Trial By Marriage

‘Very well,’ Sarah said with a little tilt of her chin, because although there was no outward manifestation of it she knew perfectly well that he was laughing at her and would succeed in making her feel churlish and petty if she expressed any further reluctance- damn him! she thought darkly. ‘I was having a glass of wine; it’s nothing outstanding but it’s all there is—.’

‘So you better just drink it and behave yourself, Mr Wyatt,’ he said softly. ‘I’ll do my best, ma’am.’ And he had the gall to sit himself down in an armchair and offer her a bland, innocent expression.

She went to get another glass with all the com- posure she could muster, and took her casserole out anyway because it was ready. But finally there was nothing left to do but sit down opposite him after handing him his glass, and rack her brains for some- thing to say.

He said it for her. ‘Were you born to this kind of life, Miss Sutherland?’

Surprise caused her to lift an eyebrow. ‘No. Why do you ask?’

‘You seem to be extremely competent at it.’

‘I like it,’ Sarah said slowly. ‘For one thing,’ she went on with a little spark of irony in her blue eyes, ‘as you so rightly surmised, I’m… well, I love teaching—’

‘You could teach just as well in a city.’

‘But I couldn’t have my own school.’

‘I see,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘But there must be other things you like about the place?’

‘Oh, there are. They’re just a bit hard to put into words,’ she said non-committally and sipped her wine.

His lips twisted. ‘I wouldn’t have thought that was often a problem for you.’ And he waited.

Sarah frowned then said with some asperity, ‘Why do I get the feeling this is lapsing into the kind of discussion we had this morning?’

‘It could be,’ he drawled, ‘that, while I’m trying to draw you out in a very friendly sort of manner, you are resisting strongly. Very strongly for the rather small person you are, in fact. But of course I should have realised that smallness in stature and smallness of spirit are two very different things; indeed, I should have realised it from the moment you offered to punch me in the mouth.’

Sarah stared at him steadily for a long moment but no blinding revelations came her way. He looked only minimally less vital than he had in the morning—as if he was enjoying the opportunity to relax—and he looked absolutely no less wildly attractive for being able to rest his broad shoulders lazily back in her arm chair, stretch his long legs out and return her steady regard with just the suspicion of a wickedly amused little glint in his dark eyes. She said at last, ‘Perhaps I don’t forgive and forget that easily.’

‘Ah. Well, may I say that you look much less like a born and bred school-marm than you did this morning?’ His gaze rested on her loose hair that had a tendency to be full and wayward when unconfined and show off the golden glints in its brownness more, as well as highlight her delicate bone-structure, then his gaze drifted to her hands, which were slim and elegant, and her narrow, also elegant feet in plain white socks—which she immediately tried to tuck out of sight. ‘Yes,’ he mused, ‘not so prim and proper or fighting mad. Have you ever thought of wearing contact lenses? Your eyes are a rather lovely blue.’

A tinge of colour stole into Sarah’s cheeks but she forced herself to say coolly, ‘Flattery will get you no- where, Mr Wyatt. I adjusted to not being a raving beauty years ago.’

‘There’s that old saying about beauty being in the eye of the beholder,’ he murmured thoughtfully. ‘It seems rather—inexplicable to me that your domes- ticity alone hasn’t made some man want to take you for his wife.’

The colour in her cheeks increased. ‘If that’s trying to draw me out in a very friendly manner,’ she said curtly, ‘I’d hate to think how you’d do it when you’re feeling hostile.’

He shrugged and looked at her with a faint, genuine frown. ‘I don’t know why but you strike me as some- thing of an enigma, Miss Sutherland.’

‘No, I’m not, I’m perfectly normal!’ she was goaded into saying. ‘However I may look to you, for example,’ she went on scathingly, ‘I would rather die than be married for my domesticity.’

‘So you believe in love, grand passions—and all that kind of thing?’

‘Yes…’ Sarah stopped and bit her lip.

‘Has it ever happened for you?’

‘No… look, why are we talking about it?’ she said with a mixture of confusion and irritation. ‘It’s got nothing whatsoever to do with you!’

‘All the same, it relieves my mind,’ he said sweetly, and drained his glass. ‘I don’t suppose…’ he paused and glanced at her assessingly’… it would cross your mind to offer me some of that tantalising casserole?’

‘It would not. Why don’t you go home? I’m sure Mrs Tibbs has something just as tantalising.’

‘Ah, home and Mrs Tibbs,’ he mused. ‘Amy was in tears the last time I looked in, so was Sally in sym- pathy—a habit of little girls, one wonders? Be that as it may, Wendy and Mrs Tibbs were circling each other like wary tigresses and Ben had allowed the bathtub to overflow. Not an essentially peaceful place, home, at the moment.’

‘My heart bleeds for you.’

He laughed and his dark eyes were so amused that it did something quite strange to Sarah, she dis- covered; it made her feel oddly breathless for one thing. He also said, ‘You’re certainly a worthy op- ponent, Miss Sutherland—OK, I’ll consider myself banished. Goodnight.’ And he got up with all the easy grace he was capable of. ‘Uh—I thought of having a barbecue tomorrow night, for everyone on the property. Care to come?’

‘I… thank you very much,’ Sarah said stiffly.

‘Good girl,’ he responded lightly. ‘You wouldn’t do me another favour, would you?’

Sarah rose too and looked at him warily.

He smiled faintly. The room wasn’t large and they were standing quite close together so she had to look up at him from her height of five feet three, and was unaccountably struck by the memory of him saying that, if he couldn’t pick her up with one hand, he certainly could with two, and by the little tremor that the thought of it sent through her body.

‘What?’ she said tersely as all this occurred to her.

‘Oh, nothing desperate or dangerous,’ he said gravely, his eyes taking in the wary, troubled expression in hers. ‘Not even anything mildly or wildly immoral.’

She could have shot herself as she blushed vividly this time.

‘No,’ he went on. ‘I just wondered if you would be so good as to…liaise, I guess is the right word, be- tween Amy and Mrs Tibbs and whoever else needs to be liaised with to make this barbecue a success. I would like to think it might be instrumental in helping us all to get to know each other better and, conse- quently, working together better.’

‘All right,’ Sarah said.

‘Thanks. Goodnight, Miss Sutherland,’ he said formally, but what lurked in his eyes was that wicked amusement again and, to her horror, Sarah dis- covered she had absolutely no answer for it other than to turn away with a muttered goodnight herself.

It was while she was eating her dinner that she dis- covered to her further horror that she felt unsettled and lonely. But why you should be feeling like this after encountering a man who is quite shamelessly taking advantage of the effect he probably has on every woman he comes in contact with is a mystery! she thought angrily. And he is doing that. Why else would he say the things he has, express any kind of interest in me? No, it’s got to be… a game. And even if I did sort of fuel it this morning, I had cause!

‘So,’ she murmured militantly, ‘don’t think you’re going to get the better of me, Mr Cliff Wyatt!’

CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_4610644f-5505-5900-aa10-2822433e401b)

‘THIS is very kind of you, Sarah,’ Wendy Wilson said.

‘Not at all,’ Sarah replied as she sat at the home- stead kitchen table drinking some of Mrs Tibbs’ ex- cellent coffee the next morning. ‘Mr Wyatt asked me to help out if I could.’

‘Did he indeed?’ For some reason Wendy’s green eyes rested on Sarah with, if she wasn’t imagining it, Sarah thought, a tinge of hostility in them.

Although it was ten o’clock, Amy appeared not to have risen yet and it was Mrs Tibbs who had given the children breakfast and made them some play dough to occupy themselves with. ‘Amy,’ Wendy went on to say, ‘was so upset last night, we decided to let her sleep in this morning. I gather you’ve been ap- prised of her break-up with her husband?’

‘Yes. I’m very sorry,’ Sarah said quietly.

‘And I don’t suppose she’ll want to be too bothered with this barbecue so I’ll be deputising for her. If you could tell me what needs to be done Sarah, I’ll get working.’

‘All right.’ Sarah hid any surprise she might have felt; there was actually little because it hadn’t been hard to see from the barest acquaintance that Wendy was a much more determined and capable person than her best friend. She also looked far less exotic this morning in a pair of well-cut brown corduroy trousers, polished brown moccasins and a lightweight green jumper. Her lovely dark hair was also tied back and her nails, Sarah particularly noticed, had been filed to neat, shorter ovals and the fire-engine-red polish replaced by a colourless one. ‘If we give Jim Lawson a buzz, he can organise a couple of men to dig the barbecue pits, get the coals going and set up the spits. I—’