The Mirror Bride

The Mirror Bride
Robyn Donald

THE MARRIAGE MAKER"A mirror marriage, picture perfect but insubstantial, a mere reflection of the real thing." In marrying Drake Arundell, Olivia Nicholls will secure Simon's future… and condemn her own!Though she yearns for a "real" marriage with Drake, too many secrets, too many lies stand between them and the love, the passion, the substance she longs for in their relationship - but then, perhaps she has a guardian angel on her side!THE MARRIAGE MAKER - Can a picture from the past bring love to the present?

“And who,” Drake asked softly, “is Simon?” (#u0f50116b-7c84-528a-928b-b510dd27e992)About the Author (#uebb27802-0867-505d-b6d1-1eb4d7527407)Title Page (#u1e08e811-2592-5385-a8a7-32b8e3ee60d2)Dedication (#ua7af9d69-23d0-59fc-81fe-5c9ef077859a)CHAPTER ONE (#u86585878-d8ba-5632-956d-9c7847305403)CHAPTER TWO (#uf71b29f8-a0dc-5d89-b267-1229781489b5)CHAPTER THREE (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

“And who,” Drake asked softly, “is Simon?”

Olivia damped down incipient hysteria. “Simon is your son.”

Astonishment glittered in the cold eyes before being banished so completely that Olivia wondered whether she had seen alright. Oh, he was a brilliant actor! If she didn’t know better, she thought bitterly, she’d believe he hadn’t known of the child he’d fathered the year she was seventeen.

Olivia Nicholls and the two half sisters, Anet and Jan Carruthers, are all born survivors—but, so far, unlucky in love. Things change, however, when an eighteenth-century miniature portrait of a beautiful and mysterious young woman passes into each of their hands. It may be coincidence, it may not! The portrait is meant to be a charm to bring love to the lives of those who possess it—but there is one condition:

I found Love as you’ll find yours,

and trust it will be true,

This Portrait is a fated charm

To speed your Love to you.

But if you be not Fortune’s Fool

Once your heart’s Desire is nigh,

Pass on my likeness as Cupid’s Tool

Or your Love will fade and die.

The Mirror Bride is Olivia’s story and the first title in Robyn Donald’s captivating new trilogy, THE MARRIAGE MAKER. Look out next month for Anet’s story in Meant to Marry, and in April look for Jan’s story, The Final Proposal, which concludes the trilogy and solves the mystery of the haunting image in the portrait.

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The Mirror Bride

Robin Donald

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For Frances Whitehead. Thank you.

CHAPTER ONE

SHE was very young.

Olivia didn’t know her, but the beautiful face was familiar. Something, she thought hazily, about the surprisingly square jaw and the determined mouth—a mouth now set in a straight line.

‘Write to him,’ the unknown woman directed, the ribbons and feathers in her headdress swaying as she gave a swift, decisive nod of her elaborately styled head. Bright blue eyes commanded Olivia’s attention. ‘It is the only thing you can do now. You must write.’

‘I can’t!’

The sound of her own voice woke her. Blearily she lifted her head to gaze with slowly clearing vision around the small, shabby room. Of course no lovely young woman stood there, dressed in the frills and lace and silk of the middle of the eighteenth century. This room was definitely twentieth-century, from the faded, bargain-basement vinyl on the floor to the garishly painted wooden cupboards above and below the sink bench.

While sitting at the battered Formica table and poring over calculations that had kept her awake for nights, Olivia had gone to sleep and dreamed—a remarkably vivid dream, but in reality just a dramatisation of the decision she had already made, a decision she didn’t want to face.

So her subconscious had made her acknowledge it.

Yawning, she pushed a lock of honey-blonde hair back from her face. Her capable, long-fingered hand came down abruptly on the sheet of paper she had covered with figures, then curled, strangely vulnerable. Head bowed, she joined her hands loosely, looking at nothing in particular with great, lacklustre topaz eyes. Almost immediately she firmed her soft mouth, pulled a cheap, thin writing pad towards her and began to write, only to stop after two sentences.

‘Oh, that won’t do; it’s too stupid,’ she muttered, glowering at the stamp she’d already stuck onto the envelope—a tiny rock wren delicately depicted in shades of buff and black and gold.

Her eyes lingered on the words along the bottom: ‘New Zealand’, it said. ‘45c’.

Forty-five cents she couldn’t really afford.

Seed money, she thought, grimacing before she returned to writing the most difficult letter of her life.

Several times she stopped to frown more deeply, chewing on the end of the ballpoint pen and staring blindly through the window. On the other side of the busy street a row of run-down shops was topped by flats like the one she lived in, their windows reflecting blankly back at her.

There was no inspiration to be gained there. Or anywhere. After almost an hour spent crossing out and rewriting, she at last decided on the bare minimum.

Dear Drake,

I need to see you. There is something you should know.

And she signed it his faithfully, Olivia Nicholls.

It sounded faintly sinister, but that couldn’t be helped. Explicitness was impossible because there was always the chance of someone else—a wife, for example—seeing the letter.

Quickly, because although she’d spent days agonising over this she still wasn’t sure she was doing the right thing, Olivia sealed the envelope, then ran with it down the rickety outside stairs to the grimy street below. She’d give him a fortnight—no more and no less. If he hadn’t answered by then, she’d have to step up her campaign.

Auckland at the fag-end of autumn was depressing. Autumn meant that winter was not far behind, and winter meant earache and the dreaded Auckland cough, which in Simon invariably turned to bronchitis. Winter meant nightmares about trying to dry and air clothes. It meant expensive vegetables and the pain of seeing Simon go off to school in inadequate clothing.

For the last three years she and Simon had lived in Auckland, and this third winter was promising to be worse than the two previous ones. Only five days ago she’d lost her job as an outworker sewing tracksuits for a factory. It hadn’t brought in much, but the small amount had supplemented the unemployment benefit which was now all they had to live on. Saving money would be impossible. And there was the crushing debt she owed Brett, her next-door neighbour...

And, to cap off the series of disasters, she’d developed a rotten head cold.

She stopped outside the letterbox, looking down at the address on the envelope. You don’t have to send it, a voice reminded her—a cautious, cowardly voice. You can struggle on—nobody dies of starvation in New Zealand.

Her eyes lingered on her hands. Once they had been pampered and smooth, the fingernails polished; now the fingernails were cut straight across and the skin was slightly chapped, marred by calluses from the constant use of scissors. Had she seen them, her mother would have had a fit. Elizabeth Harley had considered it part of her purpose in life to be elegant and well-groomed. She would have thought that Olivia was letting down the side.

But then, Elizabeth had been the indulged only daughter of a rich man, whereas Olivia had no money at all.