close quarters, but remembering it wasn’t the same as experiencing it. The weight of his hands on her shoulders, being so near to his tall, lithe body, being subjected to a searching scrutiny all combined to make her breath catch in her throat. She felt her composure desert her. Why did he have this effect? Other men never had, not even Julian.

‘I told her I’d met someone interesting...someone I might be seeing more of. Thank you for all the flowers and cards.’

‘My pleasure...but isn’t a verbal thank-you rather formal from a wife-to-be to her future husband? Wouldn’t a kiss be more appropriate?’

She was wearing an old pair of deck shoes. Rising on her toes, with her palms on his chest for balance, she lifted her lips to his cheek.

‘Still too formal,’ said Reid. An arm went round her, drawing her firmly against him in a light but close chest-to-breast, thigh-to-thigh contact. His other hand circled her neck, the pad of his thumb tilting the base of her chin.

Just being in his arms was enough to make her heart pound. There could be no glancing away from his searching gaze. The only way not to meet his eyes was to close her own, and she didn’t want to do that. It might convey the wrong message.

‘Why are you nervous?’ he asked. ‘I’m not going to bite you. Not yet. That’s for later, when we know each other much better...and even then they’ll be very gentle bites. You’ll like them...and so shall I.’

He had lowered his voice to a deeper, more intimate tone and the look in his eyes was so different from the coldness of his first appraisal the day she had gone to the bank that she found it hard to believe this was the same man.

He was making love to her, she realised. Using his voice to caress her and make her respond. He was obviously very experienced. How would he react when he found out that she wasn’t? That kissing was as far as she had gone, because everything else she had been willing to wait for until she could share it with Julian.

Julian. Somehow her memory of him wasn’t as sharp as it had been. Once every detail of his face had been as clear in her mind’s eye as the features of the man looking down at her. But that was beginning to change. She still felt pain when she thought of him. But not as intensely, and not while Reid was holding her and sending little shivers through her.

‘I didn’t think you’d be back till the weekend,’ she murmured, postponing the moment when he would bend his head.

‘The original plan was to spend it with an American banker and his family. When I explained the circumstances they let me take a rain check.’

‘What did you tell them?’

‘That’d I’d just become engaged and wanted to get back to you.’

‘But now you say you can’t even stay the night.’

‘My grandmother’s expecting me to meet her at the airport. She’s been staying in the south of France with my senior aunt. They’re both coming over to meet you. Why don’t you come down by train some time tomorrow? Then the following day I’ll bring you back in the car. We might call on your sister en route...get all the introductions over and done with.’

‘How did your grandmother take it? Wasn’t she very surprised?’

‘She was delighted. She’s been urging me to marry for years.’

Before Fran could ask another question, he swooped like a hawk and kissed her, not, this time, on the corner of her mouth but full on the lips.

Compared with some of the slobbery, tongue-thrusting goodnight kisses she had experienced at parties and on several first-and-last dates, Reid’s kiss was restrained and gentle. Yet it had more effect than any of the hungry, heavy-breathing kisses.

There had been a few times when men had kissed her nicely, but never as nicely as this. It was actually a succession of mini-kisses, each one a soft momentary pressure in a fractionally different place, sometimes more on her upper lip and sometimes more on her lower. The effect was startlingly enjoyable.