Wedding-Night Baby

The bride was tiresomely lovely, her responses clear and resonant. It was the groom who sounded less than his usual confident self. Georgina waited for the humiliation of the occasion to hit her, but with a sense of anticlimax she realised that she was able to view the whole ceremony with detachment. It was like watching a scene of a play she felt totally uninvolved.

Outside the sun did its duty and the guests huddled together whilst photographs were taken. Her lips curled in a cynical smile, Georgina watched her mother speaking with some animation to a distinguished-looking man she didn’t recognise. She kept her chin high and replied cheerfully to greetings from familiar faces, who looked at the tall figure at her side with varying degrees of curiosity, tinged in some cases, she was amused to see, with envy. Well, it was infinitely preferable to pity, she told herself.

‘Why did he ditch you?’

‘That’s an extremely insensitive question,’ she observed, stiffening. Her paid company was watching the proceedings with an air of impatient boredom.

’I’ve never been one to indulge maudlin self-pity.’

‘Or one to keep your opinions to yourself, it would seem.’

‘Just displaying a friendly interest.’

‘Just fishing for the salacious details, more like.’

The thick dark brows shot towards his hairline. ‘Salacious? I was just trying to make conversation, but now I’m really interested.’ The gleam of humour in his eyes was faintly malicious.

‘Actually, it was all very civilised. I went to London to do a business-studies course. We weren’t engaged or anything,’ she said with a detached smile, skimming sketchily over an emotional blow that had devastated her.

‘Everyone, including you, expected marriage,’ he observed shrewdly.

It was peculiar, but his neutral cynicism was much easier to cope with than the understanding sympathy that had been doled out to her at the time. ‘There was an understanding,’ she agreed, switching her weight from one foot to the other and checking who was within hearing distance. It would never do to have this conversation overheard.

She’d agreed that a ring was an extravagance when she and Alex were saving so assiduously. Strange how Harriet had managed to get a serious diamond on her finger in record time, she thought cynically. That was probably why Alex had exchanged his racy coupé for a more sedate saloon. Harriet was worth the sacrifice, it would seem.

‘Did you put up much of a fight? Or had you already got someone more interesting lined up? That can’t have been difficult,’ Callum said, his mind returning to this girl’s relationship with his uncle. Her rather full lips had drooped slightly. For someone who gave off such an air of wholesome sexiness her mouth was altogether more...sensual. A more accurate indication of her character? he wondered. Had her unorthodox manner of promotion been the bone of contention between lovers?

‘No man is worth fighting for,’ she replied, her tone ringing with grim conviction.

Callum caught her arm and swung her out of the path of a gaggle of small pages and bridesmaids. ‘Isn’t that a rather sweeping statement?’

‘I prefer comprehensive and accurate.’ The arm casually draped around her waist showed no inclination to shift. Rather than make herself conspicuous, she let it stay there. She hoped her attitude showed him how totally oblivious to the near proximity she was.

‘After getting your fingers burnt once?’ he said incredulously. ‘Or am I to infer you have a more chequered past than that?’

His cynical, knowing expression made her long to throttle him. ‘I know you’re bored, but I’m not about to enliven your afternoon with any juicy stories. My mother will track you down any moment and extract your vital juices,’ she said darkly and with some relish. Some people deserved her mother.

It was irritating to have to raise her chin to look into his face. Alex was just the perfect height—especially when he’d kissed her, she recalled wistfully. What would it be like to be kissed by this man? Dry-mouthed, she allowed the thought to crystallise with clarity in her head. Swallowing with difficulty, she killed this frivolous piece of speculation and lowered her eyes, which might be less obedient than her brain.

‘She seems occupied at present,’ Callum observed, glancing towards the spot where Lydia stood with the middle-aged guest.

‘Predictably so.’ Her mother was laughing—a low, husky sound that grated on Georgina’s frayed nerves.

‘Do I detect criticism from the daughter? Ought you not to have grown out of the desire to view your parent as a sexless entity? I take it your father is no longer around?’

She wriggled her hips decisively and his hands intuitively fell away from her waist. Where did he get off analysing and criticising her?

‘For your information my father has never been around—at least, not since I was born. He walked out on her, unable to take the strain of domesticity,’ she drawled sarcastically. ‘But Mother never gives up. Her life is not complete without a man on her arm and in her bed. In a place like this the fact doesn’t pass without comment. But they all slip away eventually. Like mother, like daughter—we obviously can’t hold our men—’ Breathing hard, she stopped abruptly and bit hard on her trembling lip, appalled at what she’d just said to a total stranger.

The unvarnished distress emanating from her was unsettling to Callum. He quashed any chivalrous instincts. He wasn’t about to let sentiment interfere with his original reason for seeking out Miss Campion. ‘Are you going to faint?’ He tried to sound unalarmed at the prospect but the violent fluctuation of her colour made him suspect the worst.

The grin was sudden and surprising, full of self-mockery and quite unintentionally charming. ‘Throw up, more likely,’ she said frankly. ‘But don’t worry; it’s passed. I’d be grateful if you’d forget what I just said.’

He met the direct, almost green stare squarely. ‘Your hang-ups are your business, lady,’ he drawled, his accent slightly more pronounced than usual. He touched his forehead as if saluting. The casual elegant gesture had none of the military about it.

Her lips tightened. ‘How do you manage to make everything you say sound like a judgement? Does it ever occur to you you’re in the wrong line of work? A charming, relaxing companion was what I was promised... Instead I got the Grand Inquisitor.’

‘If you’re not satisfied you can always complain. I’ll probably lose my job.’ The sigh was stoical. ‘But don’t let that deter you; we live in a consumer society. There’s no place for sentiment.’

She had to grin; he did ‘meek’ rather well. ‘Just try and look pretty and don’t say too much,’ she advised.

‘Sexist,’ he mumbled as they were ushered into a photo line-up.

The top table was not where she’d hoped to find herself placed. She scented Cousin Harriet’s hand in this arrangement; she always had been less than generous in victory. A great believer in salt rubbed firmly in the wound, our dear Harriet. Still, if she sat far enough back in her seat the depth of Callum’s impressive torso gave her some defence from the sight of the happy couple. The voices were not so easy to block out.

She’d wasted her breath telling Callum to keep his mouth in a strait-jacket. He’d been in earnest conversation with her uncle George for the past ten minutes. She couldn’t catch everything they were saying, but financial terms kept drifting in her direction. He might be a good con artist but her uncle made a very successful living as a financial advisor and it was only a matter of time before he discovered that Callum didn’t know what he was talking about.

She picked worriedly at her fish and drank her wine faster than was advisable on an empty stomach. One ear on an elderly relative on her left, she tried to hear what Callum was saying in his rather deep voice, waiting for her uncle’s respectful expression to turn to scorn.

Callum intercepted her sidelong glance and winked, his expression not changing as he continued to expand on his subject.

Angrily she accepted the wine waiter’s solicitous offer of a refill and swigged it back with scant regard for an expensive vintage. He’d laugh on the other side of his face when she spoke to the agency, she thought militantly. It might be a joke to him... A lump of self-pity rose in her throat as Harriet’s laughter made her teeth clench.

‘Callum, dar-r-rling,’ she purred. Her nails made inroads into the hand she affectionately covered on the damask tablecloth. ‘You really mustn’t talk business. You promised,’ she added, her eyes flashing warnings. If it hurt he managed to disguise the fact remarkably well.

With a flash of white teeth he picked up her claw-like hand and pressed it, open-palmed, to his lips. The gesture was more erotic than courtly.

Her eyes were caught in the bold, mocking glare of his regard. The explosion of heat that flooded across her skin must have been evident to him; it was a response that appalled and disgusted her, a physical thing over which she had no control. The confusion of churning sensations in her belly was profoundly basic and instinctual and she was ashamed of being susceptible to the brazen sexuality of this man. The wine obviously had a good deal to do with this uninhibited response.

‘Are you feeling neglected, angel?’ The dark brows lifted, but she could see the acknowledgement in his eyes of her helpless, angry response. ‘That will never do,’ he murmured huskily, and he let his lips move once more over her hand.

If she could have, she’d have climbed out of her skin. Her nerve-endings were on fire, screaming. Dry-mouthed, she shifted in her seat fretfully.

Uncle George regarded them indulgently. ‘My fault, Georgie, dear. You’ve got a sound man there,’ he said approvingly.

This unexpected recommendation made Georgina’s fuming silence lengthen. Her uncle was not the sort of man who threw compliments around lightly. ‘You always were a sterling judge of character, Uncle George,’ she said drily. The man she loved was barely feet from her and here she was, suffering contemptible, primitive responses to a stranger. It was morally indefensible; worse still, she hadn’t had the sense to hide it.

‘Will you behave?’ she said in a furious undertone as she pulled her hand free.

‘In what particular way did you have in mind?’ he enquired with interest. He winced as girlish laughter rang out once more. ‘You know, I think you should pity that stuffed shirt of yours. He’ll have to live with that laugh for the rest of his natural. Always supposing things last that long.’

‘I wish them all the best,’ she observed primly.

‘Lying little hypocrite,’ he said conversationally. He swirled the liquid in his glass around but didn’t lift it to his lips. ‘Like all females you’re a vindictive little beast who can’t wait to see the man grovel at your feet.’

‘I can well believe the females in your life feel that way,’ she responded tartly. She had rehearsed the tender scene of Alex turning up begging her forgiveness once too often to look him directly in the eye. ‘I don’t find the role of plucky little victim to my taste; that’s the only reason you’re here. I have no wish to make Alex jealous, which, considering what I got for my money, is just as well.’

The deep blue eyes narrowed to slits and his lips twisted with scornful amusement. ‘You’re comparing me unfavourably to that?’ he said with a scornful lift of his shoulders and a flickering glance in Alex’s direction.