Substitute Bride Read online

  Well, he would have to know before the wedding, and her stomach contracted in morbid dread at the thought of the scene that would ensue when he did find out. Had she really been crazy enough to think that it would be quite exciting to have James shouting and storming at her? The truth was likely to be utterly different! She could just picture the cold look of contempt that would come over his face when he discovered how she and Bea had tricked him.

  Would he refuse to take part in the wedding? At the moment he was supposed to be giving Bea away, since she didn’t have a father to do it, but who could blame him if he refused to take part? He didn’t seem like the kind of man who would grin and shrug his shoulders if somebody made a fool of him. Laura suspected that a formidable temper smouldered beneath his urbane exterior. He wasn’t in the least bit long-suffering, like Raymond.

  Raymond! Oh, heavens, she had forgotten all about Raymond…She’d been supposed to give him an answer to his proposal yesterday, so what on earth would he think of her? She had never failed to keep a promise before! Even as the thought crossed her mind she knew what her answer was going to be and knew that it didn’t matter that she had broken her promise. After the whirlwind emotions which James had roused in her during the last twenty-four hours, there was no possible way that she could marry Raymond. All the same, he deserved an answer.

  Feeling as if she were ringing up the dentist to make an appointment for a wisdom tooth extraction, Laura picked up the phone.

  ‘Ray?’

  ‘Laura! I was halfway through shaving! What on earth happened? I thought you were supposed to get in touch with me yesterday. You didn’t show up to work and your secretary said you’d taken a day’s leave without any real explanation.’

  His tone was faintly querulous and Laura felt a niggling sense of exasperation, followed by an urge to get the ordeal over.

  ‘Yes, I’m sorry,’ she said shortly. ‘There was a sudden hitch to do with Bea’s wedding and I had to fly down to Tasmania unexpectedly. Now that I’m here I’ll be staying for a few days, but never mind that. What I really rang to tell you is that…I can’t marry you.’

  ‘That’s a bit abrupt,’ protested Ray mildly. She thought she heard a faint scraping sound in the background. Was he continuing to shave while he talked? ‘Can’t you give me some reasons?’

  ‘There’s only one reason, Ray. I don’t love you.’

  He laughed indulgently, the same sort of laugh she had heard once when she had told him the petty cash tin was short of fifteen cents, although even then he had kept going through the books relentlessly until he found the error.

  ‘Love!’ he snorted. ‘We’re both mature adults, Laura. Do we need to make such a fuss about terminology?’

  Laura felt a pang of irrational antagonism so fierce that if Ray had been in the room, she would have picked up the phone and thrown it at him. Terminology, indeed! And if you got rid of love, what did you do? Spend the rest of your life having dry little conversations about a few missing cents in the petty cash tin? No, thanks! There had to be more to the universe than that!

  ‘Well, I do,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry, Ray, but I guess that’s the end of it.’

  ‘Laura, are you sick or something? You don’t sound at all like yourself. Look, don’t rush into a decision. Wait until Beatrice’s wedding is over and talk to me about it then. By the way, did I tell you I got the Simmons and Waterman contract? Quite a coup, really.’

  ‘Good for you,’ retorted Laura coldly, and hung up.

  As she moved away from the phone it occurred to her that the whole conversation had resembled a business discussion about some minor appointment which could be cancelled without too much difficulty. The realisation made her feel surer than ever that she was doing the right thing. After all, a decision to get married was a pretty important event, and ought to be accompanied by some very powerful feelings. Even if a proposal was refused, she felt that it ought to be more than just a passing disturbance in somebody’s day. Raymond hadn’t sounded upset, merely aggrieved. And, if she was going to be honest, her own reaction was mainly one of relief, which was crazy. If she had just refused a proposal of marriage from James Fraser, she was certain that she would have felt shaken to the core by the experience.

  ‘But if James proposed to me,’ she said aloud, ‘maybe I wouldn’t refuse anyway.’

  She stopped suddenly in her tracks with a jolt of dismay as she realised what she had just said. A low groan escaped her.

  Oh, Lord, she really had it badly, didn’t she? What did James have to do with anything? It was hardly likely that he was ever going to ask her to marry him. As a matter of fact, his main preoccupation at the moment seemed to be trying to talk her out of getting married, but was that really just because he thought that she…or Bea…was too young? Or could it possibly be that he was genuinely attracted to her himself and not merely playing games with her?

  Shaking her head, she dismissed the thought as being too silly for words and began to get dressed. Not that she had many clothes to choose from. Believing that she would only be staying in Tasmania for one day, she hadn’t bothered to bring much with her, and only her habitual caution had made her pack any clothes at all. What she had brought was definitely in her style rather than Bea’s. A long viyella nightdress, plain underwear and sensible shoes, a dark blue knit suit with a little gold brooch to pin on the jacket and a severely cut black coat which she had bought in Florence on her holidays two years ago.

  That should baffle James after the violently coloured long cardigan she had worn yesterday! And perhaps seeing her with her hair in a chignon would shake his smug notions about how young and irresponsible she was. An impish sense of mischief began to mingle with her guilt.

  As she’d expected, James gave her a startled glance when she walked into the kitchen. He was standing at the stove, stirring something in a frying pan, and the appetising smell of bacon and tomatoes wafted across to meet her.

  ‘That was good timing,’ he announced, tilting the frying pan and dividing the food evenly onto two plates. Switching off the stove, he handed one of the plates to Laura and gestured at a table by the window which was already set with a checked red and white cloth, orange juice, butter, jam and all the other paraphernalia of breakfast. Laura gave him a worldly wise smile as he poured some juice for her and passed her the toast.

  ‘You look very nice,’ he said with approval, glancing at her dark suit. ‘That’s an extremely suitable outfit for seeing the vicar about the wedding.’

  Laura choked on a mouthful of bacon.

  ‘What did you say?’ she gulped.

  James leaned back in his chair and his eyes narrowed. There was an almost wolfish quality to his expression which made Laura’s blood run cold.

  ‘I said that’s a very suitable outfit for visiting the vicar about the wedding,’ he repeated, with a mildness that was almost sinister. ‘Didn’t I tell you that he phoned me yesterday and suggested that we should have a proper rehearsal for the ceremony? Unless you’ve changed your mind about whether there’s going to be a wedding?’

  She stared at him with the stricken horror of a baby rabbit which had just noticed the swooping shadow of a hawk. Playing this masquerade to one person was bad enough, but if she was now going to be forced to convince the vicar that she was Bea, she would simply crack up.

  Several courses of action occurred to her, all of them equally ridiculous. She could hide under the table and never come out, she could hitch-hike to the end of the island and then swim, or she could agree with James that the wedding ought to be cancelled. The last one was the solution that had most appeal, except that the choice was utterly farcical. She wasn’t the one getting married anyway.

  ‘You’re not really going to go ahead with this, are you?’ demanded James.

  His voice was harsh, and to her astonishment his right hand suddenly shot out, seizing her wrist with such force that she cried out. His grip softened marginally, but he continued to gaze at her with an inten
sity that almost scorched her. She found that her heart was hammering with a wild exultation. He is attracted to me! she thought dizzily. It’s the same for him as it is for me. Then the absurdity of her situation struck her again and she shuddered.

  ‘There’s nothing I can do to stop this wedding now,’ she said jerkily, dropping her eyes and avoiding his gaze.

  ‘That’s rubbish! You’re just letting social pressure and embarrassment force you into it, Bea, because you can’t face the humiliation of crying off at the last moment. But you know you’re doing something very wrong, don’t you?’

  ‘You know you’re doing something very wrong, don’t you?’ The words seared her as if he had scorched them into her conscience with a branding iron, but of course James wasn’t aware of their double meaning.

  ‘Please let me go!’ she blurted out, wrenching away from him.

  ‘All right,’ he snapped, releasing her. ‘But don’t say I didn’t warn you. If you go ahead and marry Sam without really loving him and being sure that you’re ready for lifelong commitment, you’re going to regret it, and I’m sure the vicar will tell you the same thing. Why don’t you discuss it with him when you see him today?’

  So he was back on that, was he? Laura stared at him in alarm.

  ‘What do you mean—when I see him today?’

  ‘I told you—he rang up and suggested a rehearsal. Some of the music is rather tricky and the organist wants to run through it. I’ve explained that Sam is still stranded on the mainland, but the vicar is very anxious for us to go ahead with it anyway. He likes to have all the details right and we’ve got you here as the bride, which is the most important thing.’

  Laura felt as if she were trapped in the middle of a nightmare. Go through the wedding rehearsal and pretend she was the bride? This was getting worse and worse! Wishing the floor would open and swallow her up, she tried a desperate, last-minute tactic.

  ‘Oh, I don’t think we should have the rehearsal without the bridegroom! Can’t we just cancel it?’

  ‘No, we can’t,’ growled James, and the pupils of his eyes seemed to narrow into pitiless slits. ‘I’ll stand in for Sam as your husband. Maybe it will jolt you into thinking about the significance of what you’re doing.’

  The church was a quaint little sandstone building standing on a gentle green hill overlooking the sea. On the noticeboard at the gate a rather faded sign bore the text ‘FEED MY LAMBS, FEED MY SHEEP’, which seemed particularly appropriate, since a couple of merino ewes had escaped from a nearby paddock and were nibbling the grass that grew in lush clumps around the weathered gravestones.

  If she had not been so agitated, Laura would have been enchanted by the pink frothy blossom which covered the cherry trees in the rectory garden next door and by the drifts of daffodils that tossed their heads beneath the bare oak trees. As it was, she felt as if she were being led off to execution as James put his arm around her shoulders and escorted her relentlessly up the path to the rectory door. A chubby, balding man with pink cheeks and thick horn-rimmed spectacles answered their second ring and beamed at them.

  ‘James, good to see you! And this is the bride, is it? Nice to meet you at last, Beatrice. My name’s Bill Archer. I’ve known young Sam since he was pinching the apples from the trees in my orchard during his school holidays, and it couldn’t give me greater pleasure than to be officiating at his wedding. I gather he couldn’t be with us today, though?’

  ‘No,’ said Laura in a wan voice. ‘There’s an airline strike.’

  ‘It’s all right, though,’ added James in velvety tones. ‘I’ve offered to stand in instead. I think Beatrice ought to have this final chance for quiet contemplation about the meaning of holy matrimony.’

  The vicar looked taken aback.

  ‘Er, well, yes,’ he agreed, tugging at his earlobe. ‘And to get the hymns right and that sort of thing too. Christine, my dear! We’re just going over to the church to run through young Sam’s wedding service. Why don’t you come with us?’

  Laura had thought the agony couldn’t get any worse, but once she found herself inside the church she realised she’d been wrong. The building itself was beautiful, with its stained glass windows sparkling in the sun, its gleaming wooden pews smelling of lemon furniture polish and the fresh flowers that decked the altar. If she’d been going to be married, she couldn’t think of a nicer place to do it than this. But within the next five minutes she began to feel as if she were in a torture chamber as the other participants in the rehearsal gradually assembled. While the vicar made the necessary introductions she looked around her as despairingly as if she were a hostage in the clutches of a gang of terrorists.

  ‘All right, Bea, you’ve met my wife Christine and myself. Now, the lady in the green is Audrey Phillips, our organist, and behind her is John Timmins, who is going to be the best man. That leaves Peter Clark, my sexton, who won’t be taking part in the actual ceremony but has very kindly offered to give you away just for today, since James, who is going to have that privilege at the real wedding, is otherwise occupied at the moment. Now, have we forgotten anyone? Oh, dear, that’s awkward! We don’t have a bridesmaid, do we? What a pity your sister Laura couldn’t be here!’

  ‘Yes, isn’t it?’ agreed Laura faintly.

  ‘Oh, I’ll take her place,’ offered the vicar’s wife. ‘Now, let’s get started. Go and stand on the chancel steps, Bill, and tell them what you want them to do.’

  ‘It’s not too difficult. Once Audrey strikes up the “Wedding March”, you take Peter’s arm, Bea. Make a slow procession down the centre aisle, so everyone can have a good look at you, and when you arrive here the bridegroom will step forward to meet you. You both face me and the father—that’s Peter—will move a little to the left and the best man to the right. You hand your flowers to the bridesmaid and we go ahead with the ceremony. Has everyone got that?’

  Suppressing a wild urge to run outside and hide behind a convenient gravestone, Laura trudged to the back of the church and linked arms with the sexton. As they glided down the aisle together she tried to imagine the upturned smiling faces of family and friends, but all she could think of was her own embarrassment and guilt. Until the moment when Peter Clark deftly stepped away from her and James moved forward to meet her. In that instant she felt as if the entire church, with its sunbeams and joyful music and well-meaning onlookers, had vanished into a void, leaving her alone with a man who had every reason to disapprove of her.

  And yet disapproval didn’t seem to be the only emotion that was burning inside James Fraser. As he looked down at her with his tawny eyes narrowed she caught a glimpse of something that made her feel totally breathless. Some raw, urgent, primal need, as if he had vowed to conquer her and make her his own. A faint tremor went through her limbs and she felt her breast heave agonisingly.

  Bill Archer’s voice began to drone in the background, but after a while the words penetrated Laura’s reverie and made her wince with renewed shame. When he took her hand and put it into James’s, she realised that it felt as cold as a slab of ice. James seemed to notice it too, for he frowned thoughtfully at her as he took the ring from the best man and slipped it onto her finger. But the worst moment of all came when he recited his vows. Or rather Sam’s.

  ‘With this ring I thee wed, with my body I thee worship, and with all my worldly goods I thee endow.’

  Laura flinched as she realised what a mockery she was making of a sacred ceremony. And, quite apart from the misery she felt about that, she could not suppress an irrational surge of longing to know what it would be like to be James’s bride in reality. How would she feel if he knew who she really was and genuinely wanted to marry her? How would she feel if this powerful, disturbing man was gazing down at her so searingly and she knew that Bill Archer was really on the point of pronouncing them man and wife? How would she feel if she knew that soon they were going to go away on a honeymoon which would mark the start of their life together? Catching her breath, she made her way back
up the aisle with James at her side.

  Afterwards Christine Archer treated them all to excellent coffee and date scones in her living room, but Laura had lost her appetite. The vicar looked at her with concern.

  ‘You’re very pale, Bea. Are you feeling all right?’

  ‘It’s just bride’s collywobbles!’ insisted Christine. ‘I know how you feel, my dear. I felt exactly the same at my wedding rehearsal.’

  ‘Oh. Did you?’ said Laura doubtfully.

  ‘Of course, if there’s anything really troubling you about the wedding,’ put in James, ‘you really ought to have a talk to Bill about it immediately.’

  Laura dropped her teaspoon with a resounding clatter.

  ‘I don’t think that will be necessary,’ she babbled.

  Afterwards James bundled her into the car in disapproving silence and continued to scowl as they drove along the coast road. However, he did not take the turnoff to the farm, but instead chose a dirt road which led down to a secluded beach. In a clearing among the sand hills, he stopped the car.

  ‘What are we doing?’ asked Laura in a bewildered voice.

  ‘I need to think and I think best when I’m walking along beaches. Get out.’

  His tone was curt, almost rude. Feeling even more uneasy than she had been in the church, Laura obeyed. Without a backward glance at her, he strode along a boardwalk track that led between the silvery sand hills with their rippling mantle of grey marram grass. Out on the beach the full force of the wind hit them, snatching away her breath, but the experience was exhilarating.

  The sea was a bright, sparkling blue, with long, driving breakers of white foam that crashed on the sand, and overhead the sky was a paler blue, with a few puffs of white cloud. Seagulls wheeled and shrieked, scanning the water for food, but otherwise the only sound was the crash of the waves and the occasional mournful bleating of a sheep from a nearby headland.

  Lowering his head, as if he were planning a particularly vicious rugby tackle, James thrust his hands into the pockets of his brown corduroy trousers and strode off along the beach, apparently indifferent to whether she followed him or not. For a moment she was tempted simply to go back to the car and wait, but some contrary impulse sent her toiling along in his wake, although she almost had to run to keep up with him. Sand got into her shoes, the wind blew her neat chignon into untidy tendrils of hair around her face and once or twice she gave a little shriek and jumped out of the way as an onrushing wave came too far.