Читать книгу The Pregnant Bride - Catherine Spencer - Страница 7

EDMUND noticed her the minute she came into the dining room, not because she was beautiful, which she was, but because, in a roomful of people, she was so profoundly alone.

He was alone, too, and wallowing in it. Not so with her. The eyes staring at the menu were blank, the face wiped clean of expression. For some reason he couldn’t begin to fathom, she’d shut down inside so completely that if the room had burst into flames, she probably wouldn’t have noticed.

Not your concern, buddy, he told himself, gesturing for his bill. You’ve got enough problems of your own, without taking on a perfect stranger’s.

Still, he lingered at his table, watching her; noting the absence of rings on her fingers, the formal, upswept hairdo incongruously at odds with her sweater and slacks. When she spoke to the waiter, she cupped her chin in one hand to support her mouth because that was the only way she could control its trembling. Oh yeah, something was definitely wrong!

Her server knew it, too. He didn’t make eye contact. Didn’t hover obsequiously, reciting the chef’s special creations of the day. He wanted away from her quickly, before whatever ailed her infected him, too. Her barely contained misery was an affront. Romantic ambience were key words when it came to describing The Inn. Tragic heroines, however lovely, had no place there.

Just briefly she looked up, a glance so wary and fearful that when their gazes locked, Edmund caught himself smiling at her and shrugging conspiratorially. Hang in there, sweet pea! Don’t let him spook you. You’ve got as much right to be here as anyone.

She glared back at him and stiffened her already poker-straight spine.

He felt his face crack into a grin he couldn’t control. Damn, but he admired her spirit! Faced with personal crises, the women he’d dated over the last couple of year either fled to the therapist’s couch or a weekend at one of those fat farms where, for the price of a mere few thousand dollars, their stress and cellulite could be flushed away in one fell swoop.

But not this woman. She was the kind who’d go down fighting—or so he thought, until her drink arrived. Scotch, if he was any judge, and a double, to boot. Confronted by it, she sort of reared back in her seat and regarded the liquor suspiciously. Finally, after debating matters for a full thirty seconds or more, she picked up the glass. Her expression reminded him of a child faced with a dose of foul-tasting but good-for-you medicine, and he pretty well guessed what was coming next.

Willing her to look his way again, he shook his head. Don’t do it, lady! It’s not going to solve a thing!

Whatever mental powers he possessed failed him though, because she clearly didn’t get the message. Raising the glass, she tossed back half the contents in a single gulp.

Clearly, from the way she gagged and choked, she and whiskey weren’t on familiar terms, and the effect was immediate, devastating and irreparable. The heat of the liquor burning down her throat chewed away the icy calm in which she’d encased herself, and what started as a booze-induced sting to her eyes rapidly dissolved into silent, body-wrenching sobs.

She gulped, dipped her head to try to hide her face, struggled to draw a breath. But once started, there was no stopping the flood and the tears kept coming. Caught in the rays of the westerly sun, they splashed off the end of her nose and dribbled down her sweater like crystal beads come unstrung.

Well, hell! Hard-boiled where women and their sob sessions were concerned he might have become, but he couldn’t just sit there and watch her fall apart, especially since no one else was going to help her and she was beyond being able to help herself. “Put the lady’s drink on my bill,” he directed the waiter and, shoving back his chair, waded in to slay whatever dragons were tormenting her.

She was making a public spectacle of herself! Of all the hurt and embarrassment she’d suffered that day, the fact that she couldn’t control the hideous sobs gurgling and sputtering out of her mouth was the ultimate indignity. That morning, someone else was accountable for having humiliated her; now she was the perpetrator and had no one to blame but herself.

Knowing that and being able to do something about it, though, were two different things. Try as she might to control them, the sobs choked out and echoed around the room, a socially obscene gaffe which no one could have missed. Although too polite to stare openly, everybody was sneaking a look, from the teenage busboy in the corner, to the man seated two tables away, the one who, just minutes before, had tried to pick her up with his sly smile and the practiced shrug of his no doubt impressive shoulders.

Lounge lizard! If it weren’t that she was openly slobbering into her napkin, a sight surely guaranteed to put off even the most determined skirt-chaser, he’d no doubt have made his next move by now and offered to buy her a drink, followed by the suggestion that they go somewhere private to admire the sunset.

And part of you would have welcomed the suggestion, an obnoxious little voice inside her head sneered. Any man sparing you a second glance not dripping with pity is preferable to this morning’s unmitigated rejection.

But there was a limit to what even he was prepared to tolerate. From the corner of her eye, Jenna saw him mutter something to the waiter, then head straight past her, anxious to escape before she made an even worse exhibition of herself. And because she was a fool, too steeped in self-pity to care about the impression she was creating, her tears flowed even faster.

Then, shockingly, a hand—warm, firm and unmistakably masculine—touched her shoulder, slid down her spine almost to her waist, and urged her to her feet. And a voice, deep and resonant with authority, murmured in her ear. “Okay, sweet pea, enough of this. What say we take the rest of the show outside?”

Sweet pea, indeed! She should have been offended at the familiarity, the condescension. If she’d been in her right mind, instead of wallowing in useless self-pity, she’d have told him so in no uncertain terms. But she hadn’t been herself since that morning and beggars couldn’t be choosers. At that moment he was the only savior she had so, when he offered her his arm, instead of slapping it aside, she grabbed hold as if it were a life belt and let him shepherd her past the stares and the whispers infiltrating the dining room.

Outside, the cool evening air brushed her face and marginally restored her composure. “Thank you,” she sniffled, except that it came out sounding more like “Phn-k!” because her throat was so waterlogged with tears still.

“Sure,” he said, steering her toward a covered flight of steps. “Just hang on till we get to the beach, then you can howl to your heart’s content. There’ll be no one there to hear but the gulls and they’re so busy making their own racket, they won’t even notice yours.”

She stepped down to a vast stretch of shoreline scoured clean by the receding tide and deserted except for a couple with two children and a dog, far enough away that they were mere dots on the horizon. Except for the man at her side, Jenna was alone. She could shriek until she was hoarse, but what was the use when, at the end of it all, nothing would have changed?

So instead, she fell into step beside the man as he struck out for the water’s edge, grateful that he didn’t feel a need to fill the silence between them with empty conversation. Seeming bent on his own thoughts, he adjusted his stride to hers, shoved his hands in his jacket pocket, and fixed his gaze to where the lowering sun painted the tips of the waves gold.

Gradually, the convulsive sobbing eased and she could breathe again—deep, reviving breaths, laced with the clean tang of salt and the sharp bite of an early, west-coast May evening. The constriction which, since morning, had gripped her throat and made swallowing painful, softened. Except for the gritty aftermath of tears inflaming her eyes, she was almost herself again. “Thank you,” she said again. “I don’t know what I’d have done if you hadn’t stepped in when you did.”

He nodded. “Glad to help. Feel like talking about whatever’s got you tied up in knots?”

“I…no, I don’t think so.”

“It might help and I’m a pretty good listener.”

“I made a mistake, that’s all,” she said.

He gave a nonchalant shrug. “So you’re fallible like the rest of us. Don’t go beating yourself up about it.”

“A huge mistake.”

“Most mistakes can be rectified, one way or another.”

“Not this one.”

He let his glance flicker over her before returning his attention to the sunset. “That bad, huh? What did you do, kill somebody?”

It was the wrong question to ask. “I should have!” she said fiercely. “If I’d had a gun, I would have!”

“Uh-oh!”

She glared at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“When a woman overreacts like that to a purely hypothetical question, it’s either because she’s got man trouble or she’s criminally deranged. If you were the latter, you’d have gone for the waiter with your steak knife. Instead, you tried to put a brave face on things—and you might have succeeded if you’d steered clear of the booze.”

“I am not a drinker,” she said stiffly. “At least, not as a rule. But tonight…”

“Tonight you needed something to dull the pain.”

“Yes.”

“So this is about a man?”

“Yes.”

“I take it the relationship, such as it was, is over and that he’s the one who ended it?”

“Yes.” The word exploded on a sigh that seemed to start in the soles of her feet and drag every ounce of energy out of her.

He rocked back on his heels and surveyed her critically. “Even with your face all red and puffy from crying, you’re a fine looking woman. Beautiful, in fact. Seems to me you could take your pick of men. What made you latch on to such a bozo?”

Jenna thought of Mark’s spaniel brown eyes, as different from this stranger’s penetrating blue stare as melting chocolate from ice; of his endearing grin, more reminiscent of a little boy’s than a hard-nosed financier’s. “I fell in love with him,” she quavered.

“A hell of a lot more than he fell in love with you, apparently! If you want my opinion, you’re well rid of him.”

“I don’t want your opinion,” she snapped. She’d gone through enough already that day without this…this creature pontificating on her situation and handing out Band-Aid solutions when she was bleeding inside!

“I thought a bit of down-to-earth common sense might help, but if you’d rather wallow in misery…” He lifted his shoulders in yet another shrug so graphically executed that there was no need for him to finish the sentence.

Suddenly, she saw herself through his eyes, and it wasn’t a pretty picture. A weeping, hysterical woman knocking back double scotches and losing control of herself in front of a roomful of people was in no position to take out her misery on the one person who’d shown her compassion. “I was left at the altar,” she confessed, the very act of speaking the words aloud leaving her hollow with pain.

“When?”

The sneaking suspicion that she owed her savior something more than the bare bones she’d so far offered overcame her earlier reticence. “This morning.”

“Oh, boy!” He whistled through his teeth. “Small wonder you’re such a mess.”

“Perhaps, but that doesn’t entitle me to be rude to you, or to intrude on your time. I’m sure your plans for the evening didn’t involve playing nursemaid to a jilted bride.” She squared her shoulders and did her best to project the image of a woman in control and well able to stand on her own two feet which, considering her recent bout of weeping, was a lost cause from the outset. “Please don’t feel you have to stay out here with me. I’ll be perfectly all right by myself,” she said, her voice wobbling dangerously.

“Garbage!” he declared flatly. “You’ve been dumped on what should be the happiest day of your life, and you shouldn’t be alone. Surely there’s someone who could be here with you—a friend, or a family member?”

“No! I don’t want…people to…know where I am.”

He stepped back and searched her face incredulously. “Are you saying that after being stood up at the altar and left emotionally distraught, you just disappeared without a word to anyone?”

“That’s right.” She returned his gaze defiantly.

“What about your relatives and friends? They must be worried out of their minds. Or didn’t that strike you as important?”

The censure in his voice stirred her to an unwelcome guilt which, in turn, put her once again on the defensive. “What would you have done in my place? Invite all the guests to the reception and have it turn into a wake with them all commiserating with the forlorn bride?”

He rolled his eyes. “Cripes, do you always go overboard like this? Couldn’t you have found a happy medium and shown some consideration for your family’s feelings? They’re probably beside themselves with concern for you.”

“If you only knew…!” she began, then clamped her mouth shut and turned away from him because, even if she tried to explain, he’d just think she was trying to milk her situation for more sympathy than he had to spare. And to be fair, how could a stranger be expected to understand the hopes and expectations her family had pinned on her marriage to one of the city’s wealthiest financiers?

“We’ll finally be accepted where we belong,” her mother had crowed to her father. “Doors will open, you’ll see! We’ll be rubbing shoulders with the rich and famous. Mark will give our son a position in the firm, something appropriate for a young man of Glen’s ability. And with a few words dropped in the right ear, Amber’s career will be made overnight.”

“He’s marrying Jenna, not the whole family,” her father had tried to point out. “Mark doesn’t owe the rest of us any favors.”

But her mother had been undeterred. “Why not, when he can so easily afford them?”

Was that what had made Mark change his mind at the last minute? Had he felt he was nothing more than a cash cow, even though Jenna would have loved him just as dearly if he’d been dirt-poor?

The breeze picked up, tugging at the formal hairdo her stylist had created just that morning. Hugging her arms against the chill, Jenna swung back to the stranger. “I left a note at my parents’ house telling them I’d be away for a few days and not to worry about me. Satisfied?”

“I guess,” he said, “but I still don’t see why you’d want to cut yourself off from them.” He inclined his head toward The Inn perched majestically on the rocks to their right. “Or why you’d want to hole up in a place designed for couples and lovers. Seems to me that’s just rubbing salt in the wounds.”

He subjected her to another penetrating stare and she felt color stealing into her cheeks. “Oh, brother, let me guess!” he exclaimed, enlightenment dawning. “You were supposed to honeymoon here, right?”

“At least I knew I’d have a room reserved,” she said defensively. “The bridal suite, in fact, complete with champagne on ice and flowers by the bucketful.”

He circled her as if she were some rare species of sea life accidentally washed ashore. “You’ve got to be kidding!”

She stared at her feet, feeling more foolish by the minute. “At least it’s the last place anyone would think to come looking for me.”

He laughed then, a rich warm rumble of amusement borne away on the breeze. “You’re going to be okay, you know that?” he said, tipping up her chin with his finger and smiling down at her. “Any woman with the guts to face her demons in the one place she’d expected to find true love is a real survivor. What say we head back to The Inn and I buy us both a drink to celebrate?”

Well, why not? The only thing waiting for her in the suite was a bed big enough for two and no one to share it with. “All right,” she said. “Thank you. You’re very kind.”

“Yeah,” he said, tucking her hand under his arm and towing her back the way they’d come. “But keep it under your hat, okay? I don’t want the word to get out.”

His name was Edmund Delaney and she found herself enjoying his company more than she’d have thought possible an hour before. He was an entertaining host, articulate, amusing, and unquestionably the most attractive man in the room. She sat by the fire and sipped the cognac he ordered and, for a little while, she was able to push the fiasco of her wedding day to the back of her mind. Eventually, though, the evening came to an end.

“I’ll walk you to your room,” he offered and because she dreaded being alone, she accepted.

Taller than Mark, broader across the shoulders, and more powerfully built, he loped up the stairs with the graceful ease of an athlete at the peak of fitness. “Give me your key,” he said, when they arrived at her door, and as she handed it over, she noticed his hands were lean and tanned and capable, and just a little callused as if he worked with tools. Mark had a manicure every week and wouldn’t have known one end of a hammer from the other.

“Here you are.” Edmund pushed open her door, dropped the keys into her palm and folded her fingers over them.

If he’d said, “Sleep well,” she’d probably have managed to end the evening with a modicum of dignity, but his more sensitive “Try to get some sleep,” had the tears burning behind her eyes all over again.

Mutely, she looked up at him.

His fingers grazing her cheek were gentle. “I know,” he murmured. “It isn’t going to be easy.”

He left her then and she knew a shocking urge to call him back and beg him not to make her face the night alone. It wasn’t that she wanted him to make love to her or anything like that; she just needed the warmth of human contact, the feeling that someone in the world cared—not that a two-thousand-dollar wedding dress had gone to waste, or that four hundred guests had been cheated of a seven-course dinner, but that she somehow survive the crushing blow to her self-esteem and live to face another day.

Not until his footsteps had faded into silence did she venture into the room. A fire burned in the hearth and beyond the wide windows a half-moon floated over the ocean. The maid had turned down the bed on both sides and left foil-wrapped chocolates on each pillow. Hadn’t she noticed there was only one set of luggage, only one toothbrush in the bathroom?

Unable to face the bed, Jenna sank down on the rug before the fire and because there was no longer any ignoring them, let the ghastly events of the day wash over her.

It had begun well enough, with sunshine and clear skies. There’d been no hint of impending disaster as she’d ridden with her father to the church, no sense of something amiss as her bridesmaids fussed with her veil and whispered that the groom and his family had not yet arrived. Mark and his father were often late, held up by international phone calls and such. “That’s the price of doing business,” Mark had said, when she’d once had the temerity to complain. “Money before pleasure any day of the week.”

Including their wedding day, it had seemed!

“They’ve taken a wrong turn and got lost,” her father joked. “Or been stopped for speeding.”

But as the minutes stretched and still no groom, the smiles had shrunk and the speculation had begun, rippling over the congregation like wind over a cornfield. Finally, “I have another wedding in half an hour,” the minister had said, coming out to where she waited in her wedding finery. “I’m afraid that unless Mr. Armstrong and his party arrive in the next few minutes, we’ll have to reschedule your ceremony for another time.”

By then, though, a dull certainty had taken hold and Jenna knew that Mark wasn’t going to arrive, not in the next few minutes and not ever. Instead, Paul King, his best man, had shown up, red-faced and apologetic.

“So sorry, Jenna,” he’d stammered, handing her an envelope. “Wish I didn’t have to be the one to bring you this. Wish there could have been a happier ending….”

The letter was brief and full of empty excuses aimed at softening the blow of rejection. …afraid I won’t make you happy…can’t give you what you want…you deserve better, dear Jenna…a wonderful woman who’ll make some lucky man a wonderful wife…forgive me…some day you’ll thank me…this hurts me as much as I know it will hurt you….

“What does it say?” her mother had asked in a horrified whisper, and when she hadn’t replied, had snatched the paper out of Jenna’s hand, read it for herself, and let out a squawk of outrage. “He can’t do this!” she’d cried. “We’ve got sixty pounds of smoked salmon waiting at the club! Your father had to extend his line of credit at the bank to finance this wedding!”

The bad news had spread quickly, rolling through the church like an anthem. Heads had turned, necks craned, feet shuffled. And throughout it all, Jenna had stood at the door, bouquet dangling from one limp hand, wedding veil floating in the May breeze, silk gown whispering around her ankles and a great empty hole where her heart had been.

What was the correct protocol for a bride left waiting at the altar? Throwing herself off the nearest bridge hadn’t appealed although, when she first read the letter, she had, briefly, wished the floor would open up and swallow her. But what her mother referred to as her “infernal pride” had come to her rescue. Somehow, from somewhere, she’d manufactured a kind of frozen calm to get herself through the ordeal suddenly confronting her.

Hooking her train over her arm, she made her way back to where the limousines waited and climbed into the one which had brought her to the church and had her honeymoon luggage stowed in the trunk. “There will be no wedding,” she informed the startled driver as he raced to close the door for her, and directed him to her apartment.

While he transferred her suitcases to her car, she’d changed into the first clothes she laid hands on, scribbled a note for her parents and given it to him to deliver, and within twenty minutes was speeding down the highway to the ferry terminal. What was supposed to have been the happiest day of her life had turned into a nightmare of titan proportion, witnessed by half the social elite in the province and another hundred from out of town, and she had known only that she had to escape, quickly, before the blessed numbness passed and the pain took hold.

She’d managed pretty well—or so she’d thought. Bolstered by a confidence which in reality was nothing more than a continuation of the daze which had steered her through the hours since her aborted wedding, she’d ignored the voice of caution and decided to brave The Inn’s dining room. Why should she hide away in her suite? She’d done nothing to be ashamed of!

But confronting the other diners had proved more of an ordeal than she’d expected. If she’d worn a sign plastered to her forehead, declaring her Abandoned Bride of the Year, she couldn’t have felt more exposed or vulnerable.

She owed Edmund Delaney a huge debt of gratitude….

As if they had a will of their own, her eyes swung from their contemplation of the flames in the hearth to the telephone on the little occasional table beside the fireplace.

Should she call him? Invite him to lunch, perhaps, as thanks for his having saved her from making an even bigger fool of herself at dinner?

Not a smart move, Jenna, her cautious conscience scolded. Chasing after a man you hardly know, only hours after you were jilted by the man you planned to marry, smacks more of desperation to find a replacement than gratitude!

True enough! So why was she lifting the receiver, why requesting that a call be put through to the room of one Edmund Delaney? And why, having gone that far, did she stare in horrified fascination at the telephone when he picked up on the second ring, then immediately hang up and flee to the bathroom as if he were in hot pursuit?

There was a phone in there, too. It rang before she had the door closed. “We must have been cut off,” Edmund Delaney said, when she finally found the courage to answer. “Good thing it was an in-house call and the front desk was able to reconnect us. What can I do for you?”