Amber's Wedding

‘Good grief!’ she squawked, fiercely quelling her overwhelming desire to press her hand to her stomach. Her child lay there. And it wasn’t Jake’s. A faint sensation of nausea rose to her throat. ‘My reputation as a vestal virgin would be shot to pieces, wouldn’t it?’ she managed to joke.

Trembling, she rested her shaking hands on the back of a heavily carved chair, longing to sink into it. And with the truth making her stomach knot she hastily changed the subject before her conscience made her confess.

‘Now, Leo! About this Caribbean plantation—’

‘Yes—not only am I going to live there with Ginny, but we’re getting married again!’ he said happily.

Amber grasped his hand in delight. He’d been like a bear with a sore head after his divorce from Ginny. ‘Wonderful! I’m glad for you. But...’

Her face fell as she thought of Leo’s father. Stuart, Viscount Brandon was also her own dearly loved godfather and, since her parents were dead, he had given her the wedding as his present to her.

‘How can you leave?’ she continued reproachfully. ‘You run the estate. You know every contour, every blade of grass, every outcrop of granite. The land, the village, the castle...they’re life and breath to you, just as they are to me. You stand to inherit Castlestowe. I love it with all my heart—and I’m only a gillie’s daughter,’ she said, proud that her family had been servants to the Brandons for generations. ‘I swear I’d never leave it—’

‘But I love Ginny more,’ he told her softly.

The plain statement brought her up with a jolt. It was so sweetly said, so deeply meant. Why she should feel envious she didn’t know. After her recent disastrous affair with Enzo, she’d decided that entrusting her heart to a man was too great a risk. A loveless marriage was far more sensible. It suited her and it suited Jake...

Jake! Every time she blinked she seemed to be thinking about him! They were supposed to operate independently, not go around tied up together in thought, word and deed!

Amber carefully avoided looking at the black-clad figure in the centre of the room and gazed ardently around the great baronial hall of the fairy-tale castle. The room blazed richly with the warm golden light of hundreds of giant candles carefully set in the massive chandeliers. Ancient, age-tattered banners flew from the medieval niches, proudly representing long-forgotten battles fought by the Brandon family, and the hall was filled with lively music and the swirl of kilts as guests flung themselves wholeheartedly into a vigorous reel.

Gillies, tenants, farmers, tradespeople, journalists, Members of Parliament, the cream of Scottish society... All thronged the huge, beamed hall, filling it with chatter, laughter and movement.

It made her heart ache to be here. She loved Castlestowe. Loved the way it sat, solid and confident, on the windswept crag, its turrets and drawbridge quite magical, amidst acres of feudal moorland, sky that went on for ever and white virgin beaches. Nothing in this world could touch it!

She smiled at the extent of her own fervour. ‘Ginny’s always hated it here. She really is picky!’

Leo laughed at her impassioned face and surprised her with a warm hug. ‘Sweetheart,’ he said, ‘to Ginny this place is cold, wet and unwelcoming..I love Ginny. I want her to be happy, as Jake wants you to be happy. He’s agreed to make his base here because he loves you, hasn’t he? Same difference.’

Jake hadn’t agreed—that was the trouble. He’d said he’d see how he felt about living in Scotland and she’d silently vowed to make him love it.

‘Nothing could tear me away from Castlestowe,’ she said determinedly. ‘Nothing!’

Still enclosed in Leo’s arms, Amber felt the hairs on her neck rise. Jerking her head around to look at the hall below, she saw Jake’s face lifted to them and met the full force of his eyes. She felt herself freeze. He looked...angry.

Her entire body tensed with an irrational fear. Her chest tightened so disturbingly that she had to draw in a series of quick little breaths to ease her straining lungs as she remained within the circle of Leo’s arms and Jake slowly turned his dark eyes to Leo.

‘Hell! That’s a look and a half!’ muttered Leo in awe.

‘Oh, he’s a pussy-cat really!’ she declared unconvincingly, flapping her hand in a cheerful wave to Jake, to cover up her unnerving sense of foreboding.

‘I think his claws are out.’ Leo pushed her back a little. ‘Your husband’s jealous. I think you’d better make it clear what our relationship is!’

‘Jealous?’ Amber went very still, her eyes slanting again to where Jake stood. And then she understood. It was a necessary part of the act, she supposed, to be annoyed at seeing your bride in another man’s arms. ‘But of course he is!’ she said lightly, playing along with the pretence. ‘So he should be.’

No one could know how safe Jake’s real lack of interest had made her feel. Free from any complicated emotions towards him, she’d been able to relax with him. Thankfully, she and Jake wanted the same thing: to remain good friends and stay mercifully immune from the dangers of love.

Love was frightening. It tore out your heart and threw it at someone’s feet where it lay pumping out your life’s blood. It left you open to having that raw heart trampled on without regard to your dignity or pride. Love was like standing on a greasy pole with a tiger pit below.

Thankfully her brief, destructive affair was over. Her marriage to Jake would ensure that she never experienced such misery again.

She smiled at Jake in a sudden rush of gratitude. He lifted a disapproving eyebrow in Leo’s direction then beckoned her with an authoritative finger to come down to the hall.

Smiling, she lifted her hand and, splaying out her fingers, mouthed, ‘Five minutes!’

Jake frowned and turned away. His heavy lids were lowered, his lashes making shadowed smudges on his sabre-cut cheekbones. She watched as his head bent and he murmured something urgently to the women around him, his mouth taking on a ravishingly wicked curl as he did so.

‘You can’t take your eyes off him, can you?’ chuckled Leo.

‘Yes! Oh, OK, no! He’s...very compelling!’ she answered reluctantly. And felt worried that it seemed to be true. Why was that? she wondered, feeling a sensation as if a hundred butterflies were dancing on her skin. Butterflies with hot feet; her body tingled with warmth and she fanned her face with her hand. ‘Heavens, isn’t it hot?’

‘Not particularly,’ said Leo. ‘But I know the feeling.’

She hardly heard. Her eyes were glued to Jake as he strode purposefully across the dance floor towards the door that led to the servants’ quarters.

Leo touched her arm gently. ‘Amber, you understand why I’m leaving, don’t you? I can’t leave Ginny in her hour of need. Places and possessions are nothing to me. Only Ginny. You’d give up everything for Jake, wouldn’t you?’

She managed a wan smile. ‘Are you kidding?’

But she wouldn’t. To her there was only one place to live in the world. It didn’t matter to Jake where they lived. He could continue working around the world as a war correspondent while she stayed in Castlestowe, with people she’d known all her life around her.

‘I’ll have children,’ said Leo, breaking in on her thoughts. ‘One of them might love the idea of taking over Castlestowe on my behalf. Father’s reconciled to that idea. He’s looking forward to grandchildren. And...maybe you and Jake will come to visit us some time?’ He grinned mischievously. ‘Compare children, maybe?’

He knew! she thought in horror, and then saw that he was laughing at her startled expression. Somehow she again managed not to touch her stomach in a protective gesture. Somehow she stretched her lips into a smile.

‘Whoa, there! Steady! I’m only just married,’ she protested, quelling the nausea that threatened her composure.

Leo gave her a goodbye hug and slipped away. Suddenly exhausted, she sat down on a tapestry-covered chair which was tucked away out of sight of the revellers below. It was then that her hand instinctively crept to where her baby lay.

She didn’t even know how she felt about the baby. There’d been no time to register anything other than shock and then a shy joy and then... Then she’d told its father—Enzo, the handsome UN captain who had been responsible for the African enclave where she’d been working.

‘It’s all right,’ he’d told her some two months or so earlier, when protective supplies had run out. ‘I’ll be careful, I promise. I love you. I need you... Please, Amber! Please...’

She’d denied him; he’d insisted. And stupidly she’d let him persuade her because he’d swamped her in passionate, emotional blackmail, and life out there was so tough that you took your pleasure with a desperation that would be unthinkable under more normal circumstances.

Their relationship had cooled the next morning because she’d felt used. Her white teeth drove deep into her full lower lip. Love, he’d said! It had been lust, though she’d been too naive and innocent to recognise it as such. And Enzo had been annoyed when she’d hesitantly told him that she was pregnant.

‘What can I do about it? I’m married,’ he’d said with a shrug, unaware that Amber had frozen with the shock.

Then he’d gone on to say that their six-month affair had been fun, wonderful, sensual and he adored her, of course; she was the best lay he’d ever had...but nothing else.

She felt weak at the memory. The best lay. Amber drew in a shuddering breath as the humiliation hit her anew. Enzo had vanished, leaving her incapable of work. Even her team leader, Mary Smith, had been unable to console her.

Then Jake had stepped in, acting with typical thoughtfulness and sensitivity. He’d come across her huddled body in the Jeep that Enzo had used and he’d talked to her for ages. While she’d sobbed her heart out, his soothing, velvety voice had persisted, relentlessly describing some of the children waiting for a trace on their parents, making them real to her by his accurate observations—one child’s crooked smile, another’s saucy eyes, the family of four looked after by the eldest—a child of nine...

Slowly he’d brought her back to the world again. But this time she’d met it and her obligations without any love in her heart. And with a child secretly growing in her body.

Her face flamed with the shame. ‘Enzo! Oh, Enzo!’ she groaned in misery.