His Independent Bride: Wife Against Her Will / The Wedlocked Wife / Bertoluzzi's Heiress Bride

‘It would have been more in character,’ he agreed with faint amusement. ‘But will you also make a sacrifice now, and drop this Mr Castille nonsense? I’m beginning to feel that I’m taking part in some costume drama. If I start wearing knee breeches, and taking snuff, you’ll only have yourself to blame.’

Her lips twitched in spite of herself. ‘Actually, I think you might do rather well.’ She saw his answering grin, and checked herself, continuing more stiffly, ‘But, if you insist, I’ll try and remember in future to call you Joel.’

The name felt awkward on her lips, and she couldn’t imagine that using it would ever become second nature to her. Better, maybe, she thought, to call him nothing at all. Distance herself that way. Somehow.

The Châteaubriand when it came was perfectly cooked, and meltingly tender, served with platters of sauté potatoes, and mixed green salad, and a superb cabernet sauvignon from Chile.

Later, however, as she regretfully put down her knife and fork, Darcy shook her head at the idea of dessert.

‘Just coffee, please.’

‘And cognac?’

‘No, thank you.’ She bit her lip. ‘I hardly think there can be any more shocks in store for me.’

‘Cognac,’ he said, ‘can be drunk for pleasure alone. Have you considered that?’

No, she returned silently, because I don’t want to think of you and any kind of pleasure in the same context.

‘As for shocks,’ he went on, ‘brace yourself for one more.’ He took a small jeweller’s box from his pocket and slid it towards her, opening the lid as he did so.

The coruscating flame from the enormous solitaire it contained almost dazzled her.

She looked at it. Swallowed. ‘Is this—really necessary?’

‘Absolutely essential.’ His tone was sardonic. ‘Aren’t you supposed to calculate your lover’s regard by the number of carats?’

Her lips moved. ‘You are not my lover.’

‘Silly me. I keep forgetting. But no one else will know that, especially with this thing on your finger.’ He took the ring from its satin bed. ‘I think it will reassure your father that I’m very much in earnest. Give me your hand.’

She found she was praying that it would not fit. That adjustments would be needed, and she’d be spared, even for a little while, from wearing this alien, meaningless symbol.

But no one was listening to prayers that night, it seemed, and the ring slid smoothly over her knuckle into its designated place. And stayed there, glittering in the candlelight. Ice, she thought, and fire.

There was a silence, then she said quietly, ‘It’s very beautiful.’ She lifted her chin. ‘Naturally, I’ll return it to you in due

course.’

‘On the contrary,’ he said softly, ‘keep it as a souvenir.’ And signalled to the waiter to bring coffee.

Did he really think she needed such a tangible reminder of his invasion of her life? she wondered in a kind of agonised bewilderment as she stared sightlessly down at the table. Didn’t he realise that all she longed for was to be able to forget him utterly?

Yet, from the first moments of their disastrous meeting, everything he’d said and done seemed to have become seared ineradicably into her memory.

And instinct told her that the more time she spent with him, the worse it might get.

Fate, she thought bleakly, was playing one of its cruellest tricks on her by forcing her together with him in this way.

Yet, quite apart from the guarantee of no intimate involvement, he’d claimed they would hardly spend any time together anyway, she offered her frazzled nerves as palliative. Maybe they could even share the Chelsea house like neighbours in adjoining flats—friendly, but without encroaching on each other’s territory.

He’d told her they could make it work, and somehow she had to believe that. Trust him…

Also, it wasn’t a life sentence. It would end once its purpose had been served. That was what she had to keep in the forefront of her mind. Make her lodestar in this tangled maze of emotion and bitterness. Her hope for the future.

Yet, at the same moment, she found her gaze drawn almost mesmerically to the brilliant glitter of the gemstone on her left hand.

Exquisite it undoubtedly was. And a message of intent. But that was all. She would not allow it to develop any undue significance, she swore inwardly.

Because, even if a diamond was forever, marriage to Joel Castille most certainly was not. And that had to be her sole comfort in this whole terrible mess.

CHAPTER SIX

AS THE arrangements for the wedding began to take shape, Darcy got the feeling that she was standing in the path of an avalanche that was slowly gathering speed and about to overwhelm her.

She had reluctantly broken the news of her coming marriage to Aunt Freddie in the uneasy expectation of being subjected to some rigid cross-examination, but, to her surprise, her aunt had simply given her a long, considering look, then remarked, half to herself, ‘Well, that certainly explains a great deal.’

Darcy, astonished, could only suppose that, with her new job looming, Aunt Freddie’s mind was on other things, although she’d offered what help she could in organising the wedding, which had to be a bonus.

There were, she thought, few others in the situation.

She was making a conscious effort to avoid Joel’s company, without actually seeming to do so, spending as much time as she could down at Kings Whitnall.

Not, she had to admit, that he’d made any real attempt to see her alone since the night when he’d placed that amazing solitaire ring on her finger.

No real trial of her resistance for her to endure.

When dinner had ended, he’d simply escorted her home by taxi, and wished her a pleasant goodnight. No hand-kissing, or any other sort of kissing that time, or since. In fact, there’d been none of the threatened intimacies, for the sake of appearances, when she was in his company. Or, not yet.

When they were together he was invariably civil, even verging towards being actually charming, she admitted reluctantly, but although Gavin, with somewhat ponderous tact, invariably made an excuse to leave them alone together at the end of the evening, her unwanted fiancé seemed to have as little desire to initiate any physical closeness as she herself could possibly wish.

Yet she was aware, all the same, of a faint niggle of bewilderment. He’d once spoken of desiring her, she thought. There’d been times too when he’d looked at her, and it had been there, a tangible thing between them.

But it was gone now. Totally erased, as if it had never existed. And he hadn’t uttered a word of dissent, then or since, about the sanctions she’d imposed on their future relationship.

She found herself wondering if Joel ever gave her a second thought when she was not actually there, in his presence, and decided that he probably didn’t. To him, this was just one more business contract among the many.

She, however, was unable to dismiss him from her own mind quite so easily. This enormous rock, for instance, was a constant reminder. It was so blatantly there that she couldn’t avoid it, she thought bitterly.

There were times, of course, when she was obliged to return to London, usually at her father’s insistence. It was during one of these visits that Lois took her to the wedding boutique where she’d hired her own bridal gown and where she forthrightly condemned the severely cut white satin suit with its tight skirt, and almost mannish lapels, that Darcy chose pretty well at random.

‘It’s chic,’ Darcy defended.

‘With a skirt you can barely walk in? You’ll hobble up the aisle as if your legs have been stapled together. Which may well be the case,’ she added affably. ‘But do you want the world to know?’

She had a brief chat to the assistant, whereupon Darcy found herself being zipped instead into an enchantingly pretty creation in billowing wild silk and chiffon.

‘If you’re really hell-bent on doing this crazy thing,’ Lois whispered grimly in the changing room, ‘then you’re going to do it properly. Look like the romantic, ethereal bride every man secretly wants.’