Subtle Revenge

‘No,’ Lori sighed deeply, ‘I’m the one who’s sorry. I think—I think the nightmare must have upset me more than I realised.’ She looked at the other girl pleadingly.

‘They do take it out of you, don’t they,’ Sally agreed eagerly, as anxious as Lori to forget the subject now that she had seen how much it was upsetting her to talk about it. ‘It was probably thinking about Nikki’s wedding that made you sleep restlessly.’

‘Yes,’ she said dully. ‘I-I’ll use the bathroom first, shall I?’

‘Go ahead,’ the other girl invited goodnaturedly.

Sally couldn’t know just how right she was, it was Nikki’s wedding that had brought on the nightmare. The three girls worked together in a law firm, not actually together, but they spent most of their breaks together. Today was the day of Nikki’s wedding to Paul Hammond, the junior partner of the firm, and also Nikki’s boss, and what no one else could possibly realise was that five years ago next week should have been Lori’s own wedding day. If Nigel hadn’t walked out on her!

Nigel Phillips, heir to the Phillips fortune, junior partner in his father’s law firm where Lori had been employed five years ago. His father had bitterly disapproved of Lori from the start, and it had been he who supplied the information that had driven Nigel and herself apart. She had believed that after all that time her past couldn’t catch up with her, but as soon as Nigel learnt the truth about her he had broken their engagement, had cancelled the wedding. She had never fully recovered from the way he had let her down, and even though five years had passed August was still a traumatic month for her.

When Nikki had told her the date of her wedding and asked her to be a bridesmaid, her first instinct had been to refuse, and then her pride had made her say yes. Nigel might have made her wary of men, of becoming involved, but she couldn’t let him influence her life in any other way. Nikki would have been deeply hurt if she had refused, but she had paid for her determination to go to the wedding with a series of the recurring nightmares that had plagued her the last five years. Last night had been the worst, though, refusing to be shaken off as she sometimes managed to do. Poor Sally must have wondered what on earth was happening!

‘It’s all yours.’ She came out of the bathroom ten minutes later, a towel wrapped around her wet hair. Nikki had offered to take her to the hairdressers’ with Sally and herself, but as her hair always reverted to the fluffy red-gold cloud she had known it was a waste of time and effort, preferring to wash and style it herself.

‘I’m off now,’ Sally called out a few minutes later, dressed in casual denims and a blouse, the pale green dresses they were to wear at Nikki’s parents’ house. ‘I’ll see you soon.’

‘Okay.’ Lori went through to the lounge, similarly dressed, her hair partly dry. ‘And don’t let Nikki get nervous and change her mind,’ she teased, still looking a little strained.

‘Are you joking?’ Sally grinned. ‘It took her months to catch the poor unsuspecting man.’

It was true. Nikki had mooned about over Paul for almost six months before he had plucked up the courage to ask her out. His proposal had been a little quicker in coming, only four months, and Nikki had arranged the wedding at top speed before he changed his mind.

‘That poor, unsuspecting man happens to worship the ground Nikki walks on,’ Lori said dryly. ‘It seems incredible to me that the two of them had been in love with each other for months but neither thought the other one was interested,’ she shook her head.

‘That’s the English for you!’ Sally laughed before leaving.

Lori didn’t remember guarding her own feelings when she was younger, had never pretended to be anything but completely in love with Nigel. It was different now, now she was wary about caring for anyone, and only Sally and Nikki had become good friends over the last four years, since she had begun working for Ackroyd, Hammond, and Hammond. Ackroyd had been long dead, the senior Mr Hammond was retiring in the near future, and the younger Mr Hammond was Paul. Several other lawyers worked for the firm too, but they weren’t partners.

The elder Mr Hammond was Lori’s boss, a big bluff man who couldn’t have been happier about his son marrying Nikki. If only Charles Phillips could have felt the same way about his son marrying his secretary! Then there would have been no delving into the past, no opening of old wounds, and now she might have been Nigel’s wife, might even have his children. That had been Charles Phillips’ worry, of course, not so much her being Nigel’s wife, but the fact that his grandchildren would have Chisholm blood in their veins.

She leant her head weakly against the dressing-table mirror, letting its coolness soothe her. Normally she didn’t think of Nigel for days at a time, but today he wouldn’t be put from her mind. He had been ten years her senior, had seemed experienced and sophisticated to her awestruck gaze. When he had shown an interest in her too she had been ecstatic, little realising that her fragile beauty and obvious fascination made her an easy victim to such a man. But Nigel had seemed to surprise himself by falling in love with her, and had asked her to marry him only a few weeks after their first evening together.

All Nigel’s family had been horrified by his choice of bride—his snobby mother, his outraged father, and last his bitchy young sister Margot. But at least Margot had called her a gold-digger to her face. Charles Phillips had been much more underhand, producing his trump card only a week before the wedding.

Lori had stood and watched Nigel as the love drained from his eyes, while his face tightened with contempt, and in that moment her own hate had begun, mainly for Charles Phillips, but also for Jacob Randell, the man who had vindictively ruined her life in the first place, the reason for her father’s early death, her mother’s unhappy years before she too died prematurely.

She looked at herself in the mirror, seeing the thin face, the high cheekbones, but noticing none of the arresting beauty, the brown eyes seeming to have a golden ring around the iris, giving them a curiously catlike appearance. She was as slender as a model, had the sort of figure that showed clothes well, although she considered herself too thin when undressed, her hips and waist were very narrow, her legs long and slender, her breasts small and uptilting.

Still, she wouldn’t be the one being looked at today. Nikki would be the cynosure of all eyes. And so she should be, every girl deserved to be the belle of the ball on her wedding day!

Lori finished drying her hair and applying her make-up, determinedly not giving Nigel another thought. She had to be at Nikki’s in an hour, and she didn’t have the time to think of anything but getting ready for that.

All was chaos at the bride’s house, Mrs Dean sure that the flowers weren’t going to arrive on time, Mr Dean having locked himself in his study out of the way, much to his wife’s annoyance. Lori telephoned the florist, something no one else seemed to have thought of, apparently, ringing off to assure the bride’s mother that the flowers were on their way right now.

‘Thank goodness you’ve arrived!’ Nikki grabbed her, pulling her into her bedroom. ‘Do something with my hair!’ she wailed.

Lori frowned. ‘What’s wrong with it?’ It looked perfectly all right to her.

‘Nothing now, but look!’ Nikki picked up the veil and put it on her head, instantly flattening the feathered style of her black hair. ‘I forgot to take the headdress to the hairdressers so that they could work around it, and now I look a mess!’ Tears filled her deep blue eyes.

‘You don’t look a mess at all,’ Lori soothed her friend. ‘It only needs a little restyling, this bit brought forward more and this bit smoothed out,’ she suited her actions to her words, not making any drastic changes, just bringing the feathered fringe forward so that it was visible when the veil was put in place.

Nikki’s eyes shone with happiness now instead of tears. ‘I knew I could rely on you!’

Lori smiled. ‘That’s what chief bridemaids are for. And talking of bridesmaids, where’s Sally?’ she frowned.

‘Still at the hairdressers,’ Nikki grimaced.

‘What are they doing to her, giving her a transplant?’ Lori derided.

‘I hope not,’ Nikki groaned. ‘Her hair is already so thick it’s taking twice as long as mine to dry! I came back to help Mum, but I wish I hadn’t bothered!’ she sighed.

‘It’s a bit chaotic, isn’t it?’ Lori laughed.

‘Don’t underestimate, Lori, it’s bedlam! I wish now that we’d eloped!’

Lori laughed lightly. ‘I’m sure every bride wishes the same thing before the wedding. But just wait until you see the photographs. It will be something to remember the rest of your life.’

‘Mum keeps saying the same thing,’ Nikki grimaced. ‘I just wish it were all over.’

‘Enjoy it,’ Lori encouraged gently. ‘It’s a special day in your life, Nikki. Savour every minute of it.’

Her friend gave her a strange look, shrugging as some of the tension left her. ‘You’re right,’ she nodded. ‘This is my wedding day to Paul, why worry about the fact that Mum is having hysterics in the kitchen, Dad is locked in his study causing the hysterics, and the flowers haven’t arrived!’

‘Ah, now, the latter I can help you with,’ Lori smiled. ‘I’ve just seen the van from the florists pull up outside.’

Nikki rushed to join her at the window. ‘Thank heavens for that!’ she sighed her relief. ‘That’s one crisis over. Do you think Paul’s buttonhole arrived safely?’ she added worriedly.

‘It was coming from the same florist, wasn’t it?’ Lori waited for her friend’s nod of confirmation. ‘Then I’ll just go down and ask the lady if she went to Paul’s first.’

‘Why didn’t I think of that?’ Nikki said ruefully.

Lori gave a happy laugh at her friend’s almost dazed expression. ‘Because you’re too excited to think of anything but being Paul’s wife.’

‘Yes,’ Nikki gave a dreamy smile. ‘I can’t tell you how much I love him, how I’m longing to be married to him.’ She blushed prettily. ‘We’ve waited, you know, Lori.’

‘I do know.’ Lori squeezed her friend’s hand. ‘And that’s also what makes today so special. The permissive society and equal rights in bed for women are okay, but there’s nothing quite like a virginal bride.’

‘Will you be——’ Nikki broke off in embarrassment. ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked that.’

‘That’s all right,’ Lori dismissed huskily. ‘I am, and I will be—if I ever find the right man.’

‘Oh, you will,’ her friend said with certainty. ‘You’re too beautiful for the male population to ignore. I’m just glad Paul goes for black hair instead of redheads!’

Lori gave a throaty laugh. ‘I’d better go and check with the florist before she leaves.’

She found the middle-aged lady in the kitchen helping Mrs Dean drown her sorrows in a glass of sherry. Lori got confirmation about Paul’s buttonhole before leaving them to it.