His Blackmailed Bride

Her father nodded. ‘It’s been a busy week for you.’ He looked into her eyes and frowned. ‘Would you like to sit down?’

He’ll come to you if you do. You know he will…

A tremor went through her. ‘No,’ she said quickly. ‘I… I want to dance with you, Father. Really. I…’ She swallowed and then ran her tongue across her dry lips. ‘That man,’ she said, her voice a breathy whisper, ‘I wondered—do you know who he is?’

‘Which man?’

‘That one, over there,’ she said urgently, taking a few steps so that her father had to turn around and look in the direction she’d been facing. ‘The tall one, beside the dance floor.’

‘Which man?’ her father repeated. ‘What kind of costume is he wearing?’

‘He’s not in costume,’ Paige said, looking over her shoulder. ‘He…’

He was gone. Her eyes scanned the crowd, searching for him, but he had disappeared. Her heart was racing as if she’d been running instead of dancing, and it seemed suddenly hard to breathe.

Andrew Gardiner grasped his daughter by the shoulders and held her steady.

‘What is it? Do you feel ill?’

I don’t know how I feel. Excited. Exhilarated. Terrified…

Paige drew a deep breath. ‘I… I think it’s time I went to the ladies’ room and checked my make-up,’ she said. She smiled, and the wary expression on her father’s face told her the smile looked as artificial as it felt. ‘After all, I want to look my best for all Alan’s relatives.’

‘Let me get your mother. She’ll go with you.’

‘No,’ she said again, more sharply this time. ‘There’s no reason to bother Mother.’ Paige patted her father’s arm. ‘I’ll just be a few minutes, Father. Really. If Alan comes looking for me, tell him I’ll be right back.’

‘Paige…’

Her father’s voice drifted after her as she hurried across the dance floor. This was the price you paid for too little sleep and too much to do, she thought as she wound her way through the crowded ballroom. She was lightheaded, and who wouldn’t be after the day she’d had? Up at dawn, so that her mother could make some last-minute adjustments to her dress and veil. And then there’d been lunch with the girls she’d worked with, and tea with her bridesmaids…

‘Excuse me,’ Paige said as she moved between a laughing Marie Antoinette and a smiling Satan. Alan would understand if she begged off and asked him to take her home. She’d meet his relatives first, his Aunt Dorothy and all the rest, and then go home and get out of her costume and into a warm bath. The ballroom was just too crowded, the music too loud, the air too thick and warm. She’d comb her hair, touch up her make-up, go off and say all the right things to Alan’s family and that would be that. In three days, she could relax. In three days, all this would be over. Three days. Oh, God, three days…

There was a long queue in the ladies’ room. ‘I only want to get to the sink,’ Paige said, but it was impossible to move past anyone in the narrow space. She took a deep breath and settled in to wait her turn behind a harem girl and a lady pirate.

‘… just popped the question,’ the harem girl bubbled, holding out her left hand. ‘Look, isn’t it lovely?’

The lady pirate and everyone else looked at the girl’s ring finger and smiled. A diamond gleamed on it, a diamond considerably smaller than the one on Paige’s hand. But Paige knew, without question, that her eyes had never gleamed with the radiance she saw reflected in the harem girl’s eyes. Suddenly, she wondered if the girl’s heart raced when her fiancе looked at her, whether she ever found it difficult to breathe after his eyes had met hers and discovered secrets she’d never acknowledged. Paige had never felt that way under Alan’s gaze. She’d never felt that way in her life, not even during that one, long-ago love affair, never felt that way until moments ago when a man whose name she didn’t know had looked at her from behind a black mask.

The harem girl fell silent as a strangled gasp came from Paige’s throat.

‘Excuse me,’ she said, and she tried to smile. But she couldn’t; she could feel her lips draw back from her teeth in a terrible parody of a smile as she turned and shouldered her way past the waiting women. ‘Excuse me,’ she said again, ignoring the raised eyebrows and curious faces that turned in her direction.

Finally, back in the ballroom, Paige leaned back against the door to the ladies’ room and looked around her. Alan, she thought, willing him to appear before her. But, if Alan Fowler was one of the Romeos nearby, it was impossible for her to pick him out.

The music seemed louder than ever, the crowd denser. A heavyset man in a pirate costume was smoking a cigar. The smell of it seemed to engulf her. Paige thought of pushing her way out of the ballroom to the street. She could flag a taxi and go home…

But there was no street outside the Hunt Club, there was only a car park high on a Connecticut bluff overlooking the Atlantic. And she couldn’t just disappear into the night. Alan and her parents would worry, they’d come looking for her. And what would she tell them when they found her? Could she say, I saw a girl in the ladies’ room, and she was so happy about her engagement that it made me want to cry? Could she say, I saw a man I’ve never seen before, a man whose name I don’t know, and he made me feel something Alan never made me feel, and it frightened me so much that I ran away?

The room seemed to quiver around her. ‘Dear God,’ she whispered aloud, and suddenly an arm slid around her waist. She smelled a faint tang of leathery cologne, felt the brush of fabric against her cheek, felt the hard length of a male body against hers.

‘You’ll be all right,’ a deep voice said. ‘Just lean on me.’

‘I… I’m fine,’ she said. ‘Really…’

But she allowed herself to lean into the man’s embrace. His arm tightened around her, his hand pressing against the curve of her hip.

‘You’re going to pass out if you don’t get some fresh air,’ he said. ‘Take a deep breath. That’s it.’

Paige did as she was told. She’d never fainted in her life, but she thought he was probably right. The room was a spinning vortex of bright colours, the music a drumming shriek. She fitted her body to his, almost burrowing against him as he led her through the crowd. The doors that led to the gardens loomed ahead, and she knew that was where he was taking her.

He reached for the door and pushed it open. A gust of cold air blew into her face, clearing the cobwebs from her mind. It was time for her to stop him. She could thank him for his help and asked him to locate her fiancе for her.

But she would do none of that. Paige knew it, even before he led her into the chill October garden, just as she knew that the man beside her was the stranger who’d been watching her all evening, and the race of her heart only confirmed what she could no longer deny.

She had wanted this moment to come. She had been hoping it would. And now that it was here, she knew her life would never be the same again.

CHAPTER TWO (#u23138a60-e686-5fcf-af82-74e1ee7bb3e5)

PAIGE shivered as the glass doors swung shut behind her. The last time she’d been here was with Alan. Roses and honeysuckle had perfumed the air then. Now it smelled of the sea that beat relentlessly at the sand below the bluff. Music spilled faintly from the closed ballroom, a soft accompaniment to the distant pound of the surf. A full moon lit the terrace, but as Paige lifted her eyes to the stranger’s face a bank of clouds scudded across the sky, plunging everything into darkness.

Every instinct told her to pull free of the arm encircling her waist and hurry back into the lighted warmth of the clubhouse, but her feet seemed rooted to the ground. This is insanity, she thought, and she turned to say she was leaving. But the man beside her spoke first.

‘Take a deep breath.’

Paige shook her head. ‘I’m all right now. I…’

She felt the pressure of his hand. ‘Do it,’ he said curtly. ‘Go on. Inhale.’

It was a command, not a suggestion. She nodded and did as he’d said, drawing the cool air deep into her lungs.

‘Better?’

She nodded again. ‘Yes. Much better. Thank you for your…’

‘Don’t talk,’ he said. ‘Just take another breath.’

She inhaled again and told herself there was nothing to be concerned about. She was sure she’d turned as pale as a sheet in that stuffy ballroom. He’d noticed, and he’d come to her assistance. He was just being a Good Samaritan. Anything else was the result of an over-active imagination.

‘I… I’m fine now,’ she said. ‘And I’m terribly sorry for all the trouble I’ve caused you.’

‘It was no trouble at all.’ The pressure of his hand urged her to turn towards him. ‘In fact, you might say you did me a favour.’

‘I did?’ Was there a smile in his voice? If only she could see his face…

He laughed softly. ‘I’ve always wanted to rescue a damsel in distress, Juliet.’ His hand touched her cheek. ‘That is your name tonight, isn’t it?’

‘I… yes, yes, that’s right,’ Paige said quickly. ‘And I really have to go inside now. My fiancе…’