Читать книгу The Hired Husband - Kate Walker - Страница 7

‘WELL, we did it!’

Sienna’s voice was breathless with a mixture of triumph, relief and something coming very close to panic that she prayed the man beside her wouldn’t be able to detect. The same emotions were mirrored in the sea-coloured brilliance of her eyes as she turned on him a smile edged with a tension that, try as she might, she was unable to erase completely.

‘We did it,’ Keir echoed gravely, no answering smile lighting the darkness of his own gaze as it locked with hers. ‘But did we get away with it? That’s the real question.’

‘Oh, don’t be silly!’

Sienna made the reproof as careless as was possible when her heartbeat and breathing refused to settle down into anything like their normal rhythm.

‘Of course we got away with it! Why wouldn’t we? And don’t say that—you make it sound as if we’ve done something wrong.’

‘And we haven’t?’

At his tone, the precarious euphoria that had buoyed her up evaporated in a rush, leaving her feeling disturbingly limp and deflated, like a pricked balloon.

‘No, we haven’t!’ Infuriatingly, she couldn’t give the words the conviction she wanted; a quaver she couldn’t suppress took all the certainty from her declaration.

‘Are you so sure of that? There are those who might label what we’ve done as fraud, or at the very least an attempt to swindle money from the Nash estate.’

‘I’m not swindling anyone! I am a Nash, remember? By blood, at least, if not by name. And the only person who might feel defrauded of anything is my father, or rather he might if he was still alive. But, seeing as he never took any interest in my existence from the day I was born, I very much doubt that anything I do now is going to trouble him in the least.’

Moving impulsively, she laid a hand on Keir’s arm, her fingers white against the deep colour of his superbly tailored suit as she looked up into the hard-boned strength of his face.

‘Don’t tell me you’re having second thoughts at this late stage?’

‘Not second thoughts, no.’ Keir pushed one strong hand through his hair, ruffling its gleaming darkness. ‘But if we’re strictly honest we are pulling a fast one on all those people in there.’

A slight inclination of his head indicated the door at the far side of the room through which the buzz of a hundred conversations could easily be heard.

‘Especially your mother.’

‘It’s because of my mother that I’m doing this,’ Sienna reminded him in a vehement undertone made necessary by the need to avoid being heard as the door swung open, revealing the crowded room beyond. ‘And you—’

But there was no chance to finish the sentence, because at that moment a loud, stentorian voice broke through the noise, silencing it immediately.

‘Ladies and gentlemen—pray silence for the bride and groom!’

‘Oh, Lord!’

Taken by surprise, Sienna lurched into a nervous flurry of activity. A hasty glance in the huge, ornately framed mirror over the fireplace reassured her that her veil was still securely anchored, the delicate silver headdress holding it firmly in place in the brown curls of her hair, a couple of shades darker than Keir’s.

Her make-up, carefully applied some four hours before, was still almost perfect: a soft wash of beige shadow emphasising the almond shape of her eyes, the long, thick lashes enhanced by a single coat of black mascara. Perhaps the warm pink on the full softness of her mouth had faded just a little, and there seemed to be a surprising lack of colour across the high, slanting cheekbones, but there was nothing she could do about that now. She could only hope that their guests would put her pallor down to excitement or belated wedding nerves.

Patting her cheeks lightly, in an attempt to bring some blood to the surface of her skin in order to make its ivory tones look a little healthier, she turned back to Keir. Meeting his darkly watchful gaze, she switched on what she hoped was a convincing smile, supremely conscious of the fact that it was distinctly ragged round the edges.

‘Ready?’ he asked, and held out his hand to her.

Sienna could only manage an inarticulate murmur that might have been agreement as she smoothed down her long skirt with uncertain fingers. Made of the finest lace over a delicate silk lining, the dress had originally been her grandmother’s, worn on her wedding day almost fifty-five years before. Carefully preserved, wrapped in tissue paper to protect it from the yellowing effects of the light, it had been handed down from mother to daughter in the hope that wearing it as a bride would pass on something of the love that had made the older woman’s marriage such a happy one.

But for Sienna’s mother, Caroline, there had been no such happy ending. There hadn’t even been a wedding ceremony, her daughter reflected bitterly. Her father had already been married. He had had no intention of leaving his wife for the naïve twenty-two-year-old who had been foolish enough to let herself get pregnant as the result of what had, to him at least, been just a pleasant holiday dalliance, with no commitment whatsoever.

‘Sienna…’ A note of reproof sharpened the edge of Keir’s voice, dragging her from her reverie. ‘Our guests are waiting.’

The hand he held out moved imperiously, the gesture demanding her instant obedience. For a brief moment the idea of rebellion flared in her mind, but almost immediately she dismissed it.

For now she had to observe all the conventions, play up to everyone’s belief that this was the love match of the century. Keir and Sienna, second only to Antony and Cleopatra, or Cathy and Heathcliff in the lists of the all-time great love stories.

Out there, in the elegant dining room beyond the great double doors, was Francis Nash, her late father’s brother and only surviving relative. If he was not convinced by their marriage and the whirlwind romance that had apparently preceded it, then the game was well and truly up. One false move and her chance of making sure that her mother spent the rest of her days in the comfort and security she so needed would be ruined.

And so she forced herself to smile again, with rather more success this time, drawing herself up to her full five foot nine as she placed her hand in Keir’s.

‘I’m ready,’ she declared. ‘Let’s go.’

Hard fingers closed tightly over hers, though whether in encouragement or warning not to take any more risks she couldn’t be sure.

‘Come on, then,’ Keir said, his voice unexpectedly roughened and tight. ‘Let’s get this show on the road.’

Not giving her time to think, he swung her round and, with her hand held high between them, marched her forcibly across the room, leaving her with no option but to follow him. It was either that or be dragged embarrassingly in his arrogant wake.

In the doorway Keir stopped suddenly, dark head held high, deep brown eyes scanning the elegantly dressed crowd before him as a murmur of interest greeted their appearance. Surprised by his unexpected stillness, it was all Sienna could do to avoid cannoning into the broad, straight line of his back.

Automatically her free hand came out to balance herself, closing over the tight muscles in his arm as she came to an uncertain halt at his side.

‘Perfect,’ Keir murmured softly, threading the word through with a dark cynicism that she had never heard from him before. ‘Now we look just like the model bride and groom on the top of that ridiculously over-decorated cake you insisted on.’

‘I…’ Sienna began but her muffled protest was ignored as Keir, having caught the eye of the waiting maître d’, gave a swift, curt nod as a signal to proceed with the reception.

‘Ladies and gentlemen…may I present to you Mr and Mrs Keir Alexander?’

But that was too much. Sienna’s head came up sharply, turquoise eyes flashing repudiation of the announcement.

‘Mr Keir Alexander and Sienna Rushford!’ she pronounced, against the flurry of applause that had greeted the announcement. ‘I—’

But the rest of her words were silenced, forced back down her throat, as, with a muttered expletive, Keir caught her in his arms, hauling her up against him as his dark head lowered, his mouth coming down hard on hers.

‘Keir!’

His name was a spluttered sound of protest against his lips. It was all she could manage before he kissed her again, with even more ruthless determination.

‘Looks like Keir’s got a tiger by the tail, all right.’

On the borders of her awareness Sienna heard one of Keir’s adolescent stepbrothers make the comment in an aside that was obviously meant to be heard, pitched as it was in a tone that carried clearly in spite of its apparent restraint. The malicious amusement in his voice was impossible to miss.

‘Let’s hope he’s not bitten off more than he can chew.’

Against her slender length Sienna felt the tension that stiffened Keir’s hard frame, tightening every muscle into an unyielding wall that seemed to bruise her just to be pressed close to it. So it was almost impossible to equate what all her senses were telling her with the apparently sensual indolence with which he slid his mouth away from hers, trailing it softly over her cheek until his warm breath teased the delicate curves of her ear.

‘Do you want this to work or not?’ he whispered silkily, his words meant for her hearing alone.

‘Of course…’

‘Then kiss me!’

‘Keir…?’ Confusion clouded her eyes, made her voice just a shaken thread of sound.

‘Kiss me!’

With a raw, uncontrolled sound in his throat, he closed hard fingers over her chin, wrenching her face up to his once more. But this time when his mouth touched hers it was with an unexpected, beguiling gentleness, a voluptuous tenderness that made her senses swim, her heartbeat slow to a heavy, languorous thud.

Against her back, the strength of his arm was all that held her upright. Without its support she felt that she would melt away completely, sliding into a warm, honeyed pool at his feet. Her whole body glowed, heating the blood in her veins until she felt as if she was flooded with molten gold, a burning spiral of very primitive need uncoiling deep inside her. She wanted to feel Keir’s mouth all over her skin, not just on her mouth; she longed for the caress of his hands on parts of her body too intimate to be appropriate on this public occasion.

It had been like this from the start, she acknowledged hazily with the little rational thought that was left to her. With Keir she no longer knew herself. She became a stranger even in her own eyes. In her place was a woman who had her own slender height, delicate oval face and thick fall of long dark brown hair, but who acted in ways she had never seen before.

That Sienna rushed into situations that only months before she would have fled from, screaming in panic. Situations like this travesty of a marriage that was only for show, with no real foundation in fact.

It was several long drawn-out seconds before the realisation that what she had believed to be distant thunder, or even the crazed pounding of her heart echoing inside her head, was in fact another, louder round of appreciative applause from their audience. A couple of the younger guests even added enthusiastic wolf whistles to the chorus of approval.

With carefully feigned reluctance, Keir broke the embrace and turned a slightly rueful smile on her heated face. To the onlookers, it must have appeared quite genuine, but Sienna had sensed the careful judgement that had had him ending the kiss the full space of several heartbeats before he’d lifted his head. She had seen the calculating look he had directed into her glazed eyes, the triumphant twist to that wide mouth as it had abandoned hers, leaving her aching for more.

Straightening fully, Keir slung a possessive arm around her waist as he turned to face the assembly of friends and relations.

‘I’m afraid my wife—’ a chorus of cheers greeted his use of the word for the first time since the completion of the marriage ceremony ‘—has strong feminist views that mean she insists on using her own name instead of adopting mine. Some of you may find that rather unromantic, but personally I have no problem with it. After all, when she indulges my every whim in everything apart from this…’

A careful emphasis on the words ‘my every whim’ left no room for doubt as to exactly what other things he had in mind.

‘Who am I to deny her this one wish for independence if it means so much to her?’

Milking the situation for all it was worth, he smiled down into Sienna’s flushed face, his appearance to all intents and purposes every inch that of the doting husband.

‘Don’t be embarrassed, darling,’ he reproved softly. ‘You’re amongst friends here. Everyone knows how we feel about each other.’

Struggling against a crazy desire to kick him hard on the ankle, in order to let him know exactly how she felt about the charade he was acting out, Sienna forced herself to swallow down the anger she couldn’t afford to reveal. Painfully conscious of Francis Nash, standing just a few feet away from her, watching Keir’s fooling with an intently speculative air, she managed a rather sickly smile.

But she knew that the curve of her lips wasn’t matched by the look in her eyes, which were flashing furious reproof and a warning of later retribution into Keir’s mocking face. He really was taking things way too far. Nothing like this had been mentioned in their agreement.

But Keir appeared totally unmoved by the silent rage in her eyes. Instead, taking advantage of the fact that a waiter carrying a tray full of glasses of champagne had just come within reach, he appropriated one of the crystal flutes and held it aloft, dark eyes smiling knowingly down into hers all the time.

‘If you’ll indulge me,’ he declared to the surrounding audience, ‘I’d like to propose a toast. To Sienna—my beautiful bride, and the woman who has made me the happiest man in the world by becoming my wife today.’

The man really was incorrigible! In spite of herself Sienna found it impossible to hold back a disturbed squawk of protest at this blatant lie. If Keir didn’t stop, someone was going to see right through his over-the-top performance and so start to wonder what the real truth was.

‘Keir!’ she protested softly, knowing that any further show of anger or impatience would only make him worse, drive him to even more dangerous extremes. ‘You’re embarrassing me.’

Immediately he was apparently all repentance.

‘I’m sorry, darling. You’re right. There’s a time and a place for this, and that’s not here and now. We’ll finish later…’ Deliberately he let his voice drop a couple of octaves, so that it became a husky purr, rich with sensual promise. ‘When we’re alone.’

Which earned him yet another cheer of enthusiastic appreciation from the spectators, all of whom completely misunderstood the reasons behind the burning colour that suddenly flooded the bride’s face.

‘I’ll look forward to that,’ she shot back in swift retaliation. ‘But for now we have our guests to see to. Please, everyone—help yourselves to drinks. I’m sure you’re ready for them. Lunch will be served in half an hour. In the meantime…’

She directed her attention back to Keir, her voice and her expression hardening as she did so.

‘I think you and I had better circulate—talk to a few people… I’ll take this half of the room…’

She had nerved herself for further play-acting on his part, perhaps even a downright refusal to do as she asked, but surprisingly it didn’t come. Instead Keir simply lifted his glass in a silent, mocking toast before turning and strolling off in the opposite direction from the one she had indicated.

Silently Sienna watched him go, small white teeth worrying at the fullness of her lower lip as she did so. It would all have been so much easier if she could have been in love with Keir, even just a little. After all, that shouldn’t have been too hard. He was the sort of man almost any woman with red blood in her veins would have fallen head over heels for. Tall, strong, impossibly good-looking, with the sort of potent hardcore sexuality that turned susceptible female brains to jelly, leaving them incapable of thought.

He was successful too. A self-made man. A man she could be proud to have at her side, proud to call her husband even for such a strictly limited time. But he would never have her heart. That wasn’t hers to give. She had already lost it to someone who had proved every bit as unworthy of her love as her father had been of her mother’s lifelong devotion.

No, she mustn’t think about Dean. Sienna’s teeth dug in harder as she fought against the tears that burned in her eyes. She had thrown in her lot with Keir, and that was the way her future lay—at least for the term of their contract together. It was an arrangement that she had been convinced could work so well for both of them. But today Keir had behaved in a way she’d never seen before.

Sienna’s sea-coloured eyes went to where Keir stood, his dark head thrown back, his face alight with laughter at something his companion had said to him. Suddenly she was brought up hard against the truth of just how very little she actually knew about this man who was now her husband.

If looks could kill, Keir thought wryly, catching that turquoise glare from the opposite side of the room, then he would surely have fallen down dead right on the spot, shrivelled into ashes by the force of Sienna’s anger. She hadn’t liked his teasing earlier, and clearly the thought of it still rankled. He hadn’t realised just how volatile his new wife’s temper could be.

His wife. Carefully he tested the word inside his mind, not yet sure exactly how he felt about it.

‘Keir!’ A powerful handshake was accompanied by a hearty slap on the back from a tall man with a bushy dark beard and laughing hazel eyes. ‘Congratulations, mate! I never thought I’d see the day that you joined the ranks of married men. This Sienna really must be some woman.’

‘Believe me, she is.’

Keir could only pray that his words didn’t sound as insincere spoken out loud as they did inside his head. Richard Parry had been his friend for over twenty years now, ever since they had first met up at secondary school, and if anyone was likely to smell a rat at his sudden decision to marry then Rick was that person.

‘She has to be. I was really beginning to wonder if you were married to that company of yours. You seemed to spend every waking hour of your life in the office.’

‘There have been some problems.’ The muscles in Keir’s jaw tightened, making his reply sound clipped and distant. ‘My father’s death was so unexpected that it left a lot of things unresolved…’

‘But that was—what?—eighteen months ago? Surely you’ve sorted things out now?’

‘Just about.’ Keir nodded slowly, his eyes darker than ever as he thought back over the past year and a half. ‘There’s one last complication I have to deal with, and then everything will be just how I want it.’

In his business world at least. His personal affairs were quite a different matter. But right now all he could think of was the relief that that one ‘complication’ had been lifted from his shoulders. It had been the bane of his life for ten years, and he hadn’t been able to wait to see the back of it. Only now did he feel free to turn his attention fully to the vexed question of his reckless marriage.

‘And when can we expect to hear of a whole new generation of Alexanders?’ It was Richard’s wife who spoke, her voice soft and gentle as her nature, bringing her husband’s head round to her at once.

‘Give the poor lad a break, Jo! He’s barely put the ring on her finger! Let him at least enjoy the honeymoon before you wish the joys of parenthood on him. Not everyone wants to be plagued with the sort of brood we’ve got.’

The laughter in Richard’s voice was belied by the way his eyes lingered on the swell of his wife’s stomach, evidence of how close he was to becoming a father for the fourth time.

‘But you always said you wanted children, didn’t you, Keir? And I think you’d make a wonderful father—if the way you get on with Sam, William and Hannah is anything to go by.’

‘Your children are like their mother, Joanna.’ Keir smiled. ’They’d get on with anyone at all without any trouble. But I don’t think you should look for the chance of a couple of playmates for your gang at any time in the near future. Sienna and I haven’t even talked about having kids…’

What would be the point when this charade of a marriage they had embarked on wasn’t meant to last much longer than a full-term pregnancy anyway? But he couldn’t admit that to Rick and Joanna, who were so blissfully happy in their own union that they would find it hard to understand the convoluted reasoning that had led to his taking Sienna as his bride.

‘Now if you’ll excuse me…I’d better rejoin my wife.’

Coward! Keir reproved himself as he turned away and began to weave a path through the crowd to where Sienna stood on the opposite side of the room, pausing occasionally to shake a hand, acknowledge congratulations and good wishes. But his mind wasn’t on what he was doing. He knew he couldn’t have faced any more of Joanna’s gentle questioning without blurting out something that might have given the game away completely.

The trouble was that Rick and his wife had known him for too long. They had been there all those years before when, under the influence of rather more wine than had been wise, he had declared with impassioned certainty that he would never marry unless he knew it was for ever. That only the conviction that the relationship would last for a lifetime, nothing less, would get him up the aisle and put a ring on his finger.

So how had he ended up doing just that, in the certain knowledge that what he had entered into was just a temporary contract? Stopping dead abruptly, Keir looked down at the thick gold band now encircling his wedding finger, twisting it round and round in an uneasy movement. How come he had compromised all his ideals in this way?

Because he was so much older now—and he would say wiser. He knew that such ideals were nothing but fantasies, impossible to achieve. He had been hit over the head with a strong dose of reality that had driven all the dreams from his mind. These days he was realist enough to know that sometimes a pragmatic compromise was the best you could come away with.

‘Keir, darling, I’m so glad to see you…’

This time the hand on his arm was much smaller, finer, totally feminine. Adorned with an extravagant display of gold and diamonds, the slender fingers were tipped with long, pointed nails painted in a violent shade of red. As Keir stiffened instinctively a wave of some heavy, musky perfume assailed his nostrils, turning his stomach.

He would recognise that overpowering perfume anywhere, just as he would recognise the sound of her voice and that false-toned ‘darling’ that they both knew she didn’t mean in the slightest. She only used it for the benefit of everyone else around, in order to maintain the illusion—in reality they had never felt anything other than total hatred for each other.

‘Lucille.’ He bit the word out, her name leaving a foul, bitter taste in his mouth.

Lucille Alexander. The stepmother from hell and his own personal demon. The woman he had described with deliberate understatement as the one last ‘complication’ he’d had left to deal with in order to be free of all the problems that had been weighing him down over the past ten years. The woman whose greedy demands had forced him into this marriage that was not a marriage but a purely business arrangement.

And as he turned slowly to face her the wave of revulsion he couldn’t control left him in no doubt that the prospect of getting her out of his life once and for all made the pretence and subterfuge totally worthwhile.