Substitute Bride Read online

  ‘Just a cappuccino, thanks.’

  Taking deep, calming breaths, she tried to control her agitation by looking around at the marketplace. There was plenty to see, with the bustle of brightly clad tourists milling around against the backdrop of honey-coloured sandstone warehouses as they examined leather handbags, home-made jewellery, curly green cabbages and secondhand books.

  She tried to pay attention to the uproar of buskers playing guitars and stallholders chanting their wares, to the smell of frying samosas and Greek souvlaki, to the hum of life and pleasure which filled the air. But it was useless. Each time she saw another family drifting by with a baby in a carrier, or a child skipping between two parents, she felt as if a knife had been plunged into her heart. Why couldn’t she have that sort of simple happiness? To an outsider it might look as if she did, but she and Gareth and James would soon be scattered again and she would be lonelier than ever. How could she bear it?

  ‘Shouldn’t we go home?’ she asked abruptly, rising to her feet.

  James looked at his watch.

  ‘All right.’

  She was silent on the drive home, busy with her thoughts, but when they opened the front door she was jolted out of her listlessness by a sudden, full-throated shout.

  ‘Surprise!’

  What seemed like a hundred children leapt out from cover, wearing party hats and waving presents. After his first gasp of shock, Gareth was thrilled. He squealed with delight as the other children pressed around him, begging him to open their parcels first. Laura stood rooted to the spot in disbelief and realised that James was smiling triumphantly.

  ‘Did you organise this?’ she demanded.

  ‘Yes, I knew you’d been too busy with Bea and Sam to do anything special and I wanted him to have a proper party. What’s wrong? Aren’t you pleased?’

  Laura blinked, trying to come to terms with her own confused feelings. No, to be honest, she wasn’t pleased. Oh, she could see that Gareth was thrilled with all the attention, but that didn’t get rid of the gnawing guilt that filled her at the realisation that James had planned this without even knowing that the little boy was his own son. And it didn’t help her deal with the prickle of jealousy she felt when the birthday boy launched himself at James and hugged his leg.

  ‘Fank you!’ he shouted.

  James hugged him back, but his eyes were on Laura.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ he repeated.

  ‘Nothing,’ she choked. ‘It was very kind of you. I’ll just…just go and help in the kitchen.’

  Avoiding his gaze, she fled to the kitchen, where she found a smiling young woman in a white chef’s outfit up to her eyes in jellies and crisps and sausage rolls. She seemed to have everything under control, and she patted Laura kindly but firmly on the shoulder and urged her to go off and enjoy herself. Since she seemed to have little choice, she went out into the back garden and discovered that a Punch and Judy show was now in progress. She was somewhat comforted when Gareth promptly dragged her into the front row and sat on her lap, but her reprieve didn’t last long, since he immediately ordered James to come and join them.

  It was almost more than she could bear to see his small hand resting so trustingly on James’s large one. As soon as the Punch and Judy show finished, she made an excuse and went back inside, but there was worse to come. Throughout the party she saw that James was in the thick of things—handing out prizes, adjudicating fights and mopping up spilled tomato sauce. If he had been any other man, she would have been warmed by his kindness. As it was, she felt sick to her stomach with anxiety and confusion. Should she tell him the truth, or was it better to let things lie?

  Later that evening, when they were alone together, James issued a direct challenge. They had just returned from the hospital and were sitting in front of the living room fire with a decanter of port on the table.

  ‘You’re not happy about my organising that party, are you?’ he demanded, looking across at her from the depths of his armchair. ‘Why not? Did you think I was interfering?’

  ‘I didn’t say that.’

  He gave a mirthless laugh.

  ‘You didn’t have to; it’s written all over you. Do you really hate me so much that you don’t want me to have any contact with your child?’

  Laura drew in breath sharply.

  ‘I didn’t say I hated you.’

  ‘It’s true, though, isn’t it?’ he persisted.

  His gaze was pitiless, pinning her down so that she felt like a hunted animal transfixed by searchlights.

  ‘All right!’ she exclaimed. ‘It’s true! But don’t I have the right to hate you?’

  ‘I would have thought it was the other way round, myself,’ he said bitterly. ‘That I was the one who had the right to hate you.’

  ‘You arrogant swine!’ she exclaimed, rising to her feet and heading for the door. ‘Just because I took Bea’s place you think you were justified in seducing and abandoning me, don’t you?’

  He caught up with her and seized her by the shoulders, swinging her round to face him.

  ‘Oh, so that’s your version of events, is it? Well, it’s odd, but it doesn’t bear much resemblance to mine. That stupid little deception of yours had nothing to do with our parting, as you know very well. Except that it should have warned me from the first that you took a delight in deceit and disloyalty.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ she cried indignantly.

  ‘You know very well what I’m talking about! I wasn’t your only victim, was I? Not by a long shot! If you don’t take a delight in deceit and disloyalty, why didn’t you marry that accountant fellow?’

  ‘Because I didn’t love him!’ shouted Laura.

  James paused, shuddering for breath. Then he released her and ran his hands savagely through his hair as if he intended to pull it out by the roots.

  ‘I suppose I can believe that,’ he said in a tormented voice. ‘But it’s a hell of a thing to do to a man who loved you, to run out on him like that. Do you ever see him any more?’

  ‘No,’ she replied stormily.

  ‘Never?’

  ‘Never!’

  ‘Then what about Gareth?’ he demanded, seizing her shoulders again. ‘Are you so vindictive that you won’t even let that poor bastard see his own child?’

  There was a strange ringing in her ears and her legs felt rubbery and unreliable. She took a deep breath, as if she were poising herself to dive off a high cliff into rock-strewn waters.

  ‘Gareth’s not Ray’s child,’ she whispered. ‘He’s yours.’

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  JAMES went white to the lips and his eyes were like burning coals in the stillness of his face.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then why the hell didn’t you tell me when you learnt you were pregnant?’

  There was bewilderment in his voice, mixed with an unmistakable flare of anger. Laura felt an answering surge of fury. What right did he have to be angry? What right did he have to anything? Even the simple, basic knowledge of his son’s existence? She broke away from him and strode across the room, her face working violently as she fought for control.

  ‘After the way you treated me?’ she said, swinging around to face him. ‘You didn’t give me much reason to suppose you would care, did you?’

  ‘After the way I treated you?’ said James in a stupefied voice. ‘What are you talking about?’

  She gave a wild, unsteady laugh.

  ‘I’m talking about the way you used me and discarded me, you brute! It wouldn’t have hurt so much if you had admitted right from the start that you only wanted a casual fling, but it was the way you led me on and made me think you cared about me that really upset me. And all the time you were just a lying hypocrite, only after sex without commitment. I’ll never forgive you for it!’

  James stared at her, aghast.

  ‘I can’t believe I’m hearing this. As I see it, I was the injured party, not you.’

  ‘Oh
, really? And why do you think that? Because I masqueraded as my sister and hurt your pride?’

  ‘No!’ he thundered. ‘Because you were engaged to another man when you went to bed with me.’

  It was Laura’s turn to go white.

  ‘I—I was what?’ she stammered.

  ‘You heard me!’ he retorted savagely. ‘You were engaged to that bloody accountant and you never even had the decency to tell me.’

  ‘Are you out of your mind? I was never engaged to Raymond!’

  James gave a vicious laugh.

  ‘That’s not what he said!’

  ‘What do you mean?’ she cried. ‘When did you talk to him?’

  ‘On the day of Sue’s party,’ he snarled, pacing about the room. ‘I came home in turmoil, more than half convinced that I was in love with you and fully intending to go to Sydney with you and find out. I was even wondering whether I was wrong to be so violently opposed to the idea of marrying again. Then I got that rotten phone call.’

  Laura stared at him in bewilderment, struggling to absorb what he was telling her. Phrases buzzed in her head—’in love with you…go to Sydney…find out.’ Then memories came flashing back from the past. Memories of James sitting in the car, looking at her with passionate urgency, and then the distant shrilling of the telephone and the slam of the car door. Suddenly an ominous sense of misgiving seized her.

  ‘What was that phone call about?’ she breathed.

  James’s eyes leapt with remembered anger.

  ‘I can tell you word for word. God knows, I’ve gone over it often enough in my mind. There was a man’s voice, rather precise. He said, “Good afternoon, my name is Raymond Hall. I believe my fiancée Laura Madison is staying there. May I speak to her, please?” That was all.’

  Laura felt as sick as if someone had punched her in the stomach. She leaned against the door for support as the full implication of this revelation struck her.

  ‘So you thought I was engaged to Ray and that I had gone to bed with you just for the fun of it?’ she demanded in a dazed voice.

  ‘What else was I supposed to think?’

  ‘Well, what did you do? Did you question him about it?’

  ‘No! I simply said, I don’t know where she is, and hung up. I was half out of my mind with shock. If he’d been there in person, I probably would have knocked him down.’

  ‘Instead of which, you did the emotional equivalent to me,’ cried Laura fiercely. ‘You told me the game was over and it was time to call it quits. That was cruel, James. It was heartless and selfish and cruel!’

  ‘Well, didn’t I have the right to be cruel after what you’d done to me?’

  ‘No, you didn’t!’ she shouted, her anger blazing up to match his. ‘You had no right whatsoever, because I was never engaged to Raymond Hall—as you would have found out if you’d only bothered to ask me. What he told you was pure rubbish!’

  A stunned silence descended on the room, so that the only sound was the hiss of a log breaking and falling into the embers amid a shower of orange sparks. Then James took a sharp, unsteady breath.

  ‘Come off it!’ he snarled. ‘Why would he say he was engaged to you if he wasn’t?’

  ‘Because he’s a pompous idiot who thinks he only has to issue orders and the world jumps to obey them!’

  ‘Well, there must have been something between you to make him say that,’ muttered James.

  ‘There was something between us,’ she agreed bitterly. ‘A giant communication failure! Raymond asked me to marry him just before I came down to Tasmania to take Bea’s place. I thought about it, but I knew it would never work so I rang him from here and said no. He didn’t seem to get the message, so when I went back to Sydney I said no again. He was simply too conceited to believe me.’

  ‘Were you sleeping with him?’ demanded James.

  Laura’s mouth contorted.

  ‘I don’t see that it’s any business of yours now, but no, I wasn’t! I didn’t realise he thought of me as anything more than a friend till he popped the question, but I could never have married him. There was no special spark between us.’

  James swore violently under his breath and suddenly covered his eyes with his hand.

  ‘I can’t believe what a fool I’ve been,’ he said in a tormented voice. ‘Do you really mean there was nothing between you?’

  ‘Nothing,’ confirmed Laura.

  ‘And I drove you away…’ His voice thickened with remorse, and suddenly he caught her in his arms. ‘Laura, there are no words strong enough to express what I feel, but I have to try anyway. I’m hot-headed and I jumped to conclusions. I should have known you would never do anything so underhanded—I should have trusted you. I’m sorry—deeply sorry. Can you ever forgive me?’

  She could feel the wild beating of his heart, the warmth of his body coming off him in waves, the power in those strongly bunched muscles that encircled her like steel cables. For a moment she felt an overwhelming impulse simply to burrow into his chest and cling to him, murmuring the words that he wanted to hear. After all, his explanation had flowed into her wounded heart like a healing balm, soothing her hurt pride and restoring her self-esteem.

  It hadn’t just been a game with him! He had been genuinely attracted to her, had wanted their relationship to continue. But there was more at stake here than just her dignity. There was her whole future and Gareth’s too. With a pang of insight she realised how fatally easy it would be to slip back into a passionate affair with James without resolving anything. A spasm crossed her face and she looked up at him bleakly.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she choked. ‘I simply don’t know, James.’

  He heaved a deep sigh and nodded.

  ‘That’s fair enough. Why should you forgive me, just because I leapt to conclusions that any sane man would have resisted? All I had to do was swallow my pride nearly three years ago and ask a few questions and I could have avoided this heartache that I’ve put us both through. I probably don’t even have the right to ask you this, Laura, but was it true what you told me at Sue’s party? Were you in love with me then?’

  She didn’t trust herself to speak, so she simply caught her upper lip in her teeth and nodded.

  James’s eyes kindled.

  ‘You were always brave, Laura. You had the courage to admit what you felt right from the start, but I didn’t—even to myself. I found out after you’d gone, though. You see, I missed you unbearably. Hated you. Wanted you. Loved you. I never stopped loving you, even when I thought you were married to someone else.’

  She had to swallow hard and clear her throat before she could speak.

  ‘Then why didn’t you ring me in Sydney and tell me?’

  ‘Because I believed you’d made your choice, and I couldn’t face the humiliation of hearing your husband answer the phone.’

  ‘Didn’t Bea tell you that I wasn’t married?’

  ‘No. Bea seems to have taken some kind of vow of silence about you. She’s never mentioned anything to do with you.’

  Laura smiled wryly.

  ‘That was my doing. I made her promise not to discuss me with you. Ever. I never told her why, but I think she suspects.’

  They were both silent for a moment, busy with their own thoughts. Then James spoke curtly.

  ‘And you haven’t met anyone else since Gareth was born? Anyone you would consider marrying?’

  Laura shook her head.

  ‘No.’ She wanted to ask him the same question, but prudence restrained her. She wasn’t at all sure where they were going from here, and she didn’t want James to think that he would only have to snap his fingers and she would come running back to him. She must remain calm and detached, but it wasn’t easy when James’s eyes were gazing at her so intently.

  ‘Neither have I,’ he said hoarsely. ‘Once I lost you, I also lost interest in any other women. I knew that nobody else could compare with you.’

  Laura forgot about trying to be detached.

  ‘Sue—’ s
he began with difficulty.

  ‘There was never anything between Sue and me, except pity on my side and desperation on hers. Sue’s husband Jack had a drinking problem and was violent towards her. I felt sorry for her and listened when she wanted to talk. For a while she transferred all her confused emotions onto me and convinced herself she was in love with me, but it wasn’t true and she eventually realised it herself.’

  ‘That night you went down to visit her you stayed away for two and a half hours,’ said Laura sceptically. ‘And your hair was wet when you came back, as if you’d been in the shower.’

  ‘I had been in the shower! She had a broken pipe that was leaking under the house and I offered to have a look at it for her. I had to crawl around under the floorboards and I got filthy.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Laura in a small voice. Then another thought struck her. ‘What about the way your sister Wendy always said you were such a playboy, pursuing women but never getting seriously involved with them?’

  James grimaced.

  ‘There’s a certain amount of truth in that,’ he admitted. ‘After my wife Paula left me, I was very bitter about women in general.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Laura. ‘What did she do to you?’

  ‘It’s a long story. I was only nineteen when I met her and I fell passionately in love with her. Or thought I did. I realise now with hindsight that we had nothing in common but sex. The whole thing would probably have petered out if she hadn’t told me after a couple of months that she was pregnant.’

  Laura flinched. This was the first time she had ever had any inkling that James might have another child somewhere, and she could not deny that the thought gave her pain. At the same time she felt a rush of sympathy for the other young woman, who must have experienced similar heartache to her.

  ‘Poor girl,’ she said. ‘How old was she?’

  ‘Twenty-one.’

  ‘And you were only nineteen? That’s a big age difference at that point. But you were both terribly young to cope with being parents.’

  ‘We didn’t cope with being parents,’ said James harshly. ‘We didn’t become parents.’

  ‘You mean she had an abor—’