Married For Real

Declan Holmes paused, narrowed his eyes and said, ‘I hope you don’t hate this too much, Arizona, but with my help.’

She gasped. ‘Do you mean you’ve been supporting us?’

‘Precisely.’

‘But why didn’t you tell me?’

He said reflectively, ‘I had several motives, Arizona. I didn’t want to add any more burdens for the kids to have to cope with so soon after losing their second parent, and I thought it would be difficult for you to carry on unconcernedly once you knew.’

‘Well, you’re right,’ she said through her teeth, ‘but it would have been on their behalf not mine that I would have been unable to remain unconcerned despite what I have no doubt you’re implying!’

‘Perhaps,’ he said mildly.

‘So what were your other motives?’ she demanded.

He raised an eyebrow. ‘I guess I wanted to see how you did—conduct yourself over the last twelve months.’

‘Before you came back and asked me to marry you again? How do you know I haven’t taken a legion of lovers in the interim?’

‘Have you?’

Arizona made a sound of pure, despairing exasperation.

‘Look, don’t answer—I know you haven’t,’ he said with a lightening grin.

Arizona opened her mouth, closed it then all but spat, ‘Have you been having me followed or something like that?’

‘No, nothing like that, but I do have my sources,’ he replied imperturbably. ‘In fact,’ he continued softly, ‘it’s almost as if you’ve been waiting for me, my dear.’

‘So...it’s never entered your calculations,’ she said with difficulty, ‘that I might just have been grieving and not interested in forming any liaisons?’

‘Well, one day I’ll probably know a lot more about you, but in the meantime, will you marry me, Arizona?’

‘No. Definitely not,’ she added to give it more force and then tried a little more force. ‘It would be the very last thing I’d do. Do I make myself clear?’

His blue gaze didn’t alter much—perhaps a tinge of amusement crept into it. ‘Not even if I told you that it was one way, probably the only way, to save Scawfell for Pete’s kids?’

Arizona realized suddenly that she could hear her heart beating heavily, that her lips were dry and her breathing ragged. And nearly a minute passed before she said in a voice quite unlike her own, ‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean that if you married me I would pay off the mortgage on the estate so that the children had something to inherit as well as a familiar beloved spot to live out their childhood, and I would support them as my own—as our own.’

‘Do you mean you would bring them up as your children?’ she said uncertainly.

‘We could bring them up as ours.’

Arizona stared at him dazedly then licked her lips. ‘What’s the alternative—for them, I mean?’

‘Well, I would certainly never let Pete’s children starve, but taking them on single-handedly wouldn’t be the same for them—I’d probably have to relocate them. I wouldn’t have a great deal of time for them although I suppose I could always get another governess for them.’

‘Stop,’ she whispered then cleared her throat. ‘This is the most arrant blackmail I’ve ever heard—why?’ she asked intensely.

‘Why?’ he mused. ‘I should have thought that was obvious—I want you, Arizona!’

‘There’s a saying about hell and fury and women scorned—are you sure you’re not suffering from being scorned, Declan?’ she asked scathingly.

He laughed. ‘It could be a bit of that, too, I guess.’

‘On the other hand what would you have thought of me if I had responded to your eyes across the fence?’

‘Well, I probably wouldn’t have had to marry you, would I?’ he said placidly.

‘That doesn’t make sense—it’s worse,’ she declared bitterly. ‘It puts me in a no-win situation, which is simply crazy!’

‘Well, now, that remains to be seen. Being married to me won’t be nearly so bad as you’re cracking it up, Arizona. At one stroke you’ll retain Scawfell, you’ll retain four children you’re very fond of and who need you—think of that if nothing else.’

Arizona closed her eyes and for the life of her couldn’t help thinking of it. Thinking of Daisy, whose natural mother had died when she was two, Daisy who didn’t remember her and didn’t understand about stepmothers and thought Arizona was her mother, Daisy who worried... Thought about Sarah and Richard, charming twins so long as you understood the full extent of their dependence on each other, and Ben. Poor, tortured Ben who was still bereft without his father, who now viewed the world with cynicism and disenchantment and was increasingly disruptive ... She opened her eyes and stared blankly at Declan Holmes.

‘Also,’ he said quietly, ‘you’ll have your sex life taken care of—and an awful lot of pin money to spend, Arizona.’

‘If I didn’t hate you before, I do now,’ she responded equally quietly.

He smiled briefly. ‘But you’ll do it?’

‘Only because I have no choice.’

‘Not entirely true,’ he drawled, ‘but nevertheless, when?’

‘Oh, I think I’ll leave it to you to name the day, Declan.’

‘Is that some kind of a cop-out, Arizona?’ he murmured.

‘No,’ she said baldly. ‘Merely an indication of my lack of interest.’

His Lips twisted but he said only, ‘How about a month from today then? It will give the kids a bit of time to get used to the idea.’

‘If you say so—me, as well, I suppose.’ She grimaced.

‘You’ve had a lot longer than that,’ he remarked softly. ‘If it’s so repugnant I’m surprised you haven’t left the country or something equally dramatic.’

‘But you knew damn well you had me here as some kind of a hostage, didn’t you, Declan?’

‘Did I?’ he reflected. ‘Exactly what kind of a hostage, is what one wonders, to be honest. While I don’t doubt your devotion to the kids—oh, well—’ he gestured with one long, strong hand ‘—time will no doubt tell. Why don’t you invite me for the weekend, Arizona? We could start the process of apprising the world of our intentions.’

‘Come, by all means,’ Arizona replied with utterly false cordiality. In fact her stance and the look in her eyes said something quite different—come and do your damnedest, in other words.

To which, after a long, challenging moment, he merely smiled gently as if to say, We’ll see, we’ll see...

‘Dearest Mother,’ Arizona wrote that night. ‘I suppose it’s still all right to call you that and not Sister Margaret Mary, but I digress. The news is that I’m getting married again—now I know how you opposed, from the seclusion of your convent, my first marriage but from a purely materialistic sense, this one is even better. You’ve probably heard of Declan Holmes—who hasn’t? Yes, the same one who took over his father’s media empire (small media empire) at the age of twenty-six and now, at about thirty-three, could probably be justifiably termed a media magnate. Well, he was a good friend of Peter’s, he’s the children’s trustee and guardian and as I’m the children’s stepmother, it seems like a good idea. So far as your objections to my previous marriage go, he’s only ten years older than me, he’s not a father figure or anything like that, he’s a mighty marriageable man, but no, I’m not in love with him and I don’t think he’s in love with me. What else can I tell you? It’s to be a month from today...’